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Chapter Text

The sun had sunken down considerably and drenched everything in a dark red, throwing long shadows all around. The bonfire was crackling and Loki leaned back and let himself fall down onto his back. He revelled in the silence and the view of the stars above him. Here, he could pretend that everything was still as it had been before. Before everything. Before he had learned the truth, before he let go, before he invaded New York, before he faked his death, before he nearly died again. Nearly.

At night, when he was lying on the grass beneath the starry sky, he could still feel the metal gloved fist wrapping around his throat, squeezing.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to blend out the uncomfortable memories that threatened to get to the forefront of his consciousness once again.
He was tired. Tired of running and hiding and trying to stay undetected on this planet he had tried to invade some time ago.

Not that it had been voluntary, but the humans had never seen through his rouse. Had never seen the hints he gave during the invasion for what they were. Hints, so they could stop him, not a need to do everything as flashy as possible. To get as much attention as possible. If he really would have wanted to take over the planet they would have never known about his presence before it was to late.

He had hoped that Thor would see through it. The one who had spent so much time with him. But he had been failed by his brother once again. Like he had been so often. Because the one time he needed him to see through his tricks, he didn’t. The one time he relied on someone to look deeper, see more than what was on the surface, no one did. No one questioned his actions, not even the man who claimed to be his brother.

A silent tear ran over his temple and only then did Loki notice that he had started crying. Again. He had promised himself not to let his emotions get the better of him again. He had promised himself to stay hidden, here on earth.

After pretending to have died by the hand of Thanos on the Statesman, no one would suspect him to be here. He knew, of course, that he couldn’t stay in this forest near the cliffs of Norway forever. That he needed to leave sooner or later. But there was still some time to just stare at the stars above him and pretend that he wasn’t here anymore. No one would miss him, he was sure of that. Not even Thor, who had claimed that he had forgiven him and then left him writhing on the floor only a few moments later.

He had wanted to stay on the Statesman, to rebuild Asgard with Thor. But when the moron had suggested to go to earth for their fresh start, he had started to doubt. He knew without question that he wouldn’t be welcome on Midgard. He had invaded their planet after all, he expected no one to welcome him with open arms and forgiveness. But that moron couldn’t understand, which was to be expected of him. Thor had always been too optimistic and even though he had lost some of that in the past years, he still had far too much of his optimism left.

Loki sighed and looked over to the ocean. His thoughts dragged him back to that fateful moment only a few days ago. He didn’t know how long it had been exactly because time moved differently in space, but still.

It was as if he was back on that damned ship. Looking out at the endless expanse of star littered space again. Thor vibrating with his damned optimism and the prospect to rebuild Asgard on earth. Even then, Loki had already had a bad suspicion about it all. Nothing could ever go so smoothly and the universe had once again proven him right. Just as he tried to explain to Thor that he couldn’t go back to the planet he had once tried to invade, the ship had shown up in front of them.
More than ten times bigger than the Statesman and the form so achingly familiar than Loki had wished to just disappear in that very moment.

Maybe he should have stayed on Sakaar after all, but it had been too late for that. And while Thor’s smile only darkened slightly, Loki’s face fell and he had turned around, barking at Thor to get out of there as fast as possible. The idiot hadn’t listened to him, and here they were. With the stupid blonde of a brother thinking he was dead again.

If he was honest with himself, Loki could admit that he had hoped for Thor to see through his trick. Recognise that he hadn’t died in that moment, even if he wasn’t sure how he had managed to get the spell right in such a short time. But he was still alive and woke up in the endless void of space.
Disoriented and panicked, Loki had somehow managed to get himself to Midgard, but the memory was still hazy and he wasn’t all that sure how he had managed it.
But he was here now.

And there are two infinity stones on earth. He didn’t care. He had convinced himself that he didn’t care. He knew that they would loose.
Thanos already had two infinity stones, would have four by the time he arrived on earth. The avengers had no chance to win, not the slightest bit. They would loose.
And if he didn’t die in Thanos decimation of half of all life, then the Titan would get to him sooner rather than later.

He just wanted to spend a few days in peace before that happened. Before his ruse would be uncovered. Before the Titan would make his promise of eternal pain a reality.

He pushed himself up from the ground and looked out at the ocean. The sun had disappeared completely behind the horizon and the water was drenched in a deep blue colour that bordered on black.

He knew that there wouldn’t be much time. Now that Thanos had started his final crusade for the stones, it wouldn’t take him long to get them. He would be here in a day or two at best. Even with that thought in mind, he couldn’t really bring himself to care.
He had tried to stay hidden, the last few years since the invasion. At first he had even stayed in Asgard’s prison because it was saver than being outside of it. At least inside no one could drag him back to the Mad Titan.

He sighed again and let his form slump down a bit. There was no use in pretending, in staying upright. There was no one here. And in a few days time it wouldn’t even matter anymore. He had always known that it would end like this, that he doesn’t deserve a happy end. And he just can’t bring himself to care anymore.

Loki ventured into the nearby town two days later. He was still resigned about his own fate but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid it regardless.
But nothing had happened yet and he wanted to at least see what this part of the planet was like. See if the people would even recognise him.

He walked through the town, watching how people would react to him. They were going about their everyday life, walking through the market place, just doing what they did every day.
They didn’t even know what was coming, that certain doom was right around the corner. He kept walking, looking at the stalls and just watching. Everything seemed so normal.

He felt out of place, like he didn’t belong here. He knew that he didn’t belong here. But something seemed wrong. Deep down it felt like something here was just deeply wrong.
None of them even looked at him. They didn’t even glance in his direction, as if he wasn’t visible. But he is, he didn’t cover himself in a glamour or used an illusion to hide himself from sight. He looked around again, stepped nearer to the people passing him. They didn’t react, as if he wasn’t there at all.

He kept wandering and left the marketplace behind. He slowly walked through the small streets of the town. He didn’t meet many people on his way but everyone he came across didn’t acknowledge him.

He reached a square with a fountain in the middle and walked towards it. Looking down on the rippling water inside, he couldn’t make out his own reflection. He leaned further down, but there was nothing there.
Surely a trick of the light, he isn’t invisible after all.

There were few people in the square and he stayed at the fountain and watched.
It took him only a few minutes to realise that something was happening. He had known that it would happen but even then, he wasn’t prepared when it started. Dust flew up from the place where moments before, a young mother had knelt down in front of her son to comfort him. A bit further away a man in a black suit who was talking to someone on the phone vanished. The phone fell onto the ground and the display shattered.

Loki watched, frozen in terror. He couldn’t move, just managed to take in the scene before him. They had lost.
He knew that they would loose. Had known days before, when Thanos had attacked the Statesman, but now that it happened he couldn’t believe that he had been right.
The Avengers were supposed to protect their planet, were they not? Why did they fail?

He didn’t have an answer for that but in that moment, when the people stopped turning to dust and the survivors remained, he made a decision. He was still here, escaped death once again. And maybe that was a sign. Maybe him surviving was a sign of the Norns or whoever else was watching that he should help make it right again. That he should stop running.
So that was what he did. He stopped running, he stopped hiding.

He pushed himself away from the edge of the fountain and teleported to New York. To help the Avengers, his former enemies, fix what was broken and bring back half the population of the universe.

He arrived in New York on an expanse of grass near the building the Avengers had started to live in. It was big and the outside was white, a big silver A on one of the walls near a grand door.

He slowly walked over the grass, looking around anxiously. It didn’t seem like the fight against the Titan had happened here. Everything was eerily silent and there were no sign of a battle on the ground, no stench of blood in the air. But the Avengers could be here regardless. Maybe they were watching him right now, from inside their fortress.

He reached the door and, for nothing better to do, he just stood in front of it for a while. he didn’t think that they would appreciate it if he knocked on their door.
There was no reaction from inside, not that he anticipated one. He didn’t expect the Avengers to just open the door for him. He had been their enemy after all. They didn’t have any reason to just let him inside their house.

Doubt started to settle within him. Had it really been the right decision to come here? They had every reason to hate him, not just because he invaded their planet but also because he stayed hidden while they fought an enemy they had no chance to win against.

When he could still see nothing happen behind the door, he decided to walk around the building to find an open window or door. He wanted to get in but he also wanted to not break in. So searching it is.
To Loki’s surprise, he actually found a way inside, through a window that had been wide open at the backside of the compound. He stepped through and found himself in a dimly lit room filled with clutter. It all seemed to be some kind of electronic and while he made his way through it, he thought to have seen the arm of a robot.

He didn’t dwell on it and left the room to take a look around. There were bedrooms on the upper levels, a big gym and a hall that seemed to be a sparring ring. A kitchen, a communal area, multiple labs and workshops. He was amazed by how much the Avengers had managed to build into one house. But there was one thing that he couldn’t find. The Avengers themselves.
They didn’t seem to be home.

Where had the fight happened if not here?
He couldn’t answer that question but after a few more minutes of aimless wandering, curiosity got the better of him and he made his way over to what looked to be a computer. It didn’t look too different from the technology on other planets so he was sure that he could work it. And maybe it could tell him where the Avengers had disappeared to.

He sank down on the stool in front of the monitor and pressed down one of the keys of the keyboard. Nothing happened. Loki frowned and this time he looked down at his finger when he pressed down. Nothing happened, but this time, he could see why.
His finger was passing through the key without pressing it down. He repeated the motion, again and again and panic started to well up inside of him. But it didn’t change what was happening. He couldn’t make it work. Because he couldn’t even touch it.

Agitated, he got up and walked around the room. He tried to pick things up, throw anything he could find onto the floor, just to create some chaos. It didn’t work, he couldn’t make anything move. He couldn’t grab anything. All his hand or his arm did was go through the object as if he wasn't even there.

It took him a moment to realise what was actually happening. What he should have realised far earlier.
His trick, his spell to make Thanos believe he was dead. It hadn’t worked like he wanted it to, because now he was stuck outside his body. The spell was supposed to heal his injuries and keep him alive while it did so.

He had anticipated that the Mad Titan would try to kill him. He hadn’t anticipated the spell to somehow go wrong. There was no way for it to go wrong. But it had gone wrong. And now he was not dead and not alive either, a ghost, stuck in the mortal world. With nowhere to go and without company because no one would be able to see him. Or hear him. And he couldn’t go into the afterlife, because he prevented that with his spell.

For lack of anything better to do, Loki went over to one of the sofas and lay down on it. No one would be able to see him anyways. And that meant that no one would make him get up anytime soon.

He must have drifted off at some point, because when he became aware of his surroundings again there were voices near him. He didn’t know how long he had just been lying on the sofa and he didn’t really care either. He wasn’t even sure if he had been asleep or just not there.
He didn’t really care to find out either.

Loki sat up and took a look around the room. He could still hear multiple people talking over each other but he couldn’t see them, so he got up and followed the voices through a corridor into one of the sitting areas he had found earlier.

He was surprised by the sight before him. The Widow, the Captain, Doctor Banner and a dark-skinned man were standing together, discussing something. Thor was there too, he was sitting in an adjoining room and stared holes into the air, seemingly without actually looking at something.

He looked back to the group standing in the room, shouting at each other. He didn’t know exactly what they were talking about as he hadn’t listened earlier but there was something about missing people, a pager and team mates that weren’t responding to any calls.

Loki was inclined to just turn away from them again. He had come here to help but now he felt like he couldn’t do anything at all, they couldn’t even see him. He wouldn’t be of any help to them. Just as he wanted to turn away and go back to the room he had been staying in earlier, a new voice joined the conversation and Loki perked up at the intervention. He looked back into the room and saw an animal walking on two legs go over to the Avengers that had been lost in their discussion only moments earlier. It looked like a racoon and apparently, it could talk. And it was looking at him.

“Do you see that too?”

Now Loki was sure that the animal could talk and it was definitely looking at him. The Captain turned in his direction but his eyes landed on a point to Loki’s right.
“See what?”

The racoon sighed. “The flickering dude standing in your doorway?!”, it asked, exasperated.

Now all eyes in the room were turned to him, everyone but Thor looking at him but at the same time non of them did look a him. All except the racoon were looking in his direction but they were all looking at a point to his side, not directly at him. The racoon stepped forward.
“What are you doing here?”

A moment later, Loki realised that the question was directed at him and he startled. Could the racoon really see him? Without putting any more thought into it, he voiced the question that was the most prominent in his head.
“You can see me?”

He got no answer, not even a slight reaction on the racoon’s face. He sighed in defeat and left the room. So the animal could see him, but not hear him. Incredible.

Loki went back to the room with the sofas and settled down on the one he had occupied before.
His thoughts strayed and he tried to piece together how long he had been here. For him, no time had passed between lying down and getting up again when he heard the voices. But that couldn’t be it, right? Hours must have passed, if not even days. Why could he not even tell the time anymore?
He got up again, suddenly determined to find out exactly what had happened and how long it had been. He walked back to the room and found the gathering from before. They were still arguing, but this time he listened more intently.

Apparently a lot of their people had been turned to dust and a Vision died before that. And the Man of Iron seemed to be missing alongside a Spiderman and the sorcerer Doctor Strange. Most of the names mentioned were lost on Loki, but at least he recognised the sorcerer that had trapped him in a portal for twenty minutes when he had last met him. In that moment, a ringing noice echoed through the room and everyone fell into silence. The Widow picked up a rectangular device that Loki recognised as a phone and started to speak into it.

“Clint, where are you.”

“It’s going to be okay. Can we pick you up somewhere?”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can, just stay were you are.”

She ended the call and put the phone down again. Loki had learned about earth technology while he tried not to take over the planet. He wasn’t ignorant to the human’s ways of communication.

The group dispersed after that, going separate ways. The Widow and the Captain left the building, Banner went over to Thor and started talking to him, but Loki decided not to listen in on their conversation. He left the room and started wandering around again. He didn’t want to risk the racoon seeing him again.

While walking through empty rooms, he once again tried to pick up random objects, to knock things off of shelves, to open doors instead of walking through them. He didn’t have any luck, not until he got the idea to channel his seidr into it.

And with the aid of his magic, he managed to knock a vase off it’s shelve. In a room not far from where he had started and when he realised that, he wished he had went somewhere else to do it. Because only a moment later, the racoon came into the room, looking around with a frantic look in its eyes. Until said eyes settled on Loki and this time, Loki was absolutely sure that the animal in front of him could see him. And that there was a lot of intelligence behind those eyes.

The racoon cocked its head slightly to the side and crossed its arms before the chest.
“You do look like shit, even for a ghost.”

Loki raised an eyebrow at that. The racoon could see him and knew he was a ghost. Or, not a ghost exactly, but still not really alive either. That was unexpected. The question was if the racoon really couldn’t hear him or if he didn’t answer his question on purpose.

“How do you know I’m a ghost?”

The racoon huffed. “Easy, because you’re see through.”

Then he turned around and walked out of the room. Loki followed him because he didn’t want the conversation to end yet. Another pressing question crossed his mind.
“Why aren’t you bothered by the fact that you can see me?”

The racoon didn’t answer. He didn’t even look back to him, he didn’t react at all, as if he hadn’t hurt him. Probably because he hadn’t. Loki stopped in his tracks.

What kind of rules apply here? Was it just random or did he somehow have control over what the racoon was hearing and what he wasn’t? And if yes, what was it that made the difference?
He couldn’t find any answers to his questions by just standing in the middle of a hallway. But he also couldn’t find answers by just tagging along wherever that infuriating rodent went and try to talk to him. He had to find another solution. And another way to communicate with the residents of the compound. And fast.

After his initial success to knock the vase off its shelve, it took Loki another week of wandering around and trying to cause chaos to actually move something again.
In that period of time, the number of people living in the compound had increased.

First, Barton had arrived on the same day Loki had woken up to find the remains of the Avengers fighting over missing people.
Next, a warrior woman with long blonde hair, that seemed to have known Fury, appeared, threatening everyone until they managed to explain to her that Fury had died in the snap.
After that came Stark, who had been stuck on a space ship with one of Thanos’ daughters. Nebula.

Loki had stayed away from her at first, he didn’t remember seeing her while he was in Thanos’ domain but he couldn’t really know for sure. By now, he still wasn’t sure if she could see him, but she had not implied that she could and he didn’t like sneaking around when nearly no one could see him anyways.

The last to arrive was a woman with the name Pepper, which was a weird name for a mortal to have, but Loki couldn’t really speak up about it after all.

When he managed to move something again, it wasn’t purely intentional. The Avengers where holding some kind of dumb meeting to decide what they should do next. Which resulted in fighting again, because apparently Stark and the Captain had had some differences that were never sorted out. And they had decided that this was the best opportunity to shout about their problems.

After listening to their shouting match for a few minutes, Loki had had enough of it and went to leave the room. Hitting Stormbreaker so it fell off the table and clattered onto the floor was nothing more than an accident. And when he had turned around again, eleven pairs of eyes were fixed on him. He sighed, which felt weird to do, now that he knew that he didn’t exactly need to breathe.

And given that all ten people and the one racoon in the room where staring at him with different expressions ranging from shock and confusion to exasperation were now staring at him, he could be sure that they were all able to see him.
And upon that realisation, he also realised that something felt different, he felt more corporeal, more there. Looking down at his shimmering and see through hand, he couldn’t see a difference. But it felt different.

Which didn’t solve the problem of everyone still looking at him. He looked from one face to the other and stopped when he saw the expression of pure shock on Thor’s face. Had he not believed the racoon that he was there?

Before he could say something that he would regret later on, he left the room with hurried steps.
Even if he had said something, they probably wouldn’t have heard it.

Chapter Text

After the incident where everyone had been able to see him, he spent the following two weeks wandering around the compound without any idea or motive behind it. He met one or two of the avengers occasionally and sometimes they were able to see him and sometimes they weren’t. But he got a grip on controlling it, so he used those instances where he met someone to test his newfound ability.
At the end of the first week, he was able to fully control his state of visibility. Which led him to the next problem.

They could see him when he wanted them to, but they couldn’t hear him except for some rare instances. In response to that, Loki had spent the next week trying to figure out how he could make them hear him. But even as he reached the end of the week, he still had no idea how to do it.

He could make himself visible, he could move objects, but he couldn’t talk to anyone. Which was very frustrating as he had been a master of words when he still had his body. And now he was just floating around, watching as the Avengers descended deeper and deeper into despair and hopelessness.
He had reached a point of hopelessness too, as he had no other ideas how he could talk to anyone.

He entered the kitchen and saw Barton standing at the counter. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and grabbed for a bowl with the other.
Loki came nearer and looked at him, still invisible. The archer looked tired, it was morning then.

Time was another thing that had been difficult to keep track of. He could tell the time of day by the light from outside and by what the residents were doing, but it wasn’t always as easy as that.
Every time he sat or lay down somewhere, with the intention to get up soon, time seemed to move far faster than it did when he was moving. And sometimes it felt like he wasn’t exactly there while he stopped moving, as if he were fading out of existence on occasion.

The thought terrified him. It hadn’t been his intention to be stuck as a spirit without a body, but he had always imagined to end up in Valhalla, and later Helheim. But the thought of just ceasing to exist was a new one, and it chilled him to the bones (that he didn’t have anymore) when he thought about it.

He stepped nearer to Barton and made himself visible to the man. He had done that too late apparently. When the man’s eyes caught on him, he jumped and nearly let go of the cup filled with hot liquid in his hand. He put the box of cereal he had just picked up aside and looked at him with a murderous glare. “Seriously man, don’t just appear out of nowhere!”

Loki chuckled. Barton was one of the easier ones to scare. The man may be a spy and former SHIELD agent, but he couldn’t hear someone sneaking up on him that wasn’t able to make any noice.

Loki sat down on the counter top and watched as Barton filled his bowl with cereal. The man put the bowl down on the counter next to Loki and turned around to get the milk out of the fridge.

Which had been a bad decision, at least in Loki’s opinion. He eyed the bowl of cereal and a spark of mischief flared up in him. He may not be able to talk to the archer, but he could still pull a prank on the unsuspecting man. Without waiting for the archer to turn back around, he grabbed the bowl and turned it over, which caused all the cereal to land in a pile on the countertop.

Barton turned around and his eyes widened when he saw the mess. Then his eyes wandered up to look Loki in the eyes.
“Why did you do that?”

Loki smirked and shrugged. He didn’t quite know how much of his movements the human could actually see, but it seemed to be enough, as the blond man gave out an annoyed huff and turned around to fix himself a new bowl of cereal. He completely disregarded the mess next to Loki’s chosen seat.

When the archer turned back and leaned on the counter opposite him, he looked at Loki with a questioning look in his eyes. Loki drew up his eyebrow. He didn’t know what the man expected. He wouldn’t steal his bowl of cereal, a trick is only really good when it is unexpected, after all.

The archer started grinning. “So you’re not stealing my food?”

Loki glared back at him. That was the last thing he was going to do now. Maybe he should throw the cereal that was still lying next to him onto the ground so Barton would have to clean it up.
While Loki pondered over his idea, he looked over to the pile and got a better idea. A far better idea.

He got up and turned his back to Barton, who protested immediately, but he didn’t come over to see what he was doing. Which he probably didn’t even need to do, because Loki was translucent and made it easy for the archer to just look through him.
He payed that fact no mind and began moving the cereal around to form words. It took him far longer than he had planned, but after a few minutes, he had managed to form what he wanted to say.

I have better things to do than stealing breakfast

Barton snorted when he read that and came over to lean on the counter next to Loki. So it wasn’t so easy to see through him after all, good to know.

Loki looked at the man and raised his eyebrow. He waited and when Barton just continued to eat his breakfast, Loki got impatient. How can the man not notice that this was his opportunity to talk to him. While Loki contemplated to just steal the cereal after all, the archer’s face lit up and he put his bowl to the side. “Okay, so. How about you answer me some questions?”

Loki groaned and rolled his eyes at him. Then he gestured at the cereal on the countertop in the hopes that he would get the hint to just start.
Fortunately he did and Loki was reminded of the fact that the man was smarter than he gave him credit for. Barton refilled his bowl and when he got back to his place next to the pile of cereal, he asked his first question. “Alright, why are you haunting the compound? I didn’t know someone died here.”

Loki rolled his eyes again but he started arranging the cereal nonetheless.
Didn’t die. Came here.

He hated keeping the sentences short, but even those shortened ones took him far longer than he’d like to admit. Writing with cereal wasn’t as easy as he had hoped.

Barton took another spoon-full of his cereal. “Why did you come here then? Some secret alien agenda maybe? There’s not much for you to find here.”

Loki shot him an incredulous look at that. Didn’t the man recognise him? And if not, why did he just assume that every spirit had to be alien?
He started to form his response to the first question. Help you

“You want to help us?”

Loki nodded and continued. He formed a question next.
Why assume I’m alien?

This time, the man actually had the audacity to laugh at him. Loki glared at him, which caused the man to calm down a bit.
“Wait, are you serious? You’re blue, man, I haven’t met a blue human yet.”

The last part of the sentence didn’t completely register as Loki’s ears started ringing and he looked down at his hand. He hadn’t noticed it before, he had just thought that his hand shimmered in a blue hue because he was missing his body. But now that he took a closer look, he saw the darker lines adorning the visible skin on his hands. He let his eyes follow the lines until they disappeared under his sleeve. He swallowed heavily and looked up again. Barton was still talking but he had trouble hearing him.
The man looked confused and he stared to a point slightly off to his right. Loki frowned. Did he turn invisible again? He thought that he had at least that under control. But apparently he hadn’t and while his thoughts were still racing through his head, he made the decision to just go. Leave the confused human alone for all he cared, Barton would figure out that he wasn’t there anymore soon enough.

Loki stalked through the corridors, feeling like just breaking down and curling up on the ground. How could his spell have gone so wrong? It was just supposed to let him look like he was dead and keep him alive until his body could heal. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. With his spirit unrooted from his body and wandering around among the humans. How could everything have gone so terribly wrong? He didn't even have a body, he didn't need to breathe, so why did it feel like he was suffocating?

As soon as he reached the room he had claimed as his own, he broke down and leaned back against the wall, pulling his legs up to his chest and winding his arms around them. He let his head fall onto his knees and just stayed there. He didn’t care for how long.

He didn’t know how much time had passed since he had talked to Clint. Loki had stayed on the floor of the room for days. Maybe even more, he couldn’t know for sure.
By now, he was sure that he was fading sometimes. Or maybe drifting would be the better word. It just felt like he was stuck somewhere in between, not really there but also not really gone. It infuriated him, that he didn’t even have control over such a little thing as simply existing.

When he finally found the motivation to get up and search for a mirror, see if what Barton had said was true, the compound was bustling with life. Even more so than on the usual days he had witnessed up till now. But there was still a depressing and hopeless feeling to it.

Barton’s words echoed through his head again, when he finally found a bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. You’re blue man, I haven’t met a blue human yet.
With a sigh he looked up and stared at an empty mirror. He couldn’t even see himself.

Frustrated and full of pent up rage, he smashed his fist into the mirror and to his surprise, it shattered. Which was new. He hadn’t been able to physically destroy something yet. The only things he broke where those he threw to the ground. And when he did that, it was intentional, not like this.

He heard footsteps behind him, coming nearer, but he paid them no mind. His hand felt just as it had before, as if nothing had happened and when he looked down to it, there was no trace of pounding his fist into a mirror. Only blue skin, laced with the jotun marks and littered with countless scars.

The footsteps had stopped somewhere behind him and he looked up again, into the mirror. He still couldn’t see himself, which gave him a good look of Rogers, who was standing in the doorway with crossed arms and a baffled look on his face. His eyebrows were scrunched together and it looked like he was thinking intently about something. The man was staring at the smashed mirror and Loki wasn’t sure if he could see him. When he started talking, it became clear that he could see Loki, standing in front of the mirror. Or maybe he had just guessed that it was him who had smashed the reflecting glass.

“Look, Clint didn’t mean to offend you.”, he paused, seemed to think about his next words. “This is hard for all of us. And no matter why you want to help us, or who you are, or even how you died, we are all in this together and if you know something, if that is why you are here, we are willing to listen.”

A lump had formed in Loki’s throat while the captain had talked and when he was finished, he swallowed. He didn’t quite understand how he could still feel like this, without a physical body. But that wasn’t important.

After what Rogers’ had told him, everything seemed to fall into place. Why they didn’t try to get rid of him, why Barton tried to strike up a conversation. It all made sense now. They don’t know who he is, they don’t recognise him. But if that was the price he had to pay to be able to help them fix this mess, than he would pay it. When this was over, when he was really alive again, he could just leave this planet again. There wasn’t anything here for him and they wouldn’t want him to stay as soon as they realised who he was. But with Thanos gone when all this was over, it wouldn’t matter anymore. He could roam the universe freely then, without having to hide.

Loki nodded to himself and turned around to look at Rogers properly. The man looked tired but he had lost the beard that he had sprouted the last time he crossed his path while wandering through the hallways. He nodded again, this time so the Captain could see it and a small smile appeared on the man’s face. He turned around and started to walk down the hallway, Loki followed him. They made their way down into the base level and a few minutes later, Loki found himself standing in front of all resident avengers gathered around a table in what seemed to be a meeting room.

In that moment, with everyone looking expectantly at him, he realised that he had forgotten about one crucial thing. They couldn’t understand him, not most of the time. And he didn’t understand how he could make them hear him. With a sigh he looked around the room, in search for something he could use to write, but there was nothing there. Because there was nothing else he could do, Loki decided to just try to talk to them, and hope for the best.

“You’ll have to ask questions. I’m never sure if you can hear me.”, his voice sounded off, not like he remembered it. He blamed it on the lack of a physical body and looked expectantly at the people gathered in front of him.

Romanoff and Rogers exchanged a look, probably contemplating what to ask first. After a short moment of staring at each other, Rogers seemed to give in and both turned back to him. Romanoff was the one who had won, as she asked the first question. “Will you tell us your name?” Her voice was cold, calculating, just as her gaze that was fixed on him unrelentingly.
He shook his head in answer. What use would it be to tell them, it was the one thing they weren’t supposed to know about him.

Her gaze became impossibly colder and the traces of a glare slipped into her expression. Loki already dreaded his decision to talk to them. They only seemed suspicious of him, nothing more. He let his gaze wander around the room again, while Rogers and Romanoff got into another non-verbal argument concerning their next question.

After completely accessing the room, Loki finally realised what seemed odd about it. Thor was missing. He had expected his brother to be there. And if he was honest, he had expected his brother to recognise him, make this harder for him. But he wasn’t there. Which led him to the next question, because Loki couldn’t think of a single reason why Thor would abandon his friends and just go. He hadn’t seen him often since he had gotten here, but nonetheless, Thor should be here. What reason could he have to just abandon his friends?

The next question ripped him out of his spinning thoughts.
“How could you help us?” This time Rogers asked the question.

Loki didn’t think long about his answer. “Information.”

Rogers nodded. “On Thanos?”

Loki nodded, not sure if they would hear him a third time in such a short time period.
To his irritation, the racoon snorted at that. Loki glared at the furry creature. It just shook its head. “Listen, no offence, but we have enough info on him.”, he continued shaking his head and looked over to the blue android that still seemed familiar to Loki. “Nebula was his daughter, she knows everything she could.”

Loki’s mask of confidence fell at that, if they had her, they didn’t need him. He wouldn’t be of help to them, especially like this. Without a proper body.
He was no use to them and he should just leave them alone. Not be a bother anymore.

Before he could get out of the room, another person spoke up and disrupted his thoughts. It was the woman with the blonde hair that had been searching for Fury when she had arrived. She looked first at him and then turned to the people gathered around the table.

“Are you sure you don’t know him, because he seems to know you? And why else would he come here and offer to help?”

Stark sighed. “Carol, we told you. Non of us recognises him.”

She raised her brows at him. “Maybe he’s a shapeshifter? He may have looked different when you met him, and now he looks like he usually does. Shapeshifters shift back when they die.”
Stark frowned and looked over to Loki. At the same time, he started to refuse her theory. “That can’t be, he would tell us for sure if-“

He didn’t finish his sentence and his eyes widened comically while he still stared at Loki. He blinked after a long moment of staring at him, frozen in shock. Then he let out a heavy breath and finally uttered his thoughts. “It’s you.” Then he started laughing.

Instead of turning to Loki, every person gathered around the table looked at Stark.
The dark-skinned man was the first to say something. He was looking at Stark like the man had gone mad and he voiced what all of the people in the room were probably thinking. “Did you finally lose it, Tony? Who is he supposed to be?”

Stark just continued snickering and needed another moment to give a coherent answer. Even then, Loki was sure that no one understood what the man was going on about. Even he didn’t quite understand what he was babbling about.
It took Stark another few moments to stop laughing and form a coherent sentence. “You didn’t know you were actually blue, Rock of Ages.”

Rogers started looking back and forth between him and Stark and Loki frowned as he realised that only himself and Stark understood what was going on. The rest of the room’s occupants were just exchanging incredulous looks with each other. The moment of puzzlement didn’t last for long as the blonde woman, Carol, interrupted it by asking the question everyone so desperately wanted an answer for.

“Care to share, Stark?”

The man swallowed and got a bit more serious again. “It’s Loki.”

Loki anticipated them to react badly to his name but nothing happened except for a deepening confusion on Rogers face. “Are you sure?”

Stark nodded. “Yep, remember how Thor told us he’s adopted?”

Rogers nodded. “Yes, but...”, he looked over to Loki again and it seemed like he was looking for something while he stared at his face. Then he seemed to find it and asked the next thing that needed to be addressed. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Loki snorted and he wasn’t sure if they had heard it but he was sure that his face told them everything they needed to know. “I invaded your planet, you would have no reason to listen to me.”

Banner was the first to answer. “He’s got a point.”

All of the avengers who had spent the recent years on earth nodded and silence fell over the room. Loki wasn’t sure what he should do. Leave?

He didn’t know where he would go. He could go back to the room he had been staying in but at the same time he dreaded going there because the fading had gotten worse after the encounter with Barton and he was terrified of just disappearing completely. Before he could make a decision, the racoon spoke up. “He’s gone again.”

Loki looked up and he couldn’t hear what they were saying over the ringing sound in his ears. It seemed like his control was slipping again. He had thought that he could control it. Be in control over when he was visible and when he as not. It seemed like he was wrong.

Before the avengers could decide to question him even more, he left the room.
He still wasn’t keen on going back to the room he had spend so much time in so he made his way through the hallways without a destination in mind.

The avengers seemed oddly fine with the knowledge of his identity and they started to seek him out. Not for big things, just to talk, about anything that came to mind.

After realising that he could make a pencil move with ease, Loki started finding pieces of paper and pens everywhere he went and it was oddly comforting to know that they were making an effort to help him. Even if it was just so he could communicate with them.

He hadn’t expected them to change anything after finding out who he really was. He had expected them to ignore him, to not acknowledge his presence any longer, but to his surprise they did the exact opposite.

After a few weeks Loki actually felt included in their everyday life and Stark even offered him a room. Mostly in jest as he didn’t particularly needed it but he took it nonetheless. It was better than the room that he now associated with fading away and disappearing into nothingness.
The one thing that didn’t sit right with him was the absence of Thor and that no one around him mentioned him. He didn’t want to ask either. According to the racoon, Rocket, it had been almost a year since Thanos’ snap had obliterated half of the universes’ population.

And even after all this time, they hadn’t found a way to fix it. Loki had been trying to get them to work on it, suggesting different things that they could try, but the remaining avengers seemed to be stuck in an endless downward spiral of hopelessness and no amount of objects he threw at them seemed to be able to change that. It was frustrating to say the least.

Loki had also started to leave the compound from time to time. He didn’t really have a reason for it, but sometimes he just felt trapped inside the building full of depressed people. So he started to stroll through the city, staying invisible the whole time. There wasn’t much to find in the city. The avengers had made an official statement after the snap, telling the people what had happened, and that they had no way to fix it.

Loki didn’t know what he was looking for in the city. There weren't many people to be found and the world was still very much in shock and chaos. Under normal circumstances he would have revelled in the chaos around him, but not like this. It felt wrong, being unable to do anything.

One day while he was out in the city, he found a big storage and decided to take a look inside. He had overheard a conversation from one of the employees and apparently more than half of the people who had stored something inside had disappeared. Still Loki was curious what the mortals would store in a hall like this.
Sooner than he liked, he had to find out that there was nothing of interest to be found. Just clutter that needed someplace to be because the humans couldn’t let go of the possessions they clearly didn’t need anymore.

Just as Loki wanted to leave again, a big car in a hideous brown colour caught his eye. Something seemed off about it, but not because of the colour.
Intrigued by the prospect of having something interesting to do, he stepped into the space the car was parked in. It was surrounded by all sorts of clutter but he payed it no mind and walked through it. When he reached the car he could feel that a sort of strange energy was coming off it. He didn’t recognise the signature of the energy so it couldn’t be magic. But still, he felt the need to figure it out, thrilled by the opportunity of solving a mystery, however small it may be.

He let his gaze roam over the clutter, looking for something that could activate the car. He found a display of a sort and it looked old, nothing like the technology that Stark used in his workshop. Because he had no idea how to operate the display or if it was even connected to the car, he pressed the biggest button he could find on it. His finger fazed through it on the first try but he concentrated on it a bit more and managed to press the button down on the second try. Even after a year, sometimes he still forgot that he had to focus on something to move it.

After he had pressed he button, nothing happened for a moment and Loki already lost interest in his project and contemplated if he should go back to the compound. Before he could make his decision, the doors at the back of the car were thrown open and the strange energy got more intense all of a sudden. A bright light filled the storage and then disappeared again. Loki walked over to the back of the car to find a man lying on the ground behind it. He was wearing a strange red suit and groaned as he pushed himself up from the ground.

His dark hair was in disarray and he looked around with pure confusion written all over his face. He looked around and didn’t even pause at the place were Loki was standing. Loki realised that he was still invisible and willed his form to become visible to the man. When the man’s gaze landed on him again, he did a double take. Then he pressed his hands on his eyes and shook his head, muttering under his breath. “This can’t be real. I’m hallucinating.”

Loki chuckled. “No you’re not.”

The man’s head snapped up again and his eyes properly focussed on him again.
“Are you a ghost?”

“You could say that, yes.”

The man’s eyes widened in horror. “I’m dead then.”

Loki shook his head in amusement. “No, you’re very much alive.”

“Oh, good.”

The man looked around again, still confused. Loki just watched him for a moment before he took pity on him.
“How do you feel about getting out of here?”

As he had expected, the man wanted to get out of the storage as soon as possible and when they were outside in the sunlight, he suddenly seemed to find an amount of energy that Loki hadn’t expected him to display. He looked on in amusement while the man just stood there for a moment, revelling in the warmth of the sun.

When he was finished, they started to make their way to the compound and the man didn’t shut up the whole way. Which was fine with Loki, because he knew how to make people hear him now but it was draining to talk for too long. He was fine with listening as the mortal babbled on and on.

When they arrived back at the compound, Loki had learned that the man’s name was Scott Lang, that he’s a hero who once stole tech from the Avengers, that he has a daughter and the he can shrink himself with his suit and talk to ants.
If he was honest, Loki had zoned out after that. It had been too tiring to listen to Scott the whole time as he just didn’t shut up at all.

In return, Loki had told Scott what happened. That half of the population had turned to dust and that they had thought him to be one of them. And that a year had passed.

When they got inside and Scott told the avengers about the quantum realm, Loki felt something akin to hope. Because what Scott was telling them made the possibility of time travel very real, and maybe, he was allowed to hope again. Because if they were able to get the stones from the past and then reverse the snap’s affects, the world would be fixed again. Not whole, it had never been whole in the first place, but fixed.

And that thought made him hope, that after everything, he may still be able to get his physical body back. And that he may have another chance at life. That he would get a second chance.