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“Thor,” his mother said, anguished. “What are you going to do?” She stood in the doorway, looking at the wreckage of his room, her eyes fixing on the knapsack into which he was stuffing provisions for a long journey.
“I am going to find Loki.” His voice sounded strange and hard in his own ears, but everything did; everything had since that hideous awful moment when his world had come apart and Loki had looked into his eyes and- Thor squeezed his eyes closed and pushed the thought away. Frigga did not move.
“My son,” she said, voice gentle but just on the edge of breaking. “Where do you think you will go? There is nothing but the Void, and your brother is – Loki is…” She could not say it, trailing off instead. Thor grit his teeth.
“You do not know that,” he said stubbornly. “You did not see him perish. You were not eventhere.” He heard the accusation in his voice a moment too late and felt his mother recoil. He dropped his head. “—I did not mean that. Mother, I…I cannot believe it. I will not accept…”This is Loki. He always has a way out, knows something I do not, some trick that he can use to escape. He doesn’t give up, he doesn’t…
“I know it is hard.” She moved forward and took his face in her hands, turning Thor to face her. “I do not want to believe it either, but Thor…will you make me childless?”
“No,” Thor said, pulling away and shouldering his pack. “I will not. I will come back and I will bring your other son with me.” He could almost hear Loki’s voice at the back of his mind, mocking his certainty. “Will you or nil you, mother, you cannot stop me.”
Frigga looked impossibly weary, her head bowing. “I could,” she said softly. “I could cast an enchantment on you that would keep you with me.” Thor tensed, but she shook her head. “I would not, my son. Only…be safe. Please. And return to me.” There was little hope in her voice. Thor leaned over and hugged her, and kissed her warm cheek.
“I will,” he said. “I swear it.”
He trekked out to the end of the broken Bifrost alone. Thor had not spoken to his friends of this particular adventure, though he had left notes – he hoped they had enough sense not to attempt to follow him. Sif especially, he feared, might try. The winds of space blew violently as he passed the wreckage of the observatory and stood before the breach, looking down into the black where Loki had hung for those few vital seconds before his fingers had slipped free.
Thor touched the hammer at his belt and glanced over his shoulder at glittering Asgard before he leaped into the dark.
The Bifrost dwindled above him rapidly and then was swallowed into darkness. Thor fell like a stone into dark water and before long he was blind, surrounded by darkness on all sides. It might have been hours, or seconds, or days – time stretched and it was difficult to tell meaning. It would have been difficult to say if he was even still falling except for the rushing in his ears. Thor wondered suddenly, belatedly, if Loki had used his magic to open a portal as he was falling, to slip into some other world. If so – he could not do the same.
Had he just done something very foolish?
Just as he thought it, however, his eyes fixed on a light in the distance. Thor fumbled Mjolnir from his belt and while it was difficult to spin it while still falling, managed to get the momentum to change his trajectory from downward to sideways, flying toward the one pinprick of illumination in this vast darkness. It grew larger as he approached, and slowly took shape from being simply a light to a gleaming beacon on an enormous, derelict-looking vessel. A twinge of caution awoke in Thor, but he could not slow down, though he managed to redirect himself to an angle where there was something to grab hold of. He pounded on the side of the craft in order to signal his presence.
No response came.
Thor raised Mjolnir to crack open the hull when but a few feet from him, the hull seemed to peel away like a skin and a peculiar creature, grey-skinned and grotesque, poked its head out. Thor cleared his throat and tried not to look disgusted.
“Greetings,” he said. “I am Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard. I wish to-”
One of the creature’s limbs emerged holding a strange apparatus, glowing blue, and fired it at Thor. He ducked just in time to avoid taking a burst of concentrated energy in the face.
“Well then,” he growled, and lunged.
The apparently derelict vessel was in fact full of the creatures. Though they were relatively weak and easy to dispatch, nonetheless Thor could not help but take several painful blasts from their strange weapons, which left burn like marks on his skin – though none penetrated his armor. They attacked him to the last, and Thor let the final body fall with disgust at the waste. It had not, a part of him thought, even been a worthy challenge, and he had had no chance to receive an answer to his questions.
With a sigh, Thor set to searching the vessel. He found little that he deemed of use – the records looked like gibberish to him, even the All-Speak baffled – and there was no cargo that was no weaponry that Thor had no interest in. He did find what looked like some kind of communication screen, but though Thor tried he could not make it work.
He gave up in disgust, eventually, but did find a vehicle that only took some puzzling to figure out. Deciding that it might not be faster than Mjolnir, but would spare his arm and enable more maneuverability, he took the liberty of claiming the vehicle for his own.
However, he realized, that still left him with no idea of where to go, or where even to begin. Perhaps he shouldn’t have let himself stop falling. He tried to hearten himself with the thought that if there was one vessel here, there might be others; the Void was not necessarily a death sentence after all.
Or else, a more realistic voice reminded him at the back of his mind, the ship had drifted into the Void by accident, and been marooned here, unable to find its way back to whence it came.
Thor tried not to let the bleakness of that thought get to him. Tried not to imagine Loki, still falling, cold and alone. No, he told himself. Loki would not give up. It is not in him.
He mounted the vehicle. If he had to search every crevice of this barren space, if he had to spent centuries doing so, then he would. Loki was not gone. Thor would not accept it could be so.
The Void was vast, and it was empty.
This Thor learned. He supposed he ought to have realized, from the name and the fact that those who spoke of it at all did so with a kind of wary uncertainty, but it still astonished him. Asgard was great, and Thor had traversed many of the Nine Realms, but those were full of life – but for Svartalfheim and Niflheim, and even they had a kind of light and landscape that was not vast, endless nothingness.
It weighed down on Thor, crushing him under its immensity and the growing feeling of loneliness. He could not tell how long he had been traveling, searching, how long it had been since he had touched another. Almost he wished he would encounter another ship, even if it meant a battle.
He grew weary, and was ashamed.
It did not deter his search, however. Somewhere in this vast, empty space was his brother, and Thor would not let him go.
He wondered what was happening on Asgard. His friends, no doubt, were angry at having been left behind. His mother…he hoped she was well. And his father. Even if Thor had been angry, at first, had wished Odin had chosen different words, said something that would have brought Loki back from the edge…he could not help but forgive his father. He had seen his father weep, after all, for the first time that he could remember, in the aftermath of the moment when Loki fell.
But he would make it all right. When he found Loki – when he brought him back – he would make it all right, and their family could be whole again.
He only had to find Loki.
Thor slept seldom. His dreams blurred together with the waking and sometimes he woke groping for Loki’s hand. The afterimage faded slowly from the underside of his eyelids.
Thor landed in the wreckage of a shattered planet, orbiting a dying star, for just a moment’s rest. He felt bone tired, exhausted, his body resisting his mind’s commands. He did not mean to sleep, but his attention must have wavered for a moment because when he blinked he was encircled by a group of the strange grey-skinned creatures, and standing before him was one in a cloak, face shrouded.
Thor stood, reaching for Mjolnir, but the cloaked creature raised one strange hand.
“You need not strike, Thor Odinson,” it said. “I do not come to you with a purpose of war, merely to know what it is you seek.”
Thor narrowed his eyes, suspicious at being spoken to with such solicitation when his previous encounter had been so definitively violent. “I would know who I speak with, first,” he said. His voice came out like gravel, grinding on his throat. The creature hissed softly, but it did not sound angry.
“I am known simply as the Other,” it said. “We are the Chitauri.”
“And how is my name known to you?” Thor asked.
“Few come to this place,” the one that called itself the Other said. “And even less often are we so privileged as to host a royal son of the Aesir.”
It was not an answer to the question, but Thor was tired, and this was the first conversation he had had in – he did not even know how long. “I seek my brother,” he said, finally. “He is called Loki, and I believe him to be somewhere in this place. Have you seen him?”
“As I said,” the Other said smoothly, “Few come to this place. Two royal sons of the Aesir would be…most unusual.”
Thor’s skin crawled, and his instincts told him that something was wrong, but he did not know how to ask further without risk of offense. How would Loki do this, he wondered, but the creature was already speaking again.
“Our master would speak with you,” it said. “If you would accept. He would give you food and drink. He is wise. Perhaps he knows more than us.”
Thor hesitated, the sense of wrongness increasing, humming on his skin. But if there was knowledge to be had…even a hint of Loki’s whereabouts…could he afford to say no? And the offer of food and drink as well was not one he felt he could turn away, not with his dwindling supplies. “Very well,” he said slowly. “I accept. I will speak with your…master.”
Their master was not, as Thor had expected, one of their own kind. He was…something else entirely. Generally man shaped, but enormous, his head a square on top of a massive body, his skin a purplish grey. Thor would have called him a giant but that he looked like no giant Thor had ever seen. The creature that called itself the Other bowed low before him, and the others nearly genuflected. Thor stood tall as the being descended to greet him, his head held high and resisting the urge to take hold of Mjolnir.
“Greetings,” Thor said. “I am Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard.”
“I am Thanos,” the being said, offering no further name. It itched something familiar at the back of Thor’s mind, but he could not grasp it. “You are welcome, Prince of Asgard.” Thor thought, for a moment, that he heard mockery in that voice, but he kept himself from tensing.
“Your servants indicated that you might have knowledge of the whereabouts of my brother Loki,” Thor said, not waiting though he knew it was rude. “If you have, I would ask you to tell me.”
“My servants?” Thanos’s head turned and he glanced at the genuflecting Chitauri with clear scorn. “Ah, yes. Take food with me, Prince of Asgard. We can talk further of this matter.”
Thor wanted to balk, dig in his heels, insist. What would Loki do, he asked himself, and pasted on a smile. “Very well,” he said. “I thank you.”
The words stuck in his throat. His skin was crawling and he wanted to leave, but the possibility that this Thanos might know something held him. He stayed.
The food was sparse and flavorless. Thor did not think too hard on what it might be. The drink was rich, at least, though Thor took but a little, not wanting to muddy his thoughts.
“Tell me,” Thanos asked. “Why should your brother be here? The Aesir do not travel the Void.”
“There was an accident,” Thor said carefully. He did not want this being to know about the Bifrost’s state. “He was lost. I seek to find him once again.”
“Do you,” Thanos said. Thor frowned.
“Yes,” he said. “I have been searching for – I know not how long. If you know something of his whereabouts, I ask you to please speak. I desire that he come home.”
“And what,” Thanos asked, leaning forward, “should he not desire the same?”
Thor felt his eyes widen and wanted to jerk to his feet. “He would not – you have seen him,” Thor said loudly, suddenly sure. “You have, did he say as much? What did he say? It is not – it is not true, he must come home…” He trailed off, feeling suddenly foolish. Thanos’s expression seemed amused, perhaps.
“I have,” he said. “I have indeed seen him. Once, some time ago.”
Thor’s heart leapt. “Please,” he said, nearly begging. “Where did he go?” Thanos shrugged.
“I know not,” he said. “The Void is great, and I do not know all its places.” His eyes glittered. “He mentioned you by name, Thor Odinson.”
Thor’s throat seemed to close, and he had to clear it. “He did?”
“Yes,” Thanos said. “Many times.”
With fondness? Thor wanted to ask. He could not. “Did he say…he did not wish to return?” He asked, hating how his voice sounded. He did not want to look weak in front of this creature, but for Loki’s sake…he needed to find his brother, needed to know how he could bring him home.
“He did not say as much,” Thanos said. It was ponderous, but it was something, and Thor grasped it and clung to it.
“Thank you,” he said in a rush. “For this news.”
“I doubt you will find him, however,” Thanos said, his voice cold and disinterested. “The Void is great and full of many dangers. I attempted to detain him, but he insisted on traveling alone. A pity.”
Thor’s heart sank. “He is strong,” he said stoutly. “I will continue my search.”
Thanos inclined his head and stood. “I am not surprised,” he said. “Nonetheless, you are welcome to rest here if you like. Your search has clearly been…grueling.”
Thor stood and made his spine bend to bow, though exposing the back of his neck made it prickle in warning. “Thank you,” he said. “For your offer. For a brief rest, I will accept it.”
“You do me honor,” Thanos said. “It gives me great pleasure to host such an illustrious guest. I have business to see to; we will speak, I hope, before you depart.”
“Yes,” Thor said, though he felt immense relief at the being’s departure. “Of course.”
Thor knew he ought to close his eyes and try to rest, but he did not trust the Chitauri, or Thanos, and even if he had his mind was afire with everything Thanos had said. Loki had been here. At last, someone had seen him, someone had spoken with him. His search was not in vain. Loki was somewhere, still alive, still sane enough to speak with another thinking being.
It was not much, but it was something. Was hope.
Thor settled down and tried to think. Where would Loki go, in this desolate place? What would he be looking for? His instincts were prickling, but when he tried to grope for what they were trying to tell him, it slipped away again.
Silence fell as a hush fell on the muttering Chitauri, and something caught Thor’s ear very faintly, less than a whisper. He cocked his head, straining his hearing to listen. It was just on the edge of his consciousness, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. Making him itch.
Thor stood up, turning in a circle, trying to pinpoint what he was hearing. It felt so – familiar.But he couldn’t have said from what. He took a blind step in the direction he thought it might be coming from, and then another, still trying to strain his ears.
His heart was pounding but he couldn’t have said why. He kept stumbling blindly forward and found a set of rough stairs carved into stone. He followed them down, one hand on Mjolnir, into a cavern that was darker still than the usual darkness of the Void.
Thor waited a moment for his eyes to adjust. He could make out whispering now, a hoarse, barely audible sound like wind rustling in branches. I have failed I have failed I have failed, it said, repeating over and over. The air smelled strongly of blood. Thor’s stomach clenched. Not Chitauri, he thought, or he wouldn’t be able to understand. He edged closer, wishing he could summon a light.
The whispering stopped, and Thor froze. He heard a rustle in the dark and then, awfully, a familiar voice.
“Master,” it said. “Please. Please, I will not fail again, only let me…”
Thor’s breath rattled in his chest and he could not move, could not breathe. The liar, he thought, the filthy liar, and wanted to feel angry but could not, there was no room for anything in that moment but horror. “Loki,” he said. A violent shudder ran through the body in front of him.
“I am sorry,” his brother’s ragged voice said, almost a whine. “I am sorry, I said, I said, don’t do this don’t mock me don’t-”
“Loki,” Thor said again, his voice raw. He reached out to put a hand on his brother’s back, on the curve of his spine. His hand met something that felt like raw meat and he jerked away in shock, confused for a moment. Loki didn’t cry out, just shuddered again.
“Anything else,” he said, voice faint. “Anything. Please.”
Bile surged up Thor’s throat but the anger was coming too, finally, overwhelming the numbness. “Loki,” he said, hearing the thickness in his own voice, the rage starting to pound in his ears, and trying to keep his voice calm. “It is me. Thor, your brother. I’m here to help you.”
Loki made a helpless sort of giggling noise. “It’s a lie,” he said. “I know that now, I know it, there is no one but you, no one is ever going to come but you, I’ve tried to earn it I’ve tried-”
Thor wanted to roar. Wanted to pound his fists bloody against stone, no, against Thanos’sface, Thanos who had looked him in the eye and lied while all the while Loki was here with his back flayed raw and his spirit-
He held it in with an effort, reached for Loki’s head, what he could see of it, trying to stroke his hair. His hand met only stubble, rough against his palm. “Loki,” he said, clinging to his calm. “Come with me. Come to me, we’ll find a way home.”
“Stop it,” Loki said, and his hands rose and pushed Thor’s away (his hands, with that same feeling of raw meat), “stop it stop it stop it-”
Thor couldn’t do this anymore. He could not.
He reached for Loki and picked him up, gathering him into his arms. He was prepared for Loki to cry out, or scream.
He was not prepared for Loki to begin struggling, thrashing like an eel, or to scream “Thanos! Help me, Master!”
Thor reached for Mjolnir, trying to drag Loki out and up the stairs at the same time as he braced for combat, and he would battle, would give rein to his bloodlust and destroy everything and free his brother-
Thanos waited at the top of the stairs. Thor raised Mjolnir, struggling to hang on to a desperately fighting Loki. ”You,” he said, and his voice crackled with thunder.
“Loki,” Thanos said, his eyes not even glancing aside. “Stop fighting.”
Loki went still at once, limp in Thor’s grip. There was blood smeared against his armor, Thor noticed, and in the better light he could see where skin was missing, peeled off like gloves from his forearms and stripped from his back from the nape of his neck to buttocks. Thor could not see his face. He forced his gaze to Thanos.
“I will kill you,” he said, taking a step forward. “I will smash your skull and rip out your throat with my bare hands.”
Thanos laughed. “Try,” he said, “and I will set your beloved brother against you. He will fight you to the death for me. His death, I have no doubt. There is little left of him. It took a great deal to crack his will.” Thor’s rage welled up, hot in his chest, and he raised Mjolnir. “Or,” Thanos went on, not moving, “I could simply have him slit his own throat. Would you like that, Loki?”
Loki’s head swayed. It might have been a nod.
“What do you want,” Thor snarled through gritted teeth. He did not loosen his hold on Loki. “I will not leave him with you, you monstrous beast-”
“He hung onto you for a long time,” Thanos said. “Decades, at the least. I was impressed. When you came yourself…I had to see what inspired such loyalty.” Decades, Thor thought, that couldn’t be right, but apparently Thanos saw something in his expression, some desperate hope, for he said, “Time is different here,” and the hope vanished.
“And are you satisfied?” Thor’s voice rose nearly to a shout. “I do not care what kind of power you think you hold-”
“Take your brother,” Thanos said, “and go.”
Thor was brought up short. He held Loki tightly and did not shift his battle stance. “What?”
“Take him,” Thanos repeated. “And go. I have no more use for him. It was diverting while it lasted, but he is broken now. I would not insult Death by gifting her such a thing. And I truly do not wish for war with Asgard, as might come if I killed you.” His eyes glittered strangely. “I wonder if you might have the power to replace me in his mind. Perhaps with time he will call you his master.”
Thor felt sick. “You are depraved,” he said, “and rest assured that in time I will revenge myself on you. Myself and Loki both, he at my side.”
“Do you think so?” Thanos smiled, and it was an awful thing to see. “Loki,” he said, eyes locked on Thor’s. Loki stirred, barely. “I am giving you away. You belong to Thor, now.”
Thor felt Loki’s body shudder again. “No,” he said faintly. “No, please. Don’t – send me away.”
“I would soothe you,” Thanos said. His voice was sickeningly gentle. “But I fear Thor is exceedingly possessive. You are his, now.” He paused. “Again.”
Thor’s tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth. His temples were pounding with rage, a red haze over his eyes. He took a step toward Thanos, anger mastering him.
“Ah,” Thanos said, his eyes half lidding. “Go now, little prince. If you threaten me further, I will reclaim my pet, and make you watch him thank me for the killing blow.”
Thor’s nostrils flared and his whole body urged him to attack, to lash out – but Loki’s slumped weight reminded him heavily that he could not, not without a price he wasn’t willing to pay. “How,” he asked, voice flat. “How are we to leave-”
“Ask your brother,” Thanos said. Loki still had not moved, seemed to be barely breathing. Thor turned his back resolutely and lowered himself down to his knees so he could hold Loki more comfortably, turn Loki to see his face.
Thor’s blood ran cold all over again as he saw Loki’s eyes, filmy and gazing through him, unseeing. He wanted to weep. He wanted to rage. Instead he leaned toward his brother and spoke gently. “Loki,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It’s time to go home now. Can you…please…take us back to Asgard?”
Loki’s eyes moved and his skinned hands twitched. “He said it was Thor,” he said, voice so soft Thor had to strain to hear. “Thor is dead. I should be…I should be…”
“No,” Thor said. His voice sounded harsh and he tried to moderate it. “No, Loki.” His father’s last words, and Thor thought he saw Loki flinch. He hastened on. “I’m not dead. It’s me. And you shouldn’t be dead. You should be home, with your family…”
“I have no family,” Loki whispered. “Only – only the Master, please, please don’t-”
Thanos rumbled a laugh. Thor gritted his teeth. “Loki,” he said, more firmly. “We need to go home. To Asgard.”
Loki shuddered, but his hand grasped Thor’s wrist, finally, slippery with blood. He didn’t seem to feel the pain. “Asgard,” he said, barely more than a breath, and they were falling again. But together, this time, Thor clinging to Loki’s body fiercely even as he tried to be gentle on raw muscle, and every beat of Loki’s heart against his chest was a victory, however small.
Thor did not try to follow the winding path that Loki’s path took them on, through worlds he didn’t know, glimpsed and then gone. By the time they reached Asgard, Loki’s breathing was ragged and short and Thor wondered if he should have chosen another destination, but then they both landed in soft dirt, surrounded by the smell of apples, and when Thor raised his head they were lying in Frigga’s garden.
Thor pulled off his cloak and wrapped Loki in it, gently so as not to cause more harm than had already been done. Loki was curled into a ball and shivering, his teeth nearly clattering together.
“Loki,” Thor said, relief welling up in him so powerfully that tears stung his eyes. “We’re home. Look around you, we’re in mother’s garden. You’re home,” only he realized a moment later that Loki couldn’t see. “Do you smell the apples? Hear the wind rustling through the leaves? Brother-”
Thor broke off. Loki was crying, he realized. Soundless tears flowing from his blind eyes. “Why did he leave me,” he whispered, voice breaking.
Thanos, Thor realized, and felt sick.
“You’re free of him,” he said, his voice coming out harsher than he meant it. “You’re safe,Loki, you’re back where you belong.”
Loki’s shoulders hitched with a silent sob. His eyes did not look at Thor, empty and despairing. It felt like a stab to the heart to look at him, safe and home and with the same look in his eyes as when he’d – let go. Thor made himself think it. Loki had let go.
Thanos’s voice whispered into his mind. And what should he not desire the same? He asked, and perhaps with time he will call you master.
Thor’s heart broke, and broke again. He crawled to Loki and gathered him in his arms, pressing his face against the rough stubble that was left of Loki’s beautiful black hair. “Loki,” he whispered. “All will be well. Don’t worry, brother. All will be well.”
The leaves were turning red, he noticed. It was autumn in the garden.