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He lands on the road just a second before a car runs him over.
*
He wakes up to someone he doesn't know attacking him. (Well, he perceives it as an attack.) More people rush in when he defends himself and try to hold him down, shouting around him, in a language he vaguely recognizes, arming themselves with needles (needles? Against mighty Thor? Bah!).
Then a voice, velvety voice he knows better than his own asks "What is going on here?" and he yells "Brother!" but when he turns around it's not Loki.
It gives people enough time to stab him with needles and his vision goes black.
*
When he wakes up again, he is restrained and alone. He pulls at the binds, tries to wriggle free when the same voice says "I wouldn't do that if I were you" and he freezes. Turns his head to the direction of the voice. Unspoken 'brother' hanging on his lips.
A man stands in doorway, tall and lean, and something steaming in his hand. Blonde curls.
Nothing like his brother (almost), but he still struggles to say "Loki, is that you? Brother, please, do not play games with me" and the man frowns.
"My name is Magnus", he says, but it can't be, because that is Loki's voice. "What's yours?"
Thor howls, helpless and angry, renews his attempts to break free. Somebody rushes past this not-Loki, and once again Thor goes under.
*
The third time he wakes up, he waits for a while to make sure he is alone, and then, after what feels like an eternity, finally sets himself free. Once outside, he doesn't really know what to do. Where to go. He confidently strolls through the parking lot, and is almost out when a vehicle stops before him and the not-Loki gets out. They stare at each other for a while. And then not-Loki sighs and looks away.
"You'd just keep on trying to run away if I get you back in, right?"
Thor can only nod - though he thinks of threats, of 'nobody can keep son of Odin bound', of million similar things. The voice still unsettles him.
"Very well", the man says. "Get in"
*
The man holds something close to his ear and Thor can hear shouting from it. He is currently sitting in the man's (Magnus, that's his name) house, in a borrowed clothes that is bit too tight in places, ravenously going through the man's food supply.
He looks up when Magnus sits across him, throwing the shouting thing on the table.
"Kurt's not happy", he remarks. "But then again, he rarely is." His mouth is a tight line.
Thor notices his eyes are green, and is hit again by the reality of the situation - cast out and without his powers, without Mjolnir, without his brother, in this strange world where needles can defeat him and with this man who isn't his brother, but reminds him of Loki just so.
*
Magnus gives him food, gives him shelter, and asks questions, and doesn't believe him.
"You dare call a son of Odin a liar?!" Thor rages, wishing for Mjolnir - feeling the hammer's absence at his side.
Magnus raises his hands in a placating gesture, a mask of indifference on his face, and Thor storms out - it's a high time he calls on Heimdall again, anyway. He will open the Bifrost for Thor, he must, he is Thor Odinson...
Hours later, Magnus finds him lost in the city, and wordlessly brings him home.
*
Magnus leaves because 'he has to work'. Thor is incredibly bored – unused to patiently sitting around, confused by 'technology' things these Midgardians use, angry, angry, angry all the time.
It doesn't help that his host reminds him of his brother in numerous ways. It seems like a salt on the wound – briefly he enterntains the thought of Odin doing this on purpose, on top of banishing him, but no, Father can't be that cruel.
Then Magnus returns in the middle of a night, offhandedly remarks that some farmer reported satellite or something similar falling on his field, a weird thing no one can move, how government sent investigators and sealed off the place – and it clicks in Thor's mind.
''Take me there'', he demands, tall and terrifying, ready to call on thunderbolts and lightening (only he can't, not anymore). Magnus looks at him as if he's lost his mind, hand casually on the butt of his gun. Magnus says no, says he's tired, he has work to do tonight still, he has to get up early. It falls on deaf ears – Thor is determined to go.
*
They don't go.
Thor throws temper tantrum – trashes half of Magnus' place, tries to attack Magnus too, but Magnus has him at the gunpoint and Magnus explains, slowly, velvety, that Thor better stop or Magnus will decorate his walls with pieces of Thor's brain. Thor stops, because this is Loki's voice, Loki's eyes.
(He doesn't have to know that Magnus has shot someone only once and still sometimes wakes up feeling sick.)
With a tired ''We'll clean up in the morning'', he disappears in the bedroom. Thor slides against the wall and doesn't sleep the whole night.
*
He's starting to calm down – few days of doing basically nothing, being on his own most of the time, despite Magnus trying to be a good host – it's wearing him down. He restlessly paces through the small place or sometimes ventures out, but things confuse him, and he seems to attract trouble. Most of the time, though, he lies, motionless, neither awake nor asleep.
Loki visits one day.
Thor is overjoyed at the sight of him, but something on his brother's face freezes his laughter.
Loki brings ill news.
*
He is sitting in the rain when Magnus finds him. He doesn't hear anything Magnus says, though he thinks he sees his mouth moving. His own voice is hollow when he says ''My father is dead.''
*
They end up in a bar. Magnus quietly observes his guest who seems intent on drinking the bar's whole alcohol supply. Thor sometimes try to say something, but it comes out unintelligible. Magnus sighs, but he lets the guy drown his sorrow.
*
Magnus doesn't remember getting home, but he wakes up in his own bed sometime during night. The fact that he isn't alone in it doesn't bother him as it usually would – his head hurts, and the acidic taste in his mouth tells him he vomited. He'd like to close his eyes and fall asleep again, but when he tries, it's all spinning and he feels like he is falling, falling and will never hit the ground. Thor snores next to him and that helps to anchor him. If Thor's arm is thrown across his chest, he doesn't notice it.
*
And only Norns know how and why, but his friends land on Midgard in search of him on a rare day Magnus is not working.
Magnus asks Thor to go jogging with him, and after a brief explanation what does that mean, Thor agrees. He needs to get out – he knows (hopes) physical activity will do him some good.
All is well until Magnus notices there are some troubles in traffic – and lo and behold, there are 4 people who just stepped out of a renaissance fair, determinedly marching on, ignoring the chaos they cause.
Next to him, Thor inhales sharply, and then calls ''MY FRIENDS!'' Magnus feels the headache forming at his temples.
*
He has four lunatics in his living room. Five, if he counts Thor. Six, if he counts himself, and he definitely should, because he must be crazy, there is no other explanation for why does he put up with any of this.
He is only half-listening to their conversation, but it seems to him it turned from joyous to serious very fast. He hears Odin is alive. He hears Loki lied. He wonders if it means Thor will finally get out of his home and his life.
*
Magnus is dying and it's all Thor's fault. He can't look at the crimson ruin that used to be Magnus' stomach. Behind them, Destroyer is approaching again. Thor is suddenly very tired. Tired of lies, tired of games, of fighting.
In the middle of the destroyed street lies a man who was good to him – who put up with Thor ever since he was cast out – he is lying, in the pool of his own blood and bent at unnatural angle. Thor can't deal with this.
When he stands up and turns to face Destroyer, he doesn't have any plan. The words just tumble out – he doesn't think them through, but they are true.
''Brother, whatever I have done to wrong you, whatever I have done to lead you to do this, I am truly sorry! But these people are innocent. Taking their lives will gain you nothing. So take mine and end this.''
*
He lands few feet away from Magnus, and for a moment they lock eyes – and it hurts so much.
*
He takes Magnus with them, against his friends' protests. He isn't sure if he can be saved still – there was so much blood – but he must try. He couldn't just leave him there, broken. (His brother's eyes; wet with tears.)
Once Heimdall takes them back, he leaves Magnus with his friends and goes after Loki.
* * *
Thor finds Magnus sitting at Heimdall's feet. His heart aches at the sight – while he is glad that Magnus managed to survive, he can't return home, and it's obvious it pains Magnus.
He is here almost every day.
*
He stands out as much as Loki did. There are some who believe him to be Loki – Thor is not the only one who finds resemblances between their looks. There are whispers behind his back, that grow especially vicious when they give him Loki's clothes, because they are the only ones that seem to fit him.
He is a tall man, but next to the mighty warriors he looks small. Fragile. His face is impassive, but his eyes betray how lonely and out of place he feels.
After an especially uncomfortable dinner Magnus is invited to, Thor follows him to his chambers, and Magnus lets him. They sit on the bed in silence for a while, and then Magnus touches him.
''Tell me I'm not crazy'', he murmurs, not looking at Thor. ''Tell me you're real. This place is real.''
Thor says nothing; lets his hands speak.
*
''I will never go home'', Magnus whispers later in the night, spent and boneless beneath Thor. He repeats, desperate and choking, ''I will never go home''. The torchlights glint on his tears.
Thor holds him. He can't bring himself to agree to that, can't bring himself to voice the truth, but he doesn't want to lie.
He settles on ''I will take care of you.'' He insists ''I will protect you.''
Magnus' smile is not smile at all.