Chapter Text
This isn’t right, is the first thing that comes to mind amidst all the chaos. Debris is crumpled around him, heat from the flames of the destroyed ship making him overwarm under all of his leather, and there is blood covering the ground that continues to drain out of body, after body, after body. The remains of women, men, and children surround them, and for all the times Loki wanted to destroy Asgard, this isn’t quite what he meant.
Hela had destroyed their planet, killed their father and their king. A small ship full of Asgardian and Sakaaran refugees seeking asylum after Loki did burn Asgard to the ground.
He realizes in this moment, he never wanted this. Not really. Loki fell through the Void for Norns-knows how long, surrounded by darkness and silence, rendering his mind to madness. He remembers trying to scream just to hear something, to feel something other than the crushing weight of nothingness of the Void.
Then there was Thanos. Thanos took Loki’s vulnerability, his madness, and shaped it to be what he needed it to be. He took Loki apart piece by piece, and then put it all back together in his own image, all wrong, like forcing pieces of a puzzle together that don’t fit.
The second thing he thinks of as Thanos holds Thor up by his throat is, it shouldn’t be Thor.
Thor. Stupid, idiotic, arrogant Thor. Brave, courageous, determined Thor. Loki tried to tell him, he really did. They can’t fight this. They can’t fight Thanos. But before Loki could come up with a plan, before he could use the Tesseract to run, hopefully making Thanos follow and leave the rest of Asgard alone, they were jostled by hit after hit.
He remembers screams. He remembers crying. He remembers blood.
More than anything, he remembers the hurt and betrayal that flashed at him through Thor’s one eye.
They fought back. Of course they did. Because Thor was not going to go down without a fight. Because Thor is a fool. It bided enough time for Valkyrie to take as many pods of Asgardians and Sakaraans as they could, but looking around him now, he knows it wasn’t enough.
And it wasn’t enough to save Thor. Loki wasn’t enough.
He is kneeling in blood that isn’t his, Ebony Maw standing behind him with his long-fingered hand, his power barely prickling Loki’s skin like spiders crawling into his hair and down his spine. It’s enough to keep Loki down, because he remembers all too well the extent to which Ebony Maw can make him hurt. Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, and Cull Obsidian prowl around them, Midnight’s spear pointed at him.
Loki wishes he wasn’t trembling under Maw’s touch, but he can’t help it. It was instinct, at this point, when Maw was involved. He remembers long nights and painful days of Maw’s fingers digging in his mind, scrambling it all up to the point where nothing made any sense.
“You talk too much,” Thor says roughly, throat being constricted by Thanos’ giant hand. On the other is a gold gauntlet, the one infinity stone attached glistening in the fire, mocking Loki from afar.
Loki locks eyes with his brother in warning, shaking his head. Ebony Maw squeezes his neck harder at the movement, and Loki can’t help but cringe under his touch.
“The Tesseract,” Thanos addresses him, that same danger Loki knew so well glimmering in his eyes. “Or your brother’s head. I assume you have a preference.”
Loki swallows hard, the walls coming back up around his emotional defenses, wiping his face clean of feeling. Thanos should be proud. He taught him how to do that. “Oh, I do,” he tells the Titan. “Kill away.”
Thanos smiles his dangerous smile, and tilts his head at Loki. He doesn’t know why he said it, why he believes for a second that Thanos won’t call his bluff, but he does.
His gauntlet raises to his brother’s temple, purple light from the power stone burning bright.
That’s when Thor starts screaming. He’s screaming, in agony, and Loki remembers it so well, the way Thanos can rip through your defenses as easily as paper and make you beg. Except Thor didn’t have a way out, he didn’t have someone to bargain with Thanos to make it stop. He watches Thor thrash, trying to pry the Titans hand away, desperation in the way he moves.
He remembers praying once, to the Norns or whoever would just listen to him, to please either kill him or let him out. The Gods didn’t answer him then, but Loki will answer Thor’s now.
“Alright, stop!” He struggles in Maw’s grip, nearly making it to his feet, but a painful zap in Loki’s mind sends him back down with a yelp. “Stop,” he gasps, kneeling back down on the bloody dirt, feeling defeated.
“We don’t have the Tesseract,” Thor slurs, face flushed from the pain. “It was destroyed on Asgard.”
Thanos drops Thor to the ground with a painful thump. His brother doesn’t have the strength to get up, or move, or fight. Loki hates the way he sees himself in Thor at that moment. Like a perfect reflection.
Thanos takes slow, predatorial steps towards him, his boots making thunderous beats on the ground as he does. Loki doesn’t look at him, instead his eyes stay trained on Thor, who still seems to be trying to get his second wind of strength. But then Thanos is in front of him, blocking his view, and he grabs Loki’s collar, heaving him off the ground to standing. Even on his feet, Thanos towers over him by several feet, but it’s better than being restrained on your back under him.
“I heard you were dead,” Thanos says to him.
“That’s because you’re a fool,” he spits at him, but Ebony Maw is still there, and suddenly he’s hanging in chains from the ceiling, metal biting into his wrists while the Chitauri take turns beating him, cutting him open down the middle and watching his entrails spill out, and he’s screaming and it hurts and he wishes his Mother were here.
He comes back with a bitten off scream, hands clawing at Thanos’ on his leather shirt collar. Ebony Maw looms behind him like a nightmare.
“I broke you once,” Thanos tells him with a smile. “I can do it again.”
Loki is shoved back down to his knees. Sweat is beading on his forehead, and he wants to wipe it away but he feels so tired, and so heavy. Like his body was made of stone.
Thanos begins to make his way back to Thor, who is now kneeling on one knee on the ground, looking at Loki with a dawning and confused horror. Thanos gets half way there before he breaks.
“Wait,” he calls out, and the Titan stops, turning around to lock dangerous eyes on him. He reaches inside him, magic swirling in his blood, and he tries to ignore the way Maw’s slithers around with his. The foreignness of it makes it difficult on Loki, and it takes longer than it usually would to access his “magical pocket”, as he liked to call it (Actually, he is just now realizing he got that from Thor as children). Finally, he has it, and as his shaking hand reaches out in front of him, the Tesseract comes to him. Its blue light shines bright in his palm, the warmth of its sedir burning his skin.
He takes a moment to look at Thor, and Loki physically flinches when he sees the utter disappointment in his eye. “You really are the worst brother.”
I know, he wants to say. I know I am, and I’m sorry, truly I am. I am so sorry.
“I assure you brother,” he tries to encourage past his own fear. “The sun will shine on us again.”
Ebony Maw lets him go, and Loki shakily makes his way to standing. He takes slow, cautious steps towards the Titan, who doesn’t move closer to him. His eyes scrutinize him, looking down on him like an ant.
An ant has no quarrel with a boot, he’d said once. He doesn’t remember when he’d said it, or who he said it to. He doesn’t remember a whole lot of his invasion.
He pushes it away, because he can not think about that right now.
“Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian.”
For a split second of a moment, Loki feels a swell of pride that he was able to keep one thing from Thanos. “Well for one thing, I’m not Asgardian.” He relishes in the confusion that flashes through his tormentor's gaze. “And for another, we have a Hulk.”
More chaos ensues.
Loki drops the Tesseract, leaving it behind and darting to Thor, pushing him out of harm's way and tackling him to the ground.
The Hulk, Bruce Banner’s alter ego, fights with Thanos. Punches are exchanged as they tumble with one another. When the Hulk slams Thanos into a nearby wall, Thor pulls his attention away.
“Loki-,”
“Are you alright,” he interrupts quickly.
“Yes, but-,”
“Not now,” he cuts off Thor, who looks annoyed and frightened at the same time. “I am going to take the Tesseract and run. If I go, he will follow me. It gives you enough time to get the hell out of here.”
“No,” Thor demands, so many emotions flashing through his one eye too quickly for Loki to catch. “Loki, no, he’ll kill you.”
“He won’t,” he laughs humorlessly. “He won’t kill me. Ever.”
You are not worthy of death, little god.
Thor looks at him again, horror and gut wrenching comprehension dawns on his face. “Loki,” he struggles, eye wide. “What has he done to you?”
He closes his eyes for a moment, blocking out the memories forcing their way up to the surface. He shakes his head, swallowing. “It doesn’t matter,” he tells Thor quickly. “None of that matters, you need to get Heimdall, he’ll send you to Earth.”
Loki keeps his hands on Thor’s shoulders, but turns his head to find Heimdall in the wreckage, eyes wild as they scan the decimation and there, Loki spots him. He is on his back, injured, but more or less okay. Loki goes to stand to get the Gatekeeper but Thor pulls him back down, his fingers digging into his arm in desperation. “No,” Thor says, voice hard. “Tell me what is going on.”
He shakes his head, his breath shaky. “There isn’t time!”
“Then make it quick,” his brother growls. “Loki… please.” Loki can see in his one eye two things: desperation to understand, and a pleading gaze.
And when has Loki ever been able to say no to Thor?
“He sent me to Earth,” he rambles on and on and the words come out like vomit, words he’s kept carefully locked away in a box in his mind where he threw away the key. He can’t stop it. “He found me, in the Void. He plucked me from the darkness, and used me for his purposes. And I was willing, I was eager to please because when he was pleased, then I was pleased and that was all I had.”
Thor is shaking his head, looking at Loki with a wide, horror-stricken eye like he was in denial. “I heard him… he said he broke you.”
“Thoroughly,” Loki laughs, but it isn’t funny. He keeps laughing anyway, and Thor makes a horrendous sound that is akin to a sob, and Loki stops. Shame burns in his stomach, but he forces his eyes to lock on Thor’s. “I’m sorry,” he says, because he is. He wishes he could tell Thor just how sorry he is; sorry he let go, sorry he let Thanos and his lackey’s break him, sorry he tried to kill him (he didn’t, not really), and sorry he tore everything apart. Tears sting his eyes, but he forces them away because now is not the time.
“Loki-,“
“I am getting you out of here,” he grits through his teeth.
“I’m not leaving without you,” Thor grits back.
“I’m not giving you a choice!” He pushes Thor off of him, and he stands and turns to get to Heimdall, but as he does he sees Thanos knock the Hulk down. The green beast does not get back up.
“No,” he whispers. He tries to run to Heimdall, but he’s swept off his feet and thrown to the side. Thor cries out and reaches for him, but it’s futile. He slams into shattered shrapnel and feels something pierce his left leg, but he ignores it. Or he tries to, but when he tries to stand again Ebony Maw is towering over him, his long fingers reaching down to touch the center of his forehead, and then he’s lost.
He is falling through nothing, the blackness of the Void swallowing him whole. He thinks he remembers trying to die, but the Norns spit him back out. Or rather, a curious, deep-baritone voice says “what’s this,” with interest and opportunity, and he is pulled out of the darkness.
He is pinned and flat on his back while the Chitauri pull him apart just to see how he’d react, and Norns, does he. He feels a ragged blade cut just below his navel and blood spills. He almost vomits when he feels air touch his insides, and then they pull and he howls.
His wrists are bolted to the stone wall behind him, Corvus hammering more into each shoulder and another through his middle. He keeps quiet for most of that, short gasps that are almost sobs escaping his lips, but when he starts peeling his skin off in layers he can’t keep his screams locked inside.
Ebony Maw is forcing rubber in his mouth, his tongue being flattened and his teeth wrenched apart. He is barely coherent, but he feels a muzzle being fastened to his face and his limbs being restrained to a chair. He is suddenly aware he is crying, and his head drops until his chin rests on his chest, but Maw stands behind him and forces his head back up, hands clasping over his eyes. He panics, and tries to get away but then Maw is in his head, burning him inside out and it’s the worst pain he’s ever felt and he bites down hard on the rubber. His screams stay trapped behind metal.
He forces himself away with a scream, and he can hear Thor saying something but then Maw is straddling him and he’s lost again.
Thanos stands over him and says “what would you do for freedom?” and Loki is barely holding on to any sanity and he doesn’t know how long he’s been here and he doesn’t understand why Thor or Odin or somebody won’t help him. He stares ahead, his back against the wall behind him and he says “anything.”
Maw lets him out, and he is vaguely aware that his nose is bleeding and he is crying silent tears. He has been moved too, and he doesn’t know how but he is on his knees in front of Thanos who towers over him like a nightmare. “Do you remember,” Thanos starts, voice dangerous. “Do you remember what I promised you, should you fail?”
He will make you long for something as sweet as pain…
He shakes his head trying to clear the memories the telepath has forced on him. “Technically, I didn’t fail. I’m late.” He laughs again.
Thanos kneels down to be eye level with him, and he almost looks sincerely sympathetic. But Loki knows that lie for what it is. “Oh, Loki,” the Titan whispers. “You should know better than that,” and Loki hates the way his stomach clenches in fear because what did I do wrong, give me another chance, I’ll do better, please. The Titan’s hand reaches out and gently cups his cheek. Loki wants to flinch back, but he learned the hard way to control that urge a long time ago while in Thanos’ care. He is shaking and his heart is in his fucking throat.
Thor, he remembers. Where is Thor?
He wants to look for him, but he is frozen, his eyes locked on Thanos’, who gently wipes a tear away and Loki’s stomach roils in disgust. He can’t breathe. “Maw,” is all the Titan says as he releases Loki’s face and stands, and the creature (his worst nightmare) makes a gesture with his hand. He is swept away again, this time against the far wall somehow still standing, loose pieces of shrapnel piercing his wrists and pinning him to it. He screams, he can’t help it.
He pulls to get away, but Maw pushes them in deeper, more metal lifting from the floor to cover him, restraining him and he panics. Memories flood, and this time it’s not even Ebony Maw, it’s just his own fragile mind tearing him apart. He forces the claws away before they can get him, and he finally focuses on the scene in front of him.
His stomach drops.
Thor is on the ground, bloodied and bruised and it’s clear he had been beaten while Maw tore his mind apart. Useless, a voice sneers in his head. This is your fault.
Thanos has moved to stand over him, and Loki struggles again. The Titan’s gloved hand raises, the space stone already in its place and Loki looks around for the Tesseract and sees shattered pieces of what looks like blue glass from where he dropped it. He looks for the Hulk, but only finds Banner’s prone form unconscious in tattered clothes from where Thanos knocked him down. Heimdall is in no better shape, Proxima’s spear pinning him to the ground through his middle. The Gatekeeper’s breath is hitched like he’s in pain and Loki knows he is. He remembers her precision to pierce exactly where it would hurt but not kill.
He quite literally is helpless. He realizes he has stopped crying, tears dry on his cheeks, but his breath comes out in dry sobs. When Thanos smiles at him and reaches down to pick Thor up by the throat with his gloved hand, he screams. It’s feral, it’s guttural and angry and there are no words, just a frustrated desperate sound torn from his throat involuntarily. He struggles, the metal piercing him deeper as he does, and he kicks and thrashes but he can’t get out.
Thor is raised off the ground, his feet dangling in the air. He kicks, and he struggles against the Titan’s grip.
“Please!” Loki screams.
Thanos stops.
Thor hangs.
“Please,” Loki begs, and he doesn’t know how he has the breath the speak because he can’t fucking breathe. “It’s not him,” he is saying. “It’s me. I failed you, I did. Not him.” He shakes his head in disbelief as he speaks because this cannot be happening. “Do to me what you will. But please… don’t… don’t.” He bows his head and closes his eyes because he can’t look.
For a long moment, it is silent. Just the sound of falling debris and his staggering breath. He doesn’t look up, he doesn’t open his eyes, and he doesn’t speak. He just waits and waits for Thanos to let Thor go.
He is reminded, for some reason, about the time Thor almost died on Alfheim when they were young. It was supposed to be a simple diplomatic visit. He doesn’t remember the specifics (so much of his youth is gone) but Thor ended up poisoned and barely clinging to life before Loki finally ventured out to find the single flower, the single ingredient they needed for an antidote. He traveled far, but with his magic he was quick. He would have traveled to the ends of the universe then, if it meant his brother would live. Loki wasn’t even of age yet, at the time, but he went anyway despite his father’s command not to. And he won. He got the flower after almost dying in a cave from winged creatures he can’t remember that struck him in a sweep, talons tearing into skin, venom burning his blood. But he won, and he returned just in time to cure Thor before he passed out right there by Thor’s deathbed.
He doesn’t know why he remembers that just now, except that maybe it’s because he knows deep down this is it. Thor will die here, and Loki will live because Thanos wills it. Or maybe it’s because the Norns will it and they have a horrible sense of humor.
That’s when Thor’s struggles begin anew. He can hear it, the way his windpipe is collapsing under the strain of Thanos’ grip, the sound of his armor clanking as his legs futilely kick either in self defense or to get away.
Loki doesn’t look. He can’t, because he is a coward.
Ebony Maw solves that problem.
His head is forced back up by the creature’s magic, his eyes forced open, unblinking. He tries to move, to turn away, to look away, to look anywhere else. He can’t.
Thor’s hands struggle to pry the Titan’s off, his eye conveying fear and anger and desperation. His breath is torn away from him, and he tries to talk or say something but he can’t. Thanos squeezes harder.
“No!” He cries, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late. He can’t fix this, he can’t save his brother, he can’t do anything. His eyes water and he isn’t sure if it’s tears or because Maw won’t let him blink or if it’s a mixture of both.
He understands then.
He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.
He would give anything, anything, to be Thanos’ prisoner again; to be pinned down and cut into, to be electrocuted and drowned and burned and hanging from the ceiling on a hook and having Maw paw into his mind as easily as running a hand through water and blood spilling as they slice his stomach open and let his insides pour out and-
He stops, because Thanos is smiling at him. Thor is slowly losing it, his struggling dwindling down to nothing as his life is being strangled out of him. His eye is red, bloodshot, and his face is purple. “You see now,” Thanos asks him. “Don’t you?”
He tries to look away again but Maw’s magic stings him when he does. “Pl… please-,” he can’t even get it out.
It’s then that something changes. He hears a grunt come from where Maw is standing, and he is suddenly released from the shrapnel pinning him down and he can move his head again. He falls to his knees, his wrists bleeding from the holes. He is shaking, he doesn’t understand what is happening. He looks around for the source to find Maw down on the ground. He doesn’t know why. It doesn’t particularly matter. His eyes scan to find Banner sitting up with a look of horror on his face. Loki’s eyes are wild as he tries to understand and lock on Heimdall’s, whose hand is outstretched and glowing with the color of rainbows. He sees it sweep up Banner, and before he can protest he feels it start to sweep him away too.
He looks to Heimdall again, whose eyes shine with sympathy and guilt. Loki tries to get away. “No!”
And he is weightless. He is aware of being pulled away with Banner, the power of the Rainbow Bridge sweeping him away.
But not before he hears the sound of a neck breaking.