Chapter Text
“ALRIGHT, STOP!”
The words tore themselves from Loki's throat, a desperate plea, so undignified.
For a moment, there was only the purple light. It burned against Thor's face, against the battered gold of his armour, against the gauntlet pressed cruelly to his temple. The Power Stone hummed within it, a tiny, vicious star held in the fist of something that believed itself a god. Its light spilled across the room in violent pulses, catching on broken metal and shattered glass.
The ship was dying around them. Loki could hear it in the groaning of the hull, in the shriek of metal bending somewhere far below, in the distant thunder of another section being torn apart. Through the fractured windows, purple bursts of energy bloomed against the darkness of space, brief and brilliant, like supernovae erupting impossibly close to them. Each one sent another shudder through the vessel.
And somehow, through all of it, Ebony Maw continued to speak.
Hear me, and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan.
Saved. The word tasted foul in his mind. Those bodies, those screams, the Asgardian escape pods scattering into the void, tiny points of light fleeing the wreckage of their home. Some must have made it away. Some most definitely had not. He had watched them go, helpless to follow, while Thanos' army descended upon what remained of their people.
You may think this is suffering. No... It is salvation.
“Salvation”. Loki bit back a bitter laugh. There was nothing salvific about watching a people reduced to scattered survivors and drifting corpses. Nothing noble in calling slaughter a mercy because the murderer had convinced himself it was necessary.
Thanos had spoken of losing. He spoke of a sadistic, stomach-churning “destiny”. Loki had listened to the great Titan explain suffering as though suffering itself had appointed him its eponymous prophet. He had watched him crush resistance after resistance beneath that enormous purple hand, watched the Power Stone tear through the ship in bursts bright enough to rival dying stars.
And now he had Thor.
His brother's head was caught beneath the gauntlet. Thor's face was twisted with pain, blood dark against his skin. Loki knew the extent of Thor’s pain. He remembered it well - the heat.
Not fire, exactly, not the traditional kind you would find on a place such as Midgard. A terrible, suffocating heat that had seemed to seep beneath his skin, leaving nowhere to retreat to, nowhere to breathe. He remembered the helplessness of it; the desperate hope that it would stop, followed by the sickening certainty that it would not.
He remembered the smell of his own skin. He remembered choking back screams. He remembered learning, very quickly, that pleading only made the Titan more patient.
Now Thor was experiencing that very same torture. Loki's stomach turned hard. For all his complaints about his brother - Thor's arrogance, his righteousness, his maddening insistence on believing there was good in everyone - Loki knew that pain.
His brother…
“ALRIGHT, STOP!”
Thanos' attention shifted toward him. Loki's heart was hammering. As suffocating as the feeling was, as much as he hated being strangled by such conniving, humiliating, human feelings, Loki knew it was good. Fear would undoubtedly mind. It stripped away all the unnecessary thoughts, all the useless possibilities, until only the ones that might actually work remained, shooting through his mind like meteors, in mere seconds. Such fear would hopefully grant him the wits to perhaps think up a means to save his brother, to save Heimdall.
He knew very well that he could not overpower Thanos. He could not hope to fight him, not with fair hands. But Loki had never been particularly fond of fighting fair.
His eyes moved slowly across the room. The Black Order. Thanos. Thor. The broken ship. The shadows pooling beneath his feet.
And then, very slowly, an idea began to form.
It was absurd. It was dangerous. It was, in every respect, exactly the sort of thing Loki would have done. His magic was already stirring beneath his skin, restless and hungry. He could feel the shadows curling at the edges of his ankles. There was far more he could do with them than Thanos knew. It reminded him of the times his mother, Frigga, would train him in magic. The times they would play with shadows on the walls. Her smile whenever he cooked up some brand-new skill, all on his own! Wouldn’t she be so immensely proud of him if he could pull off this stunt?
He knew, very well, this would be far more than Loki had ever attempted at once. He would need to divide his attention between illusions, shadows and spells, all while keeping Thanos convinced that nothing was amiss. One mistake would be enough. One illusion out of place, one lapse in concentration, and Thanos would see through him.
And then Thor would die. Loki swallowed at the idea. Admittedly, failure had never been so terrifying, and he thought he was used to the feeling. If this was what it took to get his brother out alive, Loki would tear every ounce of magic from himself to do it.
One last trick.
One last act of mischief. Loki gulped hard once more and forced his expression into something approaching resignation. Perhaps that was the secret. Perhaps the greatest deception was not convincing Thanos that Loki had surrendered. Perhaps it was convincing him that Loki had nothing left to lose.
And then, if the gods were feeling particularly generous, one last act of murder.
Loki smiled, reminiscent of the twisted grin that he would paint upon his face during that battle in New York.
“We don't have the Tesseract. It was destroyed on Asgard.” Thor's voice was strained, but there was enough certainty in it to make Loki glance at him. Loki allowed himself the smallest, bitter smile. He raised his right hand. Green light curled around his fingers, and the Tesseract materialised above his palm, cold blue light spilling across his face.
Thor’s face twisted into an expression more gut-wrenching to witness than when he was under the gauntlet. A grotesque expression of betrayal.
“You really are the worst, brother.”
Loki couldn't help the flicker of amusement that crossed his face. There were worse things Thor could call him.
He closed his fingers around the Tesseract and stepped forward, holding it out toward Thanos.
“I assure you, brother, the Sun will shine on us again.”
Thanos' expression did not change.
“Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian.”
Loki's smile sharpened. “Well, for one thing: I'm not Asgardian. And for another... We have a Hulk.”
Loki threw himself aside as the loud clashes of thunder indicated something enormous erupted into the room. The Hulk slammed into Thanos with enough force to send both of them crashing backwards. The ship shook beneath them. Metal screamed. Hulk roared and swung, one fist after another, forcing Thanos into the wall.
Loki hit the floor and rolled, clutching the Tesseract tightly in his hand.
For one brief moment, nobody was looking at him. He flicked his wrist, and the Tesseract vanished beneath a ripple of green magic.
At the exact same instant, an illusion remained suspended where it had been, identical in every detail, the same blue glow, the same weightless cube, the same deceptive promise that Loki had just handed Thanos the very thing he wanted. Loki fleetingly wished that Thor would witness his dubious, creative act of mischief. Perhaps he wouldn’t appreciate the lie. This would probably end up being difficult to explain or apologise for.
Cull Obsidian took a step forward, raising his weapon as Hulk drove another blow into Thanos. But of course, Ebony Maw stopped him.
“Let him have his fun.”
Loki watched Hulk and Thanos tear into one another. If not incredibly violent, the noise was nothing short of magnificent. Every impact shook the ship. Metal groaned around them as Hulk drove Thanos backwards, and each roar swallowed the smaller sounds - the scrape of a boot against the floor, the whisper of fabric, the faint crackle of magic gathering beneath Loki's fingers.
He let his shadow stretch. It slid across the floor almost imperceptibly, thin at first, then broader as it crept toward the “Corvus” character. Corvus had his attention fixed upon the fight, weapon raised as he prepared to join it.
Loki curled his index. The shadow rose around Corvus' ankles. An ugly sound adjacent to a “what” threatened to tear from his throat, but he vanished backwards without so much as a scream, swallowed whole by the blackness at Loki's feet.
A thin lash of shadow snapped across another soldier's head. She crumpled instantly, and before her body could strike the floor, the darkness caught her. Loki drew his hand toward himself, and she disappeared soundlessly into the depths of the ruined ship.
Loki always adored shadow play. Whether it was being the best at shadow puppets as a kid, or his brother poking fun at his “over-the-top” mannerisms, it was certainly one of his favourite means of sorcery.
Loki took advantage of the distraction that the Hulk was stirring up, and employed the same tricks onto the imposing figure of “Cull”. With a bit of effort, for the large figure put up more of a fight than the others, eventually Cull went limp.
Ebony Maw's voice came quietly from behind him. “Loki.”
Loki turned his head. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
Loki glanced toward the Hulk, who had just sent Thanos crashing into another section of the ship. “Nothing at all.” He smiled. “Letting him have his fun.”
Maw's eyes narrowed. Darkness wrapped around Maw's head and slammed him against the floor. His body went limp before he could make another sound. Loki caught him with a flick of his wrist, tossing him into the darkness once more.
That should be all…
Loki exhaled.
The difficult part was done. Loki looked back, the titan was still well distracted. But he probably didn’t have a lot of time left.
He raised both hands, green light coiling like snakes around each of his fingers. One by one, figures emerged from the ground, materialising in the ruins of the ship. Perfect replicas of the men Loki had rendered unconscious. Every detail was there - the weapons, the armour, the expressions, even the minute movements of breathing. Goodness, if Frigga could see his wonderful work!
There were such advantages to being underestimated.
Thanos caught Hulk by the wrists and wrenched his arms apart with startling ease and drove his fist into Hulk's face. The force of it sent Hulk staggering. He recovered almost immediately, roaring as he swung again, to which the Titan effortlessly blocked, turning aside every strike as though Hulk were nothing more than an unruly child.
Thanos seized him and hurled him into the floor. Loki watched as the beast lay, defeated. Now, he could take initiative with his plan. Or so he fleetingly hoped, as Thor’s mighty footsteps ran far behind him, approaching. Loki couldn’t let him interfere.
Think… think!
The illusion of Ebony Maw raised his hand.
The twisted metal surrounding Thor suddenly tore itself from the wreckage. Strips of it snaked across the floor and wrapped around his arms and legs, wrenching him back down against the deck. More pieces curled around his torso, pinning him firmly in place. Thor roared and strained against the restraints, which gave a faint, shimmering green light that made a vague sense of suspicion nip against his neck like the cold of winter, but he chalked it up to a trick of the light.
Loki kept the illusion perfectly still, allowing the metal to continue tightening around Thor as though Maw's telekinesis alone held it there. He gave a mockingly sharp “shh”.
“Allfathers... let the dark magic flow through me one last... time.”
Loki's attention snapped toward him.
The Bifrost had ignited. How cunning of him! Perhaps Heimdall was a fan after all, such a bold move was clearly inspired by Loki. Gold and impossible, the Bifrost tore through the ruined ship and seized Hulk in its light. For an instant the room was flooded with colour. Then Hulk was gone.
Thanos approached Heimdall, who was sprawled on the floor, heaving. He wore a dangerous, offended expression. If there was any time for Loki to act, it would be now.
“That was a mistake.”
Thanos moved toward Heimdall, but before he could make a move, Loki emerged once more and stepped between them.
“No!”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Loki could feel Thor's eyes upon him from behind, could almost feel the question burning into his back.
“Loki...”
“It is quite alright, brother.”
He did not look at Thor. He couldn’t. He could hardly bear to imagine the fear on his brother’s face, let alone if he had any idea of what he was about to do, what he was doing.
“You presume much,” Thanos said.
Loki's mouth twitched. “I've been told it's one of my more irritating qualities.”
Thanos came closer. Every instinct in him screamed to move. To retreat. To run. To hide in his brother’s shadow as he frees him from the restraints, and saves his brother, who is, in his head, a foolish damsel in distress, trying on the ill-fitting shoes of a hero. It felt so wrong to Loki, this whole predicament, Loki was never a hero. Loki was destined to fail, so he thought. Heroes were Thor's domain: bright, uncomplicated things who charged into danger because someone had to. Loki had always survived by another means. He lied. He bargained. He ran when running was sensible and stabbed when it wasn't. No matter what he did, no matter what he tossed and turned for, he would always be labeled as the villain, or worse, “subsequent”. But perhaps, just this once, it could be him.
Loki would prove himself, no matter the cost.
Behind him, Thor struggled against the restraints.
“Loki, what are you doing?”
Loki finally looked at him. There was fear in his eyes. Real fear. He could not quite hide that much, and perhaps that was for the best. A frightened Loki was a believable Loki.
Thanos studied him. “I didn't take you for the heroic kind.”
Loki's gaze remained on Thor.
Then, quietly, he pleaded, “Spare what is left of Asgard, I beg you.”
He turned back toward Thanos. “If you do so, I swear, I can be of use to you. Oh, Almighty Thanos... I, Loki, prince of Asgard...” His eyes flickered briefly toward his brother. “Odinson... the rightful king of Jotunheim, god of mischief... do hereby pledge to you... my undying fidelity.”
Thor stared at him. Loki saw the horror settle across his brother's face, and for one treacherous instant, guilt threatened to break through the carefully constructed calm. He couldn’t let that happen.
And now, for his next trick.
Magic stirred beneath his skin. Loki cast the duplicate. There was no flash, no dramatic burst of light. One moment there was a single Loki, and the next there were two, with one concealing the other half-hidden in the shadows behind him.
Thor's brow furrowed. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he could always subconsciously recognise when Loki was tampering with the playing field. The Loki before Thanos looked exactly as he always did. Perhaps, he thought, it was a foolish, fleeting hope that Loki would pull off one last trick, one last act of mischief.
Thor narrowed his eyes, now welling with tears. In his mind, he knew that Loki was a fool. Or, the Loki he was seeing. A sickly feeling crept along the walls of his heart.
He is going to die, he thought.
Loki met his gaze, attempting to write the words “trust me” across those emerald eyes of his. He hoped his brother could read it.
He slipped into a narrow crevice in the ruined hull and pressed himself into its shadows. From here, he could see almost everything without being seen himself.
This was going to take a great deal of concentration.
He closed his eyes for half a second, steadying his breathing. So many illusions to maintain… He had never used his illusions around his own duplication cast. Loki couldn’t doubt himself, though, not now.
Behind the duplicate, Loki allowed his previous illusion to emerge from the darkness behind. Ebony Maw. It should be convincing enough. Thanos acknowledged the figure behind Loki - or what he believed to be Loki, anyway - and gave an amused smile, and then a nod.
Thor's eyes widened.
“Wait-”
The illusion of Maw raised a dagger. Loki felt the magic strain as he made the duplicate react - quite frankly, Loki didn’t get stabbed a whole lot, but he hoped his performance was convincing.
For an instant, the illusion looked almost painfully real. It stared down at the dagger buried in its chest, false blood beginning to stain its clothes, its expression shifting from shock to disbelief. Its knees buckled.
Thor's face crumpled.
“No!” The cry tore out of him, raw and visceral. The sound broke something in Loki.
Thor always felt his emotions with such an, almost admirable, extremity. He knew what he was asking his brother to see, and yet knowing did nothing to lessen the guilt that twisted through him now.
Just a few more minutes, Thor.
The duplicate collapsed to the floor. From his hiding place, Loki watched his brother stare at the body.
He wanted to tell him.
Gods, he wanted to tell him.
But he could not. Not yet. Not when Thor's grief was the very thing keeping Thanos' attention elsewhere, not when a single crack in the illusion could mean the difference between Thor living and Thor dying.
Loki's chest tightened. This was cruel. There was no gentler word for it. He was making his brother mourn him while he stood only a few yards away, hidden in the darkness, listening to Thor grieve for someone who was not dead.
I'm sorry.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to remain still. Such a visceral display was the only thing he could think of that might convince the Titan completely, to make Thanos believe Loki was dead, to make him lower his guard, if only for a moment.
Just a little longer.
Thanos looked down at the fallen Loki. “Undying?” The Titan's voice was almost amused. “You should choose your words more carefully.”
Thor struggled harder against his restraints, his eyes fixed upon his brother's apparently lifeless body.
The duplicate lay motionless, slumped across the rubble. The real Loki, however, was all the more mobile, slithering amongst the darkness. Ahead of him, the illusion of the Tesseract still rested where he had left it.
The illusion of Ebony Maw approached and carefully lifted it from the floor. Loki perched himself nearby, still obscured by the darkness, bracing himself behind the great, purple titan.
“My humble personage... bows before your grandeur. No other being has ever had the might, nay the nobility, to wield not one, but two Infinity Stones. The universe lies within your grasp.”
Loki almost smiled. Even as an illusion, Maw remained insufferable, Loki had perfectly replicated his pathetic attention-seeking displays.
Thanos reached for the Tesseract, his enormous fingers closing around the blue cube.
They passed straight through it.
Green light began to peel away at the figure, unravelling Ebony Maw and the Tesseract into wisps of magic until both vanished entirely. Ah, he had been cheated.
Loki erupted from the darkness behind him, sudden as a striking serpent. The dagger flashed once, comparable to a scorpion's tail, and drove itself deep in Thanos' neck.
The Titan froze.
For one strange moment, Loki remained pressed close behind him, watching the realisation spread across Thanos' face. He had been cheated.
Thanos staggered. His hand rose instinctively toward the wound, the Infinity Gauntlet humming as blood spilled between his fingers. He attempted to close his fist, but Loki twisted the blade, prying it through the titan’s neck such that he carved through blood vessels that he believed Thanos would be far too inhuman - far too monstrous - to possibly have, and tore it free.
Thanos swayed. Then, at last, the great Titan collapsed heavily to the floor.
“No resurrections this time.” Loki stood over the fallen Titan, breathing hard. The dagger hung loosely in his hand, still wet with blood.
Frigga would be so, so proud.
Thor was still bound to the floor. He wore an expression that mixed every emotion under the sun, a sick amalgamation. Loki flicked his wrist, and the metal restraints sprang apart and clattered across the deck. This was going to be a jolly good conversation!
Thor lurched upright, dragging himself to his feet. His eyes went immediately to Loki. He looked as though he wanted to speak.
“How did you...”
“Brother, I-”
“Was that necessary?!”
Loki blinked. Yeah, definitely “jolly”... This was going to be fun…
“By the Nine Realms, whatever kind of cruel trick was that?!” Thor strode toward him, still unsteady on his feet, but too angry to care. “How many times must I watch you die, only for you to prance back to me as though none of it happened?! Do you enjoy watching me writhe in my grief every time you fake your death?”
“Brother, I-”
“You risked your life!” The words echoed through the ruined chamber. Loki stared at him hard.
“Am I not accustomed to doing so?” he said, quieter now. “How much of the universe would have perished if I hadn't taken this risk?” He gestured toward Thanos. Then, with a flick of both hands, he dispelled the remaining illusions. The Black Order vanished. "You're angry with me? Do you not consider how I feel whenever you mindlessly throw yourself into battle?"
“And you thought I would simply watch you die and be grateful when you came back?” Thor reprimanded.
Loki's expression hardened. “I thought you would understand.” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “I apologise that I couldn't come up with a more comfortable manner of executing the tyrant! I understand fully well that there were a million other ways I could’ve handled that, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to think!”
“I understand that you are an idiot.”
Loki opened his mouth, but whatever retort he had prepared died at the back of his throat.
Thor stepped forward and pulled him into an embrace.
For several seconds, Loki simply stood there, arms hanging uselessly at his sides. The warmth of his brother was almost startling after the cold of the ship, after the heat of Thanos' gauntlet, after the carefully maintained illusion of his own death.
Slowly, uncertainly, Loki's arms came up around Thor, who only held him tighter.
“If it weren't against my better judgement, I would throw you off this ship.”
Loki let out a quiet breath that might almost have been a laugh.
“You would miss me.”
Thor's grip tightened.
“Immensely.”
The two of them made their way across the ruined deck toward Heimdall. He had collapsed against the remnants of the ship, one hand braced against the metal simply to keep himself upright. The golden glow of the Bifrost had faded, leaving him pale and visibly exhausted.
“We need to get to Midgard. Banner will be there by now, I imagine, and knowing him, he's probably already convinced himself that the sky is falling and that the end of the universe is imminent. He has no idea that we've defeated the tyrant, nor that the threat has passed. They have sufficient healing, as we-”
Loki interrupted, “And how, precisely, do you propose we get there?” He gestured toward Heimdall. “Look at him, brother. He has scarcely the strength to remain standing.”
“I…” Heimdall tried, his voice came out little more than a rasp. “I can-”
“He has already opened the Bifrost once,” Loki interrupted, gentler than his words suggested. “You saw how that exhausted him. I rather doubt asking him to tear another passage through the realms will improve his condition.”
Thor frowned.
“Then we shall find another way.”
“Oh, splendid.” Loki spread his hands, surveying the wreckage around them. “And where, pray tell, do you intend to find another means of crossing the galaxy aboard a vessel that has just been invaded, nearly destroyed, and is currently drifting through the void?” He gestured grandly toward the empty expanse beyond the broken hull. “Perhaps we shall simply wait here. I am certain some benevolent starship will happen along at precisely the right moment, having heard our cries of distress and decided to rescue us.”
Thor looked around. “A distress signal was sent out when the Asgardians fled aboard the escape pods. Someone must have received it.”
Loki raised an eyebrow. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Because the vastness of space is positively teeming with noble guardians, all eagerly patrolling the cosmos in search of unfortunate Asgardians in need of assistance. Such terribly wishful thinking, brother!”
“We will think of something.”
“Your confidence is inspiring.”
A voice drifted across the ruined ship.
“Y'know, you're not supposed to send distress signals across the galaxy for family dramas.”
Both brothers turned.
A small silhouette stood framed in the opening of the ship, blocking out the distant stars. It was impossibly short for what sounded like an ordinary human, and terribly furry, And, unless Loki's eyes had suddenly become entirely unreliable, it appeared to be a raccoon. Thor bit back a laugh and nudged Loki’s shoulder, hard, who scoffed and turned to lift Heimdall.
The creature looked between them, weirdly smug for a rodent. Was he… holding a gun?
“You guys need a ride?”