Who: Thor, Loki, and guest starring Tony What: PART THE SECOND: Loki gets taken to Stark tower to check in at Tony Stark's supervillain cage. Including Stark Snark, norse mythology, stripping, and Thor bringing the emotional devastation. Where: Marvel door - Empire State Building, then Stark Tower. When: Recently
Loki hissed when his hair was grabbed and stumbled up and out of the crater, biting his tongue to cut off any sounds of pain from the wrenching in his chest. He had no choice but to lean against his brother’s side if he was going to stand up, and rested there for a short moment while he regained his breath. Then he straightened, lifting his head. If he was to be paraded as a prisoner of war, he would do so with a measure of composure despite his pain. He looked across the crowd, saw wide eyed onlookers attempting to take pictures over the heads of the police pressing them back, their eyes wide and incredulous. They had seen him on their screens, and now he here was again, beaten, chained, and changed before them.
Loki took a slow breath, measuring his breathing against the cracked bones. His scarlet eyes were closed off again. Thor would never understand, never see his behavior as anything more than a ‘temper tantrum’ from a misbehaving brother who could be brought to heel as easily as a bad dog. Thor did not truly see him, as he was. He never had, and he never would. No matter what he said, in his eyes Loki would always be the lesser, always be the wayward one, the one to shake his head at and reproach for not stepping up to the table and be grateful for the scraps he was fed, the mongrel mutt in a house of lions. He did not allow it to cause him pain, even as he tried for the thousandth time to crush the flickering affection in his heart for good, dulled now to coals. It would sting less, if he could only root that out.
He would find a way out of this binding. For now, the humans could look on him with all the disgust they liked. They could only collectively pull together a shred of what he himself felt for his true visage, after all.
“Where shall we go from here?” Loki asked, as if they were simply going on a friendly journey together. “I assume you must have a place to hold me until the bifrost runs again, or one of your new comrades looks forward to housing me as a guest.” His breath entered his lungs with a slight wheeze, and an E.M.T. edged toward him, apparently interested in making sure he hadn’t punctured a lung. A glare and a lift of his lip away from those teeth startled her back, and he grinned at her, savage and pleased by her fear. Yes, he was terrible. Even the humans, dull as they were, knew a monster when they saw one.
Thor no more liked the looks that the onlookers were giving his brother than Loki himself had. The moment the manacles went on, he had become a prisoner of Asgard and it was Thor's duty to see him safely there, not to parade him in the streets like a spectacle. He did not belong to them. They had seen enough of the man that had put them in peril and Thor would not allow more.
Mjolnir came to his summons, but he had to stoop to pick up the staff that had been Loki's. If he groaned when he stood back up, his own ribs throbbing, he did his best to bite it back. Much like his brother, he glared at the EMT that came close to check, but he did not bare his teeth and the man retreated as quickly as he'd come close. Whatever had been done, he could heal from, as could Loki.
"Or I can take you back the same way I returned there," Thor countered as he took his brother by the elbow, and led him from the crowd. Flying was out of the question -- they'd done enough of that for one day and he was in no fit shape to be carrying his brother and he was fairly sure that if he tried, it would only aggravate both of their wounds.
A block away, Thor pulled his brother behind the thick pillar of a building to check on the sluggishly bleeding gash in Loki's temple. Ignoring his protests, he grabbed the edge of his own cloak, colored now with dust and asphalt that Thor did his best to shake off before pressing it to the wound. He was no healer, but they all knew basic field aid. It was a requirement when they traveled so far from Asgard and while the Bifrost could come at their request, there were some wounds that didn't require returning but still needed attention.
"If that doesn't stop, it will need stitches," Thor said quietly as he added a few more stains to his cloak without care. It still left the matter of where they were going though. Ben had run out of the apartment so fast that he'd left his phone behind as well as the journal, and his own communicator was in his quarters on Asgard. There was only one option that Thor could think of, a place that Loki already knew and so it risked no one.
When the flow of blood was staunched, or as much as Thor could do on a street corner, he took his brother by the elbow again and began leading him to Stark Tower.
It was the first time Loki had been without the scepter in quite some time, and to see it in Thor's hand just made his anger roil hotter. Mjolnir in one hand and Loki's scepter in the other - yes, Thor truly was the conqueror king, wasn't he?
Loki hadn't really thought about what it would be to face Asgardian justice. It had always been a distant possibility, but now, presented as a reality, he could think only of what sort of punishment his father - or the Allfather, rather - would bring if he were here, and what Thor would do in his absence. In the end, it was the king's prerogative to detail terms of punishment. What would come, then? What would Thor's command be? Loki stumbled after Thor, cursing once, quietly, as every step sent spikes of pain through him, but otherwise remaining silent. He returned the stares fixed on him with stares in kind.
When Thor dragged him behind the edge of a building, Loki was unsure what he meant to do. Had his brother found some faster way to Asgard, some secret path like Loki's own? No, it was simply his soft heart showing itself, his pity, dabbing at the wound on his forehead like a nursemaid. Loki wrenched his face away, the only struggle he could still show, only to be pulled back. "Thank you for educating me as to the basics of mending wounds,” he said, a little of that same thick, infuriated mirth in his voice. “I am not so inexperienced with battle that I do not understand the function of stitches, despite what you and the warriors three might think." But that was almost too much, too vulnerable, showing the open hand of his bitterness, and he diverted from the subject. "Worried what sort of impression it might make on your most beloved adopted race if they see you dragging your miscreant brother through the streets, bloodied and untended to? How kind." The words, bitten off at the ends from his dark tongue, held a sliver of something else to them, and his eyes darted away. At his heart, he knew that Thor did it out of concern, residual care, that same love that Loki could not kill, no matter how hard he tried to. But he knew the words would stir Thor, sting him, low as they were, and if he was to have his freedom and his power taken from him, left weak and bereft, he would still sting with his words. He still had his mind, and his long-whetted silver tongue.
Loki stumbled along with Thor, glancing up at the length of Stark tower as they approached. Of course. Stark would crow. Loki’s jaw set. Thor would not know the way it stung him to be seen this way, exposed for the cuckoo he had always been, the pretender to his own house, abandoned creature from a bestial line. Thor would not know, and neither would Stark, the nettles it dragged against his soul.
When Loki found a way out of these bindings - then, they would know.
The bitterness of the words was not lost on Thor. Loki's tongue could be silver and sweet or a sharpened burr depending on his moods, and who knew them better than Thor? While he was neither as crafty or as devious as Loki, there was one thing he had in spades that never failed to anger his brother: good humor. Unfortunately, taking a flying leap off a building and landing into asphalt and concrete tended to ruin that, but not entirely.
"And when was the last time you received stitches?" Thor asked him honestly as they hobbled along. His stride was not what it should have been, testament to the fact that he'd not taken that fall any easier than his brother. But he'd been successful, had he not? The manacles were on Loki, there were no deaths, and his brother's magic was safely bound. Yet it felt like a hollow victory, like a fight he hadn't truly wanted to win. That was not to say that he wanted to lose, that would have been a lie, but the cost of this victory would be steep and he had never wanted to hurt his brother as deeply as he knew that he had. As soon as Loki was freed from the bindings, his brother would be full of wrath and unmanageable.
Better that it should happen on Asgard, or even Jotunheim, where there was some possibility to keep Midgard safe than anywhere else. They would need to plan for that, but not now. Thor needed to get his brother to Asgard first, bring Loki to trial and hope that whatever punishment he could figure would be enough to bring some sanity back to his brother.
Ignoring the additional comments flowing from his brother's lips, Thor led them into the bright building. Loki had ever hated assistance from him, though Thor did not know why. Giving was an insult, sharing - a slap in the face, and Thor would have done it out of his general nature rather than to hurt his brother. It was one of the many things he did not understand, but it never stopped him from trying.
Swaying against Loki, he managed to half drag, half stumble with Loki in tow to the desk on the ground level. Only distantly did he note that nights in the tower seemed quieter, the people fewer than during the day. If only the last tower they were in could have been so fortunate. And was it his own tiredness that made him think that he was having to drag Loki a little more once they were inside the building? "I wish to see Tony Stark--" He started to say, only to have the guard behind the desk cut him off.
"He's not in --"
It was Thor that interrupted the man this time. "Call him then. Tell him that Thor, son of Odin wants to have words with him." He didn't wait for a response and didn't pay attention to the look that passed between the two guards before one finally picked up the phone to seemingly call Tony.
Silver released from the hospital some 48 hours earlier, Tony had managed to convince the creepy zen master to stop with the mid-life crisis long enough to let him through the door. Their mutual agreement now had more restrictions on maintaining physical health that Tony would probably ignore the first time he flew into battle, but for now little was required other than bed rest and the stipulation that he not strain himself too much. Tony admitted he made a slight mistake in not seeing a medical professional when he was supposed to be following up, but how was he supposed to know the scar tissue would go bad? It hadn’t looked infected. Silver had already taken a look in the mirror over his shoulder, and both he and Tony had felt slightly sick at the sight of the scar tissue that remained. Tony promised not to get melted again. Silver didn’t laugh.
The security guard woke Tony up from one of his many naps, and it didn’t take long for him to get down to the base of Stark Tower. The door couldn’t seem to decide whether to put Tony in his rooms in the Tower or the Lab, Silver preferring the former and Tony the latter, but this evening he was only a few floors up. Only minutes after Thor made his demand, the elevator chimed and Tony strolled into the Lobby in his dressing gown. It was red silk and he hadn’t bothered to put a shirt on over his black cotton pajama pants. (When your flesh is still healing you tend not to stick cotton on it.)
Tony stopped a few feet away and looked the two of them over. He squinted at Loki. “Why so blue?”
Thor, son of Odin. Loki, exhausted and pained, still didn’t bother to restrain a roll of his eyes as he watched the guards look him over and then pick up the phone to call their master to them. Thor’s ostentatious shows of ancestry and provenance were an unnecessary reminder at best, and a gloat at worst.
When Stark came at last, Loki stood straight. His hip rested subtly against the desk to support himself, but he did not lean on his brother or rest his weight heavily. The only sign of the pain it caused him was in the tightening of his jaw, and his short breaths. The jab had been expected, and he flicked it away, though his eyes burned bright with hate. “Why so wan?” he replied. “Oh, yes, I remember. Does it still sting where I bested you? Because my so-called brother is pressing my keeping off on you, Stark. You are to receive the awesome privilege of being my nursemaid.”
Thor's only response to his brother's comments was a narrow look, not unlike one looking at Loki to see if he'd grown another head. Nothing he knew of Tony suggested the man was a nurse, and he was definitely not a maid, and Thor was not foisting Loki off on the human man. Ignoring both their questions, he asked his own, "Where is it?" No need to specify what 'it' he was referring to -- he wanted a safe place to put Loki where he could search him for the daggers and throwing knives he was sure Loki still had on his person and after that, shower, eat, and very likely sleep.
He wasn't fool enough to believe that just because he'd bound Loki's magic that his brother was defenseless. They'd spent too many centuries fighting alongside one another, training together, simply living together for Thor to believe otherwise. Loki was crippled, not defeated, and the cut to his belly was a sharp reminder of that.
Tony enjoyed the sight of Loki beat to hell, and since Thor had some magic beans or beans or rocks or whatever to heal right up, he wasn’t too concerned about him. Yes, he was in a pretty good mood, thank you very much. He felt like pouring a drink to toast right there. He smiled at Loki’s response, enjoying the repartee just as he always did. “Jailer is the word you’re looking for.” To Thor he said, “This way.” He moved back the way he’d come, even lengthening his stride to get there, and punched the button. The doors slid open to admit all three, but Tony had to respond to Jarvis’ ever-pleasant voice and tell the AI to take them “down into the basement.”
The “basement” was about the size of a high school gymnasium, the structure remade from an abandoned subway tunnel. Blue-white light like that glinting from the metal piece set into Tony’s chest climbed up the walls in veins, casting a surreal illumination on a circular chamber that was transparent on all sides except floor and ceiling. To Thor, Tony said, “It’s pressure sensitive. If he moves off it, tries to phase away, or even takes up overenthusiastic ballet, Bad Things then happen, and close it off.” He didn’t elaborate. He just gestured at all the energy, which certainly wasn’t just there for show. Tony’s designs always united form and function.
Loki stepped into the elevator with his brother and Stark, his brand new captors. He was to be kept here until he could find a way out of his binding and his prison, and how long would that take? How long with the process of Asgardian justice be drawn out in his rather complex case? It might be years. He'd lived a long time, yes, but the prospect of years imprisonment still weighed heavily on him. Even on his best days, being left to his own thoughts was a torturous experience, as they spun every word he heard around and pricked him, jabbed at him, made his hurts sharper and his anger fan higher. Of course, they would think the confinement suitable, and his punishment just.
The presentation of the cage was artful, which Loki noted only distantly. He glanced over his shoulder at Stark, apparently unaffected by the sight of it. "No facilities, I notice, and a distinct lack of privacy. I am very nearly flattered. Is the intention to wear me down through embarrassment?" He spoke, but his thoughts were elsewhere, marking the construction of the room, the elevator, anything that might be used to his advantage when he made his inevitable escape. And he fixed those unnerving scarlet eyes on Tony, waiting to see if he flinched. As for Thor, it was as if he wasn't there at all. He might as well have been a puff of cloud. For all the shame and torture he had put him to, today and in all the many years before, he deserved no better esteem.
Even a puff of cloud could turn into a storm when he powered it, but Thor, either because such things regularly slid under his notice or he had simply learned through all their years together not to notice Loki's more subtle machinations, did not notice how Loki ignored him. "They have no books for you to read either, what privacy do you need?" Thor remarked, once more avoiding the slightly glowing cuffs at Loki's wrists in favor of grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him forward. Of course, Thor was used to thinking that the only reason that Loki could possibly want privacy was to bury his nose in some dusty old tome and practice his magic in peace.
Fighting one's way across the nine realms tended to remove any semblance of bodily modesty. That wasn't to say that they looked and gaped, but when there were only five of you, traveling and fighting, mending one another and bathing together, modesty soon became less of a necessity. Unless you were Loki, who guarded his privacy like a dragon with its gold. It was yet another thing that Thor never understood about his brother.
And while they were on the subject of needs -- "He will need a healer," Thor said to Tony. In all likelihood, they were both in need of healers, but Thor was willing to wait until they returned to Asgard for himself. For Loki -- he'd heard his brother wheezing earlier and with his seiðr bound, Thor wasn't sure how quickly he would heal without it.
There was very little in the cave-like room to help Loki in his mental map of the facility. Tony had been very vague about his defenses on purpose, and though the white-blue light was bright enough to see it wasn’t quite bright enough to make out the shadowed nooks and crannies above, where the eyes of tiny cameras watched every angle and computers monitored the movement of every breath. Tony was primarily concerned with Loki’s illusory abilities, and most of his systems were simply to detect if he got his magic again and started playing around with it. Such an event would cause something like a landslide. Tony had figured the main goal would simply be to slow Loki down until Thor could show up.
While Thor didn’t notice Loki’s bitter lack of attention toward his brother, Tony did. This relationship was one of the things that threatened his world, and in some ways he sensed it also protected it. He found the interaction didn’t change his feelings about Loki, but it did raise Thor in Tony’s estimation. Such people were stupid, but loving, and a world could not function without people who simply cared, and did not take notice of any small personal insults they received in turn.
Tony pretended to be surprised that Loki would need to take care of any “human” needs. “First a toilet, now a doctor? We are needy.” He was close on Loki’s other side, the very opposite of hiding behind the big blond Asgardian, and he stared into the gleaming red eyes with fascination, not fear. Tony had been a prisoner before in a place worse than this. Prisoners did not have privacy. They did not get human consideration. And yes, it did wear on a person. Sharply at first, and then slowly. Something about being treated like an animal did that. Tony stared into the bloody eyes, and then slowly moved away, toward the prison he had built.
The walls were a sensitive substance with the resolve of steel and the appearance of glass. The floor was what was really remarkable, made up of tiny pads that recorded the weight and pressure of anyone in the room. Tony had managed to build sensors that were chemical to accent the ones that were electrical, in case Loki managed to short everything in a certain area. Keeping his hands at his sides and not where they usually were wrapped around his lower back, he walked up the ramp and stepped inside. The glass walls lit up with a virtual environment, tracking the body within in blue light, and Tony depressed a few squares with his toe. Shapes made of the same substance came up out of the floor. A hard cot-like bed. A basic chair with a flat round table next to it. A round hole with a seat for the toilet. Anything that went into it vaporized. No exit there.
Tony walked out again. “We don’t have healers, but I’ll find someone willing to come down,” he told Thor. “Just shut the door once you put him in, and it will seal up.” With several tiny camera eyes following his movement and the glow of his own chest piece turning his robe scarlet over his stomach, Tony walked past Loki and back into the elevator. Ding.
Loki turned his head slightly to watch Tony walk out. What he’d needed had been inconsequential - he’d been more interested in seeing how Stark made it happen, and he noted the pads on the floor before stepping away from his brother. He moved slowly, carefully, but held his posture, biting his lip when the pain became too intense. “I wonder who he will call,” Loki said, eyes fixed on the cage as he grew closer to it, the chain quietly clinking as he moved. “And how long it will take before they begin taking pieces of my blood and bone and examining them, cutting me open to see how an Asgardian works.” He turned his head at that, levelling a smile at Thor that said he knew the lie in the phrase, and it was intentional. They didn’t know a Jotunn from an Asgardian from a Svartalfheimr. They likely thought Thor turned blue in adverse circumstances. Dissection, though, was a real possibility. “They’ll be keen, I think to see if they can make from me a way to contain you. Because, of course, you never know.” Loki stood at the door to the clear cage, and smiled. “One’s allies are only as good as their word.”
Thor didn't care how it worked, as long as itdid. Instead he focused more on his brother, the little hints of what hurt that showed in the way he moved, the bite of his lip. If they couldn't find a healer, Loki would have to be taken back sooner. Whatever crimes Loki had done, Thor was not a cruel man, and would not leave his brother to suffer. Nor would he leave him to be dissected, by anyone. "You think I would allow it?" he asked quietly, following his brother to the door. There was no doubt in his mind that while Tony had built this, that if he needed to find a way to get in and get to Loki that he absolutely would. It was one of the few truths of the universe: Thor would protect his brother, whatever came. Perhaps it made him as faithful and dumb as the dog brought to heel, but some bonds could not be broken, not even by Loki's madness.
Approaching his brother, he remained almost wary, weaving on his feet. There was still the matter of removing his armor and more importantly, the weapons inside that Thor knew were there. "You are still my brother, Loki." If it had been said once, it had been said a thousand times, and Thor would continue to say it as if he could beat it into his brother's brain by sheer will alone.
Loki tracked Thor's eyes when he asked whether he thought Thor would let that happen. There was a touch of unsurety there, but what was he looking for? Thor wasn't a liar, never had been. Just stubbornly faithful while remaining utterly ignorant. "No," he said, expression gone sober, perhaps even tired. "I do not. You still care. I give you every reason to despise me, every reason in the world, and still, you come back, and you entreat me as if nothing has changed." He backed a step into the cage, crossing through the doorway. "You can't change what's past," he said, almost pitying, with all the same bitterness. "And, if we are both honest, you and I both know that you wouldn't know what to change, even if you could."
Loki looked down at the glowing floor when Thor called him his brother, for the thousandth time. "Am I?" he asked. His voice had gone soft by now, playing that they could still talk as they once had, as if they could still confide in one another.
He reached up, opening a clasp at his chest. A piece of armor fell to the floor. Loki had always called his armaments up by magic, but the straps and belts that kept them on were mundane enough. He pulled open the belt at his waist, and the leather at his chest slipped down and open. He pulled loose the toothed clasp that held the gold belt over his stomach, and that fell as well. Piece by piece, he began removing his armor, exposing more and more blue skin. The tunic was the last to go, secured with leather laces in two pieces. It had been part of his armor in Asgard, once, but the curve of gold at the top was stained now, scarred with travel over a thousand worlds, scalded and burned by a million different stars.
When he was done, all that remained were his pants, boots, gauntlets, and the leather wrappings beneath them. The belt of daggers at his waist he held in his right hand, and he glanced up, where he imagined he was being watched, before dropping it on the floor with a dull, hollow sound. He kicked the belt, and it skidded across the floor toward Thor, coming to a stop just at his feet.
Loki began undoing the last belts on his gauntlets, removing those as well, throwing them atop the pile of armor. The lines on his face continued down his neck and over his chest in increasingly complex and angular patterns, finding their end only at the tips of his fingers, breaking for spacing that seemed almost like a code that could be read. "And now?" he asked, looking up at Thor, placing the toe of his boot on the edge of the collection of armor. He had seemed so collected, but that was fading fast. He was tired, beaten, injured, and stripped of everything that mattered. He'd only gone the last logical step. "Now would be the time to renege, you know. Your friends, I am sure, doubt your loyalties already. Go to them, tell them you have seen things anew, that you have changed your mind." Loki leaned in toward him, clasping a hand around the edge of the doorway for support, drawing breath with a heavy, pained drag. "Did they tell you? Did they tell you on Jotunheim that I am Laufey's son? I am heir to the throne of the Frost Giants. If you were a true Asgardian, and not a traitor to your people, you would kill me." His breathing became more labored as his rage intensified again, but his command, when it came, was insistent. "So kill me. No one would mourn. You have taken everything from me - I would not miss my life. Our mother would bless the act and our father would sigh, and be relieved to have such a canker in his world cut out by the golden son, the better." He struck the side of the doorway, fighting for breath but remaining upright. "Kill me. Now."
Thor had ever been one to resist commands. While few on Asgard would openly question his father and fewer still disobey him, Thor had done so until it earned him a banishment to the same planet they were on. To ignore Loki's order was easy as there had never been any desire to follow through to that step.
Instead, he stared openly at his brother, at the hateful red eyes that marked his race, the dark blue skin that he had never seen Loki wear before. His brother had taken many forms, yes, but never had Thor been given such an honest chance to look as he had now. He had never cared for how Jotunn looked before now, but there was no hate in his eyes, no desire to bring Mjolnir forth and bury it into the sharp toothed mouth of his brother. There was only a type of sorrow, not pity, but a confirmation that even if he could fix things, he had no idea where to begin.
"They told me," Thor confirms, his voice quiet like rain on the ceiling and not the pound of thunder that so often marked him. He reached out, fingers nearly shocking gold against the blue of Loki's skin and traced the lines that ran his body, and if Loki flinched, he was not paying attention as he stepped closer. His hands were still gentle as he stepped closer, hands unburned by Loki's skin, as they should not have been. Perhaps it was because he was Thor and there was something greater in him than in most Asgardians. Perhaps it was because it was Loki and there was something not entirely Jotunn inside of him. Whatever it was, Thor was gentle as one broad hand settled just above his waist and he touched his forehead to his brother's. It was a loose embrace, but an embrace all the same.
The bright gold of his hair covered both their faces, mixing with the ink black of Loki's. "You are going to bring the Twilight to us. Your children will cause Ragnarok and you gave them life," he said quietly, reciting the myths they had both been taught at Odin's knee. "Skoll will eat the sun, Hati will eat the moon, and Fenrir will break free. Jǫrmungandr will rise, the seas will boil with his poison. Our father will die in Fenrir's belly, Fenrir will die at the hands of Víðarr, and I will defeat the Midgard Serpent, take nine steps and die. You and Heimdall will kill each other and our destruction will be final," he recited, cutting the myths to their bare essence.
One hand came up, cupping the back of Loki's neck, feeling those jet black strands silky under his fingers. "All this we know, and yet Odin, nor I, nor any Asgardian will kill you yet, Loki. Our father did not leave you to die as your own father did, even knowing what would come to pass. After our twilight, paradise will come, whether we are a part of it or not." Finally, his hand moved around, almost as if he would choke Loki until he forced it up, under his jaw, making his face lift until shining bright blue met sanguine red. "Until the very end, in whatever existence is beyond this one, in the halls of Valhalla or the pits of Hel, you will ever be my brother."
Thor released him, only to press a kiss to his chill forehead. "And I will still love you." Even if called the fool for it and knowing all he knew about what Loki had already done and what would come to pass, there was something unshakeable in that very feeling. There was no madness in Thor's eyes, nothing to suggest that it was insanity that led him this way, but the absolute, crystalline knowledge that Loki was family and Thor could never do anything less than love him.
Grabbing the gauntlets and the band of knives, Thor left the rest of Loki's armaments where his brother had placed them and closed the door.
Loki did not speak. He listened. When Thor touched his skin, he did indeed flinch back. It was an invasion of his space, of the skin he so despised, and yet that all disappeared completely when Thor came close, and pressed his forehead to his.
Loki's head emptied of poisonous words and hate, and he did listen. He listened as Thor told again the stories their father had told when they were children, the stories about how Loki would bring about the end of all things. It had never been spun then as if Loki would be hated, despised, cast out. In the stories, it had seemed like the natural order of things. All things must come to an end, after all, and Thor was right. No one had ever attempted to avert disaster by killing him. Destiny, Ragnarok, it was all accepted. One day it would come, but they would not worry about that day until it came.
Now that he had been exiled, those words took on a new light. Where before it had seemed like a fairy story, it felt more and more like a prediction of fact. He could see himself locked in battle with Heimdall, see the serpent poisoning his brother with its wicked fangs. He could not see himself having children, or ever wanting to be a father. But they had lived a long time, and there was likely a long time yet to come.
And as much as he could imagine that future, that day where all he wanted was to bring Asgard to its knees, no matter the cost, from where he stood now the idea was abstract, pointless. Why destroy when he still had the opportunity to rule? The cold tendrils of doubt licked him, and he knew that there might come a day when he gave up that dream, when he tried and failed enough times that mutual destruction remained the last resort. But he believed in his own fate, in the powers he had learned himself, built for himself, the existence he had managed to carve separate from his father and his brother. He could still make his fate his own.
In the end, though, all those musings and wonderings at what would one day come fell away in the face of Thor, the warm brush of his skin met in an embrace. He still remembered those past touches of friendship and kinship, distant as they seemed now. What creature in this universe still bore affection for the lost one who would bring about the end of all things?
Thor did. Loki did not expect he would see Thor where they were going after this life, but he knew that if Thor was there, he would clap an arm around his shoulder and pull him into the revel as if all was the same as it had always been. It made him want to kill him, to stab him just to see his expression change, to walk out of this cage and never touch his magic again, to live in peace, and to destroy everything just to watch it burn and have someone speak his name without his brother's next to it. It made him - he did not know what it made him. Confused. Unable to supply an answer, or a subterfuge, an ulterior motive. Thor loved him, and he would never be able to change that, not if he burned out every speck of life across the galaxies.
Loki watched Thor go, and watched the door slide shut, locking him in his new prison. Then he walked to the cot, his hand still braced against the wall for support, and sat down on the edge. He stared at his hands.
When he had stripped his armor off and demanded Thor kill him, he had thought himself beaten. And he had been wrong.