Who: Thor and Loki Odinson (MCU) What: Bad dreams, bad memories, and brotherly bonding. Where: Avengers Compound When: Last night Warnings: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS and our shattered souls.
Loki bolted awake in the middle of the night, his abrupt motion sending Frigga scrambling off of his chest and Einar into high alert. Wild-eyed and shaking, he ran a hand through his tousled black hair and hardly even noticed when his fingers caught on a tangle midway through. That hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have. The visions that lingered behind his eyes were only nightmares.
Though if that were the case, why did he feel convinced that Thanos stood at his back, with half of Asgard slain at the Titan’s feet?
Still trembling, Loki conjured a light and extracted himself from the knot he’d made of his sheets at some point. He turned on every electric light in the room as well for good measure, then in the rest of the house, as well as the ones that illuminated the lawn. After assuring himself that the building was empty and the property free of any unwelcome visitors, he went back to his room. Frigga had returned to bed and looked decidedly put out, curled in a tight little ball with her tail over her nose and green eyes glaring at Loki over top of it. Einar, who had trailed after Loki throughout the inspection of the grounds, circled five times in the dog bed in the corner before digging it out of the way and flopping on the floor where it had been.
Neither animal’s presence proved comforting.
Loki abruptly longed for his mother.
The queen of Asgard might yet be awake. He hadn’t bothered to check the time. It wouldn’t be the first occasion on which her youngest son had come to her at odd hours when ill thoughts and bad dreams had disturbed his rest. Only …
Only what he had seen was a future he desperately did not wish his mother to know.
Decision made, Loki dressed quickly, throwing one of the hoodies his other self had insisted he buy over his sleep tunic, and yanking on a pair of soft shoes without regard for fashion and barely any mind for utility. Soon enough he stood outside of the Avengers’ compound. He raised a hand to knock, then hesitated. He did not want the others to know why he was here. Instead, Loki cast an illusion, bringing it to life in Thor’s room.
“Brother. The door, if you would.” He’d meant to sound casual, impatient, but even through the projection, his voice came out rough and unsteady.
Thor was dreaming. He was dreaming of terrible things, losing everything. Brunnhilde off to places unknown. Heimdall, slain. Half of Asgard, dead around his feet. And lastly, his right eye felt off. Upon opening his eyes, the ceiling looked stranger-- crisper in his right eye, as if magnified. Thor raised his head and saw his brother’s form in his room.
“Loki!” he called out, forgetting his close neighbors. Pajama pants with an Iron Man design on them and no shirt was what he wore, and he had no issue jumping out of bed. He knew it was an illusion, so he rushed through the projection and to the front door.
He nearly pulled the thing of the hinges and grabbed his brother by his shoulder, pulling him in close. Thor’s chest heaved against his brother’s, searching for breath. He had seen Loki die twice before-- what if this third time stuck? Thor held onto Loki for several moments, before stepping back and letting his brother have some air. Thor’s left eye water and was red-rimmed.
“Come in, did you-- did you see it too?” He pulled his brother in by his elbow and directed him to the kitchen area, where there were barstools at a island.
It was difficult to tell which brother was more shaken. Loki almost lost his footing as Thor pulled him in. He stood there, arms loose at his side, for a long moment before he hesitantly brought them up and gripped Thor in return, just as desperately. They would make an odd sight for any passersby, one brother only half dressed and the other bundled in a mishmash of clothing as though he hoped it would conceal him from the world.
“I saw it.” Loki went along with Thor’s insistent handling, glad to have someone there who remembered, though part of him wished Thor had been spared. The path they took through the house barely registered with him, his focus instead on the solid warmth of Thor’s grip on his arm. The last Loki had seen of him in his dream …
Another time, Loki might have paced once set loose in the Avengers’ kitchen. This time, he sank onto the nearest stool. He wanted to drop his head into his arms, but he couldn’t make himself take his eyes off of Thor.
Thor sat in the stool next to Loki, long legs jutting out as he faced away from the kitchen island. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his chin there. “Was it real, Loki? Or was it this place?”
He thought of what happened, how it felt. It felt as if it actually happened, not something out of focus like a dream or illusion. The Asgardians who fell under Thanos’ hand were not Loki’s fault. Yes-- Loki did hand over an Infinity Stone. But he would have only bought them a little bit of time by lying about it.
And he wanted to save Thor. There was wetness at his eyes and he sniffled a little. “You aren’t the worst brother.”
Would it not be wonderful if what Loki and Thor had seen were only a result of this strange world? They could go on with their lives, comforted by the deception that their fates were their own. Loki wondered for an instant if he ought to give his brother that gift. No, Thor. It wasn’t real. Only a dream. Simple words, so much like those Loki had heard from his family as a child when nightmares drove him from his bed.
The lie died on his tongue, and he said, “Yes, Thor. It was real.”
All of that terror, all of that loss … Not even the sons of Odin had been able to stand against it. What chance did the rest of the universe have? Loki had hoped to be able to escape the Titan, somehow, but the new memories that had settled in his head made him wonder if that hope had been foolish all along. Why hadn’t he been given a vision of Thanos’s defeat and reality’s salvation if he possessed the skill to save anyone?
Loki laid his hand on Thor’s forearm. He had no excuses he could give for the Tesseract just now. Oddly enough, some of his new recollections were blurred, as though he’d taken a blow to the head and couldn’t quite remember what he’d been doing beforehand. “I am sorry, Brother.”
Thor reached up and brushed his fingers over his right eyelid. “Look, look in there. What is that?” He knew he lost that eye when Ragnarok came, but now it felt different. He could see out of it, but it felt foreign.
He leaned away from his brother. “Don’t be sorry.” Thor attempted a small smile. “You were trying to get us out of it, the way that you do. Trickery.” He put his own hand over Loki’s on his arm. Loki always felt a little colder to the touch. Thor thought morbidly, how much colder Loki’s body would be on their ship. “We need to find Banner-- in the morning.”
“I can still be sorry that it hurt you,” Loki insisted. And sorry that it apparently hadn’t worked. Why else would Thor be in such a state? It never even occurred to Loki that the grief might be for him. What did the death of one Frost Giant matter when weighed against the whole of creation? Certainty settled in Loki’s gut like cooling lead. He remembered Thanos’s hand around his throat, the struggle for breath, spitting defiant words at the Titan, though some of the context behind it all remained muddled.
Cautiously, he raised his free hand to the side of Thor’s face and probed around the socket Hela had left in bloody ruin. The eye was the wrong color, he noted, frowning. A touch of magic, and Loki had the answer.
“It’s a prosthetic. Do you have any idea where you might have gotten it?”
It came to Thor slowly, “Rabbit gave it to me…” he trailed off and grabbed Loki’s hand near his face. “You died. Again. I can’t take a third time, brother.” He smiled softly, even if it was pained.
He released Loki’s hand. “We must stay here. But the world is in danger elsewhere. What do we do about that? What can we do?” Thor stood up and brought his and to his chin. “The morning might bring more of this-- the other Avengers, they’ll remember. And the Guardians.”
“The rabbit … ” Loki leveled a skeptical look on his brother until realization hit him. “You mean the racoon? I hope you cleaned it before you put it in.” In truth, Loki liked Rocket. The creature was a fine agent of chaos in his own fashion, clever and quick, but Loki wondered how clean any ship inhabited by the Guardians could be.
The vice settled around his throat again as Thor said the words Loki had felt rattling around inside of his own head since he’d woken so abruptly what now felt like hours and yet mere seconds ago. “I … thought I might. I wish I could offer you a promise that not all is as it seems. That I had some grand plan and it was necessary you believe me gone.” He granted Thor a tremulous smile. “Truthfully, I don’t know myself what I was thinking. There’s something … ” Loki waved a hand in the air, gesturing at some unknown. “ … I’m not sure what it is. A fog. I remember the actions, the words that were said, feelings, but not all of my thoughts are there. I do know that I didn’t want to leave you there. That I would have liked to split Thanos open myself.”
Loki dropped his hands into his lap and began to worry at his palm with his thumb. “I remember taking Father’s name again. Not being able to breathe.” He laughed, the sound bitter. “What can the Avengers do, Thor? Or the Guardians? Perhaps Strange or Gamora might have stood some chance before Thanos obtained two Infinity Stones, but I feel to see how they can stand against him now. It likely won’t be long before he discover where I hid the Reality Stone.”
Thor heard the same words from Rocket. He’d clean his eye out later, right now things needed to be sorted out. “Yes-- raccoon.”
He nodded when Loki mentioned a fog. “I don’t remember what happened, when our ship was boarded. It started with Thanos already on our ship, and the Asgardians slain.” He lowered his head and nudged Loki’s elbow with his hand. “Let’s get out of this kitchen, I want to speak to without anyone coming in. Upstairs.” He started to walk and when he heard Reality Stone-- he froze. “He found it, Loki. We lost.”
Loki promptly muttered something uncomplimentary about Tivan in a language that even the Allspeak couldn’t quite translate into English. He’d thought the stone would be safe, protected by the Collector’s greed if nothing else. That made two Infinity Stones fallen into Asgard’s hands that they had failed to protect … or perhaps three, given what Thor had said. The Mind Stone, after all, had been in their grasp as well.
Still, he rose to follow Thor. The idea of an Avenger walking in on them did not appeal. Loki expected no mercy from any of them, save Bruce, and this was a family matter. “How badly?” he asked, voice shaking, when they had reached the safety of Thor’s room.
Thor’s pace was slow, allowing him try and shake some of the sleep off him. It still lingered, with the memories. “How badly?” he asked with a self deprecating smile. “Badly, Loki. He snapped his fingers. I think many people died. I don’t know-- we’ll have to compare notes with the others.”
He came to his door and opened it, going to sit on the edge of his bed. For Loki’s benefit, there was a large comfy chair in the corner. It was almost as if Thor put it there for him.
The younger of the two brothers curled into the chair almost on instinct, drawing in his long legs and wrapping his arms around them like a frightened child. He’d often sat in Thor’s room, tucked into the most comfortable chair available, to share his troubles or his triumphs. It occured to Loki that they hadn’t spent nearly enough time together as brothers for years even before everything had gone to hell.
“Did you live?” Loki watched Thor closely, hoping that he hadn’t saved his brother only so Thanos could kill him later.
“As far as I can tell, I lived. The last thing I saw was Thanos snapping his fingers.” Thor leaned back on his hands, crossing his feet at his ankles. There was a noticeable sagging in the middle of the mattress where he sat, his Asgardian body practically killing it.
“Trade me spots, Loki. I want you to try and sleep.” He knew it was worse on Loki. Memories of death were probably harder than witnessing death. “I’ll sit here while you sleep.”
“Then at least whatever play I thought I was making wasn’t wasted. I hope you made him hurt before he used that gauntlet.” This he said with savage satisfaction at the idea of what his brother would do to the one who had harmed Asgard. Even if Thor had failed … but that didn’t bear thinking on. Loki already felt too deeply mired in the sense of life wasted, his and their people’s lives.
It wasn’t so much the dying that troubled him now. It was the knowledge that he hadn’t escaped Thanos or repaid him for what the Titan had done. Loki should have said something from the beginning. Should have allowed his brother to help him.
“I don’t know if I can sleep,” he confessed. “You know, I suppose, that I have had trouble for … years now, really. And unless I receive a miraculous download of information tomorrow that I did in fact have a plan that went beyond ‘Save Thor,’ I’m not certain I care to sleep. I’ll only see him again.”
Thor stood up and took a few steps over to where his brother sat. He pulled him up by the elbows and shoved him (gently) towards the side of the bed where the blankets were crumpled. “People usually only get them once in awhile, I don’t think you’ll get more.” Thor sounded like he was going to be all right. He could tell he was there, not anywhere near Thanos.
“Lay down, I’ll be right over here.”
And that really was all it took to get Loki to at least lie down. The sun and the moon and all the heavenly bodies might as well circle around Thor, despite his baby brother’s frequent and sometimes vicious complaints at the favor Thor enjoyed. Loki was no more immune than anyone else. He was simply more stubborn.
“Then I’ll find a spell,” Loki muttered to himself, even as he curled up on his side, not bothering to cover himself. He was still convinced this was never going to work, and he’d stay wakeful for days. “I must have had some plan. I need to remember what it was.” Thor might, if he listened carefully, recognize the tone, a warning that Loki was about to obsess on something until he drove himself to distraction.
Thor pulled the thick comforter and sheet up over his brother’s shoulder. “Don’t do this, Loki. I’ll get mother,” he threatened. Then he walked over to the edge of the bed, on the other side of Loki’s feet.
“We’re safe here. You’re safe here.” Thor closed his eyes-- knowing full well this would be dramatic, but Loki would love it-- the sound of thunder cracked close to the house. The room lit up for a single moment. “Sleep.”
The gesture made Loki smile. “Putting on a display, Brother?” But Thor was right. The storm had come to mean something new to Loki. He recalled how satisfying it had been to see his brother finally grow into his power. Earth had been good for Thor.
“Call Mother if you like, but stay here,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “I put a great deal of effort into keeping you in one piece, and just now I’d like the reminder that I was at least somewhat successful.” A brief shimmer of magic swept over him, and his boots and hoodie found their way onto the floor, the hoodie folded neatly and resting on top of the footwear.
“Good night, Brother.” And if Loki happened to fall asleep grasping onto Thor’s hand, well … there were certain privileges of being the youngest.