A/N #1: Ok...I wrote this because Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War (part 1) is coming out at the end of this month and I'm frankly terrified as to who we'll be losing character/cast-wise. I have no doubt, based on the trailers, that (among others) Vision, Tony, and likely Loki and Thor will be on the chopping block, and I want to keep my Epic Norse Bros, darn it! I want Tony to be able to have one good thing in his life that he can keep, not just have it all taken away again. It worries me, and given how much stress I'm under due to schoolwork and job hunting and projects, it's not going to get better. Ugh.
So, I wrote this, because frankly I needed some form of catharsis where I can have my favourite characters survive and even thrive a little, because Marvel clearly won't let my pathetic feelings be happy for too long (it's only been a few months since we've gotten Thor 3: Ragnarok and they've already struck fear into my heart that everyone I enjoy will be horribly injured, psychologically scarred even more than usual and/or DIE). If we can't keep them alive in the MCU, you can bet your boots that the fandom community will keep them alive in stories and art!
As such, this is entirely a somewhat short symbiote AU piece that I'll be posting as a way to cope with all the likely character deaths and suffering, and (depending on time, mental health, and how any ideas I have), it's likely to be extended to a series of short pieces revolving around post Thor 3: Ragnorak life aboard the escape ship, life on Earth/Midgard since Norway is apparently the new holy land of Asgardians(?), a few glimpses in Avengers/Ex-Vengers' life and therapy, and life in general for Thor and Loki (and the symbiote) since Thor (by MCU timelines, anyway) is supposed to be more mature and more able to be a good king (it probably helps he apparently shares the responsibilities with Loki/Valkyrie/Heimdall/etc., judging by what we see in the films), and I honestly want to see how he adjusts with no Mjolnir, no parents, no home planet, and (at least temporarily, given that MCU probably will give him some kind of replacement) an eye gone too. That's a lot for anyone to absorb, much less a guy who comes from a culture that seems almost entirely unchanged until fairly recently since everyone on Asgard seems to have millennia-long lifespans. If anyone (Thor in particular) is especially OOC, please let me know, as I'm mostly versed in writing for Loki and the symbiote at this point.
A/N #2: I'm not taking specific sides on this. Civil War was visually awesome but story-wise seemed too messy to me (and my love for Tony's character gives me a bias as it is), so to keep any possible flame wars to a minimum, I'm not taking an official stance on that front. As far as I can tell, it's all hands on deck to kick Thanos's creepy crayon-coloured butt back into outer space, so...no comment. Just assume that, since this is an AU, everyone you like miraculously lives (even if probably not entirely unscathed), and everyone goes to therapy after IW for getting actual help for their minefields of assorted issues (especially Wanda, who seriously needs to understand/acknowledge actual boundaries and differing opinions, I swear, because Vision deserves better -_-'). Ok? Ok.
Also, just for future reference, the symbiote has grown fond of Peter (blame the comics for making me nostalgic, and Peter's lack of animosity towards pretty much anyone (even when they try to kill him, which doesn't seem good, so I'm glad he has Karen to keep an eye on him), from what I can tell, means he won't have an issue with Loki being around, which is a definite point in his favour and marks him officially as "We like this one, we won't eat this one!"), so definitely no Peter-death here :)
DISCLAIMER: As expected, I own nothing (save for my fanworks) of Disney, Marvel, or its associated MCU. Please do not sue and/or flag, it accomplishes nothing except to make the muses unhappy.
When Thor imagined getting his brother back, he'd dreamed of finding him broken, bloodied, perhaps with a stab to the side for not finding him sooner. In those dreams, those wishful thoughts, he'd wrap Loki in his cloak and help him walk home side by side, or perhaps thrown over his shoulder if he was being too stubborn about injuries in favour of shouting at him. In those dreams, he'd been able to wake up without wincing, because at least in those dreams Loki had lived.
The brother he knew of old (or perhaps, fooled myself that I knew, he amended ruefully) was sharp, but not to the point of cutting them both open on the sharpened teeth of their fractured relationship. The Loki that the Norns saw fit to give back to him was not the sweet, sassy younger sibling he fondly reminisced over, but a sharp-tongued, mad-eyed wildling whose terrifying shrieks of madness and death soon turned out to be far, far too true.
He'd never expected him to return so strange, so off-kilter, so feral, all sharp angles and cutting words and smiles of flashing wolf's teeth.
He'd never imagined he'd come back at all, he admitted to himself, in the dark, cold, lonely hours of twilight in his chambers in an Asgard that no longer existed, save for a sea of memories and a wandering, orphaned, hopeful people. The Void was not a kind place, after all. There was a reason no one of their people ever had come back from such a place before.
Yet here he was (here they were) at long last, reunited and with an odd, but somehow comforting truce, though the situation still could be seen from the outside as bleak and worrisome: a handful of their remaining people, crammed onto a pleasure ship-turned-overly-stuffed-shoebox, with limited supplies and more than a few prickly relationships aboard to make thoughts and stances wary. Himself, missing now mother, father, hammer, beloved mortal, and even an eye. Loki (Eitr, now, not quite only Loki anymore) standing beside him and startlingly close to heart once more, but with a brittle smirk and a wary, skittish air that spoke of old urges to run to safer pastures than the surrounding empty, dead starspace.
But they were alive. Against all odds and more than a few tangled threads in the Norns' weavings, Asgard still survived, her legacy preserved in a strong and hearty group of beings who refused to let their unfortunate planetary loss consume them. Thor had lost much, but he still had his people. He still had his brother. His brother, who for these past long and lonely years had seemed to be an impossibly long and frightening distance away. Few though the stars of his life may still be, they still gleamed, and all the more brightly for the darkness that surrounded them.
Thor had to remind himself of the good things. And if he didn't...
"We'll be ssure to remind you of when you're ssulking too pathetically, brother, do not worry about that," came the silken, mocking tones he knew better than his own breath. Thor turned, quiet relief welling up in his chest like blazing fire as he drank in, not for the first time, the sight of long, shadow-robed limbs, messy raven hair, and an achingly familiar lopsided little smirk. The air seemed to shiver like a heat mirage as Loki, eternally wrapped in the symbiote's hold (mimicking a cloak this time, one hand clutching the front closed as skinny ankles crossed into an "X" shape neatly over the bedcovers), reappeared seemingly into existence, a faint rustling of blankets the only other indication of arrival.
Without missing a beat, he seized his bedside decanter and threw the stopper; the soft, barely audible thud left the warmth in his chest pooling outwards, spreading everywhere like spilled wine. "I do not sulk, Eitr, if I do recall correctly you were the one who cried over me on the battlefield mere hours ago-"
The resultant flush of embarrassment, sudden over knife-sharp cheekbones as a protest of "We did no ssuch thing, you clearly were delussional from all the pain tonics Eir has been giving you!" was worth it, even as he quickened his muscles in age-old preparation for an imagined stabbing. The glint in those strange new eyes (not quite green, not quite rainbow-slick, but some odd fusion of the two, slowly fading as the hours pass back to the absinthe and emerald of too-short childhood) was oddly soft, a little somber, and he winced in lieu of an apology he wasn't quite sure, even after all of this, that he needed to make.
The slow, sharp rat-a-tat-tat of sharpened clawtips clinking against metal drew his gaze to the stopper cradled in the slim, vaguely shimmering palm of his younger brother and ever-curious living second skin, rolled around and around as the thin nails skittered across the surface, rapid-fire, as if trying to find pressure points.
"So you didn't, then," he conceded, though he couldn't quite help the stretching sensation of a smile threatening to break free, and not quite failing at it.
"We didn't."
"Keep telling yourself that."
"Thor."
"Eitr."
He took a moment simply to breathe in deeply, trying to take in the fact that having his brother here was indeed a good thing, and that throwing him out an airlock after just getting him home was bad.
You always did tell me my temper was too quick to ignite.
They barely had the clearance from Midgard to stay in their atmosphere, after all. It wouldn't do to have to collect his sibling from another trauma-inducing fall through nothingness and space. That would warrant a blade to the side.
Taking a seat next to him on the bed, Thor turned to consider them both: his haunted, vicious, half-mad baby brother who drove him to both constant affection and exasperation, and the shifting, slippery shroud of living darkness that had defended said baby brother both on and off the battlefield with a ferocity and vigour that would make any Asgardian wilt with envy. The many, many Chitauri corpses that had littered the ground in mangled shreds as It gleefully helped carve a path of obliteration across the landscape had been more than enough to attest to It's hair-trigger protective streak.
The Hulk had merely shrugged, muttering "Puny god not so crazy anymore, has friend, no smashing today." and bounded off after both howling, bloodied sorcerer and symbiote in a single-bodied stampede, effortlessly hurtling Chitauri soldiers through the air to knock leviathans and ships out of the sky as if shooting clay pigeons.
He had been pleasantly surprised to find such a protection extended, even if perhaps grudgingly, to him and the remaining forces of Midgard as well (at least, it extended to the Spiderling, given that the last leviathan that tried to eat the boy had found its eyes devoured by a screaming, living abyss while Loki harpooned the flying monstrosity with a dozen magically-lengthened tendrils, each clutching a spear to impale boney flesh, and then they had descended as one upon the thing, and oh, he'd never known a leviathan could scream in such agony). Several enemies, be they Chitauri foot-soldiers, leviathan flyers, the Purple Titan's own children-soldiers, or the many others among Thanos' horrific arsenal of damnation, had met their ends not only at the ends of his brother's daggers or spellwork, but by the endless, terrifying hunger of his precious, incredibly clingy sentient armor (which Stark still was a little disappointed he couldn't get agreement from to study). Asking why had only led to him being tossed out of the way of an incoming flaming leviathan by thin, black-clad hands with a shout from Loki (echoed with the symbiote's rasping lisp) to "Oh, for Norns' ssake, keep up, brother!", so he'd learned not to question a gift horse in the mouth and instead kept to using his newly-unlocked abilities to keep electrocuting anything that came too close to his brother or friends for comfort.
For the time being, he was content simply to be here, drinking in the comfort, bittersweet as it was, of the only family he had left.
Some time later, the other god's expression turned both vaguely annoyed and concerned, and Thor realised he'd likely been staring too long to be comfortable. He opened his mouth, not quite sure if he should tease or apologise, and then was startled back into silence as Loki (the eyes were green now, he needed to remember the difference), who seemed to be trying to find his words for the first time since they were small children, suddenly burst out with "We think we know how to fix your eyessight!"
He stared, utterly dumbstruck for a moment. Those sharp, ever-calculating eyes glinted with rainbow-slick for a moment, sharp and unearthly and dangerous, and yet...was that concern? "Loki, no, Eitr, no wait, brother, what...how? How? Eir told us that my eye is not salvageable, our sister's touch cursed the socket. Nothing will grow back. We even tried with the healing stones, and with Stark's...he called it the Bassinet, the Cot? That...device of one of his healer friends. It did not work either."
A lump unexpectedly rose in his throat, swollen and aching as if from illness, and he forced down the pang of loss before it overwhelmed him. "I do not doubt your magic, brother-"
I cannot doubt it, anymore. I should never have done so at all. To do so was, and still would be, quite foolish, dishonorable to you, to Mother, to all those with magic that Asgard lost.
"But your skills are in illusions and teleportation, and while I know you learned enough to keep me and our friends alive on all our adventures-" (and the mention of it reaches in somewhere deep between his ribs and aches, that sense of loss from his friends' deaths, his friends who he never said goodbye to, and whose immolation in Asgard is something that still haunts him in whether it counts as a proper funeral pyre to Valhalla, he cannot bear to think their souls would go anywhere else)
"-I don't think that even you can fix this. My eye is gone, and I need to accept that as part of life now, but perhaps I can get a prosthetic-"
"But we can give you a new one!"
The sudden burst of sound from his brother's lips startled them both; Thor barely resisted the urge to futilely reach for Mjolnir in instinctive defense, even as a skinny hand slapped itself over the younger god's mouth as if in shock, and the look on Loki's face was one that wavered between surprise and shaken nerves.
"...What?"
Loki stared at him, looking both oddly fearful and sharply defiant at once. His hands shook, once, twice, upon where he'd curled them into fists and pushed them against his knees. The reddened visage of earlier had faded to a few splotches of pale pink, akin to water washing away blood, and the semblance of a cloak had flattened out, receding to the now-familiar catsuit.
Thor watched, still more than a little amazed, as several tendrils sprouted from around the surface of thin wrists, reaching out like some strange blackened ivy, to curl affectionately around It's host's hands in an unmistakable show of support, and slowly the shaking stopped entirely. The sable appendages stubbornly kept holding on even as movement ceased, and a thumb reached out to pet the pseudo-limbs, and he suddenly felt reminded of all the times he'd stroked Mjolnir's handle to ground himself after a particularly harrowing battle.
After a moment or two of quiet, Loki spoke again, this time with the rasping lilt that Thor now knew meant his body-sharing living garment was joining in, sharing the load in a way the older god now felt a vague stab of envy for (I failed us both, haven't I? I'm sorry). "We...we know that we can't fix what happened, not fully. But we...we have been talking...and we think, perhapss, if you're amenable, we could fasshion you a new one."
A whirlwind of thoughts blew through his mind. How is this possible? Why did you not tell me earlier? Is it dangerous? Why do you look nervous?
Instead, he simply settled on, "Are you sure you want to do this? I still have time to learn how to live without one."
The smile he got was faint, more a quirk of the lips than a proper grin, but it was still true, and that, in the end, was enough.
"What, are you afraid, perhapss? This won't be nearly ass awful ass the the pain of lossing an eye." Or at least, it shouldn't be, went unsaid.
"No," he replied. "I'm not."
A thin eyebrow was raised, eyes flashing with a glint of oil-slick that flickered briefly to cover the whole iris like ink spilling across water. "And why, pray tell, iss that, brother?"
"Because I trust you."
For a brief, glorious, heartbreaking moment, Thor watched his verbally unflappable sibling stare at him, mouth agape in surprise as two sets of voices overlapped to start sputtering instinctive protests as to why that was a bad idea and why, for Allmother's sake, did he want to bring that up now, only to fall silent entirely, eyes almost comically wide as Thor reached out and wrapped his arms around Loki in a hug.
"I told you," he said quietly, one hand reaching out to cradle the back of a lean, pale neck (startling inwardly at the touch of unarmed skin, the symbiote's sudden shift in presence to expose a collar-shielded nape in a gesture he was suddenly irrationally terrified of disregarding, discarding as he'd done so often in years past), "and I shall continue to tell you as many times as you need, as many as both of you need. I know I don't have the same way with words that you do, but I should still say it, yes? I know we've had some rough years," he held them both closer, "that our difficulties aren't easily solved, that I may not always be the most attentive, but I do mean it when I trust you. You're still my brother, you'll always be my brother, and I love you. Never doubt that, understand?"
The soft, choked noise, a noise that sounded oddly like yes, that issued from where a dark head had buried itself into his shoulder was affirmation enough, as were the hands that slowly reached out to grip the back of his clothing and clutch tight enough to rend the fabric asunder beneath thin fingers. A slow, fragile shudder passed through them both as Thor relaxed into the sensation of sharp clawtips digging into his shirt, tilting himself slightly to rest his chin atop a crown of messy raven's wing hair.
Slowly, perhaps a moment or even a lifetime away, Thor grew aware that the feeling of cutting nails at his back had shifted, a single hand having moved to reach up, hovering a few inches from his eye in silent askance to continue. Blinking, he looked at the uncharacteristically soft expression in his sibling's gaze as Loki tilted his head sideways, eyes flickering to the offered hand for a split second in reminder.
Taking a deep breath, Thor nodded and opened both eyes. The sudden rush of cool recirculated air into the empty eye socket made him flinch, but he refused to back down and stop looking.
Loki placed his palm against the open, empty hollow, there was a brief moment of familiar tingling as magic numbed the surrounding tissue, and then suddenly pressure and cold and sparking slithered into the space, pouring in deeper, deeper, deeper and Thor suddenly wasn't sure this was a good idea anymore-
The world went suddenly, mercifully dark.
When he opened his eyes, he was suddenly hit by the blinding, shocking understanding that he could see.
For the first time since their wayward sister had taken his eye, he could see from both sides again. It was more than he'd ever expected to get, and the suddenness of it made him giddy, drunk with elation.
"Awake, are we?"
Thor swung his head around, but it was not hearing that guided him; he just knew.
"What...what do you...what did both of you do?" His voice felt scratched, raw, suddenly too big for his body to produce. His head swam with incoming information: the brightness of the ship ceiling lights, the scratchiness of the overly-starched bedding, the tang of ridiculously-expensive alcohol left open without the decanter stopper to close it, the spark-pop-crack of lightning under his skin itching to be freed, Loki...
No, Eitr, who sat cross-legged a foot away from him on the bed, concern in their kaleidoscopic gaze and a healing spell glimmering with forest-green and palace-gold runes in one hand. Thor blinked, taking in the familiar sight of his lanky, sharp-angled brother, but he felt more now: he could sense the secondary presence cradled deep in lean flesh, a living, sapient shroud of famine that curled contentedly around the golden core of Loki's magic like a dragon guarding its hoard.
We fixed you. You sshould thank uss, it'ss only polite.
"Loki, please tell me you can hear that."
A low, curling smile edged at the other god's mouth as realisation dawned. "Oh. Oh. Well, that'ss an interessting sside-effect. Not sso mad now, are we?"
"Oh, you're plenty mad," and here he felt for a moment like laughing, "but perhaps now I am too, if only a little. So...that is your...other half, you told me?"
At the ensuing nod, Thor sighed and, in a fit of exasperated acceptance, let himself drop back against the bedcovers, a low groan rising from his throat. "Oh, joy. Now we need to explain to Heimdall why I have part of your other half in my skull and that I can see again, and apparently hear It as well. I'll be mad king Thor before the day is out, mark my words."
A laugh, not quite gurgling hysterics but not quite the same as years ago, echoed through the room as Eitr collapsed into a neat pile of limbs next to him, a hint of old, well-loved mischief in the god's pale visage and gleaming, multicoloured gaze as a click of the fingers conjured a small hand-held mirror. "Well, look at it thiss way, Thor. You won't have to look like you're imitating the Allfather'ss fasshion ssensse."
Staring into the shining glass surface, Thor could only agree, though the stubborn sense of contentment refused to leave.
Two eyes, hale and whole, gazed back out at him, one a long-familiar blue, and its new partner, an equally-familiar green, ringed with a wire-thin but unmistakable sliver of rainbow-slick.