Spoiler Warning: this story contains spoilers from Thor II: The Dark World
Disclaimer: Of course, I do not own some of the certain pieces of dialogue in this, which are probably very recognisable from scenes in Marvel's The Dark World. (Please also excuse the fact that the plotline in the last part of this story places Jane aside).
I just realised that a lot of spoiler warnings sound a little like the allergen warnings on food packages.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this.
The nightfall had wrapped its gentle peace around the world as Asgard's queen minded her two sons playing in the warm lighting of the fireplace.
Other women occupied the chamber, and their chatter saturated the room with a light hum. It soon gave way to cooing as the golden-haired toddler draped his vivid red blanket around his shoulders like an over-sized cape, arms stretched in front of him as he tore around pretending to fly.
The younger boy watched, enthralled, with brightened green eyes under locks of dark hair. He cautiously pushed himself to his feet, and tried to follow his brother on stumbling legs. His tiny hand reached out to grasp a fistful of the makeshift superhero prop during the older toddler's third lap around the room.
"No, Loki, you're going to ruin it!" The gold-haired boy hastened to tug the fabric out of the younger one's grip. His hand now empty, a faint crease drew Loki's brows together, and his bottom lip shifted into a pout as he continued gazing up earnestly at his brother.
"Please, Tor." Loki had yet to add the 'h' in his sibling's name.
Thor feigned a huge sigh of exasperation, blue eyes rolling to show Loki how displeasing the interruption was. "Fine." Flinging his cape over his shoulder and out of his way, Thor picked up his little brother and placed him upon their mother's knee-high stack of reading tomes. Elated at having a role in this game, Loki swung his feet from atop the book stack patiently, waiting for an explanation.
"I'm the hero, so you have to let me save you from the monsters, okay, Brother?"
Frigga couldn't repress a grin as she watched them. Thor proceeded to enact extravagant feats of rescue, brandishing illusory weapons while Loki laughed from his new post. Occasionally, Loki would urgently point a slight finger at the foes lurking behind Thor's back.
After a while, Frigga crouched, smiling, next to their warm, firelight-bathed world.
"I think your brother wants a turn too, Thor." She noticed Loki trying to catch Thor's attention, which was engaged in a scuffle between half-a-dozen monsters.
When the last adversary had been crushed, Thor looked at Loki, who asked tentatively, "Can I be like you?" He pointed at the red blanket swathing his brother.
Thor tugged at his cape. "You can't be a hero too, Brother."
The pair of green eyes widened, and Loki's bottom lip shifted out of a small pout to form a soft word:
"Why?"
"You're just too little." Thor dashed over to the pile of books to lift the smaller boy back onto the floor. "But that's okay, because I'm here to save you anyway, see?"
Loki took a handful of his brother's scarlet cape, but like he was holding someone's hand. His eyes widened again, but in alarm, and he motioned over Thor's shoulder at an opponent they had missed. Thor loosed a battle cry, whirling to smash the imaginary challenger across the chamber.
He grinned at Loki, who smiled back happily and said, "Can save you too. Can be a hero, like you."
But Thor just shook his head indulgently.
Asgard's massive throne room looked coldly unchanged since Loki had last seen it. The heavy manacles around his throat and thin wrists clinked to the rhythm of his footfalls down the length of the chamber. Home sweet home, he thought, without humour. Despite its colossal size and gold-gilded extravagance, the hall was almost empty, and felt hollow. Like a long-abandoned ghost town, or the rib cage of a dead Frost beast. Or, during that trial, the heart of the king sitting at the front of the room as Loki approached.
He nearly tried persuading himself he was a child again, and was on his way to a meaningless admonishment from Odin for a mild scrape of mischief. The prosecution of a fallen god was as bittersweet an amalgam of sentiment as he thought it would be. Sweet, as Loki heard his mother's voice for the first time in many battle-torn months. Sour, as he stomached the expected broken disappointment she radiated from her station by her husband. As Odin's words had begun resounding, there air between them thickened with bitterness.
"…Wherever you go, there is war, ruin… and death." The three accusations fell from the high throne to Loki's feet as if he were their only heir. He ached to toss them back up to pelt Odin full in the face.
"I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god." Loki saw the flicker in Odin's lone eye. "…Just like you."
The Allfather's patience for this prisoner had long ago frayed, Loki knew. He was unsurprised when Odin eventually pronounced, "You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeons."
Loki would have almost looked forward to hearing the inevitable judgment, just so he could leave the Allfather's presence. But he had to hear one last thing.
"And what of Thor? You'll make that witless oaf King while I rot in chains?"
Odin regarded him coolly. "Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done. He will bring order to the Nine Realms. Then, yes."Several pairs of steeled hands clamped down on Loki's shoulders to drag him away. "He will be King."
Strive to undo the damage the other has done, he thought wryly. Why, I am very like Thor after all.
Thor could practically feel the searing pain himself in his own chest; the agony he could see that was ripping itself deeply into his brother's insides as he watched Loki falling the ground.
As it unavoidably were, Loki was the one with the hole pierced through him, and it was Thor dropping to his knees beside him. Thor was trying to contain his horror, disbelief, long enough so he could form words of some kind of comfort. He could feel the anguish tearing at his face, his heart, and a thick lump rising in his throat, as he hovered despairingly over the thin, shaking body. But Loki appeared almost serene in comparison. Though trying to steady his shallow breathing, and staring past his companion with distrait eyes, there would always be a deeper pain beyond the physical that overwhelmed all others.
The skies of Svartalfheim were bleak, greying. The cold winds were so harsh someone cruel must have sharpened them. The worlds felt now so immense, so malevolent, that not even the Thunder God felt big enough to make any difference if Loki were not there fighting alongside him.
The threat of eternal darkness was still looming over them. The enemy was still yet to be hunted down. But how could Thor care about that now, with Loki struggling for breath, unable to stand beside him, so they could continue charging together into the fray?
…Flinging his blanket over his shoulder and out of his way, Thor picked up his little brother and placed him upon their mother's knee-high stack of reading tomes…
Thor tossed his red cape out of the way, getting annoyed when it snagged on his armour, and gingerly lifted Loki slightly so his younger brother could push himself off the ground. Partly staggering, with the wind howling across the desolate battleground, they reached a ridge of grey rock nearby. Thor – Tor, Loki had yet to add the 'h' – held Loki's shoulders to stop him from collapsing, and carefully sat them both down, both leaning against it.
…the golden-haired toddler draped his vivid red blanket around his shoulders like an over-sized cape…
Thor swathed his red cape – vivid red blanket – around the two of them gently, and Loki painfully, tiredly, half-slumped against his side. His slender hands tremoured, and neither of them seemed able to look at the bloody wound torn into his chest. His unsteady, agonised breathing felt more terrible to listen to than the harsh wind. Still, Loki spoke.
"I– I'm sorry, I'm so sorry– "
Thor tucked the red cape – blanket – around Loki more tightly, and looked at his younger brother's earnest, grieving expression. In it, he saw the Bifrost nearly tearing Jotunheim apart. He saw that blazing war on Midgard. He saw their mother.
But he could not bear to hear that guilt now, of all the sentimentalities to share in that moment. Thor vowed that the guilt, grief, regret would not be the last things Loki would live through.
"No, no, just…" Thor couldn't find the right words to meet his brother's. Instead, he said almost imploringly, "… just stay with me, okay?"
How could the worlds still be turning, how could Yggdrasil still be growing, when was it not obvious Thor needed them to wait? Could they not see that his little brother needed respite, that Loki was struggling to breathe, with his heart now more battle-scarred than all of Asgard, that they both needed the worlds to wait for just a moment, please please please, because Loki needed help, and Thor could not be expected to save nor rule the worlds when his little brother was –
"Oaf, now it's your turn to save me, remember?" Loki's voice sounded devastatingly weak, but Thor saw his smile, which was gently mocking. He couldn't decide if it made it worse to see his brother trying to lighten the sorrow, but there was a small trace of gladness in seeing him really smile.
The skies looked as if they were darkening, and the winds were growing colder and harsher. Surely this was the end of all things. Loki here, hunched in agony and blanketed in a red cape of his own blood while Thor could only watch in nameless, frozen horror. And let the choking, burning tears well up and spill over.
…Loki motioned over Thor's shoulder at an opponent they had missed. Thor loosed a battle cry, whirling to smash the imaginary challenger across the chamber.
He grinned at Loki, who smiled back happily and said, "Can save you too. Can be a hero, like you."
Loki committing treason with Thor to smuggle Jane and the Aether out of Asgard… Loki racing across the barren plains of Svartalfheim to get to Thor and the monstrous Kursed, wielding a Dark Elf's sword… Loki driving the blade through the creature's heart with all his rage…
"…You are." Thor's voice cracked in all the wrong places. Loki looked up at him inquiringly, with shadowed green eyes. "A hero," Thor continued. "Mother would be very proud of you. Even Father might be."
Loki hesitantly touched the hem of their red cape, and his smile appeared less broken. "Like you?"
"As proud of you as of me." Thor affirmed. He nodded resolutely, and the wind wailed.
"No, Brother, are you proud of me too?" Tentativeness in the question was nearly imperceptible. It could have just been a shy child tapping a sleeping grownup's shoulder.
Thor managed to pull his mouth into a smile, painfully. "Months earlier, I would have had to search greatly to find a reason to be so."
He held Loki to his side protectively, like their mother used to do so to both of them when they were hurt. Warm tears began silently falling again.
"But now, yes, yes, of course."
Loki nodded softly, and Thor saw the glint of a tear that was not his own fall between them. The cold was creeping across the gloomy plains, so he held Loki closer and heard him say, "I never thought I really would be like you."
"Oh, I guess we are alike after all. We both started a war." Thor said.
"And both tried to stop each other from doing so." Loki finished.
He continued, "You tried to save me, I tried to save you."
"You must be a hero too, then, if they call me one. You're just like me."
"Just like you." Loki smiled again at the thought.
Then his eyes began to close gently, and Thor thought the worlds really were ending. He tried to make his mind race to store that shade of green in timeless memory. It would not be lost when Loki's eyes would no longer open.
"I'll– I'll tell Father what you've done here today," Thor promised resolutely. The unbearable grief was shaking more tears from him, and shaking his body with silent sobs. Surely it has torn his heart inside out by now.
Loki could now barely hold his head up, and Thor bowed his own. Thor heard his little brother say something, so quietly he was afraid the winds would steal the words away too soon:
"I didn't do it for him"
I hope you liked it. Thank you very much for reading :)