Thor looked around, squinting against the brightness of high noon, and tried to get his bearings. The field was the right place – big and open, with one enormous dying tree in the center, half destroyed by old lightning.

When he approached the tree, he knew at once that he'd gotten the day right too. Because from inside the tree there were panicked grunts and soft curse words – the sounds of a ten-year-old boy who had climbed in somehow and now couldn't get out. A boy whose brother had searched diligently for an hour, then decided that hide and seek wasn't that much fun after all, and gone in for lunch without him.

This close to his prize, Thor wasn't inclined to be delicate. He put a fist through the tree at once, ripped a hole with his bare hands, and smiled at the terrified peaked little face inside. "Hi there!"

"Um... hi?"

"Come on out." Thor ripped the hole wider and helped the boy emerge.

"I wasn't stuck in there."

Yes you were. You were stuck for thirty hours, and too proud to call for help. If Odin hadn't found you by magic tomorrow, you would probably have stayed until you starved.

Thor gave his best smile. "Of course not. But I just wanted to talk to you for a moment."

The boy's eyes darted a thousand places in a second. "Talk to me? Do you know who I am?"

"Mm-hm. You're Loki. Son of Odin, brother of Thor. A prince of Asgard."

Loki nodded. Chin raised. "That's right. Who are you?"

"I'm..." He took a deep breath. He had planned to tell the truth, because he'd been unable to concoct a lie that was even remotely plausible, but when the time came he felt a little silly. "I'm Thor. Your brother. From the future."

Loki blinked. Stepped back and looked him over again – more carefully this time. Then burst out laughing. "Very funny. Who are you really?"

"No, really. I really am Thor. How do you think I found you? I remember this game," he insisted, when the boy only made more incredulous faces. "You were stuck in the tree, you were stuck until tomorrow afternoon, nobody could find you until Odin got involved. What? What are you looking at?"

"You're not Thor."

"I am."

"Stop lying to me. You are not."

"I am!"

"Prove it," Loki shot suddenly. "Come here."

Thor saw the glint of knife in his hand. Where had that come from? "You want to fight me?"

"What?" Loki blinked. "Fight you? Maybe you're Thor after all; I don't know any other blonds this dumb."

Thor squinted up at the sun and tried not to strangle him. "Well there's no mistaking who you are; I don't know any other shrimps this nasty."

The boy looked, if anything, nastier.

Thor tried again. "Loki, when I was ten it was fun to pound you into the ground, but right now I'm really not in the mood. Can we have a truce?"

Loki licked his lips. "First come here and kneel down – I want to see that scar on your head."

"Oh. Why didn't you say that?" Thor let the boy shave a spot behind his ear until the old cut showed. "See?"

Loki stepped back. "All right: I believe you. You're Thor from the future. You're old and-..." He bit his lip but couldn't hide a mean Loki smile. "...And not doing much fighting these days. Fine. Why did you come here?"

"I came to fulfill a promise."

"What promise?"

"Yours. To me. You said-..." He found himself choking up a little suddenly; he tried to swallow past it. To see Loki alive again, a child again, innocent, was affecting him even more than he'd expected. "You said the sun would shine on us again. And I thought-... this was the strongest memory I had of us in the sunshine, playing here this day, and I thought-..."

Loki was frowning at him. "Did something happen to me?" he guessed. "In the future?"

Thor nodded.

"And my last words to you were... that?"

Thor nodded again.

Loki was shaking his head. "That doesn't make sense – I don't even like the sun. There's a reason we hardly ever play outdoors, Thor. It burns my skin and I hate it. Why would I want to...?"

Thor frowned. It hadn't even occurred to him that Loki's words might be more than they seemed, though in retrospect, it was in keeping with everything he knew of his brother.

"Maybe I was trying to tell you something," Loki suggested. "Some way to save me, maybe?"

The thought of Thanos, and the slaughter, was too heavy for this bright day. He shook his head. "No, it was... it was already too late. There's nothing I could have done."

"Well- but-, but you can time travel!" Loki was agitated now, bouncing. "You can go back and save me before it happens! Come on. I'd do it for you!"

"I'm not- I'm not unwilling," he sputtered. "Loki, I would do anything for you, you know that. I always would have, and I still would. I love you. Even if I wasn't always good at showing it."

Loki stilled. "I know. I'm a child, not an idiot." He stood quiet a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "So I got old too?" he asked at last. "And also...?" He sketched a belly with his hands.

"No- it's- I mean-..." Thor couldn't believe he had expected anything kinder than this. Loki had never been otherwise than mean and terrible. "I haven't been myself since our defeat, brother," he muttered. "For five years I sat and... just..."

"WHAT? I've been dead for five years and you're still just sitting there!?" He almost shrieked it.

"I haven't- I mean-..." He sighed. "Can we please just be together for a few moments? That's really what I wanted, was-"

"No! No we can't! You need to fix this right now!" The boy took a deep breath, scowled down at the ground. Thor could see his mind working. "You need to go back to where you came from," he decided, "To the future except before I am dead, when things first started to go off the rails, and find out what my plan is. Then go on to the moment where I die, and stop it. Understand?"

It doesn't work that way. But Loki was a child, and understandably agitated; there would be no reasoning with him. "Fine. All right. I'll go. Can I at least have a hug first?"

Loki made a face. "I don't know you. I don't hug people I don't know."

"Well... can I have something?"

"Like what? Oh! You can have this. A sign." The boy smiled – shy, suddenly. "I've thought about time travel," he explained, "And I wanted a way to recognize myself I ever did it, so, I have a sign. Use it when you come to me, and then I'll trust you."

So clever, even as a child. "Show me."

The boy raised a hand, two fingers in a V, and curled them. Then crossed his fists over his chest, then opened his arms to his sides violently.

One day that gesture will come with knives, Thor wanted to tell him, but instead just practiced the salute seriously until it met with the boy's approval.

Loki still wouldn't hug him in the end, nor sit and enjoy the sunshine with him, but the hope he'd offered was more than consolation. "Thank you, brother," he said at the last.

All Loki did was shoo him away. "Get going."

TBC.

Sorry, but I just can't accept IW's beginning at face value. I was really hoping something would happen in Endgame to make it make sense. Since it didn't, I'm taking it upon myself to fix. :-) I have two more parts in mind so far, but who knows where this will end up.

Let me know what you think so far!