Author's Note: SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK! :) Like guys, I'm not kidding, you will know things.
Thank you guys for trying this! Hopefully we can find healing in this together. :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Pairings: Tony/Pepper, Clint/Laura, Peter Quill/Gamora, and some Thor/Jane (my OTP shall live on! =D)
Summary: Thor failed. He failed his family, his people, his friends, and drinking solves nothing. When the Avengers arrive to initiate their plan, they find a much different Thor. One who's only willing to agree on one condition: When they get the Tesseract, it will be on the Statesmen, and Thor will bring back Loki with him.
Rated for: Some violence, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, some gore/possible injuries, mentions of past torture, mentions of Odin's A+ (sarcastically) parenting, depressive thoughts, and paranoia on my part. If further warnings are needed, they'll be posted at the top of the chapters. :) No slash, no smut, no non-con, no incest—nothing else inappropriate. Language is all K.
For your information, this story is cross-posted on Archive Of Our Own under the pen name of "GalaxyThreads".
Just a personal note, if you could refrain from using cussing/strong language if you comment (no offense to how you speak! Promise! =) It just makes me uncomfortable) I would greatly appreciate that. ;)
"I know that I let you down, didn't I?"
-Imagine Dragons "I Bet My Life".
Chapter One:
The head.
He was supposed to go for the head. (Why on Helheim did he—?) It would fix everything. Vengeance for Loki would be met, his dead soldiers could sleep in peace. It would solve all the problems. That was that. Simple. If he'd just had bloody better aim, he would have fixed it right at the beginning of this mess, at the start with Wakanda and Thanos's stupid snap and his awful aim.
Stormbreaker is not Mjolnir.
Thor has been using a blunted weapon for years before got the stupid axe. If he'd had Mjolnir (if Hela hadn't destroyed it along with the beginning of everything else) then he would have gone for the head. Bashed Thanos's ugly purple skull in and not felt a hint of guilt. Thanos killed his brother. Thanos killed his—
Why did he want to make Thanos suffer? To make him feel his death like Thanos had made him feel his? (Yes. He's breathing. His heart beats, but everything alive in him died when Loki's neck sna—why does he have to keep thinking of that Norn's twice cursed word?).
Everything is numb.
It hurts.
How can he hurt and feel nothing?
Steve drags him away from the stupid spot that Thanos disappeared from, and tries to talk to him, but Thor doesn't hear a word of it. His eye is twitching. Not his normal eye. The one that Hela took. Does he need the clarification? He only has one eye. Oh, Norns, he as one eye and his planet is destroyed, and Brunnhilde took point and fled with everyone else, and Heimdall, and Loki is dead—
He feels sick.
Failed. Failed. Failed. Failed. Failed—
He throws up all over the forest floor, digs his fist into Stormbreaker's handle, and screams. A long guttural howl from somewhere hollow inside him. Somewhere that is still sharp with the sting of failure, and not numb with the realization of how much he's lost. (Lose. What more can I lose. Lose. Lose. Lose. Lose. Lose. Loki. Lose. Loki).
"Thor," it's Steve's voice, but Thor isn't focused on him. He knows that the captain is trying to calm him, but he can't pay attention to it. All he can hear is his ragged screams.
The head.
He was supposed to go for the head.
He has fought enemies for hundreds of years, and he didn't go for the bloody head. The vendetta didn't matter that much. He's the reason that trillions are now dead, he's the reason that they've lost so much, (Loki died for him. Loki—).
His voice gives out before the anxiety and sickness in him do.
Everything just feels so wretchedly wrong.
Steve swears sharply, and he can hear Natasha's voice now (and can't you just get it together? They don't need to comfort you, you—). She's speaking just as rapidly, and Steve says something about shock before her hand slams against his face. His head whips to the left, and he bites at his tongue to withhold the surprised cry that threatens to escape him.
His hearing returns with full force, and he blinks several times (stupid eye, it's rubbing against the back of his skull, and Thor prefers the stupid eye-patch over this cursed thing) before he can see the assassin properly. Her lips are pressed together with aggravation and concern, but her eyes are settled against him.
Steve is watching him, too, and Rhodes.
Thor bites at his tongue sharply, suddenly aware how stupid he's being. (The head, he was supposed to go for the stupid head, and he didn't—)
"Thor," Steve says the word quietly, softly, as if Thor is something fragile.
Thor's fingers fist.
He wants to hit something.
No, he wants to kill something.
Thanos. Took. Everything.
He wants to rip Thanos's heart (if he has one) from his chest and squeeze. Make him bleed out slowly, make him bleed because—stop. No. He doesn't want to think about that. Stop—(He popped Loki's blood vessels. His little brother. Blood was pooling in his eyes and down his mouth it—). Prevent Thanos from gaining any passage to Valhalla. Without a soul you can't enter, and if he rips out the heart then Thanos can't—
No.
Don't be stupid.
The head. He has to go for the head when he finds him. He will. He'll kill Thanos properly this time. Kill him dead. Dead and dead and dead and—(His mother is dead. His father is dead. Heimdall is dead. Asgard is dead. Hela is dead. Loki is—)
"Thor," Natasha's voice again, and she grabs his shoulders, "look at me."
He doesn't want to.
He doesn't want to see how ashamed she is of him.
Why didn't he go for the stupid head!?
"Thor Bor Buri—look me in the eyes, you moron!" Natasha commands, and backhands him again. Thor's teeth dig deeper into his gums, but he lifts his eyes (ha, there's only one. One. One. Like him. One member of his family. One of Asgard's blood left. One of—). Natasha's green-blue eyes are wide, and Thor can't quite place from what. Shock, maybe.
"Alright," Natasha says, some relief slipping into her stance, she rubs at his arms, "alright. Breathe, okay? We're okay. We're okay."
No, it's not.
(The head, why didn't he—?)
"Thor," Steve avers and kneels next to him (when did Thor land on his knees? The forest is hard beneath him). Steve's mouth opens, but he doesn't seem able to put any words together. Nothing strings poetically in Thor's mind, either.
They failed.
After everything they lost; they failed.
000o000
Thor doesn't say a word for following weeks. Every time he tries, a strangled noise accompanies it, and nothing proper comes out. He doesn't breathe a word of this to the other Avengers (Tony is gone. Taken to space with the spider and the second-rate magician, and it stings because he was supposed to save, him, too). Everything familiar Thor knew is missing. Especially here.
The team is incomplete, and it shows. He failed them. If he'd made it here sooner, if he hadn't been so stupidly bent on getting Stormbreaker, then Tony might still be close enough for them to find. Thor might have been able to at least save him because so far all he's done is get people killed.
Dead.
He gets them killed dead.
He's managed to put together from brief spits of conversation over the next weeks from Thanos's departure that the Avengers had a dispute in a parking lot somewhere over some sort of agreement (peace treaty, Thor doesn't know, and doesn't really care) and the frazzled bits of it come spitting out violently.
He's never seen Rhodes yell at anyone until word of Tony's possible death is brought up again, and he's screaming at Steve for being such an idiot and only leaving a stupid letter instead of apologizing in person.
Steve takes it wordlessly, but there's pain in his eyes.
Bruce is quiet, far to quiet, but Thor can't ask him what's wrong because his voice has stopped working. Loki was always the silvertongue (was, not is) in his family, and Thor has always been the bumbling fool.
The head.
Why couldn't he have gone for the stupid—!?
He overhears a discussion between Natasha and Bruce as he attempts to cook dinner for everyone (their meals have been scattered, far and few in-between, and Thor knows that the hunger pangs are going to eat them inside out. He's a terrible cook, and was always teased mercilessly by Sif—dead—about poison. Loki once remarked that he wouldn't need to brew anything to kill anyone when Thor could create death on a plate with ease. He can't cook well, but he knows it's importance. No one else is doing it), and from what he pieces together, Bruce lost Hulk in the...when Thanos did his thing. "Two halves of one whole" he'd said quietly, "perfectly balanced in half now".
He'd nearly dropped the fork he was using to cut at the celery. (It's stupid, he knows, but he can't hold a knife without thinking of Loki and how stupid his brother is for going after Thanos with something barely above a toothpick). Half and half. The snap. A perfect reminder of his failure.
The head.
Why didn't he go for the stupid head!?
Apparently the shock of having the green beast removed from him is vast. Thor can imagine so. Bruce has had someone else living in his head for more than a decade and to be truly free, to have him absent must be jarring.
Thor attempts to serve the dinner, but no one really tries to eat it, including himself. They've gathered at the table, sitting in silence, and playing with the food as they try to avoid the topic.
No one says a word.
Thor picks up the meal and tries to remember why he bothered to try.
His clothing from his brief stays here still fits, but the room is barren of anything else personal. Thor hardly spent time at the Avengers compound, ever since Tony moved them upstate, Thor was to busy with Asgard and trying to find the Infinity Stones (if he had just found the stupid things this would all be over. Thanos would have never won and he wouldn't have missed the stupid head) that he never spent much time here.
There's the blanket that Jane bought him when they still lived in Avengers Tower, but he buries it in the closet because he can't bare to think about it. The wound is still fresh and painful. He loved Jane. It wasn't a mutual dumping, despite what he'd sniffed to keep Loki from digging at it. Jane was taken in the snap, along with Erik, and Darcy.
He can't even try to apologize for the mess he made of their relationship.
She's dead.
Like most everyone else.
Because he missed the stupid head.
He doesn't sleep much, and when he does drift off he finds himself back at the Statesmen watching Loki die over and over and over again until he wakes up gasping, Heimdall's final cries lingering in his head like a melody.
He doubts that anyone sleeps much, he can see it in the hollow faces at the shadows growing deeper under their eyes. Natasha finds some sort of device left by Director Fury, but it pings out a few days later, and then suddenly Captain Mar'vel has arrived.
Carol is...she's a bit of a snot, to be honest, but Thor doesn't interact with her much. He still can't talk, like a useless mute, and he doubts that anyone would stand in defense of him. Carol would pick him dry in anger, and he knows that she already blames the death of Fury on him.
He doesn't see why not.
The head. Why didn't he go for the stupid head!?
Twenty one days after Thanos, Carol manages to find and bring Tony home. Another Guardian is with him, Nebula, he thinks, and Rocket clings to her for the rest of the evening as Tony passes out and then she reveals that she knows where Thanos is and Thor's stomach settles with a burned fury.
Finally. A chance to make things right. To settle them as they should be.
They'll get the stupid Infinity Stones and fix all of this. No one will have to know of how terribly he failed.
But Thanos doesn't have them. "...The last of the energy to destroy them, and it nearly killed me."
Thor wants to strangle him. How dare he!? He is not God, he does not have the right to do this to them, he doesn't have the right to claim this much life and not let them take it back. This is not fair! This is not how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to fix this with a snap of their fingers and bring everyone back.
(Everyone except Loki. Except Asgard. Because they died not at the Stone's hand, but another's.)
Bruce's punch is enough to jerk Thanos back a little, but he hardly seems to care. He turns his attention to Nebula and begins to speak to her of admiration and love that Thor feels sick at. A creature like him—a monster—does not have the capacity for love. Murder is not love.
He doesn't realize what he's doing until Thanos's head is rolling on the floor at their feet. The blood stains Stormbreaker's blade.
"What did you just do!?" Someone cries out behind him.
Thor only feels numb.
Numb, sharp, and still so angry.
"I went for the head," he says, but his voice is slurred with emptiness. The hollowness that he has felt following him like a shadow for weeks now. And he—wait. He spoke. For the first time in days and he spoke.
He opens his mouth to say more, but the strangling monster wraps around his vocal cords again and nothing comes out. He turns back to the Avengers, helpless, but none of them seem to realize his dilemma. Rocket is staring at Thanos with wide eyes, Steve, Rhodes, Bruce, and Natasha are openingly gaping, as if they didn't believe Thor capable of doing what he did.
And—it's faint, but Thor had Loki for a brother (had, not has) and knows subtle body language somewhat—anger. Fury. Natasha's gaze lifts from Thanos as Nebula slowly closes the eyes of her father's corpse to him and he can see her lip curl a bit.
He didn't do it right again. He never does. (Thor, my son, that form is not correct, don't leave these grounds until you've perfected it, Thor you can't honestly expect that this will fix anything, my prince you failed this assignment again, you can't learn this language right, you're always messing this up, it's about causing Ragnarok, the Tesseract or your brother's head, only wanted an equal, you're such an idiot, oaf, you can't defeat me, you need a tutor, Loki is well advanced beyond you, all you're good at is battle, in my youth I courted war, Thor, this isn't working out for us, I can't do a long distance relationship anymore, you—)
Natasha looks like she wants to hit him, be reigns herself with control. Bruce has no such problems. He slams his hand against Thor's face, "You idiot! He could have had some way to fix this!" He cries.
Thor stares at him, opening his mouth to object, but that stupid thief has not returned his voice.
"How could you do this!? You just ruined everything!" Bruce roars. Thor rears back from him slightly.
Bruce's hand rises again, but Rhodes grabs it, "Bruce, enough."
"Enough!?" Bruce cries, "Thanos had to have had a backup plan. He'd have to keep snapping his fingers to leave the universe balanced—he had to have a backup plan!"
"There wasn't one," Nebula says and rises to her feet slowly. Thor's hands tighten around Stormbreaker, but the handle is unfamiliar to him. Dead. Tree gave his arm for it, but it's so cold. "This was it."
"You don't know that!" Bruce argues, "He—"
"I know what my father was planning!" Nebula snaps, her robotic hand clenches and she storms forward towards Bruce as Rocket attempts to calm her with rushed words that are ignored. "I lived every day for eighteen years with the plan written into my body. I spent my childhood learning of perfect balance and why genocide was perfectly acceptable. I was surrounded by it on all sides—you don't know him like I do!"
Bruce's stare is heated, and Thor realizes for the first time why the Hulk reacted so violently only to Bruce's rage. Bruce, in of himself, is not a calm person. The anger stemmed from somewhere, and Thor can see it now in Bruce's pale fists and his tight jaw.
Nebula stares at him, hard, and then relents a little when it's clear Bruce has no words for her.
Bruce turns to him, and Thor feels something in his chest tighten with pain and wariness at how furious he is, "You should have let him live. He knew the most about Infinity Stones between all of us and he could have told us where they were or some way to get them back!"
He's going to choke on this anxiety.
"Bruce," Steve says softly.
"No!" Bruce whirls, "Tell me that it isn't his fault! Tell me! If he had just aimed for Thanos's arm or his head none of this would have happened!"
He's going to be sick again.
His chest seizes as no one speaks his defense. The blame is pinned on him, and there is no reason for it to be anywhere else. What he did—Why didn't he just go for the head in the first place!? Loki, even with his stupid pointy toothpick, went for the head!
Thor heaves out a sharp breath, and feels his tongue tangle in his throat.
They blame him for this. (Why are you so shocked? It isn't blame if it's truth. All you do is make mistakes, you ignorant fool).
"Alright," Steve says quietly, drawing them back, "that's enough. Are we done here?"
Thor refuses to meet his teamm—the Avengers stare, and glances towards Thanos's dismantled corpse again. He hopes it rots. He hopes that he suffers for what he did. What he stole. Thanos is a thief, a thief of life, but a thief nonetheless.
He stole Loki—no. He doesn't want to think about that. Not now. He's haunted by the image every time he closes his eyes. He's not going to think about that.
He went for the head.
And made this so much worse.
000o000
The flight back to Earth is silent, and they arrive on the grounds of the Avengers Compound to Tony waiting for them, and Steve barely manages to explain their failure. Tony listens wordlessly, and then he barely makes it through civil greetings before he's shouting: "What were you thinking!? You could have made this worse!"
"How?" Natasha challenges, "Tony, tell me how. Everyone is already dead. What more could he have done?"
Thor bites at his lip sharply, trying to quell the sharp pang of guilt as it slams into him again. His fault. His fault, his fault!
Tony's hands fist, "This isn't some sort of game, Nat, he could have killed all of you, or it could have been some sort of trap, or he could have snapped his fingers again—"
"There weren't any Infinity Stones," Rhodes counters, "Tones, calm down."
"I am calm!"
"Tony, I'm sorry," Steve says. His tone is one pleading for approval, "But we did the best we could."
Tony's lips are pursed together, and Thor can see that he's trying, and failing, to hide emotion. Tony's jaw clenches and he shakes his head. "It wasn't enough. You didn't get my ki—" Tony's voice breaks and he turns his head sharply to the side. "You didn't get my kid."
The knot grows ever tighter.
Tony had a child that he lost.
Thor is being such a selfish idiot for only thinking about himself and what he lost. If he'd just had that in mind when he went hopping up to Thanos with stupid Stormbreaker, then he wouldn't have tried to make the Titan suffer. He would have killed him cleanly, and that would have been it. Trillions wouldn't be dead.
The universe wouldn't be balanced.
Thor wouldn't have caused such a mess.
The head. Why didn't he go for the head!?
"We all lost someone," Steve starts slowly, gently, but Tony's hand slams into his face. Steve flinches back and Thor shifts, uncomfortable.
"Shut it!" Tony demands, "You don't know crap about what I'm going through, Rogers. This is...This is…" he's heaving out sharp breaths, but rather than pin that fact that it's somehow Steve's fault like he did last night, Tony turns to him. "Why didn't you go for the head, Point Break?" His voice gasping.
Thor opens his mouth, but no response slips through him.
His fault.
His.
His alone.
The weight of all these dead fall on his shoulders.
Bruce's heated stare lands on his back, "He did." He growls out lowly before he huffs and storms off towards the Compound. Tony looks confused, but mostly just hurt, open, and raw.
He shakes his head slowly, "You could have stopped all of this. Peter wouldn't—" Tony makes a little hiccuping noise before snapping his jaw shut and his fists clench at his sides.
He's going to be sick all over everything. Sick and sick and sick.
Steve shakes his head and grips Tony's shoulder, "You need to lay down." Steve's right. Thor can see that Tony's legs are struggling to hold his weight, and his hand keeps coming to rub at where Thanos gutted him. He's pale, shaky, and sweaty.
Tony fights him a bit, but eventually Rhodes manages to bully him back inside the Compound. Carol gives him another angry stare before explaining to Steve that she has other places she needs to be and shoots off into the sky.
The combined weight of everyone's frustration makes everything inside of him feel wrong.
He spends a majority of that night next to the toilet bowl, dry heaving.
000o000
It doesn't get any better from that point. Nebula and Rocket take their ship to complete the rounds that the other Guardians can't now, and the Avengers try to settle together. The absence of Clint is pointed, more so with Tony present, but the ex-assassin is impossible to locate, so they try to move on.
At least, Thor thinks they do.
His words are still few and far in between, and the grief threatens to eat him whole. Between everything that happened on Sakaar and Asgard, he never had time to properly grieve. Asgard is dead. Odin is dead. His father is dead. With no way to reach the All-Force with Asgard in pieces throughout the cosmos, he can't talk to him in visions anymore.
Thor is alone.
He tries to move on, he does, because everyone is constantly berating him for the days he simply can't do anything, and he refuses to be useless. He needs to step up his game and do something, because all he's been is a hindrance.
That stupid head.
He knows that everyone else is trying not to blame him for what happened, but it's pretty obvious that no one knows how to handle it. Thanos wasn't supposed to win. He was supposed to be defeated, and the threat avoided like so many others. Like Ultron. Like the Attack of New—no, no, he's not going think about that one.
They're the Avengers.
Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
Ha. Hero? More like "Earth's Mightiest Failures"—but no, that's wrong, because the only person who didn't do their job properly was him. Thor has always been the drag in the team, and it's only becoming more obvious to him now. It's a painful realization that despite how much he claims to have been doing better these last few years on seeing things, he was still so ignorant to what a mess he was making.
He's the culture-idiot, the one that can't speak anymore, the one who didn't go for the head.
Brunnhilde and the remaining Asgardians arrive on Midgard six months from Thanos's attack, and Thor is more than happy to switch home bases. He knows he found solstice in the Avengers before, but now he has never felt more distant. More wrong.
Trillions.
Trillions because he didn't go for the head.
The Valkyrie greets him with a tight hug of relief. She's, and most others, haggardly thin, and Thor realizes that they didn't have nearly enough provisions to last them the journey here. None of the Grandmaster's ships had a hyperdrive, so they couldn't use the jump points. The Grandmaster's ships all have technology from at least four centuries ago, which is more of a claim to his age than anything he said.
Brunnhilde pulls back and stares him over, her frown growing. Thor has tried to pretend everything is normal, but it's been hard. He knows he hasn't eaten nearly enough, and he's trying to grow his hair out again, but all it's done so far is flop around the top of his head looking stupid.
She tilts her head a little.
Thor attempts to open his mouth to say something, but the now familiar strangling feeling of his vocal cords being stuck is present. He snaps his jaw shut and flicks his gaze across his citizens, taking in their tired appearances. His. The thought is horrifying. How can anyone trust him with life after the great bout of stupidity he had. Loki was right. He is not ready for the throne.
Even now.
It's been six years since his failed coronation, but it feels like centuries.
And he is still unprepared.
How—
Why didn't he just go for the stupid head?
Brunnhilde rests a hand on his shoulder and her lips thin, "Where's Lackey?"
A physical pain shoots through his chest, wrapping around his heart and tugging. It's severing. Painful. Thor stares at her, and now the words won't escape with grief. Loki is dead. Loki has been dead for six months now, and Thor could not even burn his body. Thanos took that from him, too.
A little strangled noise escapes him.
Brunnhilde's eyes widen and moisten a little, "Oh, Thor," she whispers and she releases a quiet breath, resting her forehead against his as tears begin to wet his cheeks. It's stupid, because he shouldn't grieve, because this is all his fault and everyone knows that now. He didn't take the stupid head, or go for the stupid arm, he didn't stop the Infinity Stones.
Someone is bound to explain to Brunnhilde, and then she'll hate him, too.
But she's—hugging him. Again. She's hugging him and Thor's body stiffens at the touch. It has been so long since he's been privy to something this gentle. With this much understanding. Everyone else has been so angry. It's like a virus, slowly poisoning and killing them all.
"I'm so sorry," Brunnhilde whispers, "I'm so sorry."
Thor knows she won't be later, so he quietly revels in it now, even if he is ashamed of himself for doing so.
000o000
New Asgard is...good. For a little. It's a distraction. No one lifts a finger to help him when he goes to first the U.N. and then Norway pleading for land to build a new city. After a few weeks of trial and error, he manages to claim the land and dives into the projects, burying himself into helping everyone else.
He can do that.
He can be good.
The city takes a year to finish properly with only their hands, some tools, and what basic magic they have remaining. Most of the sedirmasters stayed behind on the Statesmen to help fight against Thanos, and no one except him (why did it have to be him? Anyone else would have been a better choice) walked away. Thor tries to write down as much of their history as he can, scribbling it down in a thick book so no one is forgotten, but knows that it's hopeless.
It isn't even their real history.
Not the one with his older sister.
No one explained that to him, because no one who knew it is alive, and no one else can remember her. He throws the project to the side and tries to find something, but it doesn't help.
"You're running yourself ragged," Brunnhilde tells him angrily one day after another argument between them, "get some rest before you kill yourself."
Thor scowls at her.
He's already dead.
Has been for nearly two years now.
Since Loki's neck snapped.
Since he didn't go for the head.
She leaves, as has been normal recently, fuming. Thor tries to bury himself in ale, alcohol, and anything else that will dull his mind, but all it does is make him wretchedly ill the next day and leave him with a worse hangover. He's never liked the taste of alcohol in the first place, just drank it because it was expected of him on Asgard and he eventually grew numb to the taste. But Midgard's is different and Thor hates it.
He washes the taste from his mouth dozens of times, but it sticks to his gums and makes him grimace every time he tries to breathe deeply.
He doesn't touch another bottle after that.
Korg tries to get him animated, but after enough rude gestures from Thor towards him (his tongue has never worked properly since Thanos, and he can only get a few sparse words in every few months) gets the point across fine. Korg mostly leaves him alone after that. And he's perfectly okay with that.
If Thor rots, who will mourn? All he's done is made a mess of everything. (The head. Why did he not go for the head?). Thor delves into the work, into ruling, in order to keep himself occupied with something and throws on the mantle of Asgard's King and lets Thor drown.
No one's going to miss him anyway.
000o000
The smell of the coast is exactly as Bruce remembers: rotting fish. It's not one that he's overly fond of, but he knows that it will fade with enough breaths. He's never liked the ocean. Not much. His father was a fishermen and after what happened to his mother Bruce hasn't been able to look out at the waves with fondness.
Bruce slams the car door shut and flicks his gaze towards where Rocket is standing on the other side, face clenched a little in anxiety. Bruce can't say that he feels much different. He hasn't stepped foot onto New Asgard in over three years, and, to be honest, he hasn't really seen Thor in that long either. They've been adjusting to everything.
Surviving.
But he knows it's not much of an excuse. Natasha managed to keep in contact with almost everyone for the last five years, and Thor has a cell. He presses his lips together and quietly pleads with anyone listening that this doesn't go south quickly. Or, if it could be avoided, go south at all.
Rocket exhales sharply, "Elgh, this is really a step down from a golden city."
Bruce nods and shrugs a little, moving along the dock, "I think after everything that happened at Ragnarok that they're probably just happy to have a home at all." Bruce would. He knows that he was beyond grateful after New York when Tony bullied him into going back to Stark Tower with him. It was nice to have a place to sleep that wasn't dirt or a hard cot for the first time in several years.
Rocket tilts his head a little, debating with that.
Bruce stuffs his hands into his pockets and pushes his glasses up his nose with his shoulder. The first Asgardian that Bruce recognizes, but not the first they come across, is Brunnhilde, who's untangling a fishing net from a wooden container and cursing.
Bruce's shoulders slump with relief. "Angry Girl!" He greets, and Brunnhilde's head lifts a little with recognition. He knows that the nickname is more of a private one from Hulk to the Valkyrie, but it's the first thing that comes to mind when he sees her, even if Hulk has been dead for five years.
The Valkyrie's gaze flicks to Rocket, then meets his gaze. Her hands tighten a little, "Bruce," she says calmly, "what do you want?"
Bruce's lips tilt down a little. He's kept better contact with Brunnhilde than Thor, admittedly, but she's usually a little more friendly. No, that's the not the right word because "Brunnhilde" and "friendly" shouldn't be used the same paragraph, let alone sentence.
"We're here for Thor," Rocket answers when Bruce doesn't fast enough, "you know where he is?"
"What do you want from him?" Brunnhilde counters, her voice is hard.
Bruce blinks in surprise, admittedly a little thrown by the wariness she's presenting. "We just want to talk." Bruce says, unable to help as his hands raise in surrender. They need to get this done quickly, because Natasha is already on her way to Japan to drag Clint out of whatever pit he dug for himself these last few months since he left the Compound, and they're supposed to meet at the Compound tomorrow to go over the finite details and the test run in the next twelve hours.
Brunnhilde's lips thin tightly and she points behind her towards a large building. "He's in the Assembly Hall, probably talking with his curia regis about funding for another school." Bruce nods in thanks and takes a step forward with Rocket following close behind, but Brunnhilde grabs his bicep, her eyes narrowed, "Bruce, don't mention Thanos to him, or you and I will talk."
Bruce shares a look with Rocket.
They...they can't not if they want to achieve their goal of arriving here. He knows that Brunnhilde won't let them go until they agree with her, so he nods anyway. The lie makes his hands clench, but they need Thor so they can get this done.
"We won't." Bruce fibs. Brunnhilde stares at him for a moment more, and then releases him, murmuring something under her breath in Asgard's native tongue. Bruce ignores it, concluding it's probably nothing nice, moving instead towards the indicated area.
A little under twenty minutes and a small hike (the area has a lot more hills than Bruce thought at a first glance. Honestly, he thought it was just flat grasslands. That assumption was wrong) later, Bruce and Rocket are standing in front of what Brunnhilde dubbed the Assembly Hall.
Bruce draws in a deep breath.
This is Thor.
He knows Thor.
It won't be a problem to talk to him. So why is he so nervous?
Bruce steadies himself, and studies the emotion. It...doesn't have anything to do with Thor. It's about the fact that this project...this goal might not work, and he could be dragging his friend into a death trap. Time travel is shaky, and something that's supposed to remain in fiction. The possibility of it being real...it's staggering and hard to believe.
They can fix this.
They'll make it right.
He just needs to convince Thor the same.
Rocket shoves open the doors and steps inside the building, Bruce following quietly after. The room is large, but not unlike the rest of New Asgard. It's sparsely decorated, and the rafters are visible on the ceiling as lose bulbs dangle from them. The room smells strongly of freshly cut pine, and Bruce is a little surprised by that, given that it's been at least three years since this was built.
There's three long table setup in various positions across the room, but all are empty save one. A group of what Bruce assumes are Asgardians are talking quietly and Bruce sees Thor at the head. Relief immediately washes through him.
Good.
He's here.
He and Rocket move forward. One of the women at the table is talking and as they approach, she trails off and comes to a stop, all heads turning to look at them. Bruce flicks his gaze towards Thor and his eyes widen a little, his breath catching in his chest.
Thor looks...he looks awful. His hair has grown back to his shoulders, and it's tied behind his head, but stray pieces frame his thin face and shadowed eye. Bruce knows that he lost his eye because of his sister, but the fact of it hadn't been so harsh until he sees the eye-patch. Briefly, he wonders where the electronic eye Rocket gave him went, and then decides it isn't relevant.
Thor's lacking any facial hair whatsoever, and he's dressed in a thick long sleeve that covers to the tips of his fingers. The first doctrinal instinct in him insists that Thor needs to rest, because he looks like he's going to topple over. The frontal part of his mind says it has to wait. They need Thor now, and basic necessities like sleep can come later or on the plane.
Bruce clears his throat a little awkwardly, and then realizes that he has no idea what to say. Does he ask to speak with Thor alone? He's never...never actually dealt with Thor's royal status before. There was the brief time on the Statesmen, but beyond that...nothing. Not after New York, not after Ultron, not after Malkeith tried to attack, Thor has just always been Thor, and that was that.
The other Asgardians stare at them expectantly.
Rocket climbs onto the table, "Listen scary looking Asgard people, we need to talk to Thor. Without an audience. There's a few trillion lives at stake here."
The Asgardian officials (what was it that Brunnhilde called them? Cream Ragu? No. That's dumb, and not even Asgardian) all look towards their king (king, Thor is a king) and Thor appears to hesitate before he gives a slow nod.
"We'll finish this later, I presume?" Someone asks and Thor gives another silent nod as the Asgardians rise to their feet and begin to move towards the door. When it's closed all the way, and the people emptied, Bruce takes several more steps forward so he doesn't have to speak as loudly.
Rocket walks across the table.
Thor lifts his eyes lifelessly to them and raises his eyebrows in question. Why isn't he talking to them? Bruce knows that Thor isn't one for silence. At least, from what he's seen personally.
"Listen, Thor," Bruce starts quietly, "we—uh—we think we found a way to deal with Thanos."
Thor's expression tightens, and his shoulders tense. It's then that Bruce realizes how bony Thor's fingers are. Has he been taking care of himself at all these past few years? Stop it. There are more pressing things to worry over.
Thor's gaze flicks down.
Rocket shares a glance with him, "Sparkly-Butt, we aren't joking. We really have a solution."
Thor's shoulders are so tight that it must be painful. He looks up at them, and his lips part. He swallows twice and his eye flicks towards the ceiling with irritation before he manages to get out in a croak that Bruce hardly recognizes: "No. I-I broke the solution."
What?
When?
Bruce's eyebrows meet with confusion. Rocket snorts, "Unless you somehow managed to stop time, no, you didn't."
Thor looks up at them, squinting with confusion. "W-w-what?"
Bruce gives a tight smile, "Tony figured out time travel, we're going to try and collect the stones from the past and use it to bring everyone back. Like the original plan from a few years ago."
Thor's eye is wide.
"But we need your help," Bruce admits quietly, "we're trying to get everyone together before we get them. What do you say? You in?"
Thor gives a slow shaky nod, "I-I-I won't-won't mess this one up, I swear."
Bruce frowns, and stuffs glasses up the bridge of his nose, "You didn't the first time."
Thor only grimaces in response.
000o000
The test run is a startling success, and the baseball glove that Clint managed to take back with him is waved around by Tony in enthusiasm. "It worked," he repeats as if in a daze, "it worked."
They gather in the briefing room, and Bruce slumps onto the couch beside Natasha, staring at Tony as he explains his theory about the Stones. Four of the six Stones touched Earth before Thanos even got here. Bruce had no idea. He new about the Tesseract, the Mind Stone, and the Time Stone, yes, but the Aether being the Reality Stone hadn't even clicked yet.
The Stones...they almost made this personal. They gathered here first, and then Earth was the epicenter of Thanos's mass slaughter. What time to grab them from is a mad scramble, and more ideas are tossed then actually contemplated.
"Thor, if you get the Reality Stone—" Steve starts, and Bruce sees Thor shake his head, rubbing his thumb over his opposing palm. He hasn't said anything since this whole thing began, but he didn't speak when they were on the plane.
Bruce is trying to be patient with it.
Everyone deals with grief differently, maybe this is just Thor's. (But it's been five years, and the worst sting of the death should be over now).
Steve's brow furrows a little, but he doesn't push.
More ideas are tossed before, nearly ten minutes later after they've all shifted positions before Tony sits up abruptly, "Wait. If you time it right, three of the Stones are in New York at the same time. 2012. After Loki's attack."
Yes—oh, man, that's right. Easy prey. Three Stones. That's the goldmine. If they could get all the Stones together at once that wasn't with Thanos, that would be optimal, but they can't.
Bruce's fingers snap and he nods, "Yes. The Mind Stone was in the scepter, and Strange had the Time Stone, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had the Tesseract, so—"
"No." Thor says, and all them turn towards him. Thor hasn't said a word since this began and his deep, accented voice is startling to hear after so long of quiet. Thor has shifted, a little, but hunches as their collective stare turns towards him.
Thor clears his throat and shakes his head. "No," he repeats, "I'm—I'm only going to help you if you let me collect the Tesseract—and not from 2012."
Bruce's brow meets, and he clenches his fists a little in frustration. There is convenience with this option, and Thor's stubbornness is going to waste time and energy they can't spare. Not now. Tony makes a noise in this throat. "What do you suggest, then, Point Break? We're trying not to stretch our resources here."
Thor's hands dig into the clothing at his knees, and he licks his lips twice before he answers: "Just send me."
"What?" Steve asks, his eyebrows lowering.
"Send me. Just me." Thor answers, fingers running over each other, "I can get it."
"You—?" Tony starts, sounding a little dubious.
"I know that you don't trust me to do something right," Thor says, his voice has gained a sharper edge, "but I can get the Tesseract."
There's an uncomfortable silence at that, and Bruce feels an uncomfortable guilt settle in his stomach as no one tries to fight Thor. It's not that they don't trust him, they do, he knows they do, it's just—Thor can become clouded with emotion, and if he'd just killed Thanos properly the first time, none of this crap would have happened.
They wouldn't have waded through the ashes of the dead for five years.
There wouldn't be the monument set up in New York (every State), set in the building dedicated to those lost in Loki's invasion. Thor just...it's not that they don't trust him. They...he's only making this worse, isn't he?
The tic in Nebula's jaw lessons a little, "Where is the Space Stone when you want to get it?"
Thor flinches a little, and looks towards his hands. "I-I-I...I just want…" he looks up at them, "on the Statesmen. During the attack."
Bruce nearly rears back from him. Why the heck would he choose then of all times!?
"Are you crazy?" Tony demands, shifting his weight, his voice thick with disbelief. "Thanos is literally right there at that time."
"So is Loki," Thor blurts out, and Bruce's shoulders slump a little. Oh. They silent.
No one has looks certain how to address this. How can they? Thor has always...he's always been fond of Loki in a way that none of them have understood. Not really. Loki is a murderous megalomaniacal egotistic beyond all hope. Yeah, he's heard stories of how Loki helped saved Asgard, but he didn't see it, and he's well aware that Asgard loves to stretch their tales.
He has no idea why Thor would want to see his sibling. Especially not there. From what Brunnhilde's told him, it's where Loki died. Bruce doesn't know any other details beyond that. Thor hasn't shared it with him—but still, why would Thor want to see his death again?
Steve's shaking his head, and Bruce looks up to see why. "No. I'm sorry Thor, but we can't comprise the lives to trillions just so you can get a glimpse of Loki—"
"That's not what it is." Thor's voice is low and Bruce can suddenly taste ozone in the air. He shifts back from Thor, wary. "I want to go back, and take Loki with me."
Wait.
What?
Is he crazy?
No. He can't do that. No.
The room is so still, a dropped pin could echo. Bruce's jaw clicks. No. Bruce isn't—no. Thor is being stupid—his grief is blinding him, again, and that worked so well with Thanos and—
Thor's hands wring with anxiety. "I—"
"No."
"Thor, we can't deal with him and Thanos—"
"Point Break, this is—"
"Don't—"
Thor rises to his feet, bony hands fisted. "The only way that I'm going to help you is if you let me bring my brother back with me."
Bruce bites sharply at his gums.
This is insane.
There is no way that they can consider doing this. Loki doesn't matter that much.
Silence stretches between them for nearly a minute. Steve's jaw clenches and he blows out a breath. "Fine. Fine. Thor will take the Tesseract, and the rest of us will split into three teams."
Thor visibly slumps with relief and something glimmers in his eye. Hope. Guilt settles in his stomach a little when he realizes how much Thor is relying on this. But Thor isn't the only person to have lost someone, and they have to keep that in mind.
No one tries to bring it up again, but how to get the Reality Stone/Aether is a mess. Only Thor knows what it looks like, and he's the only person who knows where it is. In Asgard's palace or otherwise.
But Thor is adamant, and no amount of fighting is going to change that.
"Fine. Thor will have to take two trips." Tony concludes. Thor doesn't look too excited over that, but doesn't fight anyone.
"We don't have enough pym particles—" Scott starts to argue.
"We'll just find some in New York or something," Tony counters, running a hand through his ragged hair "because none of us can get the stupid Aether otherwise."
They settle a little. But it isn't much.
This whole thing is stupid. Why can't Thor see that? Bringing Loki back is only causing more problems, and they need to focus on now. On the trillions lost, not just one.
Especially not him.
This is so dumb.
But nonetheless six hours and a few words from Steve later, Bruce is standing at the keyboard and typing in the coordinates. And the Avengers are gone.
Author's Note:
Next chapter: Before the end of May, probably. I'm a bit of a mess at the mo', so we'll see. :)
Please leave any thoughts/comments/suggestions you have! :)
*Note: I've got a lot of people asking "Why doesn't Thor go for an earlier time with the Tesseract and Loki?" and best explanation besides, well, plot stuff for later: Any earlier time, like 2012 or 2011 would NOT have the bond that Loki and Thor have created through the shared experiences between the first Thor and Ragnarok (ergo: Loki wouldn't care to come with him)-AND Thor is removing Loki COMPLETELY from that time line. He isn't taking him back when they're done, therefore, people would notice it and he'd eventually corrupt his time line and create a lot of problems. I'm going to say that time travel works more like it does in Harry Potter, where the events of what happened have ALREADY (sorry for so many caps, guys, there isn't italics in notes :)) happened before, so Thor taking Loki is what happened before. So yeah. He can't take Loki from a different time because Loki comes back later, (and he would know this guys, Thor isn't an idiot, his parents probably made him study space time) and the Tesseract is right there. They can put the Tesseract back, but not Loki, so yep. Hopefully that makes sense. XD =)