I'm working on the next chapter of "Interventionism," but in the meantime, have a canon-compliant Loki lives fic.

It had been several tedious weeks since the Statesman left the floating wreckage of Asgard behind, and it would be many more before it arrived at Midgard. For now, everyone on board was looking forward to reaching the jump point to Vanaheim. Lady Sif was there, where "Odin" had stationed her for the past two years, and Heimdall had contacted her to give her time to prepare for their arrival. Thor was especially eager to be reunited with her after learning of the deaths of the Warriors Three. The ship was to spend a few days resupplying before continuing on. Quite a few aboard had family on that realm—all told, there were likely more Aesir and part-Aesir living among the Vanir than had escaped Asgard alive, and nearly as many living with the Ljosalfar on Alfheim. Asgard was not gone, only scattered.

If Loki had his way, they would remain on Vanaheim indefinitely. He had no intention of returning to a backwater planet where various governments and that upstart sorcerer would undoubtedly want to take him prisoner, not when he had regained much of the goodwill of his own people by coming to their rescue. Surely it would be easier to secure sanctuary from their longtime allies and equals than from mortals who, thanks to him, quite reasonably might expect trouble from them. It was a conversation he needed to have with Thor, and soon. For the moment, though, he was having far too much fun.

"Another, Prince Loki, another!" Half a dozen small, eager faces looked up at him.

"If you insist," he said, feigning exasperation. Still sitting cross-legged on the floor of the mess hall, he waved his fingers to conjure new illusions. His magic had always made him more popular with the children of Asgard than with the older generations, and that had not changed. He often preferred it that way. Children were creatures of chaos and mischief, like him. Most adults were dreadfully dull in comparison.

He began telling them another tale using his illusions, and they watched with wide eyes. He could feel a different pair of eyes on him, though, and he glanced around to find Brunnhilde watching him curiously from the table in the far corner. For a fraction of a second, he could've sworn she was smiling over her bottle, but as soon as he met her gaze, her expression flattened and she walked out of the room.

The momentary distraction meant that Loki lost the opportunity to beat a hasty retreat when the Hulk lumbered into the mess through the starboard entrance. He had been very careful to avoid placing himself within smashing range of the Hulk for the entire journey so far, and now he was convinced he would pay for letting his guard down. But the great green beast only sat down behind the cluster of children, eyes fixed on the dancing images. Loki nervously carried on with his tale, and the Hulk laughed and clapped along with the children in a way that was remarkably reminiscent of a happy toddler.

Eventually, the parents or caretakers of each child came to collect them and that portion of the mess hall cleared, leaving Loki alone with the Hulk. Well, he wasn't just going to sit there like a mouse waiting to be pounced on by a cat. He got up and retrieved some of the tasteless, nutrient-enriched protein that comprised most of the rations in the ship's stores, then sat down at a table to eat it. Hulk had still not moved.

"Not that I'm not appreciative," said Loki after swallowing the first bite. "But for my own peace of mind, I must ask. Why is it that you haven't attempted to fling me into any walls or out the airlock yet? You haven't grown fond of me, have you?"

"Hulk not fond of puny god," Hulk scoffed, casually swatting Loki over the back of his head, which sent him smacking face-first into the table. He gritted his teeth and sat up straight again. "Hulk not smash because Thor like puny god. Angry girl like puny god."

"Wha—angry girl?" said Loki, so bewildered that it came out more of a squawk. He forcibly recovered his composure, glad that only the stupidest passenger on the ship was within earshot. "Wh-what makes you say that?"

"Angry girl only sleep, train with Hulk, and drink with puny god. If Hulk smash, it make angry girl sad." With that, Hulk grabbed a fistful of the protein packets and stomped back out the way he came, leaving Loki to his shock.

No. Surely he was mistaken. Yes, Brunnhilde had been doing a lot of drinking in his company and tended to pop up nearby whenever he wasn't in his cramped quarters, but that was because Thor had set her to keep an eye on him. Neither she nor Thor had told him so, but he wasn't a fool. She couldn't be doing it by choice. He frowned. Unless he'd been wrong. But that was absurd. Why would she spend time with him on purpose? All they ever did was snipe at each other, often involving daggers. Just because he had a lot of fun doing it didn't mean she felt the same. To act on his steadily growing attraction or even make it known would be suicidal, and he didn't currently hate himself enough for that.

She had told him her name, though. Possibly only him, because Thor had been confused when Loki had referred to her by it.

He pushed that thought aside. The last Valkyrie was stunningly beautiful even passed out drunk, she was the pinnacle of the Asgardian warrior ideal in battle, and she could have her pick of any unspoken for man, woman, or alien aboard this ship—his brother included. Why would she waste her time on the Jotun impostor prince who had a habit of betraying those closest to him?

Not that he'd felt any particular inclination towards treachery of late. At the very least, he should've wanted to plot a way to get back at Thor for his trick with the obedience disk on Sakaar, but watching Thor with his shorn hair and his one eye brooding over how to build a new start for his people...he didn't have the heart for it. Perhaps that would change once they weren't all jammed into this metal container anymore.

He finished eating and left the mess. Life aboard the ship operated in shifts. There weren't enough bunks to go around, so they rotated using them every eight hours. This made it easier for whichever two-thirds were awake at any given time to use the rest of the space for other activities, and it gave the illusion that they weren't straining the ship's capacity to the breaking point. Right now, they were approaching a shift change, so there were a lot of families (or, more often, fragments of families) sitting huddled together in the corridors, waiting to regain access to their quarters.

Loki found Brunnhilde on the deck that had been designated for combat training (because of course a ship full of Aesir would consider that a necessity, even after Hela had slaughtered almost every last one of their trained warriors), and his breath caught in his chest. She had a corner of the room to herself, where she was moving smoothly through sword forms with her Dragonfang. He wouldn't have believed it possible for someone to fight with the raw brutality of his brother while maintaining any semblance of gracefulness, but she walked that line with ease, and it was mesmerising to behold.

Her focus appeared to be absolute, and he doubted she'd noticed him yet. He watched her for a moment, analyzing her patterns of movement. Then, while she faced the other way, he walked to place himself where this form appeared to be heading. She came to a halt with the blade of her sword resting against his throat and smirked.

He grinned and held his hands up.

"Something I can help you with, Lackey?"

"You seem in need of a sparring partner," he said.

"Oh, and you think you're up to the challenge?"

"Challenge is what makes it fun."

"Then I hope you're quicker on your feet than you were on Sakaar." She threw the Dragonfang aside, where it stuck several inches into the wall, then whipped out two daggers and began at once. He conjured his own daggers and spun away to avoid taking hers through his shoulder and eye.

And so they danced. Sometimes she drove hard and fast, a berserker's gleam in her eye, sometimes she smiled and twirled like she was made of liquid. Without using illusions, it took all his concentration to keep pace with her. Neither of them held back, but it wasn't a fight to the death, so when their daggers, punches, and kicks made contact, the damage was deliberately minimal.

The longer they sparred, the more she seemed to enjoy herself. "I haven't seen you on this deck before," she observed after he parried another strike. "What brought you here?"

"Curiosity," said Loki, panting slightly. He went to catch her ankle with his, but she sidestepped. "With you showing up in my general vicinity so often, people are starting to get the wrong idea."

"Oh yeah?" She lunged, and he blocked. "And what's the right idea?"

"That my brother ordered you to tail me around the ship and report back on what I'm up to."

Something behind her eyes went cold. "Is that what you've decided I've been doing?" Suddenly the lightheartedness went out of her movements, and within seconds, she had swept his feet out from under him and slammed him to the floor hard enough to wind him. She crouched down so that her face was close to his. "Then I'm sorry I've disturbed you, your highness." She stabbed one of her daggers into the shoulder of his leathers and into the floor beneath, slicing more deeply into his skin than any of her other attacks along the way, then got up and stalked off. He wrenched the dagger free and followed.

"Brunnhilde, wait!"

She did not slow her pace. "It it so hard to believe someone might like spending time with you?"

"Considering that I go to great lengths to ensure that they don't, yes," he retorted, while simultaneously casting a spell to muffle their voices against eavesdroppers, for there truly was little privacy to be had on this ship.

She reached a window at the end of the corridor and rounded on him, arms crossed. "Right, and that's why you put on all those storytelling sessions for a bunch of scared kids who've lost nearly everything. What a monster."

He gave an involuntary flinch at the word, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Evidently you haven't heard about my origins," he said.

"Yeah, you're a Jotun. So?"

He laughed harshly. How easily she dismissed the revelation that had shattered his entire world. "Well as a Valkyrie, you must have fought in the war."

"I did. Killed dozens of them. That's what war is. They had their orders, I had mine. It wasn't personal."

"Fine, if my birth isn't bad enough, then what of my actions? I can't imagine you haven't heard about those."

She rolled her eyes. "Your actions? Everyone else on this ship thinks I'm a damn hero just because I helped rescue them from Hela, and it's all horseshit. I failed my shieldsisters and even failed to die with them. Then I dishonored everything they stood for by running to the other end of the universe like a coward and going on a centuries-long bender during which I paid for my booze by handing people over to the Grandmaster to fight to the death. We've both done terrible things, and somehow we both ended up here."

"Hmm. Kindred spirits, are we?"

In an instant, she had a dagger on his throat again. "If you're mocking me—"

"No," he said, and he meant it. "It's just something of a novel concept." Perhaps it was what had drawn him to her as well. Asgard had broken her like it had broken him, they had both done their best to sever ties with it, and yet neither of them could bring themselves to abandon it.

She lowered the dagger and scuffed the toe of one boot against the floor. "Well I'm not spying on you for Thor. You could keep being an ass about it or you could let it be a good thing."

He smirked. "My dear Brunnhilde," he said, catching one of her hands in his and lifting it to his lips, "whatever makes you think I can't do both?"

X

When he found Thor on the bridge a few minutes later, it was difficult to keep a pleased smirk off his face. Heimdall wasn't there, and neither were the Hulk or that walking boulder, so this might be his best chance to broach the subject of their destination.

Thor noticed him and smiled, then went back to looking out the window. That simple, familiar acknowledgement made him ache. He might not deserve forgiveness for all that he'd done, but perhaps Thor was fool enough to give it to him anyway. The bone-crushing hug he'd given him after he first arrived on the ship had certainly indicated it, as had his behavior towards him since. He felt a twinge of guilt for assuming Thor had set a tail on him. Could they truly go back to being brothers who loved each other? He could admit to himself now that he wanted that. He might never have realized it if it hadn't been for the elevator ride on Sakaar, and still he'd immediately betrayed Thor again—or tried to. He'd intended to provoke Thor to anger, to prove he still could, but Thor had seen right through him, and the awareness that he might've finally done enough to make Thor give up on him for good had sent him scrambling back to Asgard with this ship.

He joined Thor in front of the wide window. "Do you really think it's a good idea to go back to Earth?" he said.

"Yes, of course!" said Thor lightly. "The people of Earth love me. I'm very popular."

"Let me rephrase that. Do you really think it's a good idea to bring me back to Earth?"

"Probably not, to be honest. But I wouldn't worry, Brother. I feel like everything's going to work out fine."

Within seconds of those words leaving his mouth, their view of the cosmos was blotted out by a massive ship.

Hulk makes a pretty good wingman, doesn't he?

Loki and Valkyrie are the most prickly people I think I've ever written, so their scene was fascinating to write. Considering that we've never seen Loki being overtly flirtatious at all with anyone in any of the movies (and I don't think we've even seen him being attracted to anyone, with the possible exception of Valkyrie), it's kind of my headcanon that he's very bad at it. He hates himself, which makes the idea of someone liking him baffling, so instead of being charming, he feels like he has to dissect their motives and find out what they're really up to. Silly Loki.

Next up, we'll be dealing with what happened between the mid-credits scene and the beginning of IW.