Loki, the Undying

Rated: T

Summary: [Set immediately after Infinity War, Spoilers inside.] After his encounter with Thanos, Loki is found adrift in space. After finding that he is too late to attempt to help Thor save the universe, he is determined to find out the fate of his brother. After all, Loki is still the God of Mischief, and he may have a few, albeit drastic, tricks up his sleeve.

000

Loki sat on a chair near the widow is Cass's room, his long fingers intertwined with one another as he waited for the woman to return. He had contemplated jumping her in the dark again and threatening her, but he assumed he wouldn't be able to get away with that trick twice. He was sure his thought was correct as she opened the door and walked in—he could see that she had a small knife in hand, though she was trying to subtly hide it from view.

"From what I understand," she said airily with a wave of her free hand, "most people would surprise a woman in her room with a fine drink—not weapons. I suppose I should appreciate the gesture regardless?"

Loki's lips pressed together in a thin line as his hands tightened, fighting the urge to lash out at the woman. He had indeed littered her bed with weapons—the Asgardian weapons he had found in her vehicle.

"You thought to sell off the last of Asgardian culture? Did you think I would not notice that you had them stashed away? Tell me, did you strip them from the corpses yourself, or did you have your companions do it for you, before you killed them?"

Cass rolled her eyes, her own expression turning to one of annoyance. "Please, Loki, don't act so offended. I've picked many battlefields clean, taking those that I've wanted, for a very long time. Your Asgardians were no different."

Before Loki could give it another thought, he was suddenly across the room, his body teleporting himself in front of her instantly. However in that brief moment, she raised her small, needle night knife to his neck—and he a summoned dagger to her abdomen. "I may be forced to work with you for now, but I swear to you, I will find a way to kill you—and when I do, you'll stay in Death quite permanently."

Cass's mouth twitched slightly. "You swear? You've made quite a few vows you haven't been able to keep, haven't you Loki? Your threat seems rather empty."

"I'll make good on this one."

"I rather hope that you do." Cass lowered her weapon and took a step back.

Loki stared at her for a moment, contemplating burying his blade into her stomach anyhow, just to relieve his anger. Ultimately he decided against it. It would not do to turn to bloodshed. If he did, there may be the chance in the future that he could not control himself—and control, in his opinion, is what he really needed the most right now. He stepped back as well, but continued staring down at Cass, his eyes flashing with the emotions he felt.

"Now, if you will, gather up your toys and leave my room. I've had a terribly exhausting day dealing with Stark. I just want to go to bed."

With a wave of his hands, the weapons that Loki had spread about disappeared, returning to the pocket dimension he often kept his valuables in. He would not admit it, but he was quite tired as well. Using so much magic in such a short amount of time had exhausted him. He needed to sleep as well. Cass side stepped to let him through the door.

Loki kept his head held high while he exited and walked down the hallway, but once he was in his room, his shoulders dropped and he swayed. He barely managed to sit down on his bed before the room started spinning. He put his head in his hand and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain his bearings. Kylepo meowed from across the room and then jumped on the bed, rubbing against Loki.

"I just need a moment," he sighed, and the cat acquiesced, sitting down and pressing himself against Loki's back.

The room felt incredibly warm, signaling that his Jotun powers starting to show through once more. Loki exhaled deeply and sat straight, setting about to stripping out of his clothes for the night. He just needed a good night of sleep, and he would be back to normal in the morning.

000

"There's a new pod in my ship."

"Your ship? I thought you stole it."

"I salvaged it," Nebula replied dryly, staring at Cass from the corner of her eye. "You don't get to go making changes to it."

Cass sighed loudly and crossed her arms. "And here I thought you'd be happy that I pawned my ship to resupply yours. I was just trying to be nice and here I am being made the villain again…"

"That's because anyone who voluntarily saves Reindeer Games from dying in space is definitely evil," Stark said as he walked up to the two squabbling women. "Or his brother, and you don't seem to be a god so…"

"No, I suppose I don't," Cass replied.

"You're all rather irritating, you know that?" Loki said and tested the access panel. The door to the ship opened without a problem and Kylepo jumped inside. Loki was not particularly impressed with the Milano, and it seemed like it would be quite cramped with four of them and a cat, but it was better than nothing. If it got him to Thor, then he would suffer the lowly quarters.

Cass had sold her ship to a scrapper to get an escape pod put into their ship, figuring it would be better to have one and travel together than to travel separately. Loki quietly agreed, knowing that if they had a pod on their ship when Thanos attacked, they may have had a chance to get at least some people off before the massacre.

"Feeling's mutual," Stark replied, clapping and rubbing his hands together. "So, we ready to do this?"

"Yes. Loki will wait here with the ship and have it ready for takeoff. We'll go to the lab, get in, do what we need to do, and head straight back here. We should be able to get off planet before anyone can catch us if things go bad," Nebula replied.

Loki turned sharply, his brows deeply furrowed. "Pardon, I'll do what?"

Nebula shrugged, "someone needs to watch the ship and make sure we can immediately launch. More than likely, this isn't going to end well."

"And why does it have to be me?"

Stark rolled his eyes dramatically, making Loki want to punch him in his face. "Because, Shakespeare, Cass needs to do her shapeshifting thing, I need to repair my nanobots, and Blue here wants to take my tech. You're the unnecessary one. Stay here and watch the ship with the cat thing. Can't be too hard can it?"

000

"What do you think?" Loki asked, leaning back in the captain's chair. He had his legs kicked up and very delicately resting on the control panel in front of him with his fingers laced together behind his head. "Should we just leave without them?"

Kylepo was curled up in a cubby hole a level below him. For whatever reason, there seemed to be a large number of leaves just lying about. Kylepo was content enough to gather them up and make a bed of them. At least he was making the best of a bad situation. He cracked his eye open and gave Loki a bored meow. Loki sighed and closed his eyes.

"I know. No funds, no course, no plan. It would be foolish to try to take on Thanos alone. That didn't work out very well for me the last time, after all."

Loki had been idly sitting in the ship waiting for his comrades to return. He wondered how things were going in the lab, but it had been radio silent. He assumed that if they were on the verge of being captured, they would have alerted him—then he could comfortably leave knowing that it was really in the best interest of the universe to go on without them. Until then, however, he was bored.

A bored Loki was typically not a good thing. He had already managed to comb through most of the ship where he found a set of devices he recognized from earth—music players. He had fooled around with it for a bit before he figured out how to turn it on and was promptly blasted with very loud, very bad music, in his opinion. Earth had some rather good music, he had to admit-but they were generally wordless with lovely instrumentals.

He broke the device trying to turn it off. Woops. He stuffed it in a drawer and hoped Nebula wouldn't notice. He figured it was from the ship's previous owners anyhow.

The living quarters were terribly small which made him a bit anxious over the coming trip. He liked his space—he didn't like people touching him. There were only two bunks to sleep in, which meant that they would be sleeping in shifts, which, really, was reasonable. If he was fortunate, he could pair up with Nebula's shift, that way wasn't stuck with someone he either wanted to tear out their throat, or someone who wanted to tear out his throat. He certainly didn't trust Stark not to try to murder him in his sleep.

Just as Loki was considering playing with the wiring to change the voice of the autopilot program, there was sound coming through the ship's speakers.

"Get ready for immediate take off," came Nebula's voice.

Loki pressed the communications button to respond. "We haven't put in a request for take off. Shall I do that?"

"No time. We were caught. Going to have to do an unauthorized lift-off."

He couldn't help but crack a small smile. Things had, apparently, gone more or less how he had expected them. Loki hurried to buckle himself into the captain's chair and pulled up the local navigation screen. Though it had taken him a few hours to figure out the controls, he was pleased to find that the ship was very similar in design to others he had piloted.

Though the engines were running, Loki made it a point to keep them a minimum output so that he wouldn't draw too much attention to himself. It took nearly fifteen minutes before his crew came running on board, hurrying to close the door behind them.

Stark ran on first, looking more or less the same as ever—but his suit was now repairing itself, which was good because he had a cut on his forehead which looked like he had been thrown against something. Cass was on next, wearing a bloody and partially burned lab coat. She was missing a very large chunk of flesh from her left forearm—he could see her bone. Cass muttered something under her breath, and he noticed once again that he couldn't understand her, much to his confusion. He couldn't think of a known language that he didn't know… but then he supposed if he knew an unknown language then it wouldn't be unknown and then…

Loki sighed and shook the thought from his head.

Nebula's shoulder was damaged, but Loki could see that it was working to repair itself, very similarly to Stark's suit. Loki supposed that it meant that their endeavors had been successful, at least until a point. The group hurried to strap into seats as the ship was hit with a few blasts, probably from handheld weapons.

"You not have clearance for takeoff," said a voice over their intercom. "I repeat, you do not have clearance for takeoff."

"We'll just turn this off, yes?" Loki said and flipped the communication line to closed.

"Get us out of here, Horns, we're gonna be bombarded any minute now," said Stark lowly, adjusting himself in his seat.

Loki rolled his eyes but grabbed hold of the thrusters. "Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts, this certainly won't be smooth." He switched into flight mode and pulled back, quickly sending the ship lurching forward with increased engine output. He wouldn't be surprised if he took out a few of their would-be attackers in doing so. Woops again.

It took him a few seconds to become accustomed to the controls, but they were in the air within moments and then heading upwards to leave the atmosphere. Just as they were exiting, a ship left in pursuit.

"Let's see what sort of power this ship has," Loki said with a smirk and kicked up the output one more notched. The ship went rocketing forward, practically leaving the other ship behind in the dust. "It might be a bit cramped, but I think I'll quite like this ship."

Nebula groaned. "That's great, now prep for a jump and let's get out of this dingy quadrant."

"With pleasure," Loki replied his smirk widening.

It had taken him some time, but he finally managed to get off the planet. He smiled in satisfaction as he was surrounded by the stars once more. He had feared that they may have been an unwelcomed sight, after his last experience. Yet he found relieved-comforted even.

He had a ship, he had a crew, and he had funds. Now, he just needed a solid plan. Things were starting to come along nicely—for once.

000

Author's Notes: Um… Ehehe… Hi, guys! So…. this chapter has been written for about six months (or more). But I didn't have the next one done so I didn't post it. My goal was to try to always have two chapters ready to go. I just… Lost inspiration. Things have been crazy in my life, and I know that isn't a good excuse. Things may not be getting better either. But, the new Avengers trailer dropped today, and I figured… Maybe a few chapters as a Christmas present? Apparently there are still readers out there.

Friendly reminder that I don't have a Beta reader and may miss some mistakes!

Thank you to all of my readers! TigerInTheMoonlight, ZeroNoGame, AndurilofTolkien, Zephyr169, Rowanoak, Whirlwind421, microscope, SummerMistedDragon, Fan Girl 666, Kate 3, and Guests!

MirandaStonelight: there may be some Loki/Cass moments-but it's more like "damnit, we're the only one of our kinds, I really hate you, but hey, let's get drunk!" Or, something like that. If I get to the ending… well, hopefully a lot will fit together, haha!

xXCinderzXx: It's been so long since I watched Ragnorok that I need to put some good thought into the Bruce/Loki/Tony reunion!

MidnightLokilover: I swear I wrote this whole chapter before I saw your review about wanting to stab Cass!

: Peter's. I know it's cliche but that's the one I bawled at. Also, Groot. But you're right, the fact that Sam was alone was particularly sad.

Natalie Rushman: I'm glad you like Cass in the "I really love to hate you" kind of way! Female OCs are always hard because people generally don't want to give them a chance, but I swear she serves a VERY IMPORTANT ROLE. (Beyond the fact that it's hard for people to hate Loki when there's someone even more unlikable around, haha!)

AliciaRoseFantasy: Despite how it may seem, Tony has NOT forgiven Loki and their history will likely be a point of contention for the rest of the story. However when you feel very small in space… The deeds on Earth seem very far away ;) Thank you for your lovely review!

Here's to hoping I have another chapter soon.

Ever Your Servant,

A.F.