They played rock-paper-scissors to divide up the dinner preparations. Tony was a bit concerned that Thor was one of the ones preparing since by his own admission he rarely cooked anything except things he hunted and put over a fire. And who knew if Rogers could cook anything either, especially after getting his brain put in an oil slick, but Natasha just gave that small smile of hers, and said "I've got it." And pulled them into the galley.

Tony wasn't sure an assassin was going to be any good at cooking either, but since he didn't make any of his own food more complicated than eggs, it couldn't be any worse than his. Which reminded Tony of his passenger who had his own food and was conveniently absenting himself from any possibility of chores. "JARVIS, where's Loki?"

"He is in the control room, researching the ruby, sir."

Tony nodded. "Can't hurt, I guess, though nobody knew it was special until recently, so I don't know what more he can find."

Bruce overheard the comments and added thoughtfully, "We don't even know what it is, do we? Is it a ruby at all? Where does it come from? Maybe it's not from Earth."

"If Thanos wants it, it must be from elsewhere," Sif pointed out. She was polishing her blade with slow, methodical care, rubbing a cloth down its length. Tony's gaze followed, mesmerized, and he nearly told her how hot that motion was, but held his tongue, knowing she could skewer him with that blade without breathing hard. She probably didn't need to get up from her seat, and wouldn't that be embarrassing?

To get his mind off that, he suggested, "So if it's alien, maybe it's part of a crashed alien spaceship." Tony warmed to his idea, with growing enthusiasm. "Thanos wants the ship. Or its power source. Maybe the ship's buried somewhere in the Middle East, I mean, why not, right? If you guys," he waved a hand at Sif, "are aliens, then maybe those gods were, too."

"Seriously?" Barton snorted. "That was a movie already, Tony."

Tony shrugged, not bothered by that complaint. "Feathers, you have Norse gods, a dude who was frozen for sixty years and came out looking like that," he jerked a thumb in the direction of the galley, "another dude who turns into a giant green fighting machine on this boat, and you're going to complain about the likelihood that Egyptian gods might've been aliens?"

"I'm just saying-" Barton began.

Until a voice interrupted, from the forward hatch, as Loki announced, "You are both wrong, and I have been a fool, because I should have known all along."

Tony asked, "You know what it is?"

Loki nodded, but his attention went to Sif, and then Thor as his brother emerged from the galley to listen. "You now will have the proof of my stupidity to hold over my head for all eternity. This is about the Infinity Gems."

"The ruby's another one?" Sif guessed, eyes wide.

"No, but-" Loki started until Tony interrupted.

"Back up! What the hell are you talking about?"

"Wait, the others should hear." Barton called, "Nat, Steve!"

Natasha and Steve came out, turning toward Loki when they realized he had something to announce.

Loki glanced at the window, out at the sky, hesitating, before bringing his attention back to them. "I researched the ruby, and I know what it is. And why Thanos wants it." His tone was calm now, not the outburst when he'd first come in, but after the words, he inhaled a breath. "Let me begin at the beginning, so you all might understand what we now face. A long time ago," Loki started.

He left just enough gap for Tony to interject, "In a galaxy far, far away?"

To Tony's surprise, Loki seemed to get the reference as his glare could've cut steel, and he clenched his jaw, not speaking. "If you are quite finished?"

"Sorry, keep going."

"A long time ago, before there were galaxies," Loki corrected precisely, "in the first days of the cosmos, the Celestials distilled the six primal forces of the universe into six… containers. These are known as the Infinity Gems, and they have been the subject of many wars throughout the history of the universe. Jormungandr was placed in part to protect the Nine and the Gems from the rest of the universe and to contain the Gems within." He made a sphere with his hands before letting them open with a deep breath. "You know one Gem: the tesseract. Over time some of the stones have had other relics connected to them, so that a user could access the power more safely. The scepter's stone is one of those, it is an access key to the Mind Gem which Thanos bears.

"And I have just been reading that what what you call the Sultan's Ruby was known in more ancient days as the Eye of Apep. Apep was associated with chaos and an enemy of truth, so you might think it has something to do with me, though I am sure the tales all tangled together at some point. Regardless, the important part is that Apep is … a snake god."

Thor's head snapped up. "The Eye of Jormungandr."

Loki nodded. "Exactly. I believe the Ruby is what we call the Eye of Jormungandr stone. In our histories, the Eye of Jormungandr is known to be an access key to the Soul Gem."

"The Soul Gem?" Sif blurted in dismay.

Tony blinked and then put up a hand . "No, no, 'six primal forces' and one is soul." He snickered. "So many jokes for that I don't even know where to start..."

Loki straightened and his unsmiling mouth and cold eyes met Tony's. "The Soul Gem is not a jest. It is very powerful and very dangerous. Souls are sources of potent metaphysical power."

Tony sniffed disdainfully. "Souls? Really?"

Loki glanced at his brother. "It is soul power that allows Thor to wield Mjolnir. Worthiness, purity of intent - these things are of the soul. At the end of everything, when time itself is extinguished, the only energy left in the universe will be soul energy, and that is what empowers a reflowering of existence."

For a moment the poetry of his words let Tony feel a moment of amazement until he realized what that meant in less flowery language. "The Big Bang is caused by souls?" Tony closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nope, that is way too much goobledeygook astrology for one day."

Loki smirked. "You have such a narrow mind. You should take a lesson from Thor's mortal and widen your horizons past what you believe is possible."

"You praise Jane, brother!" Thor smiled at Loki, who shrugged.

"She seemed someone I should learn about," Loki said, his tone mild, but every single one of them, including Thor by the way his face fell, recalled that the only time he would have wanted to learn about her had likely been for some nefarious purpose.

But Tony didn't really care about that; Foster had been fine, and he was still disgruntled and offended by the tease. "Just because I don't believe in souls, doesn't mean I don't believe in twelve impossible things before breakfast."

"Fortunately for you, your soul does not require your belief in order for it to exist," Loki retorted and added smoothly, "Though mortals have such… tiny ones, it seems rather pointless."

"Hey!" Tony objected, incensed. "There's nothing tiny about my soul, thank you very much!"

Natasha rolled her eyes and taunted them both,"If you two are done measuring the size of your... souls? Could we get to the part about what it does? If the Mind stone can control someone's mind, does that mean the Soul Gem controls someone's soul?"

Loki's amusement evaporated and he wandered to the bar to search for something to drink. Pouring the last of Tony's bourbon, he said, while watching the liquor stream into the highball glass. "There are many stories, but little is known with the Gem lost for so long. It is, at its most simple, a power source and like most, can be used to power other spells. However, its task is to consume. To take the soul energy of the living to render them..." His hand waved as he tried to think of the right word.

Steve glanced at the television screen, which had been used not so long ago for the video game, and said, "Zombies."

"Not exactly." Loki shook his head. "They still live, but they are empty. They have no will but that which someone gives them, and they wish for nothing: not food, not even death. And once thus taken, there is no reverse, as far as I know."

"I didn't think there could be anything worse than mind control," Barton said with sour humor. "Should've known better."

"But how could the gem be on Midgard?" Sif asked.

"You know the Tale of Bor on Midgard. Bor, father of Odin, fought against an ancient evil that possessed the Gem. Bor battled the monster-"

Thor nodded eagerly and took up the tale, "Yes, for forty days and nights, they clashed, until at last Bor felled him with a mighty blow of Gungnir."

Loki smiled at him, indulgently. "That is the tale they tell in the halls, yes. That was not how it ended. In the chronicles, Bor battled the evil creature, but could not slay him, so he thrust the creature into a box and locked the box with the Eye of Jormungandr, so that the serpent might keep an eye upon it, and the darkness it contained might never be released." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I believe that means he locked the Soul Gem away, perhaps with whatever poor fool who had wielded it. I sent Munin to the Allfather to see if Bor took it with him and it is hidden elsewhere. But it seems Thanos knows or believes the Gem to be here."

He glanced at Sif and Thor, hesitating, as if to check whether they wanted to add anything, and Thor helpfully declared, "We must keep Thanos from all the Gems. That he possesses one..." He frowned at Loki, "You did not say that before."

"I do not recall seeing it," Loki said. His voice was smooth as melted butter, but Tony noticed his hand was shaking enough the whiskey in the glass had some wave action. "But once I identified the scepter, it was no difficulty to realize he must have the master stone." He cleared his throat. "So, we cannot let him have another. Each alone is powerful, but together with the Infinity Gauntlet, they become a weapon of devastating consequence. Remember what I said about the destruction of Jorumungandr? The Infinity Gauntlet could destroy Jormungandr. Thanos wants the individual stones, but his master strategy is to possess all six and make himself ruler of the universe."

"And he's such a charming guy, who wouldn't want that?" Tony quipped, trying to lighten things up.

"Where would they go?" Steve asked.

Loki shook his head. "Apep suggests Egypt, but other than that, I have no idea. Worse, if they have the ruby and someone with the right knowledge, they can use it to find the master, wherever it may be on-world."

"Well, we could always resurrect that tesseract-finding program," Banner suggested. "Look for it-"

"With science!" Tony interrupted. "Yes, that sounds like a much better plan, than all this vague soul and magic business." He waved his hands around, ignoring how affronted Loki looked by the dismissal. "C'mon, Jolly Green Giant, let's science the hell out of this."

"Let's see if we can come up with something more," Natasha suggested, "but meantime we still need to eat." She jerked her head back toward the galley and Steve followed.

Thor started to follow, but when Loki went out the hatch, followed him instead.

Clint looked around as if hoping for someone else to move, but when Sif went after them, he heaved a put-upon sigh and went to the galley to help out.

Thor spied the look on Loki's face as he slipped out of the main room and went outside, a glimpse of weariness that his brother had worn far too often of late. So he followed, to see if Loki needed consolation or distraction. Thor knew he could provoke an argument without much effort, but thought he should offer a friendlier companionship first.

Loki stood in the prow of the ship, wind stirring his hair and his coat.

Knowing Loki had already marked his presence, Thor walked across the empty deck to join him. "They are preparing the evening meal. Will you join them to eat together?" he asked.

Loki shook his head. "I know not how anyone can eat," he murmured after a moment. "But I suppose it is because they have no understanding."

"And because they know they need sustenance before battle," Thor pointed out. "As do you." He gripped Loki's shoulder, still muscled beneath the leather of his guards, but thinner than it should be. "I would not have you waste away."

Loki shrugged off the touch. "Don't be absurd. I'll eat later."

Thor doubted that, but let the silence fall between them and looked at Loki's profile. At first, knowing he was observed, he kept the irritation there, brow slightly furrowed and lips pressed flat. But those passed, dragged down by dark thoughts that he couldn't resist. "Your fears speak in this silence, brother. Is our situation so perilous?" Thor asked softly.

Loki snorted. "You were there, you saw what the tesseract can do. You saw what the scepter does. Do you think the actual Soul Gem is lesser?"

"We will keep it from them," Thor declared. "And we will fight them. As we intended from the start."

Loki gave a sharp laugh. "Oh, yes, it's that easy. You say it and it's done, all must give way to your will. But why shouldn't it? The true and worthy one, who never has to consider that he might fail. Keep hitting it til it falls down, that's always been your strategy, while the rest of us have to be more clever, have to account for not being you!" Loki's voice spiraled louder in an abrupt shattering fury. "But I'm not, and I never have been, and you knew that, and you mocked and you-" He stopped abruptly, color draining from his face to turn it waxen. Whirling around, he leaned over the rail, as if he might need to be sick over the side.

Thor frowned in confusion, first by the words hurled at him but then the way Loki reacted to his own words. "Loki? What is it?" Loki reached for the railing, fumbling at it with strange clumsy hands before he wrapped both hands around the top metal bar and gazed fixedly at the sea frothing below.

"I apologize," Loki said in a distant voice. "My temper got the best of me for a moment."

They were words to a stranger, polite and utterly false. That might have been temper, but the reaction told Thor it had been something else. He reminded himself that Loki would not respond to impatient demands, even if they bubbled up insistently, and he said with careful calm, "Loki, something happened. Why were you upset?"

"You sound like Mother. It's very strange," Loki muttered.

"Good, then maybe you will tell me what makes you look as if someone stabbed you. Thanos?" he hazarded and knew he was right, when Loki pressed his lips together and his throat worked to hold back the distress rising inside him. "Brother?" Thor prompted. "Tell me."

For a moment he thought Loki might again spurn the attempt to get him to talk, but he didn't. Without looking at Thor, Loki asked, far more hesitantly than he would ordinarily do, "In that practice duel, long ago, when you called me Little Bird – did you come to stand above me? Did you know I was not... your blood kin?"

Thor's frown deepened with worry that Loki would ask. "Loki, you know this."

"Just- just tell me." The request was softly spoken and yet carried an unsettling degree of desperation. Loki's knuckles were white on the railing, gripping so tightly Thor was surprised it wasn't bent.

Thor answered carefully, "It grieves me to admit, I did not come to you. I left. And I was told about your ancestry only when we thought you were gone in the void. I knew nothing about it until then." He was going to add that the truth didn't change his feelings that Loki was his brother, but Loki nodded, accepting the statement as if he'd found the answer he'd been looking for.

Dread settled in Thor's heart, a chill knowledge that something was wrong. This wasn't Loki doubting his place in the family again, but something else. That dread strengthened when he glimpsed a brightness to Loki's eyes and too-rapid blinking. Loki had tears in his eyes. Thor was dismayed by the sight. "Loki? What is wrong?"

"Shall I write you a list?" Loki gave a ghost of a laugh, trying to make a joke that he didn't find at all amusing. It was nothing more than Loki's usual attempt to turn away concern, but it was so by rote, it worried Thor even more.

Thor touched his arm. "Please, talk to me."

Loki's tongue touched his lips, hesitating to explain. "I know you left. I know it like I know the spell to conjure fire. But I have no memory of it. I did, once, but I remember something else," he admitted after a moment. "I know the memory is false, that it can't have happened that way – but I remember that you and Volstagg and Freyr came to me where I was hurt. And you knew, called me a runt and kicked me when I was on the floor, still broken-"

"No!" Thor protested anxiously, and his heart shifted and seemed to grow heavy in his chest at the thought that Loki would imagine such a horrible thing. "Never, Loki. Not then, not ever. I swear."

"I … know. It is like my false memory of killing Mother. This... insidious creeping evil," his voice shook, "I cannot stop it. How can I hope to battle him, when I cannot stop him from making me remember what never happened?"

"Loki..."

Loki whispered, "He is destroying me from the inside, Thor."

"No," Thor protested thickly, "No, we shall not let him." He pulled Loki into an embrace, clasping his arms around him more tightly when he felt that Loki was trembling. His own eyes burned with tears as he pressed his lips to the raven black hair.

"All will be well," he promised. "Hold on and I will remind you of what is true. And when we are home at last, Mother and Father will help you."

Loki turned his face into Thor's shoulder and in worrisome confirmation of how upset he was, didn't even try to pull away. Instead he murmured, in an airy, young voice, "Will it be soon?"

It reminded Thor of when Loki had been little, and he'd had one of his bad dreams. Usually their mother had tended to him, but sometimes Loki had padded barefoot into his room, asking if he could stay a little while. They'd played quiet games, usually until either their mother retrieved him or Loki had fallen asleep.

Thor's hand rubbed his back. "Yes, soon. Just a little while longer, Loki, I promise."

"I want to see Mother's garden again," he murmured. "She planted a tree for me."

"I know."

"She should have cut it down when she found out what I'd done," there was an icy, vicious edge to his whisper that sent a chill up Thor's spine. "She should have burned it."

"No, no, she would never do such a thing, you know that."

"I loathe this," Loki muttered. "I loathe being this weak and childish."

"You have endured what would destroy lesser beings, Loki. You are unwell, not weak or childish." He said the words now, meaning them, even as he remembered when he had teased Loki about being a baby, scared of silly dreams. After that taunt, Loki had never come to his room after a nightmare again, though Thor had tried to take it back.

At least this time, Loki let Thor comfort him, gathering his breath back to calm before he gave a sniff and said in a more normal tone, "Finally you stopped ruffling my hair."

Thor let him go. "Is that a request?" Thor reached up his right hand to scrub it through the raven locks, chuckling as Loki squirmed away.

"That was not a request. Oaf."

"You wanted me to do it," Thor pointed out, but his smile was quick to fade. "You feel better, I hope?"

Loki shrugged and wouldn't meet his eyes, smoothing his hair. "If 'better' is also 'rather humiliated' then, yes."

"There is no shame in leaning on others."

Loki's sharp eyes flicked to him in startled incredulity, although all he said was, "A thousand years of Asgard teaches something quite different."

And Thor had been one of those teachers. "I know," Thor admitted, "but there are other virtues than strength. And if one of them isn't compassion then what is strength even good for?"

Loki dropped his head, hair hanging in his face, as he tugged at his left vambrace. "That's a question only the strong need to ask."

Thor drew breath to counter the implicit counting of Loki among the weak, but Loki was done with the conversation. He cleared his throat, and said in a tone as if the last five minutes had never happened, "I believe I shall find some dinner. Not for hunger, but diversion. This endless waiting is so tedious."

He said the words jesting, but Thor thought it was a serious comment. Loki liked keeping occupied even in the best of times, and now the need was more urgent to not brood on his mental unraveling and what he had suffered. Especially with little left to drink. Still, Thor tried to keep it light, teasing, "Your idea of diversion tends toward reckless endangerment, and getting into trouble."

Loki scoffed. "Yours tends to swinging a big hammer and hitting things, so do not pretend you are so much better." He rolled his eyes, then flicked his gaze upward again, and said in a far more serious tone, "I hope Munin comes soon. At least we might begin to prepare if we have a location."

He walked away, and Thor would have followed except Sif emerged from her waiting place on the roof of the master cabin, and she jumped down to the deck as soon as Loki had gone back inside. "I heard most of it," she murmured. "He needs to go home."

He glanced upward, as if he could see Asgard, and shook his head. "He won't, even if Father recalled him." Which clearly Odin would not, and likely could not, if there was no one else to stand in Thanos' way.

He ignored the small voice which sounded a bit like Loki's in the back of his mind: no one except the king himself, with Gungnir and the tesseract. Oh, Father, if I think this, I know Loki has, too; he will believe in bitterness that you send him because he is disposable, not because he is the best alternative.

"What if he can't?" Sif asked.

Thor turned to her, curious and confused by the question. "What do you mean?"

"I – " she stopped and turned her head, biting her lip and frowning in uncertainty, as if she didn't quite know the answer herself. "What if the real objective is Loki himself?"

"He had Loki in his grasp, Sif, and sent him away."

"But did he? Loki's used the Casket to an extent no one else has, possibly ever. He is now even more closely bound to it. And he has the scepter back, the one Thanos gave him." A hint of offended rage – that after Loki's unquestioned suffering she would dare to suggest it was all a trick – simmered, quelled when Sif touched his arm quickly. "I am not suggesting he is a willing ally, Thor, but we know for a fact that Thanos was in his mind again. Do we know he is not still doing Thanos' bidding, and when the time comes Loki will be the one to open the portal himself or hand the Soul Gem to Thanos?"

The thought that Loki was not free, after all, hit him with all the power of Mjolnir right to his chest. That he might, in fact, still be in thrall, and not know it.

Worse, following after that, was the fear that if it had happened, if he was held again under that shadow, that Loki would kill himself once he became aware of it. He stood too near the edge as it was, spirit slashed to ribbons by doubt and pain and anger. The knowledge that the Casket had nearly destroyed Midgard against his will was difficult enough to bear; to be used to bring Thanos into the Nine Realms and acquire all the treasures, would break him utterly. Thor remembered his face as he let go of Gungnir above the endless chasm of the Bifrost, a look Thor was now seeing again.

"No," he said, and his voice was so strangled-sounding he had to clear his throat and try again. "No, Sif, we will not dissolve into distrust and suspicion. If Thanos could have controlled him in that way, he would have used it to force a portal on Svartalfheim with the Casket."

"But Thor-"

"No!" he refused. "The truth is terrible enough, Sif. Thanos has one Gem and seeks another, and it is no accident he attacked Loki first. So we must lend him our strength so that he may come out of this. I will not lose my brother, Sif, not again. Not when I have him back."

Sif curled a hand around his forearm. "I promised the queen I would protect him, Thor. I meant that."

He laid his hand over hers and squeezed. "I know. It gladdens my heart to see you two friends again. Come, let us find food, and see if science has had more success where magic has failed."

But he also turned his eyes upward and urged Munin to return with glad tidings soon.

tbc...