Hi! Sorry for the long wait— it's been ridiculous, I know, and this chapter isn't even that long, it was just really hard to write. Still not 100% satisfied with it, but there are bits of it that I really enjoyed, so I hope you like it!

Day Four

Thor woke to find the navicomputer online and running again. He paused, for a brief moment, to thank the stars for Tony Stark. The image of Tony lingered in Thor's mind for a moment, then shifted; the skin lightened, becoming pale, and the face lengthened. The smirk on his lips broadened, and Tony's warm brown eyes brightened to a brilliant green. His hair darkened to a solid black and the warmth in his face cooled.

It was that, the image of Loki, that galvanized Thor into action. He found his broadsword quickly and hurried to the controls.

Thor had not flown a ship many times, but he was more or less aware of how to. Thor sat down and palmed the console to life. The radar was the last thing to light up. He scanned it, worriedly, eagerly. The pirates' ship was still there.

Thor breathed out a quiet prayer.

He engaged the thruster. It can't be that hard, Thor told himself firmly. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth as he steered the ship away from ugly asteroid that had carelessly drifted into his path. As he approached, Thor had the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something. He frowned. What could he have forgotten? The ship drew closer— closer— Thor's single blue eye went wide as he remembered. He pulled the lever labeled "boarding" down— probably with too much force, but then Thor was feeling forceful.

There was a low hiss as the docking equipment unlatched and Thor was on his feet in an instant, heart pounding heavily in his chest. He was not marching, exactly, but his gait had a sense of furious purpose that the term "walking" did not quite capture. Thor unslung his broadsword. The ship's alarms began to go off.

A few of the bandits met Thor in the hallway, all of whom were dispatched quickly and easily. One was unarmed; the other two tried to fight to no avail. Thor stabbed one in the chest, the other in the throat, and walked past the corpses without a second thought.

Loki heard the sounds of commotion from his cell where he hung by his wrists, head down, breathing labored. He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't find it in him to care any more than to wonder vaguely what might be causing the disturbance; he was in too much pain to give it more than a passing thought.

In that moment he was alone in the room, save for the rack of knives on the far wall. Ironic, he thought, that the knives were the only thing that were not coated in a layer of blood. Loki was alive; there was a hitch in his breathing and he had lost quite a lot of blood— too much blood— but he was alive. That, at least, was something to be grateful for.

Loki heard, dimly, a scream, then a yell of triumph.

Thor, he thought, but that was impossible, their ship had been damaged… There was no way that Thor had fixed it on his own, and even so, anything could have caused the disturbance. It didn't mean that Thor was there. It was a mark of how injured Loki was that he couldn't even find the energy to be irritated that still, after all these years, his brother was his first thought.

Suddenly, the shackles on his wrists and ankles released. He fell ungracefully, landing on the ground with a grunt of pain. Loki didn't move. His hand fell limply to the floor and touched something sticky— still slightly wet. Loki realized, then, that it was his own blood. For some absurd reason, a laugh started to build at the back of his throat.

He was free; his shackles were gone and the room was empty. He was free, and he could not move. He tried, once, to lift his arms, but even that was beyond him. Loki knew that he should run— that he should get up and make his daring escape— but the pain was too great. Even unshackled, Loki found himself on the ground, unable to move.

It occurred to him, then, to wonder who had unshackled him. Thor, but he was stranded in their own damaged vessel, and who else knew where the brothers were? Strange, but he was injured. And even if he did, he would have no way to know that Loki had been captured. And ( he began to feel slightly sick as the thought struck him) who even knew where he was? The pirates could easily have jumped into hyperspace and gone anywhere in the universe while Loki had been unconscious. Loki's thought drifted away. Once that would have infuriated him, and he would have chased after them and gathered them back. Now even that power had abandoned him, and he sat there, in a pool of his own blood, tears trickling down his face, wanting to run but unable to move.

Not enough strength.

Thor stepped forward into the doorway and the bandits in the cabin stopped dead. He counted seven; two at the console, two in the pilots' seats, and three lounging around. All eyes were trained on Thor, their expression ranging from shocked to terrified to enraged. None of these emotions bothered him in the slightest. He felt only one— a fierce determination to find and rescue his brother.

Thor stood in the doorway and there was a pregnant pause. No one moved for a long moment.

Then two of the pirates— both unarmed— started to flee. It was a desperate effort to escape, and in Thor's experiences, desperation rarely served well. It certainly didn't in the case of the two bandits; his blade flashed out, catching one in the throat and the other in the upper leg. Thor pulled his sword free and continued forward, taking advantage of the pirates' surprise to dispatch several. The two pilots were dead before they could rise from their seats. Another, like the first two, attempted to flee. Like the first two, she was stabbed before she made it very far. Thor whirled around to catch another— the last one— by his collar and shoved him against the wall.

"Where is he?" Thor demanded, his voice low and furious.

"Who?" the pirate gasped. He squirmed under the pressure of Thor's grip.

Thor felt the tips of his fingers growing hot. Not right now, he told himself sternly. Thunder and lightning won't help a thing right now. He pressed the bandit harder and, to his surprise, felt the man's ribs start to give slightly. "My brother," he spat. "You took him prisoner. Where is he?"

"I don't know!" the man wailed. "Probably in the brig—"

Thor didn't wait for him to finish. "Where is that?"

The man raised a shuddering arm. "Down that hall," he whimpered. "You can open the door with this button." He indicated a green button in the center of the console.

Thor dropped him and dashed over to the console. The green button was labeled "Cell Door." He pressed that one, then noticed the one next to it read "Shackles." He pressed that one, too, then bolted down the hallway in the direction that the bandit had pointed.

Thor had to pause in the doorway because the cell was so disgusting in so many ways that he didn't quite know what he noticed first— that there was blood everywhere, all over the floor, coating it in a crimson film, or that there was a rack of knives on the wall, gleaming dully, or that Loki (and when Thor's thoughts turned to his brother his heart gave a sickening lurch in his chest) was bare-chested and covered in cuts, some of which were still bleeding, or that his bright green eyes had lost their mischievous sparkle and watched Thor lethargically, grimly, or that his wrists were rubbed raw and bleeding from where he had been shackled, or that his hands were shaking and his fingertips were wet with scarlet blood— Thor dashed forward. "Loki," he breathed.

"Hello, brother," came Loki's reply, and it was said in such a normal, sarcastic tone that Thor's heart stopped for a moment. "Forgive me for not leaping to my feet to greet you. I would certainly like nothing better—" and oh, stars, but his dry tone was absolutely unmistakeable— "but I don't believe that I am actually able to support myself at the moment." The wince as he said these words was not lost on Thor, who dropped to his knees next to him.

"Oh, Loki," he murmured. His blue eye ran over Loki's pale body, taking in all of the cuts and bruises and lacerations. "What did they do to you?"

"Why don't you ask what they didn't do to me?" Loki replied. "That's a shorter list." Thor knew that the words were intended with the sardonic humor that was his trademark, but there was an undertone of truth to them that belied the effort. He reached toward Loki— and he could plainly see how hurt his brother was, and the way that Loki pretended otherwise made it all the worse— and he swore that he could hear his own heart breaking.

"Can you really not stand, brother?" he asked.

"Of course I can," Loki responded acidly. "I can stand just fine and I'm sitting this way for the fun of it."

Thor winced slightly. "I'm going to carry you," he said, gently but firmly.

"I thought you were going to leave me here" was the sarcastic reply as Thor picked up his brother and started to carry him away. Loki regretted the words immediately after he said them; Thor's single blue eye found his face and Loki looked away. Neither of them needed to speak that unsaid answer.

Like you would have done for me?

Thor started running, through the halls, past the cabin, running back to their ship, running back to the place that had become their home, running and running as if he could run away from his past, Loki's past, all of their past together if only he could run fast enough.

Loki was asleep.

Thor sat next to him, the room filled with heavy silence except for the low, quiet thrum of the ship's engine. He didn't mind the silence, but it was still so strange— so very strange— to see Loki without his shuttered, angry expression. Loki had fallen unconscious very quickly after the two had reached their ship. In fact, Thor had barely gotten him to lie down before he'd closed his eyes. Thor had done his best to clean his wounds, shuddering as he saw the full extent of how he'd been tortured and the torment that he had been subjected to, and then had sat down beside him. Neither brother had moved since.

Thor had been prepared for the slow-burning anger that burned at his throat and settled at the bottom of his stomach. He had been prepared for the rage and sorrow that restricted his vision, partly in unshed tears, while he took careful stock of where Loki had been injured. He had been prepared for the white-hot fury— toward the pirates, toward whatever forces had declared that Loki would have to undergo such pain, toward whoever had cut and burned Loki's ivory skin that way— that filled his thoughts and left his hands shaking and clenching even as he tried to dress Loki's wounds.

He had not been prepared for how good it made him feel to play the role of the big brother again— something he hadn't done, at least not like this, in centuries.

Seeing Loki lying there, ghastly pale and wounded across every square inch of his fragile body (his fragile body? When had Thor started thinking that? Loki was as hard as diamonds, cold and sharp to the touch) had brought out some of Thor's long-buried brotherly instincts. Loki shifted and muttered something in his sleep. Thor let out a deep sigh, which he had dragged up from the centermost point of himself. Tony's words echoed in his ears: "Loki has every reason in the world to feel inferior to you. Can you really blame him for trying to break off from you and try to make his way on his own?"

Sometime, Thor would have to think carefully about those words and their implications, but right now he was so tired. He put his head in his hands. It had been a very long day— too long.

Loki stirred. Thor lifted his head to see him trying to sit up. "Brother?" he asked.

Loki pushed himself slowly into a sitting position.

"How do you feel?" Thor asked, his voice gentle.

"Like I've been punched, stabbed, cut, burned, and generally mutilated for the past thirty hours or so— which is, if you'll recall, exactly what happened," Loki replied, his words coming out more brusquely and sharply than he had intended. Loki ached all over and he felt terribly disjointed and how in the nine realms was Thor, big, clumsy Thor, able to repair the ship all by himself to come to rescue Loki and why had he done that and why was he being so very gentle?

To his credit, Thor didn't flinch at Loki's tone. The tired ache in his blue eye (and stars but his eyes were so amazingly blue, blue beyond belief, blue like the sky just after a storm had cleared, sparkling like an ocean in the afternoon sun) only grew a little deeper.

"Does it still hurt?" Thor asked, and what kind of question was that, Loki wanted to know? Of course it still hurt.

"Of course it does," Loki snapped. "It's not going to go away overnight."

"I meant," Thor amended— and why wasn't be angry even though Loki had snapped at him despite the fact that Thor came to rescue him, to rescue him even though he was captured when he should have— should have fought them off— and anyway he's right, Loki wouldn't have done the same for him, he would have left Thor on the ship had their roles been reversed, and Loki guessed by the exhaustion in his face that he probably had stayed with him all the while Loki was asleep— "how bad is it this morning?"

"It hurts," Loki began, and immediately wished that he had stopped to think before speaking (which he never did because he always had to have an answer, right away, without hesitation), "and I'm sure it's going to hurt for a long while. These wounds aren't going away anytime soon, even if Dr. Thor uses his best home remedies." There was vitriol in his voice, too much vitriol.

And still Thor didn't flinch. Still, he simply watched him with his single eye, his expression unreadable. "Let me see," he said, reaching toward his brother. Loki did flinch, away from his touch even though it was the same touch that used to comfort him when he was younger, that used to defend him and care for him in a myriad of small ways. There was a part in Loki— that part of him that never grew up, he thought— that wanted to tell Thor to look at it and see how bad it is so he can fix it like he fixed everything.

The words he said were, "I can take care of myself."

Thor's expression shuttered and he nodded, just once, rose, and left. Loki closed his eyes and suppressed the immediate urge to call him back. Make up your mind, he snapped at himself. Don't push him away with your ungrateful comments just to call him back again.

Then: I don't need him. I never did. I only thought I did.

Still, he couldn't deny— even to himself— that there was a dull ache in his chest as he watched his brother's retreating form.

Thor sat down heavily and drew in a slow breath. Of course, he thought (with no small measure of bitterness). Of course things couldn't possibly calm down and work out. Not for the Odinsons. Of course Loki would immediately withdraw and try to push Thor away. They were a dysfunctional pair, weren't they?

Can you really blame him for trying to break off from you and try to make his way on his own?

But he'd tried, hadn't he? Thor had tried so hard. He had tried to be good to him and kind to him, because Loki was hurting in ways that Thor didn't know, hadn't felt, couldn't imagine, and yes, it must have been absolutely crushing to find out that he was jotun.

And yet Loki had to push him away. Thor was doing everything that he could for his brother and Loki's only response was coldness. Thor had mourned him, hadn't he? Three times Loki had lied to him and Thor had wept over his grave all three of those times. How many times had Thor been betrayed by him? He'd lost count centuries ago.

Thor couldn't find it in him to be angry.

Loki is just the latest addition to your list of failures, isn't he? murmured a nagging voice in the back of his head.

Heimdall's face…

Shut up, Thor ordered, and to his great surprise, the voice fell silent.

The truth of the matter was, Thor missed Loki. He missed his mischievous, bright-eyed brother, who was always hatching some scheme or another. He missed the way Loki got excited over a new branch of magic or the sudden discovery of a long-lost spell. He missed wading into battle with his brother at his side, grinning fiercely, green eyes alight. He missed Loki crawling into his bed in the nights when his nightmares left him screaming until his throat was raw. He missed Loki's warm, open laugh. There was a reason why he had been overjoyed to find out that Loki was somehow— miraculously— alive, and that reason was that Thor loved him. Thor thought the world of him. It should have been a joyous reunion, for finally, after years of mourning, Thor had his brother back.

And yet, to him it seemed as though Thor had never gotten his brother back at all.

And there you have Day Four— we're officially over halfway through this fic! Crazy! As always, thank you so much for reading and please leave a comment if you enjoyed!

~ Atticus