Thor did not know how to react. He imagined most people would rejoice at the chance to journey to the past and right their wrongs. The amount of times that he too had yearned for the past were incalculable. Yet now that he was here he could not help but feel like he wasn't worthy of any of it.
Thor had erased his past self entirely. Uprooted him from his life and selfishly stole everything in return. That Thor had not made any of the egregious mistakes he had made. He had not witnessed the death of every single person he had ever loved. His hands were not stained with the blood of trillions because he could not do enough.
That Thor did not deserve to be replaced by him.
But at the same time he could not help the fierce burning pain of hope that flared through his chest. The hope that maybe, just maybe, he could do better this time.
His kingdom was alive and flourishing, their long lives not snuffed out before they had truly gotten to live it. His beautiful and brilliant mother could be waiting for him, only a bifrost trip away. His father too, only his feelings towards him had gotten infinitely more complicated with time. It was difficult to reconcile the loving, righteous king he thought him to be, with the deception and destruction he had veritably wrought.
And then there was his brother. His complex, many faceted brother who had tried to kill him many times. Yet in the end had sacrificed himself for Thor. Killed by the very beast he had been running from since he fell.
It was only after the destruction of asgard that Loki confessed about his true role in the invasion of midgard. The fact that Thor had been too blinded by grief and fury to even notice that his brother had been tortured, to even question why Loki would want to invade midgard-when he himself had told Thor that he never wanted to rule-had haunted Thor for years.
He had failed Loki and he had died for it.
But now he was alive and barely 100ft away.
Why did it suddenly feel like there wasn't enough air? His heart rate shot up and he could feel the tingle of static building in his fingers.
"I'm gonna need the eyepatch," Stark's voice broke him from his spiraled thoughts and brought him crashing back down to earth.
The shift in his thoughts almost gave him backlash but it was a welcomed sensation.
"What?" he said tracing the hard plastic.
"I need people to believe that your legit and wearing a crappy children's eyepatch is not gonna help your case," Stark said.
Thor covered it defensively "It's not crappy. It's cool."
"Dude I am begging you, if they see that patch they will not listen to a thing you have to say." when it looked like Thor was going to refuse he continued "I'll get you a new one I promise."
"Fine," Thor pouted but removed it all the same. His face felt strangely naked without it.
Stark took the eyepatch away muttering something about burning the evidence. Then he gave a tentative look to the hovercraft before clapping Thor on the shoulder. "Are you gonna be okay up there? You don't have to go in there if it'll be too much, we can go straight to the helicarrier."
While Thor appreciated Stark's offer he did not want to back down now. If he bowed out at the first obstacle he could never hope to successfully change anything. Thor needed to erase his past mistakes and start being there for his brother. Even if the thought of actually seeing Loki made him want to violently throw up.
Thor squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. "Fear not Stark, I can handle this."
Stark informed the team about Thor and they made their way up.
Walking into that hovercraft felt like an absurd dream. One where you relive a memory only its skewed slightly to the left and something is different. It took a moment for reality to settle back in and for Thor to realise this was real.
Bruce's comforting presence was the first thing that his mind latched onto. The way his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open at the sight of Thor. He was wearing a well tailored suit that fit him in all the right places. Which Thor was looking respectfully at. He ached to reach out for him but he knew he had to pretend that they were strangers. But just seeing him helped to sooth his racing thoughts.
It gave him enough confidence to turn and face his brother.
Loki looked incredibly pale. It made the dark circles under his eyes stand out like purple bruises. His face was more gaunt than Thor ever remembered it being. And his once green eyes had been replaced by a sickly blue sheen. The fact that he had not noticed the first time around was sickening.
He felt his breath catch in his throat and the telltale pinpricks of tears in the corner of his good eye.
"Loki," The word was almost swallowed amongst the depths of his emotions
This was real. Loki was here. He was alive.
He was also staring at him as if he had grown three heads and started slow dancing with a sea serpent. Loki's mouth opened and closed and for once in his life it seemed that he had rendered his brother speechless. Thor sat down, not taking his eyes off his brother and lay Stormbreaker beside him. Loki's eyes missed nothing, he scrutinised every inch of Thor with a viscous intensity.
Loki blinked several times before he came to the conclusion that what he was seeing must be real. "What the Hel am I looking at right now? This cannot be real. The mighty Thor would never be reduced to such…"
"Such what?" Thor said indignantly
"Such a disheveled and slovenly mess!"
Thor reeled back. Slovenly! "I'll have you know that this is a hand knitted sweater and I think it suits me rather well."
"I like the sweater," Bruce spoke up from across the hovercraft. His face reddened when people turned to look at him.
Thor pointed at Bruce while keeping eye contact with Loki "See."
Loki's eyes shot between the two of them looking flummoxed and thrown off balance. For obvious reasons he had not expected Thor to look the way he does now.
"How much weight have you gained? It's only been a year but now you look like you could rival Volstagg," Loki said
"One, rude. Two, Volstagg wishes he looked like me. And three, Stark says I have 'sexy dad bod vibes' so you can shut the Hel up." It was actually one of the first things Stark had said to him when they had reunited back in 2023.
Loki looked almost stricken by his reaction. As if everything Thor said shook him to the core. It was difficult to have the upperhand when you can no longer predict your opponent. And Thor could no longer remember how his old self would have reacted.
Everyone else seemed to be portraying varying degrees of concern. Stark looked like he wanted to drop his face into his hands. Bruce had gone even redder and glanced worryingly towards Rogers and Romanov. The latter two looked at him with barely concealed suspicion.
"Do you guys know each other?" Rogers asked.
Ah, Thor realised that he had sounded too familiar with Stark. No matter, he could play it off.
"Of course not Rogers. I've never met Stark before in my life," he said with his amazing acting skills.
Rogers frowned at the use of his name and crossed his arms.
"So you often say that someone has a sexy dad bod when you first meet them?" Romanov asked Stark.
Stark rebounded even faster than Thor had "Are you saying that doesn't sound like something I would do? I thought you knew me better than that."
Romanov had no response to that.
"You cannot tell me that this facade is because you mourned for me," Loki's voice was tight with an unnamed emotion. His eyes had also started to change back to his natural green
"No...Maybe-shut up."
"Where is Mjolnir?"
Thor looked down at Stormbreaker "Hammers are sooo last year. Axes are much cooler."
"Are you no longer worthy?" There was a wild hunger in Loki. Like he needed to know that Thor was no longer infallible.
That hit a nerve.
Thor's jaw tightened to the point of pain. The metal of the seat crushed beneath his grip. He could taste the sharp, metallic tang of electricity on his tongue as the sparks leaked out of his skin. The sheer power emanating from him suffused into the small space.
Loki slammed into the wall as he reeled back in shock.
"We all need to calm down! We can't afford a fight up here," Rogers had taken up his shield at some point. He looked ready to take on both Loki and Thor.
Stark jumped in front of Rogers and held his hands up in a placating way. "Don't worry he's fine. You're fine right?" he directed towards Thor.
Roger's shot Stark another look of suspicion.
The lightning dissolved back into Thor's skin and he loosened his grip on the seat. "Yes, I'm fine."
But Loki had recovered quickly and was not done with his barrage of questions. "What in the nine realms happened to your eye?"
"Nothing," Thor replied quickly, "It was just family drama."
"Family drama!" Loki's voice had gone up several octaves. There was a look of horror on his face. "Father cut out your eye?!"
"What? No," Why would father have cut out his eye?
But Loki continued as if he had not heard him. "Did the old fool finally lose it and carved out your eye as some misguided attempt to turn you into hi-" Loki cut himself off in a hiss of agony. His eyes screwed shut and his jaw tightened to the point that you could see the muscles tick.
His face smoothed back out and when he opened his eyes again they had returned to a vivid blue with a resigned hollowness in them.
"It matters not," Loki's voice was flat.
"What the fuck was that, Lucifer?" Stark asked eloquently
Loki levelled a piercing glare at Stark. "Nothing."
"Brother, what-"
"I'm not your brother!" he spat
He remembered how angry that statement used to make him. Now it just made him incredibly sad. For Loki to believe himself not worthy of being his family. As if his parentage made a difference in Thor's eyes.
But now of course he knew the truth. That Loki had always been family in every sense of the word.
"You may not be my brother but you are still my blood."
Loki's eyes flickered green once more. As if Thor's absurdity was enough for the real him to break through. "Are you fucking with me or do you truly not understand how adoption works? I knew you were a thick headed oaf but I had no idea it was this chronically incurable."
Thor did not rise to the bait as Loki would have expected him to. And that alone seemed to unsettle his brother greatly. Instead he just leaned back and crossed his arms. A knowing kind of smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
oOo
Loki could not handle this. None of this was going according to plan. The Avengers were not supposed to show up until he had made his grand speech. He had to portray himself as the grand villain. As an enemy that the heroes would rally against. He needed to be someone for them to fear. Without that fear they would not take his threats seriously. Then they would not have enough power to fight back.
Loki was counting on that fight. He needed it to look convincing enough so when he inevitably lost, it would not be seen as a betrayal. If the Other even detected a hint of Loki's true plan he would use their connection to torture Loki into insanity. Though he had survived the abuse thus far he feared how he would fare if they truly wished to kill him. So far they had only maimed him enough to get him to follow them.
He did not care how many Midgardian's needed to die to free himself from the Titan's iron grip. In fact, it would please him to watch them fall beneath his hand. Thor would rue the day that he chose Midgard over him.
Thanos had been all too pleased to salt that wound. He forced Loki to relive those memories over and over and over again. To witness every sneer and feel every slight. The look of disgust and anger on Thor's face for Loki. Thor and Odin. He remembered their faces so clearly as they let him fall and fall and fall.
He was still falling. Even when he thought he could not possibly fall any lower. At his weakest he sometimes hoped for the desolate destruction of crash landing. Maybe then he could feel something more than a permanent hollowing rage.
Though, his current circumstances were tantalisingly close to drawing out emotions he long thought lost in the wild insanity of his mind.
Fascination for one.
The Man of Iron was certainly a surprise. He knew a little about mortals but he had never seen one so flagrantly daring. Nor one that had the wit to hit back against Loki's barbs. Dare he say, it was almost fun to fight him. And he was certain that Stark felt the same.
His boldness was certainly attractive...for a mortal that is.
Like he said, fascinating. This Stark was supposed to be his enemy yet when he looked into his eyes they shone with a smirk and a strange knowledge. As if he knew something that Loki did not. The urge to gain that knowledge burned through him fiercely.
Everything seemed to be going to plan when the soldier arrived to capture him. Though he had not killed many people and he had not been able to put on as big of a show as he had hoped, they still saw him as a threat. As long as they brought him onto that floating fortress of theirs he could begin the next part of his scheme.
But his mind was thrown off course by the rush of familiar energy. Pure, concentrated magic that set every nerve ending alight. The Bifrost. The sensation had sent a thrill of panic through his system. The last time he had felt it was when he was clinging to the edge of the rainbow bridge.
Even Asgard, with all of its enhancements, could not have rebuilt the machine so quickly. It was unmistakable and impossible. Yet Loki had felt its presence all the same.
Though he had planned for Thor's arrival, he had thought Odin would need to harness dark energy to do it. The appearance of the Bifrost suddenly made Asgard feel a lot closer. As if the Allfather was breathing down his neck. It made his skin feel tight and constricting.
He tried not to let the mortals see his change in demeanor. He shook away the feeling and straightened his back. Though he still felt the piercing gaze of Stark.
When they finally shoved him onto that aircraft he was shocked and distrubed to find Banner aboard. From the intel he had gathered, this man was incredibly dangerous. One loud noise away from killing everyone around him. Barton had told him that they would bring Banner in to defeat him and Loki had planned to use the beast to destroy their floating fortress.
Revenge would make them hungry for action and they would not hold back once the real fight came.
But Banner looked surprisingly at ease. Not showing a single glimpse of the barely restrained monster beneath his skin.
His calmness only put Loki more on edge. Had he miscalculated?
Loki suppressed his feelings off discontent and tried to exude an aura of aloof and cunning. But that all went out the window as soon as he laid eyes upon Thor.
At first he had not even recognised him. It took an embarrassingly long time for it to click that this was Thor. Not the mighty golden prince that he had been expecting. He looked nothing like the memories that Thanos had scorched onto his mind. Gone was the haughtiness and the pride. Replaced by a deep despair that not even the greatest of actors could fake.
His hair was a lot longer but instead of the typical braids it was just thrown into a bun. In place of his shining Asgardian armour he was clothed in some kind of soft Midgardian attire. And he had a round gut that had definitely not been there last time Loki had seen him.
And he only had one eye!
Loki had also noticed the way that Thor looked at Banner and Stark. Even a blind man could tell that they were clearly acquainted with one another. But the weight of that familiarity
He had been prepared for the perfect Thor. The righteous Thor. The Thor that would not hesitate to attack Loki. He may have even pretended that he mourned but Loki would have been able to see through the obvious ruse. Loki would be able to push all of his buttons until he inevitably fell victim to one of his tricks.
That was the Thor that Thanos had prepared him for.
But this. This was nothing like that Thor
He was grief personified and could not be considered anything but. There was even a chance that he was no longer worthy of Mjolnir. The idea that the mighty Thor might be as broken as he was, sent Loki reeling. On one hand he felt ferociously vindicated. Finally he had been brought low. But on the other hand he felt bone aching sick to see Thor this way. There was still a small part of him that looked at Thor and saw a brother. No matter how much he tried to suppress it. And this was not the brother he remembered
It felt like the earth had been pulled up from beneath Loki's feet the second that he saw him. Seeing the clear contradiction between his memory of Thor and this one had cracked some veneer in his mind. For a brief moment it felt like some of his old self had bled back through.
The Other had chosen that moment to send a wave of roiling pain through the bond. It started in the base of his skull and then spread through his head and down his neck. Like all of his nerve cells had been submerged in flame.
Stay on track little princeling. The Other's voice was hoarse and seemed to scratch against the inside of his head. Filled with the strength of power and the tightening of shackles. Or do you need a reminder of what shall happen should you fail.
With each word Loki felt his old self slip further and further away. It scrambled like a wild, half-feral creature, clawing against the edges of his mind to stay. But it had no hope against The Other and the strength of the mind stone. They locked the real him back behind the veneer, leaving the hollow shell in its wake
But once the cracks were there. They were not so easily repaired. The tethers between him and the Mad Titan were already unravelling and all it had taken was a single discrepancy.
He vowed to uncover the mystery of Thor if it was the last thing he did.
