This Would Be The End
Chapter 2
The events happened in a chaotic blur of emotion. One minute the Avengers gang was all together battling against the very last of their latest foe, and the next Thor's younger sibling was plunging through the ocean beneath them.
But he wasn't alone.
Something snapped in the archer when he laid his eyes on the shadowy figure that could only have been his enemy from years ago. He had dreamed of this fateful day, a day where he could enact revenge on the demigod who tore his mind to shreds and left him and the team with the pieces to pick up in the aftermath.
He had acted so quickly, he hadn't had time to process what the end would mean for him.
He just knew he had to kill him, the trickster, he just had to.
So he pushed the demigod out of the helicarrier they were all held up in. And the two of them fell through the air weightless like balloons, and they crashed into the ocean, limbs flailing in every direction.
He hadn't expected the wrath of the waves as soon as he plunged into the water, and he was even more surprised by the way the trickster responded to the sudden and unexpected impact. But he used this to his advantage, wrapping his fingers tightly around his enemy's exposed throat, the idiot who had armor around his whole frame besides his weakest point.
The water rushed up the archer's nose, and despite holding his breath for as long as he could, he knew he was kicking the bucket real soon when his legs started to spasm and his lungs kicked out all the air they once had. Salty, contaminated liquid squeezed into every morsel of his being, and still he dared not to look away with his piercing gaze into the horrified eyes of his once hell bent mind controller.
The details got blurry around the edges when his vision swam into nothingness. But he was still sure he had done the right thing, even as his body crumpled into oblivion.
~#*#~
It was the Man of Iron that found him first.
Red and gold armor glinted in the afternoon sunlight, as the glum man carefully placed his younger brother onto the net of soft, warm sand.
"Jarvis, run a vitals check," Stark barely stated, his voice softer from the pain of emotion and the wheeling of his thoughts as he was still trying to process what the hell had just happened, much like the rest of them.
All he knew for sure was that two people were down-one was Legolas and the other was somehow, some way, for some reason, their long ago enemy Loki.
How the day could get any weirder was beyond him.
"Very well, sir," came Jarvis' reply, initializing an analysis of the trickster's vital signs….or lack thereof.
Tony paused. He paused and he suddenly took a mental step backwards and really took in the scene for a moment.
How was it that the Avengers had managed to arrive as safely as possible onto this nearby beach, dig out their friend and prior villain and was somehow expected to just save them both?
Sure, right, it had been eight years since New York-just the mention of the word made Tony's insides scream. Did that mean they were just supposed to move on? When their enemy suddenly appeared and short of doing nothing, could have been up to something, and they were just what, supposed to help him?
Tony swallowed, his brown eyes gazing over to Barton's soggy form, where Bruce was already starting CPR and Natasha, eyes wide and hair wild, was busy giving mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Tony could practically feel the concern and fear ebbing off of their Thunder god, but he couldn't help the quiet, almost muted statement fall from his lips,
"Are you sure you want to save him?"
Tony didn't miss a beat when the heavy hands of the golden god landed on his shoulder plates. In between the incomprehensible yelling that Thor was making and the look of contempt shot his way from Steve, Tony guessed he had said that out loud for everyone to hear. Which, in retrospect, wasn't the greatest of ideas he'd come up with.
Short of being pounded into the ground by Thor's angry fists, Steve just yelled at Thor to back off and told Tony, "Stark! This isn't the time for moral dilemmas! We have to help NOW and only now, do you understand me?"
Tony bit his lip behind his faceplate and nodded stiffly.
"Vitals are nonexistent. Reindeer Games is deader than dead."
"Then let's do our best to change that," Steve replied, eyeing Tony apprehensively.
Whether Steve gave him that look because he was uncertain of Tony's commitment to saving the trickster, or because Steve had his own dilemmas about what they were about to do, Tony wasn't quite sure. All he knew next was that he was kneeling over the demigod and pushing his interlocked hands down into the god's armored chest.
Steve took up the front, leaning back Loki's skull and pressing his warm lips to a frozen corpse.
Tony tried not to think too much about that, his stomach doing flip flops in a symptom of disgust.
They worked in unison like that for a while. Tony applying pressure to what he guessed was the area around Loki's heart, Frost Giant anatomy meant he didn't know exactly where that organ lied (if he even had one to begin with), and Steve taking up the supply of oxygen, dearly needed in Thor's brother.
Tony's ears easily picked up the sputtering and admonishment when Barton started to come back to the land of the living. He could just make out Natasha's warm voice muttering to Clint and Bruce heaving a sigh of utmost relief. He could see out of the corner of his eye Clint being rolled over to his side, the archer spitting up water from his frozen lungs as he shivered from the aftermath of his stupid ass decision.
Tony wanted to go over to his friend and slap him on the back in a congratulatory 'You're the man!' way, but he was too busy fighting his internal demons as he watched in his mind's eye the Chitauri's army invading New York. He watched with a brisk detachment as Loki, then, had tossed him out his own window, as the trickster had lied unceremoniously upon his floor when all of the Avengers had gathered together to watch his pitiful form ask for a drink.
Tony bit his lip absently behind the face plate, thankful for his suit still being on so that no one but Jarvis could witness the emotional toll this was taking upon his soul.
"What's happening?" Thor asked through pale lips, eyes glancing from Barton's more lively form to Loki's still and lonesome self.
"He's dead, Thor," Tony muttered in distaste as he eyed the trickster below him and felt a pang of guilt spread through his limbs. Maybe he was being too harsh on the dude, even if the trickster was as fucked up as he was (and he was), he was still shitting on Thor's brother, and he was going to pay for that hell later.
Steve scoffed in displeasure, and Tony for a moment considered that Steve was working harder to save Loki than he himself was.
"But you can bring him back?" The thunder god's voice broke on that last word, choked out between helpless sobs, his emotions unfurled and torn between wanting his brother alive and knowing Loki would want to be let go of.
But Thor was his brother, no matter what Loki said otherwise, and he couldn't let him go so fast, not ever. So Thor held onto the broken pieces of hope that glowed in his arms, and watched in dismay at his brother's cold form, ashen and lost before him.
"We'll do the best we can, Thor," Bruce had made his way over to them, now, and Tony looked up to see Clint leaning onto Natasha, his face buried in her shoulder. Tony assumed Clint was coughing, by the wracking movement of his shoulders, but he thought just as quickly that he may as well be sobbing. Tony swallowed thickly; this was turning into a weirder day by the second.
"Do you need me to switch?" Bruce asked Tony, cool eyes gazing into the blank face plate.
Tony considered it for half a moment, but shook his head.
"Nah, I've been lifting more weights than you so I've got this covered," Tony forced a small chuckle of what was meant to be lightheartedness into the conversation but what sounded more like a pained whimper.
Steve snorted again, rolling his eyes in response, and easily continuing the breaths he was supplying to Loki's lungs.
Loki.
My God, Tony thought to himself. How again was it that they wound up in this situation? Twenty minutes into trying to revive a demigod who once wanted world domination and still, Tony was helping him out, trying to save his ass for the sake of his older brother and the tears of regret and shame that would inevitably encase the god if they were to lose.
As each minute ticked on and Loki showed no response of returning to life, Tony's icy stance slipped and melted more and more.
Okay, Tony could understand holding a grudge, but when he thought about it longer, this was someone's brother, someone's family that he was working on trying to save. This … demigod below his very hands was someone people cared about, or once did, or always will-in Thor's case. Somehow the trickster had the ability to be loved for deeply while returning utmost hatred in response to those who cared for him. He was prideful and boastful, but also lost and emotional. He didn't want help from others, and how could Tony pretend not to relate to that?
Yeah, he had done some fucked up shit in his hundreds of years of living, but to Thor, he was still and would always be his brother.
Holding the fate of your friend's sibling in your fists was a lot to ask for, and it was then that Tony swallowed hard and put more pressure down in his tired, locked up shoulders.
He had to try his best to save Loki, despite how much he hated the guy, if only to increase his chances of sleeping better at night, knowing he did all he could to help out Thor.
This wasn't about his problems with the demigod, but about Thor's love and caring for his brother despite all the bullshit Loki had done.
This was about another life lying within their hands, and the power they had in that moment to do everything they could to either help him or aid in his death.
No, Tony wasn't about to become a murderer. His wit and charm and philanthropist nature didn't roll that way.
He was going to save Loki, and no amount of time passing was going to change that.
Even if, terribly so, it had been about forty minutes since this whole incident had begun.
"We've got to switch," Steve's leadership role suddenly imploded like fireworks in Tony's skull.
"What? No, Cap, I've got this now," Tony realized then how out of breath he sounded.
"We don't need you going into cardiac arrest too, Tony," Steve pointed out easily, eyeing the billionaire with a knowing look.
Tony panted in response, unlocking his fingers from their hug and leaning back on his hunches. Tony's sore muscles screamed at him from the sudden change of movement, and for a moment he was thankful that Steve had suggested the switch, that is, until he saw Thor light up his hammer with a bolt of lightning.
Eyes wide, Tony cried out, "Whoa, Thor, what are you doing?"
Before anyone else had time to react, their forms surrounding Loki, Thor unleashed a trickle of the lightning onto his brother's chest.
Loki's shoulders rose up from the sandy beach at the lurching electricity flowing through him, only to collapse back to the ground without a change.
Steve stared in shock at the sudden ferocity that Thor was unleashing, Tony looked dumbfounded behind his mask and Bruce looked oddly impressed.
They watched as Thor sent through a series of shocks into Loki's system, hoping with halted breath that this makeshift defibrillator would create some positive effect.
To Tony's dismay, Jarvis' readings on Loki's vitals remained eerily silent.
Tears formed at the edges of Thor's vision, as he sent wave after wave of white blue light into Loki. He would not give up, he couldn't, this was his brother and he would be damned if the Allfather did nothing to save him.
Please, Father, Thor silently pleaded, the storm clouds blocking out the sunlight as the grey black sky mimicked his outcries.
An hour must have been clocking in when Thor, anger pummeling through his veins, sent up a large wave of lightning from Mjolnir and shot it once again into Loki's chest.
Thor steadied the power of electricity, channeling as much as his love and desperation into the action as he could muster, watching as Loki's body enveloped into a glow of white while his back arched higher off the ground before Thor reluctantly released him.
He was about to try again, when the Man of Iron held up a quick hand.
"Wait! We've got something!"
Shoulders collapsed inwards, his heavy hands dropping his hammer as he waited with a breath held tightly in his bosom for Loki to react.
When they all heard the sputtering and saw the cracked lips part, water spewing out from the trickster's mouth, they all let out a long, released sigh.
Tony and Steve acted quickly to push Loki onto his left side, watching as the trickster spit up rivulets of water and a concerning thin coat of blood. Tony glanced quickly at Bruce, whose eyes were narrowed in confusion about the presence of the red liquid.
"Loki!" Thor called out, dropping to his knees out of weakness from the turmoil of emotions that had been wracking through his body at high speed.
Tears sprinkled down from Thor's face as his hands clawed out to his little brother, hoping to hold him again for it had been so long. A yearning to hug his younger sibling, to coddle him and whisper to him how much he loved him went through Thor like shockwaves.
He had almost lost his brother, LOST him, for good, forever.
Thick fingers met the green and black leather armor of Loki's shoulder, and Thor could feel the twinge from his brother's body as he jerked away.
A feeling of familiarity at rejection came over Thor's face by a wrinkle in his forehead and a softening of his eyes, but in truth, his younger sibling was not out of the woods yet. Rather, these woods were just beginning.
Loki sputtered and coughed repeatedly, for what seemed like longer than the time he had been out of life. His green eyes were hidden away behind the darkness of his eyelids, as he continued to splutter and cry out from what took forever to dawn upon them.
"…He's in pain…" Tony uttered softly, his voice cracking as anxiety suddenly encompassed his features. Oh shit, Tony thought, what have we done?
A/N: Written
12/9, 12/10/16, 2/24/17.
I finally have an update! I wrote the majority of this second chapter back in December but got stuck after Loki got revived and never got around to finishing it up, well, I found a place to end the chapter on for now! Keep your eyes peeled for more story updates within the next month or so :) Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you'd like, I'll give you a virtual cookie!
Sept. 2019 update: Changed the duration of time from after NYC (originally 5 years but is now fixed to 8). :]