The Link that Broke the Chain
1 - Together
Thanos intended to kill him. Loki knew this, even as he offered his help, his allegiance, his everything—anything—to the Mad Titan. Thanos looked upon him with vague amusement, like watching an ignorant child try to read. It was humiliating, but Loki was used to that. He had discovered a long time ago that where others had honor, he had only an aching need to survive. If he must crawl, he would crawl.
But Thanos wasn't biting at the worm. He looked at Loki gently, with that terrible paternal kindness he dared to wear—the faux compassion that belied his abject cruelty. A horrible echo of the love and acceptance Loki had once craved.
Thanos needed no guide, needed no allegiance of his. A failure, once and forever more.
Loki conjured a dagger into the palm of his hand, working dozens of different scenarios around in his head, even as he spoke his most honeyed words. Thanos had two Infinity Stones: Power and Space. Even without them, the dagger would be almost useless.
He thrust the dagger up with the speed that had once allowed him to catch an arrow, but it caught and stopped dead in a glow of blue. Some element of the Space stone held it at bay just infuriating inches from the Mad Titan's throat.
"Undying?" Thanos tutted. "You should choose your words more—"
His hand went straight through Loki's arm, which vanished in a flash of green sparks.
Thanos laughed.
"This is why I kept you around for so long," he called, sure that Loki could hear him. "So full of surprises."
Daggers flew at him from several different directions, but he knocked them away easily.
"Even though you fail. Time and again."
The sun will shine on us again. The sun will shine on us again.
The words echoed around Thor's head until they were all he could hear. What did it mean? It had to be part of some plan. Loki always had a plan! And a backup plan, and a backup plan for the backup plan…
He felt so weak, so tired. The metal straps held him with crushing strength, so that he couldn't move a centimeter. His heart twisted painfully as Loki jerked the dagger up and toward Thanos' jugular, and in the tense moment before his brother's shade disappeared, he doubted that it beat at all.
The sun will shine on us again. The sun is in the sky. Rainbows are in the sky. Rainbow bridge? Bifrost? Heimdall was dead.
The sun… The sun is getting real low? The Hulk? The Hulk was defeated, sent away by the last of Hemdall's dying power.
"This is why I kept you around for so long. So full of surprises."
His temples throbbed. Could it truly mean nothing? Gentle platitudes had never been Loki's preferred method, unless he was working an angle.
No, maybe once. At his coronation, long ago.
The sun is a star. Mjolnir was forged in the heart of a dying star. Mjolnir was broken, shattered. He could summon lightning without her now, but the atmosphere in space was too thin to sustain it after it left his body. It would just fizzle out at arm's reach.
"Even though you fail. Time and again."
Thanos jolted forward and blew away a burning column with a single punch. Loki tumbled out from behind it at the last second, avoiding the crushing blow in favor of shards of shrapnel cutting into his face and clothes. Blood trickled from his scalp and he clutched his shoulder painfully. Thor called out in fear, muffled by the cold metal. There was nowhere for his brother to hide on a damn burning ship!
"I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve," Loki's gritted out, flashing his teeth through the pain. "That's my way, you see. Some do battle. Others just do tricks..."
The plan clicked in Thor's brain just as he felt the atmosphere begin to thicken with smoke.
Just as suddenly, Thanos had Loki by the throat. "No," he breathed, holding him aloft. "No more tricks from you."
Loki choked, blue veins starting to appear on his skin. "Wanna. Bet?" A small device appeared in his hand, and he pressed the button.
A flicker of light on Ebony Maw's neck was the only warning before the obedience disk sent corrupted energy coursing through his veins. Maw shrieked and flailed, and the metal holding Thor dropped to the ground. Lightning lit up his eyes, his chest, his heart, and he put every ounce of rage he had into a cascade of bolts, focusing their power on the arm which still held his brother in its deathly grasp.
Thanos staggered back, dropping Loki with a sickening thud. Loki barely took a breath before his hands ignited with green magic, and he swept his arms through the air, thickening the smoke to its densest level. He scurried back on hands and elbows, puffing, the Mad Titan out of sight but dreadfully present.
He spun over onto his stomach and lurched to his feet, following where Thor's lightning had come from. The room spun, but he couldn't afford a moment to gather himself. He raised a shaking hand and conjured several shades of himself that took off in different directions, and then several of Thor, as best he could imagine his brother's likeness. Black spots danced across his eyes.
His heart nearly stopped when a hand grabbed his arm out of the smoke, and he sent a bolt of ice magic into the offending limb without even waiting to discover which member of the Black Order it was. The resulting shriek told him belatedly that it may have been Proxima Midnight, but all that mattered was that the hand had left his arm and he was lost again in the smoke.
He ran until he reached the end of the Statesman's devastated hull, nearly plunging off the edge due to the smokescreen. A crackle of static in his ear alerted him to Thor's presence, and he flung out an arm to grab him before he did the same. The bloodied brothers panted, sharing an understanding glance, then set their gaze into the black abyss of space.
"Together this time?" Loki rasped, offering his hand.
Thor nodded, clamping down on his forearm like a lifeline. "Together."
And they jumped.