Author's Note: Haha, so I'm digging through old work I've written over the last few years and came across this painful gem. :) I can't remember when I officially finished it, but I'm guessing that it was in May or June of 2018, so yep. Anyway.

One of the things that really bothered me about Thor: Ragnarok was how carelessly they handled Jane and Thor's relationship. I shipped (and still ship) them hard and it really made Frigga's sacrifice almost meaningless. I just look at Jane and Thor in the first two movies and I honestly can't see them not try to maintain their relationship or Thor not take her with him.So this is sort of an exploration of what the heck happened to Darcy, Jane, and Erik between the Dark World and Infinity War. And Thor feels, you're welcome. :)

Pairings: Thor/Jane.

Rated for: Minor violence, heavy themes. No slash, no smut, no incest, no non-con, language is all K.

Characters: Thor, Jane, Darcy, Dr. Selvig, other Asgardians (mentioned)

Written: 2018 some time.

Note: Not checked for spelling or grammar!

What More Could I Lose?

"And what if you're wrong?" Rocket's voice pierces through Thor's thoughts sharply and he stares at the small creature for a moment, his thoughts skidding to a halt. Frigga's dead body crashes through his head, holding Loki's dying body and his corpse, watching Odin's dust fade, Heimdall's pain filled groan, Loki's soft voice confirming to him that the Warriors Three are indeed dead, Valkyrie standing in front of Heimdall to take the worst of a stab and her lifeless corpse falling to the ground.

Pain.

Hurt.

Anguish.

Jane had died with their unborn child.

Their marriage had not been public, it didn't have the propaganda of an Asgardian wedding it didn't have thousands of guests, visitors from other Realms or even Thor's closest friends. Tony knew, because Jane's projects were funded by him and her walking around with her engagement ring had been fairly obvious. Tony had demanded answers with a twinkle in his eye and Thor had had to give them.

Tony was happy for them and offered to assist in any way he could; Thor and Jane only begged for his silence on the manner. Though he was slightly surprised, Tony didn't argue.

They kept it quiet to not have interference from Asgard.

Thor, when he was younger, had imagined his wedding to be a large party with his closest friends at his side, his beautiful wife (of which Jane had exceeded all imagination) at his right, his parents behind him, happy at his choice of companion and Loki, his brother and best man on his left. It would be a joyous occasion, more so than his coronation.

(It had never happened and his coronation had ended both bitterly and ugly).

Thor had dodged political weddings for almost two hundred years from his father, insisting that when he was married it would be because he was in love (he didn't care, not then, he just didn't want a woman to tie him to Asgard. He wanted to be free and she would restrict him) and nothing else. He had been in love with Jane, his Jane, deeply.

She was a queen among all woman, and one he was honored and humbled would accept him as a husband.

He imagined that his and his wife's wedding would be the talk for decades the joyous occasion so intense that people couldn't stop speaking about it. The party would be wonderful and last for days. Loki would likely play a trick on them, simply because that was what he does and Frigga would insist that the wedding wasn't ready even though every detail was perfect; Odin would approve of his choice and all would be well.

Instead, Loki is dead, his mother is gone and his father would soon banish him until Jane is rotting six feet under before he returns. Sif is missing and the thought of having the Warriors Three at his wedding oddly sickens him. They are different that he remembers before he was banished, they are vile, cruel. They do not learn the truth of Loki's heritage, only Sif does. The Allfather does not make the knowledge public; the second prince died in dishonour once, then redeemed himself when he died for Thor. How backwards it was, because both times Loki had died because of Thor.

He tries to enjoy their company, but when he returns from Midgard after the battle of New York he cannot stand their arrogance, he distances himself, trying to think outside of their suffocation and then the Dark Elves happens and he has to resort to their assistance once more.

His wedding was a secret, it was quiet and no one talked of it. It is a quiet affair, Jane is beautiful, Darcy is her bridesmaid (unhappy at wearing the "big poofy dress that makes me feel like a large coconut covered marshmallow", but she takes dozens of pictures from her Stark-phone (Tony had taken one look at her phone well they were planning the wedding a look of disgust on his face before the next day a package had arrived for Darcy, a sticky note plastered on top reading: "An upgrade, because you sorely need one, Ms. Lewis)) and Tony is his best man. Pepper and Tony come, but Tony is the only Avenger to attend the wedding, because he is the only Avenger who knows about it.

(The guilt lessons, later, when he learns about Clint's family; he isn't the only person keeping large secrets like that). There is ten people total (including the staff), but Thor is happy, Jane is happy and they are married, content and joyful.

Nothing could be better than that moment. Thor will outlive her, they both know this, but he will enjoy the years he has with her. They both will.

They pass the mark of Frigga's death, then Loki's a week later. It is hard and painful, but Jane will grip his hand when his expression wanders, or she will shove a poptart in his direction and he will smile towards her fondly before they will proceed with their day. It is a blessing for her to be present in his life. How difficult it is to imagine having never known her, if it had just been a mere hundred years from now they wouldn't have even been aware of each other's presence.

They're married for nine months when Tony contacts him about the scepter and Ultron happens, he returns battered and tired (no longer the only secretly married Avenger) and the startling news as Jane throws her arms around him with joy that Jane is pregnant.

He is as thrilled as she is.

Fatherhood was something he ever thought of himself, (he'd barely thought about parenthood in his lifetime before (save when Frigga was pestering him about the fact that she needs "grandbabies, Thor, grandbabies!" and he and Loki would share a look of disgust), but with Jane he doesn't feel nervous, just excited and assured that she will be a wonderful mother.

They often speak of their child the next few months, debates on what gender they believe the child to be (Erik is sure it will be a female, but Darcy is set in stone about a son, Jane is hoping for a daughter, but Thor has no preference). He and Jane shift to a larger apartment, one with three bedrooms instead of the two (because Darcy lives with them, sister to Jane (if not by blood) and the thought of kicking her out makes both Thor and Jane recoil).

Thor knows he needs to search for the Infinity Stones, to figure out why their suddenly popping out of nothingness into sight again, the strange oddity that it is. He doesn't understand, but needs to, because this is likely not a good sign. He doesn't want to leave Jane right now, in this excitement, he knows that his quest could take months, perhaps even years to finish his search for knowledge.

So he waits, convincing himself to leave after their child is born.

Jane hits seventeen weeks and they learn that their child is a male. Jane is overjoyed, all her hopes for a daughter thrown out the window as she learns of their small little boy. They share it with Darcy who proudly proclaims she can predict the future and that they should only eat blue food for a week. Erik is disappointed it's not a female, but he is thrilled at the prospect of a grandson.

They do indeed eat blue food for a week.

Jane begins to carry a notebook around, scribbling names down whenever she thinks of one for their son and encouraging Thor to do the same. He has few ideas, but Jane's list grows progressively longer and she resorts to throwing the notebook in frustration because they "can't give their son one hundred and twenty-six different middle names!" (and she can't drop any of the names, either).

Darcy picks the notebook off the floor, flips through it her expression clouded with thought before she points down at a name declaring their son's name is Morgan; Jane is startlingly okay with this and Thor is as well.

He and Darcy paint Morgan's room a light blue, Jane sitting on the couch (forced by both himself and Darcy to not assisting) with Erik, who has become the unofficial grandfather on Jane's side in their small family.

At twenty-two weeks, Thor helps Natasha and Steve with a small mission to take out a stream of Hydra bases (which turns out to be more than they originally thought) and he comes home to a sobbing Darcy on the couch, clutching a framed photo. As he takes her into his arms, confused, but not disregarding the feelings of the girl he has come to see as a little sister, he learns with a deep punch of horror that Jane was hit by a car on her way back from a doctor's appointment and killed instantly.

Jane is gone.

Jane is…

Jane, his love, his wife...gone and he was not even there when it happened.

Darcy slips Jane's wedding ring into his hand before burying herself against him and they cry together. The funeral is held, but there aren't many in attendance, Jane's parents died when she was sixteen (she was never adopted, just shuffled through foster-care until she was eighteen) and no one in Thor's family will come. (Because his mother and Loki are dead and Odin never cared for Jane).

He finds Midgard's acts of burying their dead slightly repulsive, but he doesn't comment because he knows that it is tradition here and he doesn't want to break it.

Then Jane's coffin is lowered, taking his wife and his child with it.

He will never get to hold his child in his arms or Jane, again. He will never even know what Morgan looks like, will never get to show him to his father or anyone else.

He returned home with Darcy and they both grieved in an ugly silence that lasted for days. The rain fell hard and Darcy's eyes grew more haunted and finally Thor left the building in frustration (an act he will forever regret) and wandered the streets of London in an effort to clear his mind. He manages to clear some of the fog and buys a chain to put his and Jane's wedding rings around before stuffing it under his shirt.

When he returns to the apartment, Darcy is laying on the kitchen floor, gun in her right hand, blood leaking from her head. The grief from losing her sister was to much for her to handle and Thor, once again, couldn't be there for the most important women in his life. Not his wife, his mother or his surrogate sister. Now all that has to happen is for Natasha to kill over and die then Sif to follow and every female he truly cares for will be gone.

The loss from both his "daughters" snaps the last line of mental sanity in Erik, and he is admitted to a mental health facility. Thor is not allowed to visit, no matter how much he pushes.

It was just easier to deal with the grief, in the long run, to tell people that he and Jane had simply broken up. They were no longer courting (they hadn't for a year and three plus months now they were married) and no, he had no idea that she'd passed on, how terrible!

He felt numb.

He felt empty.

He didn't want to return to Asgard, where no one would understand his ache, where memories of Loki and Frigga would plague him and he would have to start grieving all over again. Asgard didn't know about his marriage, his child or the woman he had come to see as a sister and the man a strange sort of uncle. He just wanted to be held by Frigga. Wrapped in her arms where he could pretend it didn't hurt so much.

It did.

Oh how it did.

He wanted to be in Loki's presence, not talk to him, not really no, but just know that his younger brother was there and alive. The quiet rustling of turning pages and the shing as Thor sharpened a weapon.

Them. Together. Where they could both sit quietly in their broken worlds.

But Loki was dead and so was Jane.

Jane, his beautiful angel, was gone.

His love, his peace, his. Gone. When he wakes up gasping from a nightmare, his hand clenching for Jane's that's no longer there, the grief swallows him. So instead, he imagines how Frigga would have spoiled their son, how she would have given him all of Asgard if simply to appease him. She would have been overjoyed at the birth of her grandson.

He imagines the Allfather is pleased at the birth, that he too, loves the child. Thor imagines as he holds the baby for the first time in his arms awkwardly manhandling him before Frigga would laugh and scoop the child up with the gentleness of a cat looking after her kits would then rock the child.

He knows Fandral would have refused to hold him (a long standing feud between being thrown up on by young people after his younger brother expelled his stomach's contents on him in public), that Volstagg would have been thrilled, a small smile spread across Hogan's face and Sif...Sif would have given a squeal and demanded to hold him. Sif has always had a sore spot for babies, not children, babies.

He imagines that the Avengers are not so sorley split, that the closeness that they carry when they meet is constant, and that they, too, are happy to see Morgan. He can see Tony's look of confusion as the child is placed in his arms, Clint's calmness, Natasha's ease, Steve's hesitation, and Bruce's carefulness (but Bruce has been missing for over five months now, and no one has any idea where he is).

He thinks sometimes, about how Loki would have handled his son. Sometimes Loki refuses, in others he holds the babe with disgust, but the most firm illusion he creates is the one where Loki takes the child from his arms with hesitation glancing at him as if asking "am I doing it right, Thor?" and still feeling out of place. But Loki would hold his son and Darcy would lift her phone taking pictures with a smirk on her face and everything would be perfect. There with him, Jane his child, Loki and Darcy all around or on the sofa as they watch some sort of detective show by BBC (or anything, Thor doesn't care, they'd be together and happy, and safe).

Thor will never know what his son looks like.

He couldn't save Jane. He cannot even avenge her. She is dead.

So yes, he lied, they broke up, he had no idea she was dead, how could he? They hadn't seen each other in forever. Midgard became to much, so he left. He returned to the library on Asgard and found everything he could on the Infinity Stones, (it hurt, because Loki's messily loopy handwriting was on the edges of a few pages with notes) then left to find what he could.

Ragnarok happened. He will not lie that after they were not in the public square of Asgard, Thor punched Loki in the face screaming, "How could you do this to me, again!". Loki did not understand how much it hurt to lose a family member, he did not understand how deep the ache for death to lose it's grasp was. Loki had merely stood up, gritted his bruising jaw and stared at him for a long moment with haunted green eyes before they left for New York.

Thor has come to love Midgard as an extension of Asgard, but their ignorance and ability to believe falsehoods is ridiculous. When those two girls had asked for a picture, then left their careless remark, "it's a shame Jane dumped you" he had wanted to throw something at the back of their heads.

"It was a mutual dumping" he had said towards their backs, because she left him for death and he left her because he was still alive.

This day, the next, a hundred years; it's nothing, it's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready.

He wonders if Loki even realizes how deeply true those words are.

Odin had died, the last bit of normality he had had and he wanted something to throttle, something to fix all that was going wrong, because it had been nothing but ugly for years now and Loki had shoved Odin there.

Then Hela had came, declaring her lineage, her sister-hood and Thor had switched his "I'm going to throttle a sibling" from Loki to her because only Darcy was worthy of the title "Thor's sister" and this woman would never be that.

He gained his brother back in exchange for his sister's life. He wishes it could have ended differently, that Hela had not gone crazy with rage (and it frightens him, immensely, because he realizes that Loki could have turned into that. (Loki's rage wasn't as vile, as cruel)) and that they could have reconciled, but they didn't, and he had let Surter go.

Having Loki back at his side helps. It helps immensely. He didn't realize how much he'd come to rely on his brother until Loki was no longer there to keep him standing upright. They are two parts of one half and neither can survive without the other. They have each other, and that's enough.

Asgard is lost, but it's people still stand, alive and well.

For the total of about a week.

Thanos tears into their hull his "children" ripping apart everything and there is only a handful of warriors left from the skirmish with Ragnarok and they put up a fight, but they lose.

Then it is only him, a battered, bruised and injured Loki, a vengeful, but defeated Hulk and a gatekeeper, with too much blood loss to stand among the dead he has fallen with.

"I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again."

And then it is only him. Only Thor. The last Asgardian to live; and as he drags his broken body towards Loki's, his mind screaming "protect!" and "loss!" as he wraps his hand around Loki and buries his head into his younger sibling's chest, weeping. Loki was too young to die (barley near a thousand and a century) he's not supposed to die, that's Thor's job. He's supposed to protect him. His baby brother, who is gone, just like Jane, just like Frigga, and Odin, Heimdall, Valkyrie and his entire kingdom.

A king with only failure to reign over.

He can't protect his family, or his kingdom or his friends, but he is going to avenge them.

"Well if I'm wrong…" Thor's voice cracks, but he forces it to remain steady for another moment. His hands pressing together firmly, but he can still feel the rough fabric of Loki's armor and the chill of his skin underneath his fingers as Loki's skin changes from it's Asgardian illusion to it's Jotunn and this is why Thor is sure, why he is positive, that Loki is-

Loki is-

Dead.

Like Mother. Like Father. Jane. Darcy. Everyone.

He hasn't seen the Avengers in two years, but he knows of the Civil War for the brief time he and Loki spent on Midgard. They are fractured, not dead, but fractured and he was not there to stop it. He is only a man of "I was pretty close, but just missed it!". He should have been there to do something to stop his family from tearing itself apart. But he didn't. So with a defeated stare from his single eye, Thor turns to the rabbit and a bitter frown plays on his face, "What more can I lose?"