Author's Note: Thank you so much for your comments and support! I really appreciate it. :)
This chapter. Man. I just. Ugh. You know those chapters that are just That chapter. That was this one for me.
Warnings: Some gore.
Chapter Ten:
He stares at himself.
The mirror is clean, nothing to scrub off, nothing cracked. Pure. The lighting makes him look pale, but maybe it's just his normal complexion. His dark hair is hanging in front of his face, his lips are bloodless. Vibrant green—but dead—eyes stare back at him.
"Loki." He tries the name over his tongue. Then again, and again.
He clenches his hands around the edge of the sink.
Remember something. He pleads with himself. Something.
"Loki."
A name has power. Names are power. If it was his, shouldn't it have triggered something? A memory of a face? A place? Loki, Loki, Loki. There's no rush of memories, no magical unwind. The damage that Thanos did...that's…
It can't be permanent. He's been hanging onto that hope since he woke up for the first time in the Chitauri's prison.
Loki.
"My name is Loki." He tries the words over his tongue. They feel familiar, and foreign all at once. There's something building in his chest. An energy. Anxious power, threatening to drown him. His heart flutters, pounding away at the cage. It's getting harder to breathe, but he's not fighting that hard. "My name is Loki."
Is it?
I don't know.
"Loki."
There's a scar on the edge of his forehead, he knows it traces back well into his skull. He stares at it and wonders for the first time if his repressed memories have nothing to do with Infinity Stones. His heart hops, his breath quivers in his stomach. The mirror stares back, perfectly clean. Unspotted. Not a fracture.
Not a single fracture.
"Lo…" he stops. The name is meaningless. It does nothing. There is no sudden leap from who he is to what he was before. My name is...do I even have one?
"My name…" he chokes on the words. The pressure seems to explode within his stomach, and spreads up through his hands like fire burning through his limbs. Hard. Fast. Painful. Energy spasms through him, and he smashes his fist into the perfect mirror.
It cracks down the center, spiderwebs of broken glass. Shards dig into his knuckles. The blood stains the mirror, bathing his scattered reflection from neck down in it. He crumples slightly, trying to breathe.
He stares into the sink.
"My name is Loki," he whispers to no one, and remembers nothing.
000o000
"I don't understand," is what Wanda finally settles on.
Nova's lips pinch, but the rest of his face is flat. "Something specific you'd like to elaborate on?" he asks, "Or is it just a general statement?"
Wanda twists her lips slightly, pushing the spoon across the empty bowl of what was cereal in an effort of doing something with her hands. She's starting to regret suggesting that they discuss this over breakfast. Dinner. Whatever you want to call it. It's late in the afternoon, but it's the first solid meal that Wanda's had since escaping Thanos. And since moving to the United States, Wanda had discovered a love for cereal. Pietro offered to order something, but neither one of them were entirely certain that she'd be able to hold anything heavier yet, and Wanda had just wanted the familiar breakfast food.
"Everything, I guess," Wanda admits, not raising to the slight bait. Nova is looking for a fight. She doesn't plan on giving it to him. "Gamora's plan seems..."
"Hopelessly complex? Run on chance?" Nova asks.
"Yeah." Wanda says. She bites on the inside of her cheek. "But if the Black Order," her tongue stumbles around the term, unfamiliar, "had the Tesseract, then Thanos must've attacked Asgard while we were imprisoned together, but why didn't he bargain...you...for the Tesseract? Did Asgard not take it?" She fumbles around the words for a second, clamping down, suddenly realizing how cold they seem.
Pietro kicks her under the table. She barely contains an open grimace, flicking her gaze to him for a moment. There's no tells in his face giving away the silent command to back off, but it's there all the same.
Ever since Nova began discussing what he and Gamora talked about, it became obvious that Asgard and the family ties to it were going to be a touchy subject. He'd skirted around it like it might burn his tongue spoke more than the bare minimum.
Nova gives a slight shake of his head. Dark hair falls in front of his eyes, but Nova doesn't push it back. After getting a little more cleaned up, his hair looks less like a wet mop which shows the uneven layers. He slicked it back at first, but it keeps falling in front of his eyes anyway. With the hair swept out of the way, it revealed the edge of a thick scar starting on the far left of his forehead and disappearing into his hairline.
Sometimes he seems more like a patchwork of scars sewn together than anything else.
"Maybe he did. There's no guarantee that Asgard believed him. I've been missing for what? Six years?" Nova says it with an air of detachment, but when Wanda tilts her head to look into his eyes, he looks gutted.
Wanda bites on the inside of her cheek, following the line of thought to a darker end.
Seeing the expression on Thor's face when he talks about his missing sibling, she can't imagine them refusing the deal, but she doesn't know Thor's parents that well. She and the other Avengers went to Asgard for Thor and Jane's wedding, but beyond a brief meeting, that was the extent of their interaction.
But still…
"Maybe Thanos took that into consideration," Wanda says, but the damage has already been done.
"Yes. That would make sense." Nova blinks rapidly, then blows out a breath, plowing forward. One hand rubs furiously at the table, though, agitated. "That's not what's important right now. My fath—Thanos is going to realize that my siblings had the Tesseract sooner rather than later. Even if they make a ploy for the Stones, we're playing a pointless game."
"'Playing'," Pietro repeats, and shifts some. He dropped into a chair, straddling it, and hasn't really moved since their meal was silently declared over. His folded arms over the back shift as he stops leaning forward. "I think you misinterpreted the situation. Your sister told us to stand down."
"And?" Nova asks, an echo of Wanda's silent thought.
"And," Pietro continues, annoyed, "don't you think she's right?" Wanda opens her mouth to protest, but Pietro slaps a hand over it, shooting her a pointed look. "No. Tishina. Look—Ultron destroyed a city and nearly the world and he was only possessed by a Stone. Look at us," he gestures between herself and him, "we were touched by one, and now I can cross oceans in seconds, and you have telekinesis, telepathy, and more, but we don't have a fraction of their power. What do we have to fight Thanos with? The most we can do is keep the Stone safe and away from him. Taking the fight to him is suicide."
Wanda peels her brother's hand back, but Nova beats him to the punch. "So even knowing what you do, you want to do nothing?"
"I didn't say that."
Nova scoffs. "You didn't need to. It's written all over your face."
Pietro starts to say something, but Wanda speaks over him. "You didn't see him, Pietro. He's killing worlds. This isn't just something we can take a backseat on, and I don't want to."
He killed Vision.
Wanda won't let that go without punishment. It's all she can think about.
"And what? The three of us are going to single-handedly defeat him, and three Infinity Stones when Asgard failed?" Pietro argues, shifting slightly. His fingers reach out and snatch the wrapper for a muffin that he devoured a few minutes ago, crumpling it in agitation.
"We don't know that Asgard failed," Wanda says after a moment.
Pietro lifts an eyebrow. "So they just accidentally lostone of the objects they've sworn to protect?"
She falters for a second, sending a glance towards Nova. His face reveals nothing. She plows forward, "Still, we've faced worse odds."
"These aren't odds, Wanda. They're lives." Pietro says. Your life. His life. My life.
Nova smiles, but it's strained, like he's fighting not to shout. "He'll kill us all anyway. Me for betrayal, you for helping me. How we die is the only choice we have now."
Wanda flinches. She hadn't...getting out was supposed to be freedom. Away meant safe. She wants to protest, to fight him, but Nova seems resigned. Tired. As if he's warred himself with this battle since talking with Gamora last night and the long hours between then and now. And he lost.
"Look," Nova lifts up his hand and the Tesseract forms in between his fingers like he's peeling away an invisibility cloak. She's only seen it in photos. It's a little bigger than she thought it would be.
An energy surges through the room, making her skin tingle and her mouth taste like blood. Her stomach twists with discomfort, and she watches Pietro slink back from the corner of her eye, unease on his face.
Nova drops it onto the middle of the table, in between the open box of muffins, the box of cereal, milk, and the bowl of fruit that was already mostly empty when they sat down twenty minutes ago. The Tesseract clatters. The glass doesn't sound right. Most glass is high-pitched when it hits something, but this is lower. Guttural.
It strikes her, for the first time since she learned about the Tesseract, that that is not glass. At least, not any that she's familiar with.
"This is a tracking beacon. Thanos will trace it here no matter what we do. The Infinity Stones are drawn to their sisters. Gamora is optimistic, but without reason. How do you think Thanos found the others in the first place?"
Oh.
Pietro sighs heavily, one hand clenching around the back of the chair. "I get that. Believe me, I do. But there are still two other Stones out there, right? Reality and Soul? What do you want to do? Race Thanos for them? Do we even know where they are?"
And then what, a part of Wanda quietly sneers, we hope the half we have can overpower his? That's even assuming we beat him to the finish line.
Nova's mouth opens, then shuts. He makes a slight noise in the back of his throat and cants his head. "That…"
"Bozhe moi," Pietro groans, tipping his head back. "No."
"Pietro." Wanda barely keeps her voice above a snap. She brushes hair from her face, gritting her teeth together. "We're doing something. He killed Vision."
"I—"
"Stop," Nova snarls as he surges to his feet, end of his short temperament apparently breaking. Wanda flinches. "If you don't want to do anything, fine. That's your funeral. But if I have any hope of returning to Asgard—if they'll take me—and not immediately condemning everyone there, Thanos has to die. You want to linger back on the sidelines—enjoy them, you coward."
Pietro's jaw tightens. Wanda lays a hand on his forearm in warning, but he shrugs it off, leaning forward. His face is calm, his voice even, but his eyes are lethal. "My sister survived this by a fluke, and her vozlyublennyy was murdered. So, da, I am afraid, but it's not because I'm a coward. It's because I'm not an idiot. Look at you. He destroyed you. You're barely above an animal fighting to death throes, Loki."
Nova flinches bodily at the name, but it's significance is lost to her.
"Pietro." Wanda draws in.
Nova looks ready for blows, and Wanda gets to her feet as well, reaching a hand out. She lists to the side somewhat as a sharp burst of pain sings through her still-healing calf, but manages to catch herself. Nova is on the other side of the table, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon. "Stop," she commands, making her voice sharp rather than the light, pleading tone she wants to fall to, "Picking each other serves us exactly nothing."
Quiet meets her words, anger and a challenge unspoken in both men. Whoever speaks first between them is getting a fist to the face.
She has to play mediator. Again. Pietro is so impulsive sometimes, words barbed wire he makes people cross through just to see if they can.
Wanda releases her lip, "Let's just...discuss this later, when we're calmer, alright?"
Nova makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and shoves away from the table completely, only slightly hunched over. His hand strays to the wound on his side for a moment, but beyond that, there's little evidence that he was unconscious a few days ago. When he's far enough away in the common room that he likely won't overhear, Wanda turns to her brother.
He's staring at the table, gaze fixed somewhere above the Tesseract.
Wanda waits.
Irritation spikes through her suddenly.
Then, "What exactly are you trying to do?" Wanda hisses, "Stop fighting him. He's just as much in this fight as we are. Kicking a man already down make you feel better all of the sudden? You're not like this Pietro."
He scoffs slightly, looking up at her through messy bangs. "The only reason we are in this mess is because of him."
"No." Wanda corrects, "It's because of me. You still think that I can't take responsibility for when I mess up? Well, here it is: this one's on me."
The Sokovia Accords is a raw wound between them. Unspoken, but infected. Words that started the rift that has only grown bigger since the airport.
Pietro's jaw shifts.
Wanda forces out a breath. Nice going, stopping the fighting. She lowers herself back onto the chair, her leg giving a sigh of relief. She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the slight buzzing in her ears. Then she leans forward and rests her hands on the tabletop, opening her mouth to say something when Pietro wipes a hand under his nose and it draws away red.
And just like that—all fight drains away from her, like the presence of her brother's blood is the twist of a tap, leaking it.
Blood. Her mouth tastes like blood.
Shaking off the thought, she leans forward further, head tilting as she studies her sibling for injury, but finding nothing obvious. She swears, if he hid something...but Pietro seems more confused than her. He looks up at her for an answer and she shakes her head wordlessly.
"Am I bleeding?"
"Yes."
"Is there something there?"
"No."
"Then why…" more blood trickles out, and Pietro wipes at it. It's thicker. Wanda gets to her feet and stands in front of him, cupping his face to turn it towards her. His blue eyes are watching her carefully. The urge to cough tickles in the back of her throat, but she ignores it, studying her brother's face.
His pupils are even and reacting to the light. She can't find any evidence of a head injury when she runs her aching hands through his hair.
The cough clenches at her chest, but she withholds.
More blood from Pietro's nose, not enough to be a steady stream, but she pulls a tissue from a Kleenex box sitting on the counter and shoves it towards him. "Here," she says, tipping his head forward so the blood won't stream down his throat, "use this. FRIDAY, do you have any—"
The cough comes out sharp and hard, something bubbling against her tongue. It's metallic. She can't stop. Or breathe. She tries to swallow, but it only brings up more coughs and a wet feeling against her lips. She collapses to her knees beside the chair her brother is sitting in, coughing into her hand. Blood. What—?
"Ms. Maximoff?" FRIDAY asks, concerned, "I'm running scans, but I can't find anything wrong with either of you. There just seems to be...a..." she fizzles out a little, like static. "...try...I..."
Are they under attack?
"Waaand…" Pietro slurs, and she looks up at him through her blurred vision. One of his hands is cupped beneath his mouth, where blood is starting to stream from his lips.
This isn't…
Oh, her head.
She grapples out a hand, grabbing at Pietro's knee. She thinks he tries to say something, but her ears are ringing too much for her to make sense of it. She doesn't understand. They were fine before. She was still a little hungry, but...not…
Her head is...murky. A wash of vertigo nearly topples her, and she coughs harshly, a thick bubble of blood slipping out. Her lungs are inflated, but without any way to expel. It feels like she's dying. Her heart pumping sharply in her chest, as if every beat is an offense against it.
Almost as if she'd been bodily slammed into something, air expels from her sharply and the tangy, blood-like feeling vanishes. She gasps, leaning heavily against her brother's leg as she tries to blink away the last dregs of the vertigo. Breathing barely above pants, she looks up towards her brother, but her gaze catches movement and lifts to see Nova slowly lifting a hand away from the table.
He's staring at the two of them, green eyes more piercing than normal.
Pietro coughs once, wiping at his lips with the tissue she gave him, but it only smears blood.
"Are you well?" FRIDAY asks.
Wanda can't get words to answer.
Her brother meets her wide eyes, and lifts out a hand like he might touch her, but stops when he realizes that both of his are covered in blood. His blood. Her own are a mess. Because they were coughing and gurgling on blood.
No, she thinks in answer to the AI's question.
"Well," Nova breaks the silence, moving slightly so he's closer to them. His eyes are studying. "That was unexpected."
That's what he has to say about it?
The ringing stopped. Her head feels clear, even though she didn't realize it wasn't before. The slight edge of irritation has also washed away. Adrenaline is slowly leaking from her system, leaving her exhausted.
"What—what—?" The words don't want to form, let alone pass through her lips.
"Should I call Dr. Cho?" FRIDAY asks.
"Curious..." Nova murmurs instead of answering, then lifts out a hand. The Tesseract re-arranges itself neatly inside his awaiting palm.
That wave of other strikes her again, harder than before.
Her vision clouds, irritation spikes through her even though panic tries to overwhelm her senses. She coughs sharply, the metallic taste back. Her nose trickles, blood gushing out. Pietro slumps against the chair, parting his lips only to bleed again. He looks like a vampire that just fed.
FRIDAY tries to say something, but there's just incoherent words.
The hum of the Tesseract vanishes, and her senses click back together, like a rubber band being snapped.
Wanda breathes in sharply, wiping at her face and feels her brother shift behind her turning to face Nova standing behind them. Out of her corner of her eye, she sees him wipe his hand across his lips. "If you pull that out again, I will...I...stab you with it." Her brother promises.
Nova's head tilts slightly, undeterred. "When you were...enhanced with the Mind Stone, what was the primary agent of their alterations?" the question is apparently rhetorical, because he answers himself a moment later, "Blood, yes?"
Yes.
It hurt.
Her heart felt like it would explode for days after they were done. She'd barely been able to sleep, afraid it would give out while she slept.
"I, um," Wanda manages to get out. "Yes?"
Nova runs a hand through his hair, jaw shifting somewhat, an expression flickering across his face she can't make sense of. "That's going to make things more complicated." Nova glances towards counter, looking for something before he moves, grabs the kleenex box, and returns to them, offering it wordlessly.
Wanda pulls out a handful, wiping down her hands, then her face. Her hands are still slightly tinged.
"What will?" Pietro asks, wiping his hands. He sounds as exhausted as she feels.
Nova blows a soft raspberry, folding his arms across his chest. "Infinity Stones are pure energy, it's...overwhelming to the senses of almost everyone. Headaches, nausea, those are the more common symptoms I know of. And effects on emotion—negative mood swings, mostly. I'm unaffected because my magic's signature is high enough to match it. But that wouldn't explain the bleeding."
Pure energy. It's messing with FRIDAY.
"So?" Wanda croaks. She can't remember having this feeling around Vision. Ever. Even a minor headache.
Pietro's hand rests on her shoulder, and she nearly jumps.
Nova's lips press together for a second, looking between them, then he rubs at the bridge of his nose. "If I were to make a conjecture...you were both touched by the Mind Stone. You became...children of it, in a way. Not identical, but baring enough of a signature that when I set the Tesseract down, it...Infinity Stones are attracted to one another, yes? It's like a physical tether. When the Tesseract was close enough to you, it called for the part of you that was like the Mind Stone."
"Our blood." Pietro fills in. Wanda feels her face blanch of color. Nova nods, offering a grim smile.
"But...but I don't...we never had this problem around Vision."
"You wouldn't," Nova shakes his head, fingers drumming along his arm. "You're too similar. Honestly, you probably felt more comfortable when you were around him."
Wanda turns her head slowly up to her sibling, recognizing truth in that. "I don't…" she fumbles out, lost.
Nova hisses between his teeth. "Well. You'll be completely useless in a battle against the Stones. The closer you get to them, the faster and more extreme the symptoms would be. I doubt either of you could touch a Stone that isn't Mind without exsanguinating yourselves."
"That's—that will happen with every Stone?" there's a slight hitch in her twin's voice.
"Yes." Nova blows out a breath, looking up, clearly frustrated. "It would be better to just leave the two of you here, as far away from the Stones as you can possibly get."
Thanos killed Vision.
Her team is out there. Thor is out there.
She can't sit here and do nothing. Clint said it was time to get up. She refuses to sit this one out. It's personal. And besides that, if they stand a chance against Thanos, it's all hands on deck.
"No." Wanda feels mild surprise realizing that Pietro said it at the same time as her.
Nova lifts an eyebrow. Pietro shifts some, his hand stilling from where it was stroking her hair. He could have said a thousand things, but what he settles on makes her ache inside, "That's my family out there, too."
A hard edge around Nova's eyes softens and he releases a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. I suppose we could just throw you at Thanos. You bleeding out ought to serve as some sort of a distraction."
Pietro snorts, but stays quiet.
"If this really is your plan," FRIDAY is wary, but tired acceptance is present, "then where exactly do you plan on going?"
That quiets them.
Nova sighs and shakes his head a little. "I don't know."
000o000
"I thought he was going to hit you."
"I would've dodged."
"That's not the point." Wanda says flatly, rubbing a hand absently along the bandages to make sure they're as tucked as they'll get before she grabs her boot and yanks it up. The tightness is a comfort and pain all at once. She shifts on the edge of Pietro's bed, sweeping her gaze across the familiar space and drawing comfort from it.
Her brother releases a longsuffering sigh. "Then what is it?"
"You were being an idiot. Just because someone has an edge doesn't mean you should push them to it."
She sees her brother pause from where he's pulling a second shirt on over the first. His face is puzzled. "I didn't. Mean to, that is. I just...there was rage. I don't know from where. I wanted to make him hurt."
Pietro's face falls a little at the admission and he closes his eyes for a moment, then tugs the gray shirt down completely.
Wanda's lips tighten. The faint taste of the earlier attempted hemorrhage is too close. There was something wrong with that Stone. She'd thought that the power might feel slightly alluring. It wasn't. In all the ways she'd thought about what might happen if she was put within the vicinity of a different Stone before, this wasn't really at the top of the list.
This wasn't really at the top of the list.
The irritation. Anger. She felt it, too. She just didn't speak it as much.
Wanda doesn't know what to say to that statement, so she doesn't, instead asking, "Loki?"
Pietro stiffens. He lifts his head up to her, and there's guilt there.
"Baldr is the name that is commonly given to Thor's brother, but some sources listed it as Loki." FRIDAY offers, "I remembered Thor mentioning a Loki before."
Wanda is quiet for a second on that. Loki. She mouths the name to herself. It does seem a little familiar.
Pietro runs a hand through his hair, "I didn't think he'd recognize it. You think he dropped it on purpose? Nova seems pretty far away."
They told me I am Nova.
"No." She says after a moment. "That's the name Thanos gave him. I wonder why he didn't mention he remembered something else."
000o000
He's sitting at the kitchen table when she approaches, and Wanda carefully eases herself into the seat across from him. She's not sure what to call him anymore. Nova is all she's known, but he seems hesitant to take on his birth name again.
Like how she's hesitant to do this.
If they knew where they were going.
"Are you alright?" she asks. Nova's gaze is slightly vacant, but life breathes into it at her question. His eyes slip down from the corner they were pinned at, and land on her. He says nothing, but she didn't expect him to. "We could try and see if we can find others to help us. I know of at least two."
Rhodey and Sam. She might be able to get in contact with Spider-Man, too, but not fast enough. FRIDAY maybe…
"No." Nova says. No explanation.
"It might help to have some backup," she suggests, pushing at this warily. "Me and Pietro won't be much use in a fight."
Bleeding all over themselves. Spitting up the blood because that's all they're good for when it comes to these Stones.
"You won't have to be." Nova says, "We have nowhere to go. The Soul Stone has been missing for millennia, no one's seen Reality in just as long. All we have is Space. If we want Stones, we'll just have to wait for Thanos to come to us."
Wanda's shoulders drop. Vision, she thinks desperately. "So we're sitting on it?"
"What else can we do?" Nova asks, throwing his hands out a little with frustration. "I have no ideas, Wanda. No way to contact my fath—Thanos, or Asgard. And they apparently aren't too excited to do the same to me, because they left me there."
Wanda feels herself tense, an awful taste sitting in her mouth. "You don't know that."
"Thanos would use all his bargaining chips." Nova's smile is bitter.
"Loki—" the word tumbles out of her on accident. Nova's entire body stiffens like she's stabbed him and he hisses a sharp, gasping, "don't."
She stops.
He breathes. Then, only looking a fraction calmer, says, "I can't."
"Can't what?" she asks, trying to be gentle.
He closes his eyes, seeming to sink into himself. Hunched, wary, tired. "Names are supposed to mean something. That...that isn't mine. None are mine. I'm...I don't know. I don't…"
Lost is the only word she can say matches his expression. But even that doesn't seem to fit.
Tread carefully.
Wanda leans forward a little, lifting out a hand to rest on his. His fingers twitch away from her, but it seems to be more on principle than actual discomfort. His hand is cold, but that doesn't surprise her. She plays with several words for a second, trying to dredge together something coherent and actually helpful. "What do you mean?"
Nova releases a ragged sound. "It was supposed to fix it."
"'It?'"
"I'd know my name and then I'd remember. It would fix it," he gestures towards his head with his other hand. "It would fix me. I was supposed to snap back into place like some sort of...I was just supposed to go back to the way I was. Before all of this happened. But I keep saying it over and over and I remember nothing. It was supposed to help, and it does nothing."
"Your memories?" she guesses, her stomach sinking.
Oh.
"I don't remember." Nova squeezes his eyes shut. "And if they left me there, I don't know if I want to."
Wanda shakes her head, uncomprehending. "Nova," she says, voice careful. "Thor would never have left you there. No, don't—look, I know him. He speaks very highly of you. He misses you so, so much...I can't imagine living without my brother, and the pain he feels...They never would have left you there, I promise."
Nova doesn't smile. His expression has closed off, like he's trying to hide pain.
Wanda squeezes his hand.
They're quiet.
Wanda doesn't know what to say. If she should say anything.
"Do you...am I…" Nova starts hesitantly. His hand closes to a tight fist beneath her fingers. He releases a stiff breath, then meets her gaze. His eyes are hard. Angry. "I'm not keeping this identity. Even if I...don't...I'm taking my name. Mine."
Wanda nods, feeling small relief bloom in her chest. "Screw Thanos." She says firmly.
Nov—Loki's lip twitches up a little. "Screw him." He agrees.
Wanda gives his hand another squeeze, and forces a smirk to lift on her lips. It feels plastic, and like everyone knows that it is. If Loki notices, he doesn't say anything. His gaze are still contemplative, competitive, and Wanda's grateful for his distraction. It helps hide her own. Loki's doubt makes her hesitate, more so than she was before.
If Thanos had one of the princes of Asgard, why wouldn't he have used that? But Asgard couldn't have taken that chance that Loki wasn't alive. They wouldn't have refused...right?
Author's Note:
Da: Yes
Tishina: Quiet
Bozhe moi: Expression similar to "oh my gosh!" "Oh goodness", etc.
vozlyublennyy: Beloved
Next chapter: August-ish.