#11

"I'm listening," Thor mumbled and walked over to the door to close it. His unfamiliarly caring and patient attitude had vanished so quickly that Loki thought he might have imagined it. His brother had briefly transformed into the old Thor out by the coast, looking at him with mistrust and frustration, and now he was the same Thor who had incapacitated him with the obedience disk on Sakaar, an expression of whateverism stamped across his face. It was that excruciating look of indifference, which had prompted Loki to prove his brother wrong and gain back his trust by joining him in the fight against Hela because indifference was so much harder to bear than hate or incrimination. But back then—which seemed a whole lifetime ago now—Loki had longed for his brother's company after the shocking revelation of their sister's existence and the weeks he had subsequently spent in the Grandmaster's borderline psychedelic dominion. And, most of all, the dark part had been lying dormant then and right now, it was pretty much awake, igniting a firecracker of anger at Thor's self-exaltation in his mind.

Even though every fiber in Loki's depleted body ached to sink deeper into the cushion of the couch, he heaved himself to his feet and positioned himself against the armrest, arms crossed in front of his chest. "I'm curious, brother," he sneered, "is that the attitude with which you are going to prove to me that I belong by your side and that you have so many things to apologize for or is that yet to be displayed?"

Thor made a sound halfway between a sigh and a desperate laugh, his gaze resting on a pile of ashes by the door. "I guess that was a little hasty of me," he mumbled and then paused thoughtfully. "You just hate me too much for this to ever work out."

Loki opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a little squeak. And just what are you going to say, anyway? Are you going to deny it? Oh, please. It is true. You hate him.

No, it is not. I don't hate him, you do.

But I am you and you are me. We are one.

Thor crouched down, scooped up the ashes and let them flutter through his fingers. "Although I suppose, Hela made it worse by messing with your mind," he mumbled, "but there will always be a part inside of you that wants me harm. You sent the Destroyer to kill me long before Hela or even Thanos got inside your head and twisted your memories against me, so what's the point of me trying, really?"

Loki felt like someone was slamming a brick into his ribs as Hela's voice rang out inside his skull, leaving a gaping hole in his chest. You are just a defiant and defenseless child, quivering in the shadows, trembling with fear and awe at the thought of what your forefathers have achieved, Little Laufeyson. He felt his muscles slacken and took a clumsy seat on the armrest as he realized something else. Thanos … He knows … How does he know? Did Thanos tell him? Oh, please no, it can't be … What happened after I died?

"Can you answer that question, brother?" Thor asked softly, his eyes still fixed on the floor. "Can you genuinely assure me that the sun will shine on us again or is the shadow of your hatred going to linger?"

Loki felt every muscle in his body tense, his throat running dry. I want to assure you, I really do, but I am not alone in my head. "Do I have to give you an answer immediately?"

This elicited a faint chuckle from Thor before he rose to his feet, locking eyes with Loki across the room. For a moment, they just stood in that strange deserted wooden cabin, scrutinizing each other as if they were seeing the other for the very first time. As far as his brother was concerned, this was certainly true. Thor broke eye contact first and settled into an armchair across from the couch.

"This is how he did it," he said softly, jerking his head in the direction of the door. "Thanos," he clarified when Loki shot him a puzzled glance. "He used the gauntlet to restore balance to the universe by erasing half of it and he did it with a single snap of his fingers." Suddenly, there was pain in his voice, so much pain and so much guilt, too. "Half of all living things vaporized instantly but I assume you know that already."

"I knew what his goal was but I didn't know how exactly he was going to do it," Loki answered truthfully.

"Now you know," Thor replied curtly. "So, what did you want to tell me about the stones?"

"Is that really all you want from me? Information?" Loki hissed because, suddenly and quite surprisingly, he wanted Thor to change the subject back and force the truth out of him. Why? Why do you hate me so much? … Because I have that voice inside my head that will not stop screaming and I'm sorry, brother, I truly am sorry, but I just don't know how to silence it.

Thor did not oblige. Of course he didn't. "Oh, brother, please," he reprimanded him instead, availing himself to that awful holier-than-thou voice of his that made Loki's entire body seethe with rage. Well, technically, he was no longer seething as he used to. It felt more like freezing rain dazing him from the inside. "You told me to leave you alone and I did but then you followed me here, offering me information," Thor rattled away. "You truly are intractable, you know that? I brought you back from the dead even though it violates everything I stand for because you called to me for help and in return, you call me selfish. I saved you from Hela's whatever it was that she did to you and in return, you attack me. You never once thanked me for anything. Instead, you are accusing me of base interests all the time. You have made it more than clear that you despise me for being Odin's real son. You have made that clear more than once, actually, but still, you always come crawling back to me. You are a walking, breathing contradiction in terms and I never really knew what your game was but, with the fate of half the universe at stake, I actually don't care anymore. Either you talk to me or you don't but stop creeping around like that."

Loki's heart plummeted into his stomach when he heard those words, which were even more painful than the speech Thor had delivered right before he'd left him electroshocked on the floor on Sakaar and the expression on his face was worse too because it was not just indifference. It was indifference brought about by hopelessness. After all those years of basking in the dazzling glory of victory, the spirit of the Mighty Thor had finally been crushed by loss and defeat and Loki was surprised to realize that the sight did not give him an ounce of gratification. Instead, it drove a dagger through his heart.

Enough of the sentiment, Loki! Get ahold of yourself.

No! Loki screamed inwardly. You keep silent now! You leave! I have no more need for your vile counsel! I. DO. NOT. WANT. YOUR. PRESENCE. IN. MY. HEAD. ANYMORE.

Magically, his head went still. Loki drew in a sharp breath and took a leap of faith. "This has never been about you being Odin's son," he told Thor softly. "It has been about me not being his son."

Thor's features smoothened. "You were his son. And you are my brother."

Loki gave a timid nod, allowing himself to consider the possibility that his brother might be telling the truth. "The stones are in distress," he began softly, steering away from the conversation that he knew neither of them was ready to conduct at this moment. "They are ..." He broke off, trying to collect his thoughts and give significance to what he had felt when his larynx had been crushed by the Infinity Gauntlet or when he had used the last droplet of his powers to shapeshift into a bird only moments ago.

Thor leaned forward in his armchair and propped his elbows up on his knees. "They are what?"

"They are indignant," Loki continued. "They are revolting against the iniquity they have been misused for and I suppose, Thanos did pay some kind of price for that, isn't that so? I suppose the Infinity Gauntlet was rendered quite useless after this … snap?"

Thor's eyes widened in surprise. "How can you know that?"

"Because I am linked with the stones," Loki allowed. "In fact, I am linked with several of them."

"The mind stone," Thor pondered aloud, the wrinkles on his forehead attesting to his cognitive efforts. "He manipulated you with it and the space stone, too. It was in your possession when you boarded the ship and it was on the Gauntlet when you … Did you … What did you really do with the Tesseract before you faced Thanos on that ship?"

Loki smiled weakly, trying to blank out the disturbing notion that somehow Thor had come to know about what Thanos had done to him. In the face of the titan's final assault on the integrity of his self, part of him had melted off his conscious mind, as it had so many times before, but this time the memory was wondrously coming back. Sacrifice had not been the only thing on his mind and how could it have been, really? He would not be the Trickster God if his sly mind had not also conjured up a possible way to prevent his disintegration and the subsequent voyage to the afterworld. He had approached Thanos, yes, but partly he had done so with the intention of coming as close to the Infinity Gauntlet as possible. He had known instinctively what the titan would do if he got ahold of him. He had promised him as much, his voice booming through Loki's skull on the rooftop of Stark Tower all those years ago, when he had gained his senses back for a few seconds, panicking at the sight of the Chitauri annihilating New York. He had been torn between a devouring hunger for vengeance and the love for his brother, who was grabbing him by the shoulders, insisting they could fight this together, but eventually, Thanos had won. Twice. If you fail to bring me Tesseract, he had threatened back then, I will squeeze your miserable life out of your body with my bare hands until there is nothing left inside of you. And squeezed he had, while Loki's self-preservation instinct had been trying to use his remaining powers to bind his spirit to the Space Stone. He had not been entirely sure whether he would succeed and what the consequences might be but time had not exactly been on his side, so he had followed through with the impulse against all odds. He told his brother all this, concluding with, "It did not work, though, obviously."

"It did work," Thor confessed. "In a way."

His answer came as a complete surprise. "I don't understand," Loki mumbled.

Thor chewed on his bottom lip before he finally came forth with at least part of the truth. "There is another Infinity Stone. A black one. I don't know how it is possible but the place where Hela kept you, it was inside that stone. So, you might not have ended up in the Space Stone but you ended up in another Infinity Stone."

"So it is true," Loki whispered, overwhelmed by the implications of that one piece of the puzzle he had known was missing since he had tried to make sense of Hela's dimension and its effects on him.

"What do you mean, it is true? You knew about this stone?"

"Well, I heard of its existence but it was nothing but rumors." Loki gave a sigh that transformed into a small laugh. His exhaustion finally made its presence felt, screaming for a rest. He could feel both his body and mind threatening to give in to the strains they had endured. He pushed his body off the armrest, slid back onto the couch and leaned against the backrest, closing his eyes, every bone in his accursed Jotun body seemingly turning to lead. "It all makes sense now."

He felt Thor's eyes searching for his but he could not find the strength to open his own eyes again. "What does?"

"The Reality Stone," Loki whispered, mentally struggling against the exhaustion that he knew would not have bothered him as much if his body were still that of an Aesir. Or if he hadn't been drained and tortured yet again. "It is a part of me or I am a part of it, however you like. I found out a few years ago. When I learned what—or who—I was, I believed mother had to have cast a spell over me to hide my Jotun form, but when she died and I remained Asgardian, I knew that it couldn't have been one of her spells that changed my appearance. Then we traveled to Svartalfheim and the Aether came within in my reach." He paused for breath. "It communicated with me. I sensed a connection. I didn't believe it at first but when you brought the Reality Stone back to Asgard after Malektih's defeat and I had a chance to study it, I understood that I did not owe my appearance to a spell because it was not only my appearance that had been changed. My body's entire molecular structure underwent a permanent alteration. An alteration only the Reality Stone itself can induce, which is why I did not change back after mother died. Permanent changes made by the Reality Stone can only be reversed by the Reality Stone itself."

"But how are they reversed now? You never came into contact with the Reality Stone after your … death," Thor objected.

"The Reality Stone was created by the seventh stone, in a way," Loki explained, forcing his eyes back open. Fatigue was blurring his vision. "The Infinity Stones came into existence when the goddess Nemesis ended her life and shattered the essence of her being into six entities that created our universe. The seventh stone is her conscience. It is the mother of the other stones, metaphorically speaking. So it makes sense how Hela could use it to reverse my body's alteration."

"Which means she must have known that it had been used on you and how is that possible? Apart from that, father was not even in possession of the Reality Stone at that time."

"Or so he told us," Loki reminded him.

"Right," Thor acknowledged. "So, I suppose the question is: Could we use this stone to communicate with the others? To sort of lure them away from Thanos?"

"Certainly. But the far more important question is: How did Hela get ahold of it and how do we get it back?"

"I'm still working on that one," Thor mumbled.

"Will you answer my questions in return?" Loki asked cautiously, halfway expecting Thor to evade his concern yet again but his brother gave a nod. "How did you bring me back here? Hela would never have let me go."

Thor sighed more dramatically than he would have had to but after a brief pause, he spoke. "She did not want to let you go, true, but I fought her and I won."

"Why would I believe that when I saw with my own eyes how even the full magnitude of your powers could not defeat her before?"

"Because I have the Stormbreaker now," Thor replied almost nonchalantly and, very briefly, the same old belief in his own superiority and invulnerability that had almost pushed Loki over the edge of madness uncountable times flared up in his eyes. "It can summon the Bifrost, remember? I forced my way into her kingdom with it, I fought her with it and I defeated her with it."

Loki had to admit to himself that it was not impossible. Thor had vanquished other, more powerful adversaries throughout his long life. He fought at his best when he was brim-full with rage and Loki imagined that losing against Thanos had infuriated him beyond measure. He felt almost sorry for him.

"Another question is: Is she dead or is she alive?" Thor asked.

"I thought you said you defeated her," Loki replied.

"Yeah but …" Thor fell silent, his gaze resting on his own hands. "I entered the Kingdom of the Dead and she was there. Well, she was in that stone with you but she came out when she realized that I'd broken in and, to be honest, I really don't know." His facial muscles trembled slightly. "Does her pact with death necessarily end with her own death? She could still exist inside Hel even though she died, right?"

Loki thought it over. "Possible." Then, the unwanted memories came back, pushing him ever closer to a mental short circuit. Souls are corrupted, full of darkness and despair. I don't need Asgard anymore. And you and your beautiful delusion will be my main power source from now on and it will make me a lot stronger a lot faster than I thought possible. "She implied the need to become stronger, so she might actually be dead."

Thor seemed to be thinking this over, his face twisted in a deep frown. There was a long silence.

"Did I really call on you for help?" Loki asked softly although he was not particularly eager to hear the answer.

"Yes. I heard you call out to me in a dream," Thor replied. "But who knows. Maybe it wasn't you after all. Maybe it was the stones. Maybe the axe did absorb some of their power when I rammed it into Thanos' chest or maybe it was the seventh stone calling on your behalf or—"

"You rammed the axe into his chest?" Loki asked incredulously. "You should have aimed for—"

"Don't even think about saying that," Thor cut in, his face a grimace of pain. "I've blamed myself enough already."

Loki was stunned by the guilt skewing his brother's face. A heavy silence crept into the tiny cabin, seemingly soaking up the entire supply of oxygen in the tight space.

"It all makes sense now, though," Thor mumbled absentmindedly. "How everything happened the way it did?"

"I'm not sure I understand," Loki replied, inwardly flinching from all the possible reference points of the word everything.

"Thanos desired the Infinity Stones all along and if you have the energy of the reality stone inside of you, he might have sensed it after you threw yourself into the void and that is why he …" His voice trailed off.

"Don't go there, brother," Loki pleaded. He had felt the buried memories push against the lid his conscious mind had placed over them ever since his return to the land of the living and he knew he was too exhausted to fight them if they broke through now.

Thor looked him straight in the eye. "You have to go there at some point."

Loki shook his head, frantically. No, you are wrong. I cannot go back there. Not now. Not ever.

"I know he's been inside your head," Thor continued softly. "It took me a long time to understand what happened to you but I understand it now. He used the Mind Stone on you. He altered the energetic manifestations of your thoughts, amplifying existing negative emotions, planting new memories and erasing everything that made us a family. You told me you remembered me tossing you into the abyss, yet we both know this is not what happened. And now Hela did the same."

Loki squirmed.

Thor's voice was trembling when he asked, "How can you ever expect us to go on if the poisonous memories implanted by his torture are still tormenting you?"

Without another warning, the mental lid cracked open. The second Thor acknowledged that Loki had been tortured, the second he actually saw compassion in his brother's eyes for what might have been the first time, all those memories he had expelled into the psychical darkness of his subconscious broke free and bulleted into his conscious mind. Every fiber of his body began to fight the threat that those memories presented to the core of his existence but they were like shards of glass, slicing his mental defenses in half.