#16

"Just cut to the chase, Elsa," Stark demanded sharply. The blonde woman sighed softly. "None of us is in the mood."

Loki did not possess enough knowledge of the Midgardian ways to decode half of the engineer's taunts, but as a master of storytelling, he knew when he was losing his audience. He heaved a theatrical sigh. "Alright, alright. It is not as if I have anywhere else to go, right?" He looked at Thor, who was finally looking at him with an expression of pride. It was mixed with a tiny bit of uneasiness that seemed entirely uncalled for but the pride was there nonetheless and that was everything that mattered. This is my chance of finally becoming part of something greater and more significant than myself and, I swear by the Norns, I will not let you take that away from me. Not this time. "I will help you, Stark," Loki clarified. "Nebula is right. This is my fight too and I suppose I have been running from it for far too long." He smiled thinly. "That does make us allies in this war, doesn't it?"

"I suppose it does," Stark answered quietly.

"What a shame I can't shake hands now," Loki quipped. "That would be quite poetic, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, shut up," came the other man's reply.

"Just so you know," noted the raccoon, "this pissing contest you two are having is more than annoying for everyone else."

"It is," the blonde woman agreed.

Thor's eyebrows shot up. "What is a pissing contest, exactly?"

"Dude, isn't that obvious?" The raccoon rolled his eyes. "The more important question is: What's your plan?"

"We don't have a plan," Thor admitted. "Yet."

"What do you mean you don't have a plan?" the raccoon exclaimed. "What have you been doing here all this time?"

"I have been asleep for the most part," Loki replied. "Let me tell you, coming back from the dead is quite exhausting, both physically and mentally."

"So is worrying over an intergalactic sociopath that could have been stopped six years ago if a certain god-giant-brat had opened his mouth about having been inside his mind." Stark grunted before he jerked his head into the direction of the vessel. Loki flashed him a smile and mouthed a sorry. The engineer narrowed his eyes. "Alright, let's get back to Headquarters. Unless you do have any special attachments to this cabin, I suggest we leave right now."

"Let me just get my bag," Thor replied. "Well, your bag."

Loki was not sure what could be in that bag that was so important but his brother apparently needed a moment to collect his thoughts, even though Loki could not begin to guess why he seemed so hesitant and almost awkward. Probably because he thinks that you are going to make a mess. Valkyrie and Iron Man entered the aircraft, followed by the two women and the raccoon. I am not going make a mess. Not this time.

Yet, how could he be sure of that? He was the God of Mischief and Chaos. Everything he touched was bound to get messy one way or the other.

Thor put a hand on his back. "This time I'm not gonna say I wouldn't worry, brother," he whispered. "I'm not gonna say everything's gonna work out fine either. I'm just gonna remind you that you're not alone unless you choose to be." He gave him a gentle push.

Unless you choose to betray me and forfeit my trust. Again. Loki glanced one last time at the coast of Norway, the former home of the Vikings, whose storytelling about gods and giants and elves and dwarfs had shaped the imagination of mortals for millennia. As a child, upon exploring the vast library of Asgard and devouring tale after tale of magical beings on their cosmic quests, he'd often wondered if there was a possibility that the Aesir only existed because of those stories, those legends, those myths. If they would die if humans no longer clung to the hope that they were not alone in this universe. He wondered now if their fading hope was responsible for Odin's death and Hela's return from the land of the dead. If mortals believed the destruction of their world to be upon them after everything that had wrecked their precious planet in recent years, could they bring it about simply by believing it? And did that mean that maybe, just maybe, the God of Mischief would finally get his chance if mortals started believing he deserved it?

Stop this nonsense, Loki. You are just feeling guilty. The voice snickered inside his head. Thor was right. Your actions led to Asgard's destruction and they will not forgive you. Just you wait, Loki. You will come crawling back to me if they reject you. And reject you they will. You know that, don't you? When has anyone ever acknowledged your attempts to make things right?

Never but I …

See? They will all reject you. Thor, the Avengers, Midgard, everyone, and what then? What then, Loki?

He smiled. It will not come this. Not this time. It was true that those who knew him were usually rather underwhelmed by his conflict resolution strategies—and had been long before he'd unlashed the full power of the Bifrost upon his birthplanet in order to prove where his allegiances lay—but Loki also knew that he had never genuinely tried to make things right before. He would try now. Loki walked into the aircraft. Stark, his lady friend and Nebula were standing in the cockpit, so he settled into the seat across from Thor, who had slid down next to Valkyrie, and next to the raccoon, who stirred uneasily.

"I am not going to hurt you," Loki mumbled as he fastened his seatbelt. The last time he had taken a seat in a similar carrier, he had been there only half-voluntarily, captured by Iron Man and Captain America after a marvelously empowering encounter with a group of terrified mortals, with access to only half his conscious mind. The only thing he still remembered vividly was the mixture of terror and relief he had felt when he had heard his brother's thunderstorm rumble across the sky.

The raccoon grumbled. "No? Then what did you want with those damn blades back there?"

"Just a joke," Loki said softly as the aircraft took off, the steep cliffs of the Norwegian coast shrinking as the steel vessel lifted itself into the air. Not this time, Loki assured himself silently. This time, you will not sabotage your chance. "I am sorry. Old habits die hard, I guess. So, what's your name? I suppose you do have one?"

The animal eyed him suspiciously. "Rocket," he finally said. He paused, examined him once more, and then asked if touching Loki's skin would really give him a frostbite. When Loki gave a nod, Rocket grinned. "Can I try?"

"Oh, I wouldn't," Valkyrie cautioned. "You saw Thor's chest. A Frost Giant's touch really hurts."

"The touch of a Jotun," Loki corrected her. "Please."

"So what happens if you hold a drink? Are you able to cool it?" Rocket went on. "Or even freeze it?"

The question came as a complete surprise but Loki had to admit that the workings of the raccoon's mind appealed to him in a strangely comforting way. "I never tried that before."

"Would be quite an advantage at a party," Rocket mused.

"Are you good to go, Friday?" Stark asked and a disembodied voice coming from somewhere inside the aircraft answered in the affirmative. "Flight time is eight hours and twenty-one minutes, sir."

Eight hours? This is a very long time to be penned in with all of them in such a tiny space, Loki thought grimly but there was no going back now. He was here, with them. He had offered his help and he was determined to make it work even if every fiber in his body itched to escape.

"Enough time to talk plan," Stark announced. "Or brainstorm. Or whatever it is we can do at this point. Friday, call the team."

At that, Loki's heart almost leaped out of his chest.

Tony's AI informed them that it was only four o' clock in the morning in New York City and noon in Wakanda but Thor barely heard it. All he could think about was that he had first encountered Tony and Steve on an aircraft like this after hurling to Earth on a wave of his father's black magic, entrusted with the task of bringing his brother back home. He had fought them at first but then they had joined forces and later become friends. So much had changed since then. He had betrayed their friendship and he could feel their mistrust and disappointment like an invisible wall isolating him from them. Valkyrie was sitting right next to him but he could almost feel the reassuring warmth of her presence cooling down and he knew that he was losing her. Had already lost her, probably. Everything was going entirely wrong. Thor had not expected that he would still be clueless about how to get out of Hela's bargain after racking his brain the entire night while watching Loki whimper softly in his sleep, putting his hands on his brother's blanket-covered shoulders every now and then to assure him that he was still there and that he was safe. He had not expected the Avengers to come after him. He had not expected Loki to agree so swiftly to aid them. He definitely had not expected himself to stand idly by, wishing they had not come, while they were pleading with him to reconsider a decision that his heart knew was right even though his sense of duty kept screaming at him that it was wrong.

Right and wrong, black and white, good and bad, moral and immoral, Loki had once mocked him, looking at him over the leather cover of a thick book in Asgard's library when Thor had come to call him out on one of his mischievous schemes. These are manmade concepts. They are all a matter of perspective and should have nothing to do with us. Back then, he had laughed into Loki's face. Back then, he had firmly believed in black and white. Now he knew that some things were just a hideous, blotchy gray.

"Wakanda is not picking up, sir," F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s disembodied voice announced even though it was obvious that nobody was answering the call.

"Try Banner," Tony commanded.

"I still can't believe that you faced Hela alone this time," Valkyrie whispered out of nowhere, as if the mention of Bruce's name had sparked a memory. "But then again, you would have faced her alone last time as well if not for him and me."

Loki flashed her a self-righteous grin. "Or me."

Valkyrie's eyes narrowed. "Correct me if I'm wrong but by the time you graced us with your presence, the battle on the Rainbow Bridge was already well underway."

"That might be true but if I hadn't made you remember how Hela vanquished you the first time, you would never have been on that bridge either." Loki sneered.

Valkyrie's lips parted in surprise. Bruce's tired, unshaven face appeared on the screen. "Tony! Are you okay? Where are you?"

"Just set course for New York."

An incredulous laugh escaped Valkyrie's lips. "You tricked me," she gasped.

"Maybe a little bit," Loki allowed. "But I did it to—"

"To help him," Valkyrie finished just as Bruce cried out, "Wait-what, is that Loki? Is he … blue?"

"You didn't want him to face her alone so you made me furious enough to want to help him," Valkyrie concluded in surprise. The shadow of what might have almost been an affectionate smile scurried over her face but it was gone in an instant. "You slick bastard."

"What can I say?" Loki chuckled. "You'd be surprised how often my motives are, well, I wouldn't say pure, but, you know, not entirely selfish. I am a good person at heart." His voice changed into a soft growl. "And yes, Bruce, as I'm sure you can see with your own eyes, I am indeed blue."

"Good person, my ass," Tony snapped.

"Is that how you … normally look or is that just another trick?" asked Bruce. "I mean, is that …"

Loki flashed Thor an irritated glance. "Couldn't you just have told them, brother? Do I have to explain to each of them individually that I am a darned Frost Giant?"

"A darned Jotun." Valkyrie narrowed her eyes at him. "Please."

For a second, Thor was convinced his brother was going to stick out his tongue but Loki just smiled. "You're a fast learner for a booze hag."

Valkyrie gave him the finger and Loki's face transformed into a giant question mark. Bruce apparently did not want to know what a Frost Giant or a Jotun was and for that, Thor was grateful. At least for as long as it took the scientist to ask his next question. "So, why did you hang up on us like that?"

His friend's disappointment tasted bitter on Thor's tongue. "Because …" He swallowed. Out of nowhere, he heard his father's imperious voice booming out in his head. Do you swear to guard the Nine Realms? Do you swear to preserve the peace? Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition, and to pledge yourself only to the good of the Realms? He had sworn this oath so long ago and even though he had never ascended to the throne, he had always believed in it. I will protect Asgard and all the Realms with my last and every breath, but I cannot do so from that chair. Oh, what a fine protector of the Realms he had been when he had allowed the chaos unleashed by the crumbling of the Asgardian dynasty to spread through the rest of the universe. What a fine king he had been when he had led his people to their doom by heading for Earth. What a fine friend he had been when he had bargained with Hela. Suddenly, for the first time in his long life, he felt the certainty of failure and weight of guilt sit so heavily on his chest that he almost choked on it. And he knew that there was only one way to rid himself of it and that was confessing to the truth. "Because when I saw that scepter last night," he began hesitantly, "I realized something. This is all my mess." Thor looked at his brother, who was frowning. "Well, Loki's and mine. We've done a lot of damage, so we should be the ones who make it right."

"What is that mess we talking about here, exactly?" Rocket asked.

"Everything." Thor sighed. "Thanos, the Infinity Stones, Hela, Odin's death, the fall of Asgard, just everything."

"Don't flatter yourselves," Nebula commented snidely. "Even Asgardians cannot mess up on such a grand scale."

"I beg to differ," Thor began and six pairs of prying, mistrustful eyes landed on him. "This all began when Loki caused my banishment to Earth and—"

"That was never the plan," Loki interrupted him with a quizzical, almost panicked glance that articulated perfectly what he was thinking. What in name of the Norns are you doing? He then looked at Stark. "This was all a mistake. I had no idea our father would overreact like that."

"In any event, I was banished to Earth and in my absence, everything when downhill. Loki set the Bifrost upon Jotunheim, the planet we grew up to despise and—"

Loki harrumphed. "I don't see why you would want to tell this of all stories right now, brother, but if you must tell it; let us not forget the small detail that I had just found out that this is what I really am." He pointed to his face. The Avengers' faces were a study in confusion. "It's too long a story to tell now, really. Suffice it to say that my mind went rather blank for a moment and I tried to obliterate my ancestors by unleashing the full power of the Bifrost Bridge upon my birth planet."

"Which I tried to avoid," Thor went on, "by destroying the bridge itself. Unfortunately, the destruction of the Bifrost shifted the balance of power across the Nine Realms, far into the worlds beyond." His companions looked still baffled. "Without the Bifrost, we could no longer travel across the realms as quickly as we used to in order to protect them. Once our enemies realized that we'd been cut off from the worlds and left them vulnerable, chaos began to erupt everywhere, especially Vanaheim and what was left of Jotunheim."

"You're losing them, brother," Loki pointed out, his eyes suddenly afire with malicious humor. To Thor's dismay, he looked almost amused when he continued. "Anyway, one of those enemies, and you might have guessed this by now, of course, was Thanos." He cackled but there was a trace of nervousness in the sound. "I ended up falling into space when Thor destroyed the Bifrost and, well, thanks to the cyborg, you all know what happened afterwards."

"Fact is, the only reason why Thanos attacked then was because he knew that Asgard would not be able to travel to Earth to stop his army," Thor continued.

"But we were there," Tony whispered in a shaky voice. If his irregular breathing was any indication, he was reliving the events that were the cause of his anxiety. "We stopped him."

"Because I left you the device with which to close portal," Loki noted on a chuckle. "Call it divine intervention."

"We did and he retreated," Thor talked over him so that Tony would not hyperventilate, wondering silently if there would have been a way to tell their story without vivifying that side of Loki that so desperately tried to antagonize those around him whenever it was in control of his conscious mind. "Like the coward that he is. Asgard rebuilt the Bifrost after the attack and brought the Nine Realms back under control. Thanos did not show his face again here until now."

"That is true," Nebula confirmed. "He brooded and plotted in silence."

"So why now?" Tony asked.

"Because Asgard went up in flames," Bruce concluded quietly. "And the gods were no more."

Loki nodded almost solemnly but Thor could feel that he was enjoying himself. Or maybe that side of him was enjoying itself and Loki himself did not gain anything from this. "And this was mostly my fault. I staged my own death, cast a spell upon the all-father and exiled him to Earth where he, unfortunately, withered away, which resulted in the liberation of Hela and her attack upon Asgard, which we eventually tried to halt by destroying it."

"You got Odin killed?" Valkyrie's eyes widened. "So, the old prophecy did come true. It spoke of a Tangler that was going to bring Asgard great sorrow. That's you."

Loki sighed. "I really don't like that name."

"You got your own father killed," Pepper whispered, more to herself than to anyone present.

"The man, who raised me, yes," Loki answered. "He had it coming." He flashed her a semi-devious grin that sent her stumbling backwards. Tony put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "To be fair, my first encounter with Thanos was rather unpleasant and my primary motivation was to ensure he would not find me a second time," Loki backpedaled. "Sitting upon the throne of Asgard wearing the all-father's guise presented itself as a rather perfect avenue of escape. One that I couldn't pass up."

"And, in his defense, Odin had really gone mad, proving to be a danger for his own people, after—" Thor took a deep breath before he finally confessed, mostly to himself—"after I got our mother killed." Even though everyone stared at him with a mixture of consternation and abhorrence, it felt incredibly good to relieve himself of that burden after all those years of silent, subconscious blame.

His confession managed to break through Loki's facade. He swallowed. "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did. I brought the reality stone to Asgard, brother. I practically sent Malekith a dinner invitation."

"But I told the intruders where to find her," Loki whispered, his eyes zooming in on him as if they were the only two people aboard the aircraft. "I told them where the Royal Chambers were because I hoped they would make short work of the old fool." He swallowed again. "And of you."

"Why?" Rocket suddenly cut in. "Why would you want to see your own family dead?"

"I did not want to see them dead," Loki protested. "I just wanted revenge because they left me rotting in chains after the, well, the unfortunate New York incident." He smiled ruefully.

His breathing still heavy, Tony Stark leveled the weapon in his iron glove at Loki. "Call New York an unfortunate incident one more time and I am going to blow that ugly smile off your face."

This time, Pepper did not reprimand him. Loki held up his hands in defense. The maniacal sparkle had returned to his eyes. "I wanted to see them hurt, that's all. And I was rather bored."

The others looked first at Loki and then at Thor with an expression of incredulity and repulsion that made his skin crawl. It was beyond Thor's comprehension how Loki could play his role so convincingly after he had cried his way through the night, trying to squirm away from the nightmares of death and torture, wriggling under his blanket like a snake, but it did not matter at the moment. All he knew for sure was that his former companions would not recognize Loki's crude humor and swanky demeanor as a mask or a strategy to deal with everything he'd had to endure. All they were probably seeing was a blue-skinned, red-eyed monster with a wild stare, a maniacal smile and unruly hair, who had just boasted about killing his father. Thor knew he needed to stop Loki from talking—Loki never knew when to stop talking and it always made things worse—and the only way he could think of in a hurry was humiliation. "He wasn't bored. He was mostly hurt," Thor said, "because I was so angry after New York that I never spoke another word to him after we set foot on Asgard." Loki glowered at him, and Thor formed a snout with his thumb and the rest of his fingers and snapped it shut. "The only reason we left him in chains, though, was because we had no way of knowing it wasn't entirely his fault because he never spoke of Thanos," Thor continued. "And he wasn't really in chains. He had a bed and books and everything."

"So, let me get this straight," began Rocket. "You guys got both of your parents killed and quasi single-handedly rang in the destruction of your own super-powerful divine race that you know could have stopped Thanos?"

Thor looked at the screen, where Bruce was staring at him as if he had never seen him before, and sighed. "That's about right, yes."

"With the benefit of hindsight, it was rather reckless to keep what I know to myself." Loki gave a sigh that transformed into another cackle. "And on top of all that, I gave the reality stone to the collector, who turned out to be a miserable safe keeper after all, and practically handed Thanos the space stone on a silver platter."

"I take back what I said earlier," said Nebula. "You are responsible for all of this."

"Yeah, we all learned that lesson," Valkyrie assured her grimly. "If the Aesir mess up, they mess up on a really gigantic scale."

Rocket snorted. "You're really gonna tell me it's not unusual that half of our universe is toast because Loki is adopted and Thor was too dense to realize he'd been mind-controlled and both of them suck at interpersonal communication?"

Valkyrie shook her head and Rocket threw his paws up in the air. Loki giggled and Thor silently willed him to stop but, of course, he did not stop. Loki never stopped. "We're gods," he jested. "Butchering the destiny of mankind is sort of what we do best."

Before Thor could react, Tony Stark lunged at his brother.

Author's Note:

I promised weekly updates but who am I kidding? They're probably not gonna happen anyway. I'm just too chaotic for that. And the information of what happened in the Nine Realms after the Bifrost was destroyed comes from the Thor Dark World Prelude. Well, I guess that's it for now. Thanks to those who started following recently. Until next time!