#18

Loki heaved himself into a half-sitting position and blinked several times to sharpen his blurry vision. He was uncomfortably aware of Thor and Valkyrie kneeling beside him and the others towering over him, seeing him in all his vulnerable glory as he tried to prop his body up with his hands, and, for a moment, he felt uncannily alone because no inner voice was commenting on his misery. Was it over, at last? Had he finally outmaneuvered the dark voice using a comparatively simple, if strenuous, trick? That could not be right. It had been too simple. Then again, every fiber in his entire body was jittering with the aftermath of mental overexertion. Which, he told himself, might not be the result of the mental bolt he had unleashed into his own mind but of the cryokinetic abilities that he had properly used for the first time or maybe even because of those other voices that had appeared out of nowhere and that he could not even begin to explain.

"That looks like he's radioactive," Tony Stark's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Seriously, what is happening here?"

Radioactive? Loki thought and mentally forced his eyes into focus. He caught sight of the eerily glowing tissue on his stomach at the same instant he heard the cyborg's reply to the engineer's question. "These are power stone wounds."

Power stone wounds. Could it be that … was it possible that these voices… But Loki's brain, stupefied by the amount of energy released into his mind, refused to form a single coherent thought. Next to him, he saw Thor's shape move upwards, followed by Valkyrie's, who was holding him back as his brother lunged at Nebula, shouting, "You did this to him?"

Loki's fingers hesitantly touched the glowing purple of the scars and he was instantly vaulted into a ghoulishly authentic illusion of the titan's torture cave. He jerked his hand back and the illusion started to fade but remained visible as a near translucent layer over the reality in front him.

"I did not," answered Nebula grimly. "I only delivered the tool."

Loki cried out, but even though he felt his lips open, he could hear no sound coming out of his mouth. Come back, whispered one of the voices inside his head. Come back and show us who you are. Prove to us that are not His ally anymore!

I can't, Loki replied. I cannot take this. This is too much.

You must, a softer, more favorable voice replied. We must be freed or we will destroy ourselves before long. The universe will unravel.

"You only delivered the tool," Thor repeated incredulously and then faced Stark. "So, let me get this straight. Nebula lied to me for weeks, withheld information about Loki that she must have known I would value. She assisted Thanos, too, helped him for so much longer than Loki did, she delivered instruments of torture and she did it without having been brainwashed into it but still she deserves a warm Avengers welcome and Loki doesn't? Explain this."

Tony Stark guffawed. Nebula's eyes narrowed. "Brainwashing is not the only way to manipulate people, Thor."

You are the Infinity Stones, Loki whispered into his mind. There was an affirming murmur. How is that possible? Why are you talking now? Why are you talking to me? Why are you … hurting me?

I am sorry Power hurt you, but she is wary. We all are but time is running out. You must regain your strength and you must help us because you are the only one who heard our pleas.

There it was; his chance at redemption. His chance to be a hero. His chance to save the world as Thor had done so many times before. There too was doubt. How can you be sure I can?

I know you, Loki, child of Asgard. You will find a way.

Thor and Stark kept arguing but Loki blocked out their voices and focused his attention inwards, asking, Who are you, exactly?

I am Mind but I cannot talk to you now. You must rest or else I will drain you entirely.

Thor was laughing grimly.

"Brother, stop," panted Loki. We need to talk, he wanted to add, there are more pressing matters at hand than whether they accept me or not; but he had no strength left to form the words and they took no notice of him anyway.

"You do realize that this is exactly where we started out six years ago, right?" Stark scoffed. "We're back to square fucking one, fighting over Loki, with the difference that the nobody-touches-my-little-bro-on-my-watch-act was still harmless enough in 2012. There's a hell of a lot more at stake now and if you don't get your priorities straight, we're gonna lose and this time, it's gonna be your fault."

"Stop it," Loki croaked again, a little louder this time, and got the raccoon's attention at last. Rocket took one look at him, assessed his condition and then shouted, "Guys! Don't you think it's enough already?"

He was so small that his head was barely reaching Loki's shoulders, but he had his arms crossed firmly across his chest and his determined gaze made up for what he lacked in size. "Look at you both! Our friends are dead, Loki is basically cashing in his chips over here, but you keep poking around in the past and assigning blame instead of focusing on how to get them back! We all fucked up at one point or the other and, yes, Thor made a huge mess just now but you aren't completely innocent either, Tony. We kinda established that it wasn't even Loki's fault that he attacked New York—damn, you almost shook hands—but now you act like it's somehow his fault that Thor lost his shit? I don't think that's fair."

Thor and Stark both stared at the animal in disbelief. Loki wondered what kind of metaphorical chips he could possibly be cashing in as he half-lay, half-sat on his first decent ice creation.

"And you?" Rocket addressed Thor. "You're just being a huge dick and miserable friend." He fixed Tony with his gaze. "You are, too, actually. Shame on you both for bickering instead of doing something. I can't believe you're really calling yourselves Earth's mightiest heroes!"

Thor looked as though a burning mace enchanted by the fires of Hel had slammed right into his gut. "I'm sorry," he conceded, all color draining from his cheeks. "I'm sorry that I've been a miserable friend and a miserable Avenger but, in case that's what you want to hear, I'm not sorry I brought him back." He took a deep breath. "For over a thousand years I have tried to save everyone in the Nine Realms; everyone except for my own brother." He smiled down at Loki, and for a second, Loki was sure he could glimpse the image of their smiling mother in the tears shimmering in Thor's eyes.

Loki gulped in response to his brother's shocking admission. Thor had never said such a thing to Loki's face and now he had even said it in the company of the Avengers, who were not exactly fans of him right now. And, this time, no urgent warning came from inside his mind in response to the relief and the happiness—wait, was that really happiness?—that he felt. It seemed that he was finally alone inside his head but despite the foulness of the dark voice's counsel, it was a rather strange feeling to be so utterly without guidance.

Stark's strained features smoothened a little. "I'm glad we got that out of the way," he mumbled with no trace of aggressiveness left in his voice. He even squatted down next to Thor. "Now, there's a few other people we want to save as well."

"And we will," said Thor, looking at the engineer. "Together. This I promise you."

"Great," Rocket sniffed. "Now, would someone pick me up, please? My paws are fucking freezing."

Valkyrie obliged, then turned towards Loki. "So, what do these power stone wounds really mean? Why are they glowing now after all this time? It looks like they have been, for want of a better word, activated somehow."

"They … have," said Loki softly, not trusting his own voice. "They're … talking." He scrambled into an upright position and looped his arms around his knees but the movement caused him to sway, his vision blurring again. He supported himself against the ground with his left hand and buried his head in his right to prevent the world from spinning off its axis around him.

"What do you mean they're talking?" asked Rocket. "First, they have brains and now they're talking?"

"Talking how? Inside your head?" asked Stark. "Like a hallucination?"

"Hallucinations don't cause physical wounds, Tony," replied the blonde woman whom the others had referred to as Pepper.

Be still, Loki, said the Mind Stone. You must rest now.

"Loki," said Thor anxiously.

I cannot possibly rest now, Loki protested as another explanation for the sudden presence of the Infinity Stones crossed his mind. What if the voices truly were just another illusion? Another delusion? What if Thanos had found out he was still alive and was trying to lure him into a trap? He flinched inwardly as he remembered the titan's giant gauntlet-gloved hand around his neck, his foul breath on his cheeks as the life was streaming out of him. Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian. Was it? It had to be. Why would the key to saving the universe lie inside the deranged mind of Loki, spawn of a monster, disappointment of the Asgardian pantheon?

Rest now, repeated the Mind Stone. Rest now and I will give you the answers you seek. Loki felt his consciousness being snatched from him and he longed to give in to the pull; longed for the soothing of a dreamless sleep and the protective membrane of complete mental vacuity.

"Loki, what is happening?" Thor asked, his voice coming from far, far away.

"He's passing out," Valkyrie replied. Or maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was the woman who bore the name of a Midgardian spice.

"I'm sorry," Loki apologized even though, in truth, he was not sorry. In truth, he could no longer bring himself to care what either of the Avengers or even Thor would think of him if he fainted now. Let them endure a fraction of what is going on in my mind and see how they fare, he thought as he let himself sink into the arms of oblivion, whispering, "I … I need … a moment."

The moment Loki needed to regain his strength unfortunately extended over a period of almost fourteen hours, the first of which Iron Man spent trying to contact various members of various organizations of which Thor had absolutely no knowledge. Pepper, Valkyrie and Nebula debated on how to help Loki regain consciousness but quickly had to admit that no amount of Midgardian medicine could possibly provide aid for inexplicable magical wounds or mental overexertion following the use of witchcraft. Not that they had any medicine to begin with. They had a few supplies, which Nebula and Rocket set out to retrieve from the wreckage, but other than that, they were stranded in the middle of the ocean, waiting for help. Nebula and Rocket came back with a few bottles of water, a few bags of savory snacks and a few half-torched blankets, which was all the jet had to offer them for comfort.

"Okay, you can light it up for real now," announced Rocket grimly.

Iron Man put his call on hold and looked at Valkyrie, who gave him her blessing with a curt nod, and then ignited the aircraft with an energy blast released by his armor so that his friends would stay warm. Despite Valkyrie's repeated assertions that Midgardian fire could not possibly melt Jotun ice, Thor found himself surprised that not a single ice crystal melted when the jet burst into flames a second time.

The next hour Thor spent brooding over how little he actually knew about either Frost Giants or his brother's abilities to manipulate magical forces, cursing himself that he had never paid attention to what Frigga had taught Loki when he'd had the chance. He remembered one incident in their childhood when Loki had taken his seat at the feast, his face pale and glistering with sweat. He had barely been able to pick up his fork before he slumped facedown into a plate full of wild boar. "He has been practicing too hard," Frigga had explained. "Do not teach him more than he can handle," Odin had cautioned and Thor had wondered what that could mean for maybe half a minute before he had dug into his own meal. Being his father's son, Thor had never paid an awful lot of attention to the art of spellcraft and shrugged Loki's magic off as a secondary aptitude at best; something Rocket would be likely to refer to as a party trick now; a talent that might have been fancy but would never be as valuable a skill for a warrior and prince of Asgard as muscle strength and gladiatorial prowess. Thor realized that he had absolutely no way of knowing how his brother's use of magic could possibly connect him to the Infinity Stones—a connection that was as peculiar as it was undeniable in the face of the now slowly fading scars of the power stone wounds on his torso—or why exactly Loki remained in such a poor physical condition. At first, Thor had assumed it was because Hela's torture and his nightmares had drained him. Then, he had figured it was because Loki's body was still adjusting to its Jotun form or because his Jotun form could not handle the use of magic like his Asgardian form.

Thor cringed involuntarily as it gradually began to sink in that his brother's appearance was not temporary. This was no mischievous trick; no illusion; no mind game like the various animals he used to turn himself into or the guise of their father he had taken. This was definite, permanent. It was real. He shoved the thought away.

Now, after Loki had seemed at least somewhat reinvigorated after his breakfast of ice cubes—by Hel, he had willed the ocean into shape and created an ice island of at least thirty feet in diameter—Thor figured that his present exhaustion had little to do with his exhaustion of the night before. Loki had collapsed because of the Infinity Stones had, yeah, had what exactly? Loki had told him the night before that he could feel the stones revolting against the iniquity Thanos had committed with them and now he had confirmed that something had somehow activated the stones; that they had been talking to him. Even though Thor knew—and had even tried to explain as much to the Avengers—that the stones were of supernatural origin and carried the divine magic of their creator inside of them, he still had no idea how they could have possibly connected to Loki while he was using his magic. He had no idea how these wounds could possibly have emerged on his brother's body now. Except, of course, this was the doing of Thanos, in which case they could not waste any more time.

Thor grumbled in quiet frustration. He tried to wake Loki once again but his brother didn't as much as stir beneath his grasp. Thor had considered using the Stormbreaker to fly Loki back to New York and consult the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Yet, while he was sure that his armor would protect him against his brother's Jotun skin, Thor did not dare to ensign his brother to the care of a bunch of Midgardian wizards because he had no way of assessing the consequences of their spells. He had also considered using the Bifrost to teleport Loki to safety, of course, but apart from the fact that he did not have the faintest idea of where to take him, he could not afford to lose any more time. Thor heaved a sigh when he remembered that there was one last confession he had to make and how could he possibly do that now? How could he possibly admit to having bargained with Hela after Tony and the others had already lost all faith in his friendship? Still, he knew he had to tell them at some point. He needed to tell Loki, at the very least, because Loki was the only one who knew anything about that seventh stone. Loki was the only one who could figure this out and if he did not regain his strength any time soon, they would all be doomed. He will regain his strength, Thor told himself. Don't be stupid. He is stronger than you ever thought he could be. You'll just need to give him some time. And, most of all, you'll have to break to him gently. Which was sort of the problem. Thor had never exactly exceled in empathy and gentleness. He was more the bull-at-a-gate type of person.

And so the hours crept by, filling his heart with ever more despair, ever more guilt, ever more trepidation. At some point, Valkyrie came to sit beside him with a wan smile upon her lips. "So, I guess, we're done, huh?"

"I don't know," Thor murmured, staring into the distance. "Are we?"

"I don't even recognize you anymore, Thor," Valkyrie replied softly. "I actually have no idea know who you are. It's like you're a completely different person than you were two weeks ago; almost as if you were—" She stopped herself.

Thor flashed her at sad smile. "It's alright, you can say it."

She shook her head. "No, I didn't mean what I was going to say."

"Almost as if I were my father," Thor finished for her. "You're right." He paused briefly, then whispered, "I had him, Val." He looked down at the hands that had felt the reassuring weight of the Stormbreaker before he had attacked Thanos and then slammed the accursed axe into the titan's chest. "I was holding the weapon that could have cut Thanos' wretched head from his miserable shoulders and I failed and why? Because I wanted to see him suffer. Because I wanted to look inside his eyes and see the agony of death there after I had to watch Loki choke to death." A tear rolled down his cheek, tickling his skin. Thor wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Because I was blind and mad with rage and a thirst for vengeance. Just like my father was when he sentenced the whole of Asgard to death to avenge my mother's death."

Valkyrie's hand touched his for the first time since they had parted. "Thor, no. Odin was different. He would have sacrificed—"

"No," Thor interrupted her and cleared his throat. "Do you want to know why I almost ended up like my father? Because Odin always put his family last until it was too late and I did the exact same thing for years. For centuries. I always put Loki last, always, until it finally was too late."

Thor could see it clearly now. When he had thought Loki dead those two times before, he had never mourned him as much as this last time because he'd never had to deal with his own feelings, let alone is own mistakes. He'd always had Asgard, his parents or his friends supporting him, caring for him, loving him. And when he had missed the company of his smart, sassy, annoying little brother occasionally, he'd simply tried to remind himself of all the mischief and mayhem Loki had caused, of all the tears Frigga had wept for him and of all the creases that his misguided journey to Midgard had etched into Odin's face. It wasn't until after Thor himself had lost nearly everything that he'd understood just how much he'd taken Loki's company for granted all those years; how he'd never shown much emotion; not even when it had been glaringly obvious that his brother's sanity depended on his esteem. And when he'd finally realized how much he'd wronged Loki, he had made a series of snap decisions in order to provide remedy for years of wayward brotherhood, which, so far, had benefitted no one and had entangled him ever more inextricably in a web of lies.

"Last night, I saw what Thanos did to him," Thor whispered, his fingers absentmindedly twisting one of Loki's entangled curls. "I made him remember, made him live through the memories of torture all over again, and I saw the terror in his eyes." He paused, sniveling. "Loki needs me, Valkyrie. He doesn't have anyone else." He paused again. "He's always needed me but I've never been there and the worst thing is that none of us would be here right now if I had. From now on, I'm going to put my family first and if that means that I am going to lose everyone else in the long run, even you, well, I'm willing to risk that."

Valkyrie smiled. "You're not like your father, Thor," she replied softly. "You never will be. You have a heart."

"Thank you," Thor whispered, even though he could not bring himself to believe that she truly meant it.

"But, let's be honest. If we, against all odds, survive this war, do you really think you can make this work?" She gestured towards Loki. "Do you really think that you can fix this?"

"I will try."

"I know," Valkyrie assured him. "Believe me, I do. But that's not what I asked."

Thor had nothing to say to that and so they lapsed back into silence, until, after about two hours later, the remaining Avengers finally arrived in a gleaming black Wakandan high-speed jet.

Author's Note:

- Okay, it took me forever to edit this into a publishable version and I'm still not quite satisfied but, eh, what's the point of trying too hard? So, here it is.I hope you enjoyed it.
- I've been thinking about how to gender the Infinity Stones since the English language doesn't really offer any insight into whether time, space, mind, time, reality and soul are conceived of as being either male or female (which are, on top of that, not the only gender identities in existence). In the end, I decided to gender them based on the German language (which has a gendered article system), meaning that time, reality, soul and power are now female, while space is male and mind, which has about a zillion translations including gender-neutral ones, is fluid. But more about that in the next chapter.
- I also feel that I might have dragged out Tony's and Thor's fight just a liiiittle too long (and I get it, hackeline83, who doesn't want to punch some sense into them all?) but, apart from the fact that I had a lot of, maybe too much, fun with this, they are in quite a similar place right now. They both faced Thanos in combat and they both failed. And they are both used to constantly fixing things, each in their own way, but now they just can't. They're helpless, they feel guilty, they're incredibly tense and Thor focuses all his energy on Loki and projects his frustration onto everyone who attacks Loki and Tony projects his frustration onto Thor after the replicated scepter turned out to be useless so far and, more importantly, the Odinson brothers admitted to everything being kinda sorta their fault. They both had a tunnel vision, which was exacerbated by the fact that they were stranded, huddled together with no escape, so that it seems natural that both of them would need a scapegoat to deal with their feelings of failure; which both of them are new to in a way.
- Not to mention Valkyrie, who only joined Thor in his quest to defeat Hela after she learned that Odin was dead and allowed herself to believe that Thor was different and would build a new Asgard and rule it completely differently; only to find him go on a Kamikaze mission to save Loki a few weeks later.
- "I could have cut Thanos' wretched head from his miserable shoulders" – In case you were wondering, yes, that is a Thranduil reference from The Desolation of Smaug :)
- Also, while writing this scene, I had the chorus of Matt Simon's We can do better stuck in my ear and I think it's the perfect soundtrack for Thor, so here's the lyrics for you:
~*~ When all we see is bad blood and mistakes
All we hear are sad songs 'bout heartbreaks
And no matter how long it takes
We're not gonna give up
We can do better
Oh, we can do better ~*~
Before you say anything, yes, I know this is actually a love song and, no, I don't ship them, but these lines fit anyway.
-And last but not least: Thank you so much to all the new followers of this story. I hope you stay tuned, for much will be explained/revealed in the subsequent chapters.