#29

Loki turned away and retreated a few steps towards the kitchenette as the Avengers broke out into a clamor and started firing another round of questions at Thor. Don't you think we should call in back-up? What about Rhodey? And Wong? What if Loki is actually telling the truth but he is the one who is being tricked? What if the Bifrost doesn't work?

Even though his eyes were still blurry with the tears he had not dared to shed in front of the mortals, Loki felt his lips curl into half a grin at that last, rather witless question; but the brief moment of satisfaction was not enough to dissolve the lump of emotions that was stuck in his throat. He gasped for air, trying to swallow it down, but his heart was beating too fast for a deep breath. He was overwhelmed with relief that the Reality Stone had given him his Aesir body back and that, in contrast to the Mind Stone's rogue influence, its magic—at least what remained—felt natural and almost soothing as it flowed through his veins. But at the same time, he was also filled with fury and dread. He was furious because Stark and his companions made no pretense of how reluctant they were to trust him and he was furious with himself because he had laid waste to their homeland and brought their suspicion of his loyalty upon himself. He too was furious that they treated Nebula as if she had been their entrusted companion for years even though she must have joined their ranks fairly recently.

"It's enough, Tony," the cyborg was saying. "You have talked and questioned long enough." She flicked a glance at Thor. "I am coming with you."

Rocket gave a nod. "So am I. Let's kill this bastard. Let's kill him now!" He curled his right paw into a fist and slammed it into his left for emphasis.

Loki's heart gave an involuntary lurch. Even though Thanos had seemed almost helpless in the dreamscape, he still dreaded to confront him in the flesh once more; and Thor's reminder how much he had suffered at the hands of the titan did not exactly help matters. I dare say what Thanos did to him goes far beyond what most of your minds could even conjure in your darkest nightmares. The suppressed memories threatened to burst into Loki's conscious mind again. The titan's foul voice in his ear; his clammy hands on his arms and shoulders and throat; his unforgiving eyes boring into his; the burning pain in every limb of his body; the horror; the wish to dissolve into nothingness. You are coming to life for the first time. The pain will make you stronger. Loki tried frantically to think of something else but then remembered how the Reality Stone had assured him he would never be entirely free of the darkness that had caused him so much trouble and his heart gave another lurch.

"I knew the rabbit was the smartest among you," Thor grumbled, his voice vaguely reminiscent of Odin's deep commanding tone. "I meant what I said. We are leaving now. You have ten minutes or we're going alone."

"Your majesty," Valkyrie replied with a mock bow of her head.

Loki studied the Avengers, whose faces exhibited varying shades of pale, and he began to understand that one of the reasons why they had questioned him so thoroughly and continued to be so agonizingly undecided was because they were trying to stall the inevitable. They were not only wary of him. They feared Thanos as much as he did. He understood too that one possible reason why they were so easy on Nebula while they continued to be skeptical of him was because he was far more powerful and far more unpredictable, and that their hostility was also born of fear.

Loki could not help but feel a sparkle of pride that he had withstood every single urge to insult them, attack them and ridicule them to arrive at those conclusions, and a little gratitude that Thor had recognized his efforts and rewarded them with approval and that they finally were brothers again.

See what happens when you stop reminding yourself that you deserve no place in this world and do not try to agonize Thor every ten minutes? Loki grumbled inwardly. It is marvelously rewarding, is it not? It was indeed but he was not yet ready to admit that he had brought most people's rejection upon himself with his insufferable attitude.

Thor skulked over to him, his face pinched with what might have been guilt, sadness, remorse, trepidation; or a combination of all of those. "I'm sorry I made y—"

Loki was not ready to admit to his own neediness either, even though he had probably made it glaringly obvious to every person in this room how much he was still dependent on his brother's esteem. "Not a word."

Thor bit his lip and Loki trawled through his brain for something to say. His eyes slid to the Avengers, again, who were starting to brace themselves up for battle. "You do know that Rocket is not a rabbit, don't you, brother?"

Thor huffed a laugh. "What else would he be?"

He looked so serious that Loki could not tell whether or not he was feigning ignorance. "He's a raccoon, Thor. A raccoon."

"A raccoon," Thor repeated absentmindedly and it was almost as if this little piece of information was enough to shatter what was left of his worldview. He looked lost, defeated and anguished; a mere shadow of the Mighty Thundergod that had instilled feelings of inferiority in Loki for more than a millennium.

Suddenly, Loki remembered what his brother had said to him a few minutes after he had freed him from Hela's clutches. I have many things to apologize for and I cannot let you go before I have not tried to make them up to you. Give me four weeks, Loki. If you still want to go back in four weeks, fine, but if you give me a chance, I promise you I will make you not want to go back. Four weeks. Such a precise designation of time presaged that he had sworn an oath to the Goddess of Death. "Will you tell me what troubles you so?" Loki asked softly, switching to Asgardian.

Thor smiled at the intimacy evoked by the tongue of their family, but it did not reach his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Please," Loki demanded. "Do not insult my intelligence by trying to deny that our positions are for once reversed. My cards are all on the table." He paused, checking his brother's face for any signs of emotional resistance. "But you still keep yours close to your chest. What is it you are not telling me, brother?"

Thor shook his head, the movement clumsy. "Not now," he whispered. "I promise you, I will tell you everything once Thanos is dead and we have all the stones."

Loki winced at how his brother's voice shook at the titan's name. "Are you scared?" he asked carefully. He expected Thor to deny any fear or nervousness as he had always done but to Loki's surprise, Thor said, "Maybe a little, yes."

Which was enough to make Loki's stomach churn as a fresh wave of dread washed over him.

"I keep thinking of how he looked at me with his vitriolic eyes, his smelly breath on my cheeks, after I failed to chop off his head," Thor continued softly, almost gagging on the words, and, for the first time in their long lives, Loki truly felt his brother's equal. Thor was as traumatized as he was, if for entirely different reasons. The Avengers were too. At this moment, they were all in the same position. Loki gulped, new tears blurring his vision.

"By all the Realms," Thor cried out. "I am so sorry. I was not really … I shouldn't … You have …" His voice trailed off and his hand went to Loki's neck and clasped it gently as it had done so many times in the past.

The gesture of brotherly affection caused the tears to spill out without warning. Thor made a move to pull him into an embrace but Loki kept his body stiff. "Not now," he whispered, his own hand traveling to Thor's other arm, squeezing his armored biceps. "This is the worst time to get sentimental."

"Right," Thor conceded softly. He looked thoughtful, groping for words, but they failed him.

"You are right though," Loki tried. "His breath is awfully smelly."

Thor managed a smile. "We are going to succeed this time," he said. "We are together now. We always fought best when we were together. This time, he will not stand a chance."

Loki gave a nod even though he could feel the dread knotting his innards now that he knew how scared Thor was. He tried to remind himself how helpless Thanos had looked in the dreamscape but the image did not really help to dissipate the horror of his memories.

"You know it doesn't really help with our trust issues if you converse in a language we don't understand, right?" Rogers shouted in their direction. He was now fully dressed in his ridiculous Captain America attire, strapping his shield to his left arm.

"Never mind," said Valkyrie, the barest hint of a sympathetic smile on her lips. "They are just giving each other a, what do you call it, a pep talk?"

"So even the Gods are scared," Shuri noted. "That's reassuring, really."

Thor cleared his throat. "No, of course not," he said and Loki could not help but smile at his brother's feigned bravery. "We're good to go, right?"

Loki gave a nod and reached for the Reality Stone's magic. Stark stepped towards him as his battle armor and his golden horned helmet materialized from thin air, hugging his body and head with a satisfying surge of energy. The engineer shot him an amused glance. "Did no one ever tell you that this helmet looks fucking ridiculous?"

Thor and every single one of his comrades in arms, Loki thought sourly, his eyes narrowing. "Make fun of me all you want, Stark, but I dare say your jibes do not really lessen your anxiety." He snickered.

Stark's face darkened. "Here," he said grimly and thrusted an oval, dark gray item the size of a thumbnail into Loki's hand. "Take this and put it into your ear."

Loki felt his brow furrow. "What is that?"

"It's a communication device," Stark explained briefly. "It's how we, well, communicate with each other. You know, during battle."

"That's smart," Loki mumbled, more to himself than to any of those present as he put the metallic pebble into his ear.

Then, they all walked outside.

"Are you ready?" asked Thor even though he looked the least ready of all of them. The Avengers, now in full armor, responded with nods and grumbles that went miles to define their apprehension. "Alright," Thor continued on a heavy expiration of breath. "Val, Loki and I are going to put our hands on the Stormbreaker to absorb most the Bifrost's energy, so it won't put too much of a strain on your bodies."

"Too much of a strain?" Pepper echoed, her eyebrows hiking up.

"Wait, why wasn't that an issue last time?" Rocket asked. Beside him, Shuri gulped.

"Because Nidavellir is located in much thicker branches of Yggdrasil," Thor replied, which confused the mortals even more. "This planet is much further away," Thor elaborated with a glance towards the map. "The distance we traveled from Nidavellir to Wakanda was only a third, maybe a fourth, of the distance we are about to travel now and the longer you are exposed to the energy of the Bifrost, the more it might harm you."

While the reply seemed to satisfy the raccoon, Pepper, Shuri and Bruce looked as if they might have to relieve themselves of whatever they had ingested that day. The faces of the rest of them were unreadable but Loki could still sense their fear.

"Alright then," Thor said again and breathed out, holding out the Stormbreaker with both hands. Valkyrie grabbed the wooden handle to his left, Loki to his right.

"Now, grab our hands," Thor ordered. "And whatever happens, do not let go."

Rocket jumped onto Thor's back. Shuri gulped and hesitantly reached for Valkyrie's hand. Pepper took her place next to Shuri and grabbed her hand, Stark took Pepper's, Bruce took Stark's, Rogers took Bruce's, Barton took Rogers' and Romanoff took Barton's.

Loki felt the dark voice stir when he realized that none of them would voluntarily take his hand but before the thought had time to blossom, Nebula stepped between him and the Black Widow, completing the circle. She said nothing but slightly squeezed his hand with her good one, the gesture both reassurance and apology.

And before Loki could think anything else, a bright cascade of rainbow-colored light engulfed them all and unhinged time, space and gravity around him.

"You're right," Stark gasped in the general direction of the raccoon after the Bifrost had released them on the grassland approximately half a mile from where the cabin stood bathed in the soft orange glow of a beautiful sunset. "That was amazing."

"Right?!" Rocket exulted.

"Okay, this is one of the things I really missed!" Valkyrie exclaimed, her eyes gleaming with joy.

The rest of the Avengers were not as thrilled as their companions. Loki tensely watched them stumble out of the fading light of the Rainbow Bridge and regain their footing with expressions of awe, fear and apprehension etched into their faces. Nebula lowered her gaze and took a deep breath. Rogers, Barton and Romanoff began to scan the area at once, their expressions hard as stone.

"Wow," Pepper exhaled. "This place looks so … peaceful."

"It's what he thinks he deserves," said Nebula, her face a bitter mask of disdain and pain, "after bringing peace to the universe."

"It's eerily quiet," Shuri noted.

"It's undoubtedly a trap," Bruce concurred in a mechanical voice. He was wearing a Hulk-shaped version of the Iron Man armor and his metal head swung towards Loki, who felt every fiber of his body vibrate with unease in reaction to how different it felt to set foot on this planet in the flesh. The young Wakandan scientist had already drawn attention to the fact that it was too silent but, aside from that, Loki could not sense the faintest trace of magical or even sentient energy anywhere. It was almost as if the Infinity Stones and Thanos were no longer there.

"There is the cabin," whispered the Widow with a nod towards the titan's wooden quarters.

"But no Thanos on a rock," Rogers pointed out, unnecessarily.

"And no Infinity Gauntlet," Stark added.

"And no armor mounted on the scarecrow," Thor concluded, his eyes sliding to Loki. His brother did not voice his doubts but Loki could read the accusation in his eyes as clear as if he had spoken the words out loud. You said he would be here. I took you at your word.

Barton gave a snort and wasted no time articulating what Thor and everyone else was undoubtedly thinking. "I swear to you, if you lured us into a trap, I am going to gouge your eyes out," the archer growled in a low voice, his expression still unforgiving.

"I am sure I would shiver at this threat if it weren't coming from a mortal with nothing but a bow and arrow," Loki shot back.

Barton glared at him.

"Just stop it, guys," Romanoff admonished them.

Did you hear that? She just referred to you as one of the guys. Isn't that terrific?

"Is there a subterranean military base, maybe?" Rogers asked in his annoyingly authoritarian instructional voice. Stark's technologically enhanced Iron Man vision was already sweeping the ground and he shook his head. "There's nothing here. Not a single heat signal."

"Not even … magic?" asked Bruce.

"I sense no traces of magic," Loki replied even though he did not expect any of them to take this assessment at face value.

"It's true," said Valkyrie when the others—surprise, surprise—fired skeptical glances into his direction. "There is no magical signature in the air. If Thanos used magic, he concealed it so well that not even Asgardians can pick up on it."

"But that is possible, right?" asked Pepper. "Using magic that none of you would pick up upon?"

"Unlikely," Thor replied sternly. "Asgardian magic is the wellspring of every magic there is. And Thanos is not a sorcerer."

The faces of Stark and the others clearly articulated the questions that none of them asked. So? What is that supposed to mean, anyway? And since when are you an expert on magic?

"What about his … children?" Romanoff asked. "Those creepy alien guys? Aren't there skilled magic users among them who could have just teleported Thanos away and then teleport them all back here as they did when they attacked Wanda and Vision in Scotland out of nowhere?"

"Thanos already had the Space Stone then," Thor reminded her, his face grim. "They probably used it to teleport to Earth. I don't see how they could just world-walk on their own." He shot a frantic glance in Loki's direction. "They can't do that now that the Space Stone has become useless to them, right?"

"Wait, since when are we talking about them?" asked Shuri. She looked fearless and intimidating enough in her dark-blue Wakandian armor and the white dots she had painted on her black face, but her trembling voice was belying her composure. "Didn't you say he was alone?"

"He was," Loki replied but he still felt his own composure slipping. His heart nearly leaped from his chest into his mouth when he remembered the foul magic which Thanos's greatest sorcerer—who also happened to be one of the most powerful sorcerers Loki had ever encountered, including the Norns, the dwarves and his own mother—had inflicted upon him to bend him to the titan's will. "The Maw," he mumbled, his voice a lot hoarser than he would have liked it to sound. "Does he still live?"

"Who was he?" Stark asked. "We …" His mechanical voice broke. "We killed one on the space ship," he continued in a trembling whisper.

Loki shapeshifted into Ebony Maw and Stark almost gagged inside his iron helmet. "Yeah, this one's dead."

"I bet it must have devastated Thanos to hear that," Loki mused, not changing back. "Ebony Maw was one of his favorite children."

"What is your point?" asked Nebula, her voice a nervous tremble.

"Jesus, can you drop that illusion, please?" Stark pleaded, heavy breaths coming like gunshots. "I can't look at you."

"Maybe neither can he," Loki speculated, a plan forming in the back of his mind. "You should stay back while Nebula and I are going to look for him. Seeing us will take him by complete surprise. It could give us an advantage."

Nebula shook her head. "He's never going to believe that I came here with the Maw."

"Why not?" Loki asked her. "Did he see him die? Does he know for certain that you have switched sides?"

The cyborg looked flustered. "No but—"

"See?" Loki smiled. "I am going to make the rest of you invisible. Do not make your move until—"

"Since when are you giving the orders?" Rogers interrupted him.

Exasperated by their continuous resistance to his every suggestion, Loki transformed himself into Captain America on impulse. "Since when are you giving the orders?" he echoed with the other man's voice, feeling a playful grin tugging at his lips.

"That's not what I sound like," Rogers grumbled.

"Um, yeah, that's exactly what you sound like," Stark replied. "Annoying, isn't it?"

"Is that who he really is when isn't being brainwashed or passing out from exhaustion?" Nebula asked Thor, face twisted in annoyance. "A clown?"

"Yes," Valkyrie and Bruce replied in unison as Barton huffed and Pepper, Shuri, Rocket and the Widow kept glancing frantically in all directions.

Out of nowhere, Loki randomly remembered when he had finally mastered his more complex shapeshifting spells and had been eager to impress his brother, who had been rather underwhelmed by the art of sorcery. One day, he had been so determined to elicit a reaction from Thor that he had transformed himself into a large falcon, swirled around the head of Odin, who had been conferring with Tyr in the Royal Garden, and squirted a load of bird-do out of his buttocks that had landed on their father's head with a giant, satisfying splash. Thor had not been able to refrain from laughter whenever he had seen Odin or Loki for days after the event. A smile tugged at Loki's lips. "Pretty much, yes," he confirmed with a wink, transforming back into the Maw. "Although I prefer God of Mischief."

"Guys," the Widow repeated, her cheeks trembling with apprehension. "This is not the time for jokes."

"I was being serious," Loki insisted.

"From what I've seen, you're incapable of sincerity," Rogers noted dryly.

"No offense but we haven't come to trick, brother," Thor reminded him as gently as he probably could. "We've come to kill."

"Once you've killed him you can't ask questions anymore," Loki responded in the Maw's voice. "If you kill him before he can tell us where the Gauntlet is, we might never find it."

"This is so creepy," the raccoon mumbled.

Barton's face was a mask of exasperation. "But I thought you said it was here somewhere?"

"If it's here, we're gonna find it," Valkyrie agreed.

Before Loki could give a reply, Stark's head jerked towards the edge of the forest. "Whatever the plan's going to be, we should decide now because I'm picking up a heat signature." He stopped for a beat. "We're about to get company."

A muffled shriek left Pepper's mouth. Thor's hands tightened around the Stormbreaker's wooden handle. Shuri gulped. Nebula blew out a breath. Stark, Barton, Bruce and the Widow tensed, their bodies straining into attack mode. Valkyrie took a step forward. The raccoon cocked his gun, mumbling, "Let him come."

Without waiting for their approval, Loki shielded his involuntary companions from sight with an invisibility spell, which elicited high-pitched complaints and cries of dismay from all of them.

"Loki, stop this nonsense!" shouted Thor.

"What the fuck are you doing?" yelled Stark. "I can't even see my own body."

"Lift this spell now," demanded Rogers, "or you will—"

"Keep silent," Loki interrupted the captain, shushing them all by adding another layer to the spell that absorbed all auditory signals just as Thanos stepped forth from the trees in his full battle armor, a giant double-bladed sword gripped firmly in his right hand.

Author's note:

This story has picked up another bunch of likes/follows and I'm grateful for every single one. Thank you so much!
No, I couldn't resist to put a Loki-mocking-Cap exchange somewhere into this after Endgame and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Also, "It's undoubtedly a trap" is a Hobbit reference. If I am not mistaken, this is the second one in this story. I should try and make it three just because (No one cares, I know).

Thanks again. Much love x