#32
Thor gazed at the water's surface in grueling expectation, a highly explosive mixture of emotions bubbling up inside his chest. The strongest of them was concern for his brother since every muscle in Loki's blue face was straining with the effort to harness the Mind Stone's energy. Again. And, even if he had never paid an overwhelming lot of attention to the art of sorcery itself, Thor knew very well that all the magic Loki had wielded thus far was going to deplete him entirely. He was also slightly irritated that his brother had jerked away from his touch, seemingly unwilling to share his relief. And what a relief it had been! Thor's entire body was still trembling with it and had been ever since Thanos had, at last, taken his final breath. His heart had come awfully close to bursting upon the realization that the Norns had finally allowed him to make reparations for the fateful mistake he had committed on the battlefield of Wakanda. Even though he had not been able to kill the titan himself—as he had sworn to himself he would during many a sleepless night—he knew that he had contributed as much as he had needed to in order to defeat him. He knew too that Loki had made the right call when he had relinquished the killing blow to Nebula. This, as everything else his brother had accomplished in the past hours, spoke of his personal growth and Thor could hardly wait for his friends to acknowledge this. Apart from that, however, he also dreaded their return to Earth, for he had promised Loki that he would tell him what was weighing on his mind and how could he possibly do that? How could he possibly admit to having made a bargain with Hela? How could he possibly tell his friends what he had done after going out of his way to assure them that his little trickster brother could be trusted? As far as Thor could tell, Loki had not concocted a single scheme—well, a tiny one, if one were so inclined to count the mirage of a time rift to propel them into action as a scheme—since his return to Midgard and if he were to reveal to them now that he, the virtuous God of Thunder, had acted on selfish instinct alone when he had offered one of their souls in exchange for that of his brother, what would they think of him? They would turn to him in suspicion, chastising him with the same kind of distrust, disappointment and enmity they had chastised Loki with and Thor's stomach churned at the mere thought of it. He still found it hard to believe that he had maneuvered himself into such a mess. None of this had ever been supposed to happen and none of this would ever have happened if—
Suddenly, Thor felt his body reacting to a faint hum of magic in the air. He drew a deep breath, trying to shake off the thoughts that were clouding his mind. As if through a veil, he heard his friends gasp out in astonishment. Thor blinked to regain his focus and saw that the surface of the water trembled and a colossal wave began to surge rapidly in the distance. Loki was holding out his hands but the crackle of magic on his fingertips did not materialize into anything substantial.
"What the—" Thor heard Shuri murmur but the young scientist's words died on her tongue when the water came rushing into their direction.
Thor sprang to his feet in alarm and stretched out his arms to absorb the force of the wave. Steve too shot to his feet but then crouched down in front of Shuri, who appeared to be in the direst need of protection of them all, and held up his shield against the water. Rocket scrambled towards them on all fours, cowering down behind the scientist. Tony, Valkyrie and Bruce rose to protect their companions as well. The remaining Avengers raised their arms and crossed them in front of their faces to shield their mouths, eyes and noses just in time before the wave broke on the ice, dousing them all with a torrent of gelid water.
Thor could not prevent a victorious laugh from booming out of his mouth when the wave receded and washed up the torched golden glove, sending it swirling across the ice before it chinked against the iron feet of Tony's armor. Maybe, things are going to work out just fine after all.
Loki released his grip on the scepter's handle and briefly closed his eyes with a relieved smile smoothing his tensed expression. The water on his cheeks and in his hair solidified into tiny ice crystals that made him look as if he was sparkling. Thor would not have been able to say why, but the sight made him smile. Tony bent down and picked up the Infinity Gauntlet, turning it over in his hands with an expression of mesmerized curiosity on his face. The remaining stones, Thor noted instantly, were no longer flickering as they had for uncountable millennia. Just as his brother had tried to tell them earlier, the light of Power, Time, Soul and Space had faded almost entirely.
Loki gently placed the scepter beside him, stretched out his arms and yelled a triumphant "Tadaaa!" before he sank onto the ice on his back.
"I told you," Thor exclaimed, giddy with gratitude and happiness, "that he had no more reason to betray us!"
Steve exhaled a heavy breath and turned towards Loki. "I think we owe you both an apology and a thank you."
Loki huffed out an incredulous half-laugh in mockery of such display of emotion, but the Thundergod could not care less that his eyes were stinging with tears of relief and gratitude. For now, they had succeeded. Except for Tony, whose gaze was still fixated on the gauntlet, the other Avengers seemed relieved and happy, their features smoothing with smiles of gladness as Thanos was finally lying—well, standing frozen—dead at their feet and the Infinity Stones were in their possession. And even if their victory entailed the dreadful consequence of having to face up to what he had promised Hela in exchange for Loki's life very soon, it was all that mattered to Thor for now after he had spent so many nights in sleepless, guilt-ridden misery. He also found himself strangely unbothered by the fact that the demise of the stones was most definitely upon them because, all of a sudden, he sensed in every fiber of his being—or wanted to sense, but what did it matter?—that the Norns intended them to find a way to prevent it. And maybe even rescue him from the bargain he had so foolishly made with his accursed half-sister because that was what he Norns did, wasn't it? They weaved the threads of fate for all the Aesir and, surely, the Norns would not want him to fail? It was unthinkable, wasn't it, that they would want him of all Asgardians to fail after one or two missteps—or maybe ten, but who was counting?—when Odin had remained in their favor for an unthinkably long time despite his delinquencies against all the other realms. Especially now, that both Odin and Frigga were residing in Valhalla and he was left to guide their people into a new age. And if they didn't want him to do that, then what was the purpose of their existence? If they wanted Asgard to fail, then what—
"Which is one is the Soul Stone?" Tony was asking softly, absentmindedly, but the other man's voice only registered on the edge of Thor's consciousness.
"The orange one," Nebula replied in a small, broken voice.
"Stark, don't!" Loki shouted in unison with Rocket's panicked cry of "Tony, no!" and a hysterical screech from Nebula, which finally shook Thor out of his pondering. His eyes widened with dread as he belatedly registered that the iron glove around Tony's right hand was inexplicably vanishing. "No!" Thor screamed. What by Odin's all-seeing eye is he doing? Didn't he just silently call Loki crazy for trying to open his conscious to the Mind Stone again? Loki had jolted to his feet beside him but the engineer's bare fingers were already touching the Soul Stone as if in an attempt to remove it from the gauntlet. A bolt of magic tore through the air and before Thor could think of anything to do, Tony dropped the Infinity Gauntlet with a bloodcurdling cry of pain, his hand crackling in a blaze of pumpkin and honey shades.
"Oh God, Tony!" Pepper cried out. Tony groaned, his gaze a study of confusion as he cradled his burned right hand to his chest with the iron glove around his left to extinguish the hissing flames.
"You're not to touch an Infinity Stone with your bare hands!" Loki yelled, staggering towards Tony, his body swaying with exhaustion. "You are mortal! What in all the Realms were you thinking, you iron-clad imbecile?"
"You said their magic was extinct," came Tony's flat reply. Pepper, Thor noted from the corner of his eye, was shaking her head in exasperation and anguish in response to Tony's borderline suicidal curiosity.
"Almost," Loki gasped, his face pinched with genuine concern. "I said almost." He had crossed the distance to the other man by then, reaching for his hand. "Let me see."
"No need … I can …" Tony's voice trailed off as he lifted his left hand and began to spray a seething, foam-like substance onto his hand. The flames, however, sucked up the potion he had once praised as nanotech. "I-I don't … under-stand … I …"
"Remember when I tried to get it through your idiotically stubborn head that you are no match for Infinity Stone magic, Stark?" Loki had grabbed Tony's hand and was inspecting the damage the Soul Stone had inflicted upon it. "Now do you finally believe me?"
"Can you …?" Tony asked with a desperate glimpse at his right hand. Its flesh was so scorched that the bones of his fingers were glaringly exposed. Fix it, was what he left unsaid as his stare went blank.
"Stark?" Loki's voice quavered as he grabbed the other man by the shoulders, shaking him violently.
"Wh-what is happening?" Pepper shrieked.
"I suppose h-he gave them a fright," Loki mumbled with a frantic glance towards the scepter. The Mind Stone locked inside the weapon, Thor noted, was flickering madly, as if in sore distress. "They are indignant, restless, unhinged. By all the Realms, what were you thinking, Stark?" Loki shook him once more but Tony remained unresponsive. Pepper had rushed to his side, her hands clasped around his face. "Toneeeeee! Say something!"
"Is that—" Natasha began.
"The Soul Stone," mumbled Nebula.
"Is it …" Valkyrie's voice trailed off.
"Loki?" Thor asked, the chills of a crippling panic creeping up his spine.
"No need to descend into panic just now!" Loki was trying to soothe them but the tremble in his voice gave away that he too was clueless as to what exactly was transpiring and that he was no less distraught by the potential horrors of that something than the rest of the Avengers. His eyes were flickering madly as the wheels in his mind were undoubtedly turning at the speed of light. "He is probably …"
"Probably what?!" demanded Steve.
"I don't know!" Loki shouted hysterically. "If you ask me to hazard a guess, I would say he is glimpsing into the Soul World right now."
Nebula gasped out in horror. "You mean he is seeing …" Her voice broke.
"Wait, you said the Soul Stone claimed our … and that it might … might hurt them, right?" Clint whispered, aghast.
"But …" Tears were streaming down Pepper's face, smothering whatever she was going to say.
"Is he going to die?" asked Shuri, her voice small and scared.
"No," Loki replied instantly but it did not sound as convincing as Thor would have hoped.
"Fuck," mumbled Rocket.
"This can't have been all for nothing," Bruce whimpered, more to himself than to anyone else. "There must be a way to …"
"Can't you do something with your fucking magic?" Natasha screamed at Loki, whose gaze was resting on Tony in genuine concern. "I don't …" His voice trailed off. "Just let me think for one second, alright?"
"Think faster!" Valkyrie hollered.
Thor glanced at his friends without really seeing them, an enormous lump swiftly forming in his throat. Tears sprang to his eyes. His chest tightened, squeezing the air out of his lungs. The realization that Tony could die while he was standing right next to him, that he could die anyway because he had promised Hela … that he had failed to protect his friends once again, that he was absolutely … The panic and the rage and the paralyzing helplessness—the helplessness most of all—brought back the horrid sensation of Thanos's breath on his cheeks as the sky went gray with the ashes of the humans he had sworn to protect under oath ... You should have … Thor hectically gulped for a deep breath but his entire mouth had gone numb, his tongue as heavy as a piece of lead.
And then something inside of him snapped and he raised the Stormbreaker over his head with all he force he could muster in his state of numb breathlessness, releasing an enraged thunderbolt at the gauntlet that Tony had dropped onto the ice. "Leave his soul alone, you wretched lying hag!"
His friends sprang away as the crackling lightning blast bit into the uru with a deafening hiss.
"And I am the maniac," he heard Loki growl. "Sure."
Tony slumped to the ground, coughing, and Pepper slid down beside him, screaming his name. The engineer blinked, slowly focusing. For the briefest of moments, the others remained standing in an apprehensive silence but Thor could feel in his bones that this was only what the humans so endearingly referred to as 'the calm before the storm' and, of course, the Norns proved him right. The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, slightly at first as the Infinity Gauntlet emitted a quiet hissing sound that resembled the noise of air streaming out of a balloon, and then more violently.
A chanted wordless whisper reached Thor's ears from very, very far away and every muscle in his body tensed as a throbbing ache inside his skull alerted him to the distant but unmistakable presence of a magic even more ancient and more malevolent than the one locked inside the gauntlet. It was the same as … Help me, brother … No, that could not be true, could it? Did I really call on you for help? … Yes. I heard you call out to me in a dream.
All the Realms be fucking damned!
"Thor?" Loki asked, his blue lips quivering with awe. "Hún er að koma, bróðir," he whispered in Asgardian.
Wh-what? Why is she coming now? I still have time! I still have—
"Nemesis," Loki concluded softly. But who knows. Maybe it wasn't you after all. Maybe it was the seventh stone calling on your behalf … Thor's heart gave a violent, desperate lurch and then the dark-blue sky above them, which had still shimmered with the last orange rays of light of the setting sun until then, turned pitch-black all of a sudden, plunging them all into utter darkness.
"What now?" Steve panted in such a panicked voice that Thor froze at hearing his friend, whom he had come to know as invincible and unshakable, so flustered and afraid. "What is—"
"Is this the universe … unraveling?" whispered Shuri, the disbelief and fear in her voice almost palpable. Thor found himself unable to produce a verbal answer. All that left his lips was an aghast gulp. What did I do now? From somewhere beside him, Thor heard Tony pant, "Was that my …" Apparently, the other man was still too stunned or in too much pain to speak.
A panicked "Loki?" came from the rabbit.
"Yes," Loki hissed. By the sound of it, he bent down to pick up the gauntlet in one swift motion. Two seconds later, the faintest of light reddish glows began to radiate from his delicate blue fingers, and there was no doubt that his glamour was going to burn itself out anytime now. His brother was in sore need of a rest. They all were.
"This is hopeless," Loki gasped as Thor's eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness around him. "Summon the Bifrost! Now!"
"Are you out of your mind?" Natasha screamed at him. "That damned Rainbow Bridge of yours almost ripped us apart!"
"What other chance do we have?" Loki yelled back. "We have no way of knowing what happened to Tony and I cannot help him." His voice was cracking and Thor shuddered when he realized that this was the first time his brother had called the engineer by his given name. "Not like this," Loki continued softly. "Believe me, I would if I could but my magic is almost spent and Nemesis is coming and—"
"Wait, Nemesis?" Steve cut in. "But you said the seventh stone didn't—"
"It does exist, alright? I told you I wasn't sure to provoke you into action!" Loki shrieked.
"And what a tremendous idea it was to make such a hasty departure without talking this through!" Valkyrie screamed. "Look at the mess you—"
"This mess is not my fault!" Loki screamed hysterically as he jabbed his finger into her chest. "None of this is. You were in the room when I tried to warn them how dangerous the Infinity Stones were. Is it my fault that Stark chose to ignore every single one of my warnings? I think not and I refuse to tolerate your disrespect any longer, you pathetic drunkard! In case you forgot, I am the brother of your king!"
Steve stepped between them. "Whoa, let's not go there, okay?"
Valkyrie grinded her teeth and Loki narrowed his eyes at her, exhaling a heavy breath. "Summon it, brother."
Thor gulped. "You do recall what happened the last time you called for Heimdall to open the bridge to us too soon?" he asked warily. "If I summon the Bifrost now, we're gonna take all of this"—he vaguely indicated the water—"with us to New York."
"That is a risk we will have to take, I'm afraid," Loki decided before anyone else had a chance to voice an objection and how could they voice objections anyway, thought Thor. They are shell-shocked and scared and beyond exhausted. Which is exactly why I shouldn't—
Steve glanced down at Tony, who was only half-conscious, and gave a terse nod. "Do it."
"Just a minute," Thor muttered as his mind suddenly presented him with a possibility to circumvent the worst possible scenario. With all his might, he rammed his axe into the ground on sheer impulse, causing a rift in the ice. He whirled around and rammed the Stormbreaker into the ice once more. Semi-oblivious of the sheer panic screaming at him from his friends' eyes; of Tony's stifled moans of pain; of Loki's heavy breathing, he swung around frantically, ramming the Stormbreaker into the ice again and again and again until they were floating on the water on an ice floe about fifty feet in diameter, removed from the rest of the plateau. This accomplished, he raised his axe over his head and called out, "Are you sure you want me to do this?"
"Are you sure we're gonna survive another journey on the Bifrost?" Clint panted.
"We mustn't lose hope that you are," Loki said listlessly and Thor could not tell whether this was a morbid jest or not. When no more objections came, he called upon the magic rays of the Rainbow Bridge. Even though he did not think it wise to do so—It is going to tear them apart, for the love of the Realm Eternal!—Thor had lost all trust in himself. For a while now, his decisions had brought about nothing but destruction and despair. He had just unleashed the wrath of the Soul Stone and, possibly, Nemesis upon them in order to save a man whom he had probably condemned to death himself with his selfish actions anyway. You are unworthy, his father's harsh, unforgiving words echoed through his skull, of the loved ones you have betrayed!
"Wait, aren't we supposed to hold hands?!"
Thor was not entirely sure who had screamed this and what does it matter anyway, he thought grimly, because you are too physically exhausted to hold on to each other and we are doomed, doomed, doomed. Everything is coming apart. I have failed you all. The Norns have made their decision apparently, his mind continued its horrid chant, but, curiously, even that realization failed to matter to Thor because even if this is the end of the universe that we all call our home, at least we managed to kill Thanos before it perished and if that certainty isn't something to cherish in our final moments, I don't know what is. Before he could grasp any other thought, however, the light of the rainbow enveloped him and anyone else around him, dulling all of Thor's senses as the sheer power of the Bifrost swept him away, hurtling him through time and space until he landed on his back with a soft thud, the Stormbreaker still clasped in his clammy hands.