Everyone who knows me will have guessed as much, but I simply couldn't resist including a description of what Hela made Loki relive and I put this warning here just in case because we all know what his greatest nightmare is ... That said, enjoy!

#35

Loki did not know whether he was dreaming as a murmur of different voices filtered into his subconscious and different scenes blurred into one another in his mind's eye. He saw Thor shaking Captain America's hand, relieved smiles on both men's faces. I really think he was trying to help us out there. He then saw Valkyrie's face, lips pinched in disgust. He's a giant, Thor. He saw his brother and the hot anger flashing in his eyes. And you are a racist. Loki felt oddly at peace for a moment before, all of a sudden, a black cloud with single wisps of pale turquoise wavered through the air. The air stilled around him and Thor's face morphed into a horrific Odin-Thanos grimace with blistered purple skin and an eyepatch of phalanges that came closer to him, its dark violet lips hanging open, a black, slimy tongue sticking out. Loki tried to squirm away but the ferocious glint in the face's one eye fixed him in place.

You think you are free of me now just because I am dead? The creature growled. You think you can escape me? I am inevitable.

Loki cried out for help but all that came out instead of the scream that had been building up inside his chest was a muffled groan.

You think you can escape what you did? The one-eyed purple creature howled a deep, horrid, bone-shattering laugh. Wherever you go, you leave destruction in your wake, Loki, it continued, its voice mind-bogglingly turning into Hela's smooth evil purr. You will be the downfall of everything you care about. Need I remind you?

Hela? What was Hela doing here, in this dream? And was this a dream, after all?

Before Loki had time to dwell on these questions, the nightmarish abomination opened its mouth, threw back its head and retched until it regurgitated a putrescent body with long, light-brown hair, dripping with dark-green, almost-black mucus, which it spat at Loki's feet.

Loki shrieked but, once more, no real sound came out. He knew then that it was a dream. It had to be. Knowing that no real harm could come to him in dream, he bent over and reached out to the ghastly corpse with trembling hands, anxiously touching the thin fabric of the light blue dress that still clung to the body in shreds. Even though it felt grimy against his touch, he recognized its texture and he felt his face convulsing into a grimace of pain. No, no, no! Loki sniveled and then took a deep breath before he removed the hair that was covering the corpse's face, his pulse thudding in his ears. Another voiceless scream escaped his lips when he stared into Frigga's festering face and her cold, dead eyes.

Mother, he whimpered, scrambling backwards as little snakes creeped out of her eyes, sneaking down her face and leaving a thin trail of a black slime on her cheeks. Nooooooo! I am so sorry, Mama, I never meant to hurt you.

Frigga's lips parted, her tongue lolling out, but she remained silent. The horrid creature's laugh boomed through the darkness but when the bloodcurdling noise faded, Loki heard someone softly calling his name from very far away.

Lokeeeeeeee. The voice was familiar, even though he could not quite place it. Lokeeeeeee! Wake up!

The voice was right. Both the creature and the corpse were not real. Frigga and Odin were safe, reunited peacefully in Valhalla at last after all the misery their sons had brought upon them during their desperate, misguided endeavors to prove their worth to Asgard. And Thanos was dead too, his minions drowned, electrocuted and frozen into unmeltable Jotun ice. Loki's worst nightmare had ended a few hours ago. He just needed to wake up. His mind was eager to comply and escape this place but his body was stubbornly holding on to the much-needed sleep. Still, his eyelids fluttered and the horrid images began to fade away.

That's right, the voice said. Wake up.

I am waking up, Loki grumbled, when his befuddled mind finally recognized Reality's voice.

Wake up quicker, she continued her merciless demands. Mind is a fool to be believe that Nemesis is coming to free us. Nemesis will be our death. If we are ever reunited with her, we will perish and, if we do, so will everything. You must prevent that.

I must nothing, Loki wanted to reply. All he wanted was to sleep for at least fifty more hours now that Thanos was finally dead and they had all the stones in their possession but he had absorbed the Aether into himself by choice and he knew that he could not hope to close his mind against her magical interferences. Which is why he relented, asking, But she is coming, is she not? Nemesis?

She is trying, yes.

What does she want? Loki paused thoughtfully. Does she want to be reborn?

Only Yggdrasil itself knows. Reality drew a breath. But you have other, more urgent matters to attend to first. Now that you have retrieved the gauntlet, you must quickly separate us.

Loki's heart sank when he realized what the execution of her command entailed. Why?

Because that is how we will be able to regain our strength. Did you not witness how my powers dwindled as soon as you brought me within the others' reach again? You must free the remaining four and store them as far away as possible from one another, so that each of us can heal.

Loki still felt the urge to protest but Reality, probably sensing the reluctance owed to his fatigue, suddenly surged through him and jolted his body awake with her magic. Some of his strength returned instantly, his frozen blood turned warm again and then his eyes snapped open.

The first thing he caught sight of was an orange mandala that surrounded him and emitted tiny sparks. Those accursed Midgardian wizards, was the first thought to cross Loki's mind but the barrier dissolved as soon as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"Brother?" Thor was kneeling beside him, his right arm reaching out to touch his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Loki panted, not trusting his own voice as he tried to banish the horrible sight of his mother's putrefied corpse into his subconscious. "I am just hungry," he mumbled but then he looked at his brother and the dreadful images of his dream instantly fled his mind. Thor's hair was rumpled and clung to his pale and clammy face. Deep furrows lined his forehead. His lips were trembling and his eyes were drowning in floods of sorrow. "What about you?" Loki whispered, his heart aching at the sight of his once so mighty brother brought so low. "You look terrible."

Thor gave a forced laugh. Loki quickly glanced around and took in the sun inching away from the horizon and into the sky in a soft glow, which told him that at least an hour or two must have passed since he had he had collapsed from exhaustion. Even though Valkyrie had made it more than clear how little she thought of him, he still searched for her eyes in the certainty that they could at least agree upon wanting what was best for Thor. "Did he even sleep?"

Valkyrie snorted. "Of course not."

"There was no time," Thor mumbled but Loki hardly heard it as he remembered Reality's command and glanced down at his hand only to find that the Infinity Gauntlet he had slipped into while his brother had summoned the Bifrost on Hélgidomur was gone. "Wh-where are the stones?" Loki asked, his heart picking up speed as he scanned the garden and realized that the scepter too was gone. Their magic is only restored when they are apart. "The Mind Stone, the gauntlet? Where are they?"

"Relax," said Valkyrie, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "They are inside."

"Wong is trying to remove them from the gauntlet," Thor added. "Wong is one of the wizards," he added when he saw Loki's puzzled expression. "He also did"—and there Thor gestured towards the no-longer-present protective shield conjured from Eldritch magic that had surrounded Loki during his sleep—"well, he tried to … Anyways, Steve told him to remove the stones and he is trying to do that right now, I think. I mean, he said he would try."

Loki's brows drew together in an expression of sympathetic concern at his brother's palpable disquiet.

"Don't look at me like that," Thor whispered, repeating the words Loki had said to him in the deserted Norwegian cabin after he had spent the night reliving his greatest nightmares; which, to Loki, felt like months ago instead of the two or three days that had passed since then. "Don't pity me."

"I won't," Loki promised and, forcing a sleek smile onto his lips, he added, "I will merely take a mischievous pleasure in the fact that you look so much worse when you are in agony than I do."

At this, Thor snorted a genuine laugh. "Not with all that grease in your hair, you don't."

Having achieved his goal of making his brother chuckle, Loki's sleek smile turned sincere. "Alright, let me assist that wizard persona." He rose to his feet and as soon as he stood, his gaze fell upon the pillars of ice that now towered in the middle of the Avengers lawn, several Chitauri corpses hanging upside down in their crystalline prison, their horrified ghoulish grimaces frozen by death. Loki could not stop the giggle from escaping his mouth.

"What?" asked Valkyrie.

"Just look at that. Stark is going to k—" Loki startled when he remembered what had transpired just before their escape. "H-how is he?"

"Still unconscious," Thor replied softly.

Loki gave a hesitant nod. "Maybe I can …"

"Please," said Thor.

Loki nodded once again and strode towards the doors leading into the Avengers compound. If the wizard had already extracted the stones from the gauntlet, there were only a few more things left for him to do before he could finally rest and maybe ingest a decent meal; even though the recollection of the grease-saturated atrocity they had served him earlier dispossessed him of all hope that Midgardians knew what a decent meal was.

Valkyrie and Thor were walking behind him and the way they huddled close together, whispering to each other in guarded intimacy, made Loki's skin crawl. He knew that there was something Thor had not yet told him and he knew too that this something had to do with Hela. He had already surmised that Thor had sworn an oath to the Goddess of Death before they had left to reclaim the stones—not to mention that his brother had not explicitly denied this when he'd promised him he would tell him everything once Thanos was dead—but now that Thor looked so visibly harrowed and Hela's of all voices had assailed him in this peculiar nightmare, he was more skeptical than ever. Besides, being the divine authority on secrets and lies and everything in between, Loki also sensed very clearly that Valkyrie knew about whatever it was that Thor was keeping from him and the realization ailed him more than he cared to admit.

We will find out, his inner voice assured him as he entered the Avengers compound through the glass doors. Who could ever hope to keep a lie from the God of Lies, after all?

Loki paid the voice no attention. Instead, he surveyed the kitchenette, the seating area and the laboratory with all its computers, fancy screens and other gadgets that Tony Stark was so proud of but that still seemed at best mediocre to him. The first sight that registered with Loki was Captain America, who was lying on one of the couches, his eyes closed in what looked like an uneasy rest, his hands firmly cupping the elbows of his folded arms. The scepter, Loki saw, was lying next to him. There was no sign of any of the other Avengers except for the wizard named Wong, whom Loki could have easily identified by his robes. The mortal stood bent over one of Stark's surgical tables, the Infinity Gauntlet next to him. He had already extracted Power, Time and Space, who were resting in a shallow cylindrical glass dish next to the glove. The Soul Stone, however, was still faintly glimmering on the Infinity Gauntlet and the wizard was looking at it, his brows furrowed in deep concern.

Thor faked a cough and then announced their arrival with a hoarse "We're back."

Wong startled and glanced up but Loki did not pay him any attention either. He walked right towards the kitchen area, where he opened the fridge and peered inside. It was almost empty except for a few items, which, as he had expected, did not look remotely appetizing. He slammed the door shut again, reached for the crystal fruit bowl on the counter and retrieved a cluster of six bananas, feeling the wizard's uneasy glance on him.

"Wh-what are you doing, brother?" Thor asked, his breathing still heavy. "You said you would—"

"And I will. But I need sustenance first," Loki told him. He peeled the first banana, bit a large piece off and swallowed it without much chewing.

"Will what?" the mortal wizard asked with so much skepticism in his voice that Loki felt his magic crackle with the urge to turn him into a blobfish. "Help Stark," he replied, exercising patience. I can make this work, he told himself. I can be civil. "I do not think we have met. I am Loki."

"Yeah, I know." The wizard was trying very hard to keep his voice steady but the apprehension glinting in his eyes was unmistakable and Loki guessed he was right now replaying the footage of his attack on New York City in his mind's eye. Good. Better to be feared than, well, you know. Nevertheless, the wizard's attitude still irked him.

"Considering that Thanos has finally met his end," Loki said probably a little too cheerfully as he peeled a second banana and fixed his eyes first on Wong, then on Valkyrie and Thor, "I would expect the mood around here to be a little less graveyard-ish."

Valkyrie shot him a You-have-no-idea-sort of glance that sent a shiver of unease crawling down Loki's spine.

"Are you actually serious?" asked the wizard. "Your Bifrost nearly killed them all and Tony …" His voice broke. "The Soul Stone scorched his hand down to the bone and no one can even begin to guess what it did to his mind!"

Loki finished the second banana and reached for a third. They left a sticky taste in his mouth but at least they soothed the hunger pangs in his stomach and that was all that mattered for the moment. Even if the Avengers did not know how to prepare food, someone in this nornforsaken Realm surely had to and he would find that someone as soon as he was finished here. "Is that why you have not yet dared to touch it?"

Wong narrowed his eyes at him. "Excuse me?"

Loki gestured towards the cylindrical glass dish on the table. "The other stones are just as powerful and, apparently, you had no qualms about removing them."

"The Soul Stone is not like any of the others," the wizard snarled, his apprehension eventually turning into annoyance. You have only been in here for less than five minutes and he has already had enough of you. I dare say this is a new record. "It is the most dangerous, the most malevolent," Wong continued grimly. "It can manipulate the very essence that makes up an individual. The Tony we knew," he concluded, his voice subsiding into a whisper, "could be gone."

The mortal's words crashed into Loki's stomach with the force of a Rock Giant's fist and he was both surprised at and angry with himself that he had apparently allowed himself to grow fond of the loudmouthed, conceited know-it-all at some point during the time they had spent together. He blew out a soft breath to steady himself. "And what a tremendous loss that would be for this planet."

"Stop with the pretense, brother," Thor chided him, and Loki could almost hear his nerves screaming beneath his skin. "We all know you care."

Loki felt strangely caught, his ears going hot with embarrassment. "There is one other thing we need to do first," he pressed out and reached for his magic. Knowing exactly what their reaction would be, Loki had no desire at all to explain the task the Reality Stone had assigned to him but he told them nonetheless, concluding with, "Which is why I am going to seal them away in separate pocket dimensions so that they can regain their strength."

"Out of the question. I will not give the Time Stone to one such as you," Wong opposed him. "It has been ours to guard for a thousand years!"

Loki drew a sharp, angry breath. Every single time he allowed himself to believe that he had finally proven his worth to those insignificant humans, another self-proclaimed Midgardian hero appeared out of thin air and rubbed his misguided attack against New York into his face, reminding him of his place at the bottom of the moral food chain. Quite naturally, it took only about half a second for his usual self-defense mechanisms to take over. "And what a marvelous job you have done with that since the Ancient One has passed," he sneered.

"Probably about as marvelous as the job you and your brother have done since the Allfather has passed," Wong shot back instantly.

Loki held up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "Touché."

"Y-you can keep the Time Stone," Thor suggested, his voice still hoarse and breathy. "We just lock it inside the eye of Agamotto again and Loki seals away the others. Deal?"

"Sounds good," Valkyrie agreed and Loki could hardly believe his ears.

"No," Wong insisted. "We would be lunatics to entrust six weapons powerful enough to wipe out the entire universe to the care of the only person among us who has tried to take over Earth!"

Loki felt his intestines clench. "Don't you have any other arguments?" he asked grimly. "This is really getting old."

"Are you suggesting that you should be their keeper?" asked Thor. "If you have access to pocket dimensions too, by all means, do it, I don't care. I care about Tony. So can we please hurry?"

Wong exhaled. "I am simply suggesting that we do not believe him so easily."

Loki locked eyes with the wizard, reached for the pulse of magic inside of him and murmured, "Well, I apologize."

"For wh—" Wong began but Loki had already raised his clenched fist, magic pulsating in his fingertips, and the mortal turned into a statue of bilious green jello before he could finish his question.

Unexpectedly enough, Thor guffawed but Valkyrie's lips gaped open in consternation. "By Odin's beard," she exclaimed indignantly. "Every time I try to bear with you, you get up to your mischief again."

"What?" Loki flashed her an innocent smile and swiftly opened five pocket dimensions. "I am merely hurrying things along, as requested by our king." Thor looked inappropriately pleased as Loki sealed each of the three stones, the scepter and the gauntlet with the Soul Stone away in separate dimensions, and then lifted the spell he had cast over Wong.

The wizard's face was a grimace of hot, seething anger. "Give them back," he ordered. "You have no idea what you're meddling with!"

"You are a powerful magician," Loki snickered as he grabbed the crystal fruit bowl from the counter and emptied the rest of the fruit, which consisted of two plums and a shriveling orange, onto its top. "Why don't you just take them back?"

He heard Valkyrie and Thor sigh in slight exasperation but Wong accepted the challenge. He brought his hands together, palms almost touching, and sparks of orange flickered to life between them. When the air was humming with Eldritch magic, the mortal spread his arms out and the sparks formed into a glimmering samurai sword. Loki walked over to the sink, where he turned on the faucet and filled the bowl with water, watching intently as the wizard felt for the pocket dimensions' doors and then stabbed the sword into the air when he had identified them. Nothing happened. Loki smirked. "Now that is adorable, isn't it?"

Valkyrie rolled her eyes so far back into her head that Loki was sure he was never going to see her irises again. "You know you would be far more likable if you weren't so insufferably arrogant, right?" she mumbled in unison with the wizard's muffled, "How is that possible?"

Loki gave a casual shrug. "I wield an Infinity Stone."

"And I am a Master of the Mystic Arts," Wong countered. "When you last came to Earth, we—"

"You took me by surprise," Loki interrupted, turning off the faucet. "That is not going to happen again and the stones remain where they are until they are restored."

"Let's see about that!" Wong shouted, wielding his magical sword.

"Stop this at once!" Thor hollered with such force in his voice that Loki startled as the very air inside the compound shook, rattling the glasses on the counter and the devices on the tables. The mortal stiffened as well, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, and even Valkyrie recoiled. "The stones can wait," ordered Thor, his deep, commanding voice in sharp contrast to his bedraggled appearance. "Our friends' health is way more important, don't you think?"

Wong gave a subdued nod and lowered his weapon. Valkyrie harrumphed, her eyes flickering with uneasy recognition. Like father, like son, Loki could almost hear her think as he carried the bowl from the sink to the counter and placed it carefully onto its top, his hands trembling slightly. He had not performed a spell such as the one was about to perform to heal Tony Stark and the Avengers in almost a century and tapping into rune magic was as complex as it was taxing. There surely were simpler things he could do—extracting the air molecules and transmuting them into the matter of an Asgardian healing stone with Reality's help was something that immediately came to mind—but he would not be Loki if he did not go out of his way to show off one of the only skills he had truly mastered. "Now, would you like to see some real magic?" he asked, sneering at the wizard.

Wong bristled at him and Valkyrie merely rolled her eyes one more time. Thor, however, looked at his younger brother with intent curiosity and admiration for the first time since Loki had begun to learn the art of sorcery.

"Yes, please," Thor said and Loki felt tears clawing at the back of his throat. He swallowed them down and began to chant the runes required for the spell. Thor drew closer to him. Valkyrie held her breath. Wong stepped closer as well, his curiosity overshadowing the anger in his eyes. After a few moments, the water's surface began to tremble with the age-old seiðr. Then, soft wisps of pale pink and gold wafted into the air, curled above the bowl and exploded into tiny crystals, which fluttered back into the water and turned it magenta.

"Lo and behold," Loki announced in a solemn, dramatizing whisper, "the healing potion of the ancient Norse gods."

Thor's lips were trembling, his eyes filling up with tears. "That is …"

"I know," Loki said softly. The last time he had seen Thor imbibe that potion, Frigga had concocted it for him after he had been severely wounded in battle against a formation of rogue Storm Giants who had marched upon Asgard shortly before his thwarted coronation. "She taught me."

Loki took a ladle out of a jar with kitchen utensils that appeared to sit on the counter unused, scooped up a spoonful of the healing potion and handed it to his brother. "Drink it."

Thor did and shortly after he had swallowed the potion, his strained face smoothened and his eyes cleared up. "This is," he stammered, raising his hands and staring at them in awe. "I … I forgot that this is how I used to feel before this nightmare began." He shouted with glee and then pulled Loki into a hug. Loki struggled against the physical contact but this time, Thor did not let him squirm free. He gave him a tight squeeze, pressing Loki's head against his chest with his muscular arms, murmuring a quiet, "Thank you, brother."

"Now that is adorable, isn't it?" Wong parroted him. "With all due respect to Loki's skills as a magician, wouldn't you think it wise to check if mortals can actually handle that potion the way Asgardians can before you celebrate?"

Author's Note:
I haven't done one of those in a while, so here it goes: This fic has gained 95 followers and over 60 faves and I want to thank you all so much for your support. If you read the updates regularly (or, well, as regularly as I post them anyway), I would appreciate a review; even if it is just one sentence telling me what you liked (or didn't like, for that matter). If you have followed this to read the fic when it's all done, well, reviews are still nice, even though the story is completed (which this one will be, I swear).

As for the last chapter(s), here are a few comments/thoughts etc.:
~ This chapter was a little longer than the others and of a significantly slower pace (I am aware) but that is because, as far as Loki is concerned, there is no immediate urgency anymore. Of course, he will be disabused of this notion very soon and I hope you are as excited as I am regarding what is about to come with Thor having to reveal his secret, Hela ready to kick some Asgardian (and Midgardian) ass, Nemesis and the Stones putting bugs in the Odinsons' ears—Should they free Nemesis or shouldn't they? Whom are the Avengers going to believe?—and the Soul Stone having touched Tony's mind.
~ Speaking of Hela, I don't know if her MCU version is capable of sending projections of herself across the realms but in the comics, she is, so I decided to just go with it.
~ I don't know if Asgardians would actually use the expression "mama"—probably not, I reckon—but it felt more personal and desperate, so I used it anyway.
~ Thor getting a migraine when he senses the magic of Nemesis is a detail I have taken from the Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated TV series where it is revealed that Thor gets a headache whenever he senses ancient magic (such as the Casket of Ancient Winter, for example.).
~ Of course I couldn't resist to put the "I am inevitable" line somewhere into this either because it sums up Thanos's God complex pretty well. Speaking of lines, and you might have guessed this, the "You look terrible" is a LOTR reference (Legolas says this to Aragorn when he returns to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers).
~ Seiðr is just a very fancy word for pre-Christian Norse magic.
~ Last but not least, I am really, really, really enjoying the dynamic between Thor and Loki right now, with both of them being so extremely emotionally fragile at the same time and needing each other more than ever. It's a delight to write, honestly.

With that all said, see you soon, I hope.

xxx