#36

"Sorcerer," Loki corrected the wizard sourly as he wriggled himself out of Thor's embrace. "I am not a magician." Even though he had relished his brother's gesture, he still shot Thor an angry glare for displaying his newfound affection in the presence of witnesses but his brother was entirely unbothered. He was merely smiling that big, sheepish, innocent smile that caused everyone to fall in love with him.

"Whatever," Wong snapped. "Let us get going."

"One second." Loki turned away with a wry smile, helped himself to a spoonful of the potion and waited for the satisfying rush of energy inside of him that would accompany the cellular regeneration of his mangled body. When it came, he could not help but sigh softly with gratification, as one would after savoring a sip of exquisite wine.

Valkyrie extended her hand to him. "My turn."

"You look absolutely fine to me," sneered Loki, seeking to pay her back for all her derogatory comments about his Jotun origin. "Let us save this for those who really need it, shall we? If there is something left, you may have it." Valkyrie bristled at him but Loki paid her no more attention as he glanced at Captain America, whose sleep was apparently a lot less uneasy and restless than his tense posture was making it seem. "So, where do we start?"

Thor looked up, his gaze indicating the floors above them. "Steve is fine. I say we start with the others."

With Tony, was what he did not say. "Lead the way," Loki commanded. He grabbed the bowl and jerked his head in Wong's direction. "And take some spoons."

The wizard was visibly displeased with being ordered about but he complied nonetheless and so the four of them walked upstairs and towards what Loki guessed were the private, residential quarters of the Avengers compound. He was carrying the bowl with the healing potion in his hands as they entered a corridor that seemed to stretch on forever, sensing Wong's distrust and the secret humming between Thor and the Valkyrie as if someone was stroking the strings of an invisible violin. He glanced at Thor but his brother kept his gaze fixed upon their destination. Very well, Loki thought. You cannot keep your secret from me forever.

They walked the length of the corridor that was lined by a couple of doors, one of which led into the room Loki had woken in earlier, and then came to another set of glass doors. Thor wordlessly stalked up to a little screen beside them, pressed his hand upon it and not soon after, the whirr of electricity began to fill the air. "Access granted," said a mechanical voice that Loki recognized as the same voice that had come from within the aircraft when they had made course for New York. Stark surely thinks highly of himself, does he not?

The doors opened and when they walked through, Loki found himself in another, even wider corridor with eight doors on either side that led towards an open area with floor-to-ceiling windows at its end. "He really built some sort of palace for the Avengers, huh?" Loki mumbled.

"He did." Thor nodded towards the first door on the right. "In here." He opened the door as carefully and gently as he could, even though the chance that the noise might wake the engineer was slim to none. Out of nowhere, Loki began to wonder if he would ever have a friend who cared about him like Thor cared about Tony Stark and the others, and the thought startled him enough to make the bowl in his hand tremble, the prized healing potion almost spilling over its edges.

He could almost hear the dark voice growl as he followed Thor into Stark's chambers. This is the basest sentimentality; this is a child at prayer. Pathetic.

Loki locked his emotions away and focused on Stark instead. He and Pepper were lying next to each other on a bed that the mortals were thinking of as a king-size bed—as if a king would ever retire to so small a bed—and the sparking, light-based Eldritch magic utilized by the Masters of the Mystic Arts had formed an orange-yellowish dome around them. When Wong stepped forth and removed the protection spell, Loki could see that Pepper was still wearing her leather battle suit while they had somehow peeled Stark out of his Iron Man suit. Both were lying on their backs still as stones, the rising and falling of their chests hardly noticeable.

"Alright," said Thor and hesitantly gestured to the bowl. "Should I …"

"And you're really sure about this?" asked Wong.

Loki stared at Tony Stark's right hand, now wrapped in a bandage, and remembered the scorched flesh, the glaringly exposed finger bones. "Yes," he said softly. Even if Midgardian bodies should be unable to absorb the healing potion against all odds, a spell such as this could do no harm by definition.

Thor breathed out to steady himself. Wong handed him a spoon, which Thor filled with the potion and then carried over to Stark's bedside. "How do I," he mumbled, gazing first at the spoon and then at his friend. "How do I make him drink it? He's unconscious. I'm gonna spill it all over him."

"Just open his lips and, you know," said Valkyrie, making a shoving gesture with her hand.

"But that's not gonna make him swallow it." Thor frowned, then glanced up at Loki. "A syringe would be more effective."

"What was I thinking?" Loki muttered. He had always resented the few occasions when his brother had thought of things that he himself had missed and this moment proved to be no exception. Yet, he swallowed that emotion too and conjured a syringe by extracting molecules out of the air and morphing them into matter with the Reality Stone's magic, which materialized next to Stark on the bed.

Thor reached for it without hesitation and filled it with the healing potion in the spoon. Valkyrie went over to the bed to assist him and rolled up the sleeve of Stark's left arm. "Alright," Thor said again and injected the potion into the engineer's veins.

For a few agonizing moments, nothing happened. Valkyrie and Thor held their breaths. Wong tensed beside Loki. Then, Stark gasped, his eyes flying open. He looked at Thor and then jolted into a sitting position. "What happened?" he cried out, his eyes darting across the room. "Why are we back here? Where are the others? Are we—" He stopped when his gaze landed on Loki and the crystal bowl in his hands. "What is that?"

"Everything is fine," said Thor, placing a hand on the other man's shoulders. "We are all back safe and sound." There was a slight edge to his voice but Stark did not seem to notice. "Well, almost. This," Thor gestured to the bowl Loki was clutching, "is an Asgardian healing potion. We will use it to restore everyone's bodies just as we just restored yours. Everyone will be fine."

Loki could hear Valkyrie softly clear her throat but no one else seemed to notice that either.

"Oh my God, Pep," Stark murmured, turning towards the woman lying on her back next to him, still barely breathing. He grabbed her by the shoulders, whispering her name once more. "The Brifrost. It really almost killed us, didn't it?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Thor admitted. "But we can heal her. We can heal everyone." He motioned Loki to come closer and he took a few cautious steps towards the bed, realizing with awe that something inside of him had shifted. He was used to feeling unwanted and rejected but he had never felt any qualms to impose himself on Thor's friends even when, or maybe because, he knew that they would loathe his company. Stepping into Stark's private space like this, however, made him feel more than uncomfortable. Thor rose from the bedside seemingly oblivious, dipped the syringe into the bowl Loki was reluctantly holding out to him and filled it with the potion.

"Wait, you are going to inject this into her veins?" Stark cried out. "What exactly is that?"

"It's a healing potion," Loki repeated, not trusting his own voice to carry. "Our mother used to prepare it for those wounded in battle. Thor injected it into your veins too. How," he began softly, "how are you feeling?"

"Good," Stark mumbled. "I feel …" He glanced down at his bandaged hand and recollection flickered across his features. "What the hell just happened?" he whispered to himself.

"May I?" Thor asked, holding up the syringe for emphasis and nodding in Pepper's direction.

Stark nodded, his gaze still fixed upon his hand. Thor walked over to the other side of the bed, where he injected the potion into the woman's veins right through her suit. She too startled awake after a few seconds. Her mouth gaped open but she said nothing. She merely propped herself up and swept Stark into her arms, murmuring with relief and gratification. Loki turned away, clutching the bowl tighter to his chest as if it could somehow give him reassurance in this strangely uncomfortable situation. Even though Pepper had not asked for clarification, Thor informed her too that she had ingested an ancient healing potion and, watching the mortals huddled together in their unnerving intimacy, Loki suddenly longed to be a million leagues away from them and their crushing emotional hardships. His thoughts drifted off as he, fatuously, yearned for his Asgardian chambers, his armchairs, his books, a cup of mead—well, a barrel, really—and a plate of meat and cheese prepared his mother, decorated with fruits and herbs picked from the garden.

"I thought you said this was a healing spell," Wong's voice pulled him back into the dismal reality in which everything he had once cherished had exploded into dust because he had placed Surtur's skull into the Eternal Flame, chanting the ancient spell. The wizard jerked his head in Stark's direction, who had removed the bandage from his hand, revealing his incinerated hand.

"Why didn't it heal this?" asked Pepper and the desperation in her voice made Loki's skin crawl.

Shame on you for becoming fond of them. "Because," Loki said in a solemn whisper, trying to stifle the jealously that he felt because despite everything the Avengers had lost, they still had a home and a family, "what the Soul Stone took away cannot be reclaimed."

"The Soul Stone," Stark mumbled, unspoken agony clouding his gaze. "I heard it. It spoke to me, I …" His voice trailed off and a single tear spilled out of Pepper's left eye.

"Hey, why don't you take a moment to collect yourselves while we go and heal the others?" Thor asked softly. "You will need it, I'm sure. As soon as we're done, we will all meet downstairs, okay?"

Loki was not in the least surprised that Captain America appointed himself the head of the next meeting as soon as everyone had gathered downstairs, changed into their regular Midgardian attire and looking physically and even somewhat mentally restored. He was, however, surprised when Rogers cleared his throat, walked over to where he stood and extended his hand to him with the words, "Thank you for everything you did today."

"Not for the work of modern art out there, though," Stark added, albeit absentmindedly, his voice lacking its usual sarcastic tone. "Those pillars are hideous."

Loki barely heard the engineer's words as he stared at the soldier's hand in disbelief, finding himself unable to reach for it. There is hope in his thoughts, the Mind Stone had told the Soul Stone during their first encounter in that accursed dreamscape, hope and longing for praise and acceptance that were promised but never received. Yes, this was what he had craved—recognition, acknowledgment, maybe even forgiveness—but receiving it felt wrong all the same as he suddenly realized that them seeing him as anything other than the villain who was bound to eventually betray them would create all sorts of expectations. And the Norns knew he usually fell short of those. What were you thinking, you hopeless fool? You had better not let them in any more than you already have.

Rogers harrumphed and, when Loki still made no move to reach for it, the other man simply lowered his hand and turned away with a subtle shake of his head.

"Wow, that was such a dick move," the raccoon commented in his typical, scathingly nonchalant fashion. Loki reflexively glanced at his brother, who, to nobody's surprise, looked rather disappointed at that outcome.

Wong used the moment of silence that followed to raise the objection that Loki had sealed the stones away against their will and Loki half-expected them to turn against him once more, but Captain America surprised him again when he opposed the wizard with the words, "Well, we do not need them right away. What we need to do now is figure out how we can save our friends and until we have an actual plan to save them, the stones can stay where they are."

The others murmured their agreement and Loki was suddenly not sure anymore whether he had ever woken at all.

"Alright," Rogers continued warily, directing his gaze at Thor. "We need to know everything there is to know about Nemesis. Who—or what—she actually is, how fast she is going to be here and whether her arrival will help us or bring more chaos."

"Freeing her will stop all of this," said Thor just as Loki told them, "Her arrival will possibly be our doom."

"Now, that is promising," the Widow noted, the distrust in her eyes making it obvious that she was still beyond skeptical of his counsel. Loki sighed inwardly when it dawned on him that nothing he had accomplished thus far, or would accomplish in the future, was ever going to dissolve the resentment she and Barton had towards him.

"But there is something else you need to know," Thor added softly, and with visible reluctance as he glanced at Valkyrie for emotional support.

Here we go, thought Loki, thrilled by the prospect of finally coming to know his brother's secret, but Captain cursed-be-his-soul America held up his hand to silence the Thundergod. "One second. We will also need to know everything there is to know about the Soul Stone and the Soul Word," Rogers said with a glance at Wong. "Both from the books and," he continued in a soft, guarded whisper when his gaze traveled to Stark, "from, well, personal experience."

The room fell silent in an instant. Stark's lips began to tremble. Again, Loki wished himself away to a place uninfested by human desperation. For a few agonizing seconds, nobody said a word and Loki honestly toyed with the idea to steal away from this ordeal in order to seek out food and wine, leaving behind an illusion in his stead. He had lived alone with his own mind for so long that it seemed downright foolish to even try to be a part of something bigger than himself now. The Widow's comment had made that more than clear and the urge to bolt as he had done so many times in the past became so strong that he felt his magic respond to his silent desires. As long as your oafish brother does not try to tackle you into a hug again, do you really think anyone would notice? Apart from that, you have the Infinity Stones. All of them. And you will live for another couple of thousand years. What are their struggles to you? Just let us leave. Come on. Thor will forgive you, eventually. He always does. Just as he was about to chant the spell, Nebula spoke and her voice jolted him right back into a reality where, as outlandish as it was, Thor and at least some of his friends were actually trying to give him a chance. "Have you seen them?" the cyborg asked, the words almost choking in her throat.

"I—" Stark began but his voice trailed off, his eyes drowning in pain as his gaze searched for Loki's, which dispersed the last of the trickster's recreant impulses. "You said that they cannot be reclaimed?" Stark whispered. Pepper stood close beside him and laced her fingers around his, squeezing his hand for support.

"I said that what the Soul Stone took away cannot be reclaimed," Loki repeated uneasily, "but this is different." He tried to divest himself of the effect their emotions and his own had upon him; and failed spectacularly. "The people you lost, the Soul Stone did not claim these souls for herself. They were not sacrificed to her like—"

"Gamora," Nebula gasped. "Thanos killed her to obtain the stone. Are you saying that there is no way she will live? Not even if we …"

"I am sorry," Loki said and he was. He truly was. By all the Realms, is there anything more perturbing than growing fond of some insignificant mortals who will be dead within a heartbeat? I think not.

Oh, shut up now, will you? This is not a good time.

"But the others? Wh-what of the others?" asked Shuri, undoubtedly thinking of the brother who Loki was sure had vaporized right in front of her. "Can we save them now that we have the Soul Stone? Are they still alive? Are they …" Her voice broke.

"They are … but," Stark whispered, his lips quivering. The engineer had never been tall to begin with but now he looked as small as a frightened child that was cowering before the hardships of life. "I can't even begin to describe what I saw," Stark continued breathlessly. "It was so unreal and I'm not even sure if I really remember it." He paused before he mumbled, "How can this even happen? How can any of this even be real?" He looked up and his gaze found that of Captain America. "How?" he breathed.

Rogers gulped. "I-I don't know."

"Tony," whispered Nebula, cautiously but urgently all the same. "We need to know."

Stark looked horrified. "I-I don't know. There was a … temple, bathed in orange light and there was a little girl …" His voice failed him and he buried his head inside his hands. "Her skin was … I don't even know what any of that means!" Pepper inched even closer to him, if that was possible at all, and wrapped her arms around his trembling shoulders.

The entire room lapsed into silence once more and Loki felt like an intruder when he cleared his throat after a few moments. "Well, I could," he began quietly, "you know, extract the memory." He waited for them to refuse and reprimand him for proposing to violate Stark's private emotions in such a way but then the engineer himself looked up, locking eyes with him, and he nodded.

"This is not going to be pleasant, Tony," Valkyrie cautioned him softly. "He will mentally undress you."

Loki tried to ignore the hot tingle in his ears when he heard those words.

"I know," replied Stark softly, his voice barely audible. "But you have a right to see this. All of you. You … must see this because I could never make sense of it."

Loki swallowed and crossed the distance between them. Stark's breath hitched when Loki placed his trembling hand upon the engineer's forehead. Pepper exhaled a breath and cradled Stark's arm to her chest. Loki gave a silent nod, conjured up a magical screen for the projection of the other man's thoughts just as he had done with his own recollection of Hélgidomur, and then began to pull. After a few seconds, the temple bathed in orange light Stark had mentioned earlier flickered to life, showing a small Zehoberei girl with green skin and reddish hair at its entrance, the sight of which caused Nebula to gasp out Gamora's name in horror. Who are you? Stark's voice asked. Where are we?

This is the Soul World, said the girl. I am its guardian.

Why am I here?

You, Anthony, are here because of this, said the girl and as soon as the words had left her mouth, the scenery shifted and all of the Avengers recoiled in sheer terror. The projection showed people Loki did not recognize lying entangled in ghastly blackened thorned twines, their faces convulsed in pain and horror. You want to save them. One person in particular swam into focus; a human boy of no more than sixteen years of age, with brown hair, sharp features and pale skin. They fared well until unspoken damage was inflicted upon the Soul Stone. Again, the scenery shifted, showing the same people lying on cottony orange clouds with their eyes closed, dreamy smiles playing upon lips standing slightly open with pleasure. If you want to protect them from further agony, you must ensure that the Soul finds her way home. She must come home.

After that, the projection faded and misery wrapped itself around the Avengers like a shroud. They murmured the names and nicknames of the people they had seen, which, with a few exceptions, did not mean anything to Loki. The kid … honey … Buck … Strange … Quill … None of them managed to say any more than those names as their brains tried to process the horror they had just been forced to witness. Valkyrie turned away from their pain. Thor shifted his weight.

"Gamora," Nebula finally croaked. "That was … why was she there?"

"You said Thanos sacrificed her," Loki whispered, her pain sucking the very air out of his lungs. "That means she will be the guardian of the Soul World until another sacrifice is made."

"But why is she a child?" Nebula's lips trembled. "She is … Where is the grown-up Gamora? The one who actually died?"

"I suppose that is the Gamora who Thanos thought of when he sacrificed her," speculated Wong, his voice a guarded whisper. "The daughter he loved."

Nebula shook her head violently. "No," she pressed out between clenched teeth, her voice vibrating with held back tears. "He did not love her."

"He did," Loki murmured and his chest yawned open when he understood the significance of that truth. If even a horrid creature like Thanos could love another person despite inflicting such damage upon them, he realized that Odin could have loved him too. Tears pooled into his eyes and he tried to blink them away even though he knew he would fail.

"Do not say that!" Nebula shrieked, the tears spilling out of her own eyes and streaking down her blue cheeks as she sprang towards him like a wild animal. "You knew him! He did not love her! He did not love anyone!"

"He did," Loki repeated, his voice quavering with all the emotions he had held back for what felt like an unthinkably long time. "If he had not loved her, he would have never obtained the stone."

A violent sob tore through the cyborg's chest and then her legs gave out and she sank into Loki's arms, burying her head against his shoulder. He looped his arms around her trembling frame without hesitation and pressed her gently to his chest, his own tears dripping onto her bald head.

Author's Note:

Well, here we go. This was a delightful to write as it was painful. I don't suppose anyone could adjust to everything these characters had to go through in such a short time and it has only been about three days for Loki. After spending so much time dreading that Thanos might find him again, I don't think he has processed the titan's death at all. Not to mention that his emotions are all over the place and he hardly knows what to do with them. He truly is such an intriguing character to write because of his violent impulses and conflicted emotions that he usually tries to push away as soon as he senses their presence. And Nebula ... I can't even begin to imagine what she must feel and I don't allow myself to believe I could ever do her justice. I came up with this last bit during a ride through the forest on my mountainbike and when I said their lines out loud to myself, imagining the scene, I actually teard up a bit.

I think that's it for now. See you soon x