Vision's hands keep drifting to his forehead, tracing the gem that gives him life, and that some kind of alien apparently wants to use to destroy the world.
They'd have to kill him first, and it disturbs Vision how much he doesn't want to die. Not in this way. If the mind gem could, say, save Wanda, save his friends, save the world—he would do it. He thinks.
You would, wouldn't you?
Of course I would.
He just doesn't want to be wiped out in some bid for more death. He's always been on the side of life.
"We'll be back in Wakanda in no time," Peter Quill assures him as Vision floats onto a strange vehicle.
"They fly through space," Wanda adds with a crooked smile.
"I'm just happy to see a person on this planet who looks like us. Weird," comments the raccoon. Vision wonders about his story. Who made you? Were you curiosity? Were you supposed to fix something, like me?
He was created to save, and now he needs saving. Irony. Vision smiles.
"I try to keep it clean," Gamora says to him. "Quill seems interested only in making it—"
"Hey, shut it," Peter Quill calls. Drax grunts.
"It's very noble of you to come and warn us," Vision tells them. "I appreciate it."
"We all do," Wanda says, leaning against the wall. She fiddles with the rings on her hand. Her hair falls long and full, almost to her waist, and Vision wonders how he can feel so above humans sometimes, and wish he were one of them the very next moment.
Her eyes don't narrow at all, but they're so empty when they look at him. The friendly amusement he's used to seeing dissipates, and then it's gone completely, and this strange wave running through him—is it fear? Anxiety?
"I'll call T'Challa," Wanda says, peeling herself off the wall.
"No. I'll do it," Gamora says. "If you don't mind."
Drax collapses onto a black seat, producing a curved blade and polishing it.
Friends or enemies? Vision wonders. Aloud, he addresses Wanda: "Have you been in Wakanda the whole time?"
"You saw me just a few days ago," Wanda responds. "But aside from that mission to get Clint's family, yes. I have been. It's… nice."
"They treat you all right?" Vision can't forget the nights after the incident in Lagos, when Wanda spent nights sleepless, when she let him distract her with board games and movies, and the nights when she told him to leave her alone, bags heavy under her swollen eyes.
"They treat me well," Wanda answers. "T'Challa's kind." She shifts, and Vision wonders if she's just as uncomfortable with forgiveness as he is, because Vision can't deny that being away from Rhodey gives him relief, and he knows that's wrong, and he can't stop it.
Why not?
"Much better than that floating prison," Wanda adds, a bite in her tone.
"If I'd known where they'd taken you—"
"Oh, save it," Wanda says. "I was wrong, in your opinion, wasn't I? If I was wrong, why shouldn't I pay the consequences?"
"Because you were misled—"
"Stop it. I can make my own decisions, including whether or not to leave a tower," Wanda says. Her eyes flash as her fingers rise to her neck, but no red flows from them. "Do you know what they did to me there? Do you know they stabbed me with a needle, and when I woke up, I had a collar on my neck like I was an animal? Do you know that they shocked me like an errant dog when I moved in any way they deemed 'threatening?'"
"No," Vision whispers, because he doesn't know what else to say.
"Strucker treated me and Pietro better, and we were his experiments," Wanda spits.
"Didn't you volunteer?" Vision asks. He asked her why once, during those nights, and she pulled some red light from her hands and told him she didn't want to be helpless anymore.
"It doesn't matter. You don't get to pretend you weren't responsible, in some sense. Thinking you're right is not a moral high ground. Otherwise I would have been right when Pietro and I helped Ultron," Wanda says, voice trembling.
"I thought the accords would protect you," Vision tells her. Inside, he feels like something's breaking.
"I'd have to want protection for that to work. And you never even asked me," Wanda tells him. "Do you? Do you want this?" She waves her hands around the ship, at the aliens.
Vision feels smaller and weaker than he's ever felt. He nods.
"Good." She marches off.
"I am Groot," says the tree, turning to watch Wanda stalk away.
"Man, she really gave it to ya," Rocket tells him. "Don't worry too much. She'll get over it."
"She might not," Vision says.
"She cares about you," Drax says. "She offered to help us, because she cares. But, she also hates you."
Vision hopes that's not true. But he's afraid—genuinely afraid.
Loki paces around his chambers. His mother and father once slept here, happy with their son and the frost giant they were trying to tame.
If you'd just been honest, given me the truth, Loki thinks bitterly. We might not be in this situation.
He hopes Natasha Romanoff and Bucky Barnes can actually pull this off. Wouldn't Thor laugh if he knew that his brother's only hope is now two mortals.
When Loki fell and Thanos caught him, made him scream, he survived because he knew he could beat the violet giant. They couldn't take his more formidable weapon from him: his tongue, his ability to spin words and promises to get what he wanted. An alliance to take over Midgard seemed like a tantalizing victory, until it wasn't.
You think you know pain?
I know pain, Loki thought back then. And what you put me through is a jest when it comes to pain. He thought of no Loki.
He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.
And he has. Malekith—the Aether—Frigga. His mother dead because that stupid elf wanted to destroy the worlds, something Thanos would hardly have minded. And now the titan's made up his mind to do it himself, and Loki's trapped.
If only Odin had showed some gladness to see him when Thor brought him back. He could have told him. Loki scowls.
But something niggles in the back of his mind, a little voice that sounds just like his mother's, scolding him when he was a child she caught lying too many times: you have to take responsibility for what you did. That's what kings do.
But it wasn't what Odin did. Loki sneers as he grabs a cup of mead.
The humans need to succeed. They need to. Or else he will wish for something as sweet as pain. As a king, he needs to protect Asgard, and letting Thanos wipe them out is hardly what a good king would do.
You are a failure.
Loki looks in a mirror and watches as his glamor drips away, and all that's left is a blue-skinned, red-eyed beast. Himself, in his true form, and yet it never feels like it fits. He touches the table and watches ice grow.
Cast out upon the rocks…
Maybe Laufey was wise. His birth was a failure, and everyone could see it.
Not if I stop Thanos, Loki consoles himself. Then he will be victorious.
It's his only hope.
Natasha's arms might be tied behind her back, but the Chitauri carry small daggers, made of a strange, brown metal on their waistbands. At least, the one whose armor she's wearing does, and she's confiscated the dagger.
Bucky's eyes flit around, and she can tell he's struggling. This was your plan. You have to stay with me, she thinks, knowing he can't hear her but hoping he'll interpret her glare.
His shoulders slump. Dammit!
Natasha spots a small crevice in the rock and jabs her foot in it, falling.
The Chitauri snarls something in its language, hitting her with a whip. Natasha clambers to her feet, bumping against Bucky. "Stay with me," she hisses.
And its like some kind of veil falls away from his eyes. He gapes at her.
Now, you recognize me. Natasha huffs. She doesn't have time for this, not for the memories, not for the shock on his face, none of it.
"We know that Thanos is trying to find the Infinity Stones," Natasha announces. "And so is someone else. We came to warn Thanos of him."
The Chitauri slaps her, scales burning and scraping. Natasha doesn't flinch. "We want to speak with him."
The Chitauri lets out what sounds like a guttural laugh.
"Loki is trying to gather the Infinity Stones," Natasha says.
Bucky glares at her now. What are you doing?
What I always do. Playing the game. She's a spider, she was trained to slink and unnerve and bite when no one was expecting it.
Trust me, she mouths at him, an almost laughable phrase. Except that now he remembers.
The Chitauri growl and grouse to each other, and Natasha remembers being fifteen and encountering the Winter Soldier for the first time, as Natasha and the other girls in her program hunted a doctor and his associates through a hospital.
Beds overturned, patients screaming, nurses trying to defend the doctor, their patients, themselves. Red, everywhere. She remembers looking down and seeing it dripping from her hands.
And when she and the others took too long, trying to spare some of the sick, they sent in the Winter Soldier. In that moment Natasha hated him, because he would cost her any glory that might have come of this, any mercy, maybe her life.
We have no need for useless spiders.
She told her comrades to keep fighting, and she charged at the Winter Soldier to distract him.
And then the hospital exploded, and no one would be able to take the doctor and his nurses to their new home, because everything Natasha remembers is gray dust. Natasha crawled out of the rubble, frantically trying to find Elena, the one girl she might call a friend. She couldn't move the wall, charred and smoking, pinning her friend.
But the Winter Soldier could, and she asked him to help. Asked, even though she'd learned since the age of three not to ask, not to bother. But he helped her.
Elena still died, and Natasha almost cried.
She was assigned to another mission with him when she was eighteen, dressed in a skintight ball gown and pretending to be normal. She reported how to infiltrate the mansion, bypass its security. She helped the Winter Soldier capture the man in front of his screaming wife. This time, when security guards swarmed, she helped him.
Even now, Natasha still doesn't quite understand how they were assigned to work together less than a year after that. The last time she would see him until he reappeared a few years ago.
How much do you remember?
The Chitauri grab her arms, dragging her and grumbling. She hopes—she prays—they're taking them to Thanos.
And yet, the moment they throw her and Bucky down against onto the ground that strikes her chin, she wishes her prayers weren't answered. Fear courses through her as a floating chair turns around, and the Mad Titan grins at them with empty eyes and a tightened fist encased in gold.
"What news do you have?" Thor inquires as Sif and Heimdall burst into the small pub.
"Of your friends on earth, nothing," Heimdall responds. "There are some creatures from across the galaxy visiting, but beyond that, I don't know. Perhaps they will be able to help find your friend."
"Natasha," Thor says with a grimace.
"That's not the important part," Sif insists, gripping the table.
"It is important to him," Heimdall counters.
"But the Allfather—"
"What?" Thor asks.
"Sif told me you are both concerned," Heimdall puts in. "I, too, am disturbed by his recent behavior."
Thor's fist tightens. In some ways, he's relieved. In other way, he's anxious, because he doesn't want to have to consider what to do if—
"There are rumors that the mad Titan, Thanos, is preparing for a war," Heimdall says. "All throughout the universe, from Midgard to Vanaheim to Jotunheim, there's unrest."
"I read about him. In the books Father recommended," Thor says. During all the times he patronized me since my return. "Father defeated him—"
"Yes, but he's only gotten stronger since. He's building towards something, but just what, I cannot say." Heimdall gabs a container of mead. "It does appear, however, that he's stolen the Power Stone from Xandar just days ago."
Thor doesn't know where that is and doesn't care. "Have you informed the Allfather?"
"I've tried. He won't meet with me." Heimdall peers into Thor's eyes.
"I need to confront him. Whatever the consequences may be."
"Given his behavior of late, I wouldn't be surprised if he has you thrown in prison," Sif says.
"He will not be able to imprison me." Thor sets his jaw. "If need be, I'll do it to him."
Sif grabs her weapon, its dual blades gleaming in the candlelight. "I'll summon the Warriors Three. We're with you."
"I cannot be. I swore loyalty to my king," Heimdall says, taking another swig and then pushing the bottle away. He reaches out and grips Thor's neck. Thor's scalp prickles.
We are all dead because of you!
"If you become king, though, my loyalty will be with you," Heimdall says softly. He rises and strides away.
"I'll go now," Sif says. She hesitates, but there's no comfort she can offer Thor. Every piece of meat he's eaten sours in his stomach.
There will never be a wiser king. Or a better father.
He still wants to believe that.
He can't.
"I have no desire to see the mortals you've dredged up," comes the dark, dank voice of the Titan. Bucky lowers his head, not wanting to meet this creature's eyes. His heart pounds and he wishes he could go out now, wishes the Winter Soldier would take over, because there's something abysmally cold about the Titan's voice. It sucks away all the hope Bucky's desperate to cling to.
Not Natasha, though. "Loki hired us to steal back your gauntlet," Natasha calls out.
Desperate. She feels it too, because she's desperate now. A suicide mission. He signed them both up for it, and she's pushing through even though it's hopeless. Like that time with her friend in the hospital, when Bucky knew she was as good as dead but something about the way the redheaded girl wouldn't give up, kept struggling to free her—it touched him.
"What if we just disappeared?"
Ironic, now. Bucky could almost laugh if Thanos's mere presence wasn't so devastating. We pretty much did just disappear together.
"Silence." Thanos drums his fingers against his throne, the sound like bullets cracking through walls. "You. You're part of the Avengers, aren't you?"
Natasha sucks in her breath.
"You could be useful," Thanos decrees. "I need another daughter with your skill set."
Bucky jerks his head up, glaring over Thanos. Over my dead body.
"Unless you're stupid. Tell me, what exactly were you planning on accomplishing by coming here? Surely you didn't think you could steal—"
"I hoped to barter for our safety," Natasha says quickly.
"Your world will be the first to go when I have the full gauntlet," Thanos says. The ground crunches under his feet as he leaves the chair, heading for them. "Mercy does not satisfy my mistress." He pauses, not in front of Natasha, but in front of Bucky. "You. That pathetic Asgardian prince thought you could take me on. A one-armed man, broken." He swipes his hand and erases Loki's illusion. Icy sweat soaks Bucky's hair.
Thanos grabs him by the chin. His lips curve in a cruel smile, revealing a black mouth. "A broken man, at that. You have no heart left. You're more useless now than he ever was, whatever your impressive accomplishments in serving my mistress. You have nothing to offer but twisted regrets and pathetic whimpers about getting better. I've seen your type before, soldier." Thanos's smile widens to a grin. "They never do recover." He shoves Bucky back, and his feet start to slip, but no—no, Bucky refuses to let it end like this. His feet find grounding. He doesn't fall.
He glares back at the Titan, even as the words coil themselves around his mind.
"Shall I show you a preview of what will happen?" Thanos asks. He fiddles with the gauntlet, removing it and studying the purple glowing orb. "Chitauri train and train and train. They're numbers. Controlled by fear. Partners until I no longer need them."
Natasha glances at Bucky.
"Watch and see."
Get it, Natasha mouths.
Purple light.
A stream.
And then an entire group of floating asteroids-or whatever they stand on-explodes. "Mere hundreds," Thanos says wistfully.
"Longing," hisses Natasha in Russian.
No! What—
"Rusted. Seventeen. Dawn."
Thanos starts to laugh. "What do those words do, Avenger?"
Everything's flaming inside of him. He knows why she's doing this and yet—and yet—
Her voice shakes. "Stove. Nine, Kind-hearted."
The purple stone still glows from Thanos's hand. Something snaps.
"I demand to meet with the Allfather," Thor says as he approaches the throne room.
"He does not want to—" starts the Einharjar, but Thor's had it. Lightning flies from Mjolnir, striking a dozen guards down. The remainder aim their weapons at him and charge.
Steel clashes against steel as Hogun, Voltstagg, Fandral, and Sif lunge at the guards. A sword swipes, barely missing Sif's face. Thor sends that guard flying across the hall and out a window.
"Thor, go!" Sif shouts as she lashes out at another guard.
Thor slams Mjolnir against the great doors. The crash thunders through the halls.
And the doors crack open. Thor storms in. He won't fly. If there's any chance—
"What is the meaning of this?" shouts his father, surging to his feet, Gungnir clutched in his hands.
"Why haven't you been open with us about the coming threat? From Thanos?" Thor demands.
"I told you to read. I presume you read about him."
"Being indirect doesn't count!" Thor rages, a stop unplugging, unleashing a torrent. "You've directly put the Nine Realms in danger! You've put Asgard in danger! And I can't even begin to fathom why! Do you have a death wish? Take the whole Nine Realms with you, because you lost your wife and your son through your own stupidity? Don't look at me like that. If you'd been honest with Loki from the beginning, he might have turned out more stable! He might not have—"
"Stop!" bellows Odin.
"I told you you were the wisest king I ever knew! Has grief turned all that wisdom to foolishness? Have you gone mad? Thanos steals the Power Gem from Xandar or whatever it's called and you don't think that's worth mentioning?"
"Not to a prince who acts like this," retorts Odin coolly. "Who attacks my guards, insults his king—"
"What options are you giving me?" Thor rages as Sif charges into the room, following by Fandral.
"Are you threatening me?" sneers Odin, aiming Gungnir at him.
"I don't want to fight you, Father," Thor says, his voice broken. "I want to serve the Nine Realms."
"Still a fairly new attitude for you," Odin sniffs.
"And apparently one you've forgotten," Thor retorts. His heart pounds and he feels like he's going to be sick. In all the battles he's faced, he's never felt like this. Never been this afraid, except for when Loki died.
"Get out." Odin turns away.
Father, please! But Thor can't cry it aloud, because he knows the cold response he'd receive, and he cannot let Asgard slide into death.
No one else will die because of me. Least of all, the entire realm.
Thor hesitates for only a second before he grits his teeth and lets Mjolnir fly. Caught off guard, his father whirls around to strike at the hammer with Gungnir. Mjonir slams into the ground, but when the Allfather goes to pick it up, he can't.
Thor's throat burns. He wishes Sif weren't here, Fandral wasn't here, no one was. Mjolnir flies back into his grasp as he leaps through the air, ready to strike again.
Except something flickers, and for a moment Thor thinks he's insane. No, he's not—this is because he remembers the last time he fought Gungnir, when Loki had it.
Odin lashes out at him with Gungnir, and Thor deflects the blow, striking back. He grunts. His shoulder hurts—Odin gasps in pain—why are you making me do this—
And then his hand grabs Odin's shoulder. Gungnir flies into Thor's face but it doesn't matter.
Because Loki's standing in front of him.
"No," Thor whispers, bleeding and lying on the ground. He can't get up. He doesn't want to.
"You!" screams Sif, enraged.
Loki aims Gungnir at her, and Thor leaps to his feet, throwing Mjonir at the staff and blasting it across the room. He grabs Loki's throat.
"You—the whole time—a lie—you let me think you were dead!"
His brother—should Thor even call him that?—gags in his grasp.
"You lied—you—" Thor's crying now, because somehow it hurts all the worse when he finds out his brother is alive, than when he thought his brother died. "You allied with Thanos, didn't you?"
Loki shakes his head.
"Liar!" Thor rages. "I should—" Lightning flickers inside him, angry and powerful and deadly. "Was there some kind of deal with Thanos? To get you the throne? To destroy the realms so you could rule what's left?"
Loki's face grows purple.
"You monster," Thor seethes. "Where is Father? Where is—"
Loki's eyes roll back in his head, and Thor's grasp slackens—what have I—
His brother's boot collides with Thor's crotch, and even the almighty Thor is not invincible. He cries out and Loki twists, twists away, lunges for the window—Sif and Hogun, back now, chase—he's gone, he jumped, and Sif bellows instructions but they won't catch him, this Thor knows.
Just like he never could.
I wish you were dead, Thor thinks, broken-hearted.
