A/N: To ThatOneGuest: Part of one of my favorite shows when I was a kid was The Adventures of Cliff Hanger. So you can blame PBS for my edge-of-the-seat endings, haha. And you got me. I am a sucker for easy drama/fluff/mushy-feelings-that-hit-you-in-the-feels! Peter was referencing a (really old, lol) movie called Alien. I stole that line of his directly from A:IW.
And thanks so much to everyone that's reviewed, favorited and followed so far! I never expected to have (as of this posting) 125 favs and 185 follows! Whaaaaaaat?! You guys have all been so great!
Loki grasped Peter's arm before he could swing out of the ship. The little Spider looked up at him through his lenses questioningly.
"Don't fight Thanos," Loki said, knowing he sounded a little desperate, but it was important. "Don't-anyone but him. You will not win that fight." He couldn't tell where Peter's eyes were behind the mask, so he settled for glancing between the lenses. "I mean it, little Spider."
"Okay," Peter finally said, and Loki knew that Mantis wouldn't need to even touch him to feel the relief pouring from him. He let go of the little Spider's arm, and they charged into the fray.
There was no need to discuss where Thanos could possibly be going-they all knew it. They dove into the woody area Vision had been headed to, taking on the stray Outriders that got in their way, and fighting in the right general direction as best they could.
The Outriders were not particularly difficult to take down, merely annoying, and numerous. Next to him, Strange was using portals to chop them in half; Loki grimaced as blood sprayed on his pants. Strange glanced at him apologetically. Well, it was effective, at least.
Stark had taken to the air, hovering just above the tree line, and blasting with his repulsors, although he had to keep moving-the Outriders kept climbing the trees to try and knock him out of the air.
The little Spider ran past, using the legs on his suit to skitter from tree to tree, shouting, "Welcome to Earth!" as he shot Taser-webs into an Outrider's face. It went down twitching.
Finally, Loki burst out of the trees, and into a clearing, stopping short. Peter flipped from a web, landing next to him.
It was too late to help Vision. In front of them, the Mad Titan held the android up with the gauntlet, the Time Stone reversing whatever damage had been done. Around him, broken heroes struggled to stand, one last futile hope that they could stop the end of the universe by their sacrifice.
Loki had never fancied himself a martyr, and he wasn't about to start now.
Thanos ripped the restored gem from Vision's head, and a blinding flash of light flooded the clearing. Peter tugged on his arm a moment before it happened, sparing his eyes from the onslaught of light, and they heard Thanos roar as the gauntlet was completed.
"Get away from this fight," Loki told the little Spider. He wrenched his mask off, his wide brown eyes imploring.
"You'll… you'll be alright?"
"Yes," Loki said. He didn't know if it was the truth or a lie, and that was more than a little unsettling. But the little Spider trusted him, and made for the tree-line, for relative safety, and that was all that mattered.
He turned back in time to see Thor hit Thanos with an axe, lightning crackling all around.
"I told you, you die for that," he heard Thor growl, and it was so, well, Thor, that Loki nearly laughed, and allowed himself a moment of hope. Could this be it? Would his plans go unneeded? Because no matter how confident Strange was in how this had to go, Loki could not help but feel inadequate.
Then Thanos looked up, and said, "You should have aimed for the head."
And he snapped his fingers.
Loki almost thought it would do nothing, for a moment. Then a shockwave of light pulsed outwards, across the clearing, the battlefield, Midgard, and then entire universe trembled. Thor, still gripping his axe, was thrown off Thanos violently.
There was stillness, and then screams, all around.
"What have you done?" He heard Thor ask Thanos, and surely, surely Thor was not that dense? From behind him, suddenly, he heard the little Spider.
"I don't feel so good… I don't know what's happening. Please, I don't wanna go…I don't wanna go… I'm sorry."
Loki had to force himself not to turn, but he knew the moment Peter became a pile of ash in Stark's arms anyway. It filled his veins with ice-cold rage, and he narrowed red eyes on Thanos.
What had he told his brother, before, on Svartalfheim?
"Trust my rage."
That was nothing to what he felt now. The hesitation and doubt in himself that he'd indulged in not a minute earlier sizzled away like the sunlight on his rapidly cooling skin, his Jotun form bleeding through.
He strode forward. Thanos was distracted, staring down at the gauntlet.
"Brother?" Thor croaked from the ground, eyes fixed in disbelief.
"Always the tone of surprise," Loki said, dryly. "Did I not say the sun would rise on us again?"
Thor's laugh sounded as if it was strangled out of him, and his mouth moved as if it wanted to speak, but nothing came. His eyes filled instead with tears, and perhaps, another time, Loki would have been moved by the display of emotion, but he cared little at the moment for Thor's feelings. Except for what a horribly ugly crier Thor was; he stored that little tidbit away to delight over later.
"Trickster," Thanos rumbled.
"You miscalculated," Loki said casually.
"Yes," Thanos agreed. "It seems I did not squeeze your neck hard enough the first time."
"Oh, no, you did. It hurt much more than I anticipated." Thanos caught his implication, and eyed him speculatively. "Did I mention I am the god of mischief and lies?"
"Cease your riddles, Loki," Thanos demanded, involuntarily glancing at the gauntlet again.
"How do the Stones look?" Loki asked slyly. He did not need to see the gauntlet to know what it looked like-blackened, hollowed out, empty settings where four Stones once sat.
"Whatever you think you did, it did not succeed. I have done what I set out to do."
"Yes, indeed," Loki said, his inflection pleasant, at first. "Unfortunately, I don't agree with it."
"What are you doing, brother?" Thor asked, stumbling to his feet. Loki ignored him.
"You can do nothing," Thanos laughed. "I have the Stones."
"Oh, do you?" Loki smiled darkly, twisting his seidr-wrapped hands, and above them, three glowing stones appeared: red, blue, and yellow.
"Loki…" he heard Thor say.
"How?" Thanos said angrily.
"Well, that would ruin all the fun, wouldn't it?" Loki was moving as he spoke, and a score of clones of himself had appeared by the time he finished speaking, every one perfectly mirroring his expression, and brandishing the same twin daggers. Loki hid the Stones from view again, and he was indistinguishable from his copies.
"Incredible," all of them echoed together, "what one can do with the Stones."
He moved, all the clones at once, toward Thanos, daggers glinting. The Mad Titan roared, lashing out with the Power Stone, and knocking all the clones down at once. It did not buy him much time, however, because they quickly got themselves back up again.
Loki saw the Soul Stone glowing brighter on the gauntlet, and knew what he was looking for-which was the 'real' Loki. He and all his clones laughed maniacally. He'd used the Reality and Mind Stones to make them, and Thanos would find that every single one appeared to be himself.
He managed to strike the Titan while he was distracted with the Soul Stone, but Thanos soon realized it was a useless effort, and began destroying the clones with blasts from the Power Stone.
The fight became faster and faster, Loki creating more of himself, darting in to strike before Thanos crushed them. His multitude of selves moved together like a dance; even the purple light that took them down was part of it.
He used to Space Stone to move his real self out of harm's way, reappearing on the opposite edge of the clearing.
"Strange!" He called, hoping the sorcerer had not been caught in the snap. Loki knew this back and forth fight could not go on-Thanos had the Power Stone, and would outlast him with it. A golden circle, followed by a rustling of red quickly answered him.
"Do it now," Loki said, gritting his teeth.
Strange nodded and lifted a palm, revealing the glowing Time Stone. Green rune circles formed around his arm, and with a skillful movement, the same surrounded the Titan, his roar of disbelief quickly cut off as he was trapped in a moment.
Loki allowed his clones to dissipate, and strode purposefully forward.
"Loki," Strange called out, strain evident in his voice, "I won't be able to hold this for long."
He felt a brief flicker of disappointment that he couldn't stretch this out, make the Titan suffer for the pain he had inflicted. Instead, he stood in front of Thanos, and, looking in his frozen eyes, raised his daggers to the purple neck, and allowed himself to say one last thing.
"This is a mercy."
His blades slid together.
Strange released the Time Stone, and the purple head slowly slid off, landing with a thunk. The body, too, fell back, with the weight of heavy finality.
Loki did not give himself the time to think, and, moving to Thanos' side, he tugged on the gauntlet. It came free quite easily. He could not help but stare at it in his hands, and the blackened gold and scorched settings around the two glowing Stones captivated him. His vision swam for a moment.
It would be too easy…
He felt someone come up beside him, and the touch of madness left.
"Strange?" Loki offered, holding out the gauntlet to him.
"No, no," the sorcerer laughed. "You don't want to see how things would turn out if I used it. It must be you. Besides, you know the rules."
Loki hesitated, but nodded.
"Rules, brother?" Thor asked, looking at Thanos' corpse from the corner of his eye. Loki had forgot he was there. He sighed.
"Most items imbued with seidr have some level of awareness," He began to explain, as he carefully slid his hand into the oversized gauntlet. "They choose their owners; their allegiance must be won in some way."
"Ah, like Stormbreaker. And Mjolnir," Thor said in comprehension. Of all the crude and uncreative things he'd ever heard, of course that's what Thor had chosen to name his axe.
The remaining gems glowed a little brighter, and the other three he had zipped into place. The gauntlet began to shrink, stopping when his hand fit snugly.
"It likes you," Thor said in awe, and, Loki begrudgingly admitted to himself, pride for his little brother. It was kinda nice.
"Yes, it would seem so," Loki said softly, turning his hand around to look at it.
"Here," Strange called, and the Time Stone floated over to the gauntlet, sliding into its place. "It might not be strictly necessary," the doctor continued, "but I think it will work better if you have them all."
Loki gasped, suddenly feeling the power of all the Stones, all at once. By the Nornir, he would have to draw on every reserve of control he had, to keep them in line. The Stones clamored to be used, and he knew this could go very badly if he failed to restrain himself and them.
"Alright," he said to the Stones, closing his eyes, "let's fix the universe."
The Stones' power rushed through him, overwhelming all his defenses, sweeping him away with them, and in the end, he was left with one thought.
Come back, little Spider.
Cliiiiiiff Hanger, hanging on a cliff! And that's why he's called Cliff Hanger!
Guys. There's only two more chapters. Wut. I can't believe it's almost over… Except it's nooooot! Because, don't forget, I'm writing a seeeeequeeeellll! What I've planned right now is a bit like Doctor Who, but, you know, Loki'd. (Loki'd, haha, does anyone remember that?) So, if you have an adventure suggestion for Peter and Loki, leave it in a review! Or drop me a pm!