Author's Note: This chapter is contemporaneous with the as-yet-unwritten last chapter of "Time For Saying Goodbye".

Chapter 2

Loki nuzzled into Thor's shoulder.

Weeks and weeks of attempted recovery and his brother had made strides Thor had tried not to dare hope for.

Loki knew what a bathroom was used for and if led there could take care of his needs and bathe himself with a cloth wet from the sink - there was too much risk of drowning for a proper bath - but he seemed incapable of asking in even the little ways he seemed capable of asking.

He had to be fed like a small child, complete with a battle each meal, but he understood chewing. They had tried to ease the fighting by spacing meals out further and further so he would be hungry enough to feel it, but after the time he was clearly weak and miserable from lack of food and yet still fought even Frigga had to admit that the battle over the battles would simply have to wait. They would just have to hope that it was all from damage not yet healed instead of damage that had already had healed wrong.

And he knew them.

He knew Odin and Frigga, both with a child's trust that made Thor doubt he remembered he was not their biological son.

He knew Thor, and even limited to the tiny things he could manage now he was displaying more physical affection than he had even when they were children.

But above everything was this: it was now certain Loki would survive. He would be dependent on others, but he would live.

Always dependent, Thor was coming to accept. There had been too much damage done, and even if removing everything had not nearly destroyed him, Loki would have needed looking after of some kind or another.

What was becoming clear to Thor at least, much as Odin ignored it or seemed to and Frigga was in outright denial of it, Loki's recovery was slowing.

Extremely fast.

Thor had no idea how to help. He didn't even know what was causing it.

He also didn't know, really know, whether or not he should do anything.

Loki nestled closer, as if seeking reassurance. Thor held him a little tighter in answer, continuing to think.

Loki was dependent, in ways that would have driven the man he had been half-mad on its own, but so far as anyone could tell he was at least content if not even happy, which was a very far cry from the terrified man he'd been on that chilly, lonely world.

It was not by any means a life Thor thought the brother he had grown up with would have considered tolerable in the slightest, but the brother he had didn't seem to be complaining.

And yet...

Loki had begged for a chance, and their father had sworn he would have it.

But now that his life was assured, what exactly had Loki meant?

Given the choice between this comfortable existence and doing better but feeling worse, which would he have picked if they could have spread out all his Future Self options in front of him and given him a choice?

Because Thor didn't think the slowdown was entirely natural. This was Loki, after all, and more to the point, a Loki who had been mind-controlled to the point where voluntarily giving up control of himself to avoid being hurt was one of the clear goals of whatever torments his unknown enemy had put him through.

It could be a natural slow-down, yes, which nothing Thor knew of could aid. Or it could be Loki being Loki and hiding any skill he didn't need to express, a situation where giving him challenges Frigga would advise against might force him out. Or, the option Thor feared, Loki's recovery had begun to approach skills his controller had not wished him to have at all and Loki was dutifully avoiding those capacities for his own safety.

Thinking of it made Thor ill.

Loki stilled beside him, as if bracing for a blow.

"I am thinking of what best to do for you, Brother," Thor told him quietly, knowing he wasn't going to understand a word of it but should at least get that it was meant as reassurance. "And I am wishing I knew what is best for you."

Frigga walked in, visibly fighting to remain calm and seem calm. "Thor, you need to go talk to your father," she told him in a voice more suited to discussing how the flowers were blooming outside. "Right now. Something has happened."

"Father? Mother told me you needed to talk to me?"

Odin was standing at a window, looking out over the realm. He did not turn to look at Thor. "The news of your brother's biological origin - thankfully not of his exact parentage - has leaked. Your brother is vulnerable, and as he has no use to the realm at the moment many who would have tolerated his presence before may see no need now."

Thor closed his eyes. That put Loki in an entirely new kind of danger.

"I've alerted Ulfr. Unfortunately, Jotunheim is no potential safe refuge for him."

"Even if it were not for their law, even if he had not taken revenge on Laufey for his abandonment, he was trained all his days until he learned he was one of them by blood to see them as enemies. No place to take him as he is."

Odin nodded. "Sadly so. If I had known..."

Thor did not interrupt as he trailed off into thought.

"As it is, Thor, I can see but two options."

"What are they?"

"We try to defend him here."

"That would take never letting him leave the royal quarters, even if he healed enough to manage it. Trading imprisonment of mind for imprisonment of body. I can't imagine that's something he would have accepted, nor will he if he becomes capable of perceiving it."

"Neither can I. The other option is your human friends and allies."

"There is no means to travel there that does not put them in danger, not until the Bifrost is rebuilt."

Odin looked over at him at last, the slightest lift to one corner of his mouth. "Much progress was made while you were defending them. And yet more made on your return, when another power source became available to aid in its reconstruction."

Well, that was one way to safeguard the Tesseract. Good luck to anyone who crossed Heimdall trying to steal part of his observatory - it was close enough to suicide that the Valkyries might not take them to Valhalla without a great deal of luck even if they did manage to get a blow in.

"So inter-realm travel is possible without carrying a portable device again?"

"Just so." Odin fully turned to face him. "And your friends need to be warned that they yet have an enemy, for whoever was controlling your brother may yet have an interest in their world."

"So, Midgard." Thor took a deep breath. "When should I leave?"

Thor had never had the leisure to look so carefully at Earth when traveling great distances on it.

Properly, Midgard referred to the entire star system - and most likely would the entire local cluster, if humans ever lived up to their current dreams of local space travel but with wormhole travel nearly in their grasp Thor had doubts of that coming to pass - but in general practice it merely meant Earth, the one inhabited world of the system.

It was interesting how diverse even this one continent could be. Most of the other inhabited worlds he'd been to were much more uniform, at least to Asgardian eyes.

He had arrived in New Mexico as before but rather close in towards town, only now SHIELD had a local presence since they knew it was an ideal wormhole travel site so that it was only a matter of an hour waiting in a somewhat uncomfortable chair before travel to New York City could be arranged.

Jane wasn't there anymore, and all the agent in charge would tell him was that she was in a proper research facility now, somewhere on the 'East Coast', Thor didn't know of what.

In a matter of a few hours on a human aircraft, he saw desert blend into fields and then into trees, the flat lands rise into mountains they followed northward, small towns and huge cities.

And then, the not entirely unfamiliar sight of New York City.

A short helicopter ride later, he was at Stark Tower again and a dead man was inviting him inside.

"They told me you were dead," Thor said flatly in shock.

"Technicalities only, there are more than a few definitions of 'dead' we humans use that really mean 'but revive-able if you get there fast enough' with our current technology." Phil led him in. "Tony's working out how to refurbish this place for the use of the Avengers, I've been permanently reassigned to you all, and Tasha's been taken off spy duties in the field effective a few weeks after you left."

It took a moment for Thor to realize he meant Natasha. He hadn't been aware modern Midgardians used as many varied nicknames as his own people did or the Norsemen had. "Where is everyone? I need to speak to all, and to Fury."

"Bruce and I are the only ones here right now. Pepper's off doing something for Stark Industries, either that or she's checking out carpet colors behind Tony's back again, but she'll be back by nightfall. Everyone else is at Carter's funeral."

"Who?"

"Margaret Carter. She was one of the founders of SHIELD, and before Steve was frozen..."

The trail-off gave Thor all the hint he needed. Even Asgardians had tales of those split when a man did not come back from a war, the wailing of women when those they had barely begun to court were called to Valhalla - one of the few times where lamenting a warrior's proper death in glory was considered appropriate. "There was love there?"

"Never admitted by either side. I understand he got there just in time to say goodbye. She was in her nineties, it's a miracle she was still around at all."

When Loki had been in his nineties, he had still thought any attention from their father was good attention and neither of them had been trusted with even dulled metal blades until they were well past their two-hundredth year. Thor had never been so struck by how different their lifespans were before. He was obviously going to have to think about what this would mean for he and Jane, if there was to be anything of substance there at all, because clearly a long Asgardian-style courtship over decades was out of the question.

If he could afford a relationship at all, with an unknown enemy about and a mind-wrecked brother to care for.

"So," Phil asked next, "what brings you back to Earth?"

"Something has happened and I fear I can only get out the words once." Loki would have once been proud of him for managing that little bit of deceit, for Thor truly doubted he would be able to get the words out at all. "When will they return?"

"Tomorrow. The funeral is this afternoon - they're probably already at the graveside by now. I can call Fury, he'll be sure to get the message when it's over."

Thor nodded and collapsed on Tony Stark's couch to wait.