When Loki regains consciousness, he struggles to determine where he is. Sunlight streams through a window and he winces at the brightness and he closes his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably and tries to sit up, but the effort is dizzying and he falls back against the pillow.

Thor's voice comes from beside him, "Stay resting, Loki – Wakanda is a nation of miracles, but nothing could heal you that quickly."

"I'm alive," Loki whispers as he opens his eyes, "Shit."

"You might not be happy with the idea, but your friends are." Thor takes Loki's hand, "And I am."

Loki draws his hand away from Thor's, "No. I'm not."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No."

Thor sighs, "I don't now what to do, Loki. I don't know how to help you. I don't understand what just happened or why. And I know you don't owe me an explanation, but...I wish I knew."

"No, you don't."

"I'm sorry, Loki," Thor says, "I know this isn't about me, but I feel as though I've failed you because you lost sight of all the people who want you alive."

"You didn't fail me, Thor," Loki sighs, "This doesn't rest on your shoulders."

"Then where does it rest?"

"On my own."

"Will you explain this to me?" Thor asks.

"No." Loki sees the frustration on his brother's face and closes his eyes, "Not yet. Please...I've only just unfortunately survived."

"You are loved, Loki. And we have been worried and keeping vigil."

"Who?"

"Me, Barnes, Shuri, and Peter. Others have been invoking their gods, too."

"Ah."

"I promised them I'd tell them when you woke up. I have a phone, so I can do that without leaving you, though." He pulls out a cell phone and carefully unlocks it, selecting the app and slowly typing out his message before sending it. He smiles at the screen before setting it aside. "Shuri has taught me how to send text messages.

Loki's mouth twitches in a smile, "Ah, you've joined the modern Midgardian world, Thor..."

"Only in this small way. I don't know how we'll do so in New Asgard. Our world was so different than this one. I'm still trying to figure out how to send electronic letters. Shuri has showed me how it's done, but...it still seems more complicated than I'm sure it really is."

Loki nods, "You'll get used to it."

"As will you."

"I don't know how, if I don't sleep," Loki answers, "At least unconscious, my body was able to rest a little. Perhaps the exhaustion from healing will stop the nightmares."

Thor once again reaches for Loki's hand, offering it, palm up, waiting for his brother to accept it; Loki hesitantly does, "Did they play a part in this?" Thor asks softly.

Loki squeezes his hand, "Yes."

"Will you tell me about them?"

"I don't want to remember, Thor. And they take some of the worst of it and bring it back in new ways. It's not just fear. It's blinding terror. I didn't know I could feel that until Thanos."

"I still wish I could have caught you on the Bifrost and protected you from ever knowing of him. But Odin's one 'no' stole you from me. I've never quite forgiven him for that," Thor says.

"Even after his death?" Loki asks.

"Yes. Even then. Perhaps especially then, since it's only after it that we've been able to start to rebuild relationship." Thor pauses and when Loki doesn't answer, he continues, "Loki...I've never stopped loving you. And even when I couldn't understand you, I held you close to my heart. Given what I know now...I admire your strength. You've faced demons and come back. Even if you're hurting, please...I need to make sure you know I think the world of you and always will."

There are tears in Loki's eyes that he would usually hastily brush away as he replies, "Thank you, Thor. I don't deserve this."

"Yes, you do, and you're not allowed to argue."

Loki smiles, "Ah, but contesting your high assessment of me is so very much in my nature..."

"I know. And that's why I'm telling you I won't hear it," Thor says, still holding his hand. "Please, if you can't sleep...come to me. Like when you were little and the stories Odin told by the fire were too much for you."

"I can't do that. We're grown, Thor. I'm no longer a child who can curl up in his big brother's bed."

Thor shrugs, "Why not?"

"It seems..." Loki pauses, "I don't know. Wrong, in some way."

"Shuri told me she curled up beside her brother until his death. And now that he's gone, she goes to her mother and tucks against her when the night feels too long and her thoughts are heavy," Thor counters.

"Yes, but this is Wakanda. It isn't Asgard. And they do things more reasonably here," Loki says.

"And? We aren't in Asgard anymore, either. We're in Midgard and we are in Wakanda...so I ask again, why not do as they do? If you need me, you know I won't let you suffer alone."

Loki lets go of Thor's hand and wipes his eyes, "I don't know."

"Well...if this is acceptable in Wakanda, perhaps you can try while we're still here?"

Loki lets this sink in a moment before he gives Thor a small smile, "Yes, I think I'd like that."

Bucky waits until the following day to visit Loki, leaving the first day of his healing entirely to Thor. But when he does go into the room, he knows he's risking Loki's anger. He knocks on the doorframe and waits until Loki turns toward him to wave.

"Hey Loki. Can I come in?"

Loki nods, "Yes, James. You may."

Bucky walks to his bedside, "Can I sit?"

"Of course."

Bucky lowers himself into the chair and takes a moment to make sure he knows what he wants to say, "So...I know what it's like to get that low. It sucks. I wish you would have told someone, though, so we could have tried to help before you felt that bad."

"I'm sorry you had to find me," Loki says, "I didn't want anyone to have to see me like that."

"I know," Bucky says, "But it would've been worse to find you after."

"How-so?" Loki asks.

"It's not like I haven't found dead friends before, but I always ask what I could've done, depending on the circumstances. For, like, executions, the answer's usually no, but when it's somebody taking their own life...I've always wanted to know why. And why didn't they ask me for help. But since they're dead, there's no way to get an answer."

"Ah."

"You'd already been thinking about it when I asked you to promise to come get me if things were getting too bleak, weren't you?"

Loki slowly nods, "Yes. I hadn't made plans – it wasn't concrete, nor had I thought about how. I just...felt like I was only a burden to others and our time was coming to a close."

"Well the US government isn't going to let me slide on that one. They want to make sure I'm not going to slip back into 'killing everybody' mode...and there's the whole 'justice for the war crimes' thing."

"Is this how things usually work for that nation, or are you a special case because of who you killed?"

"Bit of both, actually." Bucky smiles gently, "But I see you're avoiding telling me why you felt like a burden."

Loki sighs, "I'd overheard Peter and Shuri saying they were frustrated by not being able to help me find rest earlier on that same day I told you I made no promises. It's lovely they care, but they shouldn't feel that weight – they're children."

"Yeah, but they're also children who've been to war over the fate of the entire universe. Shuri fought Thanos the first time he came here. She was trying to save the life of a man with an Infinity Stone embedded in his head. She failed, Loki. Things went sideways, she had to stop the surgery, and she had to fight the monsters. And she's just a kid. Both those kids turned to dust, one of them while wondering if there'd be anything left of home and the other on an alien planet. Neither of these kids came out of this whole. Shuri nearly lost her nation and did lose her brother. Peter has flashbacks to the adults around him getting the shit kicked out of them and of Dr. Strange being slowly impaled by these long needles by the tall skinny guy who hung around with Thanos. They've got enough in their worlds that weighs them down. They wouldn't choose to be around you if you made it heavier. They care.

Loki thinks on this a moment, "They chose to care."

"Yep. They've chosen you, Loki. And they both want to make sure you're going to be OK."

"And what if I don't know if I'm going to be OK?" Loki asks, uncertainty in his voice.

"Then you find a way to get by. You talk to us. You say, 'I'm not OK right now, help,' and when we ask how to help, you tell us something we can do, even if that's as simple as not leaving you alone. If you want me to sit in the same room as you and not say a word, I will," Bucky says.

"But you're leaving. So no, you won't," Loki replies.

"Yeah, I know...but until I'm whisked away, talk to me. I know you've been avoiding me lately. I'm guessing it's also because I'm leaving."

"It makes it easier to think I have a choice in the matter," Loki explains, "If I'm the one cutting you off, you're not the one leaving me."

"Well that's a load of bullshit."

Loki stares at him a moment, trying to figure out just how angry he should be at Bucky's reaction, "Excuse me?"

"It's bullshit. I'm not making this choice, Loki. I'm being forced out of a country that's been good to me. I'd rather spend the little time I have left with my friends. I'm not abandoning you. I know that's what you're really afraid of. Instead of pushing me away, get mad at every reason I'm in this position in the first place. Let's go draw a shitty HYDRA insignia on something and set it on fire, I'll carve an ugly square guy out of wood and we can paint him purple and then set him on fire, too. We can curse at the people who fucked with our heads, get drunk under the moonlight and talk about the world we want to live in that isn't the one we're in...but don't you dare push me away when I need you, too."

Loki stares at his hands, quiet. The cuts from where the knife sliced into his fingers make it hard for him to bend one hand and he hates the feel of the bandages. He picks at them as he thinks.

"I'm sorry, James. I didn't think of it from your perspective," Loki whispers.

"I know."

"I'm so tired. In every way a person can be tired. I need a true sleep without dreams, but I can't. It's always nightmares," Loki says.

Bucky nods, "Yeah, I get that, too. Shuri helped with that – gave me some stuff. It couldn't get rid of them entirely, but it got me to sleep heavy enough at the start of the night that by the time they hit, I could at least get through the next day. Want me to ask her about it?"

"Please. I'd give just about anything in order to sleep."

"Kinda picked up on that with the 'giving your life for a good rest' thing you just tried."

Loki laughs ruefully, "Well, when you put it that way..."

"I've got a gift for words, Loki. James Buchanan Barnes, poet of the Bronx." There's another pause in the conversation before Bucky speaks again, "Hey, I do promise I'll find a way to get in touch when I can. I might not be a superhero like the rest of the guys, but I'd bet I can find a way to get a letter to New Asgard. Might not be quick, but...I'm not just going to bail on you."

Loki meets his eyes and searches for the lie; finding none, he smiles, "Thank you."

"So...feeling a little more OK than you were yesterday?"

"A little."

Bucky breaks into a grin, "A little's better than nothing."

Loki nods and leans back into the pillow, settling in to rest, "Yes, it is. But I'm so very tired...I just want to sleep."

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

"No."

"Afraid of the nightmares?"

"Yes."

"Let me step out and call for Shuri to bring the stuff she gave me."

Loki closes his eyes and nods, "Of course."

"Don't go anywhere," Bucky says.

Loki quietly laughs. Bucky is gone only a few moments before he returns and sits back down.

"James?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay while I rest?" Loki asks.

"Absolutely."

"Thank you."

Loki's eyes are closed when Shuri quietly delivers a steaming mug and a few packets of something she dissolves into it, "Make sure he drinks it all," she whispers to Bucky."

"Yes, Princess. I remember how it works."

She smiles, "I'll wait to talk to him. He needs you and his brother right now. Peter and I can wait."

"How is he doing with all this?"

"He's worried, but he'll be fine. We're spending the time together. How is Loki?"

"Getting there. He says he's doing a little better than yesterday," Bucky replies.

"That's good." She steps back, "I have a meeting with the council today – duties of ruling Wakanda. Take care of him."

"Roger that, ma'am."

She rolls her eyes at him, amused, as she leaves the room. Bucky stirs the drink again.

"Loki? You awake at all?"

"Hmmm?"

"So...how much did you hear?"

"Everything. I wasn't asleep."

Bucky offers him the mug, "Open your eyes and take this. You've got to drink down the whole thing within an hour for it to do the most good."

Loki sniffs it and, finding it pleasant, takes a sip, "Is this hot chocolate?"

"Yeah," Bucky nods, "With some of her magic in it. The first time she gave it to me, she told me that anybody having nightmares like I was deserved a mug of hot chocolate before bed. She must've figured the same was true for you."

"That's sweet of her."

"She's a sweet kid."

Loki sips the hot chocolate while Bucky tells him how he first came to Wakanda. By the time he's done with the drink, Bucky is just wrapping up the story and Loki's eyelids feel heavy. He closes his eyes and lets sleep take him, hoping it is dreamless.

Bucky stays with him, just in case.