Whumptober Day #10: "You said you'd never leave."
Thor doesn't have many memories of when he had been very young, of his time before Loki. To him, Loki has always been there beside him.
But.
His earliest memory is, perhaps, the moment he met Loki. His mother had been holding a small bundle in her arms, and both of his parents had smiled down at him. She had leaned down for him to see a small face, with a small nose and small ears and small, closed eyes.
She had told him that that was Loki, that he was his baby brother, and Thor had sworn from that moment on to protect him no matter what.
Of course, he hasn't been very good at doing that.
Loki wakes up slowly, squinting his eyes against the bright light above him. He grimaces, and someone must notice, because the light is turned down, and Loki sighs, closing his eyes again.
A warm hand covers his own, and a familiar voice asks, "Loki?"
"Thor," he murmurs without opening his eyes. "How could you be so foolish?"
He finally opens his eyes properly, catching the sad, sad expression on Thor's face. Thor is always sad about the simplest of things when there is so much more about the world to be upset about.
Thor is naive, in this way. (It may also be his greatest strength.)
"I wasn't foolish," Thor says stubbornly. "You needed help."
You needed to stay away, Loki thinks, but the thought fades quickly. It's so hard to keep his eyes open. He doesn't know how much damage there is to his body, and a part of him doesn't much care.
"Thanos?" Loki asks, eyes drifting across the room but not registering anything. Midgard? Perhaps.
"We have driven away his forces, but..."
"It's temporary," Loki surmises tiredly. "He will be back. You have won the battle but not the war."
"Yes," Thor says solemnly.
Loki shifts a little, and grits his teeth against the pain that it causes.
"Loki?" Thor asks with not a small amount of concern.
"I'm fine," Loki grits out. "You need to plan with your Avenger friends, and I still think that is a stupid name, by the way." Ah...deflection, always his specialty.
Not this time, though. Perhaps he's too exhausted. "You're not fine," Thor says. "Why won't you let me help?"
Because I am a liability, Loki thinks. Because you are my liability.
He is so tired, tired of being broken down just to build himself back up again, tired of making plans that all fail, tired of uselessly preparing for the future, tired of all the turns his life has taken without his consent.
He is just tired, but his job is not yet done.
He tries to say something prickly, maddening, something that will make Thor walk away (though a part of him thinks that Thor won't, no matter what he says), but what comes out is, "You said you'd never leave."
"What?" Thor asks.
Loki registers absently that his hands are shaking. He's never been able to get them to stop when that happens. "It was...some time ago. You said you'd never leave."
"I'm sorry," Thor says, slightly hurt, which hadn't been Loki's intention at all.
"No," he says, mildly frustrated. "What I meant was that it has been all my fault. You think everything is your fault; you blame yourself for everything. This isn't your fault. It is mine alone. All the times we have been apart and I have been alone is because I left, not because you did." He doesn't know if he's making complete sense. Getting your brain rearranged by Ebony Maw will do that to you.
"I should've tried harder to find you."
"Maybe so," Loki allows, "but that doesn't change anything. We can only move forward from here. Don't be foolishly sentimental...forget about the past."
He's trying to push Thor away here.
But Thor clasps him on the shoulder and frowns down at him tearfully, and Loki fears that winning this war will be more difficult than he had previously anticipated.