Whumptober Day #29: "What happened to me?"
Thanos roars in what seems to be frustration, though Thor does not know why.
Until he does.
Until Thanos turns to him with anger in his eyes, with a mad smile on his face, and says, "Space and Time are no longer in my reach."
Thor feels like he should be connecting the dots.
He does not.
"That's good, right?" Tony mutters in their ears. "Isn't that good?"
"Did Strange destroy them somehow?" Steve asks.
"No, I still feel them," Vision says. "They are simply...distant, but not destroyed, Captain."
"Why are they no longer in your reach?" Thor asks cautiously. He is afraid, for some reason, to know the truth. He knows this has something to do with Loki. Why wouldn't it?
Thanos laughs lowly. After a few moments, he says, "Your brother is dead."
Thor freezes. "No," he says desperately. No, Loki is alive. Thor had just saved him!
"Yes," Thanos says, still with that sickening smile on his face. "Foolish, foolish trickster."
"No," Thor says again, and his limbs feel shaky, like they won't support his weight when they must, because he will find Loki again. Loki has been dead several times before. Why should this time be any different?
The others begin to fight with more vigor, and Thor joins in belatedly, his mind racing around the possibilities.
If I don't see a body, he thinks reasonably, then Loki is not dead.
And he won't leave Loki behind, not again, not like on Svartalfheim.
Eventually, they have Thanos pinned to the ground. Thor considers, for a brief moment, making him suffer for all that he has done.
But a quick death is one more assured, he has learned, from Loki among others.
Thanos opens his mouth, presumably to taunt Thor again.
Thor chops his head off.
There are a few seconds of silence.
"Gross," Spiderman mutters, which effectively knocks everyone out of their reverie. They breathe in relief, they hug their comrades. Thor would join in if he didn't have another priority.
Instead, he runs. He runs along the edge of the forest until he catches sight of Strange, standing in front of...Loki.
Thor stops quite abruptly.
"Loki?" he calls out.
Loki does not stir. He certainly looks dead, but maybe—
Thor runs up to him and ignores Strange's eerie stillness and- and grief. That is grief on his face (Thor is well acquainted with it), though Thor does not know why.
"Loki," Thor says again, gathering his brother up in his arms. "Loki, the battle is over. Thanos is dead."
He tries to ignore the blood coating Loki's body.
"Loki," he says, voice getting more desperate, chest heaving and eyes watering. "Loki, wake up." He shakes his brother's body gently, but his head hangs limply, giving Thor a clear view of the gruesome wound on his neck. "Loki, Brother—" His voice breaks. Thor clears his voice and swallows down the lump in his throat.
(He has had to face life without his brother by his side several times before.)
(It doesn't make this time any easier to bear.)
"You're safe. You don't have to pretend anymore," Thor says. "I—"
He can't lie to himself any longer.
(Loki had always been the liar, not him, never him.)
A hand lands on Thor's shoulder. Thor looks up at Strange through the odd blurriness in his vision. "What happened?" he says, voice wavering. A king should not sound so weak, so destroyed, so down on his luck.
But his people are not here. His brother lies dead in his arms.
Perhaps he deserves a bit of leeway, just this once.
"He knew that his death would seal off his dimensional pocket from anyone who'd want to access it," Strange says quietly, not quite looking Thor in the eye. "So, he..."
"Oh, Loki," Thor chokes out. He curls over his brother's body and cradles him all the more tightly, like his grip is enough to get him back. Like this closeness is enough to make up for all the years they hadn't been close, not at all.
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