It's probably a little cheesy, but the chapter title is from Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". Loki's choosing a different path now, which is technically, the one less taken by him (at least since the first Thor movie).

Chapter Two: The Road Not Taken

Loki awoke to a coughing fit.

Coughing strained his already injured lungs and his mouth tasted of ash. His hand stung from where it got burned and his eyes stung from the remnants of smoke.

Once his coughing subsided, he struggled to a sitting position and immediately regretted the decision. His whole body protested the movement, and if his eyes were not still closed, his vision would've whited out.

Groaning as pain blossomed behind his eyes, he rubbed his hands over his face to scrub away the worst of the ash and dust. Tears of pain rolled down his cheeks, carving paths in the thick layer of dirt covering his pale cheeks.

The tears, thankfully, cleared the worst of the debris from his eyes, and he pried them open only to find his vision blurry and dark. In the Void and when he initially landed in Thanos's domain, he'd been blind for a couple of days. Still, the impairment unsettled him especially since clear vision almost always came as a given to such a powerful deity.

Another coughing fit overtook him and he scrunched into a ball to control the trembling.

Breathing through his nose to ease the worst of the strain, he blinked his eyes open again.

Turning his head to the right, he could see the horrendous paint job on the interior of the Commodore's flight deck. His vision cleared enough to notice a few scratches and dents in the metal. It probably looked worked on the outside. If the Grandmaster could see his ship, he'd freak out at the ruined paint, but frankly, Loki hated the monstrous paint job. It certainly didn't help his headache.

Head rolling to the left this time, he spotted a bright blue cube glowing a few feet away from his outstretched hand. Squinting, Loki raised his head a few inches, trying to get a better angle. The haze lifted and Loki sat bolt upright at the realization of what lay beside him.

The Tesseract sat just out of his reach, pulsing in time with Loki's heartbeat with a soft blue light. It showed signs of recently being used, the mesmerizing light had sunk a little into the floor. Loki's sedir pulled him towards it and lurched onto his knees, he grabbed it with shaking hands before he realized he moved.

The sudden movement caused a blinding pain to bloom behind his eyes. Loki clutched his forehead, dropping the Tesseract in the process. The weird smell of the Commodore only increased the nausea roiling in his stomach.

The pain and nausea slowly passed and Loki opened his eyes again. His vision, except for minor blurriness lingering around the edges, almost returned to normal. The Tesseract sat where he had dropped it, no longer pulsing.

Bracing himself against the ship's wall, Loki picked up the Tesseracted and pushed himself to his feet. He tucked the cube into his pocket dimension with a wave of his hands. The use of sedir almost made him pass out again but he clutched onto the wall and closed his eyes until the lightheadedness passed.

Looking out the windshield, he found himself staring at the top of the Statesman. Beyond the rough exterior of the ship he stole from Sakaar alongside a giant rock creature and a few ragtag gladiators, stars lit up the darkness.

After such a horrible escape, the silence of the aftermath felt oddly sweet, like a flower pushing its way out of the ashes of a forest fire to reach the sun. Peaceful, like a longboat on the waves after a hurricane or a warm cup of tea after an exhausting hike through the mountains.

He couldn't see any signs of Surtur's destruction. Either the ship had flown far enough away from the sight—he had no idea how long he'd been out—or Asgard had evaporated down to the last atom.

Judging from the Statesman's relatively undamaged appearance, everyone must've made it out safe.

Everyone.

Tearing his eyes away from the view, adrenaline kicked through his battered system and Loki found himself moving out of the Commodore fueled by an overwhelming desire to confirm Thor's status.

All things considered, Thor was too dumb to die, but Loki's brush with death reminded him that not even Asgardians could live forever.

Even though Thor was practically invincible and would never admit it, the God of Thunder had made it out of many debacles because Loki helped him. This time, they were separated, relying on people they hardly knew.

Lost in his thoughts, Loki almost made a wrong turn and barely stopped himself before he opened a hatch leading to the outside of the ship. He caught himself and found the correct exit connected to an opening on the top of the Statesman. Loki found a ladder and climbed down it, trying to keep the meager lunch he had on Sakaar from making a reappearance.

The ladder led to an empty hallway with a small elevator on the end. Despite not having much time to navigate the ship when he originally stole it from the Grandmaster's collection, he picked the right floor where he knew the people would stay.

As the elevator hummed down to the lower floors, Loki's thoughts turned to the people—now refugees. It would take a while to figure out rooms, especially since the number of people surpassed the ship's capacity. They would also have to figure out what to do with the Hulk if Thor hadn't calmed him back into Dr. Banner yet.

The doors opened to the lower levels full of people mingling about. Nobody paid him any attention as he walked through the crowd. Everyone looked pitiful, and he doubted he fared better.

People hugged each other, mothers worried over the children, and healers tended to the injured. Small children too young to fully understand the situation, looked upset and were either entirely silent or wailing at the top of their lungs.

Loki noticed Volstagg's wife, Hildegund, fretting over her considerable number of children, all of whom were visibly upset. She had tears in her eyes but Loki could tell she tried to stay strong for her children, especially in the wake of her husband's brutal death.

The sight of Volstagg's widow suddenly hit Loki hard and a horrible feeling washed over him as the full effect of Hela's attack finally sunk in. Shaking his head, Loki forced himself to suppress the wave of guilt and regret, reining in the tide and putting on an expressionless mask.

He never quite liked Thor's friends, and they often bullied him or excluded him from their adventures, but they were great warriors and didn't deserve to die at the hands of Odin's witch.

Slipping through the crowd, Loki avoided any familiar people.

From his short time on the Statesman, Loki already knew where to find the nicest room and figured Thor would claim it as the obvious king. However, for clarification, Loki located an older man he recognized from Odin's council and asked him about Thor's whereabouts.

The man's wife clutched her husband as both of them gave Loki a skeptical sneer. Apparently, people hadn't forgotten his criminal past and were still wary of him, even though he did help save them.

Ungrateful bastards, Loki thought, although he smiled in thanks when the man gave him decent directions to Thor's room.

He should've grown used to the way people either shrunk from him, glared at him, or scoffed in his presence. Even in his youth, most people didn't treat him with proper respect, despite his status as a prince.

Loki then realized he hadn't regained his title as prince from when Odin retracted it at his trial. When he impersonated Odin, his busy schedule forced the details of his trial to slip from his mind.

Maybe Thor would reinstate his title once he became king.

Loki stopped outside Thor's closed door, suddenly nervous.

It shouldn't bother him, and he couldn't use the excuse of not wanting to walk in on his brother preparing for his impromptu coronation because they had grown up together and had gotten used to each other bursting into the other's room unprompted.

A knot formed in Loki's stomach and he squeezed his eyes shut. He smoothed down his hair and sent a glimmer to disguise his singed clothes, knowing full well Thor wouldn't care what he looked like.

Why was he acting like this? Thor was his brother, for the Norn's sake, not some supreme judge deciding Loki's fate. Yet, Loki swallowed around his sore throat and considered returning to the Commodore simply because he couldn't bear facing his brother after everything he'd done.

Thor wouldn't know; Loki could leave and Thor wouldn't have the slightest clue that Loki even was here in the first place. He could find a different route in his life, just like what Thor suggested on Sakaar. Their paths diverged a long time ago, and Thor wouldn't mind not having Loki around to ruin things again.

However, something still kept their lives interwoven like two vines wrapping around each other until nobody could tell where one ended and the other began. Even though they chose different directions for a while, they still always found themselves in the same spot—together.

Taking a deep breath to calm his jumble of emotions, Loki finally swung the door open and stepped in, kicking off a whole new chapter in his chaotic story.

Hildegund is only named in passing on the Wiki page (Volstagg's wife in the comics is Gundrun, but I'm going by the MCU version for her). RIP the Warriors Three.