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Thor paced nervously up and down the aisle in front of the Avengers Tower kitchen island. The granite countertop was spotless except for the small amount of crumbs that littered the table around the large plate and blue-green mug that sat in front of the elder god’s sibling. Loki sat with his eyes downcast on his plate, looking at the contents without actually seeing them. What laid there, unbeknownst to him, was a square of peanut butter toast and a couple of orange slices. In his mug rested his chocolatey goodness of a hot coco, a winter treat he enjoyed out of comfort even as the summer months sweltered in the heat of New York City. Thor huffed again, and Loki raised his brows imperceptibly at his brother’s antics. “Remain calm, brother,” Loki uttered softly, his voice still charged with emotion after the incident that had taken place only two weeks ago. “Calm? Calm, Loki? How can I remain calm when there is yet another new member of the Avengers Initiative coming to reside within this tower?” Thor huffed feebly again, tearing a hand through his blonde locks as a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. “If we thought the first round of Avengers were difficult in welcoming our return to Midgard, how in the world of Anaheim is this new fellow going to react to our situation?” Loki smirked to himself. “Our situation, is it, brother?” Thor quickly deflated for a moment, concerned blue eyes raking over his younger brother’s form. He watched Loki's shoulders as they rose and fell slightly with each of his breaths. He had forgotten, once again, in his haste just how difficult life had become for his younger brother. Since the battle with the Mad Titan, after their mother had been slain and Loki had been injured, things had not been the same. Of course, death and near death can change a person, but Loki's new ailment had driven the younger demigod into himself further. It was easy for Thor to talk to him, but he wasn't always sure that Loki was listening, or that Loki felt gratitude for his life being saved. Sometimes, Thor even considered that Loki would have wanted to remain dead to the world, rather than having been brought back to life by Eir and her healers. Thor’s eyes narrowed slightly as his mind returned to the present. “Loki--” Thor began, moving a step forwards towards his brother and his uneaten meal, when the female voice in the ceiling spoke: “Peter Parker has arrived at the Tower. He shall be up shortly.” Thor bit his lip. He was afraid of this moment. It was now or never. Vision had responded in curiosity, Natasha had remained neutral, Tony hadn’t exactly been happy about it, Barton was riling in his displeasure and his contempt, Bruce had run tests, and Steve had been taken aback yet kind and compassionate about the situation. Now it was this Peter Parker’s turn to react, and from what Thor had gathered, he was a younger fellow. Thor wasn’t sure if this bode well or unwell for the two brothers. He heard the elevator ping and began to slide open, so Thor turned on his heel to meet the young boy who surprisingly had Tony Stark in tow. “And this is the living area slash kitchen area. That over there is Thor, Asgardian with a troubled not-brother, and this over here is--” Tony waved his arms in the general degree of each area, but Peter had already dropped his jaw and was staring wide-eyed at the thunder god. “Whoa--holy--you’re, but, and, oh my god!” Peter’s hands shot up to his brown curls. “That’s Thor! That’s--” Peter looked over to Tony who had a slight, amused smile on his face and an expectant look in his eyes. “But you already knew that… Wow, it’s uh, great to meet you Mr. Thor!” Peter extended his hand and Thor’s head tilted at him slightly before reaching back and grasping it lightly. “There is someone I’d appreciate you to meet,” Thor spoke slowly, eyes roaming over the teenager. He was beginning to feel less and less sure about this decision. “Oh! Yeah, totally, that’s totally okay,” Peter responded in enthusiasm, hands still wringing as the thunder god had quite a tight grip. As Peter began walking forwards, Tony followed a few steps behind. “I’ll just be back here, kid,” Tony mentioned, beginning to lean on the doorway of the kitchen. Thor’s frame blocked most of Peter’s vision and only when he parted slowly did Peter see before him what he never wanted to see again. Peter’s breath hitched in his throat, and he choked on his spit. “That’s your…” Peter’s arm hung in the air as he tried to process what was happening. “That’s the guy who attacked New York. You know, I totally had to clean up your mess not that long ago, dude.” Peter’s voice grew smaller as he continued talking, feeling afraid all of a sudden that he was being introduced to the guy who messed up New York. “The name’s Loki,” Loki said softly, still staring down at his untouched plate. “You may want to start with that, next time.” Peter’s head turned suddenly, “Whoa, whoa, next time? I don’t want there to BE a next time. Do we want there to be a next time?” Peter looked between Thor and Tony at his last question, eyes filled with confusion and a sense of urgency. Tony sighed, “Look, kiddo, none of us are too happy with this, either. But the guy’s…compromised now. So he’s not AS much of a threat to you or any of us.” “My brother’s condition we’ve come to fear is permanent. There was no aid to be had on Asgard after the war broke out. The Allfather allowed us to come to Midgard in hopes that the Avengers could rehabilitate my brother in some manner, or at least for him to come to terms with his new life better than he could on our home planet.” Thor explained this while watching Peter closely, the adolescent becoming more confused by the second. “What do you mean his condition?” Peter asked quietly, eyeing the trickster in suspicion. “He means this,” Loki quipped, now fully staring at Peter. Peter’s brows frowned, as he stared back at the demigod. His eyes…were different. What were once green glowing eyes were now hazy and white, clouded even at the irises and eerie at the pupils. “My brother is blind,” Thor said in melancholy. The finality of it weighed in the air. Peter swallowed. “Oh.” It was all he could muster. He felt a wave of sympathy for the trickster, which was then clouded over by uncertainty. “And it’s…permanent, you said?” Peter asked hesitantly, watching the trickster as he stared blankly at him. “Yes,” Loki responded. He pushed himself off the stool he had been sitting upon, tapped his fingers on the countertops while mumbling quietly to himself and shoulder bumped into Peter on his way out of the room. “That went pretty well, I’m surprised,” Tony said behind Peter, as Peter’s eyes continued to follow the trickster. “Yes,” Thor agreed hesitantly, turning to Peter. “He cannot see you at all, Peter. I would not think too highly of him bumping into you. He may have done it to only assure that your presence was in fact there.” Peter nodded, it sounded reasonable after all. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched and that he’d just met the guy who took down New York so many years ago. Loki seemed so…different in person. Or maybe, he was just different now. Either way, Peter sighed and decided this was going to make for the weirdest internship of his life.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

**Trigger Warning: Feels and grief**
 The next time the adolescent met Loki was on accident. Peter was sneaking a small stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches back towards his bedroom in Avengers Tower, when he heard the soft whimpers and low hiccups. Peter froze like a deer hearing the foreign sound it couldn’t place of a halting car and he looked about wide-eyed in his anxiety. Even while part of him--arguably the smarter part of him--told him to keep walking away, the humanity within his soul told him to venture towards the noise. He slid the paper plate onto the ground and walked as quietly as he could down the hall--one foot, then three, then eight. He came across a lonelier, shrouded in darkness, hallway and, with a fast glance over his shoulder; he moved down it and turned left. There: a door was open a few inches. Peter tried to peer inside but could barely make out any details. He let out a small, but long breath, tongue licking his lips as he pushed the door open more. He thanked Mr. Stark’s architecture for the singular fact that the door didn’t squeak in any manner. And now, now he could see what lay beyond it. There sat the shadow of the older demigod, at least older compared to the teenager. Peter’s brows furrowed as he took in the shuddering shoulders before he felt his heart break inside his chest. If this wasn’t some weird hallucination, Peter was about ninety-five percent sure that Loki was crying--crying to himself, alone, in his bedroom, in a room within a tower full of people. Peter caught himself feeling baffled by the notion that Loki did in fact have feelings and that the god was so isolated from the lives within the tower that he’d had to resort to crying quietly, distantly, on his own. Peter’s heart broke more as his frown deepened. The dude had been through hell and if feeling empathy for the guy who had single-handedly messed up New York a few years ago wasn’t a grave indication that Peter was naïve but caring, he would never know what would. Peter felt his own hazel eyes well with tears--he remembered how he had been so high strung, so resolute to not cry when his parents died, when Uncle Ben died, that he had pushed away Aunt May, and Ned, and everyone he came into contact with. He, too, had felt he had to cry alone, cry without anyone’s watchful eyes, cry because he thought of himself as weak, cry for what he had lost and everything else he was in danger of still losing. The grief never really fully disappeared--sometimes attaching to himself like a tick, making him quietly retreat inwards, but Peter knew the paradoxical reaction truly helped the most: surrounding yourself with supportive friends and loved ones. It was through talking about the good times that Peter could manage to hold onto a relationship he would never, could never, truly forget or leave behind. Grief was an odd creature, in that way. So, because Peter was still in so many ways just a kid and because he could relate in too raw a way, he lightly knocked on the door--ever the gentleman--and proceeded to walk into the room. “H-hi, Mr. Loki,” nervousness bubbled up inside the teen. “S-sorry, I don’t know your last name but I-I saw you crying and I know how-how shit--awful that feels and I-I think you may need to be around people right now.” Peter swallowed the elephant caught in his throat. “Un-unless you don’t--you don’t think so.” Peter couldn’t have face-palmed any harder than he already was. His gaze flicked over Loki, whom had gotten rigid with an air of hesitance. His back was still towards Peter and his crying seemed to have stopped completely. Peter was just deciding he’d leapt too much, too fast and was slowly extracting himself from the situation when Loki shifted his head to a profile position, his form a darkened silhouette in the fading light. “Peter, was it?” Loki questioned softly. Peter swallowed hard, hand still hovering over the doorknob. He lowered his appendage to his side, almost shakily responding with, “Yes?” Instead of a snarl or threat, Peter was startled when the demigod pronounced slowly, “What do you know about grief?” Peter exhaled loud and hard, creating a draft of warm air around them. “What don’t I know about grief,” Peter implored to himself. His eyes took on a sad look, a pain so deep running through them than he’d been able to breathe passed in a long time. “It’s like…like a soul crushing intensity that knocks you backwards into oblivion, not caring where you land or who you hurt in the process.” Peter’s face appeared grim. Gradually, after a brief pause, Peter opened up, “I was an orphan and my Uncle Ben…my Uncle Ben passed away too and I’m still not over it--not over them. It’s hard…hard to be without them. Harder still to face the days I know that are ahead without them.” He stopped again, adding, “I keep expecting Uncle Ben to shoot me one of his dazzling smiles when I bring home my good grades, or for my Mom to give me a hug so strong it makes me breathless. I keep thinking that I’ll hear Uncle Ben’s voice again or that he’ll be there in the crowd when I graduate. But…but he’s not. He…won’t be.” Loki remained quiet for such a significant amount of time that Peter thought he’d fallen asleep sitting up or that was the end of the conversation or Peter had just pulled so many all-nighters lately that he had dreamt this entire scenario. He’d dreamt a lot about Uncle Ben, the grief he carried of this loss, lately. Not necessarily his Uncle in the flesh but the day that he found out he’d passed or even fake days, days that could only be imagined in sleep, about how he had passed away, as though his dreams just comprised the mention of him, the notion that he was nearby. But every time Peter got close, every time he felt Uncle Ben was right there, it would be the same moment that Peter woke up and the grief would be there, hanging in front of his eyes, as though caught in a web. He felt like he’d been chasing a dream within a dream and this time, here, was no different. He was about to pinch himself awake when he heard this spoken: “…Can you grieve for what never was? What never came to be?” his voice was small, emotional, pained. It was like someone had stripped down everything of the trickster and encased all that was left into a tiny tin can. Peter couldn’t help but gasp at the marks Loki’s words left behind like cigarette burns placed inside his skull. For a moment, he felt it hard, too hard, to breathe. “Of course,” he managed to say, he managed to get the words out--too late, he felt. Loki nodded, eyes returning to his lap. “Yes…I lost my mother to a wickedness I’d never before imagined. Someone I could not stop within my cell in the dungeons. I…I blame Thor, partly, for it all, but I know it’s because of the last conversation I had with her instead…” Loki hummed, softly. “When in pain, I lash out. If my mother could see me now…I don’t think I could bear the fact that I cannot see her back.” A few tears slipped down Loki’s cheeks, falling onto the comforter from his chin. He sniffled, unable to breathe through his clogged nasal passages. His pain was raw, palpable almost, but his voice was constrained, as lost as he felt with his place in the world. “I’d begun to envision a future so different than this for myself.” He muttered something so quietly that Peter didn’t hear it but he did hear this when his voice returned with a greater sense of conviction: “Maybe I was a fool to think I deserved anything better.” Peter’s head tilted, almost as though he were confused and hell, maybe he was, because he found himself uttering back, with confidence, “You didn’t--you don’t--deserve this.” Loki smiled bitterly. “Then why does it feel so much like a fitting punishment?” Peter opened his mouth to retort, but he found he didn’t have any answer to that. He instantly felt like he was swelling up with guilt. He never could have imagined himself in this type of circumstance. It was…horrifying in many respects and he felt like he was doing everything wrong that could go wrong. He opened and closed his mouth a few times but all the words that he had within his skull just disappeared and died before ever reaching his tongue. Loki shifted on his bed, patting the empty space beside him, facing Peter enough that the light from the green lamp shade on the desk swallowed the demigod up in its arms. Another sad smile graced Loki’s lips like a ghost were just passing through. Peter realized that Loki may have had more ghosts in his closet than he had ever considered possible before. Loki patted the area again; cloudy eyes unseeing but filled with so much…feeling. It was as if, somehow, Loki had managed to see through Peter’s body and catch all the emotion that resided limply in the teenager’s soul and reflect it back to him in a stranger’s eyes. Because that’s what Loki was, after all, wasn’t it? A stranger. An…outsider. Yet Peter felt so comfortable in his presence then, so at ease, so capable of being heard and understood. It was disconcerting but Peter appreciated it, he liked it, he felt…useful, safe even. “Come, sit with me, and if you feel strong enough, tell me about your grief and I will share with you my own.” Peter edged closer without sitting, his arms jerky as he remembered all his previous amounts of anxiety, before he relaxed himself into this situation. This definitely wasn’t a situation he could have ever pictured for himself three weeks ago. “You know, there’s this really nice quote, I forget who it’s by, but it goes ‘without the darkness we’d never see the stars.’ It’s about finding the light even in the darkness. Like, space, too, because, you know, space; but also about finding hope and strength through the pain. I just…I thought it could help.” Loki smiled warmly at Peter, suddenly amused. “Easy for you to say,” Loki suggested, tone light. “You can still see them.” Peter’s face instantly blanched. “Oh, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--” “Relax,” Loki interrupted, chuckling, gaze soft even if he was staring past Peter and more towards the lamp. “It’s merely a jest.” His smile held only a small ounce of bitterness and Peter couldn’t help but wonder then if the trickster had always been this expressive in years previous. “Oh, okay,” Peter’s voice was a little flat, and Loki observed this detail, before the teenager smiled again, a little softer this time, causing him to consider that his face was turning into mush from all the gentle, careful prodding he was introducing into the room. Where was there a window he could punch to regain his manliness? “Are you sitting?” Loki inquired, gaze shifting sideways. Peter forgot that’s what he was told to do, so, he quickly sat down, knees accidentally knocking into the demigod’s. He made to apologize but heard instead, “Aaaa, there you are.” Next he was instructing, “Hold out your right palm.” Loki blinked, waiting for an appraisal. Once Peter affirmed it, Loki asked, “Now guide my hand to yours.” He snickered. “It’s okay, my hands may just be--” Peter shivered lightly, taking Loki’s hand before suddenly retracting it, “--a little cold.” The humor was back in his voice as he brought his nails down to the center of Peter’s palm. “Now, watch this,” Loki stated calmly, slowly raising his hand as a green-blue crystal appeared in Peter’s open palm. Peter watched with wide, hungry eyes as the crystal grew, transforming and heightening, sparkling in the twilight, shifting into airy particles that deepened in hue before drifting away, blinking out of sight. “That’s so awesome!” Peter exclaimed with joy. Loki smiled, closing his eyes as he hummed to himself. He drew upon his magic, then, and with a small tear coming down his face, he showed to Peter a woman with long, golden hair; bright, warm eyes and a smile that only a mother could communicate with: something kind and compassionate. She wore a teal robe, elegant and long, and she seemed almost animated even though she was a still image. Peter’s eyes watered in comradery. “This is what my mother looked like,” the demigod whispered. “She was the Queen of Asgard, my…home planet. Or, at least, where I came from.” Loki’s eyes scrunched up tightly, and Peter looked at him long and hard, wondering what secrets lay behind the trickster’s skull. Peter’s gaze dropped away until returning when Loki said so softly, “It’s easier to picture her with my eyes closed, where I can still see her, like this twisted reality is just a dream.” He sighed, opening his eyes and staring blankly ahead. Peter’s not sure why exactly he did it, maybe it was the heat of the moment or the fact that he was feeling nostalgic but he dug through his pocket and pulled out his brown faux leather wallet. He thumbed out a picture, then two. He said, gently, “I carry these everywhere I go. This one’s of my Mom and Dad,” he pushed a small photograph, almost like a newspaper clipping, into Loki’s raised hands. The trickster nodded and let his fingers explore the age of the paper, apprehensive on whether he would damage it, thus taking his time and feeling the cracks over it from being folded up and protected for so long. “And this one’s my Uncle Ben and Aunt May. She’s still alive,” Peter added, and he moved the properly printed photograph over to Loki next, who guided his fingers across this one as well. The two of them breathed for a while, remembering their own grief and making time for it, because that’s all that grief ever wanted. They forgot, in some ways, that the other was still there. “My Uncle Ben was a good person,” Peter echoed into the chamber of darkness. It was like he was telling secrets to someone he’d never met before, like he was back at church, sitting in confessional. He felt like if he told his secrets here, like he did in those wooden seats, that it’d be kept here forever. Like he wouldn’t have to face it or its consequences again in the future; the realization more liberating than he’d felt in months. “How did he go?” Loki responded in as much delicacy as he could manage. Peter was floored by the question, for some reason not expecting it, as he struggled out, “He was robbed at gun point.” Peter shook his head. “I-I could have stopped it but I just… I just…didn’t.” Loki dropped a hand onto Peter’s, Peter’s that still held the photographs of those he’d lost. “Put those away so you don’t lose them again,” Loki said, another sad smile on his face. His once green eyes blinked past the tears. “You’ll want them for the future.” Peter's head jerked about as though he were twitching as he looked longingly back at the photos before tucking them back and away in his wallet. He sniffled and his hazel eyes trained, unfocused, to the flooring. Even if Loki couldn't see him, physically, it felt like he could see through his shell and it was marginally unsettling. Loki squeezed Peter's hand, a gesture of such immense compassion that Peter felt was so immensely contradicting. He didn't know if he asked it because he was trying to weakly lash out himself but he blurted out what had been eating away at his mind for days: "Why did you...attack New York?" Loki nodded, as if he'd been expecting this, and maybe, maybe he had. "My thirst for power overrode my sensibilities. Even Thor pleaded to my humanity, towards the end of the fight, but I was simply too lost to realize I was so far gone." Loki's staring took on a dreamy look, as though he were flicking through files in his mind of the right possibilities to fill his jaw. "The Allfather didn't appreciate my unabashed incapability of being controllable. He punished me to the dungeons, sparing my life only for Frigga's love of me." He sighed. "The war came after that. One of His children slaughtered my mother, taking from her her last breath. It was a cruel, agonizing death. Prolonged, even, ill-fitting for a woman so strong, so powerful in every other sense." He looked away, "I learned of it through Thor's tears. I begged Odin to allow me to avenge her death, but the King was...not understanding. He was trying to protect me, for reasons I still yearn to understand, and wouldn't allow me to. I naturally found a way around him, but not without sacrifices." Loki looked down again and Peter wondered for a second how much he could really see. He hadn't exactly been told of it but he also hadn't asked. His vision swam with regret and it was harder than he thought possible to hear the trickster’s next words, uttered with more strength to the demigod than he had emitted all afternoon. “Thor was with me then. It took more than just the two of us, of course, but all that really mattered was that it was Thor and I. I-I remember the last time I saw her face, so clearly I can picture it now,” tears swam in his eyes, “She was my beautiful mother and her end should never have come at the hands of my undoing.” He paused, considering. “I remember…just remember Thor’s loud cry and the sound of Mjolnir swinging in the air, and a flash of brightness and then…pain, a lot of it, and then I was waking up days later in the healing rooms. And I remember the look in Thor’s eyes, sky blue eyes,” Loki admired, in the present. “Face pale, worry lines etched into his forehead. And then, like my eyes had closed in finality, I saw nothing more.” Loki laid a shaky hand upon his forehead, rubbing at his temples, as if the pain of the memory brought back the pain in his head. “Asgard could do nothing for me. Thor was hopeful that Midgard could. When all else failed,” Loki remembered, “then Earth would have to do.” He chuckled. “It wasn’t exactly with my blessing that he brought me here. But he did and here I am, so many moons later. I didn’t expect forgiveness but I’ve found that my current state has offered some…retribution. It’s as though, because of my blindness, I’ve rehabilitated as much as possible in the quest of having to re-learn the way I function in the world. There’s something ever so crushing in coming to terms with that fact, that it eroded me and shaped me in ways I could never have imagined prior. My relationships now are all so new with the ones I had before being….just a little different now.” Loki took a deep breath. “I know that doesn’t answer your question in any manner,” he grinned, slyly. “But let’s pretend that it did.” He grimaced; wincing in what Peter finally recognized as pain. “Are you okay?” Peter asked, voice tiny when he realized just how much he didn’t know this demigod now. He blinked and narrowed his eyes, watching as Loki sank into the cave of his shoulders, his neck tensing as he shifted. “I will be,” he answered instead, deflecting so cleverly that Peter’s lips quirked in understanding. He’d say things like that to Mr. Stark, too, and he knew his father figure knew it was an evasive answer. Loki offers instead, “I get these intense headaches, sometimes. We think it’s a residual side effect.” He tried to offer a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I will need to rest for a while, now.” He continued, “But before I do,” he asked for Peter’s hand again and this time Loki wielded his magic to show the young boy a serene atmosphere: water trickling down over smooth, grey shades of rock. Trees, tall and full of leaves, swayed in the breeze and the entire scene capsulated peace and calm. Peter watched it in pure fascination before it dispersed again, like the others had, into fading dots. Loki squeezed the back of Peter’s neck--at least that’s what he was aiming for, instead his skin crossed the fabric of Peter’s shoulder--and he slipped into the bedspread with a contentment about him that hadn’t been there earlier. Loki regarded the space Peter had already left behind, earnestly telling him, “You’re a good kid, Peter. Your Uncle Ben would be proud.” Tears pricked Peter’s eyes and he regarded the demigod then with a simple statement that held more weight than either being could reasonably appreciate: “And you’re no longer the bad guy or a stranger. You’re an Avenger,” Peter whispered, closing the door behind him as he began to see Loki fall asleep. The teenager hoped he’d have good dreams, because he really, really needed them. After everything he’d been through… They all did, they all did.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

**Trigger Warning**: Feels
  “How do you cope with it?” The voice was young, and he could hear the way it trembled slightly, envisioning a spark in the darkness, sputtering out light and uncertain as to what it was doing and where it was heading. The smile that graced his lips was soft, almost imperceptible, just the smallest twinges at the corners of his mouth, slightly rising, lightly upon his pale flesh. Flesh that had been through horrors, been through hell and yet still remained, still remained intact--somehow. He had been through a lot. He had survived the unthinkable and to be able to sit where he was now, in the dining quarters of the Avengers Tower was more mind-boggling and head rattling more days than most. He tilted his head so slightly to the left that it was like he hadn’t moved at all. He blinked, and the light entered his cloudy irises, the cloudy pupils he could no longer see out of, not, not in the way he used to. The Spiderling was sitting across from him, he gathered, because the trickster could have sworn he had properly passed by all the other chairs of this long, ebony table (at least in his mind it was ebony, anything less than that would be ill fitting) and it was one of the few chairs left without an occupant. So he smiled lightly, his flesh marred with scars unseen and eyes that couldn’t do much better, either. But he mulled over his answer. He hummed about it lightly, lips pursing over each other so that his mouth formed a thin line. How could he answer this question? How could he convey all his pain and all his struggle in just a few words? How could he encapsulate the months it took for him to slowly and gradually accept his life’s new circumstances? How could he put into words how the loneliness ached deep within his chest, and the time--so much time--it had taken to come to grips with his new reality, so far away from “home”, so far away from his brother, Thor, so far away from everything he once--maybe?--held dear. He wasn’t sure. He just wasn’t sure how to convey it all. How to form the right syllables that would be lined together in a sentence, that would appreciate all that he had been through because it had been a lot, it had been so much. And yet, at the same time, Steve’s words from a memory etched deeply in the folds of Loki’s brain, reverberated in his mind: 
“You are not what happened to you.”

Oh, how those words had shone so brightly in his mind. A light, once again, emerging from the darkness. Even if all it was that time was metaphorical.

“Something awful, something terrible, happened to you and it doesn’t make up every fiber of your being. We are not our circumstances; we are who we choose to be. We can’t control many things in this life, but our choices, our actions, our reactions are some of those.”

It was as though someone had opened the curtains to a dark room, a dark, lonely, inescapable room, and instead showed that there was a window with bright white light streaming in, pouring in, covering the shadows and showing how great this life could be.

“It feels like it’s everything. Everything about me now.” Loki had managed to rasp, his throat sore from screaming long into the ever evolving night.

“I won’t lie to you, it’s probably gonna be like that for a while. But that doesn’t mean it’s all it will ever be. Life is more than pain. Life is…a beautiful, complex creature of darkness and light. Our job is to find a way to hold onto that light, hold onto it so tightly and so carefully, that it lights the path ahead of us. Because there is always going to be light, just as there will always be a shred of darkness, yet it’s up to us which path we choose. Which path we gravitate towards, which actions we either are swallowed up by in the dark or embraced by in the light.” Steve had looked at Loki then, long and hard, adding after a moment, “And I think you’re strong enough to get through this, to get past it. I think you’re so strong, Loki.”

He hadn’t meant to cry when the Avenger told him this, but he managed to. He managed to find warm tears dripping down the sides of his face, finally after several minutes choking out a garbled, “I never wanted to be strong.”

“I know,” Steve answered, a voice, an entity reminding the trickster that he was not alone. “Yet you are. We’re not given the choice at the start of life if we’ll be strong enough to get through it. But those who make it, inherently, are. You didn’t have to make it this far in life; you were never given the guarantee. Yet here you are. And what you’re going through now, what you’re here to face, isn’t going away any time soon, and even when it’s hard, even when it feels like nothing will ever be the same--and hell, in some ways it won’t be--you’ll be strong enough to find a new normal. You’ll be strong enough to survive this, and move through it, and somewhere, somewhere in all of that, you’ll find faith in life again. You’ll find…home. And you’ll find safety.”

Steve knew he was grasping at straws here, knew he was saying so much in hopes that something would resonate with the demigod. But he didn’t care, or, maybe he cared so much that he was trying everything he could to be there for the god.

“You always have the choice to go on or to stay behind. Life’s high points come with the cost of feeling very low in the depths of a canyon. It isn’t any true reflection on you--it’s just how it goes. Everyone struggles with something in their lives, sometimes more than one thing, and every chance we have to breathe another breath and have another heartbeat is to either remain steadfast in our ways or adjust to the new expectations--that’s the fork in the road. That’s when your strength truly shines. That’s when your grit and your perseverance come through. Or, it doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes people become over-burdened and that’s not because they’re weak, but because they’re struggling. Sometimes when people are struggling to cope, they get really stuck. But…I mean…”

Steve sighed, puttering out momentarily. How could he offer hope when the situation felt so assaultive?

Steve readjusted himself in his chair, sitting more forward with his elbows at his knees.

“We need to believe it gets better because it does. And we need you to hold onto hope that one day, somehow, it will. And, and if you don’t feel strong yourself to hold onto it, I’ll hold onto it for you. And when you’re ready, when you’re ready you can take it from me.”

Steve looked at the trickster long and hard.

“If you’ll allow me to, I believe the sun will shine on you again.”

And that’s all that needed to be said.

He had said a lot, more than he intended, yet it didn’t fall on deaf ears. Luckily, Loki still retained that sense. But it mattered. It changed the game. It gave the trickster…promise.

It gave him something to look towards, even if he couldn’t see it himself. Even if Loki’s vision now was clouded and broken, if others could see for him, if others could see his worth and guide him through this, than maybe he was strong. Maybe Loki was as much a warrior as Thor, just in his own way, in his own designs.
 So Loki thought of this, when the young Spider asked him how he coped; he thought back to that early day in his life’s journey. He thought back to how it had felt, how the darkness had seemed to win over him, shrouding him in its discomfort. And the trickster answered warmly, with the knowledge that he had moved through that previous pain and there graced the smallest smile on his face: “I find the light and I venture towards it.” Loki paused, blinking, eyes wandering around the room, as though he were searching for something else to say. As though he were searching for the words that needed to be said, the words that would perfectly describe his current predicament. Maybe they existed within the cracks of the floorboards or the lines upon the table, the chairs in the room with the other occupants of the tower. Loki stopped, turning back to his inner experience and speaking from his heart, “I was given this life because I’m strong enough to live it.” Loki nodded a few times, the gesture smooth, even when his neck felt rickety. “And when I falter, when I struggle to see the new day ahead, I am reminded of my worth, of my own light, of the hands that hold onto me with faith. And I make it through. Because the alternative is no longer an option.” Loki tapped his fingers lightly on the table to a rhythm only echoing in his soul. “I have grown too much, survived too much, and things are different now. Not just because of the sight, or because of the lack of it, but because…because things are different in a way they’ve never been before. I don’t have a road map to this life, and I suppose that no one truly does, I just know I’ve never been here before and I can’t see myself, pardon the pun, falling back into old actions that never served me well to begin with.” He tilted his skull again, feeling the silence echo in the room. “Besides, I have too much to live for now. I have made new realizations and I have made a family here. I do not wish to ever leave that behind again.” Loki picked up his fork and chewed on some of the meat. He couldn’t help but add between bites, “I don’t think it ever becomes easier, exactly. But having support and developing resiliency is what matters most. Besides that, everything else just falls into place.” Out of habit, Loki glanced right, where the inventor so often sat, and reached out to poke him in the ribs. He got a gruff grunt in response before he heard the billionaire immediately echo, “Loki’s made a lot of progress and I, for one, am proud of him.” He grinned, eyeing the trickster affectionately as the green, clouded eyes rolled nonchalantly. “You’re all proud of me,” Loki insisted on correcting instead, moving his fingers, lightly trailing across the fabric of Tony’s soft shirt, up to where the curve of his shoulder was, before patting it there carefully. “Tony just likes to take all the credit for everybody else’s work.” Loki smirked at the inventor as he swiveled around in his chair, body facing the trickster now, mouth open in overdramatic shock. “Hey, I was so not that type of kid in school.” Tony admonished and he winked at the teenager, who was staring wide-eyed at the two of them, forgetting, momentarily, that there were other Avengers in the room. Peter, lovingly and as carefully as possible was quietly asserting, “Oh, um, I mean, I just meant about the team--” “It’s okay, kid, you don’t need to explain yourself here,” Tony smirked; cutting off the teen and letting the situation come to a resounding close. “We’re all in good space.” He then bit into his BLT sandwich and muttered something unintelligible in pleasure from it. As Loki looked ahead, bearing his soul to the world, he felt comforted and soothed, loved and appreciated. He hoped, in some respects, that his answer made sense. The Avengers team was ever-changing and ever-growing and Loki struggled late at night sometimes to figure out where he landed in all of the shenanigans, but it was nice, it was…adaptability that he hadn’t experienced in his life in a long time. He had faith it would all work out in the end. Because didn’t everything? With hope in his heart, he finished his meal and only managed to bother Tony a few more instances during the dinner, tamer than usual for the demigod. And he hoped that Peter wouldn’t take asking innocent questions like this to mean that the trickster was at all off-put by them. In fact, he almost was at the point where he welcomed fresh perspectives. It made this life all the more interesting.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

**Trigger Warning**: Feels, mentions of torture, grief
 “I can’t see a way out of this.” It was a declaration more than a question. The silence that rebounded across the room and into the walls was almost so audible that both participants in the situation gulped softly. “We will find a way through this, brother.” But even Thor’s words weren’t so sure. It was like somebody had gone up into the trickster’s brain and shut off all the lights. He couldn’t see a thing--shelved into folds and shades of darkness he could never have even imagined existed before this. It was just… so dark. So worthless. So hopeless. So…empty. It made the young god’s skin crawl. 
“Just change me back!” he had mewled, his words and cries like slingshots.

“Why can’t you just change me back?” his words reverberated with a pain so deep, so all-encompassing that it was felt even when his eyelids closed to the world, the motion familiar, that he still saw no hope--just an endless night.

“Brother, please,” Thor had insisted, palms open in a placating gesture that spun the truth deep within his heart--Loki couldn’t see him anymore.

Maybe…maybe forevermore.

The anxiety that had gripped him then was too painful to speak around. He found himself like a small child lost within the dangers of their palace. Except he could still find his way through--Loki, Loki might never.

Tears sprang to his azure eyes.

What pain and further damage was awaiting them in the doors laid ahead?

What hope was there for Loki if even his big brother failed to see it?

Thor did the only thing he could in that moment: he retreated inwards.

He caught himself stepping back, only recognizing it when the backs of his knees knocked into the other beds of the healing rooms. He barely registered their murmurs of alarm, his wide shoulders blocking their vision of eavesdropping until he felt his hands shoot out behind him to catch himself.

The shame that erupted through his system was too much to bear alone.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as Loki’s fading voice cried out over and over, “Fix me! Fix me! Why can’t you fix me? You shouldn’t have brought me back! We were so close. Why couldn’t you let me rest? I don’t want this!” The pain escalated in the octaves that arose into his voice, lashing out at the ones who cared so deeply for him that they were too selfish to let him go in death and did everything they could to bring him back whole.

Except, he wasn’t whole.

Instead they had abandoned him into a dark, unseeing hole.

He could just make out the memory of Thor’s blue eyes, eyes filled with concern, staring back at him with worry lines upon his forehead. He remembered it so keenly, so acutely, yet he couldn’t see anything now. He couldn’t see a god damn fucking thing.

Some truths, Thor found as he edged himself further and further away, not taking his eyes off his brother’s shadow, flinging limbs at the healers until they had to physically restrain him, which he jerked away from, hurt and vulnerable--some truths, Thor found, were too hard to bear.

He moved his large and clunky body out of the room and down the hall, the palace a swirling mass of light and color in his vision, vision shaky and distraught, vision he was still lucky to have.

The memory of Loki yelping out in pain sparkled in his mind with such an acute accuracy. Thor remembered throwing Mjolnir at the Mad Titan as fast and as hard as he could manage, and just when he thought it was over, the Titan had unleashed a surge of power straight at his brother, grinning foolishly at Thor as he did so. Thor remembered the rage that flowed from his eyes as lightning leveled the area around them, but as soon as it dissipated, he saw that the Titan was gone.

Where, he knew not, but he was soon standing over a bleeding Loki and all of his attention was swept into that moment, into saving that soul, that soul he knew so well and the same soul he had listened to in avenging their mother’s death. A soul he prayed he’d have the chance with again to jest, smile, drink mead and remember the good times they’d had growing up.

But it was also a soul he wasn’t sure would make it through. So he did his best to cradle his younger brother in his arms and sweep him into the Bifrost where he brought him to the healing chambers.

The journey felt never-ending, and Thor’s heart stilled the moment Loki stopped breathing.

Desperation clung to his chest when it happened and he was a blithering mess when he ran into the healing rooms, finding a disgruntled and saddened Allfather already waiting for them and Eir’s urgency as she scrambled to help.

They had laid Loki down on a bed and got straight to work.

Thor was still covered in his brother’s blood, a few scratches and cuts deeply marring his own flesh, but his full attention was on his brother.

Yet he couldn’t stop the nagging guilt and remorse that he had single-handedly done this to Loki. If he hadn’t acted so impulsively, gathering together Asgard’s forces to go after the monster responsible for killing their mother so mirthlessly, he felt that Loki would still be alive and well today, instead of broken and, and…no, he couldn’t think it. He couldn’t accept it.

Loki wasn’t dead.

He didn’t die.

He was an Asgardian and he could never, never truly die.

It didn’t matter the amount of times he’d already died before. In fact, hell, Thor used that knowledge to welcome the fact that he wouldn’t perish this time either. He couldn’t.

Thor wouldn’t allow it.

And Thor’s words were law.

That’s what he told himself at least. It brought him some control, some function of reasoning, some illogical hope that this wasn’t it. This wasn’t the end.

So Thor stayed by Loki’s bedside, for almost twenty-four hours a day, until finally, five days later, he awoke.

And when Loki looked into his eyes that final time, he saw the green in them and he saw the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, a momentary lapse of evasion letting emotion pass through his irises until….until something changed.

Until…everything changed.

Loki’s eyes transformed.

One minute he was blinking with green eyes looking back at his brother, and the next instant, they were cloudy. It…genuinely occurred in the blink of an eye.

Thor felt his heart stutter in his chest, his lungs froze mid-breath and all of a sudden a dread so deep landed in his gut and fell down a hundred feet.

Loki’s eyes had transformed to a milky white. Everything was: his pupils were filled with the cloudy substance, as if cotton balls had popped up in the once dark parts of the organ, and the iris of his eyes was changed now too. No longer were his brother’s eyes as green as grass or as vibrant in color. Instead, they were muted, murky too, and a peg or two away from being eerie, being almost… almost all-seeing.

He didn’t know how to breathe in that situation, because all of a sudden he saw his heart shatter into shards when his brother, his Loki, crumbled into confusion.

He blinked once, twice then three times. Then he rolled them, shaking his head as though there was a practical joke happening. But there wasn’t and Thor knew then that Loki didn’t realize the severity of what had just occurred. What, what had transpired.

In the present moment, the memory faded momentarily as Thor found himself coughing, acid rising from his stomach, landing hot in his throat and forcing its way out of his open mouth. The vomit slapped noisily onto the hallway floor. He heaved as snot like a firecracker dribbled out of his nose, igniting his nasal passages with a pain so intense he struggled for yet another moment to catch his breath.

He barely registered the warm hand that came to fall upon his shoulder, the soothing voice of an outsider who had witnessed his pain and come to his side to help ease the burden.

He grew breathless once more--where was he when Loki needed him most?

He was being pitiful and damaged away from his little brother--unable to soothe him, unable to be there for him, to help see him through.

His cries grew louder as his knees buckled, landing him against the stone wall for support, bum resting on the floor, the voice speaking to him jumbled--

“Breathe… Thor… J-breathe.”

His face contorted with his agony.

Where was he when it mattered?

Where was he when he couldn’t protect his brother?

Isn’t that all Loki had ever wanted? All he had ever needed?

A brother who could hold his light, hold his hope, hold his promise that things would get better, that things would work themselves out.

But Thor wasn’t there.

Thor wasn’t there when Loki got hit. He wasn’t there to protect his brother’s flank. He was within the vicinity, sure, but what did that really matter if he wasn’t able to keep his eye on him and not allow the Mad Titan a chance to penetrate through their brotherly bubble?

Thor shook his head; he shouldn’t have let Loki convince him to go after the beast. He should have realized what a one way mission that was, that he should have known better--he had claimed to be stronger now, mightier, smarter, but how smart could he really be if he had gotten his brother killed again? Yes, it was Loki’s idea, yes it was Thor’s choice, but he should have known how dire the situation was when even the Allfather discouraged them from going. Thor should have realized it was with good reason, that he shouldn’t have once again disobeyed his king and went frolicking after a purple creature to bring justice not only to their mother’s untimely death but to avenge Loki for his time that he had escaped torture.

Thor should have realized that Loki’s lack of explanation for his torture spoke high volumes. He should have known that striding into this situation was preparing, if it could be called that, for a losing fight. Thor should have realized the depth of the trauma Loki had experienced at His hand and done more to say no to his brother, to stop the battle from happening, to instead allow his brother and himself time to heal in the reprieve of their own bedrooms. He should have realized what potential horrors could be unleashed if they did choose to pursue Him.

But he didn’t know.

He didn’t know and now Loki was compromised. And Loki had been gravely injured. And Loki, by the Norns, Loki had died. Again. And somewhere, out there, in the universe the purple Titan named Thanos still lived, and he was out there, grinning and chuckling, enjoying his brother’s misery and not caring a single fuck for the lives he had already taken (and still planned to take).

It made Thor feel sick all over again. It made him… feel small.

And now?

Loki had faced death once again and he had survived--but at what cost? At what cost was that miracle born into?

Loki had been unresponsive for five days and as Thor had manhandled his hope, manhandled the ache in his bones that Loki would awaken and be okay; Loki had managed to look at him for this standstill moment before everything disintegrated like ash.

No longer did Thor recognize his brother then. No longer did Thor have hope.

Instead he was overcome with despair. Despair and grief.

For now he had lost yet another part of his brother.

And he knew, he knew, he’d never be able, be allowed, to vocalize it.

Loki had enough now to deal with. With his cloudy pupils and irises, the green toned down to a pale pastel coloration.

Loki could never know how much Thor’s heart had broken, how hard it was to draw in another breath, how hard it was to realize that the Loki he had known, who he had just managed to get back, was gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone for what felt like forever.

Thor had seen the way Loki’s eyes had blinked, blinked and blinked again, slowly narrowing in suspicion, brows furrowing at their start, breath hitching for just a moment.

“Water,” he had croaked with his voice raw and rough from misuse.

Eir had immediately fulfilled his request, leaning over with a small pink cup, but it was her worst fears that were confirmed.

Loki’s hand shot out clumsily, wracking the world in front of him, voice calling out for water, hand ineffectually colliding with the cup until he heard it slam and crack on the floor, its contents pouring out under his bed.

Eir’s face saddened immediately as her lips came together in a pout and as Thor’s soul ripped into pieces, Loki froze, eyes glistening--a reality facing him that he could not see.

“Who--who is there?” he croaked, still craving the substance he yearned for but with answers now he so desperately sought. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the healing rooms, my prince.” Eir said kindly and with a hardened sense of purpose in her voice. “It is I, Eir.” Her gaze oozed a flaring and wavering acceptance.

“You were injured in battle, Loki.” Her shaking hands clasped onto his, rubbing her thumb over his cool flesh. “We have done everything we can to heal you.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Everything.”

“Where is Mother?” he asked so softly, as though he knew of her fate already and--maybe, maybe he did.

Eir answered immediately. “She has passed on, my prince. I am so sorry.” She lightly squeezed his hand. “If I may, what do you remember?”

Loki took this news in, nodding slowly, thinking quickly, other questions in his mouth until he sighed, whispering, “I…I remember Frigga passed on due to Him. That…that Thor and I sought after a war with the best of Asgard’s defenses. We…we found the Titan and then…then there were screams and we…we fought, and now…I… I can’t remember more than that.

“I think,” he continued unsteadily, “I think I heard Mjolnir’s whine, maybe, and, and Thor calling out, then there…there was hot white pain. And then…nothing.” He frowned deeply. “Nothing more than that.”

He opened his mouth to say more, to do more, to remember more, because at the surface of his brain he could just scarcely identify a few other characteristics but instead what flopped out, as he licked his lips nervously was: “Why are the lights out? Have we no more candles or sunlight to burn brightly?”

His jest rose the corners of his mouth, a spirit to Loki that Thor thought he would never see again.

And, suddenly, he realized, when the truth was out, he may never see again.

Eir fell silent and passed a worried glance to Thor.

But Thor was in his own world and Eir knew she was doing this alone.

She paused for a moment longer, eyes sweeping the well-lit room, the other ill Asgardians in their beds and the quivering Thor, his hands controlled by tremors.

“My prince,” she began, tone as light as she could possibly force it. “They are on.”

Loki’s soft chuckles halted at once. His expression shifted to confusion, eyes blinking and brows coming together once more. His lips downturned and a sense of bewilderment shone on his face.

“Eir, you are not one to jest,” Loki claimed, anything to hide from reality.

“I am not.”

“Are my eyes open then?” Loki continued, barking out a laugh. “This is not a matter to--”

“They are.” She said lowly and seriously, her tone devoid of silliness.

Loki recoiled facially in his bed.

“I don’t understand…”

“Can you see this?” Eir asked instead, trying for an inquisitive standpoint. She waved her hand in front of Loki’s face but even as she did she could see his eyes were unfocused and staring out elsewhere. She stifled a sob before it could leak out.

“See what?”

Her gaze fell to the floor, unwilling to witness her prince in such an unforgiving state.

“My prince--” Eir began but Loki was more forceful now, more demanding.

“Why can’t I see?” He growled, aggression now flicking through his features.

“anything.”

The elder sibling said it so minutely he was sure he hadn’t said anything at all.

But Loki’s head jerked to where Thor’s general vicinity was--and he knew then that his words were spoken.

Yet Thor was lost again to his own circumstances, his own failures, his own mistakes.

He backed up as Loki began to shout, began to writhe, began to unravel.

And now he swayed back into himself, finding that he was resting on the floor, struggling to breathe, to see, to feel appropriately.

And he struggled for a while.

He struggled.

And he knew, deep down, it was nothing compared to Loki’s.

(((*!*))) 
It was after Thor had stared blankly at his bedroom floor for over an hour, his friends trying to console him but his mouth not working to tell them what was wrong, that he heard from a guard that his father was requesting to see him in the throne room.

He had walked there on unsteady legs, his hands still trembling and his breath giving out more than once. His eyes were bloodshot and raw from rubbing away the tears onto his shirt sleeves.

He couldn’t get ahold of himself and he hated for father to see him like this but it didn’t seem like he had any other choice. If he could have stayed in his bedroom frozen for all of eternity instead, he would have chosen that. He would have accepted that as his type of punishment. He would have…he would have preferred it.

Over half of Asgard’s army had perished in the battle and still Thor was none the wiser as to where Thanos was hiding. He feared, if Thanos knew what he was doing when he struck Loki, if he knew he would cause this state of blindness, then maybe he was hoping to come back to finish the job.

The sense of finality in that, that no place was safe, wracked through Thor’s soul more than he thought possible. Thor felt small and tiny and…human. How could he have gotten so lost upon his journey? Where was this life leading him and did he have the strength to see it through?

Where could he go to call home now that everything was at stake?

He shuddered because he had no idea. He shuddered because he thought to how empty Loki’s words had been when he had explained, however briefly, about Thanos and what Thanos had done to him during his traumatic stay with the Titan. He’d said that no place was safe, and Thor had assured him, stupidly now, that they’d find a safe place again soon, but with this new predicament and the Titan still at large--how, how exactly did Thor think this through?

Because he was starting to fear that he hadn’t and that may have just cost him everything he held dear.

So he moved robotically into the throne room and only looked up once when he heard the heavy door shut behind him.

Father was resting upon his throne, his hands wringing each other, the wrinkles parting his skin like waves of the ocean on white sandy beaches. His shoulders hung low, his posture slouched, something Thor had only seen a small handful of times.

He looked out at Thor but almost didn’t completely see him, either.

“My son,” he began with his voice shaky. “You know why it is I’ve called you into seeing me today?” His gaze crystallized and found its way to Thor’s, but Thor was looking away in fear and spite.

“I imagine so.” Thor said softly, petulant even.

Anger sparked in Odin’s tongue.

“You should never have gone there! You should have never tried to fight the Titan alone!”

Thor didn’t remark back--he couldn’t find the words to or the strength to.

“You claim to have done so to avenge your mother’s death but all I see is that you’ve wrought war and shame to the kingdom. You’ve unleashed a war no people of Asgard should come to face and you did so by defying your king and going against my strict orders. I told you boys not to go.” His voice softened, the anger sputtering out of him. “And yet you still went.”

Odin stopped, sighing gruffly.

“And now your brother is lying in shambles in the healing rooms with the Mad Titan still out there plotting to murder hundreds more. Who is to say He won’t stop here once more either Himself or His Children to kill again? Are you satisfied with yourself, Thor?”

Resignation fell deep within Odin’s words and Thor took them as he took anything he’d been doing lately--personally and deeply.

“I know. Father,” his voice cracked in anguish. “I know.” He shook his head, the organ behind his skull aching from pain, grief and maybe the three prints of mead he’d already consumed thus far (and wasn’t planning on stopping any time soon).

“I blame myself for this more than you will ever realize, father.” Remorse echoed in the pang of his voice as it crumpled under the weight of the Allfather’s gaze.

Odin lay in silence for a moment too long before he said, almost politely, “But you shouldn’t.” He let out a long breath. “You shouldn’t because it wasn’t your fault.”

Thor looked up at his king, his father, in unveiled shock.

“Then whose--?”

“It was mine, thinking you were ready. Thinking you could be safe.”

“No, father, I--”

“Your mother would not have wanted this. Not in her name. Some things just happen. Some things are just not meant to be. But the fact that you will blame yourself for something outside of your control speaks higher volumes than if it hadn’t happened to begin with. You must forgive yourself, my son, so that you can dually expect Loki to, one day, as well.” Odin looked sadly at his first born.

“It will not come easily, for you or for your brother. But it will come, Thor. It will come.” His vision blurred for a few seconds before he cleared his throat.

“For now, I cannot have you two here.” The Allfather held his own grief within his face. “Thanos now knows of you and your powers and I am fearful that He will find some way to track you both here.” He drew in a slow, long breath before he let it out in small sputters. “In his state, Loki will not make it. I know not, either, what Asgard can provide for him.” He licked his lips, the skin on them rough and weak. “You and your brother must flee this realm. Go to another. Find some flavor of peace. Build your army, wield your weapons, form a team. Whatever it is that you need now, you know His tactics, you know how He fights, so gather together all of that information and find a path for you and your brother going forwards.

“I expect you both alive and as well as can be, by the end of this,” Odin instructed, eye radiating warmth that Thor hadn’t seen there in the longest time.

“But father, I--”

“Shush, Thor. You need be on your way. Pack your things and bring Loki some place safer. And when you’re ready, when you’re able, do forgive yourself because Loki is going to need every avenue of hope for himself that you can offer.” Odin’s head tilted slightly. “And so will you. Find others you can surround yourself with, express your own fears and desires and then help Loki to rebuild his own. He’ll need you. Asgard will need you. And you will also need you to, too. It’s what’s best for you both.”

He slipped Gungnir in his grasp, allowing the magical item to bounce once upon the throne room’s floor, and Thor felt himself wander back to his room with his head full of thoughts and emotions raging inside him like a storm.

He had no idea what had just happened, what was going to happen or how they were all going to get there in one piece.

But one thing was for sure: his father’s assurances that Loki would somehow, in some manner, be okay and that the Allfather was genuinely looking out for him, blossomed something left within Thor’s being that needed further nutrients and nourishment.

(((*!*))) It had been a few days longer than Thor would have liked after the Allfather’s decree that he and his brother needed to leave but he’d finally just gotten Loki to tell him the names of the books he’d like to bring with him, and the types of clothing he wished to pack as well. Thor placed their items in as many bags as possible, rucksacks and the like, and when Thor decided they were full enough, he was asking Loki out of instinct if he looked all right. He was even flashing Loki a forced grin but paled at the realization of his words. Loki, in turn, bitterly huffed in response as he was sitting up in his mattress, the white sheets from the healing rooms draping over his legs, thin and pale in the soft light. Thor reminded himself, not for the first time, to choose his words more carefully. Although he had returned with some forms of hope for his brother, mostly due to his conversation with the Allfather, he still had his doubts and his insecurities: thus proving it wasn’t the time to joke or make light of the seriousness of the situation. The fact that he and his brother would have to be departing from their realm to seek out the help and solace of another was soul crushingly hard to bear and Thor had been trying every hour of the day not to think about it, to not accept the new reality as just that--a new reality. He wasn’t there yet. He just wasn’t. And more importantly, Loki wasn’t there yet either. He hadn’t moved from his bed in the healing rooms and he hadn’t been eating either. He would take a few sips of water here and there but once he heard the clattering of the dishes he’d grow three shades darker in his face out of pure rage. Thor had found the one mug that Eir had offered Loki that first day and was going to toss it out when Loki, softly from his bed, had asked where he was going. For a split second, the thunder god thought that his brother had healed himself, that he could see him lingering over the trash can, but when he looked back at him, he still saw murky eyes and he had to mentally toss his head off a cliff to think so foolishly that things could change that rapidly. He still had a sinking feeling of hope that this wasn’t a new permanent condition. He offered such platitudes and assurances to his brother at times, hoping to earn back a small smile or a playful look in his brother’s eyes. When he received it, he thought he’d have felt better but the shadow of doubt that he was raising awareness to something that could possibly never happen made him feel a little more jaded, a little more cynical and a little more critical. Regardless, Loki expressed interest in not wanting to part with the mug so Thor had slipped it into one of their rucksacks. As he turned to Loki again, he sighed internally. “Are you ready?” he asked instead, knowing that Loki did not yet know of the planned planet they were going to arrive upon. “As I’ll ever be,” he managed to say, lips pressed tightly together. “Are you all right?” Thor asked, stupidly. Loki didn’t say anything in return, leaving Thor in the dark--the same darkness he suddenly realized Loki probably felt abandoned in. Maybe Loki’s actions towards Thor were more out of familiar spite and disbelief than the new changes to their lives. “How are we doing this?” Loki asked instead, eyes cast to the floor. “Doing….?” Thor began, uncertain by what were his thoughts and what were Loki’s. Loki groaned lowly. “How do you expect me to get there, Thor? I can’t walk.” Thor bristled in turn. “Have you tried?” Loki crossed his arms in a rush of limbs. “If you’ve already managed to forget, I can’t see. How am I to walk if I can’t see where I’m going?” Loki said through gritted teeth. “Brother, I only meant--” “Yeah, what exactly did you mean, Thor? To bury me in an early grave next to mother or did you not think that far ahead with your blithering stupidity?” Thor sighed, shoulders slumping. “Loki, I only--” “It doesn’t matter to me what you meant. I’ll ask one more time, Thor, how do you expect me to get there without you?” His eyes had narrowed considerably and he huffed again beneath his breath. “If it’s all right with you, brother, I was thinking of carrying you?” Loki made to protest but Thor cut in this time easily. “It’ll only be for a few moments, outside the castle in a dark alleyway where no one can see us. Then we can call on Heimdall and he can send us from there. I’ll place you down right when we land. It’ll be okay.” “Okay for you, maybe.” Loki rolled his eyes. “But it’ll do. You put me down exactly when we land and not any moment after. On what planet do you believe we’ll actually be welcomed upon?” Thor cringed, keeping a lie to his brother that he wasn’t revealing to him until they were already there. He feared that his younger sibling wouldn’t understand or worse he’d refuse to go there. So Thor thought to himself, by asking himself, that it was best to keep Loki at bay with limited amounts of information. He feared that anything more would overwhelm his brother’s defenses and his system and render him without the capacity to properly cope. He knew he was just trying to do what was best for the two of them, having found themselves alone in such an estranged and odd predicament. “It will be fine,” he evaded with instead. “Are you ready?” He moved towards Loki’s side easily in only a few strides. Thor reached out his hands and as soon as they made contact with Loki’s skin, his brother squirmed as mistrust flashed across his face. “Don’t touch me,” he began as Thor sputtered, “without warning.” Thor sighed, biting his tongue sharply. “Fine,” Thor said, uttering quietly, “I’m going to touch your shoulders now.” Loki allowed him this gesture without further distraction. He felt as Thor’s arms came around his body and lifted him like a feather off the bed. He closed his eyes as he bit the inside of his lips, the pain of the headache he had blasting through his skull was creating nausea in his stomach that he prayed to the Norns wouldn’t be unleashed upon the travel through the Bifrost and wherever the hell it was that Thor thought to be a fitting place for their confinement. Loki had been finding that his eyes grew drier when he had them open for too long. He also found that having them closed helped most by setting the illusion that he could still see if he wanted to. Of course, for now, he couldn’t but that was beside the point. When he did look out with his eyes open, he still found it as disorienting and as hopeless as he had that first time he had awoken.   He didn’t know if he was ever going to see again and the fact that no other Asgardian on the planet knew of that either scared the absolute shit out of him. If Asgard knew not, than whom could he rely on? And when were the nightmares going to go away? Or the pain still left in his skull or the agony left behind of losing one of his senses? He was right about the Bifrost, because when they did manage to swim into the cacophony of the rainbow light--Loki could tell by the distorted sway and surge of the power he felt around them, magically speaking of course--he threw up his minimally ate lunch all over himself and (he hoped) also on Thor. Thor, with some amount of pleasure, didn’t voice aloud his woes about this but instead took it like a champ. When he set Loki down upon the ground and the trickster heard the wind ruffling through his long raven hair, the sounds of loud horns screaming into the air, the smell of a city, and the stench of it at that: he knew. He realized. And he turned to his brother in disgust, fear and frustration. He chucked a dagger at where he hoped his brother was and shouted out loudly, “You mewling quim!” It was Midgard. Thor had brought him back to Midgard. And if Loki thought Asgard was hell, Midgard wasn’t going to fare any better. Plus, he begrudgingly realized, he needed Thor. Thor was his own pair of working eyes now and it wasn’t quite like he could run away from him and find shelter. But that secondary realization only bubbled up dependency on the one person he didn’t want to ever see again (the one person he blamed for everything more than himself already). So he tossed one dagger then two. And he didn’t stop until he heard a new voice from somewhere else around him. Oh great, he thought to himself. Just what I needed: more witnesses to my utter demise.  He barely caught the words of question but he knew one thing for sure: something was hurtling towards him and for the split second he had to pray, he wished it would just completely take him out of his misery.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

**Trigger Warning:** Gore, feels, language, suicidality/suicide attempt
 “Don’t tell me you brought back that fucking asshole?!” Clint Barton was clenching his pearly white teeth with so much tension he practically heard them squeak in his mouth. He was already on the defensive--another bad guy had managed to slip through his fingers today and he really wasn’t happy about it. It’d been his own fault, too: that monster standing before them still being in his ear making him second guess his decisions, still wreaking havoc on his shattered mind even despite all the training, therapy and medication he’d been on since to process it all. Because of all that, he’d been too distracted to properly deal with the baddie when he’d uttered similarly taunting phrases, sending Clint reeling, until he’d managed to dash between the buildings away from the team, and when they turned up, he was gone. So, apparently, he wasn’t finished processing. And he hated that with a passion. And now the vile creature that eroded its way into his skull with some magic glow stick was back in the flesh? With a blonde-haired Asgardian who seemed somehow confused and concerned by the way the lines rose in his forehead and the placating gesture he was trying to administer to the Avengers? That just made his blood boil even faster. He was already leveling his bow and arrows at the demigods, prepared to go through Thor if he had to because fuck it, like he was going to let this bullshit happen all over again. His eyes never left the pair of brothers and if it took his eyes watering from all the wind that whipped through his hair at the top of Avengers Tower, than he guessed he was going to have to be in it for the long haul. He’d deal with watery eyes later when he could lower his defenses. For now, they needed to be up, raised and ready at the get-go. In his periphery he just made out a red-haired assassin, gun held out, lips downturned as she gave a side eye to Bruce, speaking to him softly, “Bruce, don’t go green.” She leveled a hard stare back at the demigods, gears in her head spinning fast. “Not yet.” She quirked a thin brow at the thunder god, watching in a strange amount of fascination as the blonde’s adopted brother was tossing daggers into the space around him and Thor. Few of them made contact though. …Interesting. “God damn it, just when I thought today was gonna lighten up.” Tony was quipping from behind Bruce, still dismantling from his suit as the mission they just had was over. “Rogers, next time I tell you we need omelets for breakfast, you gotta pull through, buddy. If we’d had omelets, none of this shit would be happening right now.” Tony brought his hands up to his face, shaking them back and forth quickly. “It’s like I’m hallucinating. I am hallucinating, right? This can’t be a thing again, can it?”  Tony’s gaze drooped as he scoffed and performed an exaggerated eye roll. This shit again, he thought, shaking his head. Only a year after New York and he was, what, supposed to have forgiven everything? Why exactly were they here? Tony’s brows came together at their starts when the trickster was dissolving into kicking everywhere around his brother, before he found purchase in his shin, then continued to kick it repeatedly over and over. Thor, for what it was worth, only grimaced and took the beating well. But why, though? Something wasn’t adding up. “Okay,” Steve was whispering, raising his shield. “What’s it this time?” His face was clear and impassive but his blue eyes betrayed the weariness in him that hung from his shrouded shoulders. “It’s been a long day.” “It’s two PM.” Tony easily supplied, still eyeing the demigods with apprehension. “That, too,” Steve replied, and waited expectantly as his gaze met Thor’s. Thor….appeared aghast. Shaken. Traumatized. Steve glanced at the archer, the man also exhibiting similar warning signs. This is a volatile situation waiting to explode, Steve thought, calculating in his mind at what height he’d have to jump into action to throw his shield to crisscross Clint’s arrow so that it didn’t kill off the villain they were shocked, to say the least, to see again so…soon? Or ever, really. Steve thought that that ship had sailed a long time ago but it didn’t appear to have stuck. He was hoping Thor would have learned his lesson from last time and sprint off in the other direction with his brother in tow but now Thor was finally setting his hands onto Loki’s shoulders. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Loki cried out, arms shooting out around him in a flurry, smacking Thor in the face who cringed and pointed blue eyes back at his old team. His…first team. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. They had to have the answer, right? This had to have been a good idea, right? Thor wasn’t so sure now, seeing the murderous lines of vision that were looking back at him and his brother. He couldn’t exactly help it then, he realized later. Everything that had happened, all that had been lost just crumbled over Thor’s gaze and his face broke out into an avalanche of tears. He…he wailed and fell to his knees, and it wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, he realized later, because without explanation, without forming into words--words he wasn’t sure he could ever articulate again, with all that had happened--the war they had sought, the loss of his mother, the loss of his brother, his brother’s vision, his home planet’s safety in jeopardy, the threats behind them and all that laid ahead--it wasn’t the right course of action. Because in their eyes, in his new friends eyes, was the monster they had last seen a year ago. And it was immediately in their minds that Loki had something to do with Thor’s tearful sobs as the thunder boomed in the sky and the lightning flashed nearby, hitting a few of the antennae atop buildings in New York City. And of course, somehow, Loki did have to do with it, but it wasn’t in the way that they thought. It wasn’t in the way that caused their mistrust before; they didn’t see Loki the same way Thor did. When Thor looked at Loki he saw his younger brother, he saw his friend, the person he grew up with, the person he would laugh with (and sometimes at, Thor wasn’t necessarily innocent even in his mind’s eye), the person who had his back even if he stabbed him a few times for good spirits. Thor saw all of Loki, or at least, he had thought he had. Even now, things were murky. But seeing and feeling and hearing Loki sound so much like a child again, a child Thor was incapable of truly helping or shielding from the difficulties and the atrocities of the nine realms around them, was so heartbreaking and so disastrous that Thor would have leveled an entire nation if it meant that Loki would get the ability to see again back. But it wouldn’t. Some…some fates were meant to be lived, no matter how unfair, how unjust they were. And for Loki, Thor knew, they were that: unjust. It took away so much from Loki and Thor still wasn’t sure if he’d ever gain that back, if…if Loki would ever gain himself back. So he crumpled. He crumpled like a house of cards, the whole regime of Asgard falling with him, the safety that once wrapped itself like a cocoon around him now completely, irrevocably gone. And with him being gone, lost to the swirling hurricane of his emotions, he was of no aid, no sight to his brother. Thor’s eyes were too busy scrunched up and wrinkled at the corners, his hands covering his face, trying to block the view of his ugly crying; that he couldn’t see for Loki what was unraveling. ….It wasn’t good. And Loki, however cruel he would later think it to be, couldn’t see it happening either. All of a sudden with the acid dripping on his tongue of his contempt for his brother to cry like a child, he heard something in the wind shift, something transform, and before he knew it he was knocked onto his back, the wind shooting out from him like a gust, and his head spun with the motion it took to drop him and land his skull into the gravel below. “Fuck,” he managed to spit out before he was hoisting himself back onto his knees, ready to retort that that was a good play, when something else was slamming into his face. Round, it felt, he surmised, nose freely gushing blood. “--n’t need that….anyway…” he coughed up, spitting out the red fluid onto the dirt beneath him. He was gonna have one hell of a headache later. The next blow came in his leg, which one he wasn’t exactly sure, for all the different pain points that were taking over his body. He was pretty certain, when his hands flicked over the material dug into his thigh, that it was an arrow, clean cut, through and through. He smiled, knowing just who had done it. “Is that the best you’ve got?” Loki screamed--the darkness plunged around him. He staggered, blearily, to his feet, easing on his injured appendage, snarling with the red, warm liquid careening down his face. “Is that all you can do?” His rage was white hot, if he could still see he’d be seeing red and he didn’t mind that his ledger was now bleeding in it too. He’d taken their lives and crushed them with a meticulousness that wasn’t even all that impressive. And he’d do it again. Because why the fuck not? Why not just let the rage take over? It’s not like life had ever done him well before. Why not just lose it all (again) now? “Hahaha,” he chuckled, mouth encased in blood as he hoped it made him seem crazier, more unhinged, more deranged than the last time they’d seen him. They didn’t need to know his horrors. His trials. His downfall. They only needed to fear him. His eyes were watering, but he couldn’t tell, as he stood there and screamed at them, hoping he was looking in the right direction, waiting for the next blow, waiting for the next….moment. “He’s coming for all of you! Mark my words, there will be no crevice you can hide in, no planet where He won’t find you, you’re all nothing to Him, merely pawns--” he spit onto the dirt, the grime, the nothingness, “--in His game to rule. You’re nothing!” His throat was aching and raw but he still shouted out as loud as could be heard. Maybe if the Avengers didn’t kill him, something else brave enough would. There was a heavy silence, and Loki was certain that he’d just imagined all this pain anew, that none of this had actually happened and he was going to awaken in his bed, eyes fully seeing, a nightmare just cooked up again by his imagination and the torture that kept him up most nights, unable to sleep, unable to escape from… “Do it!” Loki cried out, hands clasping around the arrow, the flesh of his pale hands digging into the fabric as he struggled to pull it out. “Kill me!” Loki laughed, sickeningly. “Barton! You know you want to; why not finish the job here? Or are you too small, too weak, to do anything about it?” He waited for the next blow. Waited so long he was sure he forgot how to breathe. Waited so long that when a hand fell onto his flesh again, he winced and curled away, fear again striking into his system, despite how much he tried to save face and not acknowledge it. “Please!” It was Thor’s voice, cracking through the rainfall. When had it begun to rain? “He is injured. Hel-helpless.” Thor was croaking out, words difficult to find. “We come not in fight but in refuge.” “Refuge my ass,” someone said from across the way but just when Loki was expecting his feet to be pulled out from under him and him to be pancaked into the stone around them, he heard a quiet voice, before him, somewhere, somewhere in the darkness, “I’m so sorry.” It was the doctor. And somewhere, somewhere within Loki’s soul when he tried to pick up the rage again, to be blinded by the pain within him, he…he let go. Tears slid down his face. He’d been seen. Heard. Listened to. It was all too much. Maybe he’d lost too much blood again but the world felt like it was shifting and dismantling around him. Everything had gone wrong. Everything was wrong. He was wrong. He was wrong to have thought he could pull up a façade, that he’d have the energy to withstand it. “Just kill me.” He said it so softly, so abandoned in dark space that he wasn’t sure anyone at all heard him speak. “…I can’t.” He looked down. He took a deep breath. He whimpered, quietly, and he prayed, he prayed that they wouldn’t stop him. That Thor wouldn’t be so afraid of letting him go again as he said, “Until Valhalla.” Then he unsheathed a dagger and he did it himself. (((*!*))) It hadn’t exactly gone according to plan. Thor was lost in the shuffle, his tears having been given at a tragically inappropriate time that led him to believe that he had not only killed his brother once already, recently that is, but now twice. How that had managed to unfold, he wasn’t aware, but he was there when he was getting to his feet, clambering over his many limbs, scurrying towards his brother before a shield was whipped into his face and blood began to run down his chin, pooling like little puddles of rain on the tarmac below. Thor’s fear skyrocketed so much he thought his sympathetic nervous system was going to bottom out and he was going to die right there. He was screaming at his friends, trying to reason with them, but it’s like all they had an aim on was his brother, and there was suddenly an arrow sticking out of his thigh and Thor beseeched himself when the rain started to fall, his anger peaking and his terror strengthening, trying to calm the situation that had gotten so out of hand so fast. “Please! Please! Listen to me!” Thor was squawking, hands shaking, trying to intervene between the raging mortals and his brother. “He cannot see!” Thor was blurting out, fearful that this was it, this was the end, this was how their journey came to a head and then fell off the cliff six hundred feet down. “Please!” Thor was saying, trying to speak over Loki’s cries. Thor did a double take when he heard the words Loki was speaking. He was… he was… Horror launched onto Thor’s facial features. His brows came together and rose, and his eyes shone with recognition and realization, that, that of course he should have seen coming but Loki, he was certain of it, was trying to provoke his mortal friends into… In the flash of another strike of lightning, Thor was whirling on his heel. His back was to his friends as he pleaded with his brother, “Loki, please, don’t do this. Don’t do this. I-I only just got you ba-ck.” His voice cracked, emotion pooling out of him. “Loki, please.” He turned to the Avengers, and while the glare in Clint Barton’s eyes hadn’t changed a glimmer, it was Doctor Banner that was the game changer. He was slowly approaching, hand outstretched, even when the others were calling him back over to them, he still approached, stare inquisitive before he managed to lock eyes with Loki. Thor saw the moment, the humanity that eased in his stare then. Bruce’s head tilted to the side as he stopped a few feet from the demigods. “I’m so sorry,” he said so sincerely, speaking to Loki like it was the very first time they’d met. And, maybe, for all intents and purposes, now was that first time, that first time with a new condition, a new ailment that changed everything from what it was before to what it was now. Thor glanced to his brother, whose mask floated away, no longer needed. Thor felt his heart break inside his chest: Loki had craved attention, craved recognition and to be seen and heard for so long, and it wasn’t even--ever--Thor that brought him to that moment of acceptance. Thor tried to swallow past the lump in his throat but he couldn’t quite manage it. The pain that haunted his brother’s face was almost too despondent and too overwhelming to properly breathe passed. “Just kill me.” Loki said and Thor’s life, whatever light he had had within him, immediately blew out. Bruce’s mouth frowned lightly, as he shook his head. “…I can’t.” He wouldn’t. He knew what that was like: to be at the end of the line. So ready to end it all that…that it felt merciful. It felt…it felt necessary and required. But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. If there was anything he’d learned from trying to himself, from having the Other Guy save his life yet again, was that life wasn’t always all that bad. And he wished to tell Loki this, even if it was the most absurd thing he’d ever thought of before, but he felt this need to, this urge, this intensity. He felt…it was so needed, so required, that he couldn’t sputter against the weight of it in his chest and the fractured soul that stood, leaning, before him. He probably should have seen it coming. Having been there… having known what that was like… but he didn’t. He… maybe he couldn’t. Did anyone, ever? Loki said something then, some formless words because the wind didn’t carry them to Bruce’s ears, let alone the rest of the team’s, and it was so overshadowed by a clap of thunder that when he saw Thor lurching forwards, crying out in pain, it was not because Loki had retaliated against his brother but…against himself. …It happened so quickly--but in slow motion at the same time. Bruce had enough time to blink once, dread overtaking him, as he saw the silver flash in the next lightning strike, and past all the rain droplets he heard a sucking noise that lurched into armor. The blade went in. He didn’t see it come back out. He did see Thor collide into his brother, his large hands clamping over the wound, hissing at his other half, declaring him unfit and foolish. He shouted at the others to help. He shouted and it was a few seconds before Bruce was able to unglue his sneakers from the floor and come rushing in. He was still shocked. Still shaken and…and it was different seeing that happen as an outsider than going through it yourself. When it’s your life you’re trying to end versus watching someone else’s clamber into self-destruction. Bruce was already shouting instructions to Tony to get them inside the building, for Steve to get some medical supplies to the main room, for Clint to back off and take space, for Nat to watch over him, and just when he thought he still had three other teammates, there weren’t any left. He cursed beneath his breath and his hands grew slick with the weather, with the blood, with the sweat that he hoped wasn’t infecting the trickster. He felt nauseous all of a sudden like his world was spinning and the tsunami that had come knocking on the door was easily overpowering him. But he had to remain calm. Because someone had to. Someone…someone always had to. (((*!*))) “Shouldn’t we be doing this in the infirmary?” Tony was asking, albeit nervously, wringing his hands and wishing his grey couch wasn’t being sacrificed in the efforts it would take to heal the trickster. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Yeah, so maybe his priorities were still a bit out of whack but it was the principle of the thing, right? He chewed on his bottom lip, feeling equal parts awkward standing there in the main room and feeling somewhat terrible for knocking down a bli--no, he wasn’t sure of that yet. It was hard to see in the rain and harder to hear so he knew he hadn’t--couldn’t have--heard Thor right when he was speaking. Loki wasn’t, couldn’t, be blind, now, right? What did that even mean? What would that mean? For everyone? For them? For the world? And he’d said something about another war, and if Tony could properly breathe passed the hole in his gut he’d be a lot happier about it, too. He was sure he was going to get wasted tonight after the issue they’d had on their latest mission but he was torn now between keeping his guard up and trying to relax a bit. He sighed; nothing was relaxing or conducive to relaxing in this situation. He wasn’t even sure how they had managed to get to this point. But he still felt a little bad, having been the first to knock the demigod down. Loki’s armor had taken the brunt of his repulsor, singed around the edges, but he’d gotten up so that was something, right? Tony drew in a shuddering breath and sighed. There were no easy answers here and he’d have to give Thor a long talk about sharing pertinent information in the future. If, if there’d even be a future. “If I knew he’d make it there, Tony,” Bruce’s voice cut through the tension in the air and wavered its way over to the inventor, “Believe me, I would.” Bruce stated, tone slightly clipped but it was less from Tony’s question and more because of the dire severity of the incidence. To say he was still reeling was an understatement. But he took a deep breath, then another and steadied his gaze, brown eyes flicking to Thor who positively looked like he was going to vomit everywhere. There was fear and disgust rivaling themselves against the tight muscles in his facial features and he looked a little lopsided, if that made any sense (did anything make sense, anyways?), and Bruce swallowed, really hoping Thor wouldn’t. If Thor did, Bruce was sure that the flips in his own stomach would land hotly outside of himself, too. He looked to Loki then, and his gaze softened imperceptibly. He was as surprised by this as the next Avenger but he felt so… much empathy for the trickster. He knew it didn’t make any sense, that the idea was as ludicrous as anything else, and he knew at the same time what harboring those end of life doubts were like and if his eyes weren’t deceiving him and what he realized was true, then they were all dealing with a significantly altered demigod. He didn’t know yet if that was going to prove disastrous or a miracle. A potential rehabilitated type of miracle. For now, to have the ability to decide that future, he had to put everything he had into staunching the blood from freely flowing as it was doing now. “Jarvis, pull up an assessment of Loki’s injuries,” Bruce instructed and Jarvis immediately affirmed it. “It appears to my sensors that Loki is suffering from blood loss from two wounds, one in his right thigh and--” Jarvis began but Tony cut him off strictly. “We got that part, J,” he uttered with a hard tone. It might have been a little harsh but they didn’t need all the gory details. They’d already seen enough as is. “--of course, Sir. While his nose appears to be broken as well, my best advice is to limit the ongoing blood loss. Loki requires surgery to remove the knife safely and stitches to close his wounds. He is likely to have sustained a mild concussion from the abrasion on the back of his head. It would be wise to administer medications, such as an analgesic, and to give a blood transfusion. He appears to be going into shock so immediate action is required. Additionally, watching for any signs of deterioration or improvement over the next twenty-four hours will help significantly as well.” Jarvis’ voice was calm, cool and collected and it eased the heightened emotions existing in all participating parties. “Is a blood transfusion a good idea?” Steve was asking softly, leaning forwards in a chair that he had managed to crumple his aching body into, after spending too much time standing awkwardly with his long limbs. Thor threw him a murderous glare and Steve’s shoulders slumped automatically. “I just mean, he’s not one of us. Will human blood work well with his system?” Not one of us, Thor thought, bitter and alone. It wasn’t like Thor was the same species as Loki himself because if he was he could offer more help but it seemed like Thor was just as useless, helpless and broken as his brother. “It’ll have to do,” Bruce confirmed, although he had his own anxieties about the situation deep within. “We have to try something.” He glanced at Thor and said to him softly, “We’re gonna figure this out.” “Before or after he dies?” Thor murmured with such a broken tone as a tear rolled down his face. Bruce’s lips formed a thin line when he knew he couldn’t offer any platitudes that would ease both of their anxieties. He didn’t know. He hated it but he didn’t know. He looked to Tony and said instead, “Get me a blood transfusion kit, a few bottles of analgesics, and a box of sutures.” Tony nodded quickly and set out down the hall towards the stairs. Bruce jerked his head over to Steve, “Give me three of those packs of gauze and start placing them over the bleeds.” Steve jostled himself out of his chair and hurried over to the plastic wrapped gauze packs. He handed a few to Bruce and Bruce was telling Thor, “We’re gonna have to be quick to replace the gauze with our hands. I’ll wrap the gauze around the knife and you just have to not move it.” “Sh-shouldn’t we take it out?” Thor stuttered, eyes blank and unfeeling. He’d already cycled through so many emotions that had cost him his brother’s health once, he was not about to have it happen a third time. Bruce’s eyes reflected compassion towards him as he said delicately, “No, whatever it’s pressing against right now is keeping pressure on the wound. If we take it out now and we’re not in a sterile environment, along with his other injuries, and no blood transfusion and all the other worst case scenarios that could possibly be occurring, it’s probably a death sentence. But--” Bruce moved his head to meet Thor’s gaze. It was difficult but he managed to. “But we’re not there yet. For now we leave it in because he’s gonna need surgery for us to really handle the after effects.” Bruce said to Steve, “Come place a pack of gauze on his leg, but get some gloves first.” Brown eyes met blue and Steve held his gaze before trotting back over to the things he had already managed to get ahold of. As he finished snapping them on and holding down the wound from the arrow in Loki’s thigh, Tony was rushing back into the room with the additional amounts of supplies. “Elevate his leg, yeah, just like that. Tony, put on gloves and switch with Thor and I, we need to suction out his airway from the blood in his face.” Tony did as he was told without even a snappy retort or exaggerated sigh and it was in that small moment of acknowledgement that Bruce felt a dash of fear roll through him. It was a fraction of a second but he genuinely felt the reality of the situation dawning on him. Before he could get lost in his feelings he was telling Thor, “Tony’s going to put down these bandages over our hands, and we’re going to quickly remove our hands so that Tony can clamp down with the gauze, okay? Then I’m going to suction out the blood in his throat from the post nasal drip happening. We have to secure his airway and I’m gonna need you to take a few steps back. We’ve got him now. We’re gonna do everything we can.” Bruce’s tone was light yet strained and Thor nodded mutely, not entirely comprehending what was happening, his mind still reliving the events that happened what felt like years ago over and over inside his skull. What had Loki said before he dug the dagger in? At what motion was Thor able to reach out and touch his brother? Was it before the blade went in or after? What if he was too late? What if… “How-how did this happen?” He thought he had kept it in his mind but he found the words landing out of his mouth instead, tumbling off his tongue like rolling down a grassy hill. “What matters now is getting him help,” Bruce said instead, nodding to Tony to get in position. They counted down verbally and Thor and Bruce removed their hands once Tony was clamping down the gauze. Bruce rushed over to pick up the suction equipment on the table as Thor sat back on his hunches, staring numbly ahead at his brother. How had this happened? He thought through teary eyes. If he hadn’t shown so much emotion, he had said something more, to preface what he was mourning, to not paint Loki as the culprit and the perpetrator, than maybe they wouldn’t all be in this situation. He’d led Loki blindly into another battle and this time Loki didn’t see it coming to him. He’d brought hell down upon his brother all over again and he’d had to witness once more him dying before his eyes. Thor started to shake, his hands trembling in shivers as it felt like cold ice was splintering from within his soul. It spread like a disease and Thor felt so angry at himself and so lost and alone and it wasn’t even like he was the one who was blind, the one who was dying, again, the one who was being lost. He felt so bad for all of his feelings when they were nothing compared to Loki’s. Loki. He’d tried to… tried to…. He couldn’t think about it. As the world blurred around him and the heat blasted into his face and the cold chill encased his body, he felt overcome with acceptance that his consciousness was fleeting. He slumped over and fell to his shoulder with a resounding plop. (((*!*))) “Point Break?” A little shake occurred. A small slap. “Pooooint Break?” He garbled out a heavy groan. “Does Point Break want a cracker?” “Tony.” The inventor heightened his tone like he was speaking to a pet. “Does Point Break want a cracker? Does he? Does he?” “Tony!” “What? We need some comedic relief.” “Not now.” “If not now than when?” Eyelids pulled apart slowly as blue irises met a bright light above. He groaned again and muttered something he wasn’t sure was even English before he recognized the face crouching above him. It was the smart aleck inventor and he was holding out a white salted square. “There he is!” Tony yelped and moved the cracker so that it was poking Thor’s face. The thunder god flinched backwards and narrowed his eyes. “Stark,” he said gruffly. “Stop, what are you--?” “You passed out,” another voice came from the corner of his vision. Thor’s gaze flicked right and saw the archer sitting on the arm of a chair in the distance. “Bruce told me I needed to feed you,” Tony remarked lightly, handing the demigod the cracker and a tall glass of water. Thor nodded stiffly and sat up, then froze when things flooded back to him. “Where’s my brother?” he asked frantically. “In the infirmary,” Natasha replied, hand under her chin, red hair tussled around the curvature of her face. “Bruce and Steve performed surgery. He got a transfusion and seems to be stabilizing.” She leaned forwards, her elbows digging into her knees. “They’re gonna keep an eye on him but he should pull through.” “And you, mister,” Tony pointed to Thor and stifled a small yawn. “You need to get better at your information delivery.” “Pertinent information delivery,” Natasha was clarifying, her expression soft and curious. “What happened?” she asked, hoping for an answer but not necessarily holding her breath. Thor deflated instantaneously. “Too much,” he stated with a mournful look. Just when they thought the silence would last forever, he continued, “Loki and I sought to avenge our mother’s death. When Loki came here a year ago he did so under the control of a Mad Titan named Thanos. Thanos had tortured my brother so much so that he still dares not speak of the horrors that were unleashed upon him. It doesn’t absolve him of his hand in the matter however it explains it.” Thor sighed. “We made to go after the Titan with half of Asgard’s army. We made it there and we were…were able to hold him off but Loki was already injured and Thanos looked at me, eyes gleaming in pleasure as he purposefully blinded my brother. It was… mind-numbing.” Thor shuddered momentarily. “Loki died.” His gaze shifted down, unable to look at them. “He was unconscious for five days and when he returned he was okay at first and then, then he couldn’t see.” Thor took in a slow breath. “My father thought it was too risky to keep Loki in his current state at home on Asgard, so he sent us here in hopes that my friends could offer something that Asgard never could. But I-I fucked that up too.” Thor looked everywhere else than into the eyes of his friends. It was too hard, too difficult, too… much. “So your dad thought sending you and that monster here to escape a war you started, kind of, made more sense because at least your home planet would be spared but really you’d just be bringing it back to Earth again?” Clint was asking incredulously, but his brows were furrowed and he looked conflicted, torn between anger and gradual acceptance of a larger threat he wasn’t sure any one of them were ready to face. Thor looked up at him and blinked, lips pursed for a moment. “If you wish to perceive it like that, than, yes, I suppose so.” “If Asgard is as ill-equipped to handle this assailant to send you both here, what’s to say that Earth will fare any better?” Natasha asked sincerely. “It’s a timeless war,” Thor replied instead, evading answering Nat’s question. “He would have been coming here regardless. I fear that He may still go towards Asgard, but He was always going to come here. You all are housing stones that He craves and that He is willing to sacrifice the universe for into finding and wielding.” “Stones?” Tony asked while opening and closing his mouth in thought. “He’s after stones?” “Gems, more so,” Thor said. “He already had two in our battle with him. He has His children do some of His dirty work, Corvus Glaive is the one who killed our mother, and if Thanos is to wield all six infinity stones, He will destroy the universes across the entire solar system and nine realms. He is a dangerous monster. His plan was always to come back to Earth again. My father has hopes that because Loki and I now know His strategies of fight, that we may be able to shed some light onto you in efforts to tighten a retaliation against Him in the future.” Thor sighed. “But that’s only if Loki survives this again and if he’s able to…see again.” Thor bit his lip in thought. “I cannot and yet can completely understand why Loki tried to end his life. He did something similar when he chose to fall from the Bifrost. I thought, I thought I saw something of my brother again in his eyes when he learned of Frigga’s death and when he came to me with the idea of setting about an attack on Thanos. If I’d only argued with him more, discouraged him, done something different, maybe none of this would have happened.” “Or maybe it just bought you time,” Natasha said carefully, eyes alight with consideration. “If this Thanos was going to come after Earth and after these gems regardless of whether you and Loki began a war,” she paused, “it sounds like a war that was inevitable to begin with. You moved the pawns in the game differently and different circumstances came to light. It’s not necessarily your fault, Thor.” “You’re blaming yourself for something you could have never predicted,” Tony said in a hushed tone, munching on a few slices of cheese. Nat nodded in understanding. Clint huffed but he bit back any scathing retorts. Thor took a few moments to think about their answers and their questions. He was in the middle of thanking them when the elevator pinged and Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers came striding out. “He’s stable,” Bruce said brightly, turning on his heel to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. “Do we have a game plan?” Steve asked, looking at each teammate respectively. “Thor says we’ve got to get ready for a war from the guy who sent Loki a year ago.” Clint informed them, expression grim. Steve’s brows rose and he frowned. “We better get some sleep then.” He looked to Thor. “Tony can set you up with a room.” “I can?” Tony was asking but hushed after Steve’s stare turned disapproving of his nature. “I can,” Tony remarked thereafter, sighing before launching himself out of the chair and into the very edge of the room. “Come on, Point Break, I can get you situated down here.” Thor forced a smile before retreating after the inventor. “Well,” Steve said, exhaling loudly. “It’s been a day.” Clint snorted and Natasha was chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, boys, but which one of us exactly is going to update Fury on the newest revelations?” Natasha looked to either man but both stayed silent. After a moment, Steve suggested, “Hold off on it for now. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. We all need a good night’s rest. Send him our prognosis on the mission we did have today and keep your lips tight about this one. Maybe, maybe we can find out more when Loki awakens again.” Steve let the notion slide for now before turning on his heel and heading out of the room, the fading sunlight parting behind the clouds giving light to the tower, even when light seemed to be so hard to find now. (((*!*))) His cranium was killing him. Between the sludge of his thoughts and the out of body-like experience, he was going through hell and he didn’t like what he was finding. When he managed to open his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness, and was immediately doused in fear. Where was he? He tried to swing an arm up to his face but found that he couldn’t. Terror swam through his vision as he tried to move again, feeling a tight latch of fabric extend from around his elbows and again over his legs. He’d been restrained. Of course, why wouldn’t he be? If only he could remember why he was here, what he was doing there and what exactly it was that was happening. The details were foggy, his thought processes slow and when he realized one thing it was all coming back to him at once. He was on Midgard, with Thor, and he was now blind. He was dead for a while on Asgard and was blinded by Thanos. He remembered that last sighting of Thor before his eyes turned. Worry in his face, blue eyes as bright as the ocean, uncertainty on his brow. Loki sighed, touching his body down upon whatever piece of furniture was holding him up. He remembered packing with Thor to leave Asgard. He remembered Thor screaming and mourning and then things were a bit blurry. But he remembered the validation and the depths of sadness that lingered in his soul and he was able to piece together why it was that he was restrained now. Oh… that. Right. That…that was bound to be embarrassing for the trickster. But at least it couldn’t get any worse than this moment right now, right? Right? “Hey Reindeer Games, you’re awake!” Loki gasped, of course it could.