#mcu reader inesrt

If this was dying, death was not so nearly as horrible as he'd feared.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Upon further rumination, dying was plenty painful. Thanos must have decided crushing Loki's windpipe had not been punishment enough. Now the Mad Titan sought to crack Loki's skull open with Mjölnir. For Odin's sake, Thanos had already cast Loki to the floor like refuse! Must he suffer further indignities before being allowed to pass?

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Evidently so. The lights having faded into a void of black, Loki pressed his eyelids still tighter as the pain lanced through his head.

"Would you—"

—just get it over with already, you overgrown prune, is what Loki intended to say. But he didn't even get the first two words out in understandable form. Trying to do so made him feel as though someone had stuffed his throat with shards of broken glass. A metallic taste filled his mouth, accompanied by some sort of warm liquid. He coughed the molten stuff out from within his burning chest.

"Shhhhhh," someone nearby murmured.

Whoever they were, they weren't Thor. That the voice belonged to a woman made that obvious; Thor had never shared Loki's predilection for swapping genders like clothing. Another of Thanos's monstrous children, perhaps?

Something wet prodded Loki's pounding forehead, and he lurched away—or attempted to. Once again, he found himself with little control over his own body. His shoulders whacked against a hard object that similarly could not be Thor. Even his brother wasn't that flat and unyielding.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Oh, for the love of—" the same voice said crossly.

The cool, damp thing near Loki's face vanished. He heard a squelching sound, then rapid footsteps crossing a floor—a distinctly not metal floor.

Bang! Bang! Ba—

A door opened.

"Miss [Name]," barked a new voice—not an Asgardian accent, Loki noted, and belonging to someone wholly unfamiliar to him, "if you don't—"

"I would request that you keep your voice down, Mr. Secretary," said the woman from before, albeit in a much cooler tone than the one she'd used with Loki.

A thump. Boots on wood, if Loki was not mistaken. His head hurt so badly even the softest noise felt like another blow, but he thought he could identify that much. Whoever this man was, he was now in the...room? Home? Escape pod? Loki finally had to know.

Though his eyelids felt welded shut, he pried them open to find himself somehow miraculously no longer aboard either the Statesman or Sanctuary II. Instead, the sight that greeted him was that of a small room. Night dark as pitch pressed against the windows, leaving only a multitude of candles burning on seemingly every surface to light the place. Their trail his eyes followed all the way to a doorway where two figures stood: a pale-skinned biped with a mustache towering over another biped entirely swallowed in shadows.

"And I," said the mustached one, "request that when I summon you, you come to see me. And if I have to come retrieve you, I request that you open the door at once."

"Mr. Secretary, I would remind you that I am under no obligation to follow your 'summons' at all."

"The Accords clearly state—"

"I may have signed your Accords, but I am not one your chess pieces to be moved at your whim. There were provisions put in place for people like me."

"People like you. Not people like him."

The man pointed in Loki's direction without taking his eyes off the woman. Had Loki been able to speak, he might have had a snide response prepared. But he couldn't, and he didn't, and the smaller figure stepped in front of the finger to shove the man's arm down.

"Please try to remember whose territory you are on, Mr. Secretary. Those provisions do allow me to act in self-defense," she said.

"Self-defense! Aiding and abetting more like." The man let out a scornful laugh. "That man is an intergalactically wanted war criminal!"

"Some might say the same of you in the near future, Mr. Secretary." The woman made to step away, but the man reached out to grab her shoulder before she could get very far.

"I have every right to take him into custody," he said.

The woman wrenched her bare, [color]-skinned shoulder out the man's grasp. "He is in no condition to be moved, especially not to your godsforsaken rock. Do you also have the right to watch him die?"

Though the man said nothing in response, Loki could see a mutinous glitter in his eyes despite the flickering candlelight surrounding all three actors in this little drama.

"He won't receive proper medical care at the Raft. We both know you taking him would be as good as a death sentence."

"I couldn't care less if the little bastard dies!" the man burst out. "How many of our good men and women have died because of him? And you think he ought to be allowed to make a full recovery and murder more?"

"How many more might die without him?" The woman's voice had dropped, and yet she sounded so firm that there could be no question that she meant what she asked. The man stared down at her, speechless once more, but this time his eyes had gone wide. "They're already here, aren't they, Mr. Secretary?" she went on in an innocent tone. "The monsters looking for the Stones? How many of your precious Avengers have already gone missing?"

A shock of ice-cold lightning flashed through Loki's very core. Stones? Avengers? Could he really be so cursed? Whatever stroke of luck had seen him use enough dark magic to escape Thanos with his injuries had been no luck at all. He'd only gotten away as far as Midgard, where at least two damned Infinity Stones waited for their master to claim them. Worse, by the sound of things, Thanos's children had already arrived and already won.

As his heart and mind raced, a burst of white light filled the room. The glare of it burned Loki's already aching head and left a smear of purplish blue across his vision. Terrified, able to breathe only shallowly without bringing more blood into his mouth, he blinked as fast as he could to recover his vision. He could do nothing but accept his fate now, whether that be at Thanos's hands or those of the angry man's, but he preferred to retain some semblance of dignity either way this go-round.

When at last he could see clearly again, however, Thanos did not stand in the wreckage of the building. Nor did any of his children, Loki realized, nor the man from before. Only one person remained, and that was the woman. She had her back toward him as another white light surrounded the door she stood in front of.

Then she turned her face to him. Their eyes met across the dark room. Her angry expression melted at once.

“Oh,” she said, “you’re awake.”

Loki didn’t even manage to open his mouth to answer before his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out from pain and fear.

******

Next Loki woke, he found himself in an airy, well-lit room. Day had broken, and clear sunshine beamed through the many windows on the walls. It was the same place he had woken in previously. The extinguished candles clustered across every visible flat surface were proof enough of that. He could also see the same door from before. Only one other shut door led away from where he lie. Nothing moved around him. Birds chirped outside at such a decibel that he could hardly believe he'd slept through their incessant racket.

Except that he still hurt. Bor, he hurt. But Loki had not lived this long without knowing, generally, what sort of situation he had gotten caught in. Throbbing, stabbing, straining, burning, he pushed himself into a seated position against the stack of pillows behind his head. His gasp for air when he made it felt like a knife lodged deep inside his throat. There would be time to catalog his injuries later, perhaps, and less of a chance of that if he didn't seize this opportunity to take note of where he was.

What he saw surprised him somewhat. Though tidy, the one-room structure held a lot of clutter. In between all the candles sat hunks of rocks and crystals, some polished, others rough. Many were Midgardian in nature, but others Loki could tell at a glance weren't local at all. Piles of books in varying conditions littered the polished wood floor. Every window held at least one plant, each different, each in obviously robust health. Perhaps strangest of all was the mound of pillows and knitted blankets a few feet away from his resting place—the only messy thing in the entire place.

Not that it mattered. This homey little cottage would not last long with Thanos on the way, if he had not arrived during Loki's second bout of unconsciousness. Rather than sitting around and admiring the cleaning job, he needed to be finding a way out. His leg screamed in pain as he forced it out from underneath the sheet and put his foot on the floor. He ignored it. What was a little pain now compared to what he would feel when Thanos got ahold of him again?

"You're not strong enough yet for that sort of nonsense," someone said.

He sucked in a breath so swiftly that it triggered another coughing fit. The taste of blood flooded his mouth once more. His head spun with pain. Something rustled softly over by the door. Then Loki heard footsteps for a second or two before he felt a hard object against his mouth. Before he could gather his wits about him enough to shove the object away, a cold, bitter liquid flowed across his tongue and into his waiting throat. Loki spluttered as much of it entered his lungs, and yet even as he did the pain in his chest subsided somewhat.

Once his breathing evened out, the concoction stopped pouring into his mouth. The hard object vanished. Loki inhaled tremulously.

"I told you that you weren't strong enough," said the same voice from before. Now that he thought about it, Loki recognized the voice as belonging to the woman who had kept him safe the last time he'd been awake.

It was she that sat beside him now. His eyes met hers consciously for the first time—beautiful, sparkling, [color], and indignant. Definitely indignant. How women across so many realms and cultures could master the same look was a mystery for the ages. She didn't give him a chance to ask. With a snort, she stood and bustled over to the door through which the mustached man had burst before. After she'd gathered a weaved basket into her arms, she stepped over to a nearby kitchen hung with shining copper pots and bouquets of drying herbs.

"That was hardly my fault," Loki said into the silence. "You startled me. I didn't realize I had company."

The woman smiled at him over her still-bare shoulder. "You don't. You're company. And from the stories I've heard, Loki of Asgard ought to be a little more difficult to catch unawares."

"You'll forgive me if my near-death experience put me a little off my game."

Again, she said nothing. The sink turned on without a touch as you unloaded dirt-encrusted vegetables from the basket. Interesting. Though the room held many trappings of the bog-standard Midgardian witch, Loki had never seen a Midgardian perform any sort of magic, mundane or not.

"And to whom should I direct my thanks for saving my life?" he asked pointedly.

"Me. Mostly."

"Yes, and who is me?"

She paused in unloading her foodstuffs to give him a pursed-lipped look. Then her head whipped back away from him again she replied, "[Name]."

"[Name]." The sound of it tasted interesting on his tongue. "Thank you, [Name]."

"Don't thank me. I wouldn't say you're out of the woods yet."

Loki lifted a hand to his ruined throat. "So I've noticed. And may I ask..."

Well, now that he thought about it, he had a plethora of questions. A given name hardly got him anywhere. But before he could select a single query from the dizzying array crowding his mind, you supplied an answer him:

"I don't know."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know what happened. The cards have been cryptic." Was that a note of annoyance he heard in your voice? "All I've got from them is something about Thanos and the Infinity Stones. I don't even think you’re supposed to be here."

He hardly registered that last sentence. The mere mention of the Mad Titan made Loki feel very cold even underneath the considerable bulk of his blanket. His voice sounded even raspier when he spluttered, "Are they—has he—"

"He's not here."

              "How would you know?"

"I'd know." You dropped your now-empty basket onto the gleaming wood countertop. Perhaps you spotted the horror in Loki's eyes as you turned to him, because you went on, "And if I didn't, my next-door neighbors would let me know."

"Neighbors?" Loki squeaked. Clearing his throat only made his vocal cords throb.

You didn't remark on that, just nodded slowly. "They're the ones that brought you to me a few days ago."

At last, something that Loki could latch on to! Even the vaguest of clues as to his location would aid him in working out a spell. He'd escaped from Thanos once; he could do it again.

"And where, exactly, might your neighbors have found me?" he asked.

You opened your mouth. Loki leaned forward in anticipation. Before you could utter a single word, however, someone knocked on the door. The noise was a far cry from the incessant, head-rending banging of earlier. Still, he noticed that your normally [color] skin paled several shades at the sound.

"That's probably them now," you said.

That didn't quite explain your change in color or the jittery way you rushed over to the door. Loki's eyes followed you there. Too late did he think to pull the blanket over his head to hide himself. In his current condition, it would have been a struggle to do so before you opened it to reveal —

"Steve? Natasha?"

At least you sounded as horrified as he felt by the sudden appearance of two Avengers on your doorstep. They could be no other, though they didn't look quite right. The former had dark hair now, as well as a beard, and the latter had turned blonde. But who else could it be? Who else would show up at Loki's weakest point?

His alarm increased as you threw your arms briefly around Natasha. The alarm swiftly turned into suspicion when he noticed she made no move to throw you off.

"I don’t understand," you said, as you released her and allowed the two to enter your home. "Why are you back? Where's Tony?"

"We're not sure," Steve answered.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than did his and Loki's eyes meet across the room. Loki noticed that Steve's gaze had changed just as drastically as his appearance in the intervening years. Much of the sadness was gone. Now there was just some blazing hardness dampened not at all as he took in Loki's injuries. Loki knew that Natasha was looking at him, too, but he was too busy with his staring contest with Steve to pay her much mind.

Oddly, he felt no satisfaction whatsoever when Steve broke their stare off to return his attention to you:

"How's your patient?"

You didn't miss a beat. "Not well."

"Can you leave him?"

"No."

"Is moving him an option?"

"Absolutely not."

"Better question." Loki started painfully at the sound of Natasha's voice right next to him. She'd come to stand beside his bed, arms crossed, the look in her eyes even colder than Steve's had been. "Do we care what happens to him?"

Of course. Of course Loki had escaped the greatest threat the universe had ever seen—for a given value of "escape," he had to admit—only to die at the hands of the so-called heroes his brother had considered his friends. At least Steve's presence was likely to ensure Loki's death came swiftly. If Thanos's children were already scouting out the planet, perhaps Natasha would even be doing him a favor.

"Rhodey wouldn't have told us he was here if what happens to him didn't matter," Steve said.

"If he can't help us, I fail to see what benefit there is in keeping him alive."

"Help you with what?" you cut in, voice as sharp as steel.

Natasha stepped away from Loki. He let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. Relaxing his muscles made the blood rush through his body so hard it made him dizzy—but it did not distract him from hearing Steve's answer to your question:

"We're going to Wakanda. They can remove Vision's Stone there without killing him."

"We hope," said Natasha.

"It will work."

"Sounds great." You didn't sound like you agreed with your own sentiment. "What do you need either of us for to do that?"

"They'll come, [Name]. We'll have the last of the Stones with us. They'll all come. Maybe even Thanos himself."

"You'd be a huge asset," Natasha added.

"We could use all the help we can get. And that includes Loki."

Suddenly, all eyes were on Loki. He licked his lips. "And why should I bother to help you all?" he rasped at last.

No one looked surprised by this question. Steve's eyebrows lifted slightly before he said, "It's your universe at risk, too. And from the sound of it, you wouldn't have made it very long if Tony and Rhodey hadn’t brought you here."

"Oh, yes, thank you.” His lip curled; he hoped that Steve could not hear his wildly beating heart. "Thank you so much for the rescue. And just in time to be obliterated along with the rest of reality! You shouldn't have."

"We're going to do our best not to let that happen. What about you, [Name]?" he asked as he turned back to you.

Loki felt rather than saw your gaze on him, searching and gentle. He found that he could not lift his head to meet your eyes. Then, in a soft tone full of regret, you said:

"I can't."

"If we lose this, there's a good chance he'll die anyway," said Natasha.

"He'll die for sure without anyone here to look after him."

She opened her mouth, but whatever nasty remark she planned to make next, Steve silenced her with a hand on her shoulder.

"We understand," he told you.

You nodded.

Without another word, the two Avengers left the cabin. You watched them go until Natasha pulled the door shut behind them. Silence buzzed through the room like electricity. You did not move. So long did you stare at the door that Loki half-expected it to burst into flame; the same could be said about the length of time he spent staring at the back of your head. He opened his mouth, found it dry, licked his lips, and tried to speak evenly:

"If you hurry, you could still catch up with them."

You shook your head, turning to head back to his bedside.

"Truly," he said. "I can make it on my own. Why, I only feel mostly like dying now instead of completely like dying."

"And you only feel that good because I've been here to take care of you." From the silver pitcher on the bedside table, you poured some smoking, purple concoction into the nearby cup. Then you sat down on the edge of the bed and held it out to him. "Speaking of, drink this."

A delicate sniff of the cup thrust toward him indicated that this was the same bitter brew you'd forced down his throat earlier. He did not take it. "I am a god. I can take care of myself."

"If I leave, you won't make it until tomorrow. This stuff doesn't keep, and you can't make it yourself." When Loki made no move to take the cup from you, you rolled your eyes. "Same thing if you won't drink your medicine."

He wrinkled his nose, but accepted the glass. Instead of swallowing the foul-smelling stuff, he cradled it in his hands. "Why are you doing this for me?"

"I don't think even one life should be given up if I have the power to save it. That's all," you said.

"Even if they could die anyway?"

"Even if they could die anyway." You cocked your head to one side, regarding him quietly for a few moments. Then you stood again. "Drink up, and get some rest. Hopefully the rest of the world will still be here the next time you're awake."

A sudden surge in pain obliterated Loki's desire to retort. Steeling himself, he lifted the potion to his lips and gulped it down as quickly as he could. The relief came over him almost at once, so heady that it made his head spin. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision. Before he could wonder if this was Thanos's victory, natural sleep overtook him. Perhaps dying this way would be easier, he thought, than what might face him later in that tiny cabin.

******

The potion’s effects only did so much for him after that dose. Loki slept fitfully, plagued by a leaden weight in his stomach that even sleep could not dispel. His dreams ended in exploding planets, in melting cities, in scorching pain. All the magic sedative coursing through his system did was drag him along from one cataclysm to the next. Try as he might, he could not tear himself into the hellscape of his reality—not until a loud clang issued from somewhere nearby.

“Owwww!” Loki snapped as he forced his eyelids open. At least this awakening did not hurt as badly as the last two had. The clear, watery light of morning only worsened his headache a little as opposed to a tremendous degree.

And he knew where he was. That helped. Though the panic searing the inside of his rib cage did not abate, he doubted that anyone observing him would be able to tell that at a glance. At least he managed to refrain from throwing himself out of the bed this time. This allowed him to maintain some dignity as he searched for the source of the noise.

And there you stood in the kitchen. One of those copper pots sat steaming on the island. As though you could sense his eyes on you, you looked up from your stirring.

“Congratulations. The rest of the world is still here,” you said.

How little he cared about this backwater rock when Thanos could set the entire known universe on fire should he succeed in wresting the last Infinity Stone from Steve's all-too-human fingers. Biting back this retort, Loki struggled into a seated position. He was pleased to find himself recovered enough to do so on his own.

“So I see,” he said at last, once he noticed you watching him. “So did your friends…” he didn’t quite know how to finish that sentence. He didn’t quite know which question he wanted answered, or what answer he wanted to hear either.

You shook your head. “I won’t hear back from them unless they get back.”

“Not even your precious cards could tell you?”

“Even if they could, I wouldn’t ask. All I can tell you is that you and I are still standing.”

‘In a manner of speaking.’ Loki took a moment to glower at his weak legs. “Yes. How much longer will that be the case, I wonder.”

“There’s no use fatalizing about it. Would you like some porridge?”

The gears in Loki’s mind took several seconds to adjust to the abrupt change of subject. Unfortunately, the moment he gave any real thought to the sweet aroma wafting from the pot, his stomach rolled so badly he couldn’t open his mouth to reply. Who knew what sort of muck might pour out of it, given all the strange things you’d forced down his throat during your short acquaintance?

“I’ll add something to your medicine to help with nausea.” A note of sympathy had crept into your voice. “We need to get something solid in your stomach before too much longer.”

Making breakfast, gathering food, healing him—what good would all of this effort do in the end? Probably you just wanted a distraction from the inevitable doom you both faced. Thor’s ragtag bunch of misfits had defeated Loki, but he was in no condition to consider himself a threat the same level as Thanos. The Avengers didn’t even have Thor anymore.

Loki’s eyes suddenly burned, and his throat felt all over again the pressure of Thanos’s enormous fingers. The thought of what might have happened to his brother in the aftermath of Loki’s escape would not bear thinking about. Time to focus on other things.

There wasn’t much else to focus on but you, however. He watched as you doled out a serving a mush into a waiting wooden bowl. You ate it quickly. Then you took your pot and carefully spooned the rest of the food into a line of glass jars sitting on the countertop.

Loki noticed that you moved differently than other Midgardians, now that he could stop and take the time to observe you at length—more graceful, more intentional, with no wasted movements whatsoever. Mortals could be taught to replicate such movement, but they could never achieve the same kind of ability as beings superior to them.

Only when you’d easily hefted the heavy object over to the sink did he finally say, “You’re not human, are you?”

You looked over your shoulder at him, expression guarded. “Half,” you said at last, then shifted some hair away from one of your ears. Doing so revealed that ear to end in a perfect, delicate point.

“You’re a light elf,” Loki said wonderingly.

“Half,” you said again, before returning to the chore of cleaning your dishes.

“What are you doing so far from Alfheim?”

“The whole half-human thing? Yeah, it didn’t exactly endear me to my family there.”

“But why here? There are light-elf communes in the realm.”

“Those jackasses at the North Pole declined to house me as well. One human per pole, apparently. And half-humans count.”

“There’s an entire galaxy out there. You could have gone anywhere.”

“By then, I’d figured out I was better off on my own.” Water continued to run over your hands and bare forearms, but these had stilled. Your gaze was fixed on some distant point in time. Then it snapped back to his face. “It was a long time ago. I went to SHIELD, traded a few goods and services for secrecy. And Howard Stark let me build a place near where he was stationed. I’ve been here ever since.”

“That sounds…lonely.” Lonely in a way that Loki understood; lonely in a way he’d always felt growing up, although he hadn’t understood why—lonely in the way he’d been after he had discovered his true heritage.

You shrugged flippantly. “It worked pretty well up until the Accords. Now I’ve always got Ross breathing down my neck.”

“The Accords?”

“It’s an Avengers thing, or at least Ross wants it to be.”

“So you—”

“Are not an Avenger.” Finished with cleaning, you tipped the pot onto the counter upside down, dried your hands on the waiting towel, then turned to face him. “I’ve never been one, and I’ll never be one.”

Loki found his body loosening somewhat after this revelation. Strange. He hadn’t noticed he’d been so taut to begin with. “And yet they came to you for aid,” he pointed out.

“I do aid them, sometimes. But not because some Midgardian law says I have to. Like I said before, if I have the power to save one life I’ll do it, whether or not my neighbors believe that life is worth saving. If anyone can get rid of Thanos, it’s them. But they couldn’t save you.”

“Is a single life worth saving if they can’t?”

“I guess that’s up to the person whose life it is.”

“And the life Thanos leaves them with.”

He noticed then you had gone very still. You cocked your head to one side and regarded him down your nose. “Do you regret it? Being saved?”

Loki inhaled sharply. How could he answer that question? For all the aggravation and fear he felt about his present circumstances, to reply in the negative would be terribly rude. Your bedside manner left much to be desired. Your skill in healing, on the other hand…

The sudden disintegration of half the plants in the room saved him from having to voice his thoughts. Your eyes locked onto his. Neither of you breathed a word. Somehow Loki still knew your thoughts to be the same: The Avengers had at last done the unthinkable. They had failed.

******

Some things Loki grew accustomed to over the years following what came to be called "The Snap." He grew accustomed to the new, permanent roughness of his voice. He grew accustomed to the slight limp from his injuries becoming more pronounced when the wind turned cold. He grew accustomed to eating food only available seasonally, to working for that food, to sharing a smaller space than he'd ever lived in before. He grew used to braiding his lengthening hair each day. He even grew accustomed to the smell of the chicken coop.

That day, the stench was worse than most others. An unexpected rainstorm had blown in overnight, and left everything damp or dripping, from the branches overhead to the edges of the roof. Loki shook his hood back as he made to the door, scuffed his worn boots on the welcome mat, and entered the cabin.

"Breakfast," he announced, somewhat breathless after his run for cover.

You stood already working at the stove. He placed the basket he carried in an empty space near your elbow. After a quick glance at his sodden figure, you reached under the piece of cloth he'd placed over the eggs, pulled two out, and cracked them over the skillet. Only once the food was sizzling did you offer him a warm smile.

Instead of saying anything, Loki swallowed and did his best to avoid your gaze.

"Thanks," you said into the silence.

"I had no issues with gathering eggs for you this morning. I wanted to check on Gunnhild myself."

"How is she?"

Loki hummed noncommittally as he went to a drawer for cutlery to set the table. He couldn't quite put words to the worry he felt nowadays over so much as Midgardian hens of all things. Perhaps he felt obligated to keep alive as many beings as he could after Thanos had taken so much. After finding one of his ladies so lethargic the evening prior, he'd spent a long, sleepless night fretting over her condition until he could trek to the pen under the pretense of helping with the morning meal. Truth be told, Gunnhild had seemed livelier then, but still, his thoughts continued to linger over her when he sat down in one of the two heavy wooden chairs.

The sound of a plate being placed in front of him snapped Loki from his musings. He did not know if he liked the understanding look you shot him as you slid into your own seat across from him. His stomach twisted painfully until he looked away from your face again.

Add that to the somewhat shorter list of things Loki had not grown accustomed to since the Snap.

"I'll put a little something extra in the feed today. She'll hardly know she had a respiratory infection."

More and more often lately, Loki found himself unable to meet your eyes, and when he did force himself to do so, his insides would suddenly feel hot. Had he been a younger or more ignorant being, he might have been inclined to blame the numerous concoctions you forced him to drink (some days with more arm-twisting than others) even this much time after his near-fatal injuries. You seemed to have magic for every aliment known, for chicken and Jotun alike. Why not a philter as well?

But he had been alive long enough—been in love often enough—to know the truth. These physical sensations had nothing to do with your talents, and everything to do with his...isolation? Rescue? Maturing?

He had never believed himself to be one of those fools capable of falling head over heels for someone for no greater reason than that they had nursed him back to health. What a pathetic way to return the kindness you had shown him—all the panaceas grudgingly swallowed; all the staggering walks contemptuously taken; all the nights you'd slept in a makeshift nest of quilts when Loki disdainfully refused to leave your bed.

The sudden lack of people in the world had not put the responsibility of his rehabilitation on your shoulders. You had taken that on willingly well before the Snap. But he did believe that, had Thanos not succeeded, you might have happily ended up without such of a chore of a lingering houseguest. Every morning he woke began anew a day you could decide Loki had overstayed his welcome. His only consolation was that, surely, these feelings would fallow once he no longer came in contact with you.

But then surely, too, his body would fall apart without your aid. So Loki kept his mouth shut. Cohabitating with you while keeping his growing romanticism a secret was difficult; he shuddered to think of the alternatives left to him in this half-empty universe.

Once again, you interrupted his thoughts, this time with a wry observation of: "You're overthinking something again."

His rough gulp hardly helped his case any more than the following, "I am not."

"You are."

I should think I know my own thoughts better than you do."

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Loki of Asgard isn't nearly as difficult to read as he thinks he is. Your mouth gets these deep wrinkles at the corners, and..." Trailing off, you frowned before you leaned forward to grasp the hand he had resting on the table. "Is that what this is about?"

You must have seen his split-second grimace when you'd referred to him in that mocking way of yours. If you'd noticed that, he had no doubt you'd spotted the way he stiffened when you touched him like that as well. Be that as it may, you kept your fingers lightly resting against his as you went on:

"We need to talk about it."

“I don't have the faintest idea what it is there is to discuss," he answered firmly.

You laughed. The sound made Loki's chest ache. "You do."

"I assure you I do not. And if you're going to insist on this level of condescension, I'd much prefer to get some work done than sit around listening to your riddles. Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"Why don't you go ahead and admit that you were eavesdropping when Natasha visited last night?"

If your iron grip hadn't been enough to keep Loki rooted to his chair, your question would. He felt blood rush to his face, try as he might to fight the urge to blush. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, knowing all the while that he would not hit quite the right note to express his feigned incredulity.

You did not answer. Neither did your hand loosen. A staring contest ensued, though it did not last long. Loki knew better than to argue when he spotted the familiar gleam there. What would be the point in lying anyway, when this Borforesaken rasp had so ruined his famous silver tongue? After another moment or two of internal debate, he finally wilted.

"If you already knew I knew, why not say something sooner?" he asked.

"You'll need to learn someday that those who eavesdrop often hear things they don't like."

"And those who refuse to eavesdrop often hear nothing worth hearing at all."

"You could simply quit lurking around and speak with us face-to-face."

"And risk the conversation turning to naught but insults targeting me? You'll have to forgive me for preferring to 'lurk' for what morsels of information your friends deign to offer you in secret."

"There was no secret."

"Oh?" Trapped as he was with his hands bound to the table, Loki's only escape was to avert his eyes to the rain-streaked window near the table. "If it was common knowledge, why not bring it up yourself without having to pry it out of me?"

You let go of him and held your hands up in a galactic sign of surrender that he could only see out of the corner of his eye. "I did not wish to upset you unduly."

"Upset me? Is that what you think? You think that I'm upset that my people have established a settlement in this Realm and are attempting to move on?"

"Aren't you?"

"Obviously not!"

Once more, Loki felt instead of saw your probing look. He folded his arms across his chest and carefully avoided so much as turning his head in your direction. This seemed to succeed in getting you to drop the subject; you said nothing else. Then you pushed your chair away from the table with an almighty screech and a firm, "Let's get you packed, then."

He couldn't help rising to his feet after you in his panic. "What?"

"Let's get you packed," you repeated. "New Asgard awaits the coronation of its king."

"Let it wait! Forever, if it must!"

"Why should it? Natasha's told me all about how badly you want to rule."

"Wanted. Wanted. That was a different time. A different me!"

Loki's heart had not hammered so hard since the moment of the Snap. Distantly, he realized that the exertion did not cause him as much pain as it used to. But would it be enough?

You did appear to notice his desperation, for you paused in some gesture that seemed to have caused his toothbrush to float out of its cup. Silence fell. He realized you were waiting for him to explain himself. Of all the cruelties you had enacted upon him, this perhaps might have been the cruelest of them all.

"New Asgard—" His breath hitched. Loki licked his lips and tried again, "New Asgard little needs yet another descendant of Odin on the throne. Let Brunnhilde keep the crown. I want it not."

Though admitting as much made him in ache in a way Thanos's assault had not, Loki knew the years since that assault had changed him. Between his inglorious defeat on this very planet, the series of humiliations leading up to Ragnarök, and his near-death among the Asgardian refugees, he had learned to see himself more clearly. Leadership did not suit him as he'd once convinced himself it had. And besides, what good would it do for what remained of the spirit of his childhood home? Being among his people again would only remind him more sharply of what he'd lost—their true ruler amongst the most grievous of those losses.

"Then what do you want, Loki?" you asked softly.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Thought hard about his answer to your question.

It came without as much thought as he'd expected. So few of his responses were even possible anymore. But those that were surprised even himself. He wanted to learn the subtle ways of Midgardian magic. He wanted to memorize the patterns of the stars in this Realm. He wanted to eat vegetables and fruits and grains grown by the power of his own hands. He wanted to look after his chickens until they died at venerable ages. And to do all of that, any of that, there could be only one reply:

"I want to stay here," he whispered, so quietly he did not even know if he wanted you hear him.

But hear him you did. A dazzling smile the likes of which he'd never seen before spread across your face. Then, without giving Loki a chance to grasp the meaning of such an expression, you rushed forward and threw your arms around him in a suffocating embrace.

"Then stay," you breathed in his ear.

The surprise he felt at your sudden closeness dissipated rapidly. Soon, Loki wrapped his own arms around you in turn. He did not know how long the two of you stayed tangled up like that before you finally released him. But when you did, you looked so smug that he couldn't help but add:

"It's not as though I have any choice in the matter. I'd die in a week without your care."

"Oh, that." The smug smile transformed into a smirk. "I've been giving you placebos for months now. You're as mended as you'll ever be."

His jaw dropped nearly to the floor, causing a glorious peal of laughter to tumble from your mouth.

"You whined so much. What else could I do?" you asked by way of explanation.

"You fox!" he said, though he couldn't find it himself to be truly enraged. It was the sort of thing he'd have done to his brother, after all. Who would have thought he'd have found a kindred spirit in the middle of nowhere on Midgard of all places?

You neared again, now gazing directly into his eyes. "But you love me."

"That," Loki said as he cupped your cheek and brushed his thumb over the [color] skin there, "I believe to be unequivocally true."

******

More time passed, on the Podunk little rock Loki had once schemed to make his own just as slowly as it did in the greater, emptier galaxy. Seasons passed. The half-obliterated woods around the cabin grew thicker and greener every summer. Native creatures once sparse in the area returned in larger numbers.

There were no servants to lay out his clothes, nor banquets with food-laden tables as far as the eye could see. But there were fruits and vegetables brought forth by his own hands, homespun tunics created with care, and fresh eggs in abundance from his ever-increasing brood of chickens. There was bright sunlight by day and warm candlelight by night. But best of all, there was you.

Well, most of the time you kept close to the cabin you both called home. Nearly five years to the day since the Snap, Loki stood alone in the kitchen. He hardly ever wandered far afield those days. What reason had he to do so? Surely Ross had not been the only Midgardian eager to see Loki pay for his crimes, and Loki was hardly a welcome visitor at the Avengers headquarters on the other side of the forest—which was the second most common place to find you, and where you'd traipsed off to during the still-dark hours that morning.

Loki found himself worrying over his pot of stew more than he'd have liked to admit now that it had grown dark once again. Not about the stew, not this time; he felt he had accomplished making a perfectly edible, if not very exciting, stew with produce from the garden you and he had canned that fall. Given that he'd hardly been offered much opportunity to create purposefully edible meals as Asgardian royalty, no one could deny this to be a culinary accomplishment on his part.

You hardly ever kept him waiting this long for you to return from the large, ugly compound. He could not begrudge you going to see friends. On the other hand, he knew how the remaining Avengers still felt about him. It was the same way he felt about them. If any of them had the silver tongue he had had once...

Before he could spiral into the possessive behavior he inclined toward despite your frequent admonishments, he heard the sound of footsteps—barely. Light elves moved so lightly he would not have heard your approach had he not been listening so closely for it. The door swung open shortly after this noise, and you stepped inside the room already filled with lit candles.

"I'm home," you said cheerily, and unnecessarily.

"So I see." Loki gave the pot below him a pointed stir. "Did you enjoy your time with your...friends?"

"If you're going to be a sourpuss, I won't give you your surprise."

"I hardly want whatever gift the lovely Natasha might have sent along with you."

"It's from me. Do you want it? Yes or no?"

He knew better what you meant by the appraising look you shot him: Play along, or pay the price. "Please," he said as flatly as he could. Though you never used your considerable powers to hurt, he knew that an outright refusal on his part would probably wind up with him sprouting a pair of donkey ears for the foreseeable future, or something equally annoying and hard to explain when your neighbors inevitably came by to mock him.

You grinned despite his obvious lack of enthusiasm. One of your fingers made a series of shapes in the air. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, your familiar basket appeared next to Loki's elbow. A simple blue-and-white checked towel covered its contents.

"Open it," you said when all he did was squint at you.

It wasn't moving, so Loki took that to mean lifting the fabric would not be dangerous. Nestled underneath sat a pile of off-white mushrooms with brain-like knobs atop the stems.

"We went a little over during the meeting. I knew you'd have already started dinner. When I stumbled on these little guys on my way home, I picked them up for you as a treat."

All fear of Natasha finally convincing you to give him up died away for the moment. Loki pressed his lips together in a smile. "They're the perfect addition," he said, pulling the recently-cleaned cutting board toward him and starting to chop.

Your smile grew as you walked around him to gather bowls. "You're welcome."

"So what went on that took so long? Rewatching footage of Captain America's glory days?"

Instead of chastising him for his snide tone, you simply answered: "I thought you said you didn't want to be involved in anything we got up to."

"I don't."

"Then let's not talk about it anymore."

Loki spilled the sliced fungi into the pot with something of a startled expression. You would normally find something of note to tell him after a two-hour conversation with the Avengers, and yet you had nothing to relay after being with them all day?

"[Name], what are you hiding?"

"Is the stew ready yet?"

"You're trying to distract me."

"No," you drew the word out as you sat the last utensil on the table. He caught a flash of mischief in your [color] eyes. You bared your teeth in a wicked grin. Then you sauntered forward and looked him up and down before you slid your hands up his shoulders to interlock them behind his neck. "This is me trying to distract you."

You pressed your mouth to his without sparing him a moment to retort. Loki did not forget the thread of the conversation, per se, but kissing you back seemed of greater importance than pursuing the matter. Who cared about the inconsequential scheming of those who had already lost everything? Certainly not him, not when, egged on by his enthusiastic response, you smiled against his lips and surged forward. He had no choice but to let you push him onto the nearby counter to allow you space to work.

"Still curious about what I got up to this afternoon?" you asked during a brief pause.

"Not in the slightest," Loki said honestly. He cupped your face to pull you closer to him again.

By all rights, it ought to have turned out to be a very good day: a stew with fresh mushrooms; your eagerness to touch him, even simply as a distractoin. Loki might have been perfectly content to remain distracted had something not slammed open the door just as something besides dinner began to heat up.

You whirled to face the intrusion—but you moved no further, frozen, it appeared, by the massive shape moving through the doorway.

"Thor?" you asked.

"Thor?" Loki echoed, bewildered.

The shape crossed into what little light the multitude of lit candles allowed, and still Loki could not believe it. Whoever had burst in could not be his brother. His brother was dead, not to mention Thor would never let himself go to such a degree. This being looked thicker and flabbier than Volstagg on his worst days. They also had stringy hair and a scraggly beard that obviously had not been washed in some time.

"You followed me?" You sounded outraged, which typically spelled trouble for the offending party.

Thor—or whoever the shape was—did not spare you a glance, terrified or otherwise. Their eyes remained fixated on Loki's face, and as Loki met their gaze, he felt a spark of recognizing flare hot and painful somewhere deep inside his stomach.

"I had to see it for myself," the apparent stranger rumbled.

And that was all it took. Loki slid off the counter and stepped around you. A torrent of emotions constricted his chest. The room around him spun. After a minute or so of thick swallowing and struggled, he managed to open wide his arms and step in Thor's direction.

"Brother, you're alive!"

Thor did not meet Loki's cheer with any of his own. "So this is where you ran off to hide."

Loki felt his smile slide off his face. "Pardon me?"

"I thought you were dead. I mourned you."

"As I did for you. I thought surely Thanos—"

"I should have known your vanishing was nothing more than yet another trick!"

"Well, I confess to using a smidgen of magic to get me here, but—"

"We needed you. The galaxy needed you. I needed you!"

With every statement, Thor's voice grew louder and louder. Rarely since his brother's exile had Loki seen him so enraged. He stared as the noise washed over him, and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. These stayed there when Thor took another step in Loki's direction.

"Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps you always intended to aid Thanos in achieving his wicked goal."

You stepped forward to put yourself between the two men. "Hey. He was in no condition to fight. If he'd gone to Wakanda, he would have died for sure."

"As he had me believe he already had for five years. My brother chose his own life over half the galaxy." Thor's eyes flicked disdainfully between you and Loki, a gesture at odds with the bright red of his face. "But I should not be so surprised. Loki has always been a coward."

"Don't you—"

"[Name]."

Loki spoke the word softly, but his tone must have gotten through to you. Now you spun to gape at him. He merely held his hand out in a quelling gesture and told Thor:

"You're right."

It had taken a long time—eons, really—for Loki to accept the truth about himself—a long time and nearly dying more than once. If he could go back and change things, he would. How different would things be for everyone if Loki had never spent that time being coddled by the Grand Master, or masqueraded as Odin for so long, or agreed to invade Asgard, or even led Laufey through the secret passages to the palace? Always he had served himself. What argument had he that a different choice would not have saved untold lives just as Thor claimed?

But as things stood, Loki could not even change Thor's thunderous expression with his admission.

"You have changed, Brother, and not for the better."

"Perhaps I have changed," Loki conceded. "But is this not what you have always wanted for me? Living quietly, not causing trouble? Happy?"

"Happy at what expense, Loki? At least I am still trying. I am still fighting!"

"Are you? Judging by the state of your facial hair, I'd hazard a guess that's a more recent development."

"Loki," Thor growled through clenched teeth.

"You say I've changed for the worst? Fine. No one is inviting you stay for dinner and to get to know the new me or the person I've chosen to stay with."

Silence rang audibly through the dark cabin, punctuated only by the bubbling stew. Thor inhaled slowly. His shoulders migrated to up around his ears. Loki braced himself for a tirade that would have made their father proud. Instead, Thor's voice was flat and emotionless as he said:

"As usual, I will clean up your mess, Brother. And if in doing so, you are the one lost, perhaps this time I will not feel the grief of it."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than did Thor leave. He slammed the door behind him with such might that the whole cabin shook and several candles blew out. The sound of Thor's heavy footsteps faded quickly into the dark woods beyond.

"Loki?"

He had not realized he'd been staring at the place Thor had stood until you spoke his name. All he did in response was blink. Your warm hand enveloped his own, though this did nothing to quell his sudden tremors.

"Loki."

Words failed him. For the first time in his memory, Loki could think of nothing appropriate to say. Pain did not hold his tongue, nor injury, simply the fact that nothing would come to mind; nothing seemed to matter. But speak he must, or he risked standing there in the dark forever.

"How long?" he asked.

"What?"

"How long, [Name]?"

The fingers around his tightened.

"How long have you known my brother was alive?"

At last, he wrenched his hand free and turned to look at you. Tears sparkled in those eyes that had only a little while ago been gleaming with affection. That told Loki enough. He no longer needed you to answer.

"All this time," his mouth felt thick and clumsy, so he tried again with little improvement: "All this time, you knew. You knew Thor lived, and yet you allowed me to go on assuming otherwise!"

"If you'd just let me explain—"

"What is there to explain? I've spoken to you of the guilt I've felt over his death. You, of all people, knew what he meant to me. You could have freed me from all of that, yet you did not! What, did you believe I'd choose him over you? That I would flee to New Asgard the moment I realized my last remaining family member lived?"

The words were not as sharp as they once could have been. The tone itself was no longer smooth as velvet. They rose and fell like an overused axe. But the blow landed. You flinched.

Loki found he did not much care whether you did so because his words were true or his hysteria had been laid plain his voice. His throat throbbed where Thanos's fingers had once crushed it. Perhaps Loki should have let him. Dying that way would have hurt less than now, here, by the phantoms of everyone he had ever hurt.

You said his name again. He shook his head. Almost blindly, he stumbled through the shadows to the door, yanked it open, and stepped outside. Loki stood there on the step for a moment or two, breathing in the acrid smell of burning stew behind him before he pulled the door shut. Then he staggered off toward the quiet trees with little idea of where he was actually going.

The cold quickly leached beneath his tunic, but that he could handle. What he was not so sure of was his ability to handle any more heartbreak that night or, indeed, for the rest of his life.

******

Loki returned, for where else had he to go? The idea of turning to the Avengers for shelter he found laughable, and surely Thor wouldn't want him anywhere near New Asgard. Besides, Loki would miss his chickens—and he'd been in enough relationships during his life to know that an occasional nighttime walk did wonders to cool his head.

Wonders, yes; miracles, no. Although each sunrise since the Snap had felt like a miracle to him, the days following Thor's sudden reappearance twisted into a discomfiting slog. Each day followed the same routine: Loki would wake in an empty cabin with a neatly folded pile of quilts on the floor near the bed; he would eat the single roll on the counter; and he would gather his things and move mechanically through the chores that needed done even when he felt as though he were limping through a void. These would fill his time until he returned to the vacant bed to start again.

Two days he followed this routine before it grew too tiresome to ponder continuing for the rest of his life. What if his path led nowhere but to day after day after Borforsaken day of banal work and loneliness? Loki might have been prepared to accede to Thor's claims of his cravenness; he had not been so prepared to consider death at Thanos's hands may have been the better option for him.

And so he turned to the one activity that could stop him from thinking about the end of life: The beginning of it.

The cool spring midmorning appeared perfect for transplanting the pea seedlings he had picked up from their growing space on a windowsill back in the cottage. He knelt on a flat cushion of sorts in the midst of the mostly-bare garden to get to work. All he could hear was the chilly breeze blowing through the surrounding trees, their new leaves still too young to provide any noise of their own. His pale fingers worked the freshly-tilled dirt as he mentally measured the distance between plants.

Perhaps if Thor had had occasion to see Loki like this, elbow-deep in homemade chicken compost, he might have understood things a little better.

"Loki."

He did not turn away from his work at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Can we talk?"

"About what?" he asked evenly.

This was the first time you'd approached him since the argument. Obviously, you'd returned home a number of times, but only after he'd fallen asleep, and only to disappear again before he awoke. Loki half-expected you to leave again. A long pause followed his question before you surprised him by asking:

"Are you really going to make me say it?"

"I think that's the best way to open up negotiations, yes."

"Negotiations?"

Loki carefully piled a small mound of dirt around a recently-planted sprout. It waved back and forth as if to say thank you.

"I'm sorry," you said.

He adjusted the bamboo trellis embedded in the dirt behind his peas.

"I should have told you as soon as I found out about Thor. I didn't know for long. Natasha only told me when she knew he'd be coming to help them out, but it wasn't fair to you to keep it a secret."

Slowly, without moving his head at all, Loki sat up. His filthy fingers curled around his knees.

"I didn't want you to leave. I knew how much Thor meant to you, and I knew you'd go to New Asgard to see him. And what then? Would you ever come back?"

"That's hard to say when I was never given a choice in the matter."

Another length bout of silence. This time, however, Loki could hear something else over the wind: A soft sniffling that nearly had him moving to comfort you—nearly.

"You were right, Loki. I was scared."

"Scared of what?" he asked.

How could you be scared of anything? He himself had witnessed the power at your fingertips more than once, and Steve and Natasha certainly had tales to tell of your prowess. Surely nothing on Midgard existed to threaten the likes of you after all this time.

Now he risked a glance at you out of the corner of his eye. Never before had he seen you distraught. Flustered, yes. Angry, absolutely. Undone, perhaps fewer times than he'd have liked. But he could tell even from a distance that you hadn't slept since your fight a few days ago. Pronounced bags clung the bottoms of your eyelids, and you rubbed your hands together in obvious agitation. The urge to go to you grew stronger still.

"I've never belonged anywhere before you came along," you said in a rough whisper.

All his willpower shattered at the moment your voice broke. He half-rose, twisting toward you, unable to feign absolute disinterest any longer. Perhaps he might have drawn closer to you, had you allowed him. But you held out your hands with the fingers wide to indicate you needed him to keep his distance. Loki did, although he said softly:

"[Name], that's not true."

"I kept trying to find a place, but no one wanted me."

"You have the Avengers."

"They aren't—" You gripped your elbow tightly in the opposite hand as you turned your face away. "They aren't home."

Before he could speak—whether to dissuade you, or ask for more details, or even to put an abrupt end to this tête-à-tête, he had no idea himself—you barreled onward, apparently under the impression that if he did not let you say all this now, Loki never would.

"I've been here for a long time, a very long time. People move into that building. People move out. Sometimes they bother to get to know me. Most of the time they don't. It doesn't matter either way, because they all leave in the end. Steve, Natasha, Rhodey...they'll all leave permanently someday, too."

So intent on listening had he been that he flinched when you looked directly into his eyes.

"You're the only one who's ever stayed.

He could think of nothing more to say than, weakly, "If you're so desperate for company that someone too injured and cowardly to leave is appealing—"

"You are not a coward, Loki."

"This is not about me," he said, then added, "unusual though that may be. For now, we are talking about you."

"I don't know what else it is you need me to say."

Truthfully, he needed nothing. An apology had been all he desired, and you'd returned with that and an admission that he'd been in the right. So slowly, as though he were trying to sneak up on a snoozing Thane Regin with a pair of shears, he stepped in your direction.

"Pretending for one moment that your attachment to me is anything other than imprinting on an admittedly very charismatic invalid—"

You snorted.

"—why not tell me? Why not come to New Asgard with me?"

The hand on your elbow went pale with the force of your grasp. "I am not as Asgardian."

"Neither am I, as you well know."

"I am tired of trying to figure out where I belong. I tried just about everywhere. I will not be cast out again." You blinked at him fiercely. "If you want to go, you should go. Be with your people. Reconcile with your brother. I only wanted to let you know that you are precious to me, even if I acted poorly because of that."

The spell your gaze cast on him snapped. You both averted your eyes. It did not take Loki so long to recover. He found himself drawing in a deep breath of remarkably fresh air before closing the remaining gap between you. When he took the hand dangling your side, you inhaled sharply as you looked up at him. Encouraged, he squeezed your fingers.

"I will reconcile with my brother, when he is ready. But you're my people, [Name]. You ought to know that by now. Maybe I will desire to visit New Asgard someday. Know this, however: As long as you want me, I shall always return to you."

After another pause, you returned the squeeze. "I think it's safe to say I'll always want you. But I might be glad for an occasional break, now I think of it. It would be nice having my bed to myself from time to time."

"Without me to warm it, you won't sleep a wink."

Rather than reply, you broke into a smile as dazzling as the sun hanging over the forest. He felt the familiar warm hook of your palm at the back of his neck, then you pulled his lips down to yours for a long, lingering kiss.

"I love you, you realize," he murmured once you parted.

"Oh, my gods," you said breathlessly through a half-open mouth.

"Yes, I am rather impressive. It comes from centuries of practice. Why, my last partner—"

You cuffed him lightly on the back of his head. "No, Loki. Look!"

So he pulled away and did as you instructed—and what he saw took his breath away as well.

Where his sparse rows of tender pea shoots had been only minutes ago, now a multitude of plants threatened to crowd one another out. Extra trees and their roots intruded on the edges of the garden. Bees, butterflies, and birdsong filled the clearing in which you and Loki stood.

He felt his throat contract, but no words left his mouth.

You, meanwhile, lifted shaking hands to your mouth. "They did it."

"Who?"

"The Avengers."

"Did what?"

"They did it!" Now you shrieked, practically dancing in place. "They figured it out! They got the Infinity Stones! It worked!"

"The Infinity—is that what you were all doing that day?"

"Tony and Bruce made a time machine. We weren't sure that it would work, but..."

"It did," Loki finished for you, somewhat dazed himself.

It was back. It was all back. He did not have to leave this place to know that not only had Thor and his friends done the impossible to bring plant life back to this planet, but that beings of all natures would be returning across the entire universe.

But, of course, the galaxy never had been willing to give Loki Odinson a lingering period of peace and happiness. Every time he felt he stood once more on solid ground, the realms tilted on their axes. This occasion would be no different. No sooner had he realized the sparkling tears of joy in your eyes were reflected in his own than did a shadow fall—literally—across the entire woods.

Above, soaring through the once-radiant blue sky, winged a great, dark ship.

Thanos had returned.

In the span of a breath, you bounded in the direction of the Avengers' home. Loki felt all the blood rush from his face. That he remained standing was itself a miracle. He felt suddenly dizzy. His heart rushed. Black crept into the edges of his vision.

Just before you disappeared into the newly-thickened forest, he managed to croak, "Where are you going?"

You stopped to look over your shoulder at him. "You don't need me this time around. I'm going to go help them fight."

Loki pressed his shaking lips together. He could stay. He could stay, and be as safe as anyone could be when Thanos and his children arrived. With a shake of his head, he crossed to you.

"I'll always need you. We'll go together."