MCU art side blog

Thor knew what the others said. He heard Bruce and Dr Strange talking in hushed voices outside the room Thor almost never left.

Brain dead, never wake up, lost cause…dark and unwelcome words found their way to Thor’s ears, but he refused to accept them.

They didn’t know Loki.

They didn’t know how strong he was. How resilient. How stubborn.

Loki would wake up, and he would recover.

It had been three years since Thanos snapped his neck. Three years of Loki clinging to life, never moving more than the constant, shallow, rise and fall of his chest with each weak breath.

For over two of those years, ever since arriving at last on Earth after cleaving the damned titan’s head from his shoulders, Thor had sat vigil at Loki’s bedside day and night.

At first his friends came to keep him company. Reassure him or try to get him to leave. But Thor would never leave.

Loki might be afraid if he left him alone. Thor couldn’t let his little brother be afraid.

Most of them stopped coming eventually.

Brunnhilde ruled what was left of Asgard. The Avengers continued to do what they did.

And Thor stayed here, with Loki, waiting for him to wake up.

Only Bruce Banner ever really came to sit with him now, and he tactfully avoided telling Thor what he thought.

That Loki would never open his eyes again.

Thor wouldn’t have cared if he did say it, because he alone knew Loki, and he knew his trickster brother would survive this.

He was a god. A broken neck wasn’t necessarily a death sentence even to a mortal, and Loki wasn’t a mortal.

He would survive.

Loki’s hand was cold in his, unmoving, but Thor could feel a soft pulse beneath his fingers if he shifted them just slightly to rest over Loki’s thin wrist.

A fine needle penetrated Loki’s arm, delivering nutrients and fluids. Bruce seemed willing to humour Thor even now, and replaced the bag of the solution once a day.

And yet outside the door as he spoke with the other human doctor, he agreed with Dr Strange’s assessment that Loki would never wake again.

He was wrong.

Tears slipped from Thor’s eyes as their pessimistic words once more reached his ears from beyond that door.

They were wrong.

They had to be wrong.

An involuntary sob escaped Thor’s lips as he tightened his hold on Loki’s hand.

They had to be wrong.

A soft pressure returned his.

A slight curling of the fingers in his grasp.

Weak.

Almost imperceptible.

But Thor felt it.

He opened his eyes sharply, looked from their joined hands to Loki’s gaunt and ashen face, and choked on a breathless gasp as he met with familiar green eyes.

Tired, confused, but aware. Looking directly at Thor through a half lidded gaze.

“Loki?!” Thor breathed, unsure whether he dared smile or allow himself to feel the rising sense of uncontainable joy, “Bruce! Bruce! He wakes!!!”

He called out louder than he should. But Loki didn’t flinch or seem to mind.

His hand stayed tight in Thor’s and his eyes remained fixed on him as if there was nothing else to see.

The door opened, footsteps hurried in, and the voices were closer now, talking rapidly.

Thor didn’t hear what they said. He focused on Loki, watching as his brow creased and he briefly looked at Bruce when he spoke gently directly to him.

“Loki. I’m going to ask you some questions. I don’t want you to try to speak. Just blink once for yes, twice for no. Can you do that?”

After a nervewracking pause, Loki blinked once.

“Great,” Bruce smiled, looking quickly back at Dr Strange then to Thor, “Okay. Do you know who this is?”

He gestured slowly to Thor.

Loki didn’t just blink, but ever so slightly arched an eyebrow as well. A small motion but so obviously sarcastic and so Loki that it drew an amused and delighted laugh from Thor. 

“Do you know who I am?”

Loki blinked once.

“You need to check the sensations in his extremities,” Strange murmured.

“I know. I’m going slow. He’s been in a coma for three years,” Bruce whispered harshly back.

Loki didn’t seem to hear, or at least not care, his gaze still on Thor.

“He moved his hand earlier,” Thor looked up at them, understanding they were worried about paralysis, “Squeezed mine when he woke.”

Thor looked back to Loki, “Brother, can you try to move your hand again?”

Loki’s brow creased, eyes tightening, and after a long moment, his fingers moved in Thor’s hand again.

“That’s great,” Bruce smiled nervously, but it sounded like he was truly pleased, “Can you move the other one?”

Thor couldn’t see his other hand, but after a few minutes, he nodded, confirming Loki had moved.

But then they asked him to move his feet.

Neither foot moved at all.

Bruce bit his lip, and pressed one of his toes between a pen and his finger, “Can you feel this, Loki?”

Loki’s brow furrowed but he blinked once.

“Does it feel at all numb?” Strange asked.

Another single blink.

Bruce glanced back at Dr Strange, something silent understood by both.

“What is wrong?” Thor asked nervously.

“It’s too early to say,” Bruce replied, “We’ll just have to keep an eye on things.”

He turned back to Loki, whose gaze had once again turned exhausted and fallen on Thor.

“Loki, are you in any pain?”

Loki didn’t respond, but he tightened his hand in Thor’s.

He was, but he didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t admit to pain or fear or any feeling Odin would have deemed weak.

Thor caught Bruce’s gaze and adopted the communication method himself, blinking once to tell the doctor what Loki didn’t dare voice. He was in pain.

“I’m going to make up a new IV fluid. Something that might be more helpful now you’re awake,” Bruce smiled kindly at Loki, “For now, don’t try to speak or move too much. Take your time.”

With that, he left the room, ushering Strange out and they resumed their conversation outside as they walked away down the corridor.

Thor heard nothing of hopelessness now. Discussions of future and how to proceed and treatment and assessments, not of death anymore.

He turned back to Loki with a grin he couldn’t contain, tears slipping from his eyes.

He clasped the pale hand in both of his and kissed his knuckles lightly, his whole body trembling with emotion he could barely contain.

Too much emotion to contain. He was certain he must be altering the weather right now and he didn’t give a damn.

He shut his eyes as more tears fell from them and kissed Loki’s hand once more.

A tiny, rasping, almost inaudible voice drifted through the silence, uttering the single word, “Eye.”

Questioning. Thor had only one eye when Loki last saw him. That would take some explaining and Thor had no heart to even think of the past right now. He cared only for the present and the reality of Loki finally waking, proving everyone who doubted his strength wrong.

Thor swallowed back a sob, smiling down at Loki and brushing a hand through his long hair, untucked from the rigid neck brace that contained him.

“Bruce told you not to speak yet,” he chastised gently.

Every word in Loki’s reply was hoarse and breathless, barely there at all, but Thor heard each one as he listened with adoring attention to every minute sound that passed Loki’s lips.