nexus_crossings | [Post Infinity War piece. Any Endgame spoilers must be tagged and minor in comments]

[Post Infinity War piece. Any Endgame spoilers must be tagged and minor in comments]

It starts out like a joke of questionable taste. Captain America, Black Widow, Rocket Raccoon, and Thor God of Thunder walk into the Plaza.

What that it were a joking matter. All of them are pale, beaten, and filthy. None of them says much to anyone commenting to them while they wander past people. Natasha's eyes are wide and panicked, her head turning every which way as if she could count and see all of the people passing them by. Her blonde hair is matted with blood and it hangs in clumps with ever jerky turn of her head. Steve's walking slower than Natasha, his beard and hair unkempt mess. Every step drags. His mouth hangs slightly open and moves every now and again like he might have something to say before he looks down at his feet and keeps going. Thor brings up the rear with Rocket sitting in a daze on his right shoulder, silent with a thousand yard stare that's as empty as the rest of his expression. Most of his left arm is missing, replaced by a very ramshackle prosthetic that isn't quite proportionally right for his size. In its metal skeletal fingers he carries an axe that's easily as large as Natasha is. Every now and then there is a sniffle from Rocket before he paws at his eyes and shakes his head.

Wherever these Avengers have been for the last few weeks, they've clearly been busy.

And it doesn't take much guessing to assume they've Lost.

They wander aimlessly. Eventually Rocket hops down and stops them outside a fountain. Somewhere with seating and clean water so they can tend to their injuries if they'd like. It's going to take more than anyone has to do much yet though. But they all sit. Stare. The question hangs between them all unspoken because there are no answers yet to give.

How can they possibly come back from this?

Whatever this is to them.

[This post is meant to bring several MCU muses in the comm up to Post Infinity War status. This post is OPEN TO ALL, not just Marvel characters. This is NOT meant to spoil End Game in any way. Any comments that may even IMPLY Endgame spoilers due to association with post Infinity War MUST BE TAGGED at subject level and you must talk to your OOC partner before posting them. The standard 3 weeks rule is still in effect regarding Endgame.]

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Loki doesn't have to ask what's happened. He remembers what happened, up until his own neck snapped. And then, a visit back to his own universe, back to Sakaar for a few brief moments, told him what happened after.

And then, a dream, shared with his own Thor confirmed his worst fears.

Too late. It's too late to stop it.

He approaches Thor in his Asgardian guise, but without armor. The fight, for better or worse, is over. Maybe vengeance will come later, but for now...for now there is only grief, and shock, and horror.

There is a blanket in his arms, and he moves as if to put it over his brother, only to stop and stare at the lost arm. That he was not expecting. Yet another price Thor paid for knowledge, perhaps, as Loki warned he might? Does that make it his fault?

Trembling, he casts the blanket around Thor's shoulders anyway. "The ones who made it through the portal are safe," he almost whispers, pale and sick with dread and pity, the latter an emotion he's ill-accustomed to.

What else can he say? There is no real comfort to be had. He knows that better than most.

Thor starts violently at the familiar voice in his ear, his heart galloping heavily in his chest and he turns a wide eye on Loki, horror giving way to hope at the Aesir face of his brother, only to collapse back into sorrow and grief as he recognizes that look in the other's eyes, the dreadful burden of knowledge he's carried since Thor met him here, a terrible weight he'd only shared at the last.

It's not his Loki.

It never will be again.

And Thor feels so shamed by his ingratitude, that he cannot rejoice that his brother still lives in some parallel universe, that he drops his gaze from Loki's at once, unable to stop the tears from welling in his one good eye.

The words themselves only register a moment later, and he turns a blurred gaze back to the smudged shape of his brother, his flesh hand trembling minutely as hope hammers at his ribcage from the inside. "How many?" His voice is hoarse, and he cannot tell if it's from the screams or the way the words try to die in his throat, swallowed up in the darkness.

He's never seen Thor like this. Even in his worst moments there was confidence. Determination. Underlying power even in the face of a setback.

He's never seen Thor defeated, he realizes dully. Forgive me, he tells the Norns silently. I did not realize what I was being spared.

Half the universe gone? He had a good idea what that would have looked like, even before it happened. But Thor so utterly broken and lost? Only in his worst waking nightmares has he seen anything of this kind.

He reaches for him impulsively, not caring about the dust on his skin that Loki already knows was people, and he pulls Thor close, gripping the back of his neck with one hand to stabilize him. "Three hundred and fourteen," he answers weakly, knowing it's a small number, too small, small enough to break Thor worse, but unable to lie.

And it's something. Isn't it?

"Mostly children."

Up close, Thor smells of ozone and star-fire and burnt flesh, though his greatest wounds have healed by his union with the axe that rests across his knees. But even the weapon of a king cannot heal what's broken inside of him, and Thor leans heavily into the touch, though guilt swells deeper within. He does not deserve this comfort, after what he's done, yet he can't pull away, his brother warm and alive when Thor last grasped at a corpse far too fresh to be cold.

Three hundred and fourteen.

It's so few, so unbearably few. Only nearly half the children that were aboard the Statesman, and Thor hopes with desperation that others made it still to the escape pods, yet knowing in his heart that the odds are heavily weighted against them. But there are three hundred and fourteen Asgardians yet living, and if the dark void in Thor's chest allowed him to feel a flicker of happiness, he would be grateful for that.

He closes his eye a moment and lets out a breath, clinging to Loki as if he is afraid that he, too, will crumble into dust and be lost to the winds. "Thank you. For finding them. I..." His voice breaks for a moment, and he wearily rallies himself again. "Some of the escape pods must have made it also. I haven't... haven't gone to find them, yet."

Loki rarely initiates an embrace, and when he does it's never like this, never so encompassing and determined, like he's trying to hold Thor together.

He should have told him more. Should he have told him more? Would it have made any difference?

Loki shakes off that line of thinking with a little shudder that runs all the way through his body, and simply holds Thor more tightly. "Ssh," he says, and there is an echo of Frigga in the tone, whether Loki himself is aware of that or not. "Ssh, shh. I am here. No further harm will come to them while I breathe. And you will catch your breath and recover and then we will seek the escape pods together, if that is your wish."

Because this Thor's Loki is dead now, unless he somehow arrives in the Nexus, himself. There is no reason not to interfere with his world now, if he will permit it.

Thor cannot truly say that he wouldn't simply fall apart without these arms around him, moored to this time and place only by the touch of the living, a familiar embrace that he's not felt nearly often enough and perhaps never will again, and that thought touches off a fresh wave of grief that closes his throat. Thor buries his face in Loki's shoulder, tears wetting his brother's shirt, his breath stuttering out in irregular gasps as he fails to compose himself as a king should.

"I didn't stop him," he croaks out, after a time. Not couldn't. Didn't. Such a small thing, yet it made all the difference in the universe.

This is awful. Loki isn't sure what to do except continue to hold on, curling around Thor as if he could deflect the suffering, the tears with a blend of willpower and his own body.

A few years ago, he might have exulted in Thor's misery (though perhaps not, considering the source), but now it hurts. "You tried," he answers softly, knowing not how Thor might have gone about it, nor how close he might have come to success, but...

...well, it's Thor. He could have arrived unarmed in a bunny suit and Loki would still assume he tried his damnedest to fight Thanos. That's just who he is.

"We all tried," he adds, thinking of his own efforts, and also, more warily, of those of the Avengers around them, to whom he dares not speak. Neither Natasha nor Steve would welcome his sympathies, and he does not know the raccoon at all.

Thor draws back then, enough to look Loki in the eye, and he remembers all the warnings his brother gave him, all the hints and clues and still Thor failed. Did his own actions lead to his Loki's death? Something he changed for the worse?

It's only one death in trillions, but every life is precious, and there were few that Thor had to watch suffer as his brother had. Was this his fault too? "What did I change?" he whispers, desperately searching Loki's face for something he cannot name. Condemnation, redemption, he isn't sure which he desires more. Uncertain which one will twist the knife more deeply. "My Loki... my Loki is dead. How did you survive?" It's too late to change it now, but he has to know.

Oh, oh Norns. Loki stares at him in shock for a moment, heart sinking. Somehow he had thought he'd told Thor, or at least implied, that he had died at Thanos' hand. But of course Thor is an optimist, and Loki never came right out and said--

He drops to sit next to Thor as if his knees have suddenly decided to stop supporting him. "Oh, Thor," he says in a cracked whisper, and shakes his head. "I-I did not. I had...I had the Tesseract, and--I was never going to survive, Brother. Death was the best case scenario for me, if he caught us. The alternative was--"

To long for something as sweet as pain. He shudders.

"I thought I could bargain," he says. "Not for my own life, but for time. Enough for you. Enough for our people."

He reaches up and tugs at his own collar, enough to reveal the bruising that still--still--lingers. The marks of large fingers, but the discoloration is only a scar compared to the brutal neck-wringing he actually went through.

"I landed here after I died." His voice cracks.

What is he saying?

For a long, horrifying moment, Thor can do nothing but stare at him, uncomprehending, until Loki reveals the darkened bruising that rings his neck - a titanic handprint - and Thor chokes on his own breath, an unintentionally cruel echo of Loki's last. He reaches out as if to touch, as if that might somehow make it easier to bear, but it's the wrong hand, the metal one, and he quickly drops it again as if he's ashamed of it.

Loki is dead. Loki is dead and he has been for months, and Thor didn't know.

It's not a comfort. No, it's just a new form of torment, one that he hadn't seen coming, and should have. "Then I failed you, too. You warned me, and I didn't... I didn't change anything."

"It was too late, Thor. It was--you couldn't possibly have--" Loki doesn't flinch when Thor reaches to touch him. If anyone has the right, if anyone has his trust in this, it's Thor, and he doesn't give a damn if the hand is metal or flesh and blood.

Except the sight of the bruising is clearly upsetting, and so when Thor stops and drops his hand, he just lets the fabric smooth back into place, covering the marks.

"You saved three hundred and fourteen people who did not have a chance on my world," he tells him with a voice that quivers like a bowstring.

"It was too late for me from the moment Thanos laid eyes on me. Do you understand? I put myself in his grasp through my own foolish actions, and I paid the price. What I did for him I did unwillingly, but he would never have known I existed had I not..."

He breaks off, because he was going to finish that thought with had I not thrown myself from the Bifrost, and he imagines Thor can find a way to blame himself for that, too.

In a smaller, weaker voice he says: "It wasn't as painful as it looked. It was quick. I did not suffer."

Thor's tear-reddened eye still lingers at Loki's throat, unable to unsee the proof of Thanos' cruelty even though it's now hidden under fabric, his failure like a knife twisting between the ribs. He'd thought, at least, that his brother would go to his reward in Valhalla, slain in combat as any warrior would hope to be. Or at least Folkvangr, the gentle fields of rest perhaps more suited for Loki's tastes than endless feasting and boasting among the heroes of old.

But Loki is here, instead. A mercy, or a cruelty?

Later, Thor might consider that he is fortunate to have a voice of reason to speak these truths to him at a time where he most needs help, to plant those small seeds of hope that he's made a difference, despite the sheer scale of the tragedy stretching before him. Now, however, Thor can think of very little at all.

He reaches out blindly and pulls his brother into another hug, uncertain if he's trying to seek comfort or give it and feeling like he deserves neither. "I'm sorry," he manages, and it isn't enough, isn't nearly enough to stop the regret, the shame, the guilt.

Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man.

Perhaps Thor's Loki has been still more fortunate than this one. If he accepted his fate and went with peace, maybe he is even now meeting Frigga again and being told he is forgiven, and being led by the hand to a quiet garden where he can read and heal.

This one, now that he has been presented with a chance for more, is content to be here. Especially given the wreck his poor brother seems to be in. There is little he can do, but were he dead, there would be nothing at all. And that's an important thing for someone like Loki, prone to helpless rage and bitter depression, to keep in mind.

"Ssh," he says again, and hugs back, and this time he can't hold back tears. He wanted someone to understand, wanted Thor to understand, but not through personal experience. This is so cruel.

"So am I," he adds, swallowing a sob and wondering blankly why he didn't reach out for this sooner. They're holding onto each other, and Loki has needed it. Maybe it's a cold comfort. Maybe there is no real comfort to be had, but he should have tried sooner. "I tried."

It's not proper to cry at the funeral of a warrior honorably slain, knowing that the dead are receiving the highest honor any Asgardian could hope to achieve. But this was no epic battle, no legion of warriors who met their end with a weapon in hand and boots on their feet. This was a slaughter of innocents, trillions of lives stolen in the snap of metal-gloved fingers, most unaware there was any danger until it was far, far too late.

It's a living nightmare that Thor cannot wake from, unfathomable horror drowning him with every breath, so much worse than his visions had showed him. Will he still dream of this, he wonders, twisted into true nightmares free of prophecy, crafted from the raw materials of his memory? If there is more to come, he's not certain he could bear it.

He can't bear it even now.

His false arm is weak around his brother but he still holds tight, unable to feel anything more than simple pressure, and holds all the stronger with his right as he fails to hold his own tears at bay again. His head aches, dull and fierce between his eyes, sorrow pounding a dirge with every beat of his heart, feeling as though he may just sob until he dries up and withers away entirely.

You should have let me die, he thinks, and only does not say it out loud because he can't make his body cooperate long enough.

It's a long, long time before he feels he can let go, once both of them have quieted, and he dries his cheek with the corner of his cape, caring little for its dignity right now, let alone his own. Never in his life has Thor felt shattered and lost as he does now, wrung-out and unbalanced like the slightest breeze might topple him as a mighty oak in a storm. "What... what did you do... after?" he rasps out, a feeble attempt to find something to cling to, some direction to devote himself lest he find himself drifting further away.

Was it worse, Loki wonders, for the dead to collapse into dust, rather than to be shot over and over and burned to ash while their families screamed around them? If half the universe was going to die anyway, at least what occurred was quick, for most, and less painful than it might have been. He almost, almost opens his mouth to tell Thor that, but stops himself in time. That would only make things worse.

Part of him does want to say now, do you see? do you understand why I was so afraid, now? why I wanted so badly to hide? but there is no point. It would not help Loki and it would hurt Thor. Even Loki's anti-conscience is withdrawn and hesitant, pointing out only that a few words would break his brother irreparably, but choosing not to speculate on what those words might be.

He quiets sooner than Thor, because it's clear he needs to be the comforter here and now, no matter how ill suited he is to the role. And so he reaches up and pets his brother's hair, holds him close and keeps his own breathing as steady as he can.

"When...? After I died?" He asks, giving Thor a long, troubled look and then shrugging. "I landed here. And I wandered for a while. A few days, collecting myself. Listening, reading, not speaking."

"And then you showed up, and I had a plan once again."

He doesn't deserve this kindness, not from Loki, whom he failed so grievously. But Thor is selfish and doesn't pull away, guilt wracking him even for this, for having someone to hold onto to keep him from drowning in the despair that waits for him just outside the smothering fog of shock.

Thor does not flinch at the reminder that Loki is dead, simply closes his eye a long moment, just listening. Praying for some kind of guidance, some small scrap of an idea of what the hell to do with himself.

A plan. Starting with him.

Thor does not ask what Loki intended to accomplish - it hadn't been too late for Thor's universe, then, so the assumption is obvious - the results of it as clear as the ashes still smudging his skin, and in the weight of the arm hanging at his side. He makes a strangled sort of sound that might be an attempt to laugh, but there's no humor in him. "Then we both failed."

The assumption is obvious, but erroneous. That's often the case with Loki's plans and ideas. He did not dare to offer excessive guidance to this Thor, and while he did try to warn the others, he had long since run out of ideas for how to stop the disaster that is Thanos from coming down about their heads.

He was waiting for something to shift, some opportunity to present itself, or for himself to have enough power and influence gathered to make a difference for the better. He's not offended by Thor's assumption, though, nor by his acknowledgment that they both failed. Objectively, it's true, if not in quite the way the Thunderer means it.

"Yes," he says. "But we live, and there is always vengeance."

He's quiet for a moment, then says: "Thor, you should know--a while back I undertook a journey back to my own world, with Harley's help. I have spoken to some of the dead of my universe, in Hel. Some are guarding the living children you sent here. Invisible." Because no child needs the trauma of an alternate-universe ghost of a friend or relative speaking to them, right after watching their planet destroyed and their rescue ship fall apart under violent attack.

"I had planned to rally those souls against Thanos in my own world, but I would have to--never mind. It's a complicated plan and I am not yet in a place to follow through. The living must come first."

"And as you are among the living as well, whether you like it or not..." He tilts Thor's head gently so he can look into his eye. "You must rest, heal, and bathe. Do you understand?"

Vengeance.

Thor had tried that, already. Went to Nidavellir and stood in the full force of the forge, gave of himself - his power, his soul - to craft an axe so powerful that it would bring Thanos to his knees and make him suffer, inflicting even just a fraction of the agony he'd caused Thor in slaughtering a population already culled to a mere shade of what they once were.

And then Thanos had shown him that what he'd felt before was nothing.

He numbly stares down at his hands and listens to Loki speak, his heart recoiling from the offer of hope like an abused dog faced with a gentle hand, burned too many times to trust right away. But he doesn't refuse Loki's touch, raising his gaze to meet his brother's again, and imagines he must look as lost as he feels for Loki to be treating him this kindly.

The suggestion seems absurd, and Thor nearly opens his mouth to ask what the point of it all would be. But then the rest begins to seep through the denial he's cloaked himself in, and touches on the shreds of duty he has left. A duty to those who yet live, held safe here in the Nexus, or scattered in the stars. He's not worthy to be king any longer, not after what he's done, but there's no one else to take the throne, and they will need him. If only to find them someplace to settle and grieve, and then after that... Thor can't even imagine that far ahead, in the void where the future once was. But he has no choice.

"Yes," he answers, hushed, head jerking in a small nod. "I understand."

Loki gives lip service to revenge, but part of the reason he hasn't pursued his initial plans as doggedly as he might have is because he is coming to see that it's a hollow promise. Useful to keep a man wounded unto death from giving up--a fire in the belly to stave off the pain of loss for a little while--but whether vengeance is gained or lost, the initial wounds remain.

He has discovered they must be dealt with. He cannot know yet how Thor has pursued his revenge, but he would be shocked if the thought had not crossed the King's mind. He cannot know how he failed, or the full measure of the guilt he feels, but never doubt I love you still binds him to his brother. It doesn't matter what Thor has or has not done. Not any longer.

"Will you come with me?" He asks, offering a hand. "I have a place no one will interfere with your recovery. I will make sure the others know where you have gone."

He's not worthy of this either, doesn't deserve any of the comfort he's been offered so far, and yet Thor can't help but cling to it anyway, undeserving and loathing himself for it.

He hesitates only a moment, looking over at the others as if he'd forgotten they were even there, but there's no one left to take charge, to rally them around some common goal, not when the very universe itself has been ripped asunder. In the face of such cosmic devastation, Thor feels very small indeed, and in no position to know what is best for anyone. Perhaps not even himself.

But neither does he know what else to do, except sit here until he becomes part of the cityscape himself. If only to feel as though he is accomplishing something, too little too late, he reaches for Loki, grasping at the axe with his metal hand. He has nothing else to his name, not anymore.

"They would not welcome my compassion," he says quietly as Thor looks to the others. Granted, he doesn't have a negative history with Rocket so he might be mistaken there, but he can see that other people are rallying around these friends of theirs, Harley included. None of them will be left unaided. He can best assist Thor, and none other.

"But the nature of this place is such that they will not be alone." And there's a little twitch from Cricket as he informs him, mind-to-mind, that he's taking his brother elsewhere.

There is still Loki's own care to consider, selfish as it may seem. None have mourned the loss of his world with him, but now there is a chance for him and Thor to grieve together, as they should have had.

"There," he says softly as Thor accepts his hand, and pulls his flesh-and-blood arm over his shoulders as if to support him. He eyes the metal arm with a little frown.

"I do not think this happened in my world," he says, touching the wrist gently. "If it did, it occurred...after I was no longer there to see it. The axe is new, too."

Thor's footing wavers at the contact, his arm resting across that hidden bruising around his brother's throat, and perhaps the only reason he does not begin to cry again is because he's exhausted, both in body and in spirit. Loki is the only thing keeping him on his feet and moving forward, as Thor scrapes up what's left of himself enough to allow himself to be led.

He doesn't look down at the arm, but the fingers creak as they tighten around the axe's haft. They, at least, do not ache or tire like the rest of him, perhaps the only part of him that does not hurt. "I lost it in the massacre," he says, his voice heavy with weariness. "You were still... it was... before."

Something he did manage to change after all, then. Somehow, this does not seem cause for celebration.

Though if anything, the mention of the axe cuts deeper, the edge of its blade still streaked with purple Titan blood. He has suffered much to get his hands on it, a weapon with a single purpose, and he failed even at that. "Its name is Stormbreaker," he says quietly. "I made it. Eitri and I did. I had to hold the forge open and I..." He cuts himself off, having to take a few breaths to steady his thoughts, which seem to splinter off in a thousand different directions, and does not seem to notice or care that he's confessed to an act that probably should have sent him to Valhalla. "I had him, Loki. But I wanted him to hurt before he died. I didn't know he had them all... I didn't know."

Edited 2019-04-30 13:03 (UTC)

"There. I've got you, Brother." Loki holds onto him tightly, strong enough to support him despite their disparate sizes. He guides them a step or two, then pauses to get out his PINpoint.

"...If I suggested we do 'get help'," Loki says in a voice that's too rough and quivery to sound entirely humorous, "would that make you laugh or cry, or neither?"

He needs to find Sif if he can. She might do a better job at comforting him than Loki can. Still, he's not about to leave Thor's side for this purpose. He fidgets with the PINpoint, then freezes, looking up at Thor in incredulous horror. What's struck him may not be what Thor thought would upset him, though. "I'm sorry, did you just say you held the forge open?? The heart of the star?!"

The unexpected question actually drags a laugh out of Thor, brief and startled, almost like a sob. It feels wrong to laugh, though, and the guilt creeps up his throat and seizes his voice before he can further dishonor the dead. He just shakes his head, instead, until he feels he can breathe again. "I'd rather not," he manages at last.

It's not remotely close to the first time Loki has chastised him for doing something reckless and stupid, and in days gone past, Thor would usually merely laugh it off or ignore it altogether. But he's no willful, spoiled child any longer, a boy who thinks nothing bad could ever come of his decisions. In the past year, Thor feels as though he's aged a thousand more, never mind the last day. So he just lifts his chin and answers, "The iris was broken. There was no other way."

"I'll find some other excuse to throw you later, then," he says softly.

He shakes his head slowly at Thor, awe blending with sickly terror as some of his own worst memories bubble up to the surface. His mouth and throat are dry; he swallows thickly and reaches to touch Thor's face and shoulders as if checking for burns. (Really, as if that level of heat and radiation could leave burns rather than outright searing the flesh from a person's body.

"Don't ever do that again," he says, and then snaps to, forcing himself to focus on his PINpoint. A quick scroll, a tap of the keys, and then they're...somewhere else.

It's a room that looks to be solid wood, with slits high up on the walls for windows, green, dancing light shining through dimly. All the furniture--a bed, a desk, a bookshelf, a chair--seems to emerge from the walls or floor as if it's grown as a part of the room. The scents are of earth and water and blossom.

Loki steers his brother to the bed and pushes him to sit. "We are on the edge of the Wilds. This is one of my safe-houses here."

[Post Infinity War piece. Any Endgame spoilers must be tagged and minor in comments]

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