Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Loki was, admittedly, hanging on by a thread. Not that he would ever admit it. The work was piling up on his currently metaphorical desk—since an office space really wasn’t a priority right then. Which is why he was hiding in a janitorial closet in the hotel the Asgardians were staying in temporarily. Crying. For no reason.

This is ridiculous.

Loki rubbed vehemently at his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to staunch the flow of entirely unwelcome tears streaming down his face. Think about the work you have to do! He scolded himself internally, gritting his teeth and scrubbing at his face even harder. There’s still a trade deal to finalize, picking a surveyor to begin inspecting our new land for building prospects, establishing some measure of contact with the other realms... Loki squeezed his eyes shut until the tears finally stopped, grinding his teeth together in frustration. A quick spell cleaned up his tear-streaked face and made sure his hair was presentable, and then with a hurried illusion to hide his haggard features, Loki was stepping out into the hallway.

And smacking directly into Thor.

The trickster stumbled back, but Thor caught him by the shoulders before he could bolt. The King of Asgard's singular eye roamed his brother’s face, a small frown on his lips as he spoke. “Brother, are you alright?” he rumbled, concern evident in every line of his face.

“I am fine, you idiotic overprotective oaf!” Loki growled as he pulled out of his brother's grip and took a half-step backward. His hands flew together, already beginning to twist together in Loki's instinctual nervous gesture, before the prince forced his hands to drop to his side and attempted to display an air of nonchalance.

Thor's eye followed Loki's hands before rising back up to his face and meeting his gaze evenly. “Then why did Heimdall come to me and tell me you were hiding in a closet, crying?”

Loki gaped. He was hidden from Heimdall’s sight! The trickster reached inward for the familiar spell, freezing in alarm when he couldn’t find it, before hastily recasting it. It must have slipped sometime during Ragnarok, and I was so caught up in everything I didn’t notice. Cursing his own carelessness and Heimdall’s snooping, Loki bared his teeth in a snarl. “That was nothing that concerns you!” he spat viciously, ignoring the headache he had been nursing for the past couple of days that throbbed painfully in response to his outburst.

“You’re going to get sick if you keep working yourself like this,” Thor replied idly, his voice belying the worried crease between his eyebrows. He reached out for Loki, who tried to flinch away when he realized Thor’s intent, but his brother laid his hand on the silvertongue’s forehead anyway, thereby dissolving Loki’s illusion. Thor’s face pinched as he withdrew his hand, studying Loki, who shifted uncomfortably, looking away.

Without another word, Thor caught Loki by the wrist, pulling him down the hall toward the room the two shared. The thunderer's grip stayed firm as he unlocked the door, pushed Loki inside the room, and dragged him in front of the bathroom mirror. “Look at yourself,” Thor chided gently. Loki kept his expression perfectly impassive, inwardly fighting the desire to recoil. He hadn’t look in a mirror without a glamour on in… quite a few weeks, at the least, and the difference was slightly alarming. His normally bright emerald eyes were dull and shrouded in shadow, his face gaunt, and his skin an even more unhealthy pallor than his normally quite pale skin. He looked just shy of falling dead on his feet, but for the slight flush on his cheeks that he really, really hoped Thor wouldn’t notice.

Loki resisted the urge to press his lips together, pulling back up his glamour with a quick flicker of green over his face. “Maybe I need a bit more sleep,” he admitted, burning inside but knowing if he brushed his fatigued appearance off completely it would make Thor even more difficult. “But other than that, I’m perfectly fine. And I need to get back to work.” Loki twisted his wrist out of Thor’s grip and stepped toward the hallway, only to be blocked immediately.

“Oh come on!” Loki snapped, shoving Thor in the chest and not bothering to hide his vexation. “Thor. I. Have. To. Work.”

“So crying in a closet is perfectly fine?” Thor asked, his voice dangerously soft as he raised an eyebrow. Loki clenched his hands into fists, unable to come up with a retort and furious about it. “That’s what I thought,” Thor nodded after a minute of Loki clenching his teeth silently, grimly satisfied. “So. What’s wrong.”

“Nothing!” Loki spat, just shy of growling. The pain in his head was staggering now, and he momentarily considered just stabbing Thor and making a break for it. He just wanted to cower under the covers and sob in pain, but no, no, he had to work, there were treaties to look over and citizens to check on… Loki gritted his teeth once again, sucking in a sharp breath and realizing too late the action only amplified Thor’s concern. His older brother’s vivid blue eye was gleaming bright with worry as he stepped forward, once again placing a hand on Loki’s forehead. This time, however, he didn’t pull away when the illusion dissolved, the frown on his face intensifying after his hand lingered for a moment.

“You’re feverish, brother,” Thor murmured, moving his hand to tuck a lock of hair behind Loki’s ear. Loki resisted the urge to hiss like a wet cat, settling for glaring with a ferocity that could cut steel instead. Unperturbed, Thor guided a hand to Loki’s shoulder and began ushering the mischief-maker toward the bathroom doorway. “Let’s get you in bed,” he continued softly, and Loki stopped dead, shrugging Thor’s hand off of his shoulder and folding his arms.

“I am not ill!”

"Why do you have a fever, then?" Thor said, so patiently that Loki wanted to rip out his remaining eye, raising a hand to Loki's upper back to support him (as if he needed help!).

Loki heaved a dramatic sigh, loathe to admit any weakness, but if he was going to get Thor to let up, he had to. "I'm not ill," Loki asserted again, defiantly, turning his next words over in his mind, scrambling for a way to tell the truth that wouldn't end with Thor coddling him like a child. "It's only a headache. Sometimes, they can cause fevers. That's all." Thor's frown didn't abate, his expression still entirely unconvinced. "Thor, I swear! It's nothing but a headache causing a slight fever! I'm fine!"

Loki resisted the urge to screw his eyes shut in an attempt to block the light, and therefore some of the pain pulsing in his skull, as Thor studied his face carefully with a concerned frown. "It's bad enough to cause a fever?" the thunderer questioned carefully, earnest concern still swimming in his singular eye. Biting back a snarl, Loki tried again.

"Thor, I've been getting headaches like these for centuries. It's nothing new. I'm fine."

Thor gave a weary sigh, pushing the hand that wasn't still resting on Loki's back through his shorn hair. "Why don't you go to the healers then, to ease it?" he asked, rubbing his own forehead wearily.

"Nothing helps," Loki divulged petulantly. "It'll pass, in time."

"Even if it's only a headache," Thor started, once again guiding Loki forward, "if it's enough to cause a fever, you should be resting. You need some rest, anyway, you can work again once you feel better." Thor tried to steer Loki in the direction of the beds, but Loki slipped away from his grip and ducked around the thunderer, switching their positions.

"Absolutely not."

"Brother," Thor insisted wearily, but Loki was already reaching for the door handle and slipping out of the room, back into the hallway.

"I have work to do, brother," Loki called over his shoulder, "and so do you." Loki vanished in a flash of green light, intending to teleport downstairs to speak with Heimdall, first about prying and then about picking someone to survey their new land.

He found himself back in the closet instead.

Somehow, Loki's irritated growl turned into a pained whine, and he slumped to the ground in defeat, surrounded by noxious smelling cleaning supplies and endless towers of linens. After a moment, Loki allowed himself to squeeze his eyes shut and lean his head back against the wall, even as he internally berated his weakness and urged himself to get back up. This really, truly, is ridiculous.

Thor found the Valkyrie in the bar off of the hotel lobby, arguing with the bartender about whether or not the Asgardians' stay included unlimited bar access. Thor watched for a moment, amused, before clearing his throat. Valkyrie turned, eyes narrowed, her expression softening only slightly. "Your Majesty, please, please tell this dimwit that this stay includes bar access," she pleaded, shooting a glare back toward the young man fidgeting behind the counter.

"I don't think Stark paid for that, though I doubt he would mind. Just tell him to add it to whatever else we owe," Thor said magnanimously, leaning up against the wall and folding his arms over his chest. Valkyrie pumped her fist in victory, before turning to the bartender and asking for "three of the strongest stuff you've got." "Wait!" Thor blurted hastily, "I did come to talk to you about something."

The Valkyrie shot him a wry look. "Which is why I asked for the strongest stuff." She plopped down on a bar stool, and then patted the stool next to her. "Talk."

Thor laughed, crossing the room to sit beside her. "Have you seen Loki around?" he asked, rubbing his forehead.

Valkyrie shook her head. "No, I haven't, not since breakfast this morning. Why?"

"I was trying to talk to him earlier, but he teleported away," Thor explained with a heavy sigh, putting his elbows on the counter and letting his chin rest on his hands. The bartender placed three drinks on the table, and Valkyrie took two for herself and pushed one to Thor. She took a large, appreciative swig and drained half of the first glass before slamming it down on the table and turning back to face Thor.

"I think that means he doesn't want to talk," she smirked wryly, picking up the glass again and taking a more sedate sip. "Which also means there's no way you're gonna find him before he wants to be found."

Thor sighed. "Yes, I know," he started wearily, picking up his own glass and sniffing experimentally before shrugging and taking a drink. It burned going down his throat, nothing like the meads and wines of Asgard, and he found he couldn't really be bothered by that fact. He didn't much feel like thinking about what he'd lost right then. "I'm just worried about him."

Valkyrie snorted. "When are you ever not?"

Thor briefly considered protesting that, before his lips twisted in a grim smile. "True. But someone has to worry, and it certainly won't be him."

"Really?" Valkyrie asked, already starting her second glass. "You'd think he'd be smarter than that."

"Well, he won't leave himself bleeding out or anything like that, but," Thor paused, sighed, and leaned back a bit, shifting his position on the stool, "he doesn't really pay attention to things like getting sleep or eating. It's my fault, honestly. When we were boys I'd tease him for tiring first, or needing to take a break when training. Eventually, he simply stopped paying attention to such things. I'm positive there were times where he didn't sleep for weeks on end, working on some new spell or other, though I can't recall any now. He'll push himself to the breaking point, and then well past that, if he thinks he needs to in order to get something done, or if he feels he has something to prove. I seriously doubt he'd be sleeping or eating at all right now if I wasn't getting onto him. And he won't ever tell me if something's wrong, that's for sure. I beat that out of him a long time ago." Thor looked down into his glass and stared for a moment at his own penitent expression reflected in the transparent orange liquid, before picking up the cup and draining it dry, relishing the burn that tore him from his own lamentations.

"Yeah, sounds like you were a crap brother," Valkyrie observed. Thor shot her a surprised look, and she smirked. "What? Were you looking for reassurance or something? 'Cause I think you'll need to find someone else to talk to for that."

Thor laughed quietly. "No, no, you're right. And frankly, I'd rather you be honest then used honeyed words save my feelings. I just hope I can fix some of the damage I've done to him. Eventually. Maybe one day he'll feel like he can tell me things again, though I doubt it." He trailed off, passing the glass idly from hand to hand on the slick surface of the bar.

"I'm sure he will," Valkyrie said, patting Thor on the arm awkwardly. "He loves you, you know. Idolizes you, really. He wouldn't have come back otherwise." She paused, retracting her hand. "Now scram before you make me say other comfort-y things and look for him somewhere else, because we both know you aren't giving up any time soon."

Thor laughed again, loud and hearty this time. "Indeed. Thank you, good Valkyrie."

Valkyrie snorted. "Call me Val."

"Val, then," Thor grinned, hopping off of the stool and leaving to hopefully track down his younger brother.

Chapter Text

A shimmer of brilliant emerald green appeared in the air, and a small keycard flickered into existence in Loki's hand. He swiped it and yanked open the door, banishing the card again with another thought and using a bit of seidr to make sure the door closed soundlessly. Thor's snores dominated the room as Loki magically changed from his everyday regal leather armor and trousers into a much looser and softer tunic and pants. He crossed the room with silent steps on the rough carpet, slipping fluidly up onto his bed and casing a cursory glance toward the other side of the room, where a large mound tangled in a mass of bedcovers lay, blankets rising and falling rhythmically in the even breaths of sleep. With a muted sigh, Loki curled in his bare toes for warmth and reached for a stack of papers on the night table, settling cross-legged on top of the covers. Everyone in the hotel was asleep now, making it an opportune time to go over the paperwork he had been amassing during the day without worry of interruption.

Loki skimmed paper after paper, using a miniature green magelight fluttering gently near his shoulder to see. The trickster quickly and deftly sorted the papers into those that Thor would need to look over personally and those he could handle on his own, before turning back to the papers that required his brother's attention. Conjuring up a pen, Loki got to work, underlining the most important passages as he read, scribbling notes in the margins with advice, and ending each paper with a note on whether or not he thought Thor should sign if a paper needed a signature, or advice on action to take based on any information imparted. He flew through a series of trade deal proposals, several documents on Asgard's current finances, and no meager amount of proposals for how to proceed in construction of New Asgard, before turning to his own stack.

Sometime later, Loki set down his pen on the bed to rub his eyes, and became aware of the sound of someone moving about. He looked up to find Thor sitting up in his bed, watching the dark-haired prince with a sharp frown. "You stayed up all night," Thor observed, his voice ominously void of emotion. It wasn't a question.

Loki briefly considered denial, but the papers strewn about him on the otherwise untouched bed and the magelight still hovering by his side—even though, he realized uncomfortably, light was spilling into the room from the half-open curtains—painted an obvious picture. He dismissed his magelight with a huff, gathering up and hastily sorting the papers around him before placing them on the bedside table and moving to slide off of the bed. Thor was on him in less than a moment, grabbing him by the shoulders and pressing him back down. "Brother, let me up," Loki complained irritably, attempting to pry Thor's hands off of his shoulders without success.

"Lie down and go to sleep," Thor ordered, and Loki cursed internally at the fever-bright concern glinting in his eye. "I'll bring you something to eat when I come back from breakfast." Loki crossed his arms and sighed, the action transforming into an indignant squawk when the thunderer swept up all the papers Loki had sorted in one movement, messing them all up, and placed them across the room, out of reach.

"I'll have to sort those again now, you fool!" Loki snapped, moving to stand up. The glare that Thor shot the silvertongue had him swiftly sitting back down, and then scrambling underneath the covers before Thor could try and forcibly tuck him in.

"Sleep," Thor ordered again after returning to his brother's side, reaching out to smooth Loki's hair away from his face. Loki batted his older brother's hand away with a rather undignified noise of offense. "And I mean it," he continued as if nothing had occurred, "or I'll send Valkyrie up here to babysit. Do not dare do anything besides rest until I return."

The trickster sagged back onto the pillows with a dramatic eye roll and a drawn-out moan, not particularly concerned with the fact that he was acting like a petulant child who wanted to stay up past their bedtime. "You are insufferable," he griped as Thor rifled through the room's singular dresser, pulling out a tunic and tossing it across the room in the vague direction of the bathroom.

"And you are working yourself too hard," Thor retorted, turning to face his brother with a pair of trousers in hand. They dropped to the floor and Thor crossed to Loki's side as the mischief-maker kept up an internal monologue of curse words.

Why, oh why did I open my mouth? "I beg of you brother, if you have but a single modicum of mercy, spare me the lecture," Loki pleaded, pushing himself up into a sitting position. The look on his brother's face instantly dissipated any faint hope he held of avoiding a scolding.

Having accepted that at this point resistance was futile, Loki allowed himself to be pressed back into lying down and conceded to letting his brother tuck the covers around him without any measure of protest. Thor sat down on the bed beside him, skimming a hand through his spiky, dark blond hair with a deep sigh. "Loki," he began in a resigned tone colored by worry, "you cannot do this to yourself. I cannot take you doing this to yourself. I'm worried, brother. You aren't taking care of yourself at all, and you need sleep, badly. You'll fall ill if you keep going like this. If you won't sleep for your own sake, brother, sleep for mine. Please."

"You are moping as though someone has drowned your puppy, brother," Loki grumbled, in order to hide the twinge of guilt he felt. Thor's so-called 'puppy eyes'—or 'eye' as it was now—were infamous, and even (or especially) Loki wasn't immune. Dark hair fell into his face as he turned his head away, staring intently at the gauzy cerulean curtains in a clear move of avoidance. After a beat of silence, Loki let out a deep, long-suffering sigh, continuing before his older brother could pick the lecture back up. "Fine. I'll rest. For you, and only for you, brother. Now let me be."

There was no need to turn to know that Thor's face broke out into a jovial grin at his words. The thunderer shifted as if he was intending to speak, but held his tongue and gently combed his fingers through his younger brother's dark waves instead. After delicately arranging the blankets around his brother's form, Thor crept quietly away to continue getting dressed. Loki forced his breathing to even out and deepen as he listened to the King of Asgard tiptoe about the room, before the door to the bathroom shut softly. Loki counted the time in breaths until the bathroom door creaked open again, and then the door to the room slid open and shut with a muted click.

Turning over with a huff, Loki groaned into the far too-soft hotel pillow. After approximately five minutes of lying still, he decided that his obligation to rest had been fulfilled. In one fluid moment, the prince flipped over, sat up, and reached out a softly glowing hand, slipping his legs out from under the covers as his papers fluttered across the room and landed in his waiting grasp. A pen appeared in Loki's hand as he swiftly skimmed the pages he held, spreading the papers out around him and rapidly sorting them once again. The moment the papers were organized to his satisfaction, Loki dove back into reading, pen in hand. Minutes passed as pen flew across paper and emerald eyes over thin, concise type, page after page passing in and out of the trickster's elegant hands.

Loki was working his way through a particularly unctuous request for an audience with the King of Asgard by some senator or governor or maybe even mayor—he had quickly forgotten the title and name of the writer beneath smarmy word choice and flowery turns of phrase—when the door creaked. The silence in the room grew loud, and Loki couldn't quite suppress the flush blooming on his face. Without looking over, the mischief-maker set down the pen held in one hand and the paper in the other, biting his lower lip as he waited for his elder brother to speak. He didn't have to wait long.

"Loki."

The sheer amount of soul-crushing disappointment and dejection Thor can infuse into a single word, Loki mused, still not looking up, has got to be breaking some sort of law. Somewhere. One shouldn't be allowed to be able to make someone feel so guilty with one word. "Brother," Loki mumbled, battling the not insignificant urge to hide under the blankets from the one-eyed gaze of hurt and betrayal burning through his skull. Steeling himself, the dark-haired prince glanced toward the doorway, where the King of Asgard stood with a keycard in one hand and a plate piled high with food in the other, the door propped open with his foot.

Loki looked away again, and didn't move as Thor crossed the room to stand by his bed. The thunderer set the plate and keycard onto the bedside table, before sitting down on the bed beside his little brother. "Why?" Thor asked, snaking an arm around Loki and pulling the silvertongue to his side. "Why do you do this to yourself, brother?" he murmured gently, running a hand through his brother's raven hair. Loki allowed himself to melt into his brother's side, resting his head on the king's shoulder as he mulled over his words.

"I'm not..." Loki started slowly, swallowing around a sudden lump in his throat, "I'm not... trying not to sleep or, or anything such. I simply... cannot do it. I can't fall asleep, so I might as well do something productive." He tensed, curling his hands into fists and digging his nails into the palms of his hands. "I can't do it. I can't just lay there for hours when there are things I can be doing, things I should be doing. I must do something because if I try to sit and do nothing I'll go mad. Or, madder than I already am."

Sighing heavily, Thor pulled Loki even closer, forcing the trickster to relax once more. "I do understand that, brother, but you need rest. You know how easily you fall ill, ever since childhood." His next words were light, joking, with an undercurrent of seriousness and overwrought despair. "Am I going to have to slip a sleeping draught into your food?"

Loki stiffened and pulled away abruptly, instinctively distancing himself from his older brother at the words. "You wouldn't dare," he hissed, surprising even himself with the venom in his voice, as panic mounted in his chest. Images of darkness and being trapped and unable to fight back rose in the dark-haired prince's mind, mocking laughter and screams ringing in his ears, phantom pain shredding his veins and leaving him in ribbons, and the Other crooning in his ear, you will wish for something as sweet as pain. His thoughts swirled and howled, growing in volume until he could barely hear Thor over the din, could barely see around the black spots crowding out his vision. The thought of being unable to wake, of being forced into a state of weakness, shook Loki to the core and left him feeling as if his lungs had been abruptly ripped out and replaced with Jotunheim's fiercest blizzard.

"I may need to, if you keep pushing yourself this way," the thunderer said mildly, his tone belying his confusion at his younger brother's reaction.

"Well then I won't eat!" Loki exploded, chest heaving and hands shaking. He plunged his hands into the cloud-like fabric of the coverlet, twisting the voluminous ivory cotton between his slender alabaster fingers in a frantic attempt to disguise the trembling and ground himself. Fight back fight back run run run don't let them pin me run help please help me no run help Thor help me—

Thor's eye widened dramatically as he cried out in dismay. "Loki! You can't do that!" 

Springing to his feet, Loki spat, "watch me!" acid dripping from his words as verdigris eyes flashed with fury and, Thor realized a moment too late, terror.

"Okay," the king placated smoothly, spreading his arms slightly and displaying his hands with his palms facing up, posture relaxed and expression carefully composed. "Alright. I shouldn't have said that. I won't do that to you. Breathe, brother. You're safe."

The mischief-maker swayed lightly in place as the adrenaline faded, leaving his face burning in mortification and his hands still shaking, static buzzing in his mind with frenzied intensity. He sank back down onto the bed, eyes drawn to his feet, hating the way he couldn't quite suppress the tremors still running up and down his slender form. Releasing a large breath in a resigned sigh, Thor sat down next to his brother, once more curling a burly arm around the younger's narrow shoulders. "Sorry," Loki mumbled, still blushing faintly. Thor silenced him with a soft squeeze of his shoulder.

"No," the thunderer began, "I'm sorry, brother. I should have noticed that I was upsetting you. I promise that I won't force you to take a sleeping draught, or slip you one without your permission. You're okay, Loki. I promise." As the panic faded, Loki tried to pull away, but he didn't resist when Thor drew him back in, smoothing a large, gentle hand over the trickster's jet black waves. "No, it's alright, brother. If it frightens you, that's nothing to be ashamed of. I won't suggest something like that again." After a silent moment, Thor huffed. "I wish you would tell me things. If I knew that such scared you, I wouldn't have brought it up, even in jest."

"I know," Loki acquiesced, "but I can't avoid everything that frightens me forever. You can't protect me from my own head, brother." Lips twisting in a bitter smile, Loki continued, "much as you may wish to fix me."

"You're not broken," Thor asserted, still running his fingers through Loki's hair, "just hurting. And that's alright, after everything." Loki made a noncommittal sound, leaning into his brother. Stroking Loki's dark locks one last time, Thor leaned away, snagging the edge of the paper plate he had set on the night table with his fingers and pulling it close enough to grab. Pressing a quick kiss to the trickster's hair and placing the plate in his brother's lap, Thor pulled his arm back and stood up. Stretching his arms over his head, the one-eyed king instructed, "eat something, and then get dressed. I've got a call to make, and then I'll return."

Thor crossed the room, slid the door open, and stepped into the hallway. After pacing down the hall a few feet, making sure he wouldn't be overheard, he pulled the latest Starkphone from his pocket. The King of Asgard considered the device for a moment, before chuckling and unlocking it. Skillfully scrolling through the contacts, he selected a name and pressed dial. Thor lifted the phone to his ear and shifted from foot to foot, breaking into a large beam when the call went through. "Stark? I need to ask a bit of a favor. The hotel that you paid for us to stay in is only a two-hour drive from the compound, so I was wondering if..."

Chapter Text

"Valkyrie! Valkyrie!"

Valkyrie turned to see her king running across the hotel lobby, ignoring the slightly startled stares of the desk staff. "Majesty," she greeted, "what was so urgent that I got a text telling me to 'get down to the lobby right this minute'? It better not be something about your brother again." The flush that rose on the thunderer's face immediately confirmed her suspicions. "Okay, no. Find someone else." She turned to head toward the elevators, to find... something to do, but was stopped by a large hand catching her wrist.

"Please, Valkyrie," Thor begged, singular eye shining earnestly. "All I need is for you to distract him for a bit—er, and take care of things while we're gone."

"While you're... Majesty, what?" Val planted her hands on her hips as she spun to face him, already unimpressed and worrying that she was going to have to talk her king out of doing something stupid. Again.

"Ah..." Scratching at his scalp, Thor shifted his weight, his eye drifting away from her face. He sucked in a deep breath and let it all out in a rush, before locking his jaw and returning his gaze toward her with a new obstinate gleam in his eye. "I'm taking Loki on a road trip."

"A what?" Valkyrie didn't know what a road trip was, but she could put together the concept quickly enough to only need to consider the idea for a moment before expressing disapproval. "No. No. Absolutely not. If this 'road trip' involves leaving for an extended period of time, or honestly anything longer than maybe an hour or two, no. Asgard needs you, both of you. Here. Not off on some road trip."

"Loki's working too hard," the thunderer professed resolutely, "and I'm done with it. I'll only be a phone call away, and it won't be forever. Only until Loki stops stressing so much."

"So for the next millennium then." Shaking her head, Valkyrie huffed. "Your Majesty, you can't. Not that Loki—or you, for that matter—doesn't need a break, but because you can't. Not now. Not when we just got the land grant from Norway, and now we have to see about building, and transporting the people overseas. Not when we're literally trying to rebuild a realm—on a different one."

"Valkyrie, I swear to you I'll return without delay if there's a necessity. Loki can transport me back if it comes to that. I just—I can't watch him destroy himself. He needs to take a break, and he never will, not without distance from... all of this," Thor begged earnestly, singular blue eye bright with hope. "And it wouldn't be just you—You and Heimdall both would be watching the people in our steed. I'd call every day, and I could still do paperwork and the like. There isn't anything I can do here that I can't also do from a distance."

"What about inspiring the people?" The Valkyrie demanded, folding her arms.

Thor began his usual protest, "but you're the legendary Valky—"

"Nope!" She interrupted, her glare heated, "that's not the same as the literal king. And prince! And what about leading them to New Asgard, and just. Freaking. Being. There. Majesty, what will the people of Asgard think if their king is just running off during a crisis?"

"They'll understand," Thor insisted, gaze still desperately imploring. "I need to do this. Please."

That one word, coupled with the begging and utterly dejected expression and that stupid blue eye felled her resolve like a sword through the heart. "Fine. But you'll return before we leave for New Asgard, or you won't leave at all. Got it?"

The relief on the thunderer's face was palpable, and he released a strained laugh in utter relief. "Thank you, Valkyrie." Thor turned to leave, and then paused. Spinning back around, he pushed a hand through his hair, a request near vibrating in the air between them.

Sighing, Valkyrie flicked a hand at him. "Oh, out with it."

"Could you distract Loki and keep him away with our floor while I pack a bag?" Thor burst out, looking sheepish.

She studied him for a minute, before sighing. "Why the heck not."

Why am I sticking around to deal with these insane Odinsons again?

Thor had packed a bag for both him and his younger brother and spirited them out to the car before returning to collect said sibling. After a quick conversation with Heimdall, who—as he had assumed—had watched the king's conversation with Valkyrie, Thor followed the directions he was given to locate Loki and the Valkyrie in a park near the hotel.

"—and I don't see why I should be out here when there are things I could be doing!" Loki was complaining bitterly when Thor caught sight of the pair, walking along a lazy path heading toward a fountain. The trickster was gesturing emphatically, exasperation clear in every line of his form. "Really, we should head back. Now. Do I have to order you as your prince? Because I'm not quite fond of doing that."

"Loki," Thor said, now a few feet behind the two. Relief clear on his face, Loki twisted on his heel, turning quite dramatically to face his elder brother.

"Brother!" Loki exclaimed in a harried voice, "please tell her this break is—" eyes narrowing, he paused, before huffing exasperatedly. "You ordered her to make me take a break."

Thor shrugged entirely unapologetically. "Guilty as charged," he acknowledged, beckoning with one hand. "Come, brother, walk back with me."

Ignoring Loki's furious tirade as they walked back was relatively easy, seeing as Thor had much practice tuning him out over the years. Mostly when he was talking about his magic, the thunderer remembered with a pang of guilt. Quietly, he resolved to pay more attention to the silvertongue. Well, after this rant was over.

"—really need to get back to work now, brother," Loki was saying, walking a half-step ahead. Rolling his eye and smiling to himself, Thor quickened his pace and subtly edged his younger brother toward the parking lot. So caught up in his exasperated monologue, the mischief-maker didn't notice he was being led somewhere else until Thor was opening the door to a shiny black Audi and slipping inside. Stopping in his tracks, Loki's brow furrowed. "Brother, what?" he asked, confusion clear in his voice. "Where are you going?"

"Where are we going, you mean," Thor said cheerfully, motioning to the other side of the car. "Get in."

Still frowning, Loki obeyed, walking around the car and sliding into the passenger seat. "Alright, where are we going then?" He watched as Thor turned the key and switched the car into reverse, backing out the parking space, and a small smirk appeared on his lips. "I didn't know you knew how to drive these Midgardian vehicles, brother. Are you sure this isn't a one-way trip to Valhalla we're going on?" the prince quipped.

"Oh, hush you," Thor scowled playfully, half-tempted to reach out and give the trickster a shove. "I can drive."

"What, like you drove that dark elf ship?" Loki couldn't stifle a laugh at the thunderer's disgruntled expression, and this time Thor did remove a hand from the wheel to give him a light smack.

"I took lessons, if you must know. I have a license and everything." The click of Thor activating the turn signal before he changed lanes punctuated his statement as he tried and failed to keep a self-satisfied grin off of his face.

Loki smirked again, watching his brother navigate the road like an expert, before sobering. "Alright, enough diversions, where are we going?"

"You'll see," Thor replied evenly, bound and determined not to give up any information until he had to, knowing full well that Loki would not be happy with him and hoping to stave off that storm as long as possible.

"Seriously," Loki persisted. "Brother. Come on. Tell me."

"No."

"Tell meeeeeeeeee," Loki whined dramatically, leaning back in his seat and throwing a hand upon his forehead like a swooning maiden. He infused his next words with so much false desperation it was almost tangible. "I will die if I don't know!"

"Okay," Thor grumbled, "now you're just trying to be obnoxious."

"Yes," Loki agreed, sitting back up. "Is it working?"

"No."

"It is a little."

"No, no it isn't. That doesn't work on me anymore."

"Is that a challenge?" Loki put his feet up on the dashboard, crossing his ankles and shooting his older brother an impish grin. "I can be very annoying."

Thor sighed. "I've known you for a millennium. I know full well how annoying you can be, brother. You don't need to prove it."

"But I will anyway."

"No you won't." A small grin grew on the thunderer's face as he glanced toward his brother. "Because you're not dumb enough to distract me and make us crash. You were bluffing."

"I hate you," Loki mumbled. "Stop figuring me out. It's unnerving."

Sensing a bit of truth hidden in the jab, Thor wisely backed off, knowing that calling attention to his brother's private nature never ended well for anyone. "Just wait, brother. You'll see where we're headed once we get there."

Muttering something that was probably more than a little insulting under his breath, Loki pulled his feet off of the dashboard. The trickster then leaned his forehead up against the window and closed his eyes, breath fogging up the glass slightly as he exhaled. Thor turned off the radio, which had been quietly playing some random pop song, and hoped that his little brother could get at least a bit of sleep before they arrived.

Minutes passed in silence, as city turned to open skies and empty fields, punctuated with the occasional forest. Thor could feel Loki's eyes on him on occasion, but after about half an hour of silence his breathing evened out in a way that meant he was either asleep or pretending to be. Good, Thor thought, squashing down a satisfied smile and resisting the urge to turn and look and look at his brother, keeping his eyes on the road instead. More time passed in silence, and then as the compound nears, Loki stretched and yawned, before sitting up from where he was leaning against the window and looking at the glowing blue clock on the dashboard.

"It's been two hours since we left?" the mischief-maker exclaimed in dismay, running a hand through his tousled ebony hair in an attempt to smooth it. "Thor, where are we going?" He paused. "I also don't believe this is legal. I'm supposed to remain inside the hotel until New Asgard is built, remember? And once it is, that's where I'll be confined."

"Since when have you cared if something is strictly legal or not, brother?" Thor asked with a chuckle. "Besides," the king added, "we've just about arrived. Look up ahead."

Loki looked up, and Thor could see the exact moment that the dark-haired prince recognized the building in the distance while watching him in the rear-view mirror. "The Avengers Compound?" Loki sounded vaguely horrified. "You better not be chauffeuring me to those fools of yours so that they can attempt another interrogation, brother. Or was this part of the terms and you simply didn't see fit to inform me?"

"Of course not!" Thor objected, affronted. "I would fry the mainframe to a crisp if they tried," he promised, taking a hand off the wheel to squeeze the trickster's shoulder comfortingly.

"Hands on the wheel!" Loki cried, prying the thunderer's hand off of his shoulder and shoving it away. "I have no plans to die today, thank you very much!"

"Hush, it's fine," Thor rolled his eye, but he put his hand back on the wheel and focused his attention on the road all the same.

"Thank you," Loki said empathetically, "now tell me why we're here."

Humming slightly, Thor turned into the compound driveway. "You want to see Bruce again, right?"

"Well," Loki admitted, watching the building with wary eyes, "yes, but I sincerely doubt that we came all the way out here just to see Banner. Stop the avoidance, brother, it doesn't become you."

Thor groaned. "I'll tell you soon, I promise. For now, let's just head inside."

"Okay," Loki mumbled doubtfully as Thor parked in front of the massive, sleek, all-shimmering-glass-and-white-walls building. He pushed open the car door and hopped out as Thor removed the car key and slid out of the driver's seat. As the car beeped, signaling that it had been locked, and Thor slipped the keys back into his jeans pocket, the silvertongue called back, "I sincerely hope that I won't hate this!"

Thor watched his little brother's dark silhouette walking toward the grand doorway for a moment, before glancing up at the clear afternoon sky. You will.

Chapter Text

Thor, Loki, and Tony Stark were all standing in the compound's kitchen. Staring. Silently.

Thor shuffled his feet, giving Loki a pointed look and jerking his head subtly in the direction of the billionaire. The mischief-maker twisted up his face in a grimace, before smoothing out his features once again and turning towards the man standing across the kitchen with arms folded and one eyebrow lifted. "Stark," Loki sighed in a blatantly forced polite tone, "we meet again."

Thor elbowed Loki in the side and stepped forward, smiling brightly in a feeble attempt to make up for his younger brother's prickliness. "It's good to see you again, Stark. Again, thank you for paying for our hotel while we wait on New Asgard's construction." He skimmed a hand over his hair, shrugging noncommittally at Tony's protest of "it's no big deal" before continuing to speak. "I'm terribly sorry we haven't yet had a chance to catch up again; I'm afraid I've been rather busy as of late. I trust Bruce has informed you of the events that led to Asgard's sudden relocation to Midgard?"

"Something about a crazy sister, a gladiator planet, and a talking rock man with a love of pamphlets?" Tony smirked, "yeah, basically, though I bet you'd tell it differently. But, um, don't bash my head in for this, Point Break, but why does he have to be here for us to catch up? Can't trust him alone or something?"

Thor bristled indignantly, while Loki echoed, "yes, brother, why does he have to be here?"

"We're going to be staying at the compound for a week or so," Thor declared, in a tone that dared anyone to argue or be met with a faceful of lightning.

"What?!" Loki and Stark exclaimed in unison, each turning their rather ferocious glares from each other to the staunchly unapologetic thunderer standing between them.

"We're what?!" Loki continued as Stark spluttered with indignation. "You must be joking. You must be joking. Either way, I swear I'm going to light your bed on fire. With you in it. Brother, I have things that I need to do!"

"As much as I hate agreeing with Reindeer Games," Tony started, ignoring the trickster's huff, "yeah, Point Break, that's not gonna fly. You aren't saddling me with your crazy baby brother and taking off, uh-uh." The mechanic stepped forward with flashing eyes, jabbing a finger into the thunderer's broad chest. "No. Freaking. Way."

"I'm not going to simply leave my brother and take off!" Thor growled, "and as I recall, did you not say that any of the Avengers could stay here at any time?"

Sighing, the king dragged a hand over his face, not altogether surprised when Tony's outraged "that psycho is not an Avenger!" overlapped with Loki's simultaneous outburst of "I am most certainly no Avenger!"

"Maybe not," Thor ignored Loki's scoff, "but anywhere I go, I expect my brother to be welcomed also." Loki scoffed again, even louder.

"Um, yeah, no." Frowning, Tony took a step back, appraising the silvertongue with critical cedar brown eyes. "You're not dragging that crazy around in my compound, thanks."

Mildly annoyed expression hardening into a full-on death glare, Thor took a step forward. His looming figure and hardened cerulean eye all but radiated 'I am a king, listen to what I say' as he spoke in a deep, harsh, and yet carefully modulated tone. "My brother is not crazy, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop speaking about him in such a manner. Loki is my younger brother, a prince of Asgard, and heir to the throne," Loki jolted, giving the thunderer a near comically startled look that he ignored, not stopping in his speech, "were something to befall me, or if I was unable to rule for a time, and deserves respect."

"So, he's your baby brother so you're just going to forget everything he did!? He tried to take over my freaking planet! And you'd let him rule?! After everything!? He's a prince and your kid brother and his crimes were only against us puny mortals, no big deal? Was he even punished at all or just sent to his room with no dinner by daddy dearest and Asgard looks the other way?" Tony's eyes were hard, and his breathing ragged when he stopped his tirade, glaring poisonously toward the dark-haired prince hovering quietly behind Thor's back.

The thunderer's voice was dangerously quiet, dangerously composed, and scarily emotionless, yet with a frigid undertone rivaling the fiercest winters of Jotunheim when he spoke. "I assure you, Stark, my judgment is clouded in no such way, not even for my brother. He has done time in Asgard for his crimes, and has fully redeemed himself in the eyes of both myself and the people of our kingdom with his actions during Ragnarok. Furthermore, it's been revealed that Loki wasn't nearly as much at fault for the Chitauri invasion as it originally appeared. Either way, Loki has been pardoned, and is my brother and I expect him to be treated with the same courtesies given to myself."

Scoffing, Tony took a step away from the pair, eyes still focused with a frightening intensity on the silvertongue. "And how do I know he isn't messing with your head right now? Or just plain lied to you and you believed it? Lying is like his thing, remember? Literally has a title because of it? Just because he's little brother doesn't mean you should be blind to what he does. He's dangerous and a madman, Thor."

Thor was preparing to shout, the smell of ozone drifting in the room and static crackling around his form, when a movement behind him caught his eye. He spun around to see Loki, eyes dark and arms folded over his chest defensively, taking a step back backward. "I can see that I'm not wanted," he muttered in a waspish tone, "and the sentiment is mutual. I'm returning to the hotel. Have fun catching up, Thor, I have things I must do." A moment passed in silence, and a look of utter horror swept over the mischief-maker's face. A fist formed in Thor's gut at the utter panic he could see his younger brother trying to disguise, and he rushed toward Loki without hesitation.

"Brother, is something wrong?" the thunderer questioned, fear sparking in his veins like an electric current. Carefully, Thor surveyed his brother's lanky figure, searching for signs of any injury or other ailment. Perhaps he truly is ill, and has been hiding it, Thor worried, reaching out to clasp the dark-haired prince's shoulder.

Loki jerked back with a hiss, arms flying out protectively in front of him. "I'm fine!" he snapped, "I'm going to the car!" Turning with a dramatic swish of ebony hair, the silvertongue rushed from the room as though Surtur's fire was licking at his heels. 

Wait.

Rushed. Walked. Not teleported.

Oh.

"Excuse me," Thor nodded toward the befuddled and still irritated billionaire before rushing after his little brother. He found the mischief-maker a few hallways away, sitting on the floor and leaning heavily against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, fists clenched, and breathing ragged. Thor took one look at the trickster's face and decided to ignore any and all protests, sliding down to the slate gray floor and drawing Loki into his arms. Shoulders drawing up, Loki grew rigid at the touch, even as Thor rubbed the dark-haired prince's back in lazy circles in an attempt to comfort and calm him. "You can't teleport, can you?" the king asked carefully, pulling back momentarily to look Loki in the eyes. His suspicions were confirmed before his little brother even said a word. Loki's eyes were smokey gray with only the slightest touch of green, a far cry from his usual vivid emerald shade. Having known for centuries that the color of his brother's eyes reflected the state of his seidr, Thor cursed himself for not watching more carefully both recently and six years prior.

Loki shook his head slowly, biting his lip, eyes still shaded with frustration and fear. Suddenly, he swore, before slumping and allowing himself to fold into his older brother's arms. "I hate everything," Loki grumbled forlornly, and Thor almost laughed at the familiarity of that statement, running a hand through the mischief-maker's hair instead. Loki had been prone to that bitter profession in his younger years during bouts of extreme frustration, and the pout on his face was just the same as it had been when he was a child watching a spell backfire and burn up his favorite spellbook.

"It's alright, brother," Thor soothed, "your seidr will strengthen once more when you've had a chance to rest. That's why we're here."

"You really think Stark will ever let me stay here if I'm not trussed up in the thickest chains he can find and locked in the deepest cell that can reasonably be constructed within the hour?" Loki shook his head wearily. "You have too much optimism, brother. I'm never going to be anything but the villain, not really. I may have redeemed myself for now, but you know me. I'll find a way to muck it all up again sooner or later. It's what I do, is it not? Chaos, mischief, and lies."

"Perhaps that is what others see in you. Perhaps that is what you see in yourself," Thor acknowledged quietly, cupping Loki's cheek and pulling their foreheads together. "What I see is my brilliant, funny, mischevious, sweet little brother. He's simply hiding at times, that's all."

Loki's lips twisted as he pulled away, bitterness and fondness coloring his expression in equal measures. "That boy died years ago, brother, and a monster lives in his stead. That's what all but you see—a monster. You're blinded by sentiment, as ever."

"They are the ones who are blind, if all they see in you is a monster. You are no monster, Loki. You are my brother who I love, how many times must I tell you? Because I will tell you as many times as you need me to in order to believe it, this I swear." Thor pulled the trickster even closer, running a hand over Loki's raven waves when he buried his face in the crook of Thor's neck and wrapped his arms around the thunderer.

"Thor," Loki's voice was more like a sob, "why must you have so much faith in me?"

Cradling him protectively, Thor stroked a gentle hand over the silvertongue's back, his other hand buried in ebony waves. "Someone needs to have faith in you, little brother, if it's not going to be you. I'll just need to have enough faith for both of us until you can see what I do. More. You are more, Loki."

"How can I be more if no one gives me the chance?" Loki mumbled into Thor's neck. "Face it, brother. No one trusts me, nor should they. Maybe I could have been more once, but no longer." He pulled back and looked Thor in the eye, gray-green eyes shining with desperation and a barely hidden touch of longing. "My mistakes define me now, Thor. What I've done is a part of me as much as the blue I hide beneath this skin, and just as ugly and terrible. No one is ever going to forget that. Wrong is a part of my being." Loki paused, loathing warping his features momentarily. "What else could be expected from a creature even the Frost Giants rejected?"

Thor felt his heart crack slightly at his brother's words, at the tears shining in the dark-haired prince's eyes that he resolutely held back. The thunderer had assumed, when nothing was said, that Loki had come to terms with his heritage, but of course that wasn't so. Loki was a master at burying his feelings until they exploded, literally on some occasions. Just because the issue hadn't come up in some time didn't mean it wasn't still there. With an internal sigh, Thor decided to press that particular issue later. 

"Loki," the king started quietly, "nothing defines you unless you allow it. I don't pretend to believe it's easy to be something other than what the world says you are, but you are without doubt the strongest person I know, brother. If anyone can defy expectations of their character and prove themselves to be different than what people assume, it's you, if only to be contrary."

Loki stared off into the distance, pursing his lips. "Your continued confidence in me is... flattering, but ill-advised. How can I be anything but what I am?"

Smiling slightly, Thor cupped the mischief-maker's neck. "That's the thing, brother. You decide who you are. And then you be it."

Loki sighed, blinking heavily to hold back the tears gathering in his eyes. "What would I do without you?" he murmured, staring at his elder brother's face.

"You'd be an utter wreck," Thor retorted immediately, pulling the trickster into a hug, "as would I without you." After a moment, Thor released his grip and stood up. "Stay here. I'll talk to Stark."

Loki's features twisted as if he was considering protesting and insisting on leaving, but then he relaxed slightly and nodded. "Alright," he hesitated, "I trust you, brother."

Thor's grin could have lit up the entire nine realms. "And I you."

Chapter Text

The first thing Loki was aware of upon waking was a fierce and violent pounding in his temples. Stifling an agonized moan, Loki forced his eyes open and blinked in confusion at the unfamiliar ceiling. After a tense, pain-filled moment, the memories filled back into his head. Thor's accursed 'break', the confrontation with Stark, the awkward reunion with Banner that would have been much better without Stark observing, being glared at by Stark during an awkward dinner, being lectured and threatened by Stark in turns as he was shown his room and ordered not to leave before daylight. No problem with that, Loki thought bitterly. If I had my way I wouldn't come out of this room at all for the next week. The trickster allowed himself to moan aloud, seeing as Thor wasn't there to fuss over him if he seemed to be in pain. Even that hurt his head, so he simply flipped over and burrowed his face into his pillow, yanking the blankets close around himself. Thor wanted me to take a break, right? Staying in bed all day counts.

When even thinking hurt, Loki gave up on that, concentrating on breathing shallowly through the horrible pain accosting his skull. Of all the times to—Loki cut off his own thought with a whine, scrunching his eyes shut even harder. He lay there for an indeterminable amount of time, fighting through the pain that refused to abate until the door creaked. Internalizing a sigh, the silvertongue made his tensed muscles go lax and deepened his breathing, forcing himself to not feel the agony coursing through his head. He'd gotten rather good at repressing pain on the Sanctuary, after all.

"Brother? Are you awake?" Thor asked, from somewhere near the door.

"I am now!" Loki growled, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. Ignoring the pain of a headache was much more difficult than pushing through a few stab wounds or broken bones.

"Are you alright?" Thor questioned, his new revoltingly perceptive side showing.

Loki felt every step the thunderer took in crossing the room resound through his brain, but even so, he made himself sit up with a smile on his lips. "Of course," the dark-haired prince forced out in a light tone. "I don't like being woken up by galumphing bilgesnipes is all."

Thor's expression softened slightly. "I'm sorry, brother. I'm glad to see you taking advantage of this break already—it's eleven o' clock. I thought I should get you for breakfast before it became lunch, but I can go—"

"No, no," Loki said quickly, throwing the covers off and standing up. Black spots swam in his vision and his head screamed with pain, but the mischief-maker never swayed nor dropped his light smile. "I've slept far too long already," Loki said once his sight cleared, dodging around Thor to get to the door and repressing a retch from the pain the quick movement caused him. 

 "Are you sure?" Thor asked, following behind him.

Loki groaned internally. The thought of forming coherent words when he was struggling to stay upright under the pain was daunting, but he refused to be defeated by a mere headache. "Of course," he replied flippiantly, even as his face was twisted in pain and his breath hissed in and out with small gasps through his gritted teeth. The brothers quickly arrived in the common room Stark had shown them the night before, where Banner, Stark, an unfamiliar dark-skinned man, and a creature that reeked of the mind stone were already waiting. The dark-haired prince had to stop himself from physically recoiling when he felt the brush of the mind stone. It's in this room, he realized with horror. The stone is in this room.

The pain in his skull multiplied exponentially as soon as he stepped through the doorway, and dizzily Loki thought that he'd been sure the pain couldn't be any worse. He had been so, so wrong. His sight doubled, and then tripled, and it was only his pride that kept him standing, that reminded him to step into the room with his head held high. Loki made his way to the kitchen, trying not to sway, and grabbed for a chair, grateful when it was physical and not a product of the pure agony screaming inside his brain. The silvertongue tried desperately to keep his breathing from growing labored, reminding himself over and over that he wasn't there, he wasn't back there, really he wasn't, just because he felt the mind stone didn't mean that he was there. Stifling a scream grew harder and harder as his vision tunneled, but still Loki kept his facade on. The ringing in his ears grew, and distantly, Loki realized his brother was speaking.

"Brother?" Thor said, concern clear in his voice. "Brother? Are you alright?"

Loki forced his mind away from the distant fog it had been hiding in, clenching his teeth to hold back an agonized wail or worse—tears. "Fine," he said sharply. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Banner said, appearing in the mischief-maker's shrinking sightline. "Your pupils are crazy dilated, your breathing is—"

"When are psychopaths ever fine?" Stark interrupted. "C'mon, leave him to be weird in peace, Brucie-Bear."

The three Banners standing in front of Loki all frowned. "He really doesn't look good, Tony. Loki," he directed his next words to the trickster, "can you hear me?"

Thor was in his sightline now too, and all three of him were clearly fretting. Loki wanted to reassure the Thors that it was fine, but the ringing in his ears and the pure agony thrumming in his skull was making it hard to find the words. "—oki?" Thor was saying, waving three hands in front of Loki's face. "Loki, are you alright?"

"He does look like he is unwell," a smooth voice said. The mind stone, Loki realized, unable to hold back a full-body shudder. That creature was the mind stone. He could hear the touch of power hiding behind the voice, the power that brought him back to screams and darkness and pain so great that pain didn't even begin to encompass the sensation, pain that made the agony coursing in his mind seem like a refreshing dip in a stream or the touch of sunbeams on skin.

"LOKI!" Thor yelled, but oh, there was five of him now. How long had he been stuck in that flashback?

"What," Loki choked out, and Thor deflated in relief.

"Brother, what's wrong? Are you ill?" the thunderer asked anxiously. Loki tried to shake his head, only managing a slight tilt of the head before he had to stop in order to hold back a screech as all his muscles seized from the pure hurt that seemed to be radiating from the silvertongue's head to encompass the entirety of his being.

"I'm... fine," Loki forced out between gritted teeth. "I just... I'll just... get some water and then..." Loki trailed off, unable to think clearly enough to form any more words as the mind stone's power writhed around and through him and the anguishing pain sharpened. He planted both of his hands on the table and stood, but suddenly the room tilted sideways and his stomached rushed up and the black rushed in...

 Loki moaned, loud and long, as consciousness rushed back in, and with it, the pain. A hand stroked his hair lightly as he whined through his teeth, pure agony coursing hard and strong through his skull. He twitched, crying out when the motion sent stabs of pain throughout his form. "Ssh, lay still," a familiar deep voice intoned. The dark-haired prince obeyed, whimpering quietly and wishing desperately for the pain to go away.

"Thor," he whined, because that was who the voice was, "make it go away."

"Make what go away?" Thor asked as the hand that must belong to the king continued to brush over his scalp.

"It hurts," Loki said, and while that seemed an adequate answer to him, he guessed that it wasn't to Thor, since the hand in his hair paused momentarily before continuing to stroke him.

"Can you tell me what hurts?" Another voice asked. Banner?

"Head," Loki said, letting out another whimper. "Hurts."

"Does he get migraines?" Banner asked. Who was the he, Loki wondered, before a throb of pain had his muscles seizing and he let out another cry.

"Migraines?" Thor asked, sounding terribly worried, though over what, Loki couldn't tell. "What are those?"

"Really, really bad headaches, basically," the doctor explained in a quieter voice that Loki appreciated.

When Thor next spoke, he lowered his tone to match Banner's. "I know he gets frequent headaches, sometimes bad enough to cause fevers."

"That sounds like a migraine to me." Banner said, and he started to say something else when the pain doubled once more. Loki yelped, back arching, and tried to squeeze his eyes shut even tighter.

"I was correct," the mind stone said.

"Correct about what?" Thor demanded, as the hand in Loki's hair paused once more. "What did you do to my little brother!?"

"Nothing." A pause. "At least, nothing on purpose. I believe the stone in my head might be causing an adverse reaction in him. I can feel the stone... feeling his mind, perhaps? I can try to work out how to stop it."

"Do that. And get as far away as you can while you do it." Thor ordered. The pain abated once more, though it was still quite terrible in intensity, and Loki let out a relieved sigh.

"Is it going away?" Loki asked childishly, reaching blindly for his brother.

"Yes, Loki," the thunderer soothed, grabbing Loki's hand in his much larger own. "It's going away."

Loki forced his eyes open, hissing in pain. "Good," he gasped once he had caught his breath. "That's... good." He made himself look around, cataloging his situation. The ground beneath him was soft... bed, the mischief-maker realized. He was in bed. Thor was sitting on the bed next to him, one hand holding Loki's and the other still carding through his hair. Banner stood at Loki's side, watching with a sympathetic crease between his eyebrows.

"What can we do to help him?" Thor demanded in a soft voice.

Shaking his head, the scientist sighed. "Not much except wait it out. The mind stone probably triggered the migraine and amplified the pain, but I'll wager it won't just disappear with the influence gone. You'll just have to wait, basically. I can give him something to help with the fever or any other symptoms he might have, nausea I'm guessing after what happened in the kitchen, but as for the pain itself..."

Loki whined again as the aforementioned nausea surged. He felt hot and sweaty (fever, he reminded himself) and his head pounded terribly in sync with the waves roiling in his gut.

"Just keep things quiet, dark, and calm, and keep him from being too active," Banner advised. "I'll be right back with something for his symptoms."

The trickster watched with bleary eyes as Banner left the room, closing the door behind him, and forced his tensed muscles to relax, only for them to seize once more with a painful wave of nausea. "I think," he started, interrupted by a retch, and Thor jumped up, rushed across the room, grabbed a trash can, and rushed back.

"It's okay, little brother," Thor whispered, rubbing Loki's back as the silvertongue vomited, body jerking with each retch, misery roiling through every last muscle. Huge, hot tears dripped down his face as he heaved, and when he finally finished, his whole form shuddered with wrenching sobs. The trickster could feel the throbbing in his brain, the churning in his stomach, the fever heat burning across his sweaty skin, and the muscle aches from throwing up with acute intensity, and his sobs only grew, until he was clutching at his elder brother and wailing quietly.

"Make it stop, brother," Loki begged, fisting his brother's shirt and pressing his face into the thunderer's chest. "Make it stop!"

"Oh, Loki," Thor said in a heartbroken voice, holding Loki as tight as he could with one arm while his other hand stroked through the mischief-maker's tangled raven locks. "I'm so sorry, little brother. I meant to give you a break, not put you in so much pain."

"Not your fault," Loki rasped, catching his breath. A whimper followed his words as his stomach jumped again, and he clutched at his brother even harder. "It hurts," he whispered, tears still streaming down his face.

Leaning back up against the headboard, Thor pulled Loki against him, murmuring reassurances in the dark prince's ears and gently stroking his hair. The combination of being in his brother's arms and the heat of fever made Loki's mind recede, until he was drifting in a painless fog. The fog abated long enough for Loki to swallow a few pills that Banner brought by, before he sank back into the blanket of fuzz and floated for hours. Moments of awareness passed by, all of his brother—Thor whispering comfort as he cried out his pain, Thor tucking the blankets around him and kissing his forehead, Thor bathing his heated face, Thor rubbing his back as he dry-heaved. Hours and hours later, Loki felt the last touches of the mind stone break from his consciousness, and he wept this time not with pain but in relief. The pain was still there, but at last he could rest.

As Loki drifted off, he felt the bed sink down, and then large arms curled around him, pulling him close. Though the fever still burned and his head still pounded and his insides still churned, Loki sighed happily, wrapping his own arms around those that cradled him, and then sank into blissful sleep.

Chapter Text

The touch of sunbeams on his face was what brought Loki to consciousness. Large arms were wrapped around his middle, and his back was pressed up against something big and warm, something breathing... Thor. Green eyes flicked open, roaming the room in the late morning light. Dust shimmered in sunbeams that glinted off of the soft white bedsheets, sunbeams that bounced off of the sepia-toned walls and cast teal shadows when they filtered through the loose sapphire curtains. Breathing deeply, Loki drank in the first true stillness and peace he'd had in... he couldn't remember the last time he had felt such a sense of repose. His head still thrummed with pain, and he still felt a touch feverish and a ghosting sense of nausea, but those sensations were drowned out by one utterly unfamiliar to the mischief-maker—contentment.

The arms around him tightened, and behind him, Thor shifted. Loki stretched in his older brother's loose grip, pulling away to sit up. "Good morning, brother," the silvertongue greeted, pulling his legs out from underneath the covers to sit cross-legged atop the bed.

Thor blinked, once, and then he was sitting up, reaching for Loki and pulling him close. "Good morning, brother," Thor echoed, smoothing a large hand over Loki's tousled, inky black waves. "How are you feeling?"

Huffing, Loki patted Thor on the arm once before pulling out of his hug. "Fine, actually." Which wasn't strictly the truth—he was fairly certain that any physical activity would change the dull throb in his skull to a much more intense pounding sensation, and he definitely was still running a slight fever, but the thunderer really didn't need to know that.

Thor frowned, putting the palm of his hand to Loki's forehead before the trickster could stop him. "You're still feverish, Loki. You should go back to sleep, or at least rest some more."

Loki shook his head, ignored the slight twinge of pain it caused, and quickly slid off of the bed, standing before Thor could force him to lie back down. "I'm fine. Come, brother, let's go see what those friends of yours are up to." He strode out of the room without another word, knowing Thor would follow. Sure enough, he heard the whump of covers being thrown off, and then heavy footsteps hurried after him. The dark-haired prince could all but feel his elder brother's desire to haul back to bed or smother him with concern, whichever happened first, and gritted his teeth. Loki barely remembered anything of the day before, but he remembered enough to be embarrassed by his childishness and to know that Thor wasn't going to stop hovering and staring at him anytime soon.

Loki reached the common room quickly, stepping inside and jerking back instinctively as soon as he saw the mind stone in the kitchen. A large hand landed on the trickster's shoulder and squeezed, and since he could tell Thor was gearing up to do something that would likely be humiliating, Loki forced himself to step inside the room. He froze again when he felt the mind stone reaching for him, grabbing for him, and oh Norns no, please no, not there, not there again, please please no, but then the stone stopped, and withdrew. The mischief-maker breathed a quiet sigh of relief, suddenly aware that his legs were shaking. Before he could decide whether to bolt or continue on, Loki was being guided to the couch, and Thor was saying "Banner, could you take a look at Loki?"

With a slight indignant huff, Loki allowed himself to be pressed into sitting on the couch, with Thor still hovering at his back. The dark-skinned man from the day before—and was that metal around his legs?—was sitting in an armchair on the other side of the living room, politely staying focused on whatever inane Midgardian entertainment was playing on the television and ignoring Loki. Privately, Loki decided he liked this man. He seemed sensible. Then Loki was distracted again, as Banner was sitting down beside him on the couch, eyeing the silvertongue critically. "How are you feeling, Loki?" Banner asked politely, fingers twisting together.

Loki looked down and realized his own hands were doing the same, and forced himself to stop. "Fine," he said again, hoping that Banner would and knowing he wouldn't believe it. Sure enough, the doctor shook his head, still examining the trickster critically.

"Better isn't quite the same as fine," Banner said dryly, grabbing something out of his pocket and holding it out to Loki. "Here, put the metal end in your mouth until it beeps."

"Why?" Loki asked, bewildered. He turned the small, sticklike device over and over in his hands, feeling the metal tip with his index finger. "That makes no sense."

"It reads temperature," Bruce explained, nodding toward the little device.

Rolling his eyes, Loki stuck the thing in his mouth, glowering darkly at the scientist as he waited. What seemed an eternity of waiting and Thor's quiet fidgeting behind him later, the thing beeped, and with no little amount of relief and feeling rather idiotic, Loki passed the device off to Banner. "Again, what is the point of this?"

"One hundred and one point three," Banner read. "Not great, but not terrible." He looked up to see Loki, and probably Thor, staring at him in confusion. "Uh, it measures your fever. You aren't too bad, but I'd still take it easy today. I'm betting you still have that headache since your fever isn't gone yet,"—Loki's scowl darkened, curse Banner's intelligence—"so just try to get some rest."

Loki glowered as Banner stood, and made to stand himself. A heavy hand came down on his shoulder from behind, and Loki suppressed a growl deep in his throat. "Am I not allowed to get something to eat, brother?" the mischief-maker groused, twisting around and shrugging his shoulder to dislodge the large hand gripping him.

"I'll get you something to eat," Thor replied, not flinching when Loki jerked violently away from the thunderer's attempt to pat him on the shoulder. "You need to rest."

"I'm fine," Loki snapped again. "I refuse to allow such pointless fussing."

Thor lifted an eyebrow, expression stony. "Did you or did you not just spend the entirety of yesterday delirious with fever and pain? I'm darn well allowed to 'fuss'. Stay."

This time, Loki did growl. "I'm not a dog to be trained or an invalid to be nursemaided!"

"Stay on the couch," Thor ordered, "or it's back to bed with you. And I will carry you if I have to."

With a glare that should have flayed the flesh from his older brother's bones, the dark-haired prince made a show of settling onto the couch. "Fine, I'll stay on the blasted couch. Happy?"

"Ecstatic," Thor deadpanned. 

Loki turned back around, folding his arms and pulling his knees up to his chest. He then sagged against the armrest, still feeling slightly sick to his stomach. The silvertongue looked up in surprise when a blanket was thrown over him, and in the back of his head he wondered where Thor had even found one so fast. For a fleeting moment, Loki thought about protesting again, but the heat still thrumming through him and the lingering pain in his head begged him to acquiesce, and so he did, giving Thor a small, grateful smile as he pulled the blanket tighter about himself. The one-eyed king grinned back, smoothing a light hand over his younger brother's hair before retreating to the kitchen.

Idly, Loki let his gaze drift back to the man sitting across the room—the only Avenger (if he was an Avenger?) in his sightline—partly out of curiosity and partly to distract himself from the throbbing in his skull, the sweaty heat of fever, and the thrumming energy of the mind stone that he could feel reverberating about the room, even if no one else seemed to. Thor's order to rest seemed almost comical—the mischief-maker was practically vibrating with tension, and momentarily wished that he had heeded his elder brother and stayed in bed. Dismissing the thought—he refused to wallow—Loki once again settled his focus on the unknown man, this time to study the metal wrapped about his legs. What is it for? Loki wondered, perhaps something to do with being an Avenger, if he truly is one?

The couch dipped down, and Loki looked to his right to see his brother sitting down beside him. The thunderer set down a plate bearing only a piece of lightly buttered toast and a clumsily sliced apple on the coffee table in front of the trickster. Quietly, Loki was grateful that Thor had realized, or at least guessed, his stomach was still uneasy—the thought of eating anything more flavorful made the prince's innards churn uncomfortably. Loki lifted an apple slice from the plate with delicate fingers, and a small knife appeared in his other hand. With smooth strokes, Loki peeled the apple slice and then wrested off a small chunk of the fruit from the larger slice. As he ate, Thor leaned in and wrapped an arm around the mischief-maker, studying him with worry bright in his eye, Loki could tell without even looking. "What?" Loki asked as he cut another piece of apple in one swift motion. "You're staring."

"You don't need to push yourself to eat if you still don't feel well, brother," Thor replied softly. "If you do still feel ill, wait to eat until later."

Loki paused, knife stilling in his grip. He considered it for a moment, before banishing the knife in a glimmer of emerald and setting the apple slice back on the plate. "You're getting too preceptive," Loki complained.

Thor chuckled and pushed the plate away, before lightly pulling Loki to lean back against his chest. "I wish I'd been more perceptive many centuries ago," the thunderer replied, rearranging the blanket over the both of them. Thor then curled a burly arm about his little brother's slim frame, and began to card his other hand through the silvertongue's ebony hair.

"Thor, what is this," Loki questioned warily, squirming slightly in his older brother's arms.

"Ssh," Thor chided, "just rest, Loki. I know you're still unwell."

Rolling his eyes, the dark-haired prince settled down and melted into his brother's grip. While Loki would never admit it, the feeling of his elder brother's fingers in his hair was comforting, and he felt safer—even with the mind stone still in the room—with the thunderer holding him. Eventually, Loki allowed his eyes to flutter shut and simply relaxed into Thor's ministrations, ignoring his burning skin and persistent headache in favor of a quiet peace.

"Do you want to go back to bed?" Thor asked quietly into the mischief-maker's ear after a short time.

Loki shook his head slightly. "I'm fine." He paused, picking idly at the blanket while he thought. "Brother, who is that man, with the metal on his legs? And the mind stone creature?"

"I don't know why he has metal on his legs, but that man is Colonel James Rhodes, another Avenger. The mind stone creature, as you called him, is Vision, an android of Stark's creation. Sort of," Thor replied, laying his hand over Loki's own and halting the silvertongue's fidgeting.

Loki snorted, pulling his hand back and tucking it under the blanket. "Sort of? There must be a story there."

Thor laughed, a quiet rumble reverberating through the thunderer's chest. "A story there indeed, brother. I'll tell you sometime, I promise. You'll find it interesting, I think." Thor paused to put a gentle palm on his brother's forehead. "Are you sure you don't want to go back to bed, Loki? You're still feeling quite warm."

"I'm sure, Thor," Loki sighed, reaching up and pulling Thor's hand off of his face. "Quit your fussing."

Without warning, the door to the common room banged open, and Stark stomped across the room, headed straight for the Asgardians. Both brothers twisted to face the mechanic as he approached with jaw clenched and eyes dark. "Loki," Stark ground out, "you're here for one reason, and one reason only. Because your brother is my friend and I'm sick of friends leaving me for broody villains with greasy hair." Loki scowled at that, affront tempered by curiosity enough that he refrained from retaliation, verbal or otherwise, and only shot Thor a confused glance. Thor shook his head in return as Stark kept speaking. "But," the man continued, "if I find you anywhere you aren't supposed to be or if you even look like you're thinking about the possibility of doing something suspicious, I won't hesitate to get out the suit and blast you till you're nothing but another smear on my floor."

"Stark," Thor snapped, his grip on the trickster growing uncomfortably tight, "my brother is ill. Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be hurting anyone. I don't appreciate you threatening him needlessly, especially when he's unwell."

Stark stared at the brothers for a long moment, before he made a disgusted noise. "Typical. I'm not taking it back. And don't you dare go wandering around the compound, either of you. You can be here or in your rooms. That's it." That said, the inventor stormed back out.

"What was that," Loki asked the room, not expecting an answer.

Predictably, Thor pulled Loki close, cradling the silvertongue in a tender yet fiercely protective hold. "I don't know, brother," the king responded, "but I won't let him hurt you, you know."

"Oaf," Loki scoffed, firmly repressing the small part of himself that was flattered by his older brother's words. He refused to act like a child. He had done far too much of that the day before.

"That," Banner offered as he sat down in an armchair across the room, a book in hand, "is Tony being Tony." The man—Colonel Rhodes—huffed in a way that seemed more than a little exasperated to Loki. The mind stone was still lingering out of the mischief-maker's sight, a fact he became acutely aware of when the stone spoke up and Loki almost jumped out of his own skin. Thor shushed Loki gently, stroking his hair again, as the dark-haired prince flushed in mortification.

Stop it, Loki scolded himself as the mind stone spoke, staunchly ignoring the creature's eerie voice, get yourself under control already. The fever was making his senses hazy and crippling his defenses, Loki reasoned, along with his still lingering headache. The silvertongue forced himself not to wince as his headache pulsed again, as if in response to his train of thought.

"Where are the others?" Thor asked, both his voice and the hand that he smoothed over Loki's hair pulling the trickster back into the present. "I haven't heard from any of them."

Both Banner and Rhodes winced, and the atmosphere in the room grew tense. "There was a... falling out," Rhodes said carefully, his tone implying it was a little bit more than that.

"Does it have anything to do with Stark's mysterious 'broody villain with greasy hair' comment?" Loki asked, following his words with a slight wince as he scrubbed a hand over his forehead.

"Actually, yes," the colonel admitted, turning to look at the dark-haired prince, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, what happened?" Thor questioned reasonably, gently pulling Loki's hand away from his face. The thunderer lifted his own hands to the mischief-maker's face, rubbing soothing, two-fingered circles into Loki's temples. Sighing softly in relief, Loki let the story wash over him, content to be in his older brother's arms, even with stifling heat radiating through his form and pressure pulsing in his skull.

The trickster listened without comment as Rhodes told the story of a man with a metal arm, the Sokovia Accords (those Loki knew of, he'd have to sign sooner or later, he knew also), and a fight in an airport. Toward the end of the story, Rhodes broke off, clearly covering up part of the story when he added only that Stark and Rogers fought again, and Rogers left. From the way he eyed Loki, the mischief-maker had a feeling that Rhodes would have told Thor, but he didn't trust Loki with the information. Which was fine. Loki didn't care about what these mortals thought of him, anyway.

Thor seemed to pick up on that fact that Rhodes had cut something big out of the story because of Loki's presence as well, from the way the arm he had wrapped around Loki's shoulders tightened. Loki rolled his eyes and poked the thunderer lightly in the side, telling Thor to let it be without saying the words outright. As per the (un)usual, Thor picked up on Loki's meaning and gave Loki a light, affirmative squeeze on the shoulder before letting his grip on the silvertongue loosen once more. Funny, how they had known each other for over a millennium, and only in the past few years had they really begun to 'get' each other so well, to have whole conversations without a single word, Loki mused as the room lapsed back into a stifling silence.

Unable to stand the tense atmosphere after another minute of awkward quiet, Loki announced, "I'm going for a walk."

"Are you sure?" Thor asked immediately, a worried wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. "You're still not fully recovered."

"And Mister Stark explicitly stated that you were not to go wandering about the compound," the mind stone added, causing Loki to shudder. Being directly addressed by the creature was terrifying in a visceral sort of way that sent a rush of ice down the prince's spine.

Clearly picking up on Loki's unintentional shudder, Thor's arm tightened around his younger brother once more, as his next words came out in a growl. "My brother is not going to harm anyone. There isn't any reason to restrict him from taking a walk."

The mind stone's retort didn't register in Loki's head as he carefully extracted himself from underneath his older brother's arm and—with the aid of a slight misdirection spell—crept from the room. The argument will distract them for a while yet, Loki thought, and it won't matter anyway by then. Huffing in slight amusement, Loki set off to wander aimlessly through the compound halls.

Chapter Text

Loki had been wandering for about three minutes before he started to regret refusing to go back to bed. He could feel his fever with acute intensity, and his skull throbbed as though he had been dashed over the head with Mjolnir. Repeatedly. Loki closed his eyes for a moment and put his hand against the wall to steady himself, breathing deep and slow in a futile effort to assuage the feeling of a vise tightening around his mind and the burning heat causing sweat to build a light sheen on his forehead. When he opened his eyes again, a child was standing three feet away.

Loki would forever deny that he squeaked and nearly tripped over his own feet in a panicked attempt to back away.

As he attempted to stop himself from hitting the floor, the child rushed forward and grabbed the mischief-maker by the arm, steadying him with a grip that felt far too strong for a mortal boy. Interesting, Loki thought. And when he looked for it, he could see that the child was indeed not quite the average human. There was a sense of something different within him, but unlike the way Banner differed from other mortals. Subtler, like the insufferably self-righteous soldier, but with a wilder, more natural edge, rather than a structured and controlled change. Not born different, Loki mused, but not an intentional change. Some natural force... an accident?

When the child cleared his throat, Loki blushed, realizing he'd been silent for far too long. Before he could say anything, however, the boy spoke up, warm brown eyes wide and bright with a curiosity that reminded the trickster, with an aching jolt, of his own inquisitive childhood, of days in the library and an unquenchable hunger for knowledge that hadn't been indulged in near a decade. A wave of aching and nostalgia swept Loki away, a hunger for a great golden library full of such an expanse of knowledge that even another thousand years wouldn't be enough to devour it all, and he had to force the rush of emotion back—along with the throbbing pain of his thrice-cursed-headache—to focus on the child's words. "Are you okay?" the boy asked, brow furrowing a moment later. "Wait, are you... Loki?"

Lifting a single eyebrow and internally praying for patience, Loki responded only with a sardonic, "yes." Once having spoken, the silvertongue automatically held his breath, already longing to return to bed and ignore the world at large in anticipation of a negative and, if his deductions were correct, violent response. The prospect of engaging in a fight only served to make Loki realize how truly tired he was, but he shifted his stance to a more combat-ready position anyway, watching the child with burning focus. So consuming was his concentration (and his headache), Loki nearly didn't register the child's words. When he did, his stance relaxed immediately, and he froze in place, blinking heavily in palpable surprise.

"Is it true that you saved all of Asgard?"

Blinking rapidly in an attempt to refocus and reboot his thoughts, Loki gave a slight nod, following it with verbal confirmation just in case. "Yes. I did," Loki acknowledged, with deceptive impassivity. Internally, confusion swirled, mixed with a multitude of other, conflicting emotions that threatened to drag him into the insidious depths of his own mind. Who is this child? the dark-haired prince wondered, surveying the boy with renewed intensity. What sort of child would so easily disregard Loki's attack on his planet? And more importantly, why?

"Awesome!" the boy crowed, bouncing on his heels. "That's so cool, Mister Loki! I'm Peter, uh, Peter Parker, by the way. Doctor Banner—you know him, right? Said that everyone in Asgard would have died without you. Wait," a thoughtful look formed on the child's (Peter's) face, and Loki braced himself once more, gritting his teeth. "Why did you attack New York, then?" There it is. "Wait, no, that's probably really rude to ask about, uh, sorry, anyways you're a good guy now. So, um, Doctor Banner said you could do magic, can you really? And um, would you mind showing me? I mean, I don't wanna bother you but magic is just so cool so..."

Reeling in confusion, Loki shook his head slightly, wincing when the throbbing in his skull multiplied at the motion. Bad idea, you idiot, Loki scolded himself, eyeing Peter critically. One on hand, he didn't want to disappoint the child, (and he'd wonder about why that was later, but not now) but on the other hand, he felt as though he was standing in Muspelhiem with Surtur's sword through his skull and he didn't want to deal with this, darnnit. Mind made up, Loki flicked his hand and wrapped his fingers around the knife that appeared, waving the blade vaguely in the boy's direction. There. He did magic, got rid of the child, and had an alibi for waving a knife at a youth. Except... the boy wasn't running in terror. He was staring, looking... delighted?

"That's AWESOME!" Peter yelled, causing Loki to flinch, and it was only centuries of practice in stamping down his reactions that kept the silvertongue's hands from clamping over his ears. As it was, Loki kept his face blank as the child continued to babble on and on about magic and awesome and some person named Harry Potter, he really didn't care. What Loki was focused on, instead of the boy's words, was his face, alight with excitement and brimming with wonder and curiosity. Loki had never seen such enthusiasm for magic from anyone outside of himself, and the sensation caused a warmth to grow inside of his chest. Not the kind of warmth that had Loki wishing for bed and the comforting embrace of his older brother (however he might deny it), but the sort of hopeful glow that the mischief-maker avoided like the deadliest of poisons, because no good could ever come from the feeling.

And yet... looking in Peter's eyes, Loki mustered a smile. "If you think that's cool," Loki smirked, "well... you haven't seen anything yet." Watching Peter's eyes grow huge at the illusion of a phoenix Loki made fly in circles about the boy, that little ember in Loki's chest grew to a flame of joy. As dangerous as Loki knew the feeling to be, hearing Peter laugh in delight as he stretched up on his toes to reach for the illusionary fire-bird, he couldn't quite mind. Not when he saw the awe in the child's chocolate eyes.

 Loki wasn't entirely sure how he ended up watching a movie about Midgardians' horrifically unrealistic ideals about life outside of their own meager planet with an enhanced Midgardian child leaning on his shoulder, and yet there he was. Watching some inane film with poor visuals about the forces of good and evil in space, and Darth Vader was way too much like Ebony Maw, which should not be bothering him. At all. He was over all of that. He WAS.

Just as Loki was gearing up to mentally affirm to himself that a Midgardian movie was not freaking him out for the thousandth time, Peter lifted his head up off of Loki's shoulder and shifted away. I didn't want his knees digging into my thigh anyway, Loki had time to think petulantly, before Peter was slinging a blanket over the both of them and curling up in the same position he was in before, with his head on Loki's shoulder and turned sideways enough so that he could still see the movie, but his knees were pressed against the mischief-maker's leg. "You looked kinda cold," Peter offered, shifting the blanket a tiny bit to the left.

Loki snorted, thoughts of his rather frosty heritage flitting through his head for a moment, before he violently suppressed them. He hummed noncommittally in response, also ignoring the fact that he did, indeed, feel a bit chilly, likely because of his fever. "Is this movie over yet?" Loki complained irritably, starting to get restless.

Peter looked up at the trickster with a grin, patting him on the leg. "Almost, yeah, but then we've gotta watch the prequels. And the stand-alones, and the new installments. The Force Awakens is the best."

Loki suppressed a moan, changing the conversation instead. "Why were you coming toward the common room, anyway?" he asked, only thinking to wonder as he asked the question.

"Um, I'm Mister Stark's intern," Peter started, "and he told me to stay out of the common room today because you and Mister Thor were here. But, um, I was kinda curious so I told him I wanted to work on this one project I have for school by myself for a while, and then I made FRIDAY promise not to tell," Loki decided not to tell him the only reason Stark hadn't stormed in and taken the prince's head off was because he was hiding them with his seidr, "and um... then I ran into you! And I'm really glad I did, by the way—you're super cool. You'd love my friend Shuri." Peter paused. "Hey! We should call her!"

Minutes later, a dark-skinned girl appeared on the television, frowning fiercely. "I was in the middle of—" the girl started, cutting off as soon as she noticed Loki. "Peter, who is that?" she asked, tilting her head inquisitively. Caught up in trying to decipher her accent, Loki let Peter respond in his place.

"This is Mister Loki!" the boy said exuberantly, sending a beaming smile in the mischief-maker's direction. "He's really nice! Mister Loki, this is Princess Shuri of Wakanda, she's really cool too!"

Decidedly amused, Loki lifted an eyebrow, a small smirk playing on his lips. "You are aware I am a prince of Asgard, correct?"

Peter flushed, stammering out a small, "sorry, Prince Loki."

Genuine amusement bubbled up in Loki for the first time in an age, and he threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Peter, honestly," Loki scolded lightheartedly once he had caught his breath, "just Loki is perfectly acceptable, though if you insist on placing an honorific before my name, I would much rather 'Mister'. It's not as if there really is an Asgard to be a prince of anymore, anyway." When he turned his eyes back to the large screen in the wall, Shuri was studying him pensively, with an expression that Loki couldn't quite place and made him more than a bit nervous.

"You are now a part of my broken white boy club," the princess announced after a moment more of silence.

Torn between being insulted and morbidly amused, Loki snorted. "Well, for one, I'm not 'white', as you Midgardians say."

"Is it because you're Asgardian?" Peter questioned innocently, and that time Loki's laugh was much less of joy and more of pain.

"Child," Loki said, a grim smile twisting his face, "it is precisely because I am not Asgardian." After a moment of innocent, confused blinking from Peter and an expectant look from Shuri, Loki elaborated with a resigned sigh. "I am adopted. I wear a glamor because, unlike Thor, were I to walk about Midgard—or anywhere else in the nine realms, honestly—without this guise, I would very, very clearly not belong on your planet. Unless there are blue-skinned Midgardians I don't know about?"

"Well, there is the blue man group, but that's paint," Peter offered, as Shuri simultaneously demanded, "tell me everything about your birth species, now."

Loki jolted, taken aback, even as the door to the room banged open. A moment later, Loki barely ducked a repulsor blast to the face, as Peter was dragged away and behind an absolutely livid Stark. "Touch the kid and you lose that arm," the billionaire growled, sounder fiercer than the dark-haired prince had ever heard him before. "Keep your freaky mind magic away from my kid," Stark continued in a low growl. "I don't care if Thor hates me forever for it, I will kill you right now if I find out you touched a freaking hair on his head, you—" Stark devolved into a string of curses, still edging Peter out the door.

"Um, Mister Stark? I was the one who found Mister Loki. And then asked him to watch a movie with me, and he said yes, so I showed him Star Wars since he's an alien, but um, anyway, I was the one who talked to him first and stuff," Peter interjected nervously. Loki would have smiled gratefully at the child if he didn't know he would be immediately reduced to ash for it.

With a wordless growl, Stark dragged Peter out of the room and slammed the door. Loki blinked. "He's very overprotective," Shuri offered, and Loki glanced toward her in surprise, having forgotten that she was watching.

"I can tell," Loki drawled, glancing back toward the door. "I supposed I must be going now," he added, "before Stark comes back to melt me down for parts."

Shuri laughed, waggling her fingers at him. "I will talk to you later, Loki. Don't think I'm going to forget." With a smirk, she vanished from the screen, leaving the paused movie in her place.

Loki smiled to himself, waving a hand and turning off the screen with his magic. Closing his eyes, the trickster then reached out with his magic, feeling for the energies of those in the compound. There was the child, and Stark, one a concentrated mass humming with a bit of something more, one a swirling tangle of energy, battered and bruised in places and flavored with the remnants of some great power—the light he had carried in his chest, perhaps? Loki had noticed that was missing. There was the all-encompassing drone of the mind stone, whispering promises of power and pain in the same breath. Loki swayed on his feet and yanked his mind away from the pull, though now that he was aware of it, he couldn't seem to shut it out. Blast. Moving on, Loki passed over some random mortals, including one that felt like the colonel, and the sleeping giant that was Banner. Finally, finally, Loki's mind landed on what he wanted—an electrical storm, surging beneath the skin of that who held it, threatening to break free at any moment, tempered by firm control, just as familiar as the mind stone, nearly as powerful, and much, much more welcomed. Thor.

Loki allowed his seidr to lead the way, pulled toward his brother like a fish on a hook, paying no attention to the movements of his feet or his surroundings in favor of focusing on both the energy of his brother and blocking out the mind stone as best he could. Quickly, he reached the room that Stark had assigned him, and entered to find his brother unpacking a bag into the dresser—a bag of Loki's clothes, the silvertongue realized after a moment. Thor turned as soon as the door opened, smiling when he saw Loki, dropping the shirt he was holding, and crossing the room to grab him in a hug. "Honestly, I can't have been gone for more than two hours," Loki complained, hiding a small, unintentional smile by burying his face in his brother's neck. "Don't act like we haven't seen each other in decades, brother."

"Do I need a reason to hug my brother?" Thor asked wryly, smoothing a hand over Loki's hair. Pulling back a moment later, the thunderer cupped his brother's cheek, before moving his hand up to the mischief-maker's forehead. "Your fever's gone up, Loki," Thor frowned, flipping his hand over and pressing it to Loki's cheek.

"I know," Loki acknowledged, causing Thor to blink in surprise. "I'm fine, brother. Really."

Thor hummed slightly, singular eye carefully studying his younger brother's face. "I don't think a fever counts as 'fine'."

Sensing the coming argument a mile away, Loki stepped back and held up a hand before Thor could ever start. "No, I will not get in bed," Loki said firmly, silently wanting nothing more, "but if you must insist on my 'resting', I suppose we can watch one of those Midgardian movies."

Thor lifted an eyebrow, a small smile flitting across his face. "Well, brother," he rumbled, "what do you want to watch?"

Loki hesitated, debating with himself. "Have you ever heard of Star Wars?"

Chapter Text

"No, Loki," Thor said resolutely, "we're not going back yet. You still need to rest."

"I've done enough resting!" Loki exploded, valiantly ignoring how Thor's words hit a hollow note in his chest. "Come on, brother!"

"No," Thor reiterated, just as firm. "We're staying."

With a discontented noise that combined a deep, frustrated growl and a shriek of rage, Loki turned on his heel and stomped off, slamming the door to the room (my room, why is he still in there? Loki lamented angrily) behind him. After a breath, he took to wandering aimlessly through the halls of the compound, shrouded from the sight of Stark's AI, as ever. He didn't much feel like another confrontation that day.

Eventually, the silvertongue found an empty conference room with good lighting, and with a quick glance over his shoulder just in case Thor had followed him—he wouldn't put it past the thunderer—Loki stepped inside and took a seat at the shiny wood table, in the chair closest to the wall-to-wall windows. For a moment, he simply stared out over the lush emerald lawn, watching a bird wheel in the cloudless cerulean sky, before turning away with a sigh. Reaching out a hand, Loki wrapped his fingers around a pen that appeared in his grasp, then turned his eyes to the papers that had appeared on the slick tabletop in the same instant.

Loki was halfway through reading a census of the surviving Asgardians currently on Earth when a sharp knock on the glass caught his attention. Refusing to look guilty, the silvertongue lifted his head, meeting the eyes of Banner, who was staring at him reprovingly. "Didn't you just have a migraine?" the doctor asked, lifting a hand to adjust his glasses. "I really don't think you should be working right now."

"If 'just' means two days ago, then yes, I just had a migraine," Loki sighed, exasperated. "I'm fine, I'm over it. I don't have a migraine anymore."

"Yeah, I know that," Banner agreed, "but I can tell you're still tired from it. Come on, come to the lab with me, I was just going to see Tony."

"I," Loki said, setting down his pen and pressing his lips together momentarily, "have no desire to be relieved of my head, thank you."

"Either you come with me, or I'll get your brother and tell him I found you working," Banner said firmly.

Loki studied the man hiding a beast for a long moment, before banishing his pen and papers with a flick of the wrist and standing in one fluid movement. "No thank you," he replied crisply, slipping out of the conference room and moving to loom over the scientist imperiously.

"Alright," Banner said, clearly not fazed by Loki's halfhearted attempt at intimidation, "follow me. Actually follow me, not an illusion."

Grumbling, Loki trailed after the doctor, decidedly and openly unhappy with being forced from his work. All too quickly, the pair reached the lab, and Banner slipped inside, Loki right on his heels.

"Hey, Brucie," Stark said distractedly, "Can you pass me the—why is he here?!" Stark yelped indignantly upon looking up and seeing the Asgardian prince in his lab. "Bruce? What is this?"

"I didn't want to leave him alone," Banner shrugged unapologetically.

Loki's lip curled slightly at the statement—he was no child to need supervision. All the same, he drifted to the corner of the room, grabbing a stool and perching elegantly upon it. Soon enough, he was forgotten—or at least Stark pretended he was, and Banner stopped trying to include him in the conversation. Bored, the trickster busied himself with minor pranks—moving a tool that Tony was reaching for or replacing it with another one, switching the labels on drawers and rewriting files in complicated encryptions on a tablet he had grabbed when Stark wasn't looking. Midway through rewriting a SHIELD mission report in a complicated splice of Ancient Elvish and an archaic form of Kree glyphs, something that Stark said caught his attention. Not taking his eyes from the file, Loki interjected his own thoughts. "If you want the thrusters to charge quicker, just store all the power you aren't using at any given time within a set of reserves independent from the rest of the suit and direct it as needed. Instantaneous blasts, and backup reserves in case you're going over the suit's power production capacity at any given time. Simple." After a moment of silence, he looked up. "What?"

Stark blinked, shaking his head slightly. "Okay, yeah, I did consider that, but how would I store that much power without bulking up the suit?"

"Convert it into light temporarily? Storage that expands capacity as need grows? A large but slim battery, or a multitude of small ones? Really, it's not that hard to think of solutions." Finished translating the document, Loki looked up.

 "You know what? Get over here," Stark commanded. Loki blinked, and obeyed.

It had been five hours since Loki had stormed out, and Thor was near surpassing the point of 'worried' into 'completely terrified.' Loki running off to sulk was nothing if not expected, and if they were still on Asgard, Thor wouldn't be worried until even his mother hadn't seen Loki for upwards of three days. In an unfamiliar place, however, with people Loki considered hostile (and might be, Thor had to grudgingly admit, or at least Stark), Thor expected Loki to turn up sometime after three hours of absence, still avoiding his elder brother's eye and refusing to speak, but there. By the fourth hour, the thunderer had begun to get nervous, and by the fifth, his fingers were twitching to call Mjolnir and smash a few walls, even after months without her. (Even knowing all the blood she'd spilled without reason? Even knowing who's call she had once responded to as loyally as she ever did Thor? Even wonder if she had ever spilt the blood of mothers, of children?)

The more he thought, the longer and quicker his strides became, until the King of Asgard was all but running down the halls of the Avengers compound. If Banner hasn't seen him, Thor worried as he tried to remember the path to the lab, where the man had said he would be, I don't know what I'll do. A million and one scenarios flicked through his head, each worse and more far fetched than the last, because who knew with his little brother. Anything could have happened, from Loki deciding to up and leave (please, please, no, he's all I have) to SHIELD turning up and dragging his brother away (if they dare—), to things Thor didn't even want to contemplate, not ever (the Bifrost, knowing what would happen and being too late to stop him from le—no, no, he promised). Finally finding the door to the lab, Thor thrust it open, words already forming on his tongue, when he stopped short. And stared.

"But it's not possible! That completely defies all the laws of the universe!" Stark insisted heatedly, waving one hand wildly in the air for emphasis.

Loki smirked, waving his hand and letting a wrench clatter back onto the table from where it had been floating above. "Maybe according to the laws you mortals have dreamed up on your own, most of which are rather clever, but not to the laws of the wider universe."

"Is it a small, focused magnetic field you can someone manipulate?" Stark theorized, lifting up the wrench and holding it almost directly in front of his eyes. "It's gotta be, right? Bruce, back me up here."

Banner shrugged, dropping the slightly smug expression he had been wearing while the pair argued as both mechanic and mischief-maker turned to face him. "I saw him do enough weird stuff on the Statesman to just stop questioning it, Tony."

"No, no, no, we've gotta figure out how he does it!" Stark exploded, waving the wrench in Loki's direction and almost hitting the silvertongue in the face. Clearly, he was winding up for a rather lengthy rant, so Thor decided to make his presence known while he could still get a word in edgewise.

"Um, there's this thing called lunch," Thor started awkwardly, fighting the urge to look away as three heads abruptly snapped around to face him. "Yeah, hi. Lunch?"

"Good idea," Banner agreed instantly, standing up. "We've been in here long enough without a break."

"But—" "Wait—" both of the other occupants of the lab protested, near simultaneously.

"Just another hour or so?" Stark pleaded. "Hey, this is my lab, my place, why am I asking you guys for permission. Um, no, we're not done."

"If we leave now we'll forget what exactly we were discussing," Loki added, folding his arms over his chest and looking so disappointed Thor was hard put not to grab his little brother for a hug right then and there, and only the fact that doing so would end with yet another stab wound stopped him. For now.

"You can talk and eat at the same time, can't you?" Thor asked, lifting an eyebrow. Without waiting for an answer, he left the lab, calling, "hurry up!" behind him. Since the sounds of arguing and jargon, he didn't understand followed, the thunderer didn't feel the need to check if he had been obeyed.

An hour later, after a friendly but scarily intense game of Mario Kart, if Banner leaned over and casually told Thor "my work here is done," while Loki and Stark argued over whether Loki had been using magic to speed up his kart or was just better at the game, Thor didn't feel the need to mention it.

Much later in the day, long after the sun had gone down and Thor had verbally prodded his younger brother into bed, the king stood in the kitchen of the Avengers Compound, a glass of water in hand. He watched idly as Banner coerced Stark into going to bed, following after him with a quick wave to Thor. The thunderer was now left alone with his thoughts in a semi-darkened kitchen. As always, his mind quickly flew to what was left of Asgard, and his brother. After a rough start to the trip, Loki seemed to be doing better, relaxing more. Stark seemed to have even set aside most of his suspicion in favor of science, though Thor thought he had seen the inventor watching his younger brother warily from time to time. Thor was optimistic, however.

It did worry him that Loki seemed to be getting restless, because that was bound to cause problems, but Loki's disquiet had been curbed for now, and they would move on before too long. Thor's main issue was Loki's mental state in general. Thor wasn't blind. He saw the trickster's struggles with his own mind, the way he tore himself into ribbons in the confines of his skull. He was functional, sure, but not healthy. There were still things Loki hadn't told him, still shadows hiding in the corners of his eyes and trailing in wake of his feet. Loki's own mind lurked in the dark, ready to draw the mischief-maker back into despair with serrated, grasping claws.

With a sigh, Thor finished his water and set the glass in the sink. He walked on quiet feet through the semi-dark halls of the compound, quickly finding the door to his old room. His hand hesitated on the doorknob, and after a moment of deliberation, Thor pulled back. The thunderer crept into the room that had been gifted to his brother instead, taking care with the door so his little brother wouldn't wake. Quietly, Thor crawled into the bed, wrapping his arms around Loki and pulling him close. He would find a way to help Loki fight the monsters in his mind soon enough. For now, being there was all he could give. So he did. 

Chapter Text

Residual vestiges of blue grasping at his consciousness, Loki snapped awake and upright, breathing hard. Unbidden, a tear streaked down his face, but the mischief-maker came back to himself with a gasp and rubbed his eyes furiously before any more could fall. Harsh breaths panted in and out from stiffened lips, as Loki carefully pieced himself back together after yet another nightmare. He hadn't had a nightmare quite so chillingly vivid in some time, he mused with a sort of sardonic amusement, putting it down to being in proximity of the mind stone. As his breathing became more steady, Loki's attention was caught by something new, but not entirely unexpected—the presence in his bed. Now that it had caught his attention, Loki tensed again, hoping he hadn't woken his brother and cursing himself for not noticing the way the air permeated with the oppressive, crackling well of static that was his elder brother.

While on any other occasion he would have stayed in his own bed, attempting to keep his mind blank until he could reasonably excuse rising for the day, the presence of his elder brother quickly had Loki slipping out of bed and leaving the room, taking care to keep his footsteps light and close the door gently behind himself. Without anywhere else to go, he headed to the common room, sinking blearily onto a barstool at the kitchen counter and pulling out the papers he had been intending to work on that morning, before Bruce had found him. Barely had his pen scraped the paper before he felt another strong presence, just as familiar as his brother. The cloying, clawing smog that was the call of the mind stone. And it was close. Breath halted in his chest as Loki's whole world narrowed to static input and overarching, devouring fear.

"I know you."

Loki gritted his teeth, trying not to scream. Tears built in his eyes as he attempted to convince his lungs to continue in their function. On shaking legs that could only barely take his weight without buckling, Loki stood, swiveling to face the mind stone. To face my undoing, the trickster's thoughts hissed morbidly. Loki didn't have it in himself to disagree. "You do." Loki forced out through bloodless lips, voice hushed and wavering instead of the calm, suave demeanor he attempted to mimic. Loki forced himself to take a shallow, measured breath. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, almost covering up the next words of the mind stone.

"Yes," it said, the stone in the forehead of the vessel the only source of light in the room beyond the faint, unfriendly glow emanating from the sleek light strips edging the place where wall met floor. "Or," it hesitated, and at this Loki nearly fainted—it sounded so real, so much like a person—"it knows you." The creature casually brushed the stone with a single, berry red finger. The eyes of the mind stone's vessel met Loki's own, and for a minute that lasted a lifetime, Loki drowned in a tidal wave of sickening blue, unsure whether to laugh hysterically or crash to his knees and beg for mercy. "It controlled you, didn't it," the mind stone asked softly, though it really wasn't a question, and both Loki and the stone knew it well. "It knows you. It seeks you out."

Loki swayed on his feet. As if you had to ask that, he said, or thought—he couldn't tell the difference anymore. Quickly, the pressure of those accursed eyes on him became too much, and the silvertongue retched as his knees gave out and the palms of his hands connected with the floor in a sharp slap. Breathing no longer an option, Loki heaved again, and once more, before lurching forward to vomit all over Stark's pristine, ivory tiled floor. He was crying, Loki noted distantly, tears streaming thick and hot and heavy down his face. He threw up again, searing liquid spilling out from his lips as inside his stomach some small creature ripped into his insides with vicious, poisoned claws.

Tipping sideways, Loki thumped down the floor, curling away from the puddle of his own vomit, heedless of the pain it caused in his shoulder when it hit the ground. No barren moon, something dark and slithery hissed in his ear, and Loki shuddered, barely holding back a wail of primal terror. In the corner of his eye, Loki spotted the mind stone taking a step closer. Loki's thoughts doubled pace as he scrambled backward on his hands. Get up, you spineless, useless, abhorrent piece of scum! the dark-haired prince howled internally. Fight, you repulsive lout! Finally getting his hands underneath him, Loki climbed to his feet through the caustic strength of self-hatred alone. As near as he wavered on the edge of falling in a dead faint, still the mischief-maker had enough left in him for an ugly leer to crawl across his features. "I will die before I let you take me," Loki growled, shaking hands fisting around the knives that slid into his grip with a thought.

"I am sorry," the mind stone's creature tried to placate. Loki barked a laugh that made himself weak in the knees. "Really," it pressed, "I will not let it hurt you."

The glint of a knife flashed tantalizingly through the air, aimed straight and true for the center of the stone. Loki blinked, and his best knife embedded in the wall behind the vessel, all the way up to the very edge of the hilt. It didn't even touch it, Loki thought, more than somewhat hysterical. The knife in his left hand, the one the silvertongue hadn't thrown, clattered to the floor. His knees nearly gave out as his fingers uncurled from the blade, and Loki stumbled forward in correction, chest heaving near violently as he panted for air. "Really," Loki rasped bleakly. "Forgive me if I'm inclined to disbelieve you."

Tipping its head, the mind stone took a small step backward, causing Loki to jerk involuntarily at the movement. "Does anyone else know what happened?" The stone questioned, deceptively gentle seeming.

Loki forced himself to blink back the black edging into his sightline. "What?" he mumbled hoarsely.

"When it recognized you," the stone started quietly, "the stone remember where it had seen you. How it knew you. Everything it had observed, and caused. Loki," and here the trickster stumbled again, the visceral feeling of his name said with the power of an infinity stone behind it once again nearly driving him onto his knees in soul-rending horror, "New York was not you."

"Shut up," Loki whispered. "Shut up, shut up shutup SHUTUP!" The trickster shook his head violently, staggering forward a step. "No, no, no. You're wrong. You're wrong. It... it was me. All me. My idea, my plan, my tesseract, my throne. Mine. You don't, you can't, no. No. You don't know anything. Stop... stop it. Stop, stop, stop talking." In an irrational, childish move, Loki clamped his hands over his ears. "No. No," he reiterated. "No. No. I-it was me, I'm, I'm a monster. A monster. It was all me. St-stop it."

"I am sorry," the mind stone said, and even with his ears covered Loki could hear every word so clearly it hurt, "I am still learning about how people work. That was the wrong thing to say. I do not mean to frighten you."

"Not a person," Loki snapped, terrifying himself with his own audacity in the face of one of the building blocks of the universe, "a monster."

The vessel of the stone shook its head. "You are a person. I might not be one myself, but I know that."

Lips peeled back in a blatant mockery of a smile, and for a moment, Loki could almost forget his fear. "But I am Jotun," the mischief-maker explained, almost jovial in the steely grip of hysteria, "and Jotnar are monsters. So I am a monster."

"But how do you know all Jotnar are monsters?" Something curious was building in the eyes of the creature. "Have you met all of them?"

Finally, Loki's hands dropped from his ears. "Monsters," he insisted tersely. "All of them."

"How are you so sure?" and if it was anyone, anything else, Loki might have found the tone comforting, or at the very least not a reason to be afraid, but from the mind stone it made him want to throw his head back and scream in denial.

"I am a monster," the silvertongue hissed, rage giving him the strength to stay steady where he should have been undone by fear. "I am the scum of Yggdrasil, a blight upon the face of the universe. I am the thing of nightmares, the destruction of all that is light. You know NOTHING of me, you have no right to tell me who I am! You do not know me! I know every bit of myself, and it is the darkest of blacks, my very being a perversion of life! Would that I had died at birth the way I should have!" As he spoke, a growl rose in Loki's voice, getting stronger and stronger the longer he spoke, voice gradually rising from a low hiss to a desperate scream. "I AM A MONSTER! How dare you suggest otherwise, you who claim to know me! I am a monster, and always will remain one. I am a monster, because that is who I am. If I am not a monster, then I am nothing." His tirade ending once again in a whisper, Loki gasped for breath in shuddering heaves. Abruptly, the fear came crashing back down, and Loki locked his knees to keep standing under the weight.

"You are not a monster, and neither are you nothing." The mind stone tipped its head to the side, as if it were considering something. "I am very young. You are much older than me, and this stone in my head even more so. Maybe I am wrong, but I do not think you are nothing."

Once again, Loki's fear was drowned out, this time by near dizzying disbelief. "What do you know," he snapped, scornful and breathless. "What do you know."

The trickster's gaze was then pulled, almost magnetically, to the eyes of the mind stone. "I know you. The stone saw every corner of you, every thing even you do not know about yourself, and what it sees I see."

"What it sees...?" Loki trailed off into a laugh, "don't take me for a fool. You are the mind stone." 

The vessel shook its head. "No," it said, softly. Kindly. "I am not. It is a part of me, but not the whole. I understand your fear, however. You do not believe the stone can be anything but wicked, and I cannot blame you for this."

Unconvinced, Loki stumbled back, vanishing his vomit with the careless wave of a hand before he stumbled into it, and sank down onto the stool he had been occupying before the stone interrupted him. His head was spinning, and still breathing wasn't quite cooperating with his wishes. Not knowing what else to do, in a blatant show of insouciance—and even though he was a hairsbreadth from collapsing, possibly fainting altogether—Loki turned back to his abandoned work. He fumbled the pen into his hand, and worked tenaciously at focusing on the words swimming on the page in front of him.

"Are you supposed to be working?" the stone questioned.

"Nope," Loki bit back, accidentally making a shaky scrawl across the span of the paper when his hand spasmed. "Shove off."

"Okay." A beat of silence. "I am sorry." Leave leave leave leave leave the trickster chanted in his head as another pause dragged on and a new jagged scribble joined the first. He cursed at himself, forcibly uncurling his fingers and letting the pen fall, and then the mind stone spoke once more. "It won't hurt you again, Loki. I will not let it."

The energy of the mind stone left, quickly drawing further and further away, and Loki had to grip the edge of the counter in order to keep from tipping off of his seat. One shaky inhale and a rather creative stream of elvish curses later, Loki managed to pick the pen back up.

In the shadowed hallway, Thor fidgeted, longing rather desperately to grab his little brother and sweep him into a comforting hug, but he refrained. Many times during Vision and Loki's conversation—since he had arrived to see Loki picking himself back up off of the floor—had the thunderer been but a breath away from breaking into their conversation to whisk his younger brother away. Even now, he cursed himself for his cowardice, eye stinging as he watched the crown prince of Asgard list to the side, nearly falling off of his seat before he righted himself last minute. Thor reached out a hand, as if he could touch his brother from across the room, but moved no further, even as Loki's shoulders began to shake in what Thor assumed were quiet sobs. He knew, however, that to reveal he had seen what had happened, or at least most of it, would only cause Loki to become upset, and Thor couldn't live with himself if he caused his brother any more grief that night. With a silent sigh, Thor returned to the room that, technically, was supposed to be Loki's.

After shutting the door, Thor crossed the room and sat down rather heavily on the bed, dropping his head into his hands. "Oh, Loki," he whispered mournfully into his palms. What can I do? Thor wondered sorrowfully. How can I help him? He had thought a break would help Loki relax, but with each day that passed something new came up to cause his baby brother even more pain.

"I just want him to be okay," Thor pleaded with the empty room. "Is that really too much to ask? For him to be happy?"

Silence was his only answer.

Chapter Text

 Loki quickly lost track of time while working, so it wasn't until the sound of fizzing sparks caught his attention that he realized it was now morning. He didn't have time to contemplate, however, because the Midgardian wizard stepped into the room.

"What do you want," Loki snarled, on his feet in an instant, curling his hands into fists to hide how they shook.

The wizard rolled his eyes, looking bored. "I'm here to talk to your brother. If you could just..." he made a vague shooing motion.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Loki growled, aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he was being irrational and far too tired to care. His knives slid into his hands, and he raised them, sliding into a warrior's stance.

"Look," the wizard drawled, "I know you're supposed to be good now and all, or, whatever, but it's early and I really don't want to deal with this. You'll be fine for a few minutes while I talk to your brother."

Falling.

He was falling.

He was falling, and he wasn't going to die.

He was falling, and the dark—so much more than dark, not dark, but the absence of all light, all things—was reaching in with tearing claws, sinking hooks into his mind and ripping at his sanity until he couldn't remember his family, his name, if there was anything outside the dark or if maybe it was all in his mind, nothing but a fever dream to try to piece together the sanity of a creature alone in a universe of nothing but dark and no one but him. He was always alone. It was always dark. He thought it was cold but he couldn't remember what cold was anyone, or if it had ever existed and was not the construct of madness itself. He was the black and the black was him and he could not tell where he ended and the black began, or maybe it wasn't him in the black, he was the black, the dark, the ending and the nothing and the loneliness, and this was his world because this was him, and there was nothing but him, in the dark of himself for forever, however long it would be. And he could not die.

He screamed, and he fell, and he begged for death, but it would not come, because he was the dark and the dark was him and this was his fate for always.

He was falling.

It was dark.

It was in the middle of pacing, wondering whether or not he should go to Loki now or wait, when Thor heard it. His brother's scream. Before he even made a conscious decision, he was bolting down the hall, in time to see a sparking portal vanish from the floor and the Midgardian Wizard rolling his eyes. What had happened was rather obvious. "Give my brother back," Thor demanded.

"Later," the wizard said dismissively, "I don't want him around to complicate things right now, I'm tired. I'll give him back before I go, don't worry."

"No," Thor insisted, remembering all the nights he had comforted a crying Loki after dreams of falling when they had been traveling on the Statesman. "Give him back now."

"I just need to ask you a few questions," the man said, "it won't take long."

"Give him back," Thor growled, "then we'll talk."

"Fine," The wizard rolled his eyes and made a loose gesture, and Loki fell into the room, a primal screech of terror splitting the air.

Thor ignored the wizard and the chorus of surprised voices entirely, diving directly for his little brother and pulling him into his arms. "Sssh, shh, shh," Thor murmured, rocking a still wailing Loki back and forth. "I'm here. You're not falling anymore. I have you." He pulled Loki close, feeling helpless as his baby brother gasped frantically for breath, tears leaking from his scrunched shut eyes. Remembering the wizard after a moment, Thor twisted around slightly, only to spot the Vision herding Rhodes and Banner out of the room. The metal man gave him a small smile, and then slipped out himself and shut the door, leaving Thor free to concentrate on Loki.

"Loki," Thor prompted, cautiously. "Can you hear me?" A full-body shudder ran through the mischief-maker, and he attempted to jerk away from Thor—in fear, Thor thought. He didn't know who he was with. "Loki," the thunderer tried again, "you're okay now."

Gritting his teeth, Thor pulled his hysterically sobbing younger brother into his arms and cradled him close, determined to stay strong and get Loki through this. "You're safe, you're here, you aren't falling," Thor repeated, turning it into a low chant as he rocked Loki back and forth, heart fisting with every wail and shuddering breath from the silvertongue. "You're safe."

Eventually, Loki quieted, tears still streaming down his face, eyes still screwed tightly shut. Thor took a deep breath, exhausted. Not being able to help Loki when he was in such pain cut sharper than any blade ever could. "Loki?" the thunderer tried again, reaching up to brush at a tendril of Loki's hair.

Loki whimpered.

"Loki?" Thor asked again, a tentative hope rising. "Are you... can you hear me?"

"Ican'tbreathe," Loki gasped. "I... I'm falling. I'm falling."

"You aren't," Thor insisted, quickly. "Loki, I promise you aren't falling."

"But it's dark!" Loki cried, shuddering, pulling up his arms to wrap them around himself. "I can't see."

Lips twisting into something resembling a smile, Thor leaned down to press a kiss to Loki's forehead. "Open your eyes, brother, and you'll see that you aren't falling." Loki shook his head, and Thor tugged lightly on a lock of his hair, moving his hand to cradle Loki's cheek a moment later. "Come on," he coaxed, "look at me, little brother." Patiently, Thor stroked his thumb over the sharp line of Loki's cheekbone, over and over. Loki peeled open one eye, and then the other.

"Thor?" Loki asked, voice nothing but a trembling whisper.

Thor smiled, trying to be encouraging. "Not falling, see?"

"Not falling," Loki agreed, voice trailing off into a mumble. His head dropped forward, and a moment later, "tired."

Keeping his voice light, Thor replied, even as he shifted Loki in his arms and rose to his feet. "Let's get you in bed then, brother." As Thor walked back to their room, trying not to jostle Loki too much, the trickster's breathing sped back up.

"Dark."

Thor exhaled lightly, managing to open the door using an elbow with Loki still in his arms. "Open your eyes, Loki." He quickly settled Loki in the bed, tucking him in and watching as his eyes drifted back shut. Every minute or so, Loki would begin to panic again, until Thor convinced him to open his eyes, and then the cycle started restarted, until Loki fell asleep some twenty minutes later. Thor longed to flop down on the bed and join him, but he left the room instead, fearful of waking his little brother after he had finally gotten to sleep.

Back in the common room, Banner, Rhodes, the Vision, and the wizard had returned. Thor tried to remember the man's name, but he was too irritated at him to really care, and quickly gave up. "Why are you here," he demanded of the wizard, folding his arms as he stood in the center of the doorway.

The wizard looked unruffled, making Thor's blood boil. "I needed to get your statement on what exactly happened after you left me, and why you're back on earth."

"I told the government already, and the Avengers," Thor growled.

"I'm not the government nor the Avengers," the man drawled, raising an eyebrow. "So talk."

Thor was sorely tempted to refuse him, but instead, he sighed and resigned himself to another long conversation. "Fine. After Loki and I left..."

Thor opened the door to Loki's room, careful to keep balanced the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon he held in his other hand. "Loki?" he called quietly as he crept into the darkened room, squinting at the figure twisted up in the blankets and curled in the center of the bed. "Loki?"

Loki whimpered.

Thor nearly dropped the plate in his haste, all but dropping it on the night table before turning to Loki. "Loki?" he asked frantically, "brother, are you alright?"

"No," Loki whispered, jerking. "No, stop, no, please no!"

Having heard enough, Thor reached over and shook his younger brother by the shoulder. "Loki, wake up!" Loki sat up with a gasp, jerking away from Thor's hands with a cry. "It's me, it's Thor. You're okay," he soothed.

"Thor?" Loki croaked, blinking heavily.

Thor smiled in relief. "Yes, it's me."

Taking a shuddering breath, Loki pushed a hand up over his face and into his hair. And then burst into tears.

"Oh, Loki," Thor murmured, crawling into the bed and pulling Loki into his arms. Loki turned, pushing his face into Thor's chest as the thunderer held him close. Thor stroked his back while Loki cried himself out in shuddery, heaving, gasps, trembling like a leaf all the while. "I'm sorry, brother." Loki shuddered, drawing in a deep breath as he slowly extracted himself from Thor's arms. He hastily wiped his hands over his face, clearly embarrassed. Thor caught Loki's hands in his in own, slowly tugging them away from Loki's face. Shifting his grip so both of Loki's wrists were held in his left hand, Thor reached up to cup his little brother's cheek, wiping away a stray tear hanging on his eyelashes.

"Why are you sorry?" Loki asked, pulling his hands back.

Thor let them go, but kept his hand on Loki's cheek. "For not seeing how much your fall affected you. Before." So many things were left unsaid in that sentence, it was nearly physically painful. Let go, Thor's brain said. Tortured. So many years fighting. He forced himself to stop. Not now. Later, certainly, but not now.

"For a long time," Loki started hesitantly, and Thor nearly stopped breathing, hoping that Loki was opening up for once, "I dreamt of it. Falling. Dark. Absence." A tremor ran through the prince's body, but he continued as if nothing had happened, a moment later. "But... I got better. You'd think... you'd think running Asgard would be restricting, but... I felt free. I... recovered. Rebuilt myself, I guess. I actually..." Loki chuckled nervously, a faint blush rising on his cheeks, "I talked to one of those people Midgardians have for that stuff, therapists they're called, for a while. I felt stupid, but I did. It did help the dreams stop. I stopped feeling like I was falling all the time. And then, well. You were there." Thor brushed away another tear that slipped from Loki's eye, but he didn't seem to notice.

"I think... when Strange put me in that portal. I think I was too shocked to process it, really. Repressed it, acted like nothing happened. And then Hela threw us from the Bifrost." Loki's laugh was bitter, harsh, flavored with an edge of madness. "I couldn't repress it that time. When I landed on Sakaar... I don't remember much. Got caught easily enough, and brought to the Grandmaster. Next thing I knew, I was at a party. There was alcohol, and I partook. A lot of alcohol. I thought you were dead. I thought Asgard was gone. I thought it was all the product of a dying mind and I'd never stopped falling in the first place."

Thor made a pained noise, pulling Loki close. He shifted the trickster so Loki's head was tucked under his chin, and pressed a kiss to his temple. "You thought you were alone," he surmised, slightly strangled. Loki nodded.

"I thought... I thought I'd done it. What I thought I'd wanted, once upon a time. My whole family dead by my hand, and Asgard in ruins by the same." A quiet sob escaped Loki's lips, and another few tears spilled down his face.

"I'm so sorry," Thor whispered. "I'm so sorry." Even as he rocked his little brother and wiped away his tears, Thor still processed what Loki had told him. "You were brought to the Grandmaster... but he didn't put you in the arena," Thor said slowly, a picture starting to form in his mind that he really didn't like. "Why?"

"He wanted me," Loki responded simply, as if it wasn't a big deal. "Couldn't you tell?"

Thor's grip on his younger brother tightened, but he forced himself to relax his hold for fear of harming Loki. "Did he touch you." Already, plans were forming to head back to Sakaar. Just to... see how things were going. In wake of the revolution. (Who was he kidding he was going to hunt him down and rip him apart—)

"He never touched me," Loki mollified the thunderer. He immediately followed his reassurance with a full-body shudder. "It was... part of the game. To him. How long I could come up with excuses or dodge his attempts to drug me. It made me interesting. If you hadn't come... eventually he would have taken what he wanted."

Thor breathed deeply, trying desperately to not fly into a rage. His blood boiled in his veins, and the room started to smell faintly of ozone. A stray spark popped near his fingers before he managed to force himself in check. There would be time for planning a murder later. Right now, his focus was Loki, who had begun to cry again. "You're safe," Thor promised. "He'll never touch you. You're safe." He held the silvertongue close, and kept holding him even after Loki's breathing had evened out, as if he could protect from nightmares by virtue of being at his brother's side. If only it were so easy.

Watching Loki's sleeping face, Thor's resolve sharpened even more. Loki needed to get away, that much was clear. It was about time they left, for real. But Thor worried now that what he was searching for couldn't be found by a simple journey. How do you find peace, much less for someone else?

Chapter Text

"We're leaving today," Thor told Loki as soon as he entered the kitchen the next morning.

Loki yawned, rubbing his forehead with two fingers. "Fine by me," he muttered, heading for the refrigerator.

"We're going to New York," the one-eyed king continued.

Stopping dead, Loki spun around to face his older brother. "Please tell me you didn't just say what I think you said," the silvertongue demanded.

"We're going to New York," Thor repeated, stubbornly. He would not lose this battle.

"No, no, we're going back to the hotel, Thor," Loki snapped, shoulders beginning to draw up defensively. "We've been gone far too long already."

"We're going to New York."

“Me. In New York.” Loki stared incredulously before making an indistinct, helpless gesture. “Thor. Those… those two things do not fit together, what are you thinking ?”

"I'm thinking that we should go to New York," Thor responded mildly.

Loki growled, and stormed out.

"That went well," Thor observed to no one.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Loki grumbled, arms folded defensively over his chest as he took in the city. Thor talked him out of wearing a suit (just barely), so instead, he wore dark jeans, a long-sleeved black button-up, and a black leather jacket, with a gauzy green scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. Watching the multitude of people walk by, Loki was tempted to shave Thor completely bald, because plenty of people were wearing suits, he would not "stick out" if he did so as Thor had claimed. He'd be doing his brother a favor, anyway. The crisp November wind was constantly blowing Loki's hair into his face, undoing any and all attempts to tame it to something reasonable. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge that Thor's hair was already short and shaving him wouldn't do a thing. Except exact justice, of course.

“Just close your eyes, Loki,” Thor insisted, eye sparkling. “Close your eyes and feel the city.”

“It feels sweaty and noisy, Thor, I don’t need to close my eyes.”

“You can’t feel noise, brother!" Yes you can, Loki didn't say. "Anyway, not my point. Close em’.”

Loki glared, but he did as instructed and closed his eyes. It was loud, was the first thing Loki registered, though he knew that already. Loud, and smelly, and crowded, and disgusting. Though he had a feeling that wasn't what Thor wanted him to get. There was a kind of... rhythm to it, he supposed. A heartbeat, one could call it if there were feeling poetic. An energy, certainly. Abrasive. Overpowering. But unique. He opened his eyes. "Are we done yet?"

"No, I'm not changing my mind," Thor smirked at his younger brother, reaching out to ruffle Loki's hair.

Loki ducked, swatting his hand away with a scowl. "Touch my hair and I'll shave yours. And it won't grow back until I want it to."

"Not like it could get much shorter, anyway," Thor said, and the momentary lost puppy-dog look on his face conjured the inexplicable urge in Loki to stab things until it went away. He refrained from grabbing a knife and shoving it into the nearest passer-by, because he did not want the headache of bureaucracy that would cause, not today. Maybe some other time.

"So do you have plans or did you just drag me here to stand on the sidewalk," Loki grumbled instead of starting a possible lawsuit. Or teleporting back to the hotel. He wasn't sure why he hadn't already, anyway.

"I have plans!" Thor said, affronted.

"Forgive me if I'm still unused to the development," Loki drawled.

Thor pressed his lips together, and then seemed to decide to let it go. "There's a famous museum here, the Metropolitan I think it's called? It's an art museum—I thought we'd go there first."

"A museum?" Loki raised his eyebrows, slightly intrigued. "You want to go to a museum?"

Thor looked down at the ground, shuffling his feet slightly. "It will be... educational," he deflected.

"Hmm." Loki stared at him for a long moment, and then shrugged. "Lead on, then."

"So dramatic," Thor huffed, slugging Loki in the shoulder. "I'll get a cab."

The taxi driver stopped in front of a large building, with people flooding in and out of it's doors. Thor tipped the man as Loki slid out of the cab, drawing his shoulders inwards in a meager attempt to keep some sort of personal space in the crush of people. He stood right on the edge of the sidewalk, tilting his head back to stare at the tall columns, ornamental parapets, and fanciful trim that graced every overhang of the gainsboro gray building. "Like every other building here," Loki pronounced when Thor stepped up beside him, the cab at their backs peeling away with a screech. The mischief-maker ignored the hangdog look his older brother shot him at that.

"Well, we're not here to stare at the outside of the building," Thor said, grabbing Loki by the elbow and starting to drag him forward through the crowd.

"It's an art museum, right?" Loki complained, allowing Thor to tow him towards the doors. "What kind of art has such an uninspired building to house it? There could at least be color. So much gray."

"Whatever you're thinking, don't," Thor ordered.

"I wouldn't make it look bad," Loki protested, "just interesting! Even architecture this unoriginal could be livened up by a bit of violet. Some light raspberry, maybe a mix between the two colors, a dash of cream?" He trailed off into idle musings, imagining various ways to bring to life the utterly dull structure. "Perhaps teal, instead, or, hmm... green is always flattering. Perhaps jade..." he continued under his breath, "A gargoyle... or twelve."

"Loki, no."

"Loki, yes," the mischief-maker retorted, but he subsided anyways. Again, headache of bureaucracy, no thank you. Getting into the building was a hassle and Loki barely kept himself from stabbing a large number of different patrons, but eventually they made their way to where the actual exhibits began.

"It's... splatters."

"It's a masterpiece," Thor corrected, though his voice was doubtful. Loki snorted, and several nearby patrons glared. He did not stick out his tongue at them, because he was not a child.

"It's boring. There's no color!" Loki threw his hands up in the air and stalked off in disgust.

"That is all wrong," Loki said dryly, staring at the painting in front of him. "Unless mortals looked like that in..." he checked the display label, "1300, the artist did not do a good job at their portrayal. The proportions are dreadful."

"I think that was the style."

"Pitiful style, then."

"Loki!"

"Were you aware that the mortals could be so... accurate... when you brought me here?"

"It was the style at the time," Thor said, shepherding Loki swiftly from the room.

"I'm not three hundred any more, Thor," Loki complained, but he let Thor drag him away all the same. He had a feeling the alternative would be Thor covering his eyes, which—unnecessary.

After an hour and a half of wandering the museum, Loki refused to stay there for a moment longer and stalked out of the building, Thor trailing behind him like a kicked puppy. "There's a park nearby," he offered. "Central Park, you say it driving up, right? Let's go there."

Loki shrugged and adjusted his jacket. "Can't be worse." A pause. "Would you stop looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like I personally smashed Mjolnir all over again right in front of your face!" Loki threw up his hands in the air and whirled on the spot, setting a brisk pace. Thor jogged to catch up with him, though Loki didn't slow once they were side by side, forcing him to keep moving quickly.

"I'm not... upset at you," Thor said quietly as he could while still being heard over the constant city noise. "I just was hoping that maybe I could find something to do that you'd like. I'm sorry it was so disappointing."

Pinching his lips together, Loki gave Thor a quick pat on the arm. "It was a good attempt," he allowed diplomatically. Belatedly, he tacked on a quick, "thank you." They walked without talking for some time before Loki got fed up, yanked them both behind a tree, and teleported.

"A little warning!" Thor yelped, jumping backwards.

"I'm not going to spend all day walking around when there are faster ways to travel," Loki sniffed. Thor smirked at him, but his expression was more 'disgustingly sappy' than anything else. "Let's go see the park, then."

The park, or at least the part that Loki had found, was absolutely overflowing with mortals, nearly as bad as the streets themselves. He had a feeling the whole place was the same—the whole city, for that matter. Various food-vendors lining the pathway hawked their unnatural-smelling wares in loud voices, long lines at every booth. Children were squealing everywhere, and they might have been outside, but Loki couldn't help the feeling of claustrophobia creeping up on him. There had to be triple the amount of Asgardian refugee count within sight alone. It had been a... while, since Loki had been around so many people at once. Since Thor's coronation possibly, and even then and on the Statesman there was a sense of distance. Here, there was none.

The prince nearly leapt a foot in the air when a hand landed on his shoulder, reflexively calling a knife that he banished before anyone could notice. "Are you alright?" Loki turned to face his older brother with a sigh. The look of consternation on Thor's face was not welcome, to say the least. Loki tilted his head forward slightly, allowing a tendril of hair to fall forward and create a sort of wall between him and his older brother. "Do we need to leave?" Thor pressed, stepping closer again. Loki jerked back.

His automatic response was to give an empathetic yes, but Thor... Thor would be upset, however he tried to hide it. He would feel bad, and try to make it up to Loki, and turn it into a whole thing. A thing that Loki did not want. "We can stay," he said, almost robotically. "I'm alright." The trickster let his gaze flicker around the crowded park, eyes bouncing aimlessly from mortal to mortal as he tried to avoid looking back at Thor. He didn't want to know what expression was on the thunderer's face.

Before he consciously decided to move, Loki was striding across the grass at a healthy clip, ignoring Thor's worried voice as he made a beeline for what he had spotted. "Can I pet your dog?" Loki asked, already squatting down and proffering his hand to the excited canine. He could hear Thor jogging up behind him, and then making conversation with the slightly surprised mortal, but he ignored both of them in favor of—Loki reached out to check the dog's tag—Rover. "You're not a Rover," Loki mumbled to the dog, turning his face to allow it to lick his cheek. "You're much too original to have such a boring name. Mortals aren't very creative, are they?"

Rover wagged his tail. In agreement, Loki was sure.

The rest of the morning passed much more pleasantly. Thor talked to various mortals, while Loki acquainted himself with their companions. When the sun was directly overhead, Thor dragged Loki off from his latest meet-and-greet with the four-legged citizens of New York, insisting that they needed lunch. Loki followed.

“Loki. This is the seventh cat you’ve had us stop for, come on.”

“Ssshssshsssh! Just a minute, brother.” Loki crouched low to the ground, holding one hand out, palm up, clicking softly with his tongue. "Hi! You're such a pretty thing, aren't you? Come here, sweetheart. There's a good girl—there we are."

Thor tried and failed at not being utterly amused at his little brother. He quickly corrected his facial expression before Loki looked back to him and started berating him for being sappy.

Five minutes later, Loki cleared his throat as he stood. "Onward, then?" He side-eyed Thor, brushing his hair back over his shoulder with a casual hand. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" Thor tried to sound innocent.

Loki narrowed his eyes in return. "You know very well what. Stop it."

"Can't I love my little brother?" Before Loki could react, Thor pounced, dragging him in for a rough side-hug and ignoring his protesting yelp.

"Get off me!"

Loki, Thor reflected, was rather similar to the cat he had just been fawning over. The comparison brought a fond smile to his lips. Loki hissed, and Thor barely held back a bark of laughter. Stepping backward again with another pat to Loki's back, Thor half-turned to give his flustered little brother a moment to collect his dignity. "Are you ready to go back to the hotel?" Thor asked as he spun back around. Loki's face visibly brightened. "Not that hotel. A hotel here, in the city. We're not going back yet."

The darkening off Loki's expression was quite comical, as was the slight pout he was assuredly not aware of. "Why not?" he whined.

"You need a break. A longer break than just a day." Thor moved closer to his brother, and laid a hand on the dark-haired prince's neck. "Relax, Loki. We'll go back if there's anything truly pressing that needs us, I promise. Now come on, I booked a hotel a few blocks from here. Let's walk."

Loki grumbled something under his breath that was clearly not flattering, but he listened, falling into step beside his older brother. Even after dark, the streets were still full of mortals, and the stars could hardly be seen for the brilliance of the city lights. Thor kept Loki close to his side, walking so that their shoulders brushed every now and again. They fell into a companionable silence, listening to the honking cars and shouting mortals and other noises of the city as they walked. Then Loki stopped dead.

"Do you hear that?" Loki said, furrowing his brow and tilting his head up like a dog scenting the air.

"Hear what?" Thor asked, but Loki was already moving and he had to hurry to keep up. As they walked, Thor began to hear it too—an electronic, thumping beat that vibrated through the ground and set his teeth on edge with the way it seemed to hum through his bones. On the other hand, Loki was clearly enthralled, a concentrated mask on his face that Thor recognized as his 'I'm going to figure this out' look. As they got closer to the source of the beat, he could hear music as well. Electronic, like the beat, and quite loud. Once Loki dragged them around yet another corner, the source came into view—a small stage, surrounded by a crowd of some hundred or so mortals if Thor had to guess, laughing and dancing and pumping their fists in the air and cheering on the performers. The brothers stood at a distance and watched, for a time, until Loki, seemingly having had his fill, walked off again.

"Music made with technology instead of instruments," Loki mused out loud to seemingly no one. "Fascinating. Odd, but inspired." The look on his face when he cast a glance towards Thor was grudgingly impressed. Thor took it as a win. "Where is this hotel, then? If you will not let us go back." Grinning to himself, Thor told the silvertongue the address. As he had expected, a moment later they walked out of an alleyway and in front of the building. Thor took the lead to check them in.

"Ssh, ssh, you're okay. You're okay. I'm here. I'm right here, brother, it's okay," Thor soothed, holding a shaking Loki in his arms. They'd barely been sleeping an hour before Loki's thrashing and crying woke Thor up, and only now, a half-hour later, was Loki starting to calm. It had been a while since Loki had such a terrible nightmare, and it only affirmed Thor's decision to have him take a break. Loki needed time to heal—without pressure, without responsibilities, without any sort of stress at all—before they began to build up the foundations of Asgard-as-a-place again, which was bound to be stressful in the threefold. Thor swiped a tear from the corner of Loki's eye and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then relaxed his hold. Rather than send Loki back to the other bed across the room, Thor helped his exhausted brother settle himself under the covers of Thor's bed. Though the trickster drifted off within minutes, Thor kept a hand on his head, softly stroking back his hair. Just in case Loki became frightened again. To—hopefully—guard against any bad dreams.

Am I doing the right thing for him? Thor tried not to wonder. He shook his head, and picked up his phone. He'd stay awake for a while longer, just in case. He might as well get started on planning their next destination. Which he probably should have already thought through, but. Well, he had a feeling it would all work out fine.

Chapter Text

They didn't end up touring the White House. Thor had wanted to, but Loki pointed out that tours had to be booked and background checks were done, even if he magick-ed them in someone might recognize them (particularly Loki), and even if he glamoured them there was no guarantee that they didn't have a way to sense magic. So that plan went out the window, aside from simply walking by to look at the building.

"Rather small for the capital of a nation of such size," Loki remarked quietly. Thor smacked him.

"What about a museum, then?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Thor, we've already been to a museum."

"Not here!" Thor said. He sighed. "Or we could do lunch."

"Or we could do lunch," Loki echoed.

After eating at a nearby restaurant, Thor dragged them to the Smithsonian.

"Really," Loki complained as Thor pulled him down the sidewalk by the wrist, dodging confused pedestrians, "we've already been to a museum!"

"Not all museums are the same," Thor said staunchly. "This one is natural history, not art."

Loki perked up. "Well, perhaps it might be interesting."

"Another boring building," Loki murmured they made their way inside.

"Shut up," Thor hissed.

"Oh, fine," Loki sighed.

Loki took control almost immediately, nearly the second they entered 'The Hall of Fossils.' He spent the next hour at least pouring over every single one of the skeletal exhibits, whether dinosaur or something else, analyzing the creatures in a low voice and with a fervor in his eyes that made Thor think he was trying to figure out how to shapeshift into them. "Do you see those fangs, Thor," he whispered reverently. "And the build of the skull... I wish I could see it with flesh."

"Loki, no!" Thor managed not to yell, but just barely. "Absolutely not."

Loki turned from his close, bent over scrutiny to smirk at his older brother. "I never said anything, brother. I have no idea what's gotten into you."

At least he's happy, Thor reminded himself before he throttled his little brother. "Do you want to see the other exhibits?" he tried.

"Maybe later," Loki replied absently, crouched low to examine a collection of seashells divided between those that housed predators and those that sheltered prey. "I'm busy."

Eventually, Thor ended up leaving Loki behind to explore the rest of the museum when Loki still hadn't moved into the second half of the hall. "It'll close eventually," Thor reminded his younger brother before he left. Loki flapped a dismissive hand at him and continued to stare at his current fixation—a large creature with a shell like a turtle that did not otherwise resemble one. This was at least the fourth time Loki had circled back to stare at it. With a huff, Thor left him behind to his musings. He meandered through the African Voices exhibits, both inspired and disheartened by what he read. Some of the things he came across reminded him far too much of Asgard's treatment of the Frost Giants, after which he quickly passed through, not wanting the memories that such thoughts stirred up. He pulled out his phone to text Loki - "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Fine." Was Loki's prompt reply. Thor smiled at his phone. It was a wonder Loki had even noticed the message with how invested he was in the fossils. He was alright, Thor affirmed himself. A minute later — "I can hear you worrying from here. Stop it." Thor couldn't help a little laugh, quickly moving on when some of the humans gave him odd (or angered) looks. Just as he was about to leave the hall, someone cleared their throat.

After enduring a lecture on 'kids these days' and 'disrespect' and how 'no one connects with the world anymore, always on those devices' by an old man who wouldn't yet be old enough to speak by Asgardian terms (and trying very hard not to laugh at him—he had no idea how ironic his lecture was), Thor moved on to the ocean exhibits. One look told him Loki would adore the place. He kept texting his younger brother pictures until he finally caved and joined him after being sent a photo of the 'deep ocean' exhibit.

"They don't know what's in their own oceans?" Loki hissed, incredulity mixed with utter delight in his voice.

Thor barely managed to keep the triumphant smile off of his face. Operation Lure Loki Away from the Fossils was a success. Mostly because there were more fossils. He'd seen the way Loki eyed the giant, skeletal beast suspended in the air, but he stuck with the deep ocean exhibit for now. Once Loki had spent half an hour poking around in the ocean section, Thor walked by to parrot one of the displays. "Icy cold. Eternally dark. Yet life finds a way." He ducked away before Loki could hit him.

"I hate you," Loki texted after Thor managed to avoid him by hiding behind an exhibit.

"What? What did I say?" Thor responded. He ignored the series of alerts that beset him to move into the next set of exhibits—human origins. 

The Captain America exhibit at the end of the hall was a surprise, and almost made him choke, and he had to disguise his surprise with a coughing fit before quickly hurrying away. He could all but see Rogers' shocked face looking at the thing for the first time, and it almost sent him into a fit of laughter. After that bit of levity, Thor decided to check his texts. "You do know we're going through the exhibits backward," he texted Loki, hoping to distract him.

"Fossils are more interesting than humans. And don't try to distract me."

Thor put his phone away. It was worth a try. When he entered the actual first exhibit, he smirked. And started sending pictures. Again, it took Loki a while to cave. It was a combination of pictures of the wild cats and the giraffe that convinced Loki to show up. Soon enough, he hurried into the exhibit, hands stuffed into the pockets of the dark leather jacket he was so fond of. Thor waved to him from where he stood at the exhibit for carnivores. "Aren't you glad we went to a museum?" Thor said smugly when the trickster joined him. Loki smacked him.

"Yes," he said out of the blue a few minutes later, not looking away from an exhibit on an extremely peculiar-looking creature that was called a platypus. Thor smiled to himself.

Somehow, he managed to strong-arm Loki out of the mammal exhibit long enough to get him food—really only because of the shark suspended above the diners. They sat right up next to the balcony, and Loki alternated between staring up at the model great white and staring at the passers-by below, occasionally amusing himself by switching hats with his seidr, among other small pranks that Thor pretended not to notice. He was eating willingly when there was knowledge to be had—Thor would take what he could get.

Thor dragged Loki upstairs after they finished their snack-break, because he knew his brother well enough to know that he would go straight back to the animals if he was allowed, and Thor himself wanted to see the rest of the museum. Luckily, the next set of exhibits they went through had fossils, if not as many as the first floor. Loki pretended not to be interested in the human history displays, but Thor caught him turning away from an exhibit on different types of bird eggs to peek at a collection of painted pottery. He smiled, and walked around the corner. A huge grin split his face when one of the exhibits caught his eye.

"Loki Loki Loki Loki," Thor hissed, grabbing his brother's arm and ignoring his yelp. "Come look at this!"

"More human stuff—" Loki started to complain, eyes widening when he finally saw what Thor was trying to point out to him. "Fascinating," he mumbled, reaching out to lightly touch the glass case.

"No stealing the spears," Thor scolded him, recognizing the feverish curiosity in his eyes as he read the information, the kind that preceded some of Loki's most exceedingly stupid endeavors in the name of learning.

"Spearheads," Loki corrected. "And I'd give it back. It says these can take down a mammoth, but that seems—"

"You are not stealing a spearhead to go kill an elephant," Thor yelped quietly. Maybe showing Loki was a bad idea. "Look," he said desperately, "it says what types of stones they used, and where to find them. You could make your own. But don't kill an elephant."

"It would need to be a mammoth for true verification," Loki said in an agreeing tone.

"Yes, wait, no. Loki!" Loki ignored him. "Look at this—this sword's blade is lined with shark teeth!" Exactly as Thor had expected, Loki's head snapped up. He took a picture of the spearheads with his phone and darted over. "Just don't stab me with the sword you make," Thor sighed.

Thor let his brother have another hour in that 'Objects of Wonder' area before pulling him to the next set of exhibits. "It's called the insect zoo," Thor sing-songed, and Loki's eyebrows lifted. He bounced from exhibit to exhibit, studying various bugs and taking plenty of pictures for later study—a tactic he'd adapted to when Thor wouldn't let him stay as long as he wanted in certain areas. His eyes were bright with challenge when he dragged Thor into the small butterfly garden.

"Look, Thor," he enthused, pulling him to the wall covered in butterfly species. He shoved a piece of paper and a pen into the thunderer's hands. "Ten minutes, whoever sees the most wins. Winner picks what we have for dinner. No cheating—you have to verify each."

Thor smirked. "You're on."

It felt a bit odd—growing up the contests he'd had with Loki were of wrestling, spear-throwing, weight-lifting, and the like. A butterfly hunting contest was not something he'd ever have imagined in his younger days, and he'd have teased Loki mercilessly for the suggestion if he dared make it. But he still enjoyed it. Particularly the honest, open glee that Loki forgot to hide when he won. Out of forty nine species of butterfly, Thor had gotten sixteen and Loki thirty four. He all but skipped his way through the rest of the insect exhibits before he realized and calmed himself, and it made Thor's heart feel fit to burst. Joy was a good look on his little brother, Thor thought.

And then they got to the bones. Lots and lots and lots and lots of bones.

Thor resigned himself to never leaving again.

They did leave, eventually. When Thor pointed out that it was an hour until closing time, and there was still one major area left. Geology.

That was, as Thor had assumed, all Loki needed to hear.

He followed in the wake of his younger brother, trying his best to parse out the excited, magic-related babble pouring from the silvertongue's mouth. Though he didn't much care for the jewelry, the jewels themselves quite clearly overjoyed Loki. "I've never worked with Midgardian gemstones," he mumbled to himself. Thor could almost see the experiments happening behind his eyes. When they left gemstones to look at the actual raw minerals, however, well. Thor thought his brother might have passed out from sheer excitement if it wouldn't have taken away from his time to study them. There must have been thousands of them, covering every inch of the walls and in central displays besides. Loki didn't waste a second.

He raced through the exhibits like wildfire, taking hundreds of pictures of everything he saw. The only things that didn't interest Loki were the displays on rock formation and tectonic plates—but everything else was fair game. Never mind the bones. They were never leaving the mineral hall, Thor thought as he watched Loki examine another set of crystals. He didn't stop moving for a second, unnerving many of the mortals, and quite a few security guards were keeping watch of him. One of them was about to approach Loki when THor drifted over. "There's a gift shop," he said. Loki flapped a hand at him. "With mineral samples."

Loki was so thrilled that Thor didn't have the heart to try and make him put back any of the samples. Over a thousand dollars worth. Sorry, Stark, Thor thought, smiling weakly at the shopgirl while Loki was saying something about chemical composition and light refraction.

Outside, Loki blinked at the sun like he'd forgotten it was there. Thor's lip twitched. "Come on," he said, putting a hand on Loki's back. "You get to pick where we go for dinner, remember?"

After they ate, they headed for the National Mall. Loki was bored, though Thor could see him trying to pretend to be interested, for which he was grateful. He kept looking at his phone, though. "We can go back to the hotel," Thor said, when they left the Lincoln memorial.

Loki shook his head, putting away his phone. "No," he said. "You went to the museum for me. I can do this for you."

"I liked the museum, though," Thor pointed out.

Loki smiled at him. "Thor. It's fine, really. Where to next?"

They wandered the National Mall until dark, and then after, finally checking into the hotel Thor had booked at ten o clock. "Sleep, Loki," he said pointedly when the mischief-maker pulled out one of his new samples.

"Spoilsport," Loki pouted.

Chapter Text

Thor dragged Loki up at five in the morning to get on the road. They ate a quick breakfast in the hotel and then piled in the car to head out. "Where are we going?" Loki asked as he buckled in.

"Miami," Thor told him. "Florida."

Loki's eyebrows lifted. "That's pretty far, isn't it? Perhaps I should—"

"The drive is part of the experience," Thor interrupted. "And yes, we had to get up early in order to get there by tonight. We'll spend the day tomorrow. "

"The drive is part of the experience," Loki mocked under his breath. "By the nine, brother." Thor ignored him.

As Thor expected, Loki quickly dropped back to sleep in the passenger's seat. He slumped against the window with his neck at an awkward angle, breathing soft and slow. Thor smiled at him in the rearview mirror before turning his eyes back to the road.

"Wake up. Loki. Brother."

Loki groaned, pressing a hand to his forehead and rolling his shoulders. "Wha'dy wan,'" he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. Ouch. There was definitely a crick in his neck.

"We're at a gas station. You should go to the restroom."

"No."

Thor sighed. "You can get a snack, too, Loki."

The trickster peeled one eye open. "Fine."

After finishing in the less-than-sanitary restroom, Loki aimlessly browsed the candy aisle. He hadn't spent enough time on Midgard to know what most of their snacks were. He knew enough to know that Reeses were extremely popular, and this little fueling station had an insane amount of their products. "Get one," Thor said behind his shoulder, and Loki nearly jumped. "Here." Thor plucked out one of the packages, labeled 'Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.' "I bet you'll like these ones."

Loki shrugged and grabbed the little orange packet. "Anything else you'd recommend?"

"Nah," Thor said. "Just don't get that much. We don't have unlimited money."

"I'm the one who does the budgeting," Loki muttered at his brother's back. "I know that better than you do."

Loki ended up picking out a few chocolate bars—dark, milk, and white, because Midgard apparently had different varieties of chocolate to choose from—and a packet of something called 'sour gummy worms.' He wasn't sure how sour could mesh with sweets, but the concept was interesting enough that he would give it a try. Ignoring the rainbow of soda bottles and colorful drinks, Loki grabbed two water bottles and then headed to the counter to pay. Thor was already there, chatting with the cashier, because of course Thor could make friends with some random Midgardian in under five minutes. He'd gone for a cylinder of something called 'Pringles,' two bags of 'Cheetos' (one regular and one jalapeno), four packets of various kinds of pop-tarts, and two sodas. "Disgusting," Loki mumbled in his older brother's ear as he added his choices to the pile.

"Oh, come off it," Thor whispered back, then gave a smile to the cashier and accepted their purchases back in two separate bags. He handed Loki his and dug into his own while they walked back to the car, pulling out the Cheetos.

"That cannot possibly be food," Loki said, utterly appalled, when Thor pulled out some sort of misshapen, fuzzy orange tube and popped it into his mouth. It crunched loudly as he chewed, and left powder of the same neon orange all over his fingertips.

"Want one?" Thor offered cheerfully, holding out one of the diseased little sticks.

Loki raised his hand to ward it off, taking a few steps out of reach. "I really, truly, sincerely would rather starve." He squinted at the offending so-called food product that Thor was still waving in his direction. "Are you certain that is edible? I wouldn't be surprised if that thing was crafted from the regurgitation of a feces-eating rat living in a containment center for radioactive waste."

"That's a very specific image," Thor said slowly, eyeing Loki like he was the one acting absurd. "And yes, it's food. If you tried it..."

"I would vomit all over your shoes," Loki finished staunchly. "Try not to breathe in my direction after eating those, please? I don't want whatever plague those things carry." He continued speaking as he slid into the car and pulled the door shut. "It's no wonder humans have such short life spans if that is the kind of thing they put in their bodies."

On the other side of the car, Thor's door slammed shut. Loki caught him rolling his eye in the little mirror suspended above their heads when his older brother leaned over to set his purchases on the floor between them. He plunked each of the sodas into the cup holders and then turned to grin widely at Loki.

"Whatever you're planning, no," Loki said sharply, unconsciously leaning away a bit as Thor's smile took on a manic edge.

"Come on, just try the sodas," Thor coaxed. "Which one do you like better?"

Loki blinked. "That's decidedly more harmless than the look on your face suggests. Did you poison them?'

"Of course not!" Thor reared back, true affront flashing over his face before he registered that it had been a joke. "Just try them."

"Fine," Loki said slowly. While grabbing the closest bottle in one hand, he flicked his wrist out of Thor's sightline, checking both drinks for anything malign with his seidr. Finding nothing objectionable beyond the incredibly unhealthy nature that many Midgardian snack foods seemed to share, Loki opened it up and took a sip. He closed the top and reached for the other, all the while pretending like Thor wasn't vibrating in his seat as he watched Loki taste the drinks. "I like that one," Loki decided after a minute, pointing to the first bottle he'd tried. Thor gasped. Loudly.

"You like Pepsi?!" Thor cried, eye going dramatically wide. "The betrayal! The horror! Coke is objectively better, brother!" Loki glanced down at the bottles, for the first time bothering to look at the labels. One declared itself Coca-Cola, while the other was called Pepsi. When he looked back to Thor, the thunderer's eye was watering as he tried to hold the aghast look on his face, even as the corners of his lips were twitching.

"You're an idiot," Loki deadpanned.

Thor howled.

"Are you done now?" Loki asked with frigid politeness when at last Thor's laughter started to die down, some minutes later. "Or can we just cancel this trip?" he added slightly hopefully.

Thor wiped his eye was a small gasp, still giggling as he turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking space. "Sorry, sorry," he gasped. "It's just... the humans take their sodas very seriously. There's a whole thing between Pepsi and Coke, it's just—best outcome I could have hoped for, honestly."

Loki furrowed his eyebrows. "If you say so," he said diplomatically. "But you're still an idiot."

A few minutes after they got back on the highway, Loki pulled something out of thin air and started poking at it. Thor tried to watch him unobtrusively in the mirror while also watching the road. He quickly figured out that Loki was playing with one of the rocks he'd bought at the museum the day before—or at least it was obvious once Loki started casting spells at it. "The molecular structure is incredible," Loki mumbled to himself, and Thor had to bite down on the inside of his cheek and fix his eye on the road to keep from guffawing.

"What do you have there?" Thor asked. Loki said nothing, continuing to mutter over the rock. Thor sighed. At least he wouldn't be complaining any for the next several hours, not when he had magic to keep him entertained.

Loki poured over that same stone for at least half an hour before he exchanged it for a different one and began the same process over again. While the stone spun lazily in the air in front of his face, Loki waved one hand and the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups that Thor had convinced him to buy appeared in his grasp. Thor hadn't even realized he'd put them in his dimensional pocket. Of course he did. The wrapper crinkled as he tore it open and removed one of the candies. "Take the wax paper off first," Thor warned.

Loki turned to look at him, arching one graceful eyebrow. "I do realize that, brother." He paused, a smirk slowly spreading over his face. Emerald eyes twinkled teasingly as he spoke. "You tried to eat it, didn't you?"

Thor's face burned. "Shut up."

"I didn't say a word, my dear brother."

"Stop thinking it, then."

"As you command." A few minutes later, the giggles started.

"Lokiiiiii." When Thor shot a glance at him, Loki was doubled over, face red and chortling near-silently, holding the half-unwrapped chocolate in his hand. Thor shoved it into his mouth to shut him up.

"You were right," the mischief-maker said eventually. "That was pretty good."

"It was chocolate, of course you like it," Thor pointed out.

"I was trying to be nice, you idiot."

"Oh. Right."

Loki sighed. "Just keep driving, brother."

Loki looked up from the crystal he was holding with a start when Thor pulled off the highway. "Do you need to use the restroom again, brother?"

"No. Lunch."

"Lunch. Right," Loki echoed. He gave the rock in his hand a longing look before dismissing it back to his dimensional pocket, and stretched his arms over his head. A jaw popping yawn followed, and then he braced his hands in the small of his back as he arched into them. "Where will we be eating, then?"

"I didn't plan that far yet," Thor admitted, taking his eye off the road for a moment to flash Loki a grin. "We'll figure it out."

"Hm. Is this another 'part of the experience,' brother?"

"...you're not letting that go, are you."

"Oh, Norns no." Loki smirked. "Just find a place with edible food, yes?"

"Now that's unfair. I've never picked a place with bad food," Thor scoffed.

"After seeing you consume those... Cheetos," Loki wrinkled his nose, "I no longer trust your judgment on what is food and what is literal poison, brother. You must have the taste buds of a raccoon."

"A... a what?"

Loki rolled his eyes, a fond smile tugging at his lips even as he tried to smother it. "Those black and white creatures with pointed faces? About the size of a cat? Eat garbage?"

"You mean a rabbit?"

Very rarely was Loki stunned speechless, but Thor seemed to have a talent for shocking him into silence (not always metaphorically). "No, Thor."

Thor frowned, brow crinkling up with confusion. "I thought those were rabbits."

"Rabbits are the things with long ears that hop around."

"But aren't those hares?"

"Hares are bigger."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"I'm confused."

Loki patted his brother on the shoulder. "Just take my word for it."

"You better not be trying to make me look stupid."

You do that all on your own, Loki almost said, but Thor was pointing to one of the signs on the side of the road.

"How about there?"

"A steakhouse?" Loki shrugged. "Why not."

"I don't understand how you eat that fast," Loki mumbled, watching as Thor put yet another chunk of steak into his mouth and swallowed after chewing all of two times. A bit of sauce splattered across the table, and Loki flinched. "Table manners, brother."

"Re'wax," Thor mumbled cheerfully around another mouthful of all but raw meat. A dribble of meat-juice trailed down into his beard. Loki closed his eyes and swallowed heavily so he wouldn't vomit. "We're not at the feast hall, brother."

"If we were at the feast hall, your manners would be even worse," Loki grumbled. He looked down—and then his head snapped up as he yelped. Thor, smirking, rebent the prongs of his fork into shape. "You stabbed me," Loki said, not sure whether to be angry or impressed, "with a fork."

"You've done it to me often enough." Thor grinned. "Besides, I didn't even break skin. Now, eat."

Sighing, Loki rolled his eyes. "Eating."

They got back on the road after Thor had devoured enough to freak out the waiters, plus everything that Loki didn't eat. Loki quickly picked back up his studies of the crystals he'd bought, while Thor turned his focus to the road. They traveled for some time in companionable silence, Loki with his magic and Thor with the quiet peace of watching the miles go by. It reminded him of flying with Mjolnir, but slower. Still, there was the same sense of exhilaration. The same sense of peace.

Eventually, Loki roused himself from his contemplation enough to call forth more of his purchases—the three bars of chocolate, this time. "What's the difference," he asked himself, studying the three wrappers.

"Amount of sugar, mostly," Thor said. The silvertongue looked to him like he'd forgotten his brother was there. "Try it," Thor encouraged. "My favorite kind is the milk chocolate."

Loki shrugged, and tore open the first bar, taking a bite. He did the same with all three, and then studied them in silence. "White chocolate," he said decisively. "That's my favorite."

Thor smiled to himself. "Figures. That's the sweetest one—too sweet for me. What did you think of dark chocolate?"

"Also good," Loki allowed.

"Really?" Thor's face twisted up and he gave a little shudder. "It's horribly bitter. I'dve thought you'd hate it."

"I live to be contrary."

"If that isn't an understatement..." Thor drawled.

Loki smacked him in the shoulder. "Keep driving, fool."

It was well into the night when they finally arrived at the hotel Thor had booked a room at. They'd stopped for dinner earlier, and Loki had dropped off the sleep soon after, rousing every now and again to complain about something or other before slipping back into sleep again. Thor parked the car and got the key card from the front desk before returning back to Loki. He opened the passenger door and stared at his sleeping brother, biting his lip softly. Loki would hate him for it, but Thor unbuckled his seatbelt and eased it back over his shoulder before sweeping his little brother into his arms and carrying him upstairs, ignoring the stare that the half-asleep desk clerk gave them when Thor walked by.

Thor slowed the closing of the door with his foot when he entered the room, and set Loki onto the nearest bed as it clicked shut. Prying off his younger brother's shoes and tossing them to the floor, Thor peeled back the covers and maneuvered Loki under them. Pulling the blankets up to Loki's chin, the thunderer smiled at him. A gentle hand moved a bit of hair out of Loki's face, and Thor bent down to kiss his temple. In the grasp of sleep, Loki's countenance was peaceful in a way it never was when he was awake. Dark eyelashes fanned across his cheeks, strawberry lips parted slightly with a silent exhale, and ivory brow was smoothed out, lacking a single line. He looked young, like none of the troubles of the day could catch him while he slept. If only that were true. Thor's heart ached to see him so vulnerable. He pressed their foreheads together and lingered for a long moment, matching their breaths together. "Good night, brother," Thor whispered. Turning off the lamp, he crawled into bed.