Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All of  You + Me

R.M. Drake


There is
too much noise
in me,
and too often
I feel
Interrupted.

I need order.
I need love.
I need all of you
to calm the waves.

All of you to
set me free,

and

all of you
for all of me.

Chapter Text

TREE OF NOVEMBER

It was all a wilderness of the purest chaos. And it was all because of him.

Loki unfolded on Midgard in the heart of new S.H.I.E.L.D. from his drapes of shadows. A group of agents including Romanoff, Hill, Coulson, and Barton scrutinized the developments of their latest refined armament at the time and place of his appearance.

Screws. Screws and metal and sulfur choked out the air in the room. He thought he would drown in it until all eyes fell on him, then he thought his death would be nails and teeth mauling apart his flesh.

He swallowed the black tiles with meticulous strides towards the familiar faces pointing guns at him. Cloaks of shadows slipped off his shoulders, leaving a fringed sheet of pallor to ripple every time a foot met the ground. Tattered black boots grew closer; fingers closed in on triggers. A slight jingle and flash of barbarous helplessness—desperation?—reflected an eerie sign of life in the monster, from his enchanting azure eyes to the melody of metal and clad surging to a new crescendo with each dainty step.

He was savage and sublime, wild-eyed and doe-eyed, ghastly and heavenly, all attributes made all the more ominous in his deliberate progress. It was strange, because all life and non-life in the room unarmed itself at the ferocious sight of such an uncensored heart, as though they all had been looking at the image of their own tenebrous and passionate souls and feared to scare its truths away.

Once the atmosphere of metal and adrenaline surrender-accepted him, he planted his boots where he was and slowly raised both hands. His burned sugar lips parted to deliver the first words of the long night.

He swore he wanted to help The Avengers face down the greatest threat Yggdrasil has ever known. He did not want anything in return but the heart of him called Thanos. The starlight reflections bathing his lurid irises lulled and flamed their fears out of proportions, even when he pulled a notebook brimming with his scrawls out of thin air as an offering for their allegiance.

Last time he claimed he wanted to bring freedom by taking it away. This time he claimed he wanted to help, perhaps to bring them deeper into trouble, distract them from it, or create it himself…again. Which was why Romanoff and Barton tackled him to the ground the moment Coulson’s apprehensive gaze lifted from the paper offerings towards him. Coulson and Hill issued a dire summons for all Avengers (“Cat of Ages”) not another moment later.

The new Avengers roster collided with the older like a shower of stars and meteors in less than half an hour. Vision believed their historic foe’s desire to help and his lack of hostility thus far, even when apprehended, made him worthy of trust (more so once he skimmed over his notes of spectacular strategy and fine cut facts); Banner warned him that the God of Mischief was the hotbed of crazy and manipulations, that last time he pretended to surrender to further his machinations. Wanda pondered taking the risk to team up with him for herself, for she saw the aura of tamed feral magic about him…until Barton unearthed his “bottomless” mines of red ledgers. Lang wished to give the demigod another chance (of course with plenty of precautions like a muzzle and magic dampers); Stark threatened to decimate his precious suit with twenty atomic bombs after he finished suing the skin off the villain unleashed.

Once all who hoped abandoned here, Fury and the team who saw him at his demented peak broke into their skins of hounds of hell.

Thor, lost in a brutal winter of berserk sorrow and fatigued by the bout he and the Warriors Three finished minutes before his summon, could as much as watch while humans beat and bound and wrung and marred the monster that didn't as much as whimper...until a boot crushed the back of his neck and an archer’s arrow grazed his forehead.

(To which the golden sun heard a voice call his shadow a worthless beast, a royal mistake of chance that didn't deserve to breathe, much less cry out.)

Thus the heart without a home was unanimously sentenced to death for his terrors against New York courtesy of the Grand Court of Midgard. He was to fly down the velvet Midgardian sky like a shooting star from the top of the tower with the names of the lives he took entwined encased engraved forever in blue blood while bound and drugged as the monster he was until he crashed and shattered into shards of petals made of iron.

(A broken bouquet for Death, they said, a wreath of mangled red and justice and black to crown the caskets of those he snuffed the light out of.)

But an unexpected ally pleaded his cause with 10,000 tears and a busted heart.

His sentence changed.

To something worse.

S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Grand Court damned the monster to waste away in a room flooded with bright florescent lights not big enough for the demigod to stretch his legs out, or to pace more than three steps. He was to receive no food or drink or anything to pass time with, nor were his eyes to fall upon any living creature or hear any other sound ever again besides the loyal lights and their maddening lullabies.

(He would destroy himself, they said, and it would please them all to watch.)

The first two years he pretended he didn’t care while he entertained himself with illusions around his 2-by-3 casket. Parents covered their childrens’ eyes while they ripped apart the behemoth who couldn't see them.

(Disgusting, they said, as they tendered S.H.I.E.L.D. thousands per day to lay their vain eyes upon the Treasure of Midgard.)

By the third year, all he did was wonder and sleep. By the third year, the children were grown enough to meet their enemy.

(Go to Hell you pathetic creature, they said, as they lusted for the power that flowed through his veins in locked crevices of their dreams...as they wished they had an army and a mind and a [disowned] prince’s visage as his.)

By the fifth, he tried to break free only to have his seidr swallowed by the endless gaping mouths of his prison. By the fifth, the world called him queer.

(Sew it’s lips, brand it’s eyes, flay it’s back - give it wings - then rip them off; they said, but first they curated stunning albums of the fallen royal unmatched in perfections no matter who the culture’s newest darlings were, showcased his ravishing elegance in galleries and galas far and wide, and composed so many poems and prose from the twine of his soul that he became the indestructible needle betwixt the inexhaustible fingers of a buzzing generation.)

By the eighth, he crumbled against the wall. With his knees being the barb wires to trap his heart to stay down in the center of a raging war zone, he broke. By the eighth, the world jeered at the creature who wasn't made for this.

(The beast still plays it has a heart, they said, as they watched bullet tears pour like a runoff river until his chest jumped like he was drowning and they looked away with throbbing, angry throats before they could see him writhe in a salty crimson ocean covered with a sheet of sailing silver barbs. Before they realized he’d been drowning for so long and screaming in the silent torrents so loud that it had stolen his voice.)

And beyond? Well, after the tenth was when those who hated him stopped coming to feast. The museum to observe the legendary extraterrestrial-terrorist-mass-murderer closed.

(It's too ugly to look at, they said, to the fallen prince whose raven locks framed him like tendrils of the galaxy’ soul, whose baby blue eyes glistened with diamonds of humanity, whose ivory skin shined like the moon though dim as it was, whose raw cheeks and weak shoulders exposed the depths of an annihilated spirit who could feel tenfold after spending its last breath.)

When the ten years morphed into twenty, S.H.I.E.L.D. cast his casket twelve levels under their feet though he and it remained where they left him. They faced other traitors, other manipulators, other villains. The Avengers roster changed as some from the older retired and others married.

Life moved on but he never did. He shuffled not an inch, made not a sound, didn’t even blink. Not even when two small footsteps left a trail in the dust mites formed from the venomous scales of admirers long gone, when that human became the first in over a decade to lay eyes upon him.

And so his unexpected ally carried his casket back to the light and convinced those who remembered him to bring him back to life.

It was her death wish.

Chapter Text

ANGEL OF LIGHT, SHATTER MY MIDNIGHT

It felt like a match went off. Warm hands, as rosy and soft as freshly baked bread, touched his(?). Something jolted in his chest. The touch was not a phantom’s. It was heavy and confident, not taunting and soft enough to torture with aching ghost embraces.

He sucked in a deep, raggedy breath, and let the unending white walls call him from darkness. Death and oblivion, hidden behind the curtain of hollow hydrangea blues, fell into the pitch of dilated night. He heaved half a dozen times as blood and water drained from his lungs, ignited by the dissolving of the ever-blinding fog left behind from the light’s sudden summons.

Before him stood a blob of brown tendrils, sun-kissed, patchy skin, and merigold drapes. A wad in his throat thumped like a second heart.  

Hands slid up two long and thin pieces of tingling skin below his sight, which doused liters of life into layers upon layers of skin of ice, but all he could comprehend was the life stirring—exploding—in his cells. Biting ants crawled at the heated pleasure small, clumsy strokes emitted into his bones. The heat felt so astounding that a muffled noise spurred in his ashen throat, which drained so much out of him that his lungs screamed and the heavy, fluttering, original wad in his chest thumped with twisted pangs.

“Loki,” he deciphered from the distorted sounds piercing his ears(?) like crashing waves coming from all directions. He felt like they would bleed at the sound, but two thin lines connected, somehow, and curved upwards. Whatever his half blind eyes were nestled inside and whatever those lines were stuck against (lips?), it shattered like porcelain.

And Norns it hurt so much. Utter agony reverberated like shockwaves inside his paper thin skin, leaving him to flounder in it the deeper it soaked.  

The heat left his arm. The blob became bigger. Before he could truly process what changed, heat poured into his very cheeks. A frazzled light flashed over his head. (FACE! He had a face!)

He blinked, and it burned. Fiery streams foraged a trail of cooled lava upon his cheeks as the last of the fog dripped away. The hands—a trembling rumble ripped from his newly numbed throat as it happened—traveled down his sunken, ablaze valleys to the pillar of ice charred death that was his neck. He felt each succulent, enthralling (Oh…) nurturing, rejuvenating (…nORNs…) suave, majestic (…by the goooods…) embrace as each finger traced down his winter veins and fondled his skin.

“Loki…Loki, can you hear me?”

He clung to the strange sound and blinked away rivulets of moisture. The palette of summer colors fused into a stunning image of the loveliest face he’d ever seen.

She made the four walls of assaulting white and the endless ichor of the Void’s ghosts dissolve into jealous, fuming strings of smoke. He could almost say they never existed, but Death’s claim on him still stained his hair-thin veins.  

Why did his angel look so somber? Moreover, mournful?

His ringing ears(?) picked up on some more harrowing noise. Pepper grains flickered over the angel’s face (smaller than the ones already there) as the deeper, hoarser melody split his skull. “Jane, step away, now. His heart rate’s flying through the roof.”

Pain radiated from somewhere underneath his face. The now bigger clump in his throat made it impossible to breathe. Rain leaked from the nebula clouds under his angel’s eyes, and she reached towards where the pain ricocheted from. 

“He can’t hear and he’s hurting himself. I’m not moving, Banner.” Her scorching fingers ran like rivers of fire through something soft above him. A school of black thin threads tickled his calescent cheeks. “Loki, don’t slam your elbows back like that. I don’t think you can feel it but you’ll break them…Oh God, you're so thin.”

All he heard was a beautiful song in a foreign language, and all he could see was the yowah opals in her eyes. He wished she could take his soul and chain him forever in her deepest blue flames.  

“Let me to him,” boomed the strongest noise out of them all. Then it sounded like thousands of porcelain china met cement all at once, and he felt like his soul trickled through a runoff beside his cheeks. 

“Thor, stand down. We are trying to—”

“DO NOT TOUCH ME AGAIN.”

“Fury, we’re going code blue on him in fifteen seconds. His heart’s about to crash. Get that emergency room ready.”

“STARK AND THOR ODINSON—” a phantom of ice brushed far away skin and the torrent of warm liquid increased “—both of you shut it. Banner, get in there, take him outside of those damned walls, and stabilize him.” 

“An unfamiliar atmosphere will drive him into more shock. Look what seeing another being’s doing to him. Expanding his cell more would...”

“I demand you let me speak to him at once, you tiny pests...”

“Loki...Loki, look at me. Look at me. What hurts? Please tell me, show me, please…”

“I’m about to tape all your mouths shut...”

“Rock of Ages 2.0, you need to put your schmancy hammer down and step outside right now...”

“OhGodOhGod. Banner, his ears—”

A brutal, tender siren carried over them. “So help me God, Fury, I’m taping your ass and all of S.H.I.E.L.D’s over his grave. 22 fucking years of melting his mind wasn't on the damn bargain.”

“Agent Romanoff, I don't recall you ever—”

“Kids,” pierced a needle-like crystal tenor through them all. The others died away. “Jane, what’s wrong?”

Loki watched, floating over the waves of his life, as streams of water slipped down his angel’s sanguine cheeks. “His ears are bleeding. Close the fourth wall. Please. We’re hurting him.”

Even more is what her voice cracking at those last three words added.

“Banner, you heard her." 

“I…I…He’ll crash whether I shut us out or not. Jane, step back and we might be able to help him. Would 100mg of Morphine be stable for him, Veronica?” 

“I believe not Doctor Banner. 10mg would be a safer starting dosage.”

“Damn it. That won't help anything...”

Then, baring swords sliced through Loki’s ears and tore their way down his throat, into his chest, and down down down. 

Falling. Norns, he was plunging.

Away from his angel. Into the worst Void of them all. And all he could do was keep his eyes on the leaking sun.

(No—HoldMe—Alone—AngelDon't—Always—Leave)

“Never mind. Veronica, expand the cell; Stark with me. He’s going out.”

His angel’s fire tore away from him, leaving him lost in a horrible, thick bog filled with spearing icebergs. They dragged him down and tore through every inch of awakened alive patch of skin.

Needles. Needles coated in cyanide. Cold scalded into his marrow. He begged the Void to let him scream, but long ago it had taken that right.

That, and a dragon inside his chest singed his insides and made its nest on what remained.

Ichor fingers knocked at the door of his soul, waiting, cackling, plotting.

Loki saw paper fingers dart towards his sun as she sunk into the white walls while rough shadows tore his skin off. His bones shivered furiously, and his fading eyes darted to two strangers…one with a kind face drowned in worry and another with a proud face dripping with anxiety.

“Damn it, Loki. You’re supposed to be a god,” whispered the proud one. He wasn’t his angel…he couldn’t even look up at him.

“Stark, focus. I’m giving him an epinephrine shot. On my queue administer Atropine.”

“How do we know they’ll even work on him?”

“We don’t. All I need is heartbeats. I can work with those.”

“Hey, who’s the warmest one of all out there? He’s as cold as a stone bench in Alaska.”

“Veronica, give me readings.”

“Reading beats per minute...67…53…”

“Atropine now.”  

“If I can even find a vein...”

“…40…32...”

“Now, Stark!”

“Got it, got it!”

“...26…19...”

“Nonononono. Banner, give him more!”

“I gave him the highest dosages! They're not working.”  

“So says the one who said he could work with heartbeats ten seconds ago!”

“Damnitdamnitdamnit. Thor! What hormones regulate heartbeats for Asgardians?”

“Loki is of Jotunheim.”

“…11…7…”

“NOW, THOR.”

“I DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING OF THE FROST GIANTS.”

“Bloody hell of a brother you are.”

“…I agree.”

Behind his eyelids made of marble, he saw his angel falling at his side. Her golden fingers wrapped around the pale ones from earlier. (They must have been his.) Then her other hand kneaded circles into his forearm. Up and up she went to take his ashes and give him fuming wood.

“Don’t close your eyes. Look at me, Loki.” 

With the rush of her life filling his nerves, a shiver ran up his spine and then something like pouring rain drowned out the dragon. The marble over his eyes softened into lead.

“...4…7…11…”

“Holy – Jane, what did you do?”

Her eyes of sunshine flit to the tender man. “I took his hand and massaged his arm.”

“Coaxing blood flow…this is a kind of hypovolemic shock.” The tender man looked to the anxious one. “Physical stimulation’s helping counter something about it. Stretch out his left leg as slow as possible and massage it. Deep to the bone. Do not stop. I’ll do the right. I need two other people, now.”   

Muffled shuffling moved towards him. Half of it stopped suddenly, while the other closed in behind him.

“No, Thor, if he comes too you could make everything worse.”

“Captain, I wished this more than Jane. I must aide my brother now that I have been graced with another chance.”

“Let me and Nat help you take care of him, though, for his safety and yours. You're not abandoning him by entrusting him to our hands. Alright?”

“…Alright. Be gentle.”

A new pair of warm hands touched under his shoulders. Loki’s heavy irises darted up to see red curls spilling above him. This angel whose hands scooped him higher over her lap and squeezed sensation into his shoulders had three heads...

“Wait ‘till Barton hears this. Two decades wasn’t enough for him. You get through this and I’ll help you kick his ass.”

“He’s your husband.”

“Your point, Banner?”

“Steady, okay. You’re not the only one who’s angry.”

“Or leery.” The tenor sounded closer. “Justice is one thing, cruelty another. But this…I just don’t know what to make of this.”

“…31…39…47…”

Sparks lit up his body until they converged into a park of a billion fireworks. Five pairs of hands massaged every cold bone, softly, as if they held a newborn child. He realized the sounds of whimpers came from his own throat when Jane chased the crick out of it.

“Why is he trembling?” was the melody from the second angel who now had one head.

“Sensation rushing back to you after you lose it will do that.”

“Isn’t that a bad thing? Can’t he go into convulsions or more shock?”

“Yes,” said Jane. “So slow down. The overstimulation can be just as bad as cardiac arrest.”

“…58…70…82…”

“I don't understand. Why is he reacting like this?” said the tenor.

“Hey McDreamy, have you ever sat in one spot for 22 years straight, no food, no water, no day or night or other things, much less people?”

“Does being frozen in the Atlantic count?”

“No, you weren't conscious for that.”

“Then I can't say I have.”

“Exactly, so shush it and do your job. We can all be melodramatic weeping widows later, Kylo Ren dress and all…no offense, Nat.”

Sensation spiked where warmth healed, then went out only to flicker back to a greater intensity until he felt his nerves were ablaze.

It all rushed back to Loki with each touch. He had legs, arms, fingers, toes, a head, a neck. Ears! Nose and lips.

And so it startled them all when he found his tongue by himself after the red-haired angel and the not-angel concluded a bickering session.

“Amma.”

His voice sounded like broken glass. It was a slur, a delicate plead like that of a child lost in the forest at midnight.

Jane’s fingers froze in his hair. All had heard, but she was the only one who understood.

Her mind raced back to remember Frigga. How would she, such a giant and tender soul, touch him or speak to him if she were here? Would she weep or sing to him or snuggle her youngest son into her warm bosom? Or would she do all of the above?

Jane stroked a glowing cheek and slipped a hand behind his head. “Here, heart of mine,” she crooned. (That was what Odin called her, right?) “Amma’s here.”

She sucked in a panicked breath at how his hollow eyes seemed to finally see her.

“I don't think we should—”

“Shush, Doc,” whispered the second angel.

Jane spread her warmth over his cheeks again. “You’re okay.” She held back a cringe. That was a bit too Midgardian… “Give me a smile as big as the Rainbow Bridge if you can hear me my darling one.”

He hoisted the level of his chin, as if to get a better look at her, and blinked another handful of times. The nursing, retired Avengers kept their still warmth against his skin as they waited.

Then, he smiled. And they saw the muscles on his face contort in pain. Still, everyone let out a deep breath, at which point they realized they'd been holding it. 

Jane couldn't help but smile. “You'll be okay. You will. I swear." 

“Doctor Banner, my calculations detect Master Loki’s average BPM is around 160. He is currently at 97 and rising steadily.”

The worried shadow stood up and rubbed his hands together. “We’ll get him back up there. Got anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I have detected a foreign hormone’s presence in his dermal which behaves like what I conclude is the Jotnar version of adrenaline. I shall have an injection of it ready for use if you would bring me a blood sample.”

“Fantastic. I’ll get that for you once I have him sedated. Analyze him as much as you can in the meantime.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cap, would you help me move him?”

“’Course. Where to?”

“I set up a room for him, upstairs… What? The whole museum exhibit thing with him, well, wasn't too keen about it. Veronica, warm up some blankets while you're on a roll por favor. And get me a great lawyer. I've got country governments to sue.”

“Yes, Master Stark.”

As Natasha and Jane helped Steve gather Loki smoothly into his arms, Banner followed Stark outside of the cell. The doctor checked all the prince’s vitals while Stark gave Fury an unamused glare.

“You're damn lucky he didn't die because I'd be suing you too.”

Jane left Steve’s side to join Thor’s, but all the sudden Loki started writhing and panting in the stranger’s grip. Natasha tried to calm him, but the more she talked, the more Loki struggled. Jane flew back before the princeling could tumble out of Rogers’ awkward hold. What comforted expression she had nursed earlier vanished, and in its place brooded such a look of despair that it made her failing body shutter in agony.

Suddenly she understood why those wild blue eyes haunted Thor. Why the mighty warrior of legends looked at his baby brother in those moments with such a helpless expression…why he’d become a ghost since the younger’s second betrayal twenty-two years ago.

The endless humanity tumbling inside a personal Void hollered for help because not only did the fallen prince break, he fell deep into the bowels of a ferocious destroyer and he needed someone. Alone was that only someone, and not a friend in the slightest.

So, in this cell, twinkling with white branding lights and the constant strangling hug of always remaining the same, he fell deeper until he was all and decimated.

Just like Thor at Svartalfheim, she didn't know what else to do but hold his hand and lie to him–that everything would be alright. Like an anxious first-time mother at the pediatrics, she watched unable to move as fear burst through the floorboards of silent eyes when Banner gave him a surprise shot of a sedative.  

# 

In his floundering consciousness, Loki held fast to the exquisite orchestra staged around him.

“I think it has more to do with his subconscious,” clapped serene piano keys. “He’s not in his right mind right now – won’t be for a long while – but that doesn’t stop him from remembering it was Jane who pleaded for him.”

“Do you think he remembers us then?” joined sweet and bold acoustic strings.

“Likely not. Our subconscious holds on to memories that shake us to our core. He expected uncensored blood thirst against him, but not Jane starting what she did.”

“I don’t blame him,” lulled a smooth clarinet. “I’ve never seen any lawyer storm in last minute like a dragon in shining armor. Never seen one cry like she did either.”

[“You are all blinded with hatred. Look at his notes.”

“We have, and the three-thousand of us have concluded he has scribbled up fictitious facts to give him and his allies more time.”

“If that was his goal then why would he allow himself to be here, chained and muzzled like an animal, when he could be with his so-called allies reeking havoc or…or underground, planning our end like a proper villain?”

“Miss Foster, you seem to forget he furthered the Chitauri Invasion of 2012 by allowing himself to be apprehended. Also that he is no ‘proper villain,’ but rather a violent, scheming beast whose every breath adds an inch to each of our graves.”

“Justice Brown, I will return to your claim later, but take out his notes. And. Look. Again. You see that formula? You competent enough to see it? Well guess what I damn well tested?”

“You tested this formula without prior authorization?”

 “AND IT BLOODY WORKED. SIX TIMES.”] 

“She wasn’t his lawyer.”

“Should I say voluntary lawyer for lack of better words?... Oh, good of you to join us, Fury. I was worried Stark may have blasted you and your sorry excuses into space.”

The bass followed their melody with confident plucks. “Romanoff, just because you’ve retired doesn’t mean you’re free to speak your mind in matters that go way beyond you. I've also had my fill of snark from Stark for today.” Then they became uncertain. “How is he, Banner?" 

“Rousing slowly. The shots of magnesium sulfate carried him out of bradycardia.”

A sudden rush of warmth rippled inside his forearm. The ecstatic strokes of the viola’s concerto sang away a rising tendril of fear as he felt its fingers trace his veins.

“His veins contracted some, which is good. I wasn’t looking forward to praying anticoagulants would work with nonhuman blood. Don't see or feel any improvements otherwise… Is the parenteral nutrition even helping?”

“You know it takes weeks for the mixtures to get the patient stable. We’re made to eat, not have a Thanksgiving meal pushed through our veins.”

The viola held a wavering note of anxiety. “Well if Sleeping Beauty would wake up already then maybe we could encourage some indulging.”

Acoustic strings plucked lighter in a whispered secret solo. “Son, we have a bigger problem.”

“We may be thinking the same thing,” joined the haunting but lovely clarinet.  

“That this won't work because he doesn't respond to anyone but Jane? Is that it?” He truly became the solo this time, but he didn't seem to relish the spotlight. “I'm just worried that maybe…maybe it's…”

The lifeless auditorium absorbed his unstrummed worry. A shared worry that ran across all their sheet music. Black notes or white, thick strings or thin, open or closed keys, busy chords or not, they all shared that centerpiece.

In the midst of the silent orchestra, a flute’s sweet melody revived the weary orchestra.

"Hey, I'm back. I had Selvig’s friend of a friend mix a better parenteral for him.” The sound of squeaking wheels wound the room around its neck. “Thor found out Jotnar need less proteins, less vitamins, more sucrose, and more minerals, especially a particular one whose closest Earth match is lepidolite.”

“Welcome back, Jane,” the piano interjected, “But lepidolite is basically a rock. You can’t just push rock dust into a bloodstream.”

“You’ve forgotten that Loki is not a human.”

“Right, but how do you plan to give it to him in proper strength considering most of it dissolves in liquids?”

Warm ocean waves crashed along the cold sea walls inside his bones. Trembling fingers wrapped around his arm, and the flute grew breathless on some notes. “See the powder in the tube? That's lepidolite. Once it dissolves it will wash down with the mixture into his bloodstream. No strength to 1% lost. Quick, change the TPN. The earlier he takes it in, the better.”

After some clicks and the sounds of plastic crumpling tainted the melody, the acoustic took center stage again. “So where’s Thor?”

“Had to go…Thanos.”

[Thanos is the warlord of warlords, he is your enemy.

Eternal/immortal being blessed by Celestials with immortality and super strength.

Aims to please “Mistress Death” by bringing her annihilation of every living thing.

Well renowned for subtlety, mind control, magic, and war tactics.

“The Santuary” = His base/watch tower.

       Coordinates N5X2 - 1O6311411 + 2123518. Its destruction will cripple the  Chitauri section in his army.]

“Which world did he attack?”

“Alfheim—”

[ORDER OF ATTACK: Vanaheim, Alfheim, Asgard, Svartalfheim, Midgard, Jotunheim, Muspelheim, Nornheim, Helheim…

                                     IN THAT ORDER.

NOTE: Svartalfheim is desolate, Jotunheim a swift seize, Vanaheim falls whether or not Asgard does, Midgard will meet his army when it is vulnerable/weakened from attacking Asgard and Alfheim.

SUGGESTED: Form alliance with Muspelheim; they shall be the strongest link left.]

“—home of the light and cat elves; planet of souls that can age for 10,000 years.”

“Is Asgard strong enough to hold him back?” played the bass. It irked him…that bass.

There was a sigh, and then fingers wrapped tighter around him. “Whatever’s left of them sure would have been 22 years ago.” A thick paste of silence clogged all air. It didn't stop until it smudged over their sheet music, oiled over joy sparks, soiled whatever remaining hope ran through their veins.

Then, the somber piano keys led them all through the destroyed music. “I just weaned him off the sedatives. Are you up to trying to feed him when he wakes?”

“Of course. What have you got?”

“Nat made some of her killer lamb broth.”

“And some cherry pie in case he feels like today’s a good day.”

“Mm, he probably won’t considering he hasn’t consumed anything for so long. Neither should we push anytime soon. He’ll be throwing up anything he swallows for a few weeks until his organs recuperate. If he can swallow two teaspoons a day, then it will be a good day.”

“Why so little?”

“Because of refeeding syndrome. I assume any starved body would suffer from it no matter the race.” 

“I remember the complications that syndrome brought to Jews saved early from camps.”

“Precisely, Cap. We have to tread slowly.”

“In that case I’ll make a new pie when he’s ready. I hope you will sit until he’s come too, Jane. You need all the strength you can save.”

“Just because I came in a wheelchair doesn't mean I need it.”

“Does that mean you brought good news?”

“It...It metastasized, Tony. From skin, to breasts, to lungs, to bones. I'm not winning.”

“But you still have the option for chemotherapy—”

“If the bio-treatment from my own spinal fluids didn't work, then I have less a chance with the traditional treatments. Not to mention the odds of me shortening my life by going down that road…Enough about me, though. Nat, would you bring some broth?”

“Of course.”

So, Jane Foster turned the conversation back to the prince. She declared that each day would have a mantra for his sake as much as theirs.

Day one, Sir Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.”

By dusk, the team found their hearts as swollen as Jane’s as they helped her try to nurse her fellow dying comrade, but all he could do was hold his eyes open for no longer than a minute.

Day two, the wise Plato: “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

By dusk, Fury stopped by again. The thickest bone in his body gushed, which led him to help Jane convince Banner to not give the fallen prince more opioid analgesics even though he trembled in the wake of a 120 degree fever yet the room looked like a wild ice palace and his eyes had a pink shade to them and his skin a sheet of blue.

Day three, honored Socrates: “To know is to know that you know nothing.”

By dusk, Clint Barton himself shot to his foe’s side when his trembling fits grew so intense that he slipped off the edge of his deathbed, and caught him and raised him back up even though the ice in Loki’s skin prickled his with monstrous frostbite.

Day four, a quote by Foster herself: “Don't judge by a person’s cover. Their book is still being written.”

By dusk, through gallons of coffee, endless restless days and nights, and buckets of tears (of frustration of course), Banner and Stark concocted a medication that eased the fever and the trembling, but sent Loki’s heart into arrhythmia, for which Veronica formulated a medication to counter it.

Day five, honored Socrates again: “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

By dusk, Jane collapsed when while taking his heavy clothes off with Pepper and Stark’s help so he could have lighter ones, they uncovered a gash the size of a fist with a whole rainbow of purple colors under his diaphragm. She didn't wake until ten hours later.

Day six, Mohandas Gandhi: “Where there is love there is life.”

By dusk, Banner and Romanoff had the gash disinfected and sewn closed, and Jane’s sobbing pleads for him to wake woke the raven prince, who found her clammy feverish hand with his stone cold fingers. And Banner and Rogers and Romanoff held their breaths when they saw Jane shoot up and hug him close to her aura of sunny warmth; smiled in cracked mirrors with the way he melted so trustingly in her arms.

Day seven, Friedrich Nietzsche: “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

By dusk, Loki responded to words with no more that a look that he understood, but no less than it. Jane helped him drink a cup of Romanoff’s broth, and the whole team assembled to see the hopeful sight of the prince emerging from the spindly fingers of the Void one quarter still intact. No one minded when all of it came back up, nor the cleaning up after because Loki’s skin held an ounce more of life to it.

Day eight…well, Jane didn't get a chance to stick that PostIt around Stark tower.

One of Jane’s kidneys failed as Rogers walked with her back to Loki’s room, a steaming thermos of more broth in her hand. She toppled to the ground like a cake. Cap pick her up and in his utter panic bolted towards the nearest hospital.

Not another hour passed when a gang of Muspelheim’s giants of fire broke through the ozone.

[INFINITY STONES

Tesseract - Space stone -Asgard

Scepter - Mind stone - your Vision

Aether - Reality stone - Tivan the Collector, Knowhere

Orb - Power stone - Nova Corps, Xandar

Two more stones missing (Time & Soul). Three fit per Gauntlet (glove), which Thanos has one of.

NOTE: I have detected the signature of one on Midgard. He will come to retrieve it. Midgard should have the 400 sorcerers I mentioned beforehand ready to enchant a sword to kill the eternal. Reference spell, page 10.]

Rogers clashed through the hospital’s windows, shield ready at his back.

Romanoff’s golden crusted apple pie slipped from her fingers and crumbled into sticky splatter when she saw a flaming giant arm punch the building across the street. She bolted to the rooftop, where she leapt onto the passing Falcon’s back and Barton swung off his ankles, bow and arrows ready.

Banner, who was walking back to the tower with groceries, broke into the Hulk when a crushing gust of fire slammed him through a brick wall.

Stark and Lang, who met up in Stark’s garage so the latter could hand his suit over for some touch ups, transformed into their suits when Vision and Scarlet Witch flew by, yelling that giants of fire attacked.

Fury, Coulson, Hill, Barnes, and Black Panther burst into motion when their radars screamed terrestrials were on the loose.

Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Daredevil, all moseying about in their respective firms with their latest cases, dropped everything and ran outside where they met and joined the fight. 

They thought they knew the definition of pandemonium until the true army of 12 different races of rebels—Thanos’ army—marched into all streets of the world with horrible war cries. Later they would learn that this was just a chip off his army.

From 9:37 AM to 11:16 PM, the messy team fought, and somewhere between those troves of chaos, the fallen prince awoke.

Chapter Text

NOISE STRIKES MORN

Drooping eyes combed the darkness abounding.

His skin prickled with cold like death despite the fur blanket cocooning him. All he wanted was the scorching sunshine of his guardian.

Speaking of which, where was she?

He reached towards where a vague memory told him she always waited, but felt no rays soaking into his skin. With aching trepidation, he twisted to put his weight on one trembling arm, then pushed himself to the edge of his bed. His wrapped legs dangled off the edge while he searched for his beacon.

But he was alone. Again.

Droopiness gone in wake of blossoming panic, his eyes of jewels pried the darkness trapping him. His bare toes met shocking, cool tenderness when he dared to venture further.

Shocking, cool tenderness meaning not moist pebbles or scorched sand or dewy blades of fauna or warm streams of different rivers or biting crystals of ice.

Inside.

Which meant he was not outside hiding from his hunters. Which meant this was not his cave, not the one he hid in with its graffitied insides of protective runes. Which meant he was a lamb in a cage he didn't recognize—and thus couldn't escape—where one wrong move would draw starving wolves to him which he couldn't run from. 

His strained knees held him up for a few seconds before they faltered. He fell to the not-so-tender-now ground. A buzzing sound encircled him, then crackling aluminum voices of metal monsters sucked away his breath.

“Master Loki, I bid you a good evening. Please keep yourself comfortable. I am contacting Master Stark.”

Spiders singed the prince’s skin, and though he ached to run, his Jotnar adrenaline backfired. Instead of energizing him, it sapped his precious life away with each heartbeat. 

He and his wits collapsed.

“I shall play some quiet music for you in the meantime.”

He didn’t hear the soft melody rising. He heard a serene rush of water trickling towards him.

Charcoal black streams pooled around him in a rush. Its warm, tickling brush rose over one leg and an arm, carried his raven silk tendrils in its tantalizing embrace and rocked him in its bosom.  

In another life he remembered these same waters flowed to him like redeemers from his blazing nightmare of seven-thousand screaming faces and his hunters: Kronans, Chitauri, Marauders, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, Bilgesnipe, Thanos, the Enchantress; but he had chosen to fight them. With a scorching boil, they evaporated into ichor flames and burned him down into the pits of his personal Hel . In the end they won in a different form, drowned him all the same, took him into oblivion with a broken chest.

This time he didn’t have the strength to fight, nor the heart, which slammed itself in vain into his ribs to relieve the knots crystalizing inside it. Therefore, Loki Odinson succumbed.

(That is if he could still comprehend the fact that he’d surrendered.)

The staining ichor washed over him. Its sheets soaked through his white fur blanket, making it one with its darkness. Higher and higher they rose. Up his nose, into his ears, through his mouth, fettering all hairs of his, until it flooded through his parting lips and rushed up his nose during one deep breath.

Darkness swarmed behind his irises. Ashes of oblivion corroded his lungs, his blood, his skin until it stained him so well that he looked like its creation. As if to claim him forever, the static of oblivion rising from the foam of the torrents sliced an arm. His life trickled from its mark, which it made certain to claim as well.

“Master Loki, you suffer from hallucinations. Can you hear me, Master Loki?”

His seidr, so long unused while breached with such force, lashed out in utter brutish volts up and through the waves. Then there was the Void’s streams bruising his throbbing heart. It hit faster and faster until the discomfort burned and he found his hand flew to his chest to hold it and he couldn’t breathe anymore so he just held onto his saturated fur blanket as the black ocean covered his face.

Lights of the color of fire flew over the ocean of charcoal waves. Ashes rained down from the illuminated sky. Muffled howls and piercing noises of war squirmed through the suffocating pressure of the possessive waves, then there were pieces of broken glass resting on his chest with their corners frosting over.

“Master Loki? Master Loki?... I am contacting emergency.”

But Loki fell too far and too fast.

Left behind too long and too far away.

[“Miss Foster, I believe you will be pleased to hear the Court of Midgard has chosen to reconsider the war criminal’s case during our break.”

“What have you concluded?”

“I and my fellow justices have concluded that…” 

Justice Page stood up from her seat. Her gaze panned from Jane Foster to Loki, who was chained and muzzled so well that breathing made him ache everywhere. He’d fallen to his knees the fourteenth hour of the 21-hour-long-thus-far meeting.  

“…he deserves a much more painful death. Loki, rise to receive your judgment.”

“What? No!”

“Oh yes, Miss Foster. All 3,000 of us thank you for encouraging us to reconsider a more appropriate punishment. If it were not for you, we would not have sought out the gatekeeper of Asgard to inquire of the prince’s previous punishment.”

“No, you will obliterate him!”

“Precisely Prince Thor, as he had obliterated over 7,000 lives.” All the justices stood up and looked to Loki with the coldest of eyes. “Loki of Nowhere, whom has been disowned by all, we hereby sentence you to solitary confinement as long as you live. You shall not have anything but your mind to keep you alive.

“Directors of S.H.I.E.L.D. please meet us in the conference room. We shall tinker with specifications together so as to make the criminal’s sentence as destructive as possible. Officers, prepare the criminal for his sedatives. He will wake in his casket.”

And as the officers tugged at him to walk, he found his feet couldn't move. Not because of the sentence, but because of the woman of science exploding into such feral screams that it drained his blood. They were not of love, but of complete trust.

Of a true friend’s.

The storm inside him overflowed onto his cheeks. Every inch of him couldn’t stop shaking.] 

His lungs combusted into liquid like cyanide. His heart stopped fighting to let the waves carry it. The anguishing pressure in his chest faded into darkness and the sound of lulled waves, but not before he remembered the faces that had been his Lighthouses.  

He clung to the memory of their beams until he truly became one with the charcoal waters.

#

Stark landed on his rooftop and walked the line as Veronica took apart his devastated suit.

He heard but did not comprehend anything she said as he pushed through his doors and into the half of his tower that still stood tall. With an exhausted sigh, he limped to his bar where he poured himself some stiff scotch. 

Four small cups later and his throat burned…a good burn. He let himself fall onto a seat and tried to massage away the sharp aching in his muscles.

His wife burst through the door. She fell back against it, panting. When her eyes met his, relief colored her ashen cheeks into twin roses.

“Oh thank God!” She ran to his side and stole him into a massive embrace, kissing him deep despite the overpowering taste of scotch. “Why didn’t you answer my calls?" 

Stark wiped off some grime from her cheek with the edge of his thumb. “I lost almost all my connections. I don’t even know how Veronica managed to keep the suit going.”

“I was worried sick! Damn being a hero, Tony, you’re too old for it.” She cupped his face. “You have a family with two grown children who need you. Please don’t ever join them again.” Moisture pooled in her eyes. “If we’re going to die from alien attacks, then I want to be a family that dies together." 

He combed back a tendril of her strawberry blond with gray strands behind her ear. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have joined if they didn’t need every spare Avenger they could find, and no mentioning the D-word anymore, okay? Jenny and Edwin…they’re okay? Please, please say yes.” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh thank God.”

“I was with them at my dad’s place. Remember he cleaned out that basement after the first attack?”

He exhaled a deep sigh of relief. He was about to fish for his cellphone to hear his sweet childrens’ voices, but at the mention of the Chitauri invasion of 2012, his mind reeled back to Loki. His softening muscles tensed again.

“Wait, if you left to be with the kids and I was out there…Pepper, where’s Jane?”

His wife took a nervous step back when he shot up. “Rogers took her to the ER.”

“Yeah, and Cap, Romanoff, Barton, Banner; I saw them all fighting.”

Pepper sucked in a deep breath. “Oh no.”

Those two words triggered a cesspool of panic in both of their guts. Both burst down the hallway towards the stairs not a second later. Veronica lit the halls as they went, turning off the lights they passed.

“Please be sleeping, please be sleeping,” Stark chanted along the way.

When he threw open Loki’s doors, a figure laid crumpled into itself in the dead center of the disheveled room of ice.

“Oh God, no,” he whispered, but Pepper was the one who ran inside. Veronica dimmed the lights on for the both of them just as the woman knelt next to the figure.

Stark watched his wife unravel him, then caress his face. All she gave was a little broken whimper, and he understood. Despite the sinking feeling inside him, he joined her side. Pepper kept on comforting the truly fallen prince despite his presence.

This was Loki in her arms, chilled blue skin and messy locks and all. From the sight of his agonized expression to the way old tearstains tattooed his clammy cheeks to the tension straining blue lips and captured in red irises, it ripped him apart. Hot guilt tore its way out of Stark’s guarded heart and escaped through drops of tears he didn’t care to hold back.

A child. That was what the demigod had been since they rescued him.

When his eyes fell upon his arm, where blackened blood stained, he realized just how misguided he had been his last moment.

He must have mistaken his IV being yanked out as someone cutting him. Must have mistaken his seidr gone haywire across the room as something it wasn’t. Must have mistaken the glass shards from his destroyed window for who knows what. 

Stark heard Pepper’s breath jump and break as she wrapped her arms under the corpse’s shoulders and brought him up into what was half a hug and half a mother’s cradling, but he couldn’t see for sure through his own sorrow.

“Sir, I tried to reach you but my systems went offline when Master Loki awoke. I tried again once I fixed them, but I could not connect with you or anyone else.”

“Did he die alone?” he whispered, even though he already knew the answer and didn’t want to hear the truth.

“I am afraid so, Sir. He could not hear me.”

Because a destroyed mind doesn’t comprehend anything else but touch.

That made Pepper cradle him closer and weep until her heavy shoulders jumped with each breath. 

Stark found himself standing a moment later, but he felt worlds away from everything around him. “Do you have Thor on the radar at all?”

“No, Sir, not last I checked. My generators have blown, thus I cannot search again at the moment. However, I detect Master Barton, Master Rogers, and Master Foster have entered the tower.”

“Did Jane get discharged?”

“No, Sir, I see Miss’s hospital bands and gown still on. I was able to contact her moments after my backups came online.”

“Is she crying, Veronica?”

“Yes, Master Stark. I informed her of Master Loki’s demise.”

Stark found himself staring at his wife comforting a dead soul that could not be comforted anymore until he heard Jane’s voice echoing off the walls in already piercing yelps.

She flew into the room without so much as a glance at Stark or the mess of the room, and Pepper laid Loki down for her to see. At at that precise moment when Jane laid eyes on him, Banner and Rogers entered, both spent to the bone.

At that same precise moment, a horrible, cracked cry broke free from her throat and she tried to gather him into her arms despite the life dripping off her boney pallid face. Pepper helped her. She was the column who took on the frail weight of Loki’s back.

Rogers slid down against the wall and shut his eyes as Jane’s weeping mixed with her gasps for air. Banner hung his head as yet another thread of hope dissolved in his heart. They had been so close; there was still so much to say, but no misunderstood Asgardian’s heart to whisper to.

They had hoped so much that he would rise despite it all, as he was prone to doing.

“I’m sorry, Loki. I’m sorry I left…I never wanted…don’t be scared…I’m so sorry.”

At Jane’s endless apologies, all their shocked hearts trickled with crimson tears. 

Half an hour later Fury, Hill, Barton, and Romanoff joined them, and Jane had spent her tears.

She pinched his lips closed with her fingers as gentle as feathers, and brushed over his eyelids until they too closed. With Pepper’s help she laid him down and tucked him in with his toasty fur blanket, which he had somehow broken from.

Pepper joined her quiet husband’s side, but Jane stayed next to the prince, stroking his stiff hair.

“Have I ever told you of how he saved my life twice?” Though she had to some extent, no one wanted to stop her. Not even Hill, who had witnessed evil alone from their now dead ex-foe. “Us three; Loki, Thor, and I; were in the world of the Dark Elves. Loki betrayed Thor—that was the plan—so Thor could try to destroy the Aether without the elves becoming suspicious too early. He stabbed his brother, then kicked him off a mountaintop. Almost crushed his head in with a kick. Cut off his hand…but that part was an illusion.

“I saw him call himself ‘Loki of Jotunheim,’ but I don’t think he noticed he paused for a second, or how he blinked like it hurt to say. I don’t think he ever meant to become a bad guy. It’s just every time he reached for a lifesaver, the waves knocked it miles away so he just kept on sinking, lower, and lower until it seemed natural to drown. Until he just concluded he’d be better at playing the villain since no one gave him the room to be a hero. Maybe Thor would know a different truth, but that, I believe, is his tragedy in essence." 

Stark and his wife swallowed coming tears and held each other closer.

Romanoff squeezed her fists together and stared at her toes.

Barton, by Natasha’s side, and Rogers stared straight out to the scorched New York skyline, both sucking in deep breathes every so often to hold back the worst of guilt. 

Banner watched the still corpse with unblinking eyes. He’d failed to save his unlikely patient in more than one way.

Fury and Hill clenched their jaws and continued watching Jane’s shaking fingers stroke raven locks.

“But, like I told you all before at his trial…or like I tried to…he had a heart. He could get hurt, he could hate, and he could love. He could also be good. 

“When Thor tried to destroy the Aether, he shielded me with his body. I was so confused when he did that. I mean I felt his steady arms protecting me like mountains…wild, loyal mountains…yet minutes before I saw those same arms attack his brother.

“I figured it was all an act, but when one of the elves threw an antimatter grenade towards us, he shoved me out of the way and tried to cover me again, except the matter sucked him up towards who knows where. He would have died for me if Thor hadn’t broken him away from its pull, and no matter how much I told myself it was all an act…you know, the first ‘save Jane’ moment had been a plan he followed because he promised Thor…but the second time…” She stopped to swallow the knot in her throat. “The second time he could have run to help Thor, who was worth saving, but he chose me.” 

She smiled down at him. “And Thor… You know I never had any brothers or sisters, but just a second between the two in Asgard and you could see just how much they needed each other. Under the hurts was a tank-load of love.”

Her smile melted and she turned to look at Romanoff. “You believe me now, don’t you?” Her gaze moved to the other avengers. “You believe me, right? You saw him.”

The Black Widow nodded as she messed around with her fingernails. It took three deep breaths, but the woman added: “I do. I’m sorry, I wish I…” A lone tear gathered in one eye, but she held her chin up high despite it. “I wish I would have believed in him like you did. He sounds like he was a big character…like us. We would have been…”

(A great team, she meant to say.)

Jane gave a weak smile. She reached to rub his hand underneath the blanket. That was when she noticed the melting ice all around the room, and how it started pooling around them. She wiped the worst of the slush away from him as she spoke: 

“Someone help me set him up on the bed. He’ll be so cold with all this water. And maybe, Tony, you can lend him a suit? Maybe silver so it makes his skin shine. And Pepper, if you have a spare brush, I can get him ready for Thor.”

Rogers was the one who went to her aide. As gentle as possible, he scooped up the fallen prince and laid him back on his deathbed.

“I don’t think he’ll fit in Stark’s suits. I have one, from a long time ago. I’ll get it.”

“Thank you, Cap,” said Jane with a shaking voice again as she vigorously tried to warm his too-cold blue arms. “Thank you.”

#

Banner dressed all of Loki’s new wounds in a throbbing silence, then once Rogers came back, Pepper and Jane (with Romanoff helping as much as she could handle) dressed him in the suit Rogers had purchased ages ago for a dance he never got to attend. 

They waited and waited for Thor to answer their summons, or for more extraterrestrials to attack. 

When the Asgardian came first, with blood and muck caking every inch of his body and looked half the size of what he was before the great war, Jane grabbed Loki’s stiff hand and whispered:

“Loki, your brother’s here.”

She held out his hand for Thor to take, and once he did, he let out a weak sigh and held his little brother’s true skin to his cheek. The beloved prince of Asgard didn’t think he’d ever be able to move again, because what was a star without its skies?

Three Asgardian years ago, Thor lost his baby brother.

One and a half, he lost him again.

For twenty-two Midgardian years, he watched him crumble to pieces in a cell of unending white while beating himself up inside for not protecting him the day he revealed himself on Midgard. 

And five Midgardian hours ago (five Asgardian minutes ago), he lost him…forever.

#

Jane struggled to keep up to Sif’s powerwalk. Behind a haze of bright white light, she saw Loki turn to her. His face was more of a haze than Thor’s, who stood tall and cautious at his side. 

“You’re…” she heard herself say and found her finger pointing at him. 

“Hello, I’m Loki. You may have heard of me—”

She slapped him with all her strength, saying that was for New York, but before he could react with more than a gasp of surprise, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as close to her as she could manage with his wrists cuffed. Jane felt every inch of him tense under her, and heard his heart behind his armor race.

His heartbeat. Oh God. Tears scratched the back of her throat.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” he tried to mock, but his voice was too soft.

“For teaching me what it means to be a friend. And I’m so, so sorry.”

“For what?” he asked again, but she felt him swallowing faster than normal.

“Because you died alone.”

And she swore she felt him trembling. A few swallows later, he spoke again: “Jane Foster, you small mortal, did you have faith in me?” She felt herself nodding against him.

His hands that were to stab his brother in a matter of minutes and grab her up like a rag doll to toss her to Malekith and then push her to the ground so his body could protect her (twice) and then impale his brother’s attacker that were then to curl up in the cold of death from a gaping wound in his chest…they rested against her neck in what was the equivalent of a human embrace.

“Then, dear Jane Foster, I did not die alone. Thank you.”

(Two nights later, Jane Foster gave up her last breath.) 

(Two nights later, Bruce Banner found a note Loki had carved into the marrow of the back cover of his journal. It was for Thor.)