"You're dying, you second-rate excuse for a sorcerer."

Loki knelt low over the rubble of concrete and steel that covered Midgard's finest. Buried underneath the same fine trappings of the Sanctum that had kept them all safe, Stephen Strange knew, in the way that doctors often do, that there was no coming back from this.

"Excuse me for saving your life."

There was a massive slab of concrete broken into large chunks beside them, having crashed down harmlessly on no one instead of onto Loki's head. In making sure that their resident seidhr-sorcerer might not die (because, in all honestly, he was the only sorcerer at their disposal who had more than a few year's experience), the Sorcerer Supreme hadn't noticed the well-aimed attacks at his back, nor the building's design to fold in onto him.

Loki wiped purple blood on his trousers, fingers slick and wet from the corpses of Thanos' armies. Chitauri and Kree soldiers hounded them in droves, spreading chaos where their Master did not. They were currently rushing every Sanctorum they could find – thus Loki and Strange's haste to leave Xandar, ruined and battled on by the last Avengers (and Revengers, Thor would say).

"I'll tell you when my life needs saving."

"Well, since we're on the subject…" Strange coughed and hacked as his sentient cape drug him by the neck out of the rubble, bookcases and displays settling into the cracked foundation of the Sanctum in his path. Blood stained his lips.

"I'm no healer."

"I know." Strange groaned as he, too, settled into his last place of rest. He could see the green shimmer of Loki's magic deflecting a barrage of new attacks and soldiers, no larger than required to protect them from the horde that descended onto London.

"Well, you're good as dead." Loki's force field nipped at his heels as he came closer, walking through the fallen wall, and cocooned them further. He knelt again at his side, and, exhausted, eventually folded his legs into a seated position. "What terrible company to die with."

"I knew we'd find something to agree on eventually."

"It was bound to happen," he nodded, grinning despite their dire circumstance. "And now it's time for you to go wherever you mortals go."

"Wouldn't you know where that is, God?"

Loki ignored the blatant sarcasm, reminiscent of Stark's.

"Unless you've been dancing nude under a pagan moon, bathed in sacrificial blood, raging wars with my father's name on your lips, then, no, I don't," his smile was softer, but still sharp around the edges. "You'll know none of Valhalla, Stephen Strange. It seems the war is lost."

Stephen groaned. The world was spinning in slow measures, his vision tunneling and bleeding red. Internal hemorrhage, he checked, habitually diagnosing himself, concussion. Three- no, ow- four cracked ribs. Broken clavicle. Broken spine? I can still feel my toes… Shattered wrists. Shattered hands. Shattered hands, again, again, oh god, not again not againnotagain.

"Giving up so fast?" he grit his teeth to the pain, but every breath brought agony. He cursed every god he could think of, from Dormammu to Odin to Mephisto himself.

"I never give up." Loki passed his hand over Stephen's face and, quite suddenly, he felt numb. Every part of him went mercifully lax. "But I doubt you'd hand that stone over to me. By the time I'd convince you, Corvus, Maw, or Thanos himself might've come to claim it."

The Eye. "Why'dyou want it…?" His mouth felt heavy, like an overly zealous anethesiologist had gone to town on him. But the words came out clearly enough. "You can't… can't start it over, he'll still be coming… Can't change time, we'll be worse off. There are laws."

"Laws? Hardly seems important now. It's the end of the world and there's someone I need to speak to." There was a crack of lightning and an immediate bout of thunder, heralding Thor's undoubted return. "A thing or two I might fetch."

Loki's barrier seemed to draw smaller, closer, making them not so different than corpses in a body bag. On the other side, Kree and Chituari clawed and shot at its power, sending bursts of light chasing the lines of old languages embedded in its core. Spells Stephen could barely read… Ancient, old, older than him, maybe even the Ancient One herself…

"Worse off… Loki… Worse off."

"What's worse off than this?" He leaned back on one hand. Looking up at him, Stephen could see the lines of war etched into his face, his skin pale and beaded with sweat. He was hardly better for their efforts; blood tricked from a cut in his scalp, leaving long, dark streaks of red that stretched down underneath his clothing. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, dislocated at the shoulder, and a deep gash had been clawed out just beneath his ribcage. His breathing had since been ragged. "The end of the world, Strange, if not the universe itself."

"What do you care… about the universe…" He choked on the blood pooling in his throat, turning his head to spit it out on the concrete. "…New York, ruined. Asgard gone."

Oh, how they could've used Asgard's help. The smile on Loki's face was wry as he thought of dead things, but his focus remained. He considered this last chance carefully.

"As that fool said – because I live in it."

They shared the same memory, wrought from the wreckage of Xandar: the Lord of Stars, skewered though the heart by the staff of Proxima Midnight. Gamora's anguished cry and she ripped the poisoned blade from his chest, held him in her arms as he said something ridiculous, as he was wont to do, and passed on into his next life – Loki thought of Kurse, of Thor, of the dark sands of Svartalfheim and wanted to retch, wanted to cry, wanted leave this place because no, that couldn't have been the face that Thor made when he died, when he took the blade, when he passed on into Niflheim and somehow woke from the fogs of the dead – and then silenced. Proxima's laughing smile never left her face when Gamora leapt on her, when her nebulous sister followed, and together they tore the woman limb from limb. Loki remembered thinking that he'd never seen a tree cry before.

"Because we live in it," he continued, hunching forward to wipe dirt from his eyes. "And, to be quite honest with you, because I always saw the Nine ending by my hand. Not his."

There was silence. Loki's barrier fit them more like a skin now, growing weaker as he did, but every time an alien hand came out to touch it, they were rocketed backwards into their comrades. Bullets and concentrated energy shots still bounced off, but it grew thinner with every blast.

"What do we have to lose, Sorcerer Supreme? Hope is gone, success is a dream."

With all the dramatic effect Loki could have wished for, the Kree quieted. The Chitauri ceased fire. He, suddenly in a panic, flung himself over Stephen so he was, by all rights, straddling the dying man. Protecting him. (Protecting the stone.) This dramata was certainly not of his making.

Thanos was coming.

"Take it," Stephen allowed, holding weakly to the hem of his protesting cape. "Take it… But only with my trust…"

And so Loki did, without hesitation, yanking the pendant free from its strings. He felt the crawl of orange magic dancing up his skin, pressed upon him by the sorcerer, and simply sighed. Binding spells. Only with his trust. Save the world or this curse will destroy you – yes, he understood how these things worked. Too exhausted to combat it, it seeped into his seidhr unchallenged, infiltrating him, and he was forced to allow it.

It was the least he could do.

"With your trust, Stephen. I'll fix it. You have my word."

The spell settled. The Infinity Stone glimmered green in his hands and, with a wish, the world suddenly disappeared.

Thanos cursed his name as the world tumbled into darkness.