Summary: "You're not handling this well," Loki commented, studying Thor with a frown.

Notes: Thor is lost in the wake of Thanos vanishing. He's not sure he can do this – continue living – without his brother. Takes place immediately after Infinity War ends.

i'll find you somewhere

It was Romanoff who explained it to him.

After Thanos vanished and the dust that had been brothers and sisters in arms had settled, there was silence. Oppressive, all-encompassing silence.

Somewhere a breeze blew, rustling the trees high above. Around them the air was hot and dry, with the chocking feel of dust coating the back of their throats. In a small clearing, where they had lost, the remaining Avengers were still. Unmoving. Alone in their individual grief and horror.

Thor felt…empty.

He hadn't let himself think, hadn't let himself feel since he had been revived on the Rabbit's ship. There had just been Thanos before him, Thanos he had to kill.

But he had failed and Thanos lived.

Now there was silence and Thor could feel…

…the last thing he had felt was Loki's still, cold body. He could still smell the blood and burning flesh of his people, and over it the familiar scent of Loki's leathers and the oil he used in his hair. It was definitely not an illusion.

Thor hadn't been able to look at his face, hadn't wanted to think too long on the trickle of blood that ran from those too-still lips.

All he had wanted was to die there, beside his little brother, and once more see him in the halls of Valhalla.

He wrenched his eyes away from the motionless body of Vision – seeing only Loki – and tried to focus on Steve, sitting sightlessly beside him, and on Nat, who was doubled up behind him. He felt Rabbit move to stand next to him.

"What…" His voice was a croak, an agonized ruin. He swallowed and tried again. "What just happened?"

No one answered or even looked at him.

"I can't find Sam," Rhodey said after a moment.

"What happened?" Thor demanded again.

Nat looked up at him then, a quick, incisive glance, seeming to take in all the changes within him from a single look.

"End game," Steve said, in a monotone.

"Half the universe," Bruce said, sounding horrified.

"We failed," Nat agreed, fury and self-loathing in her voice.

A rustling in the underbrush caused them to lethargically raise their eyes. A stern, bald human woman, dark-skinned and dressed in red, emerged. Her eyes were dark with grief and frantic with worry.

"My communicator isn't working. Do any of you have – "

Nat tossed hers over.

"Shuri!" the woman demanded through the device. "Shuri, speak to me!"

Thor had no idea who this human woman was, but the others seemed to, and she looked to be part of the army that had fought Thanos' infantry.

"Shuri!" The woman sounded desperate. "Please answer me."

Perfectly balanced, Thanos said, a memory in Thor's dull mind.

The entire time I knew him, Gamora admitted, her green skin sickly looking, he only ever had one goal. To wipe out half the universe.

"I'm here." A girl's voice. Exhausted. Injured. "I'm here." Pause. "My brother?"

The silence was telling.

"General?" the girl asked. Begging. "Okoye? Where is my brother?!"

"He's gone." A whisper. And then, stronger. "You are our queen now, Shuri. I will be there as soon as I can." She shut the communicator off and faced the blank stares of the Avengers.

She took a deep, deep breath, stood up straighter and nodded decisively. "I will see if any more fighting needs to be done. As our king wished, you are welcome in Wakanda for as long as you want. Or need."

She picked up her spear and strode off back to the battlefield, her spine held too straight and with a fine trembling in her hands which she could not hide.

"Her brother?" Thor asked, numb. Mostly uncaring. There had been so much death.

"T'Challa," Nat explained, drawing her weapons as more rustling came towards them through the ground-covering plants. "Black Panther. The King of this place. Or he was." She tried to drag Steve to his feet, but the captain wasn't moving, his eyes in a thousand-yard stare, so she stood in front of him, protectively. "Thanos' idea of balance seems to have included halving siblings," she spat.

"T'Challa and Shuri. Bucky and Steve." She shot him a quick look. "You and Loki." And her voice was slightly softer, as if she could see the gaping pit of despair Thor hovered over.

Thor shook his head. "Loki's not dead. He's…" He trailed off as Stark limped towards them, grey-faced and leaning heavily on a bald, blue humanoid woman with copious metal implants. "Gamora was killed but I remain," she said, in a voice that seemed to reflect a constantly angry disposition.

"Tony!" Steve cried, at last roused form his lethargy. "You're alive!" And he was up, crossing the ground in huge strides to sling Tony's other arm over his shoulders.

"Unfortunately," Stark said, and all the regret and pain in the world was in his voice.

Rhodey was there as well, now out of his suit and taking over from the bald humanoid, who looked relieved to be free of her burden.

"Gamora's gone?" Rabbit asked, unconsciously shifting closer to Thor, who continued to hear Nat's voice in his mind.

…halving siblings…

Had Loki known? Of course, he had known.

…I, Loki, Odinson…

"Where's Quill? Drax?... Mantis?" Rabbit's voice rose in hysteria. "Nebula, where's everyone else?!"

The angry humanoid woman was staring at him. "You're Thor?" she asked, surprised. "That Asgardian prince's brother?"

Thor just looked at her –

…prince of Asgard, rightful king of Jotunheim…

- and eventually she shrugged. "You're not what I expected."

Thor glanced away at her, uninterested in the conversation. He attempted to place a hand on Rabbit's shoulder but was violently shrugged off.

"You know me?" he asked the blue woman, attempting to be polite. He assumed she was another of Thanos' daughters.

She fixed him with a hard look. "Thanos tortured your brother for weeks before he broke. Sometimes he cried out for his mother, but mostly he begged for you."

Thor looked at her for a moment, saw the shame and the guilt, the faint horror as she remembered what Loki – that Asgardian prince – went through.

Then he walked away.

He ignored the questions and the shouts that followed him. He just left. He kept walking. And walking. And walking.

Stark found him eventually; probably days later. Thor had no idea where he was, or how long it had been. He didn't remember eating. Or sleeping. Or anything.

One minute he was walking. Away. Aimlessly.

And the next…Tony was shaking him, and Rabbit was on his shoulder, slapping his face.

"Earth to Thor!"

"Even I known that's insensitive."

"What? He's completely out of it."

"How did you find me" Thor asked them, thickly. He hadn't been able to find anyone. Not the Valkyrie and the last of his people. Not Sif. Not the infinity stones and Thanos. And not his brother.

Tony's eyes were still hollow, but he looked better than the last time Thor had seen him. He rolled his eyes and waved a negligent hand at the landscape. "I followed the storm, of course."

The air was cold around them, the long grasses rippling in a ferocious gale. Animals and insects scurried for cover as thick, ominous black clouds rolled across the sky. Lightning screamed, and the thunder answered.

The heavens rent apart and rain wailed down upon the three of them.

Rabbit shivered but Tony's hands on Thor's arm remained firm. "Come back to Wakanda," he said, and Thor, lacking anything else to do, agreed.

Thor didn't remember the next fortnight or so either. He spent them so drunk he could no longer remember his own name. The Wakandans made alcoholic beverages almost as well as the Asgardians once had and if they were foolish enough to leave them in easy access of a god…well then Thor was going to consume them all.

It was only when he finally, finally passed out, that he saw his brother again.

"You're not handling this well," Loki commented, studying Thor with a frown. The air was dark, clammy and damp wherever they were. A fine mist hung over the ground, which felt rough and uneven underfoot.

"Have I ever handled your death well, brother?" Thor looked around slowly. "Where are we?" he asked, not really caring. Loki was with him again. 'Are you real?' he wanted to ask, yearned to know. His hand clenched uselessly at his side: he wanted to reach out, but he was afraid, so very afraid, that his hand would pass right through Loki's form.

Loki glanced around them. He looked much as Thor had seen him last; shoulder-length, silky, black hair curtaining smooth pale skin. Thin, clever lips, deep, vulnerable blue eyes and long, elegant fingers which fiddled and twisted when he was nervous or upset, like their mother's hands had used to do.

"We are at the beginning and the end." Loki looked back at him. "Where I am waiting for you, brother."

It didn't make sense to Thor and he wondered if his own brain could have made up something he didn't understand.

Loki flicked another glance at him, lips quirking in an amused, slightly mocking smile. "Given how much you don't understand, Thor…" he began maliciously, but Thor was already moving.

Loki hearing his thoughts – dream or not – was unsurprising. And Thor found he didn't care about the rest. Dream or hallucination, his brother was here. He crossed the space between them, hand reached out to clasp his brother around the throat, moving to grasp behind his neck as he drew them together and rested their foreheads upon one another. Loki's eyes closed, that amused smile still on his lips, and Thor let out a deep sigh of relief, finally closing his eyes as well.

Loki's breath smelled faintly of mint and Midgardian coffee, as it always did.

The noise Thor release – relief and desperation and want – made Loki chuckle.

"Brother," the God of Thunder warned, trying to draw Loki even closer to him.

"Melodramatic as usual, brother," Loki mocked, but there was no bite to his words. "I'm here," he promised, just as he had all those lifetimes ago on the Grandmaster's ship.

And, just as had happened then, their foreheads rested upon one another as they wordlessly took comfort in each other's presence.

For several minutes there was silence between them, as Thor greedily took in Loki's steady breathing. His fingers were still tangled in that midnight hair which, contrary to all his teasing of greasiness back on Asgard, was soft and fine as water.

Loki had looked better, better than he had in years, when he'd stood before Thor aboard the Statesman. He had looked so much like the brother Thor had lost, that even the lose of Asgard and their Father, and the sister they had never even known, had paled in comparison to his return.

Thor carefully stroked gentle fingers through Loki's hair, scraping against his scalp and skating down over the back of his neck. Remembering, he pulled back a bit – his other arm still tight around his brother's waist, not letting go even the slightest – to look Loki in the eye.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, moving his other hand around to the front of his brother's throat, seeing once more the vivid red marks, fast shading into bruises, left there by the Titan.

Loki shook his head but didn't say anything as Thor skated his fingers over the smooth, unmarred skin.

Thor remembered the line of blood which had trailed from Loki's mouth, heard his brother's gasping breaths, saw his flailing limbs once more. His hand rose to press to the corner of Loki's mouth, where the blood had been and was no more.

Loki's vivid eyes watched him carefully, studying his eyes, the frown between his brows, the fierce scowl on his face.

When his brother slightly parted those lips, Thor swiped his finger along that full, bottom one. It was warm. Loki was warm. He was hear and watching Thor, looking slightly confused but mostly just patiently waiting for Thor to ascertain that he was alright.

Thor glanced up once more into his brother's eyes, took in the deep blue, and pressed firmly on that lower lip. Stealing himself, he took a deep breath and then he bent forwards, doing what he should have done back on the Statesman: he took Loki's lips in his own.

His brother gasped, shocked, lips parting involuntarily as he made to take a step backwards. One hand was already pressed against Thor's chest to push him off.

But Thor didn't budge, taking Loki's parted lips as an invitation to sweep his tongue inside, tasting his brother for the first time. Thor groaned, and Loki shivered in response, his fingers frozen in their effort to push his brother away and curling instead in Thor's shirt.

Thor deepened the kiss, trying to taste all of his brother. He had wanted this for so long…

Loki sighed, gently, before pressing himself completely against Thor, molding himself against his brother as his other hand came up and tugged none-too-gently on Thor's short hair. He nipped at Thor's lips and then laughed at his brother's growl, which broke off into a moan as Thor brought their hips together…

…and Thor woke up.

With a small gasp he opened both eyes, taking in the spacious room, the gauzy curtains blowing in the wind, the table piled with fresh fruit and vegetables, and the girl leaning against the side of his bed all in a single glance.

The girl – clearly Wakandan – had her back to him, knees drawn up to her chest. She looked quite young, with her hair in long braids, and with rather delicate features in an elfin-mold which reminded him, in some indefinable way, of Loki's, though otherwise they looked nothing alike.

The girl turned to glance at him once, acknowledging that he was now awake, before turning to face away from him once more.

Thor glance down quickly to make sure that he was still fully clothed and that nothing of his dream – namely the excitement in his lower regions – had followed him into the waking world.

"There is food on the table for you. And a bath, if you wish it," the girl said, polite but listless.

Thor levered himself up from the bed, taking care to avoid the girl, and draped his legs over the side, stretching out sore muscles and trying to think of what to say. All he could still feel was Loki.

"You're Shuri?" he asked at last.

The girl nodded, dragging her knees up further and resting her chin upon them.

Thor cleared his throat and remembered that she had lost her brother in the snap. "I'm sorry for your loss," he told her, sincerely.

The girl – the new Wakandan queen – just nodded.

They sat in silence for a while; two siblings who had lost their other half.

"They tell me you are a king," Shuri said, after Thor had listened to the quiet, muted hum of people outside his window on the street below, heard a ship take off from somewhere nearby, and felt his own stomach growl with hunger.

At her words though, he lost his appetite again.

"My father was a king," he said, his voice rough. "Of a place called Asgard. I tried to lead what remained of our people to safety." He swallowed. "I failed. I am a king of nothing."

Shuri nodded. "Thanos, yes, Bruce Banner told me he attacked your ship. And that you lost your brother."

"Loki's not dead," Thor said quickly. "He's just…" He trailed off, tried to swallow against the sudden thickness in his throat. "…hiding," he finished, lamely.

Finally, she looked at him, a quick, darting glance before looking away again, as if she couldn't bear to see anyone watching her just yet.

"I was never meant to be queen," she whispered. And then, barely audible, "I never wanted to be."

Thor shot her a sympathetic look. "The past several years, I never wanted the throne either. My younger brother did, though." That thought caused him to frown. "But I rather think he just wanted to be as important to our father as he thought I was."

"And it was him you dreamed of?"

"Yes," Thor admitted, tasting Loki's lips on his once more. He refused to blush. Dreams were dreams.

Shuri nodded and finally turned sideways on the floor to face him fully. Thor slid down off the bed and sat in front of her, mirroring her position. This caused her to smile a little.

"You called out to him in your sleep."

Thor nodded, unsurprised.

Shuri frowned. "Captain Rogers told me that your brother had worked for Thanos before. How is it that you are here, but he is dead? Not here," she amended, at his look.

"I don't know." And Thor didn't. He had no idea what Thanos had left him alive, waited to see if the explosion of the ship or the cold vacuum of space would kill him. He had thought about it once or twice since he had been rescued, but the thought always skated too close to Loki's…being missing.

Shuri was frowning at him, but not as though she was angry. Rather she looked as though she was attempting to solve a complicated equation that she just knew had to have a logical solution somewhere.

"Perhaps your brother intentionally got himself killed so that you would live?" she speculated. "If Thanos likes splitting up siblings and family, and your brother was aware of this…would your brother be smart enough to do that?" she asked him.

Thor felt a hollow pain somewhere in his chest. He remembered that ill thought out assassination attempt his brother had attempted, the utter lack of Loki's magic in his last, desperate attempt, his words claiming he was an Odinson…

…undying loyalty…

Thor looked at the bright, young face of the queen. "Loki was as brilliant as you, young queen. I have no doubt he…."

He broke off again, his voice going rough. For the first time he noticed that there was something tied around his right wrist. Impatiently brushing away tears, he looked at it and noticed that it was the twisted band of hair he had once twined with several strands of Loki's own hair. When his head had been shaved on Sakaar, he had managed to save this part of it and had shoved it in his pocket for safekeeping.

He looked up at Shuri. She smiled gently at him. "We found that when we looked you over for injuries. It looked important, so I tied it around your waist. You loved the person whose hair this was?" she asked, pointing to the black strands entwined with Thor's own gold.

"I always will," Thor assured her, as she reached out to run a finger over them.

She met his eyes, so solemn for one so young. "How do I be a queen to a people who have lost so much?" she asked him, the king of a destroyed world and a scattered remnant.

"I don't know," Thor told her, honestly.

That evening Thor tried to eat dinner with the Avengers, but it was a stilted, horrifying experience. Tony and Bruce looked sleepless as they attempted to track Thanos' trajectory when he'd vanished from Wakanda. Steve and Rhodey and Romanov were steely, charged with going out and attempting to reassert some sort of order on a world that had, in some places, descended entirely into chaos.

Rabbit had spent the day making bombs, until he had been forcibly sat on and his weapons removed by the General and her troops. Now he was by turns sulking and growling at all those who attempted to speak with him.

Thor offered his assistance in anything that was needed, but Steve shook his head. "Look for your people Thor. We can handle Earth."

"And any help that you need," Queen Shuri spoke up, "we will provide to you."

Thor nodded, going back listlessly to his food. Stormbreaker was propped up on the chair next to him and he had been looking forward to a chance for a good, straightforward fight but it looked like it was not to be.

He returned to his rooms not long after.

When he retired for bed for the night, not looking forward to the prospect of attempting to chase more elusive sleep, he found a small vial filled with a sparkling blue liquid placed on the bedside night table.

Beside it was a note on a flimsiplast tablet signed by Shuri. 'To sleep, perchance to dream.'

Thor downed the vial in one go, stripped and laid back on the covers, hands curled loosely over his stomach as he stared up at the ceiling.

He waited patiently and at last he dreamed.

Thor dreamed of Loki's return to the Statesman.

He dreamed of the hug, of Loki in his arms, of his brother's hair in his face, his lips pressed to Loki's cool, smooth cheek.

He dreamed of Loki's half-hearted complaints, his threats to stab Thor one more.

He dreamed of Loki curled around him as they slept, exhausted, for the first time since Ragnarok and Asgard's destruction.

"You realize our sister's probably not dead, right," Loki murmured wryly, in Thor's ear, his lip's brushing the skin there.

Thor laughed, trying to disguise a slight shiver at the feel of Loki so close to him. "Of course not, brother. That would be too easy. Ans she is our sister, after all."

He dreamed of waking up to find Loki draped over him, the first time his sharp features were relaxed in years, his dark eyelashes long and fine as they shadowed his pale cheeks. He had run calloused fingers down the bridge of his brother's nose and across his slightly parted lips.

There had been no talk of Loki being given his own room – there was not enough space for their people in the Statesman to begin with – and Thor wouldn't hear of either of them sleeping on the floor.

So here they both were, together at last. Thor swiped his finger over Loki's lips once more, wondering what his brother would do if Thor kissed him right then.

The part of Thor who knew this was a dream, who had hallucinated kissing Loki during this moment in his utter exhaustion and despair last night, curse his past self for his inaction, even as Loki's eyes opened, the sharp intelligence in his gaze piercing straight to the heart of Thor.

Loki studied him for a moment, face carefully blank but eyes slightly wide, a surprise in them that sent a wave of sharp pain through Thor's chest. "What are you doing?" he asked, inanely, seeming to doubt his own eyes and with a voice that was suddenly far young and less cynical than he had been in years.

Thor should have kissed him then, should have told him that he had wanted to kiss him since that feast all those centuries ago, when they had both barely been in their teens, and Loki had shifted into Sif's form and flirted shamelessly with his older brother.

Instead he had let fear rule him – fear that Loki would draw back from him, horrified, and never return – and he had rested his forehead against him instead. "Nothing, brother," he had promised, in a low voice. "I'm just glad you're here."

And they had spoken no more about it.

Thor fell deeper into unconsciousness.

Whatever Shuri had given him, he could feel himself moving further and further away from his body. When he finally hovered at the border between life and death, darkness surrounding him on all sides, he glanced around and carefully called, "Loki?"

"I'm here."

Thor spun and found his brother watching him carefully, arms crossed, and with a slight frown on his beloved features. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, something almost petulant in his tone.

Thor frowned. "Told you what?"

Loki rolled his eyes in such a familiar gesture of annoyance at his brother's slow wit, that Thor grinned. He took a step closer to his brother and dropped his voice even lower. "Oh, should I have told you that I wanted to kiss you over and over until you couldn't even remember your own name? Should I have told you that I wanted to run my fingers and then my tongue over ever inch of your body, so that I could taste all of you?"

Thor took another step, amused as a flare of alarm passed across Loki's argent-blue eyes before his brother raised his chin and seemed to brace himself.

Thor reached out a hand and ran it up Loki's arm and shoulder until he could curl it around the back of his brother's neck. He lowered his voice until it was a gravelly whisper. "Should I have told you that I wanted you to fuck me over the table in the Great Hall while the entire Asgardian court watched?"

Loki's eyes widened until they looked impossibly large and the sound he released from his throat was one Thor would never forget.

Thor stepped even closer until his chest brushed his brother's. "Should I have told you that you were the first person I ever wanted to kiss? Or that I wanted to be inside you in your Jotun form, while you faced me with red eyes and beautiful patterns on your skin?"

Loki's lips parted in a silent gasp and his eyes dropped to Thor's mouth. "Yes." His voice sounded wrecked. "Yes, you should have told me."

Thor growled, dragged his brother forward, and smashed their lips together, pulling Loki flush against him as he chased his brother's taste. He deepened the kiss until all he could taste, and feel was Loki, and until even gods needed to breathe, and then he drew back only far enough that they could both suck in air.

"By the Norns, Thor, you should have told me," Loki gasped, arching up to kiss Thor again.

When they were both breathless once more, and Thor was skating gently fingers under his brother's leathers and across the smooth planes of his stomach, he dared to ask, "Loki, are you real?" He kept his eyes closed, afraid of the answer. "Is this real?"

He could feel Loki's mocking smile – a mirror of their mother's – against his skin. "I'm always real, brother."

Thor grabbed him harder. "I can't do this without you, brother. I can't!" He knew his voice was desperate, frantic, coming more and more unhinged as each day passed, but Loki didn't seem alarmed.

He reached up long, tapered fingers to tap them against Thor's cheek. "Then come find me."

And he was gone.

Thor woke to find the sun shining warm and golden across his bed, and to find Hela seated at the end of it.

"Oh my god!"

Stormbreaker leaned against the night table, next to his right hand. He glanced down quick to make sure he was decent and noticed that someone had draped a blanket over him sometime while he slept. Brimming with confidence, he sat up and sternly said, "Don't do that again!"

Hela waved a hand at him. "Oh, don't be such a baby," she said dismissively. She was studying him in rather disturbing manner which had Thor's hand itching for Stormbreaker.

"You didn't kill anyone to get in here, did you?" he asked suspiciously, more than half convinced he was still dreaming.

Hela had the gall to look offended. "Of course not," she snapped haughtily. She looked tired, disheveled and vaguely greasy, but nowhere near as bad as she had when she'd stepped out of the prison Odin had placed her in.

"Good job," Thor told his older sister, sparing a thought for how weird their family was. He wanted to fuck his brother – who was not really his brother but actually a shapeshifting Frost Giant, but also definitely his brother – and he had an older half-sister who was a genocidal, death-obsessed maniac, and who had remained unknown to Loki and himself until approximately two months ago.

Hela shot him a disgusted look. "You've got a new eye, I see. Didn't fancy looking like dear old dad?" She shrugged and looked around his room again, eyeing Stormbreaker in a speculative way which had Thor's hand twitching to grasp the hilt again. "Can't say that I blame you."

She looked back at him. "Where's the little one?"

Thor felt anger flare within him. "Do you mean our brother?" he demanded. "The one you also tried to kill?"

Hela looked unrepentant. "You were both in my way." She was studying him in a manner that reminded him, disturbingly, of Loki; like she could read his every thought and was just waiting to see when he would make a big enough mistake that she could pounce on him.

Thor scowled.

Hela's smirk wasn't at all like Mother's or Loki's. "And although he sounds like Father…" she paused as though thinking something over. "He's not related." She watched him closely. "Is he Frigga's?"

Thor's smile was bittersweet. "Both she and he would have been overjoyed if that were true." He began hunting for a shirt, resigning himself to the fact that he wouldn't be sleeping anymore for the foreseeable future. "Loki was adopted as a baby, raised as my twin. No one found out the truth – except Mother and Father…and probably Heimdall – until a few years ago." Thor pulled a worn T-shirt over his head. "It really messed him up."

When he looked at his sister again, she was frowning at picking at a thread in his coverlet. "Father's idea?" she asked in a too-casual voice.

"He had some really bad ones," Thor agreed.

"So, the little one…Loki is dead?" She looked up at him again, patiently waiting in a way Thor didn't remember at all from the last time he had seen her.

"He's…waiting. I have to find him." Thor pulled on pants – under the blanket because he had no desire for his sister to see any more of him than needed – and stood up. He picked up Stormbreaker and twirled her a few times in his grasp. Her power felt familiar and comforting as it ran through him. "Why do you even care, anyway? You were happy enough to see us dead before. Our people and our home are gone. Asgard is gone." He fixed her with as stern a look as he could manage. "There is nothing left, so why are you here?"

Hela stood up to face him, keeping her hands still and readily-visible by her sides. "I didn't care." She kept her eyes fixed upon his. "Not until that upstart Titan destroyed half the universe. I am the goddess of death. Not him. He is no god, but he had the hubris to kill a god?"

Her hands slowly clenched into fists. "I want my brother – the little, devious one – back." Her feral smile caused shivers up Thor's spine, but her words were a deathly promise. "If anyone is going to kill him, it will be me."

Thor stared at her for a long moment. He thought of all the problems this would cause. He thought of how he had no idea where even to begin.

What are you the god of again? his Father challenged.

I'm not a queen or a monster, I'm the goddess of death, his sister boasted.

I, Loki, Odinson, prince of Asgard, rightful king of Jotunheim and god of mischief, swear to you my undying loyalty…

I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again.

Thor's eyes widened as he stared at his sister. "Loki stressed the fact that he was the god of mischief," he said, quickly hunting around until he found his pair of boots, muttering to himself, "Loki always has a way out, a back-up plan. Only an idiot would have attacked Thanos with nothing but a knife. Loki wanted to show Thanos that…"

He had no idea what his brother had wanted Thanos to see. But he knew someone who was just as brilliant as his brother.

"We need to go talk to Stark. Now!"

And then he was out the door, Hela following in his wake.

Thor felt, strangely enough, better. Loki was waiting for him. He had a quest again, and allies. I will find you somewhere, brother, he promised the universe.

He ran.

Notes: So, this turned into more than just a Loki & Thor story, which was what I was originally going for. In my imagination, Loki is waiting for Thor on the branches of Yggdrasil. He's also waiting for Thor to figure out his cunning plan to defeat Thanos, lol.

If anyone wants me to write the story of how Loki changed into Sif and flirted with Thor (Pre-Thor (2011)), let me know!