Turn A Corner In The Night

by eyeus

Summary:

“I will be Loki’s champion,” says Thor. His voice rings through the great hall, regal and bold, every inch a king in bearing. Every inch a fool.

Thanos’ lips curl back from wide teeth, a grotesque mockery of a grin. “So be it.”

Notes:

• Translation into 日本語 available: Turn A Corner In The Night (Japanese Translation) by Asagi_translator

For this prompt on norsekink, where “Thor fights Thanos to avenge Loki; Thor is the strongest.” Title from Trace Adkins’ And There Was You.

Inspiration for the amphitheater where the fight takes place was drawn from Thor concept art here and here.

Chapter 1

~

If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you, the Other had promised.

And when the very ground beneath Loki shakes, a tremor felt all the way to Valaskjálf, where he and Thor await Odin’s ruling, he knows the time has come.

He has been found.

~

It has been a fortnight since Loki’s return to Asgard.

Odin had stripped his strongest seiðr from him as punishment and rendered his offensive spells null, though at Thor’s insistence, Loki is allowed to wander the palace freely. He spends the time hidden away in his chambers instead, drawn out only by Thor’s requests for Loki to accompany him on hunts in their old haunts. Small trips to find herbs for Loki’s spells, the ones he has left available to him.

It doesn’t escape his notice that Thor has been more affectionate of late either. He brushes feather-light fingers against Loki’s when they go riding and lets their knees bump together. Wraps a subtle hand around Loki’s waist when he’s felled a stag and beams at him, proud. And when Loki leans in to stoke the fires they’ve built up between them, Thor will tuck the lock of hair that’s fallen over his brow behind his ear. A multitude of little actions and mannerisms that Loki can’t puzzle out the meaning of.

If that’s not odd enough, there are the gifts. Small pouches of sweets. Hand-carved wooden figures. Rare items for spells. As if Thor’s determined to win his way back into Loki’s good graces.

“You act the part of a husband scorned, trying to win back his love’s favour,” Loki says dismissively, when Thor presents him with a pouch of shining gryphon’s feathers.

Thor only laughs and cups the back of Loki’s neck, a quick, fleeting touch. He does not rise to the insult, or the others before it.

Perhaps Thor thinks this a chance to spoil his brother where he could not before. To make up for lost time, now that he has Loki back, and show him that his true parentage has no bearing on their relationship now.

Let Thor try, Loki thinks vindictively, even as he strokes the feathers, gentle. Their value is not in the rarity of them, but in the bestower.

Let Thor waste his time, trying to win him over with baubles and trinkets.

None of it matters when that which Loki desires most is kept from him: Thor’s love, unconditional, undiminished, absolute.

~

Thor, as usual, stands too close, a dynamo of heat by Loki’s side, as they report a finding from their travels to the Allfather. Odin gives the order to send a small group of Einherjar to investigate the matter—a rune-covered gate emanating strange hel-fire near Vanaheim—before turning back to the two of them.

“Now then,” says Odin, regarding Loki sombrely, “all that remains is the matter of your punishment, for your crimes against Midgard.” He looks more haggard and worn than he should, the lines at the corners of his eyes tight with burden instead of mirth, the greys of his beard overrun with chalky white.

Loki meets Odin’s eye, defiant. Perhaps the punishment will be imprisonment. Death, even. Beside him, Thor’s fingers tighten about Mjölnir’s haft, in preparation for protest. He touches the knuckles of his other hand against Loki’s, as if to convey that they stand together in this, against Odin’s wrath.

Odin raises a brow at the motion, but makes no comment otherwise. “For conspiring with a hostile race,” he decrees, “resulting in the devastation you have wrought upon Midgard, I sentence you to—”

“Allfather!” A group of Einherjar rush into the throne room, their cries of My lord and Allfather crescendoing into frantic dissonance. The soldiers try their best to conceal their desperation beneath the thinnest veneer of calm, but they can barely hide the fearful gazes, the hushed whispers of Thanos and Titan, as the leader of the guard brigade relates the news. Several of them take extra care not to glance at Loki, while others eye the floor guiltily at having interrupted the princes’ audience with the king.

Odin stills upon his throne, Gungnir frozen in hand, the pronouncement of Loki’s fate yet unmade. He breathes in once, slow; his composure makes Loki think that Odin always knew Thanos would come knocking at Asgard’s door, though perhaps not this soon.

“Take your brother with you,” Odin instructs Thor, “and find out what Thanos wants.” Always the pragmatist, this is his way of saying You have made your bed, now lie in it.

Thor nods his assent, and together, he and Loki make their way to the great hall where the Titan waits.

Thanos strikes an imposing figure where he stands upon the tiles of gleaming white, even the golden overhangs of the hall unable to mask his monstrosity. He is flanked by the Other and a legion of Chitauri, armed with their rifle-staves as they undulate lizard-like in place. There is, thankfully, no sign of the Leviathan fleet that devastated much of New York.

“I have come only to claim what was mine,” Thanos rumbles. “Give me Loki, or I shall take your entire realm as recompense, and all its citizens as sacrifices for lady Death.”

Loki decides it more likely that Thanos wants not only Loki for failing to deliver the Tesseract, but to retrieve both the Tesseract and the Infinity Gauntlet he yearns for most dearly—from Asgard’s ashes.

The Aesir gathered in the hall, including a small assembly of Einherjar, the Warriors Three, and Sif confer amongst themselves. From the mindless babble around him, Loki determines that they are willing to give him up to Thanos, in return for the peace of their realm. That the sacrifice of one should be made for the greater good.

“Thor,” Sif begins uneasily, “perhaps we should consider—”

“No,” Thor says immediately, forceful. “I will never give up my bel—my brother.” He, too, is not deaf to the whisperings of the people around him, but no other option has presented itself. Loki watches him breathe deep, steeling his resolve to speak, to challenge, even, when Thanos snorts and issues his own ultimatum.

“Your realm it shall be, then, if you will not give up the useless Jötunn runt,” says Thanos. He clearly has no qualms about revealing Loki’s true heritage, though judging by a few sharply drawn breaths, it had not been common knowledge until now.

“You shall take neither,” Thor growls, starting forward with Mjölnir clenched in hand, but Fandral and Volstagg catch a shoulder each, restraining him.

“Oh? Is there one amongst you who is willing to fight for Asgard’s false prince?” Thanos asks lazily, revelling in the sight of the Aesir quailing before him.

Not one among the crowd speaks.

Loki sighs. He had entertained half a hope before, that should Thanos find his way to Asgard, the Aesir would band together to fight him, but of course it would turn out like this: that the Aesir—a race known for their prowess in battle, who prized strength and valour and belittled intelligence in those such as Loki—would cower in the face of this being, like children.

He steps out from behind Thor, not as a sacrifice for Asgard, never that, but for the golden realm with Thor in it. Asgard, with all its effortless beauty and perfection, could burn for all he cared, but not with Thor; never Thor.

It strikes him as ironic that despite his sentiment, there is no one who will look out for Loki; not even Thor, with all his pretty words and trinkets. Loki is alone in this, as he has been in everything else. Though with neither treasure that Thanos wants in hand, he’s not sure how long his sacrifice will be good for. If it will appease anything at all. Perhaps it could buy Thor time to—

Thor flings a protective arm in front of Loki, stilling him.

“I will be his champion,” says Thor. His voice rings through the great hall, regal and bold, every inch a king in bearing. Every inch a fool.

Despite the heat of his hand on Loki’s chest, something dangerous emanates from Thor, an unseen aura of cool fury, anger razor-sharp and righteous that resonates just beneath his skin. It both irritates Loki and prickles a chill down his spine.

Thanos’ lips curl back from wide teeth, a grotesque mockery of a grin. “When your sun reaches its peak in the sky, then,” he says. He spreads his hands wide in acquiescence, the breadth of each palm enough to crush a man’s skull within them.

Thor inclines his head, his gaze cold, unforgiving. “So be it.”

~

That Thor had not shared with those in the hall the cause for his fury, the reasons behind why he had spoken up for Loki, was to Loki’s advantage; it was not their place to know of his capture after falling into the void, or of the torture the Chitauri had inflicted upon him until Loki had surrendered, begging for an end to the pain, allowing the warp of his mind to achieve Thanos’ own aims. It had not even been Thor’s place to know, until that moment of weakness and exhaustion from traveling by Tesseract: at a stray question of Thor’s, Loki had unwittingly divulged the truth behind his apprehension.

None of this keeps Thor’s dullard friends from interrogating, even berating him about this development.

“Thor, no,” Fandral says, horrified. “Why would you accept his challenge? There is nothing in it to gain. Neither glory nor Valhalla await you at the end of this.”

Loki perches in the rafters of the stable that Sif and the Warriors Three have cornered Thor in, watching them in the form of a black-winged swallow. Perhaps they will do his work for him, will talk Thor out of the folly that fighting against Thanos is.

“No one will fault you for withdrawing your challenge, even now,” says Sif. “You do not have to do this.” A deep furrow mars the line of her brow, frown lines creasing the corners of her eyes.

“I do,” says Thor, without a moment’s pause. “For the sake of my brother, I must.”

“Let the Titan have Loki,” Volstagg begs. “What is one life, for the sake of the many?”

“And if Thanos asked for the life of your wife, Gudrun?” Thor replies. “Or one of your children?” Volstagg falls silent, cowed into a wordless shame by Thor’s frankness. “I will not stand idly by while this…thing demands the one person I cherish most.”

The gravity of the situation seems to have loosened Thor’s tongue, though Thor himself seems not to have noticed the slip. The Warriors Three and Sif trade equally uneasy looks amongst themselves before staring back at Thor.

“The person you cherish most,” Fandral ventures. “Do you mean…”

Thor smiles at his comrades. “What use have I for falsehoods in this hour? My friends, you know my heart as well as I, and better than any other.”

If, as a swallow, Loki could sneer at the sentiment, he might have done so. As it is, he shakes out his feathers, ruffled as they are from the unexpected mawkishness, while the Warriors Three and Sif take their leave. Hogun is the last to depart, tarrying to watch Thor for a moment, thoughtful.

“Fight for what you believe in,” Hogun says finally, with a sharp nod.

“I—of course,” Thor replies, surprised. “You know I believe in my feelings for Lo—”

“Let your actions guide you,” Hogun breaks in, holding his gaze level with Thor’s. “Not words.”

Thor blinks, seemingly stunned, and nods. “Thank you, my friend,” he says, offering a troubled, fleeting smile. They clasp each others’ forearms, an old gesture of camaraderie.

Loki takes flight from the rafter as they depart the stables. He can only hope that Thor’s Midgardian friends will be able to make him see reason, that Thor cannot win against the force that is Thanos, the very entity that twisted Loki’s will to his own ends.

~

To Loki’s dismay, not only do Thor’s friends from Midgard, two of the so-called ‘Avengers’, not dissuade him from this futile fight, they offer to help him as well.

Thor had ferried them to Asgard through the rebuilt Bifrost short days ago, claiming them ‘emissaries of Earth’, but Loki thinks they are here in truth to marvel and gawk at the Realm Eternal. Thankfully, only the time-displaced soldier and the man of iron are present, as the two assassins are off somewhere in their fabled Budapest again, and the scientist, Banner, has an experiment he cannot walk away from.

“You signal us if you need help,” Stark says, arms folded over his chest.

“And if there isn’t time to,” adds Rogers, “we’ll come anyway.”

Loki is tempted to shed the guise of a crow and transfigure into his own form, if only to berate Thor’s mortals; coming to Thor’s aid would nullify his agreement with Thanos, would make everything Thor fought for for naught.

Thor only turns a smile upon them, the wobbly, heartfelt kind he uses when he is deeply touched. It’s one Loki wishes he would smile at Loki only and always. “Thank you, my friends,” he says, “but this fight for my brother and his honour is between me and Thanos. I would ask that you stay your hand against Thanos, for my sake.”

From his perch, Loki can see that Stark and Rogers will follow the spirit, if not the letter of Thor’s request, and intend to help should he need it. Even so, the two of them nod, and clap him on the back.

“Whatever you say, buddy,” says Stark, sharing a significant look over Thor’s shoulder with Rogers, who nods in return.

Thor beams at them both, before sharing something low and inaudible; he’s probably spouting more sentiment, Loki decides, though Stark gapes at him and exclaims, “Wait, are you serious?” while Rogers snaps a sharp salute, saying, “We’ll do what we can.”

Loki muffles a frustrated caw when Thor finally leaves them. It seems that the old adage rings true: if you want something done right, you must do it yourself. And as neither Thor’s warrior friends nor his Midgardian comrades have managed to crumble his resolve, it is up to Loki to sway him from certain death.

That Thor had as good as declared his affection for Loki in front of his friends means nothing; Loki’s certain that Thor is only putting a up a brave front, giving himself a reason to be the hero in what will only turn out to be a tragedy.

~

After speaking with his mortal friends, Thor goes to Odin next.

They confer together in low, muted voices, Odin dipping his head in acknowledgment and frowning both in response to Thor’s speech. Loki thinks it unlikely Thor is asking for his aid in the fight; there would be no honour in asking his father to fight his battles.

Perhaps Thor is begging some boon of Odin, a reward Thor has long coveted, should he emerge from the battle victorious.

From what Loki can make out, there are disjointed whispers of battle and outcome and blessing, which he can make neither heads nor tails of, though whatever it is Thor asks of their king, Odin finds it troubling. Loki creeps closer, in the guise of a fly, in hopes of uncovering just what it is Thor is so determined about.

“But are you sure?” Odin asks, his one eye closed in thought. “This is not a decision to be made lightly.”

“I have never been surer of anything in my life,” Thor says adamantly.

Odin sighs. “On your head be it, then.”

Loki barely has time enough to transfigure himself into his original form and pretend to hide, before Thor throws the great doors open, glowing with happiness.

“Loki?” Thor stops when he spies Loki behind a pillar, lurking just outside the great doors. “I—I had not thought to find you here.” A flush of lightest pink blossoms in his cheeks, as if he is somehow distressed at the idea of Loki overhearing his conversation with Odin.

As if he is not going to his death soon, and has nary a care in the world than the presence of his brother.

“I am glad I ran into you here, though,” Thor continues, recovering from his initial surprise. “I would wear a favour of yours into battle.” He fixes Loki with a hopeful, watery look.

“Ah, I suppose I—yes,” Loki manages, caught off guard by Thor’s earnest request.

He fashions a sturdy strip of green cloth from his cloak, charming the favour to shield Thor’s mind from Thanos’ mind-reading ability. Weaves the gamut of protection spells he can think of into the cloth. At the ease with which the threads of warm, golden seiðr flow from his fingers, Loki suppresses a bitter laugh; of course the only seiðr Odin would leave him would be in the realm of healing and protection.

“Thank you, brother,” Thor says, tying the strip of cloth to his arm. “I will…” He closes his eyes and inhales slowly through his nose. “I will cherish this until I can return it.”

It goes unsaid between them, that to return it, Thor must defeat Thanos.

“Thor, you cannot—” Loki starts, before swallowing hard, biting down on the words You cannot win this. “This is madness,” he hisses, following Thor to his chambers, watching as he readies his battle armour. The numerous pages that tend to mill about outside have gone; perhaps they think the princes might exchange their truest words before the battle, and so have left them to their privacy.

Thor turns to Loki as he slides on his vambraces, the ones engraved with the horn motif of Loki’s helm. At the sight of them, something catches in Loki’s throat, because this, more than any of Thor’s words, hammers home just how much Thor is Loki’s champion.

“Is it madness?” Thor asks solemnly, reminding Loki of the time he had asked the same of Thor. He walks Loki backward, crowding him into the wall with his arms. “Is it?”

When Loki won’t, can’t respond, his throat dry, mouth unable to form the words, Thor draws back and snaps his pauldrons in place, and strides toward the hall where Thanos awaits him.

“Thor, no,” Loki pleads, matching his strides with Thor as they move toward the fated rendezvous point, but Thor neither slows nor turns from his task.

At the entrance to the grounds that Odin has spelled to resemble an amphitheatre, Loki sights the Titan, and he seizes Thor’s arm, emotion surging out of him in the face of Thanos’ bloodlust and power and hulking force. It manifests in tears that flow freely and a heart that beats with dread, because no matter how much he loves or hates Thor, he will lose him. Will lose him because of his own selfishness and Thor’s own folly, and he cannot, will not lose his brother this day.

“Stop this now,” Loki says. He is not above begging. “Please.”

He clasps Thor’s face in his hands, his precious face, whole and hale. Loki wants to remember him like this. To memorize the curve of his brow, and the way it wrinkles when Thor is confused. The smattering of freckles across his nose. The strong line of his jaw. The jut of his cheekbones when he smiles. Not the bloodied, battered broken mass it will be when Thanos is through with him.

In a last, desperate attempt, he palms the back of Thor’s neck, the heat of his hand branding Thor, marking him as Loki’s own—little comfort against the deadly force that is Thanos.

“Please, brother,” he tries. The fingers of his other hand cinch tight into Thor’s golden hair. It will be the color of rust when this finishes, of blond mixed with blood. Rust into dust, Loki thinks, and the horror of that eulogistic thought spirals him deeper into sadness, grieving in advance for what is to come. “This is madness,” he whispers hollowly. “Truly.”

“No, Loki,” Thor says. It’s different from Odin’s No, Loki somehow: warmer, kinder. He braces his hands on Loki’s shoulders, equally tight, bordering possessive. “This is not madness.”

Loki wants to gather Thor into his own arms, to make him small and hide him. To whisk him to safety, away from all this. “What is it, then?” he demands. What could possibly drive Thor into risking his life for something of so little worth, a Jötunn foundling who was not even Thor’s brother by blood?

“This is love,” Thor says simply.

He cups Loki’s face in turn, and presses a sweet, lingering kiss to Loki’s brow. Then, as if on impulse, Thor touches his lips to Loki’s, a quick peck of a kiss, before flashing him a boyish smile and guiding him in the direction of Stark and Rogers waiting in the stands.

Once Loki has made his way to Thor’s friends, Thor tips a wink at him and turns to go. Leaves Loki with his knees weak and his heart aching fit to break, Thor’s answer having slid under Loki’s carefully wrought defences.

For all the motivations Loki has determined that Thor fights for—Asgard’s safety, Thor’s own pride, perhaps even renown as a warrior—not once has it ever occurred to Loki that it is love that guides Thor’s actions.

~

Odin, a seiðrmaðr in his own right, has transformed the base of his tower into an amphitheater worthy of an epic battle: the ground is relaid with gleaming tile, while small ornamental pools flow out from both sides of the arena, the battlefield entire overlooked by Asgard’s golden spires and its towering warrior statues, sentinels of the Realm Eternal.

A number of Aesir gather into the makeshift arena, while Odin and Frigga watch the proceedings from their place of honor, high within the stands. Only a handful of Einherjar accompany them, the rest having been mobilized into offensive units, should the battle between Thor and Thanos take an unsavory turn.

Stark and Rogers flank Loki’s sides, a pair of human bulwarks against the rippling tide of Aesir dissent, the mutters and discreet glares seeming to convey the thought Our golden son for the Jötunn wretch—a poor trade indeed!

Thor strides out to the center of the arena, bold and beautiful with hammer in hand, standing tall with his back straight and shoulders rigid, a solid, unshakeable force called to battle.

Thanos smashes his own fists together, a show of intimidation, and turns his cruel sneer upon Thor. “Any last words, godling?”

Looking at him dead-on, Thor points Mjölnir in his direction. “I shall end you where you stand, Titan,” he says, the weight of his words amplified by the rumble of thunder in the distance.

“Big words for a little—” Thanos manages, before Thor lunges at him, Mjölnir held high and proud, crackling with the electric blue of her seiðr incarnate. Loki looks on in horror, because Thor’s left himself wide open, and it’s only a matter of time before Thanos swings his meaty fist into Thor, or spears him with a bolt of energy, or—

Thanos plucks Thor from the air, throwing him down with a massive hand, but Thor twists away at the last second, shooting a blast of lightning that Thanos deflects with no more effort than swatting a fly.

Despite Thor’s use of brute strength in bashing at Thanos with his hammer, Thanos is more than his match in strength, perhaps even in strategy, and Thor succeeds only in knocking away bits of Thanos’ armor, his approach requiring constant vigilance to evade the Titan’s blows.

At one point, Thanos’ colossal vambraces shatter under Mjölnir’s strength, but the effort costs Thor, and he is too late in deflecting the bolt of plasma energy Thanos blasts his way. The pulse of green light smokes through Thor’s armor, sending him staggering and burning away flesh.

Loki has never prayed before, never thought to call upon a higher power, but right now he would not be averse to the Norns’ favor in this battle.

When Thanos steps into one of the ornamental pools in the arena—a mistake—Thor immediately calls the lightning down to strike the Titan. Thanos stumbles in the current-filled water, but without the strength of gathered storm clouds, the summoned lightning causes an injury so minor, a slight, even, that the strike only intensifies his rage tenfold, and he charges at Thor, thinking to crush him with his fists. Thor flies just out of reach, calling down the lightning wherever Thanos stands, careful to keep a cautious distance. Uses Mjölnir to blast energy against Thanos, the sparks of voltaic blue singeing flesh, and absorbs Thanos’ energy attacks to release against the Titan himself.

The sporadic bolts of energy only serve to annoy Thanos, though Loki can see the little hurts and disorientation they cause each time.

Despite that advantage, Thanos forces Thor back each time, with powerful, swinging blows, each one that connects flinging Thor away like a rag doll, until he slams against the borders of the arena, forced to drive his boots into the splintered ground for purchase. At no point during his minor defeats does Thor succumb to a berserker rage, though, having need of more than just mindless strength and blind fury to defeat Thanos.

Once, during Thor’s first and only attempt to fly high into the sky and attack from a distance, Thanos follows his flight, teleporting in the blink of an eye, and drags him from the air to slam him into the ground.

Loki thinks it fortunate that Thanos did not snap Thor’s spine over his hip right then and there, or crush him into the ground where he lay.

The fight continues thus, with one close scrape after another, each more deadly than the last, as they exhaust each other’s strength.

By the time the sun bleeds its red-orange light along the grounds, all of Asgard has gathered to watch their prince battle this hulking monstrosity, alongside spectators assembled from other realms—emissaries of Vanaheim and Alfheim, and others cloaked in shadow that Loki is sure have slipped in from either Jotunheim or Niflheim. They crowd together in the amphitheater, bloodthirsty spectators of a fight to the death.

From Loki’s perspective, Thor and Thanos resemble gladiators, combatants of a sport Loki had seen in his travels to Midgard long ago. They circle each other like feral dogs, lashing out only when sensing advantage or weakness.

The turning point comes when Thor takes a powerful blow to the torso, one that smashes him into the side of the arena, shattering the pristine tile like so many eggshells. Thor struggles to his feet, before his legs give out and he sinks to his knees, blood spilling through the fingers he’s braced against his abdomen, his other hand scrabbling in the dust of the makeshift arena, encrusted with smears of dried blood.

Thanos rumbles with sadistic laughter, and in an instant, he’s teleported in front of Thor, heaving a section of broken wall in the air to crush him.

“Thor, no—” Loki cries out, trying to leap into the ring, but Stark and Rogers hold him back, in some misguided attempt to protect him. When they make to jump into the ring themselves, however, the crowd surges against them, barring their entrance.

“Wait,” says Thor, before Thanos lands the finishing blow. The storm blue of his eyes has dimmed, and a thin rivulet of blood trails from the corner Thor’s mouth, but his voice rings out clearly across the arena, its shining tiles blood-orange with the setting sun. “Tell my brother I love him.”

Loki’s heart turns to ice in his chest. No.

Thanos sneers. “You just have,” he says, and he smashes the enormous wall fragment into the ground where Thor lies.

Loki’s heart shatters at the blow, like those under the freezing touch of the Jötunns of old. He’s only dimly aware of the choked, garbled sounds he’s making, when Rogers turns Loki into his shoulder and Stark shuffles in awkwardly to shield Loki from the crowd—no, from Thanos—because now that Thor has lost, Thanos will be taking him, and possibly even the treasures he so dearly covets. If he does not raze Asgard to the ground first.

It was supposed to be me, thinks Loki. Thor was supposed to be his to kill, if ever, and failing that, it would be Loki who died for him, to carve his memory into the entirety of Thor’s heart forever. And now there was nothing left of Thor, either to remember Loki or for Loki to remember him by.

There’s a pressure in Loki’s chest, as if frozen fingers have reached into his chest and wrapped themselves around his heart, their vice-like grip crushing his heart fit to burst. A lump forms in his throat he can’t swallow around, while a solitary tear slides over the swell of his cheek, and Loki can’t help but think Thor would notice this, Thor would brush it away, childish as the thought is, and something inside him crumbles as another tear follows, then another, until they form twin streams down his face that he struggles to dash away.

Thor’s fragile mortals seem to take this as his equivalent of unfathomable grief, on par with suffocating, heartwrenching sobs, and they press closer, crowding Loki with their warmth, which, while annoying, is not unwanted. Perhaps this is how they think a god grieves—not with wailing laments, but with a stoicism matched only by inanimates, objects with neither flesh nor feeling.

Loki is loath to admit it, but they are not wrong.

Thanos emits a low, shuddering noise, his version of a victory crow too close to a laugh, and Loki fights the urge to tear the Eternal limb from limb, for daring to raise his hand against Thor. For striking the killing blow against one of the few beings Loki has ever cared for.

It is just as well he has not acted, for when Thanos lifts away the wreckage, there is an audible gasp among the crowd.

“Loki,” Rogers murmurs. At the astonishment in his voice, Loki dares to raise his head, dares to hope. “Look.”

Besides scattered clumps of debris and the gouge the wall has left in broken tile, there is nothing: Thor’s telltale red cloak is gone, and there is a marked absence of blood or bone.

An illusion, then, Loki’s mind supplies, but the notion is ridiculous; besides Mjölnir, Thor hasn’t an ounce of seiðr in him. He wonders if Odin covertly cast a spell to save his son and heir, but the glance he throws toward Odin and Frigga shows them equally shocked. Loki frowns, confused. The alternative was that Thor had actually taken a page from Loki’s book and performed a basic illusion spell—but that was impossible.

A series of whispers ripple through the crowd, of Where is Thor, Where is our prince? As if they had only ever had one.

“Enough!” Thanos roars, spittle flying from his mouth. He pounds his fists into the ground, sending rubble and tile flying, not unlike the Hulk when caught up in a tantrum. “I have no time for your tawdry tricks! Do your people proud and die with honor. Face me like a man. Or are all the Aesir cowards like—”

The moment Thanos stops mid-sentence and falls to his knees, a hush settles over the crowd. Loki furrows his brow, bewildered, as Thanos sways in place, one undulation, then two, before crumpling into the ground in a cloud of dust.

As he does so, his head rolls away.

The shocked silence that follows is broken only by Thor’s voice, beautiful, resonant, like chords on a harp, like music, because he’s alive, and oh, Loki can’t decide whether to kiss him or kill him for this deception.

“No tricks,” Thor announces, reappearing from behind Thanos’ headless body. “Only tactical advantage.”

In his hand is a short-sword, a blade unadorned and plain, but forged by the same dwarves of Niðavellir who had wrought Mjölnir within a dying star. Loki remembers its origin well, as he had been the one to gift Thor with the sword, a spoil won through liecraft and clever wordplay.

You may have need of this one day, Loki had said. Thor had only laughed and thumped Loki on the back, but worn the blade at his hip all the same, keeping it in its place of honor by Mjölnir for a time. Loki thought it lost by now, a relic fallen by the wayside, pushed aside in favor of tokens from Thor’s hunts and expeditions.

Evidently, the day Thor had need of the sword had come.

Thor sheathes the sword, concealing it once again, and strides toward Thanos’ head, raising Mjölnir into the air. With a mighty roar, he slams the uru weapon down, crushing the grayish-purple head, helmet and all, the force of it ejecting a bloody spatter that leaves no doubt as to who the victor is. He then scorches the stub of the Titan’s neck with a torch lighting the arena, on the off-chance that Thanos can transcend even decapitation and regenerate himself.

Thor is nothing, if not thorough.

For a long, uncomfortable moment, there is only shocked silence, then hushed whispers that morph into thunderous applause befitting a victory of the god of thunder.

Leaderless, the Other and the Chitauri fall to their knees from their place in the stands, one hand over where their hearts might be, an unmistakable pledge of loyalty. They hiss and growl something in their own dialect and Loki nods.

As well he should be, Loki thinks haughtily, suppressing the urge to tremble in the wake of Thor’s might and power.

Beside him, Stark consults the A.I. intrinsic to his suit. “J.A.R.V.I.S.?” he asks. “What did those aliens say to Thor? Or call him?”

“Based on previously analyzed speech patterns, they called Thor, ‘our king’, sir.”

“Huh. How about that,” says Stark in a small voice, swallowing. Rogers’ mouth falls opens with a small o of surprise.

Loki is sure that until now, Thor’s friends have heard him speak of a distant throne in his home world which he would someday ascend, but only now see the bearing of a king in their friend. He watches the mortals struggle against the urge to kneel in the presence of such greatness, perhaps because neither the man of iron nor the supersoldier kneel, but the compulsion is strong all the same.

The Aesir show no such compunctions, as well as those of other realms, and fall to bended knee, some in obeisance to Asgard’s future king, others in awe and shock.

From his place in the makeshift arena, Thor looks straight at Loki and beckons to him with outstretched hand; there is no question of whom he wants by his side. The crowd parts around Loki, waiting with bated breath as he makes his way toward Thor. As soon as he claims his place by Thor’s side, Thor slings an arm around his shoulders and pumps Mjölnir into the air, triumphant.

“Let this be remembered,” Thor announces to the entirety of the people gathered, “as the day that the menace, Thanos of Titan, was vanquished by a champion of Asgard. By Thor, son of Odin, the thunder—the lightning—the rain transformed!”

Amid the clamor and pandemonium that breaks out (and Stark’s emphatic gripe that Thor lifted the line about lightning from his videogame about solid metal gears) are shouts that the god-prince should be granted a reward, as recompense for the service he has done the Nine Realms, in ridding their world of the danger Thanos posed.

“I need no reward,” Thor booms heartily. At the subtlest gleam of Gungnir from where Odin and Frigga are seated above the crowds, however, Thor amends his statement. “But in honor of this day, I shall proclaim my consort.”

No, no, this was supposed to be my day, Loki thinks; that Thor would fight for him, for his honor and freedom from Thanos’ thrall, was cause enough for celebration in Loki’s books. His heart turns to lead in his chest, Thor’s arm wrapping warm around his waist a cold comfort against the announcement to come. With his next words, Thor will name the one who will snatch him from Loki’s side forever.

Who is to be the lucky maiden? Loki wonders bitterly. Who will be Thor’s lady fair?

He tries to swallow around the lump lodged in his throat, but only manages a dry, painful click of a gulp as he displays a false smile, an insincere upturn of his mouth, the corners of which twitch with hurt.

Loki concentrates so hard on the façade of a smile that he misses the first part of Thor’s declaration.

“—is to be mine and mine alone,” Thor is saying. “And if he so chooses, he will bear the future heirs to Asgard’s throne.”

He? Loki has time to ponder, before Thor smiles at him, broad and genuine. With that, he cups Loki’s cheek in his palm and kisses him, in full view of all the Aesir, Vanir, and the gathered crowd combined.

It’s only when Thor’s mortal friends sputter and blush from their place in the crowd that Loki has an inkling of what just transpired.

“Did Thor just—” Rogers manages, twin spots of crimson blooming high in his cheeks.

“Yep,” says Stark. “Just proclaimed Loki to be his wifey in front of his parents. And all of Asgard. Hell, in front of all the realms.” He turns to the Warriors Three and Sif, who have gathered behind the mortals to watch the proceedings. “Is this a thing in Asgard? I thought they were, you know, brothers.”

“Thor is a legend now,” Volstagg offers. “A god amongst gods. I should think it no more than his due that he be able to choose his future partner. Although, the one he has chosen…” He shares an uncomfortable look with Fandral, while Hogun only shrugs and tips the princes a furtive smile.

Oh, thinks Loki, as it finally sinks in. Oh. A laugh bubbles out against his will, and he can’t help but grin against Thor’s lips; it has been long since Thor has been able to render him speechless, devoid of coherent thought.

Thor kisses like his speech to the crowd, bold and brazen, as if he is proud of the affection they share. Displays it for all to see, a proclamation that their love is not some shameful, hidden secret, by winding his arms around Loki’s waist, claiming his mouth, messy, wanton, without care for who might be watching.

A dark pleasure coils in Loki’s stomach when he thinks that Thor is his now, at last; it tightens into a taut string of desire when he remembers Thor has announced Loki as his, marking it an ownership that is as much mutual as it is deep and eternal.

Despite his annoyance at being claimed like some spoil of war, a reward to the victor, Loki revels in the attention the announcement brings, because he knows where he stands with Thor now, where he stands in the eyes of Asgard, as brother, consort, and future king. He pushes aside the maelstrom of Is this real, How long has Thor planned this and Who will stand against us, and presses himself greedily into Thor’s warmth. Twists possessive fingers into the fabric of Thor’s cloak.

“Yes,” Thor whispers, at the way Loki makes his claim. His own fingers clutch equally savagely at Loki’s cloak. “Like this. As it should have been, always.”

He draws back for a breath, his face set in grim determination, eyes and hair wild with accents of electric blue and stippled with blood. Palms the curve of Loki’s jaw, too tight, as if Loki is a miracle, a treasure, a precious love he cannot bear to let go, and leans into Loki’s space, because that’s what Thor does; fills the emptiness around Loki until there’s no room for anything else to come between them, until there is nothing but Thor, in his mind, on his lips, and wrapped around his very being.

“You are mine,” Thor repeats, only to Loki this time, in conspiratorial whisper. “My consort.” He brings their mouths together again, a hungry scrape of teeth and tongue, before dropping his voice an octave, low and fierce. “My king.”

His tone brooks no argument, and that alone is nearly enough to dispel Loki’s fears, the doubts that gnaw at the corners of this new happiness.

“Yes, yours,” Loki assents, a delicious shiver thrilling down his spine at the heat in those words and the possessive hunger in Thor’s eyes.

It’s only when Thor sways ever so slightly that Loki notices just how much of Mjölnir’s seiðr has been feeding into Thor, healing his more grievous injuries and keeping him on his feet. “Now let us get you to the healing chambers,” Loki says, eyes narrowed in dismay, “before you collapse from something like, oh, blood loss.”

Thor laughs and ducks in for another kiss, but as it turns out, he has a very different and infinitely more pleasurable destination in mind.

Chapter 2

Summary:

“Yes, yours,” Loki assents, a delicious shiver thrilling down his spine at the possessive hunger in Thor’s eyes. “Now let us get you to the healing chambers, before you collapse from something like, oh, blood loss.”

Thor laughs and ducks in for another kiss, but as it turns out, he has a very different and infinitely more pleasurable destination in mind.

Notes:

For this prompt on norsekink, where “Thor fights Thanos to avenge Loki; Thor is the strongest.” Title from Trace Adkins’ And There Was You.

Inspiration for the amphitheater where the fight takes place was drawn from Thor concept art here and here.

~

“When did you—how did you—” Loki tries, as Thor drags him into his chambers, pressing him into the sheets of soft silk and kissing him breathless. If Thor would just stop kissing him for a moment, Loki might be able to ask him about the brilliantly foolish gamble he took against Thanos, but then Thor bites the apple of his throat, and oh, he doesn’t want Thor to stop, not ever.

They tangle together on Thor’s bed, hidden just behind brocades of crimson and gold. Loki remembers pulling those same adornments from the bed frame and walls with Thor when they were young, draping them over plush chairs to build their airy blanket fortresses. It had been a different world, then, their own little world; a microcosm of cozy warmth where they could snuggle against each other beneath blankets, eating treats stolen from the kitchens and sharing stories, before falling asleep, nestled together like two halves of a whole.

The patterns on those brocades will soon be twined with green, in the tradition of Asgardian union, Loki has time to think, before Thor brings him back to the moment, nosing at his neck and nipping the soft flesh of his jaw.

“What you did against Thanos—such seiðr is beyond you,” Loki manages, before Thor steals the breath from his lungs with greedy, sucking kisses. The air around them is rent with the sharp tang of remnant lightning, and Thor is so hot against him, the fire of battle still burning in his blood enough to melt the ice in Loki’s veins, to spark wild against his skin.

“It was,” Thor admits, pausing for a breath, “the only piece of your spellwork that stayed with me.”

That Thor, with his penchant for bashing things about with his hammer, had somehow learned from watching Loki practice and perform the same spell was a miracle in and of itself, much less his unbelievable execution of it.

“And you thought to use this untested magic in a battle against an Eternal? Not knowing if you would succeed?” Loki asks, incredulous. Thanos had the ability to see through most magics, so Thor must only have replaced his real self with the copy at the last possible moment.

“I thought—when the time came, I could—” Thor stammers, unsure of himself in the face of one more practiced than he in the art of seiðr , before setting his lips stubbornly. “I would win with your methods, your weapons, or not at all.”

“You fool,” Loki growls, voice hoarse. He buries his face in Thor’s neck, soaking in his warmth, affirmation that Thor is here, that Thor is alive, hands twisting into Thor’s cloak tight enough to bruise. The same sentiment that drove Thor to draw upon his trove of Loki-treasures—his weaponry, his seiðr—might well have killed him. “You brilliant, bloody, fool.”

“Your fool,” Thor answers. “Only ever yours.” Loki draws back to glare at him, and at the flash of impossible blue, something breaks inside Loki, because he’s only just realized how close he was to never seeing those eyes again, never seeing Thor.

It’s a dam that bursts, a well of emotion swelling into a rushing tide, and it takes all of Loki’s willpower not to sink his teeth into Thor, to crush himself into his brother’s warmth that he might burrow inside him and stay entwined within him forever.

As it turns out, there is no need for it, for Thor seems to have sensed his intent, and pushes him into the sheets, laying dark, possessive bruises along Loki’s neck and the line of his collarbone. Bites rose-hued brands of ownership into the curve of his shoulders.

A drop of heated wetness splashes against Loki’s face, stinging, and when he touches his fingers to the warmth, they come away a rich, dark red.

“Your wounds,” Loki says, swallowing back the rush of emotion that knots his throat and brings tears to his eyes. This blood that Thor bled, these grievous hurts that Thor sustains, were all for him. He readies a glow of seiðr to heal, to mend Thor’s body and mind of all the pain the Titan has visited upon him.

“Leave them,” Thor growls, winding his hands around Loki’s wrists and pinning them to the bed. The sight of blood seems to trigger a primal hunger in Thor, and he crushes his lips against Loki’s, tasting of copper and ozone, his kisses fierce and hard and everywhere, pressed into Loki’s skin like a thousand promises paid en masse.

Loki whimpers at the ferocity of Thor’s lips, the surfeit of untamed affection too much, but when Thor grinds against him, their cocks sliding together through their clothing, Loki moans, twisting out of the cage of Thor’s arms to claw at his hips, to buck up against Thor for more friction, more anything that Thor will give.

“Yes,” Thor gasps, before he’s tearing off his own armor and ripping through the fabric of Loki’s, paying no mind to the floor he litters with their clothing. Their cloaks merge together on the floor, crimson swirled with green until it is impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends, as if they were woven from the same patchwork fabric.

“Loki,” whispers Thor, breath heaving as his hands curl tight behind Loki’s shoulders, urgent and desperate, “let me have you. All of you. Loki, please—”

“Yes,” Loki breathes, “I want this. I want us.” He tugs Thor forward, raking trails of fervent red down his back. “You and I. Together. In every sense of the word.”

Thor rumbles his agreement, his mouth hot against the hollow of Loki’s throat, his collarbone. “Together,” he rasps. “We shall not be parted again.” With that declaration, he kisses his way down Loki’s chest and bites the tender flesh of Loki’s nipple. Ignores Loki’s wounded cry and works his way across to its double, with sucking, nipping kisses that leave a trail of cherry bruises in their wake.

Loki traps his lower lip in his teeth against the pleasure-pain Thor inflicts upon him. There will be time for tenderness later, he decides. When they have laid their claim on each other. When there is no question about whom they belong to.

He’s so distracted by Thor’s tongue, swirling around his other nipple, that it’s a surprise when Thor presses large, insistent fingers against the pucker of Loki’s hole. They’re blunt and thick and wet, slick with precome and spittle, and Thor eases one in, then another, until he has bullied his way in with three, dragging them in and along the edges of Loki’s entrance in their quest to probe, to pleasure.

Tears spring to Loki’s eyes at the uncomfortable stretch. “Thor, not so—not so fast, please,” he chokes out. The rest of his sentence is lost in a keening cry when Thor crooks his fingers, brushing against the sweet nub of flesh inside Loki. “Thor. Thor,” he gasps.

It’s too much, the cool wetness of Thor’s mouth on his chest, the burn of Thor’s fingers inside him, but Loki never makes it to the word stop, because suddenly Thor’s replacing the fingers with himself, nudging the head of his cock just inside Loki. He pushes in and draws back, small experimental thrusts that have Loki whimpering, until with a low moan, Thor surges forward and buries himself to the hilt.

Loki’s mouth springs open in a wordless scream, throat pulled too tight to cry out as Thor spears him open with each rough slide of his cock. Thor grips Loki’s shoulders, pinning him against the bed as he shoves into Loki and sucks bruises, dark, desirous, along his neck. And when Loki finds his voice again, Thor bites down with each of Loki’s cries. Clamps his hand over Loki’s mouth, smiling wickedly at how Loki’s chest heaves beneath him, at his high, keening gasps and urgent nngh’s against Thor’s fingers. Flicks his tongue out to lick the dampness from Loki’s eyes, his salt tears of pain and pleasure.

“Thor—ah—wait,” Loki tries, when Thor hikes Loki’s legs over the crook of his elbows, backing him into the headboard, but his plea goes unanswered as Thor draws back and slams into him so hard Loki can barely see straight. The forceful, bruising thrusts have Loki gripping the sheets hard enough to split skin, and he cries out, dizzy and lightheaded from the immense force of each thrust, until the only words he knows are ah and Thor.

And when Thor urges his legs just that much higher, hitching them over his shoulders to push deep within him, Loki bites back a scream, because Thor is too deep and hot and hard and he—he can’t breathe, can’t think—

Their lovemaking—no, fucking—is rough and raw and visceral, and Loki only manages to cling to Thor’s shoulders as Thor heaves harsh, wet breaths above him, biting and growling, “Loki, Loki, Loki,” like a mantra, a prayer. He lets Loki’s legs slip from his shoulders and curls his hands beneath Loki’s arms, fingers raking bloody crescents into Loki’s skin as his teeth tug at Loki’s lip, nipping it and sucking thick, dark drops of his blood.

“Mine,” hisses Thor. He repeats the growl as he laps the sweat at Loki’s brow, and again as he licks the tears from his eyes. Then he pulls Loki into his lap until they’re flush against the headboard and Loki’s straddling his thighs, Thor impossibly deep within him, each heave of his hips ripping a cry from Loki’s throat.

“Thor, please,” Loki gasps. He’s not sure if he means please, more or please, it’s too much, but either way Thor obliges and wraps his hand around Loki’s length, stroking and teasing in all the right places, clever fingers working to wring Loki’s release from him. It takes only the slightest pressure of Thor’s thumb against the slit of his cock before Loki’s burying his face into Thor’s neck, spilling with such force that white and stars and colors burst across his vision, the photo negative of everything that was the void he had fallen into.

Thor slows his pace just a fraction to touch his fingers to Loki’s seed. Dips his fingers into Loki’s navel where most of it has collected and licks it off. Pushes the slick digits into Loki’s mouth to let him suck on them. Loki moans at the taste of his own essence on Thor’s fingers, on Thor’s lips, before Thor’s tongue slides into his mouth again, hot and wet as Thor seals his lips over Loki’s, stealing his breath away in a hungry, filthy kiss.

“Loki,” Thor growls, “Loki.” His hands close over Loki’s shoulders from behind, like a pair of eagle’s talons, steadying him as much as they trap him, and suddenly he’s driving up and into Loki to find his own release, and Loki’s left clinging to Thor’s neck, his face mashed into Thor’s hair as his mouth gapes in search of air, riding out the storm until Thor’s thrusts stutter against Loki’s hips, no less brutal for all they are erratic.

Thor rakes possessive trails down Loki’s back with his fingers, growling, “Mine,” with each thrust, a litany of mine, mine, mine as if repetition could breathe life into the words, could make Loki his in all the ways that matter. And with a sudden, viciously deep thrust, Thor sinks teeth into the soft junction between Loki’s neck and shoulder, and spends, hot bursts of liquid lightning that fill Loki too much, too fast, leaving him trembling and shaking against Thor, gasping as his lungs burn from the ache for air.

“Loki,” croaks Thor, collapsing into the bed and pulling Loki with him. He burrows his face into Loki’s neck, breathing deep as if he can’t get enough of him, winds himself around Loki like a vine, his hands creeping under Loki’s arms, legs twining around Loki’s feet like he won’t ever let Loki go. “My Loki. My love. My…”

Loki’s caught between cuffing him on the ear or huffing out a laugh when Thor trails off mid-sentence, his breath evening out into a snore. In the end, he opts for the latter, twining his arms around Thor’s shoulders and finding a slumber of his own.

~

Later, when the first rays of sunlight peek through the drapes of the bed and the last wisps of his battle ardor have faded, Thor stirs again, shifting the weight of his upper body into Loki’s lap. Loki grumbles at the weight, but strokes slow, careful fingers through the curls of Thor’s hair.

With an appreciative hum, Thor blinks up at Loki, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a soft, dreamy smile. He reaches up to press a thumb, gentle, against the mess of bruises that line Loki’s throat.

“Thor.” Loki winces at the touch, a mistake; the soreness in his hips and rump makes itself known again, and he sucks in a pained breath.

“Oh, Loki, I—” Thor tries. His throat shifts in a guilty swallow. “I did not mean to hurt you last night.” He at least has the good grace to look ashamed about it, and curls his fingers around Loki’s wrist in apology.

Loki makes to swat his hand away, before deciding against it. “Perhaps not so forceful the next time. And listen to me when I tell you no.” He pauses. “Or yes, as it were.” Loki thanks the Norns that Thor cannot feel the flush that heats his cheeks at that.

Thor nods eagerly, a puppy being given a second chance, and Loki sighs. It is impossible to stay angry at Thor for long, though it would do well for Loki not to let on how soon he had forgiven him.

“The kingship,” Loki says after a time, when Thor has settled drowsily into his arms, lulled into half-sleep by the nimble fingers stroking his hair. “And your announcement.”

Thor presses lazily into Loki’s hand. “Mmh,” he says, rolling into the touch like a spoiled feline. “What of it?”

“Will Odin not renounce his decision to make you his heir? You have all but declared that I…” Loki stops, unable to continue. In the light of day, Thor’s declaration to take Loki as consort seems a mere pipe dream, and Loki—Loki had allowed himself to be taken in by this foolishness—

Thor shrugs, his broad shoulder lifting the sheets around them. “If he does, so be it. Throne or no, we shall be together.”

Loki narrows his eyes, incredulous, his fingers giving pause in their gentle carding. “You would do that. You would give up the throne?” He wets his mouth, touching his tongue to his lower lip. “For me?”

Thor tracks the motion with his eyes, then laughs, a genuinely amused rumble. “Loki,” he admonishes, “I laid my life on the line for you. I killed a Titan. What is relinquishing the throne in the face of all that?”

“Hmm,” Loki says noncommittally. Though he concedes that Thor does have a point.

“Besides,” says Thor, sitting up and wriggling back far enough to wrap an arm around Loki’s waist, “I have seen to the matter already; father has given us his blessing for our union. It was the boon I begged of him should I emerge from the fight victorious.”

“What nonsense are you spouting—” Loki begins, before he remembers the private council Thor had held with Odin shortly before his fight. Then the blessing had not been for battle, but for—oh. “So I am to be your…” Loki manages, before words elude him once again.

“You are to be mine,” Thor says proudly. “In every sense of the word. My consort. My lover.” He presses a sweet, airy peck of kiss to Loki’s mouth. “My life.” His eyes flicker away from Loki’s for a moment, expression unreadable as he fidgets at the sheets with his fingers. “And I, yours. If you will have me.”

As much as Loki wants to toy with this vulnerability Thor’s shown him, to tell him that presuming Loki would have him would be an incredible amount of hubris on Thor’s part, they have been through too much this day. Here, nestled safely in the privacy of their bedchamber, there is no need for the liesmith’s talents, no need to propagate the seeds of self-doubt.

“Yes,” says Loki. He winds his fingers into Thor’s hair, meets his mouth in a warm, languid kiss. Thor’s tongue darts out to touch Loki’s upper lip, just a soft, sweet lick, and Loki takes the opportunity to revel in the lazy tangle of their tongues. “Yes,” he hisses, more sure of himself now, sure of where he stands with Thor.

Thor nudges his face into the warm hollow of Loki’s neck, lips curling into a smile as he hums against Loki’s throat. He slides a hand along the curve of Loki’s hip, walking light and teasing fingers over the surface of Loki’s belly, and tracing a downward path from his navel. “Now then,” Thor says, “since we have addressed that issue, shall we turn our minds to other things?”

“Mmh, and our tongues,” Loki agrees, his answering smile wicked and full of promise as he slips beneath the sheets.

As raw and visceral as their first lovemaking session was, the second time is slower, gentler and sweeter, as Thor takes the time to caress Loki’s face, to worship Loki’s neck and limbs with leisurely, soothing kisses. Together, they find mutual pleasure in new ways, with teeth and lips and tongues, experimenting with different ways to share affections long overdue.

Loki draws the line when Thor spreads their combined seed on Loki’s belly and traces runes into his skin, the letters for “I” and “you” with a squiggle resembling a heart between the words. “Stop that,” he says, pushing his palm into Thor’s face, relishing the silly grin he gets in response. With his disheveled mane of golden hair falling over his eyes, Thor resembles a dog ever eager to please its master. “It’s disgusting.”

“It’s love,” Thor insists, with something akin to a pout. He looks every bit the spoiled princeling instead of the king he is to become, a side of him only Loki now has the privilege to see.

The smile that’s begun to form on Loki’s lips disappears, and he reaches out, questing fingers tracing the edge of Thor’s mouth, mapping the solid line of his jaw.

Yes, Loki decides. I suppose it is. Or close enough to. And despite the sweat and stickiness between them, he drags Thor close again, to savor his lips, to breathe his air, and taste that love for himself.

~

What follows are several days of feasting and revelry, most of which neither Thor nor Loki participate in, ensconced within Thor’s chambers as they are. It’s only when Frigga drags them both out by the ears, tutting at them all the way, that they grudgingly make an appearance at the banquet hall.

Although Thor had banished the Chitauri from Asgard after the fight, guests from other realms still fill the hall, drinking and laughing as echoes of their dissonant songs float in the air. Thor downs several goblets of mead with Sif and the Warriors Three, while Loki circles the various tables, heaping a platter with food enough for a private banquet of their own.

He’s helping himself to a stein of ale when Volstagg appears at his elbow, a worried crinkle in his brow.

“Are you sure you should you be drinking that?” Volstagg asks. When Loki sets down the platter to glare at him, he adds quickly, “I only meant to say that it cannot be good for the baby.” He gestures to Loki’s belly.

“The baby—no,” Loki replies. “Not yet. Not right now. No,” he says again, emphatically. He and Thor have yet to converse on this matter, as they are still feeling out the edges of their relationship, mending the cracks and smoothing out the crags of their rough-hewn history. There is also the matter of the anatomy and physiology of it to consider as well.

“Oh.” Volstagg blinks, his cheeks flushing a ruddy, wine-dark red. “I thought you and Thor were trying to—we had not seen either of you for days, and so—”

“And so,” Thor declares, appearing behind the two of them and slapping Volstagg heartily on the back, “perhaps we have been, and are on our way to do so again.”

“Thor,” Loki says, indignant, as Volstagg excuses himself in a hurry, mumbling something about refilling his tankard. “That was hardly necessary.”

“Unnecessary, maybe, but not entirely untrue,” Thor chuckles. “Especially when we differ only in the purpose, and not in the act, of lovemaking.”

Loki snorts. “Who is the silver-tongued one of us now?”

Thor dips his head to lay a smacking kiss on Loki’s brow and crowds him into a nearby alcove. “If you are worried for your title as Silvertongue,” he purrs, canting a suggestive hip into Loki’s thigh, “perhaps a defense of it with bodily demonstration is in order.”

“Oh?” Loki grins, as he tugs Thor in by the waist. He slots their mouths and hips together, tasting the sweetness of honeyed mead and grapes on Thor’s lips. “Is that a challenge?”

“Hmm.” Thor graces him with a roguish smile, one Loki feels more than he sees. “A cooperative one, you might say.”

Neither demonstration nor challenge are meant to be, however; Frigga intercepts them on their way back to their chambers—for the sole purpose of fussing over them for measurements and patterns for ceremonial wedding robes.

~

By the time celebrations come to a close, the two of them have been fitted for a pair of crimson and emerald robes each, Frigga has swayed them into having a grand wedding ceremony on Asgard (followed by a smaller one on Midgard for Thor’s mortal friends), and Odin has consumed more than his weight in mead and ale combined, lying in his chambers in a drunken stupor not unlike that of the Odinsleep.

It is difficult to blame the Allfather for his indulgence; it has been long since Asgard has had cause for celebration on this scale. Either that, or he is still coming to terms with who Thor has chosen as his partner, Loki decides.

Stark and Rogers are both due to return to Midgard, having had their fill of the Realm Eternal, so Thor and Loki escort the two mortals toward the Bifrost by foot, neither of them having mastered the art of riding a horse quite yet.

“Well, so long,” Stark says with a grin, “and thanks for all the fish.”

It is not a true farewell, as Thor has taken it upon himself to return to Midgard and explain what transpired with Thanos to Director Fury, with Loki set to accompany him. Still, Loki gives Stark a withering look. He’s certain there is a Midgardian pop-culture reference in his statement, but remains deliberately obtuse out of spite. “I am sure our hospitality included more than just fish,” he says. “Perhaps a reminder of the venison and fruits you consumed would be in order? The volume of mead? Your guest chambers alone—”

“Yeah, okay, all right,” Stark says hastily. “I only meant thanks. For things. Everything.” He turns to Thor, as if he will find a kindred spirit in him, or at least someone who will not twist his words, but his next words are not what Loki expects. “Good thing we didn’t have to enact Plan B, huh?”

Thor laughs, the sound stilted and strange as he claps Stark on the back.

“Plan B?” Loki echoes, arching a brow.

“Ah, well—” Thor manages a sheepish smile just as Stark says, “Yeah, Plan B. Thor didn’t tell you? We were supposed to—”

“Tony, please,” says Thor quietly, warning clear in his grip on Stark’s shoulder. His fingers tighten around Loki’s waist, a subtle signal to cease his questioning.

“Yes, ‘Tony’, please,” Loki demands, twisting out of Thor’s hold and barring the way forward. “Enlighten me. What was this ‘Plan B’?”

Stark throws an apologetic look at Thor. “If Thor lost the fight, we were supposed to spirit you back to Earth and hide you. Keep you safe. Who knows how that would’ve gone, though, considering our buddy Thanos, the Colossal Meat Tank That Could.”

Rogers’ eyes light up. “Hey!” he says, “I got that reference. You’re referring to the Little Engine That Could, right?”

Loki disregards the two imbeciles to glare at Thor. “Your contingency plan was not to defeat Thanos by other means, but to hide me? Like some weak, defenseless maiden—”

“No, Loki,” Thor says gently. His hands come up to rest on the sides of Loki’s arms, thumbs stroking his shoulders in small, soothing circles. “Like my beloved. I was asking them to protect my beloved.”

Something thrills in Loki’s chest at the idea of Thor calling him his beloved, a sort of resonant thrum he finds oddly pleasing. The corners of his mouth tilt up against his will before Loki recognizes the chance for a barb. “I never asked for your protection. Or theirs,” he says scathingly.

“Good thing, too,” Stark shoots back, having finished his aside with Rogers. “Not sure we would’ve wanted to provide it.”

Rogers throws Stark a disapproving look, just as Thor chides, “Lokiii,” dragging out the last syllable, fond. Ever the peacekeepers, the two of them. Thor blinks at Loki’s responding scowl, and turns a smile on him, soppy and affectionate.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Loki says, folding his arms over his chest.

“Like what?” asks Thor. The words like a besotted fool are on the tip of Loki’s tongue when Thor reaches out and clasps Loki’s face, pressing their foreheads together. “Like you have hung the stars and the moons? Because you have.”

Shocked into silence, Loki is unable to make a proper riposte; Thor has always been honest to a fault, but this affection, so guileless and true, leaves Loki reeling in its wake.

“I see the cow has stopped its mooing,” Thor laughs, and before Loki can fire off an insult about Thor’s helm, he’s being lifted over Thor’s shoulder like a petulant child. “I think I shall take advantage of its silence to put its tongue to other uses.”

“Put me down, Thor,” Loki demands, beating his fists against Thor’s back. He will not suffer this indignity in front of Thor’s mortal friends, he will not.

Thor only chuckles and pats Loki on the rump, sending a frisson of electricity up his spine as well as a very insistent, reminding ache.

“Wait, where are you guys going?” asks Steve. “We need to report back to Director Fury about what happened here.” He pauses, before giving them a cautious smile. “And let our teammates know about the news. Of your wedding.”

“Perhaps you should go on ahead,” Thor says, turning to speak, and Loki can almost hear the broad grin in his voice. He gives Loki’s bottom a sharp, playful smack as he carries his betrothed away. “We are, as you say on Midgard, ‘getting a room’.”

Stark and Rogers groan, while Heimdall, to his credit, neither blushes nor rolls his eyes at the innuendo; he only gives one long, slow blink as he sends the Midgardians on their way.