st_ormbreaker | (no subject)

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Thor started off by knocking. When Loki didn't answer, he let himself in.

It doesn't take him long to find him. The first floor is easy enough to survey, and he saw from outside that Loki wasn't on the roof or the balcony, which left only the upper floor of Loki's room. As gifted as an illusionist as Loki was, it was easy enough for him to see through the alcove, particularly since he was already intimately familiar with the layout of the room.

Thor passes through it easily and drops the journal on the edge of the bed with a little thump.

"We're going to talk about this," he says in a tone that broaches no argument. It is simply a fact. Thor has no interest in wallowing in his own misery, and he has even less interest in allowing his brother to wallow in his own because of him.

It's time to talk.

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Thor listens and after Loki finishes, he doesn't say anything. Not immediately.

"I think something happened that forced you to change your plans," he says quietly. "I don't understand your plans, I don't often even understand you, but I don't think you're an incompetent idiot. Whatever plan you had might have worked, if events hadn't forced you along another course."

“But you left no room for the possibility that my plan, whatever it is or was, had that same flaw. You didn’t even pretend to have any confidence in my ability to not die when I’ve been warned to see it coming from possibly years away.” Loki spread his hands. “How am I supposed to translate that? It’s one thing to offer additional information and something else entirely to stomp and bellow about how I’m determined to die based on I don’t even know what.”

Thor takes a breath, briefly steeples his hands over his nose, then rubs one side of it.

"I'm sorry that you felt that way," he says. "It wasn't my intent."

It wasn't.

"I know that I'm not going to ever know what comes of you when one or the other of us returns," he says. "But that doesn't stop me from being afraid that some other me is going to lose you again. I've gone over everything that has happened hundreds of times now, trying to figure out what I could have done differently and sometimes it makes me crazy."

It had, too, immediately after his brother's death; he'd been so consumed with grief that he couldn't truly see or think straight. Even now, there were moments where his plans to kill Thanos and attempt to destroy the stones transformed into thoughts of using them himself to fix everything.

Thor still wasn't sure things could truly be fixed in his timeline. He could only hope they could be fixed in others.

After a moment, Loki nodded once, provisional acceptance. After another, he moved to sit next to Thor, making their positioning similar to one that had been commonplace when they were younger: close enough for private conspiracy (most often, Loki whispering to Thor), convenient for hanging off each other that they seldom actually did because Loki didn’t encourage physical contact. Old comfort. “I... admit that part of the reason I reacted badly is I don’t especially consider my survival a priority, there. Make no mistake, I intend to survive if I can. But it doesn’t distress me to consider I might not. On that score I only care because you apparently do.”

Thor wishes there was some way to make his brother care, but he can no sooner change that than he can their present circumstances.

"It's extremely important to me that you live," he says. "I know there are no guarantees and maybe there really isn't any real way to make this right, but you being alive would fix so many things."

Thor doesn't elaborate any further. Instead, he looks over at the journal, still sitting on the bed beside him.

Loki had to smile and shake his head. “Sentimental ass. You know you’d just have different problems.” He considered the journal as well, then sighed and reached to pick it up.

It wasn’t a battleground anymore, it might do as a peace offering.

"Maybe," Thor says. He's not entirely sure they'd be any worse than the problems he had in the few days following Loki's death. He's not even sure it's possible to have a problem worse than that.

“I don’t solve problems, I create them.” The argument was automatic, just for the sake of speaking, because Loki had opened the book and flipped past the information meant for Stark to the beginning of the runes. Thor was probably fooling himself if he thought Stark hadn’t managed to translate the runes within a day or two, but it made no real difference. The intent was there.

It was a quick read, a few paragraphs. Once he reached English and meant-for-Stark information again, Loki closed the book and tapped the cover thoughtfully.

Thor says nothing. He just looks over at Loki, as if expecting him to do or say something.

It was tempting, now, to open the book and read from the beginning, the rest and bulk in English and intended for Stark. But Loki only tapped the cover once or twice more, then handed it back to Thor. “You can return this to your human. I’ve read what you intended me to read.”

Thor doesn't take the book.

"You don't want to read the rest of it?"

“I don’t intend to go to Midgard at all. I never did.” Loki was even willing to bet that his dead had intended the same. There was nothing but a cell waiting on Midgard. “That bring the case, Stark’s sections are likely enough to be no use to me that I’m willing to be polite.”

Thor takes the journal from Loki and looks down at it. He looks over at Loki.

"There's no need for politeness, you know."

“Take the win, brother. I’m declining to intrude on what you wrote to your human.” Loki, somewhat daring, leaned on his brother. In his defense, Thor was warm and comfortable, and he was exhausted and some percentage drunk. “Politeness is shield and currency, both for future use. I’ve a decent enough truce with Stark and no idea how long it will need to hold that it’s a bad idea to risk it for a few pages of whatever.”

"I didn't just write it for him," he says, body softening to make room for Loki. True, most all of it was more relevant to Tony than it was to him, but...

"You might find it beneficial to know everything else if you want to help Tony or avoid Thanos."

He wasn't going to count on Loki wanting to help.

"There's no avoiding Thanos." Brothers made excellent pillows when that was safe to indulge or he had an excuse for forgetting it wasn't. "He's going to kill me. Don't get twisted up about telling me, I've known that for years. It's always part of any deal with him. Fail and die. Probably succeed and die too, really. It's just a matter of when and how long he makes me suffer first. Once I'm out in the open, that's that. So I no longer plan to go anywhere near your Statesman. Or Midgard."

"I can kill him," Thor says quietly. "Stormbreaker was forged specifically to kill Thanos. Your death is not an absolute. Not if we can manufacture a scenario where I can get to him at the right place, at the right time."

In the right mind.

"I don't mind." Loki waved a hand vaguely, but didn't detach himself from Thor. He didn't have to, yet. "If I run fast enough it'll buy you time, a living Heimdall, and maybe less graphic nightmares. That's a good deal. I thought maybe I'd sell him the Tesseract in exchange for not killing me and see if I couldn't cut his throat later, but... now I think not that."

"I know you don't mind dying," Thor says,doing all he can to keep the anger from rising in his voice but still not quite succeeding. "I care. You don't have to die. We can work together. I can kill Thanos."

By the time the last words left his mouth, the anger was drained from him, replaced with a stubborn insistence.

"Please."

"I told you, I intend to live if I can. If there's a path, I'll do my best to find it." That was as much of a sign as anything that it was time to pull back, armor up, get to business as usual. On his way, though, he tapped Thor's head. "It's not your responsibility anymore, brother. You've done what you can, and now you have to trust my spite and self-interest."

Thor wants to protest, to insist that Loki is his responsibility because he's his older brother, but he knows that it will fall on deaf ears.

"Okay," he says finally, and he rises to his feet, then grabs the journal.

"Are you going to be all right?"

“As I ever am, yes.” There were a number of hard limits regarding how ‘all right’ Loki could be, at least by general estimation, but if he didn’t have to completely cut the few connections (or one connection) he had he’d swing back to equilibrium quickly enough.

Thor attempts a smile.

"Okay," he says again, and he heads down the stairs and toward the door.

Now that was a gargoyle face; Thor was clearly nowhere near as good at fake smiles as Loki was. It was no doubt due to the fact that he'd never practiced.

He slid off the bed, out of the alcove (dismissing the illusory wall as he went) and down the stairs. This time, rather than wait to see what Thor would do, he used telekinetic force to hold the door closed.

If Thor was determined to leave, it wouldn't hold him - he'd just call his mini-Bifrost and go where he willed. Beyond that, well... this could be part of talking. "What's that expression, brother? Remember that you're terrible at lying."

"I'm allowed to have expressions, you know," Thor says as he tries to shrug off the bad feelings. "Even weird ones."