410 My OC Stash #10 - If I Could Start Again by Taaroko (MCU)

-Gots to be the best Second Chance!Thor fic i've read, the no slash is also a great addition~

Synopsis: Stormbreaker strikes Thanos a couple inches to the left of where it does in canon, with much more satisfying results. However, revenge alone won't fill the voids left behind by all that Thor has lost. Time travel canon-divergent AU. Heavy focus on the Brodinsons. No slash.

Rated: T

Words: 203K

Posted on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12962091/1/If-I-Could-Start-Again (Taaroko)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics/originals mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1-3 (exceptional)

Thor hurled Stormbreaker towards Thanos. It cut through the power of all the stones and struck just where Thor had intended: right at the left shoulder. He landed behind it and bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. This was not a joyous victory, but damn if it was not asatisfying one. The arm hung useless and Thanos's eyes were wide with pain and disbelief. "I told you you would die for that," said Thor. He pushed the axe even deeper until it severed the arm completely.

"You've doomed us all," Thanos gasped. "I would have saved the universe."

"You call it salvation, slaughtering half of my people when they were already but a fraction of Asgard's numbers from mere weeks ago? Wiping out the dwarves and leaving only their king behind to suffer?" said Thor. "You think yourself a just god, capable of making the hard choices, but there is nothing in you but cruelty. My brother was right. You will never be a god."

Thanos tried to attack with his remaining hand, but with a mighty roar, Thor swung Stormbreaker again, this time for the neck. There was another spray of violet blood, followed by two more thumps. The Titan had fallen.

All around Thor, the battle was coming to an end. The gauntlet lay on the grass at his feet, still on Thanos's severed arm. The green gem in the thumb setting faced upward. Time.

How little time it had taken for Thor to lose everything. His world. His friends. All but a pitiful remnant of his people. His entire family. It seemed incredible that he had cared so much about losing his hair and his hammer so recently. Neither mattered to him at all now, and what was losing an eye compared to nearly everyone he had ever loved?

He had stopped Thanos. He had gotten his revenge. What was left for him now but to go back to the refugees who'd fled with the Valkyrie? Surely there was nothing else he could do. And yet...

Thor wasn't really thinking. Someone was calling his name—Rogers, perhaps. People were realizing Thanos had fallen. Thor barely heard them. He used the point of Stormbreaker's purple-stained blade to pry the Time Stone free of the gauntlet, then bent down and picked it up.

"Thor, what are you doing?" It was the rabbit. "You shouldn't be holding one of those things in your bare hand."

Thor ignored him. He clenched his fist around Time hard enough to drive it into his flesh. Burning green light erupted from between his fingers, growing steadily brighter. He could suddenly see his entire life stretching out behind him. All those centuries of taking everything he had for granted. He saw the future stretching out ahead of him too, in all its possibilities. Many of them showed cause for hope, but none showed the faces he longed to see again.

Dimly, he could hear voices shouting at him to let the Stone go, but he would not. He clung to it even tighter, though the pain was building. He turned his gaze to the past and yelled as he felt himself unraveling.

X

Thor felt a sensation not unlike a missing a step when going down stairs. He was no longer on the battlefield on Earth, being consumed by green fire; instead, he found he was sitting on the steps in one of the feast halls in the palace. There was an overturned table, with food, plates, and cutlery strewn all across the floor. "What?" he breathed.

Soft footsteps came from behind, and when he turned and saw whose they were, he felt like he'd been struck in the chest. Loki. Very much alive, though his hair was rather shorter than he was accustomed to of late. "Brother?" he said, getting to his feet. "Is this Valhalla?"

Loki stared at him in confusion. "Valhalla? We are in Asgard. Why would you—"

He didn't get the chance to finish his question, because Thor had lifted him off his feet in a crushing hug. "Thor! What are you doing?" Thor only hugged him tighter. His little brother was really here, solid and warm and breathing—well, perhaps he was holding on too tight for that last one, but he was alive.

And that wasn't all. "What's this?!" Four people walked into the room, three of whom Thor had thought he would never see again. The tears that had begun building up the moment he saw Loki now flowed freely from his eyes—both of which he now realized felt like his own.

He was dimly aware of Loki managing to push him off. "If not Valhalla, then surely this is a dream," he said.

"Brother, what is wrong with you? I thought you would be cross about your coronation, not—"

"My coronation?" Thor repeated, and then he realized. He remembered flipping that table in his wrath. He remembered Loki coming around the pillar to sit with him, and then Sif and the Warriors Three entering. Right before they went to Jotunheim.

Right before it all went wrong.

Time. The Time Stone had sent him back. None of it had happened yet. And now, none of it had to.

An incredulous laugh burst its way out of him, and he dashed over to his friends, unable to contain his happiness at seeing them again. He hugged Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg (causing the latter to drop his plate), and even Sif, for though she was not dead in his time, it had been years since he'd last seen her. She was the only one whose startlement didn't prevent her from hugging him back.

"Well," said Fandral. "You're certainly taking this setback better than we anticipated."

"Yes," said Volstagg, determinedly putting together another platter of food. "It hardly seems the moment for such an outpouring of affection, not that I'm complaining."

Thor paid no attention. He rounded on Loki. "Where are Mother and Father? I must see them." He ran a hand through his hair—which was no longer short. "And Heimdall will be in the Observatory." On impulse, he stuck out his right hand. He could already feel the familiar response. "It's all still here." Mjolnir flew into his hand, and he laughed again through his tears, tossing it up and catching it. It felt oddly small now, but so wonderfully familiar.

"Thor," said Sif, touching his arm. "Why do you speak as though...I don't know...as though you've been gone for years?"

"Because I have," said Thor. "The Norns have given me a second chance, and I intend to make the most of it."

"What are you talking about?" said Loki. He had come around to stand beside the others. All five of them stood before him, exchanging bewildered and concerned looks.

"I don't know that you'd believe me if I told you. I'm still not sure I believe it myself." He couldn't help staring around at absolutely everything. How had he never noticed how beautiful it all was? Home.

"You must let us decide that for ourselves," said Hogun.

The smile slid from his face as the weight of everything he'd lived through returned to the forefront of his mind. "My friends," he said, voice full of emotion, one hand on Loki's neck, the other on Fandral's shoulder. "I am not the callow fool who thought to sit upon Hlidskjalf today. I am the Thor of a most terrible future. In a mere handful of years since I first lived through this day, I have watched nearly all that I hold dear taken from me while I was unable to stop it." His grips on them tightened. "I have seen Ragnarok, and worse." Their alarm greatly increased at this. Ragnarok was the worst fear of every Asgardian. "But on my life, I will not let it happen this time."

X

After that extraordinary pronouncement, Thor strode from the hall, leaving all of them dumbstruck in his wake.

"Can it be true?" said Sif faintly.

"You think he was lying?" said Fandral.

"Thor hasn't a single dishonest bone in his body," said Volstagg thickly around a bite of cheese. "As incredible as his claims were, he sounded perfectly sincere. I shudder to think what he has experienced. Worse than Ragnarok?"

"I don't think he was lying," said Sif. "But how can such a thing be possible?"

"You know more of magic than any other in Asgard, Loki," said Hogun. "What say you?"

"I have never heard of magic that can alter time," said Loki. "But that does not mean it's impossible. However, it is far more likely this is simply an imposter. What better way to engineer Ragnarok than by replacing or taking control of the Crown Prince?"

That possibility had plainly occurred to none of them, and they all looked horrified. "Then how can we be certain he is truly Thor and under no fell influence?" said Sif.

"Leave that to me," said Loki, and he left to follow Thor—or whoever he was. This evening was not going at all how he had thought it would. His little scheme with the Frost Giants had successfully delayed the coronation, and right now, he should have been guiding Thor towards something incredibly reckless that would finally prove to Father how foolish it would be to give him a throne. After Thor flipped the table over in his rage, it should have been but the work of a moment to do just that. Instead, in the blink of an eye, Thor had become a completely different man, one who described the Thor Loki knew as a callow fool and acted as though everything around him was wondrous, no longer remotely bothered by the botched coronation.

He caught up to Thor two corridors later, halfway to the throne room. Thor spotted him. "Good," he said, and he slowed his pace until Loki was at his side. "There is much for both of us to discuss with Father."

Loki stared at Thor intently. He probed with his seidr for any signs of foreign magics about him. There was nothing but the familiar crackling elemental energy that always resided beneath Thor's skin. And yet he was still acting nothing like Thor, even in the simple movements of walking. His stride wasn't a cocky strut; rather, there was a quiet self-assurance to his step, and he carried himself with genuine regality, despite the way he kept looking at everything around them like he found it both painful and beautiful. Loki had planned to test the waters carefully, but instead he opted for a more direct approach. "How can I be certain you are not some imposter in my brother's form?" he asked.

Thor smiled, but it looked pained. "How would you have me convince you? Shall I recount stories of our childhood or our adventures together?" He asked it without a trace of uneasiness.

"That would be a start," said Loki.

"Well, there was the time when we were children when I thought I had found the most magnificent snake, but then it turned into you, and you stabbed me."

Loki had to bite back a laugh. Thor saw his reaction and chuckled. "I told that story recently, and you had the same response to it then. Why did you do that? I know it was only the first of many oh-so-humorous stabbings, but I never knew what prompted it."

"I hardly remember," said Loki. "I think we had been learning about some war where the victors won through subterfuge, and you declared that you would never fall for such tactics."

"Ah, so you felt the need to prove me wrong," said Thor.

"Naturally."

"Was that satisfactory, then? Do you believe I am who I say?"

"It seems increasingly likely," Loki admitted.

"Well, then there is something we must discuss before we see Father." His tone had become rather stern all of a sudden, and he had stopped walking. The Thor Loki was used to never had the patience for something like sternness; when he disapproved of anything, he would either toss out an insult and then forget about it or else flash straight to anger. Even if this truly was Thor, merely older and wiser, Loki did not like being unable to predict his moods and actions.

"What would that be?"

Thor glanced around before saying in a low voice, "I know it was you who let the Frost Giants into the vault."

Loki only barely succeeded in not reacting. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

Thor laughed. "If you're going to lie, at least put your usual skill into it." Loki glared at him, now seriously weighing the merits of stabbing him. If he was really Thor, it would be excellent revenge for that remark. If not, he would have stabbed an enemy of Asgard. "Don't worry," Thor went on. "I won't tell Father. I know your intentions weren't treasonous; you only wanted to delay my becoming king, and you were right. The Thor you know would have made a very poor king indeed."

"You have a strange way of attempting to convince me you are Thor. He would sooner cut off his own hand than admit I am right about anything."

"Experience has been a ruthless teacher. One of its lessons was that I would have done better to listen to my brother's counsel more."

Loki stared at him. He'd stopped hoping he would hear words like that from Thor a long time ago. If this was an imposter, he was either extremely stupid or extremely clever.

"The first time I lived this day, by the end of it, I had started a war with Jotunheim and Father banished me to Midgard as a mortal in punishment. It was a punishment I sorely needed, but it meant that I was not here for you when you needed me most." There was something beyond regret in his voice. Grief.

Loki felt a great sense of foreboding. When he needed Thor most? He suddenly remembered the first odd thing Thor had said, and the foreboding increased tenfold. What had happened? Was it the war with Jotunheim? Had he fallen in battle? "Why did you think you were in Valhalla when you saw me?" he asked.

"Because…" Thor swallowed hard, and thunder rumbled outside. "Less than two days ago for me, you were murdered before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop it."

Loki wasn't conscious of accepting that this was really Thor, but his hand found its way to his shoulder. Part of him had always believed his elder brother was indestructible and untouchable, the golden prince of Asgard renowned across Yggdrasil for his strength and valor, and the best Loki could ever hope for was to be the shadow trailing in his wake. He had never seen Thor hurting like this, and for all that he had schemed lately to keep him off the throne, the sight of him hunching inward as though he was nursing a gaping chest wound was painful—more so even than the idea of his own death. "I'm here, Brother," he said. Somewhat awkwardly, as he hadn't been the one to initiate this in a long time, he pulled Thor into a hug. "You have stopped it, don't you see?"

Thor let out an incoherent, guttural sound and returned the hug, his shoulders shaking. "I swear to you, I will not fail you again."

Chapter 2

Thor eventually mastered himself enough to release his hold on Loki. It was something of a surprise that his brother had allowed the embrace to go on so long, let alone initiated it, but it had gone a long way towards removing any doubts he still had that he was truly back in his own past with a chance to prevent the many calamities he'd lived through. It also gave him hope that things were not so broken between them already that they could not be mended.

Loki was watching him with his brows furrowed slightly in concern. It was hard to believe how much younger he looked. Had it really only been eight years since this moment? He shifted under Thor's gaze, fidgeting with his hands as he often did when anxious about something. "Well, shall we go to Father, then, or are you going to stand there all night?"

Thor frowned. "On second thought," he said slowly, "it might be best to wait until after the Odinsleep. As I have no intention of starting a war today, there is no immediate threat."

"You? Second thoughts?" said Loki with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. "You'll have me doubting your identity again if you keep this up."

Thor gave a rueful chuckle. "I'm sorry I cannot put you at ease by blundering my way forward like I always have. There is far too much at stake." Including his relationship with his brother. He would not settle for merely preventing his death, and he would not make the same mistake he had apparently made all his life—that of assuming that everything was fine just because Loki voiced no discontentment. It had taken him quite a while after the destruction of the Bifrost to understand that his little brother had not simply gone mad over the course of three days. Happy people did not try to destroy entire planets just because they found out they were adopted.

"You don't even want to show off your sudden maturity to Father so that he will change his mind about cancelling your coronation?"

"No, Mother can be regent as usual. One more time will make little difference. Though perhaps I should recommend you for the throne instead."

Loki's mouth fell open in a rather comical fashion, but he quickly snapped it shut again, his face reddening and his fists clenching. "If that was a jest, it was not an amusing one."

"It wasn't a jest!" said Thor, hastily stepping out of stabbing range, just in case. "You are far more skilled than I in every area of statecraft. Politics, diplomacy, economics, strategy, negotiation."

"That is not the point. Even if I wanted the throne, Asgard wouldn't have me!"

"Why not? You're as much a prince as I am."

Loki gave him a look that was equal parts incredulous and withering. "Perhaps you haven't gained any wisdom from your dark future after all, if you think the people would be just as content with the silver-tongued trickster ruling over them as their golden warrior prince, especially right after they turned out over a hundred thousand strong just to see you begin your first turn as regent. They would think I had used my 'cowardly sorcery' to usurp your place."

Thor suppressed a wince. Loki's tone was one of disdain and indifference, but now that he knew to listen for it, he could hear the hurt it masked—the longing for recognition and approval he kept buried deep. Words full of bitterness, rage, and despair echoed through Thor's mind from another time. "I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal." Well, he'd just have to show him that he was.

He laid his hand on Loki's shoulder. He hoped he wasn't making him uncomfortable with the overflow of affection, but after what he'd been through, he wasn't likely to be able to contain himself any time soon. "Brother, any who fails to see your worth is a fool, and I am ashamed that there were times when I was such a fool, even though it's been your sorcery saving my and our friends' lives every other adventure we've ever gone on. I might be the king our people think they want, but you are much closer to being the sort of king they need."

Loki scowled and shrugged Thor's hand away, but the blush on his pale cheeks told him that he had taken his words to heart, no matter how begrudgingly. "Pretty words, particularly coming from you, but you're still the firstborn, so don't think you can just dump your responsibilities onto me just because you're finally aware of how unprepared you are to shoulder them."

They began walking in the direction of the family wing of the palace. The first few minutes passed in comfortable silence. Thor continued to drink in every detail of their surroundings, torn between utter joy that it was still here and anguish over his memories of its destruction.

"Do you truly no longer desire the throne?" Loki asked eventually. Thor looked at him, and Loki raised his hands. "What? All our lives, it's been 'when I'm king' this and 'when I'm king' that, and now you're not even bothered that I brought Frost Giants to Asgard to sabotage your first regency, and you'd rather Mother or I sit on Hlidskjalf in your stead. Forgive me if I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that."

Thor ran a hand through his hair, still not used to having it at this length again. "I'll take it if I must, and I'll do my best to rule our people well and protect them, but the thought gives me little joy." He smiled, thinking back to his memories of this day. "I remember you asking me if I was nervous before the coronation."

"Yes, and you laughed me off."

"I did," he agreed, "but I should have told you why. Part of it was arrogance and my lack of a true understanding of what it means to rule, but the small part of me wise enough to be nervous was still at ease because I knew I'd have you by my side to make up for the ways in which I might fall short. I may have done a poor job of showing it, but I have always been proud to have you as my brother and my friend."

"Dear Brother, what has happened to turn you so soft?" Loki said it in a tone of mock disgust, and the pleased blush was back, but Thor felt a pang, remembering when he had hurled almost identical words at him in scathing disdain and rage.

"All those times I spoke of what I'd do as king, I pictured you there as my closest advisor, but I don't think I've ever asked you if that's what you wanted."

Loki grimaced and shrugged. "What would be the point? How much freedom does either of us really have to determine what roles we'll play? You're for the throne and I'm for whatever advantageous political marriage Mother and Father can arrange."

"I suppose," said Thor. "But I can at least see to it you aren't shipped off to Alfheim or Vanaheim or whatever realm it is to live with your in-laws forever, if you'd rather stay on Asgard."

Loki frowned at him in a way that reminded him of the elevator on Sakaar, which he took as a good sign. "Are you suggesting that whether or not you lobby to keep me here as your advisor would be up to me?"

"Of course," said Thor. "I'd love to have you here always, but I wouldn't force you to stay if it wasn't what you wanted."

Loki appeared too stunned by this to form a reply. So instead of waiting until the silence could get awkward, Thor changed the subject. "Hey, what do you say we go to Midgard in the morning?"

Loki's brow furrowed in confusion and perhaps distaste. "Midgard? Why would you want to go there? Isn't that where you said Father banished you the first time around? I'd have thought you'd never want to go back after that."

"Of course I want to go back. I made many excellent friends there and we'll be needing their help, and they ours, if we are to thwart many of the dangers the next few years will hold."

Loki gave him a rather condescending stare. "The mortals are barely capable of making it to their own moon. What possible help could they be at thwarting dangers like Ragnarok?"

Thor grinned. "I suppose you'll just have to find out when we get to Midgard, won't you?"

Loki glared at him. Thor continued to smile brightly, and after a few seconds, Loki rolled his eyes and gave a protracted groan. "Oh, very well, I'll go with you."

"Wonderful!" said Thor, thumping Loki on the back hard enough to make him stagger. The prospect of introducing Loki to the Avengers as an ally had him feeling positively giddy. He was sure that Loki and Stark would get on famously, and Loki would be much more use to Jane and Erik in their work than he'd ever been.

The thought of Jane dampened his excitement somewhat as he entered his chambers. He wasn't sure what he should do where she was concerned. Should he try to court her again? Avoiding the same pitfalls that drove them apart the first time around would not be the same as getting the jump on enemies he knew were coming. None of those factors had changed. His responsibilities to the nine realms would still keep him away from Earth more often than not. The periods of separation that had felt quite brief to him had been much harder for her. He simply hadn't been free to prioritize her the way she deserved, and though he gladly would have brought her with him to any realm where she would be reasonably safe, she couldn't leave the groundbreaking work she was doing behind. In the end, just before he left for Muspelheim, they'd come to the unhappy conclusion that it would be for the best if they went their separate ways.

Thor did not think it would be right to start something with Jane that would most likely have to end, but he also thought it was unfair that only he held the memories of their time together. Perhaps it would be easier to decide when he saw her.

X

Thor's musings on everything he needed to do to make sure things turned out right this time were cut short by a soft knock on his door. "Thor? May I enter?"

His heart seemed to freeze in his chest, and he abruptly ceased his endless pacing. "Yes, Mother."

The door opened, and Frigga walked in. The mere sight of her alive and whole made him feel like a mortal again, or perhaps like a child. He was powerless to do anything but stare. She was so beautiful.

"I'm so sorry the coronation didn't go as you hoped, ástin mín." She walked gracefully up to him and lifted a hand to his cheek. "Are you terribly disappointed?"

"No, I am well, Mother," he said hoarsely, covering her hand with his own. He wanted to hold on and never let go. "I know that under the circumstances, it is best if you act as regent as you have always done before. The Jotnar are less likely to attempt another assault if an experienced ruler sits on Hlidskjalf."

Her brows drew together and concern filled her eyes. "What is this pain and sorrow I see in you?" she asked.

"It is nothing," he said. He would destroy Malekith and his Kursed beast before they could so much as lay eyes on her this time.

"It is not," she replied firmly.

"It is nothing you need worry over," he amended, catching her other hand too giving both of them a reassuring squeeze. "I swear it. There is much I need to discuss with you and Father, but it would be better to wait until he wakes. I beg you not to trouble yourself."

She did not look entirely satisfied by that, but she nodded and squeezed his hands back. "Very well. But what will you be doing while your father sleeps? I want to be sure you don't harbor any wild notions of retribution against the Jotnar or something equally reckless."

Thor smiled, but it was a little bitter. She certainly knew him well. "Nothing like that. I was actually thinking of going to Midgard tomorrow. Loki too."

"Midgard?" she said, looking intrigued. "It's certainly been a while since you last went there."

He seized upon that for his excuse. "Exactly. Heimdall has said that the mortals have made great advancements since my last visit. I would like to see them for myself. Perhaps they are close to a point where we could start engaging them in trade and building an alliance. It would be good to begin laying the foundations for that, would it not?"

"You needn't worry that I will object," said Frigga, laughing. "It does seem an excellent idea. Perhaps you will still get something valuable out of this regency even if you aren't on the throne yourself."

He beamed at her, relieved. "Thank you, Mother."

"Well then, I will leave you to get your rest before you go." She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and he pulled her to him in a tight hug. Some of the worry returned to her face when they drew apart, but she didn't press it this time, and left the room.

X

Loki occupied himself with a book until he was sure Thor was asleep (the thunderous snores took far longer to start up than they usually did, but they were rather difficult to miss), then crept down the corridor and into his chambers. For the second time today, he was about to do something he probably shouldn't, but his curiosity was too strong to ignore. He simply had to know more about this future Thor had lived and which had wrought such profound changes in him.

Thor was sprawled diagonally across his bed on his stomach, arms stuck out to either side, the covers all askew. Loki snorted. He was just as much of a bed-hog now as he had been when they were children sneaking into each other's rooms because they weren't used to being out of their shared nursery yet. Loki had woken up on the floor on more than one occasion after going to his big brother's room for protection from the monsters in his nightmares.

He hesitated for a moment. Breaking into someone else's mind was one of the darker applications of seidr. It was supposed to be reserved for use against enemies, to expose their weaknesses or gain valuable information. To do it to one's sleeping brother without his knowledge was a serious breach of trust. But surely the circumstances justified it? If everything truly had gone to Hel in the future Thor had come back from, then he was going to need all the help he could get to save it, and how could Loki help him if he didn't know any details?

Resolve firming, he crouched beside the bed and pressed the heel of his hand to Thor's forehead.

Chapter 3

There were advantages and disadvantages to using this spell on an unconscious person. The subject didn't know it was happening—provided he didn't wake up in the middle of it. Advantage. The subject's obliviousness meant the intruder was more able to direct what he saw. Advantage. Dreams and fantasy wove together with the true memories, sometimes to the point where it became impossible to tell where fantasy ended and reality began. Disadvantage. The intruder's own stray thoughts could veer things wildly off course. Disadvantage.

Whether the subject was asleep or awake, entering someone else's mind was different every time, and it was not something determined by the intruder. Sometimes you became a bodiless observer. Sometimes you watched their memories like a play. Sometimes you could walk freely through the constructs of their psyche as though a visitor in their home, with different memories contained in the different rooms. Sometimes you watched their memories as if through their own eyes.

This time, it seemed to be closest to the third option. First, he found himself standing on the rainbow bridge not far from where the Observatory should have been, except that the great golden sphere was gone. The bridge came to a jagged end, and Father stood at the very edge, holding onto a large, booted foot. Loki peered over and saw that the foot belonged to Thor, who was clutching Gungnir. The Loki of Thor's memory was holding onto the lower half of Gungnir by one hand. Loki watched himself cry out to Odin, but he couldn't make out the words. Perhaps Thor had not properly heard them and so could not include them in his memories. The hand slipped farther towards the end of Gungnir's shaft.

"No, Loki," said Odin in quiet rebuke. Loki had no idea what this was about, but he watched a light go out in the eyes of the memory version of himself.

"Loki, no!" said Thor, his voice full of dread and pleading. It made no difference, and Loki watched himself deliberately release the end of Gungnir and fall into a swirling vortex below while Thor screamed.

Loki didn't understand. Thor had said he was murdered, but this… Before he could attempt to make further sense of it, everything blurred and shifted, and now he was standing on a ridge of ash-black soil. The place felt lifeless, and it was lit by what looked like a black hole. Svartalfheim? What the Hel were they doing here? He spun around, wanting to get his bearings as quickly as possible. Thor and another version of Loki—both with rather longer hair than they currently had—were battling...no, it couldn't be. Dark elves? But they were supposed to be extinct! A woman was standing near where the long-haired Loki was fighting four elves with daggers. She wore Asgardian garb but was rather more petite than most Aesir women and he didn't recognize her at all. What was more, even if most of them weren't fully-fledged warriors like Sif, no Aesir maiden who had seen more than six centuries would stand to the side, weaponless, while her princes did battle. Was she a mortal, then?

The long-haired Loki finished off the last of the four dark elves, then glanced over to where Thor, whose opponent looked more like a beast than an elf, was being pummelled into the black dirt. Loki watched his counterpart seize something off one of the elf corpses' belts, along with one of their split-bladed swords, and sprint over to them. He plunged the sword through the beast's back. This only seemed to anger it, for it turned and impaled Loki onto the portion of the blade that protruded from its chest. Thor screamed again while Loki gasped, though he also slipped the object he'd grabbed onto the beast's belt. It hurled him into the sand, where he convulsed around his wound. He mustered enough strength to sneer at the beast. "See you in Hel, monster."

It realized what he had done and scrabbled madly at its belt, but the device exploded, and the creature was sucked, rather gruesomely, into what appeared to be some kind of weaponized spatial anomaly, like a miniature black hole. Thor heaved himself to his feet and ran to Loki, pulling him into his arms.

The present-day Loki watched this, just as confused as he was by the first scene. Thor wasn't the most eloquent with his words, but even he wouldn't have described this as murder, surely. This was an honorable death in battle. The kind any Aesir aspired to—though Loki would have preferred his own to come a few millennia later. Soon, the Loki in Thor's arms ceased to speak, and his eyes fell closed as an ashy texture spread over his skin. Thor roared in grief. The skies darkened in this dead realm's equivalent of an oncoming storm, the loose black dirt swirling up everywhere. Within moments, it had obscured everything, and then the scene shifted again.

Now Loki was standing in the wreckage of a spaceship he had never seen before, the floor of which was littered with dead Aesir, as well as a few aliens of various species. An anguished cry that was already becoming far too familiar caused him to spin around, and he saw a large purple alien—a Titan?—pulling a lance out of Heimdall's chest. What was Heimdall doing on a ship instead of standing at his post? Where had his armor gone, and when had his hair ever been that long?

"You're going to die for that!" said Thor. Loki was even more startled by his appearance than Heimdall's. His hair was shorn down to scarcely longer than an inch, there was a patch over his right eye, and the little he could see of him that wasn't bound in strips of metal looked bruised and dirty. Another strip of metal flew to cover his mouth.

Loki had an extremely bad feeling about all of this. Only one Titan had ever been spoken of on Asgard. The Mad Titan. Father had waged war against him long ago, before the fall of the Valkyrior. But even with their help, it had been a long and bloody war, and Asgard's victory had not been absolute. Thanos had been driven from Yggdrasil and sealed outside its borders, and the Tesseract, the prize he had failed to claim from Odin, had been hidden away on Midgard. But now, Loki watched as the Titan crushed the Tesseract in his hand and dropped the Space Stone into one of the settings of the golden gauntlet he wore, which looked to be of dwarven make. It already contained a purple stone, and there were four settings remaining.

Loki barely had time to process the horror of what this meant—worse than Ragnarok, indeed—when a version of himself strode into view, past the Titan's henchmen. He wore leather armor unlike any from Asgard, though still in his usual colors of black and green. He made rather a business of pledging his loyalty to the Titan, but from where the present day Loki stood, he could see the dagger his counterpart conjured behind his back. So could Thor. Were they truly so pressed for options that one dagger was the best he could do? Apparently so, and it was woefully insufficient. The Titan caught his attack in a field of blue energy, then seized him by the throat with his gauntleted hand. He made eye contact with Thor, who strained at his bonds to no avail, and choked the life out of him.

The present day Loki sank to his knees, feeling like he might be sick. Murder. Yes. At last, the term applied. How much of this was accurate to the real events? How much was Thor's subconscious making alterations?

Shift. They were back on the shattered Rainbow Bridge, but this time it was the one-eyed, short-haired Thor dangling over the edge. Instead of hanging there, holding onto Gungnir, he made a wild grab with his free hand and caught onto Loki before he could let go. "I have you, Brother!" he declared. "It will not be as it was before!"

A cold laugh made Loki jump and Thor awkwardly crane his neck around. A woman with a great horned headdress was standing behind Odin on the bridge. "No," Odin whispered, but before he could do anything else, she had conjured a wicked-looking black blade in one hand and run him through. Thor and the present-day Loki both yelled, and Odin's grip slackened. Thor and the dream Loki both fell into the vortex. The woman picked up Mjolnir, which was lying on the bridge, and the scene remained intact long enough for Loki to see the shadow of the her headdress grow until it cast all of Asgard into darkness.

Shift. Loki found himself running in Thor's wake through the halls of the palace, running as fast as they could go. "Faster, faster! I can change it!" Thor was growling to himself. The hallway appeared to be lengthening before them. "No!" said Thor, and he pressed even faster. Loki was sure he was only keeping up because none of this was real. At last, Thor burst into the room at the end of the corridor—Mother's private weaving room. He screamed. Loki ran around him and saw that the same creature Thor that had run him through on Svartalfheim had just done the same thing to the Queen of Asgard.

Shift. Svartalfheim again, but now it was the Titan Thor fought. "Dread it," he said, "run from it...destiny still arrives."

"NO!" Thor bellowed. Instead of Mjolnir, he fought with an axe wreathed in blue flame. "I'm going to change it! This time I'm going to kill you before you can ever lay a hand on him or anyone else!"

The Titan landed a punch to Thor's chest, sending him flying back. At the same time, his other hand shot out behind him and closed around the throat of the Loki who had been creeping up on him with a dagger. "It will always end this way," he said, crushing Loki's throat while Thor watched. "We stand here on a planet your grandfather killed five thousand years ago, and you think you can prevent the consequences by going back a handful of years? Destiny is coming for you, grandson of Bor, son of Odin, brother of Hela. You and all that you love."

Thor screamed. His one eye blazed white and lightning sparked off him in every direction, and he sent the axe spinning at the Titan. It thudded home in his chest, and he fell, but there was a dark elf waiting behind him, and the woman with the horned headdress was behind him, sitting astride a massive black wolf, her head thrown back in laughter. Behind her, a fire demon, who grew and grew until he obscured everything else. Thor looked around, and the barren ground was suddenly strewn with bodies besides Loki's. Frigga. Odin. Heimdall. The Warriors Three. Sif. A dark-skinned Aesir woman in the armor of a Valkyrie. A man in a red and gold suit with a glowing light in the chest. A man in a red, white, and blue suit. A smaller man in nothing but tattered trousers, a greenish tinge fading from his skin. All three appeared to be mortals, and there were several other Midgardians mingled in with the dead Aesir as well.

Loki couldn't bear any more of this, and Thor's subconscious was plainly becoming less coherent anyway. He removed his hand from Thor's forehead in reality, which abruptly severed the connection, flinging him back into his own head.

X

Thor woke very suddenly from a terrible nightmare of death and failure, and he found Loki standing over him, his face white as a sheet. But he barely had time to register his brother's presence before Loki vanished from sight. A second later, the door flew open and slammed shut again.

It wasn't hard to work out what had happened. Loki, presented with a mystery as intriguing as what the next eight years might hold that Thor wanted to prevent, had decided that he would take a look inside Thor's mind rather than wait to be told. As a younger man, Thor would probably have been furious with his brother for that—assuming he had paid close enough attention to put the pieces together in the first place. But now, Thor's only priority was Loki's well-being, so he leapt out of bed and went in search of him.

Finding the God of Mischief when he didn't want to be found was no easy task. Loki had already cloaked himself, and no matter how hard Frigga had tried to teach him, Thor had never quite gotten the hang of sensing illusion magic, let alone seeing through it. The day after her funeral had been a rare exception, due more to Loki's misery than Thor's perceptiveness. So to find him now, he went from one to the next of all the places Loki could usually be found, calling out for him. He got no response in Loki's chambers, the library, or any of the little nooks around the palace where he'd once come across Loki reading. By the time he trudged out to Frigga's garden, he was losing hope of finding him before morning.

"Loki!" he said loudly, for the hundredth time. "Come out! I'm not angry with you, I only want to talk." He walked between beds of beautifully cultivated flowers and other plants from all across the nine realms and beyond. "Much of what you saw is what I have lived, and it isn't even the half of it, but none of it is set in stone. I know we can change it!"

"Do you?" came a voice to his right. He turned and saw Loki materialize beside a tree from Alfheim as he dropped the cloaking spell. "Do you really know that? What if it can't be changed? You can't deny that you fear it."

"I do fear it," said Thor. "More than anything, I fear having to watch those I love suffer and die all over again. But I won't let that stop me from trying. I have the advantage over our enemies this time. I know more than they do, and I know what they want and where they must go to obtain it. If I have my way, Mother will never so much as lay eyes on a Dark Elf, Hela will never harm another soul, and you will never be within Thanos's clutches."

"Then Hela does exist?" said Loki. Thor could understand why that particular point would be of greater interest to him than Dark Elves or the Mad Titan.

"Yes," said Thor. "It turns out I'm not the firstborn after all. We have a sister. She's been imprisoned in Niflheim for her crimes longer than we've been alive. Father wiped all knowledge of her from Asgard, but she's the one who slaughtered the Valkyrior when we were boys. When she got free, she massacred most of our people. All the Einherjar. Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun. In the end, the only way we could stop her was by bringing about Ragnarok."

A long silence followed this explanation.

"And here I was worried about you on the throne," said Loki eventually, clearly attempting to lighten his own misgivings with humor, though judging from his grimace, it hadn't worked very well. "Is she what you want to talk to Father about when he wakes?"

"Not the only thing, but yes."

There was a pause in which Loki looked around at Frigga's many carefully tended plants. "The Dark Elves."

"Not as extinct as we have always believed," said Thor.

"What happened?"

"We had stumbled upon the Aether by mistake. Malekith and his army came for it, hoping to remake Yggdrasil in the form they chose, at the cost of all other life in its branches. Mother died defending it. That broke Father, I think, and then you were gravely wounded avenging her the very next day. Mortally wounded, it appeared at the time."

It was difficult to force the words out, and when he looked at Loki, he saw that his eyes were shining and his fists were clenched. "But you stopped Malekith."

"I did. And this time we will do it before any of that can happen."

Loki paused again, and Thor saw him picking at the skin of his palm with his fingernails. "Brother," he said, far more hesitant than he usually sounded. "Did I really attempt to end my own life, or was that mere nightmare?"

Thor closed his eyes, resisting the urge to grab Loki in another hug. "That was real."

"It looked like was to happen not long from now."

"Not long at all. Just three days."

"Why?" Loki's tone was one of incredulity mixed with hints of apprehension and contempt.

Thor looked at him. "I could tell you everything I know about that right now," he said, "but I beg you not to ask it of me."

Loki's brow furrowed. "Is it truly so terrible?"

"It was to you, though I have never fully understood why."

"And you think you can keep me safe by keeping me ignorant of it?" said Loki heatedly.

If Loki thought he could provoke Thor into speaking, he was mistaken. "No," he said. "I think it all could have been avoided if you had been told long ago, but I am not the right person to tell you. You deserve to hear it from Father." Loki looked away, not quite managing to conceal an air of sulkiness. "Can you wait until he wakes?" Thor pressed on. "I will speak to him when he does and ensure that you don't have to wait a moment longer than that."

Loki took a while to consider. He looked troubled, but after a few seconds, his expression smoothed into something lighter. "The curiosity may drive me mad," he said with an exaggerated sigh of longsuffering, "so it'll be up to you to keep me too busy to fret over it."

"Then you still want to come with me to Midgard?"

He rolled his eyes. "I don't know that I'll ever want to go to Midgard, but I'm not letting you make a mess of this by trying to do it all by yourself."

Thor smiled. "And I don't have to worry about you using that spell on me again if I go back to sleep?"

At this, Loki looked slightly chagrined. "I shouldn't have done that," he said. "It was wrong of me."

Thor's smile became a grin. "It's alright." He slapped Loki on the back. "You're still easily my favorite sibling."

Loki scowled, and Thor hastily dodged an oncoming dagger, laughing.