I Don't Want a Throne

Chapter 13- Escape

Thanos settled onto his throne, a self satisfied smirk on his face as he turned the Tesseract over in his hands idly. "Go." Thanos ordered. "Before my lenience ebbs and I decide you do not deserve your freedom."

Romanoff sprung into action immediately, wrapping Barton's arm around her shoulders and tugging him to his feet. Rogers was beside them a moment later, getting Barton's other side. Together the two of them hauled Barton along towards the exit from the throne room. Stark headed that way as well, but Thor remained frozen, his attention focused on Thanos and... the Other. The desire for vengeance was clear in his gaze and his knuckles were white on the hand that gripped Mjölnir.

Loki put a hand on his brother's arm warningly. "Don't bother." He tugged him towards the door. "Let's go." Thor remained firmly planted on the spot for another second before he gave in and took a step in the direction Loki was pulling him.

The Other's cruel voice rang out suddenly, sending shivers down Loki's spine. "If the princeling wishes to try his strength and fight us, then let him."

Thor froze once more. Uselessly Loki tried to pull him away. "Thor, don't. He's goading you. Ignore him." But Thor had never been able to walk away from a fight, especially not when his skill and strength was being brought into question. "Thor, please." If he could just get Thor out of this damned room then they would be home free. But Thor wouldn't budge.

"Come on now Pointbreak. We've got better things to do." Stark called from the doorway where he stood with Rogers, Romanoff and Barton propped up between them. Finally, Thor took his gaze off of the Other and turned to follow the others out the door.

Loki hurried after them and then the six of them were crossing the threshold out of the throne room. All of Thanos's children and soldiers remained where they were inside, leaving the six of them to their own devices. Once they were far enough away from the throne room, they finally stopped running. Barton was looking worse for wear and without Rogers and Romanoff, he would have collapsed by now. Loki wasn't sure if he was conscious at all.

"How are we supposed to get off of this ship now?" Rogers snapped. "Now that you've traded away our only means of escape!"

"There have to be escape pods somewhere." Thor suggested, "We can hijack one and fly it back to Midgard."

Stark and Romanoff stayed quiet, but they were both watching Loki intently, as though they were waiting on him to confirm something. They really were smarter than Loki had ever anticipated. He smiled a little and conjured the real Tesseract for them to see.

"Son of a bitch." Stark muttered, though he looked impressed.

"What did you give Thanos?" Thor asked, his eyes wide.

Loki replied, "An illusion. There is nothing there. Now we better go before he realizes it."

They all grabbed hands and Loki focused all of his energy on transporting them back to Stark Tower's roof. He could feel their presence beginning to shift, their physical selves beginning to travel through space- a bullet shot into Loki's forearm, a few inches above his wrist, and came clear out the other side. In his surprise at the sudden jolt of pain, he lost his concentration and fumbled to keep from dropping the Tesseract.

"I think he's figured it out." Stark said, his voice was shrill as he took in the blood flowing freely from Loki's arm. More bullets rained down upon them and forced them to break apart from another to avoid being struck down.

Around them, Thanos's soldiers poured in, surrounding them. They had no choice but to retreat back towards the throne room in a roundabout way. Loki took off down a long corridor, vanishing the space stone into his pocket dimension as he went. The thundering footsteps behind him were enough to tell him that he was being pursued by the vast majority of the soldiers. The avengers were likely tailing him too, since he was their ticket out of this hellhole.