And if there was one thing Loki had learnt in the past seven years of his existence, it was that those two events were in no way mutually exclusive, to say the very least.
Which, perhaps, very aptly sums up this emergency “meeting”, Loki mused as he watched the humans exit the chambers.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to extricate himself before his infinitely witless brother attempted to stroke Loki’s steadily burning anger further by opening his entirely unconnected with a functioning brain of a mouth. “Loki —” Thor attempted.
“No, Thor,” he cut him off sharply, glaring daggers at him. “Agent Romanoff was right. We must not fight amongst ourselves at such a critical time.”
To be sure, he was still somewhat shocked on seeing the Valkyrie, Agent Romanoff and Stark — Tony, they were allies now —take his side for a change during his most recent altercation with Thor, but he supposed that reason worked on some beings, unlike the erstwhile Idiots Four.
Unlike Thor himself.
“But Brother, listen. Are you sure you can face the Black Or —”
“No, Thor. You listen. For once,” Loki told him. “I repeat, this conversation will inevitably end in discord, likely violent. Do not.”
Loki did his best to avoid acknowledging in his mind the fact that Thor was right: Loki wasn’t ready. Would never be, perhaps.
(There is no realm, no barren moon, no crevice —)
Thor, on his part, did his best to emulate the look of a stricken puppy.
Loki scoffed internally. If Thor thought he could gain something by this sudden show of sentiment, he was wrong. If Thor thought he could somehow fix their tattered fraternal relationship by this sudden show of sentiment, then all Loki could do was cackle at the sheer stupidity of his not-brother. Wrong didn’t begin to cover it.
No, if Thor thought that he’d gained the old Loki back, could gain the old Loki back, just because Loki had chosen to stay with Asgard for Asgard, then he was nought but an utter buffoon. No, if Thor thought he could gain back his ever-familiar and ever-constant (until recently, that is) shadow in Loki, if he thought Loki would return to orbiting Thor for some sentimentality, if he thought he could regain back that oh so comforting and oh so loved scapegoat back in his life at a time when everything else had shattered away, he was wrong.
(As if anything could erase the mark of the Void from him.)
A bitter, venomous part of him wanted to laugh at it all; sneer coldly at his pain and ask caustically Now do you know how it all feels? How it feels to have the foundations of your entire identity shattered from beneath you? How it feels to lose everything all at once? How it feels to fall, O Mighty Thor?
(Another pathetic part of him just wanted to hug his elder brother’s pain away.)
“I will have words with you later, Brother.”
(If there was a later, Loki’s fatalistic mind supplied cheerfully.)
For now, he wanted none of Thor’s newfound sentiment — seeming sentiment, he corrected himself. No, nothing had changed; Thor was still the same one who’d told him that he still wasn’t enough, this Thor was still the one who’d only come to visit when Loki’d been of use, this Thor was still the one who’d told him to know his place. As if one single revelation could erase seven years of betrayals and treachery and hatred and apathy.
And had it been only seven years? Or was Jotunheim merely the last blow that finally shattered the cracked glass of their brotherly relationship, a glass that had endured centuries of hurts large and small, every time cracking a little further, always waiting for the stone that finally shattered it once and for all?
