The Sun

Warning: ENDGAME SPOILERS

TW: Neglect of self-care, discussions of depression

The ship arrives a little after everything has ended. 

It’s unexpected. In the wake of the disbelief and relief that they have won, the rushing to get everyone injured to portals for Wakanda in order to get treatment, and the attempt to get a quick broadcast to the leaders of the world to inform them of what has happened so that they can begin to assist their citizens and inform them that all of the vanished have been returned - no one had thought about a ship that has been dead for five years arriving to Earth. 

And not just to Earth, but right over the wreckage of the battlefield, and what was formerly the Avengers compound.

Everyone who’s still on the ground immediately takes on defensive stances. Golden threads are looped in circles, armors are donned, firearms are aimed; panic and the sense of no, we won, we just won, squeezing out every drop of vulnerability that everyone’s allowed to sink in post-battle.

It’s only through Bruce and Thor screaming, waving their arms around, rushing to the front of the lines going, “No, don’t!” that no one attacks.

Both of them are given suspicious looks. Outside contact was not on the schedule.

Steve, thankfully, at the front of the lines, notices the glassy look in Thor’s eyes, like he’s barely holding himself together because there’s something about that ship that makes him want to cry, but if he doesn’t stand his ground, if for a few seconds he can’t hold onto his sanity enough to halt everyone from firing, he’s going to lose everything again.

Rocket suddenly scurries past him, kicking Thor’s shins even though it’s not doing much. It does snap him out of the daze he was slowly pulling himself into.

“Well?” the raccoon asks, motioning to the ship. “What are you waiting for, get the hell up there!”

Thor swallows thickly, and nods. He nods again, like he’s trying to convince himself that this is happening, this is really happening, and Steve understands, then. He’s been in that position once. He glances Bucky, who currently has a gun aimed up towards the ship, the quickest thing he could grab since he was trying to escort people through portals.

“Thank you, rabbit,” Thor says, turns on his heel and kicks off to the sky, red cape trailing behind him. Bruce watches him go, a hint of a smile on his face as he does.

Whatever’s on that ship, if Thor’s that happy, it can’t all be that bad. They all just killed a genocidal maniac, and Thor hadn’t liked that one at all.

Steve raises a hand and folds in his fingers into a fist.

“Everyone stand down,” he says, “We have friends.”

-

It’s what remains of Asgard.

In the last five years, the Avengers haven’t seen much of Thor. The most they’d spent time with him, outside of work because that was the only time they really spent time with him, was immediately after The Snap (an ugly little moniker Shuri and Peter are calling it, after Tony had, in a haze of morphine, recounted to everyone who had been returned what had happened during his first battle with Thanos), during those few weeks when they’d spent their every waking hour looking for Thanos. Even then, the man hadn’t spoken much, instead often looking deep in thought.

He’d been holding himself together as tightly as he could then, too. The silence had been helpful because then he never had to fill it, and because he was never invited to fill it, he could just retreat into his own mind, live there in his memories and his guilt.

Bruce knows the feeling well. He’s lived inside his head a lot, in the way someone who spends too much time in a laboratory does; in a way that someone who has the guilt of a lot of innocent lives on his hands does, too. He thinks about the early days, sometimes, all those soldiers who were just doing their jobs being strung around by men with a lot more badges than they did, and then subsequently being plowed down by rage on two gigantic green legs.

He used to live in his head when the other guy took over. It’s not so much as a takeover now as it is symbiosis, coexistence. It’s a lot better this way.

Thor’s lived in his own head and in the future, he will do it again and again, because it’s not a quick process, but at least now there’s a stepping stone that he can hoist himself on to at least put in larger gaps between the times he does so.

Asgard is here. Asgard is back. Asgard isn’t a handful of people that he, Thor, Loki and Valkyrie had shoved into pods and launched towards Earth with Valkyrie leading the escapees. Asgard, as much of it that has survived Hela’s wrath, is here on Earth.

And is currently having troubles processing their papers since there’s so many of them, and the governments have been in shambles ever since The Snap. So many people had suddenly died, leaving behind others not knowing what to do or if they’re qualified to do it. In fact, a lot of the ones left behind had been kids who suddenly had to take up the mantle because everyone else was too scared. 

Not to mention, of course, that Loki is here.

Loki, destroyer of New York.

Loki, who killed 80 people in three days.

Loki, brother of Thor, poker buddy of Valkyrie, and the Hulk’s favorite person to rib and scare every now and then. 

Well, when they’d been back on the ship; in the few hours they’d been back on the ship. Right now, Bruce feels the overwhelming urge to come up behind him, tap his shoulder and say, “Boo!” but he’s holding that urge down.

Valkyrie’s enjoying kicking his ass in poker, so he’ll let them both be for a bit.

All three of them are on the ground floor of Stark Tower, which is functioning as temporary Avengers Headquarters given that the compound was destroyed. Nick Fury is currently having a meeting with the rest of the group upstairs, and Bruce had been invited, but he’d opted to stay down here, with both of them, not out of any measure of distrust but...

He’s not sure, really. Maybe it’s comfort; Tony’s still hospitalized in Wakanda, there are a couple of Avengers who’ve excused themselves to either recuperate or reunite with people they’ve lost, so Bruce can’t see why he can’t be here. Maybe it’s the fact that both Loki and Valkyrie have seen their people slaughtered in front of their very eyes, one had lost his life trying to fight Thanos, and now everything’s back and they might have a second chance. 

Bruce knows second chances. He’d found it as a doctor to those who couldn’t afford doctors. He’d found it again as a superhero who avenged the Earth.

“You look…” Loki is speaking, glancing up at Bruce, while Valkyrie shuffles the cards for the another round. 

Bruce waits. 

Loki motions to his face. “Different.”

“It’s a long story,” he says. 

“I think we’ve got time, I don’t expect these meetings to be done in the next month or so.”

“I’d like to hear about that too,” Valkyrie says. The cards fly between her hands without her even looking at them. “I haven’t really gotten the details as to how you’ve managed to come to an agreement with your other half.”

“You actually haven’t, haven’t you,” Bruce says, a little incredulously. It’s been a long five years. It hasn’t been an easy five years. Everyone had either gotten out of touch with each other and done their own thing in order to pick themselves back up again, or had thrown themselves into the work because they hadn’t known what else to do.

Valkyrie had put all her focus into running New Asgard together with Thor, being his unwavering pillar of support throughout his spiral of depression. Bruce had put all his focus into putting himself back together after the grief and the enormity of loss.

He looks down at both of them. Valkyrie is still shuffling the cards.

“Actually,” he starts, “Can I join you two for a game?”

Both of them immediately make room, Loki scooting back a little bit more, still terrified of the Hulk despite that witty one liner he’d thrown at Thanos a few years ago that had been prepped in five seconds, with Loki whispering to him, “That’s the signal!”

“Sure,” Valkyrie says, “Fancy spinning us a story?”

Bruce grins, and then laughs. Valkyrie deals all of them their cards.

-

Eventually (four days later) all three of them are brought in to join the meeting to say their pieces. Thor looks exhausted, like he’s spent the last four days arguing and wanting a drink but forcing himself not to because Nick Fury might not listen to someone clearly inebriated when he presents his points as to why Loki is absolutely harmless nowadays. Valkyrie gives his hand a gentle squeeze. Bruce claps his shoulder in comfort.

Loki stands beside him, shoulders straight, hands folded behind his back. Regal.

I can handle this, brother, his posture says.This fight isn’t yours alone anymore.

For all Loki claims he barely tolerates his oaf of a brother (although, these days it’s said with a lot more fondness and a little less bitterness mixed with sadness), his pity for his brother shines through in a lot of moments. Thor, before they’d gotten into the meeting hall, had said he’d told them everything. 

Loki assumes that means everything.

(I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again, he’d said. Half as a prophecy of defiance. Half a statement of trust for his brother, You’ve lived through so much before, you will live through this as well.)

Nick Fury lets all three of them give their statements. All of their origins vary, of course - Loki starting on Earth and his father’s passing, Hela’s sudden release and being thrown to Sakaar; Bruce starting on leaving the Avengers and ending up on Sakaar; Valkyrie starting on working for the Grandmaster before she’d found Thor, tased him, and brought him in.

All their endings are the same. The battle for Asgard. Hela gouging out Thor’s eye (and the man had gleefully popped his prosthetic eye out of its socket, to which Rocket had gone into a laughing fit while Loki has shot him a disgusted, exasperated look). Loki going into the castle in the midst of the chaos in order to release Surtur. Everyone escaping onto the ship and watching Asgard burn.

Everyone listens with a critical ear. None of the three of them offer any excuses, not for any of their faults, because they do have faults, whether it be abandoning their posts or being former agents of death. They present their case, as honestly as they can, and wait.

Nick Fury dismisses them right after, Thor included.

The man seems to slouch as soon as he’s out of the room, completely drained of all energy. To be fair, it’s been several days of nonstop meetings for him. He’s not built for this, at least not yet. He still needs time to find himself again.

“We’ve done what we can,” Valkyrie says. She looks like she’s about to suggest a pub, but they have a semi-recovering alcoholic (Thor hasn’t really talked about it yet, but if he’s trying his best to be sober for a while, they’re not going to be the ones to push him, Loki can hardly stand the stench of alcohol anyway) so she clicks her tongue and instead says, “Shawarma? The others keep mentioning it but I’ve never been.”

Loki snorts. “I’ve heard that mentioned before but in a rather unpleasant memory.”

Bruce laughs. Loki steps just a little bit to the left.

“Oh, come on, it’s been twelve years,” he says, laughing.

“It’s been seven for me, thank you very much. The memory is fresh,” Loki says. He turns to Thor and suddenly laughs.

“What?” Thor asks, exhausted, but some of the fatigue has been smoothed out by the sight of his brother laughing.

“You know exactly how it feels.”

Thor takes a few seconds to connect the dots. He sighs, then winces. “Yes,” he says, grimacing at the memory of being slammed to the ground by The Hulk. “Yes I do.”

Bruce laughs, puts his hands on both brothers’ shoulders, and pushes them towards the stairs, arm snagging Valkyrie as he moves everyone forward. If he can’t take the elevator, none of them will.

“Come on, shawarma,” he says.

Loki, for once, just goes with it.

-

They get the news a week later, in the form of a holographic message sent by Nick Fury to New Asgard, where all four of them have decided to crash, catch up with each other and play a few video games (actually, it’s more like Thor kicking all their asses on Fortnite). 

Valkyrie smacks the portable projector until it finally works and they get a few seconds of warped static before the rest of the message comes through. 

All of New Asgard’s citizens are allowed refuge on Earth, Loki included, on the condition that he not be allowed to use magic, and be under house arrest and surveillance for two years - house arrest being, no adventuring in outer space and conspiring with the powers that be, and under surveillance being Thor and Valkyrie are to keep an eye on him. In the event that both of them are indisposed, as when they are called to Earth’s defense, they are to have someone they both trust to make sure he’s kept in line.

“That’s a lot lighter than what I expected,” Loki says, snatching the words right out of Valkyrie’s thoughts (metaphorically, she still hates the memory of him going through her head). He’s still on the floor of the living room, staring up at the ceiling. All of them crashing in Thor’s house had mostly entailed of all four of them sleeping in the living room, sleepover style, not that anyone really pointed out that it is one. 

It’s actually quite nice, to just be around friends, and how strange is that, that she’s found peace with this mismatched group of two brothers and one radiation disaster.

Valkyrie shuts the device off and sets it back down on the dresser. She turns to Thor. He was the one who was in that meeting hall for days on end.

He shrugs. “I thought he would want to stretch his legs a little. Earth is small. New Asgard is smaller.”

“It does have a population of like, 1300 people,” Bruce says. “Although you have a lot of cliffs here that are perfect for if you want to look at the ocean and be dramatic.”

Valkyrie starts laughing. 

“Stuck on this sad rock for two years,” Loki says, motioning to his brother and Valkyrie without looking. “Babysat by these two idiots.”

She grins, cheeky. “I think you need more than the two of us to keep you from making stupid decisions.”

Loki actually looks indignant. “For the last time, I panicked.”

“Hell of a panic.”

He huffs. Thor winces.

Valkyrie lifts a shoulder and turns to Bruce. “Banner, you wanna volunteer to look after drama queen here?”

“I’m not sure, really, I’m always kind of just - I feel like I’m still trying to calm down from the whole big intergalatic battle thing. I feel like I’m going to be called in to help anytime, so I don’t know if I should promise that.”

Valkyrie nods and doesn’t ask questions. She knows exactly what he means.

“Just me and Thor then,” she says, sitting down and tutting. “This is going to be a handful.”

“Whatever,” Loki says, sitting up and crawling over to the couch to grab Thor’s laptop off of it. He doesn’t even bother asking for the password, just types it in like he’s already memorized it from too many hours of looking over his brother’s shoulder.

Thor just lets him, remaining on the floor on his back. He does ask, “What are you doing?”

“Looking for places to visit,” Loki says. 

“You’ve barely been around New Asgard,” Valkyrie says. 

“Oh, I’ve been, I’ve seen the place. It’s like a day’s walk around it,” Loki says, “I know everyone here too, so there’s no ‘getting to know thy neighbor’ to be done.”

Thor blinks. “Do you really?”

“Yes.”

“How, there’s thirteen hundred people here and you hated being around even five.”

“Oh, my brief stint as king,” Loki says, waving a hand, nonchalant. “I opened the throne room to the grievances of the public.”

“Ah,” Thor says. “That actually explains why no one was throwing a fit when I unmasked you as king.”

“I think they liked the plays.”

Thor laughs so hard Valkyrie actually gets concerned for the state of his lungs. 

“The plays!”

“Masterpieces,” Loki says, with such a straight face that Valkyrie doesn’t know whether he’s being sarcastic or serious. Truth be told, she’s rather glad she’s never seen any of his plays.

“I doubt it.”

“You barely even saw one.”

“I saw enough,” Thor says. He rolls over and sits up. “Terrible.”

“I think you just have terrible taste.”

Valkyrie turns to Bruce, her lips pressed into a flat line. “This is going to be my life for the next two years,” she says. “Are you sure you can’t volunteer while I take a break?”

Bruce glances at the brothers, simply being brothers and bickering, but at least this time it’s not because Loki stabbed Thor or because there’s an invasion at large. He shrugs. “I’m still not sure,” he says. “But, if you really need it and I’m not busy, I can pitch in.”

Valkyrie nods. “Good enough.”

-

Loki presents them all with a list of places to visit. All of them are tourist spots, so when Thor and Valkyrie, after they’ve told Heimdall exactly what was happening like a couple of kids trying to get permission for a night out since they were essentially asking for his help to watch New Asgard over their absence, consult Bruce, he just shrugs and says, “Alright.”

Then he introduces them to the horrors of airport security. 

Sitting in the waiting area for the tenth hour since their flight has been delayed, Loki spins Thor’s laptop around - which he’s claimed his ever since he’s gotten his hands on it to find tourist attractions - so that Bruce can see it. He hits spacebar.

On the screen, John Mulaney sings, “Because we’re Delta Airlines, and life is a fucking nightmare!”

Bruce frowns. He turns to Thor. “You have Netflix?”

“One of Midgard’s finest inventions,” he says, and knocks back a gatorade like he’s knocking back a flask of rum. “I found many a good comedy skit for my depressive spirals then.”

“Oh, that’s - oh.” Loki’s turned the laptop back to him. He squints at the screen. “Well, I like your list here.”

“Thank you.”

Somehow, Bruce thinks this is surreal. Oh, no, depression is very real and he knows anyone can have it - he has it too; nearly everyone in the Avengers has it, right along with PTSD, courtesy of them being Avengers - but the whole ‘Asgardian gods discover Netflix and the joys of watching John Mulaney while eating cereal mixed with redbull’ thing isn’t something he’d expected to witness at all.

He checks his watch. He looks up at the rows of people also sitting down and waiting for the same flight as they are. He doesn’t think they’re going to be getting out of here anytime soon.

He’s right, because another five hours later, they’re still in the airport.

“Okay, that’s it,” Loki says, throwing his hands up. He looks like he’s about to toss the laptop all the way across the room, but surprisingly he just gently, almost tenderly, closes it. He turns to Thor, asleep behind his sunglasses, and rips said sunglasses off his face.

“Wh?” Thor says through the fog of his sleep.

“Get Stormbreaker out.”

“What? Why?” Thor is on alert immediately, sitting up straight and head whipping around, looking for the threat. It’s actually a nice change to see, and it sets Bruce’s heart a little lighter, knowing he’s making a bit of progress. 

Even if it’s because he has his brother back and he’s going to fight tooth and nail for everything to stay that way.

“Summon the Bifrost. We’re getting out of here,” Loki says. He stuffs the laptop (carefully) into his backpack, stands, and grabs Thor’s arm. The man gets out of his seat, making sure to snatch his collapsible umbrella from where he’s pinned it to the edge of his seat, following; Bruce isn’t sure if Loki’s just that insanely strong despite looking like a twig, Aesir constitution and all, or if Thor’s just letting him drag him. 

“Why!”

“Just because I can’t use magic doesn’t mean you can’t,” Loki says, “We’ve been here for a whole day.”

Thor turns to Valkyrie, who mulls it over for a moment, but then shrugs. “What’s the harm?”

“I don’t know where specifically to bring us to, that’s what!” Thor says, clearly regretting recounting to Loki the battle of Wakanda. “And I haven’t - I haven’t summoned the Bifrost in five years. I only ever even summoned it once.”

“Well, try again, I’m not being stuck in this airport for another several hours,” Loki says, crossing his arms. Drama queen.

Thor sighs, pauses in his steps, and snatches his glasses from his brother’s hand, putting them back on. He says nothing. Bruce only realizes that he’s staring Loki down, who, unlike Bruce, has been aware of this from the start and is matching his brother’s stare, standing very, very still.

Siblings. They always had their weird thing.

Finally, Thor relents. “Alright,” he says, “Fine. I will try. There are no guarantees, but I will try.”

“Brilliant,” Loki says, and then starts dragging him towards the exit.

Bruce turns to Valkyrie. Both of them get their bags and follow.

Loki brushes past several guards who give him wary looks, but ultimately relent at the sight of Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie following him. Pays to be a celebrity, sometimes, especially if one’s a superhero. They let them through, and Loki brings Thor over to the center of the parking lot, the only space in the whole area that isn’t occupied. Passersby stop to stare at them, confused and curious.

Exasperated, Thor lifts up his folded umbrella, which he painstakingly unravels, although the fabric stays tied together, before tapping the end of the umbrella to the ground.

A bright flash consumes the parking lot, lightning coiling around the umbrella, space warping until instead of a flimsy little foldable umbrella in Thor’s hand, there’s Stormbreaker. It looks like it can clean three people’s heads right off their shoulders with one blow.

The few people around the parking lot decide this might be a show worth watching and slowly scurry closer.

“Now what?” Thor asks, lifting up the axehead so he can flip the weapon and have it stand on its handle’s end instead. 

“Try to summon the Bifrost to go - ” Loki reaches for his phone, taps a few letters into it, and after a minute, shows Thor a picture. Bruce leans to the side to get a good look of it. It’s of the Eiffel Tower. France was going to be their first destination; the Lourve, the Sienne, the Arc de Triomphe. Pretty cliche, but hey, it’s Loki’s vacation and the longest he’d spent on Earth was terrorizing it while hopped up on mind control juice. “Here,” he says.

Thor leans a bit closer to the photo. Come to think of it, it’s actually pretty good that Loki’s picked the Eiffel Tower as a trial destination for the Bifrost, since Thor’s sure to recognize the monument. Unlike Loki, he’s spent enough time on Earth to know its tourist spots.

“Alright,” Thor says, and then closes his eyes, his grip on Stormbreaker tightening.

Nothing happens, at first, save for the few onlookers who have gathered to pack into a crowd around them. The image it must paint right now - Thor wielding a weapon, Bruce and Valkyrie right behind him, and Loki in front of them. Granted, none of them are in armor, but to the people of Earth, Loki is nothing more than a villain. They don’t know what happened in Sakaar. They don’t know what happened on the ship where he died.

A crowd of a few onlookers turns into several scattered groups all over the parking lot, staring at the four of them. If they huddled together, all four of them would be trapped in the middle.

“Uh, Thor?” Bruce asks.

“Shh,” Thor says, not bothering to open his eyes.

“Okay, well, there’s - ”

Another flash consumes the parking light, this time longer than the last one. All three of them flinch back as the pillar of multicolored light engulfs Thor, to the point where none of them can see him. There are gasps around them, a few cameras snapping, but then suddenly the light is gone, and Thor’s not there.

“Did it work?” Valkyrie asks, stepping forward and looking at the sizzling mark left on the parking lot pavement. 

“I’d say he managed to summon the Bifrost, but whether he’d been able to direct it as he wanted to, we’ve yet to know,” Loki says, looking down to inspect the mark as well and scuffing his boot on it.

“What’s that?” Bruce asks.

“The mark of the Bifrost,” Valkyrie says, “I’ll admit, I haven’t seen one of these in ages.”

Loki spaces off for a few seconds, and then scuffs his boot a little bit more into the mark. Bruce doesn’t know what memory the Bifrost has just brought up for him. Loki doesn’t talk about it, instead moving back and taking his phone out to check the time.

“Do you think he’s okay or do you think he ended up somewhere unpleasant?” Valkyrie asks.

“I should hope not,” Loki says. “Although I won’t be charged with looking for him if it’s off Midgard.”

Valkyrie kicks his leg. He laughs and skitters back, trying to avoid the blow.

After a few more minutes of waiting, Bruce takes his phone out too, intent on calling Thor in case he did land somewhere unpleasant - but then the Bifrost lights up again, making them shut all of their eyes from the sudden brightness. There are claps all over the parking lot, the crowd delighted at what they truly perceive to be a glorious feat instead of two brothers being idiots and their two friends being enablers.

Thor’s back. He’s got a paper bag in his hands.

“Croissant?” he offers.

Loki grins. 

They’re going to Paris.

-

They go to Paris and to Belgium and to Reykjavik and to every single place Loki has written down in his notes. Thor happily opens the Bifrost for all of them to get them to places, both intrigued by all the wonder that Earth has, and just happy that his brother is here with him and appears to be somewhat enjoying himself, which is a great deal better than the apathy he had for Midgardians. When he’s ‘a little less hopped up on mind juice’ as Stark once said, during one hospital visit that Loki had refused to come with, he’s also a little less ‘kneel before me’ and more like ‘that doesn’t really register on my radar unless it’s actually interesting.’

Par for the course, but Thor’s fallen in love with Earth, and if he gets a little defensive over it, it’s not really his fault. 

The trips are usually taken by him, Loki and Valkyrie, with Bruce tagging along every now and then, as he does have other responsibilities to attend to, and he visits Tony a lot along with the other Avengers in the hospital. Thor visits too, just not as often, what with his duties as Mayor of New Asgard (that...he should really get to, at least properly; Valkyrie had been carrying all the weight, and now Heimdall, and the thought of that makes him feel a little guilty), as well as supervising his brother.

His very alive brother who’s still a little more distant than Thor would have liked, but they’re getting there. Without a threat to push the atmosphere of not having enough time and having nothing to lose by baring actual familial affection, Loki sits at a respectable distance whenever he can. He lies down on the floor along with everyone else during sleepovers (which are sleepovers, none of them just call them that), he watches movies with them and steals popcorn when no one’s paying attention, he complains half-heartedly to Thor about something or another whenever they’re on trips, but that’s about it. There’s no heart-to-hearts, no talking about how Thor had mourned him after he’d died, no facing their problems which are still yet to be addressed.

It’s more like they just put a comfortable rug over everything and decided that would be it. 

Although, truth be told, if Thor thinks about it, maybe it’s for the best. At least, for now. Maybe several years ago, a few after his initial fall to Earth and after he’d held Loki as he’d faked his death, he would have been ready to talk it out and to listen. Now, he’s not quite sure he is. 

Going back in time and walking along the halls of the palace in Asgard had been like poking at an old wound. Asgard is no more; there are no great halls to walk through anymore, no courtyards where soldiers practiced and fought, no tales to be recounted of great battles. Hela had killed all his friends. Hela had killed nearly all of the armies of Asgard. Most of those who’d escaped were civilians.

Talking to his mother had been a relief but he’d known it couldn’t last, and the fact that he didn’t say anything, that she’d simply accepted her fate had gouged that poked wound open.

Having Loki back is a balm, but if they talk about everything that’s passed, everything they’ve lost and all the misdeeds they’d done to each other, it would likely be just salt onto the mangled flesh. 

So maybe not now. One day, maybe, but not now. 

As it is, Loki seems fine with the way things are, anyway. His eyes are deader than when they’d been in Sakaar - somewhere where there was nothing but survival through kissing up to the leader - but that’s expected. He’s been through a lot too, and he’d just been killed by someone who’d tortured him for a very, very long time. His eyes are dead, but he’s moving, either forwards or just puttering around in general, learning about Earth, visiting around its places, seeing it try to put itself back together after a sudden vanishing of half its population put a momentary halt to its turning. 

Thor’s familiar with the look on his face every time he spaces out. He’s been there, he’s done that. But Loki’s doing something, and so is he, and neither of them might be ready for an actual conversation right now, but one day, they’ll get there.

They’ll get there. They both just had to be alive for it.

-

Their trips start to slow down, eventually, which is to say nearly after a year they start making them. Where there would usually be two to three trips in a month, there’s only one now. Two if everyone’s schedules line up. 

Because that’s exactly why they’re slowing down. Loki asking where Bruce is, when he can’t make it to a trip, eventually turns to him calling Banner (or the Avengers Tower) as to where the doctor is and asking when he’s free for the month. Bruce laughs the first time this happens but then starts to expect it after the third. 

With the downtime, Thor decides to watch Tidying Up With Marie Kondo during one of the days where they’re back at the house since Bruce isn’t available until next couple of weeks. He spends a few hours crying, and then unearths every item he has in his house, going so far as to form a few piles in the backyard porch. Loki, out of bewilderment that eventually turns into a desire not to live in garbage dump, helps.

Days later, Valkyrie visits from a meeting with Heimdall to find that Thor’s house is actually quite spacious. She snaps a photo, just a little teary-eyed and proud, and sends it to Bruce, who calls her five minutes later in joyous excitement.

Loki spends most of his time reading books he’s collected from his travels, inspecting the photos of the places he’s been and tapping away at Thor’s laptop. If anyone ever wonders what he does, he just presents them a list of the places he’d like to visit next. 

Thor takes all of it to be a sign of comfort. While he’d spent the worst years of his life so far shutting himself away and wallowing in his sorrow, Loki’s chosen method of coping had been to move around, as much as he could, engaging in the outside world to forget about his internal turmoil. 

And Thor had tagged along, because the whole thing wasn’t so bad. Being able to just pop in and out of places meant they didn’t really have to pay much for airline tickets. The places they visited were beautiful. The people they met were kind (a little wary of Loki). It was the desire to run away sugarcoated in wanderlust. 

That desire is still there, and it’s still very much covered with them wanting to visit as many places as they could as often as they could but - 

Loki bought a polaroid during one of their trips. He’d bought as many packs of photo paper as he could after he’d used up the first one he had in less than a day. For every place they went to, he had scrapbooks and albums and pinned photos tacked up on the wall of his bedroom in New Asgard. 

He waits for Bruce. He waits for Valkyrie. He waits for Thor.

Perhaps there’s a good bit of just wanderlust now.

Hopefully.

-

They’re visiting the Avengers Tower today. 

As always, Loki had declined their offer to go, so the only ones that beam down to the tower rooftop via Bifrost are Valkyrie and Thor. They’re having a meeting on the state of things. Whatever specific things those are will be further outlined in powerpoint presentations downstairs, but the general agenda is just the State of Things. 

Like the state of the governments of the world and how they’re moving along after their initial collapse due to people suddenly snapping to dust, with those people suddenly returning five years later. Like the state of the threats of the earth and how those who were assigned to it were handling it. Like the state of the nonhuman refugees living on the planet (read: Aesir; occasionally the Guardians whenever they tagged along with Nebula when she wanted to visit Rhodey and Tony’s family) .

It’s been a year since Thanos has been defeated. Tony is still recovering - burns are not the easiest thing for the body to recover from, especially as he’d been in very, very fragile condition when he was rushed to Wakanda - but he’s able to move around now as long as he doesn’t exert himself too much. Between Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Morgan, Peter, Harley and Nebula, they had that under control. Besides, the guy seemed to appreciate napping like a cat for hours instead of staying up late and tinkering around in his basement these days.

The other Avengers have been recovering too, from all the trauma that that mess had dealt them with. Clint calls Natasha every day. Wanda and Vision are never away from each other for too long.

Thor’s dealing with things. Running New Asgard is stressful and his brain feels like it wants to melt at the slightest inconvenience, which is ridiculous, he knows, but he can’t help the sudden panic that threatens to cut off his breath every time it happens anyway. Heimdall and Valkyrie are there, thankfully. He doesn’t know what he’d do without them.

It helps that whenever he comes home and looks like he wants to grab a beer, Loki makes him tea, sits him down on the couch, and picks a movie for both of them to turn off their minds to. They don’t talk often during these movie nights, but the silence isn’t awkward.

When it’s his turn to give a report on how his people are doing, he doesn’t miss how Bruce and Valkyrie share a look. Proud, almost giddy smiles on their faces. It makes warmth bloom his chest, and he realizes he’s glad that they’re proud of him. 

He actually falters in his report as a sudden thought comes to him.

Is he proud of himself?

He assesses the situation. Six years ago, he killed their Thanos. Aimed for the head and chopped the bloody thing clean right off, in fact. And it didn’t fucking matter because everyone was still dead, and Thor was too late. And that anger had simmered under his skin before it blew up, but took everything with it. The next year after that, he stopped paying attention to taking care of himself. The next year after that, he stopped paying attention to taking care of his people. The next year after that, he stopped paying attention to anything at all, so much so that whenever he did start, he’d start crying, and so to stop the crying, he had bought racks and racks of beer and drank until he passed out.

When Thanos came back, he’d let that anger steep into his bones again, an anger he hadn’t felt in five years, he’d realized, because he hadn’t felt anything at all in the last five years, and he’d fought alongside everyone else. A little while after that, and to his shock, it turned out Bruce had panicked and thought Bring back everyone whose deaths have been caused by Thanos in the past five years and snap, everyone who’d died either by dusting or physical violence had come back. 

He’d started travelling. He’d started cleaning up. He’d started picking up his responsibilities and trying to put himself back together. Hell, just yesterday, he’d been considering therapy.

Is he proud of himself?

“Thor?” That’s Steve, sitting across the table, concern knitting his brow.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought a bit,” he says, smiling awkwardly. He looks back down at his Starkpad.

Loki’d help put together the report and the presentation.

He has his friends to help him. He has his brother. And funnily enough, he has himself. And he’s trying to help himself by putting in some effort because he’d realized, no, this isn’t going to do.

His smile turns a bit more genuine as he continues his report.

He might be a little proud of himself.