Chapter Text
A year or so later, Thor caught up with the two of them in a shitty bar on a backwater planet, teaching aliens pool just to hustle them out of their money.
Thor came up behind Avery while Loki was getting them drinks, his big hand coming down on her shoulder, knowing that Loki would run the second he saw his adoptive brother if he did not give him a reason to stay.
“Thor!” Avery shouted, trying to sound pleased rather than like she was panicking, not knowing if he was about to take the both of them straight to a prison cell in Asgard’s dungeons. “How’s it going, dude?” Meanwhile, she sent out a silent distress signal to Loki.
Thor looked down at her, and the smile he gave her soothed some of her concerns. “It is going well, L—Avery. Better, now that I have found the two of you.”
And indeed he had, because Loki had materialized in front of them in an instant, dagger in hand. “Thor,” he said warily, eyes shooting to the hand on Avery’s shoulder, and she knew he was calculating how to pull her away and teleport them free.
But Thor only said, “Brother, relax—I did not come for a fight. Let us drink. We have much to discuss.”
Loki’s eyes flickered to Avery’s, a silent argument passing between them in the blink of an eye. “Let’s find out what he’s here for,” she insisted. “I’m curious. Plus, he’ll let his guard down once he starts drinking, so it’ll be easier to escape if we need to.”
Finally, Loki nodded—to Avery, not his brother—and his dagger returned to its hiding place. “Alright,” he said, still cautious. “Let’s.”
An hour later, when Avery was three drinks in, and both of the brothers ten, the mood was much more convivial. Thor, as it turned out, was not there to arrest them at all.
“Odin knows that I have been searching for Loki, as do the Avengers,” he admitted. “But I will tell them that you slipped through my fingers once again. I only wished to see how you fare.”
Loki and Avery exchanged a look. If Thor had been able to find them, they might need to start being even more careful. But for now, there was no harm in talking to him. After all, he had already found them.
“How are they?” Avery asked. “The Avengers, I mean. Or, uh, Earth.”
“About the same,” Thor told her. “Oh, I was told by Lady Romanov to give you this, if I were to find you again. She said you would appreciate it.”
From the pocket of his trousers, Thor produced a folded, bedraggled sheaf of magazine paper. Avery unfolded it to see that it had been ripped out of Time magazine.
The photo of the story was her mugshot, the one that had been taken in the SHIELD office. And the title was: “Who Is Avery Moore?” Then, in the subtitle: “All about the Atlanta-born, anti-American radical linked to the supervillain Loki of Asgard.”
When Avery looked up from the paper, her eyes were shining, her face spread in a wide grin. “Look!” she said, thrusting the papers towards Loki. “I’m an anti-American radical!”
“Congratulations, my dear. I am so proud of you,” Loki said, clearly humoring her, and patted her hand approvingly. Avery rolled her eyes and folded the papers back up. She could read the whole article later.
“And what about Asgard?” she asked Thor, because she knew she wasn’t the only one longing for news of home. The difference was that Loki would never admit it—but she knew.
After disposing of the stone, most of her powers had vanished. She had retained a heightened ability to read people’s facial expressions and emotions, but that was about it—except for her connection with Loki. Their ability to communicate wordlessly, to read each other’s thoughts, was as strong as it had ever been. She even still had the ability to possess his body, though they hadn’t tested that one out in awhile. If she had to guess, she thought it might have something to do with that night in Jotunheim, along with, maybe, the time that she had spent in his mind—longer than anyone else she had possessed.
It seemed like they had accidentally opened a channel between their minds, one that no longer required the mind stone’s power to stay open. Loki was a part of her, now, and she was part of him. It would be awkward if they ever broke up, but in the meantime, she had never felt less alone, more understood. And though he would never say it aloud, she knew that Loki felt the same.
And the sex. Goddamn unbelievable. Most of the year since defeating Thanos had been spent fucking each other in increasingly inventive ways on what seemed like every planet in the galaxy. Whew. Avery was surprised their respective parts hadn’t fallen off.
Avery got caught up thinking about something they had done recently involving one Avery and five Lokis—four male, one female—that had her pressing her thighs together and squirming slightly in her seat when Loki’s hand suddenly fell on her knee, squeezing, and his voice was in her head, warning her, “Avery, if you do not stop…”
Right, right, she kept forgetting that Loki could hear her when she did that. Not that she exactly minded the idea of Loki dragging her to the bathroom and pinning her against a wall and—
“Avery.”
Right, okay, focusing.
Thor had been responding to her question, as it turned out, though she had missed the first few sentences. When she tuned back in, he was saying, “Father was furious when he heard about the Casket. He sees it as an act of treason against Asgard.”
“Ah,” Loki replied. “And how do you see it?”
“As an act of repentance.” Thor leaned across the table with a smile, and Avery noticed that Loki flinched back slightly, avoiding his brother’s eyes.
“Can it not be both?” Loki asked, and though his smile was faked, Avery could tell that there was some truth to the words. She couldn’t help the feeling of pride that came over her, but she tried her best to temper it, not wanting Loki to feel it and grow self-conscious.
“Brother,” Thor said, either failing to notice Loki’s discomfort or choosing to ignore it. “I miss you. As does mother. I wish that you could return home.”
“Well, I seem to have ruined any chances of that happening,” Loki said, flippancy covering the hurt that Avery knew was there. “Now, in the king’s eyes, I am not only a murderer, but also a traitor to the realm.”
Thor’s response, though, was to smile inscrutably and say, “Father will not be king forever.”
That managed to strike Loki dumb for a moment. Finally, though, he recovered his wits and smirked at him. “Is that how it is? You believe that, once you are on the throne, you can clear my name and bring me back into the fold? What do you think the people of Asgard will have to say about that?”
“I do not give a damn what the people of Asgard will say,” Thor retorted, and Avery couldn’t help but feel impressed with him for sticking up for Loki for a change. “You are my brother.”
“Adopted.”
“Still.”
“A murderer,” Loki continued. “A traitor.”
“And yet, whatever purpose you took the scepter for, you have not since used it against any of the nine realms. Avery was right to believe you were no longer a threat to Midgard. I should have had more faith.”
Loki shook his head, and when Avery moved to cover his hand with her own, he pulled away. She could feel that he was growing agitated, not knowing how to respond to Thor’s sudden desire to reconcile with him. She was still good at reading people, thanks to her leftover abilities, and she thought that Thor was being honest, but she had the feeling that Loki would refuse to believe her if she told him as such.
“Even if you did such a thing once crowned king, even if you went against the people’s wishes, I am hated on Asgard. It would only be a matter of time before one of the palace servants killed me in my sleep.”
“Not if you helped to rebuild the Bifrost,” Thor said, and Avery’s heart sank. Loki had been right after all—there was always a catch. “Our people have suffered since the Bifrost was destroyed. If you return the Tesseract, and allow Odin to use it to—”
“To regain his stranglehold on the nine realms?” Loki said, interrupting him. “To subjugate my race, as well as the elves and the dwarves, and return himself to his natural position lording over all of creation?”
“You twist my words. The nine realms are in chaos, plagued by bands of marauders. Odin and I wish to bring peace to the people whom Asgard is sworn to protect. To bring order.”
Avery had been choosing to sit back and let the brothers battle it out, but she couldn’t help but cut into the conversation, telling Thor, “Fuck order. Fuck your empire. If the Bifrost being broken makes it harder for Asgard to dominate the rest of the universe, good.”
Thor frowned at her, as if she had disappointed him, before returning his attention to Loki. “Brother, is this what you believe as well?”
Loki inclined his head. “More or less. At least, I see no benefit to helping you, and quite a bit of risk. The Tesseract is my freedom. I will go willingly to Hel before I will put it back into Odin’s hands.”
Covering his face in one enormous hand, Thor let out a long sigh. Avery braced herself for the argument to turn into a real fight, but to her surprise, Thor looked back up at them and gave a slight shrug. “I cannot say I am surprised. I promised Odin that I would attempt to retrieve the Tesseract, but I did not harbor high hopes that you would give it up willingly.”
“What now, then?” Loki asked. “Will you attempt to take it by force?”
“No,” Thor replied instantly, surprising both of them. “I will finish my drink with you, and then I will return to Asgard and tell Odin that I failed. And I will find another way to allow your return to Asgard when I am king.”
Loki arched one elegant eyebrow. “Even if I will not return the Tesseract?”
“Even then. Odin is the one who wants it returned. I merely want my brother to come home.”
“Sentiment,” Loki sneered, though underneath it all, Avery knew he was pleased. “And what is your plan if I do return? Do you intend to reinstate me as a prince of Asgard, against the people’s wishes? To reintegrate me into society?”
“If that is what you want,” Thor said immediately, leaning across the table. “Would you like that? It could be like old times.”
At that, Avery had to fight to keep her face neutral, because part of her was crestfallen at the thought. She knew that Loki missed Asgard, and his mother, and even Thor a little, even if he would never admit it. Avery had wormed her way into Loki’s life when he was alone, without a home or a family to return to. If his old life was restored, where would she fit into it?
Given the beliefs his family seemed to hold about people from Earth, Avery didn’t expect she would be allowed to accompany him or to maintain a relationship with him if he were the prince. He would be expected to marry and raise heirs, and she was not really willing to be his side chick, to watch him have that life with someone else.
And, well, the best case scenario if he went back to Asgard? If his people fully embraced her as they would an Asgardian partner? It was still nothing that she would want. Marriage and children had never held any appeal for her, even with a normal partner. Marrying into a royal family? She wasn’t exactly Kate fucking Middleton. She would be thrown out of the palace in under 24 hours for, like, refusing to bow or use royal titles, or not wanting to wear a ballgown, or stealing cutlery just out of sheer spite for the monarchy.
Avery loved Loki enough to follow him across the galaxy, leaving behind everything and everyone she had known. But she didn’t love anyone enough to leave herself behind. She could not picture a future in which she could live on Asgard and still be true to herself. She wasn’t willing to marry anyone, even Loki, but she also wasn’t willing to sit back and watch him marry someone else.
If Loki was to return to Asgard once Thor was king, the only solution thing Avery could think to do would be asking him to just wait for her to die before going back to his old life. It wasn’t like a few decades would matter much to a person of his lifespan. She could have her time with Loki, and then he could go home and marry himself a nice princess.
Avery tried her best to pretend like the thought of that didn’t make her want to cry. She was still pretending when Loki spoke again.
“I will not go back,” he said, holding up a hand to silence Thor before he could argue. “The longer I spend away, the more I come to feel that my life on Asgard was more… restrictive than I care for. My role as prince, which once felt natural, feels like too small of a space to fit myself back into. No, I have changed too much—as have you. Things can never return to how they were.”
Avery breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to believe that she was relieved for Loki’s sake, because she couldn’t see him being happy back in his old life, but if she was honest, she was mostly just relieved that he wasn’t going to abandon her.
Maybe she was greedy or selfish, wanting to keep him away from his home and his family, just so she wouldn’t have to watch someone else have him. But also, she really did feel like there were things about him that she loved that he would have to abandon in order to resume his old role. And, from the sound of it, he felt the same way.
Thor, who wore his heart on his sleeve even before Avery had advanced empathic abilities, looked as if he might cry for a second, but he swallowed heavily and looked away. “I understand,” he said. Avery marveled slightly at how hard he was trying—after their conversation about Loki back when he sprung her from SHIELD custody, Thor seemed to genuinely be making an effort not to make Loki feel trapped or pressured in any way.
But she was even more surprised when Loki spoke again, this time to say, “However, I suppose I would not be opposed to perhaps making a short visit to Asgard one day, if only to see Frigga again.”
Thor’s eyes shot up to stare at Loki for a second, then he beamed and clapped him on the shoulder so heavily that Loki’s entire body swayed. “Wonderful!”
Loki rolled his eyes, looking for a moment so much the sarcastic little brother that Avery had to fight the urge to laugh. “Do not get overexcited, Thor. I said ‘perhaps’.”
“Of course,” Thor agreed, but his smile did not dim one bit. “Still, we must toast to this!”
“No, we really mustn’t,” Loki started to say.
Thor, clearly not even listening, just flung his empty glass down to the floor beside their table, crying, “Another! Bring us another round for the table!” His eyes were positively twinkling as he turned back to Loki and Avery. “This round is on me.”
Avery wasn’t sure if it was her powers, or just Thor’s personality, but she had never seen anyone radiating happiness so intensely. It was like the air around their table was suddenly a few degrees warmer, just from the warmth of Thor’s smile.
Despite herself, Avery couldn’t help but smile back. Even the corner of Loki’s lips twitched.
“To hell with it,” Loki said, and for the first time that evening, a genuine grin stretched across his face. Taking his own glass, he threw it to the ground to shatter, the shards mixing with Thor’s until they were indistinguishable. “Another!”
It was late, very late, when the three of them finally hit their limit. Thor was sitting across from them, surrounded by empty glasses—some broken, some merely tipped over—his elbow propped on the table, chin resting in his hand, a dopey grin on his face. Loki, meanwhile, had one arm around Avery, had been holding her close to his side as he slurred out the story of their assassination of Thanos for his brother, who was nodding enthusiastically, though Avery suspected he wasn’t actually following anything Loki said.
Now, though, Thor straightened up, stretching his thick arms above his head with a massive yawn. “The journey back to Asgard is long, and I possess no Tesseract to ease the way,” he told them. “I should be moving on. And where will you go?”
“Brother,” Loki said, and Avery could see how Thor’s eyes lit up at the word. “If I told you that, I would have to kill you.”
A pause, and then the two of them were laughing heartily, Thor reaching out to grasp Loki fondly behind the neck.
“In any case, I have not planned so far ahead,” Loki admitted. “I will keep moving, of course. There is much of the galaxy that I have yet to see.”
“And you, Avery?”
Avery smiled at Thor, then turned to look at Loki. For once, he was smiling so easily that her heart ached with gratitude, and she knew that she would follow him anywhere. To the end of the world, if it came to that.
But all she said, while tucking herself under the arm of her beautiful vagabond god, was, “Oh, you know me. I’m just along for the ride.”