So, fair warning on a couple of points. First, is that the first half of this fic turned...pretty shamelessly fix-it ficcish for "Thor: The Dark World", despite not sharing a canonicity with it. That wasn't the initial intent, but as the story took form, it's the direction I wound up the most enthusiastic for despite otherwise having next-to-no experience or skill at fix-it fics. Still, those of you who had some of the same problems I did with the second movie will hopefully be particularly satisfied.

The second point is that people are gonna die. I am not kidding. This fic takes place two hundred and fifty years after the events of "The Avengers". A *lot* of people die.

Also, this fic gets kind of...ridiculously sentimental and maybe even downright schmoopy at points. But god damn it, after fifty thousand words, I think these boys have earned their happy ending and I'm gonna bask in it. And, in case it hasn't been made clear, this is planned to be the last fic in the series. It seemed only fitting to end here.

Years turned into decades turned, eventually, into centuries, and Loki could usually only keep track of them by the knocks on his door. There wasn't really much point to keeping track of them otherwise.

There was always the news that Thor brought, of course, and it was because of the news that Thor brought that Loki understood just why the last few decades had included far fewer trips to Earth. His brother had never managed to come out and admit it, of course, perhaps not even to himself. Loki, however, had always prided himself on keeping in mind just how brief mortal lives were. Even then he'd started to feel more than a bit appalled at just how many funerals Thor had attended within the last hundred years.

Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton had been the first to die. Thor had made it a point to mention that they'd died together, and they'd died fighting well. They'd saved lives, and their funeral had been one of the best that Midgard could offer its warriors. Loki had appreciated the reassurance, such as it was. His reasons for caring were complicated, twisted, and wrong, but he did.

Tony Stark, the Man of Iron, had gone next. Although it was a fate he'd managed to avoid for a good long while, thanks to the prodigious funds at his disposal and the support of his friends, his body had finally given out due to drink. He'd left behind a legacy of medical breakthroughs, not to mention robotic and prosthetic development, that would give others who came after him an even better chance to fight for survival.

The monster that dwelled within Bruce Banner had not protected him forever. In fact, it had finally taken its price for doing so. The mortal body that held the Hulk had no longer been able to stand up to the strain of transformation and repair, and surrendered the fight. He'd apparently asked for his care to be ended, and smiled as he died.

The soldier out of time, Steve Rogers, had finally been caught by it. He'd lived far longer than any mortal would likely ever be able to claim, even setting aside his preservation in ice. And even after his body had no longer been able to heft his mighty shield, he'd still fought injustice in the world in his own way. He'd led by speech and example, a paragon of all that was good and right and just for all. The world had paused on the day he died.

The computer genius he'd only ever known as "Skye" had also lived to an almost unnaturally ripe old age, for a human. Jemma Simmons had died in a lab accident, and Leo Fitz had arranged to follow soon after. Grant Ward had rotted away in the dark. Melinda May had disappeared. Phil Coulson's childhood hero would have been proud of the legacy he'd left in SHIELD before finally passing from the world for the last time.

All of these funerals, however, Loki had only heard about – sometimes years after the fact. They would sit together on a castle balcony or rooftop and Thor would tell him what he'd missed, outwardly moved on but inwardly quiet and somber in a way Loki knew to recognize. The threat of death, coming thick and fast by Asgardian standards, was weighing on Thor more and more, much as he tried to hide it.

Never had that been plainer to Loki than on the day of the one funeral he actually had attended. He had been there by Thor's side when they buried Jane Foster, aged a meager ninety-three. No one had known they were there, because it had also been the one and only day Loki had been allowed out of his cell with full use of his magic. It had been done all for the purpose of concealing him and Thor from sight.

"They should not focus on me," Thor had said by way of explanation. "I know they will, if I show my face. I don't want to be the one to distract them from her. All she did. All she meant. I just…want to be there, and remember."

Loki had understood, and so on that day, the two of them had been there, disguised as nothing more than a couple of college science students, with a perception glamour thrown over them for good measure so no one looked too long. He thought Darcy – now a fat old grandmother with three doting children, ten scampering grandchildren, and a deaf but devoted husband named Ian – might have guessed who they really were, but Darcy would have expected to see them there, and perhaps known why she wouldn't see them as they were. The ceremony drew enough of a crowd that, ultimately, the perception glamour was probably unnecessary, even if the illusion itself was. He overheard more than a few wondering whispers about when Thor would turn up.

Mostly, the crowd was made up of Jane's old students and researcher associates, her two adopted children and their children, and reporters. They sat or stood together under a slate-grey sky, listening to all the usual funeral rites and eulogies given by those who knew Jane well enough to give them. It was a respectful, almost reverent ceremony. Judging by Thor's reactions, it was also a proper one, which was important. Much as Loki had never understood the human tradition of burying the dead, it was tradition here, and that was important. Few things were more important than paying proper due to the dead, especially when they'd earned it.

Jane certainly had.

Loki tried not to think too hard as the funeral proceeded on, but he'd never been the best at that. Despite himself, there were things he couldn't help but remember. Despite himself, he knew he was mourning Jane Foster's passing, too, no matter how damnably human she had been and how idiotically inevitable it had always been that this day would come.

Jane's first words to him had been "That was for New York."

Her last words, decades later, had been, "We'll have to do this again next year, kiddo." They never had.

Loki wondered what her last words to Thor had been. He couldn't bring himself to ask. One look at Thor was enough to reveal that his brother had more or less shut down, his focus torn entirely between taking in the scene and holding back the gathering rain. Whenever a warning roll of thunder set the guests to shifting nervously in their seats and glancing suspiciously up at the sky, Loki rested a hand lightly on Thor's shoulder. Only then would his brother subside with a trembling sigh, only then would the smell of rain fade, and at those times would Loki wish all the more fervently for it all to be over.

He'd always known that this day would come, but that clearly wasn't making it easier for either of them. Not when Loki didn't understand, and not when Thor understood too much.

As this entire day existed to remind them both, however, all things eventually ended. The coffin was lowered into the ground and covered with shovelfuls of dirt. The guests lingered on a while longer after all the official words were said to say their own private farewells, to Jane and one another. The unified whole slowly broke down into their own separate groups all the same, however, and began to drift apart, back to their cars and their lives.

Loki and Thor waited on the very edge of things, leaning against a tree up on a slight rise that gave them a good view. Darcy still hobbled up to meet them, with her cane and the assistance of a grandchild, and the shock of being approached when this entire arrangement had been meant to prevent that happening meant that both brothers wound up freezing like deer in the headlights, barring Loki rather frantically looking back and forth between himself and Thor to make sure that his illusions were even still in place.

"Thank you both for coming," Darcy said simply, while the two of them were trying to recover their wits. "It would have meant a lot to Jane, to know that you were here."

Did she know? Loki found himself wondering. They were pleasant, polite, but ultimately empty words, words that he suspected she must have said a dozen times today. Then again, was there really a need to say anything else, even to them?

Then he saw the faint light of mischief in Darcy's eyes, and he knew that she knew. She was just trying to help them keep their cover. Maybe she even understood why they were holding onto it.

Just this once, it was Thor who found his voice first. "We are very glad we could attend," he said, his voice rough with the effort of swallowing his grief all day. Even Loki's illusions couldn't fully disguise that fact. "Jane was…a remarkable woman. We were all blessed to know her."

"Yeah, we were. But knowing you was pretty cool, too." She reached out as though to pat Loki on the shoulder, and then clearly remembered herself. Instead, she merely offered them both a broad smile, so that just for a moment the dark-haired intern that had once tricked Loki into eating popcorn with peanut butter showed through the withered face. "Take care of yourselves, boys."

With that, she looked to her obviously puzzled grandchild and flicked them in the ear. "Come on, take me home! I'm not getting any younger, kid!"

Loki had a sense then, as he watched her walk away, that it was the last time he would ever see her. He thought it was a sense she must have shared.

No one else approached them, after that. No one else but the unfortunately confused grandchild could possibly have heard anything suspicious pass between them. Fortunately, not many people were still lingering by the graveside by then, and they didn't have to wait much longer for a moment alone with the plot of freshly turned earth and the body that lay interred beneath it.

Thor moved forward like he was being towed on a line, heedless of anything else in the world around him. He even stumbled, making his way down the rise where they'd waited for the last long while. The sight of it made Loki's heart twist traitorously in his chest, but he forced himself to follow at a slower pace, letting Thor go on ahead alone even if only for this short distance.

The rain had already started to fall by the time Thor slumped to his knees in front of the gleaming marble headstone. Thunder murmured more than roared, and lightning came as brief flashes in the dark clouds overhead. They were soft sounds, soothing and familiar sounds. With Loki standing this close, however, they didn't do quite enough to hide the sound of Thor's quiet sobbing. His back was to Loki, shoulders slumped, head bowed, hands clenched in the damp, freshly turned dirt as though in doing so he could cling to Jane Foster herself.

Loki stood at the edge of the grave, at a respectful distance from Thor and his ghosts. He tilted his head up towards the rain because he couldn't stand to see his brother so broken and bowed and be unable to do anything about it.

He'd warned Thor that this day would come. Thor had ignored him, and they'd both wound up better men for it. This day had still been unavoidable.

Although there were still sounds of the world turning on around them – the thunder, the lightning, the rain, the rustling of leaves and grass, the crunch of gravel in the distance – the silence between them grew and grew until Loki felt like he was going to choke on it. So he finally asked the question that had been on his mind since this day began.

"Why did she let them bury her?" Even though he still resolutely refused to look at Thor, Loki turned his gaze down to the dirt instead. "Why not burn? It was no less than she deserved."

When Asgard burned its dead, it was for the sake of freeing them from their discarded husks so that their souls could ascend to the stars. What possible purpose could humans serve by leaving their dead discarded in the ground? Loki could scarcely think of anything more disrespectful. Thor, however, had served as his guide to humanity in all their strangeness for over a hundred years now. Loki trusted that, even now, he had an answer for this.

He wasn't disappointed. Thor still didn't look up from the ground, but he spoke. "I asked her that myself, when we…when we knew this day was near. She said she wanted to be buried, Loki. She said she wanted maggots and worms to devour her body. She wanted them to go on to fuel the growth of grass and flowers and trees. They planted a tree in the ground here that her body will nourish from a seed as it withers away. Those plants will spread seeds and nourish animals, over and over again through the years, until, in time…a part of Jane will live on in all things in this world."

Then, and only then, did Thor look up at Loki. There were tears in his eyes, and his smile was somehow one of the most miserable things Loki had ever seen.

"When she told me that, brother…I wanted to be buried beside her."

He didn't know what to say to that. Perhaps there was nothing to say. There was, however, something to be done – there always was, where Thor was concerned.

That one thing was to kneel in the dirt beside Thor. Silently, because there was nothing that needed to be said, Thor leaned against Loki and Loki let him, just this once. He wrapped an arm protectively around Thor's shoulders as though he could shield his older brother from everything, even if Loki had rarely felt so powerless.

He didn't know, at the time, why his thoughts drifted back to that day, and all the days he'd heard about before and after it from Thor. It started off as just an ordinary day, or possibly night. It was hard to tell, down here in his cell, because there were no windows. The last couple of centuries had played merry hell with his sense of time.

All Loki knew that he was hard at work on yet another bundle of javelins. After crafting thousands of them, it was the sort of work where his mind could wander, his muscles barely felt the burn anymore, and he could shrug off the heat, but it was still something to do with his hands. Counting out the strokes and managing the heat of the metal was a form of meditation in its own right, by now.

When the knock came at the door, Loki didn't even look up from his forge. He just waited for the slide of the little door set into the base of his cell door that always marked the sound of food, tools, or fresh ore being pushed through into his little domain. The only other alternative was that it was Thor, of course, but it wasn't more often than it was.

Then the knocking resumed, as more of a hammering this time – insistent, continuous, and loud. That was enough to identify the one outside, although Loki still found himself at first puzzled, and then concerned. It was true that Thor was the only one who ever came down here alone. Even when other people accompanied him for the day, they were always accompanied by him. He could not, however, recall a time when Thor had arrived so frantically, upset in a way that translated loud and clear through knocking.

Despite the fresh anxiety churning in his stomach, however, Loki got to his feet and moved to the door. When he tried the handle, he found the cell door unlocked, as it always was when Thor came down to see him. Loki all but threw the door open and, sure enough, there was Thor on the other side, staring at him disheveled, breathless, and red-eyed.

"Loki," Thor gasped, as though surprised to see him there, as though at a loss as to what to do next now that he'd found him. Then, as Loki stood there staring at Thor, the Thunderer seemed to…crumple. All the energy left him in a rush, and he had clearly been on his last legs to start with.

The anxiety in the pit of Loki's stomach began to blossom into full-fledged alarm. "Thor," he said, unable to keep his voice from trembling just a bit. He stepped nearer, over the threshold of his cell and near enough to rest a hand on Thor's shoulder. "What's happened? Brother, tell me. What's wrong?" Was it another attack? Was Asgard in danger, was…?

Thor suddenly seized Loki's hand in both of his, in a grip so fierce that it actually made Loki wince. "Loki," he said again. His voice was trembling badly now, betraying a sob, betraying such pain as Loki had not seen in him since that day by the grave. He bowed his head, eyes closed tightly, and pressed his forehead to Loki's fingers. "Loki, oh, brother, I'm sorry. I should have…I should have come to you months ago. I should have told you sooner, but we kept hoping he would get better…"

No.

The word seemed to echo in Loki's mind, futile and weak, but he couldn't stop himself. He felt the world crystallizing around him into shards of razor-sharp glass, he felt the ground beginning to crumble beneath his feet and leaving nothing but Void beneath. If only to stave off the feeling of falling, Loki stumbled forward, closing the distance between them as he reached out with a trembling hand for his brother. Because no, no…

Then Thor hugged him, but even that was wrong. The gesture of affection was careful, even tentative. Thor normally moved with purpose when offering Loki any sort of physical affection, because they both knew that it was the sort of affection that Loki most easily accepted from him. Now, however, he moved as though Loki would break at the slightest touch, or perhaps as though he no longer trusted himself to do even this.

In that moment, Loki knew the truth, cold and certain, even before Thor forced the words out.

"He's asked to see you, Loki. Once more before the end."