A/N: Trust me to get feels over a joke. Why. Why, brain, why.

Through the fistful of fabric torn from Thor's cape shoved into his mouth, Loki screamed.

"Shh," Thor soothed, pressing a different want of once-bright red fabric against the bleeding gash in Loki's side. "Don't lead them right to us."

Loki lifted one hand to pull out the gag, his other fist splintering a root of the tree he leaned against. "I'm so sorry… that my agony… is inconveniencing you," he hissed between ragged breaths.

Thor glanced up, heart sinking as he saw no rage in his pale, sweaty face. He wasn't even trying to fake a glare, his eyes busy darting around the dim forest, waiting for the enemy to come finish what they started. "You know that's not what I meant."

Loki calmed a bit, just long enough to say, "I know," his pain and fear bleeding through his tone in the absence of anger. Thor tried to offer him a reassuring smile, silently berating himself for leaving their medkit on the ship. The humans always insisted he carry one, especially now that he was king of a damaged people, but it was supposed to be a simple mission – rescue a few crates of a rare, precious healing elixir being held on a moon by a few rogue pirates. They weren't supposed to be backed up by a group of intelligent, armed Ravagers on a moon that somehow suppressed both Thor's lightning and Loki's magic.

It had taken only seconds for them to realize they were walking straight into an ambush, but they were already surrounded by then. They'd managed to knock out some opponents, working steadily towards safety, until a metal-wielder managed to land a solid blow on Loki. And now they were here, awaiting an ambush while Loki bled out in some alien forest.

The sharp snap of a breaking twig drew their attention, Thor whipping around to search for the source. He couldn't see anything in the shadows between the closely crowded trunks, but the noise had definitely been too close for comfort.

"We have to move," he decided aloud, turning back to Loki. "Here, you hold that," he said, taking Loki's hand and clamping it over the bloodied cloth. Ducking under Loki's other arm and taking hold of his waist, Thor asked, "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Loki rasped, determination steeling his gaze.

"Three… two… one… Up!"

Despite Thor's careful effort and Loki's clenched jaw, another cry of pain still escaped him. The hand draped over Thor's shoulders found Thor's wrist and squeezed, his head hanging as his knees nearly buckled. Thor caught him, holding him upright, giving him a moment to recover in spite of the danger.

Finally, too breathless to speak, Loki just let go of Thor's wrist and waved vaguely forwards. Thor went, moving slowly at first to let Loki find a rhythm. Gradually, he picked up the pace, but between Loki's wound and the dense undergrowth, it wasn't nearly fast enough. Occasionally, another twig would snap underfoot not too far off, the noise creeping ever closer to the brothers.

"We're being toyed with," he muttered to Loki. Thor remembered doing it often, drawing out the fight for the fun of it, back in his days of being a cocky youth, but he'd always been the one doing the toying. But being on this side of it, with a kingdom depending on him and his brother hurt in his arms…

He stopped dead, Loki stumbling to a halt beside him. Loki slumped against him, fighting to stay upright if his trembling was anything to go by. But he mumbled, "We should do Get Help."

Thor stared at him. "What?" he exclaimed.

Loki gave a one-shouldered shrug, edging backwards to lean against a tree. "I can't fight, and you can't fight if you're holding me. So…"

"No," Thor said. "No, I'm not doing that when you're hurt."

"We don't have a choice," Loki insisted, pinning Thor with a pointed stare. "You know that as well as I do."

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" a new voice inquired.

Bushes rustled as a group of five emerged from the shadows. They were of varying species, but they all wore the same disheveled maroon leather, formidable blasters held casually in their hands. The speaker was a scrawny Kree, scars crisscrossing over his bald head, beady yellow eyes leering at them; he alone held his blaster responsibly, finger taut on the trigger, barrel pointed at Thor.

Thor backed up, securing Loki between his back and the tree. Loki lifted his chin defiantly, trying to look strong even as his hand closed around a fistful of Thor's cape. Thor reached his arm out, letting the gesture act like both a hug and a shield.

"Look," Thor started, "we just want to leave."

"And come back with reinforcements? No, I don't think I'm in the mood to let you leave," the Kree said, letting his blaster sway from Thor to Loki and back again. "The question is, who dies first?"

"Me," Loki volunteered instantly. Thor glared at him, but Loki just looked back with that same pointed stare.

"How sweet," he almost purred, voice sickly sweet. "Trying to spare the big one, are we? But you see, I heard you two arguing about some sort of plan, and my guess is that it's fairly dependent on the one of you that can actually fight. So, bye One Eye."

Thor's eye widened as the Kree pulled the trigger, but Loki was faster. With a grunt of pain, he shoved off the tree, bringing Thor down with him as the energy blast scorched through the tree where Thor's head had been. Loki landed on top of him with a groan of pain, but he hissed, "Throw. Me."

The Ravagers were distracted, chuckling at the way they'd landed. "Look at the lovebirds," one joked in a painfully gravelly voice.

Thor sat up gingerly, acting like the fall had hurt more than it had. In helping Loki sit up, his heart skipping a beat as he spotted fresh blood, he positioned his hands for the toss. Both hands now pressing the soaked cloth against his wound, Loki nodded.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Thor threw him.

The Kree had the sense to duck, and one was out of range of Loki's kicking legs, but Thor was up and moving almost before Loki collided with the first target. He yanked the Kree's blaster out of his hands, slamming it viciously into his face; bones cracked and blood spurted from the blow. He shot the straggler, burning a hole in his chest, and swiftly stomped on the other three to finish what Loki had started.

"By the way," Thor added as he knocked out the joker, "that little comment is just disgusting. We're brothers."

A moan distracted him, snapping him out of his ire. He spun around, spotting Loki trying and miserably failing to push himself off a body. Thor darted to his side, shifting him before tossing the body into the trees, fueling the motion with his remaining frustrated guilt before turning a much gentler touch to Loki. He just lay there, sprawled out and panting, wide eyes pained and scared.

Thor knelt beside him, taking a moment to cup his face, brushing stray hairs aside, and murmuring, "It's ok, your plan worked. We're safe."

Loki nodded, but his attempt at a calming breath turned into a weak spasm of pain. Thor inspected his wound – bleeding again, with the improvised bandage dropped in the scuffle. Thor tore a new one from his cape, and ripped holes in Loki's tunic to act as makeshift fasteners. He set a wad of fabric over the wound, then tore off extra strips and tied them taut over it with the new holes, pinning it in place.

"All right," Thor said as he finished, "now we're going back to the ship."

Loki's eyes flickered open, filled with utter dread, but Thor had zero intention of asking him to move. He slipped one arm under Loki's back, one under his knees, and lifted. Rather than even pretending to protest, Loki just buried his face in Thor's shoulder and let him do all the walking. Thor struck out, his steps hastened and silence loaded by guilt.

"It's ok," Loki eventually mumbled.

Thor winced internally at his brother's readiness to accept pain. "I…"

"I told you to do it."

Thor sighed. "I know, brother. And it worked. Just… don't ever make me do that again. Deal?"

"As in, Get Help in general, or-?"

Thor laughed. "Don't get your hopes up, Loki."

"…Darn."

-MCU-

When Loki stirred a couple days later in a Wakandan hospital, Thor was in a chair by his bed, snoring and drooling a little into his hand. His other hand rested over Loki's upturned wrist, two fingers tracking his beating pulse. Loki smiled softly and let the human drugs guide him back into sleep's embrace, his head now tilted towards his brother.