Memento Mori

Summary: Of the many people capable of carrying the fate of the universe on their shoulders by travelling back in time, Loki would have been the first choice of exactly nobody. With no allies, no plan and nobody on his side, Loki will just have to wing it.

Or: That awkward moment when you've completed your redemption arc, but nobody else got the memo.

Chapter 24

The sound of Loki's heartbeat was deafening. It pounded in his chest, rippled suffocating waves through his body and forced him to breathe deeply so he wouldn't drown in it. He felt more than heard the troops advancing.

"He is not underestimating us," Frigga murmured when it became clear that Thanos would enter the battlefield himself. He drew the collective force of his army in his wake – determined, it seemed, to raze Asgard to the ground and pluck the infinity stones from the rubble.

"Neither are we." Loki focused on his breathing and fought against wave after wave of stifling anxiety. Thanos had beaten him once. This time, Loki had the might of Asgard and all their allies backing him up. Five of them carried infinity stones. The sixth was with Odin, ensuring his and the Asgardian citizens' safety. Just in case.

"You will tell me all about your journey once we have finished." Frigga said it as though there was no doubt they would make it out alive.

Loki's lips twitched. "As our Queen commands." If they lived to tell the tale, Frigga would be the very first to hear it.

The Ancient One's warning rang in Stephen's ears. It drowned out the clash of weapons, the grunts of exertion, even the ear-piercing sound of hundreds of Asgardians' battle cries.

His amulet felt ten times as heavy. The temptation to use it was even greater than usual.

"They've got archers!"

Stephen's eyes snapped upwards. Projectiles rained down on them in a gleaming silver hailstorm that promised losses in the hundreds.

The amulet was open and the time stone glowing before Stephen could second-guess himself.

He wouldn't risk tearing the fabric of time by pushing it too far. He wouldn't risk destroying their reality in an attempt to save it, wouldn't risk stopping and rewinding time on a whim.

But he wasn't doing either. Stephen was stretching it.

He slowed the downfall of projectiles into a steady shower. He gave his Order time to spill out of their portals like belated rainfall after a drought. He allowed the Asgardian soldiers to close their ranks and adapt their strategy to include a battalion of Midgardian sorcerers and a group of unorthodoxly fighting superheroes.

He could not focus on them all. He slowed down the jab of a sword and eased the advance of a blaster. He made the enemy wade through molasses – some of them, those he could reach, a mere corner of the battlefield too small to decide the outcome.

The time stone vibrated inside the amulet, chiding him for stretching the rules. Stephen was cheating, risking more than the Ancient One would have wanted him to. Who cared, as long as it was working?

The battle had been bizarre even before cloaked Midgardians began spilling out of boldly colored gateways.

Captain Eirin assumed they were Midgardians because she had no time to think of an alternative that made more sense. If she'd had the time, she'd have allowed herself to be puzzled. For one, Midgardians were not supposed to be able to work magic. (They were not supposed to be able to fly, or fight, or transform into monsters either.)

For another, the other Midgardians seemed as startled to see the robed figures as Captain Eirin and her people were. This did not help to settle her concerns. Concerns which she did not have. Because she was thinking about the battle, not about the intricate workings of Midgardian fighters and their capabilities.

(Dagger. To her calf.)

(Yes. She deserved this.)

(Adding cowardly defection to her list of crimes against the crown sounded more tempting by the second.)

A brutish alien creature charged at Captain Eirin and her no-longer-closed formation. She prepared to perform a simple, classic maneuver (containing only a medium risk of permanent injury or sudden decapitation) when – for some reason lost to even her own brain – Captain Eirin changed her mind.

She broke out running, jumped higher than she'd ever before felt the necessity to do, leaped off of one of the sorcerer's glowing platforms that formed at her feet and rammed her sword into the creature's back.

Captain Eirin could not tell whose nod of solemn comradery looked more puzzled – her own, or the sorcerer's.

"How'd you know they could do that?" Fresh-from-the-barracks Private Gøran asked.

"I've no idea."

Second Lieutenant Terje pulled his sword out of enemy armor as lazily as he could without falling to the enemy ranks. "Is there anyone else who can't stop thinking about getting a drink?"

"What's happening?"

While Steve spoke it out loud, Tony could tell that everybody else was asking themselves the same question.

One moment there was chaos on the battlefield as Strange's sorcerer cult appeared in the middle of the fight out of nowhere. The next, Asgardians and sorcerers alike began initiating acts of teamwork and precise coordination – very much not the product of two parties supposedly oblivious to each other's capabilities.

"... I think I'm doing that," Tony admitted.

From up above, Tony spotted a pair of sorcerers teleporting straight into quite likely the least convenient corner of the battlefield. The thought had barely grazed his mind when a small group of soldiers hurried to offer assistance.

He recognized an opportunity to take out a dozen enemies at once. Several of Strange's sorcerer pals followed Tony's unspoken plan of action almost before he finished picturing it in his mind.

"Are you mind controlling our allies?" Steve asked over the coms, sounding too weary to muster even mild disapproval.

"Seriously? No, nothing like that." Tony was optimistically certain that outright mind control required a higher level of power over the mind stone than he ever wanted to possess. "I think I'm just... giving them ideas."

"... We'll take it."

The only com units they had were among the team. There was no way for them to efficiently communicate with the scattered Asgardians and wizards. This – while more than a little unsettling – was likely as good an alternative as they were going to get.

"Okay. Tony, you listening?"

Tony powered up his repulsors and flew higher, out of reach of most stray attacks and with view of every corner of the battlefield. "What's the plan?"

Steve rapidly laid out their strategy, and Tony prepared for some gentle but insistent mental nudging. The mind stone hummed, happy to be of use – or perhaps enthusiastic about touching the minds of so many people at once.

They'd barely managed to fend off the first wave of Thanos' army when he let loose a horde of gigantic flying beings made of metal. They bore similarities to amphibious (non-metal) creatures on Sakaar that produced an excellent stew – only they were bigger, with thicker armor and less likely to nudge Valkyrie's hand to be petted up until she demonstrated her intentions with a clean cut of her sword.

The foot soldiers weren't equipped to deal with them. At least some of them used gliders – while not as good as a winged steed, it at least made them less likely to be squished before they landed a hit on the creatures.

Norns, what Valkyrie wouldn't give for a decent horse.

There were too many of them. They were too well armored to be dealt with quickly by even a dozen regular soldiers. Valkyrie sprinted, leaped upwards, hurled her axe and felled one of the creatures before it could finish its descent.

The axe sent a tingling sensation throughout her limb – the gem's usual side effect of giving her a power boost. It felt like it was telling her that it would turn against her body next if she failed to sate its hunger for destruction.

There was plenty left to destroy. The gem could run wild all it liked – as long as Valkyrie had one hand on the reins, she didn't mind taking down a building or two as collateral.

Nebula vastly disliked utilizing a power that was not hers. It was pathetically ironic, seeing as nothing of her person was. Her body wasn't hers. Her weapons weren't. Even the thoughts of her own mind were all centered around Thanos – her every action aimed to please him, to appease him, to topple him.

The reality stone may not have been hers either, but it definitely wasn't his.

Nebula took her sword, closed her eyes, told reality to shift – and reality pushed back.

Nebula yielded to it because she knew that Thanos would not have.

She gave up the reins – grudgingly settling on steering the gem instead of controlling it outright – and took pleasure from the conviction that it would not have worked for Thanos. It wouldn't have wanted to work for Thanos. To bow to him.

Machinery melted and gave way to new, organic tissue. Her arm shed its metal casing. The circuits in her mind ceased to be. Nebula shifted reality and purged every addition, every replacement, every scrap of technology Thanos had forced onto her over years and years. She made her body hers.

With the power of reality in her hand, nobody could hurt her the way Thanos had.

Nebula pictured what else the stone was capable of. She could see it in her mind, could see herself warping and twisting Thanos' form until his remains no longer resembled the monster he'd once been. She pictured cleansing the battle field, killing every single one of Thanos' followers with a single wave of her hand.

The reality stone twinged, reminding her of her place. Warning her not to overstep her bounds. Telling her not to presume to know what it would or wouldn't do for her. It was one of many. It was not reality's place to take lives on such a scale.

Nebula snarled and let out her frustration by making the ground give way and swallow up an entire flank of Thanos' army. They cried out – sunken down to their chest, alive but incapable of freeing themselves.

"Nice one." The one who called herself Valkyrie – the one wielding reality's sister – slowed her rampage. Her eyes were drawn to Nebula's still glowing sword. "What else can it do?"

Nebula looked down at the weapon. She wondered what it could do in the hands of somebody with more imagination than her.

There were days when Frigga missed Loki so much that it hurt.

Even after Thor's act of defiance, she'd had no doubt that her oldest would return to them eventually. He was a loyal soul – so full of love for his family, his people and the Midgardians.

With Loki, she could never tell for sure.

"Your skills have not wilted within the palace walls," Loki told her in between spells, pulling Frigga back into the heat of battle.

"I should hope not." Frigga used a move that had taken Loki years to master. "I'm not willing to see my student surpass me yet."

Their enemies regrouped. They'd recovered from the shock of Midgardian sorcerers reinforcing their ranks and now threatened to overwhelm them through sheer force. Thanos did not care about casualties. His armies did not seem to care about throwing away their lives to press an advantage.

Frigga watched Loki weave his spellwork and joined her might with his. Illusions appeared, dozens of them – hundreds of them – turning into foe and ally alike and causing beautiful, mischievous mayhem even larger than on the day Loki had smuggled a drunken Bilgesnipe into the throne room.

Frigga caught his gaze and smiled – no, she smirked, that very same expression Loki pretended to have learned in front of the mirror.

"I see that prison hasn't stopped you from honing your skills," she half-teased, half-complimented, marveling at how similar their magic felt. She'd worried that with Loki's rejection of their family ties, he might have rejected her teachings as well.

"I've had the best of teach–"

Loki trailed off. Frigga followed his gaze and her voice vanished into nothing.

Thanos knocked Thor to the ground with all the might of a battering ram.

The spell Loki had been casting burned out and left cold emptiness in its wake.

Thor had taken worse – Loki had dealt out worse himself – but it took Thor too long to push himself up on trembling limbs. Plenty of time for Thanos to scoop him up and hold his neck in a vice grip.

The clash of weapons and the sound of yelling faded into the background. Loki's breath stuttered in his throat.

Gamora was close. She did not care about his leverage – did not care whether Thor would pay the price for her recklessness – and charged at Thanos in icy determination.

Loki hurled a dagger that would have buried itself in her neck had she not skidded to a halt. "Do not," he hissed, and he drew another in warning.

"Are you serious?!" Gamora's eyes were scalding. She stood close to Strange (the only other familiar face in a sea of strangers) and he put a hand on her shoulder to keep her back.

Frigga had gone utterly still. As soon as Loki was sure that Gamora would not try again, he focused on the rapid rise and fall of Thor's chest.

Nobody else attacked. Thanos' troops saw their master and respected his intent to deal with them himself.

Thanos drew out the moment – perhaps to catch his breath, perhaps because he enjoyed seeing them fidget. "After everything that you've accomplished," he said, luring a pained gasp from Thor by tightening his grip, "the life of one man is enough to make you falter."

Loki's tongue slipped over his lips, trying to get rid of the chapped, dry sensation. He could not understand why the fighting had not ground to a halt. The noise around them did not dampen even though every person ought to have frozen in reverence of what was at stake.

"What is it that you want?" Frigga's voice was steady even though Loki could see her trembling.

"From him?" Thanos jostled Thor, holding his neck so tight that it would paint bruises. Thor let out a strangled moan. "Nothing."

Frigga shook in rage. Loki feared that she would do something they would all regret – Thor had not inherited his temper from Odin alone.

"Give me the stones," Thanos said, turning to Loki, "and I will consider sparing him."

Thanos did not hide behind walls of lies and second motives. To him, it was simple. Cower or perish. Bow to Thanos or pay the price. Hand over the stone... or Thor would die.

Loki wanted to laugh with the absurdity of it. He wanted to cry about fate repeating itself. He wanted to rage and scream at the universe for making him the one who it all depended on.

The stone or Thor's life. His brother or the universe.

Loki wondered idly whether he ought to feel honored that Thanos seemed to believe him capable of guarding not one, but several of the stones by himself.

"No," Frigga whispered, having come to the same realization Loki had.

"The stones." Thanos squeezed harder. Thor no longer seemed to have air to spare for even a groan.

Loki's urge to break out into hysterical laughter grew. "I don't have it."

Frigga let out a strangled, horrid sound.

"Try again, trickster," Thanos said, believing him to be lying.

Thor knew that he wasn't. Loki could see it in his eyes.

"Loki," Thor shifted in Thanos' grip to free his voice, pressing out sound even though every word must have been agony. "It's... okay."

It wasn't. It clearly wasn't. Nothing was okay. Loki gave the stone to Odin, and Thor was at Thanos' mercy. Loki didn't have the choice of gambling the universe and bargain for Thor's life. Not this time.

"I don't have it," Loki repeated, and gasped, the panic hitting him all at once. Frigga clutched his elbow, her grip painfully tight. "I don't have it. I gave it away. I..."

"It's alright," Thor whispered as loudly as his crushed windpipe allowed. "Loki. It's alright."

Loki's breath hitched in his throat. Frigga's grip was so tight that it would bruise.

Thanos regarded them with his dispassionate gaze. "A shame."

He squeezed. Loki's scream could not cover the sound of Thor's neck breaking.

Everything stopped. Thanos stilled. No wind ruffled Asgard's trees. Thor's body hung stiffly from Thanos' grip.

Loki's throat felt raw, and each and every heaved, painful breath felt as though it chapped at his lungs, clawed at his chest from within and left bloody tatters behind.

Loki would gladly take dying over this.

"Loki," Frigga whispered, her voice hoarse. Had she screamed, too? Loki could not picture his mother losing her composure – though her arm clutching Loki's so tight as though it was the only thing keeping her upright did wonders for his imagination.

He did not turn to look at her. Thor's eyes were unseeing and glassy. His neck was bent at a sickening angle. His body was stiff... too stiff. He ought to go limp before entering rigor mortis – Loki had seen enough corpses to know.

Thor didn't merely look lifeless. He was motionless. Frozen. What Loki'd first believed to be his mind's trick of processing the wrongness of the moment could not be natural.

Loki tore his eyes away as Frigga sucked in a shaky breath.

Strange's amulet was opened and exposed the glowing time stone. Other than Strange, only Loki, Frigga and Gamora could move – at least in the small, green-tinted bubble Strange's powers had formed. The battle continued outside of it, past frozen figures of allies and foes alike.

"Thank you," Loki gasped, his voice breathless and choked. Pressure built up behind his eyes, and Loki didn't care. "Thank you," he repeated, his words heavy with sincerity he hadn't known himself capable of.

Strange nodded. His hands trembled with his effort of keeping time frozen. "Make it count," he whispered, and turned his hand.

Time rewound. Blood trickled upwards. Thor's neck reset with a crunch as sickening as its break had been, and Loki had a second look on Thanos' impationate, almost clinical expression upon crushing Loki's world.

Loki realized he was going to be selfish before he'd even started to move. He remembered Thor accusing him of putting his life before the universe's. Loki supposed that if it hadn't been true then, it definitely was now.

Loki drew a dagger. The fighting around them resumed. He hacked off Thanos' hand, tackled Thor to safety and felt not an inkling of guilt about prioritizing his brother over ending the war.

Gamora rammed her knife into Thanos' chest. She missed Loki by inches and swallowed bile at the sensation of severing skin and muscles and flesh.

So much blood on her hands, and still, killing the one whose fault it was made her feel sick.

The blade was not big enough to reach his heart. Thanos looked from the hilt protruding from his chest to Gamora, almost as though he was chiding her for a shoddy job left unfinished. "You will need more than that to kill me, daughter."

Gamora's tears spilled over. A shameful, irrational sob lodged itself in her throat and made her voice sound hoarse. "Look again."

The knife in his chest glowed.

"No..." Thanos' eyes widened. He yanked out the knife and jolted at the pain. The soul stone's eerie orange had taken the place of its former gem's blood red.

Thanos looked up, shock and grief reflected in his eyes. There was no trace of anger. "Gamora. No..."

The soul stone sang, though only Thanos could hear it. Given the power over life and death, even a child's toy was capable of toppling the strongest of titans. Thanos died surrounded by enemies and at the hands of his once-daughter. He died, stabbed with the gift he'd given her as comfort for her murdered family.

Thanos died, and Asgard's queen stood between her sons and the no longer frozen army. Strange sunk to his knees, his amulet closed and the time stone dim.

Gamora looked at the weapon that had taught her to fight and did not move to pick it up. It had done what it had been meant to do. It was over.

A/N: I want you all to appreciate how easy (and tempting) it would have been to end the chapter two scenes earlier. You're welcome. (:

Big thanks to To Mockingbird, PyrothTenka and Igornerd!

I've been waiting for this chapter for ages. Let me know what you think?
~Gwen