A.N: Hi! This is my first endeavor into the Avengers fandom. Let my know how I did.

For anyone wondering, I am still working on Familiar Strangers. It's just taking a lot longer than I planned.

Enjoy!

disclaimer: I don't own any of Marvel's characters.

To Kill Or Not To Kill

1.
In hindsight, Loki had many chances during his childhood and youth to kill Thor. So many missed opportunities to rid himself of the oaf once and for all. He could have done it one of those nights when he sneaked into Thor's room after having a nightmare. Or he he could have done it while they were sparring. Or when they went out hunting. Or when they went out on one of Thor's doomed pranks. Or when they carried out one of Loki's schemes for spreading chaos.

Yet this is the first time it occurs to Loki that he can actually do it. He can do it right here, right now. He can kill his brother. He can be rid of Thor – whose shadow Loki has lived his whole life in – at long last. It would take but one solid blow and then it would be over.

No more being outshone by Asgard's golden prince. No more being second best. Loki knows he will never be loved like Thor unjustly still is, but he will be respected and feared. People will see how strong Loki really is. He won't be just the Trickster, the Liesmith, the Silvertongue. He will be the slayer of Laufey of Jotunheim and Thor of Asgard. He will be the killer of monsters and gods.

The Destroyer wreaks havoc on the Migardian village Thor has spent the past few days in. Sif and the Warriors Three fight the Destroyer with as much reckless valor as ever, keeping the Destroyer as far from Thor as they can, but it is merely a matter of time. They are living, breathing people. Eventually they will tire and the Destroyer will finish them off. Once they are out of the way the Destroyer will kill Thor, and Loki will be free.

It will require no effort on Loki's part. He needs only to sit back on Asgard's throne and watch as the Destroyer delivers the killing blow, and then it will be over.

Thor, his mortal woman, and their friends try to save as many of the mortal village dwellers as they can. Loki ignores them. He cares not if the mortals live or die. Their lifespans are pathetically short anyway. They will die soon enough, if not by Loki's hand than by disease or old age. It is Thor he is after.

Then Thor tells his friends – Aesir and mortal alike – to stand back and let him save them. Loki wants to laugh at the futility of Thor's valor. Few warriors in Asgard could survive a battle with the Destroyer. Had Thor not been stripped of his powers, the battle would have been sung of throughout the Nine Realms for ages to come. As a mortal Thor has no chance.

But Thor walks toward the Destroyer, and as he walks Loki can hear him speak. Thor apologizes for wronging his younger brother. He does not know what exactly he has done, but he has hurt his brother and he is sorry. He is so, so sorry.

Loki hesitates. Part of him is growing weary. He wants to accept, to cling to every word of his older brother's mindless remorse. The childish part of Loki wants Thor to come home to protect him form the monsters. Thor loves him and has been the only one in his long life to accept and respect Loki just as he is. Thor is the only one who has never betrayed Loki. He is the only one left in Yggdrasil with any right to have Loki's loyalty. Loki's brother cannot be held at fault for the scorn and contempt of others . . .

But they are not brothers. Not truly. And Loki is the very monster Thor once protected him from. Loki feels a surge of bitter anger and frustration, because Thor may apologize, but he knows not what he apologizes for.

So Loki hardens his resolve. The ice of Jotunheim stems the flow of the blood that pours from his bleeding heart, and he feels it become just a bit colder. Then he gives the order to kill Thor.

But Loki waits too long. Thor reclaims Mjolnir and his godhood, and evidently Thor is one of Asgard's few warriors that can hold his own against the Destroyer.

2.
The Chitauri pour out of the portal in a steady stream. All around, they swarm the skies of the Midgardian city of New York. Thor's mortal comrades, the "Avengers" as the Man of Iron declared them, fight off the invaders admirably. Perhaps mortals are not quite as pathetic as Loki once believed.

But that is irrelevant for now. Loki and Thor are locked in combat atop the Man of Iron's ridiculous declaration of narcissism. Thor is shouting, begging his brother to give up his "poisonous dream" and "come home." It is a pity Thor has no brother.

Loki fights viciously, using every combat trick he knows. His blows are swift and deadly, but Thor blocks them all and reciprocates.

Loki finally sees an opening. He pulls out a dagger and plunges it into Thor's side. Loki knows ever angle he can use to kill his not-brother. He knows which angles will deliver a slow, agonizing death, and which will deal a more merciful one.

Not like this. He allows the blade to slide past every vital organ. Though he will still see Thor dead someday, the Thunderer cannot die now. Loki needs the Avengers to win their battle so Loki can be free of Thanos and the Chitauri.

While Thor recovers from the shock and pain, Loki leaps away, diving into the fray in the city skies. There will be other opportunities to kill the Thunderer. Loki will let Thor live for now. Only because it is to his advantage. That is what Loki tells himself.

3.
Loki declares his lies to Malekith, loathing the taste of claiming Laufey as his father. He offers Thor's mortal woman and the Aether that miraculously has yet to kill her to the dark elf.

Thor yells at Loki just as they planned. Loki is reluctantly impressed. He never knew Thor to be capable of such convincing deceit before.

Thor strikes first, and though their little fight is a performance for Makekith's eyes, it is far more vicious than it needs to be. Loki knows Thor is pouring his anger and frustration into the fight as much as Loki is.

It occurs to Loki that he could, as they say in Midgard, "kill two birds with one stone." It would be so easy. He has his magic back. He could prevent the destruction of the Nine Realms and kill Thor. He would return to Asgard as the savior of Yggdrasil, tragically unable to save his brother. With the right illusions he could even have the Lady Jane to confirm his words.

Thor knows how this is supposed to play out. He and Loki discussed beforehand what must happen. The Thunderer has to appear thoroughly defeated for their plan to work. Thor will play his part, and purposely leave openings. It would be so easy to just push a little harder. Cast a deadlier spell.

Yet Loki does not, and when he cuts off his brother's hand it is merely an illusion.

He could have killed Thor, but he does not. Defeating Malekith is more important right now. He can always kill Thor later. That is why Loki lets Thor live. It is the only reason. There is no other.

Loki "dies" a few minutes later in Thor's arms. He hopes that when he does eventually kill Thor, the shock of being killed by his supposedly dead brother will written on the his face.

4.
Loki gets bored easily these days. Some days he wonders why he thought Midgard was the best place to hide from Heimdall's all-seeing eyes. Roaming across the surface of Midgard in broad daylight – right beneath the noses of SHIELD – was fun for the first week, but it quickly became boring.

He is too well known in the other realms to hide out anywhere else, though.

Since then, Loki spends his tedious days stirring up mischief in small, untraceable ways. He flirts with the wrong people, steals and picks pockets, and impersonates people. He manages once to come face-to-face with the Man of Iron and the Captain while impersonating a reporter at a press conference. He steals a knife from the Black Widow. He thinks it will be lovely to kill her with one of her own weapons. He pretends to be a young girl at a bar and flirts with Hawkeye.

Loki dons his – now her – female form and an elegant gown for the evening, so she can sneak into Stark's latest event. She finds events such as these entertaining. Midgard's most talented liars are always in attendance. Loki enjoys looking through the lies of others, and the more challenging they are to uncover the better. It is, of course, also fun to then expose those lies and watch the fallout.

Tonight all of the Avengers are there. The Black Widow wears an elegant black evening gown that rivals Loki's. Stark swaggers about in a suit he wears as a second skin – the same way he wears everything. The rest of the Avengers shift around uncomfortably in suits that they find stifling. Loki would laugh out loud at the sight of the mighty Thor fidgeting awkwardly by the bar had she not had centuries to practice masking her emotions.

Loki flirts with Stark. He is witty, intelligent, and arrogant. He one of Midgard's most intelligent men, and he knows it. And he is drunk. He also has no concept of personal space. His hands keep drifting to Loki's waist and hips. Stark cannot keep his hands to himself, so Loki excuses herself. Then she flirts with the Black Widow. The Widow is charming, but the charisma is a thoroughly constructed mask to hide her deadlier qualities. Loki gets the feeling that if she were in her male form, the Widow would have severely injured him/her already, even if Loki had never brought the Chitauri to Midgard. Either way, the Widow is too observant, and Loki finds herself retreating.

Loki catches sight of Thor. He is sitting at the bar across the room, conversing with Hawkeye. Both have glasses that they occasionally sip from, but neither man is nearly intoxicated as the Man of Iron is.

Loki considers poisoning Thor's drink. It would be so simple for her to utter a spell and change the alcohol to belladonna or some other poison. Thor would not realize it until it was too late.

But in the end, she leaves Thor alone. She will kill Thor someday. But when she does she wants the Thunderer to know who his killer is. She wants to watch the life bleed out of those wide blue eyes.

So Loki ignores Thor. She smiles and flirts with the other liars at the party. She takes the five minutes of conversation she needs to learn every dark secret of her victim's life. Then she humiliates the unfortunate soul by exposing their worst secrets in front of as many people as she can find. Then she picks someone else and does it again. It is mean-spirited and it is chaotic and it is fun.

Loki is in such a good mood that, when she passes Thor shortly before taking her leave, she feels none of the usual anger, hate, or resentment.

5.
Over the next few months, infiltrating Stark's parties is a favorite hobby of Loki's. He wears a different disguise every time. Young, old, beautiful, ugly, smart, stupid, male, female . . . Loki never wears a form to Stark's events more than once. It is entertaining for a while, but Loki finds himself rapidly growing bored again.

Out of curiosity, Loki follows the Avengers as they engage one of their new enemies is battle. It is interesting to watch, as a mere observer, the warriors who once defeated him.

Loki watches as the mortal heroes fight off a swarm of Victor von Doom's "magically enhanced" robots. Hawkeye and the Black Widow fight back-to-back. They cut down every "doombot" dim enough to approach. Hawkeye shoots down as many as he can in the brief instances when he is not busy fending doombots off. A few hundred feet away, the Captain destroys them at every opportunity in any way that presents itself. He hits them and cuts them with his brightly colored shield. He punches them and tears out wires with his bare hands. Nearby, Thor summons lightning, destroying dozens at a time. In the sky above, the Man of Iron shoots them out of the sky with those beams of energy that he can release from his palms. Somewhere beyond Loki's sight, the green beast roars. Loki does his best to keep a reasonably safe distance from it.

The battle is a long and drawn out affair. Thor's little band of mortal comrades is pathetic. The doombots are simple enough to disable, and the design that allows them to utilize magic (which they don't use in any useful way) is flawed at best. Loki cannot decide if the so-called heroes enjoy the rush of battle or if they are simply tragically pathetic tacticians. He is inclined to believe it is the latter. They accepted Thor into their ranks, after all.

It occurs to Loki that he could kill Thor. Right here, right now. It would be so easy to throw a knife at his heart. Thanks to the battle's chaos, no one would ever know who killed the Thunderer.

But Loki does not move. Thor is busy right now. Loki wants Thor to fall in battle against Loki. He wants the Thunderer to die doing what he is best at, and knowing that it is not enough to save himself.

So Loki stands back and watches, and when at last the battle draws to a close, Loki quietly slips away.

+1.
Loki starts to pick fights with the Avengers, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the rest of Midgard's so-called heroes. At first he impersonates the supposed supervillains that have risen to power in Midgard since his last visit. The heroes are fun to toy with, but they pose no real challenge. Thor is the only one in the mortal realm that can truly defeat Loki, and Loki is always careful to avoid the Thunderer. It is fun while it lasts, but then the supervillain community catches on (he wishes he had known of this community when he lead the Chitauri to Midgard).

Loki already has Heimdall, SHIELD, and the heroes to hide from. He does not need all of Midgard's villains as enemies as well, so he starts picking his fights as himself. He establishes a reputation for himself among the supervillains, and they reach a kind of unspoken truce. He does not interfere in their plans, and they leave him alone. Occasionally he even will take part in one of their poorly conceived schemes just for fun, though he is always sure to retreat before he is caught.

Midgard knows now that he is alive. Loki cares not if the mortals know his death was faked. He is still free. He is more than capable of fooling the primitive Midgardian surveillance machines, and he can still shield himself from Heimdall's view. Contentment is not in Loki's nature, but he thinks he is closer now than he has ever been before.

And then Loki finds himself battling the Avengers in Central Park.

Loki is in the middle of the park's lake, on a raft of ice. He is beyond the reach of the Captain and the Black Widow. Hawkeye has his bow drawn and fires a torrent of arrows that are child's play to deflect.

Loki snarls as he sends a blast of magic at Anthony Stark, the Man of Iron. The fire that streams from his feet falters, and he swerves away as he attempts to land safely. It is a pity. Stark could have been a valuable asset to Loki if only that glowing disc had not prevented Loki from taking his mind. Stark is clever, brilliant, infuriating . . . It is a shame. Stark could have been great, had he not chosen the wrong side.

Loki sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. A second later, Thor is upon him, pinning down on the ice. Thor has an angry gleam in his eye as he looks down at Loki.

Loki laughs hysterically. Thor could have killed him already, but even when the oaf tries, he cannot bring himself to deliver the final blow.

With a grunt, Loki pushes Thor to the side and rolls them over (by the Norns, Thor is heavy), so that their positions are reversed. Loki glares at Thor as he forms a dagger of ice. Loki raises it, preparing to let the blade tear into Thor's warm flesh.

"Take a good look around you, Thor, because this is the last thing you will ever see." Loki hisses as the wicked blade of his ice dagger lengthens.

"Loki, stop this, please." It took a while, but Thor has finally learned that he and Loki are not brothers.

Loki feels a twinge of something uncomfortably like loss. He ignores it in favor of calculating the point of entry and the angle of entrance.

"You will not kill me." Thor continues. "So end this pointless battle before more lives are lost."

"I have you pinned down. I have a blade poised to busy itself to the hilt in your flesh. Even you cannot survive having your heart torn to shreds. You are at my mercy, and you know I have none." Loki's voice is completely steady. Mostly. "So tell me, Thor, why would I not kill you?" Thor is not that dimwitted, is he? Thor knows Loki has been trying to kill him for years.

"You forget, we grew up together, Loki. Though brothers we may not be, I know you. Had you truly wished to kill me, you would have done so already." Thor says it like it is that simple. He speaks calmly and with confidence, despite having the tip of a blade ready to cut his heart out.

And Loki hates it. Thor is an oaf and a fool and wrong. Thor knows not of what he speaks. He never does and he never has. He heard his friends whisper about Loki as soon as their fearless leader turned his back. He saw that their father never beamed with pride for his younger son. He joined his friends' teasing. All those years growing up and becoming men together, and yet Thor never heard or saw or knew just how much it hurt Loki. It hurt.

Loki flies into a blind rage, He imagines that this must be what it is like to be a Berserker. He yells as he finally, after far too long, releases his pent up rage and resentment. He shouts and screams and yells all those things he never before told Thor. Loki wants Thor to know how much all those years hurt. He wants Thor to feel all those of the pain as if it were his own. He wants to kick and scream and yell and hurt and injure and maim and kill, kill, KILL – !

Later – it might have been seconds, days or hours, in the end it matters not – Loki's rage finally begins to die and his finer senses return.

The first thing Loki sees in the blood. It is wet, and it glistens as it runs in rivers down Thor's armor and on the raft of ice. It is so red.

Then he sees Thor. Thor's glassy eyes stare emptily at Loki from a face that otherwise is pure shock. He has several deep gashes in his chest. Blood still flows freely from them, though slower, now that there is little blood left.

He has done it. He has actually done it. Loki has done it. Loki proved Thor wrong, he could kill the Thunderer. He did it. He killed Thor.

Loki feels his frozen heart soar in triumph.

Thor is at long last gone. Gone is the bane of Loki's existence. Gone is Asgard's golden prince. Gone is the man who was better than Loki at everything but magic (which no one cared about anyway). Gone is the man who cast the shadow Loki spent his whole life in. Gone is the brother who Loki could never live up to.

Gone is the brother who would stay when Loki had nightmares. Gone is the boy who defended Loki against the disapproval and scorn of others. Gone is the warrior Loki spent millennia fighting beside. Gone is the only person who has ever made Loki feel worthy and respected. That man is gone. Loki has killed him.

Loki stares at his hands, stained with the blood of his brother. He stares at them with increasing horror.

What has he done? What has he done? What has he done?

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