Author's Note: Sorry for the late update, but today was one busy day and I chose to rewrite a good chunk of this last chapter. Make sure you check the notes after this chapter for extra clarifications :)

Again, I'm sorry. This is HEAVY. I know it's painful, but there was no way this would have a happy ending. Hopeful, yes, but not happy.

Inspiration for Loki's hallucination here: post/87524925590/renlybaratheon-all-i-see-is-dark-swarming

NOISE STRIKES MORN

Drooping eyes combed the darkness abounding.

His skin prickled with cold like death despite the fur blanket cocooning him. All he wanted was the scorching sunshine of his guardian.

Speaking of which, where was she?

He reached towards where a vague memory told him she always waited, but felt no rays soaking into his skin. With aching trepidation, he twisted to put his weight on one trembling arm, then pushed himself to the edge of his bed. His wrapped legs dangled off the edge while he searched for his beacon.

But he was alone. Again.

Droopiness gone in wake of blossoming panic, his eyes of jewels pried the darkness trapping him. His bare toes met shocking, cool tenderness when he dared to venture further.

Shocking, cool tenderness meaning not moist pebbles or scorched sand or dewy blades of fauna or warm streams of different rivers or biting crystals of ice.

Inside.

Which meant he was not outside hiding from his hunters. Which meant this was not his cave, not the one he hid in with its graffitied insides of protective runes. Which meant he was a lamb in a cage he didn't recognize—and thus couldn't escape—where one wrong move would draw starving wolves to him which he couldn't run from.

His strained knees held him up for a few seconds before they faltered. He fell to the not-so-tender-now ground. A buzzing sound encircled him, then crackling aluminum voices of metal monsters sucked away his breath.

"Master Loki, I bid you a good evening. Please keep yourself comfortable. I am contacting Master Stark."

Spiders singed the prince's skin, and though he ached to run, his Jotnar adrenaline backfired. Instead of energizing him, it sapped his precious life away with each heartbeat.

He and his wits collapsed.

"I shall play some quiet music for you in the meantime."

He didn't hear the soft melody rising. He heard a serene rush of water trickling towards him.

Charcoal black streams pooled around him in a rush. Its warm, tickling brush rose over one leg and an arm, carried his raven silk tendrils in its tantalizing embrace and rocked him in its bosom.

In another life he remembered these same waters flowed to him like redeemers from his blazing nightmare of seven-thousand screaming faces and his hunters: Kronans, Chitauri, Marauders, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, Bilgesnipe, Thanos, the Enchantress; but he had chosen to fight them. With a scorching boil, they evaporated into ichor flames and burned him down into the pits of his personal Hel . In the end they won in a different form, drowned him all the same, took him into oblivion with a broken chest.

This time he didn't have the strength to fight, nor the heart, which slammed itself in vain into his ribs to relieve the knots crystalizing inside it. Therefore, Loki Odinson succumbed.

(That is if he could still comprehend the fact that he'd surrendered.)

The staining ichor washed over him. Its sheets soaked through his white fur blanket, making it one with its darkness. Higher and higher they rose. Up his nose, into his ears, through his mouth, fettering all hairs of his, until it flooded through his parting lips and rushed up his nose during one deep breath.

Darkness swarmed behind his irises. Ashes of oblivion corroded his lungs, his blood, his skin until it stained him so well that he looked like its creation. As if to claim him forever, the static of oblivion rising from the foam of the torrents sliced an arm. His life trickled from its mark, which it made certain to claim as well.

"Master Loki, you suffer from hallucinations. Can you hear me, Master Loki?"

His seidr, so long unused while breached with such force, lashed out in utter brutish volts up and through the waves. Then there was the Void's streams bruising his throbbing heart. It hit faster and faster until the discomfort burned and he found his hand flew to his chest to hold it and he couldn't breathe anymore so he just held onto his saturated fur blanket as the black ocean covered his face.

Lights of the color of fire flew over the ocean of charcoal waves. Ashes rained down from the illuminated sky. Muffled howls and piercing noises of war squirmed through the suffocating pressure of the possessive waves, then there were pieces of broken glass resting on his chest with their corners frosting over.

"Master Loki? Master Loki?... I am contacting emergency."

But Loki fell too far and too fast.

Left behind too long and too far away.

["Miss Foster, I believe you will be pleased to hear the Court of Midgard has chosen to reconsider the war criminal's case during our break."

"What have you concluded?"

"I and my fellow justices have concluded that…"

Justice Page stood up from her seat. Her gaze panned from Jane Foster to Loki, who was chained and muzzled so well that breathing made him ache everywhere. He'd fallen to his knees the fourteenth hour of the 21-hour-long-thus-far meeting.

"…he deserves a much more painful death. Loki, rise to receive your judgment."

"What? No!"

"Oh yes, Miss Foster. All 3,000 of us thank you for encouraging us to reconsider a more appropriate punishment. If it were not for you, we would not have sought out the gatekeeper of Asgard to inquire of the prince's previous punishment."

"No, you will obliterate him!"

"Precisely Prince Thor, as he had obliterated over 7,000 lives." All the justices stood up and looked to Loki with the coldest of eyes. "Loki of Nowhere, whom has been disowned by all, we hereby sentence you to solitary confinement as long as you live. You shall not have anything but your mind to keep you alive.

"Directors of S.H.I.E.L.D. please meet us in the conference room. We shall tinker with specifications together so as to make the criminal's sentence as destructive as possible. Officers, prepare the criminal for his sedatives. He will wake in his casket."

And as the officers tugged at him to walk, he found his feet couldn't move. Not because of the sentence, but because of the woman of science exploding into such feral screams that it drained his blood. They were not of love, but of complete trust.

Of a true friend's.

The storm inside him overflowed onto his cheeks. Every inch of him couldn't stop shaking.]

His lungs combusted into liquid like cyanide. His heart stopped fighting to let the waves carry it. The anguishing pressure in his chest faded into darkness and the sound of lulled waves, but not before he remembered the faces that had been his Lighthouses.

He clung to the memory of their beams until he truly became one with the charcoal waters.

#

Stark landed on his rooftop and walked the line as Veronica took apart his devastated suit.

He heard but did not comprehend anything she said as he pushed through his doors and into the half of his tower that still stood tall. With an exhausted sigh, he limped to his bar where he poured himself some stiff scotch.

Four small cups later and his throat burned…a good burn. He let himself fall onto a seat and tried to massage away the sharp aching in his muscles.

His wife burst through the door. She fell back against it, panting. When her eyes met his, relief colored her ashen cheeks into twin roses.

"Oh thank God!" She ran to his side and stole him into a massive embrace, kissing him deep despite the overpowering taste of scotch. "Why didn't you answer my calls?"

Stark wiped off some grime from her cheek with the edge of his thumb. "I lost almost all my connections. I don't even know how Veronica managed to keep the suit going."

"I was worried sick! Damn being a hero, Tony, you're too old for it." She cupped his face. "You have a family with two grown children who need you. Please don't ever join them again." Moisture pooled in her eyes. "If we're going to die from alien attacks, then I want to be a family that dies together."

He combed back a tendril of her strawberry blond with gray strands behind her ear. "Believe me, I wouldn't have joined if they didn't need every spare Avenger they could find, and no mentioning the D-word anymore, okay? Jenny and Edwin…they're okay? Please, please say yes."

"Yes."

"Oh thank God."

"I was with them at my dad's place. Remember he cleaned out that basement after the first attack?"

He exhaled a deep sigh of relief. He was about to fish for his cellphone to hear his sweet childrens' voices, but at the mention of the Chitauri invasion of 2012, his mind reeled back to Loki. His softening muscles tensed again.

"Wait, if you left to be with the kids and I was out there…Pepper, where's Jane?"

His wife took a nervous step back when he shot up. "Rogers took her to the ER."

"Yeah, and Cap, Romanoff, Barton, Banner; I saw them all fighting."

Pepper sucked in a deep breath. "Oh no."

Those two words triggered a cesspool of panic in both of their guts. Both burst down the hallway towards the stairs not a second later. Veronica lit the halls as they went, turning off the lights they passed.

"Please be sleeping, please be sleeping," Stark chanted along the way.

When he threw open Loki's doors, a figure laid crumpled into itself in the dead center of the disheveled room of ice.

"Oh God, no," he whispered, but Pepper was the one who ran inside. Veronica dimmed the lights on for the both of them just as the woman knelt next to the figure.

Stark watched his wife unravel him, then caress his face. All she gave was a little broken whimper, and he understood. Despite the sinking feeling inside him, he joined her side. Pepper kept on comforting the truly fallen prince despite his presence.

This was Loki in her arms, chilled blue skin and messy locks and all. From the sight of his agonized expression to the way old tearstains tattooed his clammy cheeks to the tension straining blue lips and captured in red irises, it ripped him apart. Hot guilt tore its way out of Stark's guarded heart and escaped through drops of tears he didn't care to hold back.

A child. That was what the demigod had been since they rescued him.

When his eyes fell upon his arm, where blackened blood stained, he realized just how misguided he had been his last moment.

He must have mistaken his IV being yanked out as someone cutting him. Must have mistaken his seidr gone haywire across the room as something it wasn't. Must have mistaken the glass shards from his destroyed window for who knows what.

Stark heard Pepper's breath jump and break as she wrapped her arms under the corpse's shoulders and brought him up into what was half a hug and half a mother's cradling, but he couldn't see for sure through his own sorrow.

"Sir, I tried to reach you but my systems went offline when Master Loki awoke. I tried again once I fixed them, but I could not connect with you or anyone else."

"Did he die alone?" he whispered, even though he already knew the answer and didn't want to hear the truth.

"I am afraid so, Sir. He could not hear me."

Because a destroyed mind doesn't comprehend anything else but touch.

That made Pepper cradle him closer and weep until her heavy shoulders jumped with each breath.

Stark found himself standing a moment later, but he felt worlds away from everything around him. "Do you have Thor on the radar at all?"

"No, Sir, not last I checked. My generators have blown, thus I cannot search again at the moment. However, I detect Master Barton, Master Rogers, and Master Foster have entered the tower."

"Did Jane get discharged?"

"No, Sir, I see Miss's hospital bands and gown still on. I was able to contact her moments after my backups came online."

"Is she crying, Veronica?"

"Yes, Master Stark. I informed her of Master Loki's demise."

Stark found himself staring at his wife comforting a dead soul that could not be comforted anymore until he heard Jane's voice echoing off the walls in already piercing yelps.

She flew into the room without so much as a glance at Stark or the mess of the room, and Pepper laid Loki down for her to see. At at that precise moment when Jane laid eyes on him, Banner and Rogers entered, both spent to the bone.

At that same precise moment, a horrible, cracked cry broke free from her throat and she tried to gather him into her arms despite the life dripping off her boney pallid face. Pepper helped her. She was the column who took on the frail weight of Loki's back.

Rogers slid down against the wall and shut his eyes as Jane's weeping mixed with her gasps for air. Banner hung his head as yet another thread of hope dissolved in his heart. They had been so close; there was still so much to say, but no misunderstood Asgardian's heart to whisper to.

They had hoped so much that he would rise despite it all, as he was prone to doing.

"I'm sorry, Loki. I'm sorry I left…I never wanted…don't be scared…I'm so sorry."

At Jane's endless apologies, all their shocked hearts trickled with crimson tears.

Half an hour later Fury, Hill, Barton, and Romanoff joined them, and Jane had spent her tears.

She pinched his lips closed with her fingers as gentle as feathers, and brushed over his eyelids until they too closed. With Pepper's help she laid him down and tucked him in with his toasty fur blanket, which he had somehow broken from.

Pepper joined her quiet husband's side, but Jane stayed next to the prince, stroking his stiff hair.

"Have I ever told you of how he saved my life twice?" Though she had to some extent, no one wanted to stop her. Not even Hill, who had witnessed evil alone from their now dead ex-foe. "Us three; Loki, Thor, and I; were in the world of the Dark Elves. Loki betrayed Thor—that was the plan—so Thor could try to destroy the Aether without the elves becoming suspicious too early. He stabbed his brother, then kicked him off a mountaintop. Almost crushed his head in with a kick. Cut off his hand…but that part was an illusion.

"I saw him call himself 'Loki of Jotunheim,' but I don't think he noticed he paused for a second, or how he blinked like it hurt to say. I don't think he ever meant to become a bad guy. It's just every time he reached for a lifesaver, the waves knocked it miles away so he just kept on sinking, lower, and lower until it seemed natural to drown. Until he just concluded he'd be better at playing the villain since no one gave him the room to be a hero. Maybe Thor would know a different truth, but that, I believe, is his tragedy in essence."

Stark and his wife swallowed coming tears and held each other closer.

Romanoff squeezed her fists together and stared at her toes.

Barton, by Natasha's side, and Rogers stared straight out to the scorched New York skyline, both sucking in deep breathes every so often to hold back the worst of guilt.

Banner watched the still corpse with unblinking eyes. He'd failed to save his unlikely patient in more than one way.

Fury and Hill clenched their jaws and continued watching Jane's shaking fingers stroke raven locks.

"But, like I told you all before at his trial…or like I tried to…he had a heart. He could get hurt, he could hate, and he could love. He could also be good.

"When Thor tried to destroy the Aether, he shielded me with his body. I was so confused when he did that. I mean I felt his steady arms protecting me like mountains…wild, loyal mountains…yet minutes before I saw those same arms attack his brother.

"I figured it was all an act, but when one of the elves threw an antimatter grenade towards us, he shoved me out of the way and tried to cover me again, except the matter sucked him up towards who knows where. He would have died for me if Thor hadn't broken him away from its pull, and no matter how much I told myself it was all an act…you know, the first 'save Jane' moment had been a plan he followed because he promised Thor…but the second time…" She stopped to swallow the knot in her throat. "The second time he could have run to help Thor, who was worth saving, but he chose me."

She smiled down at him. "And Thor… You know I never had any brothers or sisters, but just a second between the two in Asgard and you could see just how much they needed each other. Under the hurts was a tank-load of love."

Her smile melted and she turned to look at Romanoff. "You believe me now, don't you?" Her gaze moved to the other avengers. "You believe me, right? You saw him."

The Black Widow nodded as she messed around with her fingernails. It took three deep breaths, but the woman added: "I do. I'm sorry, I wish I…" A lone tear gathered in one eye, but she held her chin up high despite it. "I wish I would have believed in him like you did. He sounds like he was a big character…like us. We would have been…"

(A great team, she meant to say.)

Jane gave a weak smile. She reached to rub his hand underneath the blanket. That was when she noticed the melting ice all around the room, and how it started pooling around them. She wiped the worst of the slush away from him as she spoke:

"Someone help me set him up on the bed. He'll be so cold with all this water. And maybe, Tony, you can lend him a suit? Maybe silver so it makes his skin shine. And Pepper, if you have a spare brush, I can get him ready for Thor."

Rogers was the one who went to her aide. As gentle as possible, he scooped up the fallen prince and laid him back on his deathbed.

"I don't think he'll fit in Stark's suits. I have one, from a long time ago. I'll get it."

"Thank you, Cap," said Jane with a shaking voice again as she vigorously tried to warm his too-cold blue arms. "Thank you."

#

Banner dressed all of Loki's new wounds in a throbbing silence, then once Rogers came back, Pepper and Jane (with Romanoff helping as much as she could handle) dressed him in the suit Rogers had purchased ages ago for a dance he never got to attend.

They waited and waited for Thor to answer their summons, or for more extraterrestrials to attack.

When the Asgardian came first, with blood and muck caking every inch of his body and looked half the size of what he was before the great war, Jane grabbed Loki's stiff hand and whispered:

"Loki, your brother's here."

She held out his hand for Thor to take, and once he did, he let out a weak sigh and held his little brother's true skin to his cheek. The beloved prince of Asgard didn't think he'd ever be able to move again, because what was a star without its skies?

Three Asgardian years ago, Thor lost his baby brother.

One and a half, he lost him again.

For twenty-two Midgardian years, he watched him crumble to pieces in a cell of unending white while beating himself up inside for not protecting him the day he revealed himself on Midgard.

And five Midgardian hours ago (five Asgardian minutes ago), he lost him…forever.

#

Jane struggled to keep up to Sif's powerwalk. Behind a haze of bright white light, she saw Loki turn to her. His face was more of a haze than Thor's, who stood tall and cautious at his side.

"You're…" she heard herself say and found her finger pointing at him.

"Hello, I'm Loki. You may have heard of me—"

She slapped him with all her strength, saying that was for New York, but before he could react with more than a gasp of surprise, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as close to her as she could manage with his wrists cuffed. Jane felt every inch of him tense under her, and heard his heart behind his armor race.

His heartbeat. Oh God. Tears scratched the back of her throat.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?" he tried to mock, but his voice was too soft.

"For teaching me what it means to be a friend. And I'm so, so sorry."

"For what?" he asked again, but she felt him swallowing faster than normal.

"Because you died alone."

And she swore she felt him trembling. A few swallows later, he spoke again: "Jane Foster, you small mortal, did you have faith in me?" She felt herself nodding against him.

His hands that were to stab his brother in a matter of minutes and grab her up like a rag doll to toss her to Malekith and then push her to the ground so his body could protect her (twice) and then impale his brother's attacker that were then to curl up in the cold of death from a gaping wound in his chest…they rested against her neck in what was the equivalent of a human embrace.

"Then, dear Jane Foster, I did not die alone. Thank you."

(Two nights later, Jane Foster gave up her last breath.)

(Two nights later, Bruce Banner found a note Loki had carved into the marrow of the back cover of his journal. It was for Thor.)

End Notes:

- 1 Asgardian year = 11 Earth years by my preference; timeline is still slightly shifty.
- Older Avengers group and Jane are middle aged and older. I consider the newer group to be younger by at least a decade.
- My Jane Foster is not connected to comic book Jane.
- Sections narrated though or centered on Loki's thoughts are not 100% reliable.

#

Clarinet = Natasha Romanoff
Acoustic guitar = Steve Rogers
Piano = Bruce Banner
Viola = Tony Stark
Bass = Nick Fury
Flute = Jane Foster