Author's Note: This will be a multi-chaptered piece. Basically, I'm considering one of the many ways in which the ending of Thor the film could be altered. In other words, this is AU.

Disclaimer: I do not know any of the names, places, objects, or concepts that you recognize. I own only my plot.

Loki cannot breathe. It is like a weight, heavy and strong, is placed upon his thin chest. He tries to heave, to force the air around him to enter his desperate lungs, but this weight pushes down upon him and prevents the necessary contraction of muscles.

He then tries to sit up, to rise from his supine position. There is still, however, that oppressive object upon his chest, and he cannot rise. He bangs his fists upon the glass bridge beneath him, but this expression of temper does little to aid him.

Loki turns his head to the side, and he is glad that at least this small movement is permitted to him. His little supply of air, however, is dwindling fast.

He watches his brother, his once-protector and his now-enemy, walk forward, anger in his footsteps. His brother turns around to regard Loki, and his gaze is frightful.

Loki struggles to clear his throat, to allow himself to speak. He looks down at the weight and realizes that it is Thor's infamous hammer. A weapon of the sort that never would have been given to Loki, the second son. The son not even related by blood, when it came down to it. The runt of the Frost Giants, left to perish because no one wanted him.

And even now, it seems as though his brother does not want him.

Thor walks towards the heart of the Bifrost with purpose, but Loki can see the hesitation in his footsteps. Before Thor even reaches his destination, Loki deigns to speak to him.

"Just look at you," he taunts. "So strong, and what good has that strength brought you, now? You can't stop fate. There's nothing you can do, nothing you can do to change the future, for it is written in the stars!"

Thor turns around, facing him. Loki thinks that he is imagining it, but he can see tears coursing down his brother's cheeks. Tears for a lover lost. Tears for a charmed life now broken.

Suddenly, the weight is gone from his chest, and Loki can breathe again. He brings in a large gasp of air, rolling over to his side. He coughs once, but stops in surprise as he sees what Thor is doing.

Thor is bringing his hammer, that magic weapon, down hard against the glittering glass of the bridge. Fear runs through his veins now, hot as liquid fire, as he watches his brother destroy such a landmark of his childhood.

He sits up, his bones moving stiff from fatigue and hurt. Thor continues, laying fierce blows against the bridge, ceaseless and emotionless. Loki can see that now only one hit is all that it will take to destroy the bridge, and therefore the Bifrost, forever.

Loki stands, shaking, and leans upon his staff for support. "If you destroy the bridge," he yells, desperate for his brother to hear him. "If you destroy the Bifrost, you'll never see your lover again!"

His brother does not hear him shout, or perhaps, he simply chooses not to listen.

Angrily, Loki runs forward, his body protesting each movement. As he reaches Thor, he wraps his long arms around him, bringing him down to the ground.

It is just in time, for the bridge is hanging on by a single filament of glass, but it is wide enough to cross. The Bifrost is saved.

And it is then that he notices that Thor, he who was once so strong and so fiery, is sobbing in his arms.

Wearily, he pulls himself and his brother away from the near-destroyed structure. He drags the heavy weight of Thor towards the castle, towards home, towards his father. Or, well, Odin. He does not know if he will be permitted to call the All-Father his own father now, after all that he has done, after all that he has sinned.

Thor buries his blond head into Loki's armor, and Loki spares a glance down to him. His brother, once so powerful, brash, and bold, is reduced to a crying young man who believes that he has lost everything. Loki does not understand it, but somehow, Thor fell in love with a mortal girl. Loki could not see how she was any different than the Asgardian women, but his brother's mind had worked in strange ways before.

Loki leans down, close to his brother's ear. "Brother," he whispers. "You're safe." He uses words that Thor had used on countless occasions with him. Loki had been one of those children who had trouble sleeping, for fear of nightmares and unnamed monsters. Thor, though, had always been able to yank him from the throes of fear.

Perhaps he is returning the favor now, he reasons with himself. Perhaps he is simply trying to convince his brother to return to sanity.

Thor looks up at him, blue eyes meeting green eyes. "Yes," he sighs. "But I'm not happy."

"You have your life," Loki replies softly. "Is that not happiness enough?"

"I am not with my Jane," Thor murmurs, laying his head weakly upon Loki's armored shoulder. "I will never…never see her again."

Loki rolls his eyes at his brother's words, but he puts on a comforting face for his benefit. "Perhaps you shall see her once more," he reassures him. "The Bifrost has not yet been completely destroyed."

"But…" Thor rips himself from Loki's grasp and turns around to face the structure. True to Loki's words, the Bifrost is still mostly intact. Yes, it is leaning rather disturbingly to the right, but it has not exploded as Loki thinks it might have.

"See, brother?" Loki says, a smirk on his face. "You can return to Midgard and your human girl, now, if you so desire."

Thor whips around to look at Loki, tearing his eyes from his passage back to Jane Foster. "Yes…" he says, but Loki can hear the nervous note in his voice. "But would it be right?"

"You never doubted yourself before, brother," Loki says. He shifts so that he and Thor are sitting side by side on the fragile bridge. "So why do you have cause to doubt yourself now?"

"Father needs me. I will be king now that I have returned," Thor says. "It would be disrespectful to ignore his wishes to follow my heart back to Midgard."

"But you love her," Loki says, and for once, his intentions are honest. Ordinarily, he would have said such a thing in hopes of convincing his brother to leave Asgard. Such a convenient disappearance on Thor's part would leave the throne to fall to Loki, and that arrangement was perfectly agreeable, even coveted, by the younger brother. But now, he thinks, he simply wants to return to how they were as children, innocent and perfect despite the rifts about to form between them. He wants his brother to live and to love again, to be free of cares and worries again.

Loki himself desires a similar fate, but he has no girl in Midgard waiting for him, and so he does not have an easy excuse from Asgard. But with Thor gone, there will be no more sibling rivalries, and perhaps he too will achieve peace through that.

"I do love her," Thor agrees. "I love her more than any words can describe, Loki." His tone is pleading now, as if Loki can bring them together this instant, perhaps with his magic.

"Then go to her."

Thor nods, but then, Odin appears, quick as only a god can be. He leans on one knee in front of his estranged children, a mixture of intense sadness and happiness upon his worn face.

Odin lays a hand upon each of his sons' shoulders, looking at them each in turn.

"Thor," he says, "Loki. My sons, my beautiful sons. What happened to you?"

Loki opens his mouth to speak, but Thor beats him to it. "Frost Giants attacked," he lies, hoping that the All-Father will not catch him in his feeble try of Loki's greatest talent, "And they attempted to bring down the Bifrost. I beat them off with my hammer, but they had already gotten to work on the bridge. Loki found me, I'm not sure how, and he aided me in their defeat."

Odin looks warmly at his sons, a soft smile upon his face. "This is how it should be," he says. "At last, my two sons are comrades in arms once again." He pats Loki's shoulder, and the black-haired son winces.

Drawing back, Odin stands. "To the infirmary, then, I suppose." He watches as Thor carefully helps Loki rise, the two leaning upon each other for support. He leads the way, looking back occasionally to be sure that the two are not playing tricks with him.

But of course, they are not.

They are brothers once more.

TO BE CONTINUED…