WARNING: THOR 2 SPOILERS. If you haven't seen the movie yet, proceed no further on this story and go watch the movie. It is the most amazing thing in the history of ever, I'm not even kidding.

So yeah, I've seen Thor 2 twice now, and well, my mind exploded with ideas XD

I didn't want to put a detailed summary in the top in case people were browsing who hadn't seen it, so here's a better summary: post-Thor The Dark World one-shot where Thor deals with the bilgesnipe that's still on Midgard, and eventually finds out that Loki is King of Asgard. There's some Jane/Thor romance in the beginning, but it's not much; this fic focuses on Thor and Loki bromance. Characters are slightly OOC, in that this wouldn't actually happen (there's an uncharacteristic amount of bromance, and hugging, and Loki being a good king). In the movie Loki's probably up to some conniving little plot to cause mischief, now that he has the throne, but that's not what's being explored here.

Thor 2 devastated my feels. I wrote this to make myself feel better ;3 I hope you enjoy!

"You came back," Jane breathes, as she finally pulls away from Thor's kiss.

"I did," he says.

There's something in his face, she thinks, something bright in his blue eyes, like the color of the sky before a thunderstorm.

She narrows her eyes, putting all her weight on her left leg as she leans into her left hip and crosses her arms. "Did you come back for me, or because I was yelling at Heimdall to get rid of that huge creature that's frolicking through Greenwich and chasing birds."

"Starlings," Darcy's intern says from the doorway (Ian, the name's Ian!). "It's called a murmuration."

Thor just chuckles, smile genuine but dying out before it reaches his eyes. "Both," he says, and Jane can't bring herself to slap him for his impudence.

There's too many shadows in his gaze.

He has, she realizes suddenly, seen both his mother and his brother stabbed and killed before his very eyes in the course of a few days, unable to prevent their deaths.

Jane realizes, and her heart aches.

"Well, pick your priorities big man," Darcy says, stepping out onto the porch, dragging her intern with her. "And I would suggest you take care of the monster first, because if you haven't noticed, there's nobody outside in this city because they're all sitting inside and watching it on TV."

Nodding, Thor takes Jane's hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles as he says, "Forgive me, Lady Jane. I will return again."

"You'd better," Jane says, with more sass than she meant to.

Thor begins swinging his hammer. "I will dispose of the beast," he promises.

"Don't kill it!" Darcy exclaims.

"What else would you have me do?" Thor asks, bewildered. His fingers tighten slightly around his hammer, and Jane gets the feeling that he's just itching to bash something's head in.

"I don't know," Darcy says, shrugging. "Maybe the Hulk wants a pet?"

The humor is lost on Thor. Or else he just can't manage the effort to show amusement.

And Jane wants to be angry with him, when all he says is, "Then I will return the beast to its homeland," and shoots off into the air in streaks of silver and red (silver like rain, red like blood), but she can't help but empathize, remembering what it was like when her own parents died.

The three of them watch him fly off towards a murmurration of starlings.

"He looked broken," Darcy remarks.

Jane can only nod.

The bilgesnipe wasn't hard to locate, wasn't even hard to deal with.

Don't kill it, don't kill it, don't kill it, Thor had to keep reminding himself, as the gray beast lunged at him, apparently deciding he looked more scrumptious than the meager puffs of feather and bones called starlings.

He hits it. Again and again and again.

"Hitting doesn't solve everything," Loki had said.

Hitting hadn't saved his mother. Hitting hadn't prevented Loki's death. And hitting wouldn't bring either of them back.

But at least hitting makes Thor feel better.

The bilgesnipe roars at him, and Thor roars back, swinging his hammer against its head just hard enough to knock it out without causing any major damage.

Then he grabs the creature by its antlers and lets Mjolnir carry him back to Jane's lodgings.

He dumps the bilgesnipe in the yard, before striding to the door and knocking (gently) on the glass pane.

Jane's face appears, eyes widening as she takes in both him and the unconscious beast behind him, and he lets a small smile grace his lips.

"I said I would return, did I not?" he says, as she opens the door.

"A record!" Darcy calls, from where she's lounging on her intern's lap as he sits on the sofa in front of the TV where they'd been watching the scene. "First two years, then two days, and now two minutes!"

"Don't mind them," Jane says, about to gesture him inside before she thinks better of it, instead stepping outside and shutting the door behind her.

She tilts her chin towards the bilgesnipe. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Take it back to Jotunheim."

"So you'll be leaving?"

"Yes."

"But you'll come back?" Jane beseeches, widening those caramel eyes. (Not blue—not like they'd been in the Dark World, with the Aether possessing her. Not like they'd been before Loki died...)

A slight hesitation, before a low, "You have my word." Like it's some sort of secret, something he shouldn't be agreeing to, something she should know and he shouldn't have to say.

Jane casts her eyes down. "I'm sorry," she says. "About Frigga, and... and Loki. I know what it's like to lose family two family members in a short amount of time."

When she looks up, Thor looks down, and Jane is abruptly aware of the fact that she's wearing purple fuzzy slippers.

"I lived with a talented liar for thousands of years, Jane," the thunderer says softly. A rumble of thunder thousands of miles away. "I know you cared not for Loki. I know you don't understand."

She opens her mouth, but he looks up then, pressing one of his large, calloused fingers over her lips. "I do not blame you for it, Jane. Loki... became a very different man in the last few years. But before that..." his voice is thick and heavy with nostalgia, gathering in his voice like rain. "We were the best of friends. For thousands of years, Jane, we played together, we fought together."

His eyes shut, and his face twists as if he's just been stabbed; as his finger falls from her lips she catches his hand in both of her own, rubbing her fingers in circles over his knuckles.

"We are not immortal. We are not unaware death. But while you humans have to live a mere decades with the pain of loss, we Æsir must carry it with us for millennia."

"Then why," Jane says, voice hitching uncontrollably in a sob. "Why are you even with me, a mortal? Why not—why not be with Sif, or whatever her name is?!"

Opening his eyes, Thor place his hand on the back of Jane's neck. She leans her cheek into his arm.

"Because I love you, Jane," Thor says. And there's naught but honesty in his voice, enough that if Loki were watching he'd be sick. "And what time we shall have together will be well worth the memories."

Their lips find each other for several long moments.

Jane tastes of cinnamon.

Thor tastes of rain.

"I have a question for you," Thor says, once they break apart.

"Yes?"

"Why is it that you only slapped Loki once, but you slapped me twice?"

Jane looks at him like "Seriously?" but before she can answer there's a gravelly growling behind Thor, and he turns in time to see the bilgesnipe get to its feet and shake itself.

"Odin's beard," Thor grumbles, swinging his hammer so he lands on the beast's head, holding on to its antlers. "Heimdall!" he shouts.

There's a blinding flash, a white and rainbow beam, forcing Jan'es gaze away. When she's able to look again, Thor and the creature are gone.

She blinks the echoes of rainbow from behind her eyes and wonders why.

Why, when there are billions of people in the world, she has to fall in love with a god.

A clubbed tail swings over Heimdall's head as the thunder god arrives on the bilgesnipe.

"Stupid. Creature." Thor grinds out, holding its antlers with one hand while holding Mjolnir above him with the other, so that the bilgesnipe is hovering just above the ground, flailing, unable to hit him and unable to get purchase on anything in order to shake him off.

It would be so much easier to just kill it.

"Heimdall, get rid of it before it bites me!" Thor orders, and Heimdall removes his sword from the control slightly, the Observatory spinning and altering its course, the bifrost beam beginning to build.

The bilgesnipe finally strikes Thor with its tail, and when the thunderer lets go the creature lunges up and bites his left arm.

Of course.

"I said before it bites me," Thor growls, giving it a good smack in the nose with Mjolnir, dislodging its jaws from his arm and sending it stumbling back into the bifrost beam, whisked away to Jotunheim.

"My apologies," Heimdall intones in his deep voice, pushing his sword all the way in and causing the Observatory to slow to a stop.

Thor just waves his bloodied hand, letting the gatekeeper know that he forgives him.

He's by not means unaccustomed to injuries from battle, and a meager bite from a bilgesnipe is far from the worst he's had to endure.

And if he were to be honest with himself, the physical pain is almost a relief compared to the ache in his chest that he tries so desperately to ignore; walking down the bifrost back towards Asgard, he watches the red blood trickle from the punctures in his arm (because of course he'd decided to wear his metal and leather vest to visit Jane, instead of his full armored suit), and he lets the pain fill his senses, even while the blood fills his gaze.

Red blossoming on the turquoise fabric, trickling from the corners of her lips, eyes closed so peacefully, long blond hair fanned out on the ground around her.

Red, dark and glistening wet in the dim light of the ghostly sun, his fingers fluttering over the injury before grabbing one of those cold, pale hands, as he watches the deathly gray consume that pallid face, glaze those green eyes.

"Do you hear me, Brother?! There's nothing you can do!"

"It's too late. It's too late to stop it."

So many times Thor's had to watch helplessly as Loki fell.

Making his way through the halls towards the Healing Rooms, the voice of the Allfather stops him.

"Thor."

"Father," the thunderer says, turning, still unknowingly holding tight to Mjolnir's grip while he lets his left arm fall to his side.

Drip. Drip.

Two spots of red on the floor.

"I thought perhaps you would not be coming back," Odin states, in one of his characteristically uncouth attempts at humor. He made it more than clear, from Thor's first mention of Jane Foster over two years ago, that he does not approve of her.

Thor supposes wryly that that's what the Allfather gets for banishing him to Midgard.

"You know I would never abandon Asgard," Thor says flatly, as Odin takes hold of Thor's arm, touch unusually gentle as he crushes a healing stone over the gouged flesh, skin knitting together and leaving no traces except dried blood.

Odin raises an eyebrow. "So you say. Yet you still won't accept the throne."

"We have been over this already," Thor growls, jerking his healed arm away. "Can you not leave it alone? Loki—"

"Do not tell me you're still mourning over that criminal. Such sulking is unbecoming. A warrior—"

"Were you not affected?!" Thor roars, turning on him. "I am starting to suspect you never loved Loki at all! That everything—like Loki said—was a lie!"

"Why do you insist on defending that miscreant?" Odin snaps.

"Why do you insist on blaming him for everything, even that which is not his fault?" Thor counters, hands tensing into fists by his side, the grip of Mjolnir burning in his grasp. "Loki died with honor. He saved my life, at the cost of his own. And you're still not proud of him?!"

"You openly admitted to me when I declared his punishment eternal imprisonment in the dungeons, that you held no hope for the man who was once your brother," Odin snarls.

Thor manages to take a deep breath, glancing to the side. "It's not that I understand Loki's actions," he says, turning his gaze back to the Allfather. "It's just that I'm trying to understand them.

"He has always been my brother, and I have always loved him. Nothing you can do or say will take that away from me."

Affronted, Odin takes a step back, looking him over with his one, pale blue eye narrowed.

"So you are denying the fact that Loki was a monster?"

"Loki," Thor grinds out, "Was never a monster."

Odin's eye burns into Thor. "I see," the Allfather says finally, before turning and striding away.

"And what about mother?" Thor calls after him, watching as Odin stiffens slightly and pauses. "Do you not mourn for her? You seemed blind enough by sorrow to sacrifice every Asgardian against the Dark Elves. Are you once again proving your likeness to Malekith?"

Turned away from Thor, the Allfather's lips twitch. "A mistake," he says softly, beginning to walk again, "That I will not repeat."

Something about the conversation hovered at Thor's conscious, as incessant as a gnat hovering about his ear, the softest hum of wings, the slightest movement in his peripheral vision.

(However it wouldn't be till months later that everything snapped together.)

Odin had changed, that much was certain, but at first Thor thought the old man had actually learned something from the invasion of the Dark Elves.

"A true King never seeks out War," the Allfather said. "But he must always be ready for it."

He imposed improved security measures, fixing the castle's shield himself, and making the castle guards undergo more battle training, setting Tyr and Lady Sif in charge of it.

The Allfather began once more leading battles when trouble flared somewhere in the Nine, and with him at the helm with new and improved battle strategies, the skirmishes were settled swifter and more bloodlessly than ever.

Sometimes they didn't even need to fight, as Odin sorted out the trouble by meeting with the rebellions' leader, and they would strike a deal that left everybody satisfied (except for those consumed with battle lust, whom Odin would discover and remove from duty, sending them on hunting expeditions instead.)

And for once in Thor's life, his father actually listened to his counsel, taking his ideas and opinions into consideration even if he didn't normally agree with them.

But it was remarkable how quickly Odin brought Asgard out of the despair they'd fallen into after the attack of the Dark Elves. Not only were the physical damages to the city repaired, but everyone's mental spirits, their pride and confidence that the next time Asgard was invaded they'd be prepared to defend themselves.

All the Dark Elf technology was analyzed, and defenses developed against it, should anything like them lay siege against the golden city again.

After being so caught off guard by the dark beings most of the Æsir had never even heard about, education was being promoted, both how to fight against enemies with long-distance weapons, and studies of the Nine Realms and defense and healing magic.

Nobody was imprisoned. ("Remember what happened the last time we took prisoners?") Instead, obstinate enemies were killed, and those that could be swayed were, and were often set to work improving their villages.

The Allfather was merciless, but he was not cruel.

"Times change," was Odin's only comment when Thor inquired about the new protocol. "The Realms are adapting, and we must adapt with them, or else become naught but history like the Dark Elves. And such a fate shall not befall us."

Loki's king now.

Playing as Odin, but the people love him (or at least think that they do.)

Power is corrupting, but whenever Loki thinks of abusing it, when he realizes that he's king and he can do whatever the Hel he wants... a moment of introspection is all it takes for Loki to shy away from the impossibility that is his desire, and to focus instead on the good of Asgard.

It's a distraction, he tells himself.

And really, there'd been so many reforms he'd been wanting to make—Odin had been doing so many things wrong.

Kings must be clever.

Kings must be strong.

(Kings must be alone.)

But he can't help but remember a black blade plunging through his chest.

And oh, it had worked perfectly, as the monster pulled him along the blade, close enough for Loki to secure the Dark Elves' own weapon onto its belt, and the creature shoved him off the blade to the ground, gaping hole in his chest, pain like what it must feel like to be a bolt of lightning—that searing.

It felt for a moment, he thinks, like satisfaction, the tang of copper on his tongue and virulent words in his throat, spitting them out at the monster's feet as the vortex ate it away.

And then Thor was there, grabbing his hands and pulling him close and telling him to stay, to stay with him, as panic clouded Loki's mind.

The plan had worked so perfectly.

"I'm a fool," he'd whispered, knowing he'd doomed himself to loneliness again. "I'm sorry, I'm s-sorry."

Had he been? At that moment, he was pretty sure that he was, sorry for tearing himself away again.

But it was the only way.

He needed to be an impossibility, so that none could think of him when things got suspicious; he needed to be darkness so that none would see him strike.

(But oh, what did he want? As his body shut itself down around his protected soul, letting his flesh die to keep him alive and the last sight he saw was the blue of Thor's eyes, he thought maybe he'd just thrown it away.)

Then Thor was gone.

Drawing himself out of his own body, Loki spared a glance at his own decaying body as the green of his magic wound around his new form and drew over him like a cloak his Einherjar disguise, before sauntering through one of his secret pathways (he has so, so many) like the worlds belonged to him.

And soon enough they would.

"I miss them," Thor says, coming up to the railing beside Loki in Odin's guise, Huginn and Munnin perched on either of his shoulders.

He nods to them, sending them soaring off into the darkening blue sky, doing a few aerial acrobatics on the breath of eventide, the way that ravens sometimes do.

"You can go down to Midgard and see your mortal friends whenever you please," Loki says nonchalantly, hands on the stone in front of him, eye on the horizon as the sun flees the invisible wolf that pants close behind.

"No," Thor says, "I mean Frigga and Loki."

Turning to Thor, Loki sees a single tear in one of those cerulean eyes, silver in the day's shadow as it slips down his cheek.

"You really miss your brother," he says, disbelief thick in his voice.

Thor glares at him. "Yes."

"No," Loki sighs, shaking his head. "No, you don't. If you were told he was alive, you'd immediately ask what trouble he'd caused, and be ready to go reprimand him, pound some sense into his head and bring him back in chains."

"That would not be the way of it," Thor growls. His eyes flash, lightning in the dark clouds behind them. "You know naught of what you speak."

"Oh but I think that I do," Loki hisses sibilantly, leaning closer to meeting the thunder's gaze unflinchingly, a sneer on his lips. "I know you better than you do, oh mighty Thor. You may think you feel for your brother, but you're blind to what's before you and only ever realize what you have once it's gone. Your sentiments for Loki are glorified by his death, like the first time he fell—but as soon as he shows up you toss him back to the ground."

Loki lets his guard down, only for a moment.

But apparently a moment is enough.

"No," Thor snarls, "You're wrong."

"Am I?" Loki smirks, leaning back, heart writhing like a snake in his chest, and he feels the darkness leak in through the cracks.

"Yes!" Thor says, and when he shakes the figure before him, it flickers, and instead of looking into the ancient face of the Allfather he finds himself looking into a face young and sharp and pale, framed by raven-onyx tresses.

One blue eye becomes too green, and the shoulders beneath his hands feel suddenly all hard lean muscle and bone.

"Loki," he breathes, staggering back. His eyes narrow suddenly. "I should have known," he growls.

A wry smile twists those thin lips. "Now you see me, Brother," he whispers.

And when an arm presses him against the wall, Loki laughs.

"What did you do with Father?" Thor demands.

"I did nothing," Loki says, tilting his chin up as he shakes his head, eyes glinting. "Though I must admit I came prepared to kill him, such actions proved unnecessary. As it turned out the Allfather was worn out, grief from Frigga's death and the threat of the Dark Elves. He fell into the Odinsleep, and instead of waking up he faded away," his lips twitch. "But if it's any consolation I gave him a proper funeral for a warrior, flaming boat and everything."

"Tell the truth!" Thor demands, grabbing Loki by the collar and tossing him to the ground, standing over him, hammer in hand.

Loki laughs. I told you so, his green eyes say. I told you that you didn't really love me.

"You've used that lie on me once before, trickster," Thor rumbles. "I will not be fooled again."

"You must know me even less than I thought, if you think I would use the same lie twice," Loki snorts, getting to his feet and walking to the balcony, turning so he leans back against the stone ledge, the moon behind his head and casting him as a dark silhouette against the gloaming gray backdrop of the firmament.

"How long have you been king? What are you plotting against Asgard?"

When Loki speaks, his voice cracks with fury, or else barely-disguised pain. "Of course you think I'm up to something. All those reforms, all those new protocols that have picked Asgard out of the dirt of defeat and buffed her up to shine again—all of that was me. All of it. Odin," he spits the name, "Gave up before you'd even returned."

Thor tightens his grip on Mjolnir. "Loki," he says warningly.

"Of course," Loki continues, voice rising into hysterics, hands clenching into fists at his side. "Of course when I wear Odin's guise, you don't question my orders, when they've actually been benefiting Asgard, but as soon as you know it's me you suspect me of plotting something! If I wanted to take over the Nine Realms, believe me," he leans forward, green eyes glinting like dagger blades, "Everyone of you would already be kneeling."

Thor stands frozen still, before suddenly he's lurching forward.

Loki braces himself for the blow.

It never comes.

"Oh Loki," Thor breathes, embracing the rigid form of his younger brother, the familiar scent of Loki's citrus pomade rushing over him. "Never do that to me again. I thought you dead. Again, I thought you dead. Loki, you died before my very eyes! That's the second time you've done this to me, made me suffer for you."

Loki feels Thor's warm tears falling down his neck, soaking his collar.

"I hope you're satisfied," Thor murmurs.

"I've already told you satisfaction isn't in my nature." Against his will, Loki trembles, finally letting himself relax in his brother's embrace. "What's wrong with me?" he whispers, voice shattered.

"Oh Loki... there's nothing wrong with you."

"There must be. The whole world hates me."

Frowning into Loki's hair, Thor says, "I do not hate you."

"Well then you are a fool."

"Maybe I am. But I do know that you can never be complacent. Where have you been casting your mischief, brother?"

Dark snickers wrack Loki's form. "Oh, there are enough enemies of Asgard to keep me entertained. Have you never wondered why we are so often attacked by naught but chaotic masses that are fighting each other as much as us?"

Thor leans back, letting his left hand rest on Loki's shoulder as with his right he wipes a tear from Loki's cheek bone. "I'm proud of you, Loki," he says. "You make a great king."

The smile that stretches Loki's lips is frail, tenuous as gossamers. "I'm living a lie. I've been living a lie all my life, and now I've crafted one for myself. You know the Æsir will never follow me. Even Sif and the Warriors Three thought nothing of committing treason the first time, when they knew it was me."

"We will figure something out," Thor says with conviction. "The world can hate you, but I'll always be by your side."

Curling his lips in a sneer, Loki hisses, "Sentiment."

The dagger plunges hilt-deep into Thor's side in burst of white-hot pain.

But this time Thor doesn't let go, pulling Loki back into his arms as the Mischief God breaths, "There's something wrong with me, Thor. All I want to do is hurt you."

"It's okay," Thor says, one hand around Loki's waist, the other against the back of his head, fingers threading through inky hair. You don't have to wreak havoc in order to get my attention.

There's a clatter as Thor removes the dagger from his side and tosses the blood-stained blade across the floor.

Loki's the one who pulls away, pushing Thor violently away from him as he stalks to the balcony, leaning his forearms on the stone as he clasps his hands in front of him, eyes scouring the darkness that has fallen over the golden city, one moon gilding it in silver while the other edged it with red.

(He wonders idly why he's the one who lurks in the dark if the night gowns in Thor's colors, and why Thor dominates the day when the sun glimmers through green leaves and dances on golden streets.)

"You can't keep this facade up," Thor says, joining him overlooking the city. "Pretending to be Odin."

"And why not? You never figured it out, I don't see how anyone else would."

"Isn't it exhausting?" Thor asks, tilting his head to examine his brother's still-wasted form, concern lacing his voice.

Loki's chuckles are full of spiderwebs. "No more exhausting than running. Though it's not quite as... diverting as playing villain, I must admit."

"But others will discover you, Loki," Thor says, placing a hand urgently on Loki's arm. "And they'll imprison you or—"

"Or kill me?" Loki asks, raising his eyebrows as he regards his brother, lips quirking amusedly though his eyes are dark. "They can certainly try."

"Brother, I'm serious," Thor says gruffly, taking both Loki's shoulders in his thunder-thewed grip. "This trick of yours won't work forever."

Lifting his chaos-green gaze to meet Thor's, Loki licks his lips as they twist into a sardonic smirk, his Odin guise beginning to flicker back over his features. "You want to bet on that?"