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1.
Rogers hands him the phone, a vaguely puzzled expression on his face. "Says he's your brother."
"You need to get a new phone," Loki says. He sounds chipper. He sounds different. "Hey, big bro. I have an apartment now, in New York. You should drop by. I'll give you the address, pay attention."
Why do you sound different, Thor wants to ask.
Why do you have an apartment.
Where have you been?
He passes the phone back to Rogers after Loki rattles off the address and ends the conversation with a hasty, "Bye!"
"My brother," Thor says, "has an apartment."
"Sounds like trouble."
"It's Loki."
2.
Loki opens the door when Thor knocks, and Thor's expecting his brother, expecting someone - shorter. "Welcome," Loki says, as if he's been waiting.
Thor stands in the short hallway, looks around the apartment. "This is a surprise."
"I sense judgement in your tone, brother." There is a smile on his face.
"Merely observation."
"I promise my gains were not ill-gotten." He looks hesitant. "Does my word still mean anything to you?"
Thor nods his head, unable to quite respond. "Will you tell me how."
Loki waves his hand airily, "A magic little boy named Billy. You've met him."
"Hmm."
"He used to call himself Asgardian. Has a cape like yours. Role model and all that." Loki brightens. "Maybe someday I'll be an Avenger too."
"Maybe. I do not think I approve of whatever the All-Mother has you doing."
"It's for the greater good, I promise." Loki busies himself in the immaculate kitchen, and Thor watches the arch of his back as he bends over a mug of coffee. "You like lattes, right?"
"I - we were still discussing your situation."
"My situation is my business, brother." His voice is light, but there is an undercurrent of displeasure in it. "It has never bothered you before, what I have been up to."
"Only because I was not made aware of it until it was too late."
Loki turns around, leans against the counter. He holds out a steaming cup for Thor, says, "I like the casual look - it's very god slash lumberjack." He looks expectant, and when Thor doesn't reply, a faint pout appears on his face. "This is the part where you tell me how hot I look. Total upgrade, right?"
Thor takes the cup, stretches his hand out so he does not have to be near Loki to retrieve it. "You were always just Loki to me," he says, and watches as all expression disappears from Loki's face, like water sliding down glass.
3.
He does not see Loki for months afterwards. He has his duties, and apparently so does Loki.
Thor hears things: Loki tricked Hades into briefly handing over the underworld to him. Loki turned himself into a woman and seduced Tyr himself. Loki, making his mark across the universe, mistrusted, maligned, and yet always emerging unscathed. His allegiance is unknown, and even S.H.I.E.L.D. starts asking questions.
"I do not know," Thor says. "My brother does as he wishes, and I am not his keeper."
No-one dares to say: But you have brought him back, surely you are responsible for his behavior.
Thor seeks council with the All-Mother, says, "You are aware that this will not end well. Why is it necessary to involve him?"
Freya touches him on the cheek. "My son," she says. "For all the power you possess, sometimes Asgard requires a subtle knife."
"The destruction Loki leaves behind is often far greater than what even Mjolnir can wreck."
There's a faint, rueful smile on Gaea's face when she says, "We are learning that, yes. Your brother is difficult to control."
Thor bristles. "If you ask Loki to help you, Loki will help you."
"We know."
"So then stop."
They do not reply, merely glance at one another. The conversation ends there.
4.
The invite comes by bird, dropped at the mansion by a raven who glares malevolently at Thor before flying away.
Jessica wanders past, stares at Thor holding on to the card, then at the window, opens her mouth. "Never mind," she says finally, before turning away.
5.
Thor arrives exactly at seven, as requested.
Loki says, "You didn't bring the beer?"
"You are not old enough."
"This body certainly is. Besides, we are gods. There is no legal drinking age. Tell me we were not always seeking the bottom of a barrel at that age."
"I do have a phone," Thor replies. "You could have just called." Loki shrugs, a wrenching, familiar gesture, and it takes all of Thor's will not to take him by the shoulders, not to take.
"You were always the type to enjoy an old-fashioned romantic gesture or two."
"Romantic."
"Have a seat, brother. We have much to catch up on."
"So how have you been," Thor asks, over delicately roasted beef and wine that Loki pours into two glasses, despite Thor's disapproving eyebrow raise.
"Busy, you know. This and that. This body brings continuous new wonders. I'm positively aglow with delight and adventure."
"So I have heard."
Loki licks his lower lip. "Brother," he begins.
"Thank you for the dinner, and the company," Thor says. "I have missed you."
There's a shimmering sort of light in Loki's eyes, one that Thor almost recognizes as rage, and resentment, but it is gone in a moment, and Loki merely smiles. "So, do you want the grand tour or not?" He takes Thor by the hand and is pulling him to his feet before Thor can protest, leading him to a closed door that he opens with dramatic flair. "It's not much, but it does beat a mat and a hole in the ground."
"I offered you your old rooms back."
"The ones everyone knew were there and were just waiting to slit my throat in?"
"I would have kept you safe."
"You were often away. Or dead."
"Aye", Thor says. He turns his attention to the sparsely decorated room, completely overwhelmed by the four-poster bed in the center of it. "The All-Mother must reward you well."
"You could say that." He's too near Thor, all of a sudden, his eyes gleaming and his hair as glossy as wet paint.
Thor steps away. "What else?"
"Bathroom. Bathtub. Hours of bubbly fun - when I have the time, which," he sighs, "I rarely do." He's too close, yet again, and Thor steps away, yet again.
"I should go," he says. "Thank you for the dinner, and the tour."
"Come again," Loki replies. "Next week, same time. This time bring the beer."
6.
Thor misses the next week. The week after that, Loki texts him to say, "Saving the world, bro! Raincheck!" And then the weeks slide together, one crisis after another, and eventually he remembers, and sends a message to Loki.
"Dinner?"
A smiley face is the only reply.
He brings beer, and they sit on Loki's couch after dinner and watch television. Or Thor pretends to: he doesn't quite understand the point of it. They are gods, they make stories, they don't watch them unfold as told by others. Loki takes Thor's beer away during a commercial, knocks Thor's knee with his. "So this sexual tension is really driving me nuts. By Odin's beard, Thor, just kiss me already."
Thor shifts away.
"Why do you think I worked to get this body back? This young, virile and yet adult body."
"Power?"
"True, but also you."
Loki lies, it is what he does. It is who he is. Thor has accepted this. He has also accepted that he will always choose to believe him first, until proven wrong.
Loki climbs into his lap, loops his arms around Thor's neck. He smells like hops, his breath as sweet as sugar when he kisses Thor on the side of his mouth. "Take me to bed, brother. I've been waiting."
Thor wraps his arms around Lokis waist, rises to his feet. Loki is far heavier than he used to be, but still Thor manages to carry him to the bedroom with ease, settle him down onto the sheets. He hesitates, with Loki's leg hooked around him and his fingers working nimbly at their clothes, and Loki laughs.
"This is familiar, yes?"
"Not in a while," Thor says. Centuries, with nothing but acrimony and blood and pain between them.
"So everything old is new again." Loki pulls off the last of his clothing, tosses it aside. "As am I."
"Aye," Thor says. His gaze travels down the length of Loki's body, strong and lean and gleaming pale. Thor is not yet an old god, but Loki is youth, and reborn life, and unimaginable beauty.
"Stop staring, it's impolite," Loki says, and drags Thor down onto him. He kisses Thor, sighs against him as his fingers find Thor's cock, hard and pressed against his belly. "Oh, I have missed you as well, brother mine."
7.
Thor leaves before dawn, kisses Loki awake to whisper, "I am needed elsewhere. I promise to return."
Loki's lip curls up, almost unpleasantly, but his voice is sweet when he says, "Of course. Kiss me again before you go."
Thor goes up into the sky, flies halfway around Midgard to land on a mountain near the Himalayas. The cold clears his head, allows him to think. For all of ten minutes, before Stark is beeping at him incessantly. "This infernal machine," Thor says.
"You can brood later, big guy. We need you."
He returns to Loki, as soon as he can. Falls into him the way he always has, the way he always will, whenever he allows himself.
Loki chatters afterwards, sits up on the bed and crosses his legs, rambles on about everything, about nothing.
Thor lets him talk, says little, except the once. He runs his hand down Loki's bare back and says, "You can be quiet, Loki." You do not have to put on a show for me. But then Loki is Loki, and Thor cannot fathom why he would feel this sort of uneasiness around him.
Loki stiffens, pulls away. "What would you forgive, brother? Everything?"
"Aye," Thor says.
"You would not."
"Tell me."
Loki kisses him instead, and does not speak except to sigh, and shiver, and call out Thor's name for the rest of the night.
8.
"I remember you convincing me it would be a good idea to position Volstagg as bait against a water dragon," Thor says, over dinner. Loki has made a stew this time, hearty and rich. The food makes him somewhat sentimental, somewhat nostalgic.
The mood shifts without Thor being aware of it at first, and then it is too late to stop.
Loki turns pensive, brooding.
"Is everything fine, brother?" Thor asks.
"Did you bring me back for this? To be your -" He presses his mouth shut, looks away.
"No, Loki - I would never." Thor swallows. "I would not have, if you - I thought -"
"What else could I do, the way you looked at me."
"I am sorry if you felt -" he chokes on the word. "Obligated. Loki, I would never make you do anything you do not want to. Please believe me."
"I don't know what to believe anymore," Loki says, and his face is riddled with such pain it takes all the effort Thor has not to reach for him, to hold him and tell him all will be well, the way he did when they were young gods and fearless, and the realms offered endless possibilities, endless delights.
Thor is fond of clinging to past memories: he knows this. He cannot stop. It is as much in his nature as - as much as deception is in Loki's. "I am sorry," he says again.
"Do not be sorry," Loki says. "I do enjoy your company, brother."
"I should leave," Thor says. He takes to the open window instead of the door, flies back to Oklahoma, back to Asgardia.
Home, perhaps, he will be able to stay away from Loki.
9.
He is distracted from a conversation with Gudrun by a furor in the courtyard, leaves her to find Loki, surrounded by an angry group of men. They disperse when Thor approaches, leave Loki disheveled and bruised but otherwise unharmed.
"It seems that I am even less popular as a young adult than I was as a child," Loki says.
Thor cradles his face in his hands, checks the rapidly forming bruises. "You will live," he says. "They will not touch you again."
"You will protect me, yes?" Loki's smile is wry. Thor releases him, allows his hands to fall limply to his sides. But Loki follows him as he turns to leave, catches his arm. "I'm here for you. Don't go."
Thor leads him to the royal banquet hall, where they are alone save for the serving girls who provide them with mead before disappearing yet again. "What is it you want," Thor asks, as they move to the head of the table to sit.
Loki frowns. "Are you angry with me? I message you but you keep ignoring me."
"I am not angry with you, Loki. Only with myself."
"Oh, that," Loki says, with a careless wave of his hand. "I didn't mean it the way it came out."
"It does not matter what you meant - it is the truth."
Loki leans forward when Thor shifts in his chair, says with great earnestness, "I missed you."
Thor shifts even further away, and Loki stands up, slithers somehow into Thor's lap. "You are not obligated."
"But I want to."
Thor reaches out, pulls Loki's circlet off his head. He sets it on the table, where it gleams, brightly gold. "You are my brother, that is all. That is the only reason why I brought you back. For all your past misdeeds, you are still family." Loki's gaze shadows, but all he does is shimmy in Thor's lap, and kiss him, his mouth wet and open -
And Thor is young again, and Loki is hated by all but him - sly, deceitful, Jotun, and Thor said, once: Perhaps if you tried to be more pleasant. Loki laughed, and kissed him, said: It is not in my nature, as much as modesty is not in yours.
"Do you want me?" Loki asks now.
"I have always wanted you. What kind of game are you playing?"
Loki kisses one closed eye, and then the other. "No game. It's just us."
"You have changed," Thor says.
"No, I'm Loki. I don't change."
"Who are you," Thor asks.
"I am your brother," Loki says. "As I have always been."
"Aye", Thor says. "You are."