Thor made it five metres down the corridor before he began to sway.

Biting his lower lip, Loki caught his brother before he careened into the wall and propped him up.

‘Thor?’ Loki said.

Thor’s reply was a listless groan.

Loki swore under his breath. The ship was a labyrinthine jumble of cold rooms and narrow, featureless corridors. Whatever logic there was to the layout, Loki had yet to comprehend it. But there was definitely a first-aid station somewhere about; Loki had walked past it earlier. He decided to continue down the corridor, doubling back was dangerous — the remaining Asgardians didn’t need to see their new king in his current state.

As he walked, he inhaled gasping breaths, the pressure of Thor’s bodyweight nearly crushing his narrow frame. He opened every door he saw. The first turned out to be a storage closet filled with cleaning supplies, the second contained the controls to the fire suppression system, the third was packed to the ceiling with unlabelled crates. The fourth, however, revealed a small medical station with a single bed and a deactivated medi-bot.

‘Take it easy now,’ Loki said as he struggled to manoeuvre Thor onto the bed, which was both too narrow and too short. ‘How are you feeling?’

Slowly, Thor brought his shaking hand up to his face. ‘The lightning still flickers over the skin. You can’t see it, can you? I still feel it.’

‘New powers. They always take time to get accustomed to.’

‘True.’ Sighing, Thor palpated his right cheek, just skirting the ruined flesh around his eye-socket.

Loki glanced to the medi-bot and shook his head. He had come across many variants of medi-bots across the universe, this one looked fairly primitive. Doubtless, many people on board needed basic medical care, but Hela’s work would be beyond this medi-bot’s programming.

‘May I see?’ Loki asked.

For a long moment, Thor offered no reply. Loki wondered if he hadn’t understood Loki’s question or if he was debating internally whether the question was a trap. After all, Thor had finally learned the value of caution. Loki had a quip ready on the tip of his tongue when Thor dropped his hand down and shifted his head so that Loki had a better angle of his injury.

Loki leaned in to examine the blackness, even as instinct begged him to recoil. He brushed over the edge of the discolouration, uncertain what his brother’s reaction will be. When Thor did not respond, he ventured deeper. The blackness felt more like charcoal than skin.

Thor must have read something in Loki’s expression. ‘No saving the eye then.’

There was nothing to save. The eyeball was incinerated; Loki struggled to identify what was left of the eyelids.

‘You do have the face for an eye-patch,’ Loki replied. ‘Besides, the people of Asgard will appreciate the continuity.’

‘In all that we have lost in the past few days, I ought not be upset.’ Thor seemed to try to prop himself up, but gave up half-way through and let himself sink back onto the thin mattress. ‘Does... Ah, I didn’t ask before, are you injured yourself?’

‘I’m fine. All my limbs still attached, both eyes still in place too,’ Loki replied, hoping his grin masked his tiredness.

‘Your tongue too. Unfortunately.’

Shrugging, Loki decided he should make his brother more comfortable and undid the clasps of Thor’s cuirass, careful to avoid the still-drying blood splashed across it. Thor probably didn’t realise it, Loki concluded, as he pulled the armour off his brother and set it down in the corner. While Thor had to contend with the loss of his eye, Loki had to come to terms with Thor. Your tongue too. Unfortunately. No passion, not even a hint of amusement. Where were the upturned tables? Where were the insults hurled at anyone and everyone in the vicinity? Well, the upturned tables had come to an end with his exile to Midgard, but Loki had still been able to draw an emotional response from him.

Maybe Thor was just that exhausted.

‘What’s your plan now, Loki?’ Thor asked.

Maybe not.

Loki shifted back and leaned against the wide cabinet where the bulk of the station’s medical supplies were stored. ‘I have no plan.’

‘You had me exiled, you faked your own death and impersonated our father, you were ready to sell me out in Sakaar. Sure, your mind is not spinning right now, not weighing up the possibilities. The Valkyrie was right, the power-struggles among our family have cost Asgard again and again. Why not bypass all that? What do you want, Loki?’

‘I want to secure the future of what we have left of Asgard.’

‘Of course.’ For the first time since he had made it to the ship, irritation strained Thor’s voice. This was not a conversation he wanted to have while sprawled on his back. He tried again to sit up and once, with a great amount of grunting, he managed to, he searched to the buttons that raised the upper half of the bed so that he had back support. ‘Everything is for Asgard, not for your aggrandisement. Not when you had me banished and declared yourself king. Not when you took our father’s place and condemned him to spend his finals days in Midgard.’

Loki pursed his lips. ‘Do not say I was mistaken about your ability to rule back then.’

‘No. But having seen what your rule looks like, I do wonder if there is not a touch of hypocrisy about you.’

‘You mean the play? It was just a bit of fun for a feast day. As king, I attended every council and listened to twice the number of petitions father did. There were even plans drawn up for a comprehensive remodelling of the aqueducts. Not that there’s a single stone left of them now; so many hours spent in vain.’

‘What about beyond Asgard? There’s chaos across the realms.’

‘That was not my doing,’ Loki said. ‘I did what I could to pacify the Nine Realms, but… Frankly, it confounded me.’

Thor ran a hand through his hair, then stopped abruptly as if he realised anew that his hair had been shorn down to its roots. ‘Was it Hela’s influence then? Her power growing as father weakened?’

‘I do not know,’ Loki replied.

Not a lie, not exactly. He suspected. He feared. He hoped the Tesseract he held hidden would deliver him. Maybe Loki could even save Thor from the oncoming storm.

‘Thor, lie down. Let me do what I can about the eye,’ Loki said.

‘Before you do that,’ Thor said, ‘please, be honest. How must strife could have been prevented had father told us the truth instead of painting over the less tasteful episodes of our history? Children ought to learn from the mistakes of their fathers.’

‘I was honest with you before. I want to preserve what’s left of Asgard.’

‘Why? You always had so little affection for most Asgardians.’

Thor cocked his head, the gesture — as familiar as the water gardens of the royal palace — only highlighted how far behind them those easy, golden days lay. Loki suddenly wished he were elsewhere, hidden behind the mask of a projection.

‘Midgardians say absence makes the heart grow fonder. You were an exile once, do you not remember how it felt? Besides, Asgard was mother’s home. And yours.’

‘But not your home?’

Loki drummed his fingers along the top of the cabinet. ‘I didn’t always feel like I belonged, but I’ve yet to find a place where I felt more at home than Asgard.’ He cleared his throat, as he willed himself not to squirm under the brunt of his brother’s gaze. ‘Come on, that’s enough prattle, lean your head back. I won’t make it worse, I promise.’

‘Oh, I trust you to be careful. I might not have Mjolnir, but I’m still the God of Thunder.’

‘Brotherly love… At least I know where I stand.’ Loki pressed his lips together in mock annoyance.

Thor let Loki tilt his head to a position that offered Loki the most favourable angle. ‘Loki, I’m glad to have you here with me. If only for now.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Loki replied.

As he worked to smooth Thor’s charred skin, the Tesseract called to him, offering up the full might of its power. Loki didn’t dare. Too great a risk he might draw Thanos towards them.

Of course, Thanos was coming. One way or another, the universe would burn. But to simply announce his presence was folly. What weapons did this ship possess? How many warriors were there left? Not enough. There could never be enough. Thanos couldn’t be defeated; Loki just had to gamble they could reach an agreement.

He itched to flee — to commandeer an escape pod and to run to the farthest reaches of the universe. If only Thor would agree to go with him. But Thor was king now, he would never abandon his people. And so Loki too had to stay.

Asgard was not a place, Asgard was a people. Home too, he had come to understand over the years he had spent in the anarchic lands beyond the Nine Realms, was not a place. Not a palace, not a city, not a planet either.

Home was family and Thor was all the family he had left.