Paralyzed by fear, Loki doesn't dare challenge Thanos when he boards the Statesmen. He survives the massacre, and alongside his brother, he's brought aboard the Benatar, where he sees a very familiar face.
She doesn't know how she'd recognized him.
He's changed a lot since she last saw him. His usual pallor is gone, a deep blue hue to his skin, and not only from the cold, oxygen-deprived abyss of space. His dark hair is longer, thicker than it used to be, and the tangled mass serves as a pillow as he lies on the floor.
Everyone else is talking about the first man they found; the one who hit the windshield. He's bigger; he's stronger; he's more attractive. But the moment Gamora laid eyes on this blue body floating through the wreckage, her attention shifted.
She never thought she would see Loki again.
She never thought she'd have to care for him again.
And yet, here they are.
Mantis gently places her hands on the other man's head, feeling his emotions. "He's anxious," she says. "Angry."
"What about him?" Gamora asks, nodding at Loki. The same, no doubt. Angry. He's always been angry. That's why Thanos liked him. You can do a lot with a desperate, angry man.
Mantis crouches down across from her. She slowly reaches out and touches his head–
She screams and falls backward, quickly crawling away from him. She stares at him with wide eyes, chest rising and falling rapidly as she pants.
"What is it?" Gamora asks quickly. "Mantis, what's wrong?"
"He's scared," she whispers, voice shaking with fear of her own. "He is so scared."
Oh.
"Wake up him," Gamora says quickly.
"I–"
"Wake him up!"
Peter frowns. "Gamora, I don't know if–"
"I am not going to ask again!"
Reluctantly, Mantis crawls back over to Loki, and Gamora moves out of the way to give them both space. She hesitates, hands shaking before they finally make contact with his head. She yelps and pulls them away, but not before she wakes him up.
Loki bolts upright and looks around, eyes darting around the ship. His eyes pass right over Gamora – right over everyone – and he pushes himself away until his back hits the wall. He pulls his knees into his chest and wraps his arms around them, trembling. His mouth moves quickly, silently, as he stares straight ahead, his eyes blank and lifeless.
"Woah," Rocket says. "What's his problem?"
Gamora crouches down in front of him, and only then can she make out the words he's saying.
"He's going to kill me," Loki whispers. "He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me."
"Hey." She snaps her fingers in front of his face, and he doesn't even flinch. "Hey, Loki, look at me."
"Wait, hold on," Peter says quickly. "You know him?"
"Yeah, I know him," Gamora says, all she's going to say about that. She puts her hand on Loki's shoulder, shaking him gently. "Loki, hey. Wake up."
He keeps staring straight ahead, almost as though he's looking through her. "He's going to kill me," he whispers. "He's going to kill me."
"Who's going to kill you?" Gamora asks, her voice loud and firm.
He doesn't answer; he just keeps whispering, "He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me," over and over and over again.
"Fun guy," Rocket says sarcastically.
She sighs and stands up. She has a feeling she knows the answer he won't give her.
"Wait, so who is that?" Peter asks. "How do you know him?"
She shakes her head. It doesn't matter. To Mantis, she says, "Wake the other guy up."
"No, seriously," Peter insists. "How do you know him?"
She rolls her eyes. "He's an old friend," she says vaguely. She's not getting into their past if she doesn't have to.
Drax offers Mantis a hand and helps her to her feet, and rather reluctantly, she approaches this other man. Her shaking hands hover over his head, until finally, she forces herself to touch him.
The man bolts upright with an angry scream, jumping off the table and stumbling forward. Immediately, everyone is on their guard. Gamora reaches for her blade, just in case. As far as she knows, Loki doesn't have any friends. If they just let a new enemy on board, she'd like to be prepared.
But as the initial shock of being jolted awake wears off, he seems to calm down a little bit. He turns around, his eye scanning the Guardians with distrust. "Who the hell are you guys?"
Rocket scoffs. "Who the hell are we?" he repeats incredulously. "Who the hell are you?"
He ignores that. "Where am I?" he demands. "Where's my brother?"
Gamora cocks her head to the side, watching him carefully.
Peter gestures to Loki with his head. "You mean that guy?"
He follows his gaze, and when he sees Loki sitting on the ground, he narrows his only remaining eye and stalks up to him. "Loki," he growls. He grabs him by the collar and hoists him up, slamming him against the wall while his legs dangle helplessly in the air.
"Woah!" Peter takes a step back. "Dude, what are you–"
"Put him down!" Gamora yells.
"Loki, you fool, what did you do?" he demands.
"He's going to kill me," Loki whispers. "He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me."
The man's expression softens, just a little bit. "I'm not going to kill you."
"He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me."
Gamora sighs. "Put him down," she says again, quieter and calmer than before. "I don't think he's talking about you."
He frowns, but he does as he's told, gently setting Loki back down where he found him. Loki pulls his legs into his chest and hugs them close, propping his head up on his knees.
"He's going to kill me," he whispers. "He's going to kill me."
The man cocks his head to the side, furrowing his brows. "Loki? Are you okay?"
"I think the answer is a resounding no," Peter remarks.
Gamora looks up at him and crosses her arms. "Who are you?"
"Thor," he replies. "King of Asgard. God of Thunder. You might've heard of me."
Gamora raises an eyebrow. So he's from Asgard. That tells her just about everything she needed to know. Loki didn't talk much about Asgard – not to her, at least; who knows what he told Thanos? – but she knows enough about how he feels about the place and its people.
"Yeah, no, we've never heard of you," Rocket tells him.
Thor furrows his brows. "Oh." He takes a brief moment to process that, then moves on. He crouches down in front of Loki, who's still muttering to himself. Thor reaches out and rests his hand on his shoulder. "Loki? Are you okay?"
"He's going to kill me," Loki whispers, again and again. If he even realizes Thor's in front of him, he doesn't show it.
"Nobody is going to kill you, Loki," Thor tells him. "We survived. Valkyrie is taking our remaining people to Midgard. We can meet her there."
"He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me."
"If we were going to die, we would be dead already," Thor says, growing a bit impatient despite his best efforts to the contrary. "We survived. You survived."
"He's going to kill me."
Thor sighs and looks up at the Guardians helplessly. "What happened to him?"
Gamora raises an eyebrow. "You tell me."
Thor frowns and pushes himself to his feet. Before he can speak, Gamora pushes past him and takes his spot, crouching down on the ground at Loki's level. He stares straight ahead as though she's not there.
"Hey," she says, her voice quiet but firm. "Loki, look at me."
He doesn't; he just keeps repeating, "He's going to kill me," over and over and over.
"Loki, hey." She gently cups his face in her hand, palm resting against his cheek. "Do you see me?"
She watches as his eyes focus, finally seeing for the first time what's in front of him – who's in front of him.
"Gamora?" he whispers.
She nods. "Mm-hmm," she hums. "It's just me."
"You know each other?" Thor asks. She ignores him just as she did Peter. They don't matter right now.
Tears begin to well up in Loki's eyes, and he gently places his own hand on top of hers. "Gamora," he whispers again, like he can't believe she's really here.
"It's just me," she repeats.
"He's going to kill me, Gamora," he whispers. "He's really going to kill me." A tear slips down his cheek.
"No, he's not," she tells him. "He's not going to touch you."
Loki shakes his head, a small movement against her hand. "You don't understand," he says quietly. "I failed him. He's going to kill me."
"Loki..." She brushes his tear away with her thumb. "You're okay. I'm going to keep you safe, I promise."
"You can't," he says. "He's going to kill me – slowly, painfully, in every way he knows I fear. I can't–" He shakes his head helplessly. "I can't do this again."
Gamora leans in and presses her forehead against his. His skin is cold against hers – the detriment of space, she assumes, though maybe it's to do with the blue of his skin. She closes her eyes, and she can hear his shuddered breaths.
"Calm down," she says quietly. "You're okay. He's not going to hurt you. I got away, too, and he hasn't found me yet. He's not going to find you, either."
"He did," Loki whispers. "He found me. He tore my ship apart and he killed my people and he took the Tesseract and he–" He sucks in a shaky breath. "There was so much blood, Gamora."
Gamora takes a deep breath, giving herself a moment to process that before she speaks. "He did that?" she asks. "The wreckage we found you in, that was him."
Loki's nonanswer is answer enough. "I can still hear the screams," he says quietly. "It was my fault. It's all my fault, and now he's going to kill me."
"He's not," Gamora says firmly. "He's not going to kill you. I swear on my life, he is not going to kill you, but you need to get it together."
Loki sniffles quietly.
Gamora lifts her head, separating their foreheads, and rests her hands on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asks.
"I haven't been okay for a very long time," he admits.
She sighs. "I know." After what he's been through, after what Thanos did to him, she doesn't blame him a bit. "Do you know someone named Thor?"
He nods slightly.
"Who is he?" she asks. She doesn't want to know Thor's view of himself. She wants to know what Loki thinks of him. He's the only judge of character she needs.
"He's..." He swallows hard. "He's my brother."
She furrows her brows. Oh. Thor had said something about that earlier, but Loki had never mentioned to her... It makes sense, she supposes. Loki always said he was supposed to be king. If Thor's the current king, it stands to reason...
"Do you want to talk to him?" she asks.
His eyes widen. "He's here?" he asks quickly. "He's alive? Thanos didn't...?"
Gamora looks up at Thor, who's standing by her side and looking very, very confused. He sure does seem to be here and not dead.
"Thor," Loki breathes.
He clambers to his feet and throws his arms around his brother's waist. Thor stumbles backward, and as he regains his balance and his composure, he hugs him back, though not as deathly tight as Loki holds him.
"Okay," Peter says, "how did you not know he was here? He was just shaking you around like a rag doll."
"Quill." Gamora shoots him a look, all it takes to silence him.
Loki buries his face in the crook of his brother's neck. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I'm so sorry."
"Loki, what's happening?" Thor asks quickly. "Where are we? Who is that?"
"I'm so sorry," Loki mumbles again. "I shouldn't have taken the Tesseract."
"It's alright," Thor assures him. "It's too late to change that now."
"I should have stayed in Asgard," Loki continues as though he didn't speak. "I should have died in the Vault. None of this would have happened if I'd died in the Vault."
Thor scoffs and steps back, arms holding his brother's shoulders as he looks at him incredulously. "Loki, stop that!" he says in disbelief. "How can you say that?"
Loki bites his lips, tears welling up in his eyes once more.
Thor sighs and hugs him again. "I don't know what's happening," he admits, "but I'm glad you're here. We've lost too much. I couldn't stand to lose you, too."
Loki breaks down sobbing, and Thor holds him tight, gently rubbing his back just the way Gamora's done herself so many times before. It's bittersweet, she must admit, watching Thor hold him like that. She's glad there's somebody else there for him. She's glad he hasn't been alone all this time. It's just weird to see somebody else taking care of him for once.
Gamora stands up and leans against the wall of the ship, folding her arms over her chest as she watches them. She must admit, Thor does seem to know what he's doing. Loki's still crying, of course, but even Gamora could never get him to stop. The best either of them can do is be a shoulder to cry on. And he's probably the more comfortable one, too; she's a great deal shorter than them both. It's probably better this way.
Without letting Loki go, Thor meets her eye. When he's questioned the Guardians before, his voice has been filled with wariness; distrust. But there's nothing but genuine awe and curiosity as he asks her, "Who are you?"
"Gamora," she replies. "An old friend of your brother's."
"An old friend how?" Thor asks. "I thought I'd met all of his friends. We've spent the majority of our life together."
"Not all of it," she says simply. And that's all she's going to say. This is Loki's trauma, not hers. It's not her place to tell him what happened.
But Loki explains a little bit more. "She kept me sane," he chokes out between sobs. "For months, she was all that kept me sane."
Thor furrows his brows, clearly struggling to piece together what fragmented pieces of information he's been given.
Gamora sighs. "Loki, do you want me to tell him?"
Loki hesitates, then nods minutely.
She doesn't want to tell him everything. There are some moments she can't force herself to relive, and it wasn't even her own life at stake. But she can tell him the bare minimum. She can tell Thor where his brother is coming from; what hell lies beyond the borders of their perfect little world.
"You know about Thanos?" Gamora asks.
Thor's eyes darken. "I do."
"Loki showed up one day, beaten and bruised, and asked for asylum," she explains. "There is no asylum under Thanos's rule, and he made that very clear. They finally made a deal: Loki would bring him the Tesseract, and he'd be free to stay on Earth, far away from him."
Thor presses his lips into a firm line, processing that wordlessly.
"I didn't want to," Loki sobs. "I should have told you. I didn't want this."
It's not entirely clear whether Thor really understands; whether he's able to read between the lines and see the things she doesn't dare say. After a beat, he asks, "Why didn't you? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I just wanted to be free," Loki tells him. "I wanted to forget. I would have spent a thousand lifetimes in the dungeon before I relived that year with him." He chokes out another sob and hugs his brother tighter. "I should have known I wasn't free. I'll never be free from him."
Thor sighs and looks at Gamora, who shrugs sympathetically. This is all she's ever done for him. She's held him while he sobbed more times than she can count, and sometimes, that's all you can do. Where Loki's concerned, where Thanos is concerned, that's all you can do.
Rocket butts in with, "Is anyone else confused right now?"
"Oh, thank god," Peter says. "I thought it was just me."
Gamora looks at Thor. "How many does he have?"
Thor doesn't have to ask what she means. "Two," he answers. "He stole the Power Stone last week when he decimated Xandar, and then he stole the Space Stone from us."
Great. He's already a third of the way to collecting them all, and it's only been a week. "We need to figure out where he's going next."
Loki pushes Thor away and whips around to face her, eyes wide with fear. "What?"
"Loki, you know what he's going to do," Gamora says. "We can't let him–"
"I can't face him again," Loki interrupts, almost pleading. "Please. Don't make me face him again."
Gamora sighs. She wishes she could agree. She wishes they didn't have to do this – that he didn't have to do this. But if there's even a chance they can stop Thanos before he destroys half of all life in the universe, they have to take it.
"How soon can we get to Midgard?" Thor asks.
Peter cocks his head to the side, brows furrowed. "What the hell is Midgard?"
"Midgard," Thor repeats. "Earth. How soon can we get to Earth?"
"Uh..." He looks at Rocket, who shrugs. "Few hours, I guess, if we really push it. You think that's where Thanos is going to be?"
Thor shakes his head. "There are two Infinity Stones on Midgard, but they're both safe," he says. "But I have friends there, and those who remain of our people are on their way now. We can bring Loki there and warn my friends what's to come; then we can find a way to stop Thanos."
Gamora looks at Loki warily. "Does that sound okay?"
"I don't care," Loki says. "Just keep me far away from him."