Bravest Moment

There is a moment in every story when the character we have been following has to decide what they are really made of. Not what they pretend to be. Not what they say they are. What they actually are, deep down, when the stakes are highest and the easy way out is gone.

For Loki, that moment came on a refugee ship called the Statesman, drifting through space, with his brother Thor sitting beside him.

The Asgardians had just escaped Hela. The golden city of Asgard was gone. Surtur's flame had taken it, but the people lived, and Thor — newly crowned king of a homeless people — was standing on the bridge of the Statesman looking out at the stars and feeling, for the first time in a long while, almost hopeful.

Loki sat near him. He was different that day. Quieter. The two brothers had spent the last few weeks being on the same side, and Loki was still getting used to how that felt.

In Loki's pocket, secretly, was the Tesseract.

He had taken it from Asgard's vault before the city burned. Why? Even Loki couldn't quite say. Maybe he wanted to keep one piece of his old home. Maybe he had a vague sense that something was coming, and he wanted to be ready. Maybe it was just an old habit. Once a trickster, always a trickster.

Then the stars outside the window began to go dark.

A huge ship had moved between the Statesman and the open space. It was bigger than any ship the Asgardians had ever seen. Bigger than three Statesmen put together. It crackled with energy along its hull. And in the bridge of the Statesman, every Asgardian who was old enough to remember went very quiet.

A voice came over the speakers. Deep. Slow. Heavy as a stone.

"Hear me, and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan. Your deaths are part of his Great Balance. Smile."

Thor's face went pale.

Thanos.

Thanos's ship punched into the Statesman. CRASH. Bulkheads tore. Air rushed. Asgardian soldiers were thrown across the bridge. And through the hole in the ship's side stepped Thanos and his terrible Children — Ebony Maw, who could move things with his thoughts and float through the air, and Cull Obsidian, an enormous warrior with a heavy hammer-axe.

The Asgardians fought. They lost.

Hulk charged Thanos directly. Hulk was the strongest there was. Hulk was used to winning by smashing. But Thanos was wearing the Power Stone on his golden gauntlet now — he had taken it before he came — and Thanos hit Hulk so hard that Hulk went down. THUD. Out. Cold.

Heimdall lay wounded on the floor. He looked up at the night sky one last time and used the very last of his magic to summon the Bifrost. The rainbow light enveloped Hulk's huge unconscious body and sent him hurtling all the way to Earth, where he would crash through the roof of Doctor Strange's sanctum and warn the Avengers that Thanos was coming.

It was the last thing Heimdall ever did.

That left Thor and Loki.

Thor was held down by Cull Obsidian. Bound. Helpless. A blade was pressed to his face. Thanos held the Power Stone close to Thor's head, making Thor groan in pain.

"I know what it's like to lose," Thanos said, in his slow patient voice. "To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless. It's frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. I ask you, to what end? Dread it, run from it. Destiny still arrives."

He turned his head slightly.

"The Tesseract," he said. "Or your brother's head."

Now here is what Loki was thinking in that moment. Try to put yourself inside his head.

He had the Tesseract. He could give it to Thanos and Thor would live. But giving Thanos another Infinity Stone meant terrible things for the whole universe. Loki, of all people, KNEW what Thanos was. He had stood on Thanos's rocky world. He had heard Thanos's voice in the dark. He had been used by Thanos. He knew exactly what the purple titan would do with another Stone in his gauntlet.

And yet — Thor. Thor was right there. Thor, his big stubborn beautiful brother, who had carried him bowling-ball-style through the corridors of Sakaar a few weeks earlier. Thor, who had said, "It's good to have you back."

Loki stepped forward.

"All right," he said quietly. "Stop."

He held up his hand. POOF — out of the air, the glowing blue Tesseract appeared in his palm. The little glow lit up his face from below, making him look very tired and very young.

He bowed his head a tiny bit, like a courtier presenting a gift.

"I assure you, brother," he said to Thor, "the sun will shine on us again."

Thor's eyes were wide. He shook his head slightly. He understood, in the way only brothers do, that Loki was telling him something.

Loki turned and walked toward Thanos. Three steps. Four. Five. He held the Tesseract out.

And he started his last clever sentence.

"You... should know..." Loki said softly. "...that we have a Hulk."

Thanos smiled. "I thought you said —"

"You should know," Loki said, "that when you mess with our people..."

His hand flashed. A small silver dagger appeared in it. He lunged for Thanos's throat with everything he had.

But Thanos was wearing the Power Stone AND the Space Stone now. He saw it coming the way a wide-awake person sees a slow snowflake fall. He caught Loki's wrist in one massive purple hand. He held it there.

Loki had known, even as he lunged, that he was not going to win this. He must have known. He was clever — he was the cleverest Asgardian who had ever lived — and clever people know when a plan is a long shot.

He did it anyway.

He did it to give Thor one chance. One small window. One distraction.

Thanos lifted Loki up by the throat, slowly, almost gently. Loki looked over at Thor — Thor, bound on the floor, eyes huge — and Loki, with the very last of his cleverness, said his most famous line.

"You... will never... be a god."

Then it was over. Loki went still in Thanos's hand.

Thor cried out.

Thanos dropped Loki gently to the floor. He turned away, lifted his gauntlet, and disappeared into the dark with the Tesseract in his fist. His ship pulled away. The Statesman drifted, broken, lit only by the cold light of distant stars.

Thor crawled to his brother's side. He held Loki's hand. He cried.

Now. Here is what to take away from this story, little listener, because it is important.

Loki was a trickster. He had told lies. He had pretended to die more than once. He had ruled Asgard while disguised as his own father. He had brought an army to New York and made Hulk smack him into a marble floor. He was not a clean and easy hero.

But in the end, when it really counted, when the easy way out was sitting right there in his pocket — Loki chose his brother. He chose to stand between Thor and the monster, with no plan that could save him.

That is the bravest thing a person can do.

A clever person who fakes brave things does not actually have to be brave. A truly brave person who knows they are clever, and who decides to do the brave thing anyway, with no trick to fall back on — THAT is brave.

Thor wept on the floor of the Statesman. He did not know — he could not know — that the universe was not actually finished with Loki yet. Somewhere, in a different version of events, in a different branch of the timeline, the trickster god was about to wake up in a very strange new place.

But that, dear listener, is a story for tomorrow.

For tonight, we end here. With a brother weeping for a brother. And the bravest thing Loki ever did, glowing quietly in the dark.

It was enough.