Scene 1 - Loki and the Warriors Three after Sif's funeral

Original placement: beginning of Chapter 11- Blue Skin

Sif's funeral ceremony turned out to be an unpleasant affair, even for a funeral. Her sisters had certainly made the appropriate arrangements: a long boat laden in the finery of their house, hundreds of lanterns, an orchestra and a choir. Loki had caught a glimpse of the refreshments that awaited the attendees after the choir finished singing the lamentations — it was the best Asgard had to offer.

Everything had been tasteful and picked out with great care, but the gathered were restless and distracted. Loki felt their eyes bore into him from every direction. Worse yet, a messenger had arrived for him in the middle of Tyr's eulogy with a report on the progress of the advance parties presently using portals to covertly infiltrate Jotunheim.

The minute Sif's boat slipped out of view, Loki turned to Sif's two sisters.

'Please forgive me,' he said. 'I must return to the palace. Once again, my condolences on your loss.'

They muttered quiet thank yous and curtsied. Loki motioned for his guards to clear a path for him through the crowd. There was no sense in trying to engage Tyr before he left. Loki had now tried twice to offer his condolences, but whenever he drew close to Tyr, the man's face turned to such a vicious scowl Loki wondered if he were about to receive Tyr's fist in the face. Apparently, whether Loki was negotiating with Jotunheim or invading it, Tyr was determined to remain hostile.

Loki and his retinue made it to the back of the crowd when he spotted three figures huddled beneath the birch trees that grew along the boulevard. Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg. He was surprised at himself that he hadn't noticed their absence earlier.

'What are you three doing back here?' he asked.

Volstagg emerged from the shadow of the trees, Fandral closely behind him, and offered Loki a shallow bow. 'Lord Tyr didn't want us visiting Sif while she was in the healers' care. We didn't think he would be overjoyed to see us at the funeral either.'

'Probably a wise decision. Grief manifests in different ways, Sif's father seems to have settled on anger.'

'He gave you an earful too?' Fandral asked.

Loki shifted his grip on Gungnir in lieu of a reply. Fandral and Volstagg had chosen to treat this interaction as an informal conversation, which suited Loki just fine. Royal protocol was tiresome. But the question Fandral had put to him overstepped the bounds. A ruler could hardly blurt out complains about one of his chief advisers to every dandy he happened to stumble across. All the more so, when he had ten guards trailing him. Palace guards were the biggest rumourmongers in Asgard.

'Lord Tyr will have opportunity aplenty to burn off his anger on the frost giants tomorrow,' Volstagg said.

Loki guessed he had caught onto Fandral's impropriety. Being the eldest of the Warriors Three, he had more experience with the subtleties of palace life than the rest of Thor's friends.

'Quite true,' Fandral laughed, still seemingly oblivious. 'I hope to give more than a few what they deserve as well. We all do, I think.'

Volstagg glanced over to the distant spot where Sif's boat had slipped beyond their sight, then drew his gaze back to Loki and Fandral. 'It was a good attempt on trying to arrange ransom, Loki, but frost giants just don't go for that.'

'Though what is this about Laufey accusing you of being a frost giant?' Fandral added.

Loki felt the blood drain out of his face. 'Where did you hear that?'

'It's all over the palace. It's not true, right?'

'You three have known be practically my entire life. Has there ever been any hint I'm not Asgardian?' Loki faked a laugh, then cleared his throat. 'I should get back to the palace.'

> Why the scene was cut: I had a lot of trouble finding a way to transition from Loki's failed attempt to negotiate with Laufey to Tyr's coup d'etat against him. I wanted to acknowledge Sif's death properly and to give an indication of the fallout from Loki's conversation with Laufey. The problem was this scene gave Loki too much information — here he's made aware that Tyr is still furious, that his true heritage is a now subject of public gossip and that the Warriors Three are not hostile to him. It was more fun to leave him (and the readers) blindsided by the coup and uncertain of whether anyone was still on his side.

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Scene 2. Loki scopes out the Sanctuary City Space Port

Original Placement: Beginning of Chapter 35 - Schemes

'You hid it where?' Loki said, not bothering to temper his incredulity. 'How did you manage to get in without seen the first time, let alone expect to get back in there now?

'They won't be expecting us anywhere near the Mess Hall. It'd be the ports hosting ships to get out of here that they'll be scouting first up,' Brunnhilde replied.

Loki stuck out his index finger in Brunnhilde's direction. 'And here's the rub, once they realise we are not to be found at any of the ports, they'll spread out to the rest of the city. Everyone's got to eat. I had a rather light breakfast, so I could use a meal right now. Knowing how it is in the cells, it's been a while since you've had anything other than scraps and breadcrumbs. You know how it is with food around here, it's a perfectly reasonable move to keep a tight watch over the Mess Hall.'

'What do you know about the cells? Have you been helping out down there too?'

'No, I haven't,' Loki replied in a flat tone. More annoyed at his own slip than at Brunnhilde trying to pick a fight with him just because he had questioned her strategy. 'I've been in other cells though. I wager it's not that different.'

Brunnhilde seemed to not hear his words and went on a different tack altogether. 'What then are you planning to do, Loki? We need the schematics contained in that data. What's done is done, I'm going to go and dig the datapad back up.'

As far as questions went, it was a fair one. They did need the information held in the files Brunnhilde had stolen from the Palisade and since she had chosen to bury it beneath the Mess Hall, at least one of them had to return there to retrieve it. He would have gone himself — he was in a better physical condition than Brunnhilde, but he wasn't sure she would be able to explain to him in enough detail the location where he would need to start digging. And, he were honest with himself, he preferred for Brunnhilde to be captured than himself. She had already told them the one great secret she held. What she could say about Asgard or Sakaar were no crucial pieces of information, especially not compared to what Loki held in his own head. He had no illusion that he would be able to keep those memories to himself should he be subject to a proper interrogation.

He rolled his shoulders back, then glanced to the dirt-caked window above them. 'Fine, fine. You've got retrieve it. We'll meet across the road from the munitions factory at the third sunset. If either of us doesn't make it there, the alternative rendezvous point is back here.'

'It'll work out.' One corner of Brunnhilde's lips pulled up. 'I'll see you at the third.'

Loki clicked his fingers and the Chitauri glamour restored itself over Brunnhilde's body. He didn't like using his magic in such a flamboyant manner, especially considering the effort it would take to hold the spell despite the distance between them, but it was preferable to letting Brunnhilde head out undisguised while she was one half of the most wanted pair in the Sanctuary.

'Brunnhilde,' he called out after her when she was almost at the door, 'did you tell them about my glamour?'

She frowned. 'It never came up, I don't think.'

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Loki nodded, although he wasn't entirely satisfied with the answer. He watched Brunnhilde leave, then stared at the gap she had ducked though for several minutes daring himself to come up with a better idea than the one Brunnhilde had talked him into. Nothing came. He sighed and pushed himself off the floor. He had about two hours before he was due to meet up with the Valkyrie; there were more useful things he could do than sit here in the company of his unceasing and violently abusive inner monologue.

He let his magic reclaim the skin he had grown up with. Although it was as much as deception as the Chitauri disguise he had adopted earlier, this magic was intimately familiar to Loki and asked a lot less of him than any other glamour he could adopt. He stripped off the jacket; it bore the insignia of Thanos' military forces across the shoulders. The shirt beneath was a plain one. Once he rubbed some dirt into it and added a few extra scuff-marks to his boots, he thought he didn't stand out from the thousands of labourers at work in Sanctuary City on any normal day.

Being on his own, Loki relished his own hypocrisy in silence. He had been aghast initially at the notion that Brunnhilde had to return to the Mess Hall, yet here he was heading for the very spot where Thanos and his underlings would be waiting for him. Unfortunately, long years of experience had drilled into him the necessity of this act. Brunnhilde was more cautious than Thor and his gaggle of friends, but not by much. Should they survive long enough to get out of the Palisade, Loki wanted to know what their options were for getting off Theta-Three.

The increased security at the port was obvious from two blocks away. As a squadron of armed guards marched past, Loki hurried over to examine the wares for sale at the nearby street stall. The owner was making good business in this hour of the afternoon. While he focused on other clients, Loki swiped a pack of biwan joints and a lighter.

Biwan, whether smoked or chewed, was a favourite activity for many manual labourers working in the Sanctuary. Loki had never actually tried one, but he had seen countless labourers idling in every open space to be found. He pulled a joint out of the packet and fiddled with it. There was no need to light it just yet, not when he wasn't sure of the side-effects of inhaling the smoke.

I bet I'm the first of the Jotnar to try the stuff. Laufey would be so proud.

He spotted Brunnhilde's ship peering out from among its larger neighbours in the long term parking. If the ship was being watched, Loki saw no sign of it. Yet it wasn't the only thing that gave him pause. The ship had needed refuelling after the journey from Sakaar. He had once mentioned to Brunnhilde off-handedly that they needed to arrange for fuelling should Loki want to make a quick exit, but he wasn't certain Brunnhilde had followed up on that. Even if she had tried, she mightn't have been successful. Ship fuel couldn't be procured locally and was thus always rationed in the Sanctuary. The port operators wouldn't have been happy to have a random ship full of fuel simply sitting there for weeks.

'Father will skin me alive before the day is done,' came a familiar voice.

Loki lit the biwan and bringing the joint up to his lips, made a shallow inhale. The smoke tasted like wet charcoal; he was glad to have not inhaled more of it. He probably would have started coughing if he had. Nebula and Proxima Midnight walked right past him. Attracting attention was the last thing he needed right now.

'And a right hypocrite he'll be,' Proxima responded. 'He got taken in by the story just as well as you. In fact, he had the sceptre at his disposal and he still couldn't figure out he was being lied to.'

Nebula's eyes widened, but Loki was unsurprised. Of all the Children of Thanos, Proxima Midnight was the only one willing to call out the Great Titan's flaws and shortcomings. Corvus Glaive, Loki had heard, sometimes challenged Thanos outright. He had long wondered if it was the close bond between Proxima and Corvus that inoculated them from the worst of the fanaticism that inflicted so many of Thanos' followers.

'How did Loki manage that?' Nebula said.

Proxima cocked her head to better follow the progress of the work team preparing a ship for departure. 'That's a question for your father and the Maw to answer.'

Loki masked his grin behind another try at the biwan. The second inhale thrilled his taste-buds no better than the first and he felt no trace of the mild elation the substance was supposed to elicit in the smoker. He coughed lightly.

Proxima glanced over to him. 'Hey! What are you standing about for? Don't you have work to do?'

Time to get out of here.

> Why the scene was cut: There was so much preparation for their plan to assassinate Thanos, I was bored out of my mind. You might notice that the key information from this scene ended up summarised in the published opening scene to Chapter 26. I was sad to lose was the exchange between Proxima and Nebula, but it wasn't needed. I had briefly considered having Proxima take part in the attack on Earth. Once that idea was scrapped, there was no point in trying to flesh out Proxima's character.

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Scene 3. Thor and Loki catching up

Original placement: End of Chapter 40 – Midgard

The ruins of a research facility made for a poor base of operations, but Coulson was keen to remain close, so a helicopter was arranged to airlift them to a more structurally sound SHIELD facility an hour away. Romanoff took the co-pilot's seat and Coulson had already buried himself in his lap top before the helicopter had even taken off. The two junior SHIELD agents accompanying them sat at the back, their jaws clenched tight and their fingers hovering over the triggers on their rifles. Without any of the Midgardians to draw their attention, it left Loki and Thor peering at each other.

Thor, as had been inevitable, broke the silence first. 'Why are you back now?'

That hadn't been the question Loki had expected from his brother and he wasn't entirely sure how he ought to answer it. There was the original explanation he had given his family about his decision to leave Asgard, but revelations about his Jotunn heritage seemed like matter of centuries long past compared to the threat of Thanos' coming. And he had already conceded he had become entangled with the Titan during his absence from Asgard. But where to start on that wasn't a simple decision to make.

'Heimdall twisted my arm to get me to come,' Loki said after a pause. 'He told me the servants of Thanos had come to Midgard and that you had come to meet them. I was worried about you.'

Thor scoffed, startling the two SHIELD agents at the back. 'Do you know how much we've all worried about you for the best part of a year now? Mother has been inconsolable. I was about to go find you and drag you back to Asgard myself. It was only father who persuaded me to give you more time.'

'Father is seldom wrong. Here I am, aren't I?'

Loki had aimed to calm his brother down, but his words seemed to produce the opposite result. Thor shook his head, his lips taut, then glared at Loki.

'What did you do to Heimdall?' he demanded. 'The man is supposed to report to the king of Asgard, but you and him had some other agreement I take it. I knew nothing of Thanos or his servants until tonight, yet he must have known something about these people if he went off to tell you about their arrival on Midgard. So he knew of this danger and yet told me nothing.'

'Don't talk to me in that tone. I am your brother, not your lackey.'

'Explain then, brother.'

The helicopter tilted as the pilot made a turn and Loki could see more of the landscape they were flying over. The land seemed to be flat and largely fallow, but bisected by endless straight lines of highways, unpaved roads and power lines. Loki didn't find a single recognisable feature in that landscape.

'Loki,' Thor said sharply, as he fiddled with Mjolnir's leather strap. Patience had never been his strength.

'Don't punish Heimdall on this, I begged him to keep the matter to himself for as long as he could. How would mother have reacted had she find out I had become entangled with a megalomaniac who would take every inch of the universe for his own? He has a grievance with me now, I thought if he was to pursue me, it would be best not to draw his attention to the Nine Realms. Thus I stayed away. And in case, Asgard was of interest to him, I told you to look to the realm's defences.'

'It would've been easier to prepare our defences if we knew what the danger was.'

Loki sighed. 'I had no clue what form Thanos' attack would take or if it would come at all.' He glanced around the helicopter, looking for an alternate topic of conversation. Where Thor was taking this didn't impress him at all and he wasn't in the mood to concede that he had spent half the year drinking, fornicating and trying his absolute best to ignore Thanos' continued existence. 'How is father?'

'Regaining his strength, slowly.'

'Still? It has been months?'

'This is why we needed you back,' Thor replied. 'For the first few months, he couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours and walking past the end of the corridor was beyond him. He is stronger now, but the healers believe he will never regain full strength. The poison on that spear would've killed any weaker man. Of course, his mind remains sharp and he helps me where he can. It's not... Your council and your presence would've been more helpful than I can put into words.'

Loki sensed Thor was entirely correct. There were circles under his eyes and his hair hung limp around his ears. There was an unfamiliar rounding of Thor's shoulders too. And perhaps most telling, Loki couldn't recount his brother ever being so humourless, not in this time-line at least.

'I'm sorry, Thor,' Loki said. 'I've been dwelling too much on my own thoughts of late and very little on the needs of others. For what it's worth, I'm here now and I intend to see this affair through to the end.'

'And after we're done here on Midgard?'

The left corner of Loki's lips drew up. 'I'll come back to Asgard with you.'

Thor beamed and in that moment, he was once more the boisterous youth that Loki had grown up. From there the conversation shifted back, centuries back, when Loki and Thor had been very young and had journeyed to Midgard with their father. There were more stories to reminisce over than could be contained in an hour's helicopter ride, but Loki didn't hurry Thor along. Mostly, he was just relieved that the tension that had lingered between them since his first minutes after arriving to Midgard now fell away and they could enjoy their camaraderie once more.

> Why the scene was cut: Loki and Thor had to address Loki's extended absence in some way, but I had a problem with Thor and Loki talking so openly in front of a bunch of SHIELD personnel they barely know. This is why the replacement scene to this one takes place once they find a bit of privacy in the bunker. The other big issue with this one was continuity. Loki makes several complaints about Heimdall's behaviour and decisions in Chapters 30 and 31; it makes little sense for Loki to now ask Thor not to punish Heimdall.