The last time Loki had seen Thanos, he had promised the Titan the Tesseract in exchange for his assistance in conquering Midgard, a bargain which he had promptly broken quite thoroughly by destroying the army and dropping the Chitauri scepter into the void. The fact that Thanos hadn't immediately killed him or at least demanded the Mind Stone returned puzzled Loki, and he had hoped that by pointedly not holding the scepter, he might get a comment from Thanos. A ploy that had clearly failed. The dagger in his illusion's hands was no more real than the illusion itself; he knew he stood no chance against Thanos in a straight fight. The trick was to never let it be a straight fight.

"I'm hurt, that you think so little of me," he said, drawling. "Too many traitors to give any of us much attention?"