Secret File:

Amanda's Fanfic

An enormous clang resounded off the top of the Stark tower and mixed in with the rest of the screams of horror and explosions happening across the city as the Avengers tried to beat back Loki's apparent army. The Avengers were hopelessly outnumbered and were getting tired as the Chitauri poured endlessly out of the portal that Loki had created with the help of the Tesseract. The S.H.I.E.L.D. board was already threatening to destroy the whole city with a nuclear blast and hope that it would close the portal as well but the Avengers weren't having it: it would kill too many innocent people.

Loki, meanwhile, was atop the Stark tower fighting the other divine deity; his half-brother, Thor. Thor was desperately trying not to kill Loki – only to subdue him so he could take him, the Tesseract, and hopefully Jane back to Asgard and knock some sense into Loki there. It was here that Thor finally realized what had been bothering him about Loki, something that had seemed fundamentally off since the first time he had seen him alive on this planet: his eyes were ice blue like Clint's had been when Loki had had control over him. Thor was so surprised that he hadn't noticed this earlier that Loki hit him across the face before he recovered and even then all he did was grab Loki's shoulders and shake him violently saying, "Loki! Brother! You have to fight this Loki! It's me brother, it's your brother Thor!"

"I have no brother!" Loki growled back angrily. He shook himself out of Thor's grip and lashed out at him with his staff and thwacking him once again in the head. This time it seemed to do the trick, though, and something clicked in Thor's mind: when Clint had been possessed Agent Romanoff had done nothing more than literally knock the sense back into him. If Romanoff could beat the possession out of Clint he could do the same to Loki.

Thor swung at Loki's head but Loki blocked it easily and rushed forward to attack Thor but Thor swung again – this time more out of self-preservation and panic than anything else – and his fist hit Loki's temple a lot harder than he had meant.

Loki crumpled to the ground but he wasn't finished yet, it seemed. Loki tried to get up but fell back again, unconscious. Luckily it was just enough time for Thor to see that Loki's eyes were emerald green again, as they should be.

Thor walked cautiously to Loki's side and reached down to pick him up when he noticed Loki was bleeding heavily from his nose and little trails of blood were dripping out from under his eyelids. Thor froze halfway to the ground in shock: something had definitely gone terribly wrong.

Just then Tony Stark landed on the roof ten feet away with his hand raised ready to blast Loki to oblivion but Thor managed to shake himself back to reality to warn him off before anything seriously bad happened.

Tony knew right away something was wrong and, even though he would never admit it to anyone, he had a little respect for the god so he was a little concerned when Thor knelt to the ground to cradle the slender, black haired god's head in his lap. When he saw all the blood pouring off Loki's face he couldn't bite back the comment fast enough and said, "God, how hard did you hit him?"

"This isn't the time for jokes, Stark, and Loki doesn't have the time for us to sit here and wait for me to explain. He needs a healer – now!" With that Thor picked Loki up as gently as he could and told Stark to get the best doctors available as he walked down the building.

"Wait! Just because he's unconscious doesn't mean he isn't a threat anymore, Thor. The war is still on: the beasts haven't stopped coming in case you haven't noticed," Tony said waving his hands at the city.

Thor ignored Tony completely and made his way off the roof.

Just then Fury's voice crackled in Tony's ear, "Tony. A nuclear bomb is flying straight at the city as we speak, the portal is still open, and all of you will die if you don't do something about it now!"

Then, before Tony could respond Natasha interrupted, "Guys! I can close the portal right now!" Her voice was rough from battle, anxiety, and exhaustion but she sounded positive. Something about how both comments had been made right after each other made something click in Tony's mind.

"Natasha, don't close it just yet – I know what we have to do about the bomb and the aliens. Everyone else; keep fighting!"

Tony flew towards the missile and started directing it toward the portal. "Tony, be careful!" Captain America yelled at him. "If this doesn't work –"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it: I go boom, too," Tony interrupted, annoyed. It was already hard enough to make himself do the right thing, but adding all the negatives on it was really putting a damper on his mood.

Tony pushed up against the underside of the large, and very dangerous, missile. It was arcing up rapidly and he knew he was going to have to go through the portal with the missile and his mind started racing, trying to find a better solution. Natasha would have to close the portal before the bomb exploded because otherwise the explosion would just travel through, but if Tony didn't make it back before she closed it – well; he hadn't tested the armor for durability against nuclear blasts yet.

Tony was seconds away from the portal and knew there was no way out of this one. He flew through the portal with the bomb and let it fly toward the Chitauri's planet. Tony tried to get back to the portal but his blasters had already frozen up and his oxygen levels were dipping dangerously near zero. Tony gasped as the oxygen totally dissipated and the suit started floating freely through space. He forced his eyes to stay open and make sure the bomb blasted the Chitauri planet to tiny alien bits but his vision was narrowing to a point rather rapidly.

Back on earth Captain America was yelling through his mouth piece, "TONY! Get back down here, NOW!" He watched through the portal as the bomb exploded and knew they had to close the portal with Tony still inside of it. "Natasha, close the portal."

No one spoke on Natasha's end, she just gave the Captain a grim nod but everyone else started protesting, "We can wait a few more seconds!" Clint yelled, even as he shot more Chitauri out of the sky.

"NO! Don't wait Natasha. Do it now!" Captain America yelled. Through the portal he could still see the bomb slowly creeping toward the opening but he could also see the Ironman suit being pushed back towards the hole by the force of the blast. "Do you see that? COME ON TONY, GET DOWN HERE!"

Just as the portal closed the Ironman suit slipped through and started falling towards earth. "What's wrong?" Clint asked as he watched the suit fall. "He's not slowing down – why isn't he slowing down?"

The Hulk roared and started racing towards Tony, leaping from building to building and just catching Tony before dropping him in front of Hawkeye and Captain America who promptly tore off Tony's helmet and leaned down to listen for his breath. He shook his head – there wasn't any.

Everyone stared in horror at Tony's prone body, not even noticing that all the aliens had died as soon as the bomb went off. The Hulk broke the silence with a loud roar of grief. Suddenly Tony's head shot up at the sound and said, "What I miss?" gasping.

"Hold on Loki, I can fix this…" Thor said as he carried Loki down the Stark tower as gently as he could. He kept murmuring the reassuring, useless words as he hoped Loki would just open his eyes. He didn't open his eyes or say a single thing. The only noise Loki made was a hollow rattling as he breathed.

Thor sat outside of Loki's hospital room with his head in his hands. The doctors had confirmed that Loki had a severe concussion but the way the doctor said it had piqued Thor's interest. "What else?" he had asked.

"We're not entirely sure. We were monitoring his brain activity – which was a little confused, but this is normal for a concussion this bad but it was…unbalanced. His brain would suddenly have high spikes of activity and then it would mellow out to nearly nothing at all. I… I don't know what else to do for him."

That was yesterday.

Now he was just sitting on a bench outside of Loki's room worrying. The healers on this planet were pathetic compared to those of Asgard. Loki could have been healed by now if they had gone to Asgard but S.H.I.E.L.D. had insisted that Loki and Thor stay here. Now Agent Fury had called a meeting but Thor had refused to move from this spot so Fury, Coulsen, and the rest of the Avengers had agreed to meet here.

"I don't understand," Steve Rogers, A.K.A. Captain America, said as he walked in. "Why did you beat your brother to death if you were only going to bring him to a hospital in the end?"

Thor was about to respond when Natasha walked in, "Save it until the rest come, Thor," she said shortly.

So he did: Tony Stark and Bruce Banner walked in next with Fury and Coulsen on their heels. Clint strode in last and Thor began his story.

"When we were fighting on the roof I realized that Loki hadn't been acting his self this whole time and that his eyes were ice blue, like yours were," he said motioning at Hawkeye who looked at the ground and shrugged. "I then remembered what Natasha had said about recalibrating Clint's brain –"

"Literally knocking the sense back into him," Tony said with a satisfied grin and nod.

"Yes, well, that plan went decidedly south and now we're here," Thor said with a heavy sigh.

"You shouldn't have brought him here, Thor; he's a danger to earth and to himself. You should have just destroyed him," Fury said with a frustrated glint in his eye.

Thor shot up angrily and said, "He is my brother! He was unable to control his actions! He shouldn't have to pay for this."

"How do we know the Chitauri won't inhabit his mind again?" Fury countered.

"I'll take him back to Asgard," Thor said just as quickly.

"Thor," Clint said quickly and interrupting Fury's retort. He put his hand on Thor's shoulder, "You know you don't have the power to get back to Asgard."

"Together –" Thor began as he sunk back into his chair realizing there wasn't a way out of this for Loki.

"Thor, even if you could go back we would need you here in case the Chitauri found a way to come back here." Thor didn't know who had said it but he nodded, knowing it was completely true. His blood was pounding in his ears and his eyes were stinging. No matter what Loki had done he was still his brother and he loved him – even if Loki was a Frost Giant. He just wanted Loki to be safe. He wanted whatever was possessing Loki to leave and when it did he was going to have the Chitauri face the wrath of a god.

He snapped back to reality when he heard a groan from Loki's room. He crept into his room, not even noticing that nearly everyone had left accept for Bruce who came in behind him.

Loki's head was tilted towards the door and his face was twisted in an expression of pain even unconscious. His skin was pale and drawn and a large bruise was filling in where Thor had hit him. "The doctor just left. You hit him pretty hard – be glad he's immortal," Bruce said as he left.

Thor sighed and pulled a chair over to Loki's bed. There were so many things Thor wanted to say – if only Loki would wake up! He would convince him that it doesn't matter if Loki's a Frost Giant: he's still his brother. He would apologize for hitting him so unnecessarily hard.

His thinking was interrupted when Tony walked in with his arms loaded with food from the hospital vending machine down the hall. How typical of Stark. Thor thought. Tony really was an inconsiderate, vulgar, and introverted man. How did anyone stand him?

Tony just sat down, oblivious to Thor's train of thought, and asked "Did he wake up yet?"

As if you care, Thor wanted to say but just then Loki's eyes snapped open and he gasped. His eyes tried to focus on Thor but they were foggy with pain and exhaustion and his pupils were largely dilated. Loki whispered something and Thor knelt next to his head and said, "Loki, I'm so sorry."

Tony wanted to bolt out of the room – he wasn't good at…emotions. Instead he walked closer to Thor and saw that there was a track of tears running down the god of thunder's face. He had never seen the god cry and he felt terrible because he couldn't do anything about it. Before he could do anything ridiculous, like cry, he left the room. He was so desperate to get out of the sterile, unfeeling hospital that he didn't even notice Natasha and Fury talking outside in the hall.

"What's wrong with Stark?" Natasha wondered aloud as he dashed by.

"There are too many things to say to that," Fury said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "As I was saying: we can't kill Loki anymore, nor can we send him back."

"Thor could easily watch after him," Romanoff said.

"Do we really want the god who tried to kill his brother being babysat by said brother? And according to the Norse legends Loki has been easily escaping Thor and Odin for his whole life. It wouldn't work," Fury said with finality.

"What else can we do?" Romanoff asked. Fury shrugged and Natasha glanced into the room where Thor was still kneeling by Loki. He looked up at Natasha but she shifted her gaze back to Fury. "Do you want to tell him we won't be killing Loki, or shall I?" She said it completely calmly but Fury knew she meant it as a small joke when she smirked at the very idea of trying to kill a god.

Thor and Hawkeye were helping Loki into a S.H.I.E.L.D. van when they realized that Tony was nowhere to be found but Fury told everyone to keep moving without him.

Fury had decided it would be best to keep an eye on Loki at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and Thor, still immensely depressed, could do nothing but agree. Fury wanted all the Avengers to convene at headquarters anyway and they could give Loki equally good medical care there. Loki was fully awake now, if slightly unfocused, but couldn't walk without help. He went along with the Avengers willingly but he was being eerily quiet the whole way.

When they finally got the pale god into the van he rested his head back, trying not to pass out. Even though he was better he still let out a sharp gasp of pain every time they hit a bump in the road.

When they reached the building Loki literally didn't even have the energy to lift his head. Clint and Steve were going to assist Loki but when they saw how bad he looked they realized he wouldn't be walking for a while. When Thor got out of the van and saw Loki he quickly scooped him up and brought him inside.

End of Part One