Ran out of room for this in the summary, but this fic is rated for violence, some body horror / illness (it's like 8,500 words of sickfic), and basically mind rape.
After the flames from Fury's crashed helicopter disappear over the horizon, the vehicle Barton is driving slows down and pulls to a stop at the side of the road. Loki tenses, his knuckles whitening on the scepter, but Barton only lowers his window and leans out to speak to him.
"I think we've lost everyone," Barton says. "You might want to join us in the cab—lot more comfortable up here."
Loki refrains from voicing the uncharitable thought that it probably isn't, given how unimpressive Midgardian vehicles seem; so far, he has no reason to antagonize Barton, and the jibe wouldn't be accurate anyway. The vehicle's interior cannot possibly be less comfortable than his current position, crouching on hard metal as his muscles stiffen and the ache in his bones intensifies. "Very well," he says, and Barton pulls his head back through the window.
Without thinking, Loki starts to stand—and has to seize the edge of the vehicle for balance as the world momentarily whirls around him. Below him, the ground looks very hard and very far away. He knows he should be able to leap down without a second's thought, and that he cannot is…concerning. Distantly he realizes he is shaking and wonders when that started.
At least Barton and Selvig are still up front where they cannot really see him, although Barton is twisted in his seat to look back through the window. Loki inhales, determined to ignore this strange, persistent weakness, and carefully lowers himself to the surface of the road. It's reassuringly solid, and he lets go of the vehicle and takes a few steps forward.
—and suddenly there is only empty air beneath his feet, or his legs have lost feeling and given way, or both. He grabs for the vehicle again but it seems very far away, and then the ground rushes up to meet him.
Everything is gray and hazy, and everything hurts. Somewhere in the distance he hears Selvig, "Jesus, is he okay?" and running footsteps and he sees Barton's face above him but the agent, too, is indistinct and far away. Loki has a vague idea that he should respond, or try to rise, or something, but he cannot seem to remember how; he can only blink up at Barton and try to breathe. And then he can do neither, and for a long moment there is only pain, and then everything fades out and he gratefully lets himself drift.
There is a long dark stretch of time where he is only vaguely aware that he exists; it would be quite peaceful, if not for the strange blue light at the very edges of his awareness or the ache of his distant body. There's more, probably, but none of it seems terribly important, and the haze is shielding him from the light and the pain.
But gradually the blue light grows sharper, more insistent, and it drags him back into his body—where he didn't want to be, still doesn't want to be, and for another stretch of time that feels unbearably long, he is conscious of nothing but pain. His entire body throbs with it, like a bruise so deep it's reached past skin and muscle into bone, perhaps even into his spirit. Gradually he becomes aware of more distinct pains: with each breath, something shifts painfully in his chest, and the simple act of drawing in air takes far more effort than it should, as if his lungs are weighed down more heavily than usual. He can feel a wheeze at the peak of every inhale. He tries to move his toes, and the fire that sears through him at even this tiny motion is so intense he cannot tell whether he has succeeded.
Other sensations filter in, a few at a time. He is lying down. He is lying down on something soft, and he is covered with a light blanket and his eyes are closed. It is quiet—a voice muttering in the background, and little else. The air smells reasonably fresh, not stale and recycled.
He is not with the Chitauri, then. Not unless they are trying to trick him with unexpected comforts, which is possible, but even for that purpose, he does not think they would give him a bed.
His hand feels strange, he realizes belatedly—something is stuck to it, something sharp that very slightly stings and itches, and that alarms him enough that he finds the strength to open his eyes.
"Oh thank God," a voice says from somewhere at his left. Selvig. Loki starts to turn his head and stops, wincing, when everything in his body protests, but he still sees the doctor get up from his chair and hurry to a nearby door. "Clint, he's awake!"
Barton appears in the doorway almost immediately, relief plain on his face. "Good to have you back with us, boss."
Loki is not entirely sure he agrees. "Where," he pushes out, and then he has to stop for breath.
"One of my safehouses," Barton says. "SHIELD doesn't know about this one, so we've got at least a little time before they find us. But I really mean a little—Fury will make finding the Tesseract his highest priority, so he'll get people tracking it as soon as possible. If we can't go to ground properly—as in, literally underground would be best—it's only a matter of time before somebody comes knocking, and we've already been here for two hours and 23 minutes." He checks his watch. "No, 26 minutes." Loki's eyes flick aside, and Barton answers his unspoken question: "The Tesseract case and the scepter are both in this bedroom with you. Figured it was safest to keep them close."
For varying definitions of safe, certainly. He wants—needs—to ask so many things, and he has no idea whether he possesses the energy to do so; simply organizing his thoughts to present his questions as efficiently and concisely as possible seems overwhelmingly exhausting.
Again, though, Barton seems to anticipate what he needs to know, and Loki doesn't question his surge of gratitude in response. Perhaps it's only the scepter, linking their minds in some slight way, but he's too relieved to care about the reason. "This is a normal house and we've got you in a back bedroom," Barton says. "I found and set one obvious fracture in your right leg and another in your left arm, but I don't have an x-ray machine so I don't know what other breaks you might have. There's an IV in your right hand—a needle for intravenous fluids—to keep you hydrated, because we weren't sure what else to do until you could tell us what's going on. By human standards you're running one hell of a fever, but we know basically nothing about alien biology. As of 15 minutes ago, your temperature is 112.4°, which is really something compared to the human average of 98.6. But we don't know what's normal for you, or if we should try to bring the fever down or let it burn out some kind of infection."
Loki frowns. "That does…seem high," he agrees. "I…am not sure…" He closes his eyes, concentrating enough to turn his gaze inward. He has to stop almost immediately, already far more drained by the effort than he should be, but he thinks…he is not sure what he thinks. "No…infection. Nothing to…burn out. So...bring it down."
"Okay," Barton says. "Okay. Good to know. That's what I thought," and now he sounds peeved.
"I did say I'm not that type of doctor," Selvig says, seeming annoyed in his turn, and Loki realizes with a jolt that they were arguing about his wellbeing while he was unconscious.
"Anyway," Barton says, "do you know what's wrong? After you collapsed, you were out—completely unresponsive."
Loki makes a noncommittal noise and realizes with a sudden flush of shame that he's only wearing a thin shirt and trousers, because of course they would have removed his armor to set the breaks and put him to bed (like a child), and they've seen how unimpressive he is under all that leather and metal. Especially now. He pushes that aside too and tries to focus again. It is not terribly surprising that his body would demand respite after...everything...that happened in the void, but Barton is right—this feels like illness, not simple exhaustion. And although he was certainly not in peak condition when he first came through the portal, it was nothing like this, and he knows he had no obviously broken bones at the time—nothing that would have made him collapse, nothing Barton would be able to detect, and nothing that could have been so dramatically worsened by a little tumble to the ground.
But he can clearly sense the fractures Barton mentioned, and more faintly at least half a dozen tiny cracks across his ribs—not from an impact but from…pressure? No, that is not quite right. He reaches deeper, toward the core of himself, and—
Oh. Yes. Of course.
He remembers:
He falls, and the fall is endless—and then he lands, and that is worse. He is trapped, frozen, hands everywhere and he hurts, oh he hurts, and then one of them reaches inside him—into his body, fingers in viscera but no, it's opened up his mind, pulling and tugging and twisting, pain blasting down every nerve, and he howls with it until his breath gives out.
They want him. They want his mind, his will, his magic—the hand reaches and pulls and he cannot see or hear or breathe for agony, everything inside him is fracturing and fragmenting, but it cannot be pulled loose. It is all part of him and this invader cannot drag it free for its own uses. It can only hurt him or kill him; it cannot harvest the things that make him who and what he is, as much as he wishes in this moment that he could let it.
The presence realizes this too, finally, and the insubstantial groping fingers withdraw, and Loki can do nothing but sob soundlessly in relief.
He is not allowed to rest for long. They come back, this time with chains for his body and his mind, and they break the former yet further until he is too weakened even to attempt resisting an incursion upon the latter. Because they cannot possess his magic (they never tell him why they want his power and he wonders if he truly wants to know), they work to bind it instead, trap it inside him where he can barely use it except what he can channel through the strange scepter they press to his heart that fills his vision with cold blue light.
And he knows exactly what is wrong—he can feel it now that he has realized, can feel the inescapable truth of it, and he feels hysterical laughter bubbling up inside him. Selvig and Barton will not understand, but he has to explain, he has to show them the universe's latest joke at his expense that for once has not seen him come out the worst. But before he can tell them anything, the scepter flares to life and tugs at his mind, and he doesn't fight it because there is simply no point.
The Other is waiting when the rocks and stars take shape around him. Loki finds himself kneeling, rough stone digging into his legs, and this spirit-body is at least strong enough that he can stay there without collapsing further. He doesn't bother trying to get up.
"You are late," the Other growls at him. "And you were supposed to contact me. Must I already remind you who holds your reins?"
"You needn't bother," Loki says. Speaking takes less energy here too, and that is good; he needs to see the Other's face when it realizes what it's done. "I cannot do your master's bidding anymore even if I wished to."
"The little god does need another lesson in obedience, I see," the Other says, stepping purposefully forward.
"Ah, no," Loki says, controlling his instinctive flinch, "I am afraid that will not accomplish anything. You do understand the distinction between cannot and will not, yes?"
"Speak plainly," the Other snaps. "You truly wish to test my patience?"
"Very well then, I will be brief: as we speak, I am lying in a bed in some humble human dwelling, and I haven't the strength to lift my head, let alone open a portal or lead an invasion. In fact I rather think I may be somewhat paralyzed, even aside from the raging fever and the many tiny fractures in my bones. So as much as I would love to complete the task forced on me and bring your master his new toy, I am entirely incapable of doing so, and I do not expect that to change at any point in the near future."
"And you call yourself a god," the Other says in disgust. "You are so weak that you let the humans defeat you already?"
"Of course not," Loki says. "You and your master took care of that for them."
The Other goes very still. "What do you mean," it says.
Loki smiles. "Oh, you did not realize? I believe I did try to tell you."
The Other seizes a handful of Loki's hair and yanks his head back until his spine bends in a painful arch. "I told you to speak plainly."
"Very well," Loki says again, grinning breathlessly. "You recall when you and your master tried to rip out my seidr, for your own purposes so you could reach out to the Tesseract? And when you could not, when you realized you could not separate that power from the inconvenience of a host with its own will, you thought to bind it instead, to stuff it down inside of me where I could barely touch it and tie it to your master's will instead of my own? To break me and my power alike so I could only do his bidding? Magic is alive, you fool, and it doesn't react well to being abused or contained. With enough pressure, bones snap, organs rupture, and seidr breaks. And now it's twisted and wrong, turning on itself and its host like a cancer, and nothing you or I can do will fix it."
"You lie," the Other says, grip tightening in Loki's hair.
"Habitually," Loki agrees, "but not about this, and I think you already know that. You can feel it, can't you? You've already had your fingers in my head. You know disease when you sense it. I am sick and you know it, because you administered the poison that is eating me from the inside out."
The Other shoves him away and Loki sprawls on his back, unable any longer to restrain his laughter. This is quite possibly the finest joke he has ever witnessed, and at the moment he cannot imagine how anything could be funnier.
"Get up," the Other snarls at him, but now Loki hears a new note in its voice: fear. "Get up, you pathetic wretch, or I will make you, and you will find that much less pleasant."
Loki spreads his hands. "I would oblige you, but even here I simply haven't the strength." He wants to laugh again at the sheer ridiculousness of this situation—that he is laying bare his own weakness for the purpose of taunting an enemy, that he has managed to play the perfect trick on his masters without even trying, that he has contrived to escape them in the only way possible, by not trying to free himself at all. Instead his enemies have freed him by the very cruelty they wielded against him.
The Other crouches over him and seizes Loki's throat in an iron grip. "I said get up. You will pull yourself together and do as you are bid or I will—"
"You will what," Loki says. "Truly, I would love to know what you think will threaten me now."
The Other's hand tightens, its grotesque double thumb digging into the flesh below Loki's jaw—but it speaks no threat, and even in its alien countenance Loki can see the realization dawning that it can do nothing.
He laughs breathlessly. "And now you are stuck, aren't you? Without me you cannot easily reach Earth, and you can no longer compel my assistance. You can only hurt me from a distance—you cannot heal me. You cannot put me back on my feet."
"We can kill you," the Other says.
Loki grins up at him. No doubt it's not a pretty picture, with all the blood he can taste in his mouth. "Perhaps. Does it matter? It would avail you nothing—and then I would be free of your master."
With the speed of a striking snake, the Other clamps its free hand on the side of Loki's head. Pain lights up his bones and he screams, his spine arching up off the ground, but as soon as the pain stops, he goes limp and dissolves back into broken laughter. On some level he knows that he's only making things worse for himself, but that hardly matters either, does it? He is done, he cannot do Thanos's bidding even if he wanted to, his chief torturer will face the Titan's wrath for it, and it is all so damned funny.
"You wanted me broken," he wheezes, unable to tell whether he is laughing or sobbing. Both, he thinks. "Congratulations. Go back to your master and tell him…you did your good work…far too well."
Again the response is agony lancing through him, but it is pointless—a frustrated child lashing out because it has destroyed its favorite toy. He is still laughing (or sobbing, or both; it is nearly impossible to distinguish anymore) when he is jerked back into his body, the choking fingers around his throat dissolving. He blinks rapidly to clear his vision, eyes watering. Barton is staring down at him, expression strained, and Loki experiences a moment of disorientation before remembering he is still lying in a bed. Barton is gripping his arm, he realizes, and distantly he acknowledges that it hurts, because everything is injured and aching, but it hardly matters. Barton seems to have shaken him loose from the Other's grasp, and for that Loki can feel nothing but gratitude.
"You back with us?" Barton asks. He sounds touchingly concerned.
"Believe so," Loki murmurs.
Barton lets go and steps back, and the removal of even that slight pressure makes the pain recede a little, but instead of relief Loki feels a pang of loss. (Just as well that he can barely move, or he might truly embarrass himself.)
"You want to tell us what the hell that was?" Selvig says, apparently too worked up to remember his artificial deference toward his leader. "And just how worried should we be?"
"My masters are unhappy with me," Loki explains, struggling to speak through an urge to giggle that he recognizes is almost certainly hysterical. "But they…can only blame themselves."
Barton's expression darkens. "They hurt you."
"And damaged…my magic," Loki says, and almost immediately he has to pause for breath. "Festered, since…before I came through the portal. You saw when it broke. Now it is…uncontrolled. Turning on me. That is why…" He shrugs, and even that small movement hurts.
"So they, what, turned your magic into something like an autoimmune disorder?" Selvig asks. "That's…how is that even possible?"
Loki shrugs again, and again the motion hurts, but speaking takes more energy. The mere thought of trying to explain magical theory to a Midgardian is exhausting, and even then it would be pointless speculation.
"Doesn't really matter, does it?" Barton says, echoing Loki's thoughts. "We don't need to know how it works, just how to fix it."
"You…cannot," Loki says, and winces as his erratic seidr painfully realigns a cracked finger. "Not on Midgard."
"If you stay here, will you die?" Selvig asks, sounding alarmed and a little horrified.
Does it matter? "I…do not know." And none will care if I do, he wants to add, but that is not quite true: Barton and Selvig will care, at least as long as the scepter has a hold on them. And how pathetic is it, that he who was once prince, king, brother, son, and comrade can find no one who cares about him save his own thralls?
"Okay," Barton says. "Okay. What do you want us to do? We're with you no matter what, but magic is a little above my pay grade, so—you have to tell us what to do. I can still contact people and set up a base, but—"
"No point," Loki says. "I cannot…lead anyone." For one terrifying moment he wonders where their ultimate loyalty lies, whether they will abandon him to carry out his master's plan and open the portal while he languishes here, hurting and helpless and probably dying (and then, of course, the Chitauri will come for him after all, when he can do less than nothing to defend himself), and that thought effectively banishes the rest of his unsteady humor. "I would have you…do nothing. Only—do not leave me. Please."
"Of course not!" Selvig protests, as Barton says firmly, "Never. Whatever you need, boss, I'm on your side."
"Thank you," Loki murmurs, relaxing slightly. "I am…lucky to have you both."
"Any idea how you'd react to human painkillers?" Barton asks. "Probably want to start with something else, but we could try anything up to and including morphine."
"You have morphine in your house?" Selvig says.
"I'm a SHIELD agent and it's not a house, it's a safehouse," Barton says.
"I've no idea," Loki starts to say, but he only gets as far as the first shifts, deep inside, and pain crawls through his ribcage as bones fracture, heal, fracture again. His stomach clenches, his mouth floods with bloody saliva, and he realizes he is going to be sick—and he is going to choke on it because he cannot even roll over. And then there are hands on him, Barton snapping orders, and someone is helping him sit up, pulling his hair out of the way, holding a wastebasket for him. He gags, and he can't breathe already and his guts feel like they're tearing themselves apart, and it won't stop, and when he finally vomits it's thin bile mixed with bright red blood. He stares down at it in dull surprise, and then he remembers: of course he has nothing to vomit up except his own insides. He cannot remember when he last ate except that it must have been a very long time ago.
His stomach cramps again, harder and sharper this time, and he clutches at the wastebasket, heaving and trying to gasp for breath. The bloody bits that splat against the bottom look more solid than before, like actual clumps of tissue. And then he is choking again, spitting out more thick, dark blood that fully covers the bottom of the wastebasket.
When the fit seems to have passed, he sags back, panting and exhausted. A hand is rubbing his back in comforting circles, and he leans back into it as much as he can, remembering with a stab of longing what it was like to be ill when he was small enough to inspire concern instead of contempt.
"Think you got it all?" Selvig asks. Loki manages to nod, manages to uncurl his fingers from the edge of the wastebasket. Selvig steps back with it and looks at its contents with an oath. Loki cannot bring himself to care, because he already knew his body was breaking down; seeing a little evidence changes nothing. He winces as Barton helps him lie back down, this time with a few more pillows to prop him up at a better angle.
"Th'nk you," he mumbles as Barton pulls up the blankets. When did he start shivering? "Y'r…kind."
"Do you think you can sleep?" Barton asks, and Loki hears the sharp undercurrent of worry in his voice. It's…nice, having someone worry about him, although he feels a little bad that Barton is distressed.
"Mmhm," he says, eyelids already drifting shut. Yes. Sleep. It's been…a rather long time. Hasn't it? And he is very tired.
"We'll be here," Barton promises, and Loki's lips twitch in a tiny smile as he sinks back into vague darkness.
He drifts in and out of consciousness for a while. The closer he gets to being really awake, the worse he feels; it's better, down in the dark where the pain is muffled, along with everything else. Sometimes he hears Barton or Selvig talking; once he thinks he sees Barton pull the needle out and reinsert it in Loki's wrist, because the bones in his hand have moved against it. He is vaguely aware of blood on the sheets, from various parts of his body—sometimes rust-brown and dried, sometimes red and wet. Several times—he has no idea how many—he is dragged toward painful wakefulness, gasping for breath past the blood gagging him, and each time he is too drained to do anything but sink back down into darkness. His insides never really stop hurting, but at least when he is down in the dark, he doesn't particularly care.
(He thinks he sees Thanos watching him, sometimes—there are moments when the pull is more from the blue light than the vicious cramps trying to tear him apart, but it is all very indistinct, and the Titan never speaks. Tries once—as far as Loki can tell, but he is not sure of much—to send the blue light deeper into Loki's body, bind up his limbs with it and force him to move, to lead his promised army until his body gives out entirely. But the light's clutching tendrils dissipate like so much smoke, because there is no longer anything inside him on which it can gain purchase, and so he does not particularly care about that either.)
When he wakes properly, it's with a fit of coughing, so deep and tearing he tastes fresh blood. Barton is there once more, holding him up, and when the fit finally passes Loki slumps against him, drained. Barton is rubbing his back again, almost as if he doesn't notice he's doing it because it's an old habit. That's nice too.
"Sir," Barton says after a moment. "I've been monitoring SHIELD chatter, and they haven't found us yet, but they're getting closer. At this point I'd say we have a few hours, tops. Selvig's working on a decoy to replicate the Tesseract's—whatever the hell kind of signal they're tracking, to throw them off course, but that's still not going to work for long."
Loki's body is too weary to tense up, but his fingers curl in Barton's sleeve. "Don't…don't let them take me."
"No," Barton says. "God, no. But we need to figure out our next step. Magic AIDS is way out of my league—I can keep you hydrated with the IV for a while but not a lot else, and our options at this point seem pretty damn limited. What do you want us to do?"
Loki tries to think, but it feels like wading through tar. "Advise me."
Barton nods; Loki feels more than sees the motion. "Way I see it, we've got a few options and none of them are very good. One is we keep buying as much time as possible so we have some sort of defense when SHIELD shows up, but even if I can round up enough people to help, I don't like our odds against a real assault. Another is trying to get out of here, maybe combined with option three, which is surrender the Tesseract to SHIELD at a drop point and hope they're satisfied enough they'll quit looking for you. I wouldn't put good money on that one either, and of course we still don't have a way to heal you, no matter what we try."
Loki swallows, and the tang of blood is nauseating. "If SHIELD…captures me. What would they do?"
"I couldn't say for sure," Barton says. "Your connection to Thor would probably…they might just try to hold you for now and figure Asgard will come sooner or later. Or they might—honestly, even I don't know everything about SHIELD, but if somebody was interested enough, or mad enough, or somebody decided it was a matter of national security—which it is—then yeah, they might make you disappear so they can study you."
It's more or less what Loki expected to hear, but it's still unnerving, hearing the possibility stated so baldly, especially by someone who is at least in a good position to make an educated guess. "You mean…experiment on me," he says.
Barton grimaces. "It's possible."
There is really only one option left, then. This was always going to happen, Loki supposes; better now, when he cannot open the door for his supposed allies and he has done only minimal damage.
"Very well," he says. "Tell Selvig…continue with his decoy. Do what you can…to delay SHIELD…as long as possible. I need—time."
"If you don't mind me asking," Barton says, "time for what?"
Loki sighs. "I will try to contact Asgard."
Barton's eyebrows rise. "You sure about that, sir?"
"As you said. We have…precious few options."
Barton nods after a moment and leaves to speak to Selvig. Loki closes his eyes, trying to concentrate; the darkness behind his eyelids seems to pulse in time with the throbbing of his heart and his aching body. It is not what he wants, of course, to go begging back to Asgard. But at least there, the possibility exists that they will heal him, even if it is only to make an appropriate spectacle of him when he is punished, and then he will have some slight chance of escaping—better, certainly, than what he has now.
(Something inside him shrivels at the thought of resigning himself once more to life on the run, but…he will manage. He will survive. He is, apparently, good at that even when he does not wish to be. Of course, he is vulnerable now, and there is every chance Asgard will take advantage of that fact to execute him outright. Thor in particular would have the authority, the motivation, and the ability, and perhaps that is the most desirable outcome.
The thought intrudes that he is not sure anymore whether he wants to die, but that is immaterial, so he pushes it away.)
And then, of course, there is the matter of the Tesseract—and the gem in his scepter, about which Loki has suspicions he has not had a chance to confirm. It is not so much that he wants Asgard to have it, or that he thinks he can buy Odin's favor with it; rather, Midgard cannot be allowed to retain possession of such a powerful, dangerous artifact, for many reasons.
(And truly, it does not belong here—and neither does Loki.)
For a moment he thinks of Asgard's dungeons, of wasting away buried and forgotten, of his not-family locking him away to let his diseased seidr burn him down to a husk. And then he thinks of all the blank gray stone in the SHIELD complex, of being buried there instead, of bright lights in his eyes as Midgardian scientists cut him apart and reduce him to a specimen, and there is really no choice to be made.
Cautiously he reaches for the core of himself where his seidr lives and almost flinches away from the feel of it, sick and wrong like a tumor festering deep inside him and spreading tendrils of rot into his body and mind alike. But there is nothing for it; he must try again.
In recent years on Asgard, he grew used to hiding himself from Heimdall's eye. In the void, of course, he had no need to hide and no ability to do so even if he wished, and after—well, he had tried once, in his agony and desperation, to reach out to his former home. He'd received no response, so either Thanos's power shielded him then or his family believed he had at last gotten what he deserved. (Frigga did find him later, though—too late, but perhaps she at least doesn't entirely hate him. The idea is a bright spot of warmth in the glacial cold that has settled deep in his bones.)
Now, there might be some remnant of his own veil or whatever Thanos used, and as mutilated as Loki's magic is, he can easily imagine that whatever is left might well frustrate his attempt to make contact. And wouldn't that be the crowning irony, turning back on him once more, if his own broken magic dooms him to a short, miserable life as a Midgardian test subject?
Well, if it comes to that, surely Barton will find a way to finish him off first. For once he finds himself grateful for Thor's temper and impulsiveness—if Thor simply kills him here, he is almost certain to do so quickly. No matter how vengeful Thor's mood, at least he will be swift; he has long delighted in battle but not in suffering, even when it is deserved.
And it would be right, after all, for him to die at Thor's hands. Fitting. Better, certainly, than a good many alternatives.
He reaches out again, tentatively, and it is all wrong, but there is…something, a diseased hybrid of his own magic and whatever else has burrowed down inside him. He cannot simply shed it as he can his usual veils and glamours; instead he painstakingly scrapes it away, like skimming off a thick film of scum from the top of a stagnant pond. Dull pain builds behind his eyes as he works, and molten heat pools at the base of his skull. But he is close.
He peels away the last clinging shreds of concealment. Fire shoots down his spine, and he arches off the bed, mouth opening on an airless gasp of pain. For a long, long moment he cannot breathe or move, every muscle locked up rigid and burning with strain—and then everything releases and he slumps back again, panting and trembling with exhaustion. He can feel sweat running down his chest, sticking his thin undershirt to his skin, and a glance downward confirms the dampness is not just sweat but fresh blood as well.
But the barrier is gone. As far as he is able, he has revealed himself to Asgard's sight once more.
"Heimdall," he says aloud, and thank the Norns that the volume of his hoarse, cracked voice has no bearing on the gatekeeper's ability to hear it. "If you would be so kind as to inform Thor where I am. Tell him…I have the Tesseract, but perhaps not for long."
There is no answer, of course; there never is with Heimdall, except the roar of the Bifrost, and that is an impossibility now. The amount of dark energy Odin must gather will take at least a little time, and it may be more time than Loki has, if Odin is slow (though surely he will want the Tesseract enough to act with some urgency, even if he does not care about his castoff Frost Giant) or SHIELD is quicker than anyone expects.
Barton comes back a few moments later, holding a communications device. "Any luck?"
Loki tries, and fails, to blink away the lingering dizziness to focus on the other man. "We…will see. Soon, I hope. You?"
"Made some calls. I've got somebody in Philly who can duplicate and broadcast our dummy Tesseract signal, but Selvig says it's not going to hold for long, and apparently he hasn't made much progress in shielding the Tesseract any better than it already is. There's only so much we can do to keep them from finding us with more traditional methods anyway."
"How…long?" Loki asks.
"We should have some warning," Barton says, "but at a conservative estimate, I'd still say about three hours. Six at the very outside, but that seems optimistic."
"Well, Heimdall," Loki murmurs, "I do hope…you told them to hurry." Barton's eyebrows draw together, but he doesn't ask, and once again Loki is grateful. "Now—Barton—if Thor arrives first, cooperate with him. Tell him…whatever is relevant. Whatever I have told you, or…you have witnessed. Do not try to fight him or deny him entry. If anyone but Thor comes here for me…" For a moment he struggles to think of contingency plans, but all his thoughts feel heavy and slow, and there is so little he can do anyway, especially when merely staying awake demands all his energy. "I would have warning," he says finally. "As much as you can…possibly provide. I may…have need of you then."
Barton nods. "Will do, boss." He pauses, then adds kindly, "Anything happens, I'll wake you. Until then you should probably rest."
Loki nods and lets his eyes fall shut. It isn't really sleep, any more than it was earlier, and it isn't very restful, but he lacks the energy to do anything else. When he jerks alert again, very little time seems to have passed, even though the light outside the window has changed, and for a confused moment he is not sure what has woken him.
Then another clap of thunder breaks, near enough to rattle the house, and he sighs. Always so dramatic, br—Thor.
He waits, straining to hear Thor's approach and trying to will the painful tension from his limbs. One way or another, this will all be over soon enough.
It seems to take far too long and no time at all for Thor to reach the dwelling. He hears heavy footsteps crunching on gravel, first, and then the front door opens and Barton says something that Loki cannot make out. Thor's reply is a low rumble, equally indistinct but unmistakable, and suddenly Loki's eyes are stinging with a tangle of emotions he does not wish to examine too closely. Of course, if recent events are any guide, the Norns have little interest in what he does or does not wish to do—and in fact after a few more moments of audible but unintelligible conversation, he hears the tread of heavy footsteps (only one pair) coming down the hall, and then Thor is standing in the doorway.
Loki's heart jerks painfully in his chest at the sight of him, bright and golden and so, so familiar even after all this time, and he knows that no amount of preparation would have helped. Thor is here, and so too are resentment, jealousy, hero worship, fear, relief, love, and hate.
(And somewhere down very deep is a little boy who still believes, with a child's unshakable conviction, that his big brother will save him.)
For a seeming eternity Thor merely looks at him, and Loki realizes with a nauseating lurch of apprehension that he has no idea what his once-brother is thinking. His face has always been so easy to read, his emotions always so easy to manipulate, but now—whether because Loki is too ill to interpret the clues that normally come so easily to him or because Thor has changed so much in his absence, it hardly matters—he can see Thor's anger in the set of his jaw, a hint of disgust in the slight twist of his lips, and nothing else. He cannot determine the intensity of those emotions or, more crucially, what action they might prompt Thor to take, and he has no energy (and a corresponding reservoir of patience) to try to understand.
"Whatever you are going to do with me, brother, I would…ask that you do it quickly," Loki says finally. It is as close as he will permit himself to begging.
"I would have you release these men from thralldom, first," Thor says.
Ah, yes, that is an important loose end to tie up, if Thor intends to kill his former brother. Loki shrugs, too drained to needle him or try to draw this out. "I do not know how. I was never told, and I cannot experiment."
Thor's expression goes a little thunderous, which is at least familiar. "I will not leave them like this."
"Did I say you should?" Loki snaps. He subsides for a moment, panting. "A blow to the head might work."
"I will try it, then," Thor says, turning away.
Loki makes a desperate grab and manages to snag the edge of Thor's cape. "Be careful. They are far more fragile than any of your sparring partners."
Thor frowns down at him. "I know it well," he says, and there is something in his tone that Loki cannot decipher, until he remembers: of course. Thor was fully mortal when the Destroyer—when Loki—struck and killed him. It therefore stands to reason that he would be intimately familiar with the fragility of mortal bodies, and that (to indulge in a gross understatement) this might be something of a sore point for him where Loki is concerned. He releases Thor's cape, heart thumping once more, and hopes the accidental reminder has nudged Thor's anger in a murderous direction rather than a more coldly vengeful one. At least he killed Thor cleanly; now he can only hope his not-brother will show him the same mercy.
"Barton will cooperate," he says. "I told him… He will let you strike him, if he…knows I have allowed it. Do not try to sneak up on him. And when you tell him…what you are going to try…" Again Loki gropes for a useful falsehood, and again nothing presents itself. It is fitting, he supposes, that his mind seems to be failing him almost as badly as his body is. "Do not…tell him the reason. I would not have him…believe wrongly that he has displeased me."
"…very well," Thor says after a pause in which his brows draw together and he seems about to say something else. "I will return shortly."
"I am not…going anywhere," Loki says dryly, and dredges up the strength to lift one hand in what should appear to be a lazy gesture. (His fingers are bloody, he notices, even though his hands have no fresh wounds and he has not touched any injuries recently. After a moment of confusion he realizes his skin is simply breaking down.)
Again, Thor seems about to speak, but either words fail him (not terribly surprising, when he prefers to express his rage through Mjolnir rather than through speech) or he changes his mind. He leaves the room, shaking his head, and although Loki tries to stay alert, he slips back into hazy half-sleep that only breaks when Thor returns. Barton is with him, holding an ice pack to the back of his head, and Loki cannot read the mortal's expression. He looks away, stomach churning unpleasantly with something that isn't just physical illness.
"Selvig?" he asks.
"Recovering," Barton says shortly. He turns to Thor and adds, his tone studiedly neutral, "Fury will probably want the scepter and he'll definitely want the Tesseract back, and if he can't have either—"
"These are dangerous artifacts," Thor says. "They cannot stay on Midgard."
"Yeah, not gonna argue with that. You take the glowing stick and cube back home, I'd say good riddance. I'm just telling you what Fury will say if he has a chance. At the very least, he'll want a full report, and potentially damages for the destroyed base. I don't know how many people died, either, but if Asgard is taking responsibility for Loki, then…can you at least talk to your dad about that?"
"Of course," Thor says. "You have my word, Agent Barton, that I will do my utmost to see you and your people treated fairly and given recompense. And I am in your debt for taking care of my brother."
"Didn't exactly have a choice," Barton says, but there is surprisingly little hostility in his voice, and if it is nothing like his concern for Loki earlier, at least it is not outright loathing. Loki should not be grateful for that either—a king, fallen so far as to cling to grudging scraps of sentiment from a human!—but he knows it is more than he has any right to expect. He needs to respond, somehow, if he can only think—
"Healing stones," he says suddenly, because he cannot thank Barton—his pride will not allow it when he knows he will be rebuffed, and Barton will only be insulted—but he owes the man something. "Thor. Give him—Midgardian medicine is primitive."
"The hell it is," Barton says, but Thor is nodding.
"I have only a few here with me," he says, "but for those whose injuries are greatest—yes, they would be a help. And I may be able to return with more." He extracts a small handful from a pouch in his armor and hands them to the agent.
"You…crush them," Loki says when Barton steps back, frowning skeptically at the stones. "The powder…heals wounds."
"Right. Well. Thanks, I think. I'm sure somebody will be thrilled we got some magic rocks out of this mess." Barton makes the healing stones disappear into some pocket and backs up another step. "Thor, if you don't want to be around when Fury gets here—which is what I'd suggest, because he really will want to keep the Tesseract—you should probably leave now."
Thor nods. "I thank you, Agent Barton. I am sure we will meet again." He places the scepter in a heavy case and slings it over his shoulder, and finally he looks down at Loki again, his expression frighteningly opaque. Mjolnir hangs from his belt, but both hands are free now, and in his current state Loki suspects it won't take much to finish him off.
Surely Thor will at least do him that kindness. Surely he will not simply leave Loki here for SHIELD to carve apart as they wish.
If Thor hates him enough now to do just that, begging will not sway him, and that realization brings with it a little relief: Loki has no reason to give away what little dignity he has left. His breath still tightens in his chest as Thor watches him, unmoving.
Please, he thinks. Aloud he says wearily, "Just do it, Thor." End this. Please.
He still tenses when Thor reaches for him, because this will hurt, no matter how swift and merciful Thor decides to be; still closes his eyes, because even at the end he is too much a coward to watch the blow fall (and he does not want to see Thor's face when it does, whether he is angry or sorrowful or resigned—or, worst of all, grim and unfeeling).
The blow never comes. Instead he feels Thor's massive arms slide under his body and lift him off the bed, cradling him like a child, and his eyes fly open. "What…?"
"Brother," Thor says, and Loki doesn't know what his own expression is doing, doesn't want to know, because he feels raw and vulnerable and Thor looks like he is about to cry. "You are safe. I am taking you home."
"I don't have one," Loki says, and now he is afraid again, because if Thor isn't going to kill him— "Your father…made that quite clear. After everything I—" He swallows. "I know…what I deserve. And a cell is not a home."
"No, it is not," Thor says. "And I said we are going home, to our family, and you will heal, and we will…we will all begin again. No more secrets, no more lies, no more…pretending everything is fine. We have all wronged one another, and we can all forgive and be forgiven. If…if you are willing to try."
Loki stares up at Thor's face, honest and noble and so earnest, so sure everything can be mended. He wants to say something cutting, crush the hope blooming in his own breast before it can take root and destroy him later, convince Thor he will only be disappointed; he wants his anger back, wants to retreat behind the protective shell he has built over centuries, wants to remember know your place and no, Loki and I am the monster parents tell their children about at night and nearly a millennium of resentment and loneliness—
But he is tired almost beyond comprehension, and Thor's powerful hands are warm and so gentle, and Loki knows it is weakness but he wants to go home.
"Yes," he says, and his voice sounds very small even to his own ears. "I…yes. All right."
Thor's answering smile is tiny and sad and very real. He crouches carefully and picks up the Asgardian Tesseract case without ever really jostling Loki, and then he nods to Barton once more and strides out of the dwelling.
They are still in the desert, Loki discovers, out at the end of a dirt road with no other buildings in sight. It is not terribly different from the landscape around the little town where he killed Thor. All the more fitting, if Thor decides after all to kill him here and leave his body in the desert, and wisdom would argue for it, or at least for the Asgardian dungeon Thor insists is not his destination. And yet after everything, lying in the protective embrace of one who still names him brother, his aching head soothed where it rests against Thor's blessedly cool and familiar breastplate, he cannot help feeling foolishly, ridiculously safe.
It's been a long, long time since he last felt safe. Since he felt the sun, or the touch of a living being that did not seek to harm him.
"Thor," he says. "I…am sorry. For everything." Even if Thor delivers him to judgment after all, that much will still be true.
"As am I," Thor says, his voice thick, and he presses a fierce kiss to Loki's forehead. "Now let us go home and see you healed—and then, together, we will destroy the beings that harmed you so." (For the first time, it occurs to Loki that some of Thor's anger might be on his behalf rather than against him. He doesn't know what to think about that either.) "This I swear." His hand twists on the Tesseract container and everything dissolves into blue light that makes Loki's body blaze once more with agony—but he still feels the solid warmth of Thor's arms, and he is not afraid.
Notes:
1. I apologize for the hard left turn into sappiness this fic takes at the end. I can't help myself, okay? I'm inherently kind of a fluffy person when it comes to fic. I mean, I like putting Loki through hell, whether I'm reading or writing, but you know…I want things to turn out okay in the end. Which does not always mean "sudden attack of sappiness," but you do what you can.
2. Title is from the Metric song "Speed the Collapse," off the album Synthetica, which is pretty rad and it also includes a song that went right on my Loki playlist ("The Void," naturally).
3. Did you spot the very subtle and really pointless MST3K reference? It's at the very beginning and I'll just say "The Final Sacrifice" is one of my very favorite episodes.
4. Yeah, I know that one scene in Avengers indicates Loki has an incredibly low heat signature because Frost Giant, which would imply that his normal temperature is actually much lower than the average human body temperature and therefore a fever for him should probably be lower than a human fever, but…look, that little scene doesn't make a lot of sense anyway so I'm ignoring it, okay?
5. I've had a number of commenters ask about a sequel to this fic. I'm flattered that people are interested in this little AU, but at the moment, I have no plans to write a sequel; I will if I come up with any specific ideas I want to write that aren't too much like things I'm already writing for other fics, but I only thought of this story as a self-contained oneshot, just as you see it now. (For what it's worth, though, my general intention is that Loki does eventually heal when he gets back to Asgard and reconciles with his family after a lot of difficult but necessary conversations, and eventually he and Thor lead the fight against Thanos.) However, if you liked this fic, you'll probably like my other Loki fics, so check them out and add me to your author alerts!