He bolts upright in bed, cold fear-sweat beading on his skin. The harsh rasping of his breath is the only sound piercing the thick shadows of the room, beside the gentle breathing of Darcy beside him. Loki shuts his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself, and the hands of the Other flash behind his eyelids. He throws off the covers and grips his brow in shaking hands, helplessly reliving the torment.
Cold, cold space. . . Gungnir slips from his sweaty grasp as the void between the stars swallows him alive. . .
There is a halt in the gentle breathing beside him and the bed creaks as she sits up. "Loki?" she whispers. "You all right?"
Warped skin and demon eyes as Thanos finds him. . . "No," he gasps, but the damage is done.
She gently touches his shoulder and in a hissing backlash of magic, she is flung away from him. There is a sickening thud as her head hits the wall and she lies there, stunned.
He writhes helplessly as Thanos places a hand on his forehead. . . A searing agony rips through his mind and he screams in desperation.
The old nightmare fades abruptly, leaving nothing but a faint ringing in his ears and a sickly metallic taste in his mouth telling him he bit his tongue. Then instantly, he is at her side, helping her up with gentle hands.
"Forgive me, Darcy," he whispers hoarsely. "I knew not what I was doing."
She smiles in that familiar, wry way that had first captured his attention so long ago. She reaches out to cradle his cheek and he sighs raggedly as her warm skin touches his fear-chilled face. "What happened?" she asks.
Instead of answering, he gathers her close to him, burying his face in her sleep-tousled hair and breathing in her warm, familiar scent. They fit together like a puzzle.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"It's okay." Darcy reaches up and kisses him, her lips soft against his. "When you're ready."
And he's not ready. Not yet.
At the Avengers Tower, it becomes customary to see the resident God of Mischief and former intern with shadows under their eyes and the pallor of the insomniatic on their skin. Thor is the first to ask after his wellbeing, blunt, outgoing fool that he is. Loki brushes off his attention with a curt answer, still unwilling after all these years to show weakness in front of his brother. Later, he finds a pouch of herbal tea on his desk in the lab, a brew from the gardens of Frigga herself and often prescribed to those who cannot sleep.
He moves to throw it away, but something stays his hand. He shoves it in his bag and resolves not to use it unless absolutely necessary. His throat tightens and he closes his eyes, remembering a simpler time.
Gradually, the other Avengers begin to realize something is amiss. The two assassins both have their guilty consciences, and both the captain and the man of iron share their insomnia. And the doctor– truth be told, Loki still shies away from him. The memory of the beating he had received at his hands is still fresh in his mind, despite their recent cooperation. Even so, the unexpected kindness of those he had tried to enslave was pleasantly surprising. These tiny kindnesses helped him, although he was loath to admit it.
And so the nights pass, measured in good nights and bad. The good ones are full of passion and a deep, dreamless sleep. The bad ones are rampant with nightmares and hoarse, tearless sobs, and the worst end in both physical and emotional backlash.
Finally, Darcy sits him down after one of the more unsavory nights, in a brightly-lit kitchen that quickly chases away the old fear. She plunks a cup of Frigga's tea down in front of him and says, "Talk."
And he does.
He talks about how he fell for eons, tumbling through the vast, frore reaches of space and how it felt when Thanos twisted his mind into a weapon. He talks about the sickening realization that he was mad and how it felt when he realized he was responsible for his mother's death. And he talks of how he was brought to Midgard in shame, and what it was like to work among mortals, and how he felt when he realized he loved her. He talks until the dawn light spills over the window into the tiny apartment kitchen, lending its golden glister to her hair. Only when the full-on warmth of the morning sun blazes through the apartment does he stop, throat sore.
For the first time in all of his thousand years, he has no more words to say.
A/N: To me, it was always obvious that something must've happened to Lokie after he fell, and that thing couldn't have been good. This is my take on what happened, and how Loki, with the help of Darcy and a few others, managed to find his way back home.