Six Months Ago

Loki felt the rotten breath of the Chitauri commander crawling over his skin, a sensation that gave him a chill to the bone. His body wanted to recoil from the beast and a distant part of his brain mourned the fact that he himself had unleashed it. The creature was trying to intimidate him and he had to admit that his counterpart was coming close to succeed. Loki tried to keep any emotion off his face but it proved to be difficult.

When the hideous creature started to speak it was barely more than a rasp.

"If you fail, if the Tessaract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice", he spat out the last word in a hiss that made Loki all but flinch away from him, "where we can't find you."

Slowly, the Chitauri circled Loki. His cloak rustled behind him and he braced himself for whatever there was to come. If he showed weakness now his plan would crumble beneath him. In the back of his head, a small voice piped up. What had brought him so far? Why was he being in cohorts with those hideous creatures? He shooed it back into its hole. This was not the time nor the place to doubt his intentions. Not that it would make a difference anyway, he already was too far down that road to turn around.

"You think you know pain." Out of the corner of his eye, Loki saw the hand moving towards his temple, foul breath engulfing him from behind.

"You will be begging for something as sweet as pain!" The very moment the Chitauri leader finished his hand connected with Loki's temple and a glistening ball of light exploded behind his forehead, sending a searing pain through his brain that was a daunting foretaste of what the Chitauri were capable of doing. The image that was conjured in front of his inner eye was too cruel to be put in words and he jerked his head away in horror.

The god woke with a start, panting. He was sweating from the nightmare, the echo of the pain still tangible within his head. The cold stone floor of his cell had something oddly comforting to it in comparison to the dream he just had had. He wanted to cradle his aching head in his palms but the chains around his wrist inhibited the movement.

Careful not to move his head too sudden because he knew it would hurt, Loki sat up as best as he could. Trying to pry his eyes open - which was as much difficult as it was painful given the fact that his face had taken considerable beating over the last few days - he tried to find out which time of day it was. Only the dungeons of Asgard didn't allow much light to fall through the small windows in the ceiling to begin with and since he had lost his sense of time there were no hints that would indicate the hour.

Looking down on himself, he assessed the condition he was in.

While he only felt that his face was swollen quite badly, he was able to see the rest of his injuries. He still wore the armor he had been wearing when the Avengers had captured him, only that it was ragged and soaked with his blood. Where he could see skin, it was either cut or bruised. A few rips were broken which made it hard to breathe.

He wheezed some air into his lungs only to be rewarded with a stinging pain in his upper chest that made the blood vessels behind his eyes explode into red stars as he squeezed them shut. Although he was trying, one of his lungs would not inflate, the air he was drawing in going nowhere. The burning in his lungs triggered a cough he could not possibly suppress. A coppery taste filled his mouth and blood tripped from his lips into his lap.

The logic part of his brain that was detached from all the agony he was in noted that a broken rip apparently had pierced his lung. He coughed up some more blood in a bitter sort of laugh. The injuries were extensive but they would not kill him. Within a day or two, they would heal. He was a god and as such practically immortal.

Which was exactly what worried him.

According to the laws of Asgard, Loki had done the unforgivable. He had teamed up with an alien race to conquer earth. Which he himself could not find anything objectionable about it. Humans were petty with no sense of the greater order. They deserved to, no, they needed to be ruled by him since his brother, Thor, had done an exceptionally squalid job so far.

But in the end, much to his dismay, he had lost.

He had forged war upon the human race which had resulted in the destruction of New York City and only had stopped there because the Avengers had intervened. He was a traitor to his own kind which was a crime they did not take lightly.

Indeed, he was the monster parents told their children at night. And as such such, he would not be treated kindly.

This was just the beginning of his punishment, that he was sure of. They would continue to torture him just enough to have him tether at the edge to unconsciousness, throw him back into the dungeon to let him recover enough to go for the next round. A never ending circle of torment. And they would be creative about how they could inflict pain on him, he had not a single doubt about it.

In the darkness of his cell, the prospect of eternal bale left him shudder with fear, even as he did not want to admit it to himself. He wore his pride and dogmatism like a life vest, well knowing that if he took it off he would be drowning.

He was right and they were wrong. They had treated him cruelly, taken away the rulership he had been entitled to. His own actions had just been an answer to their doings in order to preserve what was rightfully his. A throne and a kingdom he could rule. A chance to prove that he was a worthy successor of Odin's power.

He was a rightful king of Asgard.

Odin has never considered me worthy of being his heir, he thought bitterly. But he was going to prove everybody wrong. In the end, he would be the one who succeeded. Not Thor with his weakness for mankind.

Steeled with new confidence, he faced his fate, not going to back down. No amount of torture would make him regret his doings.

Let them come, he thought smugly, holding back a smile since it would only hurt unnecessarily.

Nearing footsteps in the hallway announced that his torturers were coming to get him for the next round.

When he was brought back to his cell, he was nothing more than a limp sack of meat. He had not been able to walk back on his own this time, they thoroughly had smashed his left leg and had not been gentle with the rest of him either. Vision was temporarily lost due to multiple lacerations in his face and he was sure that there was not a single bone in him that had not been bent.

Loki had been barely conscious when they had been done with him and two guards had picked him up at each side. Slipping in and out of consciousness on his way to the dungeon, he had fought hard to stay awake.

During all those times that they had brought him to the torture chamber, he had not been able to lay eyes on his tormentors. They had pulled a sack of black cloth over his head before they would start their physical administrations. Not one single word had been spoken between them the entire time, the only noise that the walls had thrown back were the sounds of sticks and fists beating upon him and his own moans of pain he had not been able to hold back.

Disgusting cowards, he thought.

The guards threw him against the side of the wall where the chains were anchored. The rebound ripped another moan him from his chest as he sank down, actually thankful that it was over. His armor had been taken away completely and the cold stone offered some relief for his battered muscles before the chill settled in. His arms got yanked up and chained to the wall, the pain of it damped by the various other aches, all of them mounting in a cacophony in his head that made him belief his head was about to burst.

The door slammed shut, leaving him alone and naked in the cold darkness.

He started freezing pretty quickly. The tremors got worse with every minute and amplified the pain that was raging inside his body. He clenched his teeth in agony, not wanting to let out the cry that was building up in his throat. With all the willpower that was left he fought down the traitorous sound, all but choking from the blood that pooled in his mouth.

He turned his head to the side to spit the red liquid on the floor, hoping that he had kept all his teeth. It would be a rather lengthy procedure to grow them back.

As long as there was a spark of life in his body left he would not surrender to them. But he knew that he had come very close tonight which surprised him. He had not expected things to progress that quickly. By all means, he had yet to see Odin who was supposed to sentence him. Instead, he had been garbled the minute he had set a foot on Asgard.

Which led him to the assumption that this was happening without Odin knowing. First and foremost, his father -

Stepfather, he corrected himself bitterly -

his stepfather was a king with principles, he would have never allowed anybody to carry out justice before he had spoken it.

So that left who? Thor?

Loki snorted. Granted, Thor was foolish, stormy and blindfold, he also tended to overreact sometimes but as much as he hated to admit it, his brother possessed something he did not - a pure heart. Loki had fought alongside and against him and he had never seen his brother acting deceitfully or cowardly. Although he had betrayed Thor so many times in the past, his brother clung onto this idea of brotherly love. Loki had seen it clearly in Thor's face when they had been battling each other on top of the Stark building. It had almost gotten to him, there was a short moment when even he had believed that he could turn around and make peace with his family.

Loki crinkled his nose in disgust of how he all but had fallen to the sentiment.

Thor was not the end of the list though, there were plenty of other people - gods, humans and otherworldly aliens alike - waiting for an opportunity to have him pay back for his actions. The only thing that was playing in Loki's favor was time, they could not imprison him here forever.

Once he got out of this mess - and he had no doubt that the opportunity would present itself at some point in time - he would find those gutless scallawags and rub their stupidity right into their faces before he would rip their heads off. One did not mess with the God of Mischief.

The gloat warmed his body and for a short time, Loki bathed in the kindling flames of revenge, pushing back the pain until it only was a dull sensation on the periphery of his mind.

When he woke again he had no idea how much time had gone by. He must have had passed out from exhaustion. There was a split second after he regained consciousness where he felt comfortable, warm and fuzzy before the physical effects of his ordeal came back with full force. Every single fiber of his body screamed from excruciating agony. He wished he had stayed unconscious.

His damaged leg was throbbing in the rhythm of his heartbeat which was way too fast from all the adrenaline that was flooding his body to cope with the situation by its own means. His right arm had gone numb during sleep and now a thousand needles stung into his flesh as the sensation was flowing back into the limb. His face was one big hot knot of pain and he was not even trying to open his eyes.

Loki made a sound that was half moan, half grunt, carefully trying to sit up a little bit more. That was when he noticed that he was covered with a blanket. That caught his attention and he examined the situation further.

Beneath the blanket, he was wearing pants. Briefly, he wondered how they had gotten there but the thought that someone might have had seen his deranged body was disturbingly uncomfortable so he did not pursue it any further.

In the empty space of the cell to his left, he heard clothes rustling very close to him. A short moment later, something warm and damp touched his face and he jerked his head away in sheer defense, scrambling. The movements did not go well with his injuries and Loki slumped back on the stone floor rather ruggedly, a gasp filled with torment escaped his throat.

"Loki, shhh." The gentle voice was his mother's.

All the tension left his body in a rush. Although he would never openly admit it, he had never been happier to hear her than in this very second, in the dungeons of Asgard. The familiar tone of her melodic, earthy voice filled him with solace to an extend he had not thought to be possible. Tears started to well up in his eyes and burned into his flesh.

All he wanted to do was to throw himself into her embrace like he had done so many times as a boy when his brother's friends had shunned him. Going through adolescence, he had outgrown this urge quite entirely but right now, it was all his body craved for.

His mother was here. There was still a part of him that could not grasp the situation. Nonetheless, he let her wash his face, trying not to wince when she padded his injuries with the damp cloth.

It was hard for him not to sob so he fought back the childish notion. The wash cloth had softened the dried blood on his eye lashes enough so they did not stick to his skin anymore and Loki opened his eyes to directly see into his mother's. They looked clouded with worry yet kind. To his surprise, he could find neither any rejection nor reproach in them.

The small room was lit by one candle that was burning quietly next to him. How long she had been here, he did not know but apparently long enough to attend to his state of pitiful nakedness.

There were many questions that came to mind. Loki concentrated hard on his tongue, rolled it against the back of his teeth since he had not used speech in what felt like an eternity, using the time to sort his thoughts.

Could this be a trap? A cruel plan contrived by his enemies to weaken his defence by sending the only person that still held a meaning to him?

When he finally was ready to speak, his voice was barely a croak but the words came out in a rather distinct pronunciation which was a miracle given the condition his face was in.

"You should not be here, mother." He had meant for the words to sound rejecting but they were coming out in a worried and gentle manner instead. Who was he fooling, he could never be scornful toward his mother.

He was rewarded with a smile by her that warmed his core.

"You are my son, Loki. What a mother would I be if I was not here by your side?"

A good one. The ONLY one.

"It is dangerous."

As if to confirm what he had just said her eyes moved to the cell door, her face taking on a more serious expression. When her gaze met his again, she looked determined.

"We do not have much time, Loki." She produced a small package from underneath her skirt. Unwrapping the rough-textured fabric, a big brass key came out that she used to unlock the chains above his head.

Carefully, she loosened the cuffs around his wrists, gently supporting his stiff arms while she did. When she had freed him she placed the chains on the floor without causing too much noise.

His muscles were numb from the unnatural position they had been in for too long and the movement stimulated the blood circulation which he could only describe as intense. He commanded his fingers to move one after the other and was relieved to find his digits to follow his instructions. Nothing seemed to be broken, just badly bruised.

His mother knelt next to him and took one of his now free hands in hers. Her hand was much smaller and more delicate but still strong. He remembered these very hands holding him when he was a boy, giving him comfort when he had had no other place to turn.

"You need to leave." He sensed the urgency behind her words and did not argue. He also had a feeling that she knew where he would be going.

Questions were swirling around in his head but she was right, there was no time for talk.

"Thank you, mother." He meant it.

Her eyes met his, her gaze was steady but he could see the disconcertment behind those amber orbs. An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. What had he done?

"Do not thank me yet, my son. You have done wrong and even I can see that you have to be punished for it." She squeezed his hand slightly and sighed as if something heavy was weighing on her heart. Her eyes swept over the dark stone walls of the cell. "But not like this."

The last word came out as a whisper and she looked visibly shaken.

He did not understand. What was going on outside the dungeons? Was this Odin's work after all?

"Mother?"

Her hand went up to his face and cupped his bruised cheek.

"Now listen well, Loki." She drew in a deep breath, the desperate look on her face making his heart sink even further. "My means are limited so I can only send your flesh and bones."

She put her thumb over his mouth to silence him and moved on.

"Your memory and everything that you are will come back to you but I cannot promise when or how this will be. But before order has not been restored in Asgard I fear for your life and you must flee."

Before he was able to process the information in the order it had been received and formulate a proper response, her other hand reached into the pocket of her skirt and she brought out a phial that contained a purple liquid. She uncorked it. A barely visible column of purple smoke escaped the tiny bottle and the smell of rotten eggs filled the air.

"Drink this." She held out the phial to him. "Please."

He was still at the part where his mother had told him how he would loose his memory, when he registered the smell. His brain dropped the thought and went into survival mode immediately. It was more out of instinct than conscious decision making.

Nothing good will come from that. Loki averted his face, crinkling his nose in disgust. This was a trap to lure him into perdition. Angrily, he pushed her away, almost knocking the liquid out of her hand.

"You will not trick me, woman." He sneered at her.

She looked at him with sad eyes, brimming with tears.

Seeing her like this, Loki hesitated. Was he really going to reject her? The only person in the nine realms that had come for him when he was being held in the dungeons of Asgard and being tortured, certainly risking her own life to save him? His mother was the one that had given the throne to him after all, he had not forgotten about that. How could he deny her now?

Trust was not something that came easy to him. The betrayal he had suffered went too deep to be wiped simply aside. The fear of being betrayed again held a firm grip around his heart, enslaving him to a degree that would not even let him acknowledge his mother's help.

His head sank to his chest in an effort to fight down the bubbling rage and the urge to lash out at her and kick that phial into oblivion.

When her hand touched the back of his head, he jerked away. She did not give up though, her hand still stroking his hair.

Why was she still even here? Could she not see that he was a lost cause? He had been way too far on the dark side to come back.

"Loki." He could hear the motherly pleading in her voice. It touched a part in him that he had thought forgotten.

It brought out the little boy that had been hiding in a hole for so long. Dark haired, skinny and pale, he peeked out of his cover that he had been under for what seemed an eternity. Insecure about what to do next, the little boy stood up, searching for that voice again. He was about to give up and crawl back into his cave when it rang out again.

"Loki."

The little boy turned his head toward where it was coming from. Maybe he could get closer and see who was speaking to him with such a pure voice…

The image vanished from Loki's inner eye but he could not help but gasp because it had felt so real.

He raised his head a little, letting the resolve in. His mother's fingers touched his temple, her fingertips brushing over his wounds.

"Apologies, mother", he croaked, too embarrassed to look at her.

"None taken." She gently turned his face toward her. "Please let me help you. I beg you, Loki, as your mother." Her eyes shimmered with tears and he saw that she was struggling for words.

"You are my son and I love you more than my own life. I have found a place where you will be safe. There is no time to explain everything but you must know that I would never betray you."

And with that, Loki gave in. What else was there for him to do?

He sat up and took the tiny bottle from her hand, bringing it to his mouth. The stench was overwhelming. Holding his breath, he emptied the bottle in his mouth and swallowed all of it at once.

"Thank you." His mother whispered, audibly relieved.

For about five seconds, nothing happened.

Then, from one moment to the next, terrible cramps invaded his body, making him cry out in agony. The pain was excruciating, as if someone has sliced open his belly and now was digging into his intestines with vigor. His body spasmed violently but to his horror, blackout would not come so he had to endure it, fully conscious.

He was sure to be screaming but he could not hear a sound, only the clicking of his teeth that clashed together in the rhythm of the tremors that shook him.

Seconds felt like hours and just when he thought he could not take it anymore, the pain doubled its intensity. It spread to his limbs like an octopus, tearing at him with razor-sharp teeth, skinning him alive.

This is what dying and going to Niflheim must be like.

Somewhere, in a very remote place of his brain that was not clouded by this stabbing pain, he noticed that his mother was actually holding him. Oddly, that sane part of him was removed from the rest of his body so he was watching himself how his mother was cradling him in her lap, weeping with him silently. She stroke his hair, whispering words of solace.

"Never loose hope, Loki. Never." The words burnt into his mind.

The pain vanished as abruptly as it had come and the world around him fell silent and black.