Confinement could play tricks on the mind.

Loki's mind, ever active, has more time to work in the darkness of a cell, has nothing but time in point of fact. Each moment of silence is filled with thought, broken only by the occasional rattle of his chains as he moves.

Loki was awash in defeat, it clung to him, swam around his senses until he could taste its bitterness.

Defeated…. Cast Out…

Sore from battle, weary in body and mind, he found a strange comfort in so familiar a situation. That Loki again is driven back into the shadow of Thor's relentless presence carries with it a bittersweet succor. This is something he knows too well and, accustomed as he might be to it, it does not stop the rush of anger, of jealousy, of childish need for approval.

Defeated…. Cast Out…

There would be no Midgardian throne with which to console himself. He had lost his great war, suffered pain and humiliation, the staff and the Tesseract taken as spoils.

Defeated…. Cast Out…

Loki's lip curls, a defiance rising against his own dark thoughts.

I was a king! The rightful king of Asgard… betrayed.

The prisons of Asgard held no glory, no royal splendor, but it was better than the alternative. There was a greater punishment waiting.

From Him…

The chains that hold him clatter in response to the shudder that Loki fails to suppress. He had entered into a bargain knowing full well the cost of failure. Now, the outcome not in Loki's favor, he knew there was a terrible price to be wrought. He would come to account.

You will have your war, Asgardian.

For a few brief moments, Loki thought he would succeed. He'd sewn dissension among the Avengers, forced their own to fight at his behest, loosened their own monster upon them, and dropped his brother from the sky. The portal was opened, the army of Chitauri his to command, and the frail and frightened Midgardians were no match for them.

Thor had commanded him to look upon the destruction: the army laying waste, conquering with ruthless abandon. For a moment, he'd felt victorious. He might even go so far as to think he understood what Thor had felt so long ago as he battled the forces of Jotenheim. It was heady and he'd wished he could have taken more time to savor it before necessity forced him to stick a blade into his brother's ribs.

If you fail…

It was not to be. He had been amused when a dying Midgardian had told him that he would not win, that he lacked conviction. Yet now, with the benefit of hindsight, he wonders if the Norns hadn't meant that as a warning of things to come.

If the Tesseract is kept from us…

Beaten, Loki was chained, humiliatingly gagged, and brought back to Asgard. The cube, his bargaining chip, was added to Odin's trophy room. Its brief use to return to this realm was the last time he'd even been near it.

There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where He cannot find you.

That had all brought him to this moment. Here in a cold cell, chained, free of the gag but fear keeping him locked in silence. Gratefully, he had accepted his confinement. Much as he despised his former family, they bound themselves by their word, their honor. They would not allow a prisoner of war under their care to be stolen from them if they could help it.

He couldn't hope to hide so Loki bid that the warriors of Asgard, Old One-Eye and the Thunderer included, stood between him and the wrath of Thanos.

Loki hoped it was enough.

You think you know pain?

Loki clenches his fist, missing the weight and power of his weapon, the way he could touch someone's heart. The energy of the Tesseract would open their mind and secrets would come spilling out, treasures that were his to see and keep until required.

The Midgardians were wise to separate him from the staff. The Avengers handed it over to their cyclopean leader and Loki knew not what became of it… so much the better. Its energy was that of the Tesseract and Thanos would attempt to track that first, thinking it still in Loki's possession. Having it hidden away in another realm was a boon.

For even now, he can feel the ghost of a touch reaching out to his mind from across the vastness of space. It does not hold him in its grasp but rather barely drifts over his presence as a hand groping for something in the dark.

This dark whisper vows to find him. Nothing else, but the threat is enough and all the humiliation and hurts that Loki had endured, even being thrown from the Asbru by his kin, would be nothing compared to what Thanos would do. The Chitauri had warned him, sent a concentrated bolt of sharp agony through his skull with a single, fleeting touch and that too would be nothing compared to what the titan would do.

So Loki silently accepts his punishment, his enemies unknowingly keeping him safe from a far more terrible fate.

You think you know pain? He will make you long for something sweet as pain.