Loki walked onto the balcony of Stark tower, watching as the Chitauri army terrorized his soon to be new kingdom, yet he felt something off about... well everything. He had no idea what it was, as he gazed in his reflection in his weapon, his blue eyes suddenly cast upon a flash of Thor's cape as he landed a few feet away. He turned, prepared for a fight he knew was coming. His ultimate test to earn his kingdom, someone said- who had said that?
"Loki, turn off the tesseract or I'll destroy it." Thor threatened.
"You can't. There is no stopping it. There is only the war!" Loki said, pointing his weapon at Thor.
Thor readied his hammer. "So be it."
And they engaged in a fight, overshadowing the vast city below fleeing in fear-stricken panic.
Loki didn't care though. In that moment all he seemed to care about was unleashing all his rage and jealous emotion, leaving Thor only the option of defending himself, not wanting to fight his little brother, however many wrongs he had done.
Loki noticed the Quinjet out the corner of his eye, sending a blast to knock Thor to his feet before shooting down the aircraft. Thor soon jumped back up, taking Loki momentarily by surprise and forcing him to look at the damage.
"Look at this! Look around you! Do you think this madness will stop with your rule?!" Thor asked.
"It's too late. It's too late to stop it." Loki said, for the first time looking terrified of himself and the fighting around him.
"No. We can. Together." Thor said.
Loki looked at him longingly, before feeling a wash of anger take over, and before they knew it, Loki stabbed Thor in the abdomen. Thor winced, but instead of discarding Loki like he might have done when they were younger, he tried to reach out further.
"You said, on the cliff, that I threw you into an abyss. Loki, I did not! You let go. Why? Why did you let go?" Thor asked.
Loki refused to answer, straining to get away from Thor's grip which was currently subduing any movements he could make to stab Thor again with another dagger he conjured up.
Thor looked to the weapon Loki was holding, and the gleam of the blue near the tip. It looked like the tesseract, and Loki's eyes.
His own blue eyes snapped up to look into Loki's green- no, bright blue eyes.
"Why are your eyes blue?" Thor asked, grabbing Loki's neck to keep him steady. Instead, Loki took that opportunity to stab Thor with the bigger dagger, pushing him off the ledge and onto the streets far below.
"Sentiment." He whispered, breathing heavily.
Suddenly a green blob slammed into him, sending him through the glass windows of Stark Tower. He quickly got to his feet as the Hulk approached, filled with anger.
"ENOUGH! You are all of you beneath me! I am a God you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by-"
Hulk interrupted his rant by picking him up by the feet and slamming him multiple times into the floor. One more for good measure, and the Hulk walked away, making a snarky comment about "Puny God".
As for Loki, he felt not only his air get knocked out of his lungs, but also any negative emotion that had been built up over a year of absence from Asgard. Why he had suddenly lost all intent of war and chaos, he couldn't figure out. All he wanted to do now was just to sleep for another year, exhaustion seeping in from all the betrayal he cast upon his own family, who were kind enough to take him in. Not Odin though, Loki's anger towards him was still heartfelt and strong.
He let out a high pitched whine that he would later deny doing, and fell unconscious.
OoOoOoOoOo
When Tony Stark took control of the missile and flew through the portal, he should have expected something on the other side, but he was still horrified to find a huge ship, the source of the army. He let go off the missile, letting it continue on to destroy the ship while he fell back through the portal, slipping out of consciousness.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back, and never had he felt so happy to see Steve and Thor over him, smiling with relief.
"What the hell? What just happened?" He asked. A beat skipped. "Please tell me nobody kissed me."
"We won." Steve said, breathing heavily from the adrenalin.
"Alright, hey. Alright. Good job guys, let's just not go in tomorrow, let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is but I wanna try it." He rambled.
"We're not finished yet." Thor said, sadly.
"Then Shawarma afterwards?" Tony asked.
"It might take a while. Loki is not all he seemed to be." Thor said.
"What does that mean?" Clint asked, coming up to them with Natasha and Selvig.
"Tell me, Lady Natasha, what colour were Barton's eyes under the influence of the tesseract?" Thor asked.
"Bright blue, same shade as the cube." Natasha said.
"So were Loki's." Thor said.
A beat.
"Wait, the controller was being controlled?" Tony said. "All that for nothing."
"Controlled by who?" Natasha asked.
"Guess we should go find out." Clint said.
"I think I'll go back to the lab." Selvig said rather quickly, not keen to face Loki again, despite what he just learned.
"I think I should go to Loki first. A crowd might be too much." Thor said, spinning his hammer and flying to the top floor.
"How did we get into this family quarrel?" Tony asked sarcastically.
OoOoOoOoOo
Blinking, Loki regained consciousness, acknowledges both desolation and silence- no. People were... cheering? Did the Avengers win? Loki breathed a sigh of relief, and dragged himself out of the dent in the ground made by him being slammed by the Hulk. He mustered as much strength as he could, but to no avail, couldn't push himself up into a sitting position.
He saw a hand reach out to him out the corner of his eyes, recognising the sleeves as Thor's attire.
Ignoring him, he looked past at Stark who was standing by the lift with the other Avengers, Hulk still in Banners place.
"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now." He said, looking down and grinning awkwardly.
Tony snorted a laugh, while Thor kicked Loki's foot gently as persuasion to take his hand, which he did, letting his bro- adoptive brother pull him to his feet. Thor brushed some debris off Loki's jacket, staring intently into Loki's eyes and looking... relieved?
"What?" Loki asked, meaning to snap but had no heat to his word.
"Your eyes are green again." Thor smiled. "Welcome back, brother."
"What do you mean, welcome back?" He asked, this time with a sharper tone as he pushed Thor away from him.
"The tesseract was controlling you I think, it's the same shade of blue eyes Clint had that Thor noticed in yours." Natasha said.
"I did everything of my own accord. I knew exactly what I was doing." Loki said.
"Do you? I thought I did too, turns out I had emotions put into my head that made me want to work with you." Clint said, frowning as he still hated Loki more than the others.
"You had such anger in your head Loki, now it is gone, yes?" Thor asked, not waiting for an answer, he continued. "I will go to our father, OUR father, and tell him what I witnessed. I don't think you are fully to blame, but in condition of proving your innocence, both on Earth and on Asgard, we want to know how it all happened."
"Tsk, no deal. In case you haven't noticed, Odinson, these friends of yours are no closer to believing any story I tell, nor is Odin, nor are you." Loki snapped.
"We'll be the judge of that." Steve said. "We're quite fair people."
"You couldn't work together well enough to stop me sooner, you fight and you argue all the time, you couldn't be more different or too similar if you tried-"
"Loki, enough." Thor said, with a voice that left no argument to be made. "I will take Loki to SHIELD's flying machine, they will keep him in isolation until I get back from Asgard. Lady Natasha, may I ask you to accompany me to keep an eye on Loki?"
"Sure, who knows how angry SHIELD will be about Phil." She said.
Regret suddenly washed over Loki, but it passed soon enough and he hoped no one noticed the change in his expression, though looking at Natasha's face, he could tell she saw it.