They call in Fury.
They don't put him in a glass cage this time. Since he came of his own accord, and the humans—far cleverer and far more devious than his righteous brother could believe, a species more given to cunning than raw, thoughtless bravery—repay him in kind. They put him in an interrogation chamber, a single light swinging from the ceiling. One side of the room is glass; on the other side, he can imagine, stands the good doctor, and a dozen other humans prepared to dissect his every move.
Fury is older than he could have imagined. More lines in his face, though his single eye is no less stern. He pastes a pleasant smile on to his face, folds his hands, and waits.
"What's your game here?" Fury asks, and Hill, on his other side, folds her arms. "You know, when Thor contacted us to say that you've escaped after the battle with what's-his-name, we thought you'd be gone for good. Off to some deep dark corner of space, because you've tried this once and it ended badly for you. So be honest with me, it'll save all of us time. What's your game here?"
He folds his hands carefully over one another. "Malekith. The elven king."
"Do I look like I'm here for some Lord of the Rings shit?" Fury asks, and a flicker of something almost like amusement flits over Hill's face, before her mouth is stoic again. "Why are you here?"
He smiles down at his hands. "Thor had told you I escaped, I see. But I wonder if he told you that it was I who ordered the attack on Asgard by the Dark Elves in the first place."
In the silence afterwards, Fury draws back. He looks up at them, and his lips curve. Yes, yes, this is what he had missed. Had they all forgotten what his role was, in the cosmic order? Last time, on earth, his mind had been confused, blurry, in a haze of violence that clouded his judgement. This time, his vision is clear and his tongue is precise, and the future of the universe is written in the shape of his cunning; it could never have been achieved by blind, thoughtless rage. It is like breathing, after being submerged in deep water. His mind is clear, his tongue is ready, his hands are cool and calm and he will accomplish his fate.
"Evidently not." He says finally.
Hill uncrosses her arms. Her voice does not shake; it must not be an easy thing, to live up to the titanic figure that Fury cuts, still, through SHIELD's headquarters. "What do you want?"
"Asylum." He says finally. "From my brother. From my enemies. From your Avengers. From anyone who would seek to do me harm."
"The last time you were here you launched an attack on New York. You caused a civilian casualty of thousands. You abducted and brainwashed several of our own personnel and you almost took the life of another." Hill says. "Why in hell would we grant you sanctuary from our allies?"
He tilts his head, and turns to face the glass wall. "Is Doctor Foster listening, by any chance?"
"Answer the question."
"The reparation of the Bifrost proved a vastly successful innovation; an innovation that I myself did not foresee. Likewise, the innovation of Stark's suit, of the countless inventions that you humans have gleaned from the power of the tesseract; quite impressive for a species that have progressed from beating each other with sticks in the mud to space travel within ten thousand years—"
"Is there a point to this?" Fury snapped. "Or should I go have my lunch and come back when you've finished your supervillain monologue?"
He almost wants to laugh. He is almost giddy. "Asgard is not the only jewel of the universe." He says instead. "I have read your books. I have studied your politics and I know what dangerous peril your earth is in. Truth be told, this planet is too small for your species' ambitions. Much like Stark—you will find that your mortal bodies are too small and too slow and too frail for the reality you wish to manifest." He leans forward, and the two directors of SHIELD flinch back. "Your poverty. Your lack of supplies. The growing issue of pollution. A population at eight billion and growing; your wars, your slaughter, your senseless violence. Your lack of options, simply, should you choose to stay on this planet."
Jane Foster is staring at him. He can feel it; he imagines her small hand clutched to her mouth, imagines her heart in her throat, her wide eyes. He smiles. "I can offer you a solution. And I want asylum in return."
"You've offered us nothing but words," Hill says. "Unless you give us something more, we'll give you nothing."
Fury flicks a glance over to her. What was the phrase that he had stumbled upon so many times while memorizing their system? We don't negotiate with terrorists. He smiles. "I'll give you two things. The two most powerful artefacts in the universe."
On the other side of the wall, Jane Foster is tensing. Hill lifts an eyebrow, but her eyes are bright and clear and she is ready.
"I'll give you the tesseract." He says. "And I shall bestow upon you, as a ceremonial gift from the Last Prince of Jotunnheimr, the Casket of Ancient Winters."
Trapped behind the white vaults at the far end of Odin Allfather's chamber of stolen relics, the Destroyer stands, ready and calm and completely unthinking, dictated by all the laws of Asgard and the faultless physics of the elders to protect and serve and destroy.
Storeys above it, hundreds of meters away in the soaring skies of Asgard, Chitauri flit down in dark, raging swarms. A black rain is falling and falling and falling from the skies, an army without compare and an army without end, dirtying the golden realm with filth; with the immeasurable black space between stars. Blood is running free and clear in the streets, women and children and common men—Aesir, all; who had thought their realm impenetrable, who had bought into the lie that their realm was indeed eternal—slain like chattel. Their screams echo through the streets and down the halls, and it is a reminder that yes, time comes even to the Realm Eternal.
He finds his father in the Hall of Kings.
His steps echo, steady and calm and sure against the bronze floors. The very ground itself is imprinted with a memory not yet aged, a memory of being marched down this very length, with Thor's hand at his back, the nobles in silent, taut rows around them. A memory of being forced to his knees at the base of the throne, and having his every cell picked open and stripped clean.
"Allfather," he says. The sworn warriors on Odin's sides cannot have been older than him, cannot even be half his age. A few years in training, less than a dozen battles to their name. He had heard reports that in Malekith's attack and in the subsequent battle, Asgard lost more than three quarters of its experienced warriors. How the mighty have fallen; has the Allfather begun to pick clean the nurseries for flesh and blood shields?
They rush at him; ten, fifteen, twenty. It does not matter. He is Loki, Destroyer of Worlds. Loki, Conqueror. Loki, whose Silvertongue is by no means the greatest of his skills. He is Loki, the Hand of Fate.
When it is done, there is blood—not his—running down the front of his breast plate, a cut on his cheek, his hands are red. His sceptre beneath his fingers is slick with sweat and with the blood of slaughtered youth. Odin does not even flinch.
"I did not come to kill children." He says, and flings out a hand. His magic wracks the hall, ice spreading from his fingers, coating the ground and rushing up the high, soaring walls in a spread of cold. The great double doors are forced shut, with all the might of Jotunnheimr's winter behind it. Odin's breath is coming out white. He steps over the body of a boy who had fought particularly valiantly, and then again, again, he is at the base of the throne, he is looking up at the father who had raised him and lied to him and killed him. "I came for you."
Odin is older than he remembers. His hair entirely white now, the lines at the corners of his mouth and his eyes are clear and hard, as if someone had taken to him with a scalpel. His throat is frail and thin and beneath his golden chestplate, beneath his red cloak, beneath the trappings of his ceremonial armour, he is just an old man. He is just a fragile man in the twilight of his years, wearing the cambric nightgown that his wife had stitched for him, thread by painstaking thread.
"You will not have me, my boy." And he laughs. The night is clear and ringing with the screams of his subjects, and the Allfather deigns to sit here and play at heroics. "I am a king. I will not be subject to your petty wrath."
"Are you, Allfather?" He asks, and he is at a level with Odin. "Are you a king? Shh, listen." He cups an ear. Something twitches in Odin's face, as if he is suppressing a flinch. "How can you be a king, without a kingdom? How can you call yourself a king when your subjects are slaughtered like chattel in the streets? I've often wondered how your delusions have kept you alive. How many titles you've held on to, simply because you believe you deserve them, despite all evidence to the contrary."
"Loki—"
"King. Diplomat. Peacemaker. Allfather." He looks down at his sceptre, traces a finger over its ancient designs. When he looks up, his eyes are clear. "Father."
Odin's eyes close for a fraction of a second too long. "You are my son. You have always been my son. No matter what you believe, no matter what agendas you have heaped on my head over the years, you were my son. I loved you then and I love you now, and nothing you can do will change that."
"You told me once that you took me so you could unite Asgard and Jotunnheimr." He does not even react to Odin's words. His heart has long been hardened against this particular sentiment. An easy movement, and the blade of his sceptre is resting on Odin's chest. "I am asking you again: why did you take me? See if you can tell the truth this time."
The silence during which Odin realizes his great mistake is small. A few seconds, nothing more and nothing less. Smaller things have hinged on longer moments, and he watches as understanding dawns in Odin's eyes. He watches as the old man realizes, finally, that you cannot run from fate. That destiny cannot be cheated.
The old man gives up. Odin Allfather, ruler of a realm rotten at the core, who had been a king for half his life, a father for a quarter and a liar for all eternity, simply gives up.
"I took you because I saw what you would do." He says finally. "I took you because I saw your fate in the Well of Wyrd. I saw Asgard burning and all the universe reduced to darkness, and so I took you. A futile effort, it seemed."
His hands are shaking. There is bile at the back of his throat, and his vision swims, but he keeps his sceptre steady on Odin's chest, and he keeps his grip. This is it. Do not falter. Do not hesitate.
"Give yourself some credit," he says, and wills his voice to be flat and calm. "It was hardly futile. You've fulfilled your duty. Now I am going to fulfil mine."
He readies himself for the killing blow, and Odin's hand is on his wrist. The old man's eyes are still as blue as they ever were, still impassive, still steady. Loki wonders, suddenly, if Odin wants this. If he had dreamed, had prayed for this. If he had simply been so tired of this stagnant kingdom that he would welcome death with open arms if it allowed him to sleep.
"Fate, not worth." Odin says, and then the blade is in his heart.
The Destroyer is trapped behind its white vault, storeys beneath them. As he breathes hard, as the old man's corpse hits the ground and he sits, for a brief moment, on the throne of Asgard, the vaults beneath him is thankfully silent.
Two apparitions with his body and his face appear in the vaults. One grasps a casket, the other a cube.
The Destroyer had been a dwarven creation, infused with Odin's magic, that would awake at the call of Asgard's king.
And now there is no king. Now, the Destroyer stands silent and immobile behind its trapping, and in a blur, the two apparitions disappear, their stolen relics with them.
Loki, on the throne, closes his eyes as the doors at the far end of the hall begins to struggle, as he hears his brother's panicked, anguished yell on the other side.
"Father!" Thor is screaming. "Father!"
He wills his hands to stop shaking.
A whisper, a hiss; gone.
The humans find the tesseract fifty miles off the coast of Guam, almost seven miles beneath sea level.
The casket they find in a vault in the Swiss Bank.
Two weeks after his first interrogation, Hill comes back, and this time she is alone.
She sits down opposite him, and her eyes are clear. "We're listening."