"No, straight means straight," said Tony, and his voice was rough with tension. "Hold it, for fuck's sake." And Thor already was keeping the drainage pipes at a perfect right angle to the base while they were connected, but the whole situation was a little more demanding, now that he knew it was to keep someone's face from being melted off- now that the face in question was a bloody ruin no more than two feet from where he worked. It had been a long time since Tony Stark's hands had shaken while he was in the middle of a project, but they did now.

"There. Christ. Okay, put it up." The god of thunder seized the finished drain in both hands and hauled, lifting it bodily until it stood upright. It settled over the top of the outcropping of rock, standing on a tripod that straddled it with the massive catch basin situated above Loki's prone form. Tony watched his newest invention uneasily for a moment, checking for leaks, for instability, for signs that he might have to make modifications. But it held, and the slow trickle of thick white venom from the snake's mouth made it no further than the drain, turned aside from its intended target.

On the rock where he was bound, Loki's thin form shuddered and then lay still. Tony tried hard not to wonder whether that had been in relief, because the thought roiled his stomach. Yeah, sure, this was the nutjob who had tried to help himself to the whole Earth, but there were some things that just shouldn't have to be lived through. And this? This qualified.

Mission accomplished, Tony rounded on Thor with sudden force; he was sleep-deprived, shaken, feeling way over his head, and he'd walked into this without so much as a heads-up. "Time to talk. Spill it, big boy."

"What more is there to say than that you have my thanks?" The man had taken his brother's hand in his own once more, now that the drain was standing. The grip was oddly gentle for a god who usually seemed the embodiment of power.

"Well," snapped Tony, "you can start with why you dragged me here instead of just hauling him out in the first place. Then you can keep going and tell me why you didn't bother bringing him anything. Any metal bowl would've worked until I was finished." Food wouldn't have hurt either, because holy hell, the body stretched out beside them was emaciated, every bone present and accounted for, easily visible. Blankets, clothes, medicine, water to drink or clean those wounds- any one of them would have helped ease the wait until the drain had been finished, and yet none were present. Vaguely, Tony realized he was becoming agitated- that he was being put in mind of a different cave, a place where he'd suffered, himself- but he could not separate the thoughts from the situation at hand, and the reckless energy remained.

"Our father was most thorough," Thor replied, and did not meet his eyes. "These are bonds I have not the power to break, and when I travel to this place, I am allowed nothing to aid him. Did you not wonder that you must carry the whole of it yourself?"

But he had lost Tony midway through the very first sentence. "Wait, what? Your father?"

"He rules as Asgard's king," said the god of thunder, as though that were explanation enough. "The sentencing of prisoners is his duty."

A sneaking suspicion began to form in the back of Tony's mind. It settled there like the snake coiled up above them, just as poisonous. "You're telling me this is an official punishment?" He said the words slowly, as though tasting them; if they'd had a flavor, it would have been bitter.

"What other? Your eyes bore witness, much as mine did." Thor looked up at last, and his gaze did not waver, filled with hurt but not resentment. "This is what my brother has reaped for his crimes against Midgard."

There was a long pause as the information sank in and turned itself over. "That was two years ago," Tony said at last, flatly.

The hand holding Loki's tightened its grip in what may have been a reassuring squeeze. "I am aware."

"You're saying he's been here for two years." The tone was the same as before, inflectionless and dry, a shield against the horror creeping up unbidden.

There was a nod, and again Thor looked away, no longer willing to meet his eyes. "The time has not been kind to him."

"You don't say." Suddenly, the disbelief had stretched too thin, and Tony exploded, throwing his arms out as though to shove the situation aside. "You waited two years to come and get me? Not so much as a, "Hey, Stark, my dad kind of made the garden of Eden without the trees or the apple or anything but the snake?" I could've finished this drain when he still had a face!" But even now, Tony thought he could see where the skin was trying to heal, the places at the edges where the weeping wounds were beginning to dry and scab. Small wonder he had lasted so long, with an Asgardian's power of healing- but perhaps the strain had damaged the ability, for it was progressing slower than he had ever seen Thor recover.

"You think I meant him pain?" All at once Thor was rising- and there was the god of thunder, concern eclipsed in an instant by tempestuous rage. "Had I only my own whim to attend, I would have come immediately. I would have been at your door ere the sun had set on the first day."

The charged reaction was enough for Tony to take a step back, but not for him to back down. "But? And?"

"But my brother has ever had a way with words," said the Asgardian, reluctantly. "His arguments were most persuasive."

"You're telling me he was lying strapped down to this rock, getting his face eaten off, and he told you not to do anything." The skepticism was back in full force, razor-lined with the churning of his stomach.

"He feared that you would bring grievance to the All-father if I were to circumvent the terms. He feared that I would be banned from this place." By slow degrees, the anger faded from Thor's posture, from the tension in his fists and the line of his jaw. In their place remained only a tired sort of melancholy, a protectiveness that showed in the way he had unconsciously angled his body between his brother and his teammate. "I'd little enough power to ease his pain, but I did what was allowed me. I brought him candles and claimed that they were for my use, as I stayed by his side. I whiled his hours away with talk, when no other would look upon him." The god of thunder turned to watch what remained of his brother's face with eyes both guilty and tender. "He had little, man of iron. He was loathe to risk losing it."

The memories rose up unbidden, one after the next. A mission run long, and Thor anxious in its wake, not waiting to celebrate with the others but claiming business elsewhere. The god's refusal to speak of his brother after Loki had been returned home for sentencing, gagged and chained. An offhanded correction to Steve's idle curiosity, and a black look that had made little sense at the time. "I go not to Asgard," Thor had told them more than once. "I have other duties to attend."

Tony was silent as it all slid into place, snapped and latched like a puzzle cube finally provided with the answers. "I'm an asshole," he said at last. "But Jesus Christ. I'm not that much of an asshole."

The confusion was genuine when it came, which made it all the worse. "The people he wronged were your people. You would be within your rights for seeking redress were I to intervene."

"Oh, hey. Look at that. You did, and I didn't." Tony glanced at the figure that lay prone beside them, unmoving save for the slow rise and fall of its too-thin chest. Unconscious, he thought- and probably better off for it. "Look. You've got your drain, and I'm not about to tattle to daddy. The important thing is, we've got a loophole here, and you had better plan on exploiting the everloving fuck out of it."

Thor followed Tony's gaze to his brother, a crease furrowed in the center of his brow. "I do not know the hole of which you speak, nor the loop that surrounds it."

"Intervention," Tony told him, impatient. "You just said it yourself. You can't bring anything in to aid him, but apparently I can. Other people, too, I bet. So you're going to march right the hell back to Earth and get Banner." Tony Stark advanced like a man possessed, unwilling to think that perhaps the situation had struck a bit too close to home, in the areas of his own worst nightmares that he still overlooked when he was able. He refused to examine too closely the way his stomach declined to settle, or the fact that it felt like something sharp and unyielding had caught itself in his throat. He merely acted- seized the god of thunder by one wrist and hauled to get him moving. "You tell him what to expect, so he doesn't go green on us when he gets here. And you tell him to bring equipment. Lots of equipment."

Thor hesitated, reluctant. "And if Banner seeks out the All-father? "

"No one's gonna run off to His Majesty de Sade." Tony's stare was uncompromising. "Newsflash, buddy. Stuff like this? This doesn't fly on Earth. You want people who're gonna keep a secret, let me tell you: no one's gonna rat you out on this one."

Thor spared one final glance for the fragile body lying bound beneath the serpent. "You will remain by his side?"

No, Tony wanted to say. Oh hell no. He didn't want to stay in the reeking, claustrophobic darkness with a monster poised above him and the shell of a man he'd hated chained beside him, in agony. But hatred only took you so far, and some things, Tony Stark had always believed, need doing- whether you want to do them or not. "I gotta make sure this thing's not going to leak," he said at last. "He doesn't look like he can take a whole lot more."

"Have faith, man of iron. My brother has ever been stronger than he seems." Thor's smile was an odd mixture of despairing and proud both at once, and from a pouch within his cloak, he drew the small device he'd used to bring them here. He twisted an outcropping in the metal with broad fingers- and then he was gone, leaving Tony alone with the prisoner.

Well, he told himself. Business first.

So Tony circled the drain to check it from each side- made sure the piping was secure- backed away to make certain it was wide enough to catch all the stray drops. When he was done, he approached the prisoner's bound form again, unable to stop watching the rise and fall of the man's chest. It was shallow and weak, the kind of motion that didn't look like it could keep going for much longer.

"Hey," said Tony. "You awake?" There was no response, but by the way Loki's lips had been eaten away, he suspected that might be because there wasn't much tongue inside any longer. Was it because his brother was no longer able to talk him out of it, Tony wondered, that Thor had finally come to him? If the venom had not done its work there, too, would this have carried on another year?

It was a thought he didn't want to have- and to shut it up, Tony stepped forward and dug in his pocket for a clean grease rag, one he'd brought for the trip but not needed. It wasn't much, but like Thor had said, it had been awhile since Loki'd had much of anything.

"Hold still a sec. Lemme see if I can get some of this off." Then he began, as gently as he was able, to mop the poison from the god of mischief's ruined face.