Nár

Loki says they are 'adorable', but what he means is that they are 'hilarious.'

To pass the time, he pokes a beetle scuttling along the floor with a stick, and when Thor asks him to stop tormenting the poor thing he pops it into his mouth, and swallows it whole.

When Thor is ready to talk to him again, they debate possible escape strategies. Loki, Thor thinks, does not dedicate the full breadth of his intellect to the exercise; he seems too curious to find out what the mortals are going to do next.

The grey man returns within the hour. This time, he is accompanied by ten large mortal men, all with a similar tattoo over their collarbones. They follow behind him in a triangle, like a flock of geese.

Loki greets them all with a big smile, which is totally ignored. Thor greets the grey man with a glare, which is not returned.

"Are you well?" he asks Thor. Thor does not dignify that with a response.

"We were worried that our method of capturing you might have impaired your higher brain functions," he continues, oblivious. "Which would be a pity, because we want you fully cognisant for this next part. We're going to torture you, you see."

Thor and Loki are the sons of Odin One-Eye, who was always aware of the danger his political opponents posed to his children, and, as such, did his best to inure them against torture from a young age. His very best. Thor's comrades in arms are often stunned at the levels of pain he can withstand without flinching. It isn't stoicism; it's practice.

Behind the man, Loki gives a sharp, affected gasp, as though he's actually fearful of the prospect of being tortured by these silly men. His hand flies to cover his mouth and his eyes widen comically. It's so ridiculous Thor has to fight to keep from chuckling.

The man in grey turns to look at Loki for the first time. He makes a gesture, and one of the burly men stalks up to the seated trickster god, reaching out to finger the collar upon which the red light still flickers.

Thor watches as the men then huddle together and exchange words. Loki rolls his eyes at him and mouths; 'mortals.'

"The collar isn't working as well as we'd hoped on that one," says the grey man, coming back to Thor. "He's not about to turn us all into toads, but he might telepathically contact one of your friends."

Thor has already asked Loki if he can do that. He can't. Still, the fact that their enemy doesn't know exactly how powerless they are is encouraging.

"May I ask how you intend to torture your gods?" says Loki, who until now has refrained from addressing the man directly. As an afterthought, he adds, "And are you, perhaps, responsible for the loss of my helmet?"

"Your helmet has been destroyed," says the man, "for it offended us. As for your initial question; we are going to… defile you."

The man fishes around in the pocket of his suit, and withdraws a corked vial, which he holds aloft for Thor to see. A golden liquid sloshes within it. "This is a sorcerous concoction obtained from the tyrant Doom at great personal expense to our organisation," he says. "Its name means called 'Heart's Desire' in Latverian.'"

Thor has not heard of it. Neither, by the cocking of his head, has Loki.

"Sigmund," says the man, addressing one of his muscular co-workers, "get the smaller one's mouth open."

Loki is much, much faster and a good bit stronger than he looks, but bereft of magic and divinity and with no where to run, he knows better than to try to scamper away from the four men who approach him from either side. Instead, he bends his efforts to appearing artfully bored.

"Magic potions," says the grey man, "cannot be administered via syringe, we find. Very peculiar. They dissolve in the tube. Thankfully, we have ways and means."

One of them holds his head back. One of them squeezes his nostrils shut. Ordinarily, Loki's magics are powerful enough that he can hold his breath for days at a time. With the collar round his neck, he lasts scarcely three minutes before he has to gasp, and when he does the fourth man pushes the uncorked vial into his mouth, so far down that there is no hope of choking it up, and shakes it to empty the bottle. When it is empty, he draws it back and hands it to the grey man.

Loki's mouth slams shut as soon as it is out, tightening into a resentful line. Then he blinks. Twice. Thrice.

Then his eyes invert.

The black pupils become green dots. The green rings become black. The grey man nods, and murmurs to the man who administered the potion, "And the rest of it too now, I think."

Thor yanks on his chains, but they may as well be the roots of the World Tree for all they give.

A syringe is placed against his brother's neck, containing Odin knows what, and the entire payload is injected with a practiced gesture. Loki doesn't attempt to annoy them by wriggling, which frightens Thor more than anything else that has happened to him today. Once it is done, the men relax their grip on his shoulders a bit.

"Good, good," says the grey man, stepping forward and kneeling in front of the trickster god, his men parting to make space for him. As they do, Thor catches sight of Loki's face, and feels his hammer hand clench reflexively as dread spreads through his chest.

The inverted, poison green pupils have blown wide, reducing the black to a barely visible line. Loki's eyelids have settled at half-mast, strangely distant. Not focused on the grey man's hand, which brushes over his lips, drawing them gently apart to make him gape. He looks… tranquil, as though he's spent the last four hours having oil rubbed into his limbs by nymphs and drinking wine. It's such an utterly alien expression on his face that Thor almost doesn't recognise him.

"Loki was always one of my personal favourites, when my mother first read the old stories to me," says the grey man. "Loki Skywalker, herald of the death of the gods. And then I saw you on the television, fighting the Avengers in your stupid helmet and your stupid green tights. I cannot… tell you… how much your existence has plagued me, false god."

Then he kisses Loki's slack, unresisting mouth.