Midgard

The rainbow bridge deposited him at the very door of Stark's Mansion, its passing tore the garden to shreds and scattered gravel from the drive for a quarter mile but all Thor could think of was to get his brother aid. He literally kicked the door in as he strode into the mansion and started calling for his team mates, when he got no immediate answer he called the one entity who would surely be listening "JARVIS, I need a healer, where is Bannerson?"

The disembodied voice replied without hesitation "I'm afraid Dr Banner is presently out on a mission with the rest of the team but if I might make a suggestion the medical facility in the east wing is now fully staffed and already on standby."

She heard him before she saw him and was deeply grateful that the AI had warned her that the God of Thunder was inbound with a casualty. When he barged through the doors she saw immediately why the black widow called him a force of nature but this force of nature was distraught and that left her no room to do anything but take charge. Pointing at the gurney she made sure to make eye contact "Put him there." It was not a request but an out and out order and almost reluctantly he obeyed. The red fabric of his cape fell away and even hardened by war she was shocked. He looked like one of the prisoners from 'Nam. He was deathly pale but as soon as she touched him it was clear he was burning up. His body was literally covered in wounds and bruises and on her first brief examination she found a grossly dislocated shoulder and probably broken ribs, putting her stethoscope to his chest she found no sounds from the left side of his chest other than an ominous popping. "Mary, get an IV in him stat, he's so dehydrated I'm surprised he's still holding on. John, get an airway in and we'll start him on oxygen." As her nurses worked she continued her examination as she tried to find out where he was bleeding from other than a deep stab wound to his right hip. "It's no good; we're going to have to roll him." They grabbed and lifted him onto his right side and her next comment was far from professional. "Fucking hell, ok, if I find out who did this I'm going to take a month off work just so I can kill them slowly…" his back was one massive bleeding wound. The youngest nurse was just looking at their patient, tears standing in her eyes and her hand raised to her mouth. "That's enough people, pull yourselves together. You know the protocol, get him stabilised and then we can patch 'im up."

Thor stood in the doorway, desperate to know what's going on but just about wise enough to know not to get in their way and as they start doing something with a flexible tube to his brothers nether regions he finally stumbles outside for some fresh air.

When the team return to base a few hours later they find Thor sat on the front steps like a child who's afraid he'll get into trouble, when he tells them who is in the medical suite they know why.

By the time they get there Loki has already been put on morphine, intravenous fluids and oxygen, the bleeding from his hip is controlled, his dislocated shoulder had been wrenched back into place, a tube is inserted to re-inflate his collapsed lung, his back is covered in about $3000 worth of high tech jell dressing as there is not enough skin left to treat it like a normal wound and their Doctor is just cutting the remains of his bonds from the bone deep gouges on his wrists.

"Stop!" Tony regrets it as soon as the word is out of his mouth. Loki is clearly no threat to anyone in his present state and even he is shocked by just how the evil bastard looks. Running Cat doesn't do more than cast him an irritated glance before returning her attention to her patient. They find themselves transfixed as she carefully draws the dragon cord from his wounds and not one of them fails to feel some spark of sympathy when even though he is clearly drugged insensibly the God whimpers at the additional pain. Once those wounds too are cleaned and dressed she issues some instructions to the two nurse and shoos the Avengers out into the hall.

Her walk is stiff and the look in her eyes makes Tony wonder if he should have kept his suit on.

"RIGHT, will somebody tell me what the fuck is going on and who tortured that poor bastard? And why you all look like you're either afraid of him or want to kill him?" Her voice is surprisingly quiet but just for a moment Thor hesitates to tell her as it seems possible she may storm Asgard in her outrage.

They all looked at him… "Maybe I should start from the beginning…After I returned home with Loki as my prisoner I realised my father was far more angry than I could ever have imagined." They moved to a conference room and Thor continued with the briefing. Twice she interrupted him to go check his brother's condition, both times the Avengers insisted on accompanying her and both times they were surprised that despite her growing knowledge of his crimes she continued to treat him with compassion. Finally they were all up to date on the full situation, up to and including Thor's deception of his father to bring Loki to Earth.

Tony poured another coffee and looked at his team. "So the question is; what now?"

Hawkeye cracked his knuckles and gave a wolfish grin. "Well the boy said we could administer our own justice…" It wasn't quite a threat but they all knew he had good reason to want some payback.

Into the silence her voice was like ice. "If any one of you thinks you're going to harm my patient you'll be doing it over my dead body." There was no humour there, no room for doubt that she was serious. She stood up and pinned each of them with her stare. "I mean what I say, my contract states that where anyone is under my care I have full responsibility and authority and you will not violate that…will you?" She looked at Stark and he broke eye contact first.

Stark took a careful breath "Doctor, I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea, we're simply concerned about the potential risk he poses. Just how severe are his injuries?"

The woman bowed her head for a moment "In layman's terms; I don't know how he's still alive." She starts to tick his injuries off on her fingers. "He's got several broken ribs, a collapsed left lung, a grossly dislocated left shoulder, broken nose, broken right radius and ulna, broken right wrist and three broken fingers as well as both his wrists being stripped of skin and cut to the bone from his bindings. He also has what looks like a stab wound to his right hip that occurred with enough force to disrupt the joint capsule, he's got multiple fractures to his left foot and ankle and his back, from neck to hips has had the skin ripped off with what looks like a bullwhip. He also has numerous cuts and abrasions over his entire body, his lips are split in several places so badly that we had to suture them and he has fractures to his left orbit and cheekbone. He's also running a significantly high temperature that may or may not be related to the fact that most of those wounds are to a lesser or greater degree infected"

Every single person at the table was now looking at least a little stunned by the long list of abuses the former prince of Asgard has sustained. Running Cat took a sip of water before continuing. "We've managed to stabilise him for now" she looked at Thor for a moment "He's on a morphine drip for the pain and IV fluids as I'm betting he was also starved while this went on. We've got a tube in to get the air out of his chest cavity, his shoulder is back in position although there's no way to know if he'll need surgery later, we've cleaned, debrided and dressed his wrists and back, the bleeding from his hip has stopped and as I said earlier I've stitched the nastiest cuts to his face. I've not yet reduced the limb fractures" By this time Tony was actually looking a bit green and seemed about to interrupt but she raised her finger to silence him. "He's still in shock and I didn't want to pull him about yet, we've splinted his arm and leg for now so they're stable, setting them can wait another day or two for when he's stronger."