"You never mentioned the possibility of an alternate reality!" Loki turned on Bruce, eyes wild with confusion. The meek scientist balked, stuttering and stopping as he tried to come up with an answer.
"I didn't know!" Bruce replied, his hands up in submission. His heart rate was elevating quickly, and they did not need the Other Guy to make an appearance right now.
"But… But you- you were researching and you found it travels through time!" Loki retorted, his calm and collected stance unraveling with every wild accusation that bubbled to the surface of his mind.
"And that's all we found, Loki." Tony stepped in; the tension was rolling off Bruce in waves, prompting him to at least attempt to diffuse the situation.
"Brother, calm down. It is just a matter of us finding the Tesseract in the weapons vault and then we will be free of this madness." Thor finally broke out of his limbo. Loki hissed and recoiled at Thor's voice, uncertainty gathering in the pit of his stomach.
"It's not that simple, Thor. We have to get to the vault first, and I have no way of using my magic unless I have some sort of 'jump-start' as the mortals would say-" Loki began to ramble uncharacteristically, spouting out various complications before rounding on Bruce and Tony once more, causing Clint and Natasha to join in.
"Stop!" Steve yelled over the noise, sighing exasperatedly and shooting them all a stern glare like a parent would do with a small child.
"This is nobody's fault, the Tesseract… misbehaved, and here we are. No point crying about it-" the captain shot a pointed look at Loki, who narrowed his eyes angrily, but otherwise fell silent, "-we just need to trust these guys to get us to this weapons vault you keep talking about." he finished, referring to Thor and Loki's younger counterparts.
The subdued Loki turned to the younger Loki and Thor, clutching the handles of his double swords he had hidden under his cloak. The trickster had just opened his mouth to speak, when the familiar thudding of Gungir resounded throughout the hall.
"Father!" the young Thor looked to the huge doors, eyes wide. Footsteps grew louder and voices grew quieter as they neared the doors.
"Uh, Loki?" Tony murmured uncertainly, noticing the god had just frozen to the spot and wasn't responding to anything, kind of like Dum-E on a bad day, he thought. At least Thor had this under control, right?
Tony glanced towards him, expecting him to at least be moving and responding to whatever the hell was outside that door. Instead, Thor was also fixed to the spot, mouth agape and eyes wide with what seemed to be terror.
Great, now they had two malfunctioning gods with their apparently impending doom approaching on the other side of the door. Duly note that said malfunctioning gods were the only ones who knew where this weapons vault was in this place, and the kid versions of Thor and Loki seemed to have forgotten about them as they scrambled towards the door
"Loki?" Tony tried again, to no avail. "Nat, can you… er, tase him or something?" the panic grew in the billionaire's voice as he turned to the rest of the group for help.
"That would just knock him out, Stark." Natasha replied curtly, although there was an edge of uncertainty to her voice. Steve made to move towards the two gods and snap them out of it somehow, when the doors were flung open. A mighty looking Odin stood there, Gungir in one hand. His grey gaze settled upon the strangers crowded in the middle of the hall as he overlooked his two sons running towards him.
"Lo-!" Tony was about to make a last-ditch attempt to recall the god's attention, when a sudden bolt of green slammed the Avengers in the chest, sending them flying. The room warped violently as a bright green glow set in from the edges of their frayed vision and swallowed them all in a blinding flash of light.
"Who dares invade the hall of Odin?" Odin slammed Gungir's tip to the ground, sending a ripple of white energy towards the group, but they were gone before it could do any damage.
"Who did you see?" Odin turned to his sons, his voice low with harboured anger.
"We saw no-one, father. We were simply playing here. Perhaps you are seeing things?" Loki retorted. His light-hearted tone made a small smile appear on Odin's face, despite it all, and his anger quickly receded.
"Yes, I must be growing old." Odin stood upright and chuckled, reaching out to ruffle their hair, receiving complaints from Loki who had spent a great deal of time on his hair this morn, according to Frigga.
"Are the gardens not sufficient for your adventures, my sons? These halls are extensive, but also dear. I can't be replacing everything you boys happen to break." Odin began to walk out of the hall, as Loki and Thor followed him.
"We will go out to the gardens then, father." Thor grinned, and Loki nodded in agreement, before they both began to run down the golden corridor, intent on finding their older selves once more. The curiosity was simply too great for them to ignore.
"Brother, you felt where they went?" Thor called after Odin was out of earshot.
"Be careful, Heimdall will be watching!" Loki said quietly, glancing to Thor with a nod, he did indeed know where they had gone. His magic had reacted to his older counterpart's, resulting in a momentary link and showing him their destination. There was no mistaking the cold, icy steppes of Jotunheim.
Loki felt himself hit the cold ground at speed; he was thrown forwards by the momentum but eventually came to a stop. With a shuddering breath, he realized that his limbs felt like dead weights holding him down. He opened his eyes to the sudden glare of the light, which elicited a pained gasp from the trickster. Blinking, his eyes slowly adjusted, and he could make out figures nearby, they were pulling themselves up off the floor and moving slowly.
Of course, teleporting a group of people didn't come without its flaws, like the inevitability of an incredibly bumpy landing.
Loki came to his senses a little bit more, but he still couldn't move, no matter how much strain he put on his arms or legs. Slowly regaining his sense of hearing, he realized that he felt strangely empty. Hollow. His fingertips no longer sparked with energy, nor did his very being feel even remotely powerful like it did before. Loki had been almost completely drained of his magic in that teleport alone; there were just too many people. He mulled and ground these thoughts in his head, the sickening feeling sunk in - he was incredibly weak now. Vulnerable. Loki felt increasingly tired as an inky blackness slowly crept up on him. Unable to swim against this new tide, he simply let himself drown without another thought.
Thor shook his head to rid himself of the un-coordination that hit him suddenly when he tried to sit upright. He instinctively reached for Mjolnir, and scanned his surroundings skeptically.
"Hey, Pointbreak." Tony's voice broke the silence along with various mutterings from the others, which alerted Thor to his friends' whereabouts.
"Friend Stark, are you hurt? Any of you?" Thor rose to his feet, feeling no more than a few bruises from the harsh landing.
"Uh, yeah. That wasn't exactly an easy ride, even less so for the poor souls who've never hitched a lift on the goddamn Loki Express." Tony mumbled, also pulling himself to his aching feet. He heard Thor chuckle, and scowled angrily to the god, not appreciating the lack of sympathy.
"Speaking of whom, where is your brother?" Bruce staggered up to call through the darkness; he wasn't hurt so much as incredibly disorientated from Loki's teleporting which had left the Avengers scattered in various places. Thor frowned.
"Is he not with you?" the god began to walk over, struggling to see a clear path in the dim light. Various negatives sounded, causing Thor to stop and look around again.
"Loki?" he called, moving away from the group to go and search.
"Wait, Thor! We need to stick together, we have no idea where we are." Steve's voice disrupted the eerie silence that followed when Loki did not reply.
"I must find him-" Thor began, but was cut off by a low rumble. Boulders and rocks began to fall, causing uproar from the scattered Avengers. The rumbling and falling of boulders ceased, but little rocks continued to skitter down walls of stone every so often.
"I think we're in a cave." Clint said, meekly. A murmur of agreement reached him as he stumbled over rocks to find the nearest voice, which happened to be Bruce.
"Alright?" the archer asked, and Bruce nodded in response. The duo began to shift rocks and clear a path out, until Clint tripped over something and landed with a loud complaint.
"What was that?" Natasha called out, "Clint?"
"Clint just fell over, nothing to worry abo-" Bruce began to reply when the fallen archer cut him off.
"Loki!"
"Where?" Thor wheeled around as he heard Clint's yell, marching towards the sound.
"Is he dead?" Clint yelped as he skittered away, eyes wide as he stared at the crumpled heap on the ground. Loki's pale face was easily distinguishable in the low light of this cave, as well as the dull glint of his armour. But Clint was just totally freaked out that Loki was lying totally still, and if the guy was breathing, he couldn't hear it, or see it.
"What?" Thor's louder voice echoed in the cave, a few more rocks fell and caused Tony to jump out of the way.
"Nice, Clint. Real smooth." Tony muttered, sarcasm dripping off his words.
"I'm serious!" Clint yelled back, hysteria creeping in. "He's not moving, or breathing or.. anything!"
Thor was now ploughing through rocks and boulders, throwing them carelessly as he desperately tried to find his brother.
"Clint, calm down. You're not helping." Bruce's voice took on a rough edge, alerting Clint to the scientist's growing unease. He moved to let Bruce past to look at Loki.
"Vital signs aren't clear.." Bruce murmured to himself, before a loud crack and thunderous roar alerted him to Thor's presence.
"Brother! Wake!" Thor was immediately kneeling besides Loki's lifeless form, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. He could not lose Loki now, they'd come too far for this. Past Loki's initial punishment upon their return to Asgard – he was bound to silence, no form of communication could occur between him and any other being until Odin saw fit to release him. Past the Jotunn war on Asgard that ravaged the Realm Eternal to its core as thousands of Asgardian soldiers poured out of the gates, day on day and night on night to wage war with a race that was made for war. Past Loki's descent to Earth, where Odin applied the same tactic as he once did for Thor – learn humility by living with humanity. Past Loki's fighting alongside the Avengers that was wholly unintentional, yet had become a great success and after so many years, he'd simply been accepted as Loki, because when you stripped away the layers of bravado and power, he was simply a boy with a streak of mischief.
A feeble cough disrupted Thor from his trance. Loki stirred, and slowly felt movement return to his limbs.
Bruce was still besides Loki, watching. He'd given up hope as soon as he couldn't get any clear vitals, Loki was beyond the point of saving, or so he'd thought.
"Brother?" Thor reached out and placed a strong hand on a bony shoulder, turning Loki onto his back carefully.
"Oww.." Loki whined. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps. Slowly, he felt his core grow warm and vibrant once more as his magic began to replenish. Unfortunately, this was a visible process – wisps of white and emerald began to filter in through his fingers – and caused Tony to comment.
"Guess that jump-start worked, huh?"
A.N: Broke my 2000 words-in-one-chapter target! Yay!
Thank you all so much for your reviews, they keep me writing! ^.^ (even when I'm being bad and not updating for ages oops)