Loki shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It's in the past. And I prefer it there."
"Don't lie to me."
"The truth is, I survived, and that's everything that matters. And believe me, you don't want to hear about my secrets as much as I don't want to talk."
"I asked you, didn't I?"
"Yes, because you have no idea what you are asking for." Loki was surprised by himself. He had managed to fight against his fury, against the wish to dismember the human because he didn't stop asking. Didn't mean he wasn't oh so tempted. "I picked up the shattered pieces of my life more than once. I'm not weak, I'm not defenseless. I don't need your sympathy nor your disgust."
"So you think you have shameful secrets nobody wants to know or help with? That you'll be blamed and looked down at?" He grinned sadly at the irony and acquaintance he felt.
Loki didn't answer.
"Is that the reason why you stay away from Thor that much?"
"No, that's because he's an oath." That never even tried to understand me. Not even back when we were young and he should have been able to see with his own eyes how I felt.
"There's more to that, isn't it?"
"He's already ashamed of me, that's enough for my liking. I wouldn't allow him more of that. Even if he claims so, he is not my brother and he knows it. He may fool himself but I won't play that game."
"You were adopted, what's the problem?"
Loki's body was shaking with laughter. "Adopted? That's a nice way to phrase it." He stopped himself and shut his mouth, pressing his lips together in a thin line.
"I would be dead if anybody on Asgard would know where they adopted me. But at least they would understand why I never fit in, why they were right in treating me like a weak, strange and disgusting thing." He laughed again. A bitter sound, hurting something deep inside of everybody who would listen. A laugh borne out of agony. Like a wound, so deep, it would never heal completely. Tony had heard that sound before. Just never from someone that looked so self-confident and strong.
Never from someone reminding him so much of himself.
"Forget it. I will not talk about that. But let me add one thing to that vain discussion.
Asgard is a world where violence is the rule rather than the exception. Violence in words and deeds. Where everything that is considered a weakness provokes an attack. It's not a world of mercy or peace, and they tell you over and over again that you have to fight, no matter the costs." That you're weak, too relying on tricks, too pathetic. "That it's better to die as an honored warrior than to surrender. Guess what? It doesn't always work that way. Dying is easy. Staying alive is not. It comes with a price. A price that is so much higher than just losing your life. Surviving is so much harder than just dying. So, so much. It's worth it, yes, but it will hurt forever.
And you learn that our bodies, no matter from what realm they originate, might be precious and powerful and strong. But more than that they are fragile. They are a weakness. Because even the body of a god can be broken, can be used to subjugate someone's mind. Pain breaks down every defense. Manipulation and violence do that. There are certain things you're so sure of that they will never happen to you. You don't even think about it. Until they happen."
Tony wasn't sure if he should ask, if he would be allowed to ask. He could feel the tension of the god. "What was it that happened?"
"The Other and the Chitauri." Loki moved so fast, that Tony didn't find the time to react. The god grabbed him by the throat, pushing him against a wall and held him there for a moment, Tony's feet dangling in the air. Then he let go and grabbed him as soon as he stood and hold him in place with two strong hands pressing Tony's shoulders against the wall. "Everybody thinks it was just the fall through the void and the damage it did combined with mind control that forced me to help them and I'm fine with that explanation. But it is a lie. An enormous lie I will never correct. And you won't correct it either!"
Tony just nodded.
"They didn't aim a scepter at my chest, told me what to do and I did. It was far more hostile. When I let go and fell into the void, I was willing to, I wanted to die. Everything was forlorn and I just wanted it to end. The void was cold and dark and I thought it would rip me apart. I passed out.
I woke up to a face I didn't know. Later I learned it was the Other, commander of the Chitauri. He took my head in his hands and I couldn't move, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move or speak or use magic against him. I couldn't even scream. He rummaged around in my head. When he found out who I am and what I'm capable of, he decided that I could be helpful. But he didn't want an ally, he wanted someone who wouldn't question an order. Later, after New York, I found out, that I was nevertheless lucky. His own master was impatient to get hold of the Tesseract, so he didn't have enough time to completely destroy and rebuilt me over years as a willing slave. He simply didn't have the time without losing his own head. As I would have to use magic to do as he wish, it was risky. He had almost a year, but not more. I didn't knew that. But he knew he would just have enough time to beat enough terror into me to get me to obey him and also treat me as well as possible as long as I did as he wished. Carrot and stick. In combination with his grip on me through the scepter, it should work.
He let the Chitauri throw me into a cell. A smell of blood, sweat and metal. Hard to forget. In a corner was a cage made out of broad metal bars. But they just threw me to the ground. I couldn't get up anyway. I was injured and the room I was in, every piece of furniture, every tool I could see from the ground, literally everything seemed to be built with just one purpose – torture. And I couldn't get out. I couldn't even get up.
A few hours later the Other and two Chitauri entered the room. I wanted to know what it was that he sought from me but he didn't answer. He ordered the Chitauri to strip me from my armor and clothing, when I fought back I got knocked out. I woke up to blood dripping from my head and a grinning Other. My hands were in chains. I was unclothed apart from a collar they had locked around my neck that somehow bound my magic, I couldn't reach for it no matter what I tried.
It got worse from then on. A lot worse." Loki's face was distorted in pain, his eyes had stopped to focus on Tony as soon as he mentioned the Other. He was staring at the wall beside Tony's head. He had no idea why he told that to the human. Why he spoke for the first time, breaking the silence that guarded him against the world. But he didn't find it in himself to stop either.
"One day he grabbed me by the throat and crashed me down on the ground. The force of the impact nearly knocked me out. My head was spinning. He spread my arms and legs and I laid there like a bare bizarre cross. I tried to get up and he snarled, "You better stay down. You're not allowed to move until I tell you otherwise."
I tried to get up nevertheless but he pushed me down with a hand on my throat. I wasn't strong enough to withstand." Weak. "I was hurting, I hadn't enough power left and without magic I wasn't much of an opponent. I struggled like a child getting hold down by someone stronger and bigger. Someone crushing my body." That was a sensation they both knew and Tony felt how hard it was to hear that, to know that, to feel that, how much strength Loki needed to talk.
"He just laughed and without any further warning rammed a knife into my left hand, pinning me to the surface. I screamed in pain, trying to get up even harder. Trying to hit him or to pull the knife out and use it against him. The Other just laughed. I struggled, he didn't hesitate to do the same with another knife and my right hand. He pinned me to the ground like a piece of paper to a desk. Then he let go of me and said. "Hold still, or I'll make you. You stay there like I want you to or I'll make this so much worse." I writhed in pain, I moved and he crouched down, one hand on each of my legs, bruising. I just screamed and he didn't care the least. "You lay still or I'll break your legs so you won't move them for a long time. Now shut up. I can help you with that, too."
Perhaps I should have still fought back but restrained to the ground like that I didn't see how I could. I would just make it worse. So I obeyed. I fought against the pain as much as I fought against the wish to move. He got up and leaned himself against the nearest wall, watching me without another word. He stared down at me in absolute silence for I don't know how long.
When he finally pulled the knifes out he healed the wounds in my hands. I was brought into another room to sleep. All cozy and fine. For a few hours.
Getting me on the ground like that was something he seemed to enjoy immensely because he always did it himself and so very often. He didn't use a knife again to pin me down, but he punished me with a lot of fantasy for every move, every flinch. Stood there and stared down at me without speaking a single word. Silently towering over my body. I wasn't allowed to move or speak. It was like training an animal and I was the creature that should be brought to submission.
It worked. After some time, I stopped fighting back. Just got down on the ground when he ordered me to and lay there like a corpse. Forcing myself to breathe, to bear the pain, to ignore the shame, to ignore the cold of the floor in my back and the heat in the room, to ignore hurting muscles. Ignoring myself with so much supreme effort that I wasn't always sure if I haven't already stopped to exist. Like a light was turned off. Not sure if this was indeed my body, if I still belonged into it, if I still had anything to say about what would happen to it. Numb. Like I could watch myself like a ghost. Like I already died and all that horror happened to someone else.
As long as I stayed still, they stopped inflicting more pain upon me. It was embarrassing to see that as a small mercy. Embarrassing to be willing to humiliate myself so much for moments of painless peace.
He stole my dignity, my hope, my safety, everything.
He healed my wounds, gave me food and new clothes, let me bath. Just to throw me into a cage a little bit later. Or worse.
It was completely unpredictable what would happen next and it was driving me insane.
I couldn't get away and nobody would come for me. There was nobody who would have cared. Literally nobody. I was alone, abandoned, physically no longer able to fend for myself, I was caught in that never ending nightmare and there was no way out.
Is this the kind of thing, you wanted to hear?" Loki slammed his hand against the wall, leaving an imprint in a material that shouldn't be able to bend.
"Yes! Because at the moment I want to know that I'm not the only freak that went through hell at some point of his life. And I know it's selfish and cruel, and I'm sorry, but yes, I wanted to hear that.
And perhaps you should use the chance to talk about it because holy fuck, that sounds horrifying. It sounds like someone should really listen to you and tell you that you're not batshit crazy but found a way out of there. How much strength it must have cost you to get back on your feet. Not because of me but because something like that will eat you from the inside out if you try to suppress it for the rest of your life."