There was no reason that Loki had to open the portal on Tony Stark's tower. But Loki found it amusing to mess with the self styled Avengers just a little bit more, and he had not interacted much with Stark yet. Besides, Clint knew this version of the plan. If Loki changed the plan then it would look like he was backing down because his plans had been leaked to the Avengers (who Clint had no doubt told already).

He hadn't exactly expected Tony Stark himself to show up with no suit or form of defense, but he didn't particularly mind.

He did wonder why Stark thought it was a good idea.

"Please don't tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," he said, watching the man carefully. "I have a mission to accomplish here."

Stark grinned at him. The mortal was always cheerful, it seemed. "Maybe I came to threaten you."

"You aren't so very frightening," Loki told him. "Especially without the armor."

"Because whatever's threatening you is bigger and badder, right?" Tony said.

Loki frowned.

How could Stark know about Thanos? Not that Thanos was threatening him, in any case. The torture had ended long ago, and that would not be coming back.

He waited for the voice to chip in, contradict him, say Thanos was sadistic and evil and would take any opportunity he got to hurt Loki, even under mind control. He waited for a voice to say Loki was afraid of Thanos, secretly, shivering in his boots, and tried to cover it up with the blue rush. He waited for the mocking, for the insinuations of weakness and the implication that Loki had no control.

The voice said nothing. It hadn't spoken since Clint had left.

Somehow that didn't help, because Loki knew exactly what it would have said anyways.

His grip on the staff tightened. "No. Nothing frightens me. And no one threatens me." Thanos had rarely been threatening, anyways. He had tortured, he had punished, he had shattered Loki's mind, but he had preferred actions to threats.

"See, that's what I think," Stark said. He walked over to the bar in the corner, where Loki earlier had noted a vast variety of Midgardian drinks, none of them strong enough for an Aesir or Jotun pallet. "Being a reasonable man, my first thought on seeing a maniac trying to take over the world is not, 'Oh, look, dude must be in trouble. We must rescue him!' No, I just want to put you away in the crazy house where you belong."

The voice was gone though. That was what Loki wanted to protest. Surely that brought him a bit closer to sanity. He pressed his lips together. He had no need to explain himself to a mortal, no need to defend himself from such petty insults.

Meanwhile, Stark had poured himself a drink. Once again, Loki didn't particularly mind. It was his tower, after all.

"But Natasha and Clint have been doing some talking, and I've been listening. You know what they think?" Stark said. He held out a glass to Loki, who did not take it. Midgardian drinks were dreadfully weak, and besides that, Loki was not one to drown his nerves in alcohol before a battle. Other things, yes (shining blue staffs, yes) but not alcohol.

"Tell me, what were they saying about me?" Loki asked. "Let me guess: The hawk called me a monster. The spider concurred." He grinned. "You should listen to them, Stark."

Stark shook his head. "That's the crazy thing. They've been saying maybe you aren't such a bad fellow after all."

"Oh?" Loki was surprised. After the way his hawk had stormed out of their hideout…Well, it didn't matter. He might have cooled down but he wouldn't be coming back. That, he had made abundantly clear. "Well, I've been saying it all along. I'm only here to give you humans what you need. No one has freedom without subjugation."

Stark blinked and stared at Loki.

Loki stared back. He raised an eyebrow. Why were these idiotic mortals so against subjugation anyways?

"You know," Stark said. "I'm beginning to believe Natasha and Clint are right. Not about the nice guy part. They also thought you were being mind controlled."

Loki sighed. Clint and Stark both echoed the voice even though it was now gone. Did everyone have to harp on the mind control? "I prefer to say that my mind has been broadened. The staff and my master have given me clarity where before I was only a twisted mess of confusion and suffering."

"So you admit it."

"I don't see why you find it so important."

"Because learning that the bad guy was actually mind controlled all along isn't important," Stark said flatly. "I was looking forward to beating you up. Come on."

"I was never a 'bad guy', as you say. I've only seen the light." Loki hefted his staff and rested the point on Stark's chest. The poor deluded soul. "Now I will help you to see the light too."

The staff glowed blue with power and then faded. Stark raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I'm sorry," Loki said. "That should work."

"Performance issues," Stark said. "What can you do?"

A pity. But then, perhaps Loki had been too carried away anyways. He could not show all mortals clarity right away, not without conquering their world. This mortal would see the truth in time, the hard way. Like Loki had. But for now he was just in the way.

And people in Loki's way, in Thanos' way, had to be eliminated.

He grabbed Stark by the throat and threw him across the room, against one of the walls.

"Any time now, JARVIS," Stark said. Which was a puzzle considering no one was in the room but Loki. Perhaps Stark had a voice in his head too. Well, while Loki wished him the best of luck with that, it was not relevant at the moment.

He threw the man full force through the window with a crash of shattering glass.

The sound sent a thrum through Loki's blood. The glorious sound of chaos roused him to feeling like nothing else. He felt like he could do anything. And there was no voice in his head to tell him he was wrong, nothing to say that his actions were not his own as he stepped out onto the balcony and looked out at the Chitauri army bursting through the portal.

His mission was almost done now. Thanos would be pleased. And was that not happiness, to know his master was pleased with him?

Loki needed nothing deeper than that.

/…/…/

It was only natural that Thor showed up on the roof. After all, this was the marathon, wasn't it? One last challenge, one last firework show before Loki won the day and completed the mission Thanos had given him. The last, greatest challenge. And after this maybe Loki would die. Maybe Thanos would kill him. It didn't matter; Loki was sure that whatever followed he would at least get some rest.

He was surprised that Thor didn't attack him right away. Instead he was spouting some nonsense about turning off the Tesseract, closing the portal. Moron. What had been started now could not be stopped by Loki. All that remained was for Thanos and his troops to finish it.

"Let it go, Thor," Loki told him. "Your precious Midgard will be in good hands. My master is kind."

Thor narrowed his eyes. "I will never turn Midgard over to the likes of you!"

Thor was always stubborn. And he could never trust Loki to do anything right, could he? Loki raised his staff with both hands. No blasts this time though. No…Thor had always looked down on Loki for his lack of skill in hand to hand combat. Loki would show him whom he was looking down on.

It was perhaps a bit rash of him to charge in first. A move more typical of Thor than Loki. The blue in his veins, however, encouraged it and he was inclined to listen. The best defense was an active offense, after all, and there was no way that Thor was going to back down and listen to reason. Attack was logical.

Thor kept on screaming at him as they fought, hammer and staff colliding. Words. Loki didn't listen to them. His mind was filled with a rush of blue adrenalin and nothing else mattered.

The world was composed of two things: Attacking and reacting. He was focused like he had never focused on a battle before.

So why wasn't he winning?

Thor's strikes with Mjolnir were getting more and more powerful, while Loki's were slowly weakening. And he didn't know why. Why was the staff failing him? It had been his strength for so long.

"You're gonna lose."

"I would never choose to follow you!"

The voices in his head were only memories now, but they still stung, and they made him weak. He couldn't focus after all, couldn't allow himself to be filled with the blue energy that was his greatest strength.

The staff wavered in his hands.

Thor slammed Mjolnir into his ribs. Gasping, he dropped the staff. Pain flooded into his body as the blue energy faded in him. He'd taken more damage than he'd thought.

Thor kicked the staff away from him and grabbed him by the throat.

The same way he'd been holding Stark earlier. It hurt more than he had thought, but Thor would never kill him. Would he?

It didn't matter anyhow. He had completed his master's request-his survival now was nonessential.

"Look at this!" Thor shouted. He turned Loki's face towards the side of the building, where Chitauri monsters flew across the sky and wrecked all they touched. "How can you stand to cause this madness?"

It would all end soon. Thanos would bring peace. He had promised. (But then, to Thanos, peace could just as easily mean utter obliteration.)

"This will not end in your rule!"

Of course it wouldn't. It would end in the rule of Thanos, and he would be a good ruler. He had governed Loki well, after all.

What lies he told himself.

Thanos would be a tyrant at best, a destroyer at worst. He would be sadistic (Loki could remember hot coals held close to his eyes while Thanos told him to submit) and unjust (he had seen a Chitauri soldier killed for giving Loki a bit more food than usual) and completely oppressive (he remembered, most of all, the staff, always pushing at the edge of his thoughts, waiting for him to give a little ground).

Loki had a headache. He was almost glad for Thor's hand on his throat, holding him up. Were it not there, he knew he would be curled up and retching on the ground.

"Do you hear me, Loki?"

Loki closed his eyes. He wanted the staff. No-he hated it. No, he wished he were holding it. He wanted to drown in it because that would be so much easier than this pain, which ripped through his mind and through his heart. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to kill someone (maybe Thor, maybe the hawk, maybe the agent Coulson all over again, this time a bit more cruelly because he was tired of mercy). He wanted to rest.

"Loki?" Thor's voice had quieted. "Are you well?"

The hand on his throat loosened and fell away, but as Loki collapsed he was caught by strong, warm arms. How long had it been since someone had held him like this?

He wanted to sleep there.

"Loki? What's wrong with you? Wake up! We have to stop the Tesseract. Loki, I know we can do this if we just work together."

The staff tugged at the edges of Loki's mind. There was a knife in his belt, it reminded him. He was not without weapons. He could still rid himself of this annoying puppy of a brother and escape to join the battle.

"I thought I told you voices to shut up," Loki murmured.

"Loki?"

His head hurt like the coming of Ragnarok. But that didn't matter. The staff had no reason to be so pushy when Loki had already completed his job. Thanos would understand.

Loki was going to get some rest.

/…/…/

Loki woke up on a bed he did not recognize in a room he did not recognize, gray and dreary and small. The only thing about it that he recognized was the man sitting on a chair across the room.

He would have turned to get a better look, but there were restraints all over his body, from his neck to his chest to his legs. Now that he was awake enough to notice it, there was even something around his mouth, a restrictive metal gag with only the least bit of padding to prevent chafing. He clenched his fists. This was what happened when you let your guard down for even a moment. He should have listened to the staff.

But he couldn't stop himself from turning his head, at least, despite the gag, to look at the man sitting across from him. The sight hurt his eyes and yet pleased them at the same time. He heard a keening noise and realized it was coming from him-the gag prevented him from forming words but this noise had formed instinctively in his throat, unintelligible and primitive. How pitiful.

The man looked up. He had been staring down at the ground. His blue eyes focused on Loki hurt almost more than the pain in Loki's head.

"I am glad to see you are well, Loki."

It seemed the hawk had a sense of irony, to echo the words Loki had used only days before. Loki glared at him.

Clint smiled back. "The restraints are made of material specially synthesized by SHIELD scientists for those with superhuman strength. The gag as well. Thor says that for most magic you need to speak."

So Thor had betrayed him. Of course, that was par for the course. Loki didn't know why it even hurt anymore.

"The Chitauri are gone. We managed to defeat all of them and close the portal. It's over now."

So Loki had not fulfilled his mission after all. He had failed his master. What a useless monster he was now, if even with the staff's assistance he could not fulfill his orders.

Clint walked over. He was still smiling. Loki knew he had the right to be smug (after all, he had won and the monster he hated was now laid low) but he still wished he would stop.

"You probably hate me now."

Loki blinked. (He wasn't going to cry. He never cried, anymore.) A good thing the gag was in his mouth, perhaps. This way he didn't feel even the temptation to tell the hawk how untrue that was. How he still wished Clint would return. How he still wished Clint had never left.

"I don't regret leaving," Clint said. He sat down on the edge of Loki's bed. A rash man, to sit so near a monster. "What we were doing was wrong. I…do regret a few of the things I said."

He paused. Stared down at Loki's face, right into his eyes. (Loki's eyes hurt.)

"Your eyes are still blue," Clint said. "Thor said they're supposed to be green. I'm sorry."

What did he have to be sorry for? Loki didn't even know why he regretted the things he had said before leaving. All of them, after all, had been true.

"When I first woke up, I was disoriented. I wanted to blame everything on you," Clint said. "When I had a little distance, I put the pieces together and I knew you were a victim too. Someone's controlling you just like me."

Loki didn't know why everyone was so obsessed with the mind control. He had killed countless people in the city, hadn't he? (Even if that hadn't been his main goal.) It didn't matter whether his actions had been controlled by another or not. It was what he had done. And it was his will to do it, because Thanos' will was his will. There was no difference between the two.

"When I was under the staff's control, I didn't think you were a monster. I didn't think you were such an almighty leader, either, even though I was following you without question. I did follow your orders because I wanted to follow you, but it wasn't like that." Clint paused. He stroked his chin. "I thought you were a good man. But I thought you had fallen on hard times. And even though I looked up to you, I also felt sorry for you because you seemed frightened and lonely."

As if Loki needed pity. So that was what his hawk had thought of him all along. Loki would have spit if he weren't wearing a gag. Who was this man to think he could look down on Loki? Even if Loki was no god, or not even a good man, he was still greater than any mortal. The hawk had no right to feel sorry for him.

"And then when I came out of the staff's control, I was angry for so many reasons. One of them was that I thought you had tricked me. I thought that by feeling sympathy for you I had made a fool of myself, and that everything you had done was an act. When you allowed me to leave, I knew I was wrong, and that the best parts of you had not been a lie."

Clint stood up. He walked towards the door of the small, gray room. So he was going to leave now. That was what people did, after all. They said a lot of pretty words that added up to nothing, and then they left. After all, who would ever want to stay with a beast like Loki?

At the door, Clint paused.

"Thank you for letting me go, Loki. You gave me my freedom. Now I will help you regain yours."

He walked out, closing the door behind him.

Help Loki to regain his freedom? Loki doubted anyone could do that. Thanos had been strong enough to break down even Loki's mental shields. Was there anyone more skilled and stronger than that on Midgard?

Loki didn't need to be free, anyways.

What he needed was clarity, but the staff was nowhere in sight. And his headache was only getting worse.

/.../.../

AN: My posts are becoming more delayed because of real life. Sorry to make you all wait, and I hope you will have patience with me.

Anyways, it's about time to break Loki free of his mind control. And I'm ready for it. See you in the next chapter, and in the meantime, all reviews will be accepted with extreme gratitude! My thanks to those who have reviewed already.