A/N: Sorry this took longer than I expected!


Loki spent the night in misery. There was no way to lie that did not hurt. His skin had become a deep vivid magenta, ugly and alien, and no amount of wishing himself back to normal was successful.

His whole body hurt to touch – even the sheets hurt. They hadn't bothered to bind him this time, but there was no way to be comfortable anyway. Movement was agony, he was burning up, but also, incredibly, freezing. The minutes crawled by and he could not stop shivering.

He tried the shower, but he couldn't bear the touch of the water; it was like needles on his skin. Eventually Thor thought to soak his cloak and let Loki wrap in it, and that was better, but still the fabric felt like sandpaper every time he so much as breathed. He tried to lie perfectly still.

"This is the way of it," he finally explained to Thor, snarling. "Make me pathetic and miserable so that I'm an easier target in the dungeons. Easy to break somebody who's already half broken, isn't it? You'll be amazed at how fast I fall apart tomorrow. I apologize in advance for failing to provide a good show."

If he was hoping to get Thor upset, he was disappointed. "Hush. Forget tomorrow, brother," Thor said firmly. "First you must bear tonight. Try to sleep. I will keep you wet and cool."

"Like a serpent."

"Serpents are dry, actually. The Midgard desert had serpents. They were-"

"Shut up."

"As you will."

"And stop being so patient. What's the matter with you?"

"Go to sleep, Loki."

Loki snarled again, but didn't argue. And eventually, nestled in his slimy cold (and snakelike, no matter what Thor said) cocoon, Loki dozed off.


By morning the pain had eased just enough to be manageable. They fed him, which he took for a good sign, but made him relinquish his cloak-cocoon and put on a robe instead. He scowled at the Drone who insisted – it was the new Drone again, the one Loki had undressed for in the courtyard. "Who are you?" he said finally, annoyed. "And what happened to-…" he changed his mind about Drones One and Two and said: "the others?" They, he was sure, would have let him keep the cloak.

"Gone," said the new Drone.

Drone Three sighed from the doorway. "We've all lost rank for our failure with you, Loki. I'll prepare you for interrogations but I can't conduct them anymore, and your former prep team has been removed from your case entirely. You won't be seeing them again."

This was the longest speech he had ever heard from a Drone, and it was quite interesting. "Failure? I thought you all were quite effective." Loki made himself smile. Flattery would get you everywhere. "You got your confession, didn't you?"

The Drone was not amused. "We misjudged your strength – badly. We'd planned to continue for hours, but we found you unconscious and barely breathing. Of course words are pointless, but…" the Drone spread its hands. "Apologies. Deepest, profoundest apologies for the danger we put you in. I don't know how we miscalculated so far."

I do – you're dealing with a magician, that's how. But their caution could only help him, so Loki just shrugged and did his best to look grave, wise, aloof. "Perhaps next time I tell you I can't, you'll listen to me."

Drone Three shrugged. "It won't be my decision." He led Loki to the dungeons without talking any more. Once they were there, he gestured to a chair, the chair, the bolted one, with great courtesy. "Please, have a seat. Put your arms behind your back and clasp your hands."

"Do I have to?" Loki pouted.

The Drone pointed to the seat of the chair. "See that slot?" he said, without any anger. "There's an attachment that locks in there, a seven-inch metal spike. Right now, it's hanging on the wall."

"An excellent place for it to stay," Loki said smoothly, sitting down as requested. He reached behind him, wondering about the binding rod. "Are we playing drinking games again?"

"Shut your mouth."

Unbound, clothed, and with Thor in the room, Loki felt brave enough to disobey. "That's not very polite. And here we were having a nice conver-" He flinched when Three's hand approached his face, and ducked to hide against his shoulder.

But the Drone was only reaching for his chin, pressing it upwards to close Loki's teeth. "Stay like that – your jaw is still fragile. Face front."

Loki bit down just in time: Three hauled off and slapped him full across the face. The force of the blow turned his head. Once he faced front he was hit again.

Both cheeks burning now, Loki waited where he was, face pressed to shoulder, waiting for the pain to assimilate. He wanted so badly to bring his hands up and rub, but Thor would see that as weakness, so he didn't.

The Drone made an impatient noise. "Again, Loki. Face front. Don't be difficult."

Loki straightened out, wincing in advance of the blow. When it came it was the hardest yet; his lip split and bled. Without being told he just licked the blood up and faced front again. He heard Thor suck in his breath.

In order to take his mind off the pain Loki started counting. He had a headache at ten, was jerking and flinching by twenty, and – clenched teeth or not – by thirty his jaw ached steadily. At forty-two they stopped. Loki was breathing hard, dizzy, miserable.

Drone Three looked him over and nodded. The new Drone (Four?) took out the binding rod, and sealed Loki's arms and legs where they were. Then he went and fetched something terrifying: red-hot metal. Loki shrank back against the chair, praying that the glowing chunk was only a tool to scare him with… but they brought it to within a few inches of his chest and held it there.

It was nowhere near touching his skin, but the heat felt blistering against his sunburn and he began to thrash and wheeze. The Drone moved it around, slowly, and Loki felt a scream rising in his throat. He choked it down. He would not, would not shriek before anything terrible was even done to him.

At last the metal was taken away, but he hardly had time to sigh with relief, because immediately afterwards he was punched hard in the solar plexus.

Even winded and gasping, Loki heard his brother jump out of chair with a noise of protest. He meant to look at Thor and tell him it was all right, but he couldn't, because suddenly everything went dark as the Drones pulled a hood over his head.

It was silent for a while and he was not touched. He tried to quiet down his own terrified breathing so he could hear what was coming, but it was no good; his gasps and his heartbeat were still in his ear, and he was completely deaf and blind.

He tensed all over and turned his face aside, waiting.

He waited a while. Finally, just as he started to calm down, a finger trailed over his jaw. He yelped, tensing all over again.

"Face front."

Loki relaxed. As long as he knew what was coming it really wasn't so bad. He faced front and closed his eyes against the slap that was coming…

But instead, they smacked him in the back of the head and then hit him in the stomach. Once he could breathe again they grabbed his head to pull his chin from his chest, and then came the face slaps.

It was a while before Loki tried to relax again.


All morning. They tormented him all morning, hitting and burning and pinching, until he was covered in hurts and they were burning him on top of his bruises and pinching the sites of his burns. He still couldn't see and every new pain was a surprise, making him cry out and jerk against his bindings so hard his arms and legs ached. Sweat soaked his robe and stuck his hood to his face, stinging his eyes, tickling down his rib cage, pooling annoyingly at the small of his back. Every time he twisted and squirmed to relieve the tickling, he was painfully reminded that he had an ass full of stitches and it would be better to sit still. He couldn't sit still.

When they finally unhooded him he was a mess – disgusting, and in pain, and completely exhausted. He had never realized how fear could drain a person, but after a couple of hours of fear Loki was finished. The Drones unbound him and had to help him to his feet; he almost collapsed in their cool Drone arms.

Their grip hurt his burnt skin, though, and he pulled free. "Lunch?" he asked, trying for insolence.

"Almost," Three told him. "First, undress and get down on all fours."

Out of energy to disobey, he shrugged his robe off and collapsed to the ground almost gratefully. "No," Drone Four corrected. "Not your knees. Hands and feet."

Moving stung his skin unpleasantly when it stretched, but Loki slowly straightened his body until it was planked and only his hands and feet rested on the floor. Midgard warriors did this, he knew, to make themselves stronger. It was called pushup. Were they going to make him exercise?

A loud crash from just beside him made him jump, but Drone Three was grabbing him in an instant, steadying his hips so he didn't fall. Loki looked down and saw glass – the other Drone had just broken a bottle on the floor.

Crash. Another bottle. Crash. More glass. Loki looked all around in panic, as both Drones poured out handfuls of metal and glass, covering the floor with lethal-looking fragments. He could guess what those would do to this fragile little mortal skin. The idea of falling – or even moving his hands and feet to get more comfortable – was out of the question.

But his arms had already started shaking. "How long?" he bit out, watching sweat drip down from his hair to the floor.

Drone Three had sat down in the bolted chair, and picked up a book. "A while."


He was brought back to his room after they were done with him. A Drone wiped his cuts (he had finally given up and taken a knee, and he had glass in one palm also because his hand had slipped) with something stinging, and painted them with something that sealed them at once. Then Drone Three gestured for him to turn around.

"Clasp your hands," it said, "Palm to palm. Good. Now relax." Loki's shoulders were rolled back, gently but all the way. The binding rod cinched his elbows.

The pressure on his shoulders was uncomfortable, and if he unclasped his hands it only got worse. "So much for lunch," he muttered, eyeing the tray they had left him. His position was strenuous enough that his usual acrobatics would be impossible.

Then, from behind him: "Sit down; I will feed you." Ah. He'd forgotten that he now had a shadow. Torture did the strangest things to your mind.

"Thanks." He sat on his bed and watched Thor bring over his tray and cut up his food for him. Thor's face was strangely blank. "Thor? Are you all right?"

"Me?" Thor's eyes snapped to his. "It is troubling, to see what I saw. But I know that if such things are done in the name of the laws of Asgard I should not hide from them."

Loki devoured a few bites before answering. "What you saw was nothing."

"I know. But to see it happen to someone I care for…"

Loki swallowed once more, burped, glared. "What you saw was nothing, and no one. Have you forgotten everything I told you yesterday?"

Thor was visibly struggling to keep quiet. "Just eat, Loki," he said at last. "Let us not argue."

He ate, but after less than half the plate he sat back. "Enough. If I eat too much before the dungeons, I'll vomit again."

Thor still looked strange. Dull and weary. Loki would almost say defeated, except that Thor was never defeated. "You should rest," Thor suggested at last.

"How?" With his arms pulled so far behind him there was no way to lie comfortably. Not that he would have been comfortable anyway. "Did your woman tell you how long a sunburn lasts?" he finally thought to ask.

"No. Does it still pain you? You're still red."

Loki nodded. "I'm burning up. The temperature of everything I touch is… wrong." He snorted. "Maybe Odin lied; maybe I'm actually a fire-giant instead."

Thor didn't laugh with him. Instead his eyes widened. "Loki! They can frost themselves," he said, excited. "The Jotuns. They turn to ice. Can you not do that yourself?"

At first Loki meant to shake his head and remind his idiot brother that his powers had all been taken from him, but then, he realized that this was perhaps not a power Odin could take. To slip back into his own true form… his true, grotesque form. Surely he didn't need power for that?

He knew what the transformation felt like. And yes, as much as he hated it, he knew the cold would feel delicious today.

Thor was watching avidly. "No," Loki snapped. "I don't want you to see this. Go away." He ignored the pleading, and the pleading look, and only once Thor was safely standing in a corner did he close his eyes and concentrate.

He let the freeze come over him, icing over his pain, erasing it completely…

But the glorious numbness was interrupted by a stab of panic when he realized he wasn't breathing. Couldn't breathe.

His eyes opened. He was hurting for air but his lungs wouldn't expand; he was paralyzed with terror and wanted to cry out for Thor but couldn't even manage that.

Then there was a terrific BANG and he realized his head had hit the floor. "You've pushed yourself too far again, Loki," Odin's voice said from somewhere. "You cannot shapeshift in this state. You must rest – you're going to make yourself mad." "I am not." His own voice, that. Not his real voice; it was faraway and echoing.

"Loki? Loki!" That voice was real.

Thor was shaking him too hard, and he mumbled grouchily. "Mm. Did it work?"

"It… Open your eyes, brother. I saw blue but it's fading. You're cold to the touch now, and… well, look! The burn has vanished. I believe you did it."

Indeed he had. His cuts and bruises hardly mattered – he felt wonderful. Loki snickered. "Thank you, Laufey."

All at once Thor tensed. "Laufey?" he said. "What do you mean?"

Loki sighed. Thor already had half the story; what harm in giving him the rest? "I mean we have Laufey to thank for this mutt you name your brother," he explained. "I'm his son. Laufey, great chief monster of all the monsters, is my father. Was." His head hurt. He was ranting. He felt madder than ever.

But Thor sobered him right up again. "Loki…" he said, slowly, "Then you're the rightful king of Jotunheim."


TBC.

Ouches next chapter, but nothing unreadable. And lots of Thor.