Author's Note: There are a couple point of view changes for this chapter. So, watch for the labels over them for which it's being told from.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, nor do I wish to. I respect the brilliance that already exists there and give all credit of the characters and original story to the amazing writers who have officially worked on it.

Third Person Point Of View

Thor stands on the roof of Stark Tower and watches in horror as the Chitauri vanish with his little brother. Loki is gone... He is with the one who tortured him before sending him to attack the Earth... What would happen to him now? He had failed them. The Earth is safe and not under his control, and Loki himself was a prisoner. Would Thanos punish him? Torture him again? Maybe even kill him?

No... They won't kill him. Thanos will want to make him suffer before he dies. Loki will beg for death long before it is granted to him. The fact that he will now have to face such torture as a child is enough to make most of the Avengers cringe.

They have to help him... But Fury refuses to help Loki. He is glad the trickster isn't his problem any more. He doesn't really want him back, but he won't stop anyone who does want to go after him. As far as Fury is concerned, once the Chitauri are finished with Loki, they boy's debt will be payed. Whatever the Chitauri are likely doing to him now is punishment enough. If the kid survives, Fury will welcome him back and consider giving him a fresh start.

So, only two days after Loki was abducted, Thor and anyone willing to go with him would set out to rescue the boy. Thor wanted to leave immediately, but he was forced to accept he couldn't go alone, and no one else was fit to take on the Chitauri again just yet. Thanos had left everyone in rather poor condition. When they left Stark Tower, the small band consisted of only Thor, Bruce, and Tony. Natasha was hurt too badly to go, but everyone knew she wouldn't have wanted to rescue the trickster anyway. Clint stayed with Natasha and wouldn't go while she was in her present condition. Steve wanted to help, but Thor was forced to tell him to stay behind. He wan't fit for fighting the Chitauri now. Thanos's attack in the stairwell had left him buried in rubble from the partially collapsed wall for nearly an hour. He was pretty banged up and needed more than just two days to recover, and Thor couldn't bear to wait any longer. Every second they delayed was added time for Thanos to once again destroy Thor's little brother.

The trio took a small SHIELD aircraft and followed the tracker Fury had given them. The spy had hidden a tracer in the child's clothes ever since he found out about his presence on Earth, not that he'd mentioned this to anyone else before now. Considering it gave a location far from Stark Tower in New York, they found it safe to assume the child was still wearing the tracker. It said that Loki was far away but still on Earth, which was good since the Avengers had no reliable way of crossing space to the realm of the Chitauri. Even so, it took the group three days to catch up to Thanos and figure out exactly where he was keeping Loki.

Tracking Loki's general position from relatively far away was simple, but narrowing the trace to a precise street address was a bit more challenging. The Avengers were somewhere in Germany, but they'd wandered in circles so much that they no longer knew what city they were near. Finally, they ended up on the outskirts of an old town that was likely abandoned. The town itself gave off an eerie aura, and the heavy rain gave it a nightmarish essence. Chitauri warriors could be seen scurrying along the decaying rooftops, watching the Avengers closely but also maintaining their distance. They were definitely in the right place...

Hopefully they weren't too late to save Loki...

Loki lay in the floor, shivering. It's cold here anyway, but more importantly, the child has lost a lot of blood over the past few days. He's lost enough that his body was having trouble functioning and keeping him warm, but even the kid knows it's better for him to be cold than to have something stop working. But that doesn't mean he likes being cold. The shivering makes everything hurt more. There are more cuts on his body than he can count, and the constant shivering isn't letting them close and heal properly. The movement is also enough to cause a great deal of pain from his leg that was broken when Thanos threw him on the stairs. There are awful pains in his side and chest, telling him it's likely that a few of his ribs have been broken. And then there's the many burns and sores from Thanos's more magical ideas for torture. He's been subjected to more nightmares both physical and mental that even his memories of his last time with the Chitauri pale in comparison. The child doesn't know how he's survived this long, but he very much wishes he hadn't. He still tries to fight however he can; he doesn't want to be broken and forced to do Thanos's bidding again. But with every hour, more and more of his strength fails, and he slides closer and closer to giving up. He doesn't even know if Thanos will want him back now that he's already failed him once. That seems too forgiving... Even with all of the unimaginable torture beforehand. No, Thanos won't use him again. He only wants to make hum suffer for his failure. Thanos isn't going to let him die easily either, if he lets him die at all. Loki will be at Thanos's mercy until the captor grows bored of his new toy. Then, who know what will become of the trickster...

"On your feet, boy." A rough Chitauri voice reaches the miserable child from across the small dark room. Why do they always insist that the kid get up and walk out of his prison himself? They know he isn't able to at this point. And this is the one place where nothing bad has happened to him, so why would he willingly leave? They always took him elsewhere when they tortured him, then they'd drop him here to recover for just long enough to make sure they didn't accidentally kill him.

"You know I can't..." Sometimes, they would smile wickedly and carry him away when he said this, and sometimes they would make him try first for their own sick amusement, and yet other times they would get angry and beat him when they got to wherever it was they had decided to take him that time. It was worth a try anyway, since his only other options were to try to get up like they would likely do anyway, or to just lie there and ignore them. He had tried that once, and it was a mistake he would never make again...

"I said on your feet." The Chitauri growled at him. The boy groaned; it hurt just thinking of having to try to get up again. But he had no choice.

Little Loki put his hands on the rough stone wall behind him, so he could use it to pull himself up and take some of the strain off his inured leg. The child found it was best if he thought of this agonizing trial as a game. It was a game to see how close to standing he could get or at least how long he could endure. If he managed to stand or bore the Chitauri before collapsing, then he won. It was a truly terrible game, but it help him endure. And anything that helped even a little was a blessing in this accursed hell.

Loki's fingers scrape along the rough surface of the wall until he finds a decent sized crevice for him to slide his hand into. He squeezes his eyes closed and grits his teeth as he begins to pull himself off the floor. His aching limbs scream in protest, and the world swirls around him. The returning pain and dizziness is sickening, and the child must fight the urge to fall to the floor and vomit. After a minute the feeling passes, and the boy pulls himself up a little farther, making it to his knees this time. But this is the worst part for the little boy as it puts all his weight on the lower part of his legs, and with one such part being badly broken, the pain is quite excruciating. Unable to keep silent any longer, little Loki begins whimpering and leaning more heavily against the wall, but he didn't cry. Loki didn't cry any more. He was beyond tears now. The past few days had taught him how useless crying really was; it only made his tormentors take even more pride and enjoyment form their despicable work on the defenseless child. Even in the worst pain imaginable not a single tear would slip form the broken child's eyes. The Chitauri still laugh at his weakness and the way he whines like a kicked puppy, but at least he doesn't cry.

Loki finally reaches a near standing position, but the weight on his leg and tension on his ribs make sit impossible for him to completely support himself. He tries to go on but can't, His bad leg buckles under his weight, and the child collapses to the floor, his leg at an even stranger angle than it had been before. Loki had lost his little game.

Laughing, the Chitauri warrior walked forward and picked up the pathetic child now lying crumpled in the floor. He carried him away form the small dark room which had become something of a sanctuary to the little boy. The Chitauri carried him down an equally dark hallway to a room with only slightly better lighting. It was impossible to see what lie ahead for the child, but he was used to this by now. And he preferred it that way; it was much worse knowing ahead of time that something horrible was going to be done to him and he would be powerless to stop it. At least this way there was a little mystery to it which kept his mind form focusing directly on the pain that would be raging through his already battered body, for a short while at least, for nothing could ever block out the pain entirely.

The Chitauri drops Loki onto a metal slab that's supposed to be a sort of table. Thanos is nowhere to be seen. While that doesn't necessarily man he isn't somewhere simply out of Loki's sight, the child still finds his torturer's absence rather strange. Then the Chitauri warrior turns and leaves the room, closing a heavy steel door behind him. Loki is shocked that he has been left alone some place new. He considers attempting to escape, but quickly thinks better of it. Past escape attempts were hardly successful and had only resulted in even more severe torment that day. It just wasn't worth it any more... Loki had already accepted his fate.

When Thanos finally enters the room sometime later, Loki hasn't even moved an inch form where the Chitauri warrior had dropped him. The boy was still trying to get as much rest as he could in hopes of easing his suffering somewhat. A laughable notion which Thanos would soon see crushed. The boy's spirit is so nearly broken that Thanos can see the child's anguish plain in his too bright eyes. While the boy had ceased to cry after the third day of torture, Thanos knows other ways of forcing the child to express his pain: a violent shiver here or a blood curdling scream there. And all of it is music to Thanos's ears.

Thanos runs his knife over the seemingly sleeping child's face. The little boy's eyes immediately snap open, but otherwise he stays completely still. He has learned. Thanos moves the knife over the delicate skin but doesn't cut the child, not yet anyway. He watches as Loki's eyes follow the blade dancing over his skin. Thanos is about to dip the sharp blade into the little boy's delicate skin when there is a series of dull thuds o the closed steel door behind him. Anger ripples through him at the interruption He hurls the knife down at the table with such speed that Loki doesn't even know he threw it until it sinks into the metal slab a hair's breath form his face. Loki gasped at the proximity and stares at the knife, trying not to imagine what would have become of him had it been even a little closer.

Thanos stalks away form the petrified child and harshly jerks the odor open. "You had best have a good reason for interrupting me." Thanos's voice is low and threatening. The Chitauri at the door stumbles back a few steps, putting him out of Loki's line of sight.

"They're here, my lord. Three of them in the city."

Thanos laughs, sending shivers up the child's spine. No one should ever laugh like that; there was just something terrible and unnerving about it. "I knew they would come, but this is sooner than expected. Where are the rest?"

"No where to be found, my lord."

"Interesting." A dark smile stretches across Thanos's face. "Leave me now. And do not disturb me again." The Chitauri's head comes back in sight for a few brief seconds as he bows before Thanos, and Loki can see a smile on his face as well. this certainly couldn't mean anything good for him. And then the Chitauri was gone. Loki is once again left alone with Thanos.

Thanos walks back over to the little boy who is watching him closely with his feverish eyes. The smile is still on his face as he pulls his knife free of the table, also somewhat surprised that it managed to penetrate the durable metal. But to Loki's great surprise, Thanos tosses the knife across the room where it clatters to the floor.

"It seems your friends have taken a notion to come rescue you." He pauses and waits for the child to begin wondering if this was true or just another of Thanos's many lies. "They are outside in the city as I speak, only some tens of feet above our heads. Loki can't help but allow a small smile make its way onto his face. They wee really coming to save him! "Too bad they'll never make it this far."

Loki's hopeful smile wavers for a moment but doesn't disappear entirely. He feels he could withstand any torture Thanos may throw at him today. His brother is coming to rescue him. He only has to hold on for a little while longer... Thanos hates to see the child hopeful, but the knowledge that he will see this foolish hope shattered later will make it all worth while. The news of Thor's death would be devastating to the little boy who has finally found hope. This will be the final too Thanos needs to break this small child's spirit once and for all. But for now, he will leave him to his futile hopes. The higher his spirit rises now, the farther Thanos will see it plummet later.

Thanos grabs the child's hair and drags him down form the table. He pulls the boy back to his small room, and Loki limps and struggles to keep up with Thanos's rapid and intentionally painful pace. The only reason the kid is able to even attempt to walk like this is that Thanos is holding him up by his head. It hurts, but Loki really doesn't care right now. He's glad Thanos has decided to dump him back in the safety of his cell until his big brother comes for him.

Without another word spoken, Thanos flings Loki into the dark room. The small boy bounces a little when he hits the floor with the force of Thanos's throw By the time the kid can focus past the pain consuming his body, the door is closed, and Thanos is gone.

Now all he has to do is wait for Thor.

Loki drifts in and out of a restless sleep all through the next couple of hours. This is the longest the child has been left alone since coming here. It's the most he's managed to sleep too, even if he isn't sleeping well. His nightmares make sure of that. Even here, in this nightmare, he is plagued by still worse nightmares. The poor kid doesn't understand how this could even be possible.

He is in the middle o f one such dream when he is awakened by a loud bang just outside of his room. Little Loki cries out as he is ripped form his horrible dreams ot an only slightly less horrible reality. Someone's laughing at him on the other side of the door. "Bad dream?" A raspy Chitauri voice asks him, mockingly Loki doesn't even bother with responding to the warrior. He barely acknowledges his presence at all.

But then another voice sounds, and another figure takes the place of the Chitauri scurried off down the hallway. Loki recognized the voice as belonging to Thanos, but he found this odd as Thanos never came to drag Loki out himself. What is so special about this time?

"Don't you look blooming with life now?" Loki still wore a defiant smile on his face as he looked up at Thanos. "How unlike your little friends."

"Wh- What?" The child's new found confidence falters, and his smile fades. He couldn't mean...

"Your friends are dead, you wretched boy. Struck down trying to save such a pathetic child. Are you proud? Your friends died because of you."Loki's heart seemed to skip a few beats as he was told of the Avengers' deaths. Could they really be dead? How? How could this be?

"N - No! I don't believe you!" Loki shouts at Thanos form where he lay on the floor. Thanos throws his head back and laughs heartily at the boy's spirited denial.

"No? What reason have I to lie to a worthless brat such as yourself?" Thanos stops and listens as the little boy babbles nonsense into the darkness, unable to cope with what he's just been told. "Would you like to know how they died?" Thanos taunts the traumatized child. "No? Not even your dear brother?" The child's breathing stops. Complete silence settles over them.

Thanos walks into the room and towers over the distraught little boy. "I killed him myself. He fought so hard to get to you, and yet his life was so easily crushed." The little boy whimpers and shakes his head violently, covering his ears even though Thanos's voice still reaches him plainly. Thanos kneels in front of the boy, so he now looks directly into the child's eyes as he goes on. "Your brother wept and begged for his life before he died. Pathetic, just like you." Thanos sneers at Loki's expression of complete hopelessness.

Then an unexpected fire flashes in the mini-trickster's eyes. Loki spits in Thanos's face with a burst of intense hatred. "My brother would never beg" the boy's voice is little more than a whisper and holds far more menace than any child should have been capable of mustering.

"Insolent fool!" Thanos pulls Loki form the floor and pins his back to the wall, holding the child up off the floor by his neck. Loki gasps and struggles despite the pain it stirs up inside him. Thanos is outraged and ready to wring the life form the scrawny brat.

Loki panics. Thanos may really kill him this time. He fights with every scrap of strength he has, but his body screams in protest. And it's no use. He's far too weak to force Thanos to loose his grip on him. It's getting harder and harder to fight. His lungs burn form the lack of air. The child begins growing dizzy form lack of air and cut off circulation. He can hear his blood rushing in his ears as the world seems to start spinning and melting all around him.

Loki's Point Of View

Maybe this isn't such a bad thing... Everything will be better once I'm gone. I won't be able to hurt anyone ever again Nobody else will ever suffer or die for my sake. Nobody will have to worry about taking care of me as a kid or locking me up as a grown up. There's no reason for me to go on any more.

There's nothing wrong with me giving up at this point.

With everything I've done, I know I'm not good enough for Valhalla when I die, so I won't get to see my brother again event hat way. He's lost to me no matter what happens now. No one else would even care what's happening or going to happen to me anyway.

The darkness is closing in on me, threatening to drown me. I stop fighting. I welcome the end as I fall away into darkness.

Third Person Point Of View

Thanos holds Loki by his neck until the child stops resisting. The boy becomes limp in his grasp, and his eyes fall closed. This is the end for the wretched trickster. He was an amusing toy while his life force lasted, but in the end he failed even in this. Thanos would be glad to be rid of the Asgardian pest.

Then something very heavy crashed into the back of Thanos's head. He drops Loki to the floor as he stumbles against the wall. Furious, Thanos turns to see who had dared to strike him.

Standing boldly in the doorway were Bruce, Tony, and Thor. Mjolnir is back in Thor's hand already, and the thunder god holds his weapon up, ready to attack again. Bruce is already in the form of the Hulk and is covered in what seems to be Chitauri blood. Tony stands with his back to the others, facing the stairway which breaks off of the hallway only a few feet form the door to Loki's cell. A Chitauri warrior leaps into the hallway form the stairs, and Tony immediately blasts it in the face before it can follow through with its intended attack. There are still dozens of the warriors in the old building above and the deserted city beyond. Thanos had instructed the Chitauri to dispose of the meddlesome Avengers, but apparently Loki wasn't the only failure in his ranks. When he speaks, it sounds more like a growl. "You would have done well to stay away."

"And you would have done well to have left my brother alone." Thor's voice is tense with barely contained rage.

More Chitauri continue to drop down the stairs for Tony to shoot, but the tide seems like it will never end. "Think we could hurry this along a bit?" Thor needs no further encouragement. He hurls Mjolnir at Thanos again.

Thanos responds by shouting and swinging his arm out to meet the hammer. Mjolnir flies to the side and crashes into the wall nearby before returning to Thor. Bruce changes forward at the kidnapper, slamming him back into the wall. Dust and bits of stone shower the motionless child int he floor. The Hulk roars in Thanos's face as he hits him again knocking him away form the little boy now. Thanos lands a blow of his own on Bruce's face, causing the Hulk to stagger back form him a short way. Thor runs over and is already swinging Mjolnir as he reaches Thanos. The enemy enemy dodges to the side and hits Thor with a counterattack which knocks the thunder god flat on the floor. Thanos jumps towards him to crush him on the ground, but Bruce hits him just as he lunges forward. Thanos falls off balance and tumbles to he floor. He takes Bruce's feet out form beneath him with a sweeping kick, but the green beast smashes his fists down Thanos as he falls. Back on his feet now, Thor slams Mjolnir down at im as well. Thanos avoids Thor's attack and kicks Bruce away form him. He moves forward with his attacks on Banner, but while he's focused on the Hulk, Thor bashes Thanos's head with Mjolnir. The villain crashes through the stone wall beside him and lets in a pile of rubble in the next room over. Thor strikes Mjolnir against the wall, burying Thanos in the debris. Hopefully that would buy them sufficient time for escape.

Banner grunts and moves to stand next to Thor. Tony is still keeping the Chitauri at bay at the door. "If you're done playing, let's take the kid and get out of here!" Thor ran to where Loki lay on the floor. He still hasn't so much as twitched since Thanos dropped him.

"Are we too late? Banner!"

Bruce picks up the little boy and walks towards the door, leaving Thor sitting dumbly on the ground. There really wasn't time to worry about the kid's condition now. The best thing they could do for him is to get im away form this awful place. Thor scrambles to his feet and chases after Bruce and Tony s they begin fighting their way out of the eerie basement. The three of them fight through the waves of Chitauri. There are many of them, but they are not a significant threat at this point, and the trio cuts through them easily. The Hulk keeps Loki cradled in one arm while crushing Chitauri resistance with the other.

They fight their way out into the streets, glad to leave the creepy building behind. Once they reach the edge of the deserted city, the Chitauri stop attacking them. They do not pursue them beyond the city, likely not instructed to go any farther by Thanos who is still currently buried in rubble. The Avengers didn't stop to question it, and they certainly don't want to be around when Thanos breaks free.

Bruce manages to calm enough to revert to his normal form along the way back to their plane. He carries Loki more carefully now. It was impossible to tell the extent of the child's injuries before, but now Banner can tell just form holding him that he isn't in good shape at all. But he is alive, if only just. Tony drops into the pilot seat of the plane while Thor and Banner look after Loki. By nightfall, they were back at Stark Tower. Loki is hurt to the point that it si impossible to tell if he will be able to survive the ordeal or not. Banner did the best he could to patch the kid up, and it was all up to Loki now. He may make it, and he may not. They would have to wait and see; there is nothing else they can do for him. Thor refuses to leave his little brother's side.

A week goes by, and Loki remains unresponsive and utterly still. It is difficult to tell that the child is even alive. And for how long would he be? Loki hangs at the edge of death, and at any given time, he could slip over that edge.