AN: In advance, I am so, so sorry.
Hours passed. The sun set, the moon rose, and it was close to setting as well. Asfrid almost fell asleep over the course of the hours, the physical exhaustion of the day catching up with her. Every time her head drooped, or her eyelids were closing, one of the Avengers crouched beside her, held up an airhorn next to her head, and depressed the button for a while. Asfrid's head would shoot straight up, her eyes would snap open, and she would tear up. She always hated loud noises right in her ears. Clint snarled in her ear one time, "That was for Tasha, you bitch."
"Go ahead, and cry, Princess," Tony spat at her when it was his turn. "Bruce sure did after the hell you put him through." Steve didn't say anything after he startled her awake, just gave her a cold stare that made it's way to her heart, icy fear constricting it. Thor never once came near her, but he kept his gaze locked on her, only looking over at Loki every once in a while to see if he was awake yet. Natasha was maybe the worst. She only said three words, but they made Asfrid hang her head in shame, because she had played her part so well that she deceived a woman who lied for a living and hurt a man who had been hurt and tricked for a very long time. "He trusted you," Natasha told her, Asfrid's ears still ringing from the sudden blast.
Loki's head rose slowly, the pupil of one eye dilated so much, there was only a thin ring of green around it, the other a pin point of black in a circle of green. He blinked once, twice, three times, but still stared at nothing in particular. His head wobbled a lot, concerning Asfrid that he may have a concussion or perhaps something worse. The once proud god was now looking around, a confused look plastered on his face, and a stop-and-start string of "wash guin awn," "Ashfrad? For?" and other worrisome phrases leaving his mouth.
"Oh, great. Wonderful. You've given him a concussion. Way to go, Thor. Fantastic. This is just fan-freaking-tastic," Clint exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. Natasha put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down, but he just shrugged it off. "You got any way to fix this, Stark?"
Tony shook his head no, explaining, "He's just gotta ride it out, Legolas. Then maybe he'll stop sounding like he's had a few too many." Clint rolled his eyes, putting his hands on his hips quickly, and sighing heavily. "Great. This is great." Clint ground his teeth together, the pain only slightly distracting him from the concussed Norse god in front of him. He stormed away from the others, kicking Asfrid hard in the leg on his way by, making her cry out as her ankle snapped. "Oh, shut up, it'll heal by the time 'real power' is fully functional," he hissed at her.
The moon set, and dawn was approaching once Loki was fully awake and alert. He shook his head, the long, dark hair swaying from side to side. He looked up at Asfrid, and saw that she was afraid, but he wasn't sure of what. "Well, looky here, boys! We got ourselves a live one!" Natasha exclaimed to her teammates. Tony and Clint hooted loudly, an exaggerated sound of triumph. Thor and Steve remained silent, stoic, and steely-eyed. Thor shook his head once, turning to leave the room. "I will not remain here and watch a woman who is with child get tortured by insolent manchildren," Thor muttered as he stomped up the steps to his room.
"Awww, c'mon, Thor! Don't be a wet blanket!" Clint called after him. Thor ignored him, continuing up the stairs while Clint waved his hand at the burly god's retreating back and clapped once, and then rubbed his hands together. "Let's get this party started, then!" He smiled evilly, swaggering over to Asfrid's chair. He smiled down at her, bright white teeth bared between thin pink lips. She tried to shrink away from him, but he just kept smiling at her, then brought his hand across her face savagely, her head whipping the other way.
"NO!" Loki roared, straining to get free of his bindings. He shook his hands, but the cuffs weren't budging. Clint's head snapped over his shoulder. "Shut the hell up, Loki! If you don't keep quiet about this, your little son gets the chopping block too!" Loki shut his mouth, his eyes filling with tears as he saw Clint pull a knife from Asfrid' belt. "Only thing we got that'll hurt you good and proper," Clint tapped her on the nose with the hilt, then began dragging the blade over her face, trailing down to her jaw, past the column of her neck, and let it rest on her exposed collarbone. He applied more pressure, and knife cut through her skin. She hissed, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. "What's the matter? Is Her Majesty not feeling so brave and royal now? You hurting? So was Tasha, you lying whore bitch!" Clint yelled, cutting Asfrid's cheek in a swift swipe, and the girl couldn't contain her cry of pain. Loki let out a strangled sob from across the room, he ached to run to her and make the pain stop, but he couldn't do a single damn thing about it.
The mischievous god's head dropped to his chest, his lean body wracked with silent sobs of pain and despair. He, apparently, wasn't even allowed to have the small comfort of keeping his eyes shut. Steve was now stationed behind his chair, and Steve yanked a fistful of the raven locks roughly, forcing Loki to keep his head up. The dark-haired man stared hatefully up at his blond captor, who stared down with equal hate in his eyes before roughly shoving Loki's head to face Asfrid and Clint again. Tony laughed when Clint cut off the torn right sleeve of Asfrid's armored shirt. "Don't do anything else good until I get back! I've got loads of toys to make the bitch pay for what she did," the genius called, jogging over to the stairs, JARVIS pulling his armor off of him as he made his way over. Tony stopped on a stair about halfway up, turned and smiled gleefully. "This'll be great!" Tony cackled as he bound up the remaining steps as quickly as possible. Clint contented himself to carving his name into her arms over and over again with the knife.
"Feel familiar, Princess? Bruce had it so much worse when you did it. These are designed to cut through, what? Three inches of chain mail, and leather skin? And he's just a freaking human, with human skin! It's a goddamn miracle you didn't kill him with this shit. Those cuts on his stomach were pretty deep," Clint dragged the knife down Asfrid's chest, down to her stomach, letting the point of the blade rest a little above her navel. "Maybe we'll give you a little tummy tuck too, Harley Quinn."
"I guess that makes Reindeer Games Joker, then, huh Legolas?" Tony called, skipping steps and peering around a large box full of things Asfrid couldn't see. But she could see baseball bats sticking out of the top of it, hear the noise of metal shifting against metal over and over as Tony jumped off the third step up and landed as gracefully as he could with a box full of torture instruments in his arms. Clint tucked the knife under his arm and gave Tony a round of applause. Tony set the box down and bowed dramatically.
Asfrid let out a hoarse noise, and looked around the room frantically for anyone who would give her any sympathy. Loki was bound, tears streaming down his pale face. Steve was staring right at her, blue eyes invading her soul. Thor was long gone, and Clint and Tony were rifling through the box for a new toy. Natasha was perched on the bar, legs crossed daintily, just watching Asfrid bleed. She smiled as the magic girl made a pleading face at her, and poured another glass of vodka from the bottle next to her on the bar. The redhead shook her head slightly twice, a faint smile playing around her lips. She slowly mouthed "no" at Asfrid and grinned as the girl's face crumpled as her last source of hope crushed like an ant under a boot. Asfrid sobbed once, quickly, and looked up at Loki across from her again. He was crying harder than she was, and she managed to mouth "I love you," at him and he smiled a bittersweet smile for a split second before mouthing "I love you too," at her. Steve noticed their correspondence and pulled another handful of Loki's hair from the base of his head straight back, making him hiss in pain and let out a quick gasp.
Tony got up from his kneeling position on the floor, adjusting something on his right hand. "You ready for this, Sunshine?" Tony asked, never looking at Asfrid, just at his hand. He flexed his fingers and made his way slowly over to Asfrid's chair. He knelt in front of her, and whispered, "You're the worst kind of garbage for what you did to Bruce. And I'm going to make you pay for that. Nobody pokes and prods my rage monster but me." Tony stood up, placed his left hand on the back of the chair, and leaned on it. He took his right hand from behind his back and turned it so the brass knuckles he was wearing would catch the light. "I won't tell about your little Ginsu knife set if you won't tell about my knuckles. They're illegal in good old NY, but nobody's ever found 'em. Got them one time in France. Good country." Tony shot her a winning smile, then punched her in the face. Asfrid's jaw cracked, blood spilling from her mouth almost instantly. Tony took a deep, satisfied breath, and hit her again. He aimed for her stomach and ribs this time not caring that she was pregnant any more. He kept hitting her with the knuckles on, in the arms, the face, the ribs, stomach, thighs, anywhere he could get. He eventually took them off, threw them to the side, called to Clint for a bat, and caught an aluminum one the archer tossed through the air from the box.
"No, please," Asfrid choked out, her own blood dripping from her mouth, staining her clothes. Tony only gave her a quick, genuine looking smile, and swung the bat low from his hip, hitting Asfrid square in the stomach, making her cough and heave, blood splattering the floor of Stark Tower. "Well, now you've gone and made a mess of my floor." Tony hit her again. "What ever shall we do about," swoosh "that?" Tony grunted as the light aluminum bat cut through the air, a rush of air whistling behind the shaft. Instead of hitting a ball like it was meant to and making an echoing sound, it hit flesh and bone making a dull thump on Asfrid's shin. She cried out in pain once more, before getting backhanded across the face by Tony. "Shut up! Oh my god, all you do is whine, whine, whine! I am sick-" swoosh "and tired-" clinkclinkclink "of you-" slap "bitching and moaning all the damn time!" Tony screamed at Asfrid, throwing the bat away from him and resorting to his own hands as reliable torture devices.
Hours of torture passed, and every time Tony or Clint brought out a new thing to beat Asfrid with, Loki let out another strangled noise, and Steve growled in his ear, "Shut the hell up. This right here is all your fault. You got her into this mess, and there's no way you'll be able to get her out of it. How does it feel, Loki? To be helpless in front of the love of your miserable life? And now, because of you, she's going to die at the hands of the very people you pissed off." Loki's body shook with new silent sobs, somehow still crying after the many hours of watching Asfrid be beaten and bloodied by the two men across the room.
Clint joined Tony in front of Asfrid's chair, a large knife held in one hand. He swung it up so the blade was shining the early morning sunlight into Asfrid's tearful purple eyes. "So sad. Boo-hoo, I'm crying," Clint deadpanned. He turned so that Asfrid and Loki had a clear view of each other and said, "Say your goodbyes, your prayers, your useless spells, whatever treacherous slutbags like you say before they die." Loki's eyes widened as far as they could and he began whispering, "No, no, no, no no no..." but Steve covered the pale mouth with a tanned hand.
"Nighty night, bitch," Clint snarled as he plunged the blade into Asfrid's stomach, dragging it sideways so the blood and innards could spill out into her own lap. She was only able to let out a gurgling noise from her throat as her head fell back and her own blood slid down her throat. "Guess that whole 'take over the worlds and have a pretty queen and some demonspawn' plan didn't really work out for you, huh?" Clint asked of Loki, walking over to him and wiping Asfrid's blood from the blade on Loki's cape. Loki made a disgusted face as his love's blood seeped into the material, and gagged when he was forced to look at the sight of Asfrid's dead body over and over again, her intestines lying in a pile on her lap, hanging out of her abdominal cavity.
"That's it for you two. No more evil plotting and secret babies for Loki and Asshat!" Tony smiled at Loki, and wiped the blood off of his hands onto the god's cape as well. Steve threw Loki's head down, Natasha hopped off the bar, and Tony and Clint packed up their box. Loki was finally able to be alone with a dead Asfrid still tied to the chair with bloody rope as more blood dripped steadily onto the floor. The sound became the only thing Loki focused on, his own lamentations finished because he had gone hoarse cursing the Avengers repeatedly in fifteen different ways to Sunday for hours. He sobbed, a broken sound, and that filled the deafening silence Loki heard, despite the growing sound of New York traffic.
I just want to thank my followers for being there, and especially Little Miss Meg who offered words of encouragement such as "You amazing bitch" when I told her about this chapter. Thanks, you guys, it meant a lot to me that you cared about this piece of crap. I hope you don't hate me after this chapter.
Lots of love,
Because Loki.