A/N: Thanks to EvilConcubine, Guest, CatGirl04, Mikkeneko, MilkyWayGalaxy, Guest, HalfAsleepWriter, CharmingChick333, DarkSkyDepth, irinab, Autumn, Alice Nightray, THORKISUPPORT, Aquarinus, jacquelinelittle, ClintBarton-Loki'sButtWarmer, Guest, Constance Bonacieux, smiling-is-my-favorite-pastime, Dazja, .GrapplingGun4085, XxLokiLaufeysonxX, Tabbycat948, Potkanka, oOo, Ratchetsfangirl, Guest, Melting Angels (twice xD), Haruko-Mizumi, My-chan, TheCresantMoonWolf, Ynath Esrith, Lexi and TheRedDragonEnforcer4 for reviewing. :-)

I thought I might say, because it's been suggested several times before, that in my personal head Loki doesn't have kids. Sorry but unfortunately I just don't see him as a father, or cheating death as that easy.

Incidentally, I just learned that in The Avengers, Thor has Loki's horned helmet motif carved on his vambraces: a kind of Norse way of carrying dead loved ones into battle. *Mind blown by FEELS*. Ahem, just had to get that off my chest...

Loki woke from his drugged stupor to find himself surrounded by featureless concrete walls, a single electric light glaring down on him. As he stirred, shackles clanked and rattled around his limbs; the chains, when he tugged at them, refused to give and seemed to be built into the room itself. Dazed, he managed to stand, and pressed himself into a corner. He surmised that this was not a permanent prison cell, merely somewhere to wait while they found him one.

Claustrophobia had never bothered Loki, but as the silence of solitude pressed in on him he struggled not to hyperventilate. Not since Barton had pinned him to the floor had he been trapped, and not since the Chitauri had he been chained. Where was Thor? Loki almost began to cry, but managed not to. His captors might visit him at any moment, and he did not want Director Fury to walk in and witness him snivelling.

Loki began to take stock of the situation, counting the things he had to be grateful for. He was not dead. He was not being tortured yet. There was still a chance that Thor might come, and then Loki might be able to reason with him. Too weary to pace, and trying to conserve his strength, he sat down in the corner.

He had killed four of the Midgardians, he remembered that much. The sedatives had not been strong enough, and as they were carrying him through the facility, he had begun to fight back. Even one-armed, he had managed to lash out with all the strength fear could offer him, before something sharp had entered his neck and sent him back into blackness. He cursed himself for hurting the humans – it would only make it harder for Thor to understand how sorry he was.

The doors unlocked and opened, and he found himself at gunpoint. Loki moved away until the chains were taut and he slipped to the floor. The Agents' faces were hidden beneath their helmet visors, but he could almost hear their hearts thudding; they were as frightened as he was. Loki tried to give them a disarming smile. I just killed their friends...

'There's no time to transport him...'

Flat on his back, Loki raised his shackled hands in surrender. The barrel of more than one gun was shoved against his head. Panicking, Loki began to pull against his restraints. I have to get out of here, I have to get out –

'Hold still! He's going to get loose before we've even left the building.'

They're leaving? What's happening? Abruptly one of the chains snapped loose, the metal spike which secured it to the room's structure pulling free of the concrete. The unexpected lack of resistence made him collapse. Part of him knew there was nothing more he could do to free himself.

'No he won't – ' One of the Agents lowered his gun and stepped up to Loki. He was a big man and at that moment in Loki's life was stronger than the Asgardian. 'Damn it. You – ' Grabbing the spike, he rammed it point-first through Loki's defenceless side, penetrating Loki's weak magical defences, bypassing nigh-indestructible bone to pass through flesh, so hard the steel tip cracked the concrete, ' – You stay – '

Loki screamed and the man stumbled. In frustration, he stomped on the steel until it became embedded. Within seconds they were gone and Loki was left alone. Loki couldn't begin to move. His side was trying and failing to heal, blood pooling in the crack which now ran through the concrete, and it hurt so much he could barely even breathe and he was ready to pass out. Eventually he managed to recover a little, drawing in deep breaths to steady himself.

He heard a deafening roar in the distance. Banner had come for him? Wild hope surged within Loki; the doctor at least had not abandoned him. And perhaps he did not come alone – perhaps he brought the others with him...Stark...Thor...

'Please...' With his good hand, Loki scratched at the metal encircling his broken arm, unable to find a chink to pry the shackles off. 'Banner!' he screamed as loud as he could, straining his throat raw, 'Help me!'

'Loki!' Was that Thor's voice? Thor was coming, Thor hadn't left him after all, Thor would never leave him...

'Thor! THOR! Brother!' Loki began crying out wordlessly in pure panic and horror, until his screaming exertions shifted the metal spike inside him. Nearly insensible, he lay there.

'Loki, where are you?' he heard his brother's voice, so close it made his heart jump.

'Thor! Help me!' Loki begged.

'Brother! I'm here, Loki, I'm here – '

The doors opened and there was Thor – Loki reached uselessly across the floor towards him, and then the fabric of the world seemed to tear apart at the seams. For a fraction of a heartbeat, there was pure agony, his whole body on fire inside and out; and then he was cut loose, drifting away into a bright light and a soft silence where nothing could hurt him anymore.

A few weeks after Thor awoke from his induced coma, The All-Father finally brought him home. A great dark rift opened above Stark Tower and hung there, ready and waiting for him. Last time, Thor had left Earth in grim victory; this time, in subdued desolation. He bid his friends farewell with little ceremony.

'Will you come back?' asked Steve.

'If ever you have need of me, I will be there. But otherwise...my friends...I will not return to the realm in which my brother died.'

Thor had not eaten or slept since Loki's death, and looked pale, even gaunt. Romanoff gave him a brief hug. Banner gripped his hand. Stark and Rogers both patted his shoulder, and so, after a second's hesitation, did Barton. Looking around at them, Thor wondered, Will they still be alive when I return? I could remain on Asgard, and by the time I return, everyone I know will be dead and all their troubles will have passed.

'Goodbye, my friends. Be safe and well.'

'Take care of yourself,' Romanoff replied, and then he flew up into the rift and let dark energy carry him home, unresisting.

The glimmer of Asgard held no brightness for Thor, nor Odin's greeting embrace any comfort.

'Father. Loki is...'

'I know. Heimdall saw.'

Speaking took so much effort, and he could not yet bring himself to face the grief clawing his heart to shreds. They walked together in silence before Thor, longing for isolation, went indoors, dismissing the servants who tried to help him settle down and remove his armour and cape. To his great relief, there were no clamouring crowds to meet him; even the Warriors Three had not been notified of his return yet. He was left in peace. As he walked the shadows in the gleaming gold halls, he remembered: Loki walked these halls...his nose buried in a book, or just pacing thoughtfully. We ran here as children. We played hide-and-seek and he always won.

His feet carried him to Loki's bed-chambers – a place he had frequented as a child, but had learned to leave alone once Loki had grown up to be secretive and solitary. Dust lay thick on the multitude of books and scrolls. He found no childhood toys, no memories; Loki had not kept any sentimental keepsakes. The gold-embroidered green bed-sheets were neat and undisturbed. This bed would be cold forever, the only thing to warm it the rays of sunlight through the window. Loki would never sleep here again. Loki is gone. Jane is gone. Loki is gone. Everything is gone.

'Loki?' he simply asked aloud, as if Loki would appear. He almost expected it – hoped against hope that a shimmering golden replica would step from the shadows, or even Loki himself in the flesh. But there was nothing but emptiness.For the second time, he mourned for his dead brother.

Eventually his mother sought him out. Frigga entered, angelic as always with her golden hair and softly rustling gown.

'Son. I've been looking for you. Have you been avoiding me?'

'Mother. The humans...Loki...'

'I know,' she struggled to keep her composure, swallowing back tears, 'I dreamed it. A flash of...' She could not bring herself to say "pain", not wanting to torment Thor with the knowledge that Loki had died in agony.

'He's gone,' said Thor simply, brokenly, 'He's just...gone.'

'My son...' She looked ready to shatter beneath the weight of grief, but for Thor's sake she managed to summon a warm smile, and embraced him. 'My poor boy, you look so pale. Do you need to visit the healing room?'

'No.'

'Thor,' she placed a supportive hand on his shoulder, 'You need not try to hide your grief.'

'I am not.' In his mother's embrace he would've wept as he had when Loki had first fallen from the Bifrost, but this time his eyes were dry and his voice steady. All the tears in the Nine Realms could not have relieved his grief. 'Mother.' Despite the words he proceeded to say, there was no anger in his voice. 'Could Father not have brought me home earlier? Loki would've been with me, and he would still be alive...'

'Thor.' Frigga took his face in both her hands. 'When the Tesseract failed to deliver you, your Father worked day and night to bring you home.'

'In the end it was not enough to save Loki,' Thor said flatly, almost harshly, 'I hurt Loki, and he died before we could reconcile. I failed him. And I failed you too, for losing your second son.'

'You've failed nobody.'

'Do not try to spare me the blame, Mother. I know it's mine.'

'At least share it with us. We were responsible for Loki as much as you were – if not more, for we raised you both.'

'And he loved you, but he trusted me most. And I did not live up to that trust. It's all over. I am returned from Midgard alone, and I am never going back.'

'Sir,' Agent Hill walked up behind Director Fury, 'The Avengers are down to five. Thor has gone home. We can leave him alone, we owe him that much.'

'It was a necessary measure – and effective. Does he intend to return in the future?'

'Only if Earth needs him.'

'Earth won't need him,' Fury asserted, and turned his gaze to the rows of monitors displaying the Helicarrier's camera feed. 'His type heals quickly. He'll recover sooner or later. And then we'll have to figure out what to do with him.'

He was not referring to Thor.

The light and silence did not last long enough; consciousness eventually returned. Was he still burning? It felt like it. Parts of him were dead – their nerves burnt away – and refused to move no matter how his brain screamed at him to, but every other centimetre seemed to be on fire. He was a raw piece of meat, the gentle air angrily stinging his exposed flesh and creeping under the bandaging. Every waking moment was pain.

Sometimes the blessed void would come back, enfolding him like an embrace, a relief for which he was grateful; but for the rest of the time, he was agonisingly conscious. During one of the lucid periods, he found a tiny degree of mobility, and stirred weakly on the soft surface on which he lay, breathing raggedly into seared lungs as dry as desert sand, and trying uselessly to move. He couldn't feel his hands; if he could, he would've known he was chained.

Something smelled like charred meat, and it took him a while to figure out it was himself. His neck ached from the angle at which he lay. With great difficulty he turned his head slightly to the side – realising as his face dragged along the pillow that his hair was gone, along with most of his skin – and opened his eyes, relieved to find his eyelids still worked, but he could not see. Loki was blind.