Loki lost the track of time already. There was nothing to mark the progression. The cell was invariably dark and silent and this time he didn't even have his own voice to talk himself down.

The guards hadn't come back yet. Loki knew they'd have to, sooner or later. Odin's sentence was a life of imprisonment, not – a slow, but still inherently measurable and final – death of starvation. He didn't know what method they'd employ to keep him alive, but whatever it would be, Loki was convinced it would make him miss the tube the humans used dearly.

The port was still embedded in his shoulder – Bruce had no time to remove it – and Loki rubbed his chin on the spot, just to remind himself that it was real. That he really had been there. That there was a time, not so long ago, when he was wanted.

Loved.

Natasha was safe. This he kept on telling himself until he believed it. The spell Odin used had been a simple one and it would have broken the moment the All-Father had dropped his scrutiny. Tony, Bruce and Clint were safe too. Odin didn't care about them enough to exact vengeance. He was there for Loki and Loki alone.

They were safe. They had to be.

His arms were going numb again from the position they were kept in and he shifted, setting the chains to clinking and forcing a hiss out of his lungs.

Earlier, in a moment of weakness that turned into a fit of desperation, he had pulled and tugged on the chains in a futile attempt to break free. It only left himself exhausted and his wrists slick with blood.

At least for a while he had the dull throbbing that his every heartbeat stirred in the damaged flesh to measure the time. Thump, thump, thump, to mark away infinity.

It soon lost the allure though. Now, he mostly just wished his healing was back, but when he reached for his magic, he found the same silence and darkness inside.

He had no idea what kind of spell the shackles held. Perhaps none at all – the cell itself was secured by powerful charm, meant to keep any use of power safely inside its confines – and his magic was truly gone for good. The last time he had been here, he still had his illusions to distract himself with, craft imaginary worlds to escape into, at least until his powers had turned brittle, just like his mind.

It would come, he knew. That moment, when his mind would finally crumble and become a raw, weeping wound, and every thought would feel like salt rubbed into it. It would be the time when he could no longer tell the hallucinations his deprived brain produced apart from reality. When all he would be able to do is stare blankly into the dark, unseeing. When even the sound of his own breath would become an unbearable noise.

It wasn't the time for that yet though. He could still think. And so, after imagining what each of his friends might be doing right now – he had no way to tell what time of day it was, so he had gone with morning this time around – he returned to Odin's words, the last lesson the king had decided to share with him, just as straightforward as the rest of them.

Even your own vile nature is a deception.

It could mean anything, but after some deliberation, Loki still developed a theory he was yearning to vet. Sadly, with his magic unavailable to him, it was bound to remain a surmise.

There was a sound, one that wasn't his own heart or the subtle clinks the chains emitted with the minutest of moves. It was faint and far away, but it was still there and Loki perked up, listening. Were the guards coming back already? It seemed too early for auditory hallucinations, but he couldn't rule those out completely either.

The sound grew closer and more complex, multiple footsteps and a low murmur of voices, too weak and too garbled to distinguish and, despite his best efforts, Loki's heart did an excited flip in his chest. It didn't matter what the guards were coming here for – it couldn't be anything pleasant anyway – he was going to see another person and hear a voice again, and so soon, too. That was no small luxury.

Then the door flung open and the light blinded him momentarily. And when his eyes got used to it and he took a good look at the visitor, Loki had only one conclusion to make.

I have gone mad already, Loki thought, staring at the man in golden armor.

Stark stopped in the doorway blocking the way and didn't look like he was about to move away anytime soon, so she pushed him away bodily, which wasn't all that easy.

Loki was sitting in the opposite corner, his back to the wall, his eyes half-shut, squinting against the light. The lantern she was carrying clattered to the floor, forgotten, and she lunged. She dropped to her knees and pulled Loki into an embrace.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck and edged closer, his erratic breath ruffling the frills of her dress.

Stark opened the visor. "I begin to think you're doing it on purpose, just because you enjoy being rescued from prison by yours truly," he sneered then leaned over to examine the chains holding Loki in place. "How do you think my laser beam measures against Asgardian steel?"

Loki pulled away and nudged his chin to signal Tony to try.

"Could you, uhm…"

Loki bent forward, pulling the chain holding him to the wall taut. It was awfully short, too short to allow him to lie down or stand up and stretch his legs. Tony grabbed it where it connected to the collar and activated the beam. It cut through the metal cleanly and Tony kept the stump at a safe distance from Loki's skin until it cooled down.

"Here you go."

Loki nodded, then scrambled to stand up, which wasn't easy with his hands still trapped behind his back. Tony grabbed his arm, helping him up. Loki moved to turn around to let Stark take a look at the rest, then froze, mid-motion, his wide eyes on the doorway.

Thor took a step through the threshold and Loki immediately backed off, chains clinking, until the wall behind him stopped his retreat.

"Brother," Thor said in a scratchy voice.

Loki shook his head, then pressed his back closer to the wall. She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Thor agreed to help. Odin kicked him out and he is back to take his place back. He is not going to rat us out."

Loki's eyes were still full of suspicion but some of the tension drew from his frame.

Thor stood there awkwardly, then raised his lantern and looked around the cell. There wasn't a lot to examine. There was nothing in there, really. Just uneven, bare stone and two metal lugs, one in the middle of the floor and one in the wall, the same that Loki had been fucking chained to a moment ago, like a beast. As if just throwing him into a dark hole, shackled and muzzled, wasn't enough.

"Is this where father has always kept you?" Thor asked.

He already had told them on the way that – over the countless years Loki spent alone in the dungeons – he had never even once come to visit. No one had. "Father forbade it," Thor had said. Besides a vague idea of the area, he hadn't even known exactly where the cell was located and Natasha had to find it with magic. And now, upon being reminded, a new urge to slap him across the face again rose in her.

Loki nodded in a slow, wary motion.

Thor took another step forward and Loki's shoulders twitched.

"Hey, first things first, okay?" Clint said, grabbing Thor's arm. "Let Tony deal with the chains, all right?"

Loki sized Thor with a lasting stare before turning away and presenting his bound hands to Tony. The shackles were attached to the chain – running from the collar to the loop around his waist and down to the fetters on his ankles – somewhere halfway up his back, forcing his arms into a very uncomfortable-looking position. Tony started with that, mindfully angling the laser away from Loki and keeping the heated metal up until it had cooled each time.

The moment Tony cut through the chain holding Loki's wrists together, Loki turned sharply and threw his arms around Natasha, finally able to return the embrace. Tears burned in her eyes, and she could feel the unspoken words of worry and pain and sorrow his heart beat out in his chest, right into her ear.

Tony cleared his throat. "I don't mean to impose, but we're kinda in the middle of a prison break here."

She pulled away, but kept him at her arm's length, her hands around his wrists. They were bloodied under the shackles. "Can I heal you? Or could it alert Odin somehow?"

[I don't know,] Loki said.

"How about the gag?"

[There's no spell on it, at least not like before, but it will only open by the hand of those with a key.] He ran his hand over the band at his neck. [We can figure it out later. For now, I'd like to… just leave, if that's fine with you.] His eyes dashed to the door and his brows furrowed. [How did you come to Asgard anyway?]

"What is the meaning of this?" Thor demanded, his face a perfect picture of utter confusion.

Tony handed him a comm-link and he twisted it in his fingers for a moment, before putting it in his ear. That, at least, he figured out on his own, probably because he had used it before, in New York, and his attention span was wide enough to remember how they work.

"Heimdall let us in. He and some other guys that look kinda important and go by 'lord' before their names want to use you as their tool to take Odin down," Tony said. "The basic version of the plan is to tell them to shove it then get the fuck out of here as quickly as we can, but I'm open to suggestions."

Loki frowned. [They want me to kill Odin.]

"Yep."

[I need to… think about this.]

"Can you do that while we're getting the hell out of this place?" Tony said, looking around and wrinkling his nose. "My claustrophobia loves it, the rest of me – not so much."

[Yes. Very much.]

The two guards Clint tranquilized on their way in were still sleeping, and they met no other obstacles the whole way back. The door leading out of the cavern part of the dungeons reopened for Thor without a hitch. There was very little standing in his way but for Odin's words.

Natasha couldn't keep but watch Loki from the corner of her eye, to make sure he was still there, that some unknown power hadn't whisked him away again.

He was holding his head high and he walked with confidence, as if he hadn't just spent days locked in a dark cell, chained to a wall. As if the accursed muzzle wasn't back on his face to torment him all over again and there were no shackles still around his wrists and ankles, or chains, or a collar around his neck. As if he wasn't wearing tatters that didn't deserve to be called clothes. As if his entire life – the whole thousand years of trying to fit into this place – didn't lie in pieces under his bare feet.

There was just no keeping Loki down. And that was only one of the million things she loved about him.

"Is there a place where we can regroup? Like, without crossing the whole city again, preferably?" Tony asked, after Thor was done with retelling the tale of his banishment. It was surprisingly brief, even though Loki could tell there were a lot of details missing. "I think it would do us good to talk before we go on to meet up with Huey, Dewey, and Louie again."

The words were aimed at Thor, but Thor only pursed his lips. He'd never had to keep to the shadows while walking those halls.

[Is it nighttime?] Loki asked.

"Hmm. No idea." Tony patted Thor's arm, "Hey, what time was it when we first arrived?"

Thor's brows furrowed and he scratched the back of his head, as he did each and every time he had to come up with an answer to a hard question. He thought it made him appear smart and considerate. "Uhm, late evening?"

Tony sighed and Loki huffed out a laugh, then added a purposeful hum to the reaction. It didn't change a thing, but keeping silent came as an instinct and Loki absolutely hated it.

[The royal gardens,] he said. [There shouldn't be people there this late.]

Thor heard the translation and nodded. "Good thinking, brother," he said.

Loki rolled his eyes in exasperation.

The fool.

The gardens were dark and quiet, but it was a different kind of silence. That kind one could find under the open, starry sky that's not really completely quiet at all, filled with a low murmur of trickling water, the whisper of a breeze in the branches, the crunch of gravel under the feet.

He led them to the far corner of the gardens, where a small arbor stood, low stools and sitting pillows littering the floor. He used to come here to read sometimes, when he didn't feel like sitting in the shadows and breathing the dry and dusty air of the royal library. Thor or his friends never came here, it was not a tavern, nor a training ground after all, and Loki could enjoy outdoors without being bothered.

Frigg would come, on occasion, to bring a flask of cooled mead for them to share, or just to talk. She always knew where to find Loki. She always knew when he wanted to be found, too, even if he himself didn't know that at the time.

Loki took a deep breath of the cold, fresh air, fighting the tightness in his chest. It was not a time to be mawkish.

Natasha pulled him aside as the others were settling down. She grabbed her skirt and pulled it up, prompting Loki to eye her questioningly. She chortled, then pulled a blade from a sheath on her ankle.

"Here," she said, giving it to him. It was the dagger Tony made for him. "You left it behind. I thought you might want it back. You know, especially if you decide to go along with the whole assassination plan?"

[Thank you,] he said, taking it from her hands. It was warm with her body heat, but quickly cooled down in his grasp. He held it up awkwardly for a moment, not sure where to hide it. His sleeves were too loose and he had no belt, just a length of rope that held the rags he was wearing in place and it wouldn't do.

She noticed his hesitation, reached to her ankle again, unbuckled the sheath and dropped to her knee to wrap it around Loki's own ankle, just above the shackle, eyed her work critically, then adjusted the strap. "There."

He knelt too, and slid the dagger in. It fit perfectly, of course.

Her face was at the same level now, just a few thumbs away, and there was this warmth and affection he so craved in her eyes, like always. [You think I should do it?]

She reached out and her hand cupped his cheek, her thumb tracing a line under his eye. "I don't know. I know Odin is a tyrant. Always had been, and now everyone caught up. I hate him for what he did to you, this time and all those times in the past. But they have no right to ask this of you. You don't owe them anything."

[Asgard is weakened with Odin as the king. He is mad and he lost the touch with reality. When war comes to their doorstep the people will need someone to lead them. Someone who cares…] Loki's eyes drifted to Thor inadvertently. Was he ready to take on the mantle? Did it even matter? There was no one else anyway.

Natasha placed her other hand on his chest, right over his heart. "I can't tell you what to do. But I can promise that I'll stand by your side no matter what you decide."

Her eyes were shining in the faint light of the stars and Loki believed every single word. He reached out and brushed his finger over her lips and her eyelids fluttered as she leaned into his touch.

He should say no. They should leave, right now. They didn't even need Heimdall. He could guide them to the doorway of the dark path leading to Midgard and instruct Natasha how to open it. They could go, to build that home he so yearned to share with her. He could push Asgard from his thoughts completely, leave it behind, to burn. He owed them nothing. All his efforts were rewarded with nothing but hurt and lies.

He looked up, at the gleaming walls of the palace towering over them, at the tips of the spires behind the orchard, at the starry sky above, all so achingly familiar.

He should say no.

But he couldn't.

[I'm going to do it,] he said.

She didn't say anything, just nodded, then leaned closer and her lips touched his forehead and she pulled him into an embrace. For the first time, he truly felt at home in Asgard.

There was a shuffle of footsteps. It stopped a few steps away. Loki braced himself and pulled away, his hand lingering on Natasha's side for a few heartbeats, to make this moment last a little while longer.

Thor was standing above them, frowning. He was wearing Tony's camera glasses. He came prepared.

"What's up?" Natasha asked, and there was a pinch of salt in her voice.

"Uhm," Thor hesitated. "I'd like to talk to my brother."

[Talk then,] Loki's hands showed.

"Alone?"

She didn't move, just looked at Loki, the unsaid question hanging in the air.

[It's fine. It will only take a moment.] There wasn't much left to be said between him and Thor anyway.

She nodded and got up. Even the Asgardian clothes looked good on her, as if she had been born and raised here, but he still preferred her usual outfits, perhaps for the very same reason.

"I'll be with the others if you need me," she said and turned to walk away toward the arbor, just to trip on the hem of her dress after a few steps. She cursed, gathered her skirts and continued on. Loki smiled, not minding the metal rubbing the corners of his mouth. This scene had called for a smile.

Loki sat back on his haunches and looked up at Thor. [What do you want?]

Thor stood there awkwardly for a second, unsure what to do, then sat down on the grass in front of Loki, crossing his legs. It wasn't a position worthy of a king, but Loki saved the comment. Thor's eyes were avoiding Loki's face, focusing on the shackles on his wrists instead. Loki folded his hands, hiding them under his arms.

"Brother," he started and Loki sighted. Thor was really asking for it.

[I'm not your brother. You should have figured it out by now.]

"Not by blood," Thor admitted.

[I didn't know there was any other way.]

"We were raised as brothers. I loved you as one. Isn't that enough?"

Loki chuckled. [We were raised as rivals, Thor. The golden child and the vile monster in disguise. This couldn't have ended in any other way. You were always meant to despise me in the end. This is what Odin had always planned to happen.]

"He failed then. I don't despise you, Loki. I don't understand why…"

[What a shock.]

Thor paused and waited for Jarvis to deliver the lines. "I see your ability to undermine my every word didn't suffer during your trials."

Loki chuckled again and it was a lot more honest this time. That level of self-awareness was an uncommon sight in Thor. [I'll stop interrupting you once you stop saying idiotic things.]

Thor laughed. He was always easy to amuse.

[You wanted to talk to me about something. Talk then. We don't have much time.]

"I wanted to apologize," Thor said and finally managed to meet Loki's eyes. "I'm sorry."

Oh, this was so much like Thor too. He thought one simple apology could fix everything. Like that time in Mexico, or countless times before that. Like…

"I'm sorry for making fun of you with my friends and encouraging them to pester you and push you around. I'm sorry for disregarding your advice and putting us all in danger more times than I can count because of that. I'm sorry for raising my voice – and my hand – at you when you talked back. I'm sorry for never appreciating your mastery in magic. I only realized how helpful it was when I had to do without it. I'm sorry for taking it for granted." Thor paused and scratched his chin. His beard had grown long and unruly since Loki last saw him. "I'm sorry for standing aside and doing nothing when Odin punished you and for being glad that it wasn't me. Because it was never me. I can see it now."

Loki blinked.

Thor lowered his head and his shoulders drooped. "Truth be told, I even rejoiced at times. I was always jealous of you."

[Jealous? Is Odin's madness a hereditary affliction?]

"The All-Father favored me and I took every advantage I could from that. But it was you who always had mother's love."

She lied to me, just like Odin did, Loki thought, but didn't put it into words. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, too. How did it happen? Did she suffer? Was her death avenged?

Had she ever spoken of Loki after he was gone?

He asked none of them. Thor was still grieving and poking at a wound this raw wouldn't do them any good. A sudden, childish urge to reach out and place a comforting hand on Thor's shoulder rose in him. He fought it, keeping his hands in his lap. Thor wouldn't appreciate being touched by a Jötunn in a moment of vulnerability, not even one he still claimed to be his brother.

Thor took a deep breath before he continued. "I'm not asking for forgiveness. My grievances against you are too severe. I know things cannot go back to the way they were. I just want you to know that I…" Thor paused and ran his hand across his broad neck. "I will always consider you my brother, even if you don't consider yourself mine. And I swear on the love of our dead mother that it will not change, no matter what happens. We might go our separate ways after tonight and never meet again, if that's your wish, but I will always keep you in my heart."

Loki sat there, unable to form a proper response, neither in his head, nor with his hands.

Thor set his shoulders and got up. "I will take no more of your time. The others are waiting." He marched back to join the humans and Loki stayed there, staring at the patch of grass Thor had occupied a heartbeat ago, his mind completely blank.

Tony regarded Loki with a worried gaze when he joined the rest in the arbor. Natasha must've relayed his decision then.

"So, we're doing the Franz Ferdinand memorial day party after all?"

[I won't be using a gun, Stark.]

Tony's lips curled up in a smile. "Can you believe that guy?" he sneered at Bruce. "What's the plan then?"

[We should meet up with your collaborators and carry it out while the All-Father is still resting. The news of my disappearance will soon emerge and once that happens, it will become tenfold harder to reach him.]

Loki knew the cell wasn't monitored. It didn't need to be. It was secure and there was no one who would dare question Odin's orders and help the prisoner trapped inside. Especially not Loki.

Until today.

A new wave of warmth spilled over his guts.

They really had come. They had traveled to an unknown world and were ready to stand against the man their ancestors claimed a god, again, to save him…

"Loki? Are you still with us?"

He shook his head. [The halls will be guarded, I'm sure, but we might yet have the element of surprise.]

"You want to do it today? Isn't it, like, almost dawn or something?"

[Asgardian day lasts about twice as long as that on Earth. The same with nights. We still have time. But we need to hurry.]

"Yeah, sure, makes sense," Tony mumbled. "One question though. How are we going to stop You-Know-Who from magicking the ever-loving shit out of us again?"

[We need to steal Gungnir.]

"Gung what?"

"The spear, Stark," Natasha provided.

"He won't be able to use magic without it?"

[It's not that easy. It helps him channel the Odin-force, or, in other words, the power granted to the king of Asgard by the magic of this place. But it's still possible without it and there's regular use of one's powers, like what Natasha can do.] What Loki himself had been quite capable of before too. [And Odin is very well versed in that aspect as well.]

"So, in other words, we're shit outta luck?"

[Not necessarily. One's magical abilities depend heavily on the state of mind, because it's an inherently mental ability. You can't think properly if you're angry. The same goes with magic.]

"I'm not questioning your expertise or anything," Stark said, "but I'd say the shit he pulled on us back home was still hella scary."

[It was still the very baseline of Odin's abilities. The spells were simple, albeit effective. And yet it was enough to leave him drained to fall asleep on the throne while he was waiting for the guards to bring me in. He didn't enchant the gag again, nor the chains that were meant to bind me, past any spells they might already hold.]

"The spell on Thor is just a damper, too," Bruce pointed out. "So Natasha says."

[That's plausible. A true transformation is very energy-consuming. The last time Odin cast Thor out and changed him into a human, exhaustion drove him into the Odin-sleep, that he then cut short without going through the whole cycle.]

Thor's forehead wrinkled and Loki could practically hear his mind working on overdrive.

"The All-Father said you stroke him in anger," he said finally.

Loki shrugged and fought not to flinch, as the collar shifted around. It was heavy enough to cut the circulation where it rested on his shoulders. [I did not. We talked and I might've unnerved him with my questions, but I didn't raise my hand.]

Thor's lips pursed as he worked through the information, undoubtedly trying to determine whether he could trust Loki's words or not. A few moments passed before he nodded, slowly.

"The Elders tried convincing the All-Father that the next rest is overdue, but he refused," Thor said. "Maybe if he did, it would help settle his mind…"

[Odin-sleep is for the body to recover, not for the mind, Thor.] Loki rested his hands on his knees for a moment before he went on. The shackles made the signing rather tiring. [But this also could be to our advantage.]

"Okay, right, makes sense," Tony muttered. "No advanced magic without the spear thingy. That's good. Where do we find it?"

[In the royal chambers. The All-Father never parts with it for long and I doubt it has changed now.]

"So, we go in, we nick it, do away with Solid Snake and then we're taking our asses out of there. Sounds doable."

[It's too dangerous. I'll go alone.]

Natasha laughed. "No, you will not."

Elder Njal offered a sweeping bow to Thor, regarded Loki from head to toe with a sizing glare and wrinkled his nose. Loki couldn't find it in himself to be bothered by that. He was far beyond caring what the likes of Njal thought about him.

The man had always been an opportunist. If he was doing something, it meant it served his personal interests, no more, no less, and it wasn't that hard to guess what that interest was in this particular case. With Odin out of his right mind, the Council's – and thus Njal's – power was reduced greatly as the All-Father had a long history of not listening to his advisors when he had been overcome by a fit of fury. Thor would be much easier to control, especially once burdened with the debt of gratitude.

Loki was also rather certain that the beautiful promises of changing his sentence to banishment were just plain old lies, meant to placate and ensure his and his companions' obedience. He was too important of a witness to be allowed to live after the deed was done. So were the humans. None of them would be permitted to leave, either with Thor's accord if the Council managed to sway him or behind Thor's back, if he stood by his word. Loki suspected the others knew that too, even if they couldn't really voice their lack of faith with Thor in their midst.

Either way, Loki didn't plan on sticking around to find out how that would play out.

[I don't suppose either of you thought about obtaining a key?] he asked Njal, gesturing at his own face. With Heimdall as a participant, the conspirators must've known the extent of Odin's sentence.

The question was but a volley, of course, so it didn't surprise him in the slightest when Njal denied immediately after Tony relayed the question. The very idea that Loki was still able to express meaning in any way seemed to distress him. It would be better for the man if Loki took their secret to his grave. Or the unmarked ditch they would toss his dead body into. The Jötnar did not deserve proper funeral rites according to the Æsir.

After Njal and his consorts were presented with the answer and the bare outline of the plan, they vacated the room, leaving the Vanir slave behind. She stayed out of the way, kneeling in the corner in that unobtrusive way long-time slaves developed as an instinct, but Loki was sure she was listening to every word to relay it her master afterward.

Good thing Loki did not need to make sounds to talk.

When Thor wandered off to pick at the food on the table, Loki didn't waste time. He called for Tony's attention with a wave. [Jarvis, do not relay this to Thor,] he said. He wasn't necessarily mistrusting Thor's intentions, the dolt wore his heart on his sleeve and wouldn't be able to fool a dead fish with his skills in the art of subterfuge. But he might misinterpret Loki's reservations as an attempt to double-cross him, like countless times in the past.

Loki didn't wait for confirmation, knowing Jarvis would listen, before proceeding with a warning. [They will agree. Then they will try to outplay us. None of us is supposed to make out of this alive.]

"Mhm," Clint murmured, nodding.

[We need a hasty exit,] he added, then went to describe the plan to use the secret paths. He turned to Natasha. [You will need to open the way. Follow the upper road that leads from the main square to the Merchants' district, the one marked with an archway with two swords. The entrance is in the caves, a league outside of the city border. You'll be able to feel it once you get close.]

They needed to know that, in case he didn't make it.

Natasha nodded and looked away, biting her lower lip. She knew exactly what he was doing, but she couldn't say anything.

The door opened and the men returned.

"We agree to your plan," Njal spoke. "And, should you succeed, the Council will be called for a deliberation."

"I'm going to assume you're staying behind to watch, with your tail between your legs and pretend you know nothing about this if things go South?" Tony said cheerfully.

"Yes, Son of Stark."

"Jesus fucking Christ."