The Avengers assembled around the God of Mischief. He still lay quite still in a pit in Stark's granite floor in the penthouse bar. He did not appear to have moved at all. He might have been dead, except his eyes were open, staring at nothing.
Thor was the first to edge forward, poking his brother with his toe. "Loki." The enemy offered no response. He knelt then and cautiously checked for a neck or skull fracture before tugging Loki into a seated position. "Come on," he grunted. Loki stayed sitting rather than falling back, but that was about all that could be said for him. When Thor let go of his arms, they stayed hovering awkwardly out in front of him. He still was not looking at anything. It was uncanny. The Hulk actually stepped back.
"Is he that hurt?" the Captain asked.
Natasha shook her head immediately, brow furrowed, although Clint was the one who answered. "That's not what you typically see with brain injury. Unless it's different in his species."
"Loki..." Thor whispered.
"Is he faking then?" Tony asked.
"Probably," Natasha said, but she holstered her own weapon and stepped forwards. She tilted Loki's head back and to the side until his eyes were sort of directed to her. Then she let go and repositioned his right arm over his head and the left behind his back. Although the hands wavered slightly in the unnatural position, he barely moved at all and did not watch her when she stood up again. She cocked her head to the side. "Seizure?" she muttered. "No... It's like a catatonia," she said in a confused tone before hastily repositioning the god in a more normal posture.
"What?" Steve and Tony asked together.
"Happens in psychosis sometimes," Clint said shortly. "He's faking. Has to be."
"Only time will tell," Natasha said, shrugging.
"What is this?" Thor demanded suddenly, staring back at them.
Steve and Tony looked expectantly at the two spies, while the Hulk appeared to grow bored and sat down behind them, yawning. Natasha hesitated. "Look, I'm no expert. I've only seen something like this once or twice before, a long time ago. I just know that something like this can happen to, ah, humans, sometimes, and it's, ah... It's not because of brain damage or injury, I think. It's more something that happens with mental disorders. Maybe he's got, I don't know, some kind of shell-shock."
"I kind of doubt the thousand-year-old sadistic bastard who started the war is going to be the one to come out of it with full-blown PTSD," Clint said sarcastically.
Thor shook his head. "This is not his first battle, nor the bloodiest. Whatever psychic wound you are thinking of, Lady Natasha, our fight with him today is not the cause." He did not look any less worried though as he turned back to gently cup Loki's cheeks and gaze into his empty eyes.
"Who cares about the reason? He's either crazy, or faking it," Clint supplied bluntly. "Not a surprise in either case, and I'm betting on the latter. So let's please put him in the cuffs and figure it out later." To this, Thor had reluctantly to agree, but it was fatigue and hunger that finally dragged him out of Loki's cell a couple hours later. Thor tried everything he could think of to provoke a response from his brother. Tried talking to him, poking him, pinching him, shining lights in his face. He did not even blink. He tried to give him a drink of water, but it dripped back out the side of Loki's mouth. Steve made him leave then, because the indoor rainstorm was shorting out the security system.
The next day found Loki still in handcuffs and muzzle in the same corner of the cell they had left him in before going to get shawarma. In the same position they had left him in. Only Clint was convinced he was still faking catatonia, but they were at a loss as to what could have caused it. Tony had asked Jarvis about it, but his information was essentially the same as Natasha's and Clint's: the condition was associated with psychosis, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Also something called "limbic encephalitis" which Tony found fascinating, apparently some kind of autoimmune condition that could cause psychosis in otherwise healthy people. The only other new information was that the particular flavor afflicting Loki probably fell under the category of "waxy catatonia," and something called electroconvulsive therapy tended to work better on that than, well, non-waxy types. Tony had yet to decide whether he should tell the Thunder God to shock the living daylights out of his crazy brother to see if it would help.
Thor had come up with his own morbid diagnosis, in any case. He announced it as they gathered in the corridor outside Loki's cell. "When I looked at my brother after the battle and again this morning, I did not see him. I saw an empty body. To me, it seems his soul-fire is gone. He is dead."
The other Avengers just stared at him in confusion for a minute. Tony cleared his throat. "Umm... Point Break, I hope this doesn't come as a shock, but he is clearly not dead. But, you know, easy mistake to make. They used to kill a lot of people in the Dark Ages by thinking they were already dead and burying them too early. There were also a lot of people who quote-unquote came back to life miraculously, because they weren't actually dead. He's breathing, awake, and even sitting up, all of which are definitely symptoms of being alive."
Thor grinned. "You misunderstand me. I admit, I hope he merely sleeps in some way. But I fear that this affliction is not a kind of sleep, and he will not wake up. His condition is dire, and I wish to return with him to Asgard, where our healers can examine him and make a determination."
"And no doubt the God of Lies in there knows that, and that's why he's a faker-faker, so he can get out of here, away from us, and live comfortably cocooned back home," Clint grumbled.
"It is a possibility," Thor conceded. "But I doubt it. This is not the kind of lie my brother would come up with. It has no artistry. It is demeaning to him."
"Artistry? Can I remind the audience again, that he killed eighty people the first two days he was here, then killed Coulson and recklessly crashed the helicarrier when he escaped, and we don't even know the casualties from yesterday."
"And you think the person you have locked in that cell is capable of what we have seen the past few days? For all I know, he was dead from the moment he arrived, Master Barton!" Thor shouted. "You don't know him. You don't know his history or his mind. You don't know his species. Everyone on Asgard thought he was dead for one of your years before I came here. I grant you have every right to be angry at Loki, and I am angered and ashamed by his actions as well, but I would appreciate a little courtesy! The man we have been fighting, though he looks and speaks and walks, even fights exactly the way my brother does, he in other ways bears no resemblance at all to the man I grew up with."
"Let me get this straight," Tony broke in again. "You're saying he's dead because he's all evil and stuff?"
"No, I am saying he is dead because his... I am not certain how to say this in your tongue in a way that makes sense... his soul-fire, or motivation, his animus is gone. I don't know how or why. It should not happen, certainly not to one young and fit as he, but I have no idea what has happened to him in the past year since he was lost to the Void between the worlds. There are things that are possible that you have no conception of, and that I do not fully understand nor have the ability to explain. There is a distinct possibility that the person we have been fighting is merely an echo of his dying mind, which has finally faded."
"Oh, obviously. He couldn't possibly be evil all by himself. We should all feel sorry for him, because he's a zombie. Not his fault." Clint snorted in derision.
Thor glowered at him, and ozone scented the room.
Steve laid a hand on Thor's shoulder but looked to Clint as he said, firmly. "Death isn't an apology. I don't think Loki's dead, but imagine if that was your brother all the same, whatever is wrong with him." The ozone faded.
"Can I just say, Thor, you have a very wide definition of the word dead, and it's going to get you into trouble someday," Tony quipped into the tension.
Thor smiled mirthlessly. "From where I sit, you Midgardians have a rather wide definition of living."
"I prefer to think of it as a narrow definition of dead."
"Perhaps that is because you mortals, ironically, know nothing of what death truly means."
"I think I should be offended."
"Shut up, Tony," Bruce said, leaning forwards. He smiled, eyes bright with intellectual curiosity. "Okay, Thor. I'm no expert on the dying process, but I know enough to know that even our 'primitive' medicine is pushing the limits every day, keeping people alive in extremis and bringing them back to health from the brink. There's a reason 'brain dead' is almost the only legal dead now. So... talk. You say we mere mortals don't understand death. Enlighten us! Why is Loki dead?"
Thor raised one eyebrow. "Are you mocking me?"
"Not at all. I'm genuinely curious. You're what, a thousand years old and still young? Your people must have a very different perspective on life and death than us."
Thor shook his head. "I have lived almost two thousand of your years, my friend. There are elders at home who have studied the mysteries of life and death longer than I have been alive. I have never... I am no scholar, not of any kind. I cannot explain... But I suppose I will try.
"The first part of that question is what is life? You, Man of Iron, would have it that Life is a function of the body. To have a heart that beats, to breathe, to walk... I do not think that is life. Moreover, I can name fifteen examples from history and legend alike that would prove that not to be the case. If a human were to 'live' in this state, and it was truly irreversible, it may last a few years or decades. I think you only do it because you are afraid of death, not because the 'life' is truly prolonged. Asgard has the ability to prolong such a state for a thousand years. The healers of Vanaheim have the ability to sustain the heartbeat in one of their fallen indefinitely, even if the warrior never again awakens and is in fact proven through divination to be long-since feasting in the halls of Valhalla. Is that life to you? A necromancer can grant respiration and freedom of movement to a corpse that has lain dead and embalmed for a week. Is that life? The Dark Elves were said to cast a type of magic on the blood that enhances the physical strength of the body but destroys the original consciousness of the individual undergoing the ritual and supplants it with a single overriding mission; the body and mind then disintegrate when the central command is fulfilled. Is that life? There are many races which have found the way through advanced magic, or science I suppose, to transfer the essence of a living mind to an artificial container, either as a copy or as a unique neural net that left the original body empty. Is that life? Asgard once exterminated a race that lived as a parasite on other lifeforms, stealing infants and modifying their development into a kind of dumb flesh-armor rather than a sentient individual. Is that life? There is a race that can regenerate a functioning body from the smallest fragment, to the degree that even should the central nervous system be cut out and destroyed, a new one will grow in its place. But the new brain has no memories of the old. That is life, but is it the same life?" Both Tony and Bruce opened their mouths, but Thor bouldered on, not waiting for questions.
"Now turn the page. What is death? It is the end of life. But what is that end? Loki stabbed me during the battle yesterday. Supposed he struck true, and I had died. Would the death be in the moment of the injury, when my life started to bleed away, or in the moment when my demise became assured, or as you would have it my friend, when my heart stopped beating?
"Death is different in Asgard. Except in battle, death is slow, and it is rare, and it is painful. The ones who die in battle are fortunate because they are taken to Valhalla but also because among the Aesir, the body and mind rarely decline at the same rates. My father is fortunate, in that in his old age, his body is failing first. More and more, he must rely on Odinsleep to sustain it. For many of my elders though, the mind will die long before the ever-resistant body has worn out, and this despite the joint efforts of the best healers in the Nine Realms. When the person inside is gone, it is viewed as respect, and kindness, to send the body with them.
"Yes, Loki's heart still beats. His brain is clearly intact enough that his body can maintain its vital functions and even tone. But if his mind is gone, then he is gone. To the brother that I remember, the mind was everything."
The team was silent for a moment, never having heard Thor say so many sentences in a row before. "That... was quite the info-dump," Bruce finally said. "And I have so many questions for later, but, I mean, sure. There's a point where you have to talk about quality of life and all, but really Thor, it's only been one day. I rather think it's way too early to say he's dead."
"We haven't even examined him properly," Steve finally spoke up. "Thor, I don't think the question before us is whether to let you take him back to Asgard but rather when. He has a lot to answer for here. If he truly can't speak for himself right now, well, there's no reason to keep him really. And if he can, then that raises a whole bunch of security issues too. I hear what you, and Natasha, are saying, that this isn't normal. But you'll excuse me for pointing out that, actually, none of us are medical, let alone experts in whatever has happened to Loki. For all we know this could be a temporary shock from a Hulk smash. So let's get more information instead of shouting at each other."
"I don't think we want a Shield doctor down here just yet, Captain," Natasha said quietly. "They'll make a specimen out of him, given half the chance. We really shouldn't let them, even if it's Loki."
"Seconded," Clint said, in a much more controlled tone than he had used earlier.
Steve studied the pair of them. "Then it's on you," he said, looking to Thor for agreement. Loki was his brother, after all. Thor nodded curtly.
Natasha's lips quirked. "I know when a man is dying and when he's broken under torture. That doesn't mean I can diagnose anything else."
Steve shrugged. "It seems to me you're actually eminently qualified, Nat, since those two options are basically what we're looking for."
They scanned Loki's head in Tony's research laboratory in the basement, just in case. It looked normal. Thor again insisted they release Loki back to Asgard, now, but Steve convinced him to be patient just a little longer.
Natasha and Clint went in next, hoping to wear the Trickster down. Natasha spent the first five minutes just staring into his eyes. They were red and full of tears.
"Is he...crying?" Clint asked suspiciously from the far side of the room.
"No... I don't think so. I think his eyes are just watering because he's not blinking. At all."
"Huh."
She pulled a penlight from her pocket and shined it in his eyes, one at a time. "They are working though, I think. Clint, help me reposition him on his back." Together, they slid him partway down the bench and leaned him over. He still had the bizarre rigidity like wax or rubber. Natasha pulled out the eye drops she had swiped from Tony's bathroom and carefully dropped one into his eye. He blinked once before resuming his vacant stare. She repeated the exercise on the other eye, and he blinked again.
"Does that mean he's faking?" Clint asked hopefully.
"No, that's a reflex," Natasha said. "I looked it up before we came in here. It's weird though, that he can blink and just doesn't." She clapped at him next, and tried pinching his shoulders and legs, but they didn't get any more of a response.
After an hour of poking and prodding, they had to admit defeat. Natasha carefully closed Loki's eyes before they left.
...
"I'm not getting anything out of him, Fury," Natasha repeated calmly, "And I don't think I'm going to in the near future."
"Ditto," Clint said with ill-grace.
"Seriously? You told me yesterday you thought he was faking, Hawkeye, and now you want to give up on interrogating the literal Invader of Earth?"
Clint grimaced. "He's either not faking, or he's faking too well and is willing to wait us out because he's, you know, immortal. Either way, I can't do much about it."
"I think he needs a doctor," Steve said in an undertone. "And if he doesn't need a doctor, then he's just biding his time before escaping and wrecking more havoc." He glanced through the glass wall of the conference room, to where Thor was waiting, smoldering. "Either way, I'm betting both he and we are better off if we send him back to Asgard. They have, ahem, magic healers, and can probably tell what's going on with him a lot better than we can. And they presumably have the means to contain him far better than we can."
Fury drummed his fingers on the table, looking displeased.
Tony coughed indelicately. "Also, Thor is probably going to cause a hurricane if we delay him any longer. Have you looked out the window recently?"
"I agree with Steve," Bruce said quietly. "We are better off with him off planet." He met the Director's gaze. "I also think we're better off with the Tesseract off planet. Pretty sure it's safe to say it's caused a lot more trouble than it's worth."
A small sound like a laugh escaped Fury. "I can't argue there, Dr. Banner." He glanced around at his team and sighed. "Fine." He stood up. "Let's send the aliens back to Asgard, then."
They filed from the room, and Steve nodded at Thor, who smiled in relief. The seven of them wended their way down to Loki's cell. Fury looked dispassionately at first at the defeated god's slumped posture, but his eyebrows rose as Steve and Thor worked together to get him up and somewhat comfortably arranged in his brother's arms. Thor paused at Fury's gesture as he exited the cell, and the Director lifted the Trickster's hand back up to his middle, curling the strangely stiff fingers into a loose fist.
"Thankyou," Thor said softly.
Fury shook his head, only muttering "weird" under his breath before leading the way out of the building and to the park.
Steve again helped in the ordeal to get Loki into a stable standing position, with one hand chained to the Tesseract. Thor grasped his other hand tightly, smiled at his friends one last time, then activated the Tesseract. Both of them disappeared in a blur of blue.
Author's note: catatonia is kinda cool, by which I mean interesting, not good. "Waxy catatonia" isn't actually that common anymore, but it's certainly the most dramatic. What I've described isn't even a true catatonia, since the non-blinking is not actually a thing. Real catatonia as far as I know is an imbalance of the emotional and motivational pathways in the brain, classically due to chemical imbalance in psychiatric disorders; the main alternative is truly end-stage dementia, where most of the cortex is just gone, defunct, but I don't think dementia can produce the waxy kind (I may be mistaken there). Real catatonia notably has a normal sleep-wake cycle, and my version doesn't. What exactly is causing it here, well... The same deconstruction of consciousness we started with in the first chapter, obviously, plus whatever latent effects of Thanos' experimenting. AKA technobabble. I'm not going for the "Loki now has schizophrenia" angle, hence the not-actually-real-catatonia.
Also philosophy of death, which is always an interesting topic. Thor is basically recognizing Loki's condition as similar to an end-stage dementia (one of the few organic afflictions still present to a degree in Asgard), not as a reversible psychiatric problem. I let the humans argue for the strictest medical definition of death, because they're all smart people who know something of the impressive power of modern medicine. Death, being the ultimate unknown, is a huge philosophical question, and not just because of the theological side (afterlife versus oblivion) but also the problem of pinpointing when death happens, particularly in the face of ever-more-sophisticated medicine. I figure an advanced alien civilization with tech that looks like magic and nearly immortal people probably has had a lot more time to come up with a satisfactory answer to the question, as well as better diagnostic technology. I probably didn't do it justice though.
