Hey! I managed to get my hands on some internet! So ... ENJOY

Chapter 17

Loki stared at the white panels on the ceiling as if he looked upon the world for the very first time. His eyes searched the room bit by bit while he slowly tried to move his limbs. First he focused on Thor, who seemed to be standing over his body, looking at him with a mixture of relief, surprise, concern and fear in his bright blue eyes. On the other end of the table, he spotted Jane, who watched Loki with her mouth hanging half open. Just as the young king started wondering where he was, his eyes fell on Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, standing in the middle of the room. They both stared at the God of Mischief with fear, but also interest reflected in their eyes. In the corner of the room there was someone else sitting, but Loki couldn't see who it was.

A voice in Loki's head warned him that he was in Stark Tower, but for some reason the young king ignored it. He had a lot more interesting facts to care about… For example: the immense power that was rushing through his veins…

Thor swallowed and quickly shared a look with Tony, Bruce and Natasha to warn them not to attack. The God of Thunder looked down again and tried to say something, but Loki had taken him by surprise, so nothing came out. On the screens around them, everyone could witness the ongoing destruction of Loki's insides but the young king didn't seem to feel anything. On the contrary! A creepy smile, Thor had hoped never to see again, appeared on his brother's face while he slowly lifted his hands to inspect them.

"Loki…" Thor said after a couple of seconds in an attempt to get the young king's attention, but he didn't react. Loki softly rubbed his fingertips together. A small flash accompanied by a crisping noise sounded through the room. It almost seemed as if he was energized.

Thor started panicking. The thing that worried him and the other's in the room most was the fact that Loki's eyes were bright Tesseract blue. Especially Agent Romanoff freaked out. The memory of Hawkeye was still very clear before her eyes. Her hand slowly made its way towards the cold fabric of her gun.

"Loki… please tell me you know how to get the Energy out…" Thor said. He knew his voice sounded desperate and he knew that it was useless to ask this of Loki, especially in Loki's state, but what else could he do?

The young king suddenly set up straight and with one swift move he stood next to the table. Slowly he looked over to his brother and smiled once more. Never he had felt this powerful! Everyone in the room froze.

"Get. It. Out?" Loki repeated in a whisper, just loud enough so everyone could hear it. Thor shivered of Loki's voice.

"You must be kidding, brother…" Loki continued.

"But do you know how to get it out?" Thor asked after a couple of seconds. In his heart he was scared to death, but he also understood that Loki could be possessed. If he managed to talk him into this, everything could turn out fine…

Loki grinned. "Of course…" he said. "I! Know! Everything!"

Thor nodded and watch his brother breathing in excitement. Loki wasn't kidding, though… The moment he had opened his eyes, he had known everything! He could see the whole universe and every other universe in existence as if there was a map inside his head. He understood the meaning of everything! He could read a trillion minds! He! Knew! Everything! Oh Yes! Loki felt like the most powerful being in existence and he liked it!

"Then do it!" Thor said not able to hide the fear in his voice. Unfortunately Loki only smiled his evil smile and shook his head.

"Oh, brother… you never understood, did you? I was born to wield this power!"

"It's consuming you! Look at the screens!" Thor shouted pointing at the monitors. Behind Loki he could see Natasha getting on her feet, deciding if she would attack or not.

"It's making me stronger!" Loki immediately shouted back. "Strong enough to finally kill you!"

Loki wanted to raise his hands to attack when a silent, yet obvious clicking of a gun, immediately followed by another kind of clicking sounded behind him. With a smile, the young king turned around to face Tony, who had put on his suit again and raised his weapons on him, and Agent Romanoff, who was holding her gun, ready to shoot.

Loki wasn't impressed. He grinned.
"I thought I made myself clear last time, metal man…" Loki said.

Tony smirked.
"Right, by sweeping the floor, I guess…"

Loki scowled. For a second a green flash lit up his blue eyes. Tony's smile faded when he heard Jarvis voice in his ear.

"Danger! We're overheating, sir!"

The iron man suit started… melting! Immediately Tony pushed the boiling suit of his body.

A frightening scowl covered the young king's face.
"Oops.." he said in a high voice.

Loki's eyes now fixed on Banner, who watched the scene completely paralyzed.
"Your turn, mister Banner…" Loki added just before both Tony and Bruce were thrown backwards against the wall. Immediately Natasha opened fire on the God who was standing only a few steps away from her. But the bullets never hit target.

For Loki it was almost too easy! First of all, he could predict Agent Romanoff's action moments before, but next to that, he also saw everything.. well.. happening! The moment Natasha closed her finger around the trigger, Loki turned towards her and everything went in slow-motion. The bullet left the gun and all Loki had to do was follow it through the air and bring it to a halt in between him and Natasha. Unfortunately for the other's it didn't go in slow motion, so Natasha just waited for Loki to at least take a step back because of the impact of the bullet, while she heard Tony and Bruce hit the wall painfully, before dropping unconscious on the ground.

Loki smiled when he saw how Natasha's eyes slowly fixed on the floating bullet in the middle of the room. Another five shots sounded through the air, but no bullet found its way towards Loki's head. Natasha's eyes grew big and even though she understood that her gun wouldn't have any effect on the God, she refused to drop her weapon.

Loki blinked and the bullets dropped on the floor.

"Natasha Romanoff…" the young king sneered. "My favourite assassin…. How's your ledger doing…"

Natasha tried hard to keep up her poker face, but she knew a sign of fear was visible in her eyes.

"You really think you can stop me?" Loki asked.

For the first time in her life, Natasha didn't know what to do. What could she do?

"Loki! Stop this!" Thor shouted from behind him. The young king turned around, his creepy blue eyes scanning the room.

"You can't stop me, brother…" Loki said while he slowly made his way back to the table. At the other side of the room, Tony and Bruce started waking up again.

"After all this time, I finally c…" Loki was cut off when a sudden song sounded from the other room…

"Are you ready kids?"
"Aye Aye Captain!"
"I can't hear you!"
"Aye Aye Captain!"
"Ooooooh… Who lives in a pineapple under the sea!"

A careful giggle followed.

Loki froze on the spot. Suddenly his head was filled with two voices. Both were his own… at least he thought it was his own. Loki looked down at his body and afterwards scanned the room. What in the world had happened! Where was he? An ice cold, yet dangerously familiar shiver made its way down his spine. Loki blinked. In front of him he saw Thor, looking at him confusedly, but the image kept blurring.. and where was this headache coming from.

Loki tried to breath, but he felt as if his longs had disappeared. An extreme, unnatural pain took hold of the young kings' body. It was almost like he was burning from the inside! Loki fought off the urge to faint. Black spots were covering his view and a weird kind of force tried to push him back, locked away in his own head. Loki wanted to scream, but nothing came over his lips

And then he noticed it. The incredible, familiar power rushing through his veins, wanting to take over his mind. An uncontrollable fear took hold of the young king. The more he tried to resist the Tesseract, the more his body seemed to burn and turn to ice at the same time. He searched for breath, but his lungs were barely functioning.

Loki tried to remember what had happened, but all he saw were a pair of bright, terrified blue eyes and a high pitched scream.

Frigga…he thought while trying to fight off the fear. He couldn't let the Tesseract take over. Who knew what would happen this time…

He looked up.

-xxx-

The moment Thor had heard his daughter's laughter, he knew something was different. Loki froze and seemed to hesitate. Suddenly his brother looked up. The blue had disappeared showed Loki's terrified light grey eyes.

"Loki…" he whispered. "Please…"

The young king opened his mouth to answer but he couldn't find the air to speak. Never, ever had Thor seen someone in so much pain.

And then, as fast as it had disappeared, the Tesseract blue lit Loki's eyes back up. The pain and fear faded and Loki's evil sneer covered his face once more.

The young king sniffed and drew his hair back.
"That was close…" he said, not able to hide the surprise in his voice.

"Let go, Loki!" Thor hissed between clenched teeth. "Or should I say: let him go!"

Loki exhaled as if he was growing tired of their argument.
"Him or me… what does it matter… we're the same person! I am the same person!"

"No, you're not! Not anymore!"

Loki scowled. "You know nothing of me, Thor Odinson! You called me a criminal in the past, but you're even worse... And now you're going to pay!"

Loki stretched out his arm and Thor flew backwards until his back hit the wall. In a flash Loki stood in front of him and planted his dagger in Thor's stomach. The God of Thunder screamed when the blade cut through his flesh and turned his shirt bright red. Jane shouted and Natasha fired some more bullets which never hit target either.

Thor gasped for breath and looked down on his brother, since he was dangling a few inches of the ground.
"Is that all you got?" he asked while he tried to smile challenging.

Loki grinned.
"I'm not going to give you the pleasure of dying quickly, Thor Odinson! I'm going to enjoy th…"

Loki never finished his sentence. The sickening sound of metal hitting a head filled the room and Loki sank unconscious to the ground. Behind him stood Jane, paler than ever, breathing heavily, holding a steel pipe tight in her hands. Thor dropped on the ground and groaned when he pulled the dagger out of his body and dropped it next to Loki's unconscious body. He looked up at his wife.

"I love you…" he said out of breath. Jane smiled softly and lowered the pipe.

"I just thought… since Natasha hit Clint… you know… I thought.. I thought it might work on Loki… too…" the distressed woman said.

A second later Tony appeared next to them. He was holding some weird kind of gun in his arms. Just before he could shoot, Thor ripped the weapon from his hands and looked at the billionaire who seemed to be furious.

"What are you doing!" Tony shouted while Bruce and Natasha joined them.

"Don't shoot him!" Thor simply said.

"He was trying to kill you!" Natasha shouted.

Thor nodded.
"Wow… surprise, isn't it…" he said sarcastically.

"Thor, we don't even know if hitting him on the head will help in Loki's case. We're not even sure that it even did the trick with Clint…" Bruce said while rubbing over his left arm. He'd hit the wall rather hard.

"We have to take the risk…" Thor said while he crushed the gun inside his palm.

Tony's eyes grew big. Not only had he spend quite some time developing that particular gun, he also was getting enough of these people's stupidity. Couldn't they see what Loki was!

"For God's sake! Did you miss out on the last minutes! Look at my lab!"

Tony wasn't kidding. Because Loki had been throwing bodies around the place, most of Tony's high tech lab now looked like a junk yard.

"And look at me!" the billionaire continued furiously, gesturing at the many wounds spread over his body. "He melted my unmeltable suit!"

Everyone else in the room glanced over at each other and sighed almost invisible while Tony kept on complaining.

Suddenly a low groaning sounded from the ground.

"Holy sh.." Loki moaned.

CLENG!

"Jane!" Thor shouted. His wife stood in front of him, eyes closed while she held a tight grip on the pipe. She cautiously opened her eyes again and looked at the - again – unconscious body of the God of Mischief. She looked up and bit her lip.

"Sorry…" she said. "It just happened…"

Thor turned with his eyes, but he seemed to be the only one who wanted Loki to wake up again. The God of Thunder grabbed the pipe and threw it to the other side of the room. He wasn't angry. In fact, he was rather amused.

"There is only one way to find out if Jane's magnificent swing had any effect!" he said while glancing over at everyone in the room. Tony shook his head and crossed his arms.

"Can I remind you that you are in my house! That piece of Mischief has to leave right n…"

Tony was interrupted when a low groaning sounded from the ground. Natasha lifted her useless gun, Jane searched her lost pipe and Tony realised he was quite defenceless at the moment. Thor took a step back, just in case… He looked down.

"What the…" Loki moaned while he tried to orientate and remember. His insides started burning again. Breathing became impossible, but Loki refused to give in. After what seemed ages, the young king managed to find his arms and hands. Now it was only a matter of finding his legs, so he could get up, but the burning made it almost impossible to think. All he knew was that someone had hit him. Twice, if he recalled it correctly. Who in the world had the nerve to hit him!

Loki tried to push himself to his knees, but someone was faster. A strong hand grabbed the young king by his shirt and pulled him on what he supposed were his feet. The hand let go, but grabbed him again when Loki almost fell again. The young king didn't like to depend on someone else, especially depending on someone just remain standing, but he still desperately grabbed the arm in an attempt to stay on his feet. The world was turning in every direction possible and he was quite sure that if he fell again, he would definitely faint on the spot. Next to that, breathing was almost impossible and the burning inside continued. Why didn't he just die! It would all be over!

Somewhere far away he heard voice call his name, at least he thought it was his name… The hand was shaking him.. why?

-xxx-

Thor tried to get his brother to focus, but the young king seemed far away. All he could see was how Loki was suffering.

"Loki!" Thor shouted while he started shaking the young king. "Focus!"

Jane stood next to her husband. She wasn't scared anymore, only worried. She didn't know what was happening, she couldn't do anything and she didn't like it.

-xxx-

Loki heard someone calling his name again and again, but the pain just made it impossible to find the source. Still, Loki had finally managed to remember what had happened. Now he'd found a reason for the strange pressure he felt everywhere in his body. The blow to his head had forced the Tesseract Energy out of his brains, but now it was up to him to resist it again. The fear which was building up every second came in very handy.

"Focus ,Loki!" he heard somewhere in the far distance. Yes, focus… Sure, but on what?

Frigga… it suddenly sounded through Loki's head. He'd heard her voice, her laugh…

"Loki!" the voice sounded again, this time accompanied by a slap in his face.

Thor… Loki thought. When Loki realised he was holding on to his brother's arm, he immediately let go… only to grab it again because his legs were still sucking at being legs.

"Loki, please, try to focus! You need to get it out!"

Thor's voice sounded desperately so Loki understood that he probably wasn't imagining the burning of his insides. Slowly the room took form in front of Loki's eyes. The first thing he saw were Thor's worried blue eyes.

"Please tell me you know how to get it out!"

Loki tried to smile, but that didn't really work out. "You underestimate me, brother…"

"This is no time for jokes, Loki!" Thor shouted. "Get it out!"

Loki shut his eyes when a new wave of pain roared through his body. Dark spots appeared at the sides of his view. Clearly, Thor could see Loki's eyes turn away, so he shook his brother once more. Loki groaned in agony. The Tesseract was winning and he could feel it.

"I can't…" Loki said after a couple of painful seconds. "I can't get it out! It needs host…"

Thor turned even paler and let go of Loki's clothes. The young king sank to the ground.

"Then use me!" The God of Thunder shouted furiously. He couldn't believe Loki had done this while he knew what would happen right from the beginning.

"No!" Jane immediately shouted.

Loki grinned.
"No chance…" the young king added in a whisper.

Thor kneeled down. "But you're the king!"

Loki nodded. He couldn't find the strength to speak anymore.

"You can't die of the Tesseract!" Thor suddenly said a lot calmer now. "I mean… that's just absurd!"

"I would call it ironical…" Tony said just before Thor's fist hit his face.

Both brothers stayed silent for a moment. Thor knew there was nothing he could do anymore. Nothing he said would change Loki's mind. Maybe it was time for Loki to die… Third time, good time…

"You're dooming me, brother…" Thor said after a couple of seconds while trying not to cry. "You know how I think about being king!"

Loki smiled softly. "You finally got me… Years of planning all led to bullying you one last time…"

Thor grinned. "I should have known…"

A short silence filled the room once more, only interrupted by Tony's wining over his broken nose.

Thor lay one hand on his brother's shoulder and smiled. "You will say hi from me, won't you?"

Loki closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't think I'm going where she is…"

Thor swallowed and smiled softly.

"I'm quite sure you are…" he answered silently.

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