Disclaimer: I still don't own Marvel.
Chapter 3
The Cat's Meow
Raised to never cower before the shadows of the enemy, he had always prided himself in his feats of glorious battle, never mind that his methods were different from the norm – he was proud. The most powerful sorcerer in all the realms, he stood above all creatures that dared unsheathe their blades against him in the battlefield. He may not have been very upfront in his techniques in vanquishing his enemies unlike his brother, but he got the job done, and it was a job very well executed by the sheer numbers of fallen enemies who bow down to him in defeat. As a sorcerer, his methods were frowned upon in their culture, their mighty race standing tall and steady as warriors who prefer to have it out with their enemies face-to-face in an all-out battle of sheer force and fierceness.
He never paid heed to the dirty looks or the snide remarks thrown his way after a long, arduous battle; he knew it in himself that if it had not been for his skills, the battle would be fought longer and harder, resulting to an unyielding and unknown end – and he knew, that despite the words said behind his back, his fellow warriors revered and feared him, earning their utmost respect in spite of the glossed over envy and conflict with how they were born and raised to face battles.
Everything he had done in his long lived life was how he thought he would style himself – the wise brother of the future King, advisor, and friend. He faced many hardships in his life, ones enough to cripple a man, even a god into misery – but he stood tall, biting back the bitterness in the back of his throat thinking it was all for the best when his children, his dear, young, precious children were ripped for his arms, thrown into banishment and lone solitary lives away from each other. And how he wailed in his private escape after hearing the ever wise King's, his father's decision on how to deal with the threat his innocent children posed to the safety of all the Nine Realms. He cried and screamed tears with anguish, finding himself unable to salvage his sons into remaining with him for an extended period – being thrown off into their own personal abyss, his second son the first to fall, left to spend his life in the watery graves of Midgard, far and eons away from causing death and destruction as his eldest followed, and was to remain a prisoner of Asgard, doomed to an eternal fate of being bound to the dark recesses of the realm with a mighty sword plunged into his mouth to prevent the feral howls to escape his lips.
Everyone knew he was drowning in a fit of desolation, but he remained standing tall – but in every time he found himself alone, far away and undisturbed, he cried for his children; he cried with every fibre of his being, cried his soul into exhaustion before wandering back into their golden palace without a trace of the tears he shed for his innocent children.
The only solace he had left was the presence of dear, darling daughter. She was to stay with him until she would come of age to rule the realms of the fallen, forever lost to him in a sacred banishment.
Years, centuries and millennia's have passed and his mournful heart had learned to grieve in silence, to live a life of settling for second best, masking his sorrows for harmless tricks and mischief like he has when he was a child – only this time, he could not rejoice in all his tricks as they became laced with bitterness and unconscious retribution for his loss.
He thought he'd seen the end of it, but he was proven wrong when he learned of his true parentage. The confusion addling his mind, trying to grasp the truth the bared it's jagged teeth before him, snapping its mouth wildly and madly in an attempt to bite his head off – the truth being too much for him to bear.
In all his life he believed the Jötunn's, the Frost Giants to be the monsters of every scary bed time stories. Their reputation smeared in blood as their attempts in conquering worlds and pillaging the riches of foreign realms into the icy pits of their dark, unheeding winters. They were ruthless, and blood-thirsty. They live for terrorizing those below them, embedding fear in the eyes and minds of those they have conquered – there was not a shred of compassion in them. They were cold, heartless; they were monsters.
When he found out he shares the blood of the Jötunn King Laufey, it took him his last tendrils of willpower to fight off the insanity. He, who stood with the Asgardians who slayed the villains like Laufey in battle; he who believed the tales true and that the Frost Giants didn't have a place in the universe for their love for carnage – he who believed he wasn't a monster like them.
Monster.
One word and it plagued him like wraith's taunting him to the brink of insanity. He didn't believe it; he refused to believe it – but once he saw the dark tint of blue worming its way through his skin, the feeling of his eyes being bloodshot before everything turned red, he just had to believe it.
Loki, of Asgard, is a monster; always have been.
And with this truth did he become truly spiteful; him hailing from a race of monsters he could be at peace with – but when the memories of his children, banished and alone for being the monsters predicted in Ragnarök, him being ever a good son agreeing to the terms for the safety of all realms felt that he had been wrong. And that was when he loosened his grip on Gungnir's staff did he let himself fall off into the abyss so that he may never have to rain fire on the innocent because he could feel the last string of his sanity breaking.
From then on, everything had been a muddled journey. Accepting that he was doomed to be lost forever in the abyss of the Void, he found himself at the mercy of an unknown race of warriors – mercy, that is if he was to count the fact that he was still alive, despite being imprisoned, tortured by his thoughts and the feeling that something has seized the darkness in his heart to cause the realms pain. He could feel it; the cold, yet burning feeling in his wounded heart, taking control of him in a haze of anger and tyranny while his mind wandered off into the vivid imaginings of his captor's threat should he not do their bidding, or worse, fail them in their conquest.
They promised him an army, ready to take on Midgard in exchange of him seizing the Tesseract from the mortals and offering up to 'Him' in exchange for power and glory.
In his state of mind he couldn't help but comply, the mortal realm being the object of his ire to hurt his beloved brother who, in his compromised state had not a shred of misery in his being, his darkened heart wanting nothing but for him to see the pain in his brother's eyes when he falls and he, atop them all.
But he had failed; oh but he had failed. Not only was the Tesseract lost to him, he also lost the sceptre they gave him. Fearing for the worst, he let them take him. Asgardian prison was a safe corner of solitude to his raging regret while he tried to repair his mind from the control they had seized over him – but he still feared; he feared for them all. He feared the threats they had so colourfully painted in his memory, the extensive torture they had brought upon him so he would yield, every bit of agonizing memory through the dark year of his long lived life – he feared it, they knew his weakness.
Loki, of Asgard has found an enemy he couldn't stand over – only because they had fed his fears and introduced new ways of suffering in his weakened state. After the short discussion he had with the King about the nature of his crimes, he was to remain in the land for his own good, and while Asgard would have provided for him, defend him from this torturous enemy, he knew his stay would only endanger those around him even more. With the Tesseract in their hands and another coveted artefact in their possession only time could tell when they would receive the brunt of the power-hungry warlord's schemes to possess the items. And if he couldn't get the both artefacts out of the realm, then he might as well wait it out some place he'd least likely be.
Staring up the inky night sky, he marvelled at the structure that stood tall over him, only being able to admire it now for the first time since the battle. He walked gingerly towards the back and felt a surge of reprieve when he saw one familiar person making his way to the private entry way.
He sauntered over and rubbed his head on the pant leg and looked up at the man with his green, cat eyes shining, "Meow!"
Bruce Banner had no inkling of suspicion when he picked up the cat with the shiny dark coat and brought it back with him into the Tower.
Author's Note: Yes! A Loki-centric chapter! Didn't see that coming, did you?
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