Because I'm not completely evil, here's the next chapter a bit earlier than usual after that cliffhanger. ;)
This chapter is where the "graphic depictions of violence" tag comes in, because there's a lot of torture (some of it inspired by the Deadpool movie, to be perfectly honest). If you don't want the details, you can skip from Loki's landing to "I am Loki of Asgard" and everything should still make sense.
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And Steve sees—
He is drowning in pain and anger, and then (no, Loki) despair overwhelms everything else, and he opens his hand, and he falls.
The Void is an eternity of dark cold nothing, where there is no time, no light, no sound, no air, no life. He begins to unravel, he cannot truly feel his body but he knows the nothingness is eating away at him, dissolving him as his mind fragments. He falls, and falls, and falls, and he is never going to stop—
He has a brief glimpse of stars, and rocks, and then he lands with a shattering impact, so dazed and blinded with it that he can barely feel himself being dragged away. He is vaguely aware of metal at his wrists, of being hoisted into the air and most of his clothes cut away, but for an indeterminate period that is all.
Full awareness returns only gradually; first he recognizes that he is hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, with his feet barely touching the floor, and there is no position he can take that will ease the strain. His cell—if that is not an overly generous term—is so small he would not be able to lie prone, were he free to do so. As it is, the walls are all beyond his reach, but no further, so that it feels rather more like a large, upright coffin. The walls are all flat and featureless, made of some material he cannot easily identify, with no visible openings or markings of any kind. Not that he has much time to study his surroundings: shortly after he wakes, the chamber's dim lighting vanishes and leaves him in absolute darkness. Thus it remains, except for the times when the walls flare blindingly, painfully bright, searing through his closed eyelids and seeming to drill right into his skull.
The chamber is uncomfortably hot, the first time he regains consciousness, and at first it is merely that; the strain in his arms and shoulders is the worse pain, but neither is unbearable, especially when the sweat on his skin and the bite of shackles into his wrists are concrete sensations, anchoring him back in his body after so long falling through an endless void. But gradually the heat increases, radiating out from the walls, until he is dizzy and sick with it and the shackles burn his arms, until he is blinded by stinging sweat and then stops sweating entirely, until he vomits up what little moisture remains to him and he is still wracked with cramps and nausea, until his skin cracks and blisters and the blisters burst and ooze. They are cooking him alive, he thinks vaguely, in some corner of his mind that is not overcome by heat. He survived the Void, so they are going to roast him to death instead.
They do not. At the razor edge of oblivion, the heat returns at last to a tolerable level. There is a spray of warm water from the ceiling, agony on his blisters but he doesn't care, desperately craning his neck to get as much of the precious liquid in his mouth as possible. The thought crosses his mind that the water might be poisoned, but he cannot make himself care enough to stop. On balance, he thinks he would rather slake his overpowering thirst and suffer for it later.
The water is not poisoned, as far as he can tell; it is merely water, and when he is soaked with it (but long before he has managed to drink his fill), the spray shuts off and leaves him dripping in the sudden silence of the little chamber. He is still dizzy, and every drop that hits the floor seems impossibly loud.
And then lightning slams through the shackles and into his body, arcing and crackling through and around him, jerking his spine back in a hard arch. It keeps going, wave after wave of it coursing through his bones until—once again—he is hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, and then the current snaps off to leave him hanging there, panting, every muscle twitching and aching. He is granted only a few moments to rest before electricity lights up his bones once more, and this time he can smell his flesh burning.
It leaves him just as abruptly as it arrived, and as he shakes in his bonds, he registers a faint hissing noise, as of escaping air. A moment more and he realizes, no, not "as of," that is exactly what he is hearing, air being sucked from the chamber or exchanged for a balance of gasses he cannot breathe, because suddenly he is suffocating. He gasps for breath, panic clawing at him, but whatever reaches his lungs is nearly useless. His head is spinning, lungs burning, dizziness swamping him and he cannot think past the frantic need for air—
Again: relief, just as unconsciousness reaches for him. Hissing again as the atmosphere in his chamber shifts, and his body drags him back from the edge. Again: it is only a short reprieve. Again: hissing, and suddenly he is choking, struggling to breathe when there is no air to be found.
And so it goes, in cycles with no discernible pattern—heat or electricity or suffocation, never in the same order, never for the same duration, each wave scattering his thoughts just as he begins to collect them so that he is unable even to count the number of times they have electrocuted or roasted or suffocated him. Even his brief periods of respite follow no apparent pattern, and the suspense is its own kind of agony. He knows it is absurd, knows he should seize the moments he is granted and use them to recover as much of his strength as he can, but the anticipation of pain winds his nerves so tight that it is almost a relief, each time, when the torment begins anew and he is no longer forced to hang helpless and waiting, wondering which way he will be hurt next. Each time, that almost-relief vanishes quickly, overwhelmed by the agony of lightning or unbearable heat or the panicked need for air.
Under other circumstances, Loki thinks he might be impressed with his captors' efficiency. They are expending no apparent effort and still grinding him down, and he does not want to think what it means, that this all must be in preparation for something—or that perhaps it is not, and he truly does not know which thought is worse.
(Once, only once, the chamber's temperature plummets, freezing him instead of cooking him, and for the briefest of instants this is agony too, the cold biting deep into his bones—and then he turns Jotun-blue and the relief is nearly enough to overcome the surge of revulsion. The temperature continues to fall, frost creeping along his body and the walls, and he feels his heart begin to slow. He relaxes into it, dormant instincts easing him toward a deep sleep like hibernation, and he welcomes it without a single flicker of alarm. But even as the strain leaves his body, the temperature shoots upward again, and he burns, and whatever overseer is keeping watch on his suffering does not attempt the cold again.)
Loki does not know how long he has hung in his chamber, weeks or months or years, only that it has been a very long time, when the Chitauri come for him and haul him down from his chains. It has been so long since he has encountered another living being that he nearly weeps to see them—and this almost-relief, too, dies a quick ugly death as they begin to take him further apart. They do not speak to him, do not react when he speaks to them, when he screams, when he abandons his pride and begs; they only continue methodically with their work, cutting into him or beating him or burning him, drowning him or forcing poison down his throat, shattering his bones or pulling apart his joints or peeling off his skin. And when he is bleeding and unable to move, consumed by pain, they return him to his tiny cell. This is his new routine, for time without end, unmeasured and immeasurable, as he is ground down in an endless cycle by the impersonal torture inflicted by the cell and the pain worked into his flesh and bones at the hands and claws and weapons of the Chitauri.
The Other comes to him next, at first merely to observe and then to clamp its grotesque hands to the sides of his head and dig through his mind with all the finesse of a butcher. This is a new kind of agony, one that exists only in his mind, and he cannot resist it or flee from it as it sears through every nerve. For the Other, he does weep, coming back to himself with his body broken and his mind shredded and his throat raw from screaming. Only then does the Other speak to him, telling him of Thanos, the mighty Titan who may yet find a use for the pathetic waste of flesh that has wrecked itself, uninvited, against the shores of his sanctuary. Loki latches onto the alien's words with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at a lifeboat because he can use this, at last, something that might give him the chance of saving himself if he is careful and clever enough.
When at last Thanos comes to him in person, Loki is lying bolted to a metal table, his chest and abdomen cut open to reveal his innards, and he no longer remembers what it is like to feel anything but pain or taste anything but his own blood and bile. The titan stands above him, brimming with power, and he asks, "Whom do you serve, child?"
"You," Loki gasps, "you, I serve you, I swear it," let me go just let me go kill me please kill me I will take what you give me and destroy you with it—
And Thanos smiles. "You do not. Not yet. But you will." He raises a scepter with a glowing blue gem and touches its blade to Loki's exposed heart, and tendrils of blue sink into his mind and rip him open. If the Other's mental touch is fire, the Titan's is acid, chewing its way through all the cracks in his walls and splitting them wide, eating into the core of him and leaving nothing behind but his fears and failures and an ocean of pain. When Thanos finishes with him and leaves, he is not even aware of it, only coming back to himself when he is once again in his cell.
Let me, he thinks, let me but it is so hard to remember what he thought he might be able to do.
I am Loki of Asgard, he thinks, and you will not break me, but for the first time it feels like a lie.
Thanos returns to him again and again, sometimes without the scepter, sometimes only to speak to him when he is near delirious with pain, and Loki clings to his voice even as he hates it as it soothes and terrifies in equal measure. He tells himself he can trick the Titan, turn the scepter against him somehow, cannot stop thinking it, and each time it feels more like a lie (because he is a lie, the greatest lie of all). Each time it becomes harder to remember that there is more to the universe than agony and the scepter and the Titan's voice.
And so Loki breaks, not once but dozens of times, and that same flicker of cruelly stubborn hope continues to return—but each time it is weaker, until at last he understands that freedom is a lie, that no one is coming for him, that there is no escape, there is only Thanos and his commands, that Thanos is everything, is inevitable, is inescapable. And Loki breaks for the last time, because he lacks the strength to resist any longer (because he can no longer believe there is any purpose to resisting).
He is broken, and so he is built back up again, his seidr channeled through the scepter that is itself bound to his mind and his flesh, his only thought to do as his master commands and feel nothing because the alternative is too terrible to consider. He refuses to feel the burning of his own magic trapped in his body, of the scepter binding him tight; refuses to feel his despair, even knowing what Thanos will do with the Tesseract, what he will do with a puppet that is no longer of use; refuses anger and fear and pain because he is no longer capable of comprehending another choice.
His mother appears to him, moments before he steps through the portal. He does not heed her. He knows it is an illusion, perhaps a last test from his master. He knows this. (He has to know this.)
(Doesn't he?)
He kneels to his master, refuses to feel the anger and humiliation at his own subjugation (he does not feel it, must not, Thanos will know), and then everything is torn away in searing blue light, and he is on Midgard and the Tesseract is singing to him and oh, what he might do with that power—
(Pain. Blue light. He mustn't. He mustn't.)
His opponents are only mortals armed with primitive weapons, but when he fights them off he cannot help the surge of adrenaline that clears his head, just a little, and with it terror because Thanos will know, he will know that Loki is listening to the Tesseract's song, that Loki is not thinking only of the plan he must follow, that Loki is even fleetingly tempted to disobey, he will know and make you long for something as sweet as pain
(but Thanos isn't here)
The closer he gets to the tesseract, the more he is aware of something else, beyond the chaos and the noise, the unreasoning fear, his heart pounding pounding pounding until he thinks he will choke on it—something he knows, something familiar, and he doesn't know why but it is almost, almost like a spark of something far too dangerous to consider—
(Frigga, and now this. What if—)
He turns his mind to the plan, to what he knows he must do, but even as he leaves the facility with the tesseract and new allies, he feels it, that tiny flicker he had tried so hard to snuff out because it was far too dangerous—
(hope)
Hope is terrifying beyond comprehension and his mind flinches away from it, and yet his thoughts keep circling back—you cannot fight the Titan, you know it, you know there is no point (but what if) no you idiot he will hear and he will rip your mind asunder (but what if—)
Barton tells him of the Avengers Initiative, and for a moment he thinks good, maybe they will stop this but he knows Thanos is too powerful. To think otherwise comes near to blasphemy. And still it niggles at him, gain their attention and perhaps they and he cannot, cannot think it.
And then there is the opera in Germany, and the fleeting satisfaction of seizing control, and two of the heroes confront him, and he thinks destroy them. He thinks put on a show. He thinks he will lose what is left of his mind if he continues to be torn between all the things he knows he must and must not do.
Captain America takes off his mask and turns into Steve Rogers, and Loki's thoughts stutter to a halt.
Barton had told him a little about each person on the list, had even mentioned Steve's name, and Loki had thought it a coincidence because it had to be, surely it was a common enough name and his Steve was no supersoldier. His Steve was almost certainly dead and Loki was grateful for it, that he would not see what his friend had become, would not suffer the terror of the Chitauri invasion or the Titan's destruction. Instead Steve is here, facing him, once again placing himself in harm's way to defend someone who needs his help, and he is going to die—if not at Loki's hands, then the Chitauri will kill him, or perhaps Thanos will find him worthy enough to sacrifice to Death himself. Even if Loki does not strike the killing blow, he will be the one to blame.
It is fitting, he supposes, that the monster should destroy everything that was once good in its life, even this. Steve does not deserve this, does not deserve to suffer for unknowingly befriending a monster and finding himself inevitably drawn into the monster's fate, but he will, and Loki can almost feel his spine bending under the weight of his own despair.
Trust me, Steve says, and Loki remembers, all those years ago Will you trust me and Steve's nod without a moment's hesitation, and he thinks, I do, and it is not going to be enough.
(but what if it is?)
(what if—)
(what if this too is fate, that he should be here after so long, to stop the monster before it can hurt anyone else—)
He had not even thought to hope for this, because of course it was impossible, and now—in Steve he sees, for the first time, the chance of a way out of the Titan's plans. Loki is not meant to survive this, was never meant to survive this, but if Steve knows the truth, he might yet save Midgard.
He cannot simply tell Steve about Thanos, of course, he knows he cannot betray the Titan so fully and still retain his own mind outside the scepter's influence. But if he can use the scepter—forge the connection as if he is going to make Steve his thrall but break it off before Steve goes under entirely—he can flood the link with his own memories and then Steve will simply know everything Loki needs to tell him. Steve will let him get close enough, and the others, the Iron Man and the one still piloting the jet, will respond quickly enough to interrupt the link.
It is still a terrible risk, especially if he miscalculates and the scepter takes Steve under thrall, but if he is to thwart the Titan's plans, he knows he cannot do it alone—
—and then the scepter is ripped away and Steve tumbles across the paving stones, disoriented, his head ringing, the copper taste of blood in his mouth. He slams to a stop against the steps and for a second all he can do is stare at the pavement under his nose and try to steady himself.
Thanos. Sounds like…Thanatos, god of death. Greek? Probably Greek. Huh. God, he's dizzy. He makes it up to his knees, and Agent Romanoff's voice finally pierces the static in his head: "—report. Rogers, are you with us?"
"Hope you've got a plan if he's not, because my hands are kinda full with Reindeer Games over here," Stark says tightly.
"I'm fine," Steve says to them both. "I'm…you got to me in time. The scepter didn't—I don't know, finish." He gets to his feet, one hand going to the nearby stair rail for balance, but the wobbliness is clearing rapidly now, enough that he doesn't need the support.
Across the square, Loki is sprawled against the nearest building, hands raised in surrender, Iron Man facing him in a fighting stance with both hand repulsors and at least two mini missiles primed to fire. Loki's lip is bleeding, his armor charred in front where he must have taken a direct hit from Stark's weapons (burned, like the Titan burned him, and Steve can't think about that too long or he'll lose himself in fury at the monster who tortured his friend, who needs him to think, to strategize, to save Loki like he promised). He's tense, even shaking a little, but it's not fear of Iron Man: his gaze is intense, a little desperate, and fixed entirely on Steve, who figures he's regained as much of his equilibrium as he can and starts across the square nearly at a run.
"Close enough, Cap," Stark says when he's still several paces away, and he points one palm in Steve's direction without looking away from Loki. "JARVIS, check him."
"You interrupted the scepter's connection," Steve says, and he wants to say more, wants to say that there isn't time, but he holds still as a bright little light from the back of Stark's helmet sweeps over him.
"Yeah, well, that's what you'd say if Rudolph made you his man on the inside, so no, I'm not just gonna take your word for it," Stark says. He pauses, head tilting a little, and adds, "But I do trust JARVIS and he says you're showing no signs of outside control, so I guess those baby blues are natural."
"Good," Steve says, "because I have a lot of new intel you all need to hear." Later, he will be furious and horrified, and he will help Loki heal—but right now Loki and Earth both need him to keep his cool and lead his team in preventing an alien invasion. His thoughts have settled back into order, letting him pick apart the tangle of Loki's fear and pain and desperation to tease out the plan without Loki's masters ever realizing their puppet is fighting his strings in the only way he can. Steve's thoughts race through the possibilities—containment, evacuation, contingencies and countermeasures for organizing a response if they can't intercept Selvig in time to stop the portal opening. The scepter, and freeing everyone who's under the scepter's control. Freeing Loki too, somehow.
"It's okay," he tells Stark and Romanoff, but he's looking at Loki as he says it. "It's okay. Before the scepter's connection broke, I got a glimpse of his plan." More than a glimpse, of course, but he's not going to say that where Loki's puppet-masters might hear. "I think I know how to stop him." Loki's eyes fall shut for a second, his shoulders dropping in plain relief before he looks away, and in the privacy of his own mind Steve adds, You saved me once. Now I'm gonna save you. I promise.
This is effectively the end of the fic; the final chapter is an epilogue/post-credits scene that is basically just there so I could tie everything up neatly and show that it all turned out okay without, uh, figuring out how the battle(s) actually went. Because this fic was supposed to be a reasonable length (people who manage to write short AUs: teach me your secrets) and then it turned into kind of a monster and I just couldn't add more plotty stuff. So if that sounds fun instead of annoying, read on; if not, you can consider the fic finished right here. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it! If you liked this one, you might also be interested in my other Loki fics and my various WIPs, so you might want to check out my profile and consider following me, here or on AO3.