WARNINGS for graphic descriptions of torture.


Loki lay on his side in bed, his hands resting beside his face as he stared at them. He had woken in his position, feeling stiff but better. His breathing came easier, and he was grateful the mask was gone, but his eyes had focused on his still healing hands and his mind was flung back to a different place.

The hands he saw in his mind were not burned and healing, resting gently on soft sheets. He saw dark rock and grime. His fingers broken and bloody. His skin was littered with wounds that he could no longer heal.

When he had fallen, he had expected to die. He had expected the vastness of the void to tear him apart. He had not expected to be found, and certainly not by the creatures that found him. He was half dead when they came upon him. Monsters, true monsters, that lived in the cracks between the branches of Yggdrasil. They tore into him with glee, breaking him apart and watching as his magic put him back together.

It was not the first time he'd been tortured. A lifetime of following Thor into foolish battles had taken care of that. However, it had been the first time he'd been trapped with an enemy and known that no one was coming for him. There was no rescue being mounted, no one to hold on for. No one even knew he was alive let alone where he was.

He could only endure, and wait for a window of opportunity to escape. But months passed, and Loki grew worried. The creatures who clawed at him, who broke his bones as though they were twigs, they were the lesser beings. They were too wild, to chaotic. He'd heard them speak on an 'other'. Someone who gave them orders and told them to keep him alive.

He met this Other eventually. A creature shrouded from sight and full of mocking words. He wanted Loki's power. He promised the pain would stop if Loki would agree to serve their master. Loki declined.

The torture began anew. They peeled his skin from his body, cut chunks of meat out and watched it regrow. And still he endured. He would not be pawn to another, not he. Not Loki.

Then the Other returned, and this time he came with a sceptre. Loki did not recognize the make of the weapon, but he knew the stone that powered it. An Infinity gem.

Odin had told he and Thor about the stones that powered the gauntlet that resided in the weapons vault. Thor had been disinterested to learn of a magic glove, but Loki had learned all he could. He read everything he could about it, and because of this, he knew already that the stone the Other possessed could alter minds.

Loki fought against its power longer than what should have been possible, but he had to. He may not be as strong as Thor, but his might was in his mind, and he would not loose that to these monsters.

Over and over the Other tried to work the scepter's magic over him, to turn him into a mindless minion for his master. The only reason Loki remained was thanks to his magic.

And then they took that away from him.

Now, he lies in a bed on Midgard. His hands and arms are healing from the burns, but just under them he can see the thin scars that trail from the palm of his hand, down his wrists and up his arms that were covered with bandages. Similar scars were on his legs and torso, binding his magic completely. He could not reach for it, and it could not help him. They burned the marks into his skin so that they could not be undone, so it was permanent. Without his magic he could no longer heal himself, or stop the Other when he came again with the sceptre.

One of his last clear memories was of that foul creature bearing down upon him, sceptre in hand and a tooth filled smile on its face. After that he was left with only fractions of memories that he was still trying to piece together. The sceptre had been placed in his hands, and only with it could Loki use some of the magic that he was used to. Not that it had mattered; he'd been a mindless drone by then. A shadow of who he used to be. He remembered wanting to be king, and the Other saying that he could have Midgard if he could succeed in bringing them the tesseract. Why he'd wanted to rule over the earth he couldn't fathom.

It didn't matter anyways. He'd clearly failed. The spell the infinity gem broke somehow, but by the time he'd had enough control over his own mind, he'd already been gagged, and Thor was handing him to the mortals. Again he was tortured, and this time they used his cursed nature against him. And just as he was on the brink of death, just as he'd thought he would finally have peace… he was pulled back. They took him from the heat, wrapped him in bandages and nursed him back to health. He didn't know why. Perhaps they wanted him healthy so that they could do it again, or try another form of torture. Or maybe Thor had decided that the humans had punished him enough and he was to take Loki back to Asgard to face his punishment there.

Loki tried to imagine what he was to be faced with when he was eventually brought before Odin. Certainly his magic would have been bound if it weren't already. After that it could be anything. He could be placed in the dungeons where he would certainly waste away for centuries without dying. His status as a prince could be stripped from him, and he would be made to live in Asgard as a slave. Or the All father could banish him altogether, send him to the ruins of Jotunheim to face the tender mercies of his kin.

And Loki had no choice either way. He did not have the strength to fight his way free, not even from the few mortals that held him now. Even if he somehow managed to escape from this place, he had no magic to shield himself from Heimdall's sight. There was nowhere he could go that he couldn't be found. And there were no allies to turn to, no one who would shelter him. So he lay there, staring at his hands, waiting for whatever fresh hell fate would serve him next.

He heard the door open and wondered what the fair haired mortal wanted now, but it was Thor who walked into his sight.

"Loki?" Thor spoke quietly, but Loki did not look away from his hands. He only reacted to Thor's presence when Loki saw a large hand move to gently touch his own, and he pulled his hands closer to his body so that Thor could not reach them. Thor hesitated, his fingers hovering where Loki's hands had been before drawing back with a sigh.

"I am sorry that I was not here when you awoke." Thor apologized, "I had not planned to be away for long but my return was delayed."

If he was waiting for a response, Thor was going to be disappointed. Loki knew better than to hope that his foster brother would have been waiting at his bedside. He had learned long long ago that Thor was not the type to sit at a sick bed.

"My friends told me that you tried to escape," Thor began awkwardly, "I know that you would not wish to stay here, especially considering what the mortals have done to you…" At those words, Thor's voice took on a darker edge but Loki did not have the time to think of why, "but you must remain here. I promise you Loki, you are safe. I will not let any others harm you."

Again Thor reached out to place a comforting hand on him, but this time Loki's whole body flinched at the prospect of contact. There were too many memories fresh in his mind, so much violence that Loki immediately reacted.

There was a silence in the room before Thor finally took a step back from the bed. "I will be back Loki. My friends have asked to speak with me but I will return shortly." He paused, as though thinking something over. "Is there anything you would like me to bring you? Food? Or something to read? Tony Stark keeps an impressive home, and I have seen a small library. I can bring you some if you like…"

Loki did not answer. He did not trust his tongue to speak. He feared that if he were to open his mouth, all that would come out would be screams. So he stayed quiet, his eyes never straying from their blank stare with the wall. Eventually Thor left, leaving him to his solitude. That, at least, was much more familiar.

()()()()

Telling Thor about their discovery was a dangerous endeavour, so when Thor was checking up on his brother Bruce went about making the most calming tea he had in stock, Steve made sure to clear some of the more expensive items out of the designated room. Tony even went so far as to hack into the local traffic systems to re-route cars so that there was the minimum amount of civilians in the general area.

When Thor trudged in, his shoulders slumped and looking particularly glum, Bruce directed him to a comfortable seat and the three of them slowly took seats of their own. Even then, Tony started off by asking how Miss Foster was doing, how was the trip, what was the weather like over there. Eventually they could not avoid it any longer, and Steve carefully broke the news.

The response came slowly, as if Thor did not understand what they were telling him. Then came the hopeful questions, in which Thor seemed to think it was too good to be true, that his brother wasn't some terrible murdering warlord after all. And then came the realization and the grief, that he himself had silenced Loki so that he could not speak of his innocence, and had willingly handed him to the men that then tortured Loki to the point of near death.

After that, Thor was quiet for a long while. The others let him be, Bruce even got up to start putting together something for them to eat for dinner.

Eventually, it was Tony who interrupted Thor's brooding. "So, just wondering, you wouldn't happen to have a way to get back to your own planet would you? I mean, we'd love to have you, but I'm thinking your brother isn't really that safe here- not that he was before- but he might appreciate recovering at home rather than in the house of the guys who hand delivered him to his own personal hell."

Thor shook his head, "No, the means of which my father used to send me here I can not reproduce. To return I will need the tesseract, and Shield's Fury hold's it. It would be easy for me to retrieve it, but you have already warned me against taking arms against Shield."

Tony nodded, as though he had already suspected as such. "Ok, thats fine, I have a couple ideas as to how to keep Shield's scent off of us for a while. As long as you don't take your brother outside for walkies we should be fine. So we just have to use our time to try and figure out some alternatives while he heals."

At those words, Thor suddenly jumped up from the chair, startling the others as he strode quickly out of the room. Steve shared a quick worried look with the others before they all made to follow. Apparently Thor had been overcome with the desperate need to see his brother again, because that was where he was headed. Loki was precisely where they'd left him, laying on his side although his eyes were open and staring listlessly at the wall. Only when Thor reached forward to take his hand did Loki react, and that was to snatch his hands back and hold them close to his chest.

Thor was not deterred and took one of Loki's wrists even as Loki began to struggle.

"Thor, what are you doing?!"

"My brother is innocent of the crimes he's been punished for, I will not allow his suffering to continue needlessly. I am removing the chains that would hold his magic so that he can heal himself properly." Thor explained evenly as he did something to the cuff on Loki's right arm. Loki himself didn't seem to care what was happening, he was focused only on getting Thor to release him from his iron grip and started to thrash about, striking at Thor with his free hand.

The cuff fell off his arm and landed on the bedding with a soft thump and Thor managed to wrangle Loki's other arm so that he could do the same to that cuff. When that one fell to the floor, Thor released Loki who put as much distance between himself and the rest of them as possible. Pressed up against the headboard and the wall, Loki watched them all warily. They all just watched him right back. Steve didn't know exactly what he'd been expecting, but he'd expected something.

Nothing happened. Loki's burns remained the same, the bruises around his wrists from the cuffs stayed dark and ugly. Thor began to look alarmed and started forward to reach out to Loki who only recoiled from the gesture.

"Loki, what is wrong?"

There was no answer, Loki only continued to glare at all of them while the others turned their attention to Thor.

"I do not understand…" Thor confessed, his eyes never leaving his brothers.

"Just so the rest of us are in the loop, what exactly were you expecting?" Tony asked.

"My brother's magic is a powerful force, once released it should have healed him." He turned towards the others, his face crunched up with worry. "When we were young, Loki was often injured in the training ring because of his small stature. When he began learning his magics, he trained himself in the healing arts so that he would be able to heal his own wounds. He even trained his body so that the healing would be second nature, so that he would not even have to think about what he was doing. Any injury, wound or infection would not last long if Loki had but a fraction of his magic."

"Well," Tony theorized, "he's been in those cuffs for a while now, maybe his batteries just need to re-charge."

Thor shook his head. "The bindings I placed on him would not have drained his magic, only blocked his access to it. There should be no lack, I do not understand…"

It wouldn't seem as though Loki was up for answering them either, as he continued to glare viciously at his assembled captors. Despite his hostile stance, Thor tried again to inspire a response from his brother but Loki eventually turned away, glowering at the bedsheets instead. They left him eventually, even Thor though he seemed reluctant.

"So his magic is on the fritz," Tony said later on, clearly attempting to help relieve some of Thor's worries. "He's still healing faster than a human ever could."

"That is our way, what might fell a mortal would not kill one of Asgard… or of Jotunheim either. But that is not why I worry. My brother's magic should have healed him, the infection in his lungs included. Our natural healing will not. There are somethings that can not be repaired or healed. My father lost his eye, others have lost limbs in battle. Such things even we can not grow back. This damage to my brothers lungs, should he not heal it with his magic soon, I fear it will be permanent."

Suddenly Thor's distress was a lot more understandable. Permanent was a very big deal when the affected was immortal...


Finally some Loki POV! I promise later on we will go further in depth of how loki was controlled and so on. Please let me know what you thought!