A/N All right, this is the last of the movie events. After this chapter, everything will get back to everybody in the present and proceed from there. So this should be the last of the past/flashbacks.

On a side note, if you recognize some of the dialogue near the end of this chapter, it's because it's from the last chapter of my previous story Steven Anthony Stark.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys literally made my week! :D

Ophelia Lokisdottir

ImperfectIsPerfect

Aka-Baka Hoshi

neal4grissom

SwimmerGirl0726

FanFictionQueen1

Son-of-hiddle

aliceindeepdarkwonderland

Guest

RoxasGuyXIII

embermoonlight

A Different Perspective

His time on the helicarrier was anything but pleasant. He had been so utterly cruel. The things he had said, the things he had done, they had sickened and haunted him. If he survived this whole ordeal, he knew he would never be able to forget anything he had done on this planet, most of all when he mercilessly stabbed and killed the brave, selfless agent named Coulson.

He did have to admire Miss Romanoff, though. The way she had succeeded in playing him, getting the truth from him, when he himself was powerless to give it to her. She was good, and he was glad she had manged to get what little information she had from him. It was something, at least, and he hoped it would help them stop him.

It didn't. Chaos broke out on the helicarrier as Loki's men, led by Barton, attacked. Loki easily escaped from his cell and waited for Thor to show up. Loki knew he would. The real Loki wanted to warn Thor but once again he couldn't as his brother ran toward the illusion, falling through it and landing in the cell. Loki fought to stop himself but his hand hit the button to seal the door closed anyway.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Loki asked.

Thor lunged forward and hit the glass with Mjolnir, cracking it and causing one of the clamps to disengage. Loki felt a grin spread across his face even as a shot of fear ran through him and he silently begged Thor not to hit the glass again.

"The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?" Loki asked, walking over to the control panel for the cage.

Loki started to panic. If he hit that button, the cage would fall from the helicarier. Thor was pretty resilient but not even he was completely invincible. Fortunately, Loki was stopped as Agent Coulson knocked one of the guards out and leveled a huge gun at the mind-controlled trickster.

"Move away, please," Phil said. Loki slowly took a step back. "You like this?" Phil asked motioning to the gun in his hands. "We started working on the prototype after you sent the destroyer. Even I don't know what it does." He pressed a button on the side and the gun powered up. "You want to find out?"

'No! You can't!' Loki mentally yelled at himself as he saw what was about to happen, and for the first time since his mind had been taken over, a voice not his own answered him.

Watch me.

Loki's hand shot forward shoving the spear's tip into Coulson's back and straight through his chest. Loki heard Thor yell in dismay and outrage, a cry that mirrored his own silent one as he watched the brave, selfless agent slip off the spear and fall to the ground. The illusion of the Loki Phil had been facing, faded away as he did so. Then Loki simply walked past the fallen man, not even sparing him a second glance, grinning sadistically all the while.

Loki screamed, yelled, cursed, and even begged as he watched himself press the button that opened the hatch beneath Thor's cage, causing wind to whip through the room. He raised his hand over the button that would eject the cage into open air, but suddenly his hand hesitated as Loki fought with everything he could muster to stop himself, to take back control, to spare just one life from being taken.

To save his brother.

But it wasn't enough. It was just a brief hesitation. Then his fingers hit the button and Thor was gone. And Loki gave up, defeated.

"You're going to lose," Phil said softly, drawing Loki out of his silent despair.

"Am I?" Loki heard himself say sarcastically.

"It's in your nature," Phil said.

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky, where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction," Phil said, and Loki wondered if the man could see something in him no one else could.

Could he see, or perhaps sense, Loki's divided mind? The war being waged inside him? He surely didn't know the specifics of Loki's internal struggle, but perhaps Coulson could tell Loki's will wasn't completely in his actions. An involuntary shiver of wonder ran down Loki's spine as Coulson looked him right in the eye and seemed to see everything.

Loki heard himself start to speak but was cut off and sent flying by Coulson's weapon. When the blast from Phil's gun slammed into him, Loki welcomed the pain. He deserved it. He deserved to hurt. He deserved to die. He couldn't stop himself. He couldn't save anyone. He was too weak. Would that the blast had killed him, but, alas, it didn't even seriously injure him.

The next thing Loki knew, he was on board a jet, flying away from the helicarrier and toward Stark Tower.

)()()(

As he exchanged words and threats with Stark in his tower, Loki found that he rather liked Stark's wit. If the circumstances were different, Loki could see himself and the genius bantering and matching wits, and even possibly becoming friends. Unfortunately, the circumstances were not different and Loki wasn't this man's friend. Right now he was the enemy whether he wanted to be or not.

He was more than horrified to watch himself throw Stark out the window, grieving the loss of yet another life at his hand. However, his sorrow quickly turned to relief when Stark reappeared in the window, uninjured and dressed in his suit. It was rather strange to root for the people trying to take him down by whatever means necessary. It was even stranger to feel glad every time they managed to shoot him, or hit him, or just interfere with his plans. Perhaps he truly was going crazy.

When the rest of the team showed up, Loki was happy to see Barton with them. Happy to see he was once again in control of his own mind, free from the influence that had held sway over him. Now if the archer could just fulfill his desire to kill Loki, then perhaps the tortured Asgardian could finally be free as well.

)()()(

Perhaps the hardest part of the battle was having to fight his brother. Even with everything Loki had said and done, Thor still wouldn't give up on him. He was still trying to reach him, despite how Loki continually tried to kill him. Despite how Loki succeeded in hurting him, both physically and mentally, again and again.

With every hit and blast Loki's body sent Thor's way, the real Loki pounded at the barrier separating him from controlling his own body. He had had enough. He was either going to fight through the force binding him or die trying.

"Look at this!" Thor yelled. "Look around you."

With a monumental effort, Loki finally, finally, smashed into the force controlling him in one big serge with all of his mental strength and something snapped. Suddenly, he found himself in control of his body and mind.

"Look at this!" he heard Thor yell, and Loki looked around with a stricken expression at the destruction and chaos he had caused. "Look around you," Thor continued. "You think this madness will end with your rule?"

He was so surprised that he had succeeded in regaining control, that it took him a minute to speak and when he did, it wasn't what he had been planning to say. He had wanted to say so many things. He had wanted to beg Thor's forgiveness for his actions. He had wanted to tell his brother how much he cared for him. There was even a very strong part of him pressing at the back of his mind where the tesseract's power still lurked, that wanted to tell Thor just how much he hated him for the way he had laughed and bullied him when they were growing up.

But, as he opened his mouth to say the first uncontrolled words to cross his lips in weeks, what actually came out was something else entirely.

"It's too late," he said desperately. "It's too late to stop it."

"No," Thor said. "We can, together."

Loki found himself wanting to believe that, but then he felt his control begin to slip as the tesseract reasserted itself. He could feel his hand move unbidden to one of the knives he carried. He knew he had to do something quick. Just as he opened his mouth to warn his brother, the tesseract retook control. Loki was locked into the back of his own mind once more, forced to watch as his hand shoved a small knife into Thor's stomach.

'NO!' Loki mentally screamed and thrashed and railed against the tesseract's power but it did no good. He couldn't break through again.

"Sentiment," he heard himself whisper.

Then Thor was smashing him into the ground before Loki felt himself roll away and fall off the side of the building to land on one of the Chitauri gliders.

He was once again forced to watch himself kill and destroy, powerless to stop his own hands from hurting so many innocent people. He was actually grateful when Barton shot his exploding arrow and managed to knock Loki off his glider despite his hand catching the arrow before it could hit him.

He felt the explosion send him flying through the air before he hit something hard and found himself on the top of Stark Tower once more. The Hulk appeared out of nowhere and slammed him through the glass to land inside the Tower. Loki was silently cheering on The Hulk for taking him down. It was actually a strange thing to cheer someone on against himself, but seeing as Loki couldn't do anything to stop himself, he would cheer on anyone who could.

When he heard the tesseract make himself scream, "Enough," he actually wasn't sure if it was directed at The Hulk or at him.

"You are all of you beneath me." Locked in the back of his own mind, Loki actually mentally rolled his eyes at the words coming from his mouth. "I am a god you dull creature," the tesseract continued through him. "And I will not be bullied by-"

He hit the floor once, twice, three times. It paused for just a moment then he was slammed twice more before being left where he landed as The Hulk walked away.

He laid there, feeling a mixture of pain and shock. Pain, obviously from being slammed into the floor, and shock, because the tesseract was gone. He was in control again and there was no sign or feeling of the tesseract in his mind any longer. He was free. After so long, after everything that had happened, he was finally, completely, physically, and mentally free.

However, although the tesseract was gone, it had left chaos and confusion in its wake.

Loki's mind felt fractured into so many pieces, with each one feeling a different emotion. There was the part of him that was just so happy to be free, but it was dampened by the part of him that was horrified by the pain and chaos and destruction and death that had been caused by his hand. There was the part of him that wanted nothing more than to go home and see his family again, which was followed by the part of him that knew punishment and his family's hate was all that waited for him. However, all of it was greatly overshadowed by the part of him that was full of hatred for the lies and insults and torment his family had directly or indirectly caused.

The hatred was so intense. It was what the tesseract had enhanced and fed off of and then left behind for him to deal with. It was stupid and unfounded, but it was there all the same and it was at war with the rest of him.

Then there was the part of himself that was downright frightening. The part of himself that wished The void, or Thanos, or the Hulk or someone or something else had actually succeeded in killing him, thus putting him out of his misery. As soon as that part of him rose up, it was quickly matched by the part of him that was very scared by that.

)()()(

Suddenly, Odin's magic shifted the memories to one that actually wasn't Loki's but was just as relevant. It showed Selvig telling Natasha how to close the portal and save the Earth. The spear. The very bit of information Loki had figured out, had put together, and had managed to keep hidden from the tesseract and keep safe. The one thing that could stop Thanos and save an entire planet and the race upon it. The one thing that if Loki hadn't covered up, would have been discovered and done away with. And all hope would have truly been lost.

After this revelation, Loki felt sure there was nothing more to show everyone, but apparently the spell wanted to beat the information to death as it switched back to Loki one last time.

)()()(

It took awhile for Loki's mind to clear from the haze that had settled over it, whether from pain or the last lingering touch of the tesseract, he didn't know. But, eventually, his mind cleared and he began the slow and painful task of moving. In a scene that was eerily similar to his crawl across the crater on Thanos' planet, Loki slowly managed to turn over and pull himself to his hands and knees before painfully crawling over to the nearby steps.

He was just pulling himself up to sit on them, when he looked up to see The Avengers gathered around him and an arrow pointed at his head. Loki's tongue was now free. He could say whatever he wished, and yet he had absolutely no idea what to say, which was probably why something incredibly trivial, very much useless, and largely stupid came out of his mouth.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now," Loki said.

"Wait," Steve said. He stepped forward and looked closely at Loki and the trickster could see the realization in the Captain's eyes. "His eyes are green."

"Okay. Duly noted. You like his eyes," Barton said.

Loki couldn't help but roll his eyes. The tesseract had thought that one was a good choice of ally? Loki froze at the thought. It was the kind of thought he never used to have about anyone, except perhaps those who had tormented him. But those kind of thoughts had become common ever since coming into contact with the tesseract's touch, on Asgard, over a year ago.

He had thought once he was free of it, his mind would return to how it had been, but it hadn't. Now he had so much anger and hate and spite in him, which he had never had before. What scared him the most, though, was he didn't know if they were things left behind by the tesseract or if they were thoughts and emotions he had always had and the tesseract simply brought them to the forefront. He desperately hoped it was the former and that they would dissipate soon, but something told him, despite where they had originated from, he wasn't going to be getting rid of them quite that easily.

"Before," Loki heard Steve saying and it pulled the Asgardian from his thoughts. "when he was on the helicarrier, they weren't green. They were blue." Steve moved his gaze to Clint. "A very familiar shade of blue."

"What are you trying to say?" Thor asked, and Loki would swear he heard hope in Thor's voice.

"I'm saying that I don't think he willingly did any of this. I think he was being controlled by someone, just like he controlled Clint and Dr. Selvig," Steve explained.

"Loki, is this true?" Thor asked, looking at Loki with such hope in his eyes.

Loki couldn't seem to bring himself to answer as shame burned through him. He couldn't stand the look in Thor's eyes so he looked away, focusing his gaze on the floor.

Out of the corner of his eye, Loki saw Thor's hand stretch out toward him.

"Brother," Thor said, and it had been so long since Loki had heard Thor call him that with such a gentle tone of voice, that he raised his head to meet Thor's eyes for a moment.

Loki was stunned to see no sign of pity or disgust or disappointment, and most of all, no sign of hatred in the eyes that met his. In fact, Loki saw understanding, compassion, and even love shining in Thor's eyes and it nearly dumbfounded Loki. He had been so sure there would only be hatred, and yet, there wasn't. For a moment, Loki was able to forget his dark thoughts, his anger, and his hatred. He was able to forget all the grievances he held against Thor and he reached out and took Thor's offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet.

"Let's go home," Thor said, and in that moment, Loki had never heard sweeter words in all his life.

A/N So now that we're all caught up and everybody knows the truth, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think Loki will be let off the hook? Do you think he'll be punished somehow? Do you think everything will be fine and dandy between him and his family? Do you think everything will fall apart? I would love to hear your theories! And be sure to come back Friday to get answers to some of those questions. :)