Thor had a table and chairs with thick pads brought in for him and his brother. As well as enough food that he and his brother could eat and drink until dawn. Loki's reaction was a wiry smile and a small shake of his head at Thor's behavior. He sat at the table reclining slightly sideways as he ate, drank, laughed and talked to his brother. When they were young Loki had been as boisterous but as time had passed he'd grown quiet. Falling farther into his brother's shadow. Thor stopped listening now when he spoke Thor listened. This night that forgotten respect returned. It resurrected some of the camaraderie Loki had thought long gone. Before the drink took them Loki showed the skill of his silver tongue by telling Thor a detailed and only slightly embellished tale of what happened inside his mind when Althia's body touched him.
Fury who watched and listen to every word. Thinking that perhaps there might be something useful in the God of Mischief especially when he declared that he owed his freedom to the healer and would protect Althia Sacmich with every ounce of power within him. He waxed eloquent as his brother cheered him on. 'Oh yes, he is a dangerous and eloquent bastard.' Fury thought 'Now to make him the dangerous and eloquent bastard who works for me.' Sending off several orders Fury left for the Helicarrier.
As the dawn began to crest the horizon the two very drunk demi gods snuck out of the cell. Under the watchful eyes of SHIELD they stood singing ballads to the sun rise. Loki's rich full baritone complimenting Thor's deep bass as the men sang of beautiful women, battle, and glory. As the sun cleared the desert horizon they slid to the ground back to back laughing. Natasha Romanov supervised loading the drunken Asgardians into a truck and offloading them into the cell that had been quietly improved during their impromptu duet. As they started to unload the men Loki actually stood up and politely but firmly insisted he could walk there on his own. He winked at agent Romanov just as he walked into the door frame dislodging the entire steel frame with a screech of metal. Apologizing as he handed the door to several guards. Only after she pushed him through the entry was Loki able to manage stumbling into his cell. He fell face first into his new bed and mumbled his thanks into the blankets. Natasha laughed so hard she ended sitting on the edge of the truck. She'd never thought for one minute that Loki would ever end up thanking her for anything. Thor was laid on the long couch that had been provided. He was snoring as if he was singing to thunder storms.
As the cell was secured Loki rolled over to gape blinking at the light in the ceiling a befuddled grin on his face. Slowly he fell into the first true sleep he'd had since the bifrost was destroyed. He dreamed of her laughing and running through tall grass under an Asgardian sunset that painted her in golden and red hues. Her hair long and in a complicated set of braids down her back, it wasn't a field he was familiar with but then she wouldn't recognize the gown swirling around her body or the exquisite sunset either. Loki glanced over and saw Thor sleeping beneath a tree a dark child curled next to him. Chasing Althia around his fingers never quite caught her. He glances up at a noise and she suddenly collided with him laughing but before his arms could secure her he blinked.
The dream shifted and he knew he was in her dream now not some construct of both minds. She lay strapped to a thick timbered wooden table in a filthy room with blood and the smells of death that began making Loki's gut twist. The room was lit by crude torches stuck in brackets on the damp stone wall as men and women hung from chains and hooks around the edge. Many were dead or dying from wounds that gaped in their bodies. A young man in a leather apron cut down Althia's plump side roughly with a dagger; each inch torn in her body she scream into the face of a smiling man who petted and cooed at her. "Such a good girl; I know. You can't keep this secret to yourself though." He said stroking her hair and face a gentle gesture. The torturer laid his dagger down and light escaped from the deep slice; it seals itself as if it never happened. Althia whimpered for a moment muttering in a language Loki didn't speak but understood, she begged her gods to let her die. The room changed slightly and the man who cut her aged. The bodies vanished and he tried to hold the wound open with clamps. He had to pull them from smooth flesh as she screamed. Loki clenched his fists. He watched her dragged limp to a hole in the floor and dropped in. As darkness covered her head the vision changed.
A different man fiddled with some knobs on a device suspended over her body. A thin stream of clear liquid poured down her side hissing and bubbling as it ate her flesh. Her scream was a high long notes of agony. The liquid ate away at her flesh as fast as she healed in a cycle. Loki's horror at the images that flash within the dream created a deep solid rage in him. The smiling man was in every one but the others grew old and disappear to be replaced by a young man. Time had no meaning to Althia here and slowly her plump soft body was whittled down to a husk of flesh and bones. She screamed through all of it. Loki's quick and powerful mind counted the number of aging faces that experimented n her. At four he couldn't watch anymore. She cower in a corner against pale cream walls naked little more than an animal. Loki's eyes were full of rage and vengeance when he watched three laughing men enter her room. Loki knew the hungry and callous look in their eyes as they snatch and stretch out the now pale and whimpering body. Their voices taunting as they begin to disgrace her. Her power grew and faded as they toyed with her. Beyond his tolerance Loki called his magic and his will broke the dream into tatters. She was in someone's arms screaming and he felt those arms as the dream state faded. His mind separated from hers slowly he could feel blood on his side and thick across his lap. Sitting upright suddenly in his cell Loki retched dryly. Why had he waited so long to try to break the dream? Shame ate at the god of mischief.
Thor woke late in the morning to Loki sitting on the floor by his bed his shoulders slumped forward choking and swearing. Wiping the last of sleep from his eyes "Brother what ails you?" he asked quietly as he walked to Loki's side and dropped to sit with him. "I'm afraid father has worked his punishment too well brother." Loki's eyes were sunken and haunted. "I am bound by unknown magic to that woman and last night I followed her through nightmares so akin to my own time at the hands of Thanos… yet far worse than even Thanos' twisted ways." He choked for a moment "Now knowing I could have stopped the dream with the merest flex of my will and magic I feel such shame." Loki held his head pressing hard to rid himself of the foulness he could still see. "Brother is has been less than a day since the foul influence has been removed from you. Give yourself time." Thor patted Loki on the back and rose to face one of the cameras. "Please have some coffee and food brought down." He said and waited staring into the camera. "Yes sir, breakfast will be in shortly." a voice responded to his silent request.
"Please, take me to death." Althia whispered in her sleep. Bruce shifted on the bed rolling over on his back and pulled her on his chest it was late morning and they had been asleep side by side for hours. "I'm here Althia, I've got you." It was a mantra he whispered since meeting her but tonight it was different she didn't calm at his voice and touch. He woke fully and touched her face and hand; her skin was like ice and slick with perspiration. Then she screamed a long ragged sound her mouth wide open, spine arched as she rolled off of him. He threw the covers off and watched in horror as blood seeped through his shirt down the entire length of her side a pool of it over her groin. Ripping the shirt he watched her side bubble and split. Wounds appeared and disappeared from her chest and belly. In a moment he'd dragged her into his arms and ran for the doorway calling for help. With the help of a guard he rushed her to the infirmary. She wouldn't wake up and her body displayed wound after wound but there was no attack. It was her own power ripping her pen and healing her of dozens of horror inducing wounds. Bruce called tony Stark while the medical team monitored and tried to wake her. Nothing was working.
Bruce couldn't fight the urge he scoped her into his lap and waited as Natasha spoke to her calling her name over the screams. He stayed with her for hours as she bleed and healed. He felt the bones break in her ribs as if she was being beaten. He smelled the same wild scent like he'd buried his face into the fur of some great animal for a moment and then her eyes fluttered open as a glow spread down her body. Even the blood was gone by the time she filled her eyes. "Bruce? Angel?" she whispered through lips cracked and still tinted with blood. A wound that vanished as her light slipped beneath her skin. Her tongue darted out tasting her own blood. He clutched Althia to him his face buried in her chest weeping with relief. He slid to the floor where they clung to each other her face buried in his hair, her arms around his shoulders.
Nine hours after Bruce woke up Tony Stark landed with a plane full of equipment. Althia was put in a strange bed with a hood device that slid up and down the length. She had no memory of what had happened as she slept. A mild sedative failed to have any effect on her at all and they gradually upped the dose till she fell into a deep sleep. She relived the nightmares her body displaying each wound she received. Almost no one could stand to be in the room with her screams, pleas, and grunts of pain as they echoed off the walls. None could watch her body mutilate and heal as her dreams manifested. Thor and Loki held out the longest to hold her hand and whispered in her ears that it was a dream and not real. For a few minutes Loki leaned against the head of the bed and read from an Asgardian book of myths and legends to her in a language only Thor seems to understand. After a while with a snap of his hand the book shut and he threw it with all his strength to be lodged in the far wall. Loki's eyes were cold and intensely focused as he listened to her his long fingers laced in hers. His hand felt her skin ran hot one minute and like ice the next. Even Thor lost his tolerance and stormed out to find something to drink or destroy while Loki sat with her refusing to leave as she suffered. Two hours he sat with her when Tony called and said in a choked voice that he'd gotten enough. Slowly the machine came to a stop and Loki leapt up. He lifted her gently from the table and pulled the wires from her face and body before placing her in his lap. Holding her face between his hands she cried out and shudder as he forced her mind awake from the dream. She followed a soft voice and ice blue orbs back into the waking world.