A/N: Thanks to everyone that reviewed, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. :3

Forgot the disclaimer last chapter, so I'll put it here: nothing belongs to me, just the vague semblance of a plot and the words you're reading. Characters and world are Marvel's.

xx

Chapter 2

Imagine a gentle death, a peaceful descent, spiraling into the great unknown. A sense of completion, of absolution, a painless end to a violent life. There is an enlightenment in the face of ultimate demise that exists nowhere else in the world, nowhere else in the universe, or the multiverse for that matter. There is nothing quite like facing the end.

Loki hadn't thought about that moment for a very long time. What had been months on one side of the universe had been years in another and that event seemed long behind him. When he'd set about conquering Midgard that particular memory had been a faded thing, like worn fabric or paper left in the sun too long, and he'd enjoyed it like that. It was true that falling into the black hole hadn't killed him as he'd thought it would, but the feelings were still there. The damn sentiment.

Being in Asgard was mucking up all his nicely-tethered thoughts. He didn't appreciate it, and he wanted to leave.

The spot he'd picked to brood in probably wasn't the best if he was trying to not remember his life as Odin's son. There was a window seat beside the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that looked out at Asgard's serene landscape and he'd nestled himself on it amongst the quilts and furs that he'd carefully collected over his childhood. Once upon a time he'd been a very picky boy, fussy to the point that he would refuse to sit on a chair if it didn't have the right texture. The window seat in his room was his favorite spot, it was lines with the softest furs he could find and had pillows in all the right spots. He'd perched there out of habit as soon as the guards had released his manacles and locked the door, and now he was regretting it.

He'd been a damn spoiled godling, he knew that now. But the seat was still pretty comfortable. Lounging in clean robes after bathing in a safe place, that was even better. Realistically he had everything he could ever ask for, even if he was a prisoner of war. Odin had become soft in his old age.

A heavy knock on the door drew Loki out of his thoughts. He glared at the entrance just in time to see Thor peek his head through.

"Brother? May I enter?" Thor asked. That was more polite than anything he'd ever said through their whole childhood, which was a bit of an oddity in Loki's mind. Strange man.

"I hardly think you need to ask your prisoner for permission to enter the jail," Loki sneered. It came out a little more venomous than he'd initially intended. He blamed it on the muzzle, and the fact that this was the first time he'd spoken to Thor since his defeat. "But of course, Odinson. Make yourself at home."

Thor stepped into the room and shut the door in silence. The soldiers barred it; metal scraping on metal gave it away. Odin's men weren't taking any chances with their prisoner's escape. He'd have to commend them for their caution.

"Loki, it does not have to be this way," Thor said gruffly. He spat the sentence, tried to get it out in one rush like he was afraid of being cut off. His eyes were bright and kind and sad and were focused on his brother like there was nothing else in the world that could hold his attention. It was cute, it really was.

There was something in his chest that felt rotten. A cyst of acid that had grown inside his lungs and around his heart and it hurt him when Thor looked at him like that. Loki would never have admitted that aloud, or let it show on his face, but he still ached when he had to face Thor's lost puppy look and beat him down with sharp words and a heavy hand.

"You're very fond of that idea, aren't you?" Loki asked. He smiled wryly. "You're in love with the thought that I'm going to turn around and try to redeem myself after all the terribly awful things I've done." The statement was mostly rhetorical; Loki did love his dramatic monologues, after all. They were the spice of life. "Shall we try it? See how it looks? Here, I'll get on my knees and start pleading for your forgiveness. But you, you can't be surprised when there's a blade between your ribs, Thor. Not while you're my benefactor, the fool that let me out of my cage."

He hoped it hurt. He hoped the words stung and chased him for hours. Loki didn't even care about manipulating his way out of his prison, not yet. He just wanted Thor to pay. And Thor did pay; he could see it in the brute's eyes, the way he got all stony and his lips were a thick, heavyset line. Poor god of thunder was upset, the precious thing.

"Loki..." Thor sighed. He swallowed, mustered up his strength and tried again. "Father says-"

"-I couldn't care less what Odin thinks, Thor. What was it? More of his wise words about why I am the way I am?" Loki sneered. He'd curled up on his window seat without realizing it, and slowly forced himself to relax once he did. It wouldn't do to appear defensive this early on in the game. "Your father is as much a fool as you."

Thor inclined his head. He was swallowing his anger remarkably well, a far cry from the brash thick-headed warrior he'd grown up with. "...Father has said that regardless of what your sentence is, you shall serve it here in your homeland."

A bitter fire on his tongue burnished the polished silver of his words. Loki was not playing his game well, but he knew it and he was okay with that. If what Thor said was true, he had all the time in the world to toy with his captors. "Jotunheim is my homeland," he muttered.

"No," Thor spat. There was just a little anger in that word, a slip of his self-control. "Asgard is your home, Odin is your father and I am your brother. I do not care who bore you, Loki, or who your sire is. The All-Father treated you as a son and the least you could do is act like one."

There were literally hundreds of bitter, snide comebacks Loki had for that comment. He'd been stolen from his birthplace and raised by his father's worst enemy, now courtesy demanded he act as if he owed Odin some sort of immense debt? He'd been lied to his entire life about what—not just who, but quite literally what—he was, and he was to be happy about that? Tiny things too, how he'd taken the throne without taking Odin's life, sought to bring peace to Asgard, branded the enemy even though he'd intended to do nothing but good for the land.

In the end, he said none of them. He realized as he watched Thor's burning eyes that they would argue around this same damn point until the universe decided to collapse in on itself. There was no end to it. Thor was stubborn and too soft, he wouldn't stand to see Loki think of himself as an outcast, and there was nothing Loki could say to him to make him think otherwise. That was all well and good, but in the end it would get quite boring. There was nothing simpler than yelling at a dog that could not understand the whys.

And some part of him knew most of those arguments weren't even true anymore. He knew why he hated Asgard, and why he saw Thor as a stranger on the other side of a great divide, and none of it had to do with his misguided quest for approval.

"I grow weary of this banter," he said with a melodramatic sigh. Theatrics were all he had for the time being. "Did you come here for a reason, or do you just seek to taunt me?"

Thor shook his head. "Only to beg you to return to us," he muttered.

Did Thor have any notion as to how pathetic he looked? Loki snickered at him, it was cold and harsh and merciless. "Then you have your answer. Now leave."

The indomitable, unbreakable god of thunder turned tail and sulked out of the room. He was defeated, utterly grim with his heels dragging and his hand lingering on the door as he waited for the guards to unlock it. He even tossed that half-glance over his shoulder as he slid out into the corridor beyond the pretty prison, that desperate 'please Loki please' that only Thor could pull off without coming off as whiny. It was quite the show, all-in-all. Even after the door was shut and barred again, Loki found himself staring at the polished metal blankly, lost in it.

There weren't many creatures this side of the end-times that could make him reminisce so much about matters that he cared so very little for. He didn't appreciate it, not in the least.

Loki exhaled slow, a steadying breath, then rubbed his hands together just to make sure they were still there, whole and clean. He had this surreal floating feeling in his chest that made him paranoid, and he couldn't quite get Thor's face out of his thoughts despite many attempts to work around it, slide it out so he could work on planning his games. He couldn't afford to slip up. Not now. But Thor seemed determined to muck up his work with his damn loyalty and his feelings and his brotherly warmth that Loki hated, despised-

No, he didn't appreciate this at all.