Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel movie universe.

Chapter 3

Phil spent the entire time waiting for the rest of the Avengers to return wondering just what exactly could have rattled Thor.

Thor, for goodness' sake. The man who played with lightning - lightning! - as if it were nothing to be afraid of. He hadn't been this dejected in spirit when he'd been in custody after failing to pick up Mjolnir. He'd been close after SHIELD took Loki into custody.

Bruce was taking care of him. Thor wouldn't like that framing, but Phil didn't know what else to call making sure he remembered to eat.

"If I had known it would be this long," he told both of them and Pepper when they were all eating breakfast upstairs the next morning, "I would have waited a day."

"It's nothing urgent, then?" Pepper asked him.

"No. It wasn't when I left. But I would rather be waiting at home than here."

"Our company's that bad?" Bruce joked.

Phil tried to hold in a laugh.

It was easy, in a way, given the joke came from Bruce. It was a shame to Phil, now that he'd gotten to know Bruce Banner as more than his file, that SHIELD and the rest of the government had treated him so badly for so long.

Especially since when Bruce was being treated like just another person - well, not exactly like, more like a person with some very specific trauma disorder symptoms - the risk of the Hulk needing to come out to defend them was much lower. And, it was now clear, the Hulk tended to defend or at least not harm people who had treated Bruce well.

"No, but I would rather be with my family right now."

JARVIS spoke up. "Your pardons, but Mr. Stark and the others have just arrived downstairs."

"Thor, why did you want to talk to all of us?" Steve asked him when they had all settled into chairs around the big dining room table Tony had only gotten when the Avengers had all set up semi-official residence. He looked ragged, but given everything that had happened since they'd all been together that was to be expected.

"I'm interested in knowing that myself," Fury commented.

"My brother was compromised."

Fury leaned forward. "Loki was working for someone else?"

"In a way. There was a pain-inducing mental block against discussing it and there was a method for tracking him. He fought the block to warn me he could be tracked. Father knew, and he diverted us to an empty but breathable world until that could be removed."

"Who was controlling him?" Natasha asked.

"We don't know. He barely managed to tell us he was compromised."

"And after the blocks were removed?" she continued.

Thor fell silent.

"It was more advanced than what he did to me, wasn't it?" Clint asked. "More durable. Greater allowed volition. It wasn't just layered over his mind, it was embedded in it."

Thor nodded mournfully. "It was so skillfully done I noticed nothing until he fought it."

Silence as the implications set in.

Phil almost felt sorry about blasting him out of the helicarrier now.

"He's gibbering, isn't he?" Trust Tony to finally say what they were all thinking. "He was tracked, time mattered, there was no capacity to be careful removing it all."

"Gibbering?" Thor asked.

"Sounding like a child first trying to talk," Steve explained. "Broken syllables. Outright babbling. Here and there something that might be a try at structure."

Thor shook his head. "Apart from rare pain cries, nothing. He clearly knows family from not, understands that he has to chew food, and he understands bathrooms well enough even though Mother won't let him bathe properly yet for fear he might drown himself on accident in standing water."

Asgardians don't do showers, then, Phil caught himself thinking absent-mindedly.

"There are signs of further improvement, and he is far better than he was when he came home, but they are slowing down."

More silence.

"Damn." Clint's voice was shaking.

"So, we have an unknown enemy who can turn an Asgardian's mind into swiss cheese. Is there any other bad news SHIELD needs to be made aware of?"

"Strictly speaking," Thor started tentatively - and that let Phil know whatever he said was going to be bad, because Thor simply didn't do tentative ever - "he is not."

Natasha leaned forward. "Your brother losing his mind isn't bad news?"

"He is adopted."

"Adopted." Fury was staring at him.

"He was abandoned at birth by an enemy of Asgard, one with whom we were actively at war. Our people stormed a temple and there was Loki, wailing on an altar. I was still a baby myself then, and Father had no heart to leave an infant to die alone and hungry and frightened no matter where he had come from. By biology, my brother is not Asgardian no matter how much he is by family and raising."

"And you didn't think this was important enough to tell us in detail?" Natasha quietly remarked as Fury seethed.

"I let you all know what his strengths and weaknesses were. He was raised as one of us. The precise nature of his origins seemed immaterial to me."

"He introduced himself as being 'of Asgard' the night he arrived," Fury informed them all.

"The problem is that we have no way of knowing if he remembers that or not," Thor continued. "He treats me and my parents as trusted family, but if he doesn't remember that he isn't ours by blood now, and does later..."

"That was what drove him over the edge when you were in New Mexico," Phil suddenly realized. "Everything he thought he knew about the world was wrong."

Thor nodded. "Or so he thought. He treated us like family again in the little bit we had together before... before he lost himself."

"And that's the bad news."

Thor shook his head. "News of his ancestry leaked. Asgard and the Jotun have been mortal enemies until recently. Providing security to preserve his life is difficult now and may soon become impossible there. As it is, it's not safe to remove him from the royal quarters. The security required is not worth it."

Clint cursed under his breath.

"And he's the only one who has any idea who was actually behind the Chitauri attack? Who knows who his handler was?" Bruce asked with particularly unnatural calm.

"Yes."

Fury rubbed his temples. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"If we want to have half a chance if there's a revenge attack?" Tony added. "No, we don't." He took a deep breath. "Housing him here's probably the best option - we're already a target simply by existing and who knows, it might jostle some memories loose."

"I need anything and everything anyone ever saw him say or do," Natasha continued for him. "Thor, that means everything since he could have been compromised and the best idea you can give me about what he was like before - both when he thought you were his biological brother and after he learned otherwise. And I want everything he said and did after you left and before the control mechanisms got ripped out. I don't care how personal it gets - if he managed to hint something, even subconsciously..."

"He would want it to have been heard," Thor finished. "He told me there were things he said that were true and things he said that were not true while he was here, but he couldn't stand the pain needed to let me know which were which."

She nodded. "I'll try to work through that. It might give us something to go on."

"It won't just be mental trauma from the removal. He's going to have conditioning from induced pain at the very least," Bruce told them. "If not outright torture when they were preparing him to be their dupe."

Thor looked like he was going to be sick.

"At least threats of it," Steve added. "And since he knew he was being tracked, he's probably be terrified he'll be found even if he doesn't know where that fear is coming from."

"If there was a way to help with the damage, I could get more out of him," Natasha offered.

"I'm the world's current expert on staying calm. Get him here, and I may be able to help if he doesn't remember me and the other guy clearly enough to shut down around me."

"Maybe you could help before we move him," Thor pondered.

"Not happening. I transform by heartrate. I'm a scientist. Stick me in a wormhole, and the other guy will come out the other end."

"If he follows me home, can I keep him?" Tony asked Fury with a straight face.

Pepper glared at him.

"Anyone opposed?" Fury asked.

Shaken heads.

"Good. Thor, start arranging things your end. Tony, get a place ready for them here - Thor, tell him anything you need. I'll check about paperwork and try to keep things quiet."

"Anything I need to know?" Tony asked.

"He can still use some appearance-altering magics without access to Asgardian technology, although I have not seen him do so yet. We cannot yet leave him alone for more than a minute or two, so best if you plan for us to share a room. Racially... by birth he is a frost giant. Becoming too hot has never been a problem for him in the past, but since he cannot self-regulate by moving around yet..."

"He'll get overheated in ways he didn't before. Cool room then, with a plan toward cool foods. JARVIS?"

"Calculating, sir."

Fury stood to leave. "I hope I don't end up regretting this."

"Better than regretting not doing this if there's another attack," Steve said bitterly under his breath after Fury had left.

"Tony, we need to have a little talk," Pepper said breezily.

Phil leaned forward. That was usually a sign she was very intent on getting her way.

"Oh?"

"The Loki-sized hole in the floor. What happens if he sees it?"

"Pepper..."

"She has a point," Bruce added as backup.

"But... it's like our sign to anyone else who tries anything that See We Did This!"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "No one in the local area will know about that. They were from farther away than Asgard knew about, right Thor?"

Thor nodded. "But with wormholes there is no true close and far once the technology and power supply capabilities are high enough, only knowledge of where another world is. But given that they needed to use the Tesseract to even get Loki to Earth, it will take a while for a response if any comes." He tilted his head. "I will note that the hole is the size of a large human. Any observer not aware it was Loki may assume a less formidable opponent made it."

"At least put Plexiglass on it, I've nearly walked in twice this week."

"Okay, I'll cover it," Tony gave in.

"I need to see to my family," Thor said in way of explaining his turn to the door. "Steve Rogers, my condolences."

"Thank you."

When he was gone, Phil quietly said, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but I know you needed the space."

Steve nodded. "I did."

"How was the funeral?" Pepper asked.

Tony quipped, "The preacher needed smashing."

"Really?"

"Tony!"

"He did, Pepper," Natasha remarked.

Bruce leaned in as far as looked to be even reasonably comfortable. "Now this I've got to hear..."