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Chapter 4

It was apparent the moment Loki arrived on Midgard that his people-identifying abilities had recovered to far beyond the point Thor had thought they had.

His eyes darted around, taking them all in and even though they had all dressed as plainly as they could, the rising fear was obvious.

And then he looked at Thor.

There was a flash of what Natasha couldn't interpret as anything but a deep feeling of betrayal on his face.

And then the awareness in his eyes fled.

"Thor, I think he knows us," Tony said frankly.

Natasha couldn't resist the urge to smack him on the arm.

"He was like this in the beginning," Thor noted with no small regret as he steered an unresisting Loki toward the waiting van. "Awake, but not home."

Dissociation. "He's trying to keep from being hurt."

"By letting us do whatever we want to him with no resistance? That makes no sense. Becoming helpless is no means to protect anything."

"If his mind isn't home, all we can hurt is his body. I've seen it in torture victims before," Steve told him. "Your brother doesn't think he has a chance to keep himself from being harmed, so he's making sure he's not around when it happens."

Thor's head tilted.

"We'll have Jane explain it to you," Tony said with a roll of his eyes. "She's meeting us in New York. She's at an academic conference, but she can stay for a few days afterwards without harming her research."

Thor brightened a little.

Loki didn't even stir when they belted him into the seat. Or when the van started moving. Or a few hours later when the sun rose outside and the sky brightened.

It's worse than I thought it could be, Natasha realized.

What could he have done wrong?

He must have done something wrong or the tall one who looked out for him wouldn't have brought him here where people who brought only disjointed memories of pain were and it was so hot just outside he could feel that it was and he was always doing things wrong wasn't he, when they weren't there to give guidance and they weren't there anymore were they were they?

No they weren't and they should be and why had they abandoned him? Why couldn't he even feel the passive touch he'd felt the few times they'd left him completely to himself that he could barely remember? Not even the waiting he could vaguely remember when he'd traveled somewhere and it took a few seconds or minutes for them to re-secure the connection.

This wasn't what happened to Failures. Failures were tracked, reacquired, and used for practice of full-control. He had a vague and disjointed memory of watching it done. And of never wanting to witness it again.

So he wasn't a Failure. But he could become one and he didn't know and what rule had he broken and what was going to happen to him and couldn't he be breaking a rule now and just not know it...

Talking around him. He couldn't quite make out what was being said. He was better at it than he had been since... well since he didn't know what.

Maybe that was what he'd gotten wrong.

He was trying to be good, with what he could piece together. He'd remembered the first rule: no eating no drinking. Not without permission, and permission for someone who'd done nothing for them of use - and he was sure he hadn't - meant full-control. Skilled full-control, but control.

What had happened the one time he'd dared try to get around it was the sort of thing one never forgot. Even if the details were hazy and the memory warped. Still there. Still horrible.

Still likely, if they didn't accept that he'd had food and water forced on him. That he hadn't felt anything from them since... since...

It didn't make sense it didn't make sense it didn't make sense...

He'd even resisted when the people who'd always looked out for him tried to make him hungry enough to break the rule. Even when he went over a day without, he hadn't bent. Been forced when they realized he wasn't about to defy them or worse him, but not voluntarily.

Maybe that would be enough when contact came again, maybe they'd accept it...

No, they won't. Ever.

He ignored it. That was the second lesson, after all: everything you thought you knew is wrong, better to trust them and be sure.

Even Failures were permitted the mercy of not being able to fail again.

The tall one wrapped an arm around him, pulled him close.

He didn't resist, in case that would be wrong. It was the closest thing to an order he had to go by.

He's trying to be comforting, you fool!

And having an order to follow was comforting wasn't it so much better than not having any idea what he ought to be doing.

And even though he thought most of what he thought he knew about the tall one came from before he'd entered their service, he had a reasonably clear memory of being told by him that he had a place he should be in or of being told exactly what his role in some plan or other was. Repeatedly, over many years, and the oldest was when they had both been small.

So he had a place and he was trying to stay in it even if he wasn't exactly sure what it was and he had an order and even though it wasn't one of their orders it didn't go against any he could remember and that was enough for now.

Trying to make decisions for himself was just too risky.

You can do whatever you want, they've lost control and if they catch you...!

Freedom is a lie freedom is a lie freedom is a lie freedom is a lie...

Natasha was very glad they hadn't brought Bruce or Clint when it came time to stop for lunch and Thor had to feed his brother in the van as they went down the road, just so no one would see and draw the wrong conclusion.

The facing bench seats meant she and Steve had no option but to watch.

"You have to do that every meal?" Tony asked from the passenger seat as Thor finally cleaned up Loki's face with the napkins from the to-go bag.

Forcing someone to eat a double cheeseburger in little torn-off bites with a battle over each one made a mess of whoever was eating.

At least the water they'd spilled would dry off eventually, even with how cranked up the AC was to keep Loki cool.

"Yes, ever since he was strong enough and aware enough to fight us. The first few days were easier."

"I think I liked it better when he was a bag of cats," Steve remarked. "He didn't make much sense, but he was talking."

"I disagree," Phil called from the driver's seat. "I like the Not Trying To Kill Me part of this. Which, as I recall, has happened the past two times he's had dealings with Earth."

"I'm not so sure that's true dissociation, then. He didn't act differently when he was fighting you."

"No, he didn't," Tony confirmed for her.

"I have to agree," Steve added.

"... If it is not this thing you call 'dissociation'?"

"Thor, stuff got ripped out of his mind. It was sharing space with everything he knew and was before they got their hands on him, whoever they are, everything they did to him, and memories of what happened to him here during the invasion attempt. And we have no clue where the damage was done or what started healing back first. It's possible most of what he's got to work with now is whatever they did to him." Her voice was trending upwards and she didn't like that, didn't like this, didn't like any of it, and the look in his eyes when it'd happened, the little flash of hopeless defiance she'd caught...

"Nat, what is it?" Tony asked.

She shook her head vehemently. Not around Thor. I'm sure an Asgardian wouldn't understand, they're so rigid in everything else... Please don't try!

Steve put an arm around her and pulled her closer on the bench seat. "Whatever it is, it isn't now and it isn't here, Natka," he murmured into her ear.

She nodded and leaned into him.

It was good to have people around who knew, who didn't count her as less for what had happened when she was nine - hell, who counted making your own way out of a brothel after being abducted that young as a resume line to be bolded and underlined, no matter what had happened before she got out - but would still give support and stuffed bears wearing ushankas.

And if anyone had told her when she was eight that Captain America - Captain America! - would one day be willing to be her personal knight with shining shield every now and then as anything but a joke, well the Party still had people you could report neighbors that disconnected from reality to in nearly every town even then, for public safety.

She caught Loki's quick glance at them from the other side of the van, and there was something there she couldn't quite make sense of at the moment before he looked away again, apparently satisfied with whatever he thought he'd figured out.

When they'd stopped and Tony had accompanied Thor to give Loki a secure chance at a bathroom visit at an old run-down gas station, Phil turned around in his seat. "What was it, Tasha?"

"The look in his eyes, a few times when Thor was making him eat." She couldn't hold the tears in any longer.

A squeeze from Steve. "What about it, Natka?"

"Some of the other girls, the ones who had given up on anything but trying to keep from being hurt, they had that look!"

Tony only complained a little for show when he came back to discover Natasha'd been moved to his former seat up front next to Phil and was using his jacket as a surrogate bear.