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Chapter 11

Thor stepped back in surprise, then retorted, "I have done none of this! I have fed him and held him and accompanied him when he must flee dangers he could not know of in his state. How dare..."

Dr. Strange didn't back down and there was fire in his eyes. "Do you know what he thinks of you, son of Odin? What the little brother you promised dear sweet Frigga you would always take care of thinks when he looks at you now?" His voice was unnaturally calm and even.

Thor did back down, and in a way that was terrifying even to Phil who had seen him completely hopeless before. He shook his head.

"He doesn't think of you as family. He doesn't have the concept right now. Your parents are people he trusts to take care of him, as he remembers they always have."

Thor closed his eyes and sat down in the nearest chair. "And I?"

"He's been extensively conditioned to obey orders. On pain of torture. He's lived in a world where agony for minor errors was a basic fact of life. Grace, mercy, forgiveness - all foreign ideas that don't exist for him anymore, at least so far as the consequences of his own actions go. Even if he heals completely every place he is damaged, he will need looking after as a continually refilling bucket of paralyzing guilt over things that should never be considered wrong."

Grimaces all around.

"And I?" Thor repeated.

"They aren't giving him orders now. They can't anymore, much as he's still listening for it. All he has is their rules and the fear that he could do something wrong without knowing it's wrong."

"That's sick," Tony declared.

A nod. "And he does not remember how he has failed them, that no obedience to them can now save him should they find him." Dr. Strange sat down in the chair beside Thor's. "What he does remember is that before all that, there was someone who kept telling him to 'know his place'. And that therefore, that someone must know what that place is."

Thor covered his face with a hand.

"Between you and some of the other Asgardians, people who I think may have known what he is his whole life, there was a nice firm foundation for the traditional conditioning to build on even before mind control entered into the equation."

"What can I do to help him?" Thor asked once they had all given him a chance to compose himself.

The sorcerer's answer was blunt. "Order him around that he feels he knows what he should be doing."

"No," Thor said as he finally looked up in apparent shock. "I will not mistreat him so!"

"Thor, right now leaving Loki directionless is mistreating him. It worked when you were home because your mother was clearly using him as a companion and he felt too injured inside to be useful. He's wondering why you have brought him here. 'To rest and heal' is not an answer he is prepared to accept right now."

Thor finally nodded. "I understand. I will help find him something to occupy himself with."

"He can always help set up for meals," Pepper offered. "We've had to cut down who has access to the living spaces of the tower, and those are tasks he could learn through observation."

"Food is a delicate subject."

"We know," Tony told him. "Thor's been having to force him to eat."

"Thor, do you want your brother to live?"

"Of course, why would you think otherwise?" The vehemence nearly made Phil wish he'd decided to stay behind with Loki.

"Because if so, you must keep forcing food and drink into him. There is no other way at the moment."

Phil raised a finger. "There are medical ways to..."

"No!" A few deep breaths. "Those concepts are tinged with fear. Holding him down and making him eat is the kinder on him. Only do the other if there is no alternative at all."

Thor covered his face with a hand again. "Why?"

"He was not allowed to eat or drink without very explicit action on the part of the one controlling him. Under threat of dire consequences. He's completely repressing what happened the one time he dared break that rule, but the emotional associations are horrifying. And by the way, you were feeding him the right amount to begin with. He found out how to sneak a drink in the shower and figured out you were going to feed him again soon enough to find out. In his mind, he's been punished ever since."

"And you can't do anything about it?" Tony growled.

Dr. Strange glanced at him with an eyebrow raised.

Tony threw his hands up. "Hard to deny someone shapeshifting in my own home who doesn't have enough mind left to play along with elaborate deceptions, all right?"

A smirk, then seriousness again. "Loki is healing. A lot of the damage was to the parts trying to defy them, so the compliant parts are what's actively working at the moment. He is on the verge of several breakthroughs. I was not joking when I said anything I do could jeopardize them. The most I could dare was removing that block, and he could never have done that on his own."

"So he's a doormat."

"For the moment, Mr. Stark. That should change with the next breakthrough. That part of his mind knows his controllers aren't going to be giving him orders anymore and understands quite a lot more about what's happened to him. He's already fighting insights from it, so I don't think it will take long - relative to lifespan, so it could still take months."

A general groan.

"How will we know when he's had it?" Phil asked.

"You'll know. That one should come with drastic signs and changes. The others - other than language - he may barely notice himself. I wasn't able to see what those chunks are, not without triggering memories he wouldn't be able to place with no way to calm him down or explain anything to him. And there's a chance a number of the lesser breakthroughs could cascade with the larger one, either at the same time or in short order." A shrug. "As I said, I've never looked into a Jotun mind before, but that seems common in species with similar mental structures."

"So, it should get easier within a few months," Pepper mused aloud.

"Oh no, Ms. Potts. It's going to get worse."

Silence.

"How can it get worse if he's healing?" Phil finally dared to ask.

"Because right now, he doesn't remember what he was. Right now, he considers nothing to be demeaning, precisely because he believes he is so low there is no way he can be demeaned. Every privilege he has is something granted by another and revocable on a whim, and in his mind this is how things ought to be. Now, imagine someone with his previous personality unable to speak and still having to be fed by hand. Or having the same feeling that bad things, horrible things, things no thinking being should ever have to witness, are going to happen to him if he does anything wrong but having his old need to follow his own desires? Basic goals beyond simple survival and obeying? This? This is the easy time."

Another general groan.

"And Thor? The horror that was your brother finding out his ancestry?"

"Yes?"

"He gets a do over. Without your parents there for him. With the potential of figuring out just why he isn't in the royal quarters in Asgard having Frigga help him with everything. I didn't poke deeply enough to see what the last time was like, but the emotional impact will be worse this time."

"... he committed regicide against the Jotun last time," Thor said flatly. "Tried to destroy Jotunheim."

"Then plan the hell accordingly. Oh and there was a girl. He's been glancing at her across rooms. For several centuries. I think he'll understand now exactly why her father glared at someone with the rank and power of the second prince for taking an interest in so much as friendship with his little angel once he realizes the news of his ancestry got loose from someone outside the royal family."

Thor looked confused. "He never spoke a word of such to me."

"That's because he's never managed to say as much as hello to her. Again, plan the hell accordingly."

Phil saw Tony wrap an arm around Pepper's shoulders, and she leaned into him ever so slightly.

Thor nodded with grief written all over his face. "What do I do when Father has to enter the Odinsleep?"

"You hadn't already made plans for if you had to go home?"

Thor shook his head. "We were too busy trying to get Loki to safety."

"He can't go back to Asgard, Thor. Not with the way your Sorceress Supreme's been talking about what's happening there in your absences."

"Would he be safe?" Thor asked.

"Possibly. But miserable even then. What he needs is a place where it's okay to be the wreck he is now. And the angst-filled mute he's going to be soon. And whatever he ends up being once he gets language back. Where he doesn't have to renegotiate the fundamental details of relationships every time he has a breakthrough. The next one, it can't be helped, but the rest..."

"Thor, we can take care of that," Tony offered. "Don't worry about it. I'd figured you'd have to go back eventually anyway - Odin can't lose both sons and you're the only heir he's got."

Thor nodded. "All right."

Phil asked, "Can you tell anything about who did this to him?"

"They have extensive knowledge of minds, the technology to implant permanent mind control structures without leaving the sorts of traces traditional sorcery leaves, the capacity for cruelty required to fundamentally break an Asgardian prince to halter - and I do mean exactly that, Thor - and they don't match the profile of anyone I've so much as heard a legend of. I can't tell anything more from what I saw. Maybe when Loki gets better, he'll remember something." Dr. Strange stood. "Well, I'm glad I could give what help I could."

"At least we know what to expect," Pepper offered. "Before, we didn't know if he was going to get better. Not for certain."

"Yes. And that is a good thing." Dr. Strange grew stern again. "Just bear in mind, he will remember everything that has happened to him during his healing as he puts himself back together. If you take advantage of him, or let things look to him as if you have, he will act as if you had once he heals enough for it. And Thor, I'd advise you to start patching up your relationship with him now."

Clint walked in as they were walking out the door. "Did it work?"

"It worked," Phil confirmed.

"Great." Clint took a deep breath. "It was a lot less extensive, but they got me through that scepter..."

"You want me to make sure they didn't leave anything behind in your head."

"Right. Not that I think they did," he said defensively, "but since you're here and you know how..."

It was the simple act of a moment for Dr. Strange to cup his face much as he had Loki's, tell him to just relax for a moment, and pronounce him cleared entirely.

Clint almost slumped in relief, and Phil honestly felt like joining him.

That, at least, was unabashedly good news.