Disclaimer: I still do not own The Avengers.

I took some liberty in combining a bit of mythology and the Marvel universe to form Loki's and some of the other characters' personalities and back stories here. I hope I haven't slaughtered them too badly.

From The Ashes

By Anna Morgan

Chapter 2 A Proposition

On board the Sanctuary II, the being called The Other knelt before his seated master.

"Humans... They are not the cowering wretches we were promised. They stand. They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court death."

Thanos rose to his feet and smiled. "And what a shame it would be to keep my mistress waiting."

He walked past The Other to peer into the distance at the Earth. "The Asgardian has something of mine. And I wish to have it back," He stated.

"He would not have left it on Midgard among the humans," replied The Other. "It will be in Asgard. And he, banished, or imprisoned. You must find another to enter the All-Father's vault."

Thanos still faced toward the Earth as he spoke slowly. "I have another – she is also an Asgardian. She will not fail as the fool Loki has. But we will need a distraction." He thought for a moment. "The Chitauri thirst to redeem themselves, to find the traitor who failed them. We will unleash them upon Asgard. And I shall have what is mine once again."

"I will lead them when the All-Father has led his soldiers to Jotenheim. The Asgardians will not be able to fight back," said The Other.

Since the battle on Midgard, they had worked to rebuild the Chitauri army to its full strength again. They now had as many foot soldiers as they had before, and the ships were nearly all rebuild. He was quite proud of the progress they had made. Thanos knew that he could not fail.

"Then we will prepare to go to Asgard. Prepare the army. Asgard shall be sacrificed to Death. And they will be able to do nothing to stop it."

….

Early the next morning before the sun rose, Thor retrieved Loki from the spare bed chamber that Frigga had insisted he stay in for the night. Loki had been grateful to have the opportunity to sleep in a bed one last time, but sleep did not come to him that night. He had spent the night desperately trying to figure out a way to escape from his situation. The shackles that Odin had placed on him stopped him from using his magic; no matter how hard he tried he could not conjure even a simple spell. He had to rely on his own cleverness to find some kind of loophole if he were to escape this. But alas, he could not find one. So he grudgingly followed his brother and Odin, along with a small company of guards this time, all the way to the eastern-most cliff overlooking the sea on the outskirts of Asgard.

Loki walked pointedly and determined, his head held high. He would not give Odin the satisfaction of knowing that he was afraid. So he stared ahead of him and walked in silence, even though the muzzle had been removed.

The cliff jutted out to a rounded, jagged point. Beneath the point was a small cave, just large enough for a full-grown man to sit or kneel in. Odin stopped a few yards short of the point and turned to Loki.

"Loki Odinson," he started (Laufeyson. Loki thought viciously),

"You shall be detained here as punishment for your crimes. You will remain at this place until Asgard and Jotenheim are again at peace. At that time you will stand trial and a more permanent punishment will be issued."

Odin placed both hands in front of him. Immediately Loki found himself being swarmed by golden light, and the next thing he knew he was kneeling inside of the cave, his arms outstretched slightly behind and downward, chained to the walls on either side of him by his wrists.

Slowly, Odin walked away from the cliff back toward the palace, followed by the company of guards. Thor stayed for just a moment. He wanted to say something to his brother but he couldn't find the words. Not that Loki would have listened anyway. With a sigh, he turned to follow his father.

….

Loki tugged at the chains on each arm, clinging to the hope that Odin had not done the spell correctly. When the chains failed to budge he knew this hope was in vain. He gave a pouting sigh.

Great. I've been chained down like a beast and abandoned, with Thor as my only friend. This could not possibly be worse.

The sun was coming up now directly in front of him, revealing his view of his world for the next – well, however long it took for Asgard to defeat Jotenheim. To his front the vast sea stretched as far as he could glimpse. Below him were jagged, pointed rocks on which he could see and hear the waves crashing. Out to his left he could just barely see the tiny, blue clouds surrounding the realm of Jotenheim. I suppose there are worse places to be imprisoned.

Hours passed. The sun rose into a full day and disappeared above him. He was too far away from the populace to hear anything; his only auditory companion was that of the waves rolling against the rocks. His arms and knees were already beginning to throb and then go numb from being still in a kneeling position for so long. His thoughts were angry and bitter as he looked for something, someone, to blame for his current situation. He did not wonder about why he was being punished; he knew why. That was easy enough to figure out. But having nothing else to think about he wondered why, really, was he here?

He stared out into the water for a long time. Finally, as the sun began to set again he looked down at the sea, which was now showing the reflection of the sky. Something about the deep blue reflecting the scarlet and orange sunset had a way of forcing him into reflecting upon himself. Somewhere very, very deep in his heart he knew exactly who and what to blame. But his thoughts would not allow him to see reason.

You have brought this on yourself you know. You deserve this, and whatever other punishment Odin can come up with.

This is not my place! I was a king! The rightful king of Asgard!

That is your own selfishness and wounded pride speaking. You coveted the throne only to prove yourself equal to Thor. And appear a worthy son to Odin.

Is that what you know? I am a god! The mortals are weak. I only failed because Thor had to interfere.

Did you not wish to defeat Thor before all of Midgard? Before Odin, and Heimdall? You knew they would be watching. You know Thor is stronger than you. You practically begged Thor to come and fight you! You have brought this on yourself!

He sighed angrily. Yes, his pride was what brought him to this place. Thor had offered him the chance to come home, to give up that "poisonous dream." He said it himself: I have come too far for anything else. But that did not satisfy the question of why he was there to begin with. Was it really only his need to prove himself to Odin? To prove himself equal to Thor? That was the easy answer. But somehow, that did not seem good enough. There were other things too that had bothered him.

My entire life has been a lie. I, the God of Mischief and Lies, am myself a lie. If that is true, who am I then? Oh the Irony! How could I have been so blind for so long? Odin! He lied to me, gave me false hope of the throne only to give it to his precious, unworthy Thor!

Yes, he was angry and jealous of Thor. He had always been jealous of his brother, because Odin had always seemed to favor him. His jealousy had been what drove him to send the Destroyer after Thor when he was banished to Midgard. That and he did not want Thor interfering with his plan to kill Laufey in front of Odin. So that Odin would accept him fully as his son, not just the Frost Giant child that he had taken in out of a sense of obligation.

So there was one of his answers: he sought acceptance in a world that he knew would not accept him. The simple truth of the matter was that he was a monster hiding in plain sight; he was the monster that parents told their children about at night. Even Odin had told them tales of the horrors that the Frost Giants were capable of to scare them into good behavior when they were very small. He had feared them his entire life only to learn that he was one of them, an outsider.

But I always knew I was different. I did not look or act like Thor, or the Warriors Three, or any other Asgardian obsessed with shining in battle. The shock of my true pedigree unnerved me. Would a normal man have sneaked into Jotenheim with a cunning plot to kill his biological father in the name of his adopted father on a whim? No! I made a decision in a moment of madness that I would not normally have made. And that decision spiraled into a whole other chain of events. I was hardly capable of controlling my own actions at the time.

BAM. That was it. That was what this was all about: control.

He wanted control. He had lost control of his life, his circumstances, and who he was. Everything he had done – killing Laufey, seeking power from the being Thanos, taking Midgard for his own – had been an attempt to have control of his situation. He could not control himself, so he sought to control others. Hell, he had even placed several mortals under mind control. He felt almost a sense of relief at finally identifying the trigger that had set off this maddening chain of events.

But this also unnerved him. Even now he recognized that he had no control over his fate. He was chained here, with no means of escape, until Odin reappeared to release him. He was living on another's mercy; Odin had something to hang over his head. Until he was free of that, he could not truly have control of his own fate. Also, even if Odin were to come at this very moment, he would have no idea what to do, no plan of action. Where could he possibly go from here? Where did he want to go?

So – what now? That was the real question.

Who was he? Who did he want to be? Do you want to be the monster that is imprisoned and chained down like an animal because he is too dangerous to be unleashed upon the Nine Realms? No. But I cannot exactly go back to being the little brother and companion to Thor again. That is out of the question…

….

These questions are what plagued Loki as the time passed. Days turned to weeks. After just a few days he gave up trying to keep track of the time that had passed. What was the point? He had no idea when Odin would return, or even if he would return. The stories of the brutality of the Frost Giants in battle, combined with the knowledge that Odin was not the strong young warrior he used to be, made him wonder if he would return from the war. All he knew was that he was stuck here until he did. Day after day, he would replay the same conversations in his mind. Would he redeem himself in the eyes of his family and return to them? Would he seek to make his own way elsewhere in the Nine Realms? Or, would he simply seek vengeance and destruction on all those whom he tended to blame for his situation? When his head was swimming and he felt he had had enough he would doze off into sleep, the only place he could escape from his thoughts.

Once in a while some of the children would come along, daring each other to get as close to the "Loki cave" as they could. It became a game to them. As much as they annoyed him, they also reminded him of the shenanigans that he and Thor would pull, and it almost made him grin at some of the happy memories. Those days were ones where Loki would vow to himself, When I am free again I will make amends and seek a peace with my brother. He even entertained the idea of making peace with Midgard on those days.

But other days, he would scoff at the idea. Those pathetic children. Oh how I wish I had my magic so I could teach them a lesson! These were the days he was bitterly angry and thought only of vengeance to those he perceived had wronged him: Thor, The Avengers, Odin, The Other, and the being called Thanos, who had given him the power from the Tesseract. He wished ill on them all.

Loki had even labeled these opposing sides of himself. "Good Loki" would urge him to make amends with his family and go back to the way things were; "Bad Loki" would urge him to take vengeance on everyone and everything and continue on the path of destruction. And so he argued with himself. Arguing with myself over myself? Surely I am going mad, if I am not there already.

And it was just his luck that on a day when "Bad Loki" dominated his thoughts, that she came to him.

….

"So, this is he cave that holds the infamous Loki, God of Mischief and of Lies? Surely your father would not leave you here for the sea to swallow?" It was a woman's voice, oily and yet sweet at the same time.

Loki was taken aback; he knew that voice: Amora, the Enchantress – a fellow sorcerer (well, sorceress). The last time he had seen her had been in the presence of Thanos. What business could she possibly have to speak with me?

"Have you come to have a gloat, or do you have some business here?" Loki growled his voice rough from disuse. "Perhaps you are here as a collector? If so, you may tell your master that it is no longer in my possession."

"Oh Loki, can I not come see an old friend?" Amora asked sweetly. "Perhaps I wished to share some time with you." He could hear her seductive smile in her voice. It made him shiver.

"Do not toy with the God of Lies, woman. What do you want?"

"I do not deny that I am here on a mission, and so I will be frank with you," her tone changed to be more business-like. "Lord Thanos seeks a certain item in the All-Father's weapons vault. I have no access to this room. I wish to find a way into the palace. You wish to be free of your cave. And so I come with a proposition."

Loki considered sending her away, but this was too entertaining for him, so he let her continue. "I am listening."

"I will free you of your bindings. You know my magic is more than capable of reversing Odin's spell. In return you will retrieve this item for me. And you will be able to witness the downfall of the mighty Thor in the process."

If this had been a "Good Loki" day, he would have seen that her proposition was not all that it appeared to be. If this had been a "Good Loki" day, he would have told her to take her enchantments elsewhere and find another dog to play fetch for her, that he was not longer under the control of Thanos and did not need to be a pawn in his plans any longer. But today, "Bad Loki," was in control, and the thought of seeing Thor knocked from his pedestal was too delicious for him not to take the bait. Before he would agree, he wanted to toy with her a bit. Just for a bit of fun.

"And what will you do if I refuse your proposition?" Loki asked slyly, his voice coming back to life again "How does the great Enchantress plan to slither her way into the palace if she will not convince the God of Mischief to aid her in her schemes?"

"Can you refuse?" her voice was back to its oily sweetness again. "I know how you would love to see him fall. How you must hate the mighty thunder god, Loki! But no matter...I can leave you here to rot by the sea. I shall carry out this mission...for long have I wished to conquer the heart of handsome Thor!"

That was her plan? Seduce Thor into giving her what she seeks? That may work on the great sorcerers, woman, but not on Thor. He loves the mortal woman too much. You poor, foolish being, you would not stand a chance without me.

"I accept your proposition," he said. "Free me from this place and you will have what you seek."

A/N: Loki is such a complex guy. I hope I've been able to do his character and his thought process justice here. I do love angsty Loki. Also – the line "How you must hate the mighty thunder god…" is an actual quote from the comics. I just borrowed it for my own use. I thought it was clever and it fit in nicely.

As always, please review. I love to get feedback. Again though, constructive criticism is welcome, flames aren't.

Anna