Thank you so much my faithful reviewers! I'm going to possibly post until the END of chapter 3 tonight!

I Can Hear the Drums

Chapter 24

Loki didn't realize he'd fallen to sleep until he was already kneeling at the base of Thanos' throne. Like a vortex of space and time, the world he'd left fell around him in shards of shattered glass. He had been in Pym's ship, resting his head against the seat's back of the cockpit with Clint silently piloting them closer to Cross Lake. Pym came and went. He was more content to pace between Quill's side and the cockpit, than to stay in one position for very long. Gamora abandoned the role of sick nurse and came to sit by Loki's side. He could sense her wanting to speak, though no one did.

Then his eyes fell shut. He must have been exhausted. Certainly the heavy weight of a battle fought and barely won, of just escaping a crash with his life and limbs intact, were not lost on him. He hadn't slept, properly slept, for longer than he knew. Thanos waited for him on the other side of his consciousness, and that was not a being Loki wished to interact with. Not when he still had nothing to show for his work. His body, apparently, disagreed.

Thanos towered over him. In the waking nightmare, he'd grown nearly as large as his Chitauri dragons. In this place, there was no restraints on the conjuring of his hand. He could be whatever he liked. Torture the frost giant as long as he wished, and when he decided to let Loki return to his exhausted body, he had only to wait until Loki slept again to repeat the process. The Enchantress was a sadistic, powerful woman. Leaving her talents to an equally sociopathic dictator ensured that, until he managed to break his debt, there would be no rest for him ever again.

The beatings lasted hours. They were drawn out in ways only Thanos could manipulate. If Loki thought he could take no more, that he would die in his dreams and never return to the land of the living, Thanos would manipulate his mental prison and revive the frost giant. The broken spine, fixed. The disemboweled stomach, replaced. His heart forcibly ripped out of his chest by those clawed hands, released. Each moment, he was tortured in a new and horrendous way, but the questioning never ceased.

How could Thanos destroy the Midgardains? They were evacuating the planet, where were they going? Who was helping them? How could he defeat Rinon's forces? What could the Chitauri do to once and for all decimate the elven armada? Brute force would never work, they'd tried time and time again. Stealth was useless. The elves could pick out their ships in an instant and rend them apart. Thanos needed a new edge. An angle he hadn't worked. All of his agents couldn't find a single hole in that fleet, but he knew Loki could. Desperation made the frost giant cruel. It was that ruthlessness that Thanos needed.

"Where is his weakness? Where is Rinon's breaking point?"

"I don't know." Loki reiterated. It was his mantra. He knew nothing. Could tell nothing. What more did Thanos want from him that he hadn't already taken?

"They made a base on Svartalfheim. Did you know that?"

"I didn't know."

They mean to break us. He wants to control the worlds when this war ends. I want him to be crushed. How do I get him?"

"I don't know."

"How do we stop him!?"

"I don't know."

Thanos' massive hand wound up, back, and came slamming down. In flattened Loki's body against the sharp rock ground. Breathless, pinned, Loki panicked to get free. He wanted his dagger, but had none. He wanted to escape, but was trapped. He screamed into the depths of his heart for someone in the waking land to save him, but there was no one. He was alone.

None of this would have happened if Loki had destroyed Alfheimr when he had the chance. Rinon wouldn't have amassed his Armada, and Thanos would have no reason to demand a way to destroy him. Why should Thanos waste his time on Midgard? They were only a threat because of the allies they had made. It was a ridiculous notion to destroy that world. Alfheimr was their enemy. It was their greatest enemy, now. Without them, Midgard, Xandar, Asgard . . . they had no defenses. Alfheimr was their target.

Oxygen flooded into his lungs again as Thanos' hand retracted into a fist. He felt the blood streaming down his face, and the hitch of half a dozen destroyed ribs cutting into his lungs. Loki forced his eyes open. Streams of red stung into his eyes from the cuts above them.

"Alfheimr." Thanos said, as if he had heard Loki's thoughts.

The frost giant forced himself up, stifling the scream from his injuries. "My debt," he panted, staring the monster down. "Dispel it. If I tell you how to destroy them, then I am free." He struggled to pull the leather strap off of his palm, and displayed the brand there.

Thanos walked toward him. With each step, he shrank smaller and smaller until he was his normal size again. He folded his arms. "Why should I agree to such terms, frost giant? You hold no power in this place. I will never allow you to leave. Soon, you will be begging to tell me."

Loki extended his hand. There was no way to stop Thanos, not in this place, but Loki had talked himself out of tighter corners before. He wasn't called Silver Tongue for nothing.

"Every moment you are here, your opportunity slips away. You have one thing against you that they do not; time. The elves may bide all the time they wish. They will fight these little wars, and win each and every one of them. Unless you do as I suggest, they will eventually tire of these games, and search you out to remove the Kree and Chitauri equation completely. They possess the ability to decimate you. That, I do know."

Thanos remained completely impassive, but Loki knew his words were having an impact on him. "Then tell me what it is you suggest."

Loki shook his extended hand. The purple brand was still in place. "Your word, first. My assistance discharges me of this nether world you have cursed me to."

An eternity passed while Loki waited for Thanos to decide. The tyrant strode closer. He squatted in front of Loki's battered body. "You may be dispelled from this agreement, Loki, if you tell me how to destroy these elves. But believe me when I say, the next time we meet, I will take great pleasure in removing every muscle from your bones. And I will begin my carving with your eyes."

:(:):(:):

Clint spent the majority of the trip back to Cross Lake at the helm. He trusted the automated navigation system, but with Pym able to take over as field surgeon, Barton wanted something, anything, to keep his hands busy. Piloting was natural to him. Manual controls required his undivided attention. His mind couldn't wander. He had no capacity to focus on those events he dearly wanted to scream over. There was simply nothing but piloting.

Beside him, Loki managed to remain upright for four hours. His body gave out on him the way Clint's tried desperately to. He slept soundly. Technically, there was nothing for him to do. The computer system long ago took his role away from him. A few attempts, and fails, at conversation kept his mouth closed. Clint didn't want to discuss anything more than what it was Loki kept from him. If that wasn't on the frost giant's agenda, then it wasn't worth talking about. Loki assumed Barton might soften as the journey progressed and the hours stretched by, but if anything, the human became more determined to stew in his anger.

Clint glanced over at the navigator. They only had another hour to go, and Loki still hadn't stirred from his catnap. Gamora sat, equally quiet, by the communication console with her feet propped up on the arm of Loki's chair. She watched him breathe steadily, her face unreadable.

"How's Quill?" Clint asked unexpectedly.

Gamora stirred from her inner thoughts to look up. "What?"

"Pete? The guy, your boss, shot in the back of this bird. Is he all right?" Clint clarified.

Gamora sat forward and dropped her feet down to the bulkhead. She rubbed a hand along the back of her green neck, working the tight muscles there. "He has yet to wake. The insect man is scared. He is trying not to show it."

"Rizzo will know someone to help him. Cross Lake sees plenty of cut throats passing through. There's no other system within an earshot of this place which can help as much as Rizzo can."

Clint meant for his assurance to hold some weight. It didn't. He might be madder than a kicked hornet's nest at Quill, but that didn't mean he wanted his friend to die. He owed the Guardians his life. They'd been the ones to pilot Natasha around the farthest stretches of the universe in pursuit of the Sarhorns to cure his cancer. In a way, Clint owed all of them his life. They only wanted the best for him. Even if that meant lying to him for almost a year about their mission to find the Infinity Gauntlet.

"Sorry I lost it back there." Clint told her.

He reached over the sleeping Loki and flipped a few switches on the navigation board. They brought up a holographic interface, which he pulled over to his side of the front screen. He swept his hand up, flowing the dial for auto pilot. The hologram collapsed, and he pushed his chair back from the receding yoke.

"I know all of you are trying to help, I do know that. But you've got to start looking at this from my side too. My life isn't mine anymore. I belong to those billions of people out there I don't know, who are relying on me to do something horrible. Imagine if I asked you to save Groot. But to do that, you had to let some guy cut you into a thousand little pieces first. How would you feel?"

"I'm not angry at you, if that's what you think," she admitted, folding her arms. He face softened a little. "But I do know what you refer to. And I don't know what I would do."

"I don't know what you see in him." Clint whispered.

He thought she would deny the allegation left hanging in the air. He knew of Loki's unrealized affinity for the woman, but he knew nothing of Gamora's feelings. He imagined something lay dormant there. Killed forever, perhaps, given their mutual past. The way they fought reminded him of Natasha and him during their worst days. Surprisingly enough, she didn't try rebuffing him.

"He was kind," he said softly. The door to the back cabin, where Groot, Drax, Pym, and the wounded Peter resided, was still open. "No one was ever kind to me. I know he was desperate, we both were. I wanted to be free from Thanos, and he gave me that choice when no one else could. It wasn't real. He simply wooed me the way he might sway a Chitauri army to follow him. But for a time, I thought I was happy. I was happy."

Loki went on sleeping, oblivious to their conversation to either side of him. Clint smiled a little at that. He'd never known the frost giant to sleep so openly in front of others. He didn't like to be vulnerable, and sleeping was a part of that. Flanked by the two people he somewhat liked, if such a word could ever be used, his defenses lowered.

"He did care about you," Clint whispered. "I've been in that head of his. I'd know."

She considered that for a while, but said nothing.

"I just need a little honesty from my friends, right now. I'm serious when I say that's all I want." Clint took the orb off the dash and held it between his hands. "Pete knows where the Gauntlet is. It's deadly to have it out there, and this with us here."

He tapped the edge of the sphere and it clam-shelled open to reveal the Stone. "If the Herald got this from us, he wouldn't need anything else in his arsenal to find the rest. This would lead him right to it. It's been getting brighter the closer we come to Cross Lake. Gamora, tell me the truth. The Gauntlet is there, isn't it?"

Gamora's faraway expression didn't change. She was back to those memories she shared with Loki. They'd been together for almost half a year. It hardly seemed like that long, at the time. He changed so many thoughts in her. Affected so many parts of her life. Clint's question wasn't completely lost on her for, after a time, she did answer.

"Yes."

A flicker of hope burned in Clint's chest again. Finally, progress.

"The Red Light district?"

Very slowly, her head bobbed.

Peter's girl. The one he kept visiting. She must know where Quill hid it, or he paid her to keep it for him. That's why Denali saw him so often. That's why he spent so much time there. Things were finally falling into place.

In retrospect, the location made perfect sense. Peter liked to hide in the open, like a Where's Waldo drawing. The last place anyone would expect to find the Infinity Gauntlet, would be right on Galactus' doorstep. Half of those galaxies were in the process of evacuating their systems to distant worlds to escape his future approach. By the fourth year, the fighting force hoped to have a complete ten-system radius of empty planets around the black hole. If they couldn't stop him outright, at least no one population would be killed in the process. While people were running in the opposite direction, Quill was going in, babysitting the Gauntlet.

"What are you going to do when you get it?" she asked.

"Take it. Hide it. Somewhere only I know of." He balanced the Infinity Stone's casing in his hand. "I'll put the stones back together so no one else can track it, and have Tony destroy his old data. When I take it, no one's going with me. I need to do that alone."

"We only meant the best," she said, hoping he could believe her.

Clint intended to answer, but the form beside him shifted very suddenly. Loki awoke with an unrestrained scream. He pulled his hand to his chest and curled forward around it, trying desperately to cool its unrelenting fire. He screamed again. Shocked, Clint lunged out of his seat and tried to grab him, but Loki yanked free. He hit the cabin floor and spasmed. Gamora cried out for him. In his agony, he could not answer. Just above him, the bulkhead door pushed fully open, and Drax forced himself inside.

Clint dropped to his knees by Gamora and Loki. She'd dragged the shaking frost giant into her lap. Loki seized in her hands.

"What happened?!" Drax demanded.

"I don't know! I don't know, he was sleeping! I don't understand!" She exclaimed, clutching him against her.

"Loki, let me see," Clint said, trying to pull Loki's hands free. He had the right one stuffed against his flesh, as if to stem the flow of blood from some hidden wound. Clint's mind reeled with possibilities. Was this some residual effect from the Herald toying with their minds and emotions? Was this something new?

"I'm trying to help you, so stop fighting me! I need to see your hand, Loki."

"Burns!" Loki cried, trying to keep his hand pulled tightly against his body. Barton knew exactly what the circular brand meant. He couldn't be fooled like some of the other Guardians could have. Clint fought him for it. The leather hand strap came free, and Barton was able to inspect the raw flesh beneath. At first, he thought Loki had been injured after all. He might have been hiding it since they left that abandoned moon and the Milano wreckage behind. The mark was a smoldering circle of healing, pale flesh. Clint wondered what could have done it.

"Hang on and let me help you!" He growled against the frost giant's determination to free himself. Gamora held his back against her chest, stroking her hand through his hair to try and stop his frantic breathing. His body screamed against hers with the phantom pain of being tortured at Thanos' bidding. The tell-tale purple brand continued to sizzle as its color burned away. Within seconds, it vanished completely.

Loki watched Clint's face for the flash of recognition. Clint would remember. It might have been more than a decade since the Enchantress branded him, but no one simply forgot their servitude to the witch. Loki was more terrified of that coming storm now, than he had been of Thanos himself.

Then it happened. Loki watched that mask of horror fall as the memory triggered in Clint's aging mind.

"No!" he tried to say. Don't remember. Don't think that of me. I had no choice. No options. I had to give him everything. It wasn't my fault.

Clint retracted from the frost giant as if he'd been physically shoved away. The Avenger scrambled back until he hit the bottom of the closest chair with his back. His pupils were as large as saucers.

Loki tried to catch his breath through the wave of residual pain from his time in that mental prison. He had to say something, cover up what was now so glaringly obvious. He pushed himself up in Gamora's grasp, but she supported him still. His body shook uncontrollably.

"It-it is not what you perceive it to be." he tried to lie.

Clint wasn't biting. "Don't you dare try that with me! Not for one minute! I'm not an idiot, I know that brand. I know it because I had it, Loki!" Clint was shaking too. The Enchantress was the only person he'd ever encountered in his life who still had the same power over his mind that a boogeyman might for a five year old. She terrified him.

"It – "

"What did you promise her?!" Clint snarled. He could see the mark was completely gone, burned away like a laser removal on a tattoo. He knew what that meant. Loki fulfilled her one request.

"Barton, please!"

"What did you give her!?" Clint continued, refusing to listen.

Loki might have said anything. Where the Avengers were, the location of the Infinity Stone, the weakness of the Guardians, the plans for Tony's hidden ship to destroy Galactus. Anything the frost giant was privy to, she may have demanded from him, and there was nothing Loki could do to refuse her request. He was her puppet on a string, the way Clint had once been. At her request, Clint nearly killed both Thor and Odin Allfather. Only clever trickery in the end saved their lives.

"It was all I could think of. He would not dispel my debt without the Infinity Gauntlet, and that, I refused to give him," Loki tried to defend himself.

"What is he speaking of?" Drax asked. He had both knives in his hands. Every muscle was taut.

"He, who? Who could possibly do what the Enchantress could?" Clint ignored the others to ask.

"Thanos," he breathed.

Gamora's hands fell away from him. Fearing she may let go completely, Loki tried to pull himself away first. He groaned, holding his arm against his ribs. None of them were shattered any longer, but his mind refused to believe it. Over time, the phantom sensations would pass. He sat, propped against the communication console as he looked at the three of them. Just below Drax's arm, Rocket and the others appeared also. The commotion had summoned them.

"Why should you feign surprise?" Loki asked poisonously. "Barton, the man who loyally killed in my name. Who followed me in abject admiration. You knew the very heart of the deal I made with Thanos the day I accepted his Chitauri. If I could not give him the Tesseract, then no world would be large enough to hide me from his hand."

His eyes narrowed at Gamora. "I should have never known him had you not dragged me into his presence. Your plans to escape, your thoughts of something to cover those crimes you committed in his name. Did you imagine, with my help, to wipe your past clean? What about my own history? Could you spare me that as well? A home I'd been forced out of. Abandoned on a slab of ice to die by what parents had birthed me into this cruel world? Would you have saved me from that?"

His attention shifted back to Barton. "I sent you to your death on Alfheimr because I knew the only threat against my control of Asgard, was a land of nature-loving elves. They held no defense against what I might bring, and yet Thor ruined everything with his pact with Rinon. You should have just died when I sent you there. I might not have destroyed the entire elven race then, but I would have stopped their opposition. Then the worlds might not be trembling now at the thought of Alfheimr ships rousting out their very lives. I gave Thanos what I had to, to save us all. Rinon is going to defy us. He is merely out to seize control while we are at our weakest. Not anymore."

Listening to this outpouring of emotion, Clint's alarm escalated more and more. At the final statement, he sailed forward, grabbed the sides of Loki's shirt and held it tightly in his shaking fists. "What the hell did you just do?"

Loki placed his hands of Barton's. He searched the archer with his eyes, willing for him to understand the logic that he so plainly saw. "Alfheimr is the enemy here. If not this moment, then soon. Rinon will place himself in the position of power, of incomparable character, just as he had to achieve the elven throne. Had he not rescued Odin on the field of battle, he would have none of the confidence of his people. He will not stop when Galactus comes!"

"That doesn't make any sense!" Clint matched his voice level. "You're describing a man I've never even met! Tell me what you did, Loki, or God help me, you will not be landing in this ship with us!"

He lifted his chin. A cold, calculating expression fixed the archer. "When you wish to rid yourself of a pest, you destroy where he lives."

Clint didn't want riddles, games, or half-truths. He didn't want an explanation as to why, or to face the fact that Loki might even be right. Clint had seen two different forms of that elven admiral already. Was it possible he was being played on both sides? Clint's mind slowed, and all at once, he understood what Loki meant.

"Alfheimr." He whispered.

His hand opened, and he let the frost giant go. The ship's autopilot kicked on the landing procedures. They were approaching the atmosphere of Cross Lake. It wouldn't be long now until they touched down, and Peter could find the help he needed. Clint only made a passing note of the change. His entire focus was on Loki. "Thanos is going after Alfheimr. You gave it to him. There's no one left but the old and children. All of their ships are evacuating earth. Without the young, their entire race dies."

Clint could hardly believe his own words, but Loki's face confirmed it all. Elves didn't procreate like normal beings. They had a very narrow window in which to raise young. Anyone below that age, was left on Alfheimr during the war to preserve their race. If Thanos destroyed Alfheimr, there would be nothing left to repopulate their species. The elves would be homeless, and eventually, extinct. That bond they shared with the very land, the one the poor Southling girl lost forever on her banishment, would be gone.

Scorched earth. Leaving nothing behind. Burn it all away. Thanos might not have the strength in his ships, his allies, and his agents to oppose the elven race, but he could take on Alfheimr itself.

With more composure than he expected, Clint said, "We're touching ground in ten minutes. Rocket, call Tony and give him the update. Tell him to take whatever ships they haven't used in the Earth evacuation, and send them to Alfheimr now. I'm taking Drax, and the two of us are going to retrieve the Infinity Gauntlet. Gamora, stay with the ship, and watch Loki while he makes us a new portal. One big enough for the Quinjet to fit through. I'm going to Alfheimr, and I'm stopping Thanos, even if I have to do it alone."

His attention fell strictly on Loki. "You're dead to me. Once I leave this place, I never want to see your face again. If I ever do, I will kill you."

Holy crap! what did Loki do? stay tuned!

Next time: Natasha's secret and Bartering with Sarhorns

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