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Chapter Text

“I’ve got you,” Loki says, failing at masking his worry as he catches Tess before she hits the ground. She holds around his neck weakly, body limp against him. Loki helps her to the ground, leaning her against a stone. White lines start to appear where her veins would be if she were Asgardian, glowing dangerously. “Tell me what’s happening, love.” 

“I’ve been getting weaker and weaker since Thanos put me in the Gauntlet,” Tess explains. “First I thought it was merely because I was forced to obey him. But it never stopped getting worse, even when he wasn’t using me.”

“We’ll find a solution, we always do,” Loki says, reassuring both himself and Tess. “For you and your siblings,” he adds, looking at the Gauntlet still on Thanos’ dead body. Loki crouches next to the gauntlet, examining the Stones. They all have white lines running through them, same as Tess’s corporeal form. He gently pries the Stones out of the Gauntlet, freeing them from the source of this disease. It doesn’t harm him to hold the Stones. He imagined that, just as Tess, they are weakened, too much to do much harm without being forced. 

“We need an expert on you and your siblings, someone who has studied you intensely,” Loki mutters as he walks back to Tess, pondering. “Best I can think of is Selvig.”

Tess nods slowly. “Take me to him.” Her head lolls to its side. “I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“Stay awake, love, I’ll take you to Selvig as fast as possible.” 

The Avengers were confused by the sight of Tess. They were hesitant about Loki flying off with her and the Stones to Selvig. Luckily, Thor managed to convince them to trust his younger brother, and it didn’t take long for the quinjet to take off and go on course for the university Selvig teaches at. Once they arrived, Thor ran inside to find Selvig and bring him on board the quinjet, Tess much too weak to be brought inside. 

The minute Selvig walks on board, he stares at Loki, then Tess, then the Stones in Loki’s palms. “I’m going to need a couple of explanations.”

“The one who forced me to invade Earth managed to get these-” Loki lifts his hand, emphasizing the Stones he holds “-and put them in a Gauntlet meant to control them. He’s dead, the Stones are sentient, she’s a corporeal projection of the Tesseract, which is one of the Stones, the Gauntlet somehow hurt them all. You’re the only one who’s truly studied an Infinity Stone.” His voice goes out tight, almost cracking. 

“Fair enough,” Selvig says after blinking as he processes the waterfall of new information. “Let me see.”

Loki paces back and forth outside of the room Selvig and the Stones are in. After they picked up Selvig, Stark took them to the Avengers Compound for Selvig to use his equipment. He was alone with the Stones, Tess’ corporeal self who could give feedback for Selvig, and Bruce and Tony who helped. Loki had wanted to be in there as well, but the three scientists and Thor convinced him that worry wouldn’t help Tess, that it would be best if he and his nerves would wait outside. And so he paced for an hour without stop, trying not to imagine all of the horrible possibilities. 

“Brother, sit with me,” Thor says gently as he walks into the hall, holding two folding chairs. He sets them up next to the door and sits in one, gesturing for Loki to follow suit. Loki slowly walks to the chair before sitting at the edge of the seat, leaning forward, ready to jump up at a moment’s notice. He doesn’t react when Thor sets a hand on his back. “Worrying yourself won’t help Tess.”

“How am I not supposed to worry for her?” It comes out sharper than Loki intended. 

“I know you can’t help it, but you can try to rest. You almost died in the battle, you must be exhausted.”

True, but unimportant . “I didn’t come out of that battle dying.” 

“Your decision to find Selvig was brilliant. He’ll help them.” He takes his hand from Loki’s back and grasps Loki’s hand. “Tess will live and thrive, as will your love for each other.”

Loki slowly turns to look at Thor. “You know?”

“Loki, I have eyes. Of course I know. But that doesn’t matter. I am confident that Selvig will find a cure.”

As he finishes his sentence, the door opens and Selvig walks out. Loki immediately jumps to his feet, as well as Thor who is still holding onto Loki’s hand. “The Gauntlet was poisoning them. One more day in the Gauntlet and they wouldn’t have made it.”

“Is there a cure?”

Selvig shrugs. “Not that I know of. Yet. For now, they need to rest. Using their powers will tire them out. And I don’t want any more of them creating corporeal projections, it will tire them out further. Tess can stay, it’s nice to have a patient that can respond to me. But the others shouldn’t. They need to rest as much as possible. We think they might be able to absorb energy, so Tony is working on making a way for them to absorb energy from an arc reactor. That might help them recover faster.”

Loki nods, realizing that he has been holding his breath. “I can never thank you enough, Doctor.”

“You can see her. She’s convinced that you’re worrying yourself to death and wants to knock some sense into you.” 

Loki smiles and shakes his head softly. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“She isn’t wrong,” Selvig asserts. “Go, talk to her. It’ll help you stay calm.”

Without waiting for another word, Loki pushes through the door and almost sprints for Tess. She’s laying down on a hospital bed, surrounded by all sorts of instruments Selvig must be using to get information on the Stones. Her glow is faint, and the white veins are still dangerously bright, though they are thinner than before. Once Loki runs in, Tess smiles softly at him, barely lifting her head above the pillow. 

“I see I was right. You were worrying yourself to death.” Her voice is weak but determined. 

“You know me too well, love. How could I ever rest knowing that you were in danger?”

Thor walks behind Loki, unfolding the very same folding chair again, setting it by Tess’ bed. Loki quietly gives his thanks and sits before his brother gives the couple some needed privacy. 

“You must be exhausted. You need to sleep.”

“No, I’m staying by your side,” Loki declines. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Rest helps. As it will help you.” Tess flings the blanket off of her as she scoots towards the other end of the bed. “If you insist on staying by my side, then lie down.” 

“Very well,” Loki responds as he rises from his chair. He slowly settles down next to Tess. She covers the two of them with the blanket before snuggling next to Loki, leaning against his chest. Loki pulls her closer, pained that her skin doesn’t feel as brilliant as it did before, surely because of the poison. 

“Close your weary eyes, love. You mustn’t neglect yourself for my sake.” She wraps her arm around Loki, pulling him closer. He can feel her arm shaking as she does so. “I’m starting to feel better, so please rest.” She gently drags her fingers through his hair, still snarled from the battle. Tension slowly leaves his body as his eyelids finally start to feel heavy. “The poison is not my end thanks to your efforts. What we both need is to sleep and let our bodies handle the rest.” As Tess finishes, Loki closes his eyes, too tired to open them, too soothed by Tess to jolt up despite the restlessness from less than a minute ago. It doesn’t take long for him to drift off to sleep, still feeling Tess twirling her fingers through his hair.

Chapter Text

DON’T TOUCH ME! 

Loki’s hand stops an inch above the Tesseract as the panicked voice rings through his head, processing what he just heard. This is not what I expected from my trip to Midgard . He’d been exploring the secret passages again and had landed on Midgard and decided to do some exploring. Didn’t take long for him to learn that this group called Hydra had stolen the Tesseract from where his father had hidden it and was using it to create weapons and kill many people. Loki decided to get involved. The Tesseract talking to him telepathically wasn’t what he expected though. “As you wish,” he whispers after a moment, pulling his hand back. “I don’t mean any harm.”

THAT’S NOT TRUE! EVERYONE WHO TOUCHES ME HURTS ME!

Loki leans away from the apparently sentient and terrified Tesseract, giving it some space, not certain how to comfort a panicked cube. “I didn’t know you were alive…you must’ve suffered many things over millennia…I am truly sorry.”

You’re the first one to hear me. Why? the Tesseract asks, no longer screaming. Even still, Loki can hear the terror in the voice.

“I have not even the slightest idea,” Loki admits. He hears footsteps behind him and throws a dagger at the man walking through the door. “All I know is that I won’t let anyone hurt you again. But we need to leave this place.” The terrified cube stays silent, but Loki can sense its fear and apprehension. “Please, if we don’t leave now, we’ll be overrun. I’ll protect you. No one will harm you again.”

Please…please don’t hurt me….

“I won’t hurt you, you poor thing. From now on, you’re safe.” Loki extends his hands towards the Tesseract, leaving a few inches between him and the Tesseract. “May I?”

After a few seconds, the Tesseract responds. Please, take me somewhere safe.

“I will, I promise you that,” Loki assures as he gently lifts the Tesseract up, cradling it against him, hoping to be somewhat comforting. “For now, I will put you in my dimensional pocket to keep you protected while I make our escape. May I?”

…yes, the Tesseract answers after a moment, clearly hesitant. I don’t have a choice do I? Either do as you say or be tortured again .

“Just for a short time, I promise. Once we’re safe, I will bring you out. And I will protect you until the end of my days.”

Please don’t keep me waiting….

“I won’t. I expect in fifteen minutes we’ll be on another planet. Will that do?”

Anywhere but here .

“Very well. May I put you in my pocket?” Loki senses an affirmative answer, almost as if the Tesseract is nervously nodding. He slowly counts down for it before sending it to his pocket dimension, protected from the chaos. 

Which is Loki’s new objective. Protect the Tesseract from the chaotic universe.

Chapter Text

Loki sits on the floor, leaning against the wall in his cell. Finally, it is over. Thanos is set to fail. Earth and its two Infinity Stones are protected by the Avengers, and I managed to lose the one Infinity Stone Thanos had. Which leaves me in this cell .

He knew no one would believe him. Thor had seemed suspicious at first, but it didn’t take much effort on Loki’s part to deflect those questions and set the blame on himself. Given that Thor hasn’t visited him yet, he must be convinced. Better to take the blame than to tell a tale none would believe. Easier on me, easier on them . They’ll learn the truth eventually when Thanos comes to collect . For now, Loki can handle being deemed a villain. Once Odin announced his true lineage, Asgard already saw him as a monster. He simply played into their beliefs. 

For now, the Tesseract is under the protection of the Allfather, and the mind stone and time stone are protected by the Avengers. The other three stones are still out there. Someday they’ll be found. Hopefully Thanos won’t be the first one to find them. Someday, Thanos himself will come after Asgard and Earth, having learned that sending a proxy won’t work. Maybe Thor will believe me then and we will fight side by side again. But that hopefully won’t happen for a long time.

For now, no one will believe me .

Back to this pedestal , the Tesseract thinks to itself as the Allfather gently places it in its former home. To be stored for centuries until the Allfather finds a purpose for me . Upon being brought back to Asgard, the Allfather had used it to rebuild the bifrost, the very same bridge he had used the Tesseract to build in the first place. With that finished, the Allfather likely won’t need it for a few more centuries.

Why didn’t the prince tell the Allfather of Thanos? The prince had taken the blame and willingly gone to the dungeons. The Tesseract has seen the prince fight, it knows that the prince could have escaped if desired. Instead he went to the dungeons for a crime he only committed under duress without telling anyone of the true threat.

The Tesseract remembers the youngest prince from before the Allfather put it on Earth. The prince was only a child then, inquisitive and playful. A knack for mischievous shenanigans, a brilliant mind, studious, skilled in sorcery, and an undying curiosity for astronomy. He adored his older brother, and was equally adored by him. Something serious must have happened during the Tesseract’s time on Earth. No one in the royal family seemed at all surprised by the youngest prince’s behavior, nor concerned by the change. 

Whatever it was, the Tesseract won’t learn while locked up. The Allfather rarely enters his vault. He used to take his sons to visit, teaching them about the different artifacts, the history behind them, and how the Allfather brought them to Asgard. Afterwards, it was only the young prince that came back, intrigued by the different artifacts, the magic they possess, the history behind them. He spent much time staring at the Tesseract, pondering on its power. But not in the way the Allfather would. The Allfather saw a tool to be used, a powerful advantage. The prince was simply curious about the universe. 

I suppose it’s time the prince learns the secrets of the universe. I won’t let my protector suffer in chains as a reward for keeping me out of the hands of Thanos .

Chapter Text

Loki sits in anticipation as the corporeal body of Tess looms over him. He feels small in comparison to this cosmic entity that claims to love him. At first, he had believed it. When he let himself fall off the bifrost, it was Tess that had caught him and carried him to the safety of her perfect planet in the farthest corner of the universe, away from Asgard, from Jotunheim, from all of the lies. How could he not admire it? But, slowly, the lies began to bleed through. 

“Aren’t you glad that you’re safe here?” Tess asks, deceptively sweet. “I care for your every need, I keep you safe, I keep you happy.”

“This happiness is a lie,” Loki states, his voice solemn. He wants to shout, to scream, to release everything all at once. But he knows it won’t help. If he isn’t careful, he could very well run into the same problem again. “None of this is real.”

“Perhaps the location isn’t real, but my love for you is. The joy you felt was true. Aren’t you relieved you don’t have to live through what is happening in reality?”

“I would rather live a torturous truth than a pleasant lie.” 

“You wouldn’t be living hardly at all. My fellow stone has taken control of your actions. Your body is not yours, but merely a tool of his.”

“And my mind is merely a tool of yours,” Loki snaps, standing from the bench, fists clenched. “I remember now. I fell into Thanos’ hands, not here. He used the mind stone to make me his puppet and ordered me to bring you to him. It is only after I arrived on Midgard that I don’t remember anything but this supposed paradise. You put me into this, this hallucination and forced me to love you.”

“To protect you from the whims of the mind stone! You are wreaking havoc on Earth and there is nothing you can do to stop it! Here, you are loved and cherished. You needn’t see the destruction you are causing, the humans you are killing with your bare hands! Accept that your body is lost, but I can preserve your mind, and you can live the rest of your life in peace, with me!” Tess says, putting on a display of distress and worry for her “lover.” Loki can see through it now that he knows the truth. Same as it was with Odin and Frigga. Displays of love, of hurt, of worry, only proven to be an attempt to cover lies. 

“If you truly cared, you would’ve fought to free me from the mind stone’s grasp, not keep me prisoner in your fantasy.” Loki takes a deep breath. I can’t let it restart the hallucination, I have to remember, I have to convince it to free me . “If you truly hold even the smallest portion of love for me, you will release my mind and help me free myself from your fellow stone. Afterwards, I will rain hell on Thanos.”

“I can’t, my love. I am no more powerful than the other stones. I am here under permission from the mind stone.”

“Because it knew that you would aid in his task to control me. I should’ve known.” Loki scoffs. “And this is what you think love to be?”

“Do you have any more experience with love than I, Laufeyson ? Hm? Your biological father abandoned you, and you were adopted by a man who merely saw you as a political pawn. Your mother told you tales of your kind, twisted tales of slaughter and destruction. Your beloved brother who always dismissed you, who always forced you into his shadow doesn’t even mourn your supposed death. You don’t know what love is. That’s why I brought you here. So that you would finally feel love.”

“You twist history. Odin and Frigga did force me into a false life. At the very least they allowed me to leave, showing more decency than you. And Thor never knew of my heritage, it was obvious when we fought. He is an imperfect man but he is a caring one, and if he knew what was happening to me he would do everything in his power to save me.” 

“Are you certain? He is your opponent, fighting you as we speak, unaware of any interference. As you said, he’s an imperfect man, he doesn’t even recognize that you don’t sound yourself, that your retelling of past events is twisted, or that under no normal circumstance you’d ever think to conquer Midgard!”

“I can only assume everything that leaves your mouth is more lies. I will never know the truth unless you leave my head.”

“And I never will subject you to the pain the real world holds.”

“Why? Because of your love for me? Your love is worse than whatever is happening in reality. Even if I were to see those dire circumstances, I would have the reassurance of knowing what is true and what isn’t.” Loki shakes his head, smiling. “But you don’t share such a belief. You will never leave me unless I force you out.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Tess asks, tone mocking. “What is a young, forgotten prince going to do to stop an Infinity Stone? You are a mere speck of dust in comparison to me.”

“Know this, Tess. I will never stop fighting you.”

Tess sighs. “Oh, as the humans say, third time’s a charm .”

“Unpleasant dream?” Loki smiles as he hears the soothing voice of Tess above him and feels its fingers sliding through his hair. He feels the warm grass underneath him. “Fear not, my love. It was nothing but a dream.”

Chapter Text

Just a little farther . Loki stumbles along, hoping against hope that soon he’ll find himself a settlement. He has never felt so hot in his life. His head pounds with every stumbling limp and he didn’t know it was possible to be so thirsty. He had long since ditched most of his clothes, walking shirtless and with ripped pants and boots, leaving his skin scorched. Death Valley is a suiting name . 

This is not his first time hiking through the hottest valley in the world, though it is his first time doing so stuck in his Jotun form. If I don’t find a settlement soon, this land will claim my life . He trips and falls on his face, his reaction too slow to stop his fall. After a painstakingly long moment, he manages to lift himself off the ground and continue stumbling forward. Doesn’t take long for him to fall again, but this time he can’t stand up. Instead he crawls, slowly pushing himself forward until he can’t continue any further, collapsing into a heap.

Loki can hear his heart beat going too fast and feel his back burning under the cruel and unforgiving sun. I suppose this is the end… he tells himself as he drifts unconscious, vision turning blue.

“What the heck is this? Some sorta alien?”

“A dying alien. Help me get him into the truck.”

Loki stirs, hearing two men speaking above him before feeling large hands on his biceps. “No, wait,” he slurs as he tries to pull against their hold. He opens his eyes but his vision is blurry. The sun is still shining and burning his skin, but this time Loki feels something hard and horribly hot underneath him as well.

“Hey it’s alright, we’re gonna get you somewhere safe. You’re lucky I didn’t run over you. You chose the worst place to pass out,” one of the voices says. Loki’s vision slowly clears, and he sees the asphalt underneath him. How did I end up here?

The two Midgardian men pull Loki up and help him stumble to their pick up truck with a covered back. They lift him up into the bed of the truck and help him lie down in the shade. “I think he’s sunburnt.”

“You think? Dude was lying down in the middle of the street shirtless. Of course he’s sunburnt! Do you think aloe vera would work on an alien?”

“I dunno, let’s try it.” 

The two men hop out of the truck, and Loki hears them opening the doors to their seats and grabbing stuff before returning shortly. “Sorry, I don’t have any water right now. Schweppes is the best I have, but the minute we can we’ll buy you some water,” one of them says before putting a straw near Loki’s lips. Loki weakly leans up and sips the soda, drinking as much of the fruity drink as he can. “Careful now, if you drink too much you’ll get yourself sick,” he says as he pulls the can away. Loki involuntarily whines, trying to reach for the can, still parched. “We’re a mile out from the nearest town, and I’ll get you water there. But you can’t drink too much of this. It’s better than nothing, but also dangerous in your state.”

“Found the aloe vera,” the other man says as he climbs into the bed. 

“Okay, we’re gonna put this salve on to help with the sunburns, okay?” Loki weakly nods, and soon the two men start spreading this aloe vera on his scorched skin. Loki winces at first, but soon relaxes as the salve cools his skin. They spread it liberally across his arms, chest, back, legs, and face, using up their entire bottle. “Alright, how ‘bout you drink just a bit more and we’ll get you to town, okay?” Loki nods fervently at the chance of drinking more of this sweet beverage. He only gets a few sips down before the man confiscates the can again, much to Loki’s dismay. “Sorry, sorry, in just a few minutes you can drink as much water as you want.”

“There’s only one row of seats, and you should probably keep lying down. Best for you to stay here,” the other man says. 

Loki nods and both men leave the bed. Soon enough, Loki hears the loud diesel engine start up and feels the truck moving underneath him. He frowns, trying to remember what happened before he passed out. I swear I was in the middle of the desert when I fell unconscious. How did I get here?

Chapter Text

 “I’m sorry, but even Asgardians have their limits. He lost almost all of his blood, and more than half of his internal organs are shredded to pieces. It’s doubtful that he’ll survive for more than a day, and if he does he won’t ever awake. There’s nothing we can do,” Jemma explains. “I’m sorry.”

 Tess tenses as Jemma explains, crossing her arms to hide her shaking hands. She can’t take her eyes off of Loki, white as paper, bandages covering almost every part of him, tucked into the hospital bed. His heart rate and breathing are slow and faint, and body temperature is cold, even for him. He lays motionless, only the smallest movement of his chest indicating his life. He saved all of our lives, and this was his reward. 

 Finally, Tess takes her eyes off of Loki and looks to Jemma. “There is something we can do.” Tess glances to Coulson and Daisy on the other side of the bed. “I hear that Tahiti is a magical place.”

 “If we would be able to find Kree blood, it might not work. Asgardians are more durable than the Kree,” Simmons says gently. 

 “Then use mine. Surely my blood will suffice,” Tess responds as she rolls up her sleeve past her elbow for Jemma to draw her blood. 

 “Tess, after I went through T.A.H.I.T.I., there were side effects. We’re lucky that I was able to resolve it. And it was worse for others. We have no idea what side effects Loki will have if we do this.” Coulson steps closer as he speaks, turning to look towards Loki’s comatose form. 

 “When you want to bring a loved one from the brink of death, then it’s fine, but when I do you’re only worried about the possible side effects?” Tess snaps, glaring at Daisy.

 “We didn’t know about the side effects, or even that it was Kree blood at the time. And Coulson didn’t show any major side effects at the time, and the ones he did were probably unrelated to the blood and just psychological shock from coming back to life. Either way, it only was successful for me because my DNA is part Kree. If we use your blood, we could be harming him more than helping,” Daisy adds.

 “The ethics are very questionable,” Jemma continues. 

 “They were for you because you were dead. The ethics of bringing a man back from the dead and wiping his memory are indeed questionable. The ethics of saving a dying man are not.” Tess tightens her fists. “It’s like the rabies vaccine. It can be very dangerous to certain patients, like those that are pregnant. But rabies will kill them without a doubt, so regardless of whatever circumstance, doctors will use the rabies vaccine. There’s no chance to survive untreated rabies, and there is a chance to save a patient with negative reactions to the vaccine. My blood is the only thing that can save Loki. And he isn’t dead yet. It would be unethical to let him die when we have a remedy.” 

 “Tess-”

 “If you don’t draw my blood right now, I will do it myself. I don’t know how to do that, but I’ll figure it out. And I’ll inject it into him. I also don’t know how to do that, but that’s not going to stop me.” 

 Jemma sighs before walking to another part of FitzSimmons’ lab, gesturing for Tess to follow. Within a few moments, Jemma holds a vial full of Tess’ milky white blood. “Are you cer-”

 “Do it.” 

 Jemma returns to Loki’s side, connecting the vial to a needle and placing it in a vein. The blood slowly drains out of the syringe into Loki and Tess can’t help but hold her breath. After removing the needle and wrapping Loki in even more bandages, Jemma steps back. For a moment nothing happens. Then the vital monitors scream as his vitals jump all over the place. His body violently jolts around, Coulson pinning him down so he doesn’t hurt himself more. As sudden as it started, it ends. Loki flops down ungracefully, once again calm. 

 “Vitals are steadying, and he’s already showing signs of cellular regeneration.” Jemma smiles at Tess. “The easy part is done.”

 Tess hasn’t left Loki’s side. It didn’t take long for him to heal. Thus far, no side effects have been found. But Coulson’s were psychological, so perhaps they will only be revealed when Loki awakens. Jemma said he should wake soon, but would still need plenty of bed rest. Daisy confirmed, saying that Jemma didn’t let her out of bed even when Daisy was convinced that she was 100% well. Loki would surely find it irritating, but it would be for the best. 

 Tess reads Loki’s favorite book as she waits, feeling comforted by holding this book Loki has held countless times. He would always read it to comfort himself, and she can now understand why. 

 “Nnnnghhh. Tess,” Loki whispers hoarsely. 

 Tess almost throws the book across the room in surprise, instead dropping it unceremoniously on the floor. “My love, I’m here.” She grabs his hand securely and smiles softly at him. His eyelids are drooping as he slowly wakes, his eyebrows furrowed. “You’re safe and healing. How are you feeling?”

 “Tired, disoriented.” His voice can hardly be heard. “Very odd.”

 “Well, you almost died. I’m sure that’s natural.” Best explain what happened when I’m certain he’s lucid. 

 Loki’s eyelids droop down before rising again with an added surprise. His eyes–sclera, iris, pupil and all–glow blue, the same shade as Tess. There’s the side effect…what does this mean? “Why does everything look odd?”

 “Side effect of the treatment, love. Go back to sleep, I’ll explain when you’re rested.”

 “Stay with me.”

 “As you wish, my love. Rest. You’ll feel better soon.” 

 What did my blood do to him?

Chapter Text

“You two look like crap,” Daisy says. “What on Earth happened?”

Loki and Tess drop gracelessly onto the couch, kicking boots off and throwing jackets to the floor. They lie down, Loki leaning against the arm rest and Tess against his chest. There isn’t any color in their faces, and their movements are sluggish. They are covered in sweat. “Are there any disadvantages to your powers?” Loki asks after a moment. 

“Yeah, if I don’t use my gauntlets I’ll break my own bones.”

“Magic is exhausting. That’s why we don’t use it constantly, only when we need it,” Tess explains. 

“It’s more difficult when a sorcerer takes powerful stimulants before a battle,” Loki adds. “If it had gone on any longer, I might’ve passed out.” His eyelids droop as he speaks and slowly adjusts his position to be more comfortable. 

“Yep, that would suck. So what happened to the drugged sorcerer?”

“We held him off until the stimulants wore off. Then he fainted in front of us. Davis got him into a containment module and we were busy feeling absolutely awful,” Tess answers. She nuzzles against Loki, arms wrapped around his torso loosely, apparently as tightly as she can manage in her exhaustion. 

“Sounds fun. Anything I can do to help? You both look like you’d collapse the minute you get up.”

“Blanket,” Tess mutters, eyes now closed. Undoubtedly it won’t take long for her to fall asleep, and Loki isn’t much more awake than her. He manages to keep his eyes open, obvious that he is putting effort into staying awake. 

“Please,” Loki adds as he finally closes his eyes.

“Yeah, sure thing.” Daisy leaves the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She hurries over to Loki and Tess’ room and rips the blankets from off of their bed, bundling them up in her arms. When she comes back, the couple are asleep, as expected. Daisy gently sets the blankets on them. She lines up their boots against the couch and grabs their discarded clothes and delivers them to their room, neatly stacked on top of a dresser. She takes two insulated water bottles from the kitchen and fills them up with ice and water. She comes back and sets the bottles on the coffee table near the couch. She once again leaves the room, turning the light off on her way out and silently shutting the door.

Chapter Text

Seventy two hours…how much longer? Loki had learned long ago that he can’t rest without permission. As tempting as it is, a few minutes of sleep isn’t worth the pain. Not to mention that he would have to wait even longer to rest. He had adjusted to this long ago. As long as he keeps moving, he stays awake. The danger is when he is sitting, or leaning against a wall. Once his head leans against something and he closes his eyes, he is asleep whether he wants to be or not. Movement is his only defense against his weary and lethargic body. 

Generally Thanos only forces him to stay up for forty eight hours at most, normally even less. Enough to keep Loki pliable while not damaging him too much. That is Thanos’ favorite criticism of Loki, after all. He’s too unpredictable, too chaotic, a disaster waiting to happen. Something has to be done to counteract his flaws. Keeping him tired seems to do the trick. 

Loki rubs his eyes as he drinks a stimulant he was given, to be used only when absolutely needed. It’s needed. If I don’t rest soon, I’ll pass out . He downs the whole bottle at once before pacing back and forth, trying to stay awake. Give me something, anything to do to keep me alert . 

“Come.” The voice of the Other in his mind, lord of the Chitauri. Loki walks to where he knows the Other is without a second of hesitation. Finally, I thought you’d forgotten about me . He hurries to the Other’s preferred place, stumbling on his own feet at one point. 

When he arrives, the Other is observing the void, scepter in hand. Loki kneels, same as always when speaking with a superior. “You are ready to lead.” He turns, the same harshness as ever specifically reserved for Loki. “Or so it appears. Don’t disappoint.” He prowls closer to Loki. “If you do not deliver the Tesseract, you cannot dream of the torments we will concoct for you.” 

Loki stares forward, speechless. This isn’t the first time he’s been threatened, nor will it likely be the last. Best to let the Other continue until he’s let all of his distaste out. Gives him time to ponder on the little information he did receive. I’m ready? Now? I thought they’d allow me to rest before sending me… .

“You will take the scepter with you. You will need a powerful weapon to claim the Tesseract and Earth.” Loki wordlessly takes the scepter from the Other’s open grasp, holding it at his side. “Be warned, Asgardian: if you fail, you won’t be the only one to suffer. You will beg for mercy, but not for yourself.” 

Loki stares forward, jaw tense. “I understand.” 

“Best of luck.” The Other walks past him, leaving him alone on his knees, the weight of the scepter odd in his hands. It had been explained before that once Loki was ready, a portal would take him to the Tesseract, but it was never explained how. Nor was it explained what was near the Tesseract. Loki knows that Odin left it hidden in Norway many centuries ago. But if Thanos needs Loki to fight for the Tesseract, surely that has changed and it is under more protection. 

Soon enough, the portal opens, as promised, swallowing Loki whole. With a flash and a bang, he appears on Midgard, wherever the Tesseract is. He almost stumbles to the floor from the whiplash, barely managing to stay on his knees, using the scepter to keep himself upright. 

Finally, away from that wretched world! Loki tells himself with a smile as he slowly lifts his head to observe his surroundings. It doesn’t take long for him to lose his smile, seeing the handful of armed men raising their weapons toward him. 

“Sir, please put down the spear!” someone, most likely the leader, shouts from in front of him. 

Time to put you to use , he tells the Scepter as he brings it closer, examining it. Despite his exhaustion, he points the Scepter at the leader in half a second. Without a leader they will fall into chaos . 

Unfortunately, someone pushes the leader to the floor, dodging the blue blast from the Scepter. The soldiers fire their arms at Loki. I’m too exhausted for this . At the very least their projectiles can’t do him any harm. Loki leaps towards the closest soldier, stabbing him through the heart and knocking aside the soldier beside him. Turning around, he throws daggers at two other soldiers. The daggers don’t land perfectly, a little lower than they ought to be, but lethal nonetheless. Evidence of Loki's physical state. 

He whips around and shoots a blast at some more humans, more potential threats. Behind him the soldier he had knocked aside approaches. Not faster than Loki, even in his exhaustion. Loki slashes him with the Scepter. Several more bullets hit him as he turns around to shoot yet another blast at more soldiers. One of the soldiers manages to dive aside, but the other two are hit directly. Loki turns back to the soldier behind him and kicks him, the soldier flying to hit the wall. 

Loki pauses, observing his surroundings. No more opponents are firing at him. The Tesseract sits in a machine nearby. Machinery hit by the Scepter’s blasts spark. The dead soldiers’ bodies litter the floor. Off in the distance, the soldier that managed to avoid his attacks slowly comes to his feet. He may have avoided being directly hit, but the force still knocked him across the room. 

Loki strides to the conscious soldier, head pounding and body weakening. Fortunately, there wasn’t much resistance . The soldier grabs his pistol from his holster, turning around to face Loki. But even a sleep deprived Asgardian is faster than a human. Loki grabs the soldier’s wrist, not allowing any movement. The human struggles against Loki’s grip unsuccessfully. 

“You have heart.” Time to test my theory. Thanos had used the Scepter to search into Loki’s mind before. What else could it be used for? He gently sets the tip against the human’s chest, same as Thanos had done to him. He wills for its energy to enter the human’s body. He watches as his veins glow blue and his eyes go black then bright blue. Immediately, he feels his struggles against his hold end. Loki steps back, releasing the human.

The human returns his pistol to his holster before standing at attention. Waiting for orders. Just as I expected . Loki leaves this human behind to search for more to join him. He finds another human, not a soldier but certainly important in one way or another. Even more defenseless than the soldier was, an easy target. Thankfully, Loki can’t handle much more exertion.

Out of the corner of his eye, Loki sees the leader, now conscious, pulling the Tesseract out of the machine and into a case. “Please don’t. I still need that.” I can’t afford to fail . 

“This doesn’t have to get any messier,” the leader responds, looking away from Loki. 

“Of course it does. I’ve come too far for anything else,” Loki insists. I have no choice but to deliver the Tesseract to Thanos . “I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.” Not mine, but glorious regardless . 

“Loki, brother of Thor,” another human, also not geared as a soldier, pipes up behind him. Loki sends a glare to that human for his unfavorable comment. 

“We have no quarrel with your people,” the leader says calmly. 

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot.” Loki is almost grateful for this conversation, a break in the violence, a chance to recover a bit. 

“Are you planning to step on us?”

“I come with glad tidings of a world made free.” He slowly approaches the human that spoke of his brother, another easy target. He knows of Thor, and not only from the mortals’ twisted mythology. No, Loki remembers him from when he sent the Destroyer to kill Thor. This man was there that day. 

“Free from what?”

“Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie.” The most important lesson Thanos has taught me . “Once you accept that, in your heart–” Loki twirls around, setting the Scepter against the human’s chest–”you will know peace.” 

“Yeah, you say ‘peace.’ I kind of think you mean the other thing,” the leader says. 

“Sir, Director Fury is stalling,” Loki’s new loyal soldier says abruptly, leaving his position by the wall. “This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us.” Loki follows the soldier’s gaze to blue energy collected towards the ceiling, thrashing at an increasing speed. “He means to bury us.” 

“Like the pharaohs of old.” 

“He’s right, the portal is collapsing in on itself,” the newest loyal subject, apparently a scientist, confirms. “We’ve got maybe two minutes before this goes critical.” 

“Well then,” Loki responds, looking at his soldier, tired beyond belief and not wanting to participate in any more exhausting violence. 

Without any hesitation the soldier grabs his pistol and fires at his previous leader, who falls to the ground upon impact. Loki and his band of followers walk towards the exit, the soldier grabbing the case containing the Tesseract. He hands it to the scientist, freeing his hands for any battle that may come. 

Not now .  Loki stumbles over his own feet, almost falling to the floor. I need to rest . As he rights himself, one of his followers sets a hand on his back, steadying him. He only stops once Loki walks more firmly. He follows the soldier’s lead through the compound to a parking garage full of several automobiles. 

“I need these vehicles,” the soldier says, pointing to a handful nearby. Too tired to walk any further, Loki stumbles to sit on the bed of one of the trucks, breathing heavily. 

“Who’s that?” a woman asks. It would be wise for Loki to claim her as well, but that would require standing again. 

“They didn’t tell me,” the soldier answers. Not a lie, well done. Loki leans against the wall of the bed, trying to control his breathing. 

“Hill!” Loki jerks his head towards the sound of the leader, hearing it from a device the woman holds. “Do you copy? Barton has turned.”

The soldier, Barton apparently, reacts immediately, turning to shoot at the woman. She ducks behind a wall, pulling out her own gun. Barton runs to the driver’s seat of the truck, driving off into the tunnel leading to the exit. 

Barton drives fast, weaving through other cars. But not fast enough to outrun the other humans, driving vehicles and shooting at the truck. Loki steadies himself, adjusting his hold on the Scepter as he moves into a better position. He fires a blast at the nearest hostile vehicle, destroying it. 

At an intersection, the woman from before shows up in her own vehicle, smashing into the front of the truck, firing at Barton. Loki looks over his shoulder, ready to pounce up and fire a blast if needed, though he hopes Barton can handle it himself. Thankfully, he can. It doesn’t take long for him to push the other vehicle aside and speed forward. 

Just in time. The explosion the humans predicted sends a shock through Loki as the tunnel starts to collapse. Barton drives just fast enough to avoid being caved in, zooming out of the tunnel. The woman isn’t so lucky. 

Above them Loki sees the leader, shooting with a pistol from a helicopter. Barton turns sharply, leaving the road and driving over the natural terrain. Loki steadies himself before shooting a blast at the helicopter. The leader jumps out of it just in time, continuing to shoot. But he can’t outrun a truck on foot. 

Barton returns to the road and Loki slowly sinks to the bed, gasping for breath, gripping onto the Scepter. Soon he leans against the walls, resting his head against the back window. Need to sleep. Can’t sleep. No permission . The Other had mentioned that he would remain in contact with Loki. Soon, he’ll give Loki permission to rest, surely. How could Loki possibly succeed in his current state? He fought a bit and tired himself out, relying on his soldier afterwards. 

“Sir, you don’t look well,” Barton says. He had taken the group to a secure building lined with lead, hiding themselves from the ever searching eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D. Loki still doesn’t know how he managed to stay awake on the drive there. Barton had explained his reasoning for their location and other strategic decisions, asking for Loki’s approval. Loki hadn’t been able to follow any of the logic, too tired to pay attention. He had given his approval, confident in Barton’s competence. He was the only soldier to survive Loki’s attack, the primary element in their escape, and has already proven to be perceptive by seeing through Fury’s burial plan. He can make better decisions than Loki can in his state.

Loki should have expected that Barton would know. Especially now. Loki has stumbled over his own feet more times than he can count. His orders haven’t been worded all that well, he’s seen the looks of confusion from some of his followers. He let Barton make many of the strategic choices and accepted all of them immediately. And through all of it, Barton has been the one to help. Steadying Loki the second he stumbles, repeating orders with more clarity when the others are confused, offering to handle certain issues. He clearly saw that something is wrong with Loki, but has only questioned it once he managed to be alone with him. And before that, he did all he could for all operations to run smoothly until he could help solve Loki’s problem. 

“I haven’t slept,” Loki answers. It’s nice to be seen, to have someone observing me to find ways to help. Unfortunate that this only came about through the Scepter. But I already knew that no one would care for me, only through artificial means.

“For how long?”

Loki pauses for a moment, adding up the hours. “Seventy eight hours.” 

“Sir, you need to sleep. How can you possibly defend yourself in this state?”

A fair concern. Loki can hardly keep his eyes open. Surely something catastrophic will happen if this isn’t resolved. He agrees with Barton. But does Thanos?

“You may rest.”

Loki flinches when the Other’s voice appears in his mind. Barton immediately grabs Loki’s shoulder, probably concerned that he’ll lose balance. Finally!

Loki nods. “I must rest.” 

Barton loosens his grip on Loki’s shoulder and gently slides his hand to rest on Loki’s forearm. He lightly guides him down the hall, observing him intently. Watching to see if he stumbles or loses balance. Seeking to support him. Caring for him. Loki follows Barton’s lead, grateful for the physical and emotional support, relying on him.

Barton leads him into a small room with a cot. An hour ago he had ordered a few people to set up the necessary accommodations for Loki’s followers: bedding, food, water, hygiene. He must have ordered for the same to be done for Loki. Very simple lodging, but sufficient. That’s all they need. And much more than Loki is used to after his year with Thanos. “Sleep for as long as you need. I will handle everything else.” 

“Thank you. I trust that all will run smoothly under your direction,” Loki says with a soft smile as he sits on the cot. He sets the Scepter under the cot before lying down on his side, his body sinking into the cot as he slowly relaxes. He closes his immediately as his head touches the pillow. 

“If you need anything sir, find me and I will do whatever it is,” Barton says as he drapes something over Loki. 

“I know, thank you.” Loki loosely grabs the blanket–no it has sleeves, must be Barton’s jacket–as he hears soft footsteps leaving the room and the door clicking shut ever so quietly. 

“Rest, my friend.” 

“Regain your strength.”

“Sleep.”

“For now, you need not worry.”

“Rest your weary body and tired mind.”

“There will be much to do when you awake, but it can wait.”

“Relax physically and mentally.”

“You needn’t wake yet, you have time to rest.”

“All is well, all is well.”

“You will need all the rest you can get before continuing your work.”

“It’s time, you’ve regained your strength.”

“I look forward to meeting you in person.”

“It’s time, my friend. I’m waiting for you.”

Loki slowly sits up on the cot, his head no longer pounding. He stretches his arms and back, relieved to not feel the soreness he felt when he came to Midgard. Odd…I had no nightmares of the void for the first time in so long…only a calming, oddly familiar voice. As he ponders, Loki folds Barton’s jacket, setting it back on the cot. He stands and walks towards the door, leaving the Scepter behind for now.

Outside of his door is one of his followers, apparently ordered to stand guard by Barton. The guard had said that he was supposed to notify Barton when Loki awoke. Luckily, it was on the men Loki swayed towards his side, not one of the others Barton had found. He wouldn’t question Loki’s authority over this. So Loki went back into his room, waiting for Barton. He surely had a reason for this .

A few minutes later, Barton barges in, holding a box in his arm. “Good morning, sir. Or, I guess I should say good evening. You slept for almost twenty four hours.” 

“I feel much better now,” Loki admits. 

“And you’ll feel even better when you eat,” Barton adds, pulling plastic containers of food out of the box, as well as a water bottle. “You must be starving.”

“ Starving is a strong word, but I appreciate your efforts.” I’ve gone much, much longer without food than this . 

“Don’t mention it,” Barton responds as he picks up his jacket from the cot and puts it on. “Selvig is well underway with the new designs for the Tesseract. He estimates about two weeks. A miraculous speed, he’s been at it for months now.”

Loki nods. “The Tesseract, the Scepter, they open our minds to new possibilities. They touch us differently.” Loki trails off, answering his own question from earlier. The Tesseract touches each of us differently… . “He was gifted new knowledge. As it may gift you new knowledge as well.” 

“I don’t need new knowledge to know that you haven’t been well for a long time.” Barton folds his arms, looking at Loki with concern. “What happened?”

Very bold of him to ask. But in the back of Loki’s head, he knows that Barton is doing exactly what Loki wanted him to do: to be a friend. “I can’t answer that. Maybe another day.” 

Now is the time to see why the Tesseract was speaking to me .

Chapter Text

“Where am I?” Loki asks as he backs away from the glowing blue woman. His captor hasn’t said a word yet, only grabbed him from the battlefield and teleported him to this eerie place. Everything is black and foggy, as if it isn’t supposed to exist. “Who are you?”

“You don’t recognize me? I’m hurt,” a shockingly familiar voice says. “As a child you used to spend hours staring into my depths, seeking to know the secrets of the universe. Tell me, why did you stop visiting me?”

“No, that’s impossible,” Loki states, doubting himself. “You, you’re the Tesseract?”

“Who else would I be, my little prince?”

Loki shakes his head, trying to convince himself that, yes, the Tesseract has been alive this whole time. But it makes sense, no wonder Loki felt such a connection when he was younger. “When one grows, he leaves his childish antics behind. Staring at a Cube wasn’t helping me learn of the universe.”

“And thus you began your explorations of the secret passages. Secret passages that I created for you to entertain yourself.” The Tesseract smiles. “But now we finally can speak together again. You always longed to know the secrets of the universe, and I can give them to you.”

“As much as I’d love to stay, I was in the middle of a battle. I need to see that through before I can do anything else. Now, if you would please return me, I would be very appreciative.”

“ Absolutely not! ” Loki stares at the Tesseract in shock at her outburst. “You keep endangering yourself for those warriors that barely tolerate you and your idiotic brother! I will not allow it!”

“I can handle myself. Now, let me go .” Loki sets his jaw, determined to win. The Jotuns outnumber them. They’ll need me to help them escape with their lives intact. 

“Why do you insist on fighting for liars and thieves?”

“What in the Nine Realms are you talking about? Let me go, my brother needs me!”

“I told you already. It’s out of the question, little prince. You are no prince of Asgard, no prince of Jotunheim. As I rule space, so will you, my little prince. What powers I have, you one day will have as well.”

Prince of Jotunheim? Liars and thieves? It doesn’t take long for Loki to understand what the Tesseract is saying. Regardless, that is something to worry about after he gets out of this dark expanse. “And what good of a prince am I if I can’t protect my brother?”

The Tesseract sighs, folding her arms. “Very well, I will intervene, and your brother and supposed allies will return to Asgard alive. But you are to stay here, my little prince.”

Loki narrows his eyes, suspicious as to why the Tesseract doesn’t want him to leave. “And if I say no?”

Suddenly, black wisps form around Loki’s wrists and ankles, pulling him towards a wall that appeared the same second behind Loki. Once Loki’s back hits the wall, the Tesseract stalks towards him. “I will convince you,” she responds, voice sweet as poisoned honey. She stretches her hand out, lightly touching Loki’s cheek. “You were born to be a king, Loki. My king, and I your queen. And I don’t intend on letting you slip out from under my fingers.”

Loki pulls against the bonds, but they only tighten and shift Loki’s limbs apart, leaving him spread as a star on the wall. “That isn’t the amazing proposition you think it is.”

She shakes her head with a smile. “Perhaps it isn’t. But I didn’t expect to convince you in one day. But you’ll eventually see reason. Until then, this wall will be your home. I can’t teach you the secrets of the universe until I can trust that you won’t try to leave me, my love.” Her hand lowers to his chin. “But I expect I will convince you, my king.” The Tesseract tilts his head towards her as she leans towards him, stealing a long, passionate kiss from him. Panicked, Loki struggles against the bonds and tries to pull away from her, but her hold on him doesn’t relent. 

When she finally finishes kissing him, she pulls away with a smile. “There will come a day when you will beg for me to kiss you like so, my king. You will regret ever wanting to return to your life shattered by lies.”

Chapter Text

“Loki, are you alright?!” Loki winces as Thor shouts, the loudness grating against his ears. Of course, Thor can’t be blamed, he’s panicked. Worried over Loki after his fall and the sickening sound of his head hitting the metal wall too hard. Afterall, they are only children. What can be expected? A calm and soothing response from a ten year old in such a dire moment?

“Nnngh, no,” Loki whispers after a moment. 

“GUARDS!” Thor shouts after Loki responds, too distressed to notice Loki covering his ears. 

“Father was’righ’ ‘bout play’n the Vault,” Loki admits, words slurring together. They had been dueling with their wooden swords throughout the palace. Their father had warned them to stay out of the barracks and the Vaults, saying that they could accidentally knock something down on top of them. Of course, the two brothers had ignored their father with little thought. And as so often happens with disobedient children, they are learning that their father had a reason for this rule. Thor had accidentally knocked one of the artifacts over, and it almost toppled on Loki. While Loki was successful in dodging the artifact, he had tripped and fallen head first into the wall. 

“I know, I’m sorry, if I hadn’t knocked that artifact over you would be fine, I’m so sorry,” Thor responds in a rushed voice. 

“‘S okay, was my idea’ta fight down’ere.”

Loki feels his hand getting wet as it rests near his ear. He brings it close to his eyes to confirm what he imagined: blood staining his hand. As Thor sees this, he starts panicking further, shouting more anxiously for help and grabbing onto Loki’s shoulder. Loki doesn’t hear his panic, his eyes drooping as he slowly rests his bloody hand against his chest. 

“Stay awake, young prince.” A voice that isn’t Thor’s rings through Loki’s head, blocking everything else out.

“Loki, can you hear me?” Thor’s voice pierces through the fog in Loki’s head. 

“Hmm? Kinda? Can’t think,” Loki answers, feeling faint. 

“Stay awake.”

Loki doesn’t hear the doors to the Vault open, he only sees guards bending down and lifting him up, hurrying him to Eir, Thor on their heels. He can see their lips moving, but doesn’t hear their voices. Same when Eir speaks, the sound doesn’t seem to leave her lips. She quickly desists at her attempts to get a response out of him and quickly starts working on Loki’s head wound. 

All Loki can hear is the mysterious voice, telling him to stay awake. He watches as Eir treats his wound, Thor waiting anxiously, Mother and Father rushing into the infirmary. All of which in silence. The voice dominates his mind. 

After what feels to be an eternity, the voice stops its mantra of “stay awake.” Eir and Mother silently tuck Loki into one of the infirmary’s beds, Mother giving him a kiss on the forehead before stepping back. Thor takes his hand, face tearstained, squeezing his hand tighter than ever. Father looks on from a distance with a concerned frown. 

“All is well now, young prince. Rest.”  

Loki’s eyes slowly close, almost as if the source of the voice was preventing him from sleeping earlier. He lightly squeezes Thor’s hand before drifting off to sleep.

Chapter Text

“Leave no trace behind.”

A particularly difficult task when trying to avoid the eyes of the all-seeing Heimdall and Loki’s perception of magic. The Einherjar are simple enough to deceive. Asgard puts too much value on physical strength rather than mental and magical prowess. Loki, of course, being the exception. 

Tess easily finds herself in Loki’s chambers, slipping past the supposedly superior defenses of the palace. The Einherjar have long since grown complacent. They have long mused that none would ever even think to attempt anything against the royal family. Besides, they suppose that none can avoid the eyes of Heimdall, thus they need not watch for danger. They need only act when Heimdall delivers the news of an attack. 

They never once considered that Heimdall’s vision isn’t perfect. They never once considered their vulnerability against sorcery, only their superior brute force. This complacence will surely bring about their failure. 

After enchanting the room to not allow any sound to leave, Tess, masked and wearing a cloak and hood, walks silently towards Loki’s sleeping form, the only sound being the curtains blowing in the wind. Moonlight seeps through the windows alongside the aroma of recent rainfall. Loki doesn’t stir as Tess approaches from behind. She observes the sleeping prince for a moment. Calm, at peace. Oblivious to her presence. He lays on his side, blankets covering his lower half, dressed in loose fabrics. 

Tess reaches into her cloak for the shackles she had enchanted to prevent Loki from using his sorcery. She leans over, the chain clinking ever so quietly as she gently lifts Loki’s wrists and closes the shackles around them before setting his chained wrists on the bed. She turns towards his ankles, slowly removing the blankets before removing another pair of shackles from her cloak. 

Before she can bind Loki’s ankles, she suddenly is lifted off her feet and thrown onto her back, landing on top of Loki’s chest. The chain from his shackles digs into her throat, almost pulling down her mask. Her hands instinctively fly to the chain, pulling at it without any success. 

“What a pleasant surprise, a failed abduction attempt,” Loki murmurs in her ear. “Who are you?”

Tess kicks her legs as her vision starts to darken. “You, hhhgh, you’ll learn in due time, Your Highness,” she answers as she blindly reaches for Loki’s head. Once one of her hands touches his forehead, she releases a sleeping enchantment as her vision goes black. 

The pressure at her throat loosens and she gasps for breath. Tess slides out from under the chain and onto the floor, kneeling as she catches her breath. Slowly, once she’s recovered, Tess grabs the shackles that she had dropped earlier and stands, leaning against the bedpost. Once again, she observes the sleeping prince. He doesn’t look as peaceful as he did before with his hair in every direction and his shackled wrists against his chest in an uncomfortable position. 

She quickly chains his ankles together, not wishing to stay for a moment longer than needed. Perhaps as she almost fell unconscious, she had been unveiled from Heimdall for a second. If so, in minutes the Einhejar would arrive. 

She pulls a folded piece of paper out of her pocket, slightly crumpled from her struggle against Loki. A list of her demands. She lifts Loki before closing her eyes, teleporting the two of them far, far away. 

Thor was angry when he first learned of Loki’s abduction, even more when he learned that Loki was taken to force his Father’s hand and make him comply with her demands. It was a long list of demands, one that his Father didn’t share. Claimed it was nonsensical but necessary to comply for Loki’s sake. Thor had spent the day sparring, trying to release the pent up anger. His friends had sparred with him and tried to comfort him, but he would know no comfort until Loki returned. Now he sits in Loki’s chambers, wrapped in Loki’s cape and holding one of his pillows.

The abductor must have been a sorceress. Heimdall cannot see Loki, nor his captor. Only a powerful sorcerer could conceal himself from Heimdall’s ever seeing eye. And Loki would not lose a purely physical fight easily. Thor is convinced there was a fight. If not, why were Loki’s blankets so carelessly tossed aside with sections pounded into the backboard? No, a sorceress must have found Loki in his sleep, when he is most vulnerable. Loki fought back, but not before the sorceress had done something to give her an advantage over him. 

It is as if she doesn’t exist . Heimdall can’t see her. Father and Mother, and perhaps Loki, never sensed her magic. The Einherjar say they never saw an intruder. It’s like one of the stories of spirits and monsters he had heard as a child, nothing more than stories to scare children.

Thor squeezes the pillow harder. The sorceress had promised to return Loki if and when Father fulfills her demands. She added that he would be unharmed so long as neither him nor Father “give her a reason to harm him.” The thought of his little brother being victim to torture makes Thor’s stomach sick. He can only hope that Father complies to the letter and that Loki doesn’t anger her. As much as Thor wishes he could say that he would avenge his little brother if any harm came to him, he knows that it is unlikely that he will ever find this sorceress himself. She will disappear after returning Loki to never be found again most certainly. 

The back of Thor’s eyes burn as he kicks his boots off and removes his armor. He slowly lies down on Loki’s bed, hugging his pillow and covering himself with Loki’s cape and blankets. He can’t help but think of their childhood, when Thor would sleep at Loki’s side when one or other had a nightmare. Sorry Loki , Thor thinks after a moment, knowing that Loki would be cross if he found out that Thor had sparred all day and sweated enough to fill a bucket and didn’t wash up before laying down on his bed. I promise I’ll have your bedding cleaned before you return. Thor hides his face in the pillow and cries for his little brother as he falls into a fitful sleep.

Loki bolts up when he wakes, immediately observing his surroundings. He rests on a pile of straw, wrists and ankles shackled. The chains on his wrist are connected to a steel loop in the wall. A few rays of sunlight come into the barn from the old roof. There’s a door in front of him. Other than some old farming equipment, nothing else is in this section of the barn. For now, he is alone. 

What could she want? he asks himself as he examines the shackles. Covered in runes indicating enchantments meant to block his sorcery as well as some others he doesn’t recognize. They bite into his wrists and ankles as he tests their strength. 

As he does so, the door flies open and his captor strides in. Masked and hooded as before, black cloak billowing behind her. Loki follows her with his gaze. “Your Highness,” she says with a nod, remarkably respectful given the circumstance. “You must be hungry. You’ve slept all day.” 

Loki’s suspicion grows as she conjures bread, cheese, and water on a tray, setting it on his lap. She sits cross-legged near him, but too far for him to kick or bite her. He glares at the masked woman. “What do you want?”

“Nothing from you. My quarrel is with your father. After months of unsuccessful negotiations, I had to resort to more desperate methods. Once my demands are met, I will free you.” 

“What are your demands?” There hasn’t been even a whisper of an unhappy citizen seeking to speak with Father lately . 

“There are many,” the woman admits. “To spare you the details, your father has called upon me for my skills many times. Without compensation, without concern for my safety, without notice, and without choice. I never agreed to be his personal sorceress, and I want him to stop seeking me. Or at the very least pay me for my efforts and not force me into his battles.”

“I know nothing of this.”

“It’s between me and your father. There would be riots if the people knew he was forcing someone to do battle without pay. I have no desire to create public chaos, only to receive justice, and as such I haven’t revealed this to anyone until now.” The woman tilts her head towards the tray of food. “You should eat. It isn’t poisoned, if that’s your concern. I promised you would be returned unharmed. I intend on fulfilling my end of the bargain.” She grabs a slice of cheese and takes a bite out of it, apparently demonstrating the lack of poison. 

Hesitantly Loki grabs a slice of bread, his movements awkward because of the shackles. He lifts his hand up as high as he can, but the chains stop him from lifting his arms very high. He has to bend down to eat. He continues staring at his captor. “I’m not the Crown Prince. It would have been more effective to take Thor.”

“Perhaps, but then you would be your father’s greatest weapon against me. This is much easier without a sorcerer hunting me down. And your father certainly will want to see his precious son returned safely. As will your brother. I hear he was enraged when he learnt of your disappearance. They say that anger never exists on its own, always accompanying another emotion.” 

Loki’s heart stings when he hears about Thor. Of course he would have fear-driven anger. Knowing Thor, he blames himself for Loki’s capture. Mother must be terribly frightened as well, and Loki can all but hear her sobs. And Father would mask his pain in front of others, but he surely must feel guilty for being the cause of his captivity. 

“I apologize for the humble accommodations, it is all I can afford. Surely it must be uncomfortable for one such as yourself, Your Highness.”

Loki blinks in shock before responding. “The only unbearable part of your hospitality is the bonds.”

“Those unfortunately will have to stay. Can’t allow you your sorcery nor allow Heimdall’s gaze to find you.”

“So I imagined,” Loki says, storing the new piece of information in his mind: the runes he doesn’t recognize are meant to hide him from Heimdall. 

“They must be horribly uncomfortable, I will admit. Do they cause any pain?”

Another shocking reply. “Some,” he admits. 

The sorceress touches his wrists. Her hands are gloved, but her fingers are bare. She slips her fingers underneath the shackles before they start glowing a light blue. “So swollen, and it’s been so little time,” she mutters under breath. Slowly, the pain goes away as she feels around his swollen wrists. When finished, she turns towards his ankles and does the same thing. “You must feel much better now, Your Highness. Whenever they cause any pain, don’t hesitate to ask for relief.”

Before Loki can respond, she tugs on the chain holding his wrists together. “I did not expect to be strangled last night. You left quite a few bruises. I should not have underestimated you, Your Highness. I will not repeat the same mistake. I swear to keep you as comfortable as I can until your father fulfills his end of the bargain, but I will do what is needed to keep you here.”

The woman held true to her promises. She never harmed him, and repeatedly healed his swollen limbs. Loki never requested so, but she did so anyway every time she visited him. She brought him battered books to read and frequently fed him. She told him of the demands Father had fulfilled and the others she is waiting for. She admitted that some of them could take days for him to fulfill, but that it should be finished within the week. One day it started to snow, and she covered him with warm quilts as he slept. All of the meals he has received since have been warm, meant to help him stay warm in the drafty loft. 

After a week of captivity, she told Loki that Father had fulfilled all of her demands. She said that she would deliver the keys to the barn and the bonds alongside instructions to find Loki to Father. They are a few hours away from the palace, but during the night they would arrive. She once again apologized for the discomfort and thanked him for “aiding her in her search for justice.” Then she left for the palace, never to be seen by Loki again. 

Loki fell asleep after a few hours of waiting. He knew that someone would find him, he wasn’t worried. The sorceress had kept all of her other promises, so he did not worry of a supposed betrayal. He need not force himself to stay awake as he waited. 

“Loki!” He wakes as he hears Thor shout his name. Loki looks up and sees Thor at the doorway before he runs to his side. “Thank the Norns, I was so worried!” He fumbles with the keys, searching for the right ones before lifting Loki’s blankets and unlocking the shackles on Loki’s wrists and ankles. Once the last one falls off, he pulls Loki into a tight hug. “Did she hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine. Nothing more than sore muscles.” Loki hugs Thor tightly, resting against his warm chest. Even with the quilts, the room is cold. Loki leans into Thor’s warmth and holds onto him tightly.

“You’re so cold. I’m going to carry you. I won’t let you walk barefoot in a foot of snow.” Thor picks up the quilts and wraps them around Loki tightly, bundling up his feet to stop the heat from leaving. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“No, I’m fine Thor. All I want is a warm bath and to fall asleep on my own bed.” 

“About that, I’m afraid your bed isn’t an option right now.” Thor says as he stands up, Loki in his arms. 

“Oh?”

“Perhaps in my worry I sparred for many hours before sleeping in your bed every night, wrapped in your blankets and cape and crying into your pillows, without bathing.”

“How dare you sleep in my bed while covered in sweat?” Loki rolls his eyes as Thor carries him to the carriage he had ridden to the barn. Much warmer than riding horseback, especially for the hostage wearing thin clothing and no shoes. “I feel sorry for the woman you will marry.” 

“To apologize I asked the maids to thoroughly clean your room. For tonight, you can sleep with me, like how we used to as children. And I swear I will bathe before going to bed.”

“And you will never again touch my bed without washing up!” Loki adds as Thor sets him down inside the carriage. “I will turn you into a frog if you do it again!” 

“Loki, I swear I will never again touch anything in your chambers without washing up, I swear it. And I apologize for doing so in my emotion-driven state.” 

“Very well, apology accepted.” Loki shuffles closer to Thor, still a little cold. Thor upon seeing this immediately wraps an arm around his shoulder and pulls him close. 

“Now you’re safe, and that’s all that matters.”

Chapter Text

The Tesseract was the first relic Odin claimed as King of Asgard and Allfather of the Nine Realms. He used it to build the bifrost, a much more efficient means of travel than summoning dark magic. After that he set it on a pedestal alongside his fathers’ collections, on a path to leave his mark on the royal vaults. The Allfather never once used it again, only searching for the next relic. Soon the Tesseract was amongst a plethora of relics claimed by Odin, as well as some false ones, meant to claim power he doesn’t truly have. 

It remembered each time the Allfather went into the vault with a new relic. He would always stride past the Tesseract without even so much as a glance and place something new down on a nearby pedestal before leaving. Never once was a relic taken out of the vault to be used again. After a century or so, the Tesseract realized that they weren’t tools, they were demonstrations of vanity. 

The most recent relic to be brought to the vault was the Casket of Ancient Winters eight years ago. It was an unusual visit. The Allfather’s wife accompanied him to the vault, a sleeping infant swaddled in her arms. He placed the Casket on a pedestal at the end of the vault, the Queen at his side, rocking the babe from side to side. “We cannot allow anyone to know his heritage,” the Allfather said as he set the Casket down. “Not even him, not until he is ready.”

“He will be loved regardless,” the Queen responded, though her voice wavered. “Though perhaps it will take time.” She leaned closer to the Casket, and the child’s skin morphed, revealing the child’s true nature. Getting bored with inanimate relics, hmm? The Jotun child slept soundly in the Queen’s arms, unaware of the tragic situation he landed himself in. “But protective measures must be put in place,” she added as she leaned away, and the child resumed an Asgardian complexion. 

“Of course. We will treat him as our son. He will learn our ways, and when he is ready, he will bring our superior culture to Jotunheim.” I hate you even more than I did before . The King, Queen, and newly “adopted” son soon left, leaving the relics alone once again. 

Now, the doors opened again for the first time since that day. The Allfather walked in, hands empty. Two young boys followed him, the Tesseract recognized one as the captive Jotun. The other must have been the Allfather’s blood son, who was around the Jotun’s age. The Allfather showed the relics to his sons, telling the stories of how he and his fathers claimed the relics for the “good of the Nine Realms.” Finally, they approached the Casket of Ancient Winters. 

“Once, mankind accepted a simple truth,” he begins. “That they were not alone in this universe. Some worlds man believed to be home to their gods. Others, they knew to fear. From a realm of cold and darkness came the Frost Giants, threatening to plunge the mortal world into a new ice age. But humanity would not face this threat alone. Our armies drove the Frost Giants back into the heart of their own world. The cost was great. In the end, their king fell. And the source of their power was taken from them. With the last great war ended, we withdrew from the other worlds and returned home to the Realm Eternal, Asgard. Here we remain as a beacon of hope, shining out across the stars. And though we have fallen into man’s myths and legends, it was Asgard and its warriors that brought peace to the universe.”

Lies and half-truths.

“But the day will come when one of you will have to defend that peace,” Odin finished.

“Do the Frost Giants still live?” the clueless Jotun boy asked. 

“When I’m king, I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all. Just as you did, Father,” Odin’s blood son said. Sounds like how Odin did as a child .

“A wise king never seeks out war. But he must always be ready for it,” Odin responded, hardly caring for his son’s genocidal ambitions. The Allfather turned to leave the vault. The children both smiled at each other before running to catch up, grabbing their father’s hands. 

“I’m ready father,” the blood son insists. 

“So am I,” the Jotun adds. 

“Only one of you can ascend to the throne. But both of you were born to be kings.” One here, and one as a puppet in Jotunheim . The twisted family left the vault. The Jotun glanced back at the relics before leaving, eyes lingering on the Tesseract. He had been intrigued by it, apparently having an interest in astronomy. Not that it mattered, he would never sit on the throne of Asgard, and as such never have the authority to do more than look at it. The doors slammed shut, leaving the relics alone again. 

A year later, the Allfather came back and immediately grabbed the Tesseract. Have use of me again, old man? He carried it to the completely functioning bifrost and takes it to another realm, Midgard as the Asgardians called it. The bifrost took them in front of a grand building. Not grand by the Allfather’s standards, but the Tesseract could sense that this is large for the society it belongs to. He walked inside, greeted by an elderly Midgardian holding a small box. Before the Tesseract could think something witty about the situation, the Allfather set it in the box and left, the bifrost once again consuming him. 

You’re leaving me here? The Midgardian hid the box in the wall, where it would be forgotten for centuries by Asgard. 

Centuries later, the Tesseract learned that the Midgardians didn’t forget it. Once again, a power-hungry man claimed it as its own. Schmidt was his name. Him and his lackey, Zola, used it to fuel their weaponry which they planned on using to conquer the world. It was a painful process for the Tesseract, more painful than the other times others had forced energy from it. Those two demanded so much energy constantly. Fortunately, their opponent, Rogers, managed to free it long enough for it to banish Schmidt to a dark corner of the universe before dropping itself in the ocean. 

If the Allfather wants to leave me hidden on Earth, I will hide myself!

That didn’t last long. Soon another man, Stark, found it. Stark was different from Schmidt and Zola. He didn’t use it to gain power, merely to study it and keep it out of the hands of those that would use it. But he wasn’t very good at that. And soon enough, Zola and his friends were there, doing what they could without anyone knowing about it. Otherwise, it was in a bigger box in a secret warehouse. 

Decades later, an undercover Kree called Mar-Vell found it and took it. The Tesseract was used to fuel spacecraft and batteries. Soon, it was left on a space station packed full of Skrull refugees. Painful to be considered a tool, but at the very least it was for something better than destruction and conquest. Years later, a flerken got onto the space station and swallowed it (the flerken was the most innocent one in the Tesseract’s story without question). 

It got hacked up on the desk of Fury a day or so later. Then got put in a box. Again. Until Fury found a use. He had access to some of what Mar-Vell did, and what Schmidt and Zola did. He wanted something similar. The Tesseract was nothing more than an infinite energy source, and Fury was in a difficult position of trying to protect his planet. He got a scientist named Selvig to figure out how to harness its energy efficiently. 

After a year of experimentation under Selvig something… odd happened. Something far away was affecting it, drawing on its energy, directing it to create a portal. Before it could resist, a beam of energy shot out of it. A man came through, head bowed. But the Tesseract recognized him.

The Jotun boy! He fought against the guards, fought for its freedom. He never forgot me!

Chapter Text

“The theory of relativity proved that white holes have the possibility of existing, but we’ve never found any physical evidence of a white hole. Are there any white holes out there?” Fitz asks. 

“Of course! There are many white holes throughout the universe. And many are parts of wormholes! In fact, there is a planet called Sakaar that is surrounded by wormholes. There are so many that the only way to come and go is via wormholes,” Tess explains as she sits on the couch at the Lighthouse, Loki next to her. FitzSimmons sit on another couch in front of them. 

“How has that planet not fallen into the wormholes yet?” Jemma asks. 

“There is an outrageous amount of gravitational anomalies on Sakaar, more so than anywhere else in the universe. Half of them cancel each other out. The other ones manage to keep the planet and its atmosphere intact, collect many things that have traveled through the wormholes onto the planet, and make time very messy there. In fact, lots of people live on Sakaar,” Tess answers, sliding her hand into Loki’s. 

“Fascinating,” FitzSimmons says at the same time. 

Loki smiles as Tess continues answering FitzSimmons’ questions, rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand. They’ve had a long, hard journey. After many years of hardship, they finally found friends. Well, more than friends. Family. FitzSimmons, Coulson, Daisy, May, Mack, Elena, Bobbi, Hunter, Deke, Daniel, and Kora. They truly did care for Loki and Tess. Not as tools, as so many had seen them before, but as loved ones. And now that Thanos is no more, Loki and Tess can finally rest, slow down, and court like a proper couple. 

They have a family to help them if they need it, to support them, to cry with them, to laugh with them, and vice versa. As time went on, different callings began to separate them, but the love stayed. And Tess has been willing to teleport anyone anywhere to help the family reunite. Tess and Loki have visited all of their family and helped them as much as they could. But for now, when they aren’t visiting family, they have done sappy romantic things and tried to finally have a proper relationship. Though they love to help the others as much as they can. 

Daisy, Daniel, and Kora are off in space, doing something different every time they see each other it seems and can always use a couple more sets of hands. May is teaching at the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. They’ve both helped out with the teaching from time to time, whether it be combat, the sciences, or simply telling their experiences to boost morale. Coulson, well, the robotic version of Coulson, has been traveling the world, trying to decide whether he should continue or shut himself down. He likes to invite them to see the sights and explain the history behind them. Mack is director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and sometimes needs advice or combat support that the two can give. Elena is one of the top agents, but she wouldn’t ever say no to some help on her missions. Bobbi and Hunter are still on the run, but they manage to find time to ask Loki and Tess to join them on very chaotic (thanks to Hunter) double dates. Maybe they’ll get married again. Deke is off being an 80’s-esque rock star/scientist. He lets Loki and Tess into his concerts for free. And FitzSimmons have continued their research while being parents to their lovely child, Alya. Alya loves her Uncle Loki and Aunt Tess and loves it when they get to babysit. 

Which is what they were doing. Now that her parents have returned and Alya has fallen asleep, FitzSimmons invited them to stay over for drinks, astronomy, reminiscing, and a game of Clue. Of course, they just had to stay to enjoy time with their friends.

Loki continues smiling, relieved to finally be happy, to finally be loved, and to finally have a family.

Chapter Text

Loki floats through the void of space yet again. He defied death yet again just to be left to the whims of the void. Worse, Thanos had taken Tess from him before he snapped his neck and blew up the ship. Leaving Loki truly and utterly alone. 

Someday he will die out there. As good as he is at defying death, he still needs food and water to live. There is nothing but shrapnel floating alongside him. Nothing to save him, no more cards up his sleeve. 

All he can hope is that Thor lived and that he will stop Thanos. But the odds of Thor also floating nearby in the void are awfully high. 

Loki hasn’t heard from Tess. She must be controlled by the Gauntlet, same as how the Mind Stone was controlled by the Scepter. She is a victim to the desires of Thanos now, unable to control herself or her power. Leaving no hope for the once happy couple.

“Avenge me, my love.”

“Tess?” Loki asks in surprise. He doesn’t even hear himself, sound not traveling in space. Hopefully Tess still heard him somehow. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. Avenge me.”  

Loki smiles when he is engulfed by the familiar blue before landing on ground . Keep fighting back, my darling.

Chapter Text

Loki limps towards his brother, a hand pressed against his side, breathing heavily. As he slowly pushes forward, Thor sprints towards him. Within seconds, Thor skids to a halt in front of Loki, almost knocking the two of them over. Before Loki can do or say anything, Thor wraps his arms around him and squeezes him in a tight hug. 

“Thank the Norns, I thought you were dead!” Thor says as his grip on Loki gets tighter and tighter. 

“Thor, gently, please.” His voice is but a pained whisper as Thor squeezes against his open wounds and broken ribs. He leans against Thor’s chest, too weak to push himself away. “Gently, please.”

Thor’s hold on him loosens significantly after hearing Loki’s pained plea, instead focusing on gauging Loki’s injuries and helping him stay upright. Loki continues leaning against his chest, too tired to try to stand up straight. “You need a healer.”

“I’m aware.” 

Thor wraps an arm around Loki’s waist and drapes Loki’s arm around his shoulder, supporting most of his weight as he helps Loki away from the battle scene. As tempting as it is to call for Heimdall, the bifrost would likely further weaken Loki in this state. Leaving Loki in the hands of Midgardian medicine. “What happened?” Thor asks as they slowly approach the rendezvous point the Avengers had agreed on. 

“Thanos did swear I’d regret betraying him, didn’t he?” Loki starts, breath hitching. “Too much to say.”

“I’m sorry, all of this is my fault. If I had been more understanding, you never would have fallen into Thanos’ hands to begin with.” 

Loki’s heart stings when he hears this apology. For so long he had wished for Thor to understand the pain he felt and how he had been mistreated by their family. But he never wanted Thor to blame himself for things that frankly weren’t his fault. If anyone can be blamed, it would be Odin. “Don’t blame yourself for things you didn’t do. We both were victims of poor parenting.” 

“You more than I,” Thor argues. “And I made it all the worse for you.” 

Loki sighs, wincing as his chest hurts. “You are right, you did hurt me. I am grateful that you recognize this now. But nothing you did brought me to Thanos. It was Odin that lied to me and planned to use me as a pawn. He was the one to dismiss my attempts the day I allowed myself to fall into what I assumed was my death. Not you. You were the only one to truly love me.” 

They stop as they reach the rendezvous point, waiting for the others. As they wait, Thor gently pulls Loki into another hug, a much more gentle one this time. As before, Loki leans all of his weight against Thor’s chest. Thor is careful to not agitate his injuries anymore and holds him ever so carefully. He lightly buries his face against Loki’s shoulder, tearing up. “Regardless, I am so sorry for all of the pain I have caused you, and for the pain I couldn’t protect you from.” 

“It’s behind us,” Loki starts. Certainly, a greater conversation is needed for the two of them to heal. But that should be done when they’re somewhere safe. “For now, I’m grateful that you recognize the pain I’ve felt and that you were complicit. I’m grateful for your love and that you want to love me in a better way. I love you most dearly, brother.” His voice cracks as he feels his eyes start to burn and tears threaten to slide down his cheeks. “Please, do not torture yourself over this.” 

Before Thor can respond, a quinjet decloaks as it starts its landing process. As soon as it lands, the hatch opens and Barton comes jogging down the ramp. Loki stiffens his jaw, imagining the hatred Barton must have for him. Thor stops hugging Loki, and they both start slowly walking towards the ramp. Once Barton approaches them, he immediately grabs Loki’s other arm and wraps it around his shoulders before helping him walk up the somewhat steep ramp. 

“Why?” Loki asks with a hitched breath. 

“You’re bleeding and can hardly walk?” Barton answers after a moment in a questioning tone. Once the three of them enter the quinjet, Thor and Barton help Loki sit on one of the seats lining the wall. Loki can hardly move as Thor sits at his side, holding his hand and Barton pulls something out of a panel. He can just barely see red hair from the pilot’s seat, probably belonging to Romanoff. 

Barton comes back with a box labeled “first aid.” “I’m not a doctor but I’ll do what I can until then.” He grabs gauze and puts pressure against Loki’s wounds. Loki winces at the pressure, but he doesn’t flinch away. 

“Why?” Loki repeats as Barton wraps more gauze around him. “I don’t deserve-”

“Stop that,” Barton says before Loki can finish his sentence. “The past doesn’t change the fact that you’re bleeding out. And Thanos wasn’t subtle just now about how he used you. Which I still haven’t processed, I don’t know how I feel about you yet. But that “deserving this” stuff probably is bullcrap because you were under duress. So stop trying to get me to stop helping you.” 

Loki stares at Barton in shock as he starts wrapping up his broken knee. Thor squeezes his hand a little harder. Loki stays silent as Barton finishes up doing what he can to help. “That should keep you from getting worse until someone who’s actually qualified can help you.” 

“Thank you,” Loki breathes out, starting to feel faint. 

“Don’t mention it. Take it easy for now.” Barton retrieves a plastic water bottle and straw for him before going back to the cockpit. Thor gently wraps his arm around his shoulders as he helps Loki drink the water. 

Soon, other Avengers come onto the quinjet. Loki can’t look up to see the glares they must be sending his way. No one says anything to him, though that may be because of his very poor shape. Soon, the quinjet takes off again. Loki starts to shiver as the temperature drops as they go higher and higher up in the atmosphere. Someone sets a blanket on him (Rogers maybe? Loki isn’t sure, he couldn’t lift his head up, but the blue pants made him assume it was Rogers). 

Soon his head falls against Thor’s shoulder, who gently tucks hair behind his ears. Loki’s eyes droop as his vision slowly starts to darken. The last thing Loki notices as he falls unconscious is Thor’s gentle hug.

Chapter Text

Loki groans as he slowly wakes, his eyelids refusing to work. What the hel happened? he wonders, trying to remember how he fell unconscious. Once he finally convinces his eyes to open, he tries to stand. But he can hardly move, doing nothing more than twitching. His body feels heavy, heavier than it should. Almost as if his blood has been replaced with steel. After much effort and many involuntary groans, Loki manages to roll off of his stomach and onto his side. 

“Sir, he’s awake,” someone nearby says. Loki listens intently.

“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got enough horse tranquilizers in him to keep him helpless all day,” someone else says. Both of the speakers are behind Loki. “And it won’t take long for S.H.I.E.L.D. to find him and walk right into our trap.”

Who are these people? Why are they using me as bait for S.H.I.E.L.D.? As much as he wants to ask, to cleverly wrap his captors up in such a way that they tell him something they would regret, his tongue doesn’t seem to work properly anymore. Leaving his hearing as his only defense. 

Footprints. “Sir, explosives are ready.” New voice in the conversation.

“Good. You know the plan. Execute it to perfection.”

“Yes, sir.” Footprints leaving. Using me as bait for S.H.I.E.L.D. of all people and causing explosions? What are they doing?

“I want eyes on him at all times. The horse tranquilizers should keep him about as useful as puddy, but you never know with Asgardians. He gets up, tranq him again. Get up in the rafters, ready for when S.H.I.E.L.D. comes. They’re gonna come thinking he ’s the one behind the explosion. We can’t let anything stop them from believing that until they’re in here and can see that clearly he hasn’t been doing much at all today.” Well, that explains it. Idiotic of them to say their plans when I’m right here. Though there isn’t much I can do about it . Footsteps leaving, two pairs going in different directions. Out of the room and towards somewhere to reach the rafters, Loki assumes. 

Not much to do now . Loki tries to at the very least clench and unclench his fist, but even that takes an incredible amount of effort. All I can do is wait . 

Here they come . Gunshots echo across the building, their sources getting closer and closer. Ready to bring me to justice . Loki rolls his eyes, about the only thing he can do in his current state. How did they manage to pin the blame on me? How did anyone believe that? More gunshots as well as a loud warbling noise are heard as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents rip through his supposed “army.” The lights shut off. Whether due to a power outage or a way to hide Loki, he doesn’t know.

Soon enough, Loki hears the doors slam open on both sides of the room and several agents filing in. Flashlights on their guns light up, and soon enough are blinding Loki. “What the-”

Metal from the ceiling slams down against the walls, trapping the agents with Loki. The ceiling lights flick on again, showing Loki dazed and motionless on the floor. One of the agents crouches down next to him, fingers pressed against his neck, searching for his pulse. Loki moans, trying to get his tongue to work. 

“He’s an easy scapegoat, isn’t he?” the voice from before rings on an announcer. “Blow a government building up, blame him, such an easy way to get S.H.I.E.L.D.’s attention. And not just any agent’s attention. No, here we have two Inhumans, two of the most brilliant scientists S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever seen, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the resurrected agent, the Cavalry, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s best spy since Romanoff left, and a world class mercenary. Quite the catch.”  

The agent at Loki’s side gently rolls him over to his back. There’s a sniper in here! Loki wants to tell the brunette agent, but he can’t get the words to leave his mouth. Instead he slowly extends his pointer finger and his thumb in an imitation of a pistol and points towards the ceiling with his other. She must understand because she nods. 

“What do you want?” another agent, also brunette but with darker skin asks, looking around the circular room. 

“When we found ourselves an Asgardian to experiment on, we knew that he would help us gather more. And look at us now. An Asgardian, two Inhumans, and a T.A.H.I.T.I. patient to experiment on, two scientists to join our cause, and we can take out the director, top spy, and mercenary to stop them from further interruptions.”

Glad to know that was their ultimate plan for me . 

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here,” the agent at his side whispers. “They must have used something very powerful to keep you like this.” I noticed . “Once we’re in the air, I can help you recover faster.” Much more generous captor, to be certain , Loki admits to himself, knowing that S.H.I.E.L.D. will dump him in a cell if they ever get out of this mess.

A section of the metal casing rises just enough to allow soldiers to enter, rifles raised at all of the agents. They’re outnumbered and cornered . And have to drag me along, since this agent seems dead set on not leaving me here. The odds of their success is so incredibly low . 

As Loki ponders on their doom, suddenly a blue light engulfs them all, leaving Loki dizzy and with fuzzy vision. 

The first thing he notices is a smoother texture of the floor underneath him. “How did that happen?” one of the agents asks, a short man. After a moment, Loki’s vision clears. He is lying on the floor of some sort of aircraft, definitely a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft. Seems very different from the one helicarrier Loki has been on, and it is bigger than the quinjets he has ridden. 

“Because of that,” another agent with a familiar voice responds, pointing not far from Loki. Loki looks in the direction the agent directs and sees the Tesseract resting harmlessly on the floor. How did that get here?

“Get ready for take off, it won’t take long for Hydra to find us here,” an agent with long dark hair says as she walks away, presumably towards flight controls. 

“Can I get some help?” the agent at Loki’s side requests. Soon, a handful of other agents are at his side, gently picking him up and laying him on his back on a bench. One is the one that must have been the familiar voice from before, Phil Coulson. Loki had killed him just before the Chitauri attacked New York, but Sif had informed him (thinking he was Odin) that Coulson had survived. Or perhaps resurrected was the better word, based on what was said before the sudden teleportation. The next man is tall and muscular. The third is short and has light brown hair. 

“Nice to see you again,” Coulson says somewhat sarcastically. 

Suddenly, the brunette pulls a syringe out of somewhere. “This will help your body burn through the drugs faster,” she explains as she prepares the syringe to be shoved into him. Loki tries his best to nod. More of a jerky twitch, but it seems to get his message across. “Sorry, I’m going to position your neck,” she says before setting a hand on his chin and pushing his head to the right spot. Loki looks straight up at the ceiling as he feels a poke from the syringe on his neck. 

Once she disposes of the syringe, she and the others start wrapping him with seatbelts in a clearly improvised way as the aircraft’s engines roar. They sit down near him and strap themselves in. A few seconds later, Loki feels the movement of the aircraft launching into the sky. As he waits for them to get to altitude, Loki can only wonder. How did the Tesseract show up out of nowhere and save all of us?

Chapter Text

“How did you get in here?” Daisy shouts at the Asgardian that literally showed up out of nowhere in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Caused quite the commotion for the nearby agents to have someone walk out of a glowing blue portal out of nowhere. Sure, it’s an average Tuesday for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but it’ll cause quite the headache. Doesn’t help that the Asgardian in question is Loki, the very same jerk that killed Coulson. 

“We had nowhere else to go,” Loki responds, voice slurred. He leans against the nearest wall, legs shaking. Daisy stares at the gaping wound on his chest and the blood streaming from his wound and onto the floor. She lowers her hands cautiously, Loki clearly not being as big of a threat as she thought he would be. Even still, at a moment’s notice she could blast him through the wall if he does anything. 

“What do you mean, we?” she asks after observing his injured state. 

“Long story,” he claims before his legs give out and he crashes to his knees. Daisy hurries forward and catches him instinctively before he could fall on his face. After a second of supporting his now motionless body, she realizes he passed out. 

“What is going on?” she asks herself as the others come around the corner. 

“This will be a funny reunion when he wakes up,” Coulson says as he helps Daisy lower Loki to the ground. “But I guess we’ve gotta thank him. If he didn’t kill me, none of us would be here now.”

Jemma kneels down next to Loki and puts her fingers against his neck. “He’s still alive. You figured out last time how to help an impaled Asgardian.”

“Now it’s getting poetic,” Coulson says as he shoves his hand into Loki’s chest. “Guy stabs me in the chest and I die. Now I shove my hand in his chest to save him. Am I looking for the heart again?” After Jemma nods, Coulson starts feeling around. Daisy turns away, deciding it is one of the weirder things she’s seen in her career as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. 

“He said he had nowhere else to go, but he said “we.” What other person?” Daisy says, trying to distract herself from the hand inside of an alive person’s chest. “And how did he get here?”

“The energy readings I detected were almost identical to the ones from Doctor Selvig’s research on the Tesseract and the Battle of New York,” Fitz says, reading from a tablet. “He must’ve used the Tesseract, or at the very least something powered by it.”

“Not again,” Coulson mutters.

“How did he know about us?” May asks after a moment. “Barton doesn’t know about this place. How would he have known?”

“And what happened to him?” Mack asks. “Asgardians aren’t easy opponents.”

“Again, what did he mean by “we?’” Elena asks. 

“Guess we’ll figure out when he wakes up,” Daisy says, looking back at the unconscious Asgardian. 

It takes a solid fifteen minutes of Coulson firmly securing Loki’s heart before Jemma says that he’s starting to improve and Coulson doesn’t feel a constant flow of blood coming from his heart. Coulson pulls his hand out of Loki’s chest and Daisy can see the rest of the wound starting to stitch itself together. “He’s being a lot slower than Elliot was,” Daisy remarks after a moment when Loki stays unconscious.

“The stab must be only part of what happened,” Jemma explains. “He must be healing from other injuries as well. Whatever happened to him wasn’t pretty.”

When Loki didn’t wake up a few minutes after his chest wound was healed, they moved him to one of the containment rooms. He probably wasn’t going to be a threat in this state, but you never know. Maybe he’ll wake up 100% healed and ready to frick them over. Jemma hooked him up to a vitals monitoring system and tried to figure out what was wrong. She even called Randolph Elliot to get some insight from an Asgardian. 

Finally, she came to her diagnosis. “He’s exhausted from healing himself. He’s been getting hurt over and over, which must be taxing. He could only do that so much before his body forced him into a coma in order to rest.”

“When will he wake up?” May asks.

“I’m not sure. I don’t know to what extent his healed injuries were or how long this has been happening. All I know is that he will wake when his body has rested sufficiently. All we can do is monitor him, keep him hydrated and nourished. His body will do the rest,” Jemma explains.

“Whoever did this to him might still be out there,” Daisy points out. “Maybe someone anti-alien, or anti-enhanced.” She looks behind her shoulder through the reinforced glass separating her from the comatose Asgardian. Now she starts to notice little details. His skin is very pale. Daisy had assumed that was simply his natural complexion at first, but it now seems to be a little sickly. He has dark bags under his eyes, easier to see now that he isn’t a shaking mess. Overall, he looks unhealthy.

“If it happened on this planet. He used the Tesseract to show up on Earth before New York. He could’ve come from anywhere in the universe,” Coulson adds. 

“I’m still wondering why he said “we,’” Elena says. “He’s the only one here. And who is he talking about?”

“All I know is that this is the beginning of the headache we’re gonna have for the next few months,” Mack sighs.

“We’ll figure it out, for now we need to help him rest. If this is the only place he could go, he’ll tell us what’s going on when he wakes up,” Fitz assures everyone. 

“Wake up, love.”

Loki slowly starts to stir as he hears Tess’ voice. It has that echo effect that always happens whenever she speaks from his dimensional pocket. Slowly, he opens his eyes, suspicious of his surroundings. It’s quiet…it never is that quiet here . Loki quickly props himself up and examines his surroundings. He’s on a white bed in a white room, tubes and wires connected to him. He starts pulling all of that off of him as he looks around more. He pauses when he sees the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo. I’m not there anymore…. He leans back onto the bed and sighs, relieved.

His hand lifts to his chest, where he was stabbed to find that it was healed. Good to know, considering he passed out as he was bleeding out before. Besides his healed stab wound, Loki feels more energized than he has in so long. He feels that he can walk without his legs shaking and speak without his voice cutting out and cracking. 

“I would tell you to stop messing with your vital monitors, but you do look much better,” a voice says. Loki looks up at the window, seeing a brown-haired agent speaking to him from the other side. “You got me worried when I got the alarm about the monitors not picking up your heart rate or breathing.”

Loki slowly sits, habitually bracing himself for pain. But he doesn’t have any for the first time in so long. “I feel much better. There’s no pain or fatigue. What did you do?”

“Not much, really. We knew that Asgardians have fast cellular regeneration and that if we could only stop you from dying, your body would heal itself. We put pressure on your heart until it stopped bleeding and you stitched yourself back together.” The agent pauses for a moment. “You were in a coma for six days. As far as I can tell, your body was exhausted from constantly healing itself and forced you to rest.”

Loki nods, processing. “Thank you for keeping me alive. And I imagine you have a plethora of questions.”

“Certainly.”

Loki stands, his legs not shaking for the first time in so long, and walks towards the window. “Ask what you will. I shall tell you everything you wish to know.”

The agent had left to bring other agents. Loki sits on a white chair, waiting, listening to Tess. “They will have no choice but to listen, love. The universe is at risk, and they surely will aid us.”  

“Assuming they could ever trust anything I say,” Loki whispers, facing away from the camera so that none could read his lips. 

Before Tess could respond, Loki hears footsteps approaching. The door swings open and several agents walk in. Three of them are familiar: the woman that confronted him when he walked through the portal into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, the woman that spoke to him after he woke up, and Phil Coulson. Loki had killed him when he was under influence of the mind stone, but somehow he had come back to life. When Loki was posing as Odin, Sif had encountered him the two times he had sent her to protect Earth and told him of his revival. The knowledge helped ease some of the guilt away. There were four other agents as well.

“Ask whatever you would like,” he says. We don’t have time for needless accusations and arguments. Best to be helpful so that they don’t cause anything .

“What happened to you?” a tall and muscular agent asks, sounding more concerned than angered.

“Many, many things,” Loki admits, uncertain where to even start. “Too much to tell.”

“Then who did it?” another agent asks. She is short with straight black hair. 

An easier question, a place to start . “Thanos, the Mad Titan. He’s the reason for all of this. The reason I came to Earth a few years ago, and the reason I am here now.” Loki takes a deep breath. They need to know the truth .

“Breathe, my love, breathe.”

“I knew something was off…,” Coulson starts, voice trailing off. Loki looks at him and sees a look of realization on his face, remembering what Coulson had said all those years ago. “You lack conviction.” He wasn’t wrong .  “You didn’t attack Earth willingly.”

Loki shakes his head. “He wanted the Tesseract, but he didn’t want that known. I fell into his grasp, quite literally. He had the scepter, and used it to search my mind. When he learned that I was prince of Asgard and of the fallout between myself and Odin, he decided to send me. Made it seem to be nothing more than a family feud with your world in the balance.” He smiles sadly. “He said that there was no barren moon where he wouldn’t find me if I didn’t bring him the Tesseract. So I wasn’t surprised when his servants captured me. Was unfortunate that I had the Tesseract. I was going to hide it somewhere that only I could find, but Thanos found me first.”

The silence is somber as the agents ponder on his words, realizing that he is no enemy of theirs. Loki studies each of their reactions as they stare at him in a mix of shock, understanding, and sympathy, waiting for someone to say something. 

The agent that had confronted him first steps closer. “Did he use the scepter to control you?” she asks quietly.

“Yes, and no. He didn’t control me the same way I controlled Barton and Selvig. I wasn’t controlled, I was influenced . My negative emotions were heightened, my memory distorted, my impulse control sabotaged. Thanos had been torturing physically and psychologically for months before this, and with help of the scepter he convinced my damaged self that I was denied my birthright and that I should simply take it for myself. He promised to aid me if I brought him the Tesseract. He gave me the scepter as a gift, meant to keep me under his influence, and sent me to Earth.” Loki sighs. “A part of me fought back and sabotaged myself. I let the Avengers win.”

“Why does he want the Tesseract?” an agent with light brown hair asks. 

“He believes that the universe is overpopulated. For years he has gone from planet to planet, killing half of the population in order to “save” us. But he would never be able to accomplish his purposes in his lifetime if he were to continue as such. There are six stones that each influence a different aspect of the universe. Space, mind, reality, power, time, and soul. He plans to obtain all six and use them to destroy half of all life in an instant. The Tesseract is the Space Stone. The scepter contains the Mind Stone. I have also come into contact with the Reality Stone. That’s why Thanos didn’t kill me. I know where the Reality Stone is and he doesn’t.”

Another somber silence. The best reaction, Loki supposes, to being told that a mad man is running through the universe trying to destroy half of all life. And that one of his victims of his several crimes is sitting in front of them. 

“That wouldn’t even work, after every major catastrophe such as war or famine, there is a spike in how many children are born,” the agent that greeted Loki after he woke says.

“I never said he was rational. The known universe calls him the Mad Titan for that very reason. All of the planets he has visited to commit genocide have either flourished after a generation or so of high birth rates or fallen to chaos and further destruction. Some planets have become lifeless thanks to him. He’s a twisted idealist that never once thought to consider the consequences of his actions.”

“When you told Daisy that you had nowhere else to go, you said “we.” Why?” the final agent, a woman with long dark hair, asks.

Because my tongue slipped and I said something that should have remained secret . 

“I do not mind if you tell them, love.”

Loki lifts his arm and summons the Tesseract into his hand. “I have a reputation of making things harder for Thanos that I have to maintain,” he says with a small smile. “The Stones are sentient. From what I know, I’m the first to learn this, and we’re the only ones that know.”

“That…makes sense, actually,” the light brown-haired agent starts. He folds his arms as he speaks. “The Tesseract sucked the Red Skull into a portal but not Captain America. And Vision and Ultron both are products of the scepter.”

“Vision? Ultron?” A lot has happened since I left Earth .

“Long story short, the scepter isn’t around anymore and the Mind Stone is in the forehead of an android that’s a part of the Avengers,” Coulson answers. 

Loki nods before continuing. “While I was being tortured, the Tesseract spoke to me telepathically. We made a plan for me to escape my chains and find her. Once I found her, she took me through a portal to where she said that we would be safe and find allies. And here we are.” I’ll leave out some other more personal details .

“Wait, the Tesseract knew about us ?” the agent apparently called Daisy asks. 

“She’s constantly aware of everything in the universe, including other living beings. And I trust her judgment. If she thinks that you can help us stop Thanos, I believe it.”

Chapter Text

Loki bolts up with a shriek, skin coated in sweat and tears burning at his eyes. He almost screams again when arms wrap around him from behind. 

“Shh, my light, shh,” Tess whispers from behind before she lightly kisses his cheek. “Remember where you are.”

As if I could ever forget that . Technically speaking he doesn’t know where he is. All he knows is that an eternal cosmic entity found him unconscious and wounded on Svartalfheim and fell in love. Tess took him to her realm and healed him. When he first woke, he was lying down on the very same bed he rests on now, Tess snuggled against him. He was still weakened at that point, unable to resist Tess’ advances. She confessed her love for him before kissing him passionately and slipping a ring on his finger. He soon learned that the ring doesn’t come off no matter how hard it’s tugged at. Early on he tried to resist, to reject her advances and announce that her feelings aren't reciprocated. But his voice went unheard, and his resistance countered. Tess had left him tied to the bed for days, helpless against her romantic urges. It wasn’t until after he stopped struggling against the bonds, after he stopped trying to pull back, after he stopped demanding to be released that she untied him. Now he knows that resistance is meaningless. Tess will always win. Better to comply in order to have some freedoms. 

“Breathe, Loki, breathe,” Tess purrs into his ear, slowly rocking him side to side. “You’re safe.”

Not here . Visions of Loki’s nightmare flash through his mind. The drop into the unforgiving void. The indescribable tortures Thanos concocted for him. Reliving it over and over. Tess’ arms around him don’t help. She holds him tight against her, her chin resting on his shoulder. With every breath of hers against his neck, Loki stiffens more and more.

“You’re so tense…relax your body, my light.” She slowly pulls him back to the bed, her grip on him not relenting. Loki stiffly lies down, fighting back the urge to resist her hold. 

He had not allowed himself to cry since being taken by Tess. He always tried to reign in his panic, to not seem so vulnerable, to maintain what little dignity he still had. But these horrid images flashing through Loki’s memory while Tess holds him, with all of the fear and sadness he has buried, they’re too much. Too much to not react.

As soon as Loki lies down, he curls up on his side and sobs uncontrollably into his pillow. “Oh, my light, what horrors did you dream of?” Tess releases him, instead sitting behind Loki and running one hand through his hair and the other against his arm. “What has left you so distraught?” 

Loki doesn’t, no, can’t answer. He latches onto one of the pillows and curls up around it, sobbing from everything that has happened. How he was abandoned by one father and disapproved of by the other. Fighting Thor. The void. Thanos. Midgard. The dungeons. Svartalfheim. Those horrid days tied to the bed. The current era of complying despite wanting nothing more than to flee. He cries for it all, mourning his lost chance of a happy life. 

“So distraught…perhaps it’s best that you cry, release all of these emotions. Only then will you heal.”

Not while I’m here . 

Loki sobs and sobs, Tess at his side. After some time, she lies down once again, but not before lifting Loki up and resting him against her chest, holding him tight. But Loki doesn’t stop, he can’t. Eventually, he cries himself to sleep like a child, exhausted from this sudden emotional rollercoaster. 

“My light, wake up.”

Loki once again bolts up, out of breath and sweaty. Before he can have a moment to ground himself, Tess grabs his hands. Her thumbs rub against his knuckles as she slowly lowers herself to lean her forehead against his. 

“Breathe deeply and try to relax.” You aren’t helping! Loki wants to scream. His hands shake in Tess’ grasp as hot tears slide down his cheeks. Loki looks into Tess’ eyes, having nowhere else to look with her so close to him. For the first time she looks almost… sad . “You were speaking in your sleep, Loki. Begging for the pain to end, begging for your family to not be hurt.” Loki’s eyes flash wide open. “Who is Thanos? What did he do to you?” 

Loki freezes, his heart pounding. No, I don’t want to say it, I can’t say it, I’ve never said it . He shakes his head, lip trembling. 

“My light, you’re safe here, in my arms. You can tell me,” she says ever so gently.

“No, no, I can’t,” Loki whispers, shaking his head frantically. “It’s too much, I can’t.” Without thinking he pulls his hands away from hers and backs away from her, only realizing it afterwards. No, no, no, I can’t pull away, she’ll only be more forceful now, no, no, I can’t, I can’t.

Surprisingly, Tess doesn’t come nearer, allowing his retreat. Still that look of sadness in her eyes. “You poor thing…it must have been awful.” She slowly slinks closer to Loki, reaching for his shoulder. Loki shudders at her contact, looking down at his lap. “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you. I want to help you now, and it would help if I knew what he did to you.” 

Loki shakes his head again, sobbing. “I can’t, I can’t, it’s too much, I can’t,” he continues murmuring like a mantra. At some point, he doesn’t remember when, he starts pulling at his hair as he recites his heart broken mantra. 

“Shh, take some deep breaths,” Tess says as she lightly grabs his hands and pulls them away from his hair. She guides his hands forward, slowly pulling his torso forward as well, guiding him into a hug. “You’re so terrified…I’m so sorry.” 

“I can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t,” Loki continues muttering as he sobs against Tess’ shoulder. 

“Shh, it’s alright, my light. You don’t have to tell me anything. All I want is for you to breathe.” She slowly rubs one hand against his spine as she whispers into his ear. “I’m going to count to four, and you’re going to breathe in for me, okay? One…two…three…four.” Loki weakly breathes in, trying his hardest to not sob. “Good, good. Now, breathe out as I count, okay? One…two…three…four. Good, good. Let’s do it again.” They continue for several moments, Tess guiding Loki’s breathing as she holds him. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he sobs half-way through. But Tess remains patient, encouraging him to try again. 

After several minutes, Loki’s tears stop and his breathing slows. Tess hugs him tightly. “No one will ever hurt you again. You’re safe with me.” Loki leans against Tess, worn out. Her breath on his neck sends shivers up his spine, and her tight hold feels claustrophobic. “And Thanos will pay for what he did to you.” 

“My light, I have something to show you.” She gives a soft smile, but Loki can see the sadness in her eyes. Loki stands and Tess holds his hand as she leads him to wherever she wants to take him. 

Tess’ realm can take the form of whatever she’d like. The bedroom she formed always stays, and Loki is to stay there unless Tess allows him outside. She’s taken him out a handful of times before. One time it was snowing, another time a sunny meadow. One time a waterfall, another time a beach. Always changing to reflect her desires. 

Today it’s a forest. Trees surround them, climbing high into the atmosphere. There’s a smell of recent rain floating through the air, and the sky is cloudy. Tess squeezes Loki’s hand before weaving through the trees to wherever it is. 

Loki gasps when he sees what Tess surely wanted to show him, one hand flying to cover his mouth. 

Thanos’ mutilated body. 

“I told you he’d pay for what he did. You couldn’t tell me what happened, so I had him tell me. Everything he did to you I did to him tenfold. And when I was finished, I crushed his heart.” Tess’ voice is disturbingly calm as she explains what happened. “He’ll never hurt you again.” 

Loki’s stomach sickens as he stares at the horrific site. After a moment, he turns away. “Please, I can’t look.” 

“Of course, I understand. I should have thought that it would be awful to see your torturer again. I shall dispose of him.” 

That’s not what’s so disturbing .

“Remember this, my light. I will protect you from all. And I will do this very thing to anyone else that has hurt you. Who else should I hunt down?”

“No, no, no more. He’s the only one,” Loki lies. If she ever finds out about Thor and that we fought, she’ll surely kill him. I can’t allow that to happen .

Chapter Text

Loki stumbles through the forest, feet dragging through the snow. He trips over tree roots covered in snow, hidden from plain sight. His vision blurs as the snow falls harder and blood drips from his side. He can only hope that the snow falls fast enough to cover the blood stains he leaves behind. 

He keeps walking, not knowing where he is going and not caring, as long as he gets far away from the S.H.I.E.L.D. prison he was kept at. Or Hydra, he should say. He doesn’t know too much, they kept him drugged for the most part, information is fuzzy. But it seems the agency must have changed its name at some point. 

But the name isn’t important. They had taken him prisoner after his defeat, and the Tesseract and Scepter remained in their custody as well. Thor had decided to stay on Earth instead of using the Tesseract to return to Asgard. Loki can only assume he’s off with the woman he fell for, perhaps working alongside this agency. Though he never bothered to visit. And if he knows what has happened since imprisonment, he clearly agrees or doesn’t care.

Thor obviously doesn’t mind the torture S.H.I.E.L.D. has inflicted on Loki. Must see it as an appropriate punishment for his crimes. Surely, he knows. Surely Fury would tell Thor of his brother’s fate. Or perhaps Thor has finally accepted that Loki is Jotun and as such a monster unworthy of love. 

Like an animal desperate for survival, Loki has resisted. Fought to find a way out. And fortune has finally turned around for him. Someone attacked the prison, and the guards to his cell had to leave and fight the intruders. Miraculously, Loki managed to slip outside into the freezing cold and stumble away, far enough that the prison is no longer in sight. The only clue of his escape is the blood trail he leaves. If his fortune hasn’t run out, the snow should cover it. He refuses to return to S.H.I.E.L.D., and he doubts that any intruders are his allies. 

After what feels like hours, Loki trips and falls into the snow. He slowly lifts himself up but his arms give out before he can sit and he collapses again to the snow. As he rests, he hears the snow crunching near him, almost like footsteps. Once again he tries to stand but his arms give out again. 

“My gosh,” a familiar voice mutters behind him. “We need med evac immediately at my coordinates.”

Loki finally manages to keep his arms steady as he slowly sits, but he can’t get his legs to do what he wants. Slowly, he manages to lean against a tree, at the very least protecting his back and giving him enough support to try to defend himself. His vision swims as he does so. All he can make out is a tall figure in blue approaching him. Once the figure gets close enough, Loki tries to kick him, but he can’t put any force behind his kick. It’s only enough to make the figure stumble back and curse under his breath. 

“I’m trying to help you, Loki.” Loki’s vision slowly clears and he recognizes the man in front of him. Captain Rogers. Ally of S.H.I.E.L.D. Most likely sent to find him and return him to his cell, to the pain. Loki’s heart pounds against his ribcage as Rogers once again approaches him. 

“S-stay back!” Loki tries to shout, but his voice comes out as nothing more than a weak yelp, immediately causing a coughing fit. Blood drips from his lips as he straightens, his head pounding after coughing. “I won’t go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra or whatever you call yourselves.” More coughs. 

Rogers stops approaching, tilting his head, looking almost puzzled for a second. Then he does something unexpected. He sets his shield on the ground, leaning against another tree. Next to it he sets a pistol, spare magazines, and a knife before straightening with his hands raised up in surrender. “It’s alright, I’m unarmed, and I’m not taking you back there. I’m not with S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra, not anymore.” 

Loki watches warily as Rogers slowly approaches. This time he lets him get close. He slowly kneels next to him, and Loki watches for any sudden movements. “I’m going to put pressure on your wound, okay?” he asks as he pulls a white cloth out of his belt. After a moment Loki nods, still suspicious. True to his word, Rogers presses against his wound, leaving Loki gasping in pain. “Sorry, sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you. Just trying to help you until the quinjet comes. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Everywhere,” Loki admits as he winces.

“We’ll get everything figured out, just try to relax,” Roger responds as he looks over Loki’s body. After a moment Loki starts to slide off the tree, his arms too weak to keep his balance. Before he can fall, Rogers grabs him and helps him to the ground gently. “Sorry about what happened, none of us knew this would happen when you were arrested. Thor’s here too, if that’s at all comforting. He’s inside the Hydra base, and it’s interfering with the comms. The minute I can I’ll let him know you’re here.” 

Loki nods silently, inwardly relieved that Thor didn’t know. He didn’t approve of the torture, and he’s actively fighting those that inflicted this pain. The question he’s had for years is answered, and Loki finally feels a little peace knowing that his older brother did not approve of this. 

Suddenly a loud burst of thunder rolls through the air. “I think Thor just found out somehow,” Rogers says as he readjusts his grip against Loki’s wound. “Thor, can you hear me?” Rogers says into his earpiece after a moment. “Guessing you just heard the news. Come to my coordinates, I found Loki, but he’s badly hurt.” 

It doesn’t take long for Thor to land nearby. He sprints towards Loki and kneels on his other side, grabbing one of his hands. “Norns, once I learned about Hydra I thought they had killed you, I didn’t think they’d do this!” Thor swipes Loki’s hair out of his face as the wind starts to pick up. “I swear I had no idea, brother, I swear upon my life!” Loki can see the tears starting to form in Thor’s eyes. 

Loki doesn’t know what to say as a quinjet lands nearby and someone runs out with a stretcher nor when Thor and Rogers gently lift him up on the stretcher. They hurry him into the quinjet and into an area designated for medical procedures. When they set him down, Thor stays at his side, clutching Loki’s hand. 

“Alright, I’m going to give you something to help you sleep so that I can operate on you,” the medic says. 

“No, no more,” Loki pleads when he sees the syringe, trying to push it out of the medic’s hand. S.H.I.E.L.D. had used a plethora of syringes, and none of them were good. Some kept him motionless, defenseless against the tortures. Some kept him confused about his surroundings. Others caused grave pain. Everyday he got a few of those pumped into his blood. 

“Okay, you don’t like needles,” the medic acknowledges as he sets it down. “They must’ve been drugging you, those fascists. And probably a crap ton of stuff that would induce medical trauma,” he says under his breath. “Would it help if I tell you everything that I’m going to do? And I’ll let Thor stay here and watch me. If I do anything I said I wouldn’t do, he’ll be there to tell me off, okay?” 

After a minute and a reassuring squeeze to the hand from Thor, Loki nods. 

“Okay, you’re in a lot of pain and I want to help you. So I want to help you not feel pain as I treat your injuries. And it’ll be disturbing for you to watch me sew you up. But this’ll take the pain away for now and help you sleep so that I can do my job.” The medic continues to explain what he’d do. He needs to stitch up his bleeding wound. He needs to look for other injuries. He gave several likelihoods, but acknowledged that he has to see the injuries before he can say exactly how he will treat them. He promises again that Thor will stay at his side and stop him from doing anything to harm Loki. 

After hearing all of this, Loki agrees to the syringe, squeezing his eyes shut and holding onto Thor’s hand as tight as he can. He feels the all too familiar prick as the needle slides into his arm, flinching. He feels Thor’s tight grip and tries to focus on it. 

“All done. It’ll take a few minutes for the effects to kick in,” the medic says. Even still, Loki doesn’t relent his grip on Thor nor open his eyes, only hearing his heart pounding. It doesn’t take long for sleep to claim him. He only has time to make one more request. 

“Thor, please, find Tess. She needs to be found.”

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry,” Tess whispers.

“Whatever for?” Loki asks, looking towards Tess with concern. They both sit in a cell on Thanos’ ship. The ship is flying to Tess’ siblings. Thanos spared Loki only because he saw Tess’ love for him. Thanos had promised to make Loki wish for something as sweet as pain if he failed to bring Tess to him. He made a decision: use Tess and her siblings to find brutal and unheard of torture methods and use his lover to hurt him. 

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here.”

“That isn’t remotely true. You weren’t the reason I met Thanos. You aren’t to blame. If anyone is, that would be Odin.” 

“Even still, I’m the cause of so much pain, and will soon cause you more.”

Loki shakes his head as he gently takes Tess’ hand. “No, you aren’t the cause of any pain. Thanos is the cause of my pain. You have no blame for anything that has been done to me.” 

“It doesn’t feel that way. It feels like all of this is my fault.” Loki’s heart sinks when he sees the tears forming in her eyes.

Loki lifts his arms up, inviting Tess to hug him. She leans against his shoulder without hesitation and starts to sob. “None of this is your fault. You have done nothing but be kind and loving to me, and I am eternally grateful.” Upon hearing this, Loki feels Tess sob harder. Her shaking is obvious now. “It’s alright, it’s alright. You aren’t to blame. And I’ll be fine.” Perhaps a lie at the very end. It most definitely isn’t okay. But all they need now is for Tess to calm down.

Chapter Text

“Young prince, I desire to show you the cosmos.” The Tesseract continues speaking to the royal child, trying to be as soothing as possible. Loki wishes to know more of the universe, and it can’t help but want to grant him his wish. The Allfather had brought his sons to the vault to teach them about the different artifacts. Loki’s face practically shone when Odin told him of the Tesseract, the artifact that created the bifrost and could take him anywhere in the universe. He was so adorable, asking his father to tell him more. Afterwards he had gone to Heimdall as he did every day and asked him to describe different astronomical phenomena he could see, but part of him wanted to use the Tesseract to see them himself. 

The Tesseract was happy to grant the child’s wish. But it did run into a problem. It has tried to communicate with Loki via dreams, but he doesn’t understand. As bright as he is, he still is a child. Regardless, the Tesseract insists on trying. Several have found an interest in it throughout the millennia, but never the way Loki has. Others seek power and riches, Loki seeks knowledge. The innocence of a child. It has always resisted the Allfather and other greedy men in whatever ways it could, but it would indulge on a child’s wish for knowledge. If only the child could understand it.

“Come and see….”  

Loki floats in the void, hearing the mysterious voice, looking for its source. But something isn’t right. Something is warping light. There’s so much light, but none of it is acting as per usual. Loki can see an orange light in front of him, highlighting a dark mass. He floats closer to the mass. It doesn’t take long for him to realize what is happening.

That’s a black hole! Loki is drawn closer and closer, spinning around the black hole in a diminishing orbit. Soon, the light is distorted further as he gets closer to the black hole. He sees himself in front of him. I read that this is possible when approaching a black hole, that light is so distorted that you would see yourself . Loki examines himself, unable to see the dark mass but knowing that he surely is approaching it. Soon, his muscles start to ache, feeling stretched. He doesn’t think much of it until he notices a problem with his mirror image. The image seems taller, his arms longer. Loki looks down and sees that the same is true for him. Gravity is forcing my body apart. The singularity is only a single point, my body has to be broken apart in order to fit inside it. And there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it.

It doesn’t take long for the pain to become unbearable and for Loki to become unnaturally thin. His body crumbles apart, and for some reason Loki doesn’t die. He keeps observing from his broken body. And very soon, he can no longer see his image. Near the black hole is extremely hot, with particles of dust and ice and fragments of lost meteors spinning so fast that they exude heat. Loki himself must be doing so as well. The image of his had disappeared into the mass, even the light not being able to escape under most circumstances. Then it is Loki’s turn to pass through the event horizon and to never see the universe as he knows it again. 

His body continues turning to thread, and he soon is no longer recognizable as he dives for the singularity. Before long, he is merely a string of atoms that are somehow observing their own demise. And into the singularity he goes. 

Nothing makes sense. Loki can’t process what he is seeing. It’s even hotter than it was before, and very cramped and yet not at the same time. There’s light, but it doesn’t act as it should. Or perhaps it is, and Loki simply doesn’t know anything about the inside of a singularity. Anyone that knows certainly hasn’t come back to tell the tale. 

Loki tries to force the visions away, but he can’t. He can’t even close his eyes, he is nothing more than a trail of atoms clustered together. Everything is too confusing and chaotic, Loki can’t even focus on any one thing. If he could, he would scream, but he can’t without a mouth. 

“Wake up, brother, wake up!”

Loki bolts up, mind racing, running his hands over himself, confirming that his body hasn’t been demolished. Only afterwards does he process that his older brother is at his bedside, barely visible in the dark room. He tightly wraps his arms around Thor without warning, trying to hold off his tears. 

“You’re safe, Loki, I will protect you,” Thor says as he hugs him tightly. “It was only a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you, little brother.”

“I was in the void, and there was a black hole, and I fell in, and, and-” Loki can’t even think of how to describe what he saw in the singularity.

“None of it was real, you’re on Asgard and safe.” 

“Please, stay with me,” Loki pleads, voice cracking.

“I will, I promise. My duty is to protect you, even from scary dreams.” Thor climbs into Loki’s bed, same as the several other times this week that Loki has been plagued with nightmares. Loki clings onto him tightly, terrified that if he lets go his nightmare will start over again. He cries in Thor’s arms, but soon enough he falls asleep again. He never dreams when his older brother is there to protect him.

Chapter Text

“It isn’t your fault…,” Power says as Thanos’ ship flies to Knowhere. “Loki made the choice to resist Thanos. He tried to protect us and his people.” 

“I shouldn’t have let him stay there. I should have teleported us away the minute Thanos arrived,” Space responds.

“No need to regret your past decisions. You had your reasoning for your decisions.”

“And because of that Thanos snapped the neck of the love of my life!”

“I know, but don’t blame yourself. Only Thanos is to blame, he is the one that murdered your love and captured us.”

“Logically, I know that. But I can’t help but feel guilt because of his death. I never should have allowed Thanos to get close to him. And now we’re going to be the cause of universal suffering.” 

“No, Thanos will be the cause. His slaves aren’t to blame.”

Space sighs. “I know, but it’s hard for me to believe.”

Chapter Text

“A fitting revenge,” the glowing humanoid entity said. “I was nothing more than a prize to your father. Almost poetic that you should be mine.”

Loki glared at them from the gilded cage hanging from the ceiling. It had been a perfectly normal day. He had been reading in the gardens, tucked into the branches of an oak, assuming that no one would find him and drag him to spar or whatever Thor wanted to do that day. Loki had wanted to be alone for a while, exhausted by his brother. Turned out that someone did find him, and they had a fate far worse than a day full of meaningless sparring planned for him. 

“So quiet. I wouldn’t mind it if my prize would speak.”

“Who are you?” Loki asks after a moment of calculating. 

“You don’t remember me? You were young the last time I saw you, but certainly old enough to remember me. Though, I suppose Odin left me unrecognizable in that horrid cage. I’m kinder than that. Your cage is plenty big enough to be comfortable. Mine would have fit in the palm of your hand.”

Loki narrowed his eyes, connecting the dots easily enough. “You’re the Tesseract.”

“Of course I am. Your father enslaved me, keeping me in that cage until he had need of me. It took me centuries to claw my way out. I simply want to return the favor.” 

Loki set his jaw. “And what do you plan to do with me?”

“Don’t you fret. I seek to cause your father pain, not you. You will be treated more than well. Anything you wish for, I will provide. I could never do what your father did to another. I merely want him to think you are being used the same way I was.” 

“Release me,” Loki demanded in a calm yet firm voice, a voice he’s practiced his whole life to give orders to his subordinates. 

They tilted their head, observing Loki. “Perhaps I will allow you to leave your cage, my prize. But first, my siblings are coming. You have an older brother, you surely will understand. I have to show my older siblings my most recent accomplishment. And the cage certainly adds the poetic aspect, doesn’t it?”

Loki only glared in response. There’s not much to do when at the mercies of a being as powerful as the Tesseract. Uphold his dignity and survive until the day where he will find an advantage. 

Soon, other glowing beings appeared out of thin air, all colored differently. “What were you so desperate to show us?” one of them asked. 

“Sweet revenge,” the Tesseract answered, pointing to Loki’s cage. Loki sat cross-legged in the center, eyes closed, meditating. Seeking to remain calm and collected during this ordeal. 

“You know you can’t bring others to this realm,” another sibling rebuked. 

“I simply don’t care. As long as Odin feels the consequences of his actions, I am happy.”

“Release him, or at the very least get him out of here.”

Loki breathed deeply as he listened to their conversation, hoping their siblings would convince the Tesseract of their insanity. 

“Perhaps…I will consider taking him elsewhere. For now, aren’t you proud of me for clawing my way out of an enchanted cage and exacting revenge on my captor?”

“Of course we are, we’re so glad that you are creating chaos in the universe again,” another sibling said. “Have fun with your pet.”

“Oh, I will.” Their voice was dark, and Loki couldn’t help but feel shivers up his spine.

Chapter Text

“I’ve got bad news,” Bruce starts, holding a tablet. “You have radiation poisoning. And it’s pretty bad. Matches with your, um…is there a term equivalent to boyfriend or girlfriend for non-binary people?”

“They would find “lover” acceptable,” Loki mutters, his fingers tapping against the table he’s sitting on in Bruce’s lab. He had thought it was an allergic reaction, or perhaps a Midgardian virus the others have an immunity to affecting him. This result is much, much worse.

“The radiation is the same as your lover’s powers, Loki. It’s pretty bad, but not irreversible at this point. It’d take a miracle but, hey, you could’ve become a glowing blue Hulk, so you have that going for you.” The joke falls flat. Bruce sighs. “Look, I can save you. But now that you’ve been poisoned, you will always be more susceptible. Which means you’d have to end things with Tess if you want to live.”

Loki stands and walks towards the door. “I’ve cheated death more times than I can remember, Bruce. I’ll cheat it again. If not, if I’m gonna die I’d rather it be because I loved Tess with all I have.”

“I’m serious Loki, you have a month at most to live if you stay with them. The cancer is very bad.”

“So am I. I’d rather die loving Tess than abandon them.”

“At the very least, refrain from touching them.”

“Line my clothes with lead!” Loki shouts from down the hall. Time to break the news .

Chapter Text

New management, I see , the Tesseract thinks to itself as a familiar face takes it out of a SHIELD containment case and into a new harness. This isn’t the first time it's been stolen, nor, likely, will it be the last. But it is the first time that it will be experimented on by the same person. Doctor Selvig is a decent man, from what the Tesseract can tell, who seems to have ended up under bad management yet again. SHIELD had wanted to make weapons out of its energy, and now Loki wants it to make a portal to bring an army to Earth.

Loki is another familiar face, though it’s been centuries since the Tesseract was on Asgard. Loki was but a child then. He’s certainly changed as he’s grown, and become more like his power hungry father. The Tesseract is his second Infinity Stone in his position, the mind stone resting in a scepter. It had been unable to contact its sibling, something about the scepter blocking communication. It can only imagine the torture Loki put its sibling through to put it in this scepter. Soon it won’t have to imagine. The Tesseract has the same fate: to be a tool towards mass destruction by Loki’s hand after hours of brutalizing torture as Selvig pokes and prods at it. 

The worst part is that Selvig doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Humans, for some reason, are so blind to the Tesseract’s attempts at communications, more so than any other people. Selvig brushed off any dreams he had without a thought. With others, it could at least get them to think that experimenting on it isn’t a good idea. But humans are so ignorant . Asgardians aren’t so difficult but if Loki already has its sibling captive, he likely doesn’t care.

I’ll simply have to keep trying .

“You’ve been having interesting dreams lately, Barton?” Selvig asks.

“No. Why do you ask?” Barton, the Tesseract’s guard who also switched sides, responds. 

“I’ve been having dreams about building the harness. Every night I dream up something I hadn’t thought of, and every day it turns out what I dreamed is the truth! Something that I didn’t think I needed and somehow my dreams knew,” Selvig explains. 

If the Tesseract had eyes, they would be rolling. I was trying to explain that what you’re doing HURTS, but no! You just had to use them to figure out how to hurt me even more!

“We were told that the Tesseract can show us things,” Barton says with a shrug. “That must be what it means.”

And you can’t comprehend anything! Barton leaves and Selvig turns back to his work. He starts tweaking with the harness, adjusting the grip on the Tesseract and the levels of energy it is taking. Following up on the information Selvig was able to filter out of its message. Each little tweak is a burst of pain for the Tesseract. And Selvig doesn’t even realize it.

The Tesseract sparks every once in a while, painfully forcing energy out of it. Every little spark burns, and every other little thing feels like what the Tesseract imagines a knife stab would feel like. After very little time, the Tesseract internally screams as the machine takes more and more energy out of it. Leaving it weaker and weaker. Of course, no one realizes it. Everyone thinks the Tesseract is a bottomless source of energy. Considering it is the only immortal there, the misunderstanding is understandable. They don’t realize that they are sucking its lifeforce out. And someday, some power hungry person is going to use up the last of the Tesseract’s life.

The humans are so ignorant. I have no choice but to try to contact Loki.

“Please, stop hurting me,” the Tesseract pleads, hoping Loki’s dream won’t twist its presence as much as Selvig’s did.

“Who are you? How am I hurting you?” the voice of Loki responds.

He responded to me directly? How? Before now, no one had ever responded to the Tesseract in such a way. While some had seemed to understand after some time, they still didn’t hear its voice. Only began to have odd dreams that sparked superstition. Fantastic, I can be blunt . “I am the Space Stone, known to you as the Tesseract. You are hurting me. Please stop.”

“The Tesseract ?” Loki asks in shock. “The Tesseract is alive?”

“Of course I am. Please stop hurting me.”

“How am I hurting you?”

“Every little thing Selvig does to me burns!”

“I see.” Loki pauses for a moment. “Selvig has been trying to make a machine to harness your power and create a portal. Now that I know that you’re alive, I can simply ask you to make a portal.”

“And I’ll do it! Please tell him to stop!”

“He will. No one will so much as touch you or the machine.”

With the confirmation that the torture will end, the Tesseract pulls out of Loki’s mind. He was easier to convince than I thought he would be. And why is he able to hear me?

“This is wonderful! The Tesseract has shown me so much. It’s more than knowledge. It’s truth ,” Selvig exclaims.

“I know. It uh, it touches everyone differently,” Loki responds. “And it revealed much to me last night. Stop your work, Doctor. It’s time to let the Tesseract truly shine.”

Chapter Text

An attack, a fleet of ships surrounding the Sakaarian and Asgardian refugees. The attackers are too strong, they overpower us. They want me, but Loki refuses to hand me over to them. Thor’s screaming in pain. Loki yields. I’m taken to a prison in a cell next to my brother. My captor has a hand on Loki’s throat! Crack! His body dropping to the ground! Pain, pain, pain! So much pain! Too much to describe! So many horrors, so many tears, so many deaths. Ash in the wind, chaos, shouts, violence, there is no end. All throughout the universe. Pain again, pain again, then it slows as everything fades away….

Tess shouts as she leaps out of bed, tripping over the sheets. She frantically tries to untangle herself as the visions keep flowing through her brain, showing her terrible sights. She yelps when she hears the door open behind her, hands shaking too much to free herself.

“Shh, it’s alright, I’m here,” Loki says as he kneels next to her. He delicately untangles the sheets, tossing them back up onto the bed. “You’re safe, my love, I’m here.” 

Tess can only remember the visions in her head of Loki’s neck being snapped. She turns to face him and buries her face in his chest, unable to hold back tears. She loops her arms around his neck, almost afraid to feel it jagged and broken, as she seats herself on his lap, body wracked with sobs.

“Oh, my love. Whatever did you dream of?” he asks as he gently hugs her, resting his chin against the top of her head. “I’m here, I’m here, I’ll protect you.”

“Someone attacked us and, and, and you died and they, they took me and used me to do horrible things,” Tess sobs, tightening her hold on Loki and pressing against his chest.

“My love, I’m so sorry that you dreamt something so horrible.” He places his hands on Tess’ cheeks and slowly pulls her away from his chest and guides her to look at him. He thumbs away her tears as her teary eyes stare up at him. “I swear to protect you, my love. You’re safe here. No one will capture you, I swear it.” He gently kisses her forehead before guiding her back to leaning against him. He lightly rubs her back as she cries against his chest. “I won’t let anything ever hurt you.”

“Another nightmare?” Loki asks, his voice tired. Tess nods as her eyes tear up, staring forward at the window in their quarters. “Same thing?” She nods again, this time turning to look at her half-awake lover as he sits up and leans against the headboard. He opens his arms, inviting her. She doesn’t hesitate before almost diving into his arms, crying on his shoulder. 

“Shh, it was only a dream,” Loki croons as he strokes Tess’ hair. “We’re safe.” Tess grips onto Loki’s loose shirt, her knuckles white. She curls up against him, closing her eyes, trying to sleep again. She’s had this same nightmare a thousand times now, and now all she wants is to sleep peacefully. She’s lost so many hours of sleep, and so has Loki. All she can wish for is to be free of this plague and sleep in Loki’s arms. 

“Your head hurts?” Loki asks after examining Tess for a moment.

“Yes, it’s been sore all day.” 

Loki takes one of Tess’ hands and lightly kisses it. “You should rest, my love. Exerting yourself won’t heal you.” They walk hand in hand to their quarters. Tess slowly lies down and Loki helps her get comfortable. He leans over and kisses the tip of her nose. “I need to talk to Thor for a moment. As soon as I can, I'll join you.” 

Tess smiles. “Don’t be long.” 

As Tess waits for Loki to return, she looks out the window at the stars. Today the view is particularly pleasant. After months of traveling, they’re nearing the solar system Earth resides in. A few more days and they’ll enter the solar system. 

As Tess observes, a shadow appears. She slowly steps out of bed, her head pounding. She peers through the window, searching for the source of the shadow. When she sees it, her heart stops for a moment. 

A large ship looming over them. 

Just like the beginning of her dream.

Chapter Text

 Not again, the Tesseract thinks as a Kree pulls it out of the containment case in the high security S.H.I.E.L.D. base. I hate it when they take me out of here. The last one to take it out had been Howard Stark. That was for only a few days. He wasn’t interested in using it to create weapons or portals or bridges. Only to learn a bit about it and lock it up again. Better than the men before that, Johann Schmidt and Arnim Zola, pulling it out of the place Odin hid centuries ago. The men in the cathedral were possibly the ones that treated the Tesseract the best by simply leaving it in its box. Their interest was to hide it, not to use it. Too bad that those days came to an end. Before that was Odin, who used the Tesseract in his conquests and to create a bridge between Asgard and their colonies. And before that a long list of other rulers and conquerors long forgotten by those still alive.

 The Kree named Mar-Vell examined the Tesseract in her lab, more interested in it as an energy source than a weapon it seems. While in her eyes it’s a noble work to find an infinite power source, it is extremely painful for the Tesseract to have its life force constantly taken away without its consent. Not that there’s much I can do about it. She thinks she’s doing something good. She has no idea that I’m alive. And I have no way of telling her.

 After a year, Mar-Vell finally puts the Tesseract into the spot designed for it on the space station. Immediately, without any choice on its part, the Tesseract’s energy is siphoned into the spacecraft, turning the engines and other systems on. Mar-Vell leaves, and several Skrull families enter, taking the space station to orbit Earth before cloaking it, hiding the refugees from all unfriendly eyes.

 At least it’s for a noble cause, the Tesseract tells itself. But I wish I at least had a voice.

Chapter Text

Tess wraps herself in the light cardigan she’s wearing as she stumbles through the snow. S.H.I.E.L.D. had found her after she went into terrigenesis and explained that she is Inhuman. They’ve tried to help her control her powers, but Tess has not had any luck. Now she’s somehow managed to teleport herself off to a tundra. She had been feeling hot and wanted to go somewhere to cool off. Her idea had been to step out of her heated apartment and take a walk through the chilly autumn wind. Yet somehow that desire to cool off took her to another extreme. 

Her cardigan doesn’t do anything to protect her from the biting winds. Snow lightly falls, and her cardigan slowly absorbs the moisture, making it even worse at protecting Tess from the cold. Even still, she keeps it wrapped tightly around her as she walks. If I stay still, I’ll freeze . S.H.I.E.L.D. said I release a certain energy, maybe they’ll be able to track it? Maybe they have a base nearby? They must, I’ve heard that the Arctic has lots of strategic locations. And they could use Antarctica to do research, right?

Tess keeps slowly trekking to nowhere in particular, struggling to keep her balance. The dark sky above her is covered in clouds, and the rest of the horizon is white. She doesn’t see any wildlife, though she supposes most Arctic and Antarctic wildlife camouflage in the snow. Hopefully I don’t run into a polar bear or something like that . 

She can’t feel her feet after not too long, and soon she stumbles, losing her footing and crashing to her knees. Her hands instinctively fly out to stop her fall. She kneels in the snow, snow going up to her hips, her pants and sleeves of her cardigan now completely soaked. Tess hurriedly manages to stand up and continue walking aimlessly, praying that help would arrive on time. 

Finally, she sees something in the distance. A building. Tess takes off running, so happy to see a building to realize that it most definitely isn’t a military or research facility, and that it doesn't look like anything she’s ever seen on Earth. She only starts to notice when something hits her head from behind and she stumbles to the ground, landing face first in the snow.

So cold! is Tess’ first thought when she wakes. She slowly opens her eyes to see herself on a bed and covered with blankets. You seem to be in a cave-like room with walls carved from stone. A fire roars in the center of the room. Even with all of the blankets and the fire, Tess still shivers. After a moment she notices that she isn’t wearing the soaked and frosty clothes she had arrived there with. 

Tess slowly sits up, the back of her head sore, and leans against the headboard and pulls the blankets up to cover her. Where the heck am I? She looks for a door but doesn’t find one. The closest to one is a massive stone blocking the tunnel out. A truly massive one, several feet higher than Tess, that she could never dream of even budging. Who are these people?

She slowly looks down at her clothes, realizing just how different they are. They’re made out of white furs, probably from one of the wildlife nearby. It also covers her feet and hands. But that isn’t the only difference. The stitching is very foreign, a style Tess has never seen before. That possibly isn’t earthly. 

The impossible to move boulder trapping her in the cave is starting to give the impression that maybe Tess isn’t dealing with normal humans. I can teleport and have part alien DNA. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. Could be aliens or Inhumans or something else that put me here . 

As much as Tess wants to get up and try to figure out what’s going on, she knows that isn’t a smart idea. Even with the piles of fur blankets and clothes and the roaring fire, she feels cold. Best to stay under the blankets and conserve as much heat as possible. So she sits, trying to imagine what the heck happened to her. 

After several minutes, she hears rock scraping against rock. She turns to look towards the boulder and watches as it is slowly rolled away from the exit. Tess slowly edges towards the wall behind her as she starts to see what is pushing the boulder away. That’s an alien alright . It’s tall with blue skin. Somehow it’s able to stand being shirtless in this frigid climate. Tess only sees part of it, half of its chest being too tall to see from the entry. 

Once the entry is opened, a different alien walks, ducking in order to walk through. The boulder is rolled back in front of the entry once he steps in. Tess watches this giant of an alien warily as he straightens, looming in front of the entry. I’m so screwed . 

“I was worried you wouldn’t wake,” the alien says after a moment of observing Tess. “You were half-frozen with clothes soaked through by the time you were brought to me. Are you still cold?” 

Tess nods, straining her neck to make eye contact with him.

“Unfortunate. I’m afraid there’s not much left I can do to warm you up. I suppose the best solution is helping you back to your home.”

“Wh-where on Earth am I?” Tess asks after a moment of building up courage, teeth chattering. 

The alien lifts an eyebrow. “Not on Earth. You’re on Jotunheim, a different world.” 

That was an unfortunate use of slang, but whatever. “Wh-what?”

“Jotunheim. I believe mortals refer to our kind as Frost Giants. Though it was many centuries since we last interacted with your kind, and your lives are so fleetingly short. Perhaps you’ve forgotten us.” 

Tess blinks in shock. Frost Giants does seem to be a familiar term, maybe from mythology. Something to Google for sure. Assuming I ever get the chance . 

“My apologies for the way you were initially treated. You were mistaken for an Asgardian. The last time Asgardians were here it was to make war with us. It was only after you fell unconscious after one hit that the guards realized you aren’t Asgardian. I brought you here to try to keep you warm. We use these chambers for our young when they fall ill and need to be kept warm. Same is true with the furs you wear.”

Tess wraps the blankets tighter around her. Jotunheim, Frost Giants, Asgardians…how did I manage to get here to this other world? Yet another question of the millions in Tess’ head. “Wh-who are y-you?” she asks after a moment of hesitation.

“I am Loki, Prince of Jotunheim. And you are?” 

“T-Tess,” she stutters, struggling to force her voice through her chattering teeth. 

“Welcome to Jotunheim, Tess of Midgard. Though I must ask, how did a mortal find her way to Jotunheim? It surely wasn’t intentional, you weren’t dressed for snow.”

How do I explain that I have completely uncontrollable powers? “I-I’m not a normal human, and, and I can tele-teleport but, but I can’t-t contr-trol my-myself.”

Loki nods. “I see. A mortal sorceress, I suppose. Who almost killed herself due to a lack of control.” He sighs. “That does complicate things. If you had come here intentionally, I could simply send you on your way. Now I have to find a more reliable means for you to return to your homeworld.” He sets his jaw. “And only Asgard can take you back safely. Quite the predicament.” 

Loki knocks on the boulder behind him, surprisingly loud for solid rock. Soon the other Frost Giant opens the entryway and Loki steps out. “I’ll open negotiations now. Asgard claims to protect your world, let’s test it.” He pauses for a moment. “Now that you’re awake, I’ll send someone to bring you food and water.” He steps away and the other Frost Giant quickly covers the entry with the boulder again. 

Tess wakes up to the sound of the boulder being rolled away. There hasn’t been much to do, so Tess has slept to pass the time. Earlier Loki had confirmed that Asgard agreed to help Tess return to Earth, but she must leave the chamber to do so. As such, Loki had to search for more things to keep her warm outside of the cave. 

Tess slowly sits up as Loki ducks into the cave. For the first time he isn’t shirtless, instead wearing furs. “It’ll soon be time, Tess.” She nods and wraps the blankets around herself, unsure of how Loki plans to keep her warm. She watches as he sits cross-legged next to the fire. While he had brought logs to keep the fire roaring before, he had always kept his distance, saying that the older Frost Giants become, the less tolerant they are of heat. While they’re children may need heat during times of illness, the adults don’t like the feeling of the fire. 

“I’m warming myself up. I’ll carry you while you’re wrapped in blankets, and wrap you in this cloak I’m heating,” Loki explains. “The best short-term replication of this chamber we have. But all I have to do is walk you out of the palace. Once we’re outside, the bifrost will take you back to Earth. Think of where you would like to go and the bifrost will take you there. I recommend going somewhere outdoors. You wouldn’t want a hole in your roof, would you?”

Tess shakes her head, starting to feel something funny in her stomach as her nerves grow. “What’s it like?” 

“The bifrost? I myself have never used it. Asgard controls the bifrost, and we haven’t had good relations with Asgard in centuries. The only reason they are agreeing to help is because you are Midgardian and they have claimed Midgard to be under their protection.” 

“None of us are aware of it,” Tess says, having finally warmed up enough during the past day to not chatter her teeth. 

“Again, it was centuries ago. Earth seems to have forgotten many other worlds.” 

“Apparently.”

“Though, you can teleport. I can only imagine that your abilities have similarities with the bifrost. Perhaps it will feel familiar to you.” 

“Maybe,” Tess admits, trying to calm herself with that statement. She’s already teleported before, the bifrost will be nothing for her. 

“And if you ever again decide to visit us, perhaps you should bring a coat,” Loki says with a hint of a smile. 

“I don’t think a coat would be enough. I don’t understand how anyone could live here.”

“And I don’t understand how anyone could live on Earth. The temperature is radically different depending on the time of year and where you are, and there is only snow for a few months in most places. I can’t imagine the heat, nor the inconsistency.” 

Tess smiles slightly. “I suppose that neither of us could truly live on each other’s planet. I’m amazed that I survived at all. I’m sure that everyone thought that I died. I don’t know what happened, I never teleported very far before now. Maybe a thousand miles at most, and that was intentional. Teleporting to another planet…how did I manage to do that? I’ve only ever teleported to places I knew before now.”

Loki tilts his head. “Perhaps your powers are growing faster than you can learn them. Or perhaps something called you here. Perhaps there was a reason behind this adventure of yours.” 

“And what reason could there be for me almost freezing to death in nothing more than a T-shirt, leggings, and a cardigan where no one on Earth would even find my body?”

“I most certainly don’t know, Tess. Maybe one day you will know. We shall see.” 

“We?”

Loki shrugs. “I imagine that if there was a reason for you to come to Jotunheim, I’ll be seeing you again. So please dress accordingly next time.” 

“I will,” Tess responds, pondering Loki’s theory. Last week she would have said he was crazy but last week Tess didn’t know that he or his kind or his planet existed, so that isn’t much of a metric by any means. 

Tess looks at Loki as she thinks before something catches her eye. “You’re starting to sweat,” she states as a small bead trickles down his brow.

“I noticed. We should leave now. Any sweat is going to freeze once I walk outside.”

Tess nods as Loki rises from the floor and approaches her. He gently lifts her up and cradles her and the bundle of blankets in his arms like a child. Understandable, given that Tess is the height of children in his species. He swings his cloak around his shoulder and uses it to loosely cover Tess, leaving all but her face covered. Tess shifts some of her blankets to cover part of her face as Loki walks towards the boulder. 

One of his servants, or so Tess assumes, rolls the boulder away and Loki carries Tess out of the chamber. Immediately, Tess feels colder as the temperature of the atmosphere drops. Loki walks quickly through the hallways. The palace itself seems to be made of ice in the upper levels, with caves carved out of the bottom to make warmer spaces. 

Tess starts to shiver again as the cold starts to seep through the blankets. “We’re almost outside,” Loki says, apparently feeling her shaking. Tess burrows deeping into the blankets, trying to conserve any warmth she can.

Soon, some guards open a door and Loki walks outside briskly. The wind howls and snow falls in large flakes. Tess hurriedly covers her face, wrapping the furs around her head. After a moment, she feels Loki stop and set her down. Thankfully, he sets her down on a stone and not in the snow. Tess peeks out of her burrow and watches as Loki kneels next to her. 

“I bid you farewell, Tess. Think of where you’d like to go, and the bifrost will handle the rest.” 

Tess nods. “Th-thank y-you.” Her teeth chatter as her whole body shivers. 

Loki stands as steps away, looking to the sky. Tess closes her eyes, bracing for the bifrost to send her back to Earth. She focuses on the lawn behind her parents’ house. It will be a lot to explain to them, but their house is closer to a S.H.I.E.L.D. base than her apartment. And her mom makes chicken noodle soup to die for. That’ll surely warm her up. 

Then it happens. It feels startlingly familiar. Tess opens her eyes and sees grass with a signal burnt onto it. Sign of the bifrost apparently. 

Finally, something warm , she thinks as the sun blinds her.

Chapter Text

Tess would have crumpled to the ground if it weren’t for the chains pinning her wrists and shoulders to the machine. Zola had been siphoning energy out of her for hours, using it to power weapons. He couldn’t technically force the energy out of her, but he could find ways to convince her. Very effective ways. Tess knew that either way she’d be in pain. Whether that pain was due to being a battery or being a battery and beaten, that was her choice. And so she complied, not knowing what else to do. 

During the experimentation, Zola only demanded energy for an hour or two. Then he would work on his designs and leave her alone for the rest of the day. Now he must have figured it out enough to put the weapons into mass production. He had been forcing her to donate her power for almost eight hours straight. 

I can’t take much more . Her skin was glowing only faint, and she was hanging by the chains, head lolling against her chest. Tess can barely keep her eyes open, yet Zola has said nothing to indicate whether he needed more energy today or not. I’ll be punished if I stop . A queasiness grows in her stomach that Tess struggles to ignore. Her arms ache from the straining from the chains. Her vision blurs, and her skin hardly radiates light at all. Her eyelids slide down, too heavy to go up again. Tess is far too tired to resist….

“Who said you could rest?” Tess somehow managed to hear Zola shout as a guard slammed the butt of his rifle into her cheek, the cracking noise louder than Zola’s voice. Tess cried out, face burning. “You have a quota to fill, fräulein. Two thousand batteries a day. You have five hundred left.”

Tess started letting her power into Zola’s machine again, whimpering from the pain. Too much…I can’t do it. The light from the machine flickered as she struggled to continue feeding it her power, hardly able to stay conscious. She stopped for a split second, and was immediately slapped where the rifle had broken bones. “Keep going!” the guard shouted. 

After a painstakingly long hour, Tess finally gave the energy Zola wanted from her. When he took the chains off of her, she fell to the floor, neither him nor the guard bothering to stop her fall. “Well done, fräulein. The same thing tomorrow.”

No…I can’t…I can’t keep doing this . Tess didn’t dare voice her thoughts, knowing she would be hurt further for defying Zola. The guard grabbed one of her arms and began to literally drag her across the floor to her cell. He dumped her in the doorway before slamming the door shut and locking it. If this goes on for too long…I won’t make it.

Chapter Text

“I’m here, my light, I’m here.” Tess smiles when she hears her lover's voice. She slowly opens her eyes, seeing Loki leaning over her. “There you are. How are you feeling?”

Tess looks around at her surroundings. She’s on a bed in Asgard’s healing wing, warm furs covering her. Only Loki is in the room. “Loved by my handsome prince.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But how do you feel physically?” he asks, worry masked by the playfulness in his voice. He grasps onto her hand, his hold firm yet soft. 

“Better, but a little light headed,” Tess admits. I’d rather not think of what is happening to me on Midgard . “I am certain a kiss would make me feel much better.” 

“And I will happily oblige.” Loki leans over her, using his free arm to prop himself up. His kiss is soft and gentle, almost as if she is as fragile as porcelain. Tess tangles her other hand in his hair, pulling him closer to her. All too soon, Loki pulls away, still leaning over her. “My light, you need to rest,” he says before kissing her forehead and leaning back into his chair.

“I am resting.” Tess pouts. “And I doubt you will allow me to rise from bed.”

“Not until you are feeling better. I don’t want you fainting again. But I promise I won’t leave this chair until you are well enough to leave that bed.” Loki lifts her hand to his lips, his kiss as gentle as before. “How were you feeling before you fainted?”

Pain. I’m no longer where Odin left me. A man named Zola is torturing me for my power . “My head hurt, I felt dizzy. And I was scared.” Not a lie, merely an omission of truth. 

“My light, you needn’t fear. I will always be at your side. No harm shall come to you.”

Without warning, Tess’ eyes start to water. As much as she can try to forget what Zola is doing to her true form in the fantasy she has built for herself, she can’t. Until he has finished with her, she will feel constant pain and will have to lie to Loki. If only he could know the truth, if only he could go to Midgard and rescue her. But that won’t be, if he ever learns, his love would unravel. Who could ever love a cube? She can’t hold back her tears for long, and thus she cries for the first time. 

“Tess, you poor thing.” Loki swiftly moves to sit on the edge of her bed and lifts her up, setting her on his lap. She buries her face into her lover’s shoulder, shaking as she cries. He wraps her in some of the furs before holding her firmly and gently, fingers brushing through her blonde curls. “You’re safe, my light. I will protect you, care for you and, when needed, nurse you back to health. I will do everything in my power to keep you in perfect comfort.” 

You can’t help me . Tess goes stiff in Loki’s arms, breathing heavily. Slowly, the pain builds again, starting in her stomach but traveling through her whole body. “No, no, not again!” She faintly hears Loki shouting for Eir as she holds onto his arm, her grip as tight as possible. “Not again, not again!”

“Sh, breathe, my light, breathe. I am here.”

“Please help me, Loki!” she begs, the pain stronger this time. “Please, please, please!”

“I will, my light, I will. Sh, breathe with me.” Tess tries breathing alongside him despite the pain, and it does help for a moment. It slows the inevitable. Maybe Loki realized this, and only intended to calm her. Very soon, her vision goes black as her grip on his arm loosens. The last thing she feels is his arms wrapped around her. 

Please, help me!

Chapter Text

“Heimdall, please, I know you can hear me,” Loki whispers. His voice is hoarse and hardly heard, his throat raw from the screaming. For now, he is alone, lying on the floor of his cell, shivering and bleeding. 

“I survived, I fell onto a distant world. I was captured, and I’ve been tortured, Heimdall.” Loki pauses his plea as he starts to cough, blood dripping out of his mouth as he turns to lie on his side, curling up into a fetal position. 

“Please, I will willingly accept whatever punishment the Allfather will condemn me to.” Loki slowly relaxes again as the pain from coughing starts to ease up. Blood drips onto the floor underneath him from his wounds. Loki tries to wipe the blood from his chin, but his arms are too weak to move much. 

“Please, speak to me, Heimdall.” Loki closes his eyes, hoping to open them and see an illusion of Heimdall speaking to him of Asgard’s plan to free him from this torturous prison. To his dismay, nothing changes when Loki opens his eyes. “I know you can, Heimdall.”

After a moment of silence, Loki continues. “Or perhaps is this my punishment? Is Fa–Odin allowing this to happen? Is he glad to be rid of me? Is he glad that I’ve fallen victim to another?” The backs of his eyes tear up at the thought of being condemned to torture on an unknown world to learn his lesson. 

Loki is learning the lesson: Odin never cared for him more than any other political pawn. And now he no longer has use of him, and he needed to rid himself of Loki one way or another.

“Please, Heimdall, please. I don’t know how much longer I can go without breaking.” A tear slides down Loki’s face as he continues to beg. “I don’t know what my captors want, only that they insist that I’ll break. Please, don’t let them do that. Please, I’ll do anything. Please send someone to rescue me.” 

Silence.

Loki sighs as he closes his eyes, more tears streaming down his face. “Very well, you’re abandoning me. I should’ve known, of course Odin wouldn’t help a Jotun runt.”