This is post-Avengers with Thor: The Dark World spoilers. It was written before I saw Thor: The Dark World, so I built this story around two things I gathered from the trailer: Loki was sent directly to prison without a trial after returning to Asgard with Thor from New York and Frigga dies. In this fic, Thanos is the culprit behind the dark elves, and attempts to take over Asgard. (Only semi-seriously, I imagine. He probably didn't expect them to succeed.) Kind of like how Thanos used the Chitauri on earth, only this time he uses dark elves on Asgard. Don't expect much plot, though.

This idea stemmed from talking to timelordanon and reading some of her writing, I think. Basically, what if the cell he was in is completely sound proof? Google "the quietest place on earth" and there should be an article about it.

This fic is dedicated to timelordanon on tumblr, who basically inspired this. And also read it and added bits here or there to make it [more] angst-y and helped with the summary and was generally cool and awesome.

He returns to Asgard, muzzled like a dog and cuffed like the greatest of criminals. He supposes they find it a suiting treatment for his crimes, but he finds it merciful. He remembers his time with Thanos. He remembers chains and screams and unmakings.

But even as he entered the palace, it begins to itch at him.

He had failed. He failed one master and he has failed in his family's eyes.

(He has always failed in his family's eyes. But now even Frigga turns away.)

He should be punished.

There is no trial, of course. For all Thor's talk of brotherhood and family ties and we can stop this together, there is no trial for this fallen prince. He did not fall in love, or prove his worthiness to a magical artifact, but tried to take over and destroy another race. Because of this, he does not stand before Odin.

He sees Odin at a distance as he's led down a side hall. He sees Odin turn away and Loki flinches after all this time. After all this time trying to prove his worth—

He's still worthless. Worthless as the spare prince, and now worthless as a common criminal. And, really, was there any difference? The difference now was that they truly notice him.

(Just not in the way he wants.)

Thor and Frigga walk him down to a cell with a small bevy of well-armored guards. Thor had not said a word to him the entire time since they left Midgard. He does not say a word now. He turns on his heel and leaves with a billow of blood red cape. Frigga hesitates for a moment, and then trails after the golden prince. All she leaves him with is a pained look, not a single word.

And he is suddenly alone in his cell.

It is a princely cell. Well furnished. Well lit. It even has a mirror, as if he would need to prepare himself for visitors. Though underground with no sunlight, it is more humane than other cells. (This he thinks at first.) He finds bitter humor in it.

Still wearing masks, Odin? Still pretending to care?

Poison dripped into his eyes would be more fitting a punishment. But perhaps Odin sees too many parallels to Thor's past actions that caused Thor's banishment, and does not wish to appear anything but wise (not hypocritical, never hypocritical) to the people of Asgard. So, his death would be a long—and boring—time coming.

These are Loki's first thoughts. That his cell is more humane than others. That his death would take far, far too long.

The descent takes… time. Days. Weeks. Months. There is no way, Loki realizes, to mark the passage of time. And so, his solitude blurs by with little to interrupt it. It is a new form of torture, but one he bares as well as he can.

(He remembers Thanos, and the cell at times can see to be a strange paradise.)

Thor comes by once, interrupting the blur of days, but leaves quickly and doesn't say a word. He thinks he hears Frigga visit once, but he is half asleep at the time and, even as he jerks awake quickly, she is gone if she was ever there.

That is the first time that he begins to wonder how trustworthy his mind is after prolonged solitude.

The irony is that he designed this cell. And he knew exactly what he was doing when he designed it. He was called silvertongue for a reason. It is not just over magic that he has power, but over words. Words are an entirely different power. You can break someone without touching them, or slowly drive them insane, or make them fall in love.

(Or have your brother banished, or tear your family apart, or wreak havoc on a world not your own with a staff that lends yet more power behind your words.)

He knows this even now. And he knew when he designed this cell—for Asgards enemies—just how powerful words were. With that in mind, he had known the absence of word and sound is something else entirely. Silence speaks. It is a different way to mute or torture your enemies.

And the cell is soundproof.

It is utterly and desolately quiet.

There is no gurgling of pipes, like on his brief but chaotic visit to Midgard. There is no sound when his food appears. There is no tap of feet on the stone ground when guards walk by. At first, even the sound of his fork on the plate or him taking a sip of his water is muted.

But… it starts to sound loud in his head, each sound. Magnified. Actions that cause sounds—like getting food onto his fork, like taking a sip of water, like turning over on his bed—start to build in his head until he picks at his food or doesn't touch it at all. Thoughts press on the walls of his brain until he feels like tearing his hair out. He can't move some days because of it.

Nothing can help him. Even the books, Frigga's doing certainly, don't help. He can read for only so long until each rustle of a page turn cuts up his insides and drives him to throw the book against the wall.

(The thud against the window is like a hammer slam inside his head. It pounds out the almost gibberish like words that are his thoughts.)

Some days he thinks he can hear his own blood pumping through his veins.

The only coherent thought at times is that this is deserved. (That this is his natural state.) To be alone is fine. To deal with himself is torture he deserves. It is fitting, too fitting, that he designed this room for their enemies.

(Is that what he is now? An enemy of Asgard?)

("I only ever wanted to be your equal!")

And so the days blur into magnified sounds and pressing silences and thoughts that won't stop they won't stop I don't deserve help but I want it to stop—

There is one clear impression in that time. When he can no longer look at his mirror—silence and soundless just like him—he breaks it. The only sound that follows is the brief shattering of glass and his harsh breathing. He breaks it because maybe, maybe, that will stop the screaming in his head, the flashes of blue, Thanos's voice, the endless begging for death both then and now and he's falling and falling and always falling—

After that slip from reality, he has one other clear memory that marks the passage of time. He remembers cool hands, the scent of Frigga, and brief flashes of color through half closed lids and glazed eyes. These memories, even perhaps imagined, are the only things that calm him, slow the voices in his head, make it bearable for a moment.

When he awakes, he's still in his cell. But the shattered mirror frame and glass shards are gone. His hands and wrists are bandaged.

And he sits for a while, bitterly hating himself for even trying to end it again because how dare he? How dare he when he's not worth death? Death that would hopefully bring peace? No, he doesn't deserve that. He deserves this shrieking silence and pressing sound. Deserves this silence and sound driving him mad. Because both silence and sound are somehow here and not at the same time and the voices wouldn't stop—

("Is not this simpler? Is not this your natural state?")

He does not eat much and he does not speak. (Who is there to speak to?) And because of this, he wastes away, his own words locked and shriveled inside. Just like him.

But he is cared for on some level. No matter how little he eats, he feels Frigga's magic nourishing him even if he can't see her. (Mother, no, let me die. Please, Amma, please.) He feels Thor, respectfully and carefully, care for his unkempt hair and dirty skin when he's too weak.

(But never when he's somewhat lucid. Never.)

He knows he looks presentable on the outside, perhaps even calm.

(The inside is a different matter entirely.)

He sometimes walks around the cell, counting the steps and letting the sound of his foot steps fill his head, loud and clamorous. For a while, the voices are muted and driven away, and he can count the time of his steps and his heart beat.

He does not flourish in his cell, but manages to exist. To just barely keep his head above water, with only occasional dips and slips into full madness.

And then…

Thanos fulfills his promise. If Loki were an outsider to the events that followed, he would've admired Thanos's tactics against them—and, in particular, his failed servant Loki.

Wielding Malekith and the dark elves, Thanos strikes the heart. The part a war mongering nation—whether they admit they are such or not—like Asgard is blind to until it is shown in the painfullest of ways. He flicks over the white queen they did not realize how badly they needed to protect.

Perhaps she was collateral damage, but Loki has served under Thanos before. He imagines Thanos saying, "Take over Asgard. But even if you fail, do not fail in killing the queen."

She dies fighting, he knows.

("You think you know pain?")

She shouldn't have died at all.

("He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.")

He blames Frigga's death on himself. Yet more blood is in his ledger. Responsible for death for all those around him, all in his attempts to earn respect and love.

(And if love is for children, what is he that he is so desperate for it? If Frigga were still here, she would tell him—he knows like he knows his lack of worth—that he already had their love. But she's not here and never will be again, will she? And who's fault is that?)

He breaks, splinters into pieces of something that was never quite whole to begin with. His room becomes wrecked, even though he doesn't remember doing so. His grief is so strong that it drives him to see nothing and do nothing but try to tear apart his cell because if he had been free perhaps he could've stopped it and maybe Frigga would be alive and if he had never joined Thanos and failed than she would still be alive and he always such a colossal failure —

When his vision clears, he sees broken pottery, splinters of wood, bent metal, and torn paper on the ground. His throat feels sore when he swallows, as if he had been screaming. His feet are bloody and his hands are empty and his room is in bits and Frigga is still gone. She is gone. And Loki is alone, with nothing but bloody hand and footprints on the floor and walls to keep him company. He is drained of all emotion, literally feels nothing.

His thoughts are utterly still, bereft of meaning. It is a kind of numbness that has no sound or word. A grief too deep. He does not eat or sleep or move. He remains collapsed against a wall in his cell, blood drying on his bare feet, completely unkempt. How is it possible that he can still hurt? He thought he had no heart.

(After finding out his parentage, after it all, he had never thanked her for treating him as her son, had he? She was blind not to see the monster, but he was pathetically grateful now to have had her love, spare prince or not.)

He had no right to feel hurt over her death when he did not love her as he should've.

He feels so much that he doesn't feel at all.

Why do you grieve? What did you expect?

What did you expect from a monster?

And then…

Thor enters the dungeons with no subtlety. He comes right up to the cell and sound rushes in sound so loud he would've screamed if he had enough energy or thought but nothing mattered anymore and so—

Thor says, "I know you seek vengeance as much as I do. Help me escape Asgard and I will grant it to you: vengeance. And afterward, this cell."

And Loki, for the first time since all of this began, since Thor's banishment so many ages ago, since his literal and metaphorical fall from grace, feels an odd kind of peace come upon on him. The rest of their conversation barely computes, only distantly does he scramble up responses. His mind is far away.

Frigga's death will not go by in silence. The monsters that killed her will die for their deed.

He would avenge Frigga easily.

For to find hiding monsters, to figure out their full plan, you must think like a monster. And what is better to hunt monsters than a monster?

Hope you enjoyed!

Stay cool.

-SS