This story is a prequel to my one-shot Silence Is Golden, although while that one was fairly humorous, this fic is more serious. Loki is also very snarky.

This being a prequel, it is not necessary to have read my other fic. And although I ended this fic so that it would lead directly into Silence Is Golden, it could, technically, stand alone.

The fic starts at the very end of the movie "Avengers".

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters or anything - they belong to Marvel. However, the 'Void Cube' in this story is completely made up by me, and as far as I am aware of there is no such similar object in the movies or comics.

WARNING for some gore and results of torture, although there are no actual torture scenes.

Loki's blue eyes screamed at Thor.

I have no conscience.

When the thunderer turned his stoic gaze to him, he could still read his (not)brother's face. He could always read Thor.

Liar. Thor accused. You know that I know that you know that you do.

Silently, he held out the tesseract like a second chance. Do you not? Loki could practically hear him wondering.

No. I have no conscience.

The words pressed bitter against the back of Loki's teeth, nothing but the muzzle to keep them restrained. But all that seemed to do was embitter them further, and he wanted nothing more than to spit them out.

I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you.

It was almost childish, the way Loki clung to the words for his life, like they were the only things keeping him from falling to your knees.

Do you? Thor's question echoed between your cast off glances.

Loki lowered your eyes so the thunder god couldn't see the reflection of what he saw.

Nevertheless though, he didn't hesitate to grab the handle of the device.

Maybe.

Thor turned his handle to bring the both of them back to Asgard—his home. And Loki could feel the magic permeate through his being, and he relished it, that steady thrum of energy and life spreading through his veins like wildfire.

He clung to the thought desperately. I have no conscience. I. Have. No. Conscience.

Do you?

The truth stung wetly behind his closed eyelids, and it felt cold. Cold and blue.

Yes.

The magic clung to Loki's lean frame, smoking from his leather armor and spiraling into the air in cold blue tendrils. This time when he lifted his eyes to Thor's face, there was no more of that faltering, childish denial.

This time, Loki wasn't lying to himself, and he could see the fear that shivered its way down the thunderer's spine.

Yes, Loki's green eyes said, absorbing the light like black holes. Yes, I have a conscience.

Images flashed through his mind, needle piercing and string drawn through forced shut lips, blood streaming hotly down his chin and neck, like some beast after it had dug into its kill.

I just choose to ignore it.

A large troop of guards was waiting for them when they arrived.

The two princes stumbled backwards when they appeared back on the bifrost, caught off guard by the abruptness of being pulled through indefinite space and landing jarringly back on solid ground.

"Welcome back, Prince Thor." Heimdall said, barely giving Loki a second glance.

The guards wasted no time in surrounding Thor and Loki, their hands on the hilts of their weapons, and proceeded to 'escort' them to the throne room where Odin and Frigga would be waiting.

Chained shackles were clasped around Loki's ankles. A metal collar was snapped around his neck, a metal around his hips, chains stretched from collar to cuffs, from cuffs to belt, from belt to the hands of two guards as Loki was pulled forward, prodded hard in the back to get him to move.

Loki tripped slightly, but swiftly righted himself and began to stride forward, legs moving as far as the chains would allow, his head held high and proud.

Stalking sullenly beside him, Thor glared at the guards as they were herded through the castle while Loki continued to stare straight ahead.

If it hadn't been for the muzzle the guards would have been unnerved by his growing smirk.

When they arrived,Odin and Frigga were waiting. Odin was sitting regally in his golden throne with his face set in harsh, hard lines, making him look the many millennia he'd lived.

Frigga, on the other hand, lit up when she saw them enter the room, clasping her hands as her eyes scanned over he sons in gathering anxiety.

This was the first time she'd seen Loki since he fell, and the sight of his wasted form her heart constricted painfully, water gathering in her widened blue eyes.

His hair long and untamed, cheek bones high and sharp, body lean and hungry, he gave a new definition to the word 'feral'.

Beware of monsters, said those frigid eyes, emerald-edged and glinting. We're lost causes, every one. Agents of Chaos, Pets of Death, you know we'll take away your breath.

The guards and Thor immediately knelt down and clasped their fists against their chests, but Loki remained standing. He stared defiantly at the Allfather, challenging.

He would never kneel, not willingly.

"Loki," Odin spoke, voice contemptuous. "Everywhere you go there is desolation, ruin, death. If you show remorse for your actions, you may be yet shown mercy."

Tilting his head to the side, Loki's tongue sliced across the inside of the muzzle to the taste of copper. I regret nothing, those sunken eyes said, rimmed with darkness and tightened at the corners with cynical amusement.

Odin stiffened, as if he wasn't expecting such a clear answer from the gold-hewed silence.

Shackle me, muzzle me, even hood me like a hunting bird of prey; but who needs words to lie? Loki's smirk stretched behind the metal, toothed and dripping red.

Frigga's head shook, hands creeping up over her mouth as she begged him not to make it worse.

His eyes flicked to her, widened with feigned innocence, a dark eyebrow arching. Define worse.

There was the sound of perturbed shifting behind Loki and slightly to the left, heavy boots and a red cape brushing against the ground, Thor's unspoken wish for Loki to stop this madness.

The room was dancing with silver-shod silence that Loki heard like a symphony.

Well? Loki's amused eyes asked, sweet as syrup. Let's not all talk at once.

After a moment of trying and failing to see through to Loki's mind and the fiercely whirring cogs inside, Odin said, "You have a choice."

Loki raised his eyebrows comically. Oh really?

"You can either rebuild the broken bifrost," Odin stated, his own mouth twisting sardonically when the Hell no flared in Loki's eyes, "Or you can be forced to rebuild the broken bifrost. You have my word that all and any escape attempts from yourself will be futile, so it's just a matter of how much pain you'd like to go through."

Breaths were held by Frigga and Thor, and Loki could hear the words that were gathering in their throats, could hear that they wanted him to just give in.

And perhaps that was all it took to make Loki's decision for him.

He looked up at the Allfather, raising his chin in defiance as he wrapped his pride around him. You can do nothing to me, said those green eyes as they flashed. (Nothing worse than what I've already had to endure.)

The subsequent silence was broken by Frigga's sobs.

"You idiot!" Thor yelled, jumping to his feet and glaring as his little brother turned to look at him with a semblance of surprise. "Do you want to suffer?!"

No, laughed those shadowed eyes. I want you to.

Thor supposed that he really shouldn't have been surprised.

Loki was the kind of person who, when told not to do something, immediately did it, just to see what would happen. Who, when threatened, wouldn't back down, if only to see if the threat would be carried out.

It wasn't even like Loki would just stick a toe over the boundary then jerk it back—he would step all the way over the line and linger there.

Thor knew that Loki was fiercely intelligent and that he could read every almost every thought that passed across someone's mind just from watching their face and body language and listening to the tone of their voice, and so he often wondered why it was that Loki felt the need to test everything, even when he already knew what would happen.

So of course Thor wasn't surprised when upon being tossed into his cell and told not to touch the magic walls and that there was no way to escape, the first thing Loki did was place a palm flat against the magic field, not pulling it away till the flesh of his hand was charred black and smoking.

The dark god examined it with analytical curiosity.

With the muzzle now removed, there was nothing to sheath the poisoned blades of his smile.

"It's an impressive cage." Loki's usual silky voice was rough and raspy from disuse. "And I do so appreciate the luxurious décor. A true privilege for a criminal such as I."

He meant of course the gold bed, chair, and footstool, with their forest green blanket and cushions, as well as the table set with plate and utensils and cup, as well as the pile of books Frigga had selected from Loki's chambers.

"Mother wants you to be comfortable," Thor explained, still glowering at his brother with eyes full of pained betrayal.

Loki sneered at him. "Because of course the first word associated with prison is 'comfortable,' now is it?"

"Brother please—" Thor started. Only he wasn't allowed to finish as Odin indicated the guards to remove him from the situation as the king stepped up to the cell.

There was an awful twisting in Thor's gut, as if Loki had just turned his insides into writhing snakes that were eating him from the inside.

Neither Thor nor Frigga were allowed to visit the prison.

"How is he?" they would ask, never receiving an answer from the guards.

"He remains recalcitrant and incorrigable," Odin told them. "The torture has commenced."

Furious tears brimmed in Frigga's blue eyes, rain gathering in a cloudless sky. "Is there no other way—"

"None," Odin cut her off, voice like stone.

Frigga slapped him, before turning on her heel, gold skirts whipping around her legs as she strode off.

(It was another month before Frigga found a way to slip past the prison's defenses.)

In the middle of Loki's cell, a form flickered to life in a shimmer of green.

"Mother," Loki said, looking up in surprise from where he was sitting in the middle of the floor, shirtless, with bright red blood around him and still streaming from the lacerations on his back, the telltale whip marks. His arms were wrapped around his legs with their torn black trousers, clasped at the ankles.

Long black hair was tangled and matted with dried blood.

He smiled, showing white teeth. "How kind of you to visit me."

"Oh Loki," she breathed in horror as he struggled to his feet and she saw the full extent of injuries that adorned his body; that porcelain skin covered with black and blue bruising as if the night was trying to take him over, gouges and slashes that exposed muscle and bone of his already skeletal frame.

Her eyes fell from his haggard and tortured body, examining instead his cell.

All the furniture was pushed to the side, the bed unslept in, the chair unsat in, the table untouched and the books unread.

"I didn't want to soil anything," Loki explained, indicating the blood covering him and the floor, the red footprints in the circles and figure-eights he'd paced across the cell.

"Oh Loki," Frigga said again, turning to him, lifting a hand as if to brush a lock of tangled hair from his face, before remembering that she couldn't. "Why must you do this to yourself?"

He raised his eyebrows in indignation, a hand to his mangled chest. "Me, do this to myself? You must be mistaken—it's the guards that do the torturing."

"You know what I mean," Frigga said softly. "Why can't you just cooperate?"

"To what end?" Loki asked, shaking his head slightly as his brows furrowed. "Rebuilding the bifrost would benefit Asgard, but it would not benefit myself." He snorted. "It's not like Odin would let me go afterwards."

"But the torture would stop," Frigga insisted.

"Would it?" Loki inquired, eyes narrowing as he examined her face. "You honestly think my suffering would end if I were to 'cooperate'? You honestly think that this isn't all just an elaborate excuse to make me pay for my crimes, a distraction against the fact that I've caused far less war and death than Odin himself? I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I've committed nothing that Thor and Odin haven't at some point in their lives."

She opened her mouth to speak, but Loki continued, "And even if I were to repair the bifrost and the torture did stop, what would would I be left with? Rotting bored in this cell for all of eternity? At least the torture keeps things interesting."

Tears were gathering in Frigga's eyes as she looked at her son, his mind so far afield the distance made her mind hurt with the strain of trying to see it. "What happened to you?" she asked, no more than a breath.

"A lot of things happened to me," Loki said, smile wry and mirthless. He began pacing across his cell, usually graceful movements stiff, a flinch shuddering through his frame with every step he forced his weary body to take. "To which are you referring?

"I'm here because of my own actions, my own choices," he said, turning around to face her with eyes widened in that expression of innocence she recognized as the one he'd been using since childhood. "But it's not my fault that the Aesir aren't intelligent enough to rebuild their own damn bridge.

"And besides," he continued, humorless grin spreading across his scarred face, cold in his gaze. "Thor's the one who broke it. Don't you see, Mother? Nothing has changed."

"Your meaning?" Frigga barely dared to ask.

Green eyes flashed blue, red, violet. "Thor makes mistakes, and I'm always the one who has to pay for them."

"He wouldn't have had to break the bifrost if you weren't using it to try to destroy Jotunheim," Frigga pointed out.

"And where is my crime in that?" Loki asked, expression betraying confusion. "As I recall from your stories Bor destroyed the entire race of Dark Elves, and for that he was regarded as a hero."

Frigga shook her head. "That's different."

"How?" Loki questioned, arms crossed behind his back, warm blood flowing over them as he leans forward slightly, green gaze piercing. "You deny that I am treated differently? What about Thor, then. He instigates a war, and he gets banished to Midgard for a few days and is given a second chance. While as when I instigate a war, I'm locked up here, tortured, and given naught but a chance to be the tool Odin took me to be." He paced, back and forth, back and forth, black and blue and red.

"Thor changed," Frigga said finally, softly, her blue eyes falling from her adopted son down to the bloodied floor. If she'd been there in person, she would have been overwhelmed by the heavy scent of copper, the feel of the grime slick beneath her shoes.

But though she could not feel nor smell it, she could see it, and she could hear the rasping of Loki's ragged breathing.

"Ah," Loki said, smirk evident in the caustic, syrupy tone of his voice. "That's more like it. There's your very reason."

She looked back up at him, apprehensive to hear how he'd twisted her words this time.

His smirk grew teeth, turning into a malicious smile. "Thor has changed, but so have I. He's changed from best to better, and I've changed from bad to worst."

"Loki—" Frigga started.

He cut her off, hissing and spitting. "And I will not be cowed by Odin's torture nor moved by your treacle words. I am sick and tired of being manipulated."

Say it, his green eyes scintillated. Say I'm a monster.

Heartache was etched in her face as she shook her head, meeting his gaze. No Loki.

The god of mischief laughed so hard his mangled body gave out beneath him and he crumpled to the floor on his hands and knees, blood gathering in his mouth and dripping down his chin, his laughter wet and strangled.

"Loki," Frigga said, rushing forward, reaching out to touch him only for her hand to pass straight through. "Oh Loki, please."

"Leave," he ordered, waving a hand through her illusion and causing it to dissipate.

Thor found Frigga crying, face in her hands as she stood in her chambers in the sunlight shattering onto the balcony.

He embraced her, letting her lean into him.

It still struck Thor as wrong, seeing his mother in tears—he could hardly remember a time when he'd seen Frigga cry. She was always so strong, so steady. She wasn't easily moved to tears.

And yet here she was, crying.

"Mother?" Thor asked. "Mother, what happened?"

"Loki..."

Thor's gut clenched. "What about him?" he managed, voice cracking as he expected the worst.

"Oh Thor," Frigga said quietly, as he let her go, taking her hands and looking at her beseechingly, begging her silently, fearfully, to tell him.

"Loki..." Frigga breathed, rainy blue eyes flicking up to meet Thor's. "We're losing him."

It was another month yet before Thor finally managed to get down into the dungeons, and only by way of bribery, threatening, and the help of Fandral the Dashing.

Odin had refused him entry, ignoring all Thor's arguments and beseeching, and frankly Thor had become more than sick of it. What did it matter if he needed to knock out a few guards?

Torture obviously wasn't doing anything.

He needed to speak to Loki.

(But he hadn't exactly been prepared for what he was going to find.)

Loki had rigged a spell on his cell so that Frigga could no longer visit via illusions, and they had no idea how much Loki's state had worsened.

The other cells were all empty—Loki was the only prisoner.

By the time Thor visited him, Loki seemed to have fallen from the line he'd been carefully balancing—fallen into a feral insanity.

The dark sanguine of dried blood and the bright scarlet of fresh blood coated the room; the furniture in smears, the floor in footprints, the walls in handprints and runes, spelling out phrases that dragged shivers like claws down Thor's spine as his eyes flicked across each vermilion word.

Churn, churn, crash and burn... how well do you think you know pain? Look behind you, behind you, it's always creeping behind you... final blow, skin and bone, black and blue, no more the sun shall beat down for you... the power, the void, darkness toys... say something, say something, say anything... blind and deaf and mute and lying, lying, lying... listen for truth it's the word that hurts... how well do you think you know pain? Burn, scorch, smoke and glow...

The bedsheets were ripped to shreds, the cushions were torn asunder, white feathers everywhere, clean and white and bloodied.

And Loki... Loki wasn't there.

A strangled scream echoed through the dungeons, wild and bloodcurdling and inhuman, and Thor shuddered, concealing himself in a shadowed corner, no choice but to wait until Loki's torture ended.

Each scream reduced the thunderer's heart further to ashes—Loki did not cry out easily. Loki did not cry out... whatever was being done to him... Thor could feel the torrid fury flare through his veins as he shivered, feeling so cold that it burned and scalded.

He waited far too long.

Hiding behind a pillar, Thor heard the footsteps approach, the sound of several booted guards practically dragging another body, the sound of the magical barrier being let down so they could throw him in, then the firelike fizzling and crackling as the barrier came back up. Thor waited for the guards to leave, and then slowly, cautiously, came out from his hiding spot.

Thor had thought, what with all the battles he'd fought, the opponents he'd slaughtered, the wars he'd waged, that he was well past being affected by gore.

As the nausea welled in his gut he realized he'd been wrong.

The dark god crouched there in the center of the floor with his back to Thor, head down, long matted hair falling into his face and he wasn't breathing—how could he?

He'd been given the Blood Eagle.

A broken angel, his back, his ribs, cut open so that his lungs spread like grotesque wings behind his hardly recognizable body.

Thor couldn't stifle the sob that wrenched itself from his throat, the tears streaming from his stinging, widened eyes.

Like Frigga had said, he wore only a pair of tattered black trousers, hardly a glimpse of alabaster skin visible beneath the black and blue of the blood and bruising and scar tissue.

Turning his head to look at Thor then, Loki smiled, lips and teeth bloodied, eyes hollowed and the area around them black, black, black, giving his face an unnervingly skull-like appearance. And he was so, so painfully emaciated.

"Loki," Thor breathed in absolute horror.

He was sure his heart was being torn right out of his chest. "What has Odin done?"

Loki's lips moved as he tried to speak, but he had no breath to do so, and the only sound was a wet gasping, blood brimming in Loki's mouth.

"Stop," Thor sobbed, falling to his knees in front of the cell. "Loki, don't. Please."

A shiver wracked through Loki's frame as he pushed himself to his feet, and as Thor watched a shimmer of green skittered over his skin like flames, his lungs folding back into his body, bone and muscle and skin knitting together

Then he turned to his older brother, bruises fading from black to blue before Thor's very eyes, as Loki said, "Good thing you didn't come yesterday. I royally antagonized Odin and he tried to have me executed—cut my head off and everything." Loki laughed, a rasping, wretched sound that made the bile rise unbidden in Thor's throat, burning acidly as he tried not to vomit right then and there.

"Turns out killing the God of Mischief is harder than they thought. The guards actually screamed when I stood up and reattached my head," Loki said thoughtfully, smirking like this was nothing but a game to him.

Thor swallowed, barely managing, "Doesn't it hurt?"

"One gets used to it," Loki shrugged, coming over to the front of the cell and sitting down cross-legged, back ramrod straight as he regarded his older brother.

"You're here for a reason," he stated.

"I'm here because I love you—" Thor started, before Loki cut him off, green eyes glinting as the trickster leaned forward.

"You want me to rebuild the bifrost," he murmured, reading it easily in Thor's gaze. "Why? So that the torture will stop? So that you can visit your friends on Midgard again?"

"Loki—"

"You think cooperating with the Allfather's orders will make my situation better? While I'm rebuilding the bridge, sure, Odin will want me presentable and hale enough to work publicly in Asgard, but afterwards? When he no longer has use of me? What will I be then—executed once my worth has been used up? Nay, nothing so merciful; I'll be locked up here again, till I'm once more of use, nothing but Asgard's disgraced tool, a feared weapon called upon whenever all other options are drunk dry."

"Loki, listen to me," Thor said, calling his voice up stronger in his throat as he met his little brother's gaze, an olive green dark as shadows, with the illuminated quality of sunlight shining through the darkest of amber glass.

It was a shade of green he didn't recognize; Loki's eyes were usually so bright, especially when he was performing magic, when often the only comparison were the ethereal green flames of fire licking over dirty copper.

Thor remembered, from when they were children, that punishment never did anything to sway Loki. He'd always had to have been convinced with reason—and Thor knew that, especially now, Loki wouldn't do anything for anyone that did not directly benefit himself in some way.

Thor's argument would have to adhere to that selfishness.

"Listen to me when I tell you that rebuilding the bifrost would not be for Odin, nor for Asgard, nor for I—the entire of the Nine Realms are in revolt, battles igniting everywhere, and we have no method in which to quench them. The worlds are falling into chaos, bonds are weakening. You know this is a fragile state," Thor said, getting to his feet and beginning to pace in front of the cell, holding his brother's scrutinizing gaze. "Loki, I understand your love of mischief. Of chaos."

The dark god raised an eyebrow.

"I'm also beginning to understand that such is necessary. That... if I'm order, than you are chaos, and one cannot exist without the other. If the realms fall into disorder, they will be easy for another power to take over—"

Loki blinked, glancing down at the white feather he was twirling between his fingers. Thanos...

"For another power to subjugate the worlds in a tyrannical order. I know you do so enjoy your games," Thor continued, "But where will you play if your playground burns down?"

Regarding his older brother for a moment, an amused smile slowly curled Loki's thin lips. "I'm impressed," he said, tilting his chin up as he did so. "Flawed logic, but you actually managed to string words together in an almost-eloquent monologue."

The thunder god stood waiting.

"And after I rebuild the bifrost, once you are able to assuage the revolts, what happens to Loki?" the trickster asked.

"After you rebuild the bifrost and Odin lets down his guard, I will help you escape," Thor promised, after only the slightest hesitation, as if he'd already planned this answer out.

Loki's smirk grew. "Very well," he conceded, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his elbows, "You may tell the Allfather to cease his tortures, as I will rebuild the bifrost."

As Thor turned to leave, Loki called, "But there is one condition."

The thunderer turned, apprehensive at Loki's knowing, conniving expression.

"I will require the Tesseract."

Blond hair fell into Thor's face as he nodded, and he brushed it back behind his ear as he left, the small braid there barely visible.

As soon as he was gone Loki allowed himself to collapse. There was no one to see him curl in on himself in the fetal position, fingers tangling in his matted black hair that had grown long and just as much of a mess as he was.

He wasn't broken. He was just... breaking.

It would be a lie to say situations didn't improve once he'd agree to rebuild the bifrost.

He was allowed to heal, to clean himself up, brush his hair, get new clothes.

They gave him ink and paper, and he laughed.

Like he would need to sketch out a blueprint.

When he was brought to the edge of the broken bifrost, clad in his leathers and chains, he couldn't help but grin with mirth to see that the whole of Asgard had been unable do so much as begin the bifrost repairs—although they'd succeeded in accomplishing was building a new observatory, though he'd need to work on that because there was about as much magic in that metal as there was in Captain America.

Which is, to say, none.

It took Loki the best of three days to get the bifrost up and running.

He hadn't lied to Thor about being shown the true power of the Tesseract; he wielded it with an expertise that bordered on terrifying, the way he created the rest of the bridge out of its raw power, connecting it seamlessly to remaining shards of the rainbow one.

He connected the new bridge to the new observatory, ingraining the Tesseract within as its dynamo, protected and concealed and hidden in the very center of the metal contraption that he manipulated with fire and hammer and claws.

Oh, the claws made the guards back away, much to his amusement, as he carved with them runes on the inside and outside of the observatory, practically humming to himself in acerbic glee.

In truth, the bifrost was the intellectual stimulation he'd been craving, the ability to let his genius free, if only for a moment.

It was the most fun he'd had since trying to take over Midgard.

And well that was an interesting story, one that Thor begged to hear, following at Loki's heels and hounding him as he worked, asking him why till Loki threatened to use his claws to tear Thor's golden hair out of his head.

I can't tell you, Loki had said, to which Thor had answered: Then show me.

Sighing, Loki had touched his clawed fingers to Thor's forehead, and let the thunderer crumple to the floor in the center of the observatory, a moaning heap on the ground as he experienced Loki's memories while the blacksmith god continued to carve his magic runes into the metal, the lines straight and glowing red before they cooled.

That's what you get for asking, Loki shook his head, smirking amusedly as Thor continued to rock himself back and forth on the floor. The Thunder God, who can stand against entire armies, brought to his knees by mere memories, mental fabrications.

Through the water streaming down his face Thor had murmured, Oh Loki, my brother...

I don't need your pity, Loki had hissed, voice low and dangerous, like a coiled snake about to strike. Thanos might be as sadistic a bastard as Odin, but at least he's more willing to listen.

There'd been something almost... smug, in Loki's voice.

You double-crossed him, didn't you? Thor had said, narrowing his eyes.

Loki laughed, finishing his carving of the glowing runes and nearly accidentally slashing a hole in Thor's chest when he whipped around and found the thunderer right behind him. Oh yes, Loki said, green eyes gleaming. And he hasn't seen the end of the trouble I will cause for him, the arrogant fool.

What can I do to help get you out of here? Thor's blue eyes implored, as he placed a large hand on his brother's shoulder.

The dark god smiled sharply. Oh how easy it had been to convince the guards that Thor and Mjolnir would be more than enough to keep him from escaping... Thor had played his part well, too, tossing Loki across the room and punching him for each snarky remark.

(After the guards had left, Thor apologized profusely. Loki laughed.)

Striding over to the control panel, Loki took Heimdall's sword and slid it in, the observatory beginning to spin and whir like a cloud of dragonflies, the power building bright and blue. He looked at Thor from beneath dark eyebrows as his chin tilted down, a smile scrawling darkly across his pallid face.

You can help me test out the fidelity of my bifrost.

Loki had aimed, and the bifrost beamed blue into a cloud of darkness in space the inky interior of which not even Heimdall's all-seeing gaze could penetrate.

"Farewell," Loki smirked as he sauntered towards the portal. He cast one last look over his shoulder at Thor's determined expression, and for a fraction of a second his smile actually appeared genuine, as he added: "Brother."

And then Loki was gone, and Thor pulled out Heimdall's sword and kicked the device so that the Observatory's aim was skewed from where Loki had directed it and was instead pointing somewhere between Musphelheim and Svartalfheim.

Guards came running.

"Where is Loki?!" Odin demanded when he entered the Observatory to find Thor having a staring contest with the assemblage of guards that dared not get any closer to him.

Thor regarded the Allfather calmly. "The bifrost is finished," he stated. "It has been tested by my brother and proven to work. Although, who knows in what condition he was set down."

Glaring furiously at his son and not breaking his gaze, Odin barked, "Heimdall!"

"Yes, my King," the gatekeeper intoned from where he'd entered the Observatory and was now standing slightly to the left of and behind Odin.

"What did you see?" the Allfather demanded.

"Nothing. I cannot see into the section of space that Loki has entered."

There was a deep growling at the back of Odin's throat.

"You!" he bellowed, turning on his son, expression livid and red. "You have just committed treason by assisting in the escape of a war criminal!"

"I helped Loki test the fidelity of this new bifrost," Thor said simply, undaunted. "You didn't honestly expect me to trust him enough to send me somewhere, did you?"

Odin spluttered, his single pale blue eye appearing as if it would pop out of his head, or at least burst a vein and turn red.

Keeping his face calm, it was all Thor could do not to start laughing at the current circumstances; he was almost afraid that if he did, he would hear that same, malicious humor in his voice, that had so recently carved itself onto Loki's face and gilded itself in his words.

Ah, this is better, Loki thought with a smile as he was set down on a barren moon, immediately lowering himself into a feline-looking crouch, his eyes dilating completely as they adjusted to the darkness.

Loki was always smiling now—he couldn't remember, in all his thousand or so years of life, having ever smiled as much as he'd been smiling in the past year.

Certainly there had been a time when his grins were not so adulterated with menace, and his joy had been a bright, pure thing, instead of the dark and twisted corpse it was now.

But it was difficult to recollect a time when he'd been enjoying himself so immensely, without such doubts and fears as had always plagued him.

Loki had never been brave.

Even now he wasn't brave—he was fearless.

(And that made all the difference in the worlds.)

What had once been nothing but an endless, smothering blackness, in which nothing was distinguishable except the sensation of rocks beneath his feet and cold airlessness around him, was now dimly lit by the stars that lay scattered about the dark matter, and Loki could make out the ghostly outlines of the rocky moon he'd landed on—a nondescript, misshapen chunk of frozen water and dust and rock and metal, a muddled thing that wasn't sure whether it should fall apart into a myriad of pieces or not.

Stepping over the delicate ground and following a large crack that zigzagged through the moon's surface, Loki strode fifteen strides to where the cracks that spiderwebbed over the entire rock spawned from: a crater in the center of which was the vague outline of a six-foot-two humanoid figure.

Loki shook his head with a smirk as his eyes brushed across it, remembering how pathetically scared and broken he'd been when he'd fallen there, and how a Chitauri patrol had found his mangled and weakened body and brought him back to where Thanos and the Other were waiting.

As soon as Loki had been able to collect enough of the scattered shards of his mind into something hardly sturdy but deadly sharp, Thanos had tried to break Loki again, and the titan cut himself open on the jagged fragments of the god's mind, splinters left in that indigo skin.

People are easier to manipulate when they think that they're in control. Their arrogance, Loki knew, would always be their downfall; they would believe whatever he said that made them feel like they were winning.

Thanos hadn't trusted Loki—he'd only trusted the trickster's fragile state, his own power and the Mind Gem.

Once Loki brought him the tesseract, he wouldn't need the god anymore.

Loki was fed up with being a tool that people thought they could exploit.

(It was no accident he lost the battle for Midgard. Really, if he'd truly wanted to take over then the humans would never have known until it was far too late.)

Thanos thought he had Loki in the palm of his hand.

Oh, if only Thanos knew just how wrong he was.

Standing up, Loki's darkened eyes pilfered through the secrets that crawled like spiders through the darkness, and his teeth glinted obsidian as his lips pulled up into a malicious sneer, eyes sparking like a wolf that had caught sense of its prey.

He could almost hear the universe whispering to him with the lips of fate. Whispering, Congratulations, Loki. You are all alone.

Not for the first time, Thor wondered where Loki was; where Loki had been; where Loki was going.

Not for the first time, Thor wondered if he would ever see his little brother again, or if Fate would sever Loki from him and throw the mischief god into an unstoppable vortex of darkness that Thor would be unable to pull him from.

Not for the first time, as Thor lay on his bed and stared sightlessly at the ceiling after Odin let him off easy, did he so hurt for his little brother, hunted and haunted and alone as Loki was.

You have me, Thor thought desperately. You'll always have me, Brother.

The dark god stalked off the rock and onto one of Yggdrasil's branches, where he began running along its shimmering, unsteady surface, feeling Yggdrasil's power pumping through his footsteps and collecting like tears of stardust on his cheeks.

It tasted like ash on his tongue.

Everything goes away, Loki thought. He smiled.

Burn, burn, crash and churn...

He slipped down one of Yggdrasil's leaves like a skateboarder on a stair rail, folding neatly our of Yggdrasil's boughs and landing on the top of Chitauri leviathan, rolling on impact and then sprawling himself flat across the cold, metallic scales, pulling the dark matter thicker around his black-clothed form as another Chitauri leviathan passed by above.

He saw the alien mothership some distance below him, and leaping up he ran along the top of the creature and jumped off its back, catching one of the strands of magic that drifted from Yggdrasil's leaves like spiderwebs and essentially ziplining along it to where it passed just above the Chitauri mothership, at which point he let go, rolling along the top before he felt glass beneath the skin of his hands and switched himself with his reflection so that he was now on the other side of the glass, inside the ship.

As he dropped to the ground in front of one of the aliens, his grin was cruel and merciless.

The half-robotic half-fleshed creature didn't even have time to register the Chitauri word that would be about the equivalent of, "Oh shit," before its vocal chords were slashed apart so it couldn't cry out as there was a burst of green light before the beady eyes of its insect-like face and it thought and felt no more.

The body was incinerated with a blast of magic that was warm and soft as a spring breeze, carrying away its ashes and dispersing them into the air, leaving no sign of the creature's life or death.

Loki breathed in the remains of his victim through his nose; it smelled of fear.

Moving through the murky, blood-stained shadows with a predator grace, Loki silently and inconspicuously murdered every Chitauri that crossed his path, as he crept closer and closer to the mothership's heart, sidling along ledges and crawling through vents in the ceilings to get past locked doors, the alarms of which he'd rather not set off.

Ideally, nobody would know he was here until it was too late, and they were either dead or he was long gone with his prize.

His prize wasn't hard to find.

All he had to do was send out faint pulses of magic through the ship, and then go in the direction from which they didn't come reverberating back.

Loki had remembered voices, when he'd been under Thanos' control, through the blue haze that filled his head when they thought he was unconscious with pain; he remembered Thanos saying what he would do if Loki somehow managed to fight against him.

The titan might have been arrogant, but he was not ignorant to the power and skill the mischief god possessed, nor his penchant for chaos and his reputation for being volatile and unpredictable.

Thanos' plan had included what he referred to as a 'Void Cube' which from what Loki had gathered was the direct opposite of the Tesseract—where as the Tesseract emanated pure power, this Void Cube sucked it up, making it impossible to use magic around the object, as well as enabling it to be used to actively draw the magic and life energy out of a creature.

Apparently the titan thought he could defeat and kill Loki through the means of such a relic.

But as Loki drops down into a stifling magic-lacking chamber near the center of the ship, he smiles sharply, wanting to laugh at the ridiculous notion; like he would lie down and let such an object be used against him.

The walls of the chamber were lined with Chitauri guns and flying devices, and he walks through the dim weapons vault, leather shoes silent over the metal grating until he finds, in the center of the chamber, a pedestal, upon which sits a cube the Tesseract's size.

Only this cube is flat, dark metal color, around the shade of iron, its surface engraved with ancient runes in a language so old and foreign that he hasn't learned it.

As he reaches out with long, pale fingers, his fingertips ghosting across the cube's surface, he feels his settle into automatic shut down—it throws up an impenetrable barrier so that as long as he doesn't use his magic around the parasitic relic, it couldn't tap into his life force and his connection to Yggdrasil, couldn't suck him dry.

He could feel it laying siege to his defenses—but as long as his walls didn't crack and the parasite didn't find its way in, he'd be okay.

Picking up the cube and placing it into the leather travel pouch he wore slung around his hips, he noticed it was denser than the Tesseract; while the Power Cube felt restless and radioctive, this Void Cube felt somber and sinister. If holding the Tesseract was the equivalent of holding a star that at any moment could go supernova, then holding the Anti-Tesseract was the equivalent of holding a star that was collapsing into a black hole.

There was suddenly a metallic thudding of Chitauri footsteps, and Loki ducked into a shadowed corner behind one of the flying scooters. As soon as the two aliens stepped into the dimly lit center of the chamber and saw that the cube was missing, a dagger abruptly seemed to sprout out of one's throat while a shadow swept out with a swift, deft twist, grabbed the other's head and broke his neck with the softest of cracks, like a twig being stepped on.

The bodies were incinerated even before the hit the ground.

With no movement that was not strictly necessary, the dark god wound his way out of the weapons vault and opening a grating in the wall, slipped into the vent and replaced the bars.

It was useful, being of far slimmer build than the Chitauri that inhabited the ship—while their bulky armor would never allow them entrance into these shafts, Loki, in his slim-fitting leathers could slink through with minimal trouble.

And Thanos likely wouldn't be thinking of such places either; he was, after all, a huge titan.

He was also a vivid shade of purple. Which Loki could guess meant that he didn't often have much use for trying to hide.

Loki traveled by means of small, alternative passages until he reached the outskirts of the ship, where they became smaller still and the doors between corridors were no longer all locked. He then slipped back into the halls.

When he'd been held here, he'd observed that the troops of Chitauri patrols were generally between two or three of the creatures, and traveled the ship's corridors counter-clockwise in a spiral from outside to inside, in intervals ranging from five minutes and fifty-four seconds near the center of the ship to forty-seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds around the perimeter.

They weren't particularly heavy on the guards however, considering they weren't exactly expecting any sort of intruders when they were floating in a cloud of dark matter in space, in, essentially, the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Most Chituari lay dormant until they were needed for battle. Things were more efficient that way.

Even such, Loki made sure to follow the paths that the groups of guards he had dispatched would have traveled, thus greatly reducing his encounters.

But of course, he was Loki—which meant that despite all his care not to leave any evidence that he'd traveled through the mothership, and he could easily have slipped in and out without anybody being the wiser, he couldn't leave with giving Thanos a bit of hell.

And so once he reached the outermost edge of the ship, he reached into his travel pouch and pulled out a glass vial, the contents of which were a nondescript muddy color, but when he backed up and tossed the vial against the wall, shattering the glass, there was an overwhelming scent of acid and everywhere the liquid touched it ate away, the thick metal walls rusting and crumbling away within seconds.

Reaching back into his pouch, he pulled out a white stone, using it to write something on the opposite wall, though it appeared to make no mark on the metal.

Just as the first group of Chitauri guards turned the corner, guns up as they immediately began firing at him, he sent a jar of black ink at the wall and sent a bladed smile at them, before jumping out of the hole in the side of the ship, straight into the void of space.

The Chitauri hurried to the gaping hole in the ship and stared down as the trickster was consumed by darkness. Turning around, the saw on the opposite wall that the ink had splattered darkly against the metal, staining everywhere except for some words of negative spaces the ink beaded right over.

When Thanos was brought to the scene, he was seething as he read the words: Writing in blood is awfully trite, don't you think?

"Loki," he growled furiously, voice like a couple tons of gravel avalanching down a concrete road on a mountainside and resonating off of neighboring hills. "I am going to end your miserable life, you Frost Giant wretch!"

Space was silent, and sucked away his voice like the Void Cube leached magic, leaving Thanos glaring and sneering in its dark face and trillions upon trillions of starry eyes.

Somewhere, the trickster god was laughing.

Loki had been gone for over a month already, and though Thor bothered the gatekeeper incessantly, Heimdall never had any news about his brother—Loki was too good at hiding.

He could be dying, and Heimdall would never know.

Eventually, Thor realized he couldn't just wait there for Loki, because Loki would never come back; Asgard was no longer Loki's home, and Thor knew this.

He knew it, but it was so, so hard to accept it.

Finally, Thor became resigned to the fact that Heimdall would never have any news for him.

And so he used Loki's bifrost to travel down to Midgard, where he cold visit Jane and help the Avengers against whatever villains happened to turn up.

(Thor kept almost hoping that one of them would be Loki.)

Nevertheless though, he routinely traveled back and forth between Midgard and Asgard; though his heart was in Midgard with Jane and the Avengers, he was still Prince of the Golden Realm, and being loyal to it he had to make sure that everything was going smoothly, that his mother was okay, that Odin wasn't doing anything stupid, and that the realms hadn't dissolved into war over some trifling conflict.

(And, though he'd never say it aloud, also to bother Heimdall about Loki. For though the gatekeeper routinely had no news for him, Thor knew that as long as Heimdall could not see Loki then Loki was alive.)

For the second time, Loki fell through the spaces between Yggdrasil's branches, unable to reach for his magic to guide him—and so he crashed past stars and tumbled through nebulae of dark matter and collided with asteroids of rock and comets of ice.

He fell he knew not how long, before his darkness-accustomed eyes registered a realm growing larger below him (or possibly above him, or beside him, considering it was space and he could be falling any direction), and he braces himself for the landing as he shoots through the atmosphere, his clothes catching on fire with the heat of his friction through the now-present air.

By the time he was flaming and hurtling in a spinning ball towards the surface of Svartalfheim his longs and skin were screaming with pain and his vision was a nauseating blur, though he manages to distinguish the brazen sand and black ruins from the dim and smoky sky enough to land on his feet like a cat, knees bending on impact even as he feels the bones of his shins crack and he pitches forward and rolls over his right shoulder, rolling and rolling and rolling until he runs out of momentum and the fire that had been consuming his leathers was smothered.

He lay there on his back staring up at the sickly sun, its rays weak and pallid as Loki's skin as they limped through the smoky, carbon-scented atmosphere, the clouds like fresh bruises on the firmament's sallow flesh.

He lay there, with his outfit smoking and the bones feeling as if their marrow was filled with molten metal, his dark hair, that had grown a few inches past his shoulders and had been immaculately slicked back, was now ruffled, singed and sticking up, having been burned choppy and manga-style just barely reaching to his shoulders.

He lay there, and he couldn't bring himself to move.

His green eyes were stuck wide open as he draws slow, shallow breaths, lying there till the violet night descendsed the sunset erratic as a bat's flight, the sun skipping along the horizon before finally sinking beneath.

Unable to reach for his magic to assist in his healing and unable to summon the willpower it would take to stand up, Loki lay there through the night and into the next morning, his mind fading in and out between consciousness and unconsciousness and subconsciousness.

Finally though he registered the chill of the dead Svartalfheim wind against his skin, and the sand that starts whipping up around him, heralding a sandstorm through the realm's desolate and forsaken deserts.

He had a brief moment where he thought, What of it? It doesn't matter if I rot here.

But then he remembered the way Thor had regarded him when he'd left Asgard—silent amazement, heavy sorrow, dark dread, fluttering hope, crushing resignation, churning desperation. The thunder god's features had been so twisted with emotions—his jaw clenched, his lips pursed, his nose flared, the skin around his eyes tight, his eyebrows furrowed and creasing his forehead.

He'd looked as if he couldn't decide whether he should laugh or cry, cheer or scream, yell or stay silent.

Thor had said haltingly, Promise me I will see you again, Brother.

I can't, Loki had replied. For it might turn out to be a lie.

The lie to me, he'd said, In case it turns out to become truth.

Loki had laughed, chuckling with sadistic mirth. In that case, I will do my best, he'd told his brother, grinning as if he was showing off fangs, as he continued, but don't blame me if your hope breaks your heart like Mjolnir broke the bifrost. Remember: I didn't force you to do that either.

Somehow though, the thought of letting Thor down still sat uneasily in Loki's gut, much to his chagrin. His slack face muscles then pulled into a scowl.

That was not the way of it, Loki told himself. He got to his feet not because he wanted to prove to Thor that he could be strong so Thor would be proud, but because he had so enjoyed Thor's pained and horrified expression when he'd let go of the spear, when he'd stabbed Thor on Stark Tower, during his trial with Odin, when the thunder god had visited him in his cell in Asgard; because he wanted to be able to cause Thor that kind of pain again.

To be able to throw everything in Thor's face—everything that Loki had been through and everything that Thor hadn't done.

He wasn't about to let Thanos take over and kill Thor. Killing Thor was Loki's job.

And that, Loki convinced himself, was the reason he was pushing himself unsteadily to his feet; the reason he ignored his fractured shins and parched tongue as the sand swirled around him and obscured his sight and he started running through the wastes of Svartalfheim, boots crunching over the rocks with a forsaken sound that was naught much more than a dehydrated wraith (just like every living thing in that dilapidated realm).

It had been months now, and Thor had still heard nothing of Loki.

The humans had of course noticed his false joviality and how gloom and depression were slowly lowering themselves upon him, spider-like, injecting their venom into his veins so that his usually bright and gregarious personality was dulled with them, and he took to pacing and long, brooding silences.

Jane had asked him what the matter was, but all Thor had told her was, "Loki."

He would say nothing more and so she just nodded as if in understanding; he figured she probably simply assumed he was still feeling betrayed over Loki attacking Midgard, and depressed that Loki was languishing in Asgard's dungeon.

It wasn't that Thor didn't trust Jane—it was just that he didn't feel he could possibly explain all that had happened with Loki: the torture, the bifrost, the memories, the farewell.

Really, though the weather in New York had admittedly been gloomier lately, Thor had managed to keep it at mist and light sprinkling. They should be glad it wasn't constantly storming.

Loki ran.

He ran and ran and ran, sleeping little and eating less.

He never lit any fires, no matter how cold or dark the nights got—partly because he was a Frost Giant and didn't get cold, partly because he wasn't afraid of the dark, and partly because fires attracted attention, and he ran into enough monsters and bandits as it was.

Though he couldn't use his magic, he was still deadly with daggers and proficient with a whip, and none who opposed him stood much of a chance against a feral God of Mischief.

He healed slower than usual and was covered with scrapes and cuts and bruises, his outfit was falling apart in tatters, and his shoes were beginning to wear through from running through the different realms, as he found a passageway between Svartalfheim and Musphelheim, and then Musphelheim and Jotunheim, and then Jotunheim and Vanaheim, and then Vanaheim to Midgard.

Damn that infernal Void Cube, he thought bitterly as he walked through the bustling streets of a human town, getting worried glances from all who passed.

Some scuttled away from him in fear and some asked if he was okay, to which he laughed gently and said, "Completely copacetic," to which some people, glancing his emaciated, battered and bloodied body over, told him forcefully that he should see a doctor.

He was bemused, to say the least. Why should they care about his wellbeing? They certainly wouldn't if they'd known he was the one who had tried to 'take over' their realm some time before—how long had it even been? He must have been on the run for months, he thought, though he had no idea how much time he'd spent in space. It could have been only a few months, it could have been a few years; he knew not.

All his time alone and running however, had, if anything, calmed him, in a way.

After Thanos and Odin's torture and the bifrost, Loki had been absolutely humming with hatred and ferocity and a desire to hurt people—but all his defenses of hatred and anger he'd had to keep up were pointless when there was no one to hold them up against. It only depleted valuable energy.

And so, as time had gone on, Loki's temperament had mollified, and he was feeling far less on the verge of shattering, as if away from everybody's whispers of, "Monster," he could let go of what they thought he should be, and just be... Loki.

What point was there in lying when there was nobody to lie to?

Or maybe it was also that Loki was, well, tired—the scorching fury had burned down and left him too exhausted to feel any glee over the deaths of the marauders and beasts that had attacked him, and he had not played with them but ended their lives as quickly and efficiently as possible.

He could not bring himself to care about them enough to even feel annoyance at their assaults.

They were in his way, and so he got them out of it. Simple as that.

And well, there was just something about surviving that left one little time to dwell in self-pity or self-loathing.

Get to Thor, he told himself, carrying on even as the soles of shoes wore completely through and he continued running till his feet bled.

At least the leathers were black, and didn't show all the dirt and gore.

The only truly annoying thing was that with all the skirmishes he'd been through and his inability to access his magic, his outfit was full of slashes and holes and his deathly pale skin showed through in places.

Also, all his coattails had been cut off, much to his mounting distress.

First there'd been the stray ghoul in Svatralheim; then there was the demon in Musphelheim with the ram horns; then there'd been the white bear in Jotunheim; then there'd been the bandits in Vanaheim that liked shiny things; and then there'd been a very rude subway train in Midgard; and then all his coattails had been severed.

It was at that point, as he walked through the mortal city, that he'd caught sight of three girls at one of the benches in a park, a jacket spread out in front of them as they chatted and giggled, covering the jacket in some strange, shiny silver substance.

It looked fairly strong, and when one of the girls, the one with blond hair and red glasses, tore off a long piece and began to spin it into a rope, his curiosity was officially piqued.

"Excuse me," Loki said, putting on his kindest, most charming smile (which was pretty damn charming) and walking up to the three teenagers. "Could you please inform me where I might be able to purchase..." he trailed off with a purposefully embarrassed smile as he gestured wordlessly at the silver substance.

The girls giggled. "Are you an actor in that war film they're currently shooting in the valley?" the brunette with a purple headband asked him eagerly, taking in his dashing features and bloody scratches she assumed were make-up, and his tattered outfit she assumed was a costume.

"Very astute," Loki grinned affirmatively, having absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but going right along with it. He'd managed to pick up a small amount of human culture when he'd last been there, however minimal.

Nodding again at the tape in the dark-skinned girl's hands, he raised a questioning eyebrow. "Where can I find some? I broke one of my mock weapons, you see," he explained.

He laughed. "I might have tactfully forgotten to mention how clumsy I am when I auditioned for the part."

"No wonder he's a klutz, with those long limbs of his," the blond with the glasses whispered to the dark-skinned girl, who giggled.

"Do you have paper and a pen?" she whispered back. "We could get his autograph!"

"Oh," the brunette said with a smile, "You can find duct tape at the hardware store just down the street," she said, pointing down the block. "See that green awning? That's the one."

"Thank you," Loki smiled, inclining his head.

He was about to leave, when the blond produced a piece of paper and a purple sharpie.

"Mr. Actor," she called eagerly, holding them out. "Do you think you could sign this paper for each of us, please?"

Loki blinked, thin lips parting slightly, but looking at their hopeful faces he quickly picked up his grin from where it had dropped off his face in confusion.

"Of course," he said easily, hesitating only a moment to think of a properly Midgardian-sounding name (the name, Tom Hiddleston, would do fine, he decided) before signing the paper with the name three times with a flourish, taking care to get as little dirt from his black gloves onto the clean white paper as possible.

They squealed their thanks, and he nodded, before striding off towards the hardware store to purchase some of this 'duct tape' with which to patch up his outfit.

Loki wasn't a thief.

It was simply that he was very good at 'finding' things—including, as it happened, Midgardian currency.

It wasn't like stealing a bit of paper was going to do anything to his already appallingly long list of offenses across the entirety of the Nine. (If that list was written down, it would probably stretch the length of the entire bifrost bridge by now.)

And so with his 'found' money Loki purchased a couple rolls of the silver duct tape (as well as a roll of camouflage, tie-dye, mustache, neon pink, neon orange, and black and green zebra stripes, simply because he could), and then secured himself quarters in the town's hotel.

The chambers could have fit into the closet of his chambers in Asgard, but it was larger than the dungeon cell, and the walls were a warm, buttery yellow, hung with pictures of Midgardians riding horses or cattle while wearing pointy boots and ridiculous floppy hats.

He kept the cream-colored curtains drawn closed, turning on the air conditioning, which hummed loudly.

Then Loki took shower.

The warm water ran off his lean body black with dirt and blood, stinging at his wounds.

Norns, he hadn't realized how disgusting he'd gotten. There was a bar of soap in the shower, as well as shampoo and conditioner, and when Loki was done there was none left.

He wrapped a white towel around his waist, picking up his clothes with the tips and tossing them into the tub. From the hardware store he'd acquired some castile soap, which he poured into the lukewarm water, taking one of the small towels and scrubbing them down.

The water was even darker then it had been when he'd taken his shower.

After removing his leathers, he went back over them with a damp rag to remove any dirt and grime he'd missed, then let them air dry.

He tried turning on the Midgardian television while he waited, but found it repulsively stupid, so he turned it off.

Usually he would amuse himself with illusions, but with the Void Cube with him he dared not—so instead he took out a few rolls of colorful duct tape and began playing with it.

Duct tape flowers, he discovered, were simple enough to make.

Roses were especially easy—honeysuckle flowers (they were Frigga's favorite) turned out to be more of a challenge, though Loki did figure it out, and within a time range humans would have widened their eyes and dropped their mouths at.

But then, there was a reason Loki was known through the realms as a genius.

Once his leathers were dried, Loki went over them with a leather conditioner he'd acquired, letting that dry (again—things took so long when he didn't have his magic).

It was the middle of the night by the time he started repairing the holes and worn places in his outfit with the silver duct tape.

He put a layer on the inside over the holes first, so that the outer layer wouldn't stick to him.

Taking his coattails carefully out of his traveling pouch, he used the duct tape to reattach them, and, in the case of the coattail the bear had nearly eaten he secured the tattered leather back together, and in the case of the coattail that the rude subway train had successfully devoured he made an entirely new one.

His boots required wrapping in tape in layer after layer after layer after layer, as he didn't want to have to repair them again too soon, and needed the soles thick enough.

Loki worked through the night and dawned his clothes in the morning, glancing at himself once in the mirror and cringing.

It was certainly an improvement over the day before—his hair had been atrociously matted, his pale skin obscured with dirt, his outfit more brown than black; now though his hair was soft and drifted around his thin, pallid face, his outfit now more silver than black.

Though he almost looked worse for the removed grime, as now his sickly pallor and bony features were easily visible, as were the cuts that hadn't fully healed and the large, dark circles beneath his shadowed, sunken eyes, it gave his face a distinct skeletal quality. Or as a Midgardian teenager might describe it: it looked as if someone had gone at him with black, purple and blue eyeshadow and given him garish raccoon eyes.

The repaired outfit was definitely better though; even if it was almost entirely covered with silver plastic, at least it wouldn't be falling apart any second.

Brushing the hair out of his face and quickly turning away, he figured he would stop off at a store to get some hair gel or something.

He checked out of the hotel as early as possible, and just so happened to pass a BMW motorcycle that was parked on the side of the street with its key in, so he borrowed it.

He was in a town in Oregon, he'd been told, and Stark Tower was in New York city, which was on the other side of the continent.

But that was where Thor would be, and reluctant as he was to admit it, Loki needed Thor to destroy the Void Cube.

Mjolnir would be a match for it, surely.

And with that Loki started the motorcycle—a Midgardian device he was unfamiliar with, but really, how hard could it possibly be?—and drove for two days straight (only crashing a couple times) till he reached New York.

Pulling up short in front of Stark Tower, Loki felt too weary to even smirk as his green eyes flit over it.

He would be seeing Thor soon.

The thought sent shivers down his spine, both tensing his gut with dread and making his heart leap with relief, as he left the somewhat crunched BMW in a red zone and striding towards the tower.

It took only a glance at the glass doors to know that there were surveillance cameras, probably trained to recognize his features and open fire on him; the doors weren't an option.

He would need an alternative way in.

A window would do nicely. Surely there was a fire escape or something he could use to climb up...

Fun fact #1: Loki's traveling pouch is magicked and so can fit just about as much stuff as he wants. And although the Void Cube sucks up magic, it sucks up magic that is being emitted and continues drawing from it, but since Loki's pouch is simply a magical item and is not actually emitting any magic, the cube has no effect on it.

Fun fact #2: When Loki wrote, Writing in blood is awfully trite, don't you think? he was being metaphorical and meaning that Thanos trying to destroy the worlds was incredibly hackneyed and stale, and would be ineffectual - people haven't succeeded in that ambition before, and people are no doubt going to be striving to end the world later.

Fun fact #3: The Blood Eagle torture was something I read about in one of the myths - Odin threatened Loki with it.

Fun fact #4: Loki is kind of a hypocrite. He sneers at the fact that people think they're in control, and yet he thinks he's in control. (He's probably not in as much control as he believes.)

Fun fact #5: Loki is also extremely prideful - in this story, Thanos had more control over Loki during the events of "Avengers" then Loki would ever admit. He would much rather say that everything was his own doing. Though in my headcanon here Loki did purposefully he lose, he was indeed forced to do most of it, which I tried to show with Loki's subtle infiltration of the Chitauri mothership here - that if it had truly been Loki trying steal the Tesseract and take over the world, he wouldn't have gone about it so forthrightly and obviously.

Fun fact #6: Although, Thanos didn't actually want to take over Midgard, he just wanted the Tesseract. However, he thought that Loki would want to take over Midgard, because Loki believes he was born to be a King - really, Loki just wanted a bit of revenge on Thor by threatening the planet the thunderer loves, and so Thanos was still able to manipulate Loki into trying to take over Midgard and retrieve the Tesseract in the process.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! I'd love to hear your thoughts :3