C18H27NO3

Natasha found him on the roof top, clutching his hand to his chest, skin peeling on his hand, swollen and bleeding.

“Loki, Loki,” she whispered, urging him to look up at her with her voice alone. Her hands fluttered about, knowing she couldn’t touch him when he was like this. Not in this form. “Tell me what I can do,” she pleaded, falling to her knees in front of him, wanting so desperately to reach her hand out and cup his face in her hands, to smooth back the wet hair.

“There’s nothing, just, uh,” his uninjured hand shook as he lifted it to grab at his pouches, “get out one of the syringes; break it, but don’t let it,” he huffed a pained breath, teeth gritting, “spill.”

She hurried to comply, watching how he bent his torso away from her to prevent all chances of his skin touching hers.

The syringe broke with a well placed blow with her knife and she looked up at him, fingertips chilling from where she was holding it. “What now?”

He held out the injured hand, where the skin was open and raw, weeping silently, blood spilling over his fingers, dropping onto the ground where it sent little pulses of ice into the water, freezing it. “Pour it, pour all of it.”

She did and tried not to flinch at the agonized scream he let out.

The sight alone hurt her about as much as it hurt him.

Wisps of his magic came up around his hand, she saw, watched them envelope the wounded appendage, seeming to want to shield it from the air and everything around it.

The skin seemed to slowly knit back together, the blood flow ceasing and Natasha sighed softly in relief as Loki’s skin returned to its normal pale hue and the second it was normal, she pulled him close, hands cupping his face and pushing away wet strands of hair that were clinging to his cheeks.

“Are you okay?” she whispered softly and he nodded, eyes slowly focusing in on her face and a lazy smile spread across his lips.

“How’s the battle?”

“They haven’t slowed their approach. If anything, they’re wilder now that Amora’s gone and there’s so many of them.”

Loki stumbled to his feet and she straightened as well, looking over the edge of the building. “We’re short on time. I think Tony’s officially done and the Hulk looks almost done, too.”

“What do we do?”

“I need to,” he heaved, stumbling forward a few steps and she placed a hand on the small of his back, looking at him in concern, “get to Thor.”

“Loki?”

“I’m fine, Nat. Just, when you kill a mage, their magic goes out. I’m lucky Amora wasn’t as strong as she could have been. If her magic had been more mature, it would have leveled the building.”

“Dangerous,” Natasha muttered and Loki shot her an easy grin.

“Tell me about it.”

“What would yours do?” Natasha asked as they ran across the street after Loki teleported them to the ground. He tossed her a confused look, leaping over bodies strewn over the road. “Your magic,” she clarified, hurrying after him.

There were scorch marks wherever his feet touched and she frowned at that. As far as she knew, from what he had told her, Loki was a Frost Giant like his father. He shouldn’t be leaving marks that were caused by flames.

“If I was killed—I don’t want to be conceited, but it’s probably level the entirety of New York State, at the least—depending on the location.”

She stumbled a bit at that.

“Go help the good captain, Natasha. If you come any further with me, you might be killed.”

She nodded and he grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before running off down the road. When she glanced at her hand, it was smarting and red on some fingers and chillingly cold on the other fingers.

She tried not to think about it too deeply as she turned and launched herself into the battle again alongside Clint and Steve, feeling just as exhausted as the rest of them.

“Thor,” Loki yelled out as he ran down the street, nearing where his brother was with a small group of enemies. He barely managed to duck out of the way as a body flew over his head, feet burning as they skidded against the asphalt.

Thor’s eyes were wide, pupils blown, the blue of his iris almost completely swallowed by black. His teeth were bared in a snarl, brow furrowed.

He looked feral.

Terrifying.

Beautiful.

Loki slowly eased forward once he had the blonde’s attention, sending out a whip chord of green seidr to run through the remaining few enemies. Thor’s eyes followed the string of color.

It was maybe wrong of him to love Thor like this, reduced to his baser instincts, near animalistic, but Loki couldn’t help it. It was funny, but Thor was almost smarter like this, more perceptive, attuned to every little movement or shift in the body before him.

“There’s quite a number of bodies here, don’t you think, Thor?”

Those lips twitched; a low growl rumbling in the man’s chest.

He stepped closer as Thor turned his full attention on him, strong body turning to face him completely. The hammer slipped from the man’s hand, thudding on the ground and sending a series of cracks through the asphalt.

“You like numbers, right?”

The snarl lessened, but the growl did not. It became louder, slipping past slightly parted lips, shaky and low, almost like whimpering. It sounded like a sound of mourning and Loki’s brow furrowed in confusion and he walked forward, more hesitant now, but he had already started—couldn’t stop now.

If there was one thing he knew for certain was that a Thor in a berserker rage hated when something backtracked.

“Care to count with me?”

He let his seidr pool just underneath his skin as he took a few more slow steps forward, watched Thor carefully.

“One,” he murmured, another deliberate step closer and Thor watched him closely, taking a heavy step forward and the growl grew in intensity and thunder rumbled. Loki resolutely did not jump, merely braced himself against the slightly heavier rain. “What’s the next one, Thor?”

It took the blonde a moment in which he took another heavy step forward before uttering a gruff “two”, breaking the growling he had been doing, but his eyes portrayed some sort of longing and Loki didn’t understand.

Why did Thor look like that?

He looked like his heart had been ripped out and now it was being offered back to him.

Like he wanted to take, but was scared.

“Three,” the raven breathed, relaxing a bit because as long as Thor was responding, then it was good—it was safe. He waited a few seconds, waited till Thor was a bit closer, just a meter away. “Four,” he whispered, voice just barely loud enough over the roar of the rain,

Thor covered the rest of the distance between them in two long strides and Loki felt nervousness sink into his bones because Thor never got this close of his own volition—not when he was like this and not when he was completely himself either.

“Five,” the thunder god growled before his mouth was on Loki’s, hot and heavy and dominating.

Loki blinked, eyes wide, lip parting unconsciously and he fought against the desire to pull back because dammit, he had been getting over him. Thor was still in the berserker mindset, still not himself. One wrong move and he could very easily decide to snap Loki’s spine, whether Thor actually wanted to or not.

He fell limp against Thor’s body, let himself be gripped tight and forced close, let his mouth be plundered by a tongue, let his hands grip Thor’s biceps to keep himself stable and grounded.

His magic slipped out, wrapping around Thor’s body, seeking him both inside and out and one lone tendril slipped up to the blonde’s head, wrapped around his mind and Loki finally pulled back—wrenched himself out of the strong grip.

“Six.”

Thor’s eyes slowly widened, pupils shrinking to a normal size and comprehension coming over his face like a tidal wave.

“Loki,” he breathed and the mentioned male barely managed to suppress a shiver.

The way Thor said his name—like it was a prayer.

“Are you with me, Thor? Look at my eyes,” he urged and Thor’s wide eyes focused on him, focused on his eyes instead of staring dazedly at a random point behind Loki.

“I—I don’t know why—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Thor, shush, stop talking,” Loki cooed, reaching up and brushing away wet strands of blonde hair. “You can’t panic and you can’t fall asleep right now. We still need you. The fight isn’t done quite yet. Can you stay conscious for me?”

Clouded blue eyes stared at him before Thor slowly bobbed his head up and down in response, a weak nod and Loki let broad hands grip his shoulders, let his seidr slip in through the skin of the blonde, let it vitalize his energy.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Thor whispered and Loki drew back, letting Thor’s hands slip from his shoulders and they left a path of heat down his arms.

Loki turned away and tried to push the feelings away.

Thor flew ahead to rejoin with the group, though Loki couldn’t help but feel it had more to do with the fact that the large blonde man didn’t want to be left alone with his adoptive brother that he had just kissed.

Sighing, Loki teleported to the top of a building, casting frantic eyes around to find where the hell these monsters were coming from because there was no other way they were going to win this. Those things needed to be stopped at the source for them to win.

And they were running out of time.

The energy in Thor Loki had revitalized wouldn’t last for a long battle. Steve, Natasha, and Clint were already reaching the end of their rope in terms of energy and Tony was probably exhausted, too, though it was a bit difficult to tell with the suit on.

Bruce was still in the Hulk form, but Loki wasn’t exactly sure how much longer that would last. Probably not much longer, now that he thought about it.

It was probably a portal. These creatures were clearly not from Midgard, but Loki didn’t know where the portal was.

Turning around, eyes flying about, he ran a hand through his hair, not caring for the blood that drenched the strands and the rain.

“Guys, we need to find a portal. It’ll look like a hole, but you should be able to make out what’s on the other side. It’s probably where the monsters are exiting from. Chances are, the tesseract is powering it—”

“Otherwise it would have closed when Amora died,” Clint concluded and Loki looked down at him on the battlefield. The man looked pissed and tired and like he was about to either collapse from exhaustion or throw a temper tantrum at any second. “What a bitch,” Clint hissed, jabbing a knife into a creatures neck with probably more force than necessary.

There was an itch just underneath his skin and his nails raked across what was accessible to them, searching for the source, trying to supply some form of reprieve. His teeth gritted and his nails dug into the skin of his neck and his hands, feet shifting restlessly on the ground, scraping against hard cement.

“By the Nine,” he breathed in irritation as the itch increased, now just shy of painful—and seriously, now, in the middle of a battle?

A shiver of heat ran down his back and that was definitely not normal.

Grunting, his hands attempted to follow, attempted to claw out whatever was causing this infernal feeling.

He didn’t want it.

It needed to be cast out.

Be gone!

Holding back a whine that would surely filter through the comm. and alert his other team members, he locked his limbs, arms falling stiff at his sides, nails cutting into his palms to make sure he restrained himself.

A portal, he was supposed to be looking for a portal—why wouldn’t the itch stop?

It was like magic, encompassing him all at once, just under his skin, but it wasn’t his own. His own was cold, chilling, numbing, at least to him. This magic was hot, burning, itching and he cursed in his mind. He had read books on this when studying his magic, he should’ve known what to expect when killing a mage.

Loki stretched, rising on his tip toes and leaning to the rights, fingers wide and grasping as they just barely brushed the leather of what he wished to grab. Letting out a grunt as he frantically pushed just that smidge higher that his foot could give, balancing on the very tips of his toes of one foot, the other leg thrown out in an attempt to keep him balanced.

Nails clamping on the spine, he tugged, letting out a small shout of triumph as the book popped free, he flailed, left hand grasping the ladder he was currently on just in time, barely preventing a fall that would have ended in severe injuries.

“Finally,” he breathed, clambering off the steps and running on thin legs to the nook where he had been piling all the other books he had read so far in the last few days. Shimmying through the stacks, he plopped down on the cushions spread on the floor, legs automatically drawing up to his chest and book becoming propped on knobby knees.

The sun moved across the sky as e continued flipping through pages, reading, absorbing, learning and drinking in the knowledge provided.

“The dangers of killing a mage are minimal, despite most accounts. It was discovered that making sure their magic is muted is best, inaccessible to them so when they are killed, their magic will implode and destroy itself rather than explode.”

He hummed, sitting up straighter as his legs fell open to cross, leaning forward a bit. Displaying his hand in front of his, emerald eyes took in long pale fingers and perfectly filed nails and up a small wrist to a thin, hairless arm.

“That’s how I’ll have to be killed,” he mused quietly and in the span of mere moments the book was shut and he was curled in a ball, body shaking through tremors at the sheer thought of being murdered with no chance to protect himself.

At least Thor would have a chance, shackled or not. He was a warrior, not to mention he was destined for the throne. That meant that Odin’s spear would probably be handed down to Thor and knowing the blonde, he would probably have his own powerful weapon long before he was old enough for the throne.

Loki, though, he would only have his magic to rely on. No magical weapon for the scorned son of Odin, the child no one wanted to exist.

He could hear the whispers when he walked by, saw the pointing fingers and disgusted snarls in his direction when he walked past. He was well aware of what people thought of him. It was no secret to him.

“Oh, there he goes.”

“He looks nothing like the King and Queen.”

“He was probably the result of a scandal. You know how royals can get that stuff kept under wraps.”

“He brings shame to the House of Odin and to Asgard as a whole.”

“Shouldn’t e be dead?”

“Mother, is that him? Is that the bastard?”

“Don’t say it so loud. He might hear you. Norns know what he would do if he did.”

Walking through the common areas was a special sort of hell in and of itself.

He would prefer to hide away in the library, hidden behind rows upon rows of books, the rich smell of ink and old pages and leather bound piles. Words that spelled delicious stories, spoke of facts and truths, trivial things that no one would typically care to know, but Loki did.

Because Loki was the same; a trivial fact no one cared to know about.

If he were to be slaughtered, he would have no fighting chance for he would be bound in chains that would suppress his very being, his core. And he’d be run through, maybe made an example of, or simply have his head cut off and be done with it.

He wouldn’t stand a chance.

By the time it became dark and he heard the guards come looking for him to inform him it was time for dinner, the cushions he had been curled upon were soaked through with tears and snot and the tremors had hardly subsided.

It was Amora’s magic, clawing through him, burning him from the inside out. Lips parting to let out a soundless scream, he sent his own magic after it, a war raging in his body as his skin flashed uncontrollably between the royal blue of his family and the pale Asgardian hue most knew him by.

His stomach churned as he tried to maintain the Asgardian appearance, keep some form of defense against the burn. He didn’t want to imagine what the pain would feel like in his Jotun form. The brief flashes of brighter, hotter pain were enough for him.

“I’ve got eyes on the portal,” came over the come, distracting him momentarily from the battle raging inside of him. He would see burns appearing on his skin, the red irritation on the backs of his hands, the liquid fire scorching his veins, making them glow.

His neck was swollen, his lungs straining, almost as if he had inhaled too much smoke and the oxygen wasn’t getting in, wasn’t processing—there wasn’t enough, not enough, never enough.

“It’s going to take something massive to get that flow to stop, at least long enough for someone to close it.”

Gritting his teeth, drawing breath in thinly, he managed to rasp out, “I’ve got a plan.”

Loki’s plans were always great, he liked to tell himself. Most of the time they went off without a hitch, then a few times they went off with only a minor hitch. It was very rare that his plans didn’t work.

There was one time, though, where his plan hadn’t worked. One of the rare times, but it had been enough to label him as unreliable in future situations, apparently.

Thor had never trusted him as readily after that.

It had been when they were young, foolish boys wanting to go on adventures; when they thought nothing could come between them.

It had been Thor’s idea to leave the castle grounds and head into the city during a festival at night. However, it had been Loki’s plan that got them there.

Out through the window, careful steps through the garden, clambering over the wall and then sprinting down the edges of the walkway leading into the castle; that was the plan Loki had come up with and it had worked.

Most people probably would have planned to go down a path far away from the main one, but there was always a chance something could go wrong—this Loki knew—and he refused to take the chance of either one of them getting hurt and then being too lost to get adequate help.

It was not how either of them wanted to die, especially not while being out doing something as harmless as going to a festival.

The festival was a villagers’ thing, a gathering of everyone and there was drinking and plenty of food and games to play. Thor had always been fascinated by them for a reason unknown to Loki, but he had wanted to make it happen for Thor because Thor was his brother and he loved him with all of his heart and then more.

Clinging to Thor’s hand tightly, Loki tugged his brother along down the path, the small ball of light clasped between his fingers enough to illuminate their pathway. His magic wasn’t yet powerful enough for teleportation or the like, but he could make a ball of light no problem.

“Dear brother, how you manage to pull these things off, I will never know,” Thor breathed from behind him and when Loki spared a glance back it was to see the blinding white smile on his brother’s face and twinkling cerulean orbs.

It made his chest feel tight and his heart flutter.

That was normal, though.

“Talent, Thor, talent,” he responded in kind as they picked up the pace, stepping quickly down the slope and practically running into the town below.

The festival was already in full swing when they got there and Loki breathed a sigh of relief because they made it, they were there and if the grin on Thor’s face was anything to go by, he had succeeded in making is brother happy.

That was all he wanted in life.

For Thor to be happy; it was enough for him.

He could die now and considered his life worth it.

Of course, that wasn’t what he literally desired. No, not now when Thor was tugging him through the streets, hood of his cloak pulled up just like Loki’s as they navigated through people milling about at stands and sitting areas.

“Look over here, brother,” Thor shouted; stopping and raising his arm to point, tugging Loki closer whilst doing so. Loki looked in the direction indicated and smiled softly at the sight. Where Thor was pointing was where the Bifrost was situated and it looked gorgeous in the lighting.

The orange glow of the lit torches tinted the sky a bit lighter like the rays of sun, but dimmer, warmer yet somehow colder. And the star twinkling in the backdrop made him shiver. Amongst it all, though, up there, lay the Bifrost, the long bridge and its rainbow coloring startling against its background.

Absolutely gorgeous.

“It’s beautiful,” Loki murmured softly, turning his head to look over at Thor who was already looking at him with a grin large enough to take over half of his face.

“Indeed.”

Tightening his grip on Thor’s hand just slightly, Loki guided his brother through the festival, stopping and allowing his brother to try different foods they didn’t serve in the castle, laughing whenever Thor screwed his face up in distaste for certain meals.

It was nice; fun.

The trek home was where things went downhill.

It seemed like they would make it through all right, like nothing bad could happen. They had already succeeded in leaving. Getting back in would be exceptionally easy. Or, at least, it should have been.

Loki didn’t know what exactly went wrong, but next thing he knew, Thor was crying out in pain from the inside the garden. He clambered up the wall, slipping over and dropping onto the ground before looking about frantically for his brother.

“Thor?” he hissed, taking a few steps forward and nearly tripping over his brother’s body from where he was lying on the ground, face screwed up tight in agony. “Oh Norns, Thor,” he whispered, falling to his knees and taking hold of his brother’s shoulder, his eyes becoming wet quickly. “Are you alright? Please tell me you are well, brother, please.”

“My arm,” the blonde gritted out and Loki’s eyes tracked down to where it was clutched protectively to the blonde’s chest and he snapped his fingers, sparking a flame to appear to aid his sight. “Oh,” he breathed; eyes wide.

The bone was poking out of the skin and there was blood everywhere, probably too much see the extent of the damage.

“Okay, okay. We need to get you to a healer, Thor, okay? I need you to stand with me and I’ll get you there.”

Thor vigorously shook his head, teeth grinding, jaw clenched. “No, no,” he groaned, twisting away on the grass. “They’ll find out we left. We’ll be in trouble. Father will be furious.”

“No, no, he won’t.”

“Loki—”

“He won’t be angry because he won’t find out, alright? Just do as I say. Now, get up, come on.” It was a struggle to get Thor to stand and Loki couldn’t do much—not at this age. He had only just started to develop his seidr. The most he could do was suction off some of the pain, though not much.

“What do we, what do we tell them?”

“Say we were playing in the garden; you climbed one of the trees and the branch broke.”

Thor nodded shakily and as they neared the door, Loki cried out for the guards, for anyone nearby to help them out.

The guards arrived not moments later, picked Thor up, and ran down the halls to where the healers were, shouting orders left and right and Loki merely watched from where he was standing; Thor’s blood smeared over his hands and the front of his shirt.

That was what he looked like, that greeted Odin and Frigga, when they rushed out of the healer’s room, relieved that Thor was fine, it was nothing more than a broken bone.

“You did this!”

“We were just playing, father.”

“You should know better! You should protect each other! You probably know every single bit of every single tree out there, how much every branch can hold. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I didn’t see, I didn’t realize—”

“You damn right didn’t,” Odin hissed, reaching down and grabbing Loki by the ear, dragging him further inside the castle. “And that injury could have been a lot worse because of it.”

He suffered three nights in the golden room, where light reflected off every single surface, sleep close to impossible to have when it was never dark.

He hadn’t even known how long he’d been in there until they finally let him out.

Tony landed next to Loki, the suit falling heavily onto the cement rooftop as he turned a masked face to look at the agent. “Alright, is your comm. off?”

Loki nodded and Tony mimicked the movement to show his own was off.

“Amora’s magic managed to root itself inside of me when I killed her. It’s trying to end my life as we speak, but my own is keeping it contained.”

“Sounds painful,” Tony muttered and Loki let out a derisive snort. His lips pulled into a weak smile.

“Very; now I need you to get me to the portal. I’ll release her magic into it—it should cause a large enough explosion to destroy whatever is on the other side.”

Tony nodded, stepping closer as his face mask slid up, revealing his expression to Loki. “There’s a ‘but’ in there, though, isn’t there?”

“It’s most likely a one way trip. I cannot assure your life or my own. That’s why I wanted to talk to you with the comm. off. Chances are that once they catch on to the plan, they’re not going to be very happy about it.”

“What happens when the explosion goes off?”

“Thor will destroy the encasing when the tesseract is, breaking the stability and shutting the portal.”

“With us potentially still on the other side—wow,” the brunette breathed, slouching within the confines of the suit, breath leaving him in a thin hiss. “Wow, okay, Jesus.”

“I understand if you choose not to. It does not make you less honorable a warrior. I have turned away from my own fair share of battles as well when it comes to putting my life at risk.”

“Then, why now?”

“Those situations were far less dire. This one is far more dangerous.”

Tony nodded his head, turned brown eyes to look at the streets below, littered with bodies of those not of this world. “Let’s do it.”