The Retrieval of Loki Odinson
“Thor. I found him.”
The connection on the walkie-talkie breaks instantly, Thor presumably rushing off to join him. Tony almost hopes he’ll never arrive.
He’s seen plenty of appalling things in the 41 years he’s been alive. Innocent blood shed. Heartless, greedy slaughter. Towns, homes, destroyed.
The spaceship he’d seen in the sky the day in 2012 when it all began.
It’s ironic, really, how the thing he’d vowed to never see again is now the cold steel floor where he stands, knees buckling at the gruesome sight before him. Damnit, damnit, damnit, he thinks, sweat trickling down his neck. He wonders faintly if he’ll have to give up his title of “world’s most brilliant man” for coming to this hellhole with only a deranged god of thunder for support. He never should’ve agreed to this.
Which is an asshole of a thought, but also kind of the truth.
Then again, how could he have refused?
Thor had always sort of been a mystery to the rest of the Avengers. He’d dropped out of the sky one day in 2012 in a flash of lightning that scared the piss out of Clint. He explained over a disintegrating piece of alien ass that last year he’d been dubbed earth’s protecter by Phil Coulson. And when they saved New York together from a genocidal being named Proxima Midnight, he’d disappeared in the blink of an eye.
He didn’t even stop to have victory lunch with them.
He’d drop by for a few friendly visits the next few months, but all he’d do was steal their poptarts and sneak into the game room to watch Disney rom-coms when he thought everyone else was asleep. Surprising everyone, he seemed to grow a strange attachment to Bruce.
Which was totally fine. He was nice enough, helped them out when they needed it. It didn’t matter that he barely ever talked to anyone. It didn’t matter that he had an aura of profound sadness about him that only Bruce could ever get to. It wasn’t slightly disturbing how unreasonably emotional the guy would get while watching the Lion King, and it wasn’t worrying at all how Thor would always be wearing the same black cape.
“It’s a mourning cloak,” he’d explained briefly, tight-lipped. Then he’d never mentioned it again.
Until he’d crashed Tony’s party one fateful summer evening, and Tony’s life was ruined for what felt like the 100th time that decade.
The sounds of muffled shrieks and banging metal grates his ears overhead. He clenches his teeth. Thor promised he’d be quiet. Bitchass.
He feels so useless listening to Thor go full-on judgmental day on space nazis upstairs as he does the equivalent of cowering under a table.
The door in front of him seems to taunt him. Logically he knows he should go in. Turn the knob. At least touch the knob. But one peek through the little barred window made him re-taste his afternoon chipotle all but five minutes ago.
Breathe, his mind suggests before he can overthink himself to tears. If a friend has to trust you over his own family, you help his ass out no matter what.
With that in mind, he enters the cell.
It’s hell packed into the frame of a 90 pound Asgardian.
The smell hits Tony like a wave—blood and waste and vomit and every imaginable stink indicating complete and utter physical agony. Tony pinches his wrist, breathing deeply from his mouth. Breath. Breath. Eyes open. He can do this.
The body dangles from the ceiling in the farthest corner of the room. Chains suspend him midair, chains with hooks at the bottom that drive into his wrists, tearing muscle and bone. The skin, a tapestry of gashes and open wounds, is a shade of sickly blue just like Proxima promised. A frost giant, whatever the hell that is. The limbs are jerked in unnatural positions, tangling and folding with each other. Chunks of flesh lie in various puddles on the ground, their previous resting places leaking and pulsing with blood. A long tangle of filthy hair hides the face, and Tony can’t help but think that that’s a good thing.
The stone walls are soaked with blood, both fresh and old. Some are spotted with mold.
Tony wants to say something, but no words come to mind. He doesn’t even know if He’d be able to hear him.
The door creaks open. Tony hears a gasp. His heart sinks. “Thor—”
Thor gives him no attention, rushing straight to the body. His face crumples. Thor’s never known to be scared in the three years Tony’s known him, but now he looks terrified. Tony knows the beginnings of a panic attack when he sees one. “Take it easy big guy, deep breaths now, you’re no use if you’re a mess—”
Thor hands fumble with the chains, sliding from the slippery blood. He tugs too hard on one chain, and it tears completely, leaving a gaping hole in its place. Thor sobs.
Tony’s grasp is firm when he grabs Thor’s shoulder. “Breathe,” he demands. Breathe, he reminds himself as Thor inhales a shaky breath. He helps with one of the hooks, biting down a grimace at the feelings of blood under his fingernails. “You came all the way down here to save him, you can wait a few seconds more to untangle him safely.”
“I did this.” Pupils blown, short wheezes, shaking hands. Thor begins to cry. “I did this, I did this, I wasn’t fast enough, I did this—”
“Hey—No.” he snaps under Thor’s nose. “This is not your fault, okay? It’s not. And what happened in the past doesn’t matter anymore, because you have a chance to save him now. And panicking definitely is not going to help.” He yanks another hook from His wrist. Thor flinches. “You can do this. You gotta fucking do this, bud.”
They work silently, the only sounds being Thor’s muffled whimpers and the squelching of flesh. Soon enough, the body is freed.
It collapses. Thor barely catches it in time.
He turns the covered face towards him, brushing the hair aside with impossible tenderness. “Loki,” he whispers.
The face is the most terrifying part. While it’s no less covered in blood than the rest of his body, the horrid blankness when the eyes flutter open makes Tony’s stomach drop. His grips on Thor tightens.
“Brother.” Thor’s voice is soft, so soft. “It is I. I’ve come for you at last. I’m so…I’m so sorry, I—”
Loki’s eyes don’t seem to see the knuckles tracing his battered face. A tear falls on his face, one of Thor’s. “I’m so sorry.”
“We gotta go, buddy.” Tony gives a him a light shake. Thor buries his face in Loki’s chest, pulling his closer in his arms. “You kind of started a brawl up there. We can continue this where it’s safer.”
“He’s so cold,” Thor weeps. “He’s freezing. That isn’t normal, is it?”
“Thor please. We can help him. I can help him. It’s not too late. But we have to go.”
Thor nods, sniffing. He scoops his brother up in his arms, wrapping his own cape around his shoulders like a blanket. “All will be well, Loki. I promise. Just hold on.”
As they leave the ship behind, escaping on the stolen space pod, Tony notices how Loki’s eyes stay open the entire time. Empty and blank and unnerving—black holes, just like the one he’d been lost to.
He reassures Thor to the best of his ability the whole ride back, but he can’t help but truly believe they were too late.
What an asshole of a thought.