The arrival
All he could do was clue Thor into the fact that he knew not where the tesseract was, hoping the Chitauri saw it as boasting and not an attempt at sneakily helping him. And when Tony tackled Thor away, all he could do was settle in and watch the fight. It was always only all he could. He could never do more. He was in too much pain to go anywhere, mental and physical. Being thrown to the rocky ground had opened some wounds, small ones to be sure, but the ones that had yet to close were making his head spin.
And it didn’t get any better when the fighting ended, and he was brought aboard the helicarrier. Though it had been his target, he was not happy to be there. Everything hurt, and the revelation that maybe one relationship he had wasn’t completely fake made his mind numb.
His plan, no, the Chitauri’s plan for him was coming to fruition. He was one step closer to getting them back. One step closer to righting the wrongs they endured just for having him as a parent. He doubted they would forgive him, but he wasn’t out for forgiveness. He just needed to make sure they were all right. That's all he wanted, all his actions taken just to get them to safety. To a life they deserved. He sat on the floor of his cell and ran over the plan, again and again. It was going to be okay. He would find them. His hands balled into fists at his sides, and he resisted the urge to punch the glass of the circular cage he was held in. Fury had said if he even touched the glass he would get dropped, and he didn't really feel like testing that theory.
Up above, in the main part of the helicarrier, Thor, Captain capitalism, the green monster, and the black widow were no doubt talking about what to do with him. He was right, although it doesn’t play out the way he expected it to go in his mind.
(The Watcher would like to note that this is not the point in which this timeline differs from the timeline you know. It started thousands of years ago, when Loki had children like in the myths.)
They all sat at a table, watching the footage as Fury walked away.
“So.” Steve says. “Loki’s gonna drag this out. Thor, what’s his play?”
No response.
“Thor?”
Thor snapped to attention. “He has an army, called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard, not of any world known. They will win him your planet, in return I suspect for the tesseract.”
“I don’t think we should be focusing on Loki, that dude's mind is a bag of cats. You can smell crazy on him.”
Thor’s eyes darted to bruce, and immediately his instincts told him that he should be speaking up for Loki in this situation. Something wasn’t right.
“Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother. As such… I don’t think he is in his right mind.”
Tony chose that moment to walk in.
“He’s killed 80 people in the last two days, of course he’s not in his right mind, also, iridium. That's what we should focus on to find the tesseract, it can help him build a portal that won't collapse on itself. You can thank me now.”
The whole thing might have spiralled from there and gone the way the Chatauri had wanted if Cap hadn’t picked up the urgent tone in Thor’s voice.
“Hold on Tony,” he said, turning to Thor. “How out of his right mind are we talking?”
Thor took a second to think before answering.
“In all my years I have never seen him look as bad as he does now. No matter how many times we sparred, how many times we fought in earnest, how sick he got, he never looked as he does now. He looks… haggard to say the least. The only thing I've ever known to cause him to be like that is when he got lost in a desert world. He came home a week later, sunken cheeks and bags under the eyes just like now. But he was not so out of it then. My point is, the only thing to ever drive him to this state was akin to prolonged torture.”
Thor let that sink into the room for a moment before continuing.
“I also cannot accept the methods he’s using as his own. He strongly dislikes working with others unless he’s going to betray them at some point, and use them to his advantage. But even then he's always in a position of command. Here, he’s working for the Chitauri instead of the other way around. I bid you tell, why, when he has enough power to level this city on his own, is he being subservient? This is not my brother. Not truly. If Loki wanted to take over this feeble world, he would have done it already. It is not in his nature to dally around, taking orders and getting caught. He does not stoop to the playing field of his pawns, not ever. As strange as it sounds for me to say knowing what kind of man he is, Loki is for once the one being manipulated.”
The room was silent, except for Tony still tinkering away on the computers that lay around, but even he was interested at this point. Steve looked as though he was piecing a puzzle together in his head, but there were a few pieces missing. Finally Bruce broke the silence.
“Is there any way we can prove this? Any tangible evidence?”
Once more Thor turned to Bruce. “You are a doctor, are you not? Aren’t there tests you could run to see what's going on in Loki’s brain?”
“Well…” While Bruce wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Loki, this was a one in a million chance of getting to research someone considered to be a god. He couldn’t just pass it up. “There might be a few things I could do…”
On Thor’s insistence that they do what they could immediately, Bruce, Tony and Steve were dragged away to help with the experiments. That left Natasha with finding the Iridium and tracking down the tesseract. She sighed. Just like always, leaving her with all the work. Great.
Bruce remarked on the fact that Loki, if he truly was under some kind of influence, wouldn’t want to be looked at. After some back and forth argument between Bruce and Thor, Thor agreed to let Bruce use sleeping gas on Loki. Bruce promised it would just knock him out for a while, and that there would be no permanent harm. So they loaded up the canisters and pressed a few buttons.
Out from the sides of the holding cell creeps the gas, filling up the whole container. Loki didn’t realise what was happening until it was a bit too late for him to do anything about it. Based on how strong the Asgardians ability to fight off foreign substances is, (Bruce was going off of Thor’s information), they only had about a half an hour to get the information they needed and get him back in the holding cell, so they had to act quickly.
Thor picks Loki up very gingerly, as if even the slightest movement would awaken him, and lays him on the table. He does not move, just leans over and stares at Loki. It saddens him greatly to think he had not looked for him, just assumed he was dead like his father had told him.
If he had looked would this have happened? Would Loki be here now, bruised and frail, the air of dignity he always seemed to have around him gone? He did not think so. All Thor could do now was watch as Bruce and Tony went around grabbing objects and placing them next to Loki. Thor wonders if there really were that many tests to do. Steve just watches from the background, frankly concerned about what it all means.
When all was said and done, Bruce had done 24 tests. He says he would have done more, but Loki is starting to wake up. They quickly carried him back to his cell, and no sooner than the last failsafe was in place, only then does Loki wake up, holding his head and blinking away the sleep. He can feel the rage of the Chitauri pounding in his head. Maybe if they hadn’t barred his seiðr he would have been able to stop that from happening and save them all some time, but they had determined it to be too much of a danger. At least they had left him with enough seiðr to hold his body together and glamour away the scars they left on his skin. He wishes he was so lucky as to be able to cover the ones they left on his soul.
He doesn’t feel much like threats, his head is pounding and his body aches, but from his mouth tumbles words that are not his own. In the glass surrounding him he can see the contortions of anger he doesn’t feel on his face. Disgusting.
“What did you do!”
“Nothing much, just a few tests.” Says Tony, scrolling through the information he and Bruce had collected.
“Wow…” From the corner Bruce poures over the data, getting increasingly more worried. These results are not normal. Brain activity is up almost 310%, like more than one person is using Loki’s brain at once, and on every scan of his brain there is a blue haze, clouding over it all. He gestures to Tony, and he saunters over to look at what Bruce is pointing at. His eyes go wide and he whispers something to Thor. Thor looks over at Loki with what he hopes isn’t worry. If it is, he might have to start liking Thor again, after all the hard work he’d done to make sure Thor doesn’t get into his head.
“Stop looking at me like that and tell me what you’ve done!”
Thor's eyebrows knit together. Loki? Trying to get information without tricks? Surely his suspicions are true, for this is not, in midgardian terms, “how Loki rolls.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Thor strides over and pounds his fist against the glass, looking straight into Loki's eyes. He stares as if he could get all the answers he needs just by intimidation. In his attempt, anger fueled as it is, Loki truly hopes he notices the blue colour that shimmers on and off over his irises. It’s a tell-tale sign that something is wrong, maybe the biggest piece of evidence that could get Thor to realise he’s under someone else's control.
“Tell me now and maybe I'll give you a painless death.”
Loki can feel the whirlwind in his brain stirring louder. He knows all too well that the Chitauri need him alive, no matter what condition he’s in, for their plan. They had made sure that he knew exactly how they would not be killing him when they drove knives and needles into his skin, when they broke his body and mind and pieced it back together, just to do it all over again. They're worried, they need him for this to work.
He feels no pity for their worry, Loki would have killed himself off long ago to thwart their plans if he didn’t have something to fight for. He doesn’t feel bad for them, and yet he can not decide which side to put his allegiance on. If he sticks with the Chitauri and gets Earth, as they have agreed, he would already have one of his children in his grasp, Jormungandr, and yet two more which he can reach from midgard through the world tree. Once he travels to Asgard to free his son Sleipnir in Odin’s captivity, Slip will be able to guide him to Hel, the domain of his daughter and the resting place of his two sons Narfi and Vali. He has to get his seiðr back first though, as he can’t traverse the tree without it. But would the Chitauri give him his seiðr back? Would they let his mind go from their hold on it? He certainly doesn’t trust them too much, especially given how they’ve treated him so far.
If he sides with the avengers however, he could probably get his seiðr back easily. He could then fight off the Chitauri and he would be free to traverse the Earth to find the openings to the world tree.
But would they be able to give him his will back either? Would they be able to stop the Chitauri from invading? And when Thanos caught wind of his rebellion, what effect would that have on his children? Would he be unknowingly killing them?
Too many choices, too little time, and as Thor bangs his fist against the glass once more Loki can feel himself flinch away from Thor’s anger. He’s too tired, too emotionally done for this. He can’t face Thor in any way that matters, not right now, and he doesn't have the energy to stand his ground let alone look Thor in the eyes. He’s in pain, so much pain. If only he could tell someone. From all sides, he’s truly and surely trapped.