A Deal is a Deal
"Your stone?" Loki feigned confusion.
He had an idea of what she meant but it would be best to— Hela's necroblade pierced the illusion he had left on the chair across from her, destroying it. Keeping the working of invisibility wrapped around himself tightly, Loki turned Chaosmaker into a set of throwing knives and flung one at her from where he stood next to the doorway.
Hela dodged.
Loki bared his teeth. He’d managed to scratch the goddess of death across her cheek. It was interesting to note, however, that the wound did not bleed. Instead, it only displayed more of the eternal flame consuming Hela from the inside. He wondered if she felt pain but then had to abandon that line of thought in favor of stepping out of the way when Hela threw a series of necroswords in retaliation. Too bad he wasn’t there any longer.
"That trick won't work on me again, sister," Loki projected his voice so that it echoed around the room. He stepped to a different location with each word and paired it with a knife throw at each interval.
Hela spun out of the way with a fluidity that was almost smoke-like, catching the final knife in midair as she solidified.
Her lips quirked.
"Neither will yours, little brother."
The entire room exploded with necroblades, save the spot where Loki stood. The empty space was intentional, however, for the black blades boxed Loki in, leaving him with no space in which to step.
Hela sauntered back to her chair and settled back. "Now if you're done playing your games, perhaps we can get back to your progress report."
A wave of her hand opened up a path in the dense necroblade forest, leading back to the sofa that Loki had abandoned earlier, the blades vanishing from where they had previously pierced the cushions, leaving behind unblemished fabric. Hela's meaning was clear for him to read.
"Very well," Loki dropped his invisibility, "but I want your word that you will not try to impale or maim me with anything for the rest of my stay here."
Hela quirked an amused brow. "Why would I give you anything?"
"You’re rather anxious to hear my 'progress report'," Loki said as he strode past her and sat back down on the sofa. Faking the air of confidence came naturally to him as he leaned back into the cushions, the very picture of relaxation. "Correct me if I'm wrong but this is clearly not the first time we have had this conversation."
The twitch of Hela's lips gave her away.
Feeling a lot more confident, he continued. "If I had to hazard a guess, we struck a deal during my very first visit to your charming realm. When was it? Svartalfheim? No, no, I suppose it goes earlier. It must have been when that oaf destroyed the Bifrost." The Void’s gaping maw flashed in his mind’s eye and Loki viciously pushed back at the twinge of panic creeping along the edge of his senses. "Jotuns are resilient, very much like the Aesir, but even frost giants have their limits. It always bothered me that I couldn’t recall how I had survived the fall long enough to land in the Mad Titan's grasp."
Hela gave him an unapologetic smirk. "I figured starting with the man obsessed with finding my stone would be as good a place as any."
Loki stiffened. He’d always thought the Void spitting him out at the Titan’s feet had been an accident…
Had she sent him there on purpose?
“It was a stroke of luck that the Void spat you out at the Titan’s feet,” Hela said, “Too bad that idiot decided to push the resilient Jotun runt beyond his limits on the very first day.”
So it had been an accident but that didn’t change all that had come after. Loki narrowed his eyes.
"How many times did you send me back while I was within his grasp, sister?"
Bits and pieces of memories of that time slowly resurfaced. Memories that he hadn’t even known he had possessed but ones that had been hidden away.
"I lost count after the first few weeks." Hela drawled.
Loki felt his heart cease to beat. An oddity in itself when it wasn't even beating in the first place.
There were gaps in his memories, again, ones that he hadn't known about until then. Loki struggled to remain in control of himself. "Do you have any idea of all the things that were done to me?"
"I was merciful enough to take away the more horrific of your memories of that time, was I not?" Hela asked.
"You— that wasn't mercy."
"No? Then why did you beg me for it?"
"I did not," Loki hissed.
"Regardless, it is done and well in the past." Hela waved him off. "Now if you're quite finished, I would like a progress report."
He bristled, drawing himself up to stare her down.
"No, I am not quite finished,” he spat, “I wish to keep all of my memories when I leave here. Including the ones that you took from me. And this conversation."
"The ones I took from you?" Hela repeated, concern flitting across her face as she peered at him, "Loki… are you certain you wish to remember it all? There was a reason why you asked me to hide those memories in the first place." Concern gave way to guilt and she looked away. "I realize now that it might have been a mistake to let you fall in Thanos's hands."
Oh, so now she decided to show concern? When all the damage had been done. He had suffered ceaselessly since the fall and she chose now of all times to care about his wellbeing?
Her remorse served him no purpose.
None.
"I want them back," he insisted.
"Very well, if that is what you truly desire..."
Tendrils of darkness leapt from the shadows and smacked him in the face before Loki could react.
All the things he had forgotten about his time with Thanos slid back into place. The six months spent crying for his so called family. Screaming for them until his throat had bled. Begging for Heimdall to alert the All-Father, Thor, his mother… Someone. Anyone…
Thanos had his children take turns at tearing out his tongue every time he had healed, making a game of it to see who could make him last the longest before he inevitably died. And through it all, through all the agony of choking on his own blood, of getting paralyzed by Maw's needles, of getting crushed under the weight of Midnight's spear, of literally being torn apart by Cull Obsidian, he had called out for his family. He had prayed and begged and hoped.
He had held on even as madness had descended to claim his shattered mind.
There had been times when Maw had added mind games into the mix. Made Loki believe that Thor had finally come to save him. Sometimes it was his mother and sometimes the All-Father, telling him that Loki was forgiven. That Loki was still loved as their gentle hands had unchained him or pulled him out of whatever contraption the Black Order had thought to torment him with for that round.
The apparitions always drew him in for a hug, telling him all was forgiven before sliding a knife past his ribs and into his heart.
In the beginning, Hela had laughed and laughed at Loki's naïveté but as days had turned to weeks, the amusement had drained away to leave behind annoyance and as weeks had turned to months, the annoyance had made way for something close to concern.
It was only when Maw's conjurations made Loki cling harder to the contraptions being used to torture him with, rather than trust in the faces of his loved ones to rescue him, that Hela had offered a way to ease his suffering.
Like a fool, Loki had taken her up on that offer.
And that was when Thanos had brought in the Mind Stone.
What had followed for the next six months had been—
Loki erected a mental barrier to trap the onrush of memories. There would be time to go through everything later. The fates just kept on taking and taking and taking from him, didn't they? But maybe if he were to do things on his own terms, his mind would feel a little less fractured.
He would sort through all the memories when he was a little less unsafe. He wasn't naïve enough to believe that he could ever truly be safe anymore but once he wasn’t at the mercy of the goddess of death, Loki would hide away for a few hours and deal with it all.
Hopefully.
Loki opened his eyes to find Hela watching him with a thoughtful frown.
Putting on a mask of composure, Loki returned her stare for an even one of his own, studying the way the flames licked at her charred flesh. He consoled himself with the knowledge that, at least for the part she had played in all he had been put through, Hela was suffering as well.
"Do we have an agreement, sister?"
"Fine,” she answered, impatience coloring her tone, “you have my word that no harm shall come to you in my domain and you may retain all your memories when you return. Now tell me, how close are you to locating my stone?"
"Before Asgard was destroyed—”
"By your and the oaf's combined idiocy," Hela cut in with an eyeroll.
"We were trying to save the universe," Loki snapped irritably.
"From what?" Hela demanded, the fires burning over her skin flaring high enough that Loki could feel the heat from it, sitting five feet away. "Me?"
"The All-Father—”
"Is a lying, manipulative asshole,” she hissed, “I thought you of all people would have thought twice before taking him at his word after all the ways he screwed you over."
Heat, unrelated to the fires forever burning Hela, flared across his cheeks and Loki looked away. "I did not think he would—"
"Lie to you again?" Now she sounded amused.
Loki clenched his fists. "For the love of Norns, will you stop interrupting me?” he yelled. “Odin said he locked you away because you wouldn't stop your conquests when he grew weary of all the bloodshed. He warned us that your arrival with his death would only mean that you would restart your conquest, bringing death and destruction to entire universe.
"Thor and I had not even known about you until Odin told us," he continued, a little softer now, watching the way her expression closed off. Had Odin's erasure of her existence hurt her feelings? Good. "And then you attacked us the moment we met. What exactly were you expecting our reactions to be, sister?"
"I never wanted the universe," she said.
'I never wanted the throne!' echoed his own voice from the past. Loki shook it off, trying to focus on the present.
"What would have been the use of trying to conquer something that already belonged to me?" she continued and that gave Loki pause.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I'm the goddess of Death," Hela repeated as though she believed Loki to be particularly slow on the uptake. "Whatever lives shall one day die and I am patient enough to let nature run its course."
"Yet the minute you arrived at Asgard, you slaughtered our people and started hunting the ones who had escaped,” Loki countered.
"I gave them all the choice to join me," Hela answered, buffing her nails on her outfit before holding them up to the light, "it was only once they stood against me that I killed them. And even then, I was generous enough to offer Heimdall a chance to surrender the key to the Bifrost and save the survivors."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?” Hela sounded incredulous, “I wanted to claim my birthright, which wasn't on Asgard."
"The stone?"
Hela gave him an unimpressed stare, massaging her temples as if talking to Loki was particularly trying. "What exactly did Frigga see in you?"
The abrupt change of subject threw him for a loop. "I beg your pardon?"
"Are you always this dense or did you choose today of all days to be an airhead? I cannot see why she chose to put all of her trust in you."
Loki gasped as he understood Hela’s implication. "She took you to the Weavers Hall…”
“She showed me the tapestries she had woven for all of us.” Hela nodded.
Loki frowned. “Why did you attack us on Midgard if you knew we would have to work together? You could have just explained yourself and—"
"You and Thor would have taken my word over Odin's and happily handed over the control of Bifrost to me?"
"Well, no, but—
"Which is why I did not see the point of idle chitchat," Hela cut him off, again, and it took all of his willpower to not fling another knife at her head. The fact that their truce would probably be over if he were the one to initiate violence only helped stay his hand. "Now, unless you wish to remain in Hel for the rest of your existence, I suggest you start explaining your findings to me."
"I would if you would stop interrupting me," Loki grit out, continuing before Hela had a chance to retort. "The libraries of Asgard yielded nothing. Not even Odin's personal library had anything of value to aid me in my search for the Infinity Stones."
At least not the one that had truly mattered. With all of his memories now returned to him, including the deal he had struck with Hela, Loki now understood where the sense of urgency pushing him to search and search and search the archives and the libraries of Asgard had come from. His attempts to strengthen Asgard and prepare the realms for the metaphorical Ragnarok might have in part been fueled by the knowledge that Thanos was collecting the stones but it had also been fueled by forgotten fact that he was Hela's errand boy for however long it took him to get her the stone she desired. And then, once she had her hands on the stone, she would have broken through the wards keeping her trapped in Helheim. Odin or no Odin, Ragnarok would be upon Asgard and Loki had attempted to do his best to prepare his home for that apocalypse.
"I sent some of my researchers to the Grand Libraries of Alfheim but I hadn't yet heard back from them when you arrived and forced our hand to destroy Asgard."
"The Grand Libraries won't have the tomes you need.” Hela shook her head, ignoring the second half of his statement. “If Odin went to such great lengths to hide away any knowledge of the stones from Asgard, he will have had the bookkeepers in the other realms do the same."
"In that case," Loki said as he stood, "I suppose there's nothing I can do to help."
A necroblade blocked his path.
“Not so fast, little brother.” The necroblade drew closer until it was a hairbreadth away from his throat, “You promised me the Soul Stone in exchange for keeping your life. If you cannot help me, I don't have any reason to send you back."
"Fine," Loki huffed as he crossed his arms, careful to not let her blade nick his skin. "Odin may have had the Grand Libraries purged of the knowledge we seek but I highly doubt he could have eliminated it from Mimir's private collection."
Hela smiled and sauntered over to where he stood. Plucking the necroblade out of the air, she considered Loki, "And you know where to find him?"
"Not yet." Loki admitted, wondering if that might make Hela change her mind.
As though reading his thoughts, Hela let out an amused chuckle. "Very well, brother. You may head back to the mortal realm and begin searching for the Soul Stone post-haste."
She waved her hand through the air and a swirling portal of green and black opened up beneath Loki's feet.
In an almost comical manner, Loki remained suspended in the air for a heartbeat or two before gravity remembered its job and pulled him through. Tumbling end over end, Loki fell for an eternity condensed into a heartbeat before his consciousness slammed back into his body, Hela's voice ringing in his head like an ominous warning.
"Do keep in mind, however, that if you die again, you won't get another chance."
Loki awoke to the sound of raised voices.