Punishment
Loki had been misbehaving as he usually did (but more now, that he'd stopped being a child, and was beginning to be a young man) and Thor couldn't find him anywhere. He'd expected to find him eager to know all about his adventures with the Warriors three, as they'd been away for over two weeks, but his little brother was nowhere to be seen. Odd. Loki had really wanted to come with them, but Odin had decided that he ought to be punished for his last misdeed, and hadn't allowed him to go with his brother and his friends.
But then where was he? Not there to question them and pester Thor with a million questions? Unlike him. Thor looked for him in all of his other usual spots: the main, the hall, his room, even the kitchens where he went sometimes (the cooks were very fond of him), but he was in none of those places. He asked around and nobody knew where Loki was.
Thor was starting to wonder if the punishment Odin was just staying home while the others left or if it was something more. His mother was somewhere in Vanaheim visiting people, so after showering and having a nice meal, Thor went to see his father, and ask him directly where Loki was.
But Odin kept changing the subject back to Thor, and seemed very cold anytime his youngest son was mentioned. Odin only said that “he had to be taught a lesson” and that “he was being punished” but never specified his whereabouts, even Thor asked him in those words, and Odin declined to say anything. “It's better if you don't know”.
And this concerned Thor a lot. What if his father had taken advantage from the fact that both Frigga and Thor were gone to do something they would never allow? What kind of punishment was this that Thor couldn't even see his little brother? It was no secret that Loki was Odin's least favourite child, and often he had tried to school the boy it too-harsh ways. It had been Frigga who had stopped the king, but with her gone...
So Thor took the next logical step and went to Heimdall. He was probably supposed to keep the secret of Loki's location, but Thor knew that if Heimdall felt that an injustice was being done, he would help him and disregard whatever obligation he had with the crown.
“Heimdall, where is my brother?”
“In a very dark place.”
“Can you not tell me where? Please, I am becoming very concerned.”
“I have been ordered not to tell.”
“But you would tell me if he needed me, right?”
“He needs you. You're or anyone else.”
Well, if Thor had been worried before, now he was practically panicking.
“Heimdall...”
“He is in a place you've been before, but bowed to never go back. It's wet and dripping and there is no easy way in or out. Overlooking. This is all I can tell you.”
“I will figure it out. You have my gratitude, Heimdall.”
“Go after him, Thor. He's been there for too long, and is beginning to wonder if anyone will ever come for him.”
Thor was anxiously trying to understand Heimdall's riddles. He needed to be with Loki, rescue him, and the sooner the better, but it was hard to think with all that pressure. He looked in maps, he looked in books and suddenly it dawned on him. The cave of the bats, how he told his friends that he wouldn't ever in his whole life set foot in that place. It was wet, it was dark, and it was very high up. Overlooking.
But if Loki was there, why hadn't he left? He liked it even less than Thor, and was perfectly capable of making his way down, especially with all the magic he'd been learning. What if he wasn't leaving because he couldn't leave? What if something was preventing him and that was why Heimdall said that he needed someone?
Thor's head was going a mile a minute as he quickly made his way to the cave on a horse. All that he knew was Loki had been punished in a horrible place and in a way that even Heimdall had felt the need to warn him, told him to do something quick. Despite all the scenarios he had cooked up in his head, nothing prepared him for what he found when he reached the cave of bats.
There was a high rock in the centre of a small small pool of water in one of the passageways. And in that rock, precariously sitting and about to fall three meters into an inch of water and a lot of hard rock was his little brother. Loki had his hands tied behind his back, his feet were tied too, there was a metal collar on his neck that was there to prevent him from doing magic and he was blindfolded. Alone and abandoned, not being able to move because he would fall, not being see where the rock ended, all alone listening to the sound of the cave, afraid he would fall....
How long had he been there while Thor and his mom had been away? How many days without eating, probably not sleeping, how many days afraid, on the top of the cave where he swore he would never go back? How long had Loki spent learning a lesson?
Thor tried to swallow the lump in his throat (he could feel bad plenty when Loki was safely back in his bedroom) and started thinking. First he needed to get Loki, but he was afraid that if he startled him too much he would fall.
“Loki?” He called out softly. “It's me, Thor.”
“Thor?” Loki's voice was raspy and hoarse, from too much screaming for help. “Is it really you or is this just part of the lesson?”
“It's me, brother, I've come back. I'm going to let you out.”
It was going to be difficult, but Thor was a good hunter and liked hiking, so he had some rope and other objects to help Loki. He threw the rope at the rock and guided Loki, until he was back on safer land, and Thor unmade his bindings and took off his blindfold. Loki's eyes were red, his skin dry and broken at places. He embraced Thor with a force unprecedented in him.
“Brother... Loki, are you injured?”
Loki just kept holding on to him, strong, never letting go. He had started crying on Thor's chest, muttering something about “no one coming”, and falling to his death, and being there forever, while the insects ate him. There were a lot of bite marks on his neck and arms most of all, and it was evident that he had lost weight. Thor put his hands on his brother's back, rubbing circles, trying to stop himself from crying as well.
“If I had known I would have come sooner, Loki. Please, you need to know, that I would have come sooner.”
After a little while Loki calmed down, and Thor smiled at him, and simply asked.
“Who did this to you?”
Please don't say father, please don't say father, please...
“Father. But it was my fault, I know. I cannot.... I can never be a good son and prince like you. I brought this on myself.” Loki said, with a small voice that made his tear covered face look even younger.
Thor's blood was boiling. He couldn't believe that one of the persons he loved and admired most in the world could have been so cruel. So heartless.
That night, he left a sleeping Loki in his bedroom, under Eir's care. He went to confront his father, thunder sounding in the distance, his wrath increasing as he reached the throne.... And promptly forgot why he was angry.
It was the magic that Odin knew best: it was how he made everyone forget about Hela, how he made them not remember a thing about the carnage she and their own king had perpetrated in the name of Asgard. A memory charm, simple but powerful, that would lead Thor to believe that his brother had simply been sick in his absence, sickly boy that he was. Loki's memory would be fuzzy too, although he'd have a sense of not doing again what he'd done.
Sometimes, Loki had nightmares about falling from a rock and getting eaten by bats. Thor at his friends just laughed at his weakness, so Loki tried to forget... But something of it stayed with him.
Every time that he heard the phrase “teach you a lesson” a involuntary shiver coursed through him and he felt a phantom pain in his wrist. Just another of the little cracks that made Loki become who he did.
Another hidden, blocked,layer of pain. And there oh so many.
Too many.