Chapter Text
Cold, pain and silence encircled him. These encroaching walls seemed to be sound proofed only allowing his greater hearing to catch the passing sounds coming through the door. In an effort to stay warm and find the smallest amount of comfort, he crawled into a ball on the floor in the corner of the room.
The jacket they put on him which forced him to hug himself did little to reassure him. The inability to simply push the hair off his face nearly drove him mad but he wouldn’t allow humans to do what even Asgard failed to achieve, dominate his mind and break him. Even without access to his magic he was still his own master.
Asgard spent countless human lifetimes torturing him for the horrific crime of defending his own life against Balder, for Asgard valued their own over the unwanted orphan of a dying world. When they tired of tormenting him they threw him to Midgard to live among the humans which were barely above his worth.
He glanced towards the small bit of light which peaked in from underneath the door as someone walked past casting a shadow across the room. The small amount of light was barely enough to take in his surroundings. The small room was barely ten by ten and the only thing in it was a toilet and sink. The ache in his shoulder from lying on the floor forced him to wiggle and shift up to sit up.
The humans he fell into the hands of clearly recognized he as different than them. No matter where he found himself he was always different, the outcast to be thrown away when tired of. The sinking in his heart mirrored the empty pit which was his stomach. He tapped the back of his head against the wall behind him in frustration recognizing he was just tormenting himself.
He had no concept of time here. Years? Quite possibility. At first they interrogated him for ‘useful’ alien secrets then when that grew tiring they switch to experimenting on him, hoping his body would tell more than his words. Even stuck in a ‘normal’ looking form, his body told a different story. An average body temperature of 69 degrees and they learned quickly in their efforts to hurt him, he was stronger physical than he looked. They couldn’t break his bones without tools.
More recently they changed tactics completely, telling him he is just a human who was delusional. As if he imagined his past or forgot all the things they have done to him. With this phase of their tactic they started to force pills down his throat. They varied in effects on him but mostly left him with headaches, stomach issues, fatigue and a general weakness physically and emotional. Maybe it was just another level of their experimenting.
Sigyn’s image flashed before his mind, her beauty was unspeakable. She had defended him when Asgard turned on him. Like most things in his mind the calm for which Sigyn brought to him was corrupted by the sorrow of watching her die before him. Perhaps this was all punishment of failing to protect her. She would still be alive today if she had never met him. A deep sigh escaped his chest, pushing his bruised ribs against the restrains of the jacket. She was real. Asgard was real. He unfortunately knew the truth of what he was, Loki the abandoned son of Jotunheim, of their king Laufey. What he had lived through had defined him. He knew his past was real. No amount of torture and manipulating words would convince him differently.
The sound of a pair of approaching footsteps drew his attention towards the door moments before he heard the lock clicking open. He pushed up against the wall in order to get to his feet as the light in the room clicked on. They would not catch him cowering below them. The two young men came into the small space corning him. He eyed them trying to gauge them and their intentions. At least these two weren’t the worst of the guards; he would survive this hopefully with nothing broken.
“You broke our friend’s arm.” One of them said to him as he cracked his knuckles in attempt to intimidate him.
“Don’t think I am complacent to your trespasses on me.” He said his voice soft and cracked from lack of use and drink. He was luck he had the strength and chance to injure that guard even though he knew he would have to face punishment for it. The man had attempted to cross a line he refused to give up to them.
The other guard back handed across the face with enough force to send his weakened body back against the wall, “Still haven’t learned your place? At this point will you ever learn?”
As he was still recovering from the blow, they rushed him. One of them unstrapped his arms and pushed the sleeve up so that his hands were free of it, while the other one quickly cuffed his wrists together. He was pulled forward away from the wall by the chain of his cuffs in a quick jolt. The motion caused him to fall forward to his knees. His knees ached with pain as he glared up at them silently, for he knew it was useless to try to defend his actions with words. He was undeserving of self defense.
The guards pulled him to his feet and pulled his chained wrists towards a hook on the ceiling. Instantly his heart skipped a beat and he jolted to fight as he brought up his knee in one of the guard’s guts. With the hit the man slumped over in pain with a loud groan while the other retaliated by landing a hard punch on the side of his temple. He fell over backwards, stars spotting his vision. By the time the guard he hit had recovered his was still mentally swimming. Angry now the guard grabbed him by his hair, pulling back up to his knees.
“You are really asking for it!” He screamed in his face.
“You will hurt me no matter what I do…” He weakly said.
He responded by punching him in the gut and saying, “Why don’t you just be a good little boy and stop fighting us?”
“Never…” He said between growing panicked breathes.
After a few more hits and pulls they were able to get his chained wrists on the hook as they wanted. He pulled on the chain but wasn’t strong enough to break free. The distance was enough to allow him to stand on his toes in order to keep pressure off his shoulders.
“Going to beg us to stop again?” The one mocked him.
He twitched, avoiding eye contact and clearly shrunk in size as he folded in on himself as much as being bond would allow. Mentally he tried to brace himself for whatever they were planning for him.
One guard circled around him and started to undo the straps on the back of the straight jacket, starting at the top. He left the bottom two straps connected. The hard material of the jacket opened revealing his bare back. His pale skin, thin frame was marred with a cross stitch of overlaying scarred slashes. After admiring the view, the man gently brushed a finger along a line of the scars. Instantly Loki reacted in pain as he strained to move away from the touch.
“Does it feel like you are being whipped again?” the man teased know that from experience that every touch on this scar felt like a fresh new wound on him.
He then brushed his whole hand down the exposed part of his back causing him to make a small whimpering sound in respond.
“Aww, you’re going to make him cry.” The man in front of him teased. Loki glared at him and was quickly met with his hand around this throat. “Don’t give me that look.” After he had choked the look off his face, he then walked around him and slapped his hand down on his back with a loud clap. Loki cried out in pain, moisture filling his eyes as one stream dropped from his eye.
“I win. I got the first tears.” The one guard said to the other.
“That’s not fair. You didn’t give me enough time.” The other one whined.
“You were wasting your time caressing the scars.”
He slumped into his bonds, putting more pressure on his shoulders trying to distract from the pain he felt. This gift from Asgard, a public whipping, was his first punishment for slaying Baldor. They then poisoned his wounds so that any touch on them would feel like the bladed tip of a whip once more.
The guards took turns trying different types of touches to find the one with the best reaction. It wasn’t long before his head felt faint and his vision blurred. He was almost too dazed to notice the sound of a siren going off through the door.
Quickly the door opened, and a new man yelled at the guards, “Quit playing with him! Load him for transport! We are evacuating the base!”
They quickly moved to lower his hands from the hook and pulled him out of the room. People were running through the smoke and fire filled hallways. He took note of the large Shield logo on the wall before a hood was thrown over his head. One set of hands never left gripping his chain wrists while a hand laid on his back in a directing gesture. He yelped moving forward with the pull of the hand on his wrists. They moved him blindly through hallways and up stairs. If he slowed to catch his breath a hand found its way back to his back to get him moving again. He could barely keep up with them after so much time of inactive.
There was no way of knowing what was going on and where they were taking him. He could feel the heat of fires they passed and a few times tripped on things on the ground. Suddenly without warning he felt a cold breeze and guessed that he was now outside. How long had it been since he was outside? He wasn’t able to dwell on those thoughts for long before he was pulled forward again towards the sound of engine. He was pushed and pulled up a step, the sound of the engine was almost deafening.
He felt a set of hands grab him by the collar he had under the jacket, pulling him up into what he guessed was a vehicle of some sort. He was pushed to sit on a cold metal floor while they connected his chained wrist to a metal rod which was in the shape of a seats handrail which was built into the wall. A few moments later he felt someone sit in the chair his wrists were bound too.
“Oh good. You were able to evacuate my current endeavor as well.” He heard the distinct voice, with a different accent than the rest, of the main doctor who over saw all the things done to him. Doctor Erich was all he knew him as. His body automatically quivered with fear of his closeness to this man.
“Yes sir. May I ask what happen?”
Doctor Erich sighed before saying, “We have to relocate to a safe house. ‘They’ discovered our base somehow.”
“What will happen to him? The safe house isn’t set up for prisoners.” The guard asked clearly referring to Loki.
“Well…” He started to say but then pause, sounds of pocket fumbling before he started again, “Hold him. Sleep time.”
Loki felt hands on him once more holding him place and exposing his side. He trashed but was too weak to stop what was happen. Within moments he felt the pinch of a needle pierce his skin. All the hands released him as his head began to swim. It wasn’t long before the world began to fade and he slumped backwards against the cold metal wall unable to even react to the feeling of it against his scars.
“…a location …till we…relocate....” He heard bits and pieces of Doctor Erich saying before he completely lost touch with the world.