Chapter Text
When he comes to, he is cold, dazed and confused, words of banishment echoing in his ears. The air is wrong, and his body feels cold and stiff.
There are bands of something that resembles metal, but is, at the same time too supple to be so, almost like a second skin, placed around his wrists, neck and chest. They are neither hot not cold, hard nor soft, but register in a long forgotten sense as negative and wrong and he knows without trying that they will absorb any sort of magic he might attempt to use. Even the glamour put on him by Odin, not simple magic but something older and by now deeply imbedded in his cells falters around the bands, icy blue bleeding out around were they sit.
When he is done investigating himself, he raises his eyes to see he is atop a tall building, sitting in the middle of circle formed by scorch marks and upturned stones in what used to be some sort of terrace. And, standing before him, is a man in crimson and golden armor.
***
After, men come but he doesn’t react and all appear surprised when he voices no complaint, shows no resistance to being taken, but still a needle is jammed into his neck and all is darkness.
***
The room is white and not exactly spacious, but the utter lack of furnishings, except for a cot and a sink and lavatory, make it appear bigger than one would expect from a cell. White, bright lights are continuously on, placed all around so no shadows are possible. It should bother him, but he just sits, with his eyes closed, idly fingering the band around his wrist, trying to get used to the seeping feeling of the band against his fingers, like syphon sucking the very life from his fingertips, but he never does, not really.
***
He guesses it is a few days before they figure out what to do with him, but he can’t be sure, as time passes sluggishly in this always lit room, with only his strangely void thoughts as company. It is oddly peaceful and he wonders what else was done to him, what Odin took from him, but then again, maybe it is just surrender and exhaustion. Or maybe, it is simply the result of his mind having been stretched and cut and patched by Thanos, and this is the result, he is finally broken and void.
***
When the men come, first in large, armed groups and then less and less, they speak to him, voice questions and accusations, try to make him speak, make him react, but he does nothing, just sits with his eyes closed, feeling the bracelet with his fingertips. He hears them in a background murmur, like the wind through trees in the forest he used to hide as a child, and he wonders if he’ll ever smell the green again, but thinks not. The realization rings hollow in his chest and the voices fade into nothing as he retreats further back into himself.
***
The humans try everything – they cajole and they scream, they hit and make incredible offers, they withdraw food but this is barely noted, as he has not eaten since his arrival. His body, weaken as it might be by the bands, is still strong, Jotun and Aesir and can go ages without nourishment, eventually shutting himself in stasis not unlike the Odinsleep if necessary. There are signs, of course, his breath becomes labored and his lips crack, his hands skeletal, but the bands continue skin tight, adapting around him like living things though they now make him think of death.
***
They project pictures on the walls, face of the humans he killed by his own hands and others that die by his actions, voices telling about their lives, their families, asking him why. He watches and listens, dully. He is from a warring people. Death is present in fight, fun, love and sport. Tales of killing what he would discover to be his own people were told in feasts to the sound of laughter and cheering. What would he care of humans, who killed their own kind, who were cruel and irrational, whose lifespans where but a blink to him?
Eventually, however, he closes his eyes and ears and tells himself it is because he has grown bored with the repetition, but can’t quite chase away the echo and accursing eyes.
***
The patterns change, the lights are turned off, the room cools and for a long time, there are no more visits. Maybe they gave up on him and left him to die. The idea would have tugged the corners of his lips into a smile in another time, knowing he would still exist long after the bones of his captors had turned to dust and the building crumbled into rubble, but all this does is make him strangely wistful.
***
When the darkness has already become the norm and thoughts of light no longer cross his mind, again the patterns are changed and a single man comes. Through his eyelids his over sensitive eyes can see a strange shine about the man, white blue and damped by clothes but there. The man speaks at length and despite himself he finds himself listening. The man tells tales and asks questions, but not the same the others had, about Asgard and magic and technology and his plans and how he had found the chitauri, where they were from. He asks about Loki, what has been done to him, why is he here, if he is here at all.
Eventually the man also leaves, but things change after that. The lights are back, but not in full – they are not as bright and they are turned off during what Loki presumes in night. Food appears once more, but this time it is warm and fragrant. Other items are placed in the cell, clothing and books and paper and ink. But above all, there is a stirring inside him. He still sits, eyes closed, taking no action towards the things presented to him, but it is as though he is slowly awaking inside himself, more and more with each visit of the man.
***
Slowly but surely, he returns to a semblance of living. He walks around the room. He leafs through the books, finding some strangely fascinating. He eventually even eats, though not much.
When the man comes, he watches him as he speaks. The first time he opened his eyes to the intruder he can hear the man’s breath catch, but soon he continues speaking, as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Loki still doesn’t speak, but the man doesn’t seem to mind, as he continues with his tales of adventure and villains and inventions.
***
One day it comes to him, as if through a fog, who the man is. He remembers bravado and confrontation, remembers the scepter failing.
He remembers Tony Stark.
***
The next time he asks the man – Stark – Tony – Stark.
He asks what he is doing here, why, what he is getting out of this.
There is no response, at first, but a glint of challenge and curiosity in those eyes that he knows well, a glint that was ever present in Loki’s own eyes before hatred and greed and madness took him.
***
The next time he comes, Loki is the one to speak. Before the man has closed the door, he starts, retelling the story of his life. It is long and ancestral by no means done in a single sitting. The man’s visits become longer and more frequent, and he drinks in the epic tales without interrupting. He doesn’t restrain himself to any specific story, not to the ones of which he is the hero nor to the ones that show his malice and treachery. He does not avoid telling of Odin, of Thor, of Frigga. He recants nothing, hides nothing. He describes jealousy of Thor, but also kindness and affection that surprise even him.
Loki knows this is being recorded and noted, and he wonders what, if any, of his words will find their way to his brother’s ears. The prospect isn’t completely abhorrent, once again surprising him.
***
He tells, more painfully now, of Jotunheim and Laufey and Thanos and the Void. He sees recognition in Stark’s eyes accompanied by sharp intake of breath, but the man says nothing.