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Clumping footsteps, loud and unsubtle, approach his cell.
Loki is already on his feet. Has been since he was brought here, in truth, waiting. Waiting for the subtle torments SHIELD will try to inflict, to persuade him to tell them where the tesseract is.
A thin smile curls his lips upwards.
They do not know—cannot—that nothing they do can harm him.
He is stronger than their pitiful contraptions. So much stronger. Their metal will warp before his limbs do, and their pain is nothing compared to what he has already endured. What he will endure if— But no. He will not fail. There is no need to think of the Mad Titan now.
The footsteps draw nearer, and almost he thinks he smells lighting and rain.
“Thor,” he says.
He has turned now, and is looking at his golden sibling.
The Mighty Thor, beloved by all.
His smile fades and his lip curls into a sneer as he waits. Waits for the protestations of brotherhood. For the pathetic requests to come home that he doesn’t need or want because what is a home to him that loathes him for the very act of being himself, and has done so since before either of them knew just how right they truly were to do so?
“Brother,” Thor says, “Where is the tesseract?”
“I am not your brother,” Loki says, ignoring the request.
Thor’s eyes darken, and then he’s... opening the door?
For an odd, grinding moment, he thinks his not-brother is releasing him and he can’t be because they are enemies and he will only ever escape on his own because there is no mercy for him and there should never be.
“What—?” he starts, unsure.
Thor steps inside, and the door closes behind him.
And then Fury enters the room outside, and the cage is shrunken now the way Thor always shrinks everything because he fills up too much and is too much and there is never anything left.
“Loki, where is the tesseract?” Fury says.
Loki ignores him, eyes on Thor.
He has his throwing daggers, of course, but Thor has Mjolnir. And in a close quarters fight...
And then Fury says a single word.
“Thor.”
Thor moves swiftly. In the end, the cell is too small for evasion, and there is a few minutes of undignified scuffling before his arms are pulled ruthlessly behind his back and he is held firmly in place and he can’t move. Can’t move.
“Thor,” he says, panting, eyes narrowed to furious slits, “I am their prisoner.”
His brother says nothing.
“Loki, where is the tesseract?” Fury says.
“I sent it away I know not where,” he grins, and that at least is the truth.
“Thor.”
And then Thor does something and it’s like all the weight in his body is leaning on one muscle in his left leg and his feet are hurting and his back is and everything aches. He wants to twist to see if Mjolnir has been set on him too but he can’t move.
They hold him there for an hour. By the end, all that holds him up is Thor.
“Where is the tesseract, Loki?” Fury says, dispassionately.
He smiles coldly.
“I know not where it was sent,” he says.
“Thor.”
He begins to hate that word, he thinks.
Thor does something else, digging a finger into his arm, and lightning and fire lance through his nerves and he has to bite his lips to keep from screaming because he hurts and this hurts and he will burn and burn and burn them all for this.
He waits for relief. Waits for them to ask.
The fingernails dig in over and over and over and in the end, he is shaking and he still can’t hold himself upright and his lip is bleeding from where he has bitten it through.
He hates Thor, but he is beginning to fear him too now.
He’d never known Thor was capable of this.
Part of him wonders if this would hurt so much if it were not Thor—were not the only person he’d never thought he’d fully drive away—doing it. But that is foolishness, of course. He had always known Thor would hate him eventually. He is a monster, and monsters do not have happy endings. He wonders if Heimdall and Odin are enjoying this. Wonders if they laugh at him.
It takes him a long while, too long, to realise the pain has stopped.
“Where is the tesseract, Loki?” Fury says.
He pants a little, and tries to put of answering. Tries to put off the pain.
“You said you mourned,” he rasps, “You said you all mourned. You are a greater liar than I ever was if you can say that and do this.”
“Thor,” Fury says.
And there’s a sloshing clunk of water near him now, and he jerks his head up in time to see the swirling, clean water in front of him. Two faceless, meaningless agents leave the room and he wants them to die and everyone to die for this.
And then he is being hefted towards it and crushed.
Mjolnir had not rested on him before. He knows that now. Because she is on him now and it’s not simply crushing him flat against the floor, he is being held in such a way that he cannot fall and all the weight is being forced into his arms. And he needs to hold them up because if he falls, his head goes under the water and he can’t breathe and Thor holds him up just enough to be capable of it. His lungs burn and his arms scream and he wonders how long it will be until he can’t do this and he can’t breathe.
Eternities later, his head is dragged from beneath the water and the pain lessens.
“Where is the tesseract?”
He is wet and shaking and his arms won’t move.
“Sent it,” he manages to rasp out, and a coughing fit seizes him before he can add anything more.
He wonders who they will send in after this to feign sympathy. Romanoff, he thinks. She is a gifted liar. It doesn’t matter. He won’t tell anyone anything and he wants to curl inwards and just lie there shaking until the world ends but he’s better than this. If he doesn’t care for himself, no one will. Thor doesn’t and Odin doesn’t and no one will.
He manages to even out his breathing.
“I do not know where it is,” he says, and he manages to smile then past the water and the broken lips he has bitten through in his agony, “And even if I did, I would not tell you. You think I do not know pain? I have known pain beyond your worst imaginings, mortal, and I will not break from this.”
“Thor,” the mortal says.
They are wasting too much time on him. His plan will work and they are wasting time and this is good.
Thor is kneeling on his back.
And then he kneels in just the wrong spot and he arches back again or tries to because it hurts. It hurts and a tiny voice is whispering that Thor is supposed to care. He expected torture but it wasn’t supposed to be Thor who made him suffer through it and performed it and hurt him.
“Brother, where is the tesseract?”
His breath comes only in shallow gasps. But the hate burns him and he manages to choke out:
“How can you call me brother after this?”
There is silence. Then:
“I told you pain would not prise his need from him,” Thor says, and the pain is lessening now and he draws in breath after deep, reassuring breath.
Fury says something he doesn’t catch.
And then he is being released and everything hurts and it’s so very odd that it can when nothing is injured but the lip he bit through himself.
Thor isn’t standing.
The thought registers slowly, and he frowns as much as he can.
Why isn’t Thor going?
Thor’s face is fluctuating between red and white as he tries and all the muscles in his thighs ripple as he tries to stand again and again and fails.
“What have you done, brother,” Thor says, voice rumbling with anger, and Loki is surprised to find the urge within himself to shuffle backwards.
Ruthlessly, he quashes it.
Ruthlessly, he stands his ground. Or should that be he lies it?
He doesn't know.
“Nothing, Thor,” he says, “I cannot even move my arms. What can I have done to you?”
“You are lying,” Thor says, and there is a hint of desperation in his voice now.
And then his brother is reaching for Mjolnir and he does shuffle backwards now because his legs are still working and his not-brother has made it clear that being helpless will not save him from his anger.
Thor’s fingers curl around the handle.
His muscles strain.
And he cannot lift it.
Loki’s eyes widen with dawning comprehension.
But why? The only thing that changed was—the only thing Thor did was—
Torture him.
He can see the dawning realisation in Thor’s eyes. Can see the rising horror there and he feels something stir within him then that he doesn’t understand. Something odd and light that makes him suddenly warm. The Allfather thinks doing that, thinks that torturing a traitor Jotun runt, makes Thor unworthy?
His—the Allfather thinks he is not—
“What is the problem?” Fury says.
They both ignore him.
With trembling fingers, Thor unknots Mjolnir, and rises.
“You’re leaving that with him?” Fury demands.
“I cannot lift her,” Thor says, a dazed, dead flatness in his tone Loki understands perfectly.
How does it feel to know that whenever he sees you, he finds you lacking? How does it feel to be me?
Thor leaves. Fury leaves. And no one comes.
And slowly, inch by aching inch, Loki drags himself over to Mjolnir and curls a hand about her handle. She has tortured him for years, yes, with the knowledge that Odin does not find him worthy in any way that counts.
But for the first time, this no longer matters.
Because for the first time, she is also a promise.
A promise that, no matter how far he falls, no matter how unworthy he is found to be, on some level, his fa—the Allfather cares for him too.
A promise almost of hope.
And he smiles.