So. Three years late.

I'm so very sorry. I have no excuses. And I know it's short, but it's here.

Also, it starts off weirdly. The initial part is a second person point of view which I know may throw a few people, but I'm unsure if it's entirely essential (I'm not exactly an impartial reader), so feel free to jump to the first line break.

Again, apologies, and I hope you enjoy~

The first thing you're aware of is that you're alone.

You're standing on rocks, the sea spread out before you, stretching on into infinity. The sheer blueness of it is incredible, the sun glinting off it almost blinding you.

The rocks are warms beneath your bare feet, the roughness of it not really penetrating the callouses on their soles.

There are a few plants here and there, low creeping bushes. You don't look behind you, but you know there's low shrub forming an impenetrable, never-ending wall.

It's beautiful; the aquamarine ocean and the bare rocks. The wind pulls gently at your clothing, rustling your hair. Strong enough to be noticed, but not strong enough to be irritating.

But despite its open sameness, you feel trapped. You can't stay here. The air is stifling, the wind pulling your breath from your lungs, stealing it the moment it leaves your lips. The sun heats up your face.

To either side of you, there is more of the same. But you can't stay here, trapped by the placid atmosphere.

So you turn to your right, and you start walking.

You spring lightly from rock to rock, relishing the freedom of motion and the joy of being in midair for that half second.

In the distance, you can see the rock jutting out into the ocean, sloping down until it disappears under the water.

You're lost in the emptiness of it all, and you barely realize that you've arrived at it, the place where the rock is swallowed by the water.

It's not as smooth as you though it was from back there. You walk out on it, and reach a small step down.

You want to step down, and you're tempted to feel the water. You're not hot, but it looks so cool and inviting.

A wave breaks gently over the barnacles, and you stand there for a little while, wondering what's stopping you.

You watch the gentle lapping of the water at the rock, and you realize how sinister it seems; the water sucking and releasing, slowly devouring.

With mild, distant, disgust and fear, you step back.

But there's something different about this place. A lack of sameness.

To your left, there is a soft indent in the rock. You walk down to stand on it, and are immediately buffeted by the wind.

For a moment, the strength of it surprises you as it sweeps across the water, before flying up into you from below.

And there's something familiar about it; the way it swings up from underneath you, like it will sweep you into the air, and carry you through the currents and keep you afloat. And you just want to spread your wings and fly.

There's a small smile building up inside you as you think of the freedom.

So you reach deep inside to that place where you let your wings out. You can feel the throbbing between your shoulder blades where you know they're going to emerge. And you're smiling in earnest now because you can already imagine how the wind will catch at them and you can remember how it feels through the feathers.

But they're not coming, and you can feel the ghost of the sensation of them shatter as the smile falls from your face and you remember.

You remember hoe they ripped your wings from you; the withering pain.

You remember how they stripped you both of your freedom and identity in one motion, and how they looked on mercilessly as you fell to the floor, screaming in pain; uncaring as they dragged you off, as you felt everything that you were being ripped from you.

You remember vision darkening as you scanned the room wildly before locking on to two wide blue eyes. The sobs coming from your lips wee inhuman as everything you are, were, was being drained through every pore.

You turn from the memory, from the aching emptiness.

You turn and keep walking, leaving this small spot of difference behind,

You walk for a long time. You can feel it in the onset of throbbing pain in your legs, but the sun hasn't moved.

Nothing is changing, and that place is calling you back, just as something different.

So you turn back, and suddenly you're there again, standing on the ledge with the wind gusting just so.

And you feel that ache inside you where your wings – your freedom – used to be, and the emptiness that it left behind.

You can't stay upright any more, because it's just so hopeless.

You're so close, so close, but resonating within you is the thought that you'll never get it back.

Everything that defines you has been taken, and it's not coming back. It's gone and gone and gone.

It seems choked and darkening, colder by the second, because there's a blackness welling up inside you and everything's so hopeless.

The pain that you haven't been able to hide recently is spreading across your face. You're just buried your face in your hands when you feel him behind you.

He's standing behind you, strong and warm and protective. He knows that you know that he's there, but neither of you say anything.

He kneels behind you, and gently, oh so gently, places his palms on those aching points between your shoulders.

They hurt, and the pain's been growing, but you haven't noticed. Even as you tense, the pain begins to ebb away, like he's siphoning it off, but it never fully leaves.

You take your face from your hands, and you can feel that shriveled seed of hope that you've thought you'd gotten so good at pushing away taking root.

It's as if he's blown on a smoldering ember inside you, and the fire is beginning to burn again. It's so warm, and welcome, and you just can't deal with it again.

You want to run from it, hide from the feeling of it.

So you stand, and you can't look into his caring brown eyes as you turn to run from him again.

He rises with you, and before you can take a single step, he has drawn you into is arms, strong and safe and familiar.

And you relax into his embrace, and wrap your arms around his shoulders, burying your face into his neck, and you can feel yourself melting as he runs one hand through your hair, and the other over the place where your wings would be.

You're clinging to him; not just because he's the only thing here, but because he's safe and welcome and he's healing you like nothing ever has.

The fire within you is burning hotter, and growing by the second, and part of you wants to pull away because you don't want to burn him but he just holds you tighter because he knows you somehow better than anyone and you know that he knows about the fire.

And you're melting in his embrace, and burning from the inside, but you're not hot. You're warm, and he's warm against you, and everything's warm, and you're melting and burning and melting and burning, and it's almost too much, but it's actually just right.

Your hope burns higher, blazing until it engulfs everything.

Everything is black except for the rekindled flame, and the warmth of his arms around you.

Loki wakes suddenly, alert and at the same time unrested and uneasy. His dream disturbs him in its accuracy; pain a memory, and confusion a constant companion.

His surroundings are bleak; a prison room. And yet, not one he has seen before. He is, he is sure, in a rarely visited area of the castle. He thinks back to how Sif took ahold of him so easily, the taste of magic not his own thick on his tongue as he contemplates how it occurred.

And he knows, in that moment, that the warriors had not come on the order of Odin, but of their own accord, and through their own desire and vengeance.

And he is perfectly aware of how they found him and incapacitated him so readily.

He thinks back to the way Tony had crumpled to the floor by a blow to the back of his head, and an anger fills him as he thinks back to the softness of his lips, and the kindness of his touch as he cared for Loki's wounds.

So rather than drift off into sleep, he ignores the pain of his injuries, and plots calmly. Because he knows that it is unlikely that Thor would not look for him, and it is even less likely that Anthony wouldn't.

Tony comes gently into awareness with the feeling of Loki in his arms, both a memory and a dream. He's calm for all of two seconds, before memories of the reason his head was pounding slammed back into him.

"MOTHERf-", he begins, only to silence as a wave of nausea rolled through him at the loud sound.

The lights are, thankfully dim, and he is laid out on a bed that Loki should very well had been in.

His synapses fire, and he attempts to fling himself out of the room in his haste to get to the others. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and he really should have expected the way his face renewed its acquaintance with the floor.

"JARVIS," he groans, pulling himself up by the bedframe, "where are the others?"

"JARVIS is still not 100% up and running," comes the reply from the doorway, in the form of a very welcome archer, carrying a glass of water and what seemed to be about 3 different painkillers.

Only after Tony has downed them, does he run Clint's words through his head.

"What?" he asks, tone deadly as he wiped water from his lips.

The archer raises his eyebrow, and herds him from the room towards the living area.

"Yeah, Thor thinks he was hit with some kind of sleeping spell. Believes we're dealing with this Aurora chick."

"Amora," Tony corrects absentmindedly, noting the way Clint seems to be supporting him in the most surreptitious way possible. He did have a heart after all!

"Whatever. Anyway, he reckons she's behind this schtick. Because if Odin was, he'd have just sent them officially, y'know?"

Tony nodded his head gingerly, because that made so much sense. Mostly.

"But why? What are her motives?"

He puts the question to the rest of the Avengers as he and Clint walk through the doorway of the room.

"She has never held much love for Loki, even when they were…" Thor trails off, before clearing his throat and continuing. "But that is of no matter. With him gone, she is one of Asgard's most powerful mages, and I presume that she could not have him returning and removing that status from her. She has always been… ambitious."

"So how did she manage to rope Sif and those other guys into this?" Tony asks, practically collapsing into a sofa.

Thor's massive shoulders dip as he glances over, and he tells them, briefly, that Sif and the Warriors Three had always been suspicious of, and disliked Loki.

"I will not say that their suspicion is unfounded – you have seen the trickery that he is capable of, and Sif has ever held a grudge against him since-"

He cuts off abruptly as Tony snorts, though he immediately regrets it as his head throbs.

"Yeah, I read that myth. He cuts off her hair, gets it back for her, it turns black."

Thor nods slowly.

"I believe Amora could readily have told them to return him, and provided them with a spell. It is likely that they believed themselves to be doing it on my father's orders.
Nonetheless, whether my father knows of this or not, we must get him back. He will not be as well treated on Asgard as he is here, and I will not let any opportunity to rekindle our bond go to waste."

Clint nods as he walks past Tony, patting him on the head as the billionaire attempts to stand. Steve snickers as he crumples back into the chair.

"We already have a plan of action," Natasha puts in, and it is only then that Tony notices the weaponry she is not wearing. Which is obviously more dangerous, as who knows what she is hiding. She smirks like she knows exactly what he's thinking.

Clint continues, that "Bruce will stay behind – his choice. The Cap says he's not going to pass up this opportunity to see Asgard, and neither are the rest of us. We figured you wouldn't stay, so. Suit up," He finishes, strapping his quiver dramatically onto his back.

No one mentions the way his fingers tangle in the straps as he pulls them back.

Tony is grateful that his head is no longer pounding by the time he and the others are fully suited up. By which he means him, because Natasha is giving him judging looks at how long it took him.

He sticks his tongue at her – it required effort to heave himself up off the chair!

He turns to Thor to ask him how they were all going to get to the necessary location, when a thought occurs to him, and his face morphs into a frown.

"Thor…" He begins slowly, "Why did we have to fly to New Mexico when Heimdall just opened up the Bifrost on my roof?"

Thor's expression is somewhat sheepish, but still firm.

"Heimdall can open the Bifrost anywhere, but I believed it easier for him to open it at a point that it had been opened before, as it has only recently been prepared. It seems that it is less vulnerable than I had thought."

Steve nods at that, before noting that if that were the case, then the Bifrost could readily be opened on the roof once more.

And so together they tramp up the stairs, Bruce waving cheerfully from the kitchen table with his green tea, cheekily wishing them luck.

"I'm not holding your hand, Clint," Natasha snaps, when they're standing in a circle in the roof.

"But the circle of joy and trust, Nat!" He whines. And she glares. Thor simply shakes his head.

Tony tilts his, though, and asks, "Clint, you don't even like the guy? Why are you coming to help save him?"

The archer smirks.

"I've had some very interesting 2am bonding conversations with him in the kitchen," he says.

And before Tony can question him, there is a jerk in his navel, and a rainbow light surrounding them, and he can't even whip around to glare at Thor for interrupting what could have been an important conversation, because they are surrounded and swirling through space.

This time Tony manages to land on his feet.

Clint is not so lucky.

Amora sweeps through the corridor, dust swirling up behind her. She wrinkles her nose slightly, but admits to herself that it is not as bad as it was when she had first walked through. Her face has smoothed by the time she reaches the door, where the guard clumsily bows, tearing his eyes away from her face only when she arches her eyebrow.

She smirks, and runs her nails through his hair as she peers through a small hatch in the dungeon's doorway.

Her prize lies, bruised and unable to fight, on the bed. Her smirk grows, and green sparks linger in the guard's hair as she stalks back the way she came.

The man makes no sound as he collapses into ashes.

The Avengers followed an angry Thor as he aggressively stormed across a bridge that seemed to be made of rainbows. Clint seemed unable to contain his snickers at the image that was presented, despite Natasha's sharp jabs into his ribs. Tony took the walk as time to be amazed at architecture that he had had very little time to marvel at on his previous visit; Steve seemed equally as rapt.

Their march through Asgard was met with greetings from citizens who followed with curious eyes before returning to their going-ons, punctuated and documented by the team's mutterings and Steve asking Jarvis to take pictures so he could draw it later.

They passed architectural and scientific wonders that Thor didn't bat an eyelid at, and Tony really had to wonder how primitive he thought their society was.

They reached the palace almost without realising it, the way it grew around them. They passed through halls and corridors so similar, if more grandiose, than the paths they had walked, that it was only the growing numbers of guards and seemingly liveried servants that had Clint asking if they were getting close.

The response was a terse nod from Thor, the thinning of his lips, and the extending of his stride.

And then he was throwing open the throne room doors.

I know that at the end of the last chapter I'd already started the previous, as is the case with this one.

I simply have little motivation to continue the story, so I apologise if it decreases further in quality, but it's a matter of principle now, and I have to finish it.