AN: All characters are © Marvel.

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He saw demonic faces before him, nightmarish creatures which clawed at his body, cutting deep into his armor and his flesh. He tried to defend himself, to fight back, but he had been wounded and his mind couldn't focus. He saw an opening and flew away as fast as his crippled body would carry him. His torturers didn't follow him immediately, probably wishing to prolong the sport he was offering them.

In the darkness, he found a place he thought would be safe. His pursuers were edging near, their gnarled feet thumping on the cold rocks, their harsh voices murmuring, always closer and closer.

A cry pierced the cold air, for another entity was in the vicinity now and the creatures fled before it. Then dread drenched his whole being like iced water, a primal fear which went beyond any understanding or rationalizing and which threatened to shatter his sanity.

There exist some creatures which precede any other in the Universe, which reigned in an era of chaos and darkness and whose mere presence defies the known laws of Nature. The formerly undisputed rule of such abominations, however, was interrupted millions of years ago, but they still survive as cultures which have forgotten all that made them great but their hubris, and from the dark recesses of the Universe where they persist on existing, they venture sometimes to prey on the inferior beings which serve them as sustenance.

Something got a hold of him. He hadn't heard it approaching, nor could he defend himself, paralyzed as he was with terror.

He was suffocating.

That something constricted his body but, instead of crushing him, it left him breath just enough to keep him living, and what little air he could take had the stench of rotten flesh on it. He couldn't move nor scream at the feeling of that creature he couldn't see on the darkness prodding into his mind, whispering to him in a language he had never heard, but whose words slowly pierced him to the very core of his soul.

Harsh, white light almost burnt his eyes when he opened them with a scream. It took him several moments of taking long, painful breaths of air to realize that the smell which assaulted his nostrils was that undefined mixture of antiseptics and cleansers. He was in a hospital.

Finally letting go of a deep sigh, Loki leant his head back on the pillow, but when he tried to touch his left cheek, which felt tender, he discovered with dismay that he had been bound to the bed. He started to wrestle his way out of it, but at that moment the room's door opened and someone entered in a hurry.

"Brother!" Thor put a hand on Loki's chest. "Is it you, Loki?"

"Of course it is I!" Loki protested. "Unbind me at once!"

But Thor frowned, and Loki feared that he was to be brought back to Asgard in that fashion: As a prisoner loaded with chains. During some moments Thor held his gaze, as if he was searching for something, until his face relaxed on a wide smile.

"I'm sorry, brother," Thor said while he made a signal to someone at the door to then undo the straps on Loki's hands and feet. "But you lost control after the battle and we had to take measures."

"That's impossible."

"Mother warned me," Thor admitted, going to sit on a chair by the bed. "She told me that after some time without your powers you might lose your mind when you could reclaim them. She told me that I was to render you unconscious until you recovered."

"And that is what explains why my face hurts," Loki murmured, nursing his left cheek and grimacing. "You brutish oaf."

"I had no choice!" Thor defended himself. "The Midgardians were ready to attack you!"

"Where are the girls?"

"They are safe. Your Lady Jane wanted to be here, but I told her it would be dangerous."

"She didn't pay any heed to what you said," Loki said with a smirk.

"How did you know?"

"Her scarf is over that chair," Loki pointed out. "Also, I know her and I have experience with stubborn individuals."

Thor made a face, averting his eyes.

"We tried to find the Casket," he said, changing the subject. "Do you know where it might be?"

"I hid it."

"Where?"

"In a safe place where no mortal will find it. They are too curious for their own good."

"I still need to know where is that place."

Loki turned his head and saw that Thor's eyes were cold and hard as tempered steel. Sighing, he sat up laboriously and closed his eyes to muster his strength. He gestured with both hands and the Casket appeared for him to grab its handles. As he did so, the blue hue spread slowly but relentlessly over his fingers, his arms and the rest of his body under the hospital garbs.

He didn't look at Thor, convinced that the man had his eyes fixed on his now blue face. Did he have ruby eyes like the other Giants? He couldn't be sure. Another gesture and he sent the Casket back to the dimensional pocket it had been stored in all that time, and with that his skin came back to normal as slowly as it had changed.

Loki leant back on the pillow, strangely tired from the effort, his eyes fixed on the ceiling again.

"Then it's true," Thor murmured.

"Why is it that no one listens to me when I say the truth?" Loki sighed. "Yet when I speak in jest everyone turns into the most attentive audience."

He heard Thor sighing heavily.

"We have more pressing matters," the god of thunder said, his voice hoarse. "If they could take the Casket, that means…"

"Nothing at all."

"What?"

"A protective shield can be augmented or diminished, depending on the needs of the caster," Loki recited. "That the Vault has been left unprotected doesn't mean that the Palace has fallen entirely, only that the casters needed to reduce the radius since they couldn't activate the shield's generator. You still have time to reach them, although what will you do next it's anyone's guessing. Remember that the Casket wasn't the only weapon stored inside the Vault."

"Won't you come with us? Mother sent me for you."

"I have been exiled," Loki reminded him. "Now that you know what I am, I doubt I would have a place among your warriors, and I doubt even more that Odin would stand the sight of me."

"Father and I argued before he fell into the Odinsleep," Thor murmured, then shook his head. "No, it was because I argued with him that he spent what little energy he had left and fell asleep. I told him that he was wrong, that you could never try to do such a thing, but-"

"Actually," Loki interrupted him. "I did."

"What?" Thor's head snapped up, but Loki kept glancing at the ceiling.

"I had to show Odin how ill prepared you were to be a king," he explained calmly. "If it wasn't so easy to instill your rage, nothing like this would have happened. Father would have gone to sleep in peace, you would be the regent and the Frost Giants would be still rooting in that dead planet of theirs."

"And I would be blissfully ignorant of my identity," he added to himself.

"You started a war!" Thor roared.

"You," Loki hissed, glaring at him. "You delivered the first blow at a simple name-calling when I, as always, nearly saved us all yet again by means of words and wits. But they would have been regarded as mere tricks had we returned unscathed from your little adventure, wouldn't they?" he sneered, never raising his voice. "You would have swept an entire race had they given you the power, only because you thought it would be a good sport. You, the Golden Child, Asgard's dream warrior. You know nothing about defeat, about being trampled on and then having to rise from the mud, with your wounds as your own companions and later the scars as reminders that you aren't invincible. Tell me, brother, how can you love something if you never harbor the fear of losing it? How can you be Asgard's king if you take for granted that she will be always yours? Odin knew this, though never admitted it because he knew in his heart he couldn't, because you were his only child and he had no other to turn to."

Thor's labored breathing was the only sound on the room when Loki fell silent.

"I shouldn't have acted when I did," Loki continued, returning to glancing at the ceiling. "Father might have forgiven you, as he always did in the past."

Thor, without looking at him, stood up and went to the window, clenching his fists all the while.

"Father told me he should have exiled me instead of you," he said after a long silence, his voice heavy with restrained rage. "Isn't that enough for you?"

He stood blocking the sunlight, so that his silhouette seemed to glow with an inner light. The Golden Child, even in exile, thought Loki, not without faint resentment.

"Odin and you are very alike," Loki said, rubbing his forehead to ease the dizziness. "You both have very loose tongues when you are enraged. I suppose he will be disappointed that it wasn't his son the one to thwart Laufey's invasion."

"You were so drenched on their dark blood that we couldn't distinguish the colors of your garments," Thor said, stepping aside and breaking the illusion, a questioning frown on his face. "You knew who you were at the time."

"I am as much a Frost Giant as I am an Aesir," Loki said, his voice devoid of any emotion. "From neither place but despised in both. From Asgard I always suspected it; from Jotunheim, Laufey left no room for doubt, and that certainty gave strength to my arm."

"You were Laufey's son?"

"Bastard son," Loki corrected. "He murdered my mother as soon as he saw that I was not his child. But at least he was sincere on his opinion of me."

Thor fell silent. He had never been a gifted orator, preferring action over anything else, but it was in situations as these, when no physical strength would save him, when it actually showed.

He must have felt there was nothing left to say, or maybe he caught the hint from Loki, with his eyes closed and steady breathing, that his brother wasn't willing to speak anymore with him; but Thor finally strode to the door, opened it and disappeared after slamming it.

Loki opened his eyes and sat up again, knowing himself alone at last. Pouring out his heart to anyone was something he had never done, maybe because he never saw any reason to do so, maybe because the source of his discontent had been, most of the time, the very person whose discretion he would never doubt about.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel the lightheadedness that plagued him, when he remembered that he hadn't eaten since that morning (if they were still in the same day). Suddenly a cold sweat broke over him and, for a moment, an image of his nightmare flashed before his eyes. He shook his head, trying to calm himself. Dreams were just the manifestation of our inner fears, nothing more, and maybe having his powers returning might have played a part on that.

Loki was still sitting, his face buried on his hands, when he heard the door opening again.

Jane peered into the room warily, as if expecting to find him still asleep, but as soon as she saw him awake a smile lighted up her features.

"You are awake!" she beamed, closing the door behind her, but upon finding him alone her smile faltered. "Where's Thor?"

"I don't know," Loki shrugged disinterestedly, but noticing the carton tray with two cups she was carrying. "He went away."

"Pity," she said, but her smile returned, as bright as before. "How are you feeling?"

"Far worse than when you run me over with your van," he joked.

"That's not funny," she told him sternly as she set the tray on the nightstand. "You look pale."

But she was also showing signs of weariness; despite her previous smile her cheeks were almost devoid of color, and dark circles had appeared under her eyes.

"How much time have I been sleeping?" he asked.

"What was left of yesterday and the whole night," she said. "It's nine in the morning."

Loki stretched his hand to take the spare cup, but Jane took it away from his reach.

"Don't even think about it," she scolded, going for the door, the tray still on her hands. When she opened it, Loki saw that there were two men stationed at each side, and one of them went to call for a doctor.

"Are you a nurse now?" Loki teased when she returned.

"We don't know if this will disagree with you," she reasoned.

"When will they discharge me?"

"As soon as we talk to the doctors," she said, biting her lip. "Only that we aren't in a normal hospital."

Loki's heart skipped a beat. His expression must have been something to behold, because Jane quickly waved her hand and corrected herself.

"I-I mean," she stuttered. "We are in a SHIELD installation. They didn't want to risk bringing you all to a normal hospital."

Of course, Hogun had been injured too. It was normal that SHIELD wanted to keep them apart from the civilians.

He was discharged soon afterward, but was instructed to not leave the complex until it was deemed safe for them. Loki sneered inwardly at that order, since he could travel at will to wherever he wanted; but he would remain under their surveillance, if only to see what they were about.

His armor was, as Thor had said, so stained with Frost Giant's blood that the colors had been dulled to a dark grey. Nevertheless, those garments wouldn't do, clean or not, so he sent them away and donned the clothes that SHIELD had provided for him. However, a deep nausea shook him when he casted the spell and he had to sit again at the bed's edge.

Loki remembered having read about power deprivation on a sorcerer: Once it was restored the subject could suffer a state akin to drunkenness, on which the magic forces would take over the mind with unpredictable results. In his case it had been losing his mind and attacking whoever came near him. The only remedy was rendering the subject unconscious, as Thor had been instructed to do by their mother.

Magic wasn't a definite force. It was a continuum which occupied the whole Universe and all realities. During the time the caster was unconscious, his spirit could mingle with that very force he had been deprived of, thus being able to see other realities. That nightmare had been a vision of what was happening to him in other Universe, not a mere dream.

Looking through the window he could see that it was a clear day outside. It was impossible to believe it, that there was another Loki, in a different reality, who was lost and alone in one of the darkest corners of the Universe, at the mercy of creatures who had been shunned and forgotten for eons.

He shuddered involuntarily, the nausea still tugging at his stomach. However, he couldn't let anyone see him like that. Loki discarded those thoughts: it was another reality, not him, and even then, he was sure that his other self would find a way to escape and return to Asgard, or whichever place he wanted. He was resourceful and strong, though he feared the price his other self would have to pay in terms of sanity after such brutal ordeal.

Loki then fought the dizziness with dogged determination, convincing himself that it wasn't worse than that occasion when he and Thor, still young rascals, drank a whole cask each of that special mead Odin kept aside for great occasions. It hit them so hard the Allfather deemed their week-long hangover a suitable punishment on itself.

He won the battle, and could walk straight to where Jane was waiting for him to go to the cafeteria, but the memory of his nightmare would still haunt him throughout the day.

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