Slaughterhouse For Monsters

Summary: Following Loki's defeat at the hands of the Avengers, The Other sends an assassin to punish him for his failure. Only one person may escape through the crack in the cosmos leading out of the Chitauri's dimension, but by the time the assassin traverses it, circumstances have changed. In the guise of Odin, Loki now sits on the throne of Asgard, and the balance of power has shifted. Now may be the time for new deals to be made, and Loki has not abandoned his desire for it to be his name the whole world kneels before.

A/N: Since "Thor: The Dark World" was released, it's rekindled my love for Loki and made me want to try my hand at writing Avengers fic or anything in the world of MCU, so here we go. Current projections are for this to be roughly 60% Avengers and its comprising franchises, 35% Agents of SHIELD and 5% original, with the characters this mostly focuses on being Loki, Thor, Natasha, Coulson and May.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers/Thor/AoS or anything else Marvel.

Prologue – Tricks and Dreams

He's falling. There's no atmosphere, no air, no gravity…yet somehow he's falling. Space is swallowing him whole, and the fractured colours of the Bifrost are receding into the distance as the cruel tendrils of nebular dust wind their way around him and drag him further into the dark. The absence of pressure in the void makes him gasp for air, and he chokes on the emptiness. There's nothing but a relentless pounding in his head and ice in his veins, threatening to tear him apart…

Until after an age he feels solid ground again. Cold, hard rock beneath him, its sturdiness anchoring his feet to the floor while the tidal forces of darkness overhead try to drag him away again. He knows this place. Knows the warped topography of the landscape surrounding him, and knows the names of the things that creep in the flickering shadows.

A cloaked figure stands before him, and he recognises the masked face that leers at him from beneath the hood, both strangely intangible yet frighteningly real.

He isn't sure if this is a memory or now.

"You think you know pain? He will make you long for something sweet as pain." The words are a cruel hiss in his ear; teeth and claws and danger hovering just inches from his soul. The threat is the most honest sentence he's ever heard.

"Failure!" The word feels like a physical blow as it's spat at him, its sharpness penetrating through his skin. "Liar! You promised us Earth, but brought us death."

"I opened the portal!" He growls defiantly back, his voice coming from somewhere strange and not sounding like himself. "It was your invasion forces that failed. I'm not the one responsible for your army's weakness."

It's supposed to be an accusation, a taunt, but sounds horribly like begging; an attempt to deflect blame. Why can't he move? He tries to take a step forward, but it seems that all conceivable forces are converging to keep him in place.

"You underestimated your opponents. It was you who was defeated, Loki Laufeyson," the Other snarls at him. "It was you who lost the Tesseract, and you will be punished for your defeat."

"I am the King of Asgard!" Loki shouts, the words erupting from his mouth in a way that sounds almost manic. "Ruler of the Nine Realms! You call that defeat? I succeeded without you, and now I have more power than you ever promised me. Look at you. What are you now? Still lurking in the emptiness between dimensions, your numbers decimated, no hope for escape. You're nothing!"

The momentary silence that succeeds his outburst is chilling. The pause extends for an unpleasantly long time, and then the Other takes a step closer to him. Loki wants to move, torn between wanting to back away and wanting to advance to prove he isn't afraid, but either movement is for some reason impossible.

The Other comes to a stop just in front of him, eyes hidden but mouth twisted in a cruel expression of mockery. A low, sinister chuckle slips past the coarse grey lips, reverberating through the barren rocks around them. "No, Thor is the rightful King of Asgard. What you are is a fraud. A fake. Your power is built upon an illusion. No one fears or respects your name, Loki. You're nothing but a pathetic failure. How could an abomination like you amount to anything? No matter what tricks you cast, a Frost Giant will never rule Asgard. You are nothing!"

The last sentence was shouted in his face, the Other's teeth snarling just in front of him, but he heard it in Odin's voice. Immediately following it there was a flash of white light, like a lightning strike, and something suddenly jolted him harshly to rip him from where he was anchored to the ground…