Twice Again: Prologue

Loki kinda wanted to go home.

He banished the thought - out of sight, and out of mind - before it can take root and blossom in his turmoiled thoughts. Perhaps the green monstrosity had hit him too hard, if he was missing "home" - wherever that was. Asgard? Where the Aesir looked at him with poison in their eyes and spoke to him with venom on their lips? Jotunheim? Whose king he had stabbed squarely in the back, who would welcome him with no less than a cold death?

Back to the present, Laufeyson. Focus. Loki bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Focus.

Today hadn't really gone the way he had planned. He would give the Avengers that much credit - and nothing more, of course. Instead of sitting on a large, golden throne, with all the mortals clamouring to kiss at his feet, Loki found himself... Well. Where should he start? With his still-smarting back pressed painfully against the wall? With the arrow nocked and ready, aimed at his eye? With the scepter - with HIS scepter - firmly clasped in Romanoff's hands? With the group of misfits and monsters standing over him, the group that his army should have torn to shreds?

Dragged back to Asgard like a criminal, or captured and tortured by Thanos. In the very pits of Loki's stomach, the tiniest bit of dread quivered. What a choice.

"Brother," Thor said, almost gently. Loki snapped his neck towards his brother - no, towards one of the misfits who had razed his master plan to the ground. The anger that had comfortably nestled in his heart was dulled - but a dull blade can still cut. "Brother, there is no way out." Loki's lips twitched, but Thor carried on. "Surrender, Loki."

Loki was a rat, and he had been backed into a corner, far away from his mousehole, by six starving cats.

He didn't like the feeling.

Trembling fingers curled, tracing one rune into the dusty wall, then another, and another. The consequences of attempting a transportation spell of this magnitude would be dire, especially when Loki could barely dredge out anything out of the internal well he had long recognized as the limits of his energy. Paralysis was not out of the question. Perhaps death.

But let him die, before he be dragged back in shackles and chains, faced with Odin's disappointment and Frigga's tears, and all the disgust once more. Loki felt the last of his magic drain out in a painful, stinging trickle. Heat brushed sharply against his palms, and it brought Loki the slightest of pleasures to see the Avengers jump back in unison when thick green smoke erupted from his fingertips. When the smoke cleared, he would be miles away from the blasted tower and this bundle of insufferable mortals.

The smell of sulphur and winter seeped out of the air, and-

There stood the six mortals, tense, weapons drawn. It didn't work. Loki almost crumpled to the floor then, relief ground into a writhing coil of dread. "Brother," Thor said, this time with more sadness than pity. At least he'd tried, Loki thought.

One, two. Loki opened his mouth to retort, to tell this thing in front of him that it was not his brother. One, two. A cry escaped from his lips instead of a remark. Something was burning through his veins - scorched every cell of his being. Loki's knees buckled, raw flesh hitting broken concrete. He tried to catch himself against the wall, but his fingers were stiff, rigid, and fresh pain blossomed where his skin met stone.

"Shit," the archer said, almost a question. His bow clattered noisily on the broken tiles.

Through vision that was rapidly misting over, Loki could do nothing as Thor leapt past the flabbergasted mortals. For all his idiocy, he was a trained warrior, leader, prince - and not just in combat. "He has used too much magic." Thor hissed, large hands holding down his as he twitched. "His body is shutting down on himself-"

Even from a distance, Loki could make out the shit-eating grin on the archer's face.

"-Go and fetch a healer!" None of the mortals moved. One of them snorted. Thor's grip on Loki's wrists tightened. "If a prince dies on Midgardian ground, my father will bring hel to your kingdom. Fetch. A heal-"

As Thor's voice faded to a whisper, Loki let himself sleep.

---

Then it started.

No one moved, until it was over, until the green light that bathed the room faded to a flicker.

And as they gazed wordlessly at what had happened, Clint Barton scratched his head, and said "shit," for the second time that morning.