I Don't Want a Throne

Chapter 14- If Anyone Touches Him

"Mom." He gasped out and then she was there, crouching down beside him and taking his face in her soft, warm hands. He leaned into her touch and let his eyes drift shut, content to stay like this and pretend everything was alright.

"Oh Loki," She murmured, pulling him in for a hug. "My darling boy." He pressed his face into her chest as she wrapped her arms around him. After a moment she pulled back to examine him. "Are you hurt?" She pulled away the hem of his shirt to see the terrible marks that looked like purple crackling lightning spreading out from a bruise the size of a softball that was presumably from Nebula's torture device. "What's this?"

Loki shrugged, but she was already healing it, sending a warm soothing sensation flooding through him. "It was some technological weapon Thanos had." He gestured to where Gamora stood. "She has it."

Frigga stood and strode over to Gamora who gave her the little spherical object without a moment's hesitation. Frigga fiddled with it for a second and said, "This is really very clever. It creates lightning and channels it through a subject, does it not?" Nebula nodded. "Unnecessarily cruel though." Frigga muttered and tucked it into one of the pockets on her long billowing blue dress as she returned to Loki's side, making quick work of the bullet hole in his arm. "Anywhere else?"

"No, that's everything." He whispered.

"Good." Odin said from when he stood at the edge of the room, looking on to their little reunion. He waved a hand and the guards started forward, pulling Loki to his feet and clapping chains around his wrists. For his mother's sake, he didn't fight them and he even managed to withhold the snide comments he was itching to make. The guards had taken away Gamora and Nebula's weapons, both of whom seemed very inclined to start throwing punches, and cuffed them too.

The guards had moved towards Romanoff and Stark, the former of whom was still supporting an unconscious Barton, when Thor threw out a hand. "No, not them. They went with us to fight Thanos. They've committed no crime."

Odin looked to Heimdall for confirmation. Heimdall paused for a moment, his eyes getting that far away look they always got when he was looking elsewhere. Then they widened with surprise at whatever he was seeing. It was an odd look on Heimdall, as Loki had never seen him display much of any emotion at all. Heimdall locked eyes on Loki and it was an effort to keep from squirming under that scrutiny. He shook his head a little and Heimdall gave a barely perceptible nod in return.

"It appears as though Thor is correct." Heimdall said. "They are a part of the Midgardian team of heroes known as the avengers. They were the group tasked with stopping Loki."

Odin looked at Loki then, and Loki realized that up to that point Odin had been avoiding his gaze. Loki opened his mouth, to scream, to apologize, to plead, something... anything. But no words formed in his head. It was like they'd all run away from him, leaving his mind hollow and blank. He closed his mouth and shifted his eyes to stare at the floor.

And kept his eyes down even as the guards on either side of him pulled at the chains, tugging him onto the rainbow bridge.

As they walked, Loki thought back to the last time he had been on Asgard. He'd been a mess, crazed by grief and betrayal. And he had been so desperate to prove that he wasn't like the rest of the frost giants that he had killed his own father, Laufey. Then he had tried to use the BiFrost to murder all of the remaining frost giants on Jotunheim. Only Thor destroying it had been able to stop him. How had they managed to rebuild it so quickly? He hadn't been gone for all that long, had he? It felt like it had happened in a whole other life, but Loki had chalked that up to his time spent in the TVA.

A little ways ahead of him, Thor was walking with Sif and the warriors three, talking and laughing and ignoring the rest of the world. Just as it had been before everything went to shit. Separating Loki from his brother was the cacophony of guards patrolling Nebula and Gamora. Behind him, Frigga was with the avengers, doing her best to heal Barton as they moved.