Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 39

"And you can watch all of these videos at any moment?" Thor asks. "Are they all stored on your cellular phone?"

"Yes and no," Clint says. "They're all stored online — on the internet — so as long as I'm somewhere with internet access, I can watch them. But if Tony were to kick my phone off his wifi, I probably couldn't watch them. The wifi here is great, but the service sucks."

"I see," Thor says, though he only understands roughly half of what was just said. "Can we watch another?"

"Yeah, sure," Clint says with a shrug. "Oh, hey, you know what's funny? Asdfmovie. It's a series of the stupidest five-second videos ever. I'll show you that one."

Thor watches eagerly as Clint pulls up a new video, but a loud slamming noise from upstairs interrupts them before they can start to watch it.

"JARVIS, what was that?" Clint asks.

"I believe that was Loki, sir," JARVIS says.

Oh, shit. Thor throws a careless "I'll be right back" over his shoulder as he takes off running, his arm outstretched while he waits for Mjolnir to arrive. He runs to the stairwell and his hammer meets him there, flying straight through the gap between flights of stairs. As soon as it's in his hand, he uses it to fly right back up through that hole, and he's on Loki's floor within seconds. He knows he promised Steve that he'd leave Loki alone, but Steve's not here right now, and Thor desperately wants to know that everything is okay. The continued slamming from upstairs makes him think it's not..

By the time Thor makes it to Loki's hall, Tony's already there, frozen in place and staring straight ahead. Thor stops as well, not entirely sure how to proceed. The part of the hallway he can see looks mostly the same as it usually does. A few doors have been torn off their hinges, lying haphazardly on the ground. The end of the hallway, Loki's room included, is gone entirely, replaced by an endless black void, the faint light of what almost appears to be stars shimmering off in the distance.

"What the hell is this?" Tony asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I..."

A door flies out of one of the rooms, smashing against the wall opposite it.

"I don't know," Thor says finally. "I've never seen anything like this."

The faint sound of Loki whimpering gets Thor's attention, and, without another moment of hesitation, he takes off down the hall. Tony follows shortly after him, and, when they reach the endless dark void, they both test it before they proceed. They both disappear from sight the moment they pass into it, but they can still hear both each other and their footsteps on the invisible floor.

"Where would Loki's door be?" Thor asks. He doesn't know this hallway well enough to find it without seeing it first, and he has a feeling he's not going to see anything in this darkness.

Tony doesn't answer. The pounding of footsteps says that he's running, but Thor can't see a thing. He follows the man slowly, but he doesn't know this hall as well as Tony does so he doesn't dare try to run.

"No," Loki mumbles. "Stop it. Stop—"

Thor picks up the pace, and finally, finally, he finds his brother's room. Much like the hallway, everything is dark, but Loki is clearly visible in the numbingly empty void, curled up on his side with his eyes squeezed shut. All he wears are his Asgardian leather pants, ripped and torn nearly to shreds. His bare skin is littered with cuts and bruises, blood dripping down his body.

"Loki!" Thor yells.

"Please," Loki whispers. "I'm sorry. I'm —"

Everything happens at once.