The group rushed in as the beeping persisted. To Natasha's ears, it seemed to speed up, impossibly so. All of a sudden, Loki started thrashing about, mouth open in a silent scream.
"Hold him down!" Tony yelled, as Thor and Steve rushed over, one taking his arms and the other taking his legs. Natasha and Clint stood back, watching the scene unfold. Strength was not her strong point, stealth was. But for once, she felt she would trade her spy-based skill set for the robustness the super soldier and Asgardian possessed.
***
The mass of Chitauri roared as one, jeering at the god who lay chained and helpless before them. One of them stepped forward and kicked him viciously in the side, metal boot slamming into his unprotected skin.
Loki squeezes his eyes shut as one of his ribs cracked with the blow. He made no sound, however, silent behind the bloody muzzle.
"Scream, Jotun runt! Cry for your family! Where are they?"
They struck him again and again, bruising and breaking his bones, but he remained silent, knowing what awaited him otherwise.
Finally one of the nastier warriors drew its knife, the blade dripping with blue venom and, taking Loki's arm, plunged it into his wrist. The venom burned through Loki's skin, traveling through his weary veins like fire, and he screamed in agony, unable to control himself as the acidic poison coursed through his weakened body.
It was all they needed. "Silence!" they cried triumphantly, redoubling their attacks as Loki writhed in agony. "No one wants to hear the traitor's voice!"
Loki's struggling was in vain; he surrendered, his body falling limp as they assaulted him.
"Pathetic!" they shrieked. "Worthless, useless, pathetic!"
***
It had taken the Hulk to hold the violently seizing god down. Thank goodness Tony's lab ceilings were so high, for otherwise Bruce's transformation would've destroyed the foundations for two whole floors. As the Hulk held Loki down, Tony plunged a mild sedative into the god's arm, and a collective exhale of relief was emitted by the team when he finally calmed down.
"What's wrong?" Natasha walked forward, noticing Tony's troubled eyes darting between the monitor and the now peacefully slumbering god. Nothing could escape her. She wasn't sure if her observant nature was good or bad to be honest. Sometimes ignorance sounded a lot like bliss.
"The thing I gave him— it calmed down the seizure. But there's some Cortisol in there as well. He should be showing signs of waking up by now."
"How much did you put in there?"
"Enough to wake him up. I created it after that mirror incident. Just in case."
The group watched the monitor and the pale man intently, waiting for any sign of him regaining consciousness.
"His heart rate's just picked up." Steve said. And he was right. The displayed heart rate on the monitor suddenly had more peaks at a time, racing towards the end of the machine before being replaced by another identical cycle.
A twitch of a finger. A closed eye blink followed. A few minutes later and green eyes squinted open, bloodshot from fatigue.
"Welcome to the land of the living, Prongs."
***
At first, Loki had assumed he was dead. He had hoped for it. But the voice that greeted him bought his simple wishes crashing down. The sound of human arrogance, intelligence...the Man of Iron.
"Brother." An image of blue eyes flashed before him, although Loki could not place it. Blue eyes, and a red cape.
Birds of a feather.
"Thor?" Loki's voice broke with a crushing sense of hope. If Loki was truly honest with himself, the idea of hope petrified him, for the simple reason that hope is very easily taken away.
But he allowed it for himself now as his eyes traced the crevices of his view, trying to pinpoint some golden hair or kind eyes of sapphire.
And they appeared. They appeared before him. He dare not think it was reality—perhaps it was a mere dream. This was almost too good to be reality. Pride once would've stopped him from naming Thor his brother, but if this was a dream then what harm could be done?
He saw tears well up in those painfully yet comfortingly familiar eyes.
"Why are you crying, Thor? You're ruining a perfectly good dream." Loki said affectionately, trying reaching out his right hand to stroke those golden locks. His left was claimed by the tight grasp of Dream Thor's hands.
"Oh Loki," his brother chocked out.
Why was he still crying?
"This is not a dream, Loki."
"Don't be ridiculous, brother. Either I'm dreaming or I'm dead. But this must be a dream, for the Man of Iron was here earlier." Loki's throat hurt when he spoke, but this was a dream after all. The pain wasn't real.
"Dear brother..." Thor wept. Loki felt his own tears spring to his eyes, and for once he didn't hold back. It had been so long since he had had such a pleasant dream as this—he wished to hold onto it for as long as possible. And so he allowed his elder brother to pull the god into his arms, and sobbed quietly into his shoulder.
***
Thor hadn't noticed, but the rest of the Avengers had crept slowly out of the room. Clint had walked off (to nobody's surprise). Steve had left too, but only because he'd received a mysterious call from Fury. Tony was engaged with some task on his StarkPad, brow furrowed in concentration.
Only Bruce and Natasha remained invested in the events playing behind the glass wall. Bruce had transformed back as soon as his work had been done, redressing himself in the clothes he successfully managed to rip off. He'd recently invested in some Velcro clothing— easy for him to rip off should he need to transform as hastily as he needed to today. The cost of replacing all his ruined shirts had been getting too high, and so he'd decided to invest. A worthy investment, he mused, judging from today's incident.
"He still loves his brother," Natasha said softly. "Even after everything he's done, everything that's happened. He's never stopped believing there's some good in him."
"They've spent most of their lives together," Bruce said. "A thousand years of kinship. It's a bond not so easily broken."
Natasha nodded in reply, still transfixed by the scene. She was sure that Loki's cries for his brother —at his weakest, at his most vulnerable— meant that he loved Thor too, even if he would never dare admit it. And she found herself believing with Thor that Loki still had a chance of redemption.