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Loki’s in the smithery – that’s how they call it, even though it’s nothing more but an extension of the prison halls, full of hot metal and sharp objects and fumes that sting in his eyes – again. He isn’t sure how he got here. They must’ve dragged him in while he was still unconscious.
The Other’s face is hovering nearby, partially hidden behind his armor and his hood, but Loki can see enough of it to tell his Master’s lieutenant isn’t happy. Loki cannot remember what it was that he did to make the man so angry, but there must’ve been something. There was always something.
“What are we going to do with you, Prince Loki?” he jeers and smacks his pale lips. “You are nothing but trouble.”
Then let me go, Loki would have said if there was no metal pushing down his tongue and locking his jaw in place. Let me go or let me die.
Some of it makes it to his gaze, for the Other laughs. “You are ours, Loki. You always will be. The sooner you accept it, the better for you. Now, in the meantime, I think you need another reminder,” he says, leaning in. His long, pale fingers touch Loki’s temple then travel down, over his cheek, down the angle of his trapped jaw and onto his neck, to wrap around his throat, just above his collar.
Loki tries to jerk away, but he doesn’t get far before he’s held in place. There are clamps holding his forearms down to the block of solid metal before him. He tugs at the bindings, but they hold and a wave of piercing pain rouses in Loki’s hands and travels upward. It only gets worse when he tries to flex his fingers.
Only now, he remembers what happened. Why he’s here. He tried to escape. Someone left his cell open – either by mistake, or, as he starts to suspect right now, to test him – and Loki broke the bones in his palms to slip out of the manacles they used to chain him to the wall. He made it as far as the cargo bay before they found him and dragged him here.
There are new shackles clasped around his wrists now. The manacles are thicker and broader, fitting more closely, and the chain is shorter, with just three links. The middle one is bigger and shaped like a ring, for the sake of convenience, Loki has no doubts. It's just wide enough to accommodate the hooks they are using in the torture chambers to strap the victims in place. To truss them up or pin them down.
He suppresses a shiver.
The Other smiles knowingly, lets go of Loki’s throat, and waves at a smith working nearby. It’s Drig, a dwarven half-blood. At least that’s Loki’s guess. He never had a chance to exchange a word with him and the only times they interacted was when Loki had his various restraints fitted. And, well, the man might have inherited some of his forefathers’ strength and stature, but not their finesse in the craft.
His creations are still effective though, even if crude.
Drig comes over, carrying his tools. It’s nothing fancy, just a piece of metal he places under the clasp of one of the manacles to keep it level, a couple of rivets, and a hammer. His movements are effective and precise when he’s working, his hands uncaring, as he’s hammering the bolts in place. Loki grits his teeth against the metal and doesn’t make a sound, even when the manacles close all the way and trap his skin.
It seems final, another permanent reminder of Thanos’ power over Loki’s life, but Loki knows it’s not. Loki found a way out of the previous shackles, and he will find a way to slip those as well.
He will find a way or he will die. Those are his only options.
Soon, Drig is done with the last rivet and Loki lets out a careful breath. He’s made it through, once more.
“It’s not all,” the Other says, and gestures at Drig once more. “We don’t want to make it too easy for you this time, do we?”
Drig turns away, to his furnace, and then back to Loki and now he’s holding pincers in his massive hand. There’s a piece of metal trapped in them, glowing white from the fire, long and narrow, with a pointy end, like a nail without a head.
For a short, sweet moment Loki just stares at it without understanding. Then he sees it. There are small holes, roughly the diameter of the rod in Drig’s hand, bored into each manacle.
He shakes his head desperately and tries to pull away, but the clamps are still clasped around his arms and he cannot get away, cannot escape. Pain blooms in his shattered bones, and it soon gets worse, as Drig fits the rod into the hole. There’s a sizzle of boiling blood and a smell of burned flesh fills Loki’s nostrils, just as his eyes fill with tears.
“Sit still, you’ll only make it worse if you don’t,” Drig grumbles and brings down the hammer.
Loki squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his teeth, but doesn’t quite manage to hold back the scream that bubbles in his throat when the hammer is brought down, once, then twice, and then again and again, as the white-hot metal is driven further and further into his flesh, severing muscle and blood vessels and burning the flesh.
“See, it wasn’t that bad,” the Other chirps next to Loki’s ear.
Loki swallows the bile that rose to his throat and dares to look. The bolt has been driven all the way through, its head now level with the surface of the shackle, the glow slowly fading. Soon, it will become one solid piece of metal. Soon, Loki’s flesh will heal around it, accommodating the intrusion. Just like it did with everything else.
Drig brings forth a second, identical one, and places it against Loki’s other wrist.
This time, Loki watches. Every single hit of the hammer, every bit of the length burying into his flesh. Now, that nothing is left to his imagination, it doesn’t even hurt as badly, his limb quickly growing numb as circulation is interrupted and the wound cauterized by the heat.
I can deal with it, he tells himself. I can bear it. I’m stronger than that.
“Two down, one to go,” the Other says.
Loki blinks. Both manacles are already secured and–
Drig turns to his furnace once more. The next rod is much longer, much thicker too, and Loki doesn’t get the opportunity to figure out its use before the Other grabs a handful of his hair and pushes Loki’s face down to the metal of the anvil. The collar activates, clipping to the metal and holding Loki in place. He tries to fight it, to pull away, his shackled feet beating a frantic rhythm on the metal floor, his hands flexing uselessly, the metal and the broken bones grinding together to create a symphony of pain.
Drig brings the rod to his face, keeping it a thumb’s length away from Loki’s cheek and Loki realizes it’s long enough to pierce it all the way through, cross his mouth and come cleanly out on the other side.
“Just a small reminder of who’s really in charge here,” the Other snarls, his fingers running through Loki’s hair in a parody of care. “Be done with it.”
Drig moves the rod down to the metal band holding Loki’s gag in place and hits it with the hammer.
This scream, Loki doesn’t hold. This scream tears forth from his throat, now filling with boiling blood, and reverberates in his skull. It goes on, and on, and on, until his lungs run out of air and it turns into a gurgle.
Loki tries jerking away, in one last, desperate struggle. Surprisingly, his limbs obey him, but there’s something holding him down, smothering him, trying to drag him under.
“Hey,” sounds close by; a new voice; a voice that doesn’t belong here, in this place of horrors. A voice from the past.
Or maybe the future?
Something touches his cheek, just where the metal had burned him a moment ago. It’s warm, but not hot. Gentle. “I’m here. You’re safe, Loki,” the voice says, soft and patient. “I swear.”
He stops struggling and blinks his eyes open.
Natasha’s face is right above him, her hand cupping his cheek. Her eyebrows are knitted with worry, but there’s still a smile on her lips. It’s thin and sad, but it’s there.
Where am I? he wants to ask, but his throat and mouth are dry, his tongue heavy and uncooperative, and it comes off as an unintelligible whine.
She reaches somewhere behind and brings forth a glass of water. She props his head up and holds the glass to his lips. It’s cool and fresh and delicious, and it douses the fire that burns in his throat.
She pulls the glass away to give him a chance to draw air, and he does. He takes the glass from her fingers and downs the rest of it in a few greedy gulps, then puts it away on the side table.
“Thank you,” he says.
She smiles, and brushes the back of her palm against the angle of his jaw. “Another nightmare?”
Loki nods and tries sitting up, but his limbs are tangled in the bedsheets. “I’m sorry,” he says. It comes off a little thin, a little wobbly, the shadows of the dream still banging around in his head.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” she says and helps him with the bedsheets, drawing them away.
He sits up, his back against the headboard, pulls his knees up, and wraps his arms around his legs. “I was…” he starts and pauses.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel like talking.”
“No, I… I want to,” he says and means it. There are no secrets he wants to keep from her, not anymore. “I was back on the Sanctuary.”
She purses her lips and nods. She doesn’t comment, but her hand makes its way to his shoulder and rubs it. There’s care in it and affection and Loki leans into the smooth, soothing motion.
“It was when I got these,” he says and rubs his thumb against the small, pale dot of a scar on his wrist. “And these,” he adds, pointing at similar markings he knows adorn his cheeks.
“You’re all right, Loki,” she tells him again, and it’s easier to believe, this time, in the light of the morning sun filtering through the curtains. “They cannot hurt you anymore.”
“I know,” he nods.
She smiles again and reaches to place her hand at the nape of his neck. “Come here,” she says, pulling him closer. He yields to it, lying back down and curling up close to her, nuzzling his face into her clothes, held in place by her tight embrace. One that doesn’t feel like being trapped. One that feels like home.
---
He falls back asleep in the end, and this time, he doesn’t dream at all.