Loki did not know if this task was to test his loyalty or tempt him to run, but he did not contemplate it.
He was allowed to heal for a short period - enough that the gruesome scars on his face could seal and he could wash the majority of blood off his body. They fed him - as if it was an after thought - and he was permitted to sleep for the first time in what felt like years of being kept from unconsciousness.
He suspected Thanos did not truly need him to fetch these final pieces, but the Titan had held off on sending his daughters both because he had wanted them to either watch or work on him and because he wanted to test how truly subservient Loki was to him.
If Loki proved to still possess something of his - something that had not been shattered - than the Titan would fetch him back... and continue the process.
The next day he was armored and transported from Sanctuary. He did not fight The Other as the creature forced him onto his knees. He collapsed willingly with no more than a slight twitch to indicate that the movement had jarred his wounds.
“A servant.” Loki’s voice sounded hollow, as if all the life had been carved out of his body.
“And what are you to do, runt?”
The Other’s only response was a husky snarl. It remembered the irreverence and disrespect this prisoner had begun with. He had clawed, snarled, fought, and cursed, refusing to bow and vowing to never be theirs.
He remembered also when the prisoner’s defiance had turned to pleading and sobbing.
They were not gentle with Loki as they hauled him to his feet, blindfolded him with an advanced mechanism that covered his eyes and clamped onto his temples, and lead him into a spacecraft.
Loki vaguely noticed the smell of fabric and warm metal, and heard the hard material clanging beneath his feet, but then The Other gripped his face and his body seized as pain lanced through his psyche and blacked out his senses.
Loki awakened again when he was pulled into reality. He noticed they had removed the blindfold, but it was only a momentary observation before he hunched on the ground and heaved a sharp, violent series of coughs. He tasted blood and his head spun, but he forced himself to his feet, the leather of his clothes slapping against his legs.
“Be back here in what you would consider forty-eight hours.” The Other’s voice breathed in his ear. “If you are not, we shall find you and we shall see if your service is deemed unsatisfactory.”
Loki gave a nod and stepped forward. The Other was gone when he risked a glance behind him. He noticed the smoothness of the rock there, and every noteworthy part of the landscape, so he could return to it without mistake. Then he departed.
Nowhere was a hive of life. It’s illegal traders and undocumented population number crowded in constructed levels of buildings notched into the skull of a dead ancient. The organic matter mined from the celestial’s brain was sold, and the prospect of mining these rare material drew beings wishing to become rich, which in turn attracted business and entertainment.
Loki knew none of this. He knew only what he had come to get and from whom, and that he had to do so in two days. Thanos had better suited servants for this - ones he had not broken so freshly - but he wanted to know if Loki was ready.
Loki spent his first day well - by the end he had acquired two of the required parts and located the other three. He had monitored the schedule of one of the vendors, and could easily locate the other two that he would need to seize or bargain from.
He avoided the thrumming, pulsating establishments that flashed with color and pounded with music, and instead chose a dark, out of the way hole to crawl in to for rest. He did not even use the bed in the room, but instead fit himself as tightly as was physically possible into a dim corner.
He slept for only a few hours. He was jarred awake by the sharp memory of his own scream, and found himself struggling to breathe. He gasped, sitting up indecorously and steadying himself against the wall, even as another spasm of coughs rocked his lungs. The tang of blood was on his tongue and he shuddered as he lingered for a moment, realizing by the dry pain in his throat he had actually been crying out.
He emerged a mere five hours later, determined to be finished early with his task and be waiting when The Other returned.
With skin that was unnaturally pale and eyes sunken and rimmed by dark circles resembling bruises, he was a black, unnatural figure. Scars marred his temples and cheeks - the latter long, from nails, and the former deep and small - and were seen on his neck when it was glimpsed beneath his high collar and his mane of raven hair. He looked fearsome, horrifying.... and broken.
Moving like a shadow, he shifted into a loud establishment, catching sight of his target still drinking in one corner. He took a seat at the bar, but ordered nothing and was neither questioned nor challenged for not spending any units. His green eyes monitored the roving, carousing groups that either gambled at holographic game tables or drank and yelled, but he ever kept his purchase in site.
He cast another cursory glance down the length of the bar, taking no notice of any face in particular... until realizing with a sudden, suffocating shock that he had seen something vividly familiar in the features of one of the patrons.
Loki hazarded a second glimpse, and felt paralyzed for a moment when he saw golden hair, and cobalt blue eyes staring back from a face they had been unable to force him to forget. His throat seized, and a thousand memories and thoughts and words poured into his mutilated mind. Thor. No.
Panic hounded him and his breath quickened within lungs and a rib cage barely repaired enough to accommodate the rush of oxygen.
It was an exercise in willpower to control his expression. To rise, naturally, and move, like a snake weaving his way through grass, toward the exit. There was air outside and sanity and something other than the brother he had not seen in years; the brother he did not and could not remember. The brother he wanted only to escape.
