Rehabilitation (a tony x loki fic)

Falling down

It was over, he could search no more, he had run out of places to look for Loki, and now he had to return to Asgard, alone. They had searched in every single realm, except for Midgard of course, but that was of Thor's doing. He had convinced them that Loki would not return to earth no matter what kind of situation he was in, doing so would get him killed and destroyed by the rest of the Avengers, but of course, he was actually there.

Heimdall also knew that Loki was with the Avengers, safe and sound from Odin's grasp, but that was also the problem; Heimdall knew where Loki was. All that Odin would have to do would be to force him to speak, force him to let loose the secret of where Loki was being hidden, but he had a lie for now.

Heimdall had made it very clear to Odin that Loki had used some sort of highly concentrated cloaking spell that made him undetectable to him, and if he was to search out Loki, he would have to do it manually, and that would do him no good whatsoever, it would take years to spot out every single patch of land in all of the nine realms, and perhaps even farther. To everyone except for him and Thor, Loki was hiding with all the effort he could possibly summon.

Regardless, the verdict was that finding Loki would be nearly impossible, and any further efforts would be unreasonable and pathetic to continue, so Thor had to return to Asgard whether he liked it or not, and truly, he didn't like it or dislike it, because now he had a task at hand.

He was going to have to put on a show, lie to his father about not finding Loki, how his brother is most likely dead and will never be found again, he would have to put on a grand show for it to work, one filled with sorrow for his brother, it had to work, it had to.

He didn't want to think about what would happen if it didn't work, he knew that both him and Loki would suffer greatly. Loki would suffer far more however; Odin would be convinced that Loki tricked Thor into helping him escape, that he was played by the trickster and that he had no reason to punish him, only to punish Loki, and Thor knew that whatever type of punishment that would come for Loki would be filled with unimaginable pain, pain and suffering that a normal being would succumb to within seconds of being exposed to.

He was terrified really, Loki was going to be in a world of hurt if he didn't make this work, so he had to.

Once Thor had returned to Asgard via the Bitfrost, there was not a single word of exchange between him and Heimdall, only a reassuring nod of communication, and Thor was leaving down along the Rainbow Bridge, his hammer gripped tightly and nervously in his hand, sweating slightly.

Whatever he did now was going to decide if Loki was going to live or die, and he wasn't going to let his only brother die, even if it was the last thing that he was to do. But as he was walking down the brightly glowing Rainbow Bridge, something clicked in his head, and he froze on the spot. He suddenly started thinking, thinking very hard, he realized that there was yet another thing that he could do.

He stood there for a moment, his head clicking away, and then he turned around and ran back to the Bitfrost, he had an idea.

He just needed Jane Foster first.

Running back to the Bitfrost, he called out for Heimdall, who hadn't moved an inch. "I have to get back to Midgard, I can't explain it, just do it!" Heimdall gave him an odd look of confusion, but he simply agreed, getting to work at slowly starting up the Bitfrost.

"Don't do anything that will cost us." Heimdall reminded Thor, but he wasn't listening at all, and as he was swept away by the Bitfrost's magic, Heimdall couldn't help but worry about what he was planning to do.