Chapter Text
In the months that followed Loki's imprisonment, his thoughts began to clear, his memories being sorted as clarity broke through the fog of torture and the remnants of the mind stone's control over him. There were still moments were all the dark thoughts and feelings the mad titan had brought to the surface overwhelmed him, vivid nightmares of his torment, they burned hotter than the fires of dwarven forges, and they terrified him more than the emptiness of the void. He had no doubt now that the fault of the invasion of Midgard was not entirely his fault, but he did doubt anyone would believe him. Thanos had been clever, using torture to break him, then use the mind stone to bring only the things that could be used to the titan's advantage. Loki's rage, the betrayal he felt, his need to prove himself, and most of all his fear. It was the fear that truly broke him, and it's what made Loki remain silent about the titan's involvement. Not just fear of the titan himself, but the repercussions from what everyone around him would assume to be more lies to cover his own guilt. He doubted anyone believed he genuinely did feel guilt for his actions on Midgard. As soon as the Hulk had severed the control of the mind stone, the guilt began to creep in. His emotions were far too heightened by everything to have clear thought, but the guilt was there. He was the villain in everyone's eyes, and he was the fall for the titan's plan, a pawn that could easily be replaced. Loki knew no one would believe him, and it broke his heart.
As his mind became clearer, dread also followed, as he realized his spells were fading, and he could do nothing to replace them, not without someone noticing him using strong magic. When he fell into Thanos' clutches, he hadn't known what condition he was in, but when he discovered it, he used his strength to place a couple powerful spells on himself, one was a protection spell, and the other was to slow things down. As Loki did not wish to ever birth a child while the captive of Thanos. He wasn't sure if it'd be even worse than what Odin had done to his previous children. He heard that Thanos regularly tortured his own children, one he would tear apart for her failings over and over again, replacing the bits that could not recover with machinery. He could never let that happen to the life inside him. So he made it dormant, protected, but slowed, slow for even a Jotun or Aesir, who had pregnancies far longer than a human. Surprisingly through everything, through his treatment by Thanos, to the battle of New York, and even now in his imprisonment on Asgard, the child's life still thrummed as a small light within. However now the spells were fading, and he would soon enough no longer be able to hide his condition.
That is where the terror began, he feared what Odin would do to this new child. Every other had been treated as a threat, a monster, some bound in forms they were never meant to take, others thrown into places in hopes they would perish, but as they were his blood, all of them survived. Despite all these unjust punishments, ripping his infants from his arms and casting them to their fates, the cruelest thing Odin had done was place a spell on every child he had, where Loki could not see nor hear them if he ever got close enough. He couldn't do that again, he wouldn't. It seemed impossible, but he knew he had to escape, not for his own sake, but for that of his unborn child. He had to protect them from the allfather, he needed to protect them, because no one would believe any of his blood to be anything more than a monster.