Chapter Text
He floats.
There isn’t any pain, and he feels weightless as he tries to figure out where he is. When he looks around, he doesn’t think he is anywhere.
Nothing makes any sense.
It’s akin to the Void, but not as frightening or heavy. For a moment he thinks he died and is in Hel, but this place is too peaceful for that. Then he wonders if he died and is in Valhalla, but that would be too good to be true. Besides, only heroes and courageous warriors go to Valhalla, and he is neither of those.
Then he remembers.
Thor’s neck breaking, Heimdall sending he and Bruce away, killing Ebony Maw, Scotland, the Vision, Wakanda, killing Proxima Midnight, the mind stone, Thanos snapping his fingers.
“I failed,” he says aloud to no one, and while his voice echoes, it is a quiet, gentle echo. He wonders if he is supposed to feel afraid here, but he doesn’t.
It wasn’t your fault, he remembers Bruce saying. But it is, it is his fault, because this whole thing started when he let go of that damn staff and tried to die. He should have known, he rarely gets what he wants. Why would Death be any different?
“Loki,” someone says, and he whips around to find the source of the voice.
His breath is taken away from him when he sees one blue eye looking into his. Thor is about three feet away, dressed in the same armor as he was when he defeated Hela, but he is completely unharmed. There are no wounds from the attack on the Statesman, there is no bruising on his neck from when-
“Don’t think about that,” Thor tells him, and his voice, his voice heals something in Loki he didn’t know was broken. Or, maybe he did, but he didn’t know how much.
“Thor,” he exhales, barely audible.
Thor smiles a sad one. “Hello brother.”
Loki waits. He doesn’t move, because he is afraid if he does then this will all fall away. But when he feels it is safe enough, he takes one very cautious step towards his brother. When Thor doesn’t disappear, he takes another.
One more, and he is right in front of him. Thor’s eye follows him the whole way, and he looks down at Loki with an expression like he misses him.
“Thor?” He whispers again, eyes scanning from head to toe, taking him all in. Slowly, ever so gently, Loki places his hand on the side of Thor’s neck, thumb softly caressing the skin. It is a familiar gesture, one Thor used to do to him all the time. “Thor.”
“Loki,” his brother says again, his sad smile still on his lips.
Loki releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Am I dead?”
“No,” Thor replies.
Loki feels like his heart is ripping in two all over again. “Are you-,” he cuts off, because he fears the answer. “Are you real?”
Thor tilts his head and looks down at Loki with something sad on his face. “I am as real as you need me to be.”
Loki sobs. “So… no.”
Thor’s brows furrow more, his expression somehow growing sadder. Loki can’t look at it anymore, so instead he looks around again to try to figure out where he is.
Am I dead?
No…
Are you real?
I am as real as you need me to be.
“I’m dreaming,” he realizes aloud, looking back at Thor, who nods slowly.
A flash of light, a spine being severed, pain…
“Loki,” Thor grounds him.
He clenches his eyes shut, breathing deeply. “I should be in pain.”
Thor doesn’t say anything to that. It’s silent for a long moment, too long, and Loki forces his head back up to look at his brother. But when he does, he notices something strange about his form, like he’s fading away.
“No,” he says involuntarily, practically leaping to wrap his arms around him and hold on for dear life. “No.”
Thor wraps his arms around him too, and he is warm and safe.
“Don’t let go,” Loki tells him, hiding his face in his brother’s chest. “Please, don’t let go.”
Thor’s embrace tightens. “I will hold on,” he tells him gently. “For as long as I can.”
…
He doesn’t remember being taken away. He doesn’t remember the dream ending and Thor disappearing. He still isn’t awake, he thinks. But there are sounds around him, frantic voices. He is flat on a medical table in a white room and he doesn’t understand.
Then the pain hits.
His head is on fire, his bones ache with fever, and his spine… his spine is the worst of it. He can physically feel where it’s been severed, his lower half blissfully unaware, but everything up fucking hurts.
“We have to calm him down,” someone yells.
And, oh… he realizes.
Yes, he is quite in a panic.
He is thrashing, his blood burning inside his veins, his magic hot like fire and he screams.
“Loki,” he thinks he hears Bruce. “Stay with me, focus.”
Someone is pushing down on the wound on his stomach from when Thanos stabbed him through, and Loki assumes it is because he is still bleeding. There are hands holding him down and if he were at his full strength, he could easily throw these fools off of him. But he isn’t. So he can’t.
That doesn’t mean he won’t fight.
Someone puts a damp cloth to his forehead, and he flinches. He is hyperventilating, he realizes, his breath coming out in short, sharp gasps as he burns. He feels wet with sweat, his hair sticking to his cheeks.
He is on Sanctuary, Thanos standing over him while he writhes on the floor, the poison eating the lining of his stomach. “Don’t make a sound,” Thanos says. “If you do, I will only make it worse.”
He screams again.
“No,” he gasps. “No!”
“I-I need to administer pain meds or something,” Bruce says frantically.
“Is he dying?” Someone else asks, but Loki doesn’t know who.
“I don’t know!” Bruce yells, sounding frightened.
Something in his spine snaps, and it’s audible. He flinches with another wordless howl, and Bruce moves away when another set of hands hold him down. Another snap, and another scream through clenched teeth.
He forces his eyes open, and he is met with a set of blue ones. “Thor?” He sobs deliriously.
“Loki,” blue eyes says. “It’s me, Steve Rogers. Can you hear me?”
Oh, Loki thinks. That makes more sense.
Because Thor is dead.
He sobs again, thrashing some more.
Rogers moves the camp cloth down the side of face, wiping sweat away before moving it back up to his brow. “Stay with us,” he says, his voice firm like a captain’s.
Another resounding pop in his spine and he thinks this time the pain is bad enough to send him into oblivion.
He isn’t that lucky.
“Can someone please tell me what the fuck that sound is?” Stark, Loki thinks. That is Stark’s voice.
“It’s his spine trying to heal itself,” Bruce says quickly, and Loki manages to turn his head to see him fiddling with something medical looking and then it isn’t Bruce, it is Corvus choosing his next tool while Loki hangs from a hook on the ceiling. Rogers gently moves his head back to be looking at him. Loki finds his blue eyes comforting.
“Trying?” Stark sounds disturbed.
“His magic is sapped dry,” Loki hears Bruce explain hurriedly. “It’s trying to heal him, but it can’t hold the working. It’s just breaking and attempting to heal him over and over again.”
“Oh my god,” Rogers exhales unsettlingly.
“I know,” Bruce sighs and comes back with a needle, and Loki feels it prick the crook of his arm and the Chitauri begin anew, keeping him docile but still unbearably aware of the pain. He panics, pulling away with another sob. He feels skin tear, and Bruce yells “dammit Loki!” and he flinches.
“No, no, no, no…” he hears himself mumble. There is another snap of his spine and he screams. He is crying, tears mixing with feverish sweat. “It’s too much,” he wheezes. “Too much…”
“I know,” Bruce says gently. “I’m trying to help- Tony keep applying pressure- will you let me help?”
Pop…
Rogers holds him down as he screams.
“Please,” Loki cries, eyes closed in a shameless pleading. “Please kill me, just let me die.”
“Loki,” Rogers tries, but Loki cuts him off with garbled words.
“Let me die, let me die, let me die…”
Pop…
He howls through his teeth, and he can taste blood on the back of his tongue.
“Sedate him,” Rogers orders from above him.
“I don’t know if it’s safe to,” Bruce argues.
“Well it can’t be worse than this!” Stark yells again. “My God, just knock him the fuck out!”
“I can’t! He’s losing too much blood,” Bruce argues louder. “Do you know what happens when someone bleeding out loses consciousness, Tony? They die!”
“Please,” he whimpers again.
Rogers moves the hand he isn’t using to hold the damp cloth to his forehead and gently rests it on his shoulder and squeezes. It’s an attempt to comfort, and while Loki appreciates it, he still wishes he would just die.
I would let you die, Thanos said. But this is your penance.
“He isn’t human,” Rogers jumps in, still squeezing his shoulder. “Maybe it’s different for him, maybe he can handle it.”
“You want me to stake his life on maybe?”
“Bruce,” Rogers’ voice is hard, captain-like with a sense of finality. “Look at him.”
Bruce does, and through hazing pain Loki can see a look of horror and most of all fear on his face. He looks frightened, and Loki wishes he could take it away from the doctor, but another pop distracts him and he is lost to the pain again.
“You don’t have a whole lot of other options,” Rogers tells the doctor. “Either knock him out and maybe he dies, or keep him awake to feel his spine sever over and over again.”
“Pleasepleasepleaseplease-,” it’s involuntary, and he isn’t even aware he is doing it. He screams again, but Steve’s grip is too strong.
“I don’t know about you Bruce,” Stark’s voice shakes. “But if it were me, I’d rather have option one.”
Rogers squeezes his shoulder again, moving the cloth to his cheek before moving it back.
“I can’t lose him too,” Bruce whispers, voice cracking and heavy with guilt.
Oh, Loki realizes with a sick feeling in his stomach. Maybe Bruce keeps telling him it wasn’t his fault because he thinks it was his.
He wants to tell him no, that it wasn’t his fault, none of this is anyone’s fault but his own because he was a pathetic, blithering child who craved his family’s love and got a sociopathic master instead. Because he was too cowardly to keep trying and let go, not looking away from his brother’s face once until he was gone from sight. Because he wasn’t strong enough to stand against Thanos and chose to stand with Thanos instead.
He can’t say any of that, though, because the pain from his spine and the fire in his veins from his magic continue to make him beg for oblivion instead.
“We’ll make sure you won’t,” Rogers says, that same finality from before present in his voice.
There is a moment of hesitation, and Loki continues to sob painful gasps with his eyes clenched shut, tears still escaping and falling into his ears.
“Shit,” Bruce exhales, then moves away again.
Pop, and Loki can’t even scream anymore, just releases another low whine as he twitches.
“I know,” he hears Rogers comfort, the hand on his shoulder squeezing again. “I know. Just a little bit longer, hold on.”
“Ple… pl-s-,” he tries, but nothing. Just pain.
There is movement beside him. “Okay,” Bruce exhales, voice shaking and uncertain. “Tony, Steve, switch places.” The pressure on his stomach releases, but then it’s back and he feels blood bubble in his throat.
“What do I do,” Stark asks, his voice still shaky.
“Hold his arm down so I can get the sedative in without him freaking out.”
Two cold, metal hands press down on his other arm, and Loki tenses and his mind reels and then they are not metal hands but claws and the Chitauri make tittering noises around him. “Hey,” Stark gets his attention, uncharacteristically gentle. “Focus.”
He clenches his eyes closed again, silently sobbing. He’s losing it, he knows. The fever and pain is making him delirious, and he’s losing track with reality.
“Loki,” he hears Bruce say. “Look at me.” He opens his eyes to slivers to see Bruce hovering over him, his eyes serious. “I know you’re set on dying, but don’t, ok? Hold on. Please, hold on.”
He doesn’t remember what they were talking about. He doesn’t remember where he is. All he knows is pain and fear and more pain. He looks up at the man without recognition.
“Bruce, do it.”
Another moment of hesitation, and then there is a prick in his arm somewhere, and he struggles weakly with a sob. The metal hands hold him down harder, and there is a hand on his shoulder squeezing.
His eyes droop, and he’s out.
…
When he comes to again, it isn’t near as bad. It isn’t good, but it doesn’t make him want to die anymore.
The pain is still there but it’s dull, not as sharp. His magic feels warm in him, too warm, and it takes him a minute to realize that’s fever. He feels sweaty and, frankly, disgusting. He is laying down on a soft surface, but he is propped up slightly from the base of his back all the way up, his spine straight. It’s throbbing, its pulse almost stabbing, but not quite. There is a rhythmic beeping somewhere near his head, but he doesn’t know what it is.
He licks his dry lips trying to get moisture, but all he tastes is salty sweat.
“I think he’s awake,” someone says. “Can you go get Bruce please?”
The voice is familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it.
“Loki?” It says again. “Can you hear me?” He licks his lips again, and swallows. He winces when it hurts. “Hang on,” there is a shuffle of movement, and when the person comes back he says “here,” and then gently pulls his chin down to open his mouth.
He flinches involuntarily, suddenly very aware of how helpless he is. “Easy,” the voice clicks in Loki’s mind and he realizes it is Rogers. “I won’t hurt you. This will help.”
Rogers tries again, opening Loki’s jaw and slipping something cold on his tongue. And it’s bliss. Loki closes his mouth around it, sloshing it around and sucking on the water as the ice melts on his tongue. He swallows with difficulty, but it’s better.
“You want another one?” He still can’t open his eyes, so he nods. Rogers gives him another, and he sucks on it until it’s gone. “Better?”
“Hmm,” he croaks, nodding.
Finally, he starts to force his eyes open. His lids feel sticky with sweat and tears, but once he can finally see, he feels a little better.
Rogers is there, sitting on an uncomfortable looking chair and leaning forward with a cup of ice chips in his hands. “Hey,” he says. His eyes look sad.
Loki doesn’t respond. He doesn’t think he can.
His eyes slide down to his arms where he feels an IV line on each side. He wants to pull them out, but just now he can’t really move.
Rogers tilts his head. “Do you know where you are?” He frowns, because he doesn’t. His heart rate spikes, the beeping growing in pace. “It’s okay,” Rogers tells him. “That’s normal, give it a minute, and it’ll come to you. Just know that you’re safe.”
He controls his breathing and makes his heart rate slow back down. He closes his eyes, trying to remember.
“Hey,” another voice announces as it enters the room. Loki recognizes it to be Bruce. “I leave to get some food for thirty minutes and you wake up?” It sounds like it’s meant to be a jest, but his voice is heavy and tired.
He tries to open his eyes again and fails. A hand touches his forehead and he flinches with a small sound. “Sorry,” Bruce says, pulling his hand away. There is more shuffling, but Loki can’t focus on it for too long. He feels sluggish, confused, and his tongue feels like sandpaper. He swallows again and can’t keep the wince off his features.
“You want more ice,” he hears Rogers ask.
Loki goes to say yes or nod his head, but something at the center of his back shifts and he gasps in pain. It lasts for a long moment, and Bruce comes back over quickly. “Easy,” he guides him. “Breathe through it, Loki.”
He does, but it’s in trembling gasps that subside as the pain does. Well, not completely, but it’s dull again.
“Do we dose him again,” Rogers asks.
Bruce sighs, sounding unsure. “I’ve been pumping his body full of it for days, I don’t want him to become dependent on it.”
“Can that even happen,” Rogers wonders. “Aliens getting addicted to drugs?”
He heard Bruce shrug. “I’m not sure? I guess anybody can. Everyone on Sakaar sure seemed to enjoy them,” he adds sarcastically.
“More sedative then?”
“I’ve been pumping him full of that too,” Bruce sits in a chair with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I’m not as happy with his vitals as I could be, but it is improving. It’s his fever I can’t keep down, and those drugs aren’t helping.”
“But his spine,” Rogers tries to say in a quiet voice, like maybe Loki wasn’t supposed to hear.
“I know,” Bruce interrupts. The doctor sighs again, and Loki hears him rise to his feet, and feels him next to him a moment later. “Loki, are you still awake?”
“Y-,” he tries but can’t get it out. He nods instead.
“Can you open your eyes for me?”
He doesn’t want to, but Bruce is asking and Bruce has been kind, so he forces them open slowly. His vision is blurry, and he blinks slowly once more but it doesn’t help.
He sees Bruce smile. “Hey,” he says. “There you are.”
Loki tries to smile back, but it feels ugly and wrong on his features, so he stops. His eyes scan the white room again, but he still doesn’t understand. Bruce frowns above him. “Loki?”
“I don’t think he knows where he is,” Rogers explains. “I asked him before you came in, he said no.”
“Loki,” Bruce addresses him again. “You’re in Wakanada, in the hospital. Do you remember Wakanda?”
He doesn’t. He tries to, but nothing makes any sense and he’s scared. The beeping increases again, and he feels tears well in his eyes. His body gets hotter, he thinks, and his magic burns inside.
“Where’s Thor,” he croaks.
Bruce winces, then looks unbelievably sad. “He’s not here.”
That’s when Loki remembers.
He remembers everything.
“No,” he whimpers, shaking his head. “No…”
“I’m so sorry,” Bruce whispers.
Tears slip out then. He can’t stop them. He doesn’t really care to.
Another shift and a quiet pop and he whines through clenched teeth, gasping. It lasts longer this time, and Bruce holds his shoulders down when he tries to move, talking him through it and offering comfort.
When it’s over, he shivers even though he feels unbearably hot. His teeth chatter, and Bruce lets out a frustrated breath. “He’s gotten warmer in the last five minutes,” he says to Rogers. Bruce turns back to him, a look of desperation flashing in his eyes. “Loki, what do I do? How do I help you?”
He doesn’t have an answer. He couldn’t give one even if he did because it happens again and Loki yelps, shivering harder. “Okay,” Bruce is saying, gently keeping Loki from moving. “I’ll give you another dose.”
When it passes, Bruce moves to his left where he does something with the IV line he doesn’t know, then does the same on the right.
Almost immediately he feels it start to work. He closes his eyes, but doesn’t lose consciousness right away. He listens to the two men talk for a bit.
“I heard Thanos say to Loki ‘this is your penance’,” Bruce says from a chair next to Rogers, voice heavy. “I thought he meant life without Thor, but…”
“But what?”
“I can’t help but wonder if he meant this,” Bruce sounds tired and angry. “Stuck in this limbo between his magic trying to heal him while also not getting enough rest so it can.”
“What do you mean?”
A sigh. “His magic doesn’t have a switch. He can’t just turn it off. So when he overexerts himself, he needs rest to heal it. That’s where the fever comes from.”
“Right,” Rogers agrees.
“But when he is this injured… he can’t stop his magic from trying to heal him even when he has none to use.”
A moment of silence.
“Shit,” Rogers whispers, barely audible, then sighs. “Maybe he needs help.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?”
“No,” Rogers clarifies. “I mean maybe he can’t do this on his own.”
He can hear Bruce’s silent confusion. “Wait,” he mutters. “Do you mean surgery?”
“Maybe.”
“I can’t do surgery like that, repairing a spine?” Bruce objects.
“No, maybe you can’t.” Rogers agrees. “But maybe Wakanda’s doctors can.”
Bruce sighs again. He wrestles with it for a moment before he sighs a third time. “I don’t even know if that would work. He’s not human, we don’t know anything about what kind of dosage it takes to keep him under. I mean, I have been pumping his body full of this shit for days and he still manages to wake periodically.”
“It’s just a thought,” Rogers says.
Loki starts to lose the conversation, but not before he hears Bruce say, “thank you. For being there for him when I can’t be.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it. I know this whole thing with Loki has been difficult… believe me I know. But,” he cuts off, hesitant. His voice lowers as though he doesn’t want Loki to hear. “He’s not that guy anymore. If he ever even was. And I’m not saying that to dismiss what he did; the lives he took, the people he hurt.” Another pause, and Loki wishes he would fall asleep now so he didn’t have to hear this. “But he was hurt too. Thanos tortured him. I can’t just… not consider that.”
He hears Rogers shift in his seat. “Look,” Rogers starts, his voice lowering too. “We don’t have the whole story. We thought we did, but I’m starting to put something together with the parts of the story that I do have. I don’t like it, and maybe we’ll never get the full picture.” He pauses, then swallows. “But at the end of day, he fought Thanos tooth and nail and that means something to me. I watched him crawl across that clearing with dead legs to try and destroy that stone.”
It was no good, Loki thinks hazily. I’m no good. Not good enough, never good enough, but Thor always was and if he was here, I bet Thor could have saved the universe.
“I’d like to give him a chance,” Rogers says.
Loki doesn’t hear anything after that.
…
He has moments of lucidity, and moments of delirium.
When he is lucid, Bruce is there to update him on the progress of his health, telling him surgery wasn’t needed after all and his spine has slowly begun to knit itself back together. It’s the most painful healing he’s ever experienced. His fever remains, and it burns, but Bruce keeps him as comfortable as he can while he heals.
When delirium takes over, the fever too much to handle, he cries and begs and asks where Thor is and Bruce keeps having to tell him “he’s not here” or “he’s away, he’ll be back soon”. Loki knows he is lying, but he clings to it anyway.
When it gets really bad, Rogers has to come to help hold him down, when he loses all sense of where he is and he burns from the inside out. Sometimes, when Rogers can’t be there, Stark is.
“Why don’t we restrain him,” he remembers Stark asking with a tight voice.
“The same reason you don’t put cuffs on a POW.” Loki doesn’t know what that means.
At some point, near the beginning, he gets so hot they have to get cold packs and place them around his body. It’s a relief at first, but then he feels something shift and suddenly he is looking at blue skin and screaming in horror and he tells them to kill it kill the monster!
Bruce looks horrified when he gives Loki another dose of sedative to calm him down. When he wakes again, his pale skin has returned and the monster is gone.
It goes on like this for what Loki thinks has to be days. Stuck in between phases of awareness and complete hysteria. He has flashbacks; most of them of Sanctuary, or of standing in Thanos’ body and crushing the life out of Thor, or he is watching Asgard burn with a sense of confusion because how could he love something so much that he also hates?
But finally, finally, his body regulates. The fever drops, the spine heals and Loki can feel his legs again, and the universe drags him out of Death’s door once again.
…
“What happened,” he finally asks dully. He is sitting up in his cot, wires still hooked up to him as they taper him off the medication, his heart monitor beeping in a consistent tempo. His knees are drawn up to his chest, and he hugs them into himself. It feels childish, but it’s comfortable.
Bruce is sitting in a chair, reading a book with his glasses sitting on the tip of his nose. He does that sometimes; comes and sits with Loki while his body continues to mend itself and his magic restores its abilities. Loki doesn’t know if he does it for his sake, or his own. Maybe it’s both.
Loki doesn’t mind his company. When he is alone, the walls close in and memories sink their teeth in his flesh.
Bruce looks up from the pages and flashes a small smile. “You’re still healing,” he answers. “We can talk about it later.”
“No,” Loki says, his tone leaving no room for argument. “What. Happened.”
Bruce tenses, and Loki sees him hesitate. After a moment, the doctor nods his head, closes his book, and removes his glasses. “What do you remember?”
He remembers his spine being split in half, but he pushes that away because that’s not what Bruce meant. He licks his lips, drawing moisture. “I remember… I remember destroying the mind stone. Or rendering is useless, rather.”
“Hmmhmm,” Bruce nods.
Loki swallows, his voice rough. “But then… I think he used the time stone to reverse its damage. After that, things are… blurry. But I know…” he cuts off, breathing. “He did it.”
Bruce looks down, sighing. “Yeah,” he says. “He did.”
“So what happened?”
Bruce sets the book on the side table next to Loki’s bed. “I don’t really know,” he admits. “People just started… disappearing. Like dust in the wind. Literally.”
Loki can’t look at him anymore, his shoulders feeling heavy with guilt. He never cared for guilt. It’s a useless emotion, because you can never undo what you did to feel guilty in the first place. You can only move on, but he finds it harder to push that away lately. “Who all is left,” he croaks.
Bruce swallows, eyes sad. “Me, Steve, Tony, and Nat.”
“And me,” Loki says bitterly.
“Loki-,”
“How is that fair?” Tears threaten, and damn these drugs for making him so emotional.
“It’s not,” Bruce bites, his voice with undertones of anger. “None of this is fair, Loki.”
Loki side eyes him, then pulls his knees tighter into his chest. The scar on his stomach from the fight throbs, but he ignores it. His spine hurts.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce says heavily. “I don’t mean to snap at you. No pun intended.” Loki does look at him then, one eyebrow raised. “Too soon?”
He wants to laugh.
He doesn’t.
Bruce doesn’t either.
He loses track of time after that. Not from pain or the drugs. He just kind of… checks out.
He sleeps for a lot of it, and he eats a few bites of food when Bruce and the doctors bring him a plate, but ultimately he feels mechanical. Not real. Like his body isn’t his and someone else is moving it for him. Bruce tries to talk to him, but he doesn’t hear. Or chooses not to hear.
After a few more days, they remove the IV lines from his arms, and his skin crawls when they touch him, his joints tensing and breath spiking. Bruce tells him they are going to keep him for a few more days for observation. He just nods, but doesn’t say a word.
That’s when the nightmares start. Loki thinks the sedatives were helping to keep his memories from biting, but without them, he can’t stop the dreams from keeping him hostage in his own mind.
He is pinned to the wall by thick, metal rods hammered into his wrists and shoulders, Corvus Glaive just finishing with the left shoulder when Ebony Maw enters. Loki hates the way his breath hitches involuntarily at his presence.
“You’ve upset Thanos,” Maw tells him, but he sounds almost giddy when he says it. “You lied, and this must be corrected.”
He doesn’t speak, because whatever poison he has for them will just be forced back down his throat.
For hours, Maw digs in his head and twists his thoughts while Corvus flays his skin off piece by piece.
He bolts awake, sitting up too fast for his still healing spine to process and it twinges. He can’t focus on that though, because he can’t breathe.
He tries to. He does. He used to be able to come down from the dreams all on his own, he used to be able to endure better, but now he feels so tired that he can’t.
In for one, two, three…
Out for four, five, six…
“God of lies,” Corvus mocks, then pulls a layer of his skin off slowly, methodically, and Loki screams.
He clenches his fists, sweat trickling down his neck and he swipes at it angrily. He pulls the collar of his shirt down to help, but it’s not enough and this room is too damn small, and he can’t fucking breathe.
“Liar Loki,” Corvus sings, twisting the bolt in his shoulder. Maw’s long fingers wrap around the other one and pushes. “Liar, liar Loki…”
He flees.
He doesn’t know where he is going, but the halls are dark, lit up by a few sconces on the wall and there are shadows following him. There are no doctors around, which is strange. Even at odd hours of the night, shouldn’t there be doctors around?
Is this even real?
You lied, Maw’s voice follows him. Thanos does not like liars.
“No,” he gasps, almost tripping over his own bare feet. He is sweating, too hot, and for a moment he’s worried the fever has come back. The halls stop looking like white tile and start looking like the metal of a ship’s interior.
“What happens if I pull right here,” Corvus asks him and then makes a small incision right at the base of hips.
Loki panics. He kicks Corvus in the stomach and he goes flying, but then Maw is in his head and Loki loses all sense. When he comes back to, Corvus has bolted his ankles to the wall and begins pulling his skin off his thighs.
“No,” he gasps again. “No, no, no.”
Maw’s hand is wrapped around his throat while Corvus works his lower half, pushing his head against the wall. He feels the tip of the blade touch his knee cap and his eyes roll in the back of his head, but Maw doesn’t let him escape.
The hallway gets longer somehow, and Loki is beginning to feel lightheaded. He frantically turns the corner once he reaches the end of the hallway and-
And runs right into Captain fucking America’s chest.
“Woah,” Rogers exclaims, eyes wide. “Loki?”
He is hyperventilating at this point, and he looks up at Rogers to try to speak but he can’t because there is no breath in his lungs.
Rogers puts his hands on Loki’s shoulders firmly. “Loki, what’s happening?”
Loki howls with tears on his cheeks when Corvus bolts his knees to the wall. He is trembling, the stench of his blood in the air.
“Are you a liar,” he asks him, pulling a thin strand of skin off of his neck.
“No,” he cries at them, desperate, but it’s useless because they don’t believe him.
“Liar,” Maw calls him and then cooks his brain in his skull.
He bows his head and pushes his palms into his eyes with a whining ahhh sound, and he can’t, he just can’t.
“Loki, stay with me.”
“Tell us why you lied,” Maw demands with a sweet voice. “And we will stop.”
He genuinely doesn’t even remember what he lied about.
“Come, little Loki,” Maw coos, running a finger from his temple slowly down to his neck. He is covered in sweat and blood, and he sobs uncontrollably. “Tell us why.”
“No, no, no…” he is shaking his head, hands over his ears, and he is crying like a blithering idiot but he can’t stop it.
Suddenly, there are hands covering his, and he is being pushed against the wall. Even though it is gentle, he still whimpers, remembering the feeling of metal bolts being hammered into his knees. “Loki,” Rogers’ voice is far away. “Sit down and listen to me.” The hands start to push him down, and Loki is too weak to fight it. His back slides against the wall until he is seated on the floor. He tries to pull his knees into his chest, but Rogers pulls them apart and pushes his head in between them.
“Breathe with me, Loki.”
The sound of a hammer slamming against metal rods that pierce Loki’s skin- He flinches.
“Listen to me,” Rogers says again, and his voice is firm, not panicked at all as he talks. “Put your hands on the floor.” He shakes his head, still covering his ears, metal against metal reverberating in his head. Rogers forces them from where he is holding them and puts his palms flat on the ground. He tries to lift them, but Rogers holds firm.
“You feel that,” Rogers asks him. “It’s cold. It’s tile. If you move your fingers around you can probably feel the grains.”
He figures what else does he have to lose so he does. His fingers feel the tile, and there, he can feel the texture of it on his skin. You’re not there, he reminds himself. Just memories.
“Good,” Rogers says. “Now let’s work on that breathing. Inhale for me.” It stutters in his chest, but he does it. He tries to lift his head but Rogers gently pushes it back down. “Nope, keep your head down and inhale.”
He does it again.
“Hold it,” Rogers orders him, and he can only hold it for a second before it sobs out of his chest. “Good, do it again.”
He does as he is told because he can do nothing else.
He inhales, holds it, and exhales.
“Again. With me.”
Inhale… hold… exhale…
It takes a while, but Rogers manages to get Loki’s breathing under control and the dream is chased away. He is shaking, but breathing. When he finally raises his head, Rogers is looking at him with furrowed brows. “You with me?”
Loki swallows hard. “Yes,” he croaks.
Rogers exhales a long sigh of relief. “Jesus, Loki.” He removes his hands from his shoulders and rests them on his knees from where he is kneeling beside him. Loki looks down, feeling incredibly foolish.
Rogers exhales again. “Are you ok?” He doesn’t have an answer. He wants the floor to swallow him up and take him away so he doesn’t have to do this.
“It’s okay,” Rogers says softly. “It happens.”
“What is wrong with me?” He barely whispers to himself. He didn’t mean to say it out loud. He feels exposed, as flayed here as he was then.
“There is nothing wrong with you, Loki.”
He barks a laugh, but doesn’t respond.
Rogers crumples to the floor then, scooting until he is next to Loki, leaning his back against the wall. They sit in silence for a while.
“What happened?” Rogers finally asks.
I’m broken, is what happened.
“Was it a nightmare?”
He stares at the tile, feeling angry.
“Loki-,”
“Stop it,” he bites. He slides his eyes to him, then back to the tile. “You can go.”
“Do you really think I’m going to do that,” Rogers asks him obviously.
“I don’t care what you do,” he says weakly. He realizes he is still crying then, silent tears slipping out. He wipes at them angrily with his sleeve, and sniffles.
You held your knees to your chest and cried like a child, Thanos had said. He was a child then. He’s not a child now.
What’s your excuse now, he asks himself bitterly.
His eyes slide to Rogers again, who hasn’t left. He just sits there and waits patiently. When his blue eyes lock on his, Loki looks away quickly.
“Loki, I’m serious. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” he whispers.
After a moment of silence, Rogers sighs. “Has this… happened before?”
He wants to say something nasty, but he can't think of anything. And then he remembers being in pain and Rogers’ comforting hand squeezing his shoulder, and the desire goes away. He slumps in exhaustion.
“Not this bad.”
“So, yes?”
Loki twitches. “Yes.” He expects the captain to say something else, but he doesn’t. When he looks at him, his eyes are inviting, but not demanding. Like a door he is leaving open for Loki to enter should he want to. He looks away again, and opens his mouth. “I can usually handle them on my own.”
“How long have you been doing that?” Rogers’ voice is gentle, and Loki frowns at the floor. “Handling it on your own?”
“Why do you care,” he asks suddenly, but when Rogers sighs frustratingly and shakes his head, Loki corrects himself. “I’m not trying to be callous. We are enemies, so why do you care?”
“Enemies don’t typically fight on the same side.”
“I told you,” Loki says tiredly. “I was fighting on my side.”
“Well,” Rogers hums conversationally. “Your side happened to align with mine, so technically…” he doesn’t finish that sentence, and Loki thinks it’s supposed to be in jest. He rolls his eyes, but the captain has a small smile playing at his lips when he looks at him. “Besides, I meant what I said before.”
I can't see someone standing on the very edge of a cliff and not try to help.
“A while,” he answers the question a moment later. “As I said, it’s never been this bad. I… apologize… if I frightened you.”
Rogers just nods.
Loki takes a deep breath, and rests the back of his head on the wall when he releases it, staring at the ceiling. He is so tired.
“I meant it,” Rogers says. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
“Right,” Loki nods. “Because most normal, sane people run around the halls late at night with voices in their head hyperventilating like a maniac.”
“Loki-,”
“It’s fine,” he interrupts. “I am what I am.”
Mad…
Rogers rubs his palms against the jeans of pants, takes a deep breath like he is preparing for some kind of physical blow, and then says, “did Asgard ever… talk about mental health?”
Loki looks at him like he’s stupid. “What does that even mean?”
Rogers chuckles. “So, no?” Loki just shakes his head. “Right,” the captain starts to explain. “Here on Earth, at least in the last couple of decades or so, we’ve started bringing awareness to the importance of mental health. Mental wounds hurt just as much as physical ones. Sometimes more. Especially for those with… trauma.”
Loki looks away then, feeling foolish.
“Do you know what PTSD is?”
Loki shakes his head again, staring at the tile.
Rogers hesitates, but then sighs. “It stands for post traumatic stress disorder.”
“Are you calling me disordered?” The captain shrugs, but doesn’t say no. “That’s offensive.”
“Not here,” Rogers says matter of factly. “Well, ok, maybe it can be said in a derogatory way, but mostly… it just is.” After a moment of silence, Rogers says quietly, “I have it. My friend has… had it.” Loki catches the correction, but doesn’t need to ask.
Loki bites the inside of his cheek, feeling a little embarrassed. “Are there… symptoms?”
“Yeah,” the captain nods. “Lots.”
He waits, but he doesn’t elaborate, and Loki rolls his eyes. “There was another implicit question in there.”
“Well, flashbacks, for one thing, are the most common experiences. Panic attacks are a close second. Nightmares a lot of the time. Depression, anxiety, dissociation,” he pauses, his voice changing. “Thoughts of suicide.”
Loki flinches. He suddenly feels very nauseous, but he swallows past it. “I see.”
“Look,” Rogers says. “I’m not a doctor, and I’m not trying to diagnose you. I’m just… trying to say that… It's fine.”
There is nothing wrong with you…
Loki looks at him again, really looks, and sees someone who understands. Someone who knows what it’s like. To be so haunted by the past that it infects your present. He sees it now, the heaviness in the captain’s eyes and wonders what it was that put it there. “Thank you,” he tells him genuinely. “Much like Bruce, you are too kind, captain.”
“You know you can call me Steve. I won’t tell anyone.” He whispers it to him like it’s a secret, and then chuckles.
Loki snorts. “Steve,” he tests it on his lips.
“That’s the name.”
Maybe, just maybe, Loki wasn’t as alone as he felt. Bruce, somehow and ironically, became a friend to Loki. Perhaps Steve could be one too.
Look at me, he thinks to Thor. I’m making friends.
And just like Banner became Bruce, Rogers became Steve.
…
When Steve gets up and holds out a hand, Loki stares at it for a moment before taking it hesitantly.
Once he is up, he stumbles, but Steve steadies him. “You ok?”
“Yes,” he answers. “Still weak, I suppose.”
“Let’s get you back to bed.” He says, then waits for Loki to start walking. When Loki realizes he actually has no idea where he is, he tries to hide it. Steve must have caught it, though, because he has a playful smile he tries to hide behind his hand. “You don’t know how to get back to your room, do you?”
“No,” he answers.
Steve snorts a laugh, then gestures ahead of them. “Come on,” he says. “This way.”
Loki can do nothing but follow.
…
Making a new friend doesn’t solve all problems, loathe as Loki is to admit it.
For the next few days, he struggles. He doesn’t sleep, because when he does he can’t escape the jaws of his past. Bruce offers him another medication to help him sleep, but he declines. “It’s worse when I can’t escape it,” he remembers telling him and Bruce had winced.
Steve brings him soup.
Loki doesn’t eat it. Steve doesn’t seem to take offense, though, which is good. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t protest. “You need to eat,” he’d told him. “To heal.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Bruce and Steve had exchanged glances then, but Loki paid them no mind.
He pays no mind to a lot of things, those next few days. Much like before, he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. There is nothing to do. Thor is dead, Asgard is in ashes, and Thanos won.
He thinks about Thor a lot. Before, he didn’t have time to think about Thor, couldn’t think about Thor. There was too much at stake, and while his thirst for vengeance did fuel most of his fight, he pushed Thor away from his mind as much as he could.
Now, there were no distractions. Nothing to keep his mind from picturing Thor’s smile, the way he brightened a room whenever he walked in. He was the sun, and Loki was in his shadow. He used to hate it.
He cried when he realized he would have spent an eternity in Thor’s shadow if it meant he was alive. A moment later he had laughed bitter tears when he realized he was the only one left.
He thinks about his mother too. He thinks about her garden and how they used to sit out there together. Sometimes they’d talk, other times they’d just listen to the birds sing and breathe in the fresh air.
That’s all gone now.
He doesn’t think about Odin. His father.
He’s not quite there yet.
Stark comes to visit at some point. He is awkward, and he moves weirdly, but Loki lets him stay.
“Thank you,” he’d told him after a long bout of silence, and Loki had frowned dazedly at him. “You sent Peter away. He died anyway, but you tried and that matters.”
Loki hadn’t known what to say, so he just turned and looked out the window. Stark left sometime after that.
He is sitting in the chair Bruce usually sits in (Loki had moved it by the window earlier), staring outside with a blanket wrapped around him when the doctor kneels down in front of him. “Loki,” he says carefully.
Loki slowly looks at him, but doesn’t say anything.
“I’m worried about you,” Bruce tells him. “You’ve barely moved or said anything for two days, and Steve says you haven’t eaten. Can you tell me what you’re thinking?”
He frowns, confused. His eyes scan the room slowly, taking it in, like he’s waking up from something. Maybe he is. He looks back down at Bruce and swallows. “I’m thinking a lot of things,” he croaks.
“Like what?”
Loki can tell Bruce is trying to sound casual, but he can hear the trepidation and nervousness.
He licks his lips, biting his tongue for a moment before he looks back outside. Wakanda really is beautiful, but Loki can see where Thanos blew through and left his mark, like a stain on the land.
“I’m thinking,” Loki says. “That I might be broken.” He sees Bruce’s expression fall in the corner of his eye. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, all I can think about is Thor, and when I do manage to think about anything else it’s-,” he cuts off, clamping his lips shut.
He wants to say more.
I think maybe Thor was my anchor. I think when Thor was alive, everything was easier and I could endure. But when he died and left, I think he took my sanity and will with him.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he turns his head to look down at Bruce, lost. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispers.
Banner puts a hand over his mouth, like he is trying to hide something or keep himself from crying, and nods. “Okay,” he says, his hand muffling his voice. When he removes it, he places it on Loki’s arm. “Okay,” he repeats, voice cracking.
I can’t lose him too, he remembers Bruce saying.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he tells him.
Bruce closes his eyes like the words hurt.
It was mine…
He doesn’t say that, but Bruce hears it anyway.
Loki can’t stand to look at him anymore, so he turns his eyes back to the window. He looks at the sky and wonders what Thor is doing in Valhalla.
“I’m going to bring you a smoothie,” Bruce says. “Will you drink it?”
The idea of it makes him nauseous, but Bruce is asking so Loki nods wordlessly at the window. When Bruce stands, he lingers a moment behind him, facing the door. He lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and squeezes before leaving.
…
The next day, the doctors tell him he is in the clear and can be discharged by nightfall, but to still take things slow and go easy.
Bruce is there when they tell him, smiling what he thinks is supposed to be an encouraging smile, but really just looks sad.
“Thank you,” he thanks the Wakandan doctors before they leave. “You have my condolences,” he says when he realizes he hasn’t yet. “For the loss of your king, and your princess.”
Your fault, a voice sneers.
They bow their heads gratefully, then exit slowly.
When they’re alone, Loki can feel Bruce studying him, like maybe he thinks Loki is about to collapse or fall apart.
He fell apart a long time ago. He’s just mastered pretending he didn’t, but without Thor, those frayed threads he had to keep himself together have started to loosen. He’s not sure how much longer he can go on pretending, or if it even mattered anymore.
“Can I get you anything,” Bruce asks awkwardly.
Loki looks from where he was staring at his hands to Bruce and frowns. “What?”
Norns, he really needs to bring some life back into his voice. Even if it is fake.
Bruce shifts on his feet, moving about the room carefully. Like he’s trying to be casual. “Well, you’re getting released later today. Do you…” he hesitates, and Loki tilts his head in questioning. “Do you have clothes, or…?”
He frowns for a moment longer before he really understands the question.
Everything is catching up to him now. He came here straight from the Statesman, and it’s not like he had time to pack a bag before Thanos came and wreaked havoc on his life. The clothes he’s been wearing have been provided by the Wakandan hospital, and whatever clothing he had before that were… ruined. Stained by blood he doesn’t want to look at it.
He doesn’t even have shoes. He doesn’t have anything. No money, no clothes, no shelter, no food… nothing.
“Loki?”
“No,” he answers. “No, I don’t have anything…” he pauses, then realizes. “Well,” he amends. “Nothing but this.” His magic still stings, but it’s there, and he uses it to summon the only thing he does have. A dagger, always stored away for emergencies. That makes him chuckle humorlessly. “Funny,” he says quietly. “One’s priorities.”
When he looks up, Bruce is frozen, holding carefully still and looking at Loki with something like fear in his eyes, which flicker between him and the weapon. Loki looks between it and the doctor, then rolls his eyes. “Relax,” he tells him. “I’m not going to kill myself.”
Not right now, anyway. Maybe later. It varies from moment to moment.
Bruce still hasn’t moved.
“I’m not going to kill anyone else, either,” Loki says defensively.
“I… I didn’t think you were.”
“Didn’t you,” he sneers at him, voice cruel.
Bruce recoils like he’s been slapped, but then his face clears, a mask going up. “I’m going to go pick you up some things. I’ll be back soon.”
He doesn’t deserve that, Thor says in his head. He’s trying to help you. Why do you always do that? You’ve always wanted friends, but here is one reaching out to you and you turn him away with a cruel tongue.
Bruce’s hand is barely on the doorknob when Loki says, “wait.” Bruce stops, but he doesn’t turn around, hand resting on the handle of the door. “I’m sorry.”
The doctor’s shoulders drop with a sigh before he turns around. “I know.”
Loki stares down at the dagger and wonders what it would be like to run the blade along his throat.
The thought jars him, and he wordlessly holds it out to Bruce hilt first, purposely not looking at him.
Quiet footsteps near him hesitantly, and then Bruce takes the dagger from him. “Is this the only one you have,” Bruce asks nervously.
“It’s all I have,” he answers bitterly.
Bruce sits in the chair next to the bed, heaving a sigh as he does. “Loki-,”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says involuntarily, the words spill out, and he still can’t look Bruce in the eyes, so he just stares down at his hands folded in his lap. “Thor is dead. Asgard is gone, and I haven’t exactly made friends. Everywhere I go I only make enemies, I burn bridges and then break everything else.” He closes his eyes, breathing in carefully, then out. “I literally have nothing and nowhere to go.”
Bruce lets him sit on that for a minute, the silence interrupted by his barely controlled breathing.
Come home, Thor begged him once.
I don’t have it, he’d said. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Loki,” Bruce says heavily. “First of all, thank you for giving me this,” he gestures to the dagger. “Second of all, you know you’re coming with me, right?”
Something heavy falls in the pit of Loki’s stomach.
“Steve and I haven’t actually told you yet. We thought it best to wait until you healed, but… we’ve arranged for you to stay at Avengers Compound. With us.”
He stops breathing. Stops moving, stops listening. He, in Avengers Compound of all places. Loki, moving and breathing and living in a place not made for him. A place not made for creatures like him, but a place made for people like Thor. People who are brave and courageous and honest. Defenders, heroes.
This planet is not his, it was Thor’s.
“Loki?”
Thor was going to bring everyone here. Thor was going to bring his people to settle here, and Loki is not them. He is not Asgardian, he is not an Avenger, he is not a hero.
“Loki, you need to breathe.”
It’s like bringing the murderer to their victim’s funeral. He was given the scepter and sent to Earth to kill, and he did it because he didn’t know what else to do. He did it because he thought for sure he hated Thor, and getting to attack the realm and the people he loved was a bonus. He was told he was unloved, and a monster, so he came here to be one and he couldn’t even do that right.
And then later, Thor told him he could be more, so he tried. He tried so hard. But in the end he failed to protect the Tesseract, he failed to protect his brother, his people. He failed to protect the mind stone, he failed to kill Thanos, he failed.
“Loki-,”
“No,” he cuts him off with a gasp. “I c-,” he stutters. “I can’t do that.”
“First, breathe, and then tell me why.”
He skips the breathing part. “Because it’s not for me. This place isn’t for me, this planet isn’t for me. Midgard was for Thor, I can’t-,” he cuts himself off.
“Who says it can’t be for both of you,” Bruce asks gently.
Loki closes his eyes, the words stinging. “It would be like taking his place” he whispers.
Bruce sighs after a long time. “Oh, Loki.”
“Don’t,” forces weakly. “Don’t do that, don’t pity me.”
“It’s not pity.”
“Whatever it is,” he doesn’t finish. He doesn’t really know what he was going to say.
“Will you look at me,” Bruce asks. Loki turns away. “Please look at me.”
He bites his tongue, and forces his eyes to look at Bruce. The doctor looks sad, his brows furrowed and eyes downcast.
His anger bleeds away then, and his shoulders drop in exhaustion with an exhale.
“There are two things I need you to understand,” Bruce starts. “One, no one could ever take Thor’s place, and I’m not trying to make you. But you should know, even after everything, Thor always spoke highly of you and always had a spot open at his side for whenever you were ready.”
“What,” he croaks.
“Look, he knows what you did was wrong. He understood that you… did a bad thing. But he never lost hope that someday you and he would fight side by side again. When he told us you died defending Asgard, he said it like he always knew that’s who you were.”
“I’m not-,” he tries, but Bruce doesn’t let him.
“And two,” the doctor continues. “You’re not as friendless as you think. You have people to turn to. You have me, Steve. Hell, even Tony is coming around.” Loki doesn’t know how to feel about that. “We’re not stupid,” Bruce says carefully, like he’s treading on dangerous grounds. “We… understand a little more, now. Why you did what you did.”
“It doesn’t matter why. I chose.”
“Yeah?” Bruce challenges him. “What was the other choice?”
“You think that absolves me?”
“No, of course not.” He pauses, then breathes. “But I can’t- we can’t just… not consider that. And you told me he tortured you.”
After a moment, Loki just shakes his head. “You understand nothing.”
“‘I remember the moment you broke,’” Bruce blurts, and Loki freezes, and for a moment he isn’t here. He is back in that clearing with Thanos prowling on him like prey. His lungs stop working and he stares at the doctor in shock and disbelief. “Yeah… your earpiece was on, Loki.”
He doesn’t have words. Just shame, and he wants to run away and hide and never show his face ever again. He wants to throw up. He wants to die a bit more than usual, at this moment.
“I don’t-,” Bruce stutters. “I’m not trying to shock you. Look, my whole point is… even after everything, Thor had a place for you. And Thor was our friend, and you fought for him, and you fought for us. That means you have a place with us too.”
Loki still can’t breathe. “You… you heard?”
Bruce looks guilty for even bringing it up. “Yeah.”
“H-how much?” He whispers, barely audible, horrified.
“Does it matter?”
“How much,” he repeats louder.
Bruce just looks at him hard for a few seconds, but it feels longer than that because Loki can see gut-wrenching comprehension in his eyes the same way he could in Thor’s on the Statesman. “Enough,” he says finally.
And Loki can’t.
He runs to the connected bathroom and vomits.
Bruce doesn’t follow him right away, and Loki falls to his knees and leans his entire upper body on the porcelain as he wretches. He wonders if they heard what happened when the reality stone took him to Sanctuary, but that just makes him gag and throw up what little fluids he had.
You had been returned to your cell after a session with Corvus. I told him to crack you open. He took that to mean literally.
Loki gags again and then spits.
The wound had healed, but the scar remained. A thick, jagged line right down the middle where he split you open and pulled you apart.
Bruce is there, standing in the doorway and waiting patiently.
The Chitauri had done it numerous times, of course, but Corvus is more… creative.
When Loki has thrown up all he has, Bruce finally nears him and leans down next to him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“I-,” Loki stutters, still leaning against the toilet. “I know you were just trying to prove a point.” He swallows past the lump in his throat, eyes closed. “But please never do that again.”
“I won’t,” Bruce promises. He tries to touch his shoulder but Loki flinches with a “don’t,” and he pulls back. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to…”
Loki nods shakily. “I know…”
After a few more trembling breaths, Loki says “please go.”
“Loki-,” the doctor sounds uncertain.
“I’ll be fine,” Loki cuts him off, still not looking at him. “Just… please go.”
He hears Bruce nod. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, I’ll go.” He stands, his knees popping when he does. “I’ll bring some things later. A couple of shirts, some pants. I’ll even bring some leather if you want,” he adds jokingly at the end. Loki doesn’t laugh. “Do you know what size shoe you are?”
Loki shakes his head.
“Okay, I’ll guess,” he goes to leave but then pauses. “I’m sorry.” And then he’s gone.
And Loki can finally breathe.
…
By the time Bruce comes back it is dark outside, lit up by city lights. He is standing by the window when the doctor trails in, Steve following behind him. They are both holding bags with a logo on it he doesn’t recognize.
“You look better,” Steve says, placing the bag on the bed, which Loki made up and refused to lay back down on after purging his insides in the toilet. He is too restless now. “Gotta tell you, you’re the only guy I know who can be up and walking in just a few days after an almost fatal spinal injury.”
He knows too, Loki thinks, but pushes it away.
Loki shrugs, but he doesn’t admit to his back feeling sore all the time. “I’m nothing if not durable.”
“Trust me,” Bruce says dryly, putting his own bags on the bed. “We’ve noticed.”
Loki still can’t quite look him in the eye, but he gestures to the apparent shopping haul they’ve brought him. “What’s this?”
Bruce smiles. “I said I was going shopping.”
“You said a few shirts and pants,” Loki reminds him. “Why do you have three bags?”
Bruce looks at him shyly. “Well, I wasn’t sure what you liked.” Loki raises an eyebrow at him. “Hey, I’ve literally only ever seen you in leather.”
Loki can’t help but snort. Steve chuckles, then reaches into his bag and pulls out (what he suspects is supposed to be a joke) a pair of black leather pants. “Bruce just got you a bunch of sweats and some jeans, but I ventured out a little.”
He holds them up, and Loki has to hold a hand against his lips to keep from laughing. The captain frowns. “What?”
“Why do the bottoms do that,” he asks behind his hand.
“Oh my god,” Bruce exclaims when he looks. “Are those flare leather pants?”
“What,” Steve defends. “I thought they looked cool and flashy. Loki’s flashy!”
“Yeah he’s flashy,” Banner agrees. “Not David Bowie.”
“Who,” Loki asks.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce waves a dismissive hand. “Here, go put these on.” He hands him a pair of green sweatpants and black t-shirt. “They’re doing some discharge paperwork, but after that you’re free to go.”
Loki sobers at that. For so long, he has yearned for someone tell him that. That he’s free to go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. His whole life, he’s felt like he’s just moved from one cage to another. Odin’s, the Void’s, Thanos’, then Odin’s again… sometimes, even Thor’s. That’s why he traveled so much, in his youth. He couldn’t stand feeling stuck in one spot, because it always ended up being too stifling, too small.
The Norns must be laughing at him. Because now, now, he is free to go when he has nowhere to go to.
“Loki?” Steve’s voice pulls him back.
He clears his thoughts with a shake of his head and offers them a small smile. “Apologies,” he says, gesturing to the clothes. “Thank you. I… I don’t have any Midgardian currency, but I will find a way to pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce dismisses.
No, he thinks. I am indebted to you. You’ve offered me a place here even though I am undeserving and probably belong six feet underground. Or in a prison cell at least.
He doesn’t say it out loud. He doesn’t think he can.
“Go change,” Bruce tells him again, not unkindly. “Then we’re outta here, okay?”
He’s halfway to the bathroom when he feels it. Like a shift in the air, something tears and breaks and the universe cries out. It’s like a high pitched scream in his ears, and Loki flinches and drops the clothes with an audible gasp.
He knows that feeling. He knows it, and for moment he’s laying in a pool of his blood with his spine severed and Thanos snaps his fingers and everything hurts.
Steve is in front of him, hand on his shoulders with wide eyes looking worried. “What’s going on?”
He is shaking, almost hyperventilating. He looks up at blue eyes, then across the room at Bruce’s, who looks ready to bolt.
“You didn’t feel that,” he asks them, voice shaking.
“Feel what,” Bruce asks.
He swallows, feeling nauseous. “He used the stones again.”
There is a long moment of silence before Steve says, “What?”
“He used the stones again,” he repeats. “He’s here,” he whispers, like he’s afraid the Titan will hear him.
Bruce and Steve both look outside in concern, and Loki corrects himself, shaking his head, his hands trembling at his sides. “No, not here. He-he’s here, on this planet and he used the stones again.”
Steve’s shoulders heave with concerned breaths, his eyebrows furrowed at Loki in uncertainty. “How do you know?”
The question barely leaves his lips before his phone starts ringing in his pocket. He and Loki both look near it before locking eyes again.
“Shit,” Steve exhales, then pulls out his phone. Stark, the caller ID reads. “Shit,” he says one more time, then answers.
And suddenly, Loki feels like he has a purpose again.
He will not fail this time.