Loki hurt.

He was at the mercy of those creatures and his all his body, as well as his broken mind, hurt. He hurt so very badly. His skin had broken in so many places – and they made sure it didn't heal. They were not going to let him go or simply let him be until they knew he could be used for their own means. They whipped him. They starved him. They forced his eyes opened until he was screaming with pain. They broke his bones and then left him alone for days, to sob brokenly in a pool of his own blood and vomit. To heard his voice whispering how he deserved this.

Monster. Monster. Monster.

It didn't matter his pain, it matter how broken his head was. Didn't matter his suicidal thoughts, his confused psyche, it didn't matter that he couldn't keep himself upright, it didn't matter. None of that mattered to those creatures – they were sadistic beings and they had been handed a shiny pretty toy. So they played, not caring in which state they toy could be and they would play until it was in pieces. Unless they could do something better.

When the pain cleared out a bit, Loki started thinking. Because that was what he was good at. Forget the agony and the hurt, forget his family and homeland, forget all the suffering they had caused him. Now there was only one thing to do. Get out of there. Get out of the hold of those creatures. And who knew, maybe he could get something out of it. Some soldiers to follow him, if he offered power.

And he could offer power. He would offer the whole nine realms if that meant he got out of there. Back to a land where people had limits. Back to someplace where he was not a toy anymore, but a person. An enemy perhaps, a crazy criminal that was hated by all, but a person. So he started dropping little ideas to the one being that understood what he spoke and little by little they got interested.

They stopped hurting him. His wounds started to heal. A pact was offered and somehow, after all the pain and emptiness of the void, Midgard seemed the greatest idea there had ever existed. But if he wanted to lose them forever he needed his plan to work.

It didn't, but he lost sight of them.

Still, they were in his dreams, in his head. In scars carefully hidden with magic that no one was supposed to ever see.

Until someone did.

"What on earth are these, Loki?" Bruce said, motioning the white lines that crossed his chest, stomach, shoulders and back. There seemed to be thousands of them, some bigger and some smaller, like healed whip marks. Bruce really hoped he was wrong.

Loki looked down and saw that after the last battle, even that glamour charm had disappeared. It was a miracle that he was still white and not blue, after beating his magic had sustained fighting with those idiot Avengers.

"Those…" he started, not wanting to explain too much. "are supposed to be hidden. I would appreciate it if you didn't mention them to the others."

Bruce started cleaning Loki's newest wounds and dressing them, while deciding what to do with these new information. It was pretty obvious that at some point, Loki had been tortured. Maybe it would make the others less wary of him they knew, but it was an extremely personal matter.

"I will, but only if you tell me about it." Bruce said. With his tricks, the god had learned a lot about him and his past. Now he wanted to know more about Loki's darkest moments as well. "When did those happen? Before you appeared on earth?"

"How do you know?"

"I've seen the footage. You looked like crap. I'm assuming that when you didn't some hours after it was glamour magic?"

"You are too smart for your own good, doctor. Yes, it was that time. One could say that the Other's hospitality wasn't hospitable at all." Loki wished they would change subjects, but Banner didn't want to.

There were many things he didn't understand about Loki, many things that confused him, contradictions. As a man of science, he liked to solve all and every puzzle, understand everything that seemed random and chaotic. There were many stories Loki hadn't told him, and all of hurt behind the jokes and the moral ambiguity. He knew. And with time, Bruce planned to unearth everything.

"Did they force you into doing what you did?" The physicist softly asked while he dressed a nasty wound on the god's side. "I won't tell the others, I promise."

"That nice of you to think, Doctor. They didn't force me into doing anything… But it was the only thing that occurred to me to end the abuse. If I was of use, if I offered them something good, then they would have to treat me like a person, wouldn't they? It was a stupid escape plan, but the only one that came to mind."

Banner's deep brown were looking at him – seeing him.

"Who's they?" The doctor asked.

A shadow passed through Loki's clear eyes. There were some things it was best to left buried, buried as deep as possible. The important thing was that they were gone. And they could never hurt him again. Or at least that was what he thought.

"Perhaps another day, Doctor Banner. Not today."

Banner just nodded and kept working. It wasn't easy to talk about some things, and given the amount of work Loki had done to hide those scars, Bruce imagined this was one of Loki's most difficult memories. He worked on the wounds, in silence.

And when he finished he looked at the pale god – that guy, thin and frail, had survived so much…

"Sometimes talking can be liberating, you know? Especially if you got a friendly ear. And I already know half the story, so…"

Loki half smiled.

"Thank you, Bruce. I will remember at that."

And that night, after dreaming of the void, Bruce was there to help him.

The world wasn't so empty anymore. It was made of people as scarred as he was.

A/N: Just a little something while I finish the new episodes of Hospitality and Hoping for death. Hop you enjoyed! I loved Bruce/Loki friendship for some reason. There should be more! Please do review! I love to hear what you think!

Reviews are love!