A Friend in Need
Chapter 1:
At seventeen years of age, Loki Odinson is committed to a New York State Sanatorium, located centrally in East Side Brooklyn.
At seventeen, Loki Odinson is declared, legally, mentally insane.
/
Loki Odinson sits in the chair across from his own, and stares out the ajar window.
He is silent, one arm held protectively across his stomach, his other's elbow rested against the chairs arm, a cigarette burned near down to its filter dangling between two, long, thin fingers. Bruce worries that he is going to burn himself, and knows he's going to have to take the cigarette away soon. There are already scabs and blisters along the tips of the boy's fingers from where he has done so previously.
Wisps of smoke carry out the window on the breeze, and Loki looks ragged.
Dr. Banner watches him intently.
Loki has been here at St. Agatha's for nearly two weeks, and in that time, Bruce has yet to hear him speak a single word.
His raven black hair is chopped short, near to the scalp, though when he came in, the doctor knows it was well past his shoulders in length, knotted and scraggily and unkempt.
The boy is no more than a wisp of a thing, Bruce thinks as he watches him. They've been weighing him every day since he arrived, monitoring his BMI.
He is severely underweight, and he will not eat. Every time the nurses have attempted to force him, he has suffered extreme episodes, and sometimes, they aren't able to get him to stop screaming and thrashing until the orderlies can force him down and inject a sedative into him. They stick an IV into his arm then, and pray for the best.
The boy's clothes hang off him in sheets, and beneath the dip of his shirt's collar, Bruce can see his ribcage pressed against his pale skin prominently. His arms hang from the short sleeves like sticks, his face is gaunt with cheekbones like razor blades, and the column of his throat too clearly visible.
It hurts to look at him.
Dr. Banner's eyes cast away, down to the open file sat across his desk, reading the same lines he's read a dozen times previous.
Paranoid Schizophrenia.
That's the diagnosis given to the boy by his former doctors back in England.
Dr. Bruce Banner is the leading mind in the world in the study of paranoid schizophrenia, and because Loki's family is wealthy, they moved to the States from London and had him committed here.
Bruce has met them, briefly. A father, Odin, quite possibly the most intimidating man the doctor has ever had the pleasure of speaking to. A mother, Frigga, with a kind disposition to counter the stern cold of her husband. And an older and younger brother, Thor, a massive giant of a man, aged twenty-two, and Balder, fifteen years of age, and already bigger and taller than Loki, though a good two or three inches shorter than Thor.
It hadn't escaped the doctor's notice how thoroughly unlike Loki all of them looked, with the men sporting broad, handsome features, and all of them with golden blonde hair, save Odin, whose hair was a shock of white, matching his thick beard, and all of them with sun-kissed skin.
It didn't surprise Bruce then, to find out Loki was indeed adopted, taken in when he was only an infant, after having been found by the authorities, abandoned on the streets of London in the dead of one of the worst winters on record there. The child had nearly died, according to his files, had already fallen into a state of hypothermia, and it had been weeks before anyone knew if he would make it or not.
That he did was more of a surprise than if he had succumbed to his condition, frail and undersized as he supposedly had been.
Moving down the file, Bruce continues to again read what he's gone over before.
Loki, apparently, is very, very smart.
There is a list of results in his file, gathered from a slew of intelligence equivalency tests given to him periodically over the last ten years. On all of them, the boy has scored well off the charts.
The file notes that it wasn't long after his exceptional intelligence began to be noticed by the adults around him, that his mental health issues began also to surface.
It notes further that Loki has been in and out of various mental institutions for the past six years of his life.
It says he likes art. He likes to paint and draw, and he likes to write. It notes he has filled dozens upon dozens of journals with his writing, and there are a number of folders that were brought along with him containing his numerous sketches and drawings and paintings.
Bruce hasn't had a chance to look at any of it.
He hopes today he might get permission from Loki to do so, though it isn't looking particularly promising at the moment.
The doctor sighs, finally closing the file and looking back up at his new patient.
"So, Loki…" he begins, keeping his voice gentle and calm.
Loki doesn't move. Gives no indication of even hearing him. He just keeps staring out the window, silent. His fingers twitch minutely around his cigarette, and Bruce leans forward across the desk, plucking the thing away.
Loki turns to him then, a flash of anger crossing over his delicate features, light green eyes burning dangerously.
Someone so waifish shouldn't be able to look so imposing, but there it is.
Bruce smiles at him, grinding the cigarette out in an ashtray.
"How are you feeling today?" He asks.
Loki glares at him a long moment more, fingers still twitching, around empty space now, before abruptly, he folds his upheld hand against his chest, thin fingers curling into the loose material of his shirt, and he turns away, staring back out the window.
He looks tragically young, and, Bruce supposes, he is.
He isn't even legally old enough to be smoking, but he'd thrown such a fit the first day, when they'd tried to keep his pack of cigarettes from him, that they'd just given up and allowed him that one concession.
He holds himself like he's trying to hide.
"Have you managed to make any friends yet?" Bruce tries.
There are several other patients on Loki's ward, though most of them are older than he is, and the doctor knows the boy tends to keep largely to himself.
There's only been one incident between him and another patient, a week ago. Clint Barton, who's been here at St. Agatha's for about three years now, had tried talking to Loki, and when Loki hadn't responded, Clint had become a little aggressive, as he tended to, and a scene had broken out.
That was putting it mildly, but it was important to only use certain types of terminology around the patients, Bruce knew.
Clint had ended up beating Loki up a little, slapping him around pretty good until the orderlies and nurses had been able to pull him off. He hadn't really hurt Loki all that much, thank God, but Loki had been crying anyway, and it had taken hours to get him to really calm down.
Nurse Rogers, that's who the report had listed as the one who'd finally gotten Loki to settle, who'd eased him back down from panic and terror.
Bruce thinks he's going to have to speak with Rogers about it, just to get a clearer picture on exactly what happened, and hopefully, it will help him in his treatment of Loki as well, if he's lucky.
Loki gives no reply to his question about friends, which doesn't surprise the doctor. He just keeps staring out the window, his hands now clasped too tightly together in his lap. Bruce watches him a long moment, noting how anxious and even nervous the boy is.
He's going to have to be gentle with him.
"Is there anything you'd like to talk about Loki?" He tries instead, giving the control over to the boy, hoping for the best.
Loki doesn't even glance at him, his hands only winding tighter about each other, before abruptly, they come apart and he digs his fingers into the loose material of his pants. Tension thrums visibly through his skin and bones frame.
Bruce sighs quietly to himself, folding his own hands together along the desk.
"Would you like to go back to your room now Loki?" He asks softly.
Loki's arms come up around himself, folding in and fingers digging what looks painfully into the scarce flesh of his limbs. He nods jerkily, looking down to the floor, and Bruce nods back.
"Okay." He says. "That's okay."
/
Loki, Steve Rogers thinks, is an incredibly good looking kid. Beautiful, really, but not feminine. His features are sharp, fine and delicate, his body all smooth, long lines, even with how awfully thin he is, with porcelain pale skin and eyes brighter and more expressive and more intelligent than any Steve thinks he's ever seen.
It makes him wonder, and makes his heart ache then, that someone that incredible looking could be so messed up. Natures way, he guesses, of equaling the balance between people. That's how it seems sometimes, but it still feels unfair to him.
If Loki were well in the head, Steve's sure he would have girls all over him. He's that good looking.
Only, looking at him now, hunched in on himself, arms wrapped tight and protectively around his bare torso, Steve has the distinct impression Loki's probably never even kissed anyone, or had anyone kiss him. Never experienced any kind of romantic relationship or intimate contact. He's painfully shy, trying to hide himself away as he sits there on the exam table, his face turned down, and Steve doesn't think he's once actually looked directly at him.
At least he's able to sit still for him. Any of the other nurses trying to get near the kid has only resulted in Loki throwing a fit and writhing violently in his attempts to get away from their touch.
Steve doesn't know what it is about himself that makes Loki more calm, but he isn't about to question it.
He wants to help the boy.
Right now, that entails disinfecting and patching up a gash running along the kid's spine, something he got from one of the other patients ramming him into the knob of a door a little while earlier.
It seems Loki has a tendency to somehow spook some of the other, more volatile residents here. Steve's not sure why, since Loki is about the quietest, most withdrawn mental patient he's ever dealt with. Maybe it's because of that that he unsettles some of the others. They're used to screaming and hollering from each other. Loki just sits there and doesn't say anything.
Steve wishes they would leave the kid alone though. Looking at him, Loki doesn't seem like he can defend himself too well, and seeing him get beat up, even if just a little, is heartbreaking.
Especially since it makes Loki cry. He doesn't wail or sob or anything. The tears just run fast and thick down his face, and he doesn't make a sound. Last week, when Barton smacked him around, no one even knew it was happening until the other patients started making a racket over it, since Loki himself didn't cry out at all.
But no one could get the kid to stop crying until a long while after they pulled Clint off him either, until Steve was finally able to step in and calm him down. It'd been scary for a while, with the way Loki's breath was coming so short and erratic and the tears just kept running down his cheeks.
"Alright," Steve starts, unwrapping one of the disinfectant wipes from its package and moving cautiously towards his patient. "I'm just gonna get this cut cleaned and patched up for you Loki, and then you can go back to the dayroom. How's that sound?"
Loki doesn't answer him, though Steve doesn't expect him to. He's only heard the kid talk a handful of times, and never more than a word or two at a time.
And so he simply goes about his work, being delicate as he cleans the wound. Loki still flinches at the contact of the cool wipe against his skin, and Steve mutters a quiet apology. But Loki seems to settle after that, and Steve finishes the task quickly, covering the wound up with a waterproof bandage, smoothing out its edges to make sure it's securely on before stepping back and nodding.
"Alright kiddo, you can put your shirt back on now."
Loki glances at him briefly, eyes nervous and unsure.
"You want me to turn around?" Steve asks, picking up on what the problem is pretty fast.
Loki gives a single, jerky nod, and Steve smiles, nodding back.
"Alright." He says. "You just tell me when you're ready."
And he turns his back to Loki, waiting patiently.
There's the sound of some rustling as Loki shifts about on the paper covering the exam bed, and it's taking longer for him to get his shirt on than it would for any normal person, considering it's just a singlet. But Loki's not okay. Steve knows that. None of the patients here are, really. That's why they're here.
Finally, he hears Loki speak, voice low and rough and upper class. It's strange.
"Alright." Is all he says, and when Steve turns back around, Loki is sitting again with his arms crossed over his chest, hunched down, short sleeved shirt in place.
Steve smiles at him again.
"Alright." He says. "You can walk okay?"
Another, jerky nod from the boy.
"Then follow me." The nurse replies, turning on his heel. He hears Loki sliding off the exam table, his slippers flapping softly against the rubber flooring as he follows Steve out of the room.