Thanks to those who are reading, and extra thanks to the reviewers! Hope you all enjoy this chapter.
Forgot to mention in the last chapter, but it's really quite obvious: I only own the OCs. Damnit, Marvel.
Normal
"…all of her vitals l-l-look fine, Director. Her blood pressure is back up, heart beat steady. Um, uh, we changed the dressings on her side just to be safe after we gave her the dose of super serum. A-a very small dose, of course, just to speed up her skin and organ regrowth and repairs. Ah, Director, she's waking up…".
Zara cracked open her right eye slowly, and saw that S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Fury was standing in front of slight, dark haired female doctor. The woman's eyes were jumping nervously from Fury to the paperwork in her arms, and she looked slightly affronted. Fury had that affect on people.
"Agent Shade, nice to see you alive," said Fury, in that humorless way he had about him.
"You too, Nick… heard the Helicarrier got pretty trashed," she responded through a haze of morphine and exhaustion, trying fruitlessly to sit up. She found she could do no more than lift her neck, and she looked questioningly at the physician.
"Agent, I'm Doctor Allen. I'm sorry we couldn't meet on a happier day; I'll be in charge of your case until you leave. You won't be able to sit up for probably two weeks, maybe one if you take to the super serum very well." She seemed to gain some confidence when she didn't have to speak to Fury.
"Your side was, to put it mildly, blown to bits… broken ribs, nearly ever bone in your arm… what worries us is your pelvis. It's tricky to set properly under normal circumstances…"
"But this is far from normal?" asked Zara.
"I'm afraid so; you're in a full-body brace until then. It's possible there will be, ah, more complications, but we won't know for sure until everything is healed up. Do you have any questions?"
She choked out a laugh. "When can I go back to sleep?"
"That's up to Director Fury, Agent. I'll step out into the hall until you're d-done here, Director." And with that, Dr. Allen stepped through the automatic doors of the infirmary. Zara now saw that she was in one of about ten or twelve beds, all along one wall, in a long hospital ward. Her own bed was positioned right in front of the door, probably so the doctors could keep an eye on her. No other beds were occupied at the moment, but the sheets on the bed furthest from her were messy.
Fury's face immediately became grave. "I'm so sorry I sent you into that firestorm, Za-"
But she talked over him, or rather, rasped, "Shut up, Nick. I don't need to hear this. I'm alive." She took a moment to clear her throat. "You couldn't have known, it should have been routine… don't worry about it. Just make sure I come out of this place with a whole body… speaking of, where is this? If you say 'Stark Tower'…"
"Very funny. No, we're in one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. bases outside of Washington, D.C. When the field medics brought you in… you weren't bleeding. You should have bled out on the rooftop in seconds. Do you have any idea what happened?"
Zara took a deep breath, and set immediately into a fit of coughing. It took several minutes, but she managed to control herself before answering, "The Chitauri shot me… us. I was trying to drag the target away when he fired at us. You think the weapon cauterized my skin? Were Agent Romanoff and Dr. Selvig-" Her brain was scrambling to recall what had happened as Fury interrupted her.
"Romanoff and Selvig were uninjured. At least by the enemy who got you. From what the doc says, she doesn't think it cauterized anything. She said, how did she say it? 'It's like someone did a cross-section of her insides.' You're not sealed up, you just aren't… leaking out... either."
"The super serum?"
"Yes, that's why we're in D.C. The closest cache of serum was at the Pentagon. One of Banner's stateside interns has been working with it. He was trying to make improvements on it, but we've… acquired… his whole batch. Since you weren't actively dying, we made the choice to try to fix you back up."
"Mmm, thanks so much… think it'll work?"
"You're still alive. Doc said you would probably start to feel itchy where the serum is working. Look, I've got to go back to New York to do damage control, but I just wanted to see you, to apologize, before I left. I owe you and your dad, I didn't want you to-"
"Stop, Nick. Get out of here. I'm sleepy, and now you've made my whole side itch." With that, she promptly closed her eyes tightly.
"Get well soon," Fury chuckled softly, squeezing her good hand gently, and exited the ward through the automatic doors.
She came to sometime later, but it could have been a couple of hours or several days for all she knew. It was nighttime, she could see, because the window at the end of the ward was dark, except for the ambient light from the streetlamps outside. She craned her head around to try to find a clock, but to no avail.
"Fuck…" she said under her breath. She didn't know what day it was, or even what time it was. I guess I'll just stare at the ceiling. Sounds fun. I better get at least a month of vacation after this…
"Such unnecessary use of profanity, human. You wish to know the time, I presume?" A smooth, cool voice interrupted her thoughts, somewhere off to her left.
Immediately she became acutely frustrated, and though she would never admit it, scared, that she couldn't move. Her eyes found the source of the voice as she consciously began to slow her heart rate. The soft "beep" of the machines measuring her vitals did nothing to help her, and she hated how obvious it was that he, Loki, had startled her.
"Yes, thanks," she answered. Holy shit, he's taller than I realized. More beautiful, too... stop that! Now was definitely not the time to be making observations like that.
His shockingly blue eyes narrowed at the sentiment, but answered her all the same. "It's eighteen minutes to four in the morning. And a little over an hour since the last human healer came to monitor you," he added, a tinge of something like danger creeping into his voice.
Zara regarded him with a level look, barely winning the battle with the hammering of her heart. She waited a moment before asking her next question.
"How long have we been in here?"
"We?!" he nearly spat at her. "There is no 'we'. You are the puny mortal, hooked up to machines, needing the help of super serums to stay alive! "
"Calm down, man," she rebutted, practically scoffing at him.
"Do not think to instruct me. Are you not frightened? I, a god, who nearly captured your planet, could kill you in seconds and you could do nothing to defend yourself!"
She breathed in through her nose, eyes flashing, before answering.
"That's far from the truth, and you would do well note it. There's a reason you're here, and I doubt it's because you enjoy the decorations. You're stuck here, are being kept here as a prisoner. Director Fury would never allow any wounded S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to stay in the same room as alien war criminal in possession of all his capacities, so you've either lost your super powers, or they've been neutralized. We were both hit with that Chitauri weapon, and though you seem to be physically fine, it's unlikely that you've been anywhere but in this wing of the building since being brought in."
Loki gaped at her, utterly taken aback at her brazen response. It unnerved him that anyone, especially a woman, in such a compromised position would have the gall to address him in such a way. It unnerved him far more that she was right.
She took the moment before he could compose a response. "I'll ask again, how long have we been here?"
She waited for a response, but it seemed she wouldn't get one. She added, "Even if you wanted to kill me, and if you wanted to you've wasted ample opportunity, I would claw out your throat before you laid a finger to mine."
And with that, she closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn't see through her bluff. It was possible that she could get a hard fist to his temple if indeed he lacked his "powers", which she was guessing at blindly, but she would do her best to take him with her if he tried anything.
The soft padding of footsteps retreating to the bed furthest from hers accompanied his words. "Six days, five hours, and forty four minutes."
Her left eye slid open, but she didn't turn her head. "Thank you." Kill him with kindness.
Zara was overwhelmed by the feeling of itching that lit up her side; she had never felt anything like it, and she thought it was almost as bad as being shot. She felt inflamed, and her side continued to burn. She tried to shift her body, to get some kind of friction going between her skin (Was there skin there, yet?) and the brace that held her body in place. It didn't work.
Dr. Allen entered through the doors across the room from her bed. "Itching?" she asked.
"Like a bitch."
Empathy softened the doctor's eyes, and she nodded. "I know it's unbearable, but it's a good thing. The serum is working, and your body is healing. Mind if I have a look?"
"Course not." Her voice was almost back to normal, and her head was clearer than it had been in days. Loki had either been out of the room the few times she had returned to consciousness, or he stayed at what she had come to refer to as "his" end of the ward, out of her vision, until she fell asleep again.
The doctor walked around to the left side of the bed and lifted the sheet, exposing Zara's hot skin to the air. It was then that she realized her hospital gown was thinner than the thinnest linen, and she jerked her eyes to the end of the ward where Loki was staying.
The doctor noticed, and tried to put her at ease. "He's been roaming around the wing for about half an hour this morning. He's completely terrorized my newest resident, but Fury has ordered us to let him get out of the ward. Said he'd go stir-crazy if he had to stay in one place."
"Crazier than he already is, at least…"
Dr. Allen laughed. "Yes, indeed. Well, your skin is growing back nicely. It'll be extremely sensitive for a month or so. Does this hurt?" And she began poking strategically up and down Zara's side.
"Ah, not exactly. It feels… sore, but not truly painful."
"Good, that's to be expected. I'm going to keep your hand in its cast for a couple more days, to give the serum some extra time to finish up with your bones, but I think we can take full brace off tomorrow afternoon. You'll have to be careful sitting up, and I only want you walking to go from the bed to the bathroom and back… we'll stock you up on some anti-itch ointment, too. Expect to be in here another week to week and a half," she finished up with a warm smile, and replaced Zara's sheets.
Before she could leave, Zara asked, "Doc? Can you tell me about Loki? Why is he in here? He doesn't seem to need to be in a hospital."
Dr. Allen dragged a chair over from the bed to the left and sat. "Director Fury would be better able to tell you, but I'll do my best. I overheard him while he was here checking on you last week, and from what I can tell, Loki has lost his power. I'm sure you read his files?"
Zara nodded. Of course she had, several times, most recently on the jet into New York in preparation to retrieve him. Loki was a genius, according to his brother. An accomplished sorcerer, too. He had never been all muscles and fists like Thor. She'd read Thor's files, too, but they seemed less pertinent, since he was clearly an ally.
"He's lost his magic, and apparently whatever abilities absolve the Asgardians from eating and sleeping. He was in bad shape, like you, immediately after the Chitauri invasion… but by the time he got here, his body was physically back together. I would have thought he would struggle or try to break out, but when he regained consciousness he just laid in the bed. Didn't move, didn't speak. Just stared at the ceiling. He had it out with Fury, which is probably what woke you up while the Director was here, but he hasn't put up any kind of fight at all."
This news threw Zara for a loop. "Why is Fury keeping him here?"
"You haven't seen, since you've been in and out for so long, but some of the boys from the Experimental Sciences wing have been taking readings on him every day; different kinds of radiation, x-ray, gamma, infrared. Banner's intern wants to get as much data as he can, to see if there is any quantifiable difference in the readings from non-magic Loki to magic Loki, assuming he'll ever get his magic back when we can test it. Fury okayed the little science experiment, but didn't want Loki anywhere near the technology they're working on up there."
"That sounds ridiculous."
"You're telling me," Dr. Allen said, standing and replacing the chair. "Let me know if he's bothering you too much, and I'll see what I can negotiate with Director Fury to get him moved somewhere else."
"Thanks, doc," Zara replied, settling back into her mind as Dr. Allen took down a few more notes before heading out the door.
These circumstances were definitely not normal. At least her suspicions that Loki was significantly weakened were confirmed, and she knew Fury would never leave her in a room with Loki if he thought she couldn't protect herself. Thor had been pretty forthcoming to Jane Foster during his previous time on Earth, and she had in turn been forthcoming to S.H.I.E.L.D., especially when Fury threatened to keep her equipment and documents. Thor had been sent to Earth without his power as a punishment from Odin, his father and King of Asgard. What did he call him? The Allfather? From what Zara could conclude, Loki had his magic, or healing abilities at least, until he got to D.C, but sometime while he was unconscious Odin had taken them. Whatever Thor had done, she was sure Loki's recent indiscretions surely outweighed it. Maybe he never would get his power back, at least during Zara's lifetime. But why was he still on Earth? Wouldn't Odin want him back on Asgard? I wonder if he'd freak out again if I asked him! The least she could do while holed up in this bed was try to get some good recon on Loki and his state of mind.
The next week was shaping up to be decidedly interesting.