Loki passed out before they were even out of SHIELD and Steve had to stop his fall. He tried to wake him, softly tapping his face, but nothing happened. Loki remained unmoving and unresponsive, limp. Steve looked at Stark, with worried blue eyes.

"Don't worry Cap, we'll fix him up in a moment. That guy is not gonna die because of something SHIELD did, I tell you. You can carry him, right?"

"Sure."

Steve took the man in his arms, slightly concerned at how light he felt for such a tall guy. This was not good.

The people at SHIELD ran around them while the sound of alarms filled the air. No one seemed to look at them, which was a good thing. Tony knew this was going to cause them trouble with the agency, which was not a good thing. But to hell with them, to hell with everyone.

Tony just hoped the Hulk was doing a good number on the place. He wondered how many people had there been before Loki, how many people had said things that were not true, admitted to crimes they hadn't committed just to keep their interrogators away. It made him shiver. Just to be for one day in that hell was horrifying…. and Loki had been there for two months. Two whole fucking months. Stark noted the bruising on the eyes of the alien, and the infected gashes that were visible under his dirty black tee.

Gods. They were supposed to be the good guys.

When they reached the door, Natasha was there, calm as ever. She took a look at the three of them, expression unreadable as usual.

"Thanks for the help." Steve said, apparently not even a bit tired after carrying a six feet tall guy in his arms through half of SHIELD hq.

She simply nodded.

"Keep me posted on anything that happens, ok?"

Stark and Rogers nodded and then she was gone. A mystery, that woman.

One of Tony's limos was waiting for them and they got in there in silence. The driver asked no questions about the new addition. He had seen worse.

"What do you think, Cap? Is he telling the truth?" Tony asked, while his team-mate put the unconscious man in one of the seats.

"I…. maybe it's crazy, but I think so, yes. I really doubt he'd have stayed there if he had magic or could talk to Thor somehow. I think he's genuinely scared of what may have happened. Maybe it's me being too trusting… but there was definitely something different about him. About his eyes."

Tony nodded. There was something bigger going on there, bigger than Loki playing clueless.

The rest of the ride passed in relative silence. Loki never woke up.

When he did, he was in some short some of mechanical cage that moved vertically and he wasn't standing. He could feel something warm against him, something that moved slightly. Something alive with a heartbeat and a breathing. And a soft humming on the background. Loki did not understand, his mind too muddled by the fever and not yet fully awake. But he knew he wasn't in his cell anymore – and there was that strange sensation: his feet were not on the floor but he was not falling.

He cracked one eye open and saw blinding lights and what resembled a person. He could hear a faint voice in the distance.

"….think he's waking up, but…"

Someone was calling his name and it was painful, for some reason. Maybe it brought memories. It was just so blurry. He tried to move, but couldn't –his limbs were heavy and protested at the slightest movement. His head pounded and his stomach was on fire. Before he could utter a response to those blue eyes that looked at him so full of concern (maybe Thor had finally forgiven him… maybe he still loved him, despite all he'd done) his eyelids became too heavy and he was asleep again.

Steve looked at Stark next to him, who had seen Loki's almost awakening.

"I don't like this, Tony. What if something terrible has happened in their homeland and Thor is injured as well? Whatever happened left Loki powerless and without memories – could be a great threat."

Stark sighed. He had to admit Loki's unfocused eyes and his expression of pure pain had spooked him.

"Well, what ifs will lead us nowhere, Cap. We'll have to wait to find out, until he awakes for real, at least."

When the elevator finally stopped, they got out of it in a "med wing" floor and Steve gently deposited his former enemy on one of the beds. He was unconscious, again, but sweating and moaning softly. He really, really, disliked this. What if Loki died from his wounds and then Thor appeared and decided to take down SHIELD and kill Fury, mad with grief? No, like Stark had said, speculation was no good. They should focus on the matter at hand.

Stark had started to put some devices on the god while the computer-voice (Steve had always found it terribly unsettling because it sounded completely like a person, a person with no body) said some data when the captain realized there was blood in his hands.

"He's bleeding."

JARVIS did a full body scan and informed them that the patient had three bleeding wounds at the moment, apart from two broken bones and twelve infected gashes and burns that required attention. Steve and Tony sighed, almost in unison, and started working.

They took out his shirt, carefully, and saw the terrible blue and purple chest and abdomen. They both knew what had to be done, so they started to clean, disinfect and dress the wounds and burns. Loki didn't react at all. They thought of taking out the cuffs, seeing how weak he seemed to be. Tony asked JARVIS to go through the footage SHIELD had of the man to see if there was anything suspicious. There wasn't. There was only a man in a cell, alone, with almost no food and an obvious disgust of his own reflection. They decided to take the cuffs off. He'd worn them for too long.

After a while Bruce came back and helped them with the medication for the infection, the doses and so forth. Fury kept calling, but Tony had made JARVIS ignore the calls. He was too angry to talk with the man after seeing what they had done with their prisoner.

Loki woke up again when he felt something extremely cold on his head. At first, he couldn't see anything, and felt confused. He was lying in something soft, for the first in months, for the first time since he arrived to that wretched planet. Could it be a bed? He opened his eyes and saw a white room he didn't recognize and three men in there, the one with blue eyes watching him. Then he remembered – his brother's allies, who had taken him from that cell. He felt cleaner, somehow.

And couldn't understand.

The words of his captors still rang in his ears. You are worthless, a useless piece of scum, you are a waste of space, a futile, stupid little mistake and… The pain in his stomach took him out of his thoughts, yet another reminder of how broken he was, how far from the proud prince he used to be he'd become. He tried to be ignore the pain and be whole again, talk to these people. There had to be some reason for them to be this kind and apparently caring. Something he wasn't seeing. He tried to sit up but the bed helped, moving with some sort of mechanism so he was facing his rescuers. The Avengers.

The soldier took the cloth from his forehead and looked at him.

"Loki? You with us?"

There was something about the blue… Thor. He remembered Thor falling, and he was screaming his name- not, it was him who fell, again, and Thor was looking at him, holding at his hand so he could reach…. He couldn't remember. It was all so blurred, so sketchy. He saw flashes of blood in his memories, but couldn't ascertain if it was his own. Maybe he didn't want to know.

"What… do you want from me?"

Surely they expected something in return for their efforts. These were too many kindnesses.

It was Stark who spoke up (no surprise there).

"Well, for starters, we wanted to undo some of the shit SHIELD has done to you. This is not right, not matter who you are. And then, when you look a bit less walking dead we want you to help us find out where the hell is Thor. Because I don't know about you guys, but to me, this whole no memory thing sounds like someone covering their tracks."

Loki looked at them with bright green eyes. Odd. None of them remembered them being so green.

"You believe me?" The god asked, as if it was the most impossible thing in the world. "Why….?"

But he was again interrupted by his own pain, again, when it reached an unbearable proportion.

Loki was barely aware of his surroundings while he clutched at his stomach with his hands, back arching, tears falling from the corners of his eyes. The world became a blur, the pain taking over everything else and spreading like fire. He couldn't seem to see or hear anything and barely registered movement around him. The fact that there were no more interrogations didn't mean his torture was over.

But there was movement around him and all sorts of alarm ringing as he writhed on his bed.

Steve looked at the scene in horror and shouted a "Do something!" in the general direction of his team mates, while Bruce desperately looked for some morphine. He injected the patient the biggest dose he thought safe but there was no immediate reaction.

Four eternal minutes passed before the pain subsided and three men watched powerless as their guest moaned and moved around the bed, trying to diminish the pain and obviously failing. Something was very wrong, something apart (but probably maximized) what SHIELD had done. Something darker.

"Bruce?" Out of all them, the physicist was the only one who had some medical knowledge.

"I… I don't know. I don't know what's wrong, I don't know how to fix. Antibiotics don't work, morphine doesn't either…"

"We can't just sit around and watch him suffer!" Steve said, horrified. There had to be something they could do. Loki looked even worse than when they picked him up, still sweaty and pale, but more ill somehow. After a while he decided to sit next to the sickbed, to see if he could provide any sort of comfort.

Tony and Bruce talked in the back, wondering what kind of mess they'd gotten themselves into.

Loki could see the lights and the darkness, felt the taste of blood in his mouth.

He could hear the screams. And he was on fire.

There were blue eyes watching him. He spoke in broken whispers.

"Thor… you came for me?… I… am sorry….Please, just…. Don't let them hurt me anymore… I cannot bear it… I….Brother…"

Steve took his shaky hand and held it tightly on his own. Trying to show him that someone was there, that somebody cared. He had the uncomfortable suspicion that Loki had been alone and abandoned more than once. Yes, he was a criminal, but he was also in unspeakable pain and if being there helped in the slightest, then that's where he would be.

Loki wished his mind was clearer, but he only knew pain. At least his brother was there, he hadn't forsaken him like the rest of them. He was there after all.

"Thor… help me."

A/N: Whumpfest, part two.

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