Things changed after that, slowly. People started tolerating Loki, then they started to appreciate him. He had his shadows, but didn't they all? And Loki had a sense of humour, if you got past the darkness and depression. And boy, was he smart. Everybody enjoyed having someone so smart with them - enjoyed his ideas, if they were reluctant of Loki.

In the end, he became one of them. He was closest to Tony and Steve (one becuase scinece and the other because breakfasts) but the rest, even if they weren't friends, at least treated him like a human being, like they would another co-worker.

He felt he finally belonged. But he was still ill.

It had started like a simple cough, nothing to worry about, and then it got worse.

At first it was only a small thing, almost unnoticeable, a clearing of the throat too many times, a soft cough every now and then. Loki was able to conceal it most of the times but sometimes the others heard it. But he dismissed it, saying it was not important, insisting it was nothing. Tony and him finished their project and started using it - a machine that controlled most of the equipment that Stark had designed with his thoughts, without even having to talk. True technology.

Loki couldn't control the cough as best as he wanted the day of the presentation and Stark got a little worried.
Nothing important, Loki insisted, and he smiled with those bright eyes, because this was Stark/Loki project and his intellect was finally being recognised. Because he finally felt like he belonged - a monster maybe, but a monster surrounded by other friendly monsters.

His cough never got better. A couple of months after, he had a cough attack that left him almost breathless. Banner kept trying to figure out the cause for it, but couldn't. Loki had a different physiology and there werethings Bruce had never seen before, things that he didn't understand. And Loki kept getting worse and worse. They put him some help with an oxygen mask, so he could breathe better, but couldn't figure out the underlying cause and he kept getting worse. Needing the mask more and more. Looking every day thinner, wearier. Until one day he stopped breathing altogether and collapsed in the living room of Stark tower, while the others could do nothing.

So they had to hook him up to a ventilator.

And there he continued, in a bed, much like a coma patient, for weeks.

Tony kept quiet, but had seen Steve crying silently on Loki's bedside. They had been having breakfast together for months, and had become friends. They joked. Cooked. And now Loki was there - breathless. He was supposed to be stronger than them, supposed to immortal. Not relying on that terribly big machine to be able to breathe. Steve watched the man, the skin pale, the green eyes he'd become so used to tightly closed, his arms on the sides, lifeless. So, yes, he had cried. Because he was tired of losing what he cared about. He lost Bucky, and Peggy, lost his time and home, lost everything. And as he was making himself a new home, a new friend who yes, had a dark past, but was complex and interesting and intelligent and so terribly grateful with every gesture of admiration he had. His friend - his ally, his confident. And now he was lying on a hospital bed, unable to even breathe. The tears kept falling.

Tony was also sad, even if wasn't as graphic as Steve with his sadness. He simply would drink a bit more than usual, ask JARVIS to play their greatest hits. And he had to admit, even if he was a tough guy, it was getting harder to listen to Carry on wayward son wothout tearing up. He hated it. He'd seen the glimpse of who Loki was inside - a guy with daddy issues deeper than his, but a guy so smart it was even scary. Hell, he'd even grown fond of the guys practical jokes. His love for tricks. He didn't want to see him go. Didn't, didn't, didn't. He'd had distraction when Happy was on the hospital - but now there was no Mandarin to hold his atention. No terrible threat to all mankind to terrorist calling him. There were only him and his pain, and Steve's silent tears.

The hardest part was not knowing. And fearing there might come a day when not even the ventilator would work.
They've gotten Loki and all his complexities by their side, they had finally accepted him and realised how amazing the guy could be and now - this guy that was so smart, this guy had so many problems and people had gave up on him.

Of all of them, Thor was definitely the worst. They had been the closest of brothers when they were younger and then there had been distance, coldness. A relationship that seemed irreparable. And then Loki kind of redeemed himself and Thor hadn't exactly known what to do with himself. There were untold feelings of guilt, of past resentment. And now, that he could see Loki awake again... Regret. Lots of regret. And grief. And loss. He never stayed long, preferring to distract his mind with everything and anything from the terrible truth of his brother's state. As much as he tried, as much as he pretended to, he could never truly hate Loki. Never. And now he couldn't simply see his little brother wasting away, in that bed, with that terrible contraption down his throat. It wasn't fair.

But he wasn't alone. Steve was there, and had breakfast every day by Loki's bedside. Tony talked to JARVIS every day, trying to find a miraculous cure, trying to change the situation. Bruce ocasionally visited too, brooded over the oxygen level and tried to be of use.

Loki just remained there, showing no signs of improvement. Pale as the sheets in the bed, the mouth a bit twitched from where the vent came out. Unmoving. The only sound being the one the machine made. Not being able to breathe, to open his eyes, to move. Having lost himself in the sickness. Pale as a ghost, so, so pale. Fading away in that hospital bed.

It had just been a cough.

Nothing important.

A/N: I'm feeling a bit angsty and Loki angst helps me. Kinda. Anyways, hope you liked.

Reviews are always lovely ;)