I didn't fix much in this one, but enjoy! New chappie up next c:
heehee c; here comes the blood and gore, what you've all been waiting for I'm sure!
Warnings for this chapter- icky depictions of wounds, excessive profanity, and feels.
Shaking hands swiped across glistening marble, sending dishes and glassware shattering to the floor below. When Thor had said "something has been done to my brother", the last thing that had come to Tony's mind was this. The man walked cautiously around the shattered remains of used- to- be -elegant dining utensils, careful not to dirty his kitchen further than needed. After all, there were already pints of blood oozing onto the floor from a special someone, creating puddles of crimson on the white floor.
"Shit Thor," Tony huffed, his mind reeling from the sudden burst of action. One minute he'd been watching a marathon of Friends, the next he'd been thrown into a world of confusion and torn skin. "We can't just put him on the table… h-he needs something under him," he continued, running a hand through his short hair. This was certainly nothow he had planned to spend his Saturday night.
Thor crunched an eyebrow at Tony, quickly glancing at the being, his younger brother, that was slung over his left shoulder. When Thor had arrived, Tony could only see the trickster's legs, which were covered by dark pants. It wasn't until he held the door open for Thor that he saw thefrontof the avenger's brother.
Loki's eyes were blindfolded with thick black cloth, and his around his mouth was tied fabric. The cloth tugged at Loki's cheeks, leaving red marks along his jawline. Whatever the gag and blindfold had been used for, they sure as hell had done their job. By the looks of it, Tony could tell the fabrics were tied with expertise knots, and were tighter than should have been. Around the blindfold there were what looked like… claw marks? Tony's eyes traveled down to the man's dangling arms and down to his hands. His nails were caked with blood, crusted with it.
He'd tried to rip the blindfold off.
Tony did his best not to gag as he ran to his kitchen table, hastily beginning to throw all of the things that it contained onto the floor. Damn, he had only seen Loki's face… and whoever had done all that to his face, surely had no mercy and wouldn't have left the rest of his body free from injury. That was when Stark realized that his table wasn't exactly the cleanest of all dining tables, especially with his drinking escapades that happened almost nightly. His breath hitched and he looked at Thor, his next words coming out as grunts. They needed a blanket. A mattress. A trashbag. Anything to make their working space a littlemore sanitary.
Thor seemed confused for a moment as he looked from Tony to his gasping brother, not understanding why they couldn't just put his brother down and make him better. Tony huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Dammit Thor, he's probably got a shit ton of wounds all over him, so we can't just put him on the table and risk infection. He needs a blanket or something,"
"Ah," Thor said, finally grasping the concept. He was most certainly not a medical expert. Then again, neither was Tony.
Tony growled in impatience and at the lack of response from the thunderer. However, his emotion thawed slightly as he looked at the god; his hair was disheveled, his eyes were red from crying, and his armor was covered with the blood of his little sibling. The guy had to be at least a littleout of it.
"I'll get it." Tony said, running quickly to rummage through whatever he had to suit the cause. His brain worked in a fevered frenzy, thinking while his body tried to find a blanket.
Why even care? Why help? Sure, Thor was a tremendous ally to not only Tony, but the rest of the avengers, but his brother, the one that was bleeding out on Stark's kitchen floor, had freaking tried to take over the planet several months ago! Why the living fuckwould anyone want to help him? Fourteen months ago everyone had wantedhim dead. God, when Fury heard about this…
Despite the fact that Loki was one of the deadliest villains Tony himself had come to know, the man had a twinge of sorrow in his heart. It hurt to know that the people, the Asgardians whom the avengers considered their friends, would do this to anyone, even Loki. Tony believed in revenge, but not torture.
His hands grasped an old blanket with a horse pattern embroidered on it and instantly sprinted back to the kitchen to spread the cloth on the table. A metal operating table would have been ideal rather than a crappy woolen blanket that would only soak up the blood and probably stick to the wounds, but it was better than nothing. It was better than Thor's brother contracting an infection and dying here on Tony's kitchen table. Perhaps he should replace his kitchen table with a metal operating table. Tony smiled slightly at the stupid thought.
The next few moments went past wordlessly, the only sound being Thor's heavy breathing and Loki's strangled whimpers.
"Sit him on the table, but hold him up," Tony instructed. "I need to take his shirt off to assess any other injuries he might have." Thor did as he was told, but froze when he saw Iron Man leaning heavily against the wall.
"Man of iron, are you well?" Thor asked cautiously, but did not let go of his brother. Tony smirked and put a hand on his head.
"Yeah, yeah. Can you, uh, hold on for a second?" Tony said, walking to the counter with a hand running through his hair in frustration. He quickly pulled out a glass and uncapped the bottle of Scotch sitting next to it, pouring himself a hefty glass.
Thor's face contorted in anger and annoyance. "Stark, I do not understand- why do you indulge in such pleasures while my brother is in such dire need?!" the pain in Thor's voice was unavoidable, Tony even winced a little as he took a sip of the alcohol. The god looked horrific, and quite frankly, like he needed a glass of scotch himself. Though, they probably had better ale on Asgard. After all, Thor wasthe son of a king; he should know that the consumption of alcohol helps get one's mind juices flowing! (okay, maybe only Tony had that philosophy, but he had his reasons.)
Tony put a hand up in defense and spoke, "Woah, woah. I'm coming dude, just give me a sec. I've got to recharge," Tony made himself back to the table, glass in hand. He downed the whole glass before he spoke again.
"Aliright let's, uh, get to work," Tony felt something tighten in his chest as he looked at the frost giant again. Loki looked so weak and vulnerable, which was most unlike himself. In fact, his whole demeanor had changed. Perhaps whoever had done this to him had wanted him to be this way. The internal struggle inside the mechanic's mind was truly painful; sure, he hated Loki for what he'd done, but for some reason, that anger seemed to be slowly melting away. Loki was practically leaking his bodily fluids onto his floor, and for what reason? Thor would never have let this happen to his sibling. This had obviously been kept a secret from the thunder god…
Tony's eyes widened as the pieces slowly started piecing themselves together. He still did not know everything, in fact he knew nothing but the fact that someone had severely injured Loki, but something was starting to turn in his mind. Again, the inspection of Loki was halted by Tony's words.
"You broke him out didn't you? Someone had him…"
Thor's face dropped, and his eyes looked at the floor. Dammit… he was right.
"I-I knew he was to be punished," Thor began. "when I brought him back to Asgard. But, he did not have a trial, nor time to explain his actions. He… I saw him before my people took him," Thor looked back up at Tony, his eyes watering with tears that Stark had never seen before. "Loki was innocent."
.
Tony's heart stopped for a few seconds, his mind twisting in all different directions from confusion to desperation. "Wha- how-" he could not get a coherent sentence to pass his lips, only strangled sounds of befuddlement.
"The scepter, t'was not his own," Thor said silently. His hand still held his brother up, though it was shaking visibly. "T'was of another world, one with the power to control minds,"
Tony slowly walked to the counter again, listening to Thor's words, and poured himself another glass of scotch. Thor continued talking, the tears behind his voice becoming audible in his voice as he spoke words that Tony could tell hurt like shit.
"Loki and I… we had a wonderful childhood. We fought together," Thor inhaled deeply, remembering the words he had spoken to his brother during his escapade through Midgard. "we played together. He was always, and still is, a goodhearted angel, but the entirety of my planet thinks of him otherwise, including my own father,"
"What the hell do you mean? Do you mean…" Tony couldn't grasp the situation at hand. He was dizzy and sweating, and felt like he needed to go through three more bottles of liquor before he could have an intelligent conversation with another life form. "Your father was in on this?"
Thor began to speak, but he was cut off by a strangled cry from the emaciated body on the marble table. Both of the avengers were snapped back into reality at full blast, and Tony rushed to his feet, knocking the chair his rear had just occupied down onto the floor. The cry that had come from Loki's mouth was not one entirely of pain… it was of fear. Which was reasonable, seeing as he had been taken from such harsh conditions to a completely new set of scenery. Tony waved his hand as if to say "whatever, we'll talk about it later" and hurried over to the wounded god.
The man grasped the thin fabric in his hands, feeling the smaller god flinch under his touch. A twinge of hatred flew through Tony, what with his new view of the man before him. If what Thor had said was true, if Loki really was innocent, then this was completely unacceptable. It would have been even if he wasn't innocent.
Tony immediately regretted lifting the shirt from the trickster, listening to the gagged cries that tried to escape his mouth as the fabric stuck to scabs and blood crusted lacerations. The man held his lunch back at the sight, trying not to let the smell of blood and rotting flesh send him into the bathroom blowing chunks. Once the shirt was completely off, Tony threw it to the ground in disgust- the thing was practically dripping with blood. Thor stared in horror, his mouth open and quivering with unspoken anger and fear for his brother's life.
Loki's chest was blue and black with bruising, three deep holes across his collarbone where someone had obviously shot him at close distance. Luckily for Tony, the bullets had been removed. Loki's torso was littered with gashes at least two inches deep, areas around his stomach bulging and indicating severely broken ribs. Both Thor and Tony could see the fractures through the skin, for the god was so emaciated. He had been stabbed several times, down to the bone near his hips. The side of his waist looked oddly swollen, and seemed to have… dear god, were thosescrewstwisted into his skin?
"Jesus fucking Christ," Tony said in a barely audible whisper. As soon as he saw the bruises that lie underneath the stab wounds near Loki's waist, Tony took no time in undoing the god's pants and slipping them down to his knees. He had no doubt the carnage continued further down. Thor said nothing, as he was in too much shock to realize that his brother lie almost completely naked, save for a pair of thin underwear, on Tony Stark's kitchen table. Tony scoffed, eyeballing the blood that dripped from between the god's legs, and from the deep cuts that covered his thighs. There was no skin left untouched- Loki's thighs were covered in tears and cuts, leaving him looking like some kind of demonic tiger.
Tony thought the horrors had ended, until he saw Thor's eyes glued to Loki's backside.
Whipped.
He had been whipped. Not with just a regular whip, and not just once either. The lacerations were red and infected, tinted an ugly green that obviously signaled infection of a greater level. One lash was so deep, the trickster's vertebrae were visible through the bloody mess.
"Shit… we're gonna have to lay him down Thor. I can't treat him sitting up like this," Tony said, his voice cracking. He had never seen anything like this before, and he wasn't quite sure that he couldtreat him. However, Thor nodded his head in understanding, his mouth pressed to the youngling's ear as he murmured sweet and soothing words into his ear. Loki's back hit the table gently, and if the gag hadn't been so tight around his mouth, he probably would have shattered the windows with his screaming.
Tony's hands instantly fumbled with the fabric of the gag, trying to untie it as best he could without tugging on the god further. He would leave the blindfold on until things settled down and Loki wouldn't be as terrified. The god kept arching his back off the table, and screaming what sounded like a muffled "no"as he turned his head away from Tony's touch. Tony cursed, unable to untie the knot that was obviously tied by unhuman hands.
"Thor, get me the scissors, in the third drawer," Tony huffed, gently holding Loki's wrists down to keep him from squirming and opening his wounds further.
"May I ask why-"
"Just get the goddamn scissors Thor."
Scissors cut through thick cloth, shaking hands guiding them so that they wouldn't touch the skin underneath it. Thor held his brother's hand, whispering encouraging words and cooing sweet lullabies into his brother's ears. However, time seemed to cease once the scissors snapped through the fabric, Tony throwing it to the ground.
Tony thought he could handle anything, but obviously, he could not. His heart cracked in two as Thor broke down in a sobbing mess onto the floor at the sight of his brother.
Thick, black thread had been used to sew Loki's lips shut, blood dripping from the incisions. Tony balanced himself on the counter behind him, his legs failing to support him any longer. Loki was slowly losing consciousness, his blood dripping onto the tiled floor in a rhythmic pattern that seemed to tick away the minutes of his life. Tony was hopeless- he was done for. If he didn't fix this, he would never be able to look Thor in the eyes again.
Thor's cries were the only thing that could be heard for several minutes, his constant calling "Oh, Loki," and "I'm so sorry," reverberating off the walls of Tony's mind. However, Tony was most certainly not one to give up in tough times. Loki needed medical attention, a doctor. And Tony new one doctor in particular, one that he fully and absolutely trusted. After the man's next words, Thor's sobs seemed to slightly grow softer.
"I'm calling Bruce."
Notes:How was it? Good? Bad? ehhh?
Let me know! I enjoy you guys' comments and stuff, and I can't believe all the attention this story has gotten already! I will try to reply to everyone personally3
thank you for reading!
(also, sorry for any grammar mistakes. I typed this at school in a rush.)