A/N: Quick, short chapter so the next one will flow better. Enjoy!
The next morning, he was thankful that whatever S.H.I.E.L.D's doctors had pumped his body full of kept his mind stable enough not to send him into another vision.
Either that, or Thanos and the Other were keeping him out somehow on purpose. Both ideas made perfect sense. He had woken up, still sore as could be. He had glanced to the side and seen that Darcy, Erik and even Jane had held up their end of their bargain. The three of them were dozing, heads cushioned on each other. There was some sort of folder on Darcy's lap, and there was the message "Visiting hours are dumb, especially for here, he's a god, we're his friends, LEAVE US ALONE' written in Darcy's handwriting and resting in her lap.
He turned his attention to his wound. The bandages had been changed sometime in the night. It still ached. He was still having trouble wrapping his head around the ordeal. He had called them his friends. He had stepped in the sword's path without so much as a second thought. They had accepted his apology and let them be put out when they tried to do the same for him. They Believed him… in him, finally. The feeling of belonging swelled up in him. He studied them for a while, then heard the lab door open.
Phil stepped through the doorway. "Hi. Heard your vitals were closer to what we flagged as your normal. Getting better, even. How're you feeling?"
"Like I've been run through with a sword," Loki countered, and had to fight his own smile when one corner of Phil's mouth turned up.
"Alright, I deserved that one. How's your…?" Phil began, then frowned. After a few seconds, he mimicked the throwing motion Loki had done with the ice shard.
Loki blinked a couple of times, then raised his hand carefully. He concentrated, and sure enough, his skin started to turn blue and ice crystals started up along his fingers. The ice faded a couple of moments later, and his skin started to return to its new usual as well. "They're coming back, but… it's muted."
Phil nodded, then glanced Erik, Darcy and Jane's way when they started to stir from hearing the conversation. "Well, that was one Hell of an emotional response, so I'm sure that had something to do with it."
"Yes," Loki replied simply.
Darcy, not having caught the exchange in the process of waking up, blinked blearily at them before turning her attention completely to Loki. "Hey Frosty. How you feelin'?"
Loki glowered at her for a moment, then leaned back. "Been better." He turned his attention to Phil. "Any reports of…?"
"The Other guy? No, not yet. Looks like he cleared out to wherever they come from, but I have a feeling they'll be back with an army. That tends to be the popular choice with those sorts of retreats."
Loki flinched and looked away. He clenched his jaw and shook his head. "Oh, I'm such a fool."
Jane made a face. "With what? Saving us?"
"No. Well, partially." When he received two glares and two puzzled looks, he sighed. "Not with the saving. Just… now they know Midgard has a champion from another world, and… they know a weakness of mine…" he explained, giving the three sitting down a pointed look. "All of you. The Other arriving near you was chance before. It was an educated guess on where to go to see what was going on, but now, when they come with others, they'll know how to get to me."
Jane settled down and gave him an apologetic look.
Phil let a few moments of silence pass, then cleared his throat. "Loki, for what it's worth-" he stopped short when his phone rang. "To be continued, excuse me…" he stepped out, putting his cell phone to his ear as he went.
Silence was back, then Darcy took her turn to break it. "Okay so now that you're not seconds from death, how did the whole ice dagger thing work?"
"I don't rightly know. I just… all of you were in danger, and I reacted out of habit, and it worked. That's all that matters, really."
The other three stilled, then nodded slowly again, offering weak yet grateful smiles again.
A few moments later, Phil came back in. He paused in the middle of the room, thinking something over, then looked at Loki. "Do you know if any of your friends are coming to visit?"
"What?" Loki squinted.
"You think a search party is coming after you?" Phil restated.
Loki scoffed. "Unlikely."
"Well then, we have another problem, potentially Asgardian shaped… if we're lucky."
Loki focused more on the 'if we're lucky' bit. He motioned at Erik, Darcy and Jane. "Get them out of here. As we've all figured out, I should be fine on my own." When Phil went to protest, he leaned forward. "Now."
Phil went to protest further, then gave up. He was supposed to be more focused on protecting civilians, after all. He looked at the mentioned civilians and nodded towards the door. "Let's go."
When they looked Loki's way and got a nod and a reassuring smile in response, they all shuffled after the agent as he approached the door and motioned at them to go through.
Loki watched them, then waited a bit. He needed to see what was going on, if he could recognize the threat if getting to Earth was as much of a show as it was if the Bifrost took visitors down, or the Chitauri's lightshow as well. He also needed to get out of the ridiculous 'hospital gown' if he was going to get out and investigate. He had seen Erik bring in a couple of things the previous night, and sure enough, there were jeans and a black T-shirt tucked away on one of the tables in the corner. He got up and turned to see if he could see anything from his window. There was some light in the sky in the distance, but there were no details he could make out from there. He needed out, and he needed out now. When his I.V gave a tug of protest at him moving around so much, he took the needle out of his hand and flinched at the pain it caused, then took the rest of the other attachments off. He glanced at one of the machines when it started beeping at the loss of the data. Out of sheer curiosity, he raised his hand to try to freeze it in order to silence it, and it worked. Satisfied, he made quick work of getting out of the gown and getting into the new clothes. Now all that was left was figuring out how to get out of the maze of a building.
He was halfway to the door when he heard alarmed shouts from outside. He stopped short to listen.
The commotion was getting louder, closer. He flexed his fingers to try to get ice flowing again.
There were two sets of footsteps just outside now. One was heavy, with purpose. The other, lighter, running.
Then, Phil's voice, just outside the door: "Hey, easy big guy. Remember me? Look, I know that you're probably looking fo- okay."
The door swung open so hard it cracked against the adjacent wall.
Out of sheer habit Loki grounded himself in a defensive position, but when he saw just who Phil had tried and failed to keep out, the stance dropped. Then, of course, leave it to Darcy's influence to come to him at that moment, because all he came up with was "well, shit."