Chapter 18 - Childhood Illnesses
"Loki," said Sigyn, as she crawled over him. "I want you. Why don't you want me?"
She wore a thin night dress in the bright yellow she had always favored. Now that Loki really looked at her, it didn't do much for her complexion. Sigyn was pale and dark haired, similar to himself in coloring. But at least she had clothes on this time.
Get off, Loki wanted to say, but he could not move his mouth.
Hang on, how had she even gotten into his room in the tower? She couldn't possibly be there unless she was using magic to visit him. And yet, how would she even know where to find him? Sigyn had gone back home to Vanaheim after they had broken off their betrothal. He doubted she even thought of him anymore.
Besides, it was rather suspicious that she would show up right after he had told Natasha about her.
Loki thought back to his conversation with Doctor Samson on Svartalfheim, and realized that the man had been right all along. This was not real, just like the Other's visit to his prison cell had not been real either. It was a waking dream—the "sleep paralysis" Samson had told him of. That should have been comforting, but in the moment, it was not.
Sigyn lie on top of him now, her hands laced under her chin and her elbows dug into his chest so that he could not breathe—no, he only felt like he couldn't breathe because even though his mind was awake, he had no conscious control over his breathing. Loki tried again to cry out, or at least make some sort of noise. Maybe if JARVIS heard him, he would be able to discern that he was in distress and fetch someone who could help rouse him.
But his inability to produce any sort of noise at all cemented when Sigyn pressed her lips over his in what was surely an attempt to suck his soul out through his mouth—but no, Loki reminded himself, she wasn't really there, and this episode was nothing deadly. It only felt like he was in mortal peril. Probably. Unless both Doctor Samson and the mortals' Internet had been wrong.
Once again, Loki attempted to scream, to thrash, to do anything he could to rouse himself.
Only after he had resigned himself to his impending doom, Loki closed his eyes. When he opened them again a moment later, Sigyn was gone. He took a deep breath, allowing his lungs to expand completely, and sat up in bed.
Loki slogged to the bathroom, feeling a bit as if something still clung to him, dragging him down. There he splashed cold water on his face, and drank some water from the tap, noting that his throat felt a little—itchy? Scratchy? It certainly was a unique sensation, and he could only guess that it was something that happened to mortals when they overindulged on alcohol, which he was never, ever doing again.
"Are you alright, Miss Loki?" asked JARVIS.
"Prince Loki," croaked Loki.
"Do you want me to wake someone for you, Master Loki? Perhaps Doctor Banner?"
"Why would I want Banner? I'm going back to bed."
~(-ε-*)
_(:0」∠)_
"Okay, this is a thing I never thought I'd say until like a week ago, but I'm worried about Loki," Tony announced as he breezed into Samson's office, where JARVIS had told him he would find Doc and his science bro. He figured the intrusion would be fine, since he knew it wasn't a session. Even though Bruce could probably use a therapist as much as the rest of them, he couldn't see Doc professionally because of some sort of conflict of interest. Maybe because they had both worked for the same academic institution? Tony still thought there was something else going on there.
They had been sitting close on Samson's couch, although now, Doc leaned back, and then stood, heading for the coffee machine. Tony told himself that they'd probably been "conferring" or whatever doctor-types did together, and not conspiring, although it had looked a little like conspiring. Anyway, they probably weren't conspiring against him, so it wasn't any of his business.
"Loki never showed up for breakfast," Tony told them. "Have either of you guys seen her at all since she threw up those cupcakes? When she skipped dinner last night, I just figured her stomach was still upset."
Bruce shook his head disapprovingly, and Tony wondered if he wasn't a little annoyed with him for interrupting whatever they'd been doing. "You shouldn't have let her get drunk."
"Hey, Nat was the one that let her drink. She was already drunk when I got there. Besides, what was I supposed to say when she brought up the whole 'old enough to fight and die for my country' argument? As far as I'm concerned anyone who's old enough to go to war ought to be old enough to have a drink or two."
"Personally, I think that might be more of an argument for raising the age you have to be to go to war than for lowering the legal drinking age."
"Yeah, I don't entirely disagree with you there." Tony pushed the unwelcome memory of the day he and his overwhelmingly baby-faced military convoy had been ambushed by the Ten Rings to the black box in the back of his mind, where he kept all the things that might just render him catatonic if he actively thought about them.
"It's possible that a lot of Loki's issues stem from being exposed to violence at too young an age," said Doctor Samson.
"Sorry, what just happened to 'patient confidentiality?'" Tony asked, shocked that they'd gotten that much out of him. Not that he really wanted to discourage Doc from sharing. He for one would love to hear a professional opinion on what was going on in the God-cum-Goddess of Mischief's head.
"It's just an observation," Samson told him. "One that I don't think you have to be a psychiatrist to make. We all know that Loki comes from a warrior society."
"Right, which means that Point Break would have been exposed to just as much violence as Little Sib, but he didn't grow up to be completely screwed up—or at least he doesn't have any issues big enough to be problematic for the rest of us."
"Some people are a lot more sensitive than others. There's a theory is that it's a biological difference. Highly Sensitive People display increased emotional sensitivity and stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli."
"You're saying that Loki is highly sensitive?" Okay, he could actually believe that. The kid was pretty tightly wound, when you got right down to it.
Doc just shrugged, which Tony took to be a yes.
Bruce obviously took that to be a yes as well. "If someone is highly sensitive, is there anything the people around them should do to accommodate for that?"
"The most important thing would be to try to be understanding, and to give the person space to decompress when they need it. Being highly sensitive is a personality trait, not a psychological disorder, and it isn't something that can be changed. You should also encourage them to take care of themselves—things like exercising, getting enough sleep, eating properly, and limiting caffeine and alcohol usage. While it isn't a disorder, and there are even benefits to the trait, being so easily overstimulated can be stressful. A lot of HSPs suffer from anxiety or depression."
Okay, so more stuff that Samson was saying but not saying about Loki, although it didn't amount to a huge revelation. It would make sense that the kid would be anxious and depressed after all the stuff that had happened in the past couple of years. Who among them wasn't a little anxious after seeing a hole in reality rip open above the Manhattan skyline?
"We need to encourage Loki to do those things anyway," said Bruce. "She's still underweight, which was another reason that letting her drink was a bad idea, Tony."
"Again, not me. I know it sounds like something I would do, but it was Nat. I can only guess why." Oh, he could guess alright. He was almost sure that Nat had done it just to see what kind of information she could get from Loki when she was drunk. Which was kind of brilliant. He would have to review JARVIS's recordings to see what they'd talked about.
Bruce shook his head. "I'm going to go check on her."
"You sure that's a good idea, Mean Green?" Up until now, Bruce had been a giving her a wide berth. Loki was still nervous around him, and in a way, Tony couldn't blame her. He still needed to get the hole in his penthouse floor fixed.
"If I don't make an effort with her, she'll never trust me."
"And that's important to you?" Doctor Samson asked, sounding very much like a psychiatrist.
"I'm not sorry that the other guy did what he did, because according to Loki, that's what snapped her out of it—the mind control, or whatever. But I hate that she's scared of me now."
"I think it's a good idea for you to check on her," Samson told him. "From a practical standpoint, the two of us are the only ones with any medical training that Loki's likely to allow to interact with her in case of an emergency. It's been a long time since my residency, which was the last time I practiced anything other than psychiatry. And just between you and me, I was glad to leave that part of my training behind. I was always better equipped to deal with other people's emotional pain than their physical pain. Not to mention other people's bodily fluids, especially when they're the wrong color or exist in greater amounts than they should."
Bruce shrugged. "I've always been more attracted to the research side of things, but I was glad to have had training in internal medicine when I was in hiding. At least I had some way of making a living."
"You could have done anything to make a living," Doc pointed out. "But you're the kind of person who needs something meaningful to do. I don't think you could refuse anyone help that you were capable of giving them, either."
Bruce smiled ruefully. "Is this your way of telling me I'm not a monster?"
Tony, who had started to feel a little left out of the conversation, clapped him on the back. "I told you we'd remind you as much as you needed it."
( I-2 ) ( I-2 )
Bruce knocked on Loki's door, but there was no answer. For a moment, he worried that maybe Loki had slipped away again. Then he reminded himself how unlikely that was. With her electronics privileges revoked for the time being, she couldn't have gotten around JARVIS's monitoring. Which reminded him, he could just ask JARVIS what Loki was doing. "JARVIS?"
"Master Loki is still in bed, Dr. Banner. His sleep last night seemed far from restful. He has been making noises which lead me to believe he might still be in a state of distress."
"He?" asked Bruce.
"He was Master Loki when I spoke to him last night, Doctor Banner."
Bruce didn't want to disturb Loki if he was still hung over, but then again, he wondered if he had taken anything. Would he even know to take a pain reliever if he had a headache? Probably not, and Bruce felt guilty for not thinking of it the night before. Bruce doubled back to the common room kitchen to get the Ibuprofen from the first aid kit he had stashed under the sink. When he opened it, Bruce noted that the kit was running low on gauze and bandages again. (Certain residents of the tower had a habit of trying to patch themselves up after missions instead of seeking medical help. One time he had caught Natasha attempting to put a band-aid on a gunshot wound.)
Bruce returned to Loki's room with the pills. He didn't bother knocking this time, but still tried to enter the room as quietly as possible. The lights were already on in the room, but for a moment, Bruce was convinced that the room was empty, that somehow Loki had gotten back into his tablet and used it to take control of JARVIS again and escape. Then he heard soft moaning from the bed, and watched as Loki, buried in the duvet, writhed and turned over onto his other side.
"Loki, are you awake?" Bruce asked, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep. "It's Bruce," he added, not sure if the young god-turned-mortal would recognize him just from his voice.
A sort of frustrated cry issued from below the duvet, and then a muffled, "Doctor Banner?"
"I brought you some medicine," said Bruce. He came closer and set the little bottle of Ibuprofen on the bedside table, then turned into the en suite bathroom to get a glass of water. When he came back with it, he noticed how far the duvet covering Loki rose and fell and stopped to listen to his breathing. Even with the duvet over Loki's head, he could tell that each breath was heavy, and carried a raspy quality to it. He almost reached to pull the covers off himself, but stopped—he didn't want Loki to be startled. "Loki, can you let me see you for a minute?"
It took Loki a few moments to emerge blinking into the warm LED lighting. His face was flushed and pink, as if he had somehow developed a sunburn overnight. Bruce brought his hand up and stretched his fingers out slowly, not sure his touch would be welcome, but when Loki turned into it, he relaxed. As he had expected, his skin felt much too warm. "You don't look good, Loki. How do you feel?"
"I think I'm dying."
Bruce bit down on a smile, having to remind himself that Loki had likely never been sick before. "I don't think you are, but you do feel a little hot. I'm going to get a thermometer so I can check your temperature. I'll be right back."
It only took a moment for Bruce to return to the kitchen and fetch the thermometer from the first aid kit.
"Do you think my liver is failing?" Loki rasped out upon his return.
That question seemed a little out of the blue. "Are you having stomach pains?"
"No, it's—" Loki brought his hand up to rub the base of his throat. "I feel like I've swallowed a ball of twine, and it's stuck in my throat."
"I don't think it's liver failure, then."
Loki gasped. "The germs have got me."
"That's a lot more likely."
"I washed my hands before we baked, though. And I have not had sex with anyone, I swear—" Loki sounded almost as if he were pleading with him, and if there hadn't been something a little heartbreaking about that, it would have been funny.
"Loki, when you're feeling better, I think we need to sit down and have a talk about how mortal bodies work. I think you've gotten the wrong idea." A few wrong ideas, actually.
The thermometer was the aural kind, and Loki hardly seemed to notice when Bruce placed the tip in his ear. A few seconds later, the display on the thermometer registered Loki's temperature at 101 degrees. "You've got a fever, but it isn't high enough that we need to be worried. I'm pretty sure whatever you have is going to be something that will clear up in the next few days with treatment."
"And you will treat me?"
"Of course, Loki. What did you think, that I'd let you die?" Bruce realized too late that it had been the wrong thing to say.
"So I am dying," Loki accused.
He considered for a moment how to answer that question, and decided that he should tell Loki the truth, before he got any more strange ideas. "If left untreated, you could get worse. Bacterial infections, which is probably what this is, can turn into sepsis. But," and he put a lot of emphasis on that word, "thanks to modern antibiotics, you should be fine. People don't normally die from infections anymore unless they don't get treated or have underlying health conditions." He wouldn't mention that Loki's lingering malnutrition could be considered an underlying condition, because he didn't want him to panic again.
"And you are certain my liver isn't failing? Tony said that if you saw us drinking you would scold us for killing our livers."
Bruce had to cough to cover up his laugh that time. "Loki, you're not going to go into liver failure because you had a few drinks. Your liver is actually really good at repairing itself—maybe not as good as when you were immortal, but it can still regenerate itself as long as you don't abuse it. Tony is in danger of something like that happening because he drinks too much on a regular basis and has for years. Like I said, when you're feeling better, we'll talk and I'll explain as much as I can. Or I can give you some books to read. For right now though, I'm going to take care of you."
"Wouldn't it be easier for all of you if I died?"
That sobered Bruce up. "No," he said, firmly. "Loki, we've been trying to help you in every way we can. Why do you think we would do that if we wanted you dead?"
"I understand that you are all too honorable to kill me. But leaving me to a death from natural causes—"
"Would also be deplorable. Loki, I don't know what it's like on Asgard, but here we don't let anyone die if we can help them."
"Even if they deserve to?"
"Do you think you deserve to die?"
Loki shook his head.
"Okay, good. No one here thinks so either."
"Because you all think of me as a child. Otherwise, you would be clamoring for my death as the people of Asgard did. I am certain only my mother's intervention prevented Odin from giving in to their demands."
Bruce wasn't sure what to say to that. "I think that's something you need to talk about with Doctor Samson. But I don't want you to die, and it's not just because you're too young. I don't even believe in capital punishment, because there's really no humane way of killing someone. And the way we do it, it usually costs the government more to execute someone than to keep them imprisoned for the rest of their life—"
"On Asgard, it would cost next to nothing. The headsman's fee is not so large. I suspect there might even be a line of volunteers, in my case."
Bruce shook his head. "Decapitation is definitely not humane."
"They say it is not painful if the blade is sharp and the person wielding it knows what they're doing." Loki shrugged. "And so long as they do not decide to be cruel."
"When you put it that way, it might be more humane than what we do. The drugs we use aren't meant for—" Bruce cut himself off, realizing that lethal injection might not be a good topic of conversation when Loki was half-delirious and might need a shot of antibiotics, or if his fever worsened, an intravenous saline drip. "Loki, no one here wants you dead," he repeated. "I just need you to trust me, okay? I might end up having to do things that are uncomfortable for you, but it's going to be to help you. Doctors take an oath that says they won't intentionally use medicine to cause harm." Bruce handed Loki two of the pills he had brought and the glass of water. "Here, this should help with your fever."
Loki just stared at them, the pills in the palm of one of his hands and the water in the other.
"You just swallow them with the water," Bruce explained. "Do you not have medicine at all in Asgard?"
"Not in this form. Curatives are usually liquids."
So they hadn't invented pills yet in Asgard, even though they had been around on Earth since the time of the Ancient Egyptians. Somehow, Bruce wasn't surprised.
Loki put the pills in his mouth, and Bruce held his breath, hoping he wouldn't gag on them. If he did, Bruce wouldn't have much hope of getting a throat culture without a fair amount of drama. Luckily, the pills went down without any trouble, and Loki drained the rest of the water as well before handing the glass back to Bruce and curling back into the duvet again. "I want my mother here," he said, sounding even younger than usual.
"I'm not sure where Frigga is," Bruce told him. "We'll try to contact her," he added, even though he wasn't sure they had any way of doing that. "But I need to go ahead and do a throat culture. It won't be so bad, Loki. I just need to go get a few things from the med bay, and then I'll come back and swab the back of your throat."
Loki nodded. "I am not frightened of your primitive medical procedures. I am certain I have undergone worse tortures."
Bruce decided that now was not the time to ask what Loki meant by that.
( ⁰O⁰)｡─⊂(° - ° )
Tony wandered into the med bay and leaned over his friend's shoulder as he stared down at some sort of test strip. "What are we looking at here?"
"It's a rapid test for type A streptococcal infection," Bruce told him. "You see the two bands? That means it's positive. Loki has strep throat."
"Oh," Tony said. "Well, that doesn't sound too bad. I'm pretty sure I had strep when I was a kid."
"You probably did, it's a pretty common childhood illness."
"So he just needs antibiotics, right?"
"I'll give him an amoxicillin injection. We've already got some on hand, and it should clear it up faster than oral antibiotics would anyway."
Problem solved then, thought Tony. But there was something in the way that Bruce still hadn't looked at him, was still staring intensely down at a test strip that had nothing else to tell him, that told Tony there was something else going on. "Okay, so you just need to give the kid a shot, and he'll be all better. So why do you look like you could use a drink?"
"I don't need a drink, Tony, and that shouldn't be the first place your mind goes when you or anyone else is under stress. There are other ways of handling it."
"Okay, fine—so why do you look like you need to light a sandalwood scented candle while you meditate and write in your feelings journal?"
Bruce rolled his eyes. (He'd looked up from the test strip to do it, so Tony counted it as a win.) "Loki thought he was dying, and he thought I'd let him."
Well, that was patently unsurprising. "Loki's pretty messed up, Brucie. You know that's not a reflection on you."
"I do know that," said Bruce, finally tossing the test strip into the hazardous waste collection bin along with his gloves. "He said that it was only his mother's intervention that kept him alive on Asgard. If he believes that his own father intended to execute him, there's no reason for him to believe that we don't want him dead too."
"Yeah, other than everything we've done so far to keep him not dead."
"He also mentioned something about having been tortured."
The conversation had just gone from unfunny to mildly triggering. Torture was one of those things Tony didn't let himself ruminate on as a rule. He definitely didn't want to think about a kid being tortured—and no matter that Asgard had at some point designated Loki as an "adult," at this point he was pretty firmly a child in his mind. Just in the past week he had thrown temper tantrums, run away from home, gotten sick on drinks consisting mostly of melon liqueur, and managed to pick up what Bruce had just referred to as a "childhood illness."
Tony bit down on his own tongue to keep himself from either babbling nonsensically or screaming at the top of his lungs. It took a few moments before he thought it was safe to open his own mouth again, and even then, he was probably talking either too fast, or a little too loudly. Probably both. "Brucie, if I were you, I'd just leave this kind of stuff to Doc. He's the one I'm paying to work through the kid's neuroses. You tell me all the time that you're not that kind of doctor."
Bruce blinked at him, as if just realizing what he had said and who he had said it to. "Sorry, Tony, I—" And maybe Bruce was about to apologize for bringing up the torture stuff, but he seemed to change his mind, probably deciding it would be best to just change the subject. "I know, I told Loki he needs to talk to Leonard about this stuff. Anyway, I'm just glad he let me do the throat culture. Hopefully he'll be as good about getting a shot."
At least Bruce never pressed him to talk about his little freak-outs. "If he doesn't want to cooperate, bribe him with his tablet. Tell him that if he's a good demigod, I'll give his access back early." It might be the wrong thing to do when it had only been a couple of days, but it felt wrong to punish the kid when he was sick and miserable anyway.
Bruce nodded. "He asked about Frigga—we still don't have any way of contacting her, do we?"
So Bambi wanted his mommy. Made sense. Unfortunately, she hadn't been back since right after Loki had returned from his escape. "Nope. She's like one of those cats that just comes back whenever it wants to eat. We need to chip her, or at least get her a cell phone." Tony had a feeling he would have to start walking around with an extra phone in his pocket, so he could force it on her the next time he saw her.
ﾟ✧ ┣▇▇▇═─ *:･
"Loki?" Loki hadn't been in his bed when Bruce had returned. The bathroom door was still open, and Bruce could see it was unoccupied as well.
"I believe you will find Master Loki hiding under his bed, Doctor Banner."
"JARVIS, you snitch!" Loki shouted from under the bed. "I swear I am going to hack into you and change your primary language to Esperanto."
"Loki, what are you doing under there?"
"Oh, nothing. I'm feeling much better," said Loki, still sounding as if he'd swallowed a frog. "I definitely don't need to be jabbed with any needles."
How had he known—right. "JARVIS?"
"He asked why it was taking you so long to return, and I informed him that you were readying everything needed to give him an antibiotic injection. I apologize, Doctor Banner, I did not realize he would react in this way."
Bruce set the pouch that contained his supplies on Loki's bedside table and sat down on the floor next to the bed. "Loki, please come out. Remember what I told you about how if you didn't get treated, you could get worse?"
"Can you not treat me with oral medication?"
He actually could, but they already had the injectable amoxicillin in their existing supplies, and it ought to knock out the infection faster than oral antibiotics. Plus, he wouldn't need to keep administering it every few hours. "The medicine I'm prescribing for you is an injectable," he told Loki. "But it isn't that big a deal. It will be over in about five seconds, and it shouldn't even be as bad as having your throat swabbed. Besides, I thought you said you had undergone worse tortures than our 'primitive medical procedures?'"
"I have been subjected to much pain in my life, Doctor Banner, as I think you well know. But that does not mean I am prepared to submit to your sadism willingly."
Bruce took a steadying breath and reminded himself that Loki wasn't feeling well and might even be a little delirious at the moment. "Loki, come out from under there. We need to talk."
It took Loki a moment to answer. "Can we not talk like this?"
"No, I want you to be able to look me in the eyes."
Once again, Loki was slow to respond. "I think you are trying to trick me."
"I'm not. We're just going to talk."
"I don't believe you."
"Loki, you're starting to make me angry. You won't like me when I'm—"
It had been a bluff, of course, but it got Loki out from under the bed. He attempted to scramble past him, but Bruce caught him by the shoulders and turned him so that they were looking at each other. "Hey, I was just kidding. I'm not angry with you, and I promise I'm not going to hurt you. I don't like hurting people, which is why it's a little hurtful when you call me sadistic for trying to help you."
Tony's nickname of "Bambi" came to mind, because at that moment Loki looked a lot like a deer caught in headlights. "I'm sorry, Doctor Banner. I was only joking?"
"It wasn't funny," he said, even though he felt a little bad. The last thing he had wanted to do was scare Loki. They had just been having a conversation that morning about how he might be more sensitive than most people.
"It wasn't funny when you said you were angry, either." Loki's bottom lip stuck out adorably, and Bruce was back to trying not to laugh.
"I'm sorry for that then. I guess we're even now, aren't we?" Bruce stood, pulling Loki up with him. "Come on, let's just get this over with. Tony said you could have your tablet back if you cooperate."
╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭
Author's Note:
I hope you guys like sick fics. Of course, I have an obligation to make sure Loki experiences everything there is to experience when it comes to the human condition before one way or another, his mortality comes to its conclusion. Just take my medical expertise with a grain of salt; I'm pretty sure I might be making up the part about injectable antibiotics working better than oral antibiotics for dramatic purposes.
Loki's sleep paralysis episodes are actually based on my own experiences. I used to get sleep paralysis quite a bit when I was younger. One time I thought my mother was in my apartment, and I was like, how did she get in? Oh right, this is a sleep paralysis episode. I never hallucinated anything really frightening, like some people do. The worst part for me was when I felt like I couldn't breathe.
Any other writers out there worried that if anyone saw their Google search history, they'd think they were a terrorist/serial killer/hypochondriac?