Chapter 19 - The Moon Has Set, and the Pleiades

AN: Every time I post a chapter, I think, "This is the chapter where I'm going to offend everyone and they're all going to stop reading." So anyway, I apologize in advance to:

- practitioners of modern witchcraft/Wicca/other New Age religions

- anyone who's not that into sick fics

- Clint Barton fans

I know I rag on Clint a lot. I assure you, it's out of love. In this chapter, he probably comes off as a total jerk and kind of an idiot. But in his defense, he's probably drunk; Loki just fails to notice and the scene is written from his POV.

Loki will recover from his illness within the next couple of chapters (and then I'll probably do something else horrible to him).

~Blessed Be~

Loki would never have admitted it to anyone, but he felt bad about hurting Doctor Banner's feelings, so he decided he ought to cooperate instead of troubling the man further. He didn't want to die of something as stupid and insignificant as a mortal illness anyway.

Banner had disappeared into the bathroom to wash his hands, and when he came back, he donned a pair of gloves. "I don't suppose you know if you're allergic to any medications, do you?"

"What?"

"Never mind, it will probably be fine. Just roll onto your side facing away from me and try to relax. This shouldn't hurt if you're relaxed."

Loki felt something cool against the exposed skin of his hip, where the waistband of his pajamas had been pushed down. "Was that it?" If that had been it, it hadn't felt like anything at all.

"That was just the alcohol swab. Take a deep breath for me, okay?"

Loki closed his eyes and filled his lungs, then he felt something, and his eyes popped open again. "Ow—did you just pinch me?"

"Loki, that was the shot. See, it wasn't so bad, was it?"

Loki didn't want to answer that, because he felt like an idiot. He should have known that being stuck with a tiny needle would be far from excruciating, especially for someone who had suffered actual battle wounds. It also compared favorably with being electrocuted, and growing up with Thor for an older brother, he must have been electrocuted several hundred times. He wasn't sure why he had panicked, except that unlike being electrocuted, getting an injection was something he hadn't experienced yet. What frightened Loki more than anything else was uncertainty, and the feeling that he wasn't in control of a situation.

It had helped that Doctor Banner had given him a few moments to collect himself after the scene he had made. Then he had explained everything he was about to do and had only proceeded when Loki indicated he was ready. None of the healers in Asgard had ever been so patient with him.

He felt a little humiliated to have the man praise him for his cooperation afterward, when he had acted like a coward to begin with. Bruce had even told JARVIS to give him back his electronics access, as he had promised. Of course, he wasn't in any condition to enjoy his tablet anyway. Maybe that was why they had given it back to him, to mock him. All he felt like doing was wallowing in his own misery. That and sleeping was all he was in any condition to do.

Bruce had insisted on bringing him scrambled eggs and orange juice, and that only added to Loki's suspicion that he was being mocked, because there was no way he could eat anything. Bruce didn't seem to be the least bit amused when he accused him of such. "I'm not mocking you, Loki. You have to eat and drink if you want to get better. If you can't at least drink something, I'm going to have to put you on an IV." Loki scowled. He didn't like admitting that he didn't know what things were, but how could Bruce expect him to know what such a thing was?

The man must have understood why he was being scowled at. "IV stands for intravenous. I would insert a catheter—which is a small tube—into a vein in your arm, so that liquids could be introduced directly into your bloodstream. It shouldn't be painful, especially once it's in, but it would be better if you could drink on your own. I'd rather not waste our medical supplies."

Ah, of course. Loki should have realized he wasn't worth the expense. However, as the Silvertongue, what truly offended him was Bruce's utterly artless attempt at persuasion, if it could be called such. "This argument is meant to sway me? Why would I care if you waste your supplies?"

Bruce let out an aggravated sigh. "I guess you wouldn't. But I still don't think you would want me to put in an IV unless it was necessary. You made enough of a fuss about getting a shot earlier."

"That didn't turn out to be so bad, and you just said the IV wouldn't hurt either," Loki pointed out.

"For most people, it doesn't, but that kind of depends on how relaxed you are and how easy it is to find your veins. With how thin your arms are, I'd expect yours wouldn't be the easiest. Oh, and it's been a while since I've put an IV in, by the way. I might be a little rusty, so don't blame me if it takes a few tries."

"Now you are trying to frighten me."

"Is it working? Like I said, it would be easier if you drank your juice. It really isn't about wasting supplies. If I thought you needed an IV, you'd get one. If your temperature goes up, I might have to put you on a saline drip anyway. But as safe as it is, inserting an IV is an invasive medical procedure, and it does carry a small amount of risk. The area of insertion can get infected, or you could develop a blood clot. I don't want to do anything that isn't medically necessary."

Loki swallowed thickly. Apparently mortal healing methods also counted among the things that could potentially kill him now that he was mortal. "Why did you not simply say so, then?"

"Because it isn't a huge risk, and I don't want you to worry about it if you do need an IV at some point. I just wish you would trust me a little, at least when it comes to making medical decisions for you. I know the encounter you had with the other guy wasn't pleasant, but—"

"It isn't just you. It is difficult for me to trust anyone," Loki said, which was true enough. He reached for the juice Bruce had brought him, but his hand shook now, and he wasn't sure whether it was the reminder of Bruce's "unpleasant" alter ego or his fever.

Bruce frowned, but he picked up the juice for him and held it up to his lips. "Here, let me help you."

Loki nodded and obediently sipped the juice, suddenly finding himself eager to show Bruce how obedient he could be. Not that he was afraid of him, but perhaps he had remembered that it was not in his interest to upset the man.

( ´ー´)旦 (ﾟ◇ﾟ；)

Loki spent what must have been half the day in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Bruce had awoken him several times in order to ask him how he felt and force juice and tea on him. He had also brought him a bowl of oatmeal, which Loki would have turned his nose up at as peasant gruel if it had not been so pleasantly spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. After the oatmeal, Bruce had brought him a bar of frozen juice with a stick in it, which he had referred to as a "popsicle." He had enjoyed that treat immensely, the cold soothing to his inflamed throat, and Bruce had promised that he could have another after he had slept some more.

However, when Loki woke again, he had been alone, and he quickly became restless. In addition to his sore throat, he now had a sore hip. (While the injection hadn't been painful going in, the muscle had become sore afterward; according to Doctor Banner, this was "normal and nothing to worry about.")

Eventually he tired of lying on his side, futilely massaging his hip, and found himself wondering if he would be scolded for it if he left his bed. Then he cursed himself for thinking once again in such a childish manner. He had been a king once. If he wanted to get out of bed and wander about, he would do so. And he could find his own popsicle, for that matter.

Still in his pajamas, Loki wandered out into the common area, but was intercepted on his way to the kitchen.

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

Loki froze in his tracks. Out of everyone in the tower that he could run into, it had to be Barton. This was just shaping up to be his day, wasn't it? Loki just stood there, exchanging glares with his one-time thrall.

"Cute pajamas. Pink is really your color."

Loki frowned down at his satin pink pajamas—was there something odd about them? "I look good in most colors. Other than yellow or purple—yellow does nothing for my complexion, and though Mother says purple brings the green in my eyes out, I've never favored it."

Clint leaned closer, peering into his eyes. "Huh. Your eyes are green—have they always been green?"

"Not that I'd have expected you to notice but yes, my eyes have always been green, at least in any form you've seen me in. I haven't changed them. I couldn't change them now if I wanted to."

"Huh," Clint repeated, and proceeded to stare at him for a few more moments. "You look and sound like shit, by the way. Bruce told us you were sick. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to stay in bed."

"I will get out of bed if I wish."

"Fine. Just keep your germs away from me."

Feeling spiteful, Loki made sure to cough on Clint as he brushed past him. He didn't get far. Clint turned around and caught him by the wrist. "You did that on purpose. Not cool."

"Let go."

"You don't order me around." He didn't say "anymore," but he didn't need to.

Loki's eyes flew open as he realized that this was potentially a very bad situation for him to be in, depending on how vengeful Barton was feeling. Not only was he trapped in the body of a weak mortal now, he was trapped in the body of a weak, sick mortal. "Let me go," he hissed. "Or I'll—"

"Or you'll what?"

"Or I shall scream," Loki decided, though it was a bit humiliating that such a thing would be his only viable course of action. He was beginning to regret not allowing Natasha to teach him how to defend himself in the body of a mortal female.

"Go ahead and scream, then."

Loki considered for a moment who he ought to scream for. Thor was in Asgard, and his mother was still who knew where on Midgard. He could call for Doctor Samson or for Stark, perhaps. Either was likely to come, but Doctor Samson was just a regular mortal, and so was Stark without his armor. Neither was particularly a threat to the SHIELD trained archer. He liked Natasha, but he wasn't sure he trusted her, and she might take Clint's side over his. He supposed that from what he knew of the Captain, he might be inclined to stop Clint from bullying him, but Loki didn't particularly wish to be indebted to the man. That only left one person. "DOCTOR BAN—"

Clint's hand moved to cover Loki's mouth. "Kid, are you nuts? You really want to scream that name at the top of your lungs? You realize what happens when his heart rate goes over one-sixty, right?"

Loki, of course, felt obligated to lick the offending hand.

"You little—" Clint growled, removing his hand and shaking it as if to shake the germs off it, which Loki doubted would work. "That is so disgusting."

"It's your fault for harassing me in the first place. DOCTOR BANNER—"

"Master Loki, there is no need to shout," JARVIS interjected. "Doctor Banner would not have heard you anyway, as he has been in his lab. However, I have informed him that you are in need of his assistance, and he is on his way down in the elevator."

The elevator dinged, and the door opened. Both Clint and Loki froze, turning their heads towards it.

"Clint, what's going on?" Bruce asked, frowning as his eyes drifted toward the hand still clamped over Loki's wrist.

Loki answered first. "He is hurting me, Doctor Banner—please make him stop."

Bruce stood, calmly examining the situation, his eyes drifting between Loki and Clint. "Clint?" he prompted.

"He coughed on me," Clint grumbled, sounding a little embarrassed. "On purpose. And then he licked me."

Bruce sighed audibly and gave Loki a look reminiscent of the one Frigga gave him whenever she disapproved of his behavior. "Loki, why would you do that? Even when you're not sick, coughing on someone on purpose is extremely rude. And why on Earth would you lick anyone?"

"Clint was rude to me first," Loki told him, but it didn't feel like a good excuse. He had been raised in a palace, not in a cowshed.

"Clint?" Bruce prompted again.

Clint rolled his eyes. "All I said was that he looked like shit, and that he should be in bed."

"You also insulted my pajamas, though I do not understand why."

Clint shrugged. "What? I said they were cute. Cute and girly. Maybe it isn't where you're from, but here pink is kind of a girl color."

"Doctor Samson wore a pink button-up shirt a few days ago," Loki pointed out.

Clint snorted. "That just proves my point."

"And what would your point be? That you exude toxic masculinity?"

"How do you know what 'toxic masculinity' is, but you don't know that pink is a girl color?"

"Enough," Bruce said, and even though he had not raised his voice, he managed to be quite commanding. "Clint, let Loki go, and don't touch your face until you've washed your hands. Loki, you need to go back to bed, now."

Loki still wanted another popsicle, but asking for a treat didn't seem like the best idea when Bruce had just finished chastising him and was now sending him back to bed like an errant child.

(ﾉ-_･)/|)‥‥…━→ -(ﾟﾛﾟ)→

Loki's stomach started to flutter when he realized that Bruce had followed him back to his room. Obviously, the man still meant to lecture him on his behavior, and perhaps there would be other consequences to this misstep. Perhaps his electronics access would be revoked again, or perhaps they would find something worse to do to him—throw him in another little cell, perhaps. He didn't think the tower had a dungeon, but just because he hadn't seen such a thing didn't mean it didn't exist. He began to apologize preemptively. Not that apologizing had ever gotten him out of trouble in the past—it had never worked with Odin, anyway. Usually, he had been cut off before he could speak. "Doctor Banner, I am sorry for my behavior. I should not have licked Barton, even though he put his hand over my mouth."

Bruce's eyebrows flew upwards. "Why would he put his hand over your mouth?"

"To keep me from calling for help," Loki answered honestly. "I had warned him I would scream if he did not release me."

Bruce shook his head. "I'm going to have to have a talk with Clint. There's no excuse for him to behave like that. As an adult, he should know better."

Loki felt a swell of hope. Bruce seemed to be listening to him and had not yet accused him of dissembling. Clint might even be in more trouble than Loki was. He kept going. "I am also sorry that I left my room. I did not realize I was prohibited from doing so." Not that ignorance of the rules had ever saved him from punishment before, but clearly Bruce was not Odin.

"I guess it's my fault for not explaining. I'm glad that you seem to be feeling a little better now, but you still need to be isolated from everyone else for at least the next couple of days while you're still highly infectious. It could end up being bad if half the Avengers came down with strep at the same time. If you need something, tell JARVIS, and I'll bring it to you."

"Are you not worried about getting sick?"

Bruce shrugged. "As a doctor, I've been around people who were a lot sicker than you are. It's a professional hazard. Anyway, thanks to the other guy, my immune system's a lot stronger than normal. I still take precautions and wash up after I've been around you, so that there's less risk of spreading your germs to the others."

Loki opened his mouth then closed it, before opening it once again.

"Is there still something you need to ask me, Loki?"

"Am I not to be punished, Doctor Banner?"

Bruce shook his head. "You didn't know you weren't supposed to leave your room, and Clint should have left you alone."

Loki felt the knot that his stomach had tied itself into start to loosen. "Odin never much cared to hear of the circumstances surrounding my actions. He would scarcely have allowed me to defend myself without accusing me of lying and making excuses."

Bruce handed him the box of tissues from his nightstand, and Loki realized there were tears welling up in his eyes and beginning to spill down his cheeks, spurred on by a mixture of emotions. A sort of glee at being treated fairly for once, and the melancholy that came with the thought of Odin's ill treatment of him over the past thousand years. "I can't promise we'll always believe you," Bruce told him, "but I can promise that we'll at least listen to what you have to say. When you're better, you should apologize to Clint. I'm pretty sure Clint owes you an apology too, but coughing on someone on purpose is wrong. Doing it when you know you're infectious might count as borderline evil. But I don't think you fully appreciated the infectious thing—so again, my fault."

"I wasn't trying to make Clint sick, just annoy him," he agreed, but still, he couldn't let Doctor Banner blame himself for his own poor behavior. "I knew my behavior to be boorish, at the least. Are you certain I shouldn't be punished?" Loki was no longer worried about something horrific happening to him in retaliation for what had been a misjudgment.

"Like I said, you need to apologize to Clint when you're feeling better. I don't think punishing you is necessary when you already regret what you did. You do regret it, right?"

"Mostly. I know that Clint has a reason to hate me, but I've had enough of being bullied."

Bruce nodded, as if deciding that was as good an answer as he could expect. "It's been a while since you ate. I'm going to make you some soup. Does chicken and rice sound alright?"

"I will eat whatever you bring me. My throat hurts from all the yelling I just did—may I have a popsicle as well?" Loki asked, hoping he wasn't pushing his luck.

"If you eat all your soup, I'll bring you one," Bruce promised. He almost expected the doctor to pat him on the head as Thor might have done at some point in their past, and was a little disappointed when he didn't.

▓░▓—

After eating again, Loki had fallen asleep. He had woken up in darkness. Not true darkness, of course. The room he had been given was never truly dark, thanks to the bright, ever glowing city lights just outside the window. Loki wondered what time it was. He could have asked JARVIS, but he hadn't felt too inclined to speak to the AI since he had ratted him out to Doctor Banner that morning.

Things had been a little awkward between Loki and JARVIS ever since Loki's return from his escape attempt. It wasn't that Loki was angry about the punishment the AI had chosen for him, even if the glorified abacus had been a little too smug about it. Loki could appreciate the logic of losing a privilege he had abused. Odin's punishments had rarely been so logical.

In fact, he suspected that the real cause of the awkwardness between them was his own feeling that he still owed JARVIS an apology for "violating" him—but apologizing to a machine would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? He would apologize to Clint, if only to keep himself in Banner's good graces. He wasn't sure how much sincerity he would be able to manage, but it would help that the behavior he owed him an apology for had truly been below him.

Loki grabbed his tablet from the table near his bed and touched the fingerprint sensor so that it would display the time. It was just past midnight, as it turned out. A horrid time to be awake as he now was. He recalled a line of Midgardian poetry, something ancient and fragmented:

"The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, the time is going by and I recline alone."

He tried to tell himself that he didn't feel lonely. He hardly ever did, after all. He wasn't like Thor. He didn't need to be around others all the time, and he didn't need scores of friends and hangers-on. Wide-spread adoration from a distance might be nice, so long as it was from a distance.

But there was just something about being alone in a strange place, with his throat still feeling swollen, that made him want some sort of company. If he had still had his magic, he might have even been desperate enough to create a clone of himself to keep him company, as pathetic as that might have been. He was almost desperate enough to call for Bruce, perhaps pretend that he needed something, but he did not want to repay the man's kindness by waking him up in the middle of the night, and Bruce wasn't who he really wanted anyway.

He wanted either Mother or Thor, or both, but he had no way of contacting them, and since Bruce had never brought it up again after this morning, he assumed the Avengers had no way of contacting them either. Stupid of them, to allow Loki to be left with them with no contact information for those ultimately responsible for him, and irresponsible of his mother and brother as well. But then, maybe they didn't intend to come back for him; perhaps they had decided to cut their losses. He wasn't actually related to either of them anyway, and now he would die thousands of years before them. Could he blame them for saving themselves the pain of watching such a thing? Assuming his death would bring them pain, after all he had done to push them away.

The more he thought about it, the more he was filled with an overwhelming desire to reach out to what was left of his family to make sure he still had one. Perhaps if he stood out on the balcony and shouted up at Heimdall, he could get a message to Thor—but then, Heimdall was another one of those people he probably owed an apology to, for that whole thing where he had unleashed the Casket of Ancient Winters on him. There had to be another way. Hadn't the humans that worshiped them had ways of catching their gods' attention? Loki was a bit young to remember that time, so he decided to Google it.

It seemed that the ancient Norse had worshiped their gods mainly by making sacrifices, though the resources Loki found were rather vague on that point. Apparently, the vikings had not left much in the way of written accounts. However, his search had also turned up the blogs of a large number of mortals who still believed them to be deities and had created their own invocation rituals—rituals that mostly involved lighting candles and incense, walking in circles around an altar, waving around a knife and chanting.

Maybe his mind was still a bit feverish, because after looking through a few different outlines for such a ceremony and getting the gist of things, he decided it was worth a try. If nothing else, it would give him something to do, because there was no way he was getting back to sleep. All he had to do now was figure out how to get the materials he needed. There were knives in the kitchen, and perhaps some herbs that could be burned as incense, but had he ever seen a candle in the tower, a building which ran completely on electricity generated by Stark's arc reactor technology?

Loki stood a little shakily, the blanket from his bed thrown loosely about him and over his head as if it were a cloak—a disguise that would fool no one if he were seen, but at least it kept him a little warmer. Cold was still a strange and unfamiliar sensation for him, and his elevated body temperature made him feel the chill in the air even more keenly. He padded across the room and slipped out into the hallway. When no alarm immediately sounded, he let the breath he had been holding out.

Carefully and quickly, he made his way to the kitchen. In the spice cabinet, he found a nearly full bottle of dried sage, and from the knife block, he chose a small paring knife that he could use as an athame, and another that could be used for more practical purposes. Then he began searching through the drawers. He found one near the refrigerator that was stuffed with all manner of odds and ends, and it was there that he found a box of matches and some tiny, colorful candles. All these things he hid in a fold of his improvised cloak and made his way back to his room.

┐~(･-･|

"Doctor Banner," JARVIS said, attempting to awake the sleeping doctor gently.

Doctor Banner only snored louder.

JARVIS knew better than to wake the doctor in the way that he woke Tony when he refused to stir. Blasting irritating music at a man who transformed into a Hulk whenever his heart rate rose above one hundred sixty beats per minute would have been objectively foolish.

JARVIS raised his voice slightly. "Doctor Banner, please awaken."

"Betty?" a groggy voice asked.

"I am afraid not, Doctor Banner."

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Doctor Banner."

"Is there some sort of emergency?"

JARVIS took a moment to check the video feed from Loki's room. "No, Doctor. I do not believe it to be an emergency, per se. But Master Loki awoke approximately forty-three minutes ago and has since begun acting rather strangely."

"What do you mean 'strangely?' He's not having trouble breathing, is he?"

"No, it isn't that, Doctor Banner. All in all, Master Loki seems to be feeling rather well, well enough for a short excursion from his room to the kitchen."

"JARVIS, I asked you to tell me if he left his room."

"I tried, Doctor Banner, but for someone who has spent years in hiding from the U.S. military, you are a difficult man to wake."

"I guess I'm starting to feel safe here."

"I am certain Sir would be glad to hear that."

"Well do me a favor, JARVIS, and don't tell him I said it. Now, what's going on with Loki?"

"He seems to be attempting to perform some sort of spellcraft involving birthday candles and cooking spices."

"But he can't do magic anymore—can he?"

"The search history on his tablet suggests that he has been researching ancient Norse religion as well as modern witchcraft. I would not be concerned, but he is currently in possession of two small knives and a box of matches. Presumably, the matches are for lighting the candles, and one of the knives is to be used as an 'athame,' but I am not at all certain what he intends to use the other knife for."

JARVIS watched as the man swore under his breath, scrubbed the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand, and pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a fluffy purple robe that had been thrown over the end of his bed. Even in the winter months, Doctor Banner didn't tend to wear much when he slept. Apparently, something about his biology made him not feel the cold as keenly as other warm-blooded organic lifeforms. It wasn't a particularly useful observation, just one of those things that JARVIS couldn't help but observe; like how Agent Romanoff often slept curled on her side with one hand above her head, or how Doctor Samson liked to sing popular music from the seventies and eighties in the shower and seemed to think that an increase in volume could compensate for his inability to carry a tune.

JARVIS didn't judge, and despite what Loki and Doctor Samson had accused him of, he would never tell the secrets of the tower's residents to anyone, not even Sir, who ought to understand the importance of maintaining privacy, as he had his own fair share of secrets. In theory, Sir had the capability of searching through his security footage and audio recordings, but to JARVIS's knowledge, he never had.

Then again, that rather went against what JARVIS knew of Sir, which made JARVIS wonder to what extent his own knowledge might have been circumvented.

╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

Author's Note:

After researching it some more, it turns out I didn't make up the single high dose antibiotic injection for strep throat thing. That's actually an option for treating strep, and it is supposed to knock the infection out in less than twenty-four hours. Penicillin is most commonly used, but I found at least one source where amoxicillin was used in a trial.

Close call, right? We all know how important it is that fan fiction be realistic ;P

See, when I wrote this I had remembered having strep as a kid and being asked if I wanted to get the injection instead of taking oral antibiotics. (I remember because I said no, not because I didn't want to get a shot but because I didn't want to have to go back to school the next day.) But then I started questioning it when I couldn't find information online to back it up. Just this once, childhood memories = 1, WebMD = 0.

"The moon has set, and the Pleiades" is from a poem by the Greek poet Sappho.

Does it feel like Loki cries too much in this story? He's cried in front of Leonard twice, Tony once, and now he's cried in front of Bruce.