Author's Note: Thank you so much for all your interest. I gotta say that it's so nice to have people come from the original story to read this. It's like we're watching a book-to-movie adaption together. XD Love you all. *heart*
Warnings: panic attacks, suicide attempt, some gore/description of injury.
Chapter Two:
There is a coiled, painful tension lurking beneath the surface of Bruce's skin and he feels it rippling every time he tries to exhale. The further they walk inside the Raft, the worse the sensation gets. Bruce finds that his jaw is beginning to hurt from how clenched it is. Breathing deeply has started to turn into an exhaustive Olympic sport inside his chest.
The walk toward Loki's cell is taken in relative silence. Beyond the low, clinking whir of Tony's armor and the occasional grumble from Ross, there isn't any sound. Even with his depressingly low desire to talk, Bruce doesn't like it. A conversation would give him something else to focus on beyond his spinning thoughts.
Being within the same square footage space as Ross is nauseating, but Bruce finds that he can't stop staring at him. Graying hair looks white underneath the overhead lights, the general carrying himself in that same, no-nonsense manner that Bruce remembers vividly. He seems angry and a little tense, but not like he's hiding some sort of double motive to push Bruce inside one of these cells and leave him here.
Still.
Bruce watches; anxious, and poised to throw up.
His eyes flick to the right as Natasha slows down a couple of paces to walk alongside Clint. Her voice is low, more a breath than a whisper as she addresses him, "You look like shit. Are you alright?"
"No," Clint mutters. He tugs on his sleeve, pulling the black fabric further over his wrist as if making sure it covers his arm. Natasha's lips pinch together, but she doesn't push for anything else, despite how her gaze lingers on Clint's broken fingers.
Bruce looks away from them, biting on his lower lip, and finds himself staring at the back of Ross' head again.
He doesn't know, exactly, what he thought he would see when they reached Loki's cell. Death and destruction were up there, including but not limited to Loki standing over the corpses of Ross' men, covered in blood and laughing. Reality is far less gruesome.
The corridor looks exactly how Bruce remembers it from eight months ago when they brought Loki here. The official statement from the WSC was that Loki is pending trial, but Bruce knew then, like he does now, that it was just an excuse. Asgard may have given Loki up to them for judgment after his disownment, but no one is exactly sure how far they can push that boundary. Bruce is pretty sure that WSC would have loved nothing more than to execute Loki and be done with the whole affair, but whether or not Asgard would have retaliated remained up for debate.
Thor would have, at least. And that was enough to raise hesitancy.
So Loki is here to rot, with the official papers saying that it's "pending."
The backup generators are the only difference between now and eight months ago, humming low in the background and casting everything in low red shadows from the emergency lights. The hall is made of metal and concrete, a depressingly gray color scheme that stretches across the floors and ceiling with little variance. It makes Bruce feel like he's staring at reflecting mirrors that go on forever. It's claustrophobic. Lights are stationed every ten feet or so, but it's not enough to have everything fully lit, leaving eerie shadows clawing up the walls.
Along the edges of the hall, around twenty soldiers are stationed, weapons raised and pointed toward the door. Assault rifles. The sight of them makes something in Bruce's stomach pull. Clear, wary fear is etched along the creases of the soldiers' faces. It's not reassuring. The closer they get toward the door, the worse this anxiety gets, to the point that one of the soldier's hands is trembling faintly around his gun.
God. What the hell happened?
There aren't any dents, burn marks, or really any sign of resistance against the door. If Loki is making an attempt to crawl his way back to the land of the living, it isn't a visible one. Bruce's stomach twists into a painful knot the longer he stares at the door.
I'm supposed to be behind one of those.
The thought lurks at the back of his mind and refuses to be ignored. Bruce's jaw clenches.
Everywhere he looks on the Raft, the more he feels like he barely scraped his way out of this fate by the skin of his teeth. This is where monsters go. Where he's supposed to be. If Tony had been a little less willing to give him some shelter, if Fury hadn't stuck his neck out for him, Bruce would be here, too. He knows that. Feels it. Acutely.
The Avengers come to a halt a few feet in front of the door, Bruce standing just off to the side of Tony. Clint and Natasha are on the engineer's other side, the latter's face completely blank and utterly unreadable. Clint's shoulders are drawn up with some anxiety, his fingers bouncing around the bow a fraction.
Thor's mouth is set, something about his stance that suggests he's more resigned than afraid. Steve, as usual, is as unreadable as Natasha, but maybe a tad more apathetic.
Ross plants himself several feet behind his men, clearly trying to be nonchalant but his hand is on his weapon. Bruce's teeth dig harder against each other, grinding into his gums. Fury takes several steps forward, his gait careful. He, too, was expecting something more violent. This…temperate nothingness is unsettling. It's wrong. This is Loki, it's not like the man knows what subtle means.
Why is he waiting? And what for?
Fury stops in front of the door, then looks back at Ross. "What has he been doing?"
Ross's mouth sets. "The hell I know? The cameras have been down since the first EMP. Any attempt to get the system back online has failed. We're flying blind here. He could be sacrificing his heart up to some sort of pagan god for all I know."
Thor's eyebrows raise with disbelief in the corner of Bruce's eye.
"Your security continues to astound me." Fury's voice is dry and judgemental. Ross sputters angrily, starting up a rant that Bruce doesn't really hear. He's too busy trying to calm his breathing and dig his nails through his palms.
Even the sound of Ross being angry is making it hard to focus on anything. He can feel his breathing beginning to pick up speed. Ross has a gun.
He shot at Bruce before. He remembers the pressure of the bullets and then the sensation of his skin ripping apart, releasing Hulk. Then nothing.
That tense, rumbling pressure in the back of his mind grows louder. No. He's not doing here.
Before Ross can reach the end of his explanation, Fury turns back toward the door and, with growing tension, the director reaches out toward the keypad. Bruce bites his tongue to stop himself from telling the man to stop. Fury flips open the glass cover. Bruce catches a brief, fleeting edge of panic that crosses over the General's face before it's masked with outrage.
"What are you doing, Director?" Ross hisses.
"Knitting," Fury says, punching in the code. 1-9-7-7-7-1. Bruce tenses involuntarily, his breathing picking up speed. What the hell is he thinking? Just because Loki hasn't got out yet doesn't mean they should give him a shortcut. Fury does remember that Loki stabbed Coulson in the back, right? What if this is some sort of long-term game and they're playing into his hands again? Last time Natasha coaxed an answer out of him, Bruce ended up nearly crashing the Helicarrier. This could be so much worse.
Shit.
He can't stop doing this, can he? Here he is, back in another submerged, pressurized container again. Tony should have told him what was going on. They shouldn't have brought him here. He's going to make things worse.
That's kind of what he does now.
The pressure grows tighter. Hulk is watching through him now, reacting to his fear, he can feel it. Bruce's breathing hitches.
The keypad flashes green and there's a low, pressurized hiss as the locks release. Everyone braces. The door slowly inches its way open, like a song trying to drag out the final note. Bruce forces out a breath as that itching, crawling sensation only gets worse. His skin feels like it's trying to stretch apart.
Stop it, Bruce hisses at Hulk. I don't need you right now. You can't have the body.
Puny Banner puny. Puny Banner get Hulk killed.
You know what—? Bruce starts angrily, then cuts himself off before they can really get going.
Everyone is braced for some sort of explosion. Magic, knives, Loki stabbing Fury in the neck, something. But there's—
Nothing.
Like it's holding its breath, the inside of the cell remains completely still. Unlike the rest of the base, there's no emergency light humming inside the cell. The only thing that they have to squint against the thick, angry stygian is pale, insufficient lighting bleeding in from the hall. From what Bruce can see, Loki doesn't even look like he's there.
Everyone keeps waiting for more nothing.
Ross's shoulders inch up.
"Damn it," Fury whispers, shifting his position a fraction as he grabs a small flashlight from off of his belt, flipping it up to peer inside the cell. Bruce isn't at an angle where he can follow the weak beam of the light, but whatever Fury sees makes his entire back go rigid. For long, breathless moments, he just stares inside the cell. He turns off the flashlight.
Hulk smell blood, Hulk notes. Bruce catches the faintest whiff of it as well, frowning.
"Director," Ross says, apprehensive.
Fury turns around, slow and methodical, to face the man. "What the hell did you do?"
"Nothing!" Ross exclaims, throwing up his hands. Bruce's eyes snap toward him. Hulk rumbles. "What are you assuming I did anything? We haven't opened the cell since that bastard was put inside!" The man sounds completely sincere. Just the right amount of agitation. It's fake.
Bad-man a liar, Hulk accuses.
Yeah, no shit, Bruce agrees. That bad, nauseous feeling in the back of Bruce's throat doesn't lessen.
Fury's lips purse together like he's trying to draw together the last dregs of his patience. "Thor," he waves a hand, gesturing for the Asgardian to come closer, "you're going to want to see this."
Thor pauses for a second before taking several steps forward. His grip on Mjolnir's handle is tight enough it looks painful. The Asgardian steps up beside the director. Fury lifts up the flashlight again, flicking on the beam. Thor stares inside the cell, his eyes rapidly absorbing the details that Bruce can't make out. His hand flexes over his hammer, his face paling.
Without looking back at any of them, Thor moves to take a step forward, but Fury grabs his arm. "Thor, don't," the Director warns.
"Director—" Thor protests immediately.
"Oh my god, is he growing another arm from his head or something?" Tony asks, lifting up the face plate to stare directly into Fury's face. "Clearly he's not ready to kill everyone. What's wrong? Without all the cryptic spy crap."
"Nothing." Ross insists. "We haven't done anything?"
Hulk punch bad-man?
You cannot have the body right now.
Natasha breaks away from the group, walking up beside Fury. The man adjusts accordingly to her presence without a word. The Widow stares into the cell, blinking twice, her mouth pressing lightly at the edges. Bruce has no idea what that means in terms of how bad this is. Whatever it is.
"Hm." Natasha intones at length.
"Natashlie?" Tony presses.
"He needs a doctor," Natasha says flatly. She looks inside the cell again before adding, still blank, "Badly. There's…blood."
Bruce's hands clench. A squirming, terrible compulsion of altruistic need washes through him. His nails dig harder into his palms, wishing that Hulk would stop scrutinizing everything he's doing with disapproval.
"A doctor?" Ross repeats, flabbergasted. He shakes his head, derisive, "I'm not sending a doctor in there only for it to get murdered by—that." He gestures sharply toward the cell with a wide arc of his finger. Bruce twitches at the movement.
Tony shoots him a side-eyed look and Bruce pointedly looks away from him.
"He's not in the position to murder anyone," Natasha says flatly at the same time that Thor presses, earnest, "he needs a healer."
"He needs nothing." Ross objects, "If he's sick that's better for us, he won't be as willing to escape."
A dark, furious look passes over Thor's face as he exclaims, "Better for you—!?"
"Don't start," Ross snaps, cutting the Asgardian off. "You know just as well as I do that your brother has earned all of this. We haven't laid a finger on him, so whatever is wrong must be from his own doing. I'm not keen on offering medical aid to a crazy person."
Thor starts to take a step forward, but Natasha grabs his arm to stop him.
Thor punch the bad-man, Hulk inputs helpfully, like this is some sort of sports game. Bruce grits his teeth, refusing to respond to that. He will not admit he's rooting for the same outcome.
"The WSC doesn't want him dead," Fury says, tone flat. "We have to find a doctor. It's not a choice."
Ross straightens up, snorting softly. "Good luck finding someone willing to treat him. Hopefully, he'll bleed out before that happens."
Thor makes a strangled sound. "You would dare—"
The ensuing argument is cut off completely as a voice blurts, "I'll do it." It takes him a despairingly long few seconds to realize that it's his own. Bruce's mouth moves soundlessly for a second. He pushes his tongue against the back of his teeth, resisting the urge to swear loudly. Why the hell—?
What the HELL did I just say about the body? Bruce shouts at Hulk.
Puny Banner help puny god.
Bruce releases a loud, mental shout of frustration. Hulk is unconcerned.
Bastard.
But the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Loki can't kill him. Hulk will make sure of that. Bruce isn't sure if anything can anymore, much to his frustration sometimes. It makes a bitter kind of sense.
Now committed to the idea, Bruce juts up his chin a little as all eyes fall on him. He resists the urge to crawl inside himself as Ross' angry, heavy gaze settles on him.
His jaw tics nervously.
Bruce forces his eyes away, his mouth continuing to move despite himself. "I can check him. I'm a doctor." Not that kind of doctor, but does it matter that he never finished medical school at this point? Seven Ph.D.'s ought to count for something. "If he tries to murder me, the Other Guy won't exactly agree to that, I don't think."
Tony's gaze is boring into him now, but Bruce refuses to acknowledge him. Natasha sighs, rubbing at her forehead for a moment. Fury considers him. Thor stares at him with hope, which serves to make Bruce feel worse about his initial reluctance.
The director relents. "Fine. It's the best we can do given the circumstances."
Ross huffs. "Oh, sure, that's a great idea," he laments. "Send the monster in so he can get us all killed."
Bruce falters before he's even taken a step, shoulders dropping a fraction. If Loki does manage to get a good hit in, and Hulk is released, then that would put everyone else in danger. It's not like this exists in a vacuum. Hulk could tear the Raft apart. And then Bruce would have more bodies on his conscious.
Sensing his reluctance, Hulk assures, Hulk not take body. Promise.
Like I'd believe that, Bruce retorts immediately, I don't trust you.
"General, shut up," Fury's voice is spent. "Dr. Banner," he nods in his direction, gesturing toward the cell with the edge of his chin. Bruce swallows hard. Ross is still scowling at him. Bruce doesn't want to move, caught between a nauseating fear of hurting everyone and the crippling idea of not being able to actually help.
Fury's gaze is persistent, however, and, hunching his shoulders, Bruce skirts past Tony, Steve, and Clint toward the cell. He pushes his lips together, forcing himself to remember to breathe—one breath—as he steps into the doorway of the cell. Thor is practically buzzing, like a cackling live wire ready to kill behind him.
Bruce takes a moment to look inside first and stops. When he squints he can make out lumpy shadows, but not much else.
"Here," Fury says and hands him the flashlight. Bruce takes it with a nod of thanks and pushes his glasses up his nose with the edge of his shoulder. The first thing he becomes aware of is low, strained breathing. Like someone is trying to breathe around the fluid. It's not exactly crying, just the raspy breaths of a dying smoker.
Bruce lifts up the flashlight. The interior of the cell reminds Bruce of any other cell he's seen—bed, toilet, sink, and, weirdly, a small drain in the middle of the room—save the fact that the floor is coated in glass. Both the bulb and the cover of an emergency light are shattered into pieces across the floor, like a glittering, broken snow globe.
Bruce's brow furrows before he raises the beam up to find Loki. The Asgardian is on the floor opposite the bed on his side, curled against the wall, back pressed against it firmly. He looks worse than Bruce remembers. Where Loki was thin before, now he looks like a grotesque skeleton, skin gray and stretched across bone like it might snap at any second. He's dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit, a version of a straight jacket wrapped across his shoulders, complete with a shock collar.
Loki's eyes are blank, glassy, with the color having bled away to a milky gray. There are vivid, violent scratches around and across his eyes, scabbed over in some places, still bleeding in others. It gives off the impression that Loki was mauled in the face by some sort of wild animal.
The worst part of this is the muzzle. Bruce never felt comfortable with it to begin with, but seeing it now, when Loki is already being held in such a state of depravity, just makes that painful knot in his stomach tighten further.
Again, that crawling, nasty voice comes back. You should be here, too. Just like him.
Bruce sucks in a breath between his teeth. The blood Natasha mentioned is coming from some sort of wound along Loki's arm from what he can see. The fabric is stained wet with blood. Loki doesn't seem aware of it. He doesn't seem aware of anything, actually. He's not reacting to their presence, just staring forward listlessly, his curly black hair a mess around his face, clumping with drying blood.
He looks like a beaten, broken dog left to die on the side of the road.
Hulk murmurs with concern.
Bruce swallows again, harder. His throat is tight. His fingers rigid. Breathe, he reminds himself. A skittering, weak exhale escapes him on a shudder. He forces his hand to release the doorframe and takes several steps into the room. Glass crunches beneath his sneakers, like the very floor itself is cracking.
He feels detached. He watches himself cross the space rather than feels it, watches himself kneel down next to Loki. Watches himself give Loki the initial once-over, checking for broken or misaligned bones.
He has to take in several deep breaths in order to get the feeling back into his fingers. Loki doesn't acknowledge him as Bruce comes into his line of sight, which is concerning.
He breathes in. Exhales. Takes all this needless anxiety and bottles it up to look at later.
"Loki," Bruce's voice is soft and as level as he can make it. "Can you hear me? Loki?"
No acknowledgment.
Loki looks worse up close, gaunt, and sickly. The cuts around his eyes are more jagged, thicker and deep, like glass was dragged over his eyes or thrown against his face like an explosion. The eyeballs themselves seem to be leaking some sort of pus at the edges, indicating severe infection. The gray concerns him. Loki's eyes were almost vividly blue during the Battle from what he can remember. This is empty.
That faint, rasping rattle is worse, too.
"Loki?" Bruce tries again. Again, there's nothing.
Disassociation? Possibly a concussion. Loki's pupils aren't responding to the light very well. Could also be shock. A mix of the three? The rasping rattle sounds like it might be from broken ribs, but it could also indicate some sort of chest infection. Pneumonia? The eyes are the most severe problem. He can't think of what it is off the top of his head. The eyelids are puffy, red, and swollen. When Loki blinks, Bruce catches a glimpse of similar cuts to those on his face on the actual eyelid as well.
The glimmering edges of something are stuck to the eyeballs themselves, but Bruce can't tell if that's a normal Asgardian thing. It looks kind of glittery.
Okay. Okay. First, he needs to get Loki to respond, then he can see about the arm.
"Loki," Bruce says, again, louder this time. Nothing. Bruce shakes his head a little, before finally reaching out and resting a light hand on Loki's shoulder.
As soon as his fingers make contact, Loki's lurches. The sound the Asgardian makes in his throat is something ungodly, a dying man facing the rack again. His eyes flare a vivid, explosive green before Bruce is thrown backward, his entire spine slamming against the other wall with destructive force. His skull makes a loud cracking sound. Something in his spine crunches.
The entire Raft groans rocking violently as a deep, rumbling green power surges through the prison and—
Bruce is suddenly gasping for breath, looking up at Natasha kneeling in front of him. Her mouth is pinched, green eyes wild as she stares at him. Her hands are raised just above him, like she wants to touch or she's afraid to. His head is aching.
"What—what?" he gasps, confused and disoriented.
Natasha's still eyeing him warily.
"Loki!" Thor shouts, his voice filled with panic. Natasha twists around to look behind herself as Bruce cranes his neck, a blossoming swell of hysteria beginning to form. Loki, on his feet now, is near the entrance of the cell, one of his arms freed from the straitjacket.
Thor has one arm wrapped around his waist, attempting to keep him from moving toward the exit, but, Bruce realizes, the elder's body is carefully placed so that way he's blocking the aim of the majority of weapons outside the cell. Tony's repulsers are whirring in the background. He can hear yelling. Everything is too much.
God his head feels like it's spinning.
There's a pair of bloody footprints across the cell. Loki's leg is bending awkwardly like he can't put weight on it.
Bruce swears loudly, attempting to scramble up to his feet to stop the Asgardian. Everything feels like Jell-O and he makes it onto an elbow before his back gives out and he collides face-first with the floor again.
Natasha snaps up her gun, pointing it at Loki's back.
Loki's shout is muffled, but he still desperately fights against his brother, trying to scramble out of his hold with clawing, blood-smeared fingers as Thor drags Loki back into the cell with hissed reprimands. "Loki, Loki, calm down, it's just me." It didn't occur to Bruce until that moment that Loki's reaction was anything but voluntary, but Loki's entire body is wound tight with tension and panic.
Not frustration or anger.
Just braced for a fight.
Loki's feet drag against the glass once more, and with a wild, jerking movement, Loki frees himself from his brother's hold by dropping sharply. The sorcerer's knees smack against the glass in a tumbling movement of scattering fragments, but Loki doesn't seem to care. His fingers, frantic, scramble along the ground for a second until they wrap around a larger shard and he brings it up.
Not to stab Thor as Bruce first suspected; instead, Bruce watches, fixated, as Loki starts to angle the glass beneath the shock collar to slit his own throat.
"Loki, no!" Thor yells, reaching out to grab him.
There's a static, muffled beep before Loki's entire body goes rigid. The glass tumbles from his trembling fingers to the floor beside the other shards, snapping into a dozen more pieces. Loki crumples to the floor after it.
The shock collar, Bruce realizes after his brain manages to catch up.
Ross' men flood into the room, weapons raised and shouting at each other. Bruce's breath escapes him in a gust of wheezy, frantic panic. That stretching, aching pain of his skin trying to bend beneath the rumbling of Hulk is physically painful. He feels something moving in his chest, shifting, the back of his mind rumbling.
No, no, no. He can't do this right now.
DO NOT TAKE THE BODY Bruce roars in a panic to Hulk.
Hulk pushes for a few more seconds before seeming to realize that Bruce is serious and drawing back.
The collar deactivated, Loki is shoved onto his stomach by Ross' men as there's a further attempt to restrain him. Loki makes an inhuman sound of pain. The straps of the straitjacket are pulled taut again. Bruce watches the whole thing with a panicked horror in his stomach.
"No, stop," Thor's voice is weak and dismissed. He takes a step forward but doesn't seem to be able to move much further than that.
Ross takes a step into the cell as Loki is dragged up to his unsteady feet, the end of one of the rifles pushed underneath his chin. Ross' mouth curls into a sneer. "You're not going anywhere," Ross promises, "Bastard. The more you try to fight it, the further you dig your grave."
Loki's eyes stare blankly forward.
Resigned.
Loki looks resigned. Like this has happened a thousand times before and he knows there's no point in fighting.
"Well," Ross turns around, putting his back to Loki, "this has been tiresome. As you can see, we still have the Loki situation perfectly under control. We'll work out the remaining kinks on our own. Thank you for your time, Director, but—"
"He's still bleeding," Bruce interrupts, having finally managed to get himself into a seated position. Natasha's hand clamps down on his shoulder, her fingers warm but not restrictive. Bruce startles under the contact. He can't remember the last time someone who wasn't Tony touched him without the intent to harm.
Ross looks down at him. "What?"
"Loki." Bruce says. "He's still bleeding. He still needs to be looked at by a doctor."
Natasha's fingers get a little tighter. Bruce has no idea what message she's trying to convey, so he plows forward. "Let me at least do a basic check-up."
Ross' nostrils flare. "I thought that this whole little show would have shown you what a bad idea this was, Banner, but you have a habit of plowing forward anyway. I won't endanger the rest of the lives on the Raft just because you've decided to have a bleeding heart about this."
Bruce's jaw bunches.
Puny god need help, Hulk insists.
For someone who smashed him face-first into a floor, you're annoyingly persistent about this, you know that? Bruce counters.
To Ross, Bruce snaps, "I know this might be impossible for you, but don't be an ass. Besides, if something happens, you can contain him, right? You just showcased it." Bruce starts to get up to his feet, Natasha rising beside him. The world blanks in a swirl of white and gray for a moment as his headache pounds to the forefront of his mind. Natasha's hand grips his elbow now.
It's alarmingly grounding.
Ross' mouth moves wordlessly, but he relents with a grunt, turning away. Bruce exhales in silent relief, walking closer. The soldiers take several steps away, weapons still appraised. Once Bruce is close enough, the soldiers supporting Loki let go and the Asgardian's legs give out entirely.
"Whoa," Bruce exclaims as he lurches forward to grab a fistful of Loki's straitjacket to stop him from tumbling to the floor. Natasha does the same, but even with their combined efforts, the most their catch manages to achieve is slowing Loki's crash to his knees and sending both of them to theirs. Bruce briefly scowls up at the soldiers, but they're not looking at him anyway, so it's a wasted effort.
One breath, Bruce reminds himself.
"Loki?" his voice is steadier than he imagined it would be. Like Loki didn't just catapult him across the room without even breaking a sweat. "Loki, do you know where you are?"
Loki does nothing, and Bruce casts a wary glance toward Natasha. The woman doesn't return it, focused instead on Loki's face.
Thor appears in the corner of Bruce's eye before the Asgardian drops Mjolnir to the floor and sinks down beside his brother. Thor's fingers are hesitant as he reaches out and touches Loki's shoulder. The sorcerer flinches minutely beneath the connection.
Thor releases his lower lip before murmuring something in a language Bruce doesn't know and is pretty sure he's never heard in his life. At the sound of the language—Asgardian?—Loki's head lifts. His shoulders lower a fraction. Bruce hears his last name. Thor's face crumples and he says something that sounds like a plea.
"What is that? What are you telling him?" Ross demands.
Thor stares at Loki for long seconds, waiting, before he explains, "It's Asgardian. Our native tongue." Thor offers no explanation and again tells Loki something.
Bruce sort of expects Loki to ignore Thor with as much vigor as he has everyone else, but to his surprise, the Asgardian turns his head in Bruce's general direction, gray eyes staring through him.
Refusing to be unsettled, Bruce asks again, "Do you understand me?" It feels like an age passes before Loki inclines his head just slightly. "Do you know who I am?"
A hesitation. A slower incline. A lie.
Bruce frowns. Maybe it's just a matter of having to place someone by their voice, but he's pretty sure that he would remember anyone who put him through hell. He does. There are soldiers Ross worked with who are dead whose voices haunt Bruce's mind constantly. He could pick Ross' voice out inside a concert.
Thor murmurs something in Asgardian.
Loki's expression clears some.
"I'm a doctor—healer." Bruce stumbles over the latter term, remembering that Thor used it earlier instead of the former. "I'm just going to look you over to see what the extent of the damage is. You look pretty wrecked."
There isn't any response to that, but when Bruce glances at Thor, the blond nods with reassurance. Bruce grits his teeth harder before moving a little closer to Loki. With the straitjacket in place, looking at Loki's arm will have to wait a few minutes. Bruce turns his attention to Loki's face.
"I'm going to touch you," Bruce warns. "I'm going to look at your eyes now."
Loki's eyes tighten a fraction, but there's no other reaction. Natasha hands him the flashlight he dropped a few mintues ago, and Bruce thanks her with a nod. With much more caution this time around, he slowly makes contact with Loki's skull. The Asgardian doesn't throw him across the room this time.
Reassured, he lifts up his hand to prod along the back of Loki's head for any sign of a concussion with light, soft touches. Loki's hair is a mess, stringy and tangled.
Bruce doesn't feel any sort of bump.
When he flicks the flashlight up as a makeshift ophthalmoscope into Loki's eyes, his pupils constrict poorly against the light. Almost like they aren't aware of what to do in the face of it. Bruce's frown deepens. The gray sheen is almost like a film of infection, allowing Bruce to see murky green hiding beneath. With the severity of the scratches, it almost seems like this is a reaction to swelling.
"Do your eyes hurt?" Bruce asks.
Loki just stares at him.
Bruce looks at Thor, but the older Asgardian doesn't provide any help. Swallowing back annoyance, Bruce does a couple other tests and prods a bit more to cross out a few other initial diagnoses, before biting on his lower lip and handing the flashlight to Natasha. She takes it with reluctance.
"What are you doing?" she whispers, her voice barely above an exhale.
"Something stupid," Bruce promises. He adjusts his position so his back is covering a majority of what he's doing from as many eyes as possible before he reaches out for Loki's right arm, ghosting fingers along the strap until he finds the buckle in the back. God, how do these things come apart? It takes a few different tries, Loki completely rigid in front of him, before he manages to loosen the right part and pull Loki's arm away from his chest.
Natasha's mouth presses together, but she dutifully holds up the flashlight for him. The trust she has for him in that moment is almost painful to bear.
Loki's not really breathing as Bruce manhandles the arm around. It takes him an embarrassingly long few seconds to realize that the straitjacket sleeve isn't like normal sleeves. It's sewn closed on the end.
Great.
"What are you doing?" Ross asks behind him.
"Looking over my patient," Bruce snips. He looks at Natasha. "Do you have a knife?"
She looks at him blankly, her lips parting just a fraction with disbelief. Thor offers one on his other side and Bruce takes it with a nod of thanks. With some effort, he manages to cut the rough blue fabric, eliciting a harsh tearing sound.
"Banner," Ross says, anxious now. "Stop. Don't be a fucking idiot."
Bruce ignores him. With the end of the sleeve cut, Bruce carefully rolls it up to Loki's elbow, revealing a mass of blood. Bruce's eyebrows draw together. He wishes he had a pair of gloves. Something to wipe away the blood. And actually, while he's at it, bandages would be fantastic.
There are needle marks near Loki's elbow, veins collapsed, leaving a trail of bruises. Bruce starts to turn Loki's arm over, looking to see if there's a source on the other side when Ross grabs under his arm and hauls him upright with a grip tight enough to be painful. Bruce releases a startled hiss, twisting around to look at the man.
Ross shoves him back a step, "What the hell do you think you're doing!? There's a damn good reason that we keep him locked up! All of you are being fools. Get out, now. Now!" Ross roars, giving Bruce another shove.
Bruce stumbles back several steps, nearly tripping over a well-placed glass shard. Anger and frustration roll through him.
Smash, Hulk insists. Smash now. Puny god need help.
Don't tempt me.
His fingers curl into fists without him consciously thinking about it, and Bruce's mouth tightens. Ross is already herding Thor up to his feet, Natasha scowling into the side of the man's head. Before they can really get a word in of protest, Ross has all but dragged the three of them out of the cell and plants himself inside the entrance to block them from getting any closer.
Behind him, Bruce can see lights moving from the solider's helmets, but Loki has once again faded into the shadows. He grits his teeth and turns a fraction. Clint has an arrow strung, lowered toward the floor, his broken fingers wrapped awkwardly around the feather. Steve is beside him, shield braced. Tony is closer now, his helmet lowered to cover his face. One of Fury's hands is wrapped around his gun.
There are still a half dozen soldiers remaining in the hall.
"I demand that you move," Thor snarls to Ross, "my brother needs medical assistance, General, and you don't have any authority to—"
"But he's not your brother, is he?" Ross counters, folding his arms across his chest. "Because—that's right, your father disowned him when he released him into our custody. He was entrusted in my care, and I decide what's best in that regard."
"Because God knows you should be entrusted with someone's best interests," Bruce mutters.
Ross looks at him with disgust. "Do you have something you'd like to say, Banner?"
Bruce's tongue is thick. The way Ross says his last name, like a slur or an insult, just makes his entire body clench up.
"It's doctor." Tony corrects somewhere further back. Bruce should probably be thankful for the show of support, but all he feels is a little numb.
Puny god bleeding, Hulk insists.
I know, Bruce promises. He feels a wave of uneasiness from Hulk and bites on the inside of his cheek. He doesn't know what to do. Do they brute force their way through this? Ross has seemed against this entire idea since it started, and as much as Bruce wants to know why, a part of him is selfishly grateful for the ignorance.
"Well?" Ross asks, harshly. "Do you have a diagnosis for us, Banner?"
That's not what he was asking two seconds ago—
Fine.
He'll play.
Bruce takes off his glasses and wipes them against the edge of his shirt. "From what I saw, and I can't tell for sure without a CT scan, but there seems to be some sort of inflammation that's making his eyes react that way."
"What way?" Tony asks.
"They're...gray." Bruce says, for lack of a better explanation.
Thor's shoulders draw up. Bruce's lips purse together tightly and he has to force himself to continue, "He has a lot of cuts along his eyes and the sides of his face, and the severity of them concerns me." This next question is directed to Ross with the intention to be pointed and clipped. Bruce feels the words get tangled in his throat and he drops his eyes to the man's chest. It's easier than his face. "Are you certain that no one has been in here since Loki was captured?"
Lie to my face, Bruce silently challenges. We all know you're full of shit.
Sure enough, Ross delivers. "Of course. It's not like we have social hour. He doesn't speak with anyone and he has no approved visitors."
Fury's gaze bores into the side of the man's head, clearly just as aware of the fibbing as Bruce is. The man gets more mileage out of one eye than most people can with two. Ross all but squirms beneath the force of it.
"Am I to assume Loki just found some needles inside the cell?" Natasha asks, her tone dry.
Ross bristles. "Do you think me an idiot, Agent Romanov?"
Natasha's head tilts a fraction as she surveys him. "I don't think you want the honest answer to that question. Sir."
"Romanov." Fury warns. Natasha backs down in intent, if not bodily. Fury looks at Bruce, "What do you think is wrong with him?"
Bruce shakes his head. "I'm not sure, but I'm decently sure he's not seeing anything right now, or if he is it's just in shadows."
"My brother is blind?" Thor asks. The tone is something Bruce can't decipher.
He dreads his answer carefully. "Yeah. I'm guessing it's some sort of optic neuritis. It's a type of inflammation."
There's a pause. "What? Like someone hit him really hard on the head?" Clint asks skeptically. "Yeah. That makes sense. He got hit in the face with one of my exploding arrows and the most it did was singe his eyebrows, but someone pokes his skull and suddenly he's falling apart?"
Bruce shakes his head. "It's not like that. I don't think this was blunt force trauma. It didn't look like blunt force trauma." This much, at least, is true. Whatever happened to his face, Bruce doesn't think that Ross was involved.
"And to be honest, I think…" Bruce thinks about the jagged, visceral cuts. He lowers his voice. "I think Loki did this to himself. With the glass."
Ross' face flits with open disgust and something else Bruce can't quite place, looking at the Asgardian. "Damn it." He hisses. "Why the hell would he do that? Is he trying to play a sympathy card?" His voice raises. "That won't work, you god damned psychopath. You've been in here for months and you're not leaving any time soon!"
"General." Thor's voice is clipped.
Ross releases an annoyed breath. "Fine. We'll get the glass cleaned up so he doesn't have access to it anymore. Once the camera feeds are live again, we'll have something to monitor him with so this doesn't happen again." Ross looks pointedly at Fury. "I told you you were wasting a trip coming down here."
Bruce waits with bated breath for Fury to rein hell down on the man. Waits for Fury to start verbally beating him for the inconsistencies and the lies, but to his immense surprise, Fury's eyebrow raises and he turns away from the door.
"Fine. Avengers." Fury gestures his head indicating that they should follow him down the hall. Bruce starts to pursue him with reluctance but stops when he realizes Thor isn't moving.
"Thor," Steve says.
Thor's mouth presses into a thin line. "I don't know if it would be wise to leave my brother alone."
"He won't be." General Ross snaps, then turns his head to look inside the cell, "Commander Cox, get Loki restrained again and put a monitoring team on him. I don't want him out of our sight until we get the cameras working again."
"Yes, sir," someone says from inside. There's a sound of following movement, and Bruce's chest hollows out as he realizes this is it. He's not going to get the opportunity to help Loki's arm or come up with any sort of treatment plan for his eyes. He had maybe three minutes and that was it.
Damn it.
Hulk protests lowly in the back of his mind and Bruce tells him to suck it up.
Fury grits his teeth before walking away, down the hall. The rest of them follow after him with reluctance. Bruce casts another look toward the cell, where he catches, through a beam of someone's headlight, Loki being dragged toward the bed across the glass. It's leaving smears of blood as it cuts open his bare feet. His eyes are closed. He looks dead again.
Again, that nauseating feeling washes through Bruce. I'm supposed to be here.
When Fury has taken them around a corner, he turns around to face them all again. "Is it permanent? The infection?" He's looking at Bruce.
Bruce shakes his head, biting at his lower lip. "With proper treatment, his should vision return. I'm worried about prolonged swelling and infection. I saw the aftermath of a case like this in West Bengal. There was an accident and eventually the infection took their eyesight permanently. That might happen here."
"Loki's not from Earth." Ross protests, having followed them, "I'm sure he'll be fine."
Thor's exasperation practically oozes off him. He turns a piercing stare on the general. "Asgardians are not immune to death or permanent injury, general. My father is missing an eye, the High Commander of our army only has one hand. Spare me your ignorance." Thor exhales, drawing together the last fragments of his patience before turning to Bruce, "What aid can be given to Loki?"
Antibiotics, a CT scan, and rest would be ideal. Bruce needs to look this up again, but he thinks that the inflammation usually reduces on its own, if that is what this is. He's not sure. Even if it is, he's never seen anything like this with the gray film. Where it looks like someone tried to gouge out their own eyeballs. It might be something else entirely from optic neuritis.
"Nothing." Ross interrupts before Bruce can get a word in. Fury starts to open his mouth but Ross rushes in before he can say anything, "You don't understand. You saw what he did with glass, can you imagine what would happen if we tried to put any sort of medical equipment into his cell? He'd forge a weapon and kill everyone or himself."
Bruce thinks of Loki bringing the glass up to his own throat.
He swallows hard.
Natasha rubs at her temple with her left hand. It looks less like the agitated gesture it is and more so a casual swipe of her hair. "There's nowhere we could put him that wouldn't endanger someone else to help." Her tone is grim. "That's why he's here."
"So, what? We wait and hope that the problem resolves itself?" Tony asks.
"It might," Bruce concedes.
"I could stay here with him." Thor offers, "If that would help. Loki wouldn't seriously harm me."
Steve's eyebrows shoot up. "He stabbed you."
"And I'm fine." Thor presses. Bruce refrains from pointing out Thor hobbling around for the next couple of hours with a grimace plastered to his features. Sure he was fine the next day, but it's not like it didn't hurt. Loki missed anything vital, but Thor received three inches of steel to the gut. Natasha eventually forced him to sit down for a patch job and it was a bloody mess.
"No, your highness." Fury shakes his head.
"But—"
"No." Fury doesn't expand on the thought, although Bruce suspects that there's more to it. He completely expects Thor to put up some sort of fight, pull cards and push against the resistance, but there's nothing. Thor's jaw clenches, and he closes his eyes, exhaling slowly, then capitulates.
"I understand," the words are both bland and heavy, "I apologize."
Ross scoffs, shaking his head. "Your apologies are baseless. If the slightest thread of sentiment is going to unravel your entire prison, it's little wonder that your king left Loki's punishment to us."
Bruce and Tony share an uncomfortable look.
The words seem to settle something in Fury's brain because his expression smooths. He folds his arms across his chest. "I'm impressed, I'll admit, with how truly fucking terrible your security is, General. Until you manage to get the Raft back in functioning order, I'm leaving my team here to keep watch on Loki."
What?
There's an immediate push of loud protests on both sides. Bruce stays quiet, biting his tongue. He just feels numb to everything. They should have expected this, right? If Loki isn't escaping, then they're going to have to stay here to make sure it stays that way. Shit. Bruce just can't get away from him.
This good. Puny god need help, Hulk insists.
You're not helping, Bruce grumbles to him.
Hulk doesn't care.
Fury gestures sharply toward the hall. "That man launched an extraterrestrial attack on Manhatten, destroyed a S.H.I.E.L.D. base, brainwashed several of my agents, and nearly crashed the Helicarrier, all within the span of a handful of days. I'm not leaving him here with security that couldn't keep a drug dealer inside."
That shuts everyone up.
Ross' mouth moves nervously. "My security is fine. We have plenty of—"
"You want to take that up with WSC?" Fury interrupts. "I'd be glad to have a discussion about what I saw today. I even know of a few agents I'd recommend to take your place." There's a long, hubris-filled stare-off. Ross backs down first, which surprises Bruce.
"Fine." Ross grits. He side-eyes Bruce, something dirty in his gaze. Bruce shrinks back a fraction. "But not with that thing on board."
"Dr. Banner stays. My team and I will discuss details and let you know what to expect." Then Fury stares at Ross until he takes the hint and leaves them alone the hall. Bruce feels his jaw going a little slack. Fury does something close to rolling his eye once Ross is out of earshot and looks back toward them.
"Respectfully, sir," Clint starts, his voice tired. He doesn't look Fury in the eye as he shoves his arrow back into the quiver. "I don't want any part in this."
"I suspected as much," Fury admits, "but we don't have much of a choice. Something is going on here, and I intend to find out what. Ross is lying. Badly."
"Yeah." Tony drawls. "Pretty sure no one missed that."
Fury ignores him. "Ross insisted that no one has even been inside the cell since they put Loki inside, but there were needle tracks up his arms. And, if the shockwaves were caused by physical contact—"
"—then someone was in the cell before we were." Steve finishes with a sigh. "Son of a bitch."
"I don't need you here to babysit Loki, I need you here to babysit Ross. I want one of you with eyes on him at all times, but don't make it blatant. Help with monitoring Loki. Whatever's going on, he seems to be in the middle of this. Stark, I need that camera footage before Ross gets ahold of it and destroys it."
"And what are you going to do?" Tony asks.
Fury rubs at his forehead. "I'm going to go see what the WSC knows about this."
"So you're going to stroke some egos?" Natasha asks, her eyebrow lifting.
Fury releases a long-suffering sigh, starting to walk away, calling over his shoulder. "Yes." He rounds a corner and leaves all of them alone. For a long moment, the six of them just stare at each other, clearly waiting for someone else to make the first move.
Bruce bites on his lower lip.
Steve runs a hand through messy blond hair. With a little bit of hesitance, the captain starts to direct them. "I'll take the first watch with Thor. Stark, Dr. Banner, see what you can do about the security footage. Romanov, try to get something else out of Ross about what's going on. Barton…" Steve is quiet for a moment, and the archer wraps his arms around himself. Steve's voice lowers. "Why don't you see if you can find somewhere to lay down? You look terrible."
A humorless laugh escapes Clint like a gut-punch. "Thanks. I guess I'll see the rest of you in a few hours if Loki doesn't blow us all up first."
The joke falls flat.
With a final shared, grim look, the six of them split up.
Author's Note:
Next chapter: Oct...ober? Probably.
Also I want to make explicitly clear from this point out that there is going to be discussion of suicide, self harm, and general mental illness bleh-ness inside this fic. I will do my best to handle this carefully and with sensitivity. If this is something that triggers you, I'm a) giving you a hug and b) If it gets to be too much, I'd encourage you to read something else. PLEASE take care of your mental health. Everything will be warned for in chapters, but still.