There But For The Grace Of God Go I
Part II: Playing Nursemaid
Where we would end a war
another might take as a beginning,
or as an echo of history, recited again.
Brian Turner's "A Soldier's Arabic"
Loki slipped into some uneasy unconsciousness - or perhaps he'd just closed his eyes and created some sort of personal disconnect between himself and the world - but when Tony had flicked on the lights to examine the damage...
He'd regretted it, because it made his breath catch in his throat, made his eyes burn and his spine straighten - harden so much it felt like it'd snap. He hadn't seen it, in the darkness, and with the light washing over Loki's features. He wasn't sure he had ever wanted to see anything like it ever again.
There were scars, wavy, red lines that stretched in intricate - crude - patterns along Loki's forehead, and around his eyes, disappearing deep beneath his color bone. There were places where the lines jutted off, like an accident, like Loki had struggled, and hard.
When Tony picked up Loki's pale wrist, he rubbed a thumb along the chafed skin, and Loki did not stir.
"Would you like me to alert SHIELD, sir?" Asked JARVIS.
"Better not." Tony replied, and he pulled at Loki's shirt. There had to be glass embedded in the skin, for there wasn't any way for anyone to fall through glass without getting at least a few shards in. Which Tony knew, of course, from previous experience.
"SHIELD protocol states that any sightings of Loki Odinson hence from the time he first arrived on Earth are to be reported. Need I remind you, sir."
"JARVIS, I'm not letting my own house nag me." Tony pulled the ragged shirt - which didn't really have a right to be called a shirt - over Loki's head.
The scars did travel further, all along Loki's body. Red and raised and cruel and painful, really, just to even look at. Tony let his eyes wander, instead, to the whipstitch on Loki's lips. Like that sight was any less disturbing.
"Very well."
And if that didn't sound at all judgmental, Tony didn't address it at all.
Loki had glass stuck all along his forearms - tiny cuts, which made him pretty lucky. Or, well, as lucky as a person who fell through a skylight could get.
Speaking of which, Tony really needed to put a tarp over that before the morning California rain rushed in. Which was beside the point, and really not a thought he should have been having but Tony was stuck in the great schism of what is going on, with several thoughts crowding about his head, flitting in and out and back and forth.
Loki's eyes fluttered open.
When he started to move, Tony protested, "Hey, no." And pushed him back down as gently as he could manage. Loki gripped his wrist like a vise, and there was a pause where he watched Tony through eyes that weren't as fearful as before, that didn't seem as caged or haunted or attacked at all.
"You've got glass in your skin, so uh... unless you want to get it out yourself..." The grip on his wrist tightened, pain shot straight up his arm like electricity, and Tony winced, because the warning that followed the wake of that pain was crystal-clear: I am warning you, do not touch me.
"Listen, Rudolph," Tony informed, in the same way you admonished a little kid for pissing in the sandbox, "You fell through my skylight. You really think you have any right to give me any lip - or well, grip? I guess you can't talk, huh?"
Loki's eyes narrowed, but the vise on Tony's wrist loosened up. And it was then, that Tony noticed just how cold the god was, like he'd been dunked in a vat of ice water.
"There you go. Now just lie back and think of England."
Loki's eyes were, in a way, the most unsettling things in the world. There were no eyes that were like his, Tony decided, and whenever he looked up to Loki's face as he picked glass out of that scarred, pale skin, those eyes were watching him. Never moving, always there, like he were vivisecting Tony's mind without him even noticing. Like he was trying to discern Tony's actions, or reasons.
At 4:00 AM, Tony picked out the last bits of his skylight from Loki's skin.
"So." Tony asked, as he flicked the last bits of glass in the trash beside him, "Here's a funny story. Maybe it'll make you laugh, but mostly it'll make you wonder. A Norse god, whose supposed to be wasting away in some prison up in Asgard, falls through a guy's window. Now, this same guy whose window he fell through, well, the Norse god thought he'd try and reenact the Defenestration of Prague with this guy. Big mistake, because this guy was one hell of a BAMF. Why would this god - who, yeah sure, isn't even a god - end up falling inside this guy's house?"
Loki's eyes searched Tony's face, and his scarred lips tightened. Tony grinned, but his dinner sloshed about his stomach.
"I'm not expecting the fastest answer, so take some time to think about it." He reached out, to touch the scars, just to see if there was anything-
Loki's eyes widened in their sockets, and he smacked away Tony's hand. His lips curled - or at least tried to curl - into a sneer, but those eyes, they were afraid, again.
Tony felt his throat close up, involuntarily, and his voice came out half-hollow, "What'd they do to you, Reindeer Games?"
Loki shook his head, eyes never leaving Tony's for a second.
"Not Asgard, then?"
Loki's eyes narrowed, infinitesimally, and Tony felt that feeling again - like a crucified frog about to be picked apart, like his skin was being pulled back. Tony hated the feeling almost as much as he hated the situation that was unraveling before him, like a great, tragic quilt built up of a numerous motley theories and decisions.
This time, Loki tilted his head, and his eyes flicked from Tony's face, to the arc reactor and away out the window. Tony watched all these movements with a particular macabre fascination.
After a few brief moments of silence, Tony protested, "Those scars look pretty nasty, never mind the stitching."
Loki's gaze slid over to him, and he started to sit upright.
"So, when is Thor going to bring down the house?" Asked Tony. "Pretty sure he's not going to be happy you're here. Or well, anyone."
Loki raised his eyebrows, and Tony knew what it meant without words: And you?
"Hell, I don't want you in my house." Tony wrinkled his nose. "I don't want you anywhere near me. But you know what, I'm trying to be a better person. It's all a part of this thing I've been trying out. Cosmic karma or whatever. Great big Buddha shit, y'know?"
Loki's stare was unsettling, at best. Alien.
"I mean, you threw me out a window, mind-controlled Barton, started a war and destroyed half the city. You've started a whole bunch of people down a path of mass hysteria and paranoia. Not to mention, you killed Coulson." Tony leaned forward, and could feel all his nerves screaming. "And you know what, maybe I could forgive those other things, but not Phil's death. No, not at all."
What Loki did then, was enough to set Tony completely on edge. He smirked, and it tore open some of those old wounds, and Tony could see the festering that had set in, which was enough to make him even sicker to his stomach.
To Tony's ears, his voice sounded dull, "But it'd be wrong to just cut you loose. Out in the real world, where if anyone spots you they'll gut you. Can't have it on my conscience. Plus, I don't feel like dealing with Thor's puppy dog eyes. Those are lethal."
Loki's grin fell, and blood dribbled from his chin. Loki reached to wipe it, but Tony stopped him.
"It'll get infected. Trust me, I know these things."
The glare he received in return was sharp, unyielding and Tony ignored it because that's just the kind of person he was. Loki was bleeding in other places too; his bare arms, his chest, and Tony scolded himself for not getting bandages in the first place.
Tony's feet were bleeding, too. He'd forgotten about himself as well, in the absolute chaos of this.
"Listen," Tony stated, and Loki's eyes were straight on him again. "I'm going to get bandages. You're going to stay put. If you move, I'll know. JARVIS?"
"Sir?"
If Loki were surprised by the talking voice in the wall, he didn't show it.
"Alert SHIELD only if Loki leaves this room, got it?"
"I will do that, sir."
Admittedly, Tony had half-expected to find the alarms in his house begin to wail again when he'd turned the corner out of his bedroom and into the medicine cabinet. He'd half-hoped that Loki would run anyway, actually, if to save himself from the thought of actually doing this - because whatever this was made nearly no sense to him, and he wasn't even sure what in the world he was actually doing.
Regardless, Loki hadn't moved at all when Tony came back. He'd shut his eyes - and opened them once more when Tony walked into the room - but had done little else. Like a statue, and Tony thought, immediately, as a snide joke to himself: don't blink.
Loki did nothing as Tony bandaged him up, but he did stiffen whenever Tony brushed his scars. Freeze up, really, and Tony knew that feeling, that motion.
"Sorry." He managed to carve out, the first time.
The fifth time he did it, he said instead, "I did that too, you know. When they put this in me." He tapped over the bloody fingerprints on his shirt, and could feel Loki's stare on the side of his neck like a brand. "Couldn't stand people touching it. Much less looking at it."
Briefly, he thought of Pepper, and when he'd had her put a whole new one in.
"You're all I've got."
A noise, like a growl, rattled about Loki's throat.
Tony snorted, "Don't worry, Reindeer Games. I'm not comparing myself to you."
Loki stifled the reactions the rest of the time, as if just to spite Tony, or to prove himself. Tony wasn't really sure which, and he almost wanted to know why.
"You don't have your magic anymore, do you?" Tony inquired, as he rolled a bandage over Loki's forearm. "You're exposed."
Loki's hands curled into fists, and green steam rose out from between his fingers. He watched Tony's face carefully.
Tony laughed, "I'm not impressed at all, Primadonna. They've sucked all the poison out of you, huh? Like a pet snake."
The noise reverberated in Loki's throat, again.
Tony paused, and he turned to look at those lips. At the crooked whipstitch.
"You fought back, though."
Tony thought about drowning, and the way his lungs had burned, and the bark of, "Jericho!" in his ears.
Loki's gaze was like a flame, and it made Tony's skin crawl insidiously. Goosebumps prickled up and down his arms.
"Guess they didn't get all the poison out of you, after all, huh?" Tony leveled himself, searched for a niche in reality to gouge himself into, as the whole of Afghanistan seemed to play out in his mind. Two years, and it stuck to him like a bur on wool. "But you're supposed to be the clever one, right? You couldn't just sit back and let them punish you?"
He thought of how collected Loki had been, that day, chained and muzzled. How arrogant he'd held himself, still, despite his defeat. The way he'd shoved himself away from Thor, away from them all, retreating into himself as though he hadn't lost a war at all.
"Nah, you're not like that." Tony scoffed. "You still think you're right. Doesn't matter if you kill a whole bunch of people, or one of my friends. Doesn't matter if you spread misery everywhere. You're right."
Tony grabbed a cloth and hydrogen peroxide and wet it. When he reached to dab Loki's bleeding lips, Loki dodged him, glaring.
"You wanna do this yourself?" Tony questioned, waving the cloth around.
There was a long, pregnant silence, and Loki settled. Tony reached forward, and dabbed away, feeling a burgeoning sense of impending doom all the while. Loki seemed to find the strange inability to stare this time, looking away again.
When Tony started talking again, he'd returned to looking, "You know, though, Reindeer Games. All the shit you've pulled down here... all you've done to Thor, everything you've done, you still don't even deserve this."
There was something utterly piercing about the god's eyes, then, that was enough to send chills down Tony's spine.
"I don't know who did this to you, if it wasn't Asgard - but we don't stand for this kind of bullshit on Earth."
Loki's brows pulled together, which wrinkled the great scars that marred his face, pulling them into tight, awkward positions that tugged at the patterns. Tony swallowed, though his mouth felt dry. Loki's lips curled beneath Tony's ablutions, and Tony wondered briefly, if it stung.
"Hell, I don't know where to put you." Tony wondered aloud. Loki blinked at him. "Can't kick you out."
Loki's eyes were owlish, wide, almost disbelieving.
"Thor'll come, eventually. Right?"
That made Loki shoot him a dark, mean-spirited glower that Tony didn't shrink beneath. Tony pulled back, crumpled the bloodied cloth up in his palm, and let out a long, tired sigh.
"You'll stay here, I guess. Until I figure something out."
thanks for all the support/reviews/favorites
feedback is still, again, very much appreciated.
(also, I feel I should mention that this is my NaNoWriMo fic for this year - which means slightly quick updates, but it'll be a little messy. Which is okay, since I'll patch most of it up when it's all done)