CHAPTER THREE:
He had told him everything. What was there possibly left to lose? Bane had stood there quietly as Loki recalled the story of his time and departure from Asgard. His childhood, his discovery, his rejection, his exile. The dread he felt about going back.
In exchange, Bane had told him about his time in Hell on Earth. A pit he had escaped from and now maintained. A place where he had met a small child.
"Not so different looking than you," Bane told him after a long, gritty pause. A silence so sharp, Loki felt as thought he were being dragged along it. Bane's look softened as he looked at Loki in what could almost have been a new light, but a light that was not allowed to flower before being torn apart and discarded once again.
"You…have the same blue eyes as she did," Bane said. "Pale like ivory. And long, dark hair."
"And you remind me of someone as well," Loki concurred despite himself. With his eyes, strength, and stature; it was very easy for Bane to be a constant visual reminder to Loki of his brother.
They sat without a word. And for once, neither of them looked at the other. They were lost in some far away hell.
"Why did they send you here?" Loki finally asked. Bane looked up but didn't say anything. "To harm me?"
"That would be cruel of me, to hear your story then hurt you."
"And you're never cruel, are you?" Loki's eyes squinted with growing distrust, and anger at himself for having bore his soul to anyone let alone a SHIELD operative.
"Not to those who don't deserve it," Bane replied softly.
"And how do you know I don't?"
No answer came. But a minute later, Bane pressed a series of numbers on the lock of the cage and entered. Loki looked up at him, his big blue eyes wide with hope that almost hurt. He held back a gulp as Bane knelt down in front of him and it occurred to Loki once more just how outmatched in size he was. But this time it didn't feel intimidating. It felt secure.
"If any harm will come to you here, it will not be while I am near enough to stop it."
Loki looked away. He knew it wasn't much by anyone else's standards perhaps, but this level of kindness was a true rarity. Kindness and, what was more, understanding. Thor could be kind but he never understood. Bane did. Loki heard what he had said about Talia, about how he had been cast away, about his own descent into questionable actions through an initial desire to do good.
Loki didn't feel alone that day.
That night, before Loki drifted off to sleep, he took comfort in the dark, immovable shadow that had retreated back into the room so Loki could have some semblance of privacy as he went to bed. So when Loki woke with a start in the middle of the night, it was with a heart-shredding sense of panic he noticed Bane was nowhere to be seen.
"Bane?" he called out quietly. And while he did feel a presence with him, it was a frightening, familiar one that seemed to seethe in the darkness.
"Bane? Wh—"
A hand clapped over his mouth and Loki was spun around before being thrown onto his back. Two knees dug themselves into Loki's shoulders and the attacker's other hand reached around the back of his head and grabbed a merciless fistful of his hair, yanking his head backwards so he could look directly into the person's eyes.
"How was that for slowly and intimately?" Natasha Romanov asked in a low, barking whisper.