CHAPTER FIVE
"Ah, crap!"
Erik looked up from his laptop and paused in his data entry. "What happened?"
Darcy stomped into the kitchen irritably, waving the bottle of morphine. "Hear that?"
He frowned. "Should I?"
Darcy rolled her eyes. "It's not sloshy. It should be sloshy, because that would mean there is liquid in it. But it's empty. So…"
"No sloshy?"
She nodded.
Erik sighed and looked back down at his screen. "Take it up with Jane. If we need supplies, she'll get them. She's the one SHIELD is actually talking to."
"Ah. That could be problematic."
"I don't see how," he said flatly, returning to his typing.
"It's for Loki."
Erik stared at Darcy, stunned into silence for a moment. "The morphine is gone already? But that was a 1200 milliliter bottle. How many doses has he needed so far?"
"About six."
Erik rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. "Let me get this right…you've been giving him two drug-addict sized doses every day for the last three days?"
Darcy gestured frantically. "Well, he is kind of a god."
Erik chuckled, turning a page in his scribbled notes to the next page of data. "You're on your own, kid. I'm not going to try and explain this one to Jane."
Loki closed his eyes and focused his hearing on the kitchen. The opportunity of hearing what they were actually saying about him was too good to miss.
The voices came in faintly at first, but grew more focused as he recognized their voices and adjusted to their individual speech patterns.
"…I'm not going to try and explain this one to Jane."
"Come on, Erik. She's not going to listen if I ask. She'll probably think it's because I have a crush on Thor's hot brother or something."
He chafed at his characterization as 'Thor's brother.' But hot… He wasn't yet fully familiar with Midgard vernacular, but he guessed it was something to do with appearances. That attraction could prove useful, he mused.
"You're saying you don't?"
"Beside the point!"
He amended his earlier thought. That attraction would prove useful. But Darcy wasn't finished with her statement. He focused intently again on their conversation, trying to regain the gist of what she was saying through the words he had missed.
"…he almost killed us last time he was around. What happens if we piss him off by letting him suffer?"
"Darcy, if the stories I was told as a child have any truth at all, Loki is a sorcerer. He's not like Thor with brute animal strength, nor the sort who would go on a rampage when he doesn't like something. His power is in the mind. If his mind is crippled by pain, it would most likely hamper his ability to do magic and thus render him useless."
"Okay, but what if the stories weren't true? Can we risk it?"
"In my opinion? Yes."
He could almost hear Darcy thinking in the silent pause that followed.
"I don't think you even disagree with me."
"Don't I?"
"I think you're just scared to argue with Jane."
Erik gave a booming laugh at that.
"Oh, Darcy. Only you would take psychology classes for the sole purpose of manipulating people in arguments."
Loki suppressed a snort. That sounded like quite a good idea, actually, for someone without the innate talent to get inside peoples' minds as he did.
"Not only for that reason."
Loki heard no reply from Erik, and wondered for a moment if something had happened to his hearing. Then Darcy spoke again.
"Look, are you going to help me appease the vengeful god in the spare room or not?"
"Not."
The floor gave a little thud in what sounded like a boot stomping on the floor. "Ugh," he heard Darcy grumble. "Fine. I'll deal with her myself."
"Why should I?"
"Gah!" Darcy pressed her hands to her ears in frustration. "Do I really have to keep explaining this to you people? He is a vengeful god. He is sitting in the spare room. Just for the sake of him not, I don't know, murdering all of us in our sleep, shouldn't we try to make him as comfortable as possible?"
Jane glared at Darcy with uncharacteristically cold eyes. "No."
"Jane, you're being completely unreasonable."
"He tried to kill Thor and all of the innocent bystanders who were in his vicinity." She crossed her arms. "Which, in case you've forgotten, included us."
"Exactly. He's a threat."
"I don't care."
Darcy removed her glasses for a moment and rubbed her eyes wearily. "Let me get this straight…You'd be okay with being killed if it meant Loki suffered a little bit?"
Jane's eyes flashed, but she didn't say anything in reply. She stared down at her notes furiously, pretending to study in an attempt to ignore what the girl in front of her was saying.
Darcy rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Do you realize how crazy you sound?"
"If you think he's such a threat, go ahead and nurse him back to health. I don't give a damn," Jane snapped, her voice breaking as she swore. She glared at Darcy and returned to her work. "But I'm not helping you."
Darcy sputtered. "Me? But I don't know the first thing about god anatomy. You're the only one who's been close enough to one of them to know what 'normal' looks like."
"Not my problem."
Darcy scowled, but she'd seen that look before. That was the 'Hello-my-name-is-Jane-Foster-you-tried-to-kill-my-boyfriend-prepare-to-die' look…the look that Jane got whenever she was in the same room as Loki.
No use arguing with her now, she told herself as she stomped off grumpily in search of the basic first aid kit.
Loki screwed up his eyes as another jolt of pain rippled through him.
"AUUUUUUGGGGHHHH…" He gritted his teeth to hold back the scream.
Darcy jumped and let go of his arm in shock, holding her hands up in an 'innocent' gesture. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she stammered. "I'm a little unfamiliar with the whole god-physiology thing and what's normal."
"Well, I'll give you a hint," he snarled, half wishing the girl would stop prattling to ease his headache and half-hoping she would keep it up to distract him from the agony. "This pain falls into the category of decidedly abnormal. Now for the love of Yggdrasil, fix it!"
"I'm trying!" she snapped, her terror of being in the same room as him vanishing as her frustration boiled over. "But I'm afraid your sassy Norse commentary isn't very helpful. So unless you have something to say, for crying out loud, SHUT UP."
His eyes snapped open in astonishment, and he turned to stare at the girl, trying to determine if she was incredibly brave or just incredibly stupid. Then his glare softened.
Darcy's eyes were wide and shining…and terrified as she realized what she had said, and who she had said it to.
He wasn't sure if it was the lighting in the room, or merely the whites of her eyes turning pink as she tried not to cry, but her eyes suddenly looked a brighter blue than he had ever seen before in a mortal.
He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes again. Stupid, he told himself. This wasn't part of the plan. You were supposed to make the girl like you, not scare her to tears.
He let out a sharp sigh.
"I'm sorry."
Loki opened his eyes in surprise again. He had not been alone in speaking.
The girl gave him a shaky smile and a little sniff, apparently realizing that he wasn't going to annihilate her.
"That was rude," she mumbled in a high, tight voice. "I'm sorry."
He sighed again, clenching his teeth for a moment as a jolt of fire shot through him. "The fault was mine," he said tersely when he had regained control of his muscles. "I let my tongue get away from me in the pain. It was uncalled for."
Darcy swayed awkwardly, apparently unsure how to reply to that. "Well," she said finally. "Anyway, I don't know if I can figure out what's wrong with you. You're definitely reacting more when the right side of your body is tensed or in motion, but I…" She froze, her brow furrowing in thought.
"What?" he asked.
"Turn onto your side," she said flatly.
He frowned, raising an eyebrow at her, but complied, shifting his weight to the left as gently as possible.
"Oh my gawd, what is that?"
"What? What is-ARRRGHH!" Loki screwed his eyes shut as he yelled out, his back arching in rebellion against her actions.
She stared, wide-eyed at what she had pulled out from the wound in his back.
Apart from the bloodstains on the jagged corner that had sliced into Loki, it looked almost like a piece of jewelry, or maybe a component to a found-art piece. It was clear, but it shimmered with opalescent rainbows…and Darcy could swear—even though she was holding it still—that the colors were moving across the fragment.
"Dude, pardon my French, but what the fuck is this thing?"
He hissed in pain. "That depends," he growled through gritted teeth. "What does it look like?"
"Sort of clearish…jagged around the edges…got some blood on one side of it...looks like something out of My Little Pony."
"I don't know what that is!" he snapped furiously.
"It's shiny," she explained, rolling her eyes. "Like on a close-up photo of a bug or something…"
Loki froze.
"It's opalescent?"
"Is that fancy-speak for 'shiny with rainbows?'"
Loki rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling vacantly, his eyes vacant. "Yes," he said hollowly. "That's exactly what it means."
"So what?"
"It's a piece of the Bifrost. A piece must have fallen and cut into me when it shattered, as I was plummeting to Midgard."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
He gave an empty laugh. "Yes. It is. The Bifrost is one of the few magical objects so powerful that the gods did not build it with their magic alone. They had to use some of the magic from each of the worlds that the bridge ties together. Three different worlds, thrice the magic."
"And?"
He turned to glance at her with eyes that now seemed icy, more gray than green. "You recall asking whether gods are invincible? They're very close to it. There are few objects powerful enough to truly hurt a god. The Bifrost is one of them."
"So?" Darcy said with a little laugh. "You lived. You're healing. So what, it hurts more than a normal wound?"
"Hardly," said Loki darkly. "I'm not healing at all. The Bifrost has done more than scar me. It is draining my strength, my magic…my immortality."
Darcy froze. "What?"
"The Bifrost is robbing me of my immortality. If it continues to infect me, I will become mortal. And I will die."