;A; I am terribly sorry for the late update. I'm six days late! Sorry!I have been very busy with school this week. I don't know if I'll update this week too, but if I don't do this week, I'll do so next week. As always, please report grammar/spelling mistakes and enjoy this chapter!
"Thor? Are you there?"
Silence answered back. Before him was nothing but a vast and deep darkness, filled with flying rocks and blue glowing lights. Loki looked around him, and the darkness felt suddenly a lot more threatening around him. Suddenly, there was a low rumbling sound, and the god cowered in fear. He knew what was to come. "We have found you..."
A low hissing voice spoke up from the darkness, making Loki whip his head frantically around in panic. The voice said it found him! That had never happened before!
He came here every night, and every night the same voice would be there waiting for him, and threaten him with tortures so gruesome and painful that they made the mischief god shiver at just the thought of it. He had feared this moment for what seemed his entire life. Loki took a deep breath then and shuddered.
"We have found you, and now nothing will stop us from getting to you, you may run, hide or fight back, but in the end you will always fall and then we will strike!" The voice suddenly raised it's pitch again, scaring Loki witless. The mischief God had fallen to his knees now, and was holding his head with both of his hands, trying to make himself as small as possible. This is just another nightmare! It is not real, I am dreaming. The thought crossed his mind repeatedly, but Loki never believed it. He was a liar, and one should never believe a liar.
All of a sudden Loki felt something that resembled the most a clawed hand running down his back, following his spine. Loki started weeping, whining softly in his own knees. The hand reached back for his neck, and he started trembling heavily, and when it touched his cheek to caress it with sharpened nails he screamed in fear.
"Thor!"
Loki stared in the darkness. Nothing but black greeted him. He just woke again from another nightmare! Why did it happen so much? He rolled over to his side, he had been laying on his back again. Loki wanted to slap himself, he should know by now that the floor was too co- He stopped his thoughts mid-track when he realized something soft and light had been draped over him. Of course, he no longer was in his cell! Thor had saved him! No, no, to kill him! To kill the frost giant! Loki started shivering, and even though it wasn't cold in this new room at all, the thought of Thor abducting him to slay him was slowly freezing and numbing his sense of warmth. A numbing feeling spread in his stomach.
The mischief god slowly sat up, and wondered if there were any windows. He flipped his legs over the edge of what seemed to feel like a bed. The dark haired man slowly flitted his hands along the cloth that that had been covering him and discovered it was made of something unknown to him. He quickly wrapped himself in it , feeling with his hands across the border of the fabric and that's when he found out.
The chains were gone.
He could move his hands. Without restrictions! Loki wanted to cry from glee, he felt so free now he finally could move his hands in front of his body, and touch himself. The first thing he felt was his stomach, rubbing it and easing the strange feeling he had there. After that he ran his hands up his chest, and he could count each of his ribs. He slowly reached up for his face in the end. One of his fingertips touched his lips and...
His lips parted in a gasp.
He felt no stitches! Did this mean he would be able to speak again? At least he wouldn't be ripping his lips anymore in his sleep. Loki opened his mouth wide, the feeling strange to him after so many months of not having held his jaws apart. He nearly cried when he took a deep breath. Loki slowly breathed out, inhaled again and decided to tried to speak Thor's name out loud. A rasping and croaking sound was all the left him. Loki felt his heart breaking apart when he realized he couldn't even call out for help or defend himself if someone ever were to hurt him again.
The trickster soon realized after this he had to get out Thor's reach as soon as possible, and he quickly stood up, and nearly fell flat on the floor when his knees buckled out under him. He groaned in pain, and closed his eyes, only to open them wide right shortly after. He couldn't see! If he could open his eyes, the stitches were gone, but he still couldn't make out anything! A small tear trickled down the trickster's face. He quickly wiped it away, and started crawling towards a destination to him unknown, until he bumped into a wall.
Oh, if he could only see!
He felt across it with his hands, and found no door. He crawled further, and felt along the wall all the way until he felt something that resembled a door frame. He reached up for the latch but suddenly he heard footsteps come closer to the door. Loki quickly turned away from the door, and tried to scramble as far away from the entrance as possible. He failed to so, and instead he ended up tangled in his own limbs, unable to use and coordinate them well after a long time of disuse. When he heard the door open, Loki curled in on himself and clenched his eyes shut.
"Brother?" Thor! Loki's eyes flew open. Thor was here to hurt him! He heard heavy footsteps nearing him and he started trembling slightly. Loki heard the footsteps stopped and he crawled away slowly, shaking in fear when he heard Thor spoke up again. "Why are you on the floor?"
Thor... Thor asked him why he was on the floor, but why?! Loki couldn't comprehend. his brother was supposed to hate him! Loki panicked. What if this meant something else, something a lot worse... Loki didn't know, didn't understand.
It was then that Loki started to cry, and then suddenly Thor's hands were there, grabbing him from behind and hauling him up and holding him and Loki wanted to panic to strike Thor and struggle against his hold but he simply couldn't do it. Instead he screamed.
Thor stared at the door and hesitated. Loki... Loki had been healed yesterday, and Bruce and Tony had worked all of the evening to patch the mischief god up. In the end, he had been called by the two scientist's to remove the chains binding Loki. Thor felt ashamed of himself he had not done it earlier, but now he stood here, before the room Loki had been given by Tony. His friend seemed to even have taken a small liking to the mischief god.
Thor felt happy Tony did so, since the scientist had knocked Loki unconscious after the attack on New York. He was glad Banner did stay in his human form when he saw Loki too. If his Hulk form had harmed Loki any further Loki could have died. But instead, Banner had calmly approached him, and somehow he had managed to make the panic-stricken god calm down and fall asleep with his strange healing treatment. After that he even offered to remove Loki's stitches, and Stark had jumped in, both scientists doing it for the good of Loki. And Thor couldn't have been happier at that time.
He laid his hand on the latch. Loki could speak now. Loki would be able to see him again. He pressed the latch down and peeked inside. "Brother?"
He stared into what he believed an empty room before he noticed the blue trembling form laying shivering on the floor. Loki was shuddering under the thin layer of the hospital gown. He saw his brother was scared, his eyes were wide and he was breathing heavily through his nose, jaw clenched firmly shut in a thin line. The thunder god quickly walked over to Loki, thinking the mischief god had fallen from his bed until Loki suddenly started to crawl away from him, hands moving across the floor in a desperate attempt to move forward.
Thor knelt down beside his brother, and stared with confusion at the scared god?. "Why are you on the floor?" He asked, blue confused eyes looking at the trembling form of his ice cold brother. Suddenly tears started to roll down Loki's cheeks, and Thor hugged Loki, and hauled him upwards and held him tight, until Loki suddenly opened his mouth and screamed.
Thor nearly dropped his brother at hearing the noise, for Loki's voice had been reduced to a hoarse croaking sound. It was scaring Thor witless how his brother's voice could be reduced to that. It was unnerving.
Loki stopped screaming and inhaled, only to start screaming again until suddenly the door was opened. Clint, Steve and Tony came in, eyes widening as soon as they saw the state of the mischief god. Clint had his bow ready, and put it back as soon as he saw only Thor and Loki were in the room.
"Thor! What is going on?" Steve shouted towards the thunderer, who had started stroking Loki's hair and patting him softly. "Jarvis told us our guest was panicking." Tony quickly added, taking a gulp from the bottle of scotch he had always for some reason with him. Loki was still screaming, despite the soothing attempt of the blonde.
"I do not know! He is in panic!" Thor replied and held Loki more tight. Tony scoffed. "Pfft. As if we didn't know that already."
Suddenly Loki started pushing himself away from Thor and he succeeded, falling out of Thor's arms. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. He landed on the ground with a harsh thud, desperately whipping his head from side to side, as if he couldn't determine where he wanted to go. When Thor took Loki's hand and the black haired god stared screaming again it was finally clear to Thor that Loki was afraid. Afraid of him. His own brother.
He let go of Loki and the mischief god scrambled away from him until he hit Tony's legs. The green eyed god took hold of them almost immediately and held them in a solid grip. The screaming had stopped. Tony took another sip, and made a comment about how it was empty already. And he felt the god clamping to his legs like his life depended on it.
"Aw, my bottle is empty already."
"Whoah whoah. What is this?" Tony looked down at the god clamping himself to his legs. Clint almost snorted.
Thor looked at Loki, who stared back with scared and hurt eyes. Thor was surprised how much emotion there could be seen in the green irises even when they were half scraped off. Another small tear made its way down Loki's cheek.
"Loki, let go." Thor commanded. "You are safe. I won't hurt you." Loki didn't let Tony go. Instead he shook his head, scrambled further back behind Tony and tightened his grip on the engineer's legs, and said engineer started to feel himself very uncomfortable. He placed his bottle on the floor.
Clint stared at Thor with dull eyes. "I don't think he is going let Tony go for the next couple of days."
Tony's face grew slack. "Please tell me this doesn't mean I am to be his new babysitter... " But Steve turned around already and gave him a stern look at his comment.
"It seems Loki trusts you. He just got tortured, Stark, tortured! You can't just turn him away, or Thor. Loki is going to need company through his healing, and he doesn't want any of the others here. You saw how he reacted to Thor." Steve said and Tony looked at Thor, who was looking at him with begging eyes.
"Jeez, guys! You don't have to be all so serious!" Tony blurted out. "Don't tell me you thought I was going to let Loki go through this alone?!" Steve formed a silent 'Oh' with his lips as he realized he made a mistake, and Thor's face visibly lit up. Loki was still staying behind Tony though, and he held Tony's legs still as solid as before.
Tony looked back at the other Avengers. "Uhh... How do I get him to let me go?" He gave them all a confused look. The others stared back down at the mischief god, and gave Tony mixed looks of confusion. Clint shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, ask him?"
Loki must have heard the archer, for he suddenly let his grip go and sank back on the floor, slightly trembling and looking scared. Aww no... Now Tony had to do something. Something to make Loki feel better, even if it was only a little.
Tony knelt down beside the god and stroked his hair softly. "Hey, it's okay if you want to hold my legs."
Loki shook his head, and turned his body away from Tony, as if he was ashamed he had grabbed him. "Loki?" The mischief god curled in on himself and Tony swore he could hear Loki's breath hitching. The god of lies and tricks was crying. Tony felt a certain pain come up in his chest.
Tony sat down, and shushed the others out of the room. "Hey? Lokes?" The dark haired man didn't show any visible reaction. He started to softly stroke and pat Loki's head. "It's okay if you're scared."
When Loki didn't react at that the engineer sighed and slumped a bit. "I understand it's for you to believe Thor's not going to hurt you and stuff, but he really loves you, and he still does." At the mention of Thor's name the blue coloured god lifted his head up.
"He told us everything, how you went mad after you discovered you were a frost giant, how you tried to destroy your own home planet and killed your own biological father and stuff..." Tony's voice trailed off as Loki's eyes widened, and the mischief god made a noise of distress and tried to sit up. Tony helped him to sit and he made Loki lean against his shoulder. Loki was clearly trying to talk to Tony, but his throat was still sore and dry from not having been used properly for that long and thus all that came out were inaudible syllables.
"Oh, uh, right. I'll fetch you some water." Tony said, his gaze quickly shifting around to find a tap. he saw the bed instead. "Oh, I should put you probably on that first." Loki gazed confused back at him.
"Uhh... The bed." The scientist said awkwardly. "You tried to get out of here, right? Just nod or shake." Loki nodded his head. "Well then. I am going to help you move towards the bed, okay?" Loki nodded again. Tony then hauled the god up, who started to shake in his arms as soon as he was set upright. He carefully lifted him from the floor and then carried the cerulean god bridal-style towards the small bed. It must have looked silly, such a tall person in Tony's short arms and Tony reminded himself he should later check the records for this moment.
He carefully places Loki down, making sure to be careful with the god's back not to hit the bed all too hard, and he patted Loki softly on his shoulder. Loki cringed slightly at the kind gesture directed towards him and Tony felt himself slightly uncomfortable.
Did Loki really feel so much mistrust in others now? But then he reminded himself how he after his own torture didn't trust anyone but Pepper for months, and he knew what the god had to deal with. Heck, what Loki has to deal with is what a lot worse than all of his own problems combined! Tony felt for the poor man. Then he remembered Loki must have had no food or water for a long time and he felt horrible for not remembering. Loki must be starving.
"I'll get you some water then, I guess." He said, feeling a little bit ashamed of himself, and he quickly looked around for his bottle. He found it soon, it stood near the wall on his left.
"Is that okay? I'll only be gone for a few minutes." He looked at Loki for a reply, waiting for the pale god to shake his head yes or no. After what felt to Tony like a few awkward minutes in silence, the god finally nodded.
Tony walked out of the room, making sure to not lock the door and picked up his empty glass bottle along the way. If Loki heard him lock the door he might think Tony would lock him up, and that's the least thing Tony wanted at this moment.
"Jarvis, make sure you save the records from seven pm until nine pm, will you?"
"Of course, Sir." Replied the AI with the British accent as always. Tony hummed, he could always count on Jarvis.
Suddenly his eyes widened, and he quickened his walking pace. What if Loki were to meet Jarvis? Then he had another person he could always count on, well, as long as you count Jarvis as a person. But he liked the idea of Norse gods meeting Jarvis anyways. Thor had welcomed the artificial intelligence as his new best friend, and if Loki were to accept Jarvis same way as his sort-of-not-brother, then everything would be perfect! Of course, then he thought. Loki would never be trusting Jarvis as quick as his brother, but Tony decided he could make the wager.
He finally had reached the bathroom on this floor, and he emptied the bottle of scotch he had taken along. He quickly filled it, and walked back towards Loki's guest room., humming in contentment with himself.
Tony decided to walk across his kitchen too, and he took a small plate with lukewarm soup along for the god. He finally arrived at Loki's room, taking a little longer than he predicted, but the scientist couldn't figure how to open the door with both of his hands full with the plate in his right, and the bottle in his left. He placed the plate with soup on the floor and opened the door.
He nearly dropped the bottle. What he revealed was something he didn't want to see.