Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel movie universe.

Chapter 18

"He would get like this when everyone else is away, wouldn't he?" Tony said to no one in particular.

Loki had still been asleep when Pepper had left on her multi-day business trip as Tony's proxy given the current situation, Clint had been called away on SHIELD duties, Natasha and Phil had both needed to go give Fury an extensive update on the situation that they might be days getting back from...

So it was Tony, Steve, and Bruce when Loki had decided to start fighting properly when they'd tried to get breakfast into him.

"Was it this bad when you were traveling?" Bruce asked quietly enough that Loki might not hear him on the other side of the door. They could have stepped further away, but with Loki like this... depending on JARVIS for an alert something was wrong didn't seem right. There was too much risk.

"No, he wasn't," Tony told him. "A little bit of fighting. Not this."

"At least we got water into him," Steve offered.

"Not enough," Bruce replied. "If it just lasts the day, he'll be all right, but given the fact he was thin to begin with..."

"Do we even know what his dehydration profile is?" Tony asked. "I mean, we got the right saline and glucose solution ratios from Thor in case we needed them, but we don't know how fast he might degrade, do we?"

"No. And with what Dr. Strange told us, I'm not willing to resort to medical intervention until we need to. Not the first day."

"And yes, I've already tried calling him. He's out on planetary business, no clue when he'll be back."

Tony leaned back against the wall. "So we just keep offering food and water and hope whatever mental funk he's in breaks before his body starts to?

"Pretty much," Bruce confirmed.

"I don't like this."

"None of us do." Steve paced a little. "But what choice do we have? You heard Dr. Strange, the only options we've got for medical nutrition support are things he's terrified of for reason."

"And this is the first time he's really stood up for himself about anything," Bruce reminded them. "He needs to keep it within reason, but intervening before he's actually at risk of harming himself could set his recovery back."

Tony swore.

Thor sat on his father's throne and felt swallowed by it.

This wasn't the first time he'd been the substitute during the Odinsleep. Just the first time there was somewhere else he'd rather be.

Another day, and Father will be awake again, he reminded himself. And then I can go back to Midgard and be with Loki again.

This was already the longest they had been apart since they had been reunited.

Even when Loki's state had seemed so hopeless Thor couldn't stand being in his presence for very long at all, he'd made a point to visit and not just because Frigga refused to leave Loki's side for long.

Thor wondered if this was what his father had felt like, those times he'd needed to do something for the sake of the realm when one of them was sick or hurt past what the healing stones could handle in one treatment.

All the power of Asgard at his command for a single day.

And there was nothing he could do with any of it to help Loki.

All day long there were a lot of little things he could do to help his realm, and a few medium things, and a couple of big rulings he realized could more than wait for Odin's reawakening and deferred so that Odin himself could make them.

But there was nothing that could help Loki, other than simply making sure that if he ever was able to return to Asgard there would be an Asgard for him to return to.

"He's definitely not drinking enough," Bruce established that night.

"So, tomorrow we intervene?" Tony asked, trying to make it very apparent he expected the others to agree.

"I don't like it," Steve said. "We don't know what they did to him or how bad it was, and with the warning Dr. Strange gave us..."

"But he's really not in any condition to do this," Bruce told them. "We don't even know how much of a grasp on cause and effect he has beyond 'I do something wrong, other people hurt me'. He doesn't... Legally he's in no condition to refuse treatment, period. We don't know that he knows what he's refusing. Life-sustaining care, forget it, we've got an obligation towards him."

"You gonna be okay if he fights it?" Tony asked him.

"So long as Steve takes care of overpowering him. I'm used to people who resist because they can't understand what's going on in their condition, but not people who can overpower me."

"I'll handle that, don't worry about it."

"I just wish there was a way we could explain we're trying to help him if we have to do it. He's going to be terrified no matter how gentle I am with him."

"So, if he doesn't eat breakfast, we intervene?" Steve proposed uneasily.

Tony and Bruce agreed.

Steve was sitting beside him in a chair tonight.

They hadn't left him alone all day, but then no one left Loki alone unless he was in the bathroom, and much as he wished the world were different they were setting the times for that and try as he might he couldn't fight his way past the terror to change that.

If they'd accept him changing that.

He could tell they weren't happy about the food, but he just couldn't stand the thought of eating. Water had been hard enough to manage.

He hadn't cried, not since he'd bathed last night, but he'd felt like it all day.

And the adult he felt like he needed the most right now wasn't ever going to be available, and that was his fault.

And for all he knew, the way Frigga and Odin had been treating him was just out of some twisted idea that treating him well now would make up for something or was an obligation they'd taken on when they'd taken him in.

And if Thor was coming back, he'd have already been back.

And he still didn't have a way to communicate and even if he did it was unlikely he'd be able to manage using it so what did it matter if he was going to be mute no matter what?

Loki rolled so his back was to Steve.

He didn't feel like having company right now.

Steve clapped once and the lights dimmed to nearly nothing.

Loki curled up on himself and felt the tears start to roll in the dark.

He wondered why in his memories, other people made a lot of sound when they cried but he wasn't making any now.

"Okay, Loki," Tony announced as he walked through the door the next morning, "we brought pancakes."

Bruce surged forward from behind him.

Steve was sitting with a very drained-looking Loki.

He's worse off than we thought he would be.

"Glass of water, now," Bruce ordered.

Tony handed it to him off the tray he was carrying.

Steve got Loki lifted up in bed, damnit if it didn't look like he couldn't manage it on his own, and Bruce got the water to his lips.

And miracle of miracles, Loki drank without a fight.

But then a moment later, it came right back up.

"That's not good," Steve commented.

"No, it's not." Bruce looked around the bed, touched the pillow, and swore unnaturally calmly.

"What?" Tony asked him.

"He's been crying."

"I didn't hear anything and I know I stayed up the entire night just in case..."

"Then he's learned to cry silently and he's got a lot less water in him than we thought he did. We need to get him into the infirmary. Now."

Warm arms were picking him up before Loki had the chance to process that he had broken the rule about drinking and had promptly been unable to keep water down.

The three humans were talking in reassuring tones, but it didn't help.

He'd just wanted to be left alone. Not to feel like this. Not to be so sick water didn't stay down.

He felt them moving, every step jarring him and his aching head, and protested the little he could at the feel of it.

The warm hand of another on his shoulder, and more reassuring words.

And then a room that was clearly medical in nature, and some bits of knowledge fell into place.

Fear spiked even as he felt sicker than he had been.

He hadn't cared much for living this way, but that didn't mean he wanted to die.

He felt himself laid down on a narrow bed.

There was a pleading voice he didn't have the language skills to understand as the world faded out.

Thor went by his parents' bedroom to say good morning to both of them and hand power back to Odin.

But Odin was still asleep.

Thor accused, "He was holding off, wasn't he? Again."

"Loki needed you, Thor. It was only for a little while. This shouldn't be anything like what happened before."

"How long then?"

"Another day at the most."

He closed his eyes. "I'm not asking Heimdall anything about Loki until I'm on my way back." It was as much notification to his mother as a reminder to himself that he'd sworn to himself not to go charging down to the Bifrost for news.

Frigga nodded. "Asgard cannot afford you leaving early. Not with the upheaval that happened when you and your brother left so soon in the past. There must be a ruler here, for threat if nothing else."

He nodded. "For Loki's sake."

"Yes, and for the rest of us."

"I don't like this."

"This is what being a good king is, Thor. Being a bad brother when your realm demands it of you. Being a less than stellar father because giving your children and those of others a safe home is more important than bedtime stories. Having to decide between keeping the peace and completely removing a prejudice."

"What do you mean?"

"We could have cleaned out the anti-Jotun sentiment entirely. But it would have identified Loki as what he is, and at an age when he was helpless to defend himself against any attack. And the sudden change, while we were still officially at war with only a flimsy truce to defend us all... it couldn't be risked."

"But those books..."

Frigga sighed. "Ask Sif to show you the ones she grew up with. Odin permitted her to keep them to herself and in her possession, as a proof to herself of her parents' treachery. You have the authority to request it, until he wakes. And I expect he would permit it if you asked him after."

Thor nodded, determined. "I will ask her, and see."

Loki wasn't responding by the time Bruce got an IV needle in him.

"I thought you said you'd set things up last night?" Tony accused.

Bruce seemed to count under his breath before he answered. "I did. I just expected I'd be talking him into not balking at a nasogastric tube, instead of working on emergency rehydration."

"Just calm down," Steve told them both. "This won't help him."

"There, that's started," Bruce said as he hung the saline bag up on a pole.

"We should have done this last night," Tony declared in a voice as scared as Steve had ever heard it.

"We didn't think we needed to, and if JARVIS didn't pick up that he was crying there's no way I could have..."

"Quiet," Bruce ordered, a hand stuck between the buttons on Loki's pajamas shirt at breastbone height and the other at his neck.

No...

She was beautiful in her way, although decidedly not his type.

Thor might have loved her, though. There was something astonishingly Sif-like about her that Loki couldn't place.

He was enough of an innate sorcerer to know her, even if his focus had been technological, and between that and his conditioning he bowed his head to her.

She gave nothing more than a sad little smile in answer.

I wish it wasn't my time, he thought, but it's a little late for that to be taken into consideration, isn't it?

She came over to him and ruffled the back of his hair the way Frigga used to do and gave him a quick little peck on the forehead with lips so true an illusion they could be felt.

When she moved her arms around him, he gave in and let himself settle into the embrace of Death.

Author's Note: No, I am not THAT cruel.