Darkness. Pressure on her fingers. Soft mist on her face. A band–elastic?–fitted snugly around her head. Something covering her nose and mouth.
And pain twisting in her belly and clawing at her shoulder, but it wasn't… important. No, not important at all. More important to find out what that mist was, but first, how to banish the darkness? Taryn belatedly realized that her eyes were closed. She opened them–the thing on her face was a mask, the softly blown mist was humidified oxygen.
It all came back–Loki, his kisses, his hopes, letting him into her bed and kicking him out. The raid on his underground base. Awakening handcuffed to a bed for the second time.
Fury and the venom. She gasped with sudden fear.
"Hey, hey, hey, take it easy. You're safe."
The deep, smooth voice beside her coincided with a gentle squeeze of her uninjured hand, and that cut through the surge of panic. Taryn looked around and saw–okay, she had to be dreaming, because Tony Stark, billionaire genius and tabloid favorite, sat beside her hospital bed holding her hand and smiling at her. The blue light at the center of his chest was only slightly dimmed by his Black Sabbath tee shirt. She couldn't tear her eyes from it.
Wow. That's so weird, she thought, and wondered why he laughed.
"What, this?" Stark asked, reaching up and tapping at the light showing through the cloth. "Yeah, you could say that, but I prefer the description frickin awesome to weird."
Taryn's eyes widened. How did he know what I was thinking? she wondered, stunned.
He laughed again. "Haha, awesome, I knew Bruce gave you the good stuff. You're talking, sweetheart. I'm not reading your mind."
She blinked at him for a second. She'd spoken? "Oh," she said, now realizing that she was indeed saying it. "I guess that's why it doesn't matter much."
He tilted his head, clearly not following her, but still smiling. He had a nice smile, she decided, and when that smile widened, she knew she'd probably said that, too. "Thanks for that, and what doesn't matter much?" he asked.
She closed her eyes. "Pain," she sighed, concentrating on it for a moment. Yes, it was still there, and it did indeed hurt, but she really didn't care. "I really don't care," she added, just in case he wanted to know that. It was almost interesting, examining pain this way. She wondered if Loki had ever tried it, then hoped she hadn't said that aloud.
Apparently she hadn't because he just squeezed her hand again. "You hold onto that, then," he told her. "Unfortunately I think the good stuff is a limited time offer and eventually it'll matter a lot. I'll try to talk Bruce into putting that off for a while, though. You're cute stoned."
The mask was getting annoying. Taryn wanted it off, but she didn't want to retrieve her hand. Doing so would be annoying–in fact, everything was too much trouble. "Everything's too much trouble," she said, feeling like this was information Stark needed, even if he didn't know it.
"Care to be a little more specific?" He sounded even more amused now, but she didn't mind.
Now that she thought about it more, the mask didn't matter, either. It was a strange feeling. Her body could be as uncomfortable as it liked because she was only vaguely attached to it. She opened her eyes again and turned her head, suddenly sure he wouldn't be there this time. Why would Tony Stark be at her bedside, anyway?
"Because I have just a bit of experience dealing with people who are, shall we say, under the influence," he answered, brown eyes sparkling with humor, and Taryn didn't care that she was speaking all her thoughts aloud again. "And sweetheart, you're definitely under the influence. Sounds like it's fun. I'm a little jealous, not gonna lie."
"Can I have a million dollars if I share my next dose?"
He laughed. "Sure, why not? Take a check?"
She smiled at that. "From you, sure." What must it be like to be able to write a check for a million dollars? That led to another thought. "What's it like to be famous?" Taryn asked out of the blue. After all, she was pretty sure she was hallucinating all this, so why not ask?
"If word gets out that you're Loki's girlfriend, you'll get to find out for yourself," Stark replied, and that was an unexpected slap in the face.
Her fuzzy lassitude evaporated and suddenly the pain mattered very much–everything mattered. Her kidnapping. The doorway to another world. And Loki. Loki's pain, the betrayal he'd feel at her escape, and all her confusion–it all mattered so much it hurt. She yanked her hand away from Stark's and the movement sent a firebolt through her entire body, almost making her cry out, but that didn't keep her from gasping, "I'm not his girlfriend. I'm not!"
The denial was instinctive and she hoped like hell that it was honest. Loki was a psychopath, he was a murderer, he was a mad god who wanted to subjugate her entire planet–but he was also a desperately lonely man who'd come to her in exhaustion, seeking comfort and expecting to be turned away. A man who'd been tortured in the worst ways imaginable, over and over again. A father whose children had been taken and banished and tormented for no other reason than that they were his. A man who'd seen every hand raised against him and every face turned away, and so had become what they'd all expected more from self-defense than from desire.
"I'm not!" Taryn shouted, clawing at the mask on her face, seized with a wave of panic and claustrophobia so strong it made her want to scream.
"Hey, hey, whoa!" Stark was on his feet now, grasping her hand to prevent her from taking the oxygen mask off. "Hey, I know that, we all know that. It was just a stupid comment, okay? I make 'em all the time, ignore me, all right?" She shook her head, trying to knock the mask off that way, and he let go of her hand so he could catch hold of her head. "Don't do that, you're going to hurt yourself. Just calm down, okay? Look, we all know he's an evil bastard, no one thinks you'd really–"
That sparked a sudden rage in her breast. "What the hell do you know? You don't know anything," Taryn hissed at him, and she grabbed his hand and shoved a memory into him.
Loki was a young adolescent, barely past puberty, really, when Odin came to him and told him of the giant's horse. "We bartered Freya, and the sun and moon as well," Odin said, pacing, frowning at his son, "bartered them on an impossible task, and we cannot interfere with the workman. But his stallion helps him build the wall, Loki. It pulls stone day and night without cease, without rest or even food. With its help, he will complete the impossible. Of all of us, you are the only one who can change your form. If you do not distract Svadilfare, we will lose everything."
And Loki was so eager to prove his magic useful that he ignored his misgivings and went along with the Allfather's plan–shifting his form to that of a mare in heat, then galloping past the massive stallion to attract his attention, knowing that he had to be fast, had to be clever, had to stay ahead of the stallion, to not be caught–but he was caught, of course he was, no horse was Svadilfare's match, and then the pain! Oh, the tearing, the violation, screaming and fighting and unable to escape, and finally enduring it for the Æsir, holding the cost of losing the sun and moon foremost in his mind while the terrible thing happened, enduring it so others would live, so they would never have to endure anything this horrible. Limping back to Odin when it was done and the pretty mare's head drooped almost to the floor with exhaustion and pain and humiliation, Loki's only comfort that at least he would be praised for ensuring the task would not be completed and the crippling fee would not be paid.
But Odin had no praise for him as king, nor comfort as father, and he joined in mocking Loki along with all the Æsir when he announced that Loki was pregnant and forbade him to resume his true form until the foal was born, saying before the entire court of Asgard, "I would have you learn, my son, what the price of magic truly is." Then when the long, long pregnancy and labor were finally done Odin took the eight-legged foal before Loki could reassume his true form to protest the theft of his amazing child–for no matter how it had been gotten, the colt was a wonder: as immortal as the Æsir, as magical and clever as its mother, as strong and swift as its father. And Odin had banished Sleipnir to the stables as though he was a mere horse, the final insult.
The second prince, ha, what a joke! He is an animal, fit only to bear more animals, the Æsir whispered of Loki, and he had to smile as though it didn't matter when they mockingly called him Seducer of Asgard, as though he didn't care that the most horrible moment of his young life became a joke to them all, as though it didn't kill him to see the firstborn son who had so much promise reduced to a mere beast of burden, simply the mount of the king…
Seducer of Asgard, Loki thought, the words a cancer in his mind, and in revenge he became just that–marking all those who had mocked him or his son and then seducing their wives, their daughters, ruining them because he had been ruined, shaming them because he had been shamed, hating them just as they hated him…
"Fucking shit!" Stark nearly screamed, tearing his wrist away from her and staring at her as if she'd suddenly sprouted fangs and bit.
Taryn fell panting against the bed, her entire body burning now, belatedly remembering that magic had a physical cost. But it was a cost she was willing to pay. Loki had been mocked enough by those who had no understanding. She couldn't change that, but she prevent this much, at least. "He wasn't always an evil bastard, Mr. Stark. Once, there was good in him," she whispered, all her sudden energy now gone. "But they murderedit. They murdered it and now he's ruined."
Stark rubbed his wrist with a shaking hand. "Is that what you did to Thor?"
She lifted her shoulder in a shrug–forgot it was broken–made a strangled groan at the grinding of bone on bone. "Sort of," she choked out, "but more."
"Shit. More than getting raped by a huge fucking horse?"
"Not that one–that one is Odin's, if I ever see him. I gave Thor everything that was his," Taryn said wearily. "I gave him everything that was his fault. That's all."
Stark's voice was hushed, horrified. "How… how much is that?"
Taryn closed her eyes to hide the shine of tears in them. "More than a thousand years in this lifetime."
She opened her eyes again and met Stark's stunned gaze. "There's so much more," she said, so sad at the waste, and wishing she could have the fuzzy disconnection of the drugs back. "He's suffered enough to drive every person in Asgard mad. You don't know anything about Loki, Mr. Stark, so don't pretend that you do."
He held her gaze, slowly shaking his head. "You weren't joking, were you." It wasn't a question. "You do know everything about him."
Taryn rested her head back on the pillow. "I understand him," she sighed. "That's why he took me. That's what he wanted–just one person who would understand him. But that doesn't mean I'm on his side," she added, knowing this had to be said. "I'm not. He's had a horrible life, but that doesn't excuse what he's done or what he's planning to do and can I have some more drugs now?"
Stark finally smiled again even though he still looked pale and a bit shaky. "Now that, I can understand. I'll run and get Bruce, but only if you give me your word that you won't give him a Loki injection like that. Believe me, it would be a bad idea for everyone involved. He's not as harmless as he seems."
She didn't have the energy to pursue that intriguing clue. "I don't have the power to do it again now even if I wanted to," Taryn said, closing her eyes once more. "I won't, Mr. Stark. You have my word."
"You know, considering all we've just shared, I really think you can call me Tony," he said, and she smiled a little. "Okay, be right back with the good doctor. Don't go anywhere."
