As Taryn followed Tony and Bruce into the park, she had to admit the unpleasant truth that twenty-four hours hadn't made much difference.
She'd continued getting exceptionally drunk the night of Loki's defeat because Taryn thought she'd sleep soundly at the very least-or pass out, which was actually preferable. She'd been wrong. After they'd cracked open the third bottle of insanely expensive booze, she'd made the mistake of wondering aloud how SHIELD planned to keep a teleporting god contained, and Tony had made the mistake of answering her honestly.
And those few sentences, meant to be reassuring-"Thor brought something from Asgard, manacles and a mask, says it'll trap Loki's magic, lock it down and make it inaccessible-" had triggered such a spectacular panic attack that Tony had been forced to actually physically restrain her until Bruce could respond to JARVIS's emergency summons to "please report to Mr. Stark's lab immediately to sedate his guest."
Not that he could do so once he arrived ten minutes later. There was nothing Bruce could give her with that much alcohol in her system. Instead the two men held her as carefully as they could while she fought and kicked and screamed out her terror as all the memories of the times Loki had been imprisoned and without magic crashed through her mind in endless waves of torment and hopelessness and rage. She hadn't felt anything like it since Loki had helped her lock down his lives inside the box-the clarity, the agony, the crystal-sharp immediacy of each memory slicing through her. She didn't remember what stopped it in the end, only that blackness finally swamped her and tugged her down into welcome unconsciousness.
Waking up with the bruise on her jaw made her realize that one of them, probably Tony since Hulk or not, she just couldn't imagine Bruce hitting anyone, much less a woman, had gotten desperate enough to knock her out. She rubbed the bruise gingerly, its throbbing a counterpoint to a wicked hangover, and hugged Tony the instant she'd found him in the kitchen holding a mug of coffee like a peace offering and with words of apology already falling from his lips. "Thank you," she murmured in his ear, squeezing him tight. "Thank you."
He hugged her back fiercely. "Thank me by never doing that again, will ya? That sucked."
She laughed and nodded, pulling away. "Yeah, sucked for me, too." But her smile faded as she took the coffee from his hands and peered into the black liquid, so similar to the shadows of pain that filled her mind. "Wish I could promise that," she whispered, knowing it would probably happen again. And again.
Footsteps in the hall reminded her that Bruce had come and Taryn looked up sharply, her cheeks already going hot, and Tony rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and confirmed her suspicions. "Had to clue him in, explain why you were freaking out," he admitted. "I didn't know what else to do. But maybe he can help, Taryn," he added hopefully.
I'm not sure anyone can, Taryn thought, but at least she had enough tact not to say it. She just nodded and turned to greet Bruce, trying for a smile that she knew fell short.
But he'd just returned her smile and squeezed her hand comfortingly on his way past to find some herbal tea instead of coffee-apparently his big green problem didn't like caffeine. And while Tony mostly burned some eggs for breakfast, Bruce had sat at the table with her, both hunched over their mugs, and just listened while she told him everything about what Loki had put into her head. At some point Tony gave up on cooking-maybe after the third time the smoke alarm went off-and ordered something, then sat at the bar listening to her talk without interrupting until the food came. Taryn only stared at hers and kept talking while he and Bruce ate. If she stopped now, she knew she wouldn't be able to start again.
She left out nothing, not even the deal she'd offered and how Loki had twisted his reply to it, how he'd locked her in the bedroom afterward while the world crashed around her. Bruce's watch beeped once then but he hit a button to silence it. Coffee long cold by then, she finally finished. "Last night... I don't know why, maybe because I was drunk, but that chest in my mind-the containment spell for his other lives, the memories-I guess it was weakened. When Tony told me that Loki's magic is bound, all those times he's been in that situation before just swamped me." She finally looked up and met each of their gazes in turn. "Every time he's been without his magic, he's been tortured horribly. Every. Time. Please tell me he's not being tortured right now. I know he's the bad guy, I know he deserves punishment, but please. Not that."
Stark recoiled. "No! Hell no, Taryn, no way. No torture, not on my watch. JARVIS, confirm that," he added, and it took the AI only a few seconds to reply.
"Sir, SHIELD databases show no record of the prisoner, but a search of video feeds shows that Mr. Odinsson is with Loki now. I note no physical signs of torture or distress at this time."
"Well, if Thor's there, that means no, right?" Bruce said into the silence. "He was pretty quick to defend him on the helicarrier."
Taryn sighed, fighting back a shiver. "I don't know about this Thor," she said quietly. "Other times, he's not only allowed Loki to be tortured, he's participated wholeheartedly."
"Dr. Roswell," JARVIS said, "Mr. Odinsson appears to be trying to reason with Loki now. His body language is not aggressive at this time. He speaks of averting the All-Father's punishment. Given that there are no new injuries visible and that despite receiving no response, Mr. Odinsson continues to attempt communication without coercion, I would say that the chances that torture has occurred are less than 7%."
"Has Fury been in the room at any time?" she asked, staring down into her cold mug and remembering her own brief, endless time enduring his questioning.
"Director Fury has been present in meetings and teleconferences throughout the night. The time-stamps on the surveillance videos confirming his participation would not allow him enough time to have reached the holding area, Miss."
"Thanks, Jarv," Stark said, clearly relieved. "If anything changes, you let me know immediately."
"Of course, Sir."
Bruce stood then, took her mug and poured both hers and his into the sink. When he sat down again a minute later, he passed her cup back, this time full of fresh coffee and with a generous measure of cream and sugar stirred in. "Drink that. Sugar will offset shock, and you need the caffeine for your hangover," he said gently.
"Thanks." She sipped at it, then finding it was actually very good-apparently Tony's kitchen incompetence ended at the coffeemaker-took another, much larger gulp. Finally she met Bruce's warm, gentle eyes again and forced herself to be honest. "I can tell this is going to be a common occurrence for me in the future, Bruce-the breakdowns, I mean. I can't control what he put in my head. I wouldn't know how to even begin to try. Everything's a trigger for some horrible memory, even stupid things like Tony's red shirt-it's the same color as Thor's cape and do you even want to guess at the amount of terrible shit he's done to Loki in the last thousand years?" She rubbed a hand over her face, knowing it shook and unable to stop it. "I teach freaking Norse mythology! Do you really think I'll ever be able to do that again? Even worse, my house is full of artifacts from the Viking era. I can't imagine even walking into my own home!"
Bruce took her hand and squeezed it tight and Tony kicked out the chair beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, hey, stop that," Tony said, but he made it gentle, not an order. "You're giving up before we've even had a chance to try and help you."
"We might be able to do something through hypnosis," Bruce suggested. "Meditation, too. I'm a walking encyclopedia of ways to keep control over a monster in my head, okay?" he added with a sardonic little half-smile.
"Yeah, but your monster saved the day," Taryn said, but at least she managed to choke back the second half of her sentence-mine just got me fucked. In every sense of the word.
"Listen to her, already a fan of the Hulk," Tony teased, smiling at Bruce, and Taryn actually laughed a little. He nudged her coffee back toward her. "Drink up, doctor's orders, and you don't want to disobey this doctor, he's nasty when he gets cranky. Might decide he'll be the one to deck you next time. Why not go for broke and eat something, too?"
Fed, caffeinated, and reassured to the best of her two new friends' abilities-or three, if she counted JARVIS, and Taryn decided the AI most certainly counted-she let Bruce try to hypnotise her while Tony and Pepper retreated to his study for what looked like an urgent conference. She was actually feeling somewhat better about the future, not hopeful yet, but as though she hope was a prospect somewhere down the line.
Then Bruce hypnotised her to look for that casket of memories and Taryn heard Loki's voice snarl, "No one else will see these visions!" And an instant later, some kind of force or blast or something exploded between them and threw them into opposite corners of the living room.
The next several minutes were very crowded as Bruce hunched painfully on the floor, clearly fighting his own demons, and Tony ran in to try his own kind of calming pep-talk which actually worked but not before Taryn had watched a green wave flow over Bruce's skin and slowly retreat.
Hypnosis was clearly not going to be a treatment option.
Taryn and Tony had tried to figure out why she could share visions at will but no one else could look at them without triggering Loki's trap, but all it boiled down to was, in Tony's exasperated words, "Magic is an inconsistent bitch."
And all the poking and prodding at the memories resulted in two more complete breakdowns where Bruce had to leave before Taryn's panic and screaming triggered his own loss of control, and Tony held her while Pepper gave her an injection of something that did nothing to stop the horrific visions from tormenting her but left her unable to fight or scream.
All in all, the day after the Avengers won the battle of New York was one of the worst of Taryn's life, and considering her recent history, that was saying something.
So today here she was, following Tony and Bruce into a roped-off Central Park because Bruce thought it might help her to watch Loki return to Asgard so she could be assured that he could not hurt her again. She was holding onto her control with sheer will and a large dose of Xanax because just the idea of Loki going to Asgard with his magic bound had her so edgy she could hardly speak. Only clenching her jaw until it ached stopped her teeth chattering with nerves.
Loki in chains was vibratingly, rigidly calm, his sorcerer's hands curled loosely, useless, as Thor escorted him none-too-gently to the center of the park. Taryn's fists clenched at the sight of them, remembering the way he'd traced runes of protection on her skin as he'd made love to her, spending magic even though he knew he would soon need it for his battle, wasting it in spells to protect her instead of himself, murmuring, "I will not bewitch you, my Taryn, my word upon it, trust me, surrender to me, believe that I will do anything to keep you safe." Her nails dug into her flesh and Tony was saying something to her but she couldn't even hear him over the roar in her head.
The Xanax made it possible for her to stand, even if she was not the slightest bit calm, against all the memories of torture and punishment and the certainty of more, and Taryn knew she and Loki were feeling exactly the same thing in this moment-the fear, the dread, the determination not to allow Thor and the Avengers to see their distress. To hide every sign of weakness.
Dr. Selvig placed the glowing Tesseract into a glass cannister, sealed it up and passed it to Thor. Taryn couldn't take her eyes from Loki, every line of his carefully, deliberately relaxed body, every inch of his cool face above the mask. He had not yet acknowledged her presence although she was certain he knew she was there.
Thor returned to Loki's side and held out the cannister, and now she saw the two handles, on at each end. He jabbed Loki with it in an unsubtle hint and Loki wrapped his fingers around the handle before finally looking up and meeting Taryn's eyes.
His were cold and hard as malachite, yet she knew he was storing up the sight of her. Knew he was saving one last memory of his chance at peace, now lost forever-one final glimpse to take with him into the torment that awaited him.
Realized she was staring at him the same way, saving up this sight for the same reason.
And as Thor turned his handle, as blue light stabbed down around them and Loki never once looked away, Taryn said, "I'm sorry, Tony," and leapt forward, latching onto Loki's arm just as the magic took hold and tore them from the face of the Earth.
.
A/N-sorry for the delay, I've had 3 computers die within the last 6 weeks. That is messed UP, yo. Loki, c'mon, don't be mad. Go read the other stories, be nice to me, I didn't mean it... *wibble*
