Avengers Fic: Ask Me No Questions 3/6
Chapter 3!
By the time Steve showed up in Clint’s apartment, Clint had convinced himself that Loki’s fall hadn’t been as serious as it had looked. The guy had been well enough to ask Tony for a drink just a short time after a thorough thrashing from the Hulk, and had been up on his feet not long after that. Falling a couple of stories was nothing. He probably just had the wind knocked out of him. Or he could just be playing possum so that he could complain to Thor that people were being mean to him. Yeah, that was probably it.
His confidence in his interpretation was seriously shaken, though, by the look on Steve’s-no, on Captain Rogers’s-face when Clint opened the door to him. “Do you want to explain yourself?” the Captain asked.
Clint backed up, letting Cap into the room. The thought crossed his mind to claim that Loki had attacked him first-but Jarvis had cameras all over the place; Steve had probably already seen exactly what happened. “I lost my temper,” he admitted. “I…didn’t feel like you guys were hearing what I was saying at the meeting, and then when I went out and saw him, it just pissed me off. I asked him if he was even sorry for what he did, he said he wasn’t, and I shoved him over the railing.”
Rogers just looked at him, his expression a mixture of disappointment and…something else.
“What do you want me to do? You want me to apologize?” Clint had intended the suggestion sarcastically at first, but he continued, “Fine, I’ll apologize. I’ll--”
“Clint,” Rogers interrupted. “He might die.”
“What?” Clint said. No, no, no. Thor was going to kill him. “That can’t be. He’s a god-or a Jotun, whatever that is.”
“According to Thor, without his magic, he’s a lot less durable.” Steve went on to explain Loki’s injuries. “A human would have been lucky to come off that lightly, but it’s still pretty serious. Dr. Banner is working on him, but it’ll be a while before we know what’s going to happen.” Before Clint even had time to process what he was hearing, he went on, “I’m placing you on administrative leave until such time as we decide how to proceed.” In a less formal tone, he added, “You’re not confined to quarters, but I’d recommend staying here for a while anyway. Thor’s sticking close to Loki right now, but….”
“Yeah,” Clint said. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He really didn’t want to run into Thor unexpectedly.
“Based on what you’ve told me, if he does die, I’ll do everything I can to have you charged with manslaughter here in America rather than…whatever they do on Asgard to someone who kills one of their princes.”
“What? That’s-that’s insane. Superheroes don’t get arrested for killing super villains. It’s our job.”
“We kill super villains when it’s the only way to protect innocent lives,” Rogers reminded him. “If possible, we bring them in alive to face justice. You assaulted a foreign dignitary-a foreign dignitary who is also a war criminal, but still-while he was minding his own business. Whatever your personal feelings are, that’s against the law. Not to mention the potential for endangering our alliance with Asgard.”
When it put it like that, it wasn’t really a surprise that Cap would see it that way. “Right,” Clint said. “I…wasn’t thinking about any of that.”
“I know,” Steve said, with a slight smile. “Let’s just hope he lives. Apparently we’re out of touch with Asgard for the next few months, so if Loki’s recovered by then, maybe this will all blow over.”
#
“So, I gotta ask,” Tony said, gesturing with a beer bottle. “What is the deal with the horse?” He and Steve were in the medical bay’s waiting room, supporting Thor as he waited for news of Loki’s condition. Bruce had finished the surgery, and he said it would be a while before they could expect any improvement, but Thor insisted on staying as close as Bruce would let him.
Surprisingly, the drinking had been Thor’s idea. Apparently, the Asgardian idea of a sickbed vigil was to sit around telling stories about the patient-or maybe that was just Thor’s idea of a sickbed vigil; since he was the only sane person from Asgard they knew, it was hard to tell sometimes. In any case, Thor seemed to take for granted that you couldn’t tell stories without drinking.
“Which horse?” Thor asked.
“According to the myths, Loki gave birth to you guys’ dad’s horse. Sleep-Slep…the eight-legged one.”
Thor chuckled. “I will have to tell him that when he wakes. No, he did not birth the horse, but he is known as Sleipnir’s mother. It is a most amusing tale.”
But before he could tell it, Bruce came out of the infirmary. “No change,” he said quickly, holding up his hands. “Did you want to look in on him?”
Some time earlier-when they were all a lot more sober-Bruce had given all the caveats about how he didn’t know what normal vital signs for Loki’s species looked like, and even in a human it was hard to predict how brain injuries would turn out. But the upshot was that as far as he could tell, Loki was holding his own. A human in the same situation would probably stay unconscious for a while, so his body could put all its energy toward healing, so no news was probably good news. Bruce had gently but firmly tossed Thor out of the recovery room so that Bruce could concentrate on watching for any change-and so that Thor wouldn’t accidentally do Loki any further harm trying to drunkenly hug him. But he did let Thor go in and look at Loki for a couple of minutes every hour, and apparently visiting time had come around again.
Thor staggered to his feet and, leaning on Bruce’s shoulder, went inside.
“So,” Tony said to Steve, trusting that Thor was out of earshot. “Bedside vigil for a super villain. This is weird.”
“Yes, Tony,” Steve said patiently. “It hasn’t gotten any less weird since the last time you said that.”
“You need to be more drunk,” Tony accused him.
From inside the medical bay, there was a crash. “No,” Steve said, getting to his feet. “I don’t think I do.”
He went inside, returning a few moments later with Thor’s arm draped over his shoulder. “Midgardian healing-halls are so cluttered,” Thor complained.
“He tripped over a cart full of instruments,” Steve explained, depositing Thor back into his chair. “Fortunately, it was all our stuff, nothing borrowed from the hospital.”
Thor picked up his bottle and took a long drink. “So,” he said. “The tale of how Loki became Sleipnir’s mother.” He stared into the beer’s amber depths for a moment. “It happened when we were youths. He had made a wager with a certain builder, that he-the builder-could not build a wall around Asgard, with the help only of his horse. He under-estimated the strength of the builder’s horse, and it looked as though he would lose the bet. Loki does not like to lose a wager, so he tried several schemes to distract the horse from his work, without success.”
Thor fell silent, and Tony said, “In the version I heard, Loki turned himself into a mare and seduced the horse.”
Thor laughed. “No, not even Loki would do such a thing. It was an ordinary mare, who happened to go into heat at the right moment. Loki realized that, by offering her to the stallion, he could win his wager and at the same time possess the foal of such a magnificent steed. He succeeded, and we all thought it an excellent trick. But when the mare’s time came…things did not go well. With eight legs instead of four, the foal was simply too large, and could not be positioned correctly for birth. The mare died.”
Thor shook his head somberly and went on, “Loki felt responsible, since it had been his trick in the first place, so he took it on himself to rear the foal on goat’s milk. He all but lived in the stable until the foal was weaned, and until Sleipnir was fully grown, he followed Loki everywhere, like a puppy. Loki had meant to have the magnificent stallion’s colt for his own mount, but when the time came to break Sleipnir to ride, he did not welcome having his foster-mother on his back, though he could be persuaded to tolerate another rider. So Loki gave him to father. But Sleipnir still remembers him, and whenever they meet, will not leave Loki’s side until he conjures a bit of sugar or some other tidbit for him.”
For some reason, Thor looked sad about that. “Hey, it’s a cute story,” Tony tried to reassure him. Rescuer of orphaned baby animals was certainly not a role Tony would have guessed for Loki, but it just went to show you.
Went to show you what, Tony was a little too drunk to figure out.
Thor shook his head. “I had forgotten…shortly before we left Asgard, I had drawn Loki from his rooms for a walk, and we chanced to encounter Sleipnir. With his magic bound, Loki was unable to conjure a treat for him, and I am sure Sleipnir did not understand.”
Clearly, Thor had passed into the maudlin stage of drunkenness. “He’ll just have to start carrying sugar in his pockets like a normal person,” Tony suggested. Assuming he lived, anyway.
Thor smiled bravely. “Yes. Yes, I suppose he will.”
#
Loki struggled toward consciousness, and pain. He thought, hazily, that he must have been in battle, and suffered such injuries that even his magic could not heal them entirely. The details of the battle swam just out of reach; Loki did not pursue them.
His head felt as though it had been cleaved in two, and when he tried to move, pain stabbed through his shoulder and chest.
Best not to try that, then. It was quiet, where he was, so the battle must have ended. Easing his eyes open, he saw that it was light, as well. Moving only his eyes, he checked first to one side, then the other. Thor sat dozing in a chair by his bedside.
Loki remembered that there was some reason that Thor being there should not mean that they had prevailed and all was well-but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Giving in to the feeling of safety, he allowed his eyes to drift closed again, and slept.
#
Two days after Loki’s emergency surgery, Bruce sat by his bedside. The drunken party in the waiting room had broken up in the small hours of the morning after Loki’s injury, but Thor had kept up the vigil on his own. Once he was sober, and Loki’s condition was stable, Bruce had let him back into the recovery room. After a day and a half of Thor watching Loki like a mother hen, Bruce had finally persuaded him to get a little rest himself, in one of the other cubicles. But he’d had to promise that he’d take Thor’s place while he slept.
As far as Bruce could tell, the surgery had worked. The pressure inside Loki’s skull had stabilized, and the scans showed electrical activity in his brain. He was breathing on his own, and the other autonomic processes-circulation, temperature regulation, and so on-appeared to be working all right, though since Bruce didn’t know what baseline levels for a Jotun would look like, he couldn’t be certain. Most promisingly, Loki stirred from time to time, seeming to transition between deep unconsciousness and something like normal sleep. Now they just had to wait for him to wake up, to find out if he’d suffered any brain damage or not.
When Thor was awake, casting worried looks at Loki and asking for news of his brother’s condition, it was easy to think of Loki as just another patient. But now that he was sleeping, Bruce’s thoughts kept returning to how strange it was that he was putting so much effort into caring for a murderous super villain. True, Loki was helpless now-but he wouldn’t be forever. It was entirely possible that he’d saved Loki just to fight him again.
But he still had to do it, of course. Even putting medical ethics aside, Thor would be devastated if his brother died.
Loki stirred. It wasn’t the first time-usually, whenever Loki so much as twitched, Thor got very excited, yelling for Bruce to come examine him, and pleading with Loki to wake up and be all right. Since he’d agreed to take Thor’s place, Bruce figured he’d better do something at least like what Thor would do. “Hey, Loki,” he said. “I don’t know if you can hear me. You got hurt, but we’re taking good care of you. Thor’s been here just about the whole time-he’s taking a nap now. He’ll be really happy if you wake up.”
Loki’s eyes opened.
#
Someone was babbling at him. Loki had the sense that it was not the first time, though he couldn’t clearly recall any of the earlier incidents. His memories had started to come back to him, in bits and pieces. He thought-unless he was missing something else-that he must be on Midgard still, in the custody of Thor’s mortal friends.
The details of how he’d come to be injured were still lost to him, but Loki knew that was normal. The memories would likely come back.
If they didn’t, the mortals would surely be more than happy to tell him what he’d done.
Opening his eyes, Loki took in a little more of his surroundings. No Thor, this time. Just Banner. And the bit of ceiling and wall that he could see had a distinctly Midgardian look to it, though it wasn’t a part of Stark’s Tower that he’d seen before.
“Loki?” Banner said. “Are you awake?”
It hurt to draw enough breath to speak, but the geas compelled him to respond, “Yes.”
“Oh, good,” Banner said, standing up and shining a small, bright light into Loki’s eyes. “Do you, uh, let’s see…do you remember your name?”
“Yes.”
“Good…do you know where you are?”
Was it some strange Midgardian custom to pester the injured with inane questions? “Yes.”
“The one-word answers are not exactly helping me assess your neurological status,” Banner snapped. “I don’t suppose you know who the president of the United States is.”
Now Loki couldn’t even give him a one-word answer, since he hadn’t asked a question.
“Did you even know before?” Banner added.
“No.”
“Great. Okay,” Banner said. “What about the king of Asgard? What’s his name?”
“Odin Borson. Called All-Father.”
“All right, now we’re getting somewhere. What’s your full name?”
“Loki,” he said. He would have stopped there, and when the geas didn’t let him, he tried to answer Laufeyson, but the geas only allowed him to answer, “Odinson.”
“And where are you?”
“Midgard.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Yes.” He could guess, anyway.
“Are you deliberately trying to be difficult?”
“No,” Loki admitted. In his experience, it was not at all wise to be deliberately difficult with healers when one was in a vulnerable position.
“Okay,” Banner said. “Hold on, let me…where are you, specifically?”
“The Tower of Stark. I think.”
“Yes, you are. The infirmary. You’ve been here for the last couple of days. Do you remem-no, wait, that won’t work. How were you injured?”
“I remember…falling.”
Banner nodded. “Is that all you remember about your injuries?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fine. That’s-it’s normal to lose some memories of the time surrounding a head injury. How do you feel?”
Loki was too tired and weak to even begin to figure out an answer to that question. “Hurts,” he said, when it became clear that the geas wasn’t going to let him ignore it.
“Okay. Yeah, we can’t give you much pain medication. Between the head injury, and you being an alien, you know. Not safe. You think you can tough it out?”
Of course he could. He was a Loki of Asgard. He was a god. “Yes,” the god said feebly, and slipped back into unconsciousness.
#
“Why did you not wake me immediately?” Thor asked, as soon as he understood what Bruce was saying.
“He wasn’t up for long,” Bruce explained. “And I had to do a neurological exam-that just means, ask him some questions and see if he’s able to respond normally, nothing invasive,” he added hastily, when Thor started to look alarmed. “I was going to come get you afterwards, but then he fell back to sleep, and there didn’t seem much point in waking you.”
It was just like Loki to wake during the only period of his illness that Thor was not present. The idea would be reassuring, if he thought Loki had any control over it. “And was he able to, as you say, respond normally?”
“Yes,” Bruce said. “He knows who he is, and where he is. He even remembers a little bit about how he came to be injured. That doesn’t guarantee there aren’t any more subtle neurological defects, but those are all good signs. It looks like he’s going to be okay.”
“This is good news,” Thor said. It had been troubling enough to think that Loki might die, and leave Thor bereft of his company. His fears had grown even worse when he realized that it was unlikely to be considered a warrior’s death. And if Loki was left a broken shell, to eventually die of old age, he would still be denied his place in Valhalla.
Thor had to admit that his desire for his brother to achieve a place in Valhalla was largely theoretical. Mostly, he just wanted him to live.
“Yeah,” Bruce said, clapping him on the shoulder. “It is.”
Thor recognized that Bruce was not being entirely sincere-to him, Loki was an enemy, and his continued good health was not a reason to rejoice. But he understood that Bruce was truly glad that Thor was glad, and that was good enough.
Taking up his place by Loki’s bed, Thor sent for a large breakfast, and ate it with more enthusiasm than he had any of the meals that Bruce and the others had pressed on him over the last few days. As he ate, he explained to Loki what Bruce had said about his condition. That didn’t take very long, so afterwards, he moved on to talking to Loki about the things they could do together once he was recovered.
“…and once we have returned to Asgard, we shall go and visit Sleipnir. I told Tony the story of how you came to be his mother, and he made the most excellent suggestion that--” Thor instantly forgot what he was saying as Loki stirred. “Loki? Do you wake, brother?”
Loki groaned a little.
“Loki? Dr. Banner, he wakes! Loki?” Loki opened his eyes, and Thor said, “Brother, I cannot say how glad I am to see you well.”
Loki looked over at the doorway, where Bruce had appeared. “Hey, Loki,” Bruce said. “How are you feeling?”
“I am in pain,” Loki said, sounding so much himself that Thor could have wept.
“That’s to be expected,” Bruce said, coming up to the other side of the bed and looking over the machines that, he had explained, monitored Loki’s vital signs. “Is it-no, wait.” Bruce appeared to think for a moment. “How is it, compared to last time we talked?”
“It is no worse,” Loki said sulkily.
“Well, that’s something.”
As Bruce went on examining Loki, Thor explained, “Dr. Banner has been attending to your injuries. I admit I had some fear of relying on mortal medicine-particularly the procedure Dr. Banner described-but my misgivings were not founded.”
Thor thought that his remark might prompt Loki to ask about his treatment or his injuries, but instead he just glared until Bruce said, “Thor, don’t pick on your brother while he’s injured.” Before Thor could ask what he meant, he went on, “Loki, do you have any questions about your condition?”
“Yes,” Loki said sulkily.
“Okay, let me…wait a second. First, do you want me to ask Thor to leave the room while you ask them?”
“Why would he?” Thor asked.
“On this realm, we have a thing called medical privacy,” Bruce explains. “It means people have a right to talk to their doctor without their family members present, if they want to. Loki? Wait, do I have to ask the question again?”
“No,” Loki said.
“Now I’m not sure which-I will get the hang of this, I promise. Which question were you answering just now?”
“Both of them.”
“So Thor can stay?”
“Yes.”
Thor felt that he’d understood very little of the exchange, but Bruce and Loki both seemed satisfied, so he forebore to speak further.
“What do you want to know?” Bruce asked.
“Am I going to die?” Loki asked.
“No-at least, I don’t think so. Not unless something unexpected happens. Like I’ve been telling Thor-and everyone else-for the last couple of days, I’ve had to make a lot of guesses about your physiology. But I think you’re out of danger. What else do you want to know?”
“Will I be crippled? Moreso than I already am?”
“You shouldn’t be. Your arm will have to be immobilized for a while-for a human, it would be at least eight weeks.” Loki’s good hand went to his opposite shoulder, exploring the shell of hardened plaster that Bruce had put there, which covered the upper part of his arm and kept it bound tightly to his body. “We’ll have to wait and see if it heals any faster. Or slower, I guess. And you’ll probably need some physical therapy afterwards, but in time, you should be…the same as before.”
“Dr. Banner is a skilled healer,” Thor said reassuringly, patting Loki’s uninjured shoulder.
Then they stood looking at each other for a moment, until Bruce said, “Oh, right. What else do you want to know?”
Loki went on to ask about the extent of his injuries, and the devices that surrounded him. Banner patiently answered all of his questions, calling a halt only when Loki began to tire. “Look, why don’t you get some rest? Is there anything else you need?”
“Restoration of my magic,” Loki replied.
“You know he cannot do that,” Thor pointed out.
“Yeah, I’m sure he does,” Bruce said. “Other than that, is there anything else you need, Loki?”
“No.”
As soon as Banner left the room, it was as if Loki’s well of words dried up. Soon he was asleep again, leaving Thor watching at his bedside.
#
By the time Bruce drank a cup of coffee and updated Loki’s chart, the nurse Tony had arranged to borrow from the hospital arrived. She’d come along with the surgical equipment the first time, and Bruce had been pretty surprised when she turned up again the next day. She’d explained then that Tony had arranged for her to come daily until she wasn’t needed anymore.
“Hi, Annie,” Bruce said to her as she took off her coat and stowed her purse in the locking drawer of the desk in the infirmary’s little office. Bruce had explained that since access to the building was tightly controlled, there wasn’t really any need to lock up her belongings, but apparently it was a habit. “Some changes today. Loki’s woken up.”
“Has he?” Annie looked genuinely pleased. “That’s good. I’m sure his family will be relieved.”
When it had become clear that Annie was sticking around long enough to eventually be exposed to a conscious Loki, Bruce had explained who he was. Annie had taken the news, that her private-duty patient was the same super villain who had nearly destroyed her city a few months ago, with commendable professionalism. “Yes-Thor’s with him now. If you’ll be all right on your own, I’m going to go upstairs for a bit.”
Bruce watched Annie closely for any sign that she was uncomfortable, but she just nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll have Mr. Jarvis alert you if anything comes up.”
“He’s still pretty weak, so I don’t think he’ll try to get up. And he has some…communication difficulties. Pre-existing. Thor can explain.”
“I’m sure we’ll be all right.”
Still, no matter how Annie felt about it, Bruce wasn’t entirely comfortable himself with leaving a civilian alone, apart from an incorporeal butler, with Loki. So before he left, he stopped by Loki’s room.
“He is sleeping,” Thor said, looking up at Bruce from the chair by Loki’s bedside.
“Good. Are you sticking around for a while?”
“Yes, of course.” Thor had barely left the infirmary in the last few days, and never at the same time as Bruce did.
“Annie’s on duty, so I’m going to get something to eat and check on some things in the lab. If you do decide to step out….” There was no way to say it other than to just say it. “Get one of the others down here first.”
Thor didn’t ask why-he was unreasonably optimistic where his brother was concerned, but he wasn’t stupid. He agreed, and Bruce headed out.
After a brief stopover in his apartment, Bruce headed to the bio lab, a bagel in one hand and coffee in the other. At times like these, it would be more convenient to have his lab space somewhere near the infirmary, instead of at the top of the building-but when Tony had designed the building, having Bruce’s lab near enough to his own that he could pop in and be annoying anytime he felt like it had been the priority.
That being the case, Bruce wasn’t terribly surprised when Tony showed up while Bruce’s computer was still booting.
“Hey. How’s everybody’s favorite super villain?” Tony, munching a bagel of his own, snooped around the lab bench.
“Conscious,” Bruce answered. “And if you get bagel crumbs in those cultures, you’ll end up being his roommate.”
“Tchah. The Other Guy loves me,” Tony said, but he did take a step back. “Clint’ll be relieved.”
Once he’d sorted out that Tony meant relieved about Loki, not about the Other Guy loving Tony, Bruce asked, “Isn’t he the one who threw him off the balcony in the first place?” He was a little out of the loop, the last couple of days, but he could have sworn he’d heard that.
“Yeah, but Steve’s been all foreign dignitary, tenuous alliance, blah-blah-blah manslaughter. You know how he gets.”
Bruce hadn’t even thought of that angle. “He has a point. Anyway, now that he’s conscious, the pain management issue has become a lot more pressing.” So far, they’d been giving Loki Tylenol, on the grounds that Thor had taken some on his first trip to Earth, and it hadn’t done him any harm. But it was doing things to Loki’s liver values that Bruce wasn’t sure if he should be alarmed about or not, and in any case, it wasn’t really adequate painkiller for a guy with a half a dozen fractures and recent cranial surgery.
“No help from Thor, huh?” Tony asked. The last time they spoke about it, Bruce had been planning to ask Thor what they used for pain control on Asgard.
“He said mostly spells, which doesn’t help us much. There’s also a potion his mother makes, but Thor doesn’t know what’s in it.” He’d said he thought there were herbs of some kind involved, which didn’t narrow things down much.
“You could ask Loki, now that he’s awake,” Tony pointed out.
Somehow, that thought hadn’t occurred to Bruce. Before he could say so, Tony went on.
“I mean, he’s basically a geek, right? Maybe not a medical-type geek, but Thor’s basically, like, a jock. He’s not going to know anything. Loki might.”
“No, you’re right,” Bruce said. “I just didn’t think of it that way.” He and Tony were definitely the Avengers’ team geeks. It was a little weird to think of Loki as being, in a way, part of the club.
Even weirder if he remembered that frankly disturbing conversation he’d overheard between Tony and Thor on the jet a couple of weeks ago. In the alternate reality that Thor had suggested-where he, Thor, tried to take over the world and Odin sent Loki down to help stop him-the team would have ended up with an even geek/jock split.
“It’s kind of too bad about him being evil, ‘cause I’d sure like to find out how that magic shit works,” Tony added.
“That reminds me, Thor did an absolutely terrible job of explaining how that geas works.”
“He didn’t explain how it works at all,” Tony objected.
Fair point. “No, but he did a terrible job of explaining the effects, too. It turns out that really annoying thing where half the time Loki won’t say anything but ‘yes’ or ‘no’ isn’t really his fault. I mean, he’s probably enjoying it, but if you phrase what you want to know as a yes-or-no question -like if you were, say, doing a neurological exam and you say, ‘Can you tell me your name?’-“
“All he can say is yes,” Tony realized. “Damn, I should have caught that sooner. Jarvis was like that for a while when I first made him.”
“Well, up until now, that he was fucking with us was the more likely conclusion,” Bruce pointed out. “But not even Loki’s going to troll the guy who’s actively trying to save his life.”
“Probably not, anyway.”
“Once I figured out what was going on, I asked,” Bruce explained. “He actually seemed kind of relieved that somebody had figured it out. He’s been a lot more talkative since I’ve been asking the right questions.”
“Hey, maybe now we can start picking his brain about how his magic works.” At Bruce’s glare, Tony added, “Once he’s feeling better, I mean.”
“I don’t know about that,” Bruce answered. “I haven’t figured out all of the details of the geas-I keep wanting to say curse-but I think he has the option of giving true-but-unhelpful answers. Right now he’s kind of motivated to be as forthcoming as possible, since he knows I’m trying to help him.”
“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Say, once you get your hands on some Norse-god-safe pain medication, how would you feel about implying that it’s, you know, contingent on answering a few questions?”
“I feel like it would be a morally disgusting violation of medical ethics; why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Tony lied.
#
The next time Loki woke, he submitted with ill grace as the mortal assistant healer-a plump woman with skin the color of Heimdall’s and the air generally described as “motherly”-gave him a bed-bath and fed him an overly-sweet, noxiously-colored concoction known as “Jello.” As she worked, she chattered aimlessly-to him or to Thor, Loki wasn’t sure-about subjects ranging from her son’s difficulties in school to her aching feet. “One nice thing about this assignment, I get to sit down,” she explained. “At the hospital, I have six post-op patients on my load, and none of them think they’re being any trouble, but it’s just one thing after another. As soon as you get one settled, another one needs something.”
“I am sure that they appreciate your dedication to your calling,” Thor said politely.
“They do, uh-huh. I have a whole file of thank-you notes I take out and look at when I have a chance. Makes me feel good about myself.”
“I see.” Thor looked thoughtful. Probably he was trying to figure out where he could obtain a crayon to write one.
Loki found himself somewhat relieved when Dr. Banner came back. So far, he’d demonstrated a surprising ability to ask meaningful questions and to confine himself to the subject at hand.
Now, for example, after conferring with Annie and Thor about Loki’s recent activities, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Still in pain,” Loki informed him. “Also annoyed by being surrounded by chattering magpies.”
“Annie, maybe this would be a good time for your coffee break,” Banner suggested.
“I will show you where we keep it,” Thor said, escorting the woman out with a backward, disapproving look at Loki.
Once they were gone, Banner went on, “We might actually be able to do something about the pain problem. Thor said that you use potions as well as spells for healing on Asgard. How much do you know about that?”
He had been doing so well with the questions. “A fair amount.”
“Good! See, the problem we’ve been having is that I don’t know how your body will react to any of our medicines-Thor said we could test them on him, but I understand you guys aren’t, uh, technically the same species, so I wasn’t sure how well that would work. I’m hoping that now that you’re awake, we can find something you’ve taken before, safely, that also exists here.” He paused, as if waiting for a response, then appeared to realize that Loki couldn’t answer. “Do you think that might work?”
Loki considered. Healing potions were usually compounded using magic, but the mortals had come up with all kinds of substitutes for magic on this realm. Fortunately, Banner had asked if it might work, not if it would. “Yes.”
“Okay. Let’s see…how do you want to get started figuring this out?”
That was a good question. “I could begin by describing some of the pain-relieving compounds I’m familiar with, and see if you recognize anything.”
#
They talked shop for a while, but even once Bruce got the hang of keeping Loki going by asking broad questions, there was a substantial communication gap. He had been expecting that Loki would say something like, “We drink tea made out of poppy seeds,” and then Bruce could go get some morphine.
It wasn’t like that at all. Instead, Loki started by listing a number of substances Bruce had never heard of, and explaining how to combine them using methods that he’d never heard of, either. The more Bruce told him he had to break it down and start simpler, the more frustrated Loki got. Bruce didn’t blame him; he had to rely on every calming technique he’d ever learned to keep his temper, and he wasn’t the one with six bone fractures and a hole in his head. “I still don’t understand,” he said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Let’s start over. What is--” Bruce tried to remember which incomprehensible thing they were talking about at the moment. “Bones-of-giants?” They had managed to establish that it wasn’t the actual bones of actual giants, but other than that, Bruce was still lost. “Where do you get it?”
“Anywhere,” Loki said, gesturing sharply with his uninjured hand, then grunting as the motion jarred his bad shoulder.
“Maybe we don’t have it on Earth.” Loki glared at him. “Okay, why was that a stupid thing to say?”
“Of course you have it on Earth. All the realms have it. It has six brothers and six sisters.”
Loki had been going on about brothers and sisters for quite some time now. “I still don’t get it. What are the brothers and sisters?” Maybe if he could figure out what Loki was saying this substance was related to, he could backtrack to what it actually was. “What else can you tell me?”
“They’re brothers and sisters,” Loki said, sounding like he couldn’t believe how stupid Bruce was not to understand this. “In the center. Then there is one pair of warriors in the first rank, and two pairs in the second rank. Six brothers, six warriors. You complete imbecile.”
“All right, shut up for a minute.” The Other Guy didn’t appreciate his tone, and Bruce himself wasn’t too thrilled about it, either. Bruce closed his eyes and counted to ten in every language he knew, breathing in slowly through his nose and out through his mouth. “Calling me an imbecile is not going to help anything,” he added, racking his brains for some common plant that had six of two different things in the center and six of something else around it.
“Sir,” Jarvis said suddenly. “I may be able to assist.”
Bruce looked up at the corner of the room where he knew one of Jarvis’s cameras was. “How?” Still in talking-to-Loki mode, he added, “What do you need?”
“If you could bring one of my holographic projectors into the room, I will demonstrate,” Jarvis answered.
Bruce agreed. Even if Jarvis’s idea didn’t work, getting the projector at least gave him an excuse to leave the room for a few minutes. When he returned, bringing the projector on a cart, he cravenly hoped that Loki might have fallen asleep while he was gone. He didn’t want to be the one to suggest a break, since Loki was the one in pain, but he was as close to hulking out as he’d ever been, in a non-combat situation.
Unfortunately, Loki was still awake and glaring when he returned. Bruce took his time plugging in the projector and focusing the startup image. “Okay, Loki, can you see that all right?”
“Yes.”
“Jarvis, do your stuff.”
Jarvis projected an image that Bruce recognized instantly. Six yellow spheres forming a cluster with six white ones, surrounded by six blue spheres, forming ranks of two and four.
If it was as simple as that, no wonder Loki thought he was an imbecile.
“Is this what you were describing?” Jarvis asked. “The yellow spheres represent the, ah, brothers, and the white the sisters--”
“Yes,” Loki said.
Bruce took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We call that carbon,” he said carefully. “And the one with eight brothers and sisters-what did you call that one?”
“All-mother’s tears,” Loki supplied.
“That’s oxygen.”
It wasn’t entirely smooth sailing from there-once they’d identified the basic elements, they still had to work out a common vocabulary for combining them into molecules. But now that Bruce finally understood that they were talking about , not botany, he could ask the right questions.
With Jarvis’s help, they put together a molecular diagram. As it rotated in holographic display in front of them, Bruce said, “I don’t recognize it, but it should be easy enough to synthesize. Jarvis?”
“Already started, sir.”
After reinventing the entire discipline of chemistry from scratch, figuring out dosage in unfamiliar measurements was a snap. By the time Jarvis was finished synthesizing the drug, they had a starting dose worked out.
It wasn’t until he was in the process of injecting it into Loki’s IV port that Bruce thought to ask, “This is just a painkiller, right?”
Eyeing him suspiciously, Loki said, “No.”
Bruce reminded himself not to panic. Aspirin, chemically speaking, did more than just relieve pain, too. And the geas was pretty literal. It didn’t necessarily mean that he’d just helped Loki make something that would restore his powers or otherwise enable him to commit mayhem. “What else does it do?”
“It may speed the repair of the damaged bones. Slightly.”
Not a problem. “Anything else? Anything….” He searched for a more specific word than bad. “Does it do anything that will make you any more dangerous than you were before Clint shoved you off the balcony?”
“No.”
“Great.” He finished the injection. “Get some rest; Thor’s going to keep an eye on you.”
#
Tony had to call Bruce and invite him to dinner three times-describing the take-out order in increasing detail each time-before Bruce finally got off his ass and came.
“I’m not going to be very good company,” Bruce warned him as he helped himself to pad thai. “I had kind of a…frustrating day.”
“I saw,” Tony said, offering Bruce the yellow curry.
“You were watching that? Tony--”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, privacy is a thing.” Tony shrugged. “You know we have to keep an eye on Loki. Anyway, don’t worry-I didn’t get it too much earlier than you did.”
“You could have said something. I thought my head was going to explode.”
“That’s what you get for cheating on me,” Tony informed him. “Anyway, I was just about to give you a hint when Jarvis did.” Tony grinned. “Want to know what the hint was?”
“Sur e.”
“‘One moon circles.’ You know, like that one Star Trek episode where they--”
“Had to discuss chemistry with aliens,” Bruce finished. “Through dreams. Yeah. That would have helped.”
“I didn’t realize they had chemistry on Asgard,” Tony went on. “You wouldn’t guess it from Thor.”
“There are a lot of humans that, if they were the only one you had to go by, you wouldn’t realize we had chemistry, either.” Bruce squinted at his fork. “Did that make sense?”
“No, but I get what you mean.”
“Anyway, the drugs should keep him out of our hair for a few days. I’m not looking forward to having to taper him off of it, though. And if we’re doing Star Trek episodes, it was really more like that other one.” Bruce made a gesture that could have been anything from a banana to a pair of breasts to an oxygen molecule. “You know.”
Ordinarily, Tony would have pretended not to understand, but after the day Bruce had had, not even he was that much of a douchebag. “Darmok,” he said instead.
“Yeah, only the alien had tried to blow up the Enterprise a couple of months before.”
“And he’s Worf’s adopted brother.”
“And Riker threw him off a balcony,” Bruce added.
“Wait, Clint’s Riker now?”
“You’re definitely not Riker,” Bruce said, although Tony hadn’t been thinking that he was. “You’re…Kirk and Spock’s illegitimate love child that they’re both ashamed of, but for completely different reasons.”
Tony would have protested, but it kind of fit.
#
It was a measure of how bored Clint was that when Cap told him he was allowed to come out of his apartment for a meeting, Clint was actually sort of relieved. He didn’t have much hope that it was going to be the fun kind of meeting-i.e., the kind that immediately preceded a fight-but he’d already watched everything he wanted to watch, and had been reduced to throwing a ball against the wall and catching it for entertainment. Even a meeting was better than that.
At least, he thought so right up until the moment when Steve said, “Thor, what can you tell us about potential repercussions of the balcony incident?” And Thor got a confused look on his face, like he had no idea what Steve was talking about.
Clint had been assuming that, sometime over the last few days, someone had explained to Thor how Clint had almost killed his baby brother, and had then held him down until the murderous rage passed. It seemed a safe assumption given how Clint’s head was still attached to his body and everything. But now Clint was wondering if, owing to all the almost-dying said baby brother had been doing, Thor just hadn’t had a chance to look into the issue yet.
“Repercussions?” Thor said. Turning to Bruce, he added, “You said he would recover, did you not?”
“Yes,” Bruce said. “I think Steve means…politically. With your, uh, parents, and everything.”
“Ah,” Thor said. “Mother will be most troubled, of course.”
Troubled wasn’t normally an alarming word, but given that it was one Thor tended to use to describe Loki in a murdering mood, Clint wasn’t reassured. “Troubled like…is there gonna be smiting?”
“Or a severing of diplomatic relations?” Steve asked.
“Godly vengeance of any kind, really, is what we’re asking about,” Tony added. “Against Clint personally or Earth as a whole.”
Then Thor chuckled. It took Clint a moment to realize that it was the kind of laughing you did when something wasn’t really funny at all. “My friends,” he said soberly. “Your concern does you credit. But I insisted on bringing him to Midgard because I feared for his safety. He is out of favor in the All-father’s court, and the truth of his heritage has been revealed to all. This is not the first time he has been injured since he was stripped of his magic.”
“Wait,” Bruce said. “So people have been beating up on Loki for a while now…and your dad doesn’t care?”
Clint had to admit, that sounded a little fucked up. Not that he was exactly eager to face consequences for flipping Loki off a balcony….but still. He figured it was fair for the guy’s nearest and dearest to at least want to crush Clint like a bug, even if he was going to use every means at his disposal to stop if from actually happening.
Thor looked at his hands. “I believe that Father does care,” he said slowly. “Although Loki would disagree. The king, however, has decided not to intercede when Loki reaps the fruit of the discord he has sown.”
Clint reminded himself that he was absolutely not going to feel sorry for Loki. There wasn’t anybody in this tower who didn’t have Daddy issues, and only one of them had tried to take over the world.
“So,” Thor continued, “if Loki wished, he could pursue private justice.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Steve asked, before Clint could.
“The holmgang is…I believe you would call it a duel. Trial by single combat. He would state the recompense he wishes to receive for the insult, and if he won, the aggressor-or rather, his heirs-would be required to pay.” Before Clint could get really alarmed, Thor went on, “Loki is aware that without his magic, he is unlikely to prevail in such a challenge. He is permitted to name himself a champion, but he has been reluctant to nominate me in that capacity.”
“So if people attack him, he can either shut up and take it, or ask his big brother to fight his battles for him?” Steve asked. Clint could see how Loki wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with either of those options.
Thor nodded. “In this case, I understand that Clint did not intend to seriously harm him. And that my brother provoked you with his words,” he added, looking at Clint.
“So if he asks you to do this gang thing…?” Clint trailed off.
“I could not refuse any reasonable request that he makes as my brother,” Thor said finally. “But given that he has also refused to acknowledge our kinship, I do not think you need worry about it.”
“Okay,” Steve said. “So we can handle it as an internal team matter.”
Clint strongly suspected that meant there was community-based superheroing in his future, but given that he’d started this meeting worrying he was going to be pounded into a paste by Thor, that didn’t seem too bad.
“That does bring us to another issue, though,” Bruce said. “The--” He gestured vaguely. “Verbal provocation.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, taking more of an interest in the proceedings. “I couldn’t get good audio on that. What did he actually say?”
Clint glanced warily at Thor. “That he wasn’t sorry he killed Phil.”
“You were surprised?” Tony asked.
Thor sighed, and said, “My brother--”
“Let’s not get sidetracked,” Bruce interrupted. “We all heard that Loki is under a geas that means he has to answer any question you ask him, honestly. Think about what that means for a minute.” After a suitable pause, presumably for them all to think about it, Bruce went on, “He didn’t just volunteer the information that he wasn’t sorry he killed Phil. You must have asked him.”
“Yeah, and he said ‘no,’” Clint answered.
“No,” Thor said, nodding. “Why would one be sorry to take another warrior’s life in battle? But I do not understand why he did not say something else.”
Bruce got very, very still all of the sudden. “You don’t?”
“No,” Thor repeated. “Surely he knows enough of your ways to realize that such an answer would swell Clint’s anger.”
“Shit,” Tony said. “Bruce, are you sure--”
“Yeah, yeah, I asked,” Bruce said to him, before turning back to Thor. “I was just about to explain to everybody else, but I kind of figured you’d know. The geas. He can’t say something else. It only lets him answer the question that was asked.”
“It’s like a lamp-wishes, monkey’s paw kind of thing,” Tony added.
“Right,” Bruce said. “You have to ask what you really mean to ask. You really didn’t know that?” he asked Thor.
“I have not made a study of magic,” Thor said. “I know that Loki’s spells often encompass such verbal trickery, but I assumed Father’s would be more direct.”
“Yeah, see,” Tony jumped in. “If you were Loki, you’d have just had to say ‘no,’ and not all that other helpful information.”
“So that’s, uh, something we should all keep in mind when we’re talking to Loki,” Bruce went on. “Yes-or-no questions sometimes back him into a corner where the only thing he can say comes across like he’s deliberately being an asshole, and I don’t think that’s any more fun for him than it is for us. And he can’t answer implied questions at all. Like, you know, ‘I don’t understand,’ or ‘Tell me about that.’ It has to be in the form of a question.”
Tony added, “I have to say, I was thinking the no-talking curse was kind of a lame punishment, but now that I know more about it, it really sucks. I wouldn’t last ten minutes before I was begging Odin to make it stop.”
“Except you wouldn’t be,” Bruce pointed out, “because you wouldn’t be able to talk.”
#
For Loki, the next few days passed in a pleasant, narcotic blur. He spent a great deal of time asleep, and when he was awake, he cared very little about what was going on around him-whether that was Thor babbling, Annie-the-nurse stuffing him with Jello, or Jarvis showing him cartoons on the projector no one had bothered taking out of his room.
After waking and engaging in several minutes of thoughtful contemplation of the ceiling, Loki languidly waved his hand in the direction of Jarvis’s camera.
“Good afternoon,” Jarvis said. “What can I assist you with?”
It had only taken the mechanical man three tries to find a way to phrase that question that didn’t require Loki to ask for his magic back.
“I wish to watch a movie,” he said. “The one where the furry blue individual abducts the small mortal child.”
The projector came to life, the opening credits of Monsters Inc. appearing over Loki’s hospital bed. “Shall I start at the beginning, or where you fell asleep last time?”
“Where I fell asleep.” Loki had a certain amount of difficulty staying awake for an entire feature-length film, but he often didn’t bother picking up the parts that he’d missed. He was decidedly too high to consider the reasons that he was determined to make it to the end of this one.
The projected image skipped forward. “Will there be anything else at this time?”
“No.” If Loki wanted anything else, he’d just wave at the camera again. Jarvis was very good at telling when he had something to say.
It may have just been the drugs talking, but Loki loved Jarvis.
The movie played. The blue monster and its friend, a green sphere with limbs and one large eye, took the small human child through various parts of the monsters’ homeworld, for reasons that Loki was not quite able to follow. He had a hazy sense that they were attempting to either return to child to Midgard or prevent her from being returned, but Loki wasn’t sure which.
Near the end of the movie, Dr. Banner came into the room. Jarvis obligingly paused playback.
“How are you feeling?” Banner asked.
“I am in no pain,” Loki informed him. It made refreshing change.
“I thought you might not be.” Banner sounded amused. “Here, let me see your head.”
Loki waved at Jarvis, and he obligingly moved the bed to a sitting position. As he did so, he rotated the stilled movie image to a convenient viewing angle for the new position.
It was that sort of attention to detail that had Loki wondering if there was some way he could steal Jarvis and take him back to Asgard. Perhaps if he had his powers back.
Putting the thought aside, he tipped his head forward, and Banner’s warm fingers probed the area where the stitches were placed. “This looks fine. I’d like to get some x-rays, see how your shoulder is coming along. Is that okay?”
“Okay,” Loki agreed. He may have giggled a little, because “okay” was a very amusing word. And he wondered how his shoulder was coming along, too-he had absolutely no idea how long it took for one of his bones to heal without magic. Even though he was feeling no pain at the moment, having half of his upper body immobilized wasn’t an experience he cared to continue any longer than necessary.
“You’re going to have to get up,” Banner added, and Loki wished he’d known that before he agreed. “I can get a wheelchair, or you can try to walk. What do you want to do?”
Loki blinked a few times. “Regain my powers and steal Jarvis.” Whoops. He hadn’t meant to say that second part.
“Right,” Banner said with a sigh. “Bad question. Which of the two options I just named do you want to do?”
“I shall walk,” Loki proclaimed, wondering why Banner wasn’t more alarmed about his plan to steal Jarvis.
#
Bruce kept a firm grip on Loki’s uninjured arm as Loki half-wandered, half-staggered down the hall to the x-ray cubicle. Initially, he was a little worried that the head injury had done some subtle damage to Loki’s balance or motor coordination, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the god-prisoner just kept being distracted by brightly colored objects.
“We call that a fire extinguisher,” Bruce explained, tugging Loki away from it. “We use it to…extinguish fires. Come on, we’ve got a destination in mind here.”
Bruce thought that he might have some trouble getting Loki to hold still for the x-rays, but it turned out not to be an issue-worn out from his adventure, Loki fell asleep on the table. When the x-rays were done, Bruce couldn’t get him to wake up enough to assist with the trip back, and had to get Thor to help him manhandle Loki into a wheelchair.
Definitely time to address the tapering-off issue.
He decided to bring it up with Thor first, once they got Loki back into his bed. Fortunately, Thor picked up on what he was talking about right away. “I have noticed that he does not seem himself,” Thor agreed. “At home, our healers would only give such potions for a short time, until the healing spells take effect. Hogun-one of my friends-took it for seven days after he was seared by a fire-drake, but the healers were anxious to cease it as soon as the pain became manageable.”
“Okay, good,” Bruce said, relieved. “And Loki knows about that?”
Thor’s brow creased. “He was there when Hogun attacked the fire-drake.”
That wasn’t quite what Bruce had been asking, but okay. “I’m just a little worried about what he’ll think when we tell him we’re taking him off the happy-juice. Like, uh, he might think he was being punished or something.”
“Why would he think that?”
“I don’t know.” Bruce shrugged. “The other day he asked if I left any explosives in his head while I was operating on him.”
Thor frowned. “Did you?”
“Of course not. I don’t know where he got that idea, unless maybe Jarvis was showing him scary movies.”
Jarvis spoke up. “I’ve only offered him entertainment that members of the team have viewed while recuperating from illness or injury.”
“Considering that one of the team is Clint and another is Natasha-not to mention Tony-that doesn’t mean much,” Bruce pointed out. “Anyway, I don’t want to alarm him while he’s…not thinking clearly.”
“If you like, I will speak to him,” Thor offered.
“Uh….” Bruce tried to think of a way to say “Thanks, but no thanks.” Despite having had it explained to him, Thor hadn’t quite gotten the hang of asking Loki questions that he could answer yet.
“Or I could,” Jarvis added. “I have it on good authority that he loves me.”
“I’m not sure that wanting to steal you is exactly the same thing as love,” Bruce pointed out.
In answer, Jarvis played a recording of Loki saying, “No, except, except--”
Jarvis’s voice, in the recording, said, “What is it you want to say?”
“I jus-just wanna say I love you, Jarvish.”
“Wow,” Bruce said. Then, “It’s definitely time to decrease his dosage.”
Link to Part 4
By the time Steve showed up in Clint’s apartment, Clint had convinced himself that Loki’s fall hadn’t been as serious as it had looked. The guy had been well enough to ask Tony for a drink just a short time after a thorough thrashing from the Hulk, and had been up on his feet not long after that. Falling a couple of stories was nothing. He probably just had the wind knocked out of him. Or he could just be playing possum so that he could complain to Thor that people were being mean to him. Yeah, that was probably it.
His confidence in his interpretation was seriously shaken, though, by the look on Steve’s-no, on Captain Rogers’s-face when Clint opened the door to him. “Do you want to explain yourself?” the Captain asked.
Clint backed up, letting Cap into the room. The thought crossed his mind to claim that Loki had attacked him first-but Jarvis had cameras all over the place; Steve had probably already seen exactly what happened. “I lost my temper,” he admitted. “I…didn’t feel like you guys were hearing what I was saying at the meeting, and then when I went out and saw him, it just pissed me off. I asked him if he was even sorry for what he did, he said he wasn’t, and I shoved him over the railing.”
Rogers just looked at him, his expression a mixture of disappointment and…something else.
“What do you want me to do? You want me to apologize?” Clint had intended the suggestion sarcastically at first, but he continued, “Fine, I’ll apologize. I’ll--”
“Clint,” Rogers interrupted. “He might die.”
“What?” Clint said. No, no, no. Thor was going to kill him. “That can’t be. He’s a god-or a Jotun, whatever that is.”
“According to Thor, without his magic, he’s a lot less durable.” Steve went on to explain Loki’s injuries. “A human would have been lucky to come off that lightly, but it’s still pretty serious. Dr. Banner is working on him, but it’ll be a while before we know what’s going to happen.” Before Clint even had time to process what he was hearing, he went on, “I’m placing you on administrative leave until such time as we decide how to proceed.” In a less formal tone, he added, “You’re not confined to quarters, but I’d recommend staying here for a while anyway. Thor’s sticking close to Loki right now, but….”
“Yeah,” Clint said. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He really didn’t want to run into Thor unexpectedly.
“Based on what you’ve told me, if he does die, I’ll do everything I can to have you charged with manslaughter here in America rather than…whatever they do on Asgard to someone who kills one of their princes.”
“What? That’s-that’s insane. Superheroes don’t get arrested for killing super villains. It’s our job.”
“We kill super villains when it’s the only way to protect innocent lives,” Rogers reminded him. “If possible, we bring them in alive to face justice. You assaulted a foreign dignitary-a foreign dignitary who is also a war criminal, but still-while he was minding his own business. Whatever your personal feelings are, that’s against the law. Not to mention the potential for endangering our alliance with Asgard.”
When it put it like that, it wasn’t really a surprise that Cap would see it that way. “Right,” Clint said. “I…wasn’t thinking about any of that.”
“I know,” Steve said, with a slight smile. “Let’s just hope he lives. Apparently we’re out of touch with Asgard for the next few months, so if Loki’s recovered by then, maybe this will all blow over.”
#
“So, I gotta ask,” Tony said, gesturing with a beer bottle. “What is the deal with the horse?” He and Steve were in the medical bay’s waiting room, supporting Thor as he waited for news of Loki’s condition. Bruce had finished the surgery, and he said it would be a while before they could expect any improvement, but Thor insisted on staying as close as Bruce would let him.
Surprisingly, the drinking had been Thor’s idea. Apparently, the Asgardian idea of a sickbed vigil was to sit around telling stories about the patient-or maybe that was just Thor’s idea of a sickbed vigil; since he was the only sane person from Asgard they knew, it was hard to tell sometimes. In any case, Thor seemed to take for granted that you couldn’t tell stories without drinking.
“Which horse?” Thor asked.
“According to the myths, Loki gave birth to you guys’ dad’s horse. Sleep-Slep…the eight-legged one.”
Thor chuckled. “I will have to tell him that when he wakes. No, he did not birth the horse, but he is known as Sleipnir’s mother. It is a most amusing tale.”
But before he could tell it, Bruce came out of the infirmary. “No change,” he said quickly, holding up his hands. “Did you want to look in on him?”
Some time earlier-when they were all a lot more sober-Bruce had given all the caveats about how he didn’t know what normal vital signs for Loki’s species looked like, and even in a human it was hard to predict how brain injuries would turn out. But the upshot was that as far as he could tell, Loki was holding his own. A human in the same situation would probably stay unconscious for a while, so his body could put all its energy toward healing, so no news was probably good news. Bruce had gently but firmly tossed Thor out of the recovery room so that Bruce could concentrate on watching for any change-and so that Thor wouldn’t accidentally do Loki any further harm trying to drunkenly hug him. But he did let Thor go in and look at Loki for a couple of minutes every hour, and apparently visiting time had come around again.
Thor staggered to his feet and, leaning on Bruce’s shoulder, went inside.
“So,” Tony said to Steve, trusting that Thor was out of earshot. “Bedside vigil for a super villain. This is weird.”
“Yes, Tony,” Steve said patiently. “It hasn’t gotten any less weird since the last time you said that.”
“You need to be more drunk,” Tony accused him.
From inside the medical bay, there was a crash. “No,” Steve said, getting to his feet. “I don’t think I do.”
He went inside, returning a few moments later with Thor’s arm draped over his shoulder. “Midgardian healing-halls are so cluttered,” Thor complained.
“He tripped over a cart full of instruments,” Steve explained, depositing Thor back into his chair. “Fortunately, it was all our stuff, nothing borrowed from the hospital.”
Thor picked up his bottle and took a long drink. “So,” he said. “The tale of how Loki became Sleipnir’s mother.” He stared into the beer’s amber depths for a moment. “It happened when we were youths. He had made a wager with a certain builder, that he-the builder-could not build a wall around Asgard, with the help only of his horse. He under-estimated the strength of the builder’s horse, and it looked as though he would lose the bet. Loki does not like to lose a wager, so he tried several schemes to distract the horse from his work, without success.”
Thor fell silent, and Tony said, “In the version I heard, Loki turned himself into a mare and seduced the horse.”
Thor laughed. “No, not even Loki would do such a thing. It was an ordinary mare, who happened to go into heat at the right moment. Loki realized that, by offering her to the stallion, he could win his wager and at the same time possess the foal of such a magnificent steed. He succeeded, and we all thought it an excellent trick. But when the mare’s time came…things did not go well. With eight legs instead of four, the foal was simply too large, and could not be positioned correctly for birth. The mare died.”
Thor shook his head somberly and went on, “Loki felt responsible, since it had been his trick in the first place, so he took it on himself to rear the foal on goat’s milk. He all but lived in the stable until the foal was weaned, and until Sleipnir was fully grown, he followed Loki everywhere, like a puppy. Loki had meant to have the magnificent stallion’s colt for his own mount, but when the time came to break Sleipnir to ride, he did not welcome having his foster-mother on his back, though he could be persuaded to tolerate another rider. So Loki gave him to father. But Sleipnir still remembers him, and whenever they meet, will not leave Loki’s side until he conjures a bit of sugar or some other tidbit for him.”
For some reason, Thor looked sad about that. “Hey, it’s a cute story,” Tony tried to reassure him. Rescuer of orphaned baby animals was certainly not a role Tony would have guessed for Loki, but it just went to show you.
Went to show you what, Tony was a little too drunk to figure out.
Thor shook his head. “I had forgotten…shortly before we left Asgard, I had drawn Loki from his rooms for a walk, and we chanced to encounter Sleipnir. With his magic bound, Loki was unable to conjure a treat for him, and I am sure Sleipnir did not understand.”
Clearly, Thor had passed into the maudlin stage of drunkenness. “He’ll just have to start carrying sugar in his pockets like a normal person,” Tony suggested. Assuming he lived, anyway.
Thor smiled bravely. “Yes. Yes, I suppose he will.”
#
Loki struggled toward consciousness, and pain. He thought, hazily, that he must have been in battle, and suffered such injuries that even his magic could not heal them entirely. The details of the battle swam just out of reach; Loki did not pursue them.
His head felt as though it had been cleaved in two, and when he tried to move, pain stabbed through his shoulder and chest.
Best not to try that, then. It was quiet, where he was, so the battle must have ended. Easing his eyes open, he saw that it was light, as well. Moving only his eyes, he checked first to one side, then the other. Thor sat dozing in a chair by his bedside.
Loki remembered that there was some reason that Thor being there should not mean that they had prevailed and all was well-but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Giving in to the feeling of safety, he allowed his eyes to drift closed again, and slept.
#
Two days after Loki’s emergency surgery, Bruce sat by his bedside. The drunken party in the waiting room had broken up in the small hours of the morning after Loki’s injury, but Thor had kept up the vigil on his own. Once he was sober, and Loki’s condition was stable, Bruce had let him back into the recovery room. After a day and a half of Thor watching Loki like a mother hen, Bruce had finally persuaded him to get a little rest himself, in one of the other cubicles. But he’d had to promise that he’d take Thor’s place while he slept.
As far as Bruce could tell, the surgery had worked. The pressure inside Loki’s skull had stabilized, and the scans showed electrical activity in his brain. He was breathing on his own, and the other autonomic processes-circulation, temperature regulation, and so on-appeared to be working all right, though since Bruce didn’t know what baseline levels for a Jotun would look like, he couldn’t be certain. Most promisingly, Loki stirred from time to time, seeming to transition between deep unconsciousness and something like normal sleep. Now they just had to wait for him to wake up, to find out if he’d suffered any brain damage or not.
When Thor was awake, casting worried looks at Loki and asking for news of his brother’s condition, it was easy to think of Loki as just another patient. But now that he was sleeping, Bruce’s thoughts kept returning to how strange it was that he was putting so much effort into caring for a murderous super villain. True, Loki was helpless now-but he wouldn’t be forever. It was entirely possible that he’d saved Loki just to fight him again.
But he still had to do it, of course. Even putting medical ethics aside, Thor would be devastated if his brother died.
Loki stirred. It wasn’t the first time-usually, whenever Loki so much as twitched, Thor got very excited, yelling for Bruce to come examine him, and pleading with Loki to wake up and be all right. Since he’d agreed to take Thor’s place, Bruce figured he’d better do something at least like what Thor would do. “Hey, Loki,” he said. “I don’t know if you can hear me. You got hurt, but we’re taking good care of you. Thor’s been here just about the whole time-he’s taking a nap now. He’ll be really happy if you wake up.”
Loki’s eyes opened.
#
Someone was babbling at him. Loki had the sense that it was not the first time, though he couldn’t clearly recall any of the earlier incidents. His memories had started to come back to him, in bits and pieces. He thought-unless he was missing something else-that he must be on Midgard still, in the custody of Thor’s mortal friends.
The details of how he’d come to be injured were still lost to him, but Loki knew that was normal. The memories would likely come back.
If they didn’t, the mortals would surely be more than happy to tell him what he’d done.
Opening his eyes, Loki took in a little more of his surroundings. No Thor, this time. Just Banner. And the bit of ceiling and wall that he could see had a distinctly Midgardian look to it, though it wasn’t a part of Stark’s Tower that he’d seen before.
“Loki?” Banner said. “Are you awake?”
It hurt to draw enough breath to speak, but the geas compelled him to respond, “Yes.”
“Oh, good,” Banner said, standing up and shining a small, bright light into Loki’s eyes. “Do you, uh, let’s see…do you remember your name?”
“Yes.”
“Good…do you know where you are?”
Was it some strange Midgardian custom to pester the injured with inane questions? “Yes.”
“The one-word answers are not exactly helping me assess your neurological status,” Banner snapped. “I don’t suppose you know who the president of the United States is.”
Now Loki couldn’t even give him a one-word answer, since he hadn’t asked a question.
“Did you even know before?” Banner added.
“No.”
“Great. Okay,” Banner said. “What about the king of Asgard? What’s his name?”
“Odin Borson. Called All-Father.”
“All right, now we’re getting somewhere. What’s your full name?”
“Loki,” he said. He would have stopped there, and when the geas didn’t let him, he tried to answer Laufeyson, but the geas only allowed him to answer, “Odinson.”
“And where are you?”
“Midgard.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Yes.” He could guess, anyway.
“Are you deliberately trying to be difficult?”
“No,” Loki admitted. In his experience, it was not at all wise to be deliberately difficult with healers when one was in a vulnerable position.
“Okay,” Banner said. “Hold on, let me…where are you, specifically?”
“The Tower of Stark. I think.”
“Yes, you are. The infirmary. You’ve been here for the last couple of days. Do you remem-no, wait, that won’t work. How were you injured?”
“I remember…falling.”
Banner nodded. “Is that all you remember about your injuries?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fine. That’s-it’s normal to lose some memories of the time surrounding a head injury. How do you feel?”
Loki was too tired and weak to even begin to figure out an answer to that question. “Hurts,” he said, when it became clear that the geas wasn’t going to let him ignore it.
“Okay. Yeah, we can’t give you much pain medication. Between the head injury, and you being an alien, you know. Not safe. You think you can tough it out?”
Of course he could. He was a Loki of Asgard. He was a god. “Yes,” the god said feebly, and slipped back into unconsciousness.
#
“Why did you not wake me immediately?” Thor asked, as soon as he understood what Bruce was saying.
“He wasn’t up for long,” Bruce explained. “And I had to do a neurological exam-that just means, ask him some questions and see if he’s able to respond normally, nothing invasive,” he added hastily, when Thor started to look alarmed. “I was going to come get you afterwards, but then he fell back to sleep, and there didn’t seem much point in waking you.”
It was just like Loki to wake during the only period of his illness that Thor was not present. The idea would be reassuring, if he thought Loki had any control over it. “And was he able to, as you say, respond normally?”
“Yes,” Bruce said. “He knows who he is, and where he is. He even remembers a little bit about how he came to be injured. That doesn’t guarantee there aren’t any more subtle neurological defects, but those are all good signs. It looks like he’s going to be okay.”
“This is good news,” Thor said. It had been troubling enough to think that Loki might die, and leave Thor bereft of his company. His fears had grown even worse when he realized that it was unlikely to be considered a warrior’s death. And if Loki was left a broken shell, to eventually die of old age, he would still be denied his place in Valhalla.
Thor had to admit that his desire for his brother to achieve a place in Valhalla was largely theoretical. Mostly, he just wanted him to live.
“Yeah,” Bruce said, clapping him on the shoulder. “It is.”
Thor recognized that Bruce was not being entirely sincere-to him, Loki was an enemy, and his continued good health was not a reason to rejoice. But he understood that Bruce was truly glad that Thor was glad, and that was good enough.
Taking up his place by Loki’s bed, Thor sent for a large breakfast, and ate it with more enthusiasm than he had any of the meals that Bruce and the others had pressed on him over the last few days. As he ate, he explained to Loki what Bruce had said about his condition. That didn’t take very long, so afterwards, he moved on to talking to Loki about the things they could do together once he was recovered.
“…and once we have returned to Asgard, we shall go and visit Sleipnir. I told Tony the story of how you came to be his mother, and he made the most excellent suggestion that--” Thor instantly forgot what he was saying as Loki stirred. “Loki? Do you wake, brother?”
Loki groaned a little.
“Loki? Dr. Banner, he wakes! Loki?” Loki opened his eyes, and Thor said, “Brother, I cannot say how glad I am to see you well.”
Loki looked over at the doorway, where Bruce had appeared. “Hey, Loki,” Bruce said. “How are you feeling?”
“I am in pain,” Loki said, sounding so much himself that Thor could have wept.
“That’s to be expected,” Bruce said, coming up to the other side of the bed and looking over the machines that, he had explained, monitored Loki’s vital signs. “Is it-no, wait.” Bruce appeared to think for a moment. “How is it, compared to last time we talked?”
“It is no worse,” Loki said sulkily.
“Well, that’s something.”
As Bruce went on examining Loki, Thor explained, “Dr. Banner has been attending to your injuries. I admit I had some fear of relying on mortal medicine-particularly the procedure Dr. Banner described-but my misgivings were not founded.”
Thor thought that his remark might prompt Loki to ask about his treatment or his injuries, but instead he just glared until Bruce said, “Thor, don’t pick on your brother while he’s injured.” Before Thor could ask what he meant, he went on, “Loki, do you have any questions about your condition?”
“Yes,” Loki said sulkily.
“Okay, let me…wait a second. First, do you want me to ask Thor to leave the room while you ask them?”
“Why would he?” Thor asked.
“On this realm, we have a thing called medical privacy,” Bruce explains. “It means people have a right to talk to their doctor without their family members present, if they want to. Loki? Wait, do I have to ask the question again?”
“No,” Loki said.
“Now I’m not sure which-I will get the hang of this, I promise. Which question were you answering just now?”
“Both of them.”
“So Thor can stay?”
“Yes.”
Thor felt that he’d understood very little of the exchange, but Bruce and Loki both seemed satisfied, so he forebore to speak further.
“What do you want to know?” Bruce asked.
“Am I going to die?” Loki asked.
“No-at least, I don’t think so. Not unless something unexpected happens. Like I’ve been telling Thor-and everyone else-for the last couple of days, I’ve had to make a lot of guesses about your physiology. But I think you’re out of danger. What else do you want to know?”
“Will I be crippled? Moreso than I already am?”
“You shouldn’t be. Your arm will have to be immobilized for a while-for a human, it would be at least eight weeks.” Loki’s good hand went to his opposite shoulder, exploring the shell of hardened plaster that Bruce had put there, which covered the upper part of his arm and kept it bound tightly to his body. “We’ll have to wait and see if it heals any faster. Or slower, I guess. And you’ll probably need some physical therapy afterwards, but in time, you should be…the same as before.”
“Dr. Banner is a skilled healer,” Thor said reassuringly, patting Loki’s uninjured shoulder.
Then they stood looking at each other for a moment, until Bruce said, “Oh, right. What else do you want to know?”
Loki went on to ask about the extent of his injuries, and the devices that surrounded him. Banner patiently answered all of his questions, calling a halt only when Loki began to tire. “Look, why don’t you get some rest? Is there anything else you need?”
“Restoration of my magic,” Loki replied.
“You know he cannot do that,” Thor pointed out.
“Yeah, I’m sure he does,” Bruce said. “Other than that, is there anything else you need, Loki?”
“No.”
As soon as Banner left the room, it was as if Loki’s well of words dried up. Soon he was asleep again, leaving Thor watching at his bedside.
#
By the time Bruce drank a cup of coffee and updated Loki’s chart, the nurse Tony had arranged to borrow from the hospital arrived. She’d come along with the surgical equipment the first time, and Bruce had been pretty surprised when she turned up again the next day. She’d explained then that Tony had arranged for her to come daily until she wasn’t needed anymore.
“Hi, Annie,” Bruce said to her as she took off her coat and stowed her purse in the locking drawer of the desk in the infirmary’s little office. Bruce had explained that since access to the building was tightly controlled, there wasn’t really any need to lock up her belongings, but apparently it was a habit. “Some changes today. Loki’s woken up.”
“Has he?” Annie looked genuinely pleased. “That’s good. I’m sure his family will be relieved.”
When it had become clear that Annie was sticking around long enough to eventually be exposed to a conscious Loki, Bruce had explained who he was. Annie had taken the news, that her private-duty patient was the same super villain who had nearly destroyed her city a few months ago, with commendable professionalism. “Yes-Thor’s with him now. If you’ll be all right on your own, I’m going to go upstairs for a bit.”
Bruce watched Annie closely for any sign that she was uncomfortable, but she just nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll have Mr. Jarvis alert you if anything comes up.”
“He’s still pretty weak, so I don’t think he’ll try to get up. And he has some…communication difficulties. Pre-existing. Thor can explain.”
“I’m sure we’ll be all right.”
Still, no matter how Annie felt about it, Bruce wasn’t entirely comfortable himself with leaving a civilian alone, apart from an incorporeal butler, with Loki. So before he left, he stopped by Loki’s room.
“He is sleeping,” Thor said, looking up at Bruce from the chair by Loki’s bedside.
“Good. Are you sticking around for a while?”
“Yes, of course.” Thor had barely left the infirmary in the last few days, and never at the same time as Bruce did.
“Annie’s on duty, so I’m going to get something to eat and check on some things in the lab. If you do decide to step out….” There was no way to say it other than to just say it. “Get one of the others down here first.”
Thor didn’t ask why-he was unreasonably optimistic where his brother was concerned, but he wasn’t stupid. He agreed, and Bruce headed out.
After a brief stopover in his apartment, Bruce headed to the bio lab, a bagel in one hand and coffee in the other. At times like these, it would be more convenient to have his lab space somewhere near the infirmary, instead of at the top of the building-but when Tony had designed the building, having Bruce’s lab near enough to his own that he could pop in and be annoying anytime he felt like it had been the priority.
That being the case, Bruce wasn’t terribly surprised when Tony showed up while Bruce’s computer was still booting.
“Hey. How’s everybody’s favorite super villain?” Tony, munching a bagel of his own, snooped around the lab bench.
“Conscious,” Bruce answered. “And if you get bagel crumbs in those cultures, you’ll end up being his roommate.”
“Tchah. The Other Guy loves me,” Tony said, but he did take a step back. “Clint’ll be relieved.”
Once he’d sorted out that Tony meant relieved about Loki, not about the Other Guy loving Tony, Bruce asked, “Isn’t he the one who threw him off the balcony in the first place?” He was a little out of the loop, the last couple of days, but he could have sworn he’d heard that.
“Yeah, but Steve’s been all foreign dignitary, tenuous alliance, blah-blah-blah manslaughter. You know how he gets.”
Bruce hadn’t even thought of that angle. “He has a point. Anyway, now that he’s conscious, the pain management issue has become a lot more pressing.” So far, they’d been giving Loki Tylenol, on the grounds that Thor had taken some on his first trip to Earth, and it hadn’t done him any harm. But it was doing things to Loki’s liver values that Bruce wasn’t sure if he should be alarmed about or not, and in any case, it wasn’t really adequate painkiller for a guy with a half a dozen fractures and recent cranial surgery.
“No help from Thor, huh?” Tony asked. The last time they spoke about it, Bruce had been planning to ask Thor what they used for pain control on Asgard.
“He said mostly spells, which doesn’t help us much. There’s also a potion his mother makes, but Thor doesn’t know what’s in it.” He’d said he thought there were herbs of some kind involved, which didn’t narrow things down much.
“You could ask Loki, now that he’s awake,” Tony pointed out.
Somehow, that thought hadn’t occurred to Bruce. Before he could say so, Tony went on.
“I mean, he’s basically a geek, right? Maybe not a medical-type geek, but Thor’s basically, like, a jock. He’s not going to know anything. Loki might.”
“No, you’re right,” Bruce said. “I just didn’t think of it that way.” He and Tony were definitely the Avengers’ team geeks. It was a little weird to think of Loki as being, in a way, part of the club.
Even weirder if he remembered that frankly disturbing conversation he’d overheard between Tony and Thor on the jet a couple of weeks ago. In the alternate reality that Thor had suggested-where he, Thor, tried to take over the world and Odin sent Loki down to help stop him-the team would have ended up with an even geek/jock split.
“It’s kind of too bad about him being evil, ‘cause I’d sure like to find out how that magic shit works,” Tony added.
“That reminds me, Thor did an absolutely terrible job of explaining how that geas works.”
“He didn’t explain how it works at all,” Tony objected.
Fair point. “No, but he did a terrible job of explaining the effects, too. It turns out that really annoying thing where half the time Loki won’t say anything but ‘yes’ or ‘no’ isn’t really his fault. I mean, he’s probably enjoying it, but if you phrase what you want to know as a yes-or-no question -like if you were, say, doing a neurological exam and you say, ‘Can you tell me your name?’-“
“All he can say is yes,” Tony realized. “Damn, I should have caught that sooner. Jarvis was like that for a while when I first made him.”
“Well, up until now, that he was fucking with us was the more likely conclusion,” Bruce pointed out. “But not even Loki’s going to troll the guy who’s actively trying to save his life.”
“Probably not, anyway.”
“Once I figured out what was going on, I asked,” Bruce explained. “He actually seemed kind of relieved that somebody had figured it out. He’s been a lot more talkative since I’ve been asking the right questions.”
“Hey, maybe now we can start picking his brain about how his magic works.” At Bruce’s glare, Tony added, “Once he’s feeling better, I mean.”
“I don’t know about that,” Bruce answered. “I haven’t figured out all of the details of the geas-I keep wanting to say curse-but I think he has the option of giving true-but-unhelpful answers. Right now he’s kind of motivated to be as forthcoming as possible, since he knows I’m trying to help him.”
“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Say, once you get your hands on some Norse-god-safe pain medication, how would you feel about implying that it’s, you know, contingent on answering a few questions?”
“I feel like it would be a morally disgusting violation of medical ethics; why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Tony lied.
#
The next time Loki woke, he submitted with ill grace as the mortal assistant healer-a plump woman with skin the color of Heimdall’s and the air generally described as “motherly”-gave him a bed-bath and fed him an overly-sweet, noxiously-colored concoction known as “Jello.” As she worked, she chattered aimlessly-to him or to Thor, Loki wasn’t sure-about subjects ranging from her son’s difficulties in school to her aching feet. “One nice thing about this assignment, I get to sit down,” she explained. “At the hospital, I have six post-op patients on my load, and none of them think they’re being any trouble, but it’s just one thing after another. As soon as you get one settled, another one needs something.”
“I am sure that they appreciate your dedication to your calling,” Thor said politely.
“They do, uh-huh. I have a whole file of thank-you notes I take out and look at when I have a chance. Makes me feel good about myself.”
“I see.” Thor looked thoughtful. Probably he was trying to figure out where he could obtain a crayon to write one.
Loki found himself somewhat relieved when Dr. Banner came back. So far, he’d demonstrated a surprising ability to ask meaningful questions and to confine himself to the subject at hand.
Now, for example, after conferring with Annie and Thor about Loki’s recent activities, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Still in pain,” Loki informed him. “Also annoyed by being surrounded by chattering magpies.”
“Annie, maybe this would be a good time for your coffee break,” Banner suggested.
“I will show you where we keep it,” Thor said, escorting the woman out with a backward, disapproving look at Loki.
Once they were gone, Banner went on, “We might actually be able to do something about the pain problem. Thor said that you use potions as well as spells for healing on Asgard. How much do you know about that?”
He had been doing so well with the questions. “A fair amount.”
“Good! See, the problem we’ve been having is that I don’t know how your body will react to any of our medicines-Thor said we could test them on him, but I understand you guys aren’t, uh, technically the same species, so I wasn’t sure how well that would work. I’m hoping that now that you’re awake, we can find something you’ve taken before, safely, that also exists here.” He paused, as if waiting for a response, then appeared to realize that Loki couldn’t answer. “Do you think that might work?”
Loki considered. Healing potions were usually compounded using magic, but the mortals had come up with all kinds of substitutes for magic on this realm. Fortunately, Banner had asked if it might work, not if it would. “Yes.”
“Okay. Let’s see…how do you want to get started figuring this out?”
That was a good question. “I could begin by describing some of the pain-relieving compounds I’m familiar with, and see if you recognize anything.”
#
They talked shop for a while, but even once Bruce got the hang of keeping Loki going by asking broad questions, there was a substantial communication gap. He had been expecting that Loki would say something like, “We drink tea made out of poppy seeds,” and then Bruce could go get some morphine.
It wasn’t like that at all. Instead, Loki started by listing a number of substances Bruce had never heard of, and explaining how to combine them using methods that he’d never heard of, either. The more Bruce told him he had to break it down and start simpler, the more frustrated Loki got. Bruce didn’t blame him; he had to rely on every calming technique he’d ever learned to keep his temper, and he wasn’t the one with six bone fractures and a hole in his head. “I still don’t understand,” he said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Let’s start over. What is--” Bruce tried to remember which incomprehensible thing they were talking about at the moment. “Bones-of-giants?” They had managed to establish that it wasn’t the actual bones of actual giants, but other than that, Bruce was still lost. “Where do you get it?”
“Anywhere,” Loki said, gesturing sharply with his uninjured hand, then grunting as the motion jarred his bad shoulder.
“Maybe we don’t have it on Earth.” Loki glared at him. “Okay, why was that a stupid thing to say?”
“Of course you have it on Earth. All the realms have it. It has six brothers and six sisters.”
Loki had been going on about brothers and sisters for quite some time now. “I still don’t get it. What are the brothers and sisters?” Maybe if he could figure out what Loki was saying this substance was related to, he could backtrack to what it actually was. “What else can you tell me?”
“They’re brothers and sisters,” Loki said, sounding like he couldn’t believe how stupid Bruce was not to understand this. “In the center. Then there is one pair of warriors in the first rank, and two pairs in the second rank. Six brothers, six warriors. You complete imbecile.”
“All right, shut up for a minute.” The Other Guy didn’t appreciate his tone, and Bruce himself wasn’t too thrilled about it, either. Bruce closed his eyes and counted to ten in every language he knew, breathing in slowly through his nose and out through his mouth. “Calling me an imbecile is not going to help anything,” he added, racking his brains for some common plant that had six of two different things in the center and six of something else around it.
“Sir,” Jarvis said suddenly. “I may be able to assist.”
Bruce looked up at the corner of the room where he knew one of Jarvis’s cameras was. “How?” Still in talking-to-Loki mode, he added, “What do you need?”
“If you could bring one of my holographic projectors into the room, I will demonstrate,” Jarvis answered.
Bruce agreed. Even if Jarvis’s idea didn’t work, getting the projector at least gave him an excuse to leave the room for a few minutes. When he returned, bringing the projector on a cart, he cravenly hoped that Loki might have fallen asleep while he was gone. He didn’t want to be the one to suggest a break, since Loki was the one in pain, but he was as close to hulking out as he’d ever been, in a non-combat situation.
Unfortunately, Loki was still awake and glaring when he returned. Bruce took his time plugging in the projector and focusing the startup image. “Okay, Loki, can you see that all right?”
“Yes.”
“Jarvis, do your stuff.”
Jarvis projected an image that Bruce recognized instantly. Six yellow spheres forming a cluster with six white ones, surrounded by six blue spheres, forming ranks of two and four.
If it was as simple as that, no wonder Loki thought he was an imbecile.
“Is this what you were describing?” Jarvis asked. “The yellow spheres represent the, ah, brothers, and the white the sisters--”
“Yes,” Loki said.
Bruce took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We call that carbon,” he said carefully. “And the one with eight brothers and sisters-what did you call that one?”
“All-mother’s tears,” Loki supplied.
“That’s oxygen.”
It wasn’t entirely smooth sailing from there-once they’d identified the basic elements, they still had to work out a common vocabulary for combining them into molecules. But now that Bruce finally understood that they were talking about , not botany, he could ask the right questions.
With Jarvis’s help, they put together a molecular diagram. As it rotated in holographic display in front of them, Bruce said, “I don’t recognize it, but it should be easy enough to synthesize. Jarvis?”
“Already started, sir.”
After reinventing the entire discipline of chemistry from scratch, figuring out dosage in unfamiliar measurements was a snap. By the time Jarvis was finished synthesizing the drug, they had a starting dose worked out.
It wasn’t until he was in the process of injecting it into Loki’s IV port that Bruce thought to ask, “This is just a painkiller, right?”
Eyeing him suspiciously, Loki said, “No.”
Bruce reminded himself not to panic. Aspirin, chemically speaking, did more than just relieve pain, too. And the geas was pretty literal. It didn’t necessarily mean that he’d just helped Loki make something that would restore his powers or otherwise enable him to commit mayhem. “What else does it do?”
“It may speed the repair of the damaged bones. Slightly.”
Not a problem. “Anything else? Anything….” He searched for a more specific word than bad. “Does it do anything that will make you any more dangerous than you were before Clint shoved you off the balcony?”
“No.”
“Great.” He finished the injection. “Get some rest; Thor’s going to keep an eye on you.”
#
Tony had to call Bruce and invite him to dinner three times-describing the take-out order in increasing detail each time-before Bruce finally got off his ass and came.
“I’m not going to be very good company,” Bruce warned him as he helped himself to pad thai. “I had kind of a…frustrating day.”
“I saw,” Tony said, offering Bruce the yellow curry.
“You were watching that? Tony--”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, privacy is a thing.” Tony shrugged. “You know we have to keep an eye on Loki. Anyway, don’t worry-I didn’t get it too much earlier than you did.”
“You could have said something. I thought my head was going to explode.”
“That’s what you get for cheating on me,” Tony informed him. “Anyway, I was just about to give you a hint when Jarvis did.” Tony grinned. “Want to know what the hint was?”
“Sur e.”
“‘One moon circles.’ You know, like that one Star Trek episode where they--”
“Had to discuss chemistry with aliens,” Bruce finished. “Through dreams. Yeah. That would have helped.”
“I didn’t realize they had chemistry on Asgard,” Tony went on. “You wouldn’t guess it from Thor.”
“There are a lot of humans that, if they were the only one you had to go by, you wouldn’t realize we had chemistry, either.” Bruce squinted at his fork. “Did that make sense?”
“No, but I get what you mean.”
“Anyway, the drugs should keep him out of our hair for a few days. I’m not looking forward to having to taper him off of it, though. And if we’re doing Star Trek episodes, it was really more like that other one.” Bruce made a gesture that could have been anything from a banana to a pair of breasts to an oxygen molecule. “You know.”
Ordinarily, Tony would have pretended not to understand, but after the day Bruce had had, not even he was that much of a douchebag. “Darmok,” he said instead.
“Yeah, only the alien had tried to blow up the Enterprise a couple of months before.”
“And he’s Worf’s adopted brother.”
“And Riker threw him off a balcony,” Bruce added.
“Wait, Clint’s Riker now?”
“You’re definitely not Riker,” Bruce said, although Tony hadn’t been thinking that he was. “You’re…Kirk and Spock’s illegitimate love child that they’re both ashamed of, but for completely different reasons.”
Tony would have protested, but it kind of fit.
#
It was a measure of how bored Clint was that when Cap told him he was allowed to come out of his apartment for a meeting, Clint was actually sort of relieved. He didn’t have much hope that it was going to be the fun kind of meeting-i.e., the kind that immediately preceded a fight-but he’d already watched everything he wanted to watch, and had been reduced to throwing a ball against the wall and catching it for entertainment. Even a meeting was better than that.
At least, he thought so right up until the moment when Steve said, “Thor, what can you tell us about potential repercussions of the balcony incident?” And Thor got a confused look on his face, like he had no idea what Steve was talking about.
Clint had been assuming that, sometime over the last few days, someone had explained to Thor how Clint had almost killed his baby brother, and had then held him down until the murderous rage passed. It seemed a safe assumption given how Clint’s head was still attached to his body and everything. But now Clint was wondering if, owing to all the almost-dying said baby brother had been doing, Thor just hadn’t had a chance to look into the issue yet.
“Repercussions?” Thor said. Turning to Bruce, he added, “You said he would recover, did you not?”
“Yes,” Bruce said. “I think Steve means…politically. With your, uh, parents, and everything.”
“Ah,” Thor said. “Mother will be most troubled, of course.”
Troubled wasn’t normally an alarming word, but given that it was one Thor tended to use to describe Loki in a murdering mood, Clint wasn’t reassured. “Troubled like…is there gonna be smiting?”
“Or a severing of diplomatic relations?” Steve asked.
“Godly vengeance of any kind, really, is what we’re asking about,” Tony added. “Against Clint personally or Earth as a whole.”
Then Thor chuckled. It took Clint a moment to realize that it was the kind of laughing you did when something wasn’t really funny at all. “My friends,” he said soberly. “Your concern does you credit. But I insisted on bringing him to Midgard because I feared for his safety. He is out of favor in the All-father’s court, and the truth of his heritage has been revealed to all. This is not the first time he has been injured since he was stripped of his magic.”
“Wait,” Bruce said. “So people have been beating up on Loki for a while now…and your dad doesn’t care?”
Clint had to admit, that sounded a little fucked up. Not that he was exactly eager to face consequences for flipping Loki off a balcony….but still. He figured it was fair for the guy’s nearest and dearest to at least want to crush Clint like a bug, even if he was going to use every means at his disposal to stop if from actually happening.
Thor looked at his hands. “I believe that Father does care,” he said slowly. “Although Loki would disagree. The king, however, has decided not to intercede when Loki reaps the fruit of the discord he has sown.”
Clint reminded himself that he was absolutely not going to feel sorry for Loki. There wasn’t anybody in this tower who didn’t have Daddy issues, and only one of them had tried to take over the world.
“So,” Thor continued, “if Loki wished, he could pursue private justice.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Steve asked, before Clint could.
“The holmgang is…I believe you would call it a duel. Trial by single combat. He would state the recompense he wishes to receive for the insult, and if he won, the aggressor-or rather, his heirs-would be required to pay.” Before Clint could get really alarmed, Thor went on, “Loki is aware that without his magic, he is unlikely to prevail in such a challenge. He is permitted to name himself a champion, but he has been reluctant to nominate me in that capacity.”
“So if people attack him, he can either shut up and take it, or ask his big brother to fight his battles for him?” Steve asked. Clint could see how Loki wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with either of those options.
Thor nodded. “In this case, I understand that Clint did not intend to seriously harm him. And that my brother provoked you with his words,” he added, looking at Clint.
“So if he asks you to do this gang thing…?” Clint trailed off.
“I could not refuse any reasonable request that he makes as my brother,” Thor said finally. “But given that he has also refused to acknowledge our kinship, I do not think you need worry about it.”
“Okay,” Steve said. “So we can handle it as an internal team matter.”
Clint strongly suspected that meant there was community-based superheroing in his future, but given that he’d started this meeting worrying he was going to be pounded into a paste by Thor, that didn’t seem too bad.
“That does bring us to another issue, though,” Bruce said. “The--” He gestured vaguely. “Verbal provocation.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, taking more of an interest in the proceedings. “I couldn’t get good audio on that. What did he actually say?”
Clint glanced warily at Thor. “That he wasn’t sorry he killed Phil.”
“You were surprised?” Tony asked.
Thor sighed, and said, “My brother--”
“Let’s not get sidetracked,” Bruce interrupted. “We all heard that Loki is under a geas that means he has to answer any question you ask him, honestly. Think about what that means for a minute.” After a suitable pause, presumably for them all to think about it, Bruce went on, “He didn’t just volunteer the information that he wasn’t sorry he killed Phil. You must have asked him.”
“Yeah, and he said ‘no,’” Clint answered.
“No,” Thor said, nodding. “Why would one be sorry to take another warrior’s life in battle? But I do not understand why he did not say something else.”
Bruce got very, very still all of the sudden. “You don’t?”
“No,” Thor repeated. “Surely he knows enough of your ways to realize that such an answer would swell Clint’s anger.”
“Shit,” Tony said. “Bruce, are you sure--”
“Yeah, yeah, I asked,” Bruce said to him, before turning back to Thor. “I was just about to explain to everybody else, but I kind of figured you’d know. The geas. He can’t say something else. It only lets him answer the question that was asked.”
“It’s like a lamp-wishes, monkey’s paw kind of thing,” Tony added.
“Right,” Bruce said. “You have to ask what you really mean to ask. You really didn’t know that?” he asked Thor.
“I have not made a study of magic,” Thor said. “I know that Loki’s spells often encompass such verbal trickery, but I assumed Father’s would be more direct.”
“Yeah, see,” Tony jumped in. “If you were Loki, you’d have just had to say ‘no,’ and not all that other helpful information.”
“So that’s, uh, something we should all keep in mind when we’re talking to Loki,” Bruce went on. “Yes-or-no questions sometimes back him into a corner where the only thing he can say comes across like he’s deliberately being an asshole, and I don’t think that’s any more fun for him than it is for us. And he can’t answer implied questions at all. Like, you know, ‘I don’t understand,’ or ‘Tell me about that.’ It has to be in the form of a question.”
Tony added, “I have to say, I was thinking the no-talking curse was kind of a lame punishment, but now that I know more about it, it really sucks. I wouldn’t last ten minutes before I was begging Odin to make it stop.”
“Except you wouldn’t be,” Bruce pointed out, “because you wouldn’t be able to talk.”
#
For Loki, the next few days passed in a pleasant, narcotic blur. He spent a great deal of time asleep, and when he was awake, he cared very little about what was going on around him-whether that was Thor babbling, Annie-the-nurse stuffing him with Jello, or Jarvis showing him cartoons on the projector no one had bothered taking out of his room.
After waking and engaging in several minutes of thoughtful contemplation of the ceiling, Loki languidly waved his hand in the direction of Jarvis’s camera.
“Good afternoon,” Jarvis said. “What can I assist you with?”
It had only taken the mechanical man three tries to find a way to phrase that question that didn’t require Loki to ask for his magic back.
“I wish to watch a movie,” he said. “The one where the furry blue individual abducts the small mortal child.”
The projector came to life, the opening credits of Monsters Inc. appearing over Loki’s hospital bed. “Shall I start at the beginning, or where you fell asleep last time?”
“Where I fell asleep.” Loki had a certain amount of difficulty staying awake for an entire feature-length film, but he often didn’t bother picking up the parts that he’d missed. He was decidedly too high to consider the reasons that he was determined to make it to the end of this one.
The projected image skipped forward. “Will there be anything else at this time?”
“No.” If Loki wanted anything else, he’d just wave at the camera again. Jarvis was very good at telling when he had something to say.
It may have just been the drugs talking, but Loki loved Jarvis.
The movie played. The blue monster and its friend, a green sphere with limbs and one large eye, took the small human child through various parts of the monsters’ homeworld, for reasons that Loki was not quite able to follow. He had a hazy sense that they were attempting to either return to child to Midgard or prevent her from being returned, but Loki wasn’t sure which.
Near the end of the movie, Dr. Banner came into the room. Jarvis obligingly paused playback.
“How are you feeling?” Banner asked.
“I am in no pain,” Loki informed him. It made refreshing change.
“I thought you might not be.” Banner sounded amused. “Here, let me see your head.”
Loki waved at Jarvis, and he obligingly moved the bed to a sitting position. As he did so, he rotated the stilled movie image to a convenient viewing angle for the new position.
It was that sort of attention to detail that had Loki wondering if there was some way he could steal Jarvis and take him back to Asgard. Perhaps if he had his powers back.
Putting the thought aside, he tipped his head forward, and Banner’s warm fingers probed the area where the stitches were placed. “This looks fine. I’d like to get some x-rays, see how your shoulder is coming along. Is that okay?”
“Okay,” Loki agreed. He may have giggled a little, because “okay” was a very amusing word. And he wondered how his shoulder was coming along, too-he had absolutely no idea how long it took for one of his bones to heal without magic. Even though he was feeling no pain at the moment, having half of his upper body immobilized wasn’t an experience he cared to continue any longer than necessary.
“You’re going to have to get up,” Banner added, and Loki wished he’d known that before he agreed. “I can get a wheelchair, or you can try to walk. What do you want to do?”
Loki blinked a few times. “Regain my powers and steal Jarvis.” Whoops. He hadn’t meant to say that second part.
“Right,” Banner said with a sigh. “Bad question. Which of the two options I just named do you want to do?”
“I shall walk,” Loki proclaimed, wondering why Banner wasn’t more alarmed about his plan to steal Jarvis.
#
Bruce kept a firm grip on Loki’s uninjured arm as Loki half-wandered, half-staggered down the hall to the x-ray cubicle. Initially, he was a little worried that the head injury had done some subtle damage to Loki’s balance or motor coordination, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the god-prisoner just kept being distracted by brightly colored objects.
“We call that a fire extinguisher,” Bruce explained, tugging Loki away from it. “We use it to…extinguish fires. Come on, we’ve got a destination in mind here.”
Bruce thought that he might have some trouble getting Loki to hold still for the x-rays, but it turned out not to be an issue-worn out from his adventure, Loki fell asleep on the table. When the x-rays were done, Bruce couldn’t get him to wake up enough to assist with the trip back, and had to get Thor to help him manhandle Loki into a wheelchair.
Definitely time to address the tapering-off issue.
He decided to bring it up with Thor first, once they got Loki back into his bed. Fortunately, Thor picked up on what he was talking about right away. “I have noticed that he does not seem himself,” Thor agreed. “At home, our healers would only give such potions for a short time, until the healing spells take effect. Hogun-one of my friends-took it for seven days after he was seared by a fire-drake, but the healers were anxious to cease it as soon as the pain became manageable.”
“Okay, good,” Bruce said, relieved. “And Loki knows about that?”
Thor’s brow creased. “He was there when Hogun attacked the fire-drake.”
That wasn’t quite what Bruce had been asking, but okay. “I’m just a little worried about what he’ll think when we tell him we’re taking him off the happy-juice. Like, uh, he might think he was being punished or something.”
“Why would he think that?”
“I don’t know.” Bruce shrugged. “The other day he asked if I left any explosives in his head while I was operating on him.”
Thor frowned. “Did you?”
“Of course not. I don’t know where he got that idea, unless maybe Jarvis was showing him scary movies.”
Jarvis spoke up. “I’ve only offered him entertainment that members of the team have viewed while recuperating from illness or injury.”
“Considering that one of the team is Clint and another is Natasha-not to mention Tony-that doesn’t mean much,” Bruce pointed out. “Anyway, I don’t want to alarm him while he’s…not thinking clearly.”
“If you like, I will speak to him,” Thor offered.
“Uh….” Bruce tried to think of a way to say “Thanks, but no thanks.” Despite having had it explained to him, Thor hadn’t quite gotten the hang of asking Loki questions that he could answer yet.
“Or I could,” Jarvis added. “I have it on good authority that he loves me.”
“I’m not sure that wanting to steal you is exactly the same thing as love,” Bruce pointed out.
In answer, Jarvis played a recording of Loki saying, “No, except, except--”
Jarvis’s voice, in the recording, said, “What is it you want to say?”
“I jus-just wanna say I love you, Jarvish.”
“Wow,” Bruce said. Then, “It’s definitely time to decrease his dosage.”
Link to Part 4