Escape to Extraterrestrial Realms
The darkness wrapped itself around you like a blanket, coaxing you into resting; to stop thinking and worrying and to just—stay.
But you woke up.
And the agony you felt upon waking made you wish you hadn’t.
The blissful unawareness one had in their sleep was exactly what made you try to fall right back into it, yet your body simply refused to comply. Against your wishes your eyes cracked open, slowly trying and gradually adjusting to the blinding light which was only broken by the shape of a person seated next to you.
Soon the shape of a person turned into the shape of Thor; your eyes narrowly fell on his expression and immediately noted the sorrow contorting it. Just as you moved to heave yourself up, his hands shot forward to push you back down.
A bed.
You were in a bed. Were you in hospital?
Probably not; the sounds of machines hooked to your veins were missing with their melodious beeping sound, which would no doubt have sounded like a blasting alarm this very moment had they actually been there. If your head hadn’t thundered like someone slamming against it as if you were but a mole in a ‘Whack-a-Mole’ game, you would have tried to take your surroundings into account to figure out where you were. Or ask Thor.
But alas, you could only do as much as hiss in pain, your entire body cramping and burning and you doubted that any kind of medicine in the world could help you with it. Even believing in super-medicine from Thor’s home planet seemed like absurd and mere wishful thinking.
Once you felt general control returning, you gently placed your hands on top of Thor’s, signaling him that you were fine once more—as fine as circumstances allowed, for sure—all the while canning the pain like soup in different tins to store them neatly on a shelf.
Yes.
That imagery helped.
Now where was the garbage disposal—
“Are you alright?”
He had not really relaxed despite your best attempts at seeming calm and okay. Your strained nod as an answer—not an actual lie since you could have indeed been worse, you mused—only added fuel to his worries.
“It does not seem like it,” he said and rose from his chair, face determinedly set on a decision, “We will depart at once. Before Fury manages to worsen your condition with his inquiry.”
You felt him gently lift you up and into his arms, steps carrying the both of you much faster than you expected with your half-closed eyes. His feet thundered along the tile floor in such rapid succession, steps echoing in the hallway so hurriedly you concluded you were indeed sprinting.
To god knows where.
“—Brother?”
Oh there you were. The abundance of alien emotions was a telltale sign by now.
“We are heading home now, Loki.”
You vaguely saw and heard him give a chuckle in response. A lie, just like seemingly every other emotion coming from the alien-god so far.
“Are you not supposed to obey the orders of your new friends?”
“A life is at stake, this is no time for your jokes.”
You closed your eyes in exhaustion and pain, leaning your head against Thor’s chest and listening to what happened around you. Such as the door which seemed to have been opened, odd whirring noises reaching your ears as confirmation of sorts.
“Oh,” Loki’s smooth, velvety voice spoke in an amused tone, sounding breathless as if in pain all the same, “—do you trust me enough to free me?”
“No.”
Hurt.
Yet he seemed to follow Thor—who most likely kept a keen eye on his brother—walking right beside him at a brisk pace, not faltering in his step. That was, if the distress you detected was to be trusted.
It terribly bothered you how one could behave so very differently from their actual feelings, emotions and thoughts; bothered you even despite the condition you were currently in draining every little bit of your energy and focus.
Oh man, if you had just not listened to your gut this one time and went with your brain instead. Then you would have probably been sitting in front of the TV, watching some sort of shitty series or dumb movie with your best friend, who had most likely declared you missing if not dead by now. Or you would have been going outside to go sight-seeing—or not, considering the damage which had most likely occurred to New York. Perhaps, at the very least, live the adventure you had always wanted.
Well, technically you were having more of an adventure right then and there than you could have ever dreamed of; two gods escorting you to another planet to try and keep your frail, mortal body from dying.
——————
You opened your eyes to some sort of heated argument, only to find that you had most likely fallen unconscious for a good couple of minutes. Slowly regaining your senses you tuned back in to an animated conversation, voices sounding on the brink of snapping. It felt as if you had fallen asleep in front of the TV, only to find some kind of drama movie running on the loudest setting possible, words a warbled, deafening mess until the phrases separated and made sense to your confused mind.
Oh no, was that Fury’s voice? He seemed furious.
Fury-ous?
Whatever.
“—not just take a possibly dangerous person in the midst of our investigations. After all, through our questioning we might gain rare insights as well as access to unfathomable power.”
What were you, some sort of object?
“The child is barely of age in your Midgardian terms. And in addition to that, possibly dying.”
You were possibly what?
“We do have access to medicine and doctors of our own, God of Thunder.”
“Then why did you not yet attempt to help?”
With that your eyes finally opened wide enough to catch a glimpse of the shit going down right in front of you.
Fury kept holding onto a blue glowing cube secured in a glass container, which was, if you remembered correctly from the briefing Thor gave you before, the Tesseract. An important artifact of his world and the only thing capable of bringing him and Loki—and in addition to that, you—back to his planet. Sadly, Fury clung so tightly to it, you realized he wasn’t inclined of giving it up anytime soon.
Meanwhile Thor stood directly across from him, back turned to you as you were positioned behind him, almost protectively so. His eyes narrowed to an almost glare and his hammer was pointed accusingly into Fury’s direction as if threatening him. Or doing just that, actually.
Something moved ever so slightly against your side, something slightly shifting from its hold on your legs and back, eliciting a quiet, metallic rattle—What?
Wait.
Wait a minute.
If Thor and Fury were busy arguing and threatening each other, then who the hell was carrying you?
It wasn’t like you didn’t already know the answer; you just begged for it to not be true. And you continued praying even while you glanced up from your crumpled up position so cautiously, one would have thought you were trying to desperately sneak a look at Medusa without turning to stone—
Yes. Yes indeed, it was the face you neither expected nor wanted to see.
The god damned alien-god-princeling, eyes set to watch the argument unfurl with the ghost of a smirk lining his pale and sharp features. Only good thing about this was that he didn’t notice you awake and staring.
Why was there no feeling of murder or rage pouring out of him? Were two attempts at your life enough or was he plotting another try right this instant, absent green eyes merely a ploy in making Thor and you believe it to be safe, letting your guard down until he would eventually strike?
Actually—regarding him from the tight hold in his arms—he almost seemed on the brink of fainting, smirk barely covering up his exhaustion while he grit his teeth behind his barely parted and surprisingly chapped lips. The breath easing out of his mouth was loud enough to ring in your ears, betraying his outer calm and collected but smug expression.
Perhaps he simply had better things to worry about than murdering you.
You swallowed the breath you were holding before it could leave your throat and alert him of your attention fixed on him, slowly directing your gaze back over to the scene unfolding in front of your eyes. The exhaustion hit you hard another time and you barely felt yourself drifting in and out of consciousness, pain growing numb as you failed to even properly register it.
That most likely wasn’t such a good thing.
“I have had enough of this. The Tesseract is not your property, neither does Loki fall under any of your Midgardian laws and the child is not even a citizen of America.”
“That child,” Fury interjected, mocking Thor’s choice of words, “Possesses immense, raw power, which is a gigantic threat to national, maybe even international security in the wrong hands—but could undoubtedly be exceedingly helpful in missions to come.”
“Surely you must be joking. How should anyone be of help to you if you let them die?”
Thor’s voice had long since grown hard, heavily laced with a hint of hostility and your head snapped upwards as a strong gust of wind started blowing in everyone’s faces, white clouds turning as black as ink while a flash of lightning followed by a low rumble tore through the building tension.
“Fury,” he spoke, grip on the hammer in his hand tightening, “I do not wish to threaten you, but I would prefer it if you handed me the Tesseract this instant. Otherwise I will be forced to take it from you.”
For quite a while Fury’s eyes continued to glower at Thor, seconds almost audibly passing like the ticking of a clock as none of them wanted to cave in first. Until Fury squeezed a strained blow of air through his nose, shoving the glass canister containing the Tesseract into the god’s hands.
“Thank you.”
The clouds that had just appeared above your very heads vanished at the same speed they had emerged, until not a single trace of them was left. Might be rather useful for farming, your mind wondered, haze still thickly surrounding your brain and making it difficult for common sense and regular thought processes to prevail.
Until the thoughts did break through.
Oh lord, he was actually a god.
The God of Thunder, for real.
Honestly, while you did indeed believe him to be physically stronger and from another race residing on another planet; the god thing seemed a bit over the top—on Earth there were so many gods people believed in, so who would have thought that out of all of them at least the God of Thunder was officially proven to be real?
But if he was a god and his brother was too—what was his brother the god of?
Clutching the container tightly in his hand, Thor walked over to the two of you with heavy steps. Loki had barely moved a single muscle this entire time, staying so still you had sometimes forgotten that he was even there, holding you up.
You glanced up at him, barely in time to catch him wince just as another jolt of pain surged through your body. In that short moment his eyes showed nothing fake; only what he actually, truly felt.
Pain and fear, misery and almost palpable amounts of terror; so much so that you felt your own eyebrows furrow by the mere remedy of what he experienced. But he hid it away as soon as he noticed, expression as cold as ice replacing his honest display of emotions and you couldn’t help but scoff at him when he stared you down with a glare in his piercing green eyes.
Just how and why could a single person be so fake?
You were ungainly shifted in your position when—with a rattle of the chains around his wrists—Loki used the hand under your legs to reach for the glass container his brother was offering. With a quick motion you tightly gripped his tunic due to the sudden movement and promptly countered his irritated groan with a grunt of your own.
Contrary to popular belief you could walk—
At that your nails almost threatened to bury themselves in his clothes, in his skin. He would have muttered some sort of complaint, you were sure—but he doubled over as well, torso arching over yours while he barely managed to catch himself as his labored breathing graced the top of your head.
“Brother—“ Thor exclaimed, reaching towards the two of you, but was stopped by his brother’s apparent death glare.
“I am quite alright.”
The blond’s eyes flitted to you and you merely nodded, biting down on your lip. With that he twisted a part of the container and you barely managed to catch a glimpse of blue light encasing the three of you before you were gone.