Stabbed
As they continued their limping journey through the galaxy, it became clear that ruling a shipload of refugees was a far cry from the royal experience either of the princes had been raised to expect.
Sometimes it was just what they had been raised to. They would arrive at a planet, usually one with a robust and prosperous economy, or at least enough finances to flow into royal coffers. They would announce their entrance, be escorted to a throne room, subjected to exhausting royal protocols and negotiations, but then at least there would be some kind of dinner. There would be wine, ranging in quality. They would dress up and braid their hair and straighten their spines and smile politely and answer shallow and asinine questions as if their entire planet had not been destroyed.
But most of the planets towards which they steer their massive and clunky Ark (as Bruce Banner had suggested they call it, for some reason) were the seedy backwater markets that had no respectable governing bodies to speak of, only crime families and capitalist tyrants, or despots like the Grandmaster. It was easier, then, to do their trading directly with merchants and mechanics. In a certain way, they almost felt more freed.
On this particular occasion, Thor and the Valkyrie went off to a supplier she’d done business with in the past. Heimdall stayed with the ship, where the citizens worked on loading the meager supplies they’d already gathered. Loki and Bruce were thus set loose on the market stalls, with vague instructions to find anything that “looked useful.”
Loki had smirked at his brother’s instructions.
“And what, pray tell, is your operating definition of useful?”
Thor merely gave him a little shove, and a roll of his eye. “Just stay out of trouble, brother.”
Loki wanders through the stalls, examining the wares. Despite his mockery of his brother, Loki did have a list of things he needed that he might find in the market stalls. It was mostly magical tools and supplies, once plentiful on Asgard, but rare in these parts of the galaxies. If he could get some of them, his magic repairs to the ship would be made easier. Healing would go smoother. But as he looked around at this market, he felt his hope dwindle. Stolen goods being fleeced, weapons, recreational drugs. That was what was mainly on offer here.
He scowls at a stall filled with beasts in cages, but then his eyes alight on a stall of books.
He thinks for a moment about how his brother would tease him mercilessly if he found him with his nose planted in a book, then gives in.
He’s flipping through an unfortunately outdated volume of herbs and their medicinal uses when something collides with him. A body slips past him, a fist hits his lower back and he stumbles, dropping the book. Whoever hit him was gone in the next moment.
Loki spins to chase after him, fury and indignation hot in his veins. Or, he tries to. His knees buckle as he turns and he hits the ground hard. He manages to drag himself into the dark space between two stalls as he registers something hot begin to drip down his back.
Shit, he thinks as he gropes behind him. His fingers brush the wound and he seizes in pain. His breath comes quick as panic grows. He’s been stabbed in a dirty bookseller’s stall. Wonderful.
And it severed his spine.
Or at least significantly damaged the cord. His legs are numb and tingling and he can feel his magic tied up in holding the nerves together. He’ll heal but it will take time and he won’t be able to use his magic to stop the bleeding, or defend himself if whoever did it came back. And he won’t be able to walk until it’s done. He presses his hand harder against the wound, ignoring the pain and tries to think. He doesn’t have time to wait to be missed. The blood is already starting to pool beneath him.
A projection. He can use just a little magic to send a projection. But the ship is too far, and he doesn’t know where Thor and Valkyrie are. But Bruce…Bruce should be around here somewhere. He closes his eyes and loosens some of his seidr from holding nerves together. His legs go suddenly, sickeningly dead. He swallows down the rising panic and projects his consciousness into a double.
Then he walks, not runs, but walks quickly, trying not to draw attention to himself, until he finds Bruce, poking at some oddly green meat hanging in a crowded stall.
“Banner!” Bruce turns, jumping at Loki's sudden intrusion. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Yeah, no worries, what do you think this weird-”
“We don’t have much time, I need your help.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
In his physical body, Loki grinds his teeth in frustration. “I did nothing. Well, not this time at least. It’s possible that…never mind. What you need to know is that I’m in a bit of a bind and I need you to follow me.” Bruce looks hesitant. Because of course, why would he trust Loki of all people? Loki sighs. “Look.” He reaches out a hand and sticks it straight through Bruce’s arm.
“The hell, why are you an illusion-”
“Because I have been stabbed, I do not know by whom but I cannot move and cannot defend myself and I need you to help me.” Something in his words or his expression finally moves Bruce.
“Lead the way.” Loki follows the pull of his physical form back through the market alleys, Bruce close behind. When he’s close enough, he releases the magic of the projection and it flows back into his body. For a tense moment it does nothing but then he feels a jolt of agony as the nerve endings are roughly pulled back together. His legs burn, feeling like they’re being pricked over and over by tiny needles. He’s sitting in a growing pool of blood. “Fuck, you weren’t lying.”
“Why would I lie about being stabbed?” Loki cries through chattering teeth.
“I don’t know, you’d have your reasons I imagine. They wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but you’d have them.” As Bruce talks, he strips off his sweater. “Here, take off your cape, it’s ruined anyways. We’ll use that to staunch the bleeding. Wear this, you need to stay warm.” A hysterical laugh bubbles up in his throat at that. Bruce frowns down at him, but moves quickly on. “So you can’t stand at all?” Loki shakes his head. “Well, we can’t just stay here…”
“They could come back.”
“I’ll have to carry you.”
“Don’t worry Dr. Banner, I’m equally disturbed by the concept.” Loki huffs. “If there was another way, I would certainly prefer it. But I don’t think I have time to wait for my brother to return, or for Heimdall to notice we’re taking too long.” It’s an admission of vulnerability, and thankfully Bruce does not insult him with either comment or mockery. He just helps him put on the sweater, pinning the soaked fabric of his cape to his throbbing back, and then awkwardly hoists him onto his shoulders. Loki cries out in pain, biting down on his lip to silence himself.
Loki hangs on tightly, arms around his neck, and Bruce keeps one hand under each of his thighs. They’re both trembling; Bruce from strain, Loki from shock.
“Keep to the shadows,” Loki whispers, when he’s surfaced from the cloud of pain. “To the outskirts of the market. If you take a left here you can avoid the most crowded streets.”
It’s quiet for a while, Bruce focusing on carrying Loki’s tall form. Loki’s head has dropped to Bruce’s shoulder without him even realizing it. He focuses on healing, on breathing evenly through the pain. He’s nearly dropped off to unconsciousness when Bruce rouses him awake.
“What were you doing anyways?”
“Looking at books.”
Bruce snorts. “That’s likely.”
“I swear it. I was looking through a book of herbs to see if it might tell me about what was available in the planets in our path.” Loki feels a flash of sudden annoyance at Bruce’s disbelief, though he knows it is with good reason. “If you go back, you’ll find it on the floor of the stall, just as I described. I like books, is that really so unbelievable?” Acid leaks into his voice.
“Fine, fine. If you weren’t doing anything, why were you stabbed?”
“Who knows. It could have been a frustrated mugger — I never keep anything valuable in my actual pockets — or perhaps a gang initiation, or someone who needed a fresh corpse and was planning on returning once I’d bled out, or a random act of violence…I suppose we may never know.”
“Thor’s going to want to go after them.”
“Yes, and that’s when you will help me explain to him that he cannot go running after a mysterious attacker in a place such as this - a place where this sort of thing probably occurs daily without comment. Didn’t you see the bookseller? He took one look at me lying in the alley and turned his back and went into the stall. And I can’t blame him. In places like these sticking your neck out for strangers could mean your life. No, we’ll probably never find whoever did this, it will be useless, and further, undignified, for the king of Asgard to go tearing through a seedy backwater market…”
“Okay, okay, you make a good point. As long as…” Bruce hesitates. “You’re sure you’re going to be alright?” Loki is touched to hear a note of actual concern in Bruce’s voice.
“Of course. Despite it being unluckily placed, to cut the nerves, it’s thin and clean. I think the bleeding’s already slowed some. My legs hurt, but that’s better than the numbness. I’ll be fine by the time Thor and Valkyrie get back.” Bruce shakes his head.
“Unbelievable. You can just repair spinal nerves in the span of hours. Do you have any idea how miraculous that is? How many people tried their entire careers to regenerate nerves? And we still can’t do it?”
“Of course, Midgardian technologies are abysmally archaic-”
“Never mind.”
They were almost at the ship. Loki can see Heimdall at the entrance. Bruce, sweating and trembling with exertion, looks profoundly relieved.
“Thank you, Bruce,” Loki says quietly.
“It’s nothing. If you’d told me two years…or five years? I don’t know, Sakaar time was weird…if you’d told me in New York that I’d be carrying you on my back…man, I would never have believed it.”
“I don’t think I would have either. But thank you.” Heimdall’s spotted them now. He’s approaching, looking concerned.
“Some trouble, Prince Loki?”
“Oh you know,” Loki says with a tired smile. “I was stabbed in the back. Just another day at the market.”
It was almost worth it to see the expression on Heimdall’s face.