Unconscious
Scott had been thrown in a little cell, taken by a Rogue team of all-american vigilantes that were rooting for the “cleansing” of the heroes, and the forces of law enforcement, and so they had stopped Scott Lang, known ex-con and thrown him without his suit in a cell where they kept him and sometimes took him away, to “teach him lessons”. He had known he'd get in trouble for being with the Avengers after his past, but hadn't realised, it could get this bad. All his injuries hurt, and they were all over.
For that whole first week, Scott had hoped that they would throw someone else there with him, to help him get out, to have someone to talk to, maybe someone that would have it easier than him to get out and get some help, find a way out. Two heads always thought better than one, and the absence of two people would be more obvious than just his. Those men could have forged a pic of him on holiday and sent it to everyone, and nobody would look. But two people going away at the same time.... It would have to be suspicious.
Some time later, Scott got his wish, as some of his tormentors brought in a bloodied figure dressed only in torn and old black pants and an old cotton green shirt. They were limping, one of the legs bent if a strange angle, their hands bandaged, their neck a bloody mess with ligature marks. And there were a lot of cuts all around in the arms, in the legs, in what he could see of the face. At first he thought it was a woman, because of the long black hair. But no. Those green eyes were difficult to confuse, even if one of them was swollen shut.
“...Loki”
The men threw him violently and Loki fell on the floor, not far from where Scott was, her face an angry mask.
“We will not let you break the Avengers apart!” One of those men screamed.
Loki threw a venomous look at him.
“I'm the reason they got together in the first place, you idiot! Without me, you wouldn't have any precious Avengers.”
The guard, apparently lost for words, simply got in the cell and tasered Loki, who just bit back his scream as the electricity coursed through him.
And then they were alone.
Scott helped Loki into a more comfortable position, and checked for any wounds that may need looking after. There was nothing bleeding, at least, even if Loki was still squirming painfully after the electricity.
“Hey.” Scott said, awkward.
“You too, huh?” Loki said, eyes closed.
“Yeah. They threw me here without my suit or any access to anything, 'bout two weeks ago. And they... they've been having fun. What about you? Oh my god, you never left for Asgard, did you?”
Scott said, remembering a cryptic message they got, where it said that Loki had some business in Asgard and would be unavailable for the foreseeable future. And that had been about a month ago. Oh my god, poor man. They had had him for all that time, no wonder he looked so bad.
“That's the story they told? Pathetic. They should have used the Void, Asgard is easily reachable and their alibi would be undone.” Scott frowned.
“Why would you want to go back to the void?”
“Good point.”
When they stopped talking, Scott had time to take in Loki's terrible state. There wasn't a part that was free from the clear abuse of those men. He'd been cut, he'd been beaten, and he had bones broken. He was hiding his face with his hair, but apart from the eye there was a split lip and a big cut that crossed his face diagonally, like one of those Star Wars scars. And the hands... somehow Scott knew that it had been bad.
“What did they do to your hands?”
“Acid. One of those guys works for Stark, they had access to all my files. They know I need my hands for most of my tricks and that acid burned through a big chunk of its tissue.”
“Ouch.”
“Indeed. And now my residual magic is all busy trying to heal that and my leg, and I can't do anything else. Not even send Thor a silly dream warning. I feel useless.”
“Yeah, man me too. Damn, if I'd known you were in trouble I would've done something, god. Thor said you liked to travel and that we shouldn't worry. But it felt off, I knew it felt off, you would have said goodbye, maybe not to me, but to Stark, or Wanda... You would have said good bye to her.”
Loki opened his good eye and looked directly at Scott.
“That's all right, Lang. I know you would have come for me, had you known. That's enough.”
Maybe Loki wasn't the most useful companion, but Scott was kind of happy that it was him he was going to share his cell with. They were.... well, kind of friendly. Maybe because when Loki was wreaking havoc he'd still been in jail and lived none of it, maybe because he was a bit of an underdog like him, maybe because he had a bad past, like him, maybe because he had a sense of humour he enjoyed, he wasn't exactly sure, but he liked Loki, and all those things others disliked about him, he didn't care.
Scott could see that Loki's arrogance was mostly an act for looking as cool as Thor, as godly, but that deep inside, he was a generally insecure guy, like him, like Banner. Also like them, he was a really smart guy, and not as flamboyant with his intellect as Stark. Maybe because in Asgard wits were not as valued as strength, and he only flaunted after big victories. But Scott liked to talk to Loki about science and magic, about feeling that maybe you're not good enough for your family, about being given a second chance and how hard redemption and staying nice could be. About how relative everything was.
But now Loki was hurt, and badly, and Scott wanted to do something about it, but he didn't know how. They stayed a couple of days in that cell, getting hardly no food at all, and talking life, about families, about being alone and making mistakes and fixing them, but not regretting everything completely. About friends. About enemies, and people who hurt them mercilessly. About people who were unfairly given choices they deserved.
About always ending up in terrible situations.
“Do you know why they put us together? Did they bring someone else?” Scott asked, on the third day. He'd noticed that instea of healing, Loki's injuries were only getting worse. His eye was still closed, his leg hadn't moved. They had to get out, the sooner the better.
“I think so.” Loki said.”Oh, I dearly hope it's Romanoff.”
“She will kick their asses and save ours.”
“Exactly.”
“But in case it isn't her, do we have any other exit strategies? You said most of your tricks need you hands... so which are the ones that don't?”
“Mind charms, mostly. Projections and such.”
“Could you send Thor that message if I, like... shared some of my energy with you?”
Loki thought about it for a moment.
“We could do something like that... But since you are the one who is the most... whole of the two of us, it would be you who sent it. Not to Thor, clearly, it works best if it's someone you have a deep connection with... You think about them and hold my hands.” He said, offering the bandages, bony hands.
“You need them, your hands? Won't it hurt them more?” Scott said, concerned. Loki already looked like an scarecrow that had been stepped on, an this sounded like something that could hurt. He was beginning to regret having suggested it.
“Everything hurts right now, dear friend. I would rather have pain and hope that it will end than only pain and hopelessness.”
“Why aren't you healing?”
“I am not as young I used to” (and boy, could Scott relate to that) “It takes longer to heal, because I have been hurt many times... maybe too long. This is our best chance.”
He was right, and Scott knew he was right, but still he didn't like it. But he wanted out, too, for both of them, and so he did as instructed, thought of Hope and of a clear message with all the info he had of where they might be and who their captors were so that she would come, as quickly as possible, because things were bad. So Scott closed his eyes, he took Loki's bandaged hands and thought of it, thought of it intensely, thought of it once and again and again. At first, there was nothing, but then he started feeling some... connection, a force. Something clicked, and he knew Hope had the message.
And something fell on him. Scott opened his eyes and found Loki's head on top of him, that blood stained tangled hair on his chest.
“Loki?”
But Loki was out cold, and had gone like five shades paler. Shit.
“Come on man, don' check out on me! Hey!”
He softly slapped the other man's cheek, but there was no reaction.
“Wake up, man, don't leave me here alone! Loki, Loki, man, I'm sorry.”
He shouldn't have suggested anything, not when Loki was this bad. He looked at him, all white skin marred with scars, old and new, and all bones and angles after not having been fed practically in the last month. Poor dude. They beat him up far worse than they did him, and still he had used his last bit of energy to get a message out. Scott knew that it was more self preservation and heroics, but still it was brave of the guy.
"Hey, please, wake up. You need to get better for when they come to rescue us, ok? You need to be awake for when we kick those bastard's asses."
There could be many things said about Loki, but the guy was brave, even if it was only to get into bad stuff. And sometimes you needed to bad things to get your life moving, needed to visit many bad places to finally get into a good one. Make bad choices and take the best of them, the best of all the wrong things in their lives. And then you forge yourself anew, and help others, and help yourself.
Like they had.
Loki was so still, Scott had to check that he was still breathing every like three minutes. He wished he had something to clean him with, the guy had always been so put together, so... elegant. Such a good looking guy, and now he was all broken, lying there with his eyes closed, all limp. Like some victim of torture, which he was. It was sad. Scott wanted to fix it, but couldn't. Loki continued to be there, and even if could look like he was peacefully asleep, he wasn't and it was concerning.
Every few hours Scott would try to wake him again “come on, man, come back, you had your rest already”, sometimes faking an emergency “Wake up, the cell is on fire!” or even with childish bait “Oh my god, Loki the best? The Avengers and the Asgardians are throwing you a surprise party!” but none of it worked, and Loki remained stubbornly unconscious.
And time passed and there was no rescue mission. Scott talked to Loki anyways, even though the god continued painfully unresponsive. About Cassie and what a great woman she'd grow to be. About Hope and the fears he had with her. About Luis and his van and the good times they had together. About the Avengers and the incident in Berlin. About anything. And then, at the end, emotions got the best of him.
“Why don't you come back? I'm sorry I suggested that, I wish... I've seen you, you know, doing all those cool things but being so alone... 'cos Thor has all this other cool friends, and you don't fit with anyone cos you were their enemy... But you're not enemy, and you're a nice guy, -well, maybe not nice, but interesting, you know, and I wish I had reached out to you, instead of seeing you all lonesome and brokenhearted and... I didn't, 'cos I'm not as brave, I try to be, but sometimes... And now you're all comatose, and maybe it's because I did something wrong, maybe I thought too hard...Please come back.... you made everything more....easy to handle. You're not just criminal who's with the Avengers. You matter, man, more than you know.... Please come back.”
Loki was unconscious.
He continued to be and Scott tried not to cry.
But the next day, when Scott woke up, a green eye met his.
“They are coming.” Loki said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
And surely, in under ten minutes, Hope, Falcon and a wide eyed Luis were there, and opened their cell in no time. Scott and the others were going to handle the men that had taken them, but first Scott had a very special mission for Luis.
“You have medical with you when you came, right? It is very important to me that Loki stays awake until he gets there, so I will need you to talk to him all the way, and not let him pass out. Can you do that?”
“Yes, I can brother.”
And so Luis was taking a weakened but awake god of mischief through a secret passage Hope had found and trying to fin the right words.
“Wow, I mean, what do you say to a god, like what do you talk about with someone of your... I don't know what is word, calibre? Stature? Like I have never talked to a god before, I mean, you do talk to god, to ask him for things and such, but he's far away and not answering and you know....” Luis was interrupted by a soft voice.
“Tell me about the smoothie machines.”
When Scott came back, Loki was laughing softly, and wide awake. He hugged him for no reason.
(However much they wanted it to be a private thing, Luis told that story, “the superhug” in a thousand different ways. Did I tell you about that one me and my Avenger buds saved an Ant and a viking? It's got everything, action, actual proper magic, and yours truly being awesome. It all started when......)