Anthrax
So, one of Tony's competitors had been angry and had dealt out some death threats. It was ok, he was used to it – he only started getting worried when this random anonymous competitor mentioned the “surprise white powder in his in his mail, he was sure he would enjoy”. That seemed too specific to be just a general threat, and although he hadn't seen a letter in years, he knew someone else opened the letters for him.
Fuck. Pepper?
“Do you open the mail? Did you open it today? What happens with my mail, Pep, it's extremely important that I know! The you-know, paper mail.” Tony said, panicked, in a jumble of words.
“I used to, but you told Loki he could do it. In your words, “since he's so nosy he could do something useful with it” don't you remember?”
He did remember. Now he was glad for Pepper but worried about Loki.
“Tony, what's going on?”
“I'll call you back! I need to check something.”
He used the computer to call Loki (he was living with them for a while, fulfilling a double purpose a) they made sure that he wasn't doing anything questionable and b) didn't allow him to feel lonely or unwanted, which was, as they learned, one of the reason for his former villainy) and to tell him to come quick.
And some excruciatingly long moments later, there he was, as tall and long as usual, wearing only a loose black sweater and some tracksuit bottoms. Odd. Loki had never favoured comfort over style.
“Lokes, tell me you didn't find anything strange in the mail?”
Loki shook his head. Tony released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and almost laughed. Bullet dodged.
“No death threats, then?”
“Oh, yes, but that's not strange. You get plenty of those, Stark. Lots of people hate you.”
Alarms were again blaring in Tony's head after that moment of calm. Did Loki look paler or was it his imagination?
“With some white powder?” Please say no. Please say no.
“Oh, yes, I remember! It kind of jumped on you, the powder, very clever mechanism.”
Well, we still weren't at code red. Loki was a whole different species, maybe anthrax didn't affect jotuns, maybe they were in the clear and could forget this whole ordeal.
“By the way, Anthony, could you lower the air? I have this... weight in my chest, and my throat feels quite sore. I'm sure it's nothing, but...”
Code red! Code very absolutely red!
Tony immediately called Bruce, Doctor Cho and every other half decent scientist he could think of, to assemble and very urgent, life-or-death save Loki team. They easily found out that the strain used was an unknown one, probably engineered by the aggressor, and that it was indeed affecting Loki. The man seemed to be enjoying the attention. That idiot.
But he went downhill fairly fast. Just the next day.
Loki lost all the energy, seemed to be exhausted at everything, and said that he would stay in bed because he wanted to catch up on sleep, but it was clear that he just couldn't get up. He looked even paler, and seemed to have difficulty to breathe. His temperature starting getting up, and it sky rocketed at night.
And at night, too, he started coughing up blood. Red little droplets, staining the bed he was laying on, and he looked worse and worse, too white, too... sick. He couldn't bring up how godly he was, could barely move. He just lay there, being consumed by something meant for Tony.
And Tony was going crazy, the guilt was eating him whole. He made a million phone calls and hired so many researchers and toxicologists he'd lost count, but no one could guarantee him that they'd find an answer before it was too late for Loki. Just the day before he'd been merrily eating ice cream with Peter, and now he was he was half dead. This strain was design to kill and to kill quick.
And it was his fault, like it was his fault all of what Ultron did, like it was his fault that Rhodey and Happy got hurt, that Pepper was experimented on. But unlike them, Loki wasn't going to last enough for his money and resources to help, fix things. He would die, only because he had living with him, and because he decided opening his own mail was beneath him. Stupid, arrogant Tony.
He went to Loki's room-turned-medbay, and saw, for hours, how his stats got worse, how his breathing got louder and more irregular as his oxygen levels dropped. Loki, always with a joke, Loki who smiled at death, Loki who could trick bad guys into surrender in the blink of an eye, a god, an ally, a friend....
Half dead because he had opened the wrong letter.
Tony cried some silent tears and whispered a very broken “I'm sorry” to the figure in the bed. Cleaned the blood of his mouth, changed the stained pillow. Sighed. Looked at some pictures of the two of them in battle, and then back at Loki now.
You did this to him, a voice told him. But that wouldn't help, wouldn't fix things. He drank three red bulls and set out to find who had sent that damned letter.
The next morning Loki's fever got so high that he became delirious, he started mumbling something in an unknown language (Norse? Asgardian?). And the cough got worse, drier more painful, and there was more blood.
The person responsible released a video of Loki in his sick bed coughing up with a message “this was just a warning. He'll be the first of many”. It was only available online for a few minutes, but it had a great impact. While Tony looked for clues that didn't seem to be very forthcoming (this person had clearly researched, his patterns of thought and his blind spot before doing the attack) the public was very helpful.
Even though it had taken a while for them to get used to Loki as a good guy after his villainous start, after some months with the Avengers people had started to appreciate him, some even admire him. How could they not? Loki was witty, dramatic and very easy on the eyes. The cameras loved him and he loved cameras. People empathised with him feeling second best after Thor, and liked his mischievous winks and redemption story.
And now...
#SaveLoki became trending topic in seconds, and every known scientist or science aficionado was flooding Tony's inbox with suggestions and helpful hints. There was a lot of useless things, too, a lot of praying and spiritual mumbo jumbo.
If Loki would have been functional, he would have loved all that attention. Hell, there was even a vigil with candles, in the saveloki ranks, with some chanting and a speech about how Loki mattered, for everyone who had messed up but knew they could be better, for everyone who had felt “less” in life, but managed to do find the right path, even after stumbling. It was beautiful.
What was not beautiful was the man they were trying to save, burning up in fever, lain on his side so that he wouldn't choke on his blood, (they kept cleaning it, but more blood came out) hardly able to draw breath, going into shock nearly every hour, and barely being brought back each time. Time was really running out for Loki, looking more and more like a dead man than ever. Positive thought wasn't going to change his nearly assured death.
Unless....
Among all the junk he'd been sent (and read, all of it, because not reading got him here in the first place and because if there was one single thing that would help Loki then it would be worth it) when he saw something interesting... Not about healing anthrax (it probably wouldn't work in this strain anyway) but about slowing it down. Buying more time before things got worse, reducing the decline.
And it worked. Loki kept coughing up blood and having a dangerously high fever, but he was stable in his very grave condition.
So that when Tony located the woman who had targeted him and had Scott Lang steal the antidote she had made for herself in case of accident, Loki was alive. And when Lang came back Loki went into shock again, his heart nearly stopped, but he was alive.
They injected it, and Loki immediately calmed down, stopped coughing.
His fever decreased, and four hours later he opened his eyes, and was aware of his surroundings.
Aware of his blood stained pillow, and aware of one bloodshot-eyed Tony Stark, who hadn't slept in four days, smiling at him.
“We did it, buddy. We saved you.”