(Untitled)
The first time he awoke, Loki felt wrong.
He couldn't move any part of his body and just keeping his eyes open felt too much effort. He felt... weightless, somehow, not at all there. He didn't understand how he could be awake in the first place, but his head couldn't handle complex thoughts.
Not yet.
He would get there.
There was a big smile in his field of vision, and pale eyes joyful after a long time of sorrow. Thor.
“Brother! Brother.”
Loki faintly registered that Thor was holding his hand, gave it a soft kiss.
“You're on the mend now, Loki. You'll mak.....”
*
The next time he woke up to angry voices outside his room.
Sunlight shone outside his heavily medically equipped room, and Loki was glad. He thought he wouldn't see the sun again. It was peaceful. He felt better.
The people outside were not feeling so magnanimous.
“.... No, no, no! He stays here! He stays here as long as he needs to, and you and all your agencies leave him alone.”
Loki realised that he knew this voice. Bruce Banner.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Loki was glad that the man/Hulk was still in one piece.
“...criminal......prison....”
“Do you really want to make me angry?”
Loki went back to sleep, a small smile in his face. Some things didn't change.
*
Loki awoke feeling much worse the next time. He hardly noticed that he was somehow throwing up, and that someone was cleaning his brow, holding him up so that he wouldn't choke.
“Should we call someone? Maybe he's reacting bad to the medication or something....”
An unknown female voice said, as she cleaned him. She had long dark hair and green eyes, and was looking at Loki kindly. A humanoid with oddly soulful eyes was with her, and helped her to clean the sick man. There was something comforting about their presence.
“Thor said this was normal. I think we should just clean and let him go back to his rest.”
That sounded pleasant.
The couple was pleasant, too. Wanda and Vision, they said their names were. Loki hoped that the next time he woke up he would still remember them. He needed to thank them, at some point, when he retrieved his voice and the strength to use it. He was glad to meet them.
*
The Captain of America was contently drawing something in the chair next to his bed, while humming a song. He sketched with pencils, softly and carefully, and Loki vaguely wondered what he might be drawing.
The song he was humming sounded outdated, but important. Heartfelt. It was the first piece of music Loki had heard in a very long time, and he revelled in the beauty of its sound. Little joys of life, a piece of music, the colour of the flowers in the vase in front of his bed. But the music, above all. How he had missed.
Loki finally felt the strength to move his hands coming back to him. It was odd, and tingly, but his hands were there, and he could finally feel them again. He could move them.
When the song ended, he clapped.
*
There was someone talking quickly and excitedly the next time, with all the energy in the world, all the energy that Loki was trying to find again.
“... but I can speed up the healing process! His stats aren't good enough, and they are improving too slowly, and if I could implant...”
The youthful enthusiastic voice was interrupted by an older, calmer one.
“Let the man take his time, Shuri. He's been through enough.”
Loki agreed with the calmer voice.
He agreed a lot.
*
Loki was with Thor and some mortal who called himself Bucky the first time he found his voice again.
He was sitting up now, propped against one million pillows, but there were less... gadgets on him, less needles. There was still the one in his arm, and the plastic contraption under his nose that was so surprisingly adept at helping him breathe, but he was... more whole. Less broken, little by little.
He thought about what he could say with his recovered voice. Something grandiose? A quote of some sort? Some scathing commentary?
No. Too tiring.
“Hello... again.” It was wrong, and low, and weak, but it was him. Back again.
The smiles of his companions could have lit up the whole room.
*
The lady Romanoff decided to have her birthday party in his room, and Loki felt so touched by the gesture that he nearly stopped breathing (again).
The party was ideal.
There was cake, and wine, and anecdotes of almost dying and heroics and how tough it could be. Peter Quill made the playlist. The Captain and Bucky were eating cake (they also cut a piece for Loki,who even though he had just started to eat solid again and wouldn't be able to eat evem half, but it was the gesture that mattered). The Valkyrie and Bruce Banner were telling a funny story to the wide eyed children of the group, Shuri and Peter Parker. Kraglin was trying to get Nebula to dance, just like Scott Lang and Darcy Lewis were doing.
Loki didn't know exactly what had happened to him, and maybe he didn't want to fully know.
He also didn't know how long would it take for him to leave that bed, or if he would live with any long term effects of what had happened.
But in that moment... He was alive, he was not alone. He was happy.
And nobody would take that moment away from him.