Transference
“What good are you and your magic then?” Tony Stark said, venom in his words.
The truth was, none of them had wanted Loki around, and only agreed to let him live on Earth and out of prison because of Thor and all the arguments he'd used in favour of his little brother. But it was very clear that if there was no Thor, he would be in prison, or worse.
They had been living in the Avengers building with the lady Maximoff and Bruce Banner and Thor had insisted that if he helped the others when needed people would warm up to him, be nicer. But apart from Miss Maximoff and an occasional “good job” from Captain Rogers, Loki was still only receiving hostile looks and comments. Thor was busy remaking Asgard with the few survivors form the pods and should not be bothered by petty problems.
After so long, after so many things he'd done, he was back at the start, being Thor's unwanted little brother. A tainted shadow, not as good enough as any of his companions. Never good enough. It kind of hurt, no matter how much Loki tried to tell himself that the opinion of some lowly mortals didn't matter all that much.
It wasn't simply that they didn't trust him, which was something logical considering his personality, but the fact that all those people seemed to actively dislike him. That they were practically disgusted him, even after saving their asses, even after Thor's lengthy tale of how Loki left safety to help them out. And still, he was a stranger, somebody despised and looked down on, unwelcome and unforgiven.
It bothered him, because none of them were saints, and yet they treated him as if he was the only sinner. Barton and Romanoff were assassins, Stark had been an arms dealer in all but name. But it was that, wasn't it? It wasn't what he'd done, any of his crimes. It was the fact that he was Loki, it was his fate to live unloved and unliked for the rest of his years.
Maybe he should be grateful to accept what he did have after everything (a bed, some food, a brother who still stood up for him) but he just... People's love and appreciation had been so important him, and had an enormous impact in his well being. Every angry look, every derogatory word, they were like daggers in his heart, and every day it was getting worse.
Until that fateful day in the streets of Seattle, when an intergalactic automaton nearly wiped all of them of the face of the earth. Half the team had been flown to medical facilities to try and save their lives when Loki and Stark found the nearly bled out body of one Peter Parker.
“Loki” Tony said urgently, as they were joined by the Captain. “do your thing!”
But Loki had been fighting for over twenty hours, had been bound and waterboarded, his leg was practically falling off him and he could hardly breathe properly... He barely had strength to keep his eyes open, he couldn't do something as complicated as healing magic on anyone else but himself.
“I... I can not....”
“Well then, what good is your magic?”
Loki was panting, looking at that poor boy with his windpipe practically crushed, wheezed desperately, one of his ears gone and one of his eyes bloody, a big gaping hole in his chest skin already greying out. Loki knew what it was, knew that they had no time and he knew how horrible it was to know yourself to be dying... again....
“What good are you?” Tony Stark was saying, and Loki, for a moment, doubted.
Maybe he was no good. Maybe all those voices saying that he should have been gone long enough had been right, maybe he really was a waste of space, a despicable person with nothing more to offer the world. He'd end p evil, or useless, or pathetic and mean. Maybe he was better off dead. No good anymore, no good when it counted.
Himself, his magic and all of his tricks amounted to nothing important.
What good are you?
No good. No good at all.
NO.
That was what others wanted him to believe, what others thought of him and wanted him to think. They wanted him useless, or evil, or dead. And he was so much more than that. Maybe he couldn't heal the boy in the traditional way, but he was Loki, and he was good at thinking and figuring out ways to turn situations around.
What good are you?
Loki looked at his team mate dead in the eye and said:
“Good enough.”
So he placed his hands on the boy's chest and started the process. It was going to be painful, he was barely better than the boy himself, and all his wounds looked grievous. But it didn't matter, none of it mattered anymore.
He would help this boy and shut all of their mouths. Just like he spent a good part of his life doing, trying to help those ungrateful people around. He barely held in the scream. It was almost over now.
The boy's eyes opened for a split moment, just as Loki's chest began bleeding profusely.
“Loki?”
Loki drew a soft smile. Then his eyes rolled back in his head.
Now sporting each and every wound the boy had received, Loki fell on the floor with a dead thud.
“Loki!!!”
There was a moment of silence, as Peter tried to understand what the hell had happened and the others tried to understand what Loki had done.
“He couldn't heal him... so he...oh no, Loki...” Steve was muttering, a bit horrified. Loki had practically given his life trying to help. This was so many kinds of wrong.
“Peter, are you ok?”
Of course he was ok, at least he was whole!
“What happened to him?” He asked looking at the unconscious and bleeding Loki.
“What happened to you, happened to him.” Steve said, sorrow in his eyes. “You were dying and he couldn't heal you, so he transferred all your wounds to himself.” And then, louder, to his comm. “No, Sam, it has to be here NOW! Loki may only have minutes to live!”
Peter wanted to cry, to throw something, to scream at the void.
“He did what?”
Tony was somber.
“He did what needed to be done. I still think you should be checked out....”
“No!”
Peter bent on top of Loki's bleeding frame, looking for a pulse. There was hardly no breathing, no heartbeat, not even with his heightened senses. He, the amazing spider man, was crying. He'd thought that Loki seemed interesting, but Mr' Stark had said he was dangerous, and to stay away. The rest of his friends shared that opinion, so he had stayed away. Believed everything they said about him.
And now....
Tony was getting eaten alive by guilt. If Loki died... it would be on him, and Thor would never forgive him, with good reason. All this time, he tried to convince himself and the others that Loki was the Big Bad, to somehow put some distance between them. Truth was, he saw too much of himself in Loki. Genius, emotionally unstable, lots of anxiety, too grandiloquent.
Loki's bad choices reminded him of his own bad choices (all the weapons, Ultron, so many bad calls with such terrible consequences) and he needed to separate himself from him. He's a madman and a murderer, a bad person, that's why he doesn't have friends. Always remember this. (The painful truth was this: Tony knew that if he'd been born in spaces, his story may not have too dissimilar from Loki's).
Steve waved at medical jet and sat next to Loki for the ride to Medbay HQ.
Peter was riding too, despite the other adults telling him not to go, that it was too gruesome. But he needed to be there, to see people healing Loki, helping him. He was like that because of him, for trying to help him. A guy who he had only like one conversation and a half with was dying to...
“Please, fix him. Please, please, please.”
Steve felt suddenly a hundred years older. He'd seen it happening, the disdain, the bad looks and knew that his team mates were... overstepping his meanness a bit too much, but he hadn't sadi anything. He thought Loki could handle it, he thought at some point the others would start treating him nicely and everything would be forgotten.
He should have done something, helped Loki, told the others to tone it down... Something more, before the god decided to do something drastic, like this. Of course he was happy that Peter was still alive... but there shoul have been another way. With all the abilities and gadgets they had, there had to be something better than a life for a life.
It wasn't fair.
They put Loki in intensive care, told them that I could go either way, that emergency surgery would be required, that even taking into account his magic this was going to be, best case scenario, a very long recovery.
Peter's hands were stained with blood.
Tony was looking at the floor, nable to face the world, or worse, himself.
Steve sighed a long, deep, never ending sigh.
The same thought ran through all three men's heads:
I'm sorry, Loki.I'm so sorry.