Gunshot wound
“Is everyone okay?” Natasha shouted at the group after the shootout with some armed aliens. She was with an odd group that consistend on some half the guardians, Loki and herself. There were outer spacey bad guys that the guardians had been following, and Loki was there.... She had no idea. She was a bit fuzzy on how she had got there, but decided not to think too much about it.
Nebula and Drax were okay (weren't they always?), and Loki was helping Mantis up, but they both seemed good. It felt a bit impossible that with all that shooting nobody had been hit, but they were being lucky today. It was about time. Still, better to make sure.
“No one got shot?”
“He got shot.” Mantis said, pointing at Loki, who just rolled his eyes.
“I can handle it.” The god said, giving no indication whatsoever of having received a major injury.
“Only because you are very accustomed to pain. That doesn't mean that your injury is not severe, or that you are not in great pain.”
Loki didn't like this Mantis character. All his careful thought out layers, all his personas and all of his acting didn't work on her. Someone who can know all your true feelings is not a good fit a god of lies.
“I don't like you.” He told her. “Where's Nebula? I want Nebula.”
“I am here and whatever Mantis is saying, she is right and you know it.” Nebula said, with a little smile that looked very odd in her.
“Traitor.”
Nebula smirked more.
Natasha decided to check out Loki's gunshot wound, since no one else seemed to be doing anything about it - anything other than sly remarks, of course. It was a shot on his stomach that was bleeding fairly steadily. And all Loki had done was raise an eyebrow. Amazing. Sadly, it wasn't a through and through.
“We'll have to get that bullet out. I know you can still walk and anything else, Loki, but the bullet could be laced with something, they did tell us that these people often dipped their weapon in poison just in case, right? So better not to risk it.”
The spy did have a point, and the others could use the “procedure” to rest up a bit. Nebula had offered herself volunteer (I'll do it. I don't trust any of you to do it properly, she said simply and decided that that was that) and Natasha was glad that she didn't have to do it, but slightly concerned. Nebula took out a space switchblade that she spat on and his worry grew.
“Nebula if you can, don't be too... brutal.”
Nebula didn't seem to understand what he was saying.
“He can handle it.”
Loki, sitting on the floor undoing some bits of his armour so that Nebula could reach better agreed absentmindedly.
“Sure he can, but if you're softer, it will hurt less. Wouldn't you have preferred to be hurt less and have people be soft when they all those things they did to you?”
Nebula seemed puzzled, and just thought about it. Maybe she could try to be softer, maybe she could try to cause less pain. Subtlety and tenderness had never been strong points of hers, but she lost nothing for trying.
“All right.”
Loki had his head held up high, his shoulders squared a distant air to his eyes. Sure, that bullet in his gut hurt like hell but that wouldn't cause him to lose composture. He was a god and a king, and he' been impaled, hulk smashed, even killed. He could deal with the pain no matter how much it hurt, and pretend it didn't bother him.
What would anybody gain from his whining? Even after all this time he still felt that he had to prove to everyone that he could be as tough as Thor, as strong as Thor, as stoic as Thor. Maybe he would never feeling the need of standing up to his brother... maybe that would never go away. He threw one sideways glance to Mantis, trying to tell her to please not blow his tough guy façade.
Mantis smiled and gave him a nod, feeling as if she were part of some clever ruse.
Nebula's work was quick and efficient, but she definitely lacked the finesse Loki remembered from Eir and the other healers. She dug the bullet out with her switchblade and bandaged the wound tightly, using a piece of somebody's cape for it and putting in it the bandaging the strength of a thousand gods. Loki had to really control himself not to let out a cry when she bandaged the wound. She didn't pull back, that woman. And this was her being “soft”.
Still, she was better than many people he'd had the misfortune of encountering, and even if his loins were on fire (that was probably the poison) and all his midsection was screaming at him not to move, to scream out in pain, his gaze never wavered.
“Thank you, Nebula. You are extremely resourceful, as always.”
How was he going to stand up now? How was he going to continue pretending when even breathing had become difficult? But he had to find a way, he couldn't show weakness now, or that shirtless colourful man (Drax, was he called?) would make fun of his predicament and maybe even give him a demeaning nickname (Loki hated being with such honest people – lies were the base of decency, of diplomacy, of...him,, in general). Still, it was going to be complicated. He was feeling slightly light headed and knew that he was blinking way too much.
Nebula got in on it, and decided to distract the others to let him compose himself. It was hard to live up to seemingly-unbreakable super cool super good looking siblings. She related to that. Because Gamora was “all that” she kept trying make everyone see her as this killing machine, fierce, driven, unbreakable. Sometimes it was hard.. but that was who they were.
Mantis was suddenly sat next to him, and Loki eyed her suspiciously.
Suddenly all his worries about looking whole and strong vanished. Suddenly there was no inferiority, no anxiety, no fear and no torment. Suddenly and for once, there was only peace in his head, all his being being overwhelmed by a sense of perfect calm. His head fell softly in Mantis shouder, who smiled.
“Sleep well, prince of lies. I'll keep your secrets safe.”