Friendly fire
It was only a split second, but everything went to hell.
“Loki!” Tony screamed regretting his entire existence for a moment, as Loki fell on the floor, knocked down by one of his blasters, make an awful sound.
He hadn't meant to hit him, of course he hadn't! Despite their very rocky beginnings, Loki had become one of his best friends, and he would never hurt him on purpose. The bad thing about Loki was that he was awfully sneaky and sometimes he appeared out of nowhere, materialised out of thin air and it scared Tony, especially if he had a bad day, or a bad dream, or if he was too caught up in his work... Sometimes his instincts took over and he fired before asking questions.
This was bad. Tony could already see a pool of blood forming under Loki, and the big red circular red angry injury in his chest from where the blaster had hit. Oh, god, did it have to be the chest? The chest was full of vital important organs! Getting hurt there was never good news. Tony knew this from personal experience. It was a deep and serious injury, and he'd been the one to cause it.
“Oh, shit! Loki, I'm so sorry! And that was your bad lung too, wasn't it?” (Of the course of time, they'd all become familiar with Loki's may medical issues, in this case a lung he hurt while he was younger) “I'm so sorry, oh god, I'm calling.... I'm calling help, don't worry...”
This was a welcome novelty for Loki. Not the getting hurt part – that he was very used to, as it happened more often than not. He'd been hurt much and often, in many different ways, and more than once by the members of his own group (Thor's friends when they were young, Volstagg and Sif most of all, followed by “you shouldn't have come with us”, once or twice Thor himself). No, what was new was the apologizing.
Normally, when Loki got hurt it was because somebody wanted him to be hurt. An alarming number of people from different realms enjoyed toying with him and seeing him injured, enjoyed inflicting pain on him, and as much as possible. A lot of them had looked down on when he got hurt, eyed him with disgust and superiority for being so weak and fragile. Sometimes his companion got angry at him because his injury meant they had to stop what they were doing, or were simply apalled at his state. But not apologetic.
People were never sorry for hurting him. But Tony was. He was so, so sorry. He felt fifty shades of awful- Loki had been hurt a lot of times, by enemies from every side possible. Very often it was them him and his team mates, and it had always been on purpose. Loki was already very much one of those self doubting people who didn't really believe he belonged in the team, and having one of its members blast you in the chest... What if this put in jeopardy everything that they'd built? What if because of his careless action Loki went back to not trusting them and being evil?
This could be a tipping point for the worst and Tony felt that no apology would or could be neough for the hole in Loki's chest. Saying sorry was easy but it didn't fix the damage... Tony groaned. He'd screwed up, badly, like he always did. But this time it was worse because he'd screwed up with somebody he shouldn't have – Loki was very sensitive, and didn't forget anything that was done to him. Shit, shit, shit.
And besides, the guy had been hurt more times than they could count, he'd been murdered, he killed himself, he'd been blown up and electrocuted and one million other things... It wasn't fair that he'd get hurt by those that were supposed t be watching his back too. And god or not he had to have his limits, and what if this injury left him with sequels? What if he never recovered? It would be on him, and Tony didn't think he could handle that again.
Trying not to think about it too much, he took the injured god in his arms and flew him to the medical floor on his tower. He left Loki in the care of his incredibly overqualified medical personnel, with orders of informing him with any change, any development.
There was blood on his hands and armour, and Tony wanted to break down. But he also wanted to be whole for Loki, make sure that he knew he was there trying to fix what he caused and so that the moment his life wasn't in danger and he was awake and conscious he could tell him how much he didn't mean to do that, and how terribly sorry he was.
He received a notification from on e of the nurses that Loki had been rushed to surgery for an emergency reconstruction of his lung, and Tony's eyes welled up with tears.
“What's going on?” Nebula asked, appearing out of nowhere as she often did. “What happened to you?”
Oh shit. Nebula was going to kill him.
“I... we were on battle... I accidentally hit Loki in the chest... He's in surgery right now.”
Nebula approached in the most threatening way known to man with a stern and dangerous look on her face.
“But it was an accident, right? You are sure you did not want to hit him.”
“I swear, Nebula! I am so sorry and I am so worried that he'll think I did on purpose, that some part wanted to hurt him for our past... You know how he is...”
“I do. Just be there when he wakes up. Maybe make some sort of grand gesture to compensate? You know how dramatic he is.”
So, while he kept being updated on Loki's condition (now he's hooked to a ventilator – now there's some repairs being done on the affected area with some high end quick-scar products – now we're just waiting for for him to go back to breathing on his own) Tony started thinking about what the hell he could do to compensate.
-
Loki didn't remember much when he woke up. He knew that there had been a blast, he knew that his chest had been hurt... He knew that he'd stopped breathing at some point, and that he was better now. Some Midgardian medical facility... and three pairs of eyes looking at him intently.
Thor, Nebula and Tony Stark.
“Hey, good to have you back. How are you feeling?”
Then it came back to him, the mistake, all that apologising, the blast in his chest. Had he done something to provoke the guy....? Probably. Loki's mind was still a bit fuzzy after the trauma of such a major injury, but everything was coming back, gradually.
And then he saw it. A huge I'm sorry banner, all that candy, a bunch of Loki figurines around, his favourite ice cream.
“I didn't know how to really say sorry so I made you a little...play.”
And there in the hospital bed's tv there was the recording of a play that depicted Loki's greatest hits with the Avengers, and where he was praised to no end, accompanied by a small appearance at the end by Stark himself (and not the actor who played him) reiterating his apologies. It was... incredible. Unexpected. Perfect.
Getting hurt, especially this bad, was never pleasant, but when you got to wake up to something like that...
Even in that hospital bed, still hooked to all those machines, he couldn't help but smile.