Curiosity Killed the Cat

Chapter 12: Tea Does Not Solve All Problems

Bucky brought over some tea and sat down next to the disheartened trickster. Loki silently nodded in thanks, pressing his lips together in place of a smile, and took the small cup from him.

After Loki's outburst the avengers had started questioning Thor on the verifiability of what his wayward brother had said. Not responding, he had stormed out of the room and now the surrounding sky, which was previously clear, was now down-pouring.

Loki, realizing he had just blurted out most of his secrets about his childhood, was ever so silent. He had put his sweatshirt back on, feeling exposed as people kept looking at his marred arms. He was taking careful breaths to keep from having an anxiety attack, trying to block out everything and everyone else. Being around so many people for so long was making his mind spin and he would have went out of the room, but a few things kept him from doing so.

One, he wasn't sure whether weapons were still trained on him from within the ceiling and he had no desire to have a hole in his chest.

Two, he knew after what happened they would begin to ask more questions that 'couldn't wait'.

Three, he felt like he would vomit if he stood up.

Bucky, for his part, must've noticed him looking a bit green around the gills and made him some lemon ginger tea with some honey to help settle his stomach.

Truth be told, it was delicious.( Loki would not admit it around everyone but he made a note to thank Barnes later for it.)

"You good?"

Loki snapped out of his thoughts when Stark spoke. He said nothing and just nodded. Loki then looked at Peter and Shuri's concerned faces. He let out a sigh and silently shook it.

"We'll go at your pace, alright?" Sam said.

Loki nodded.

"How old are you?"

"1052."

Tony shook his head at the shocked expressions on some of the newer avengers, and chuckled a bit.

"I meant in earth years?"

"Oh. Around seventeen I think." He said, still staring down at the cup he was sipping from.

There was crash of glass. Tony had dropped his beer bottle and it had exploded onto the floor. Dum-E 3.0 came over and swept up the mess quickly before leaving.

" You're seventeen... you attacked earth when you were seventeen... you were tortured when you were seventeen..." Tony started to swear profusely before getting up and getting the oldest bottle of whiskey he had and chugged it.

Loki shifted. They already knew pretty much everything, there was no reason to hide the rest.

"I actually think I was eight in earth years when I was 'tortured'  for the first time according to your Midgardian definition."

The room descended into silence.

Loki's eyes jumped around the room nervously. The last time a room was completely silent he had received 50 lashes at the whipping post. He was unconscious for a week. His breaths started to quicken and he felt himself going faint.

"Loki!"

He flinched back from the direction of the voice. It was Bruce. He released some of the tension in his shoulders and closed his eyes to block out the world.