I Don't Want a Throne

Chapter 4- Completely Different

Loki rushed forwards and fell to his knees beside Möbius's prone form. He was covered in bruises and long gashes ran up his arms and disappeared beneath his sleeves. His clothes were torn through in places and drenched in blood in others. His cheek was swollen and purple in such a way that Loki couldn't tell whether he had been stung by some sort or creature or punched really hard. To worsen matters, some of his fingers were bent at odd angles. It was unclear if he had been tortured or just lost a fight really badly. The floor was already covered in his blood, seeping out from various wounds across his body. His chest was hardly rising and falling at all anymore and two fingers to his throat told Loki that Möbius's pulse was fading fast.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Loki registered cursing from the other avengers- surprised to have a complete stranger on the floor before them. Loki had no mind to quell their confusion and instead ignored them altogether to focus on Möbius.

He was dying. Möbius was dying. And without his magic, there was nothing Loki could do to save him. Desperately, Loki shook his shoulder. "Möbius," he hissed, shaking his shoulder once more, hoping to rouse him. "Möbius, wake up. Come on, you have to wake up."

It was no use. Möbius was too far gone by now. He must have had some internal bleeding somewhere. Without immediate medical attention, he would be dead within minutes.

Loki's breathing was fast and erratic, his hands refused to stop trembling and his vision blurred with unshed tears. From his place on the ground next to his dying friend, Loki looked up at his brother and did something he hadn't done in as long as he could remember- he pleaded. "Thor, Thor, please..." He inhaled a shaky breath. "...please, Thor, let me save him."

"You know him?" Barton barked out, but Loki barely heard him. Thor was his only chance. The whole rest of the room disappeared, it was just him and Thor and Möbius dying on the floor.

Thor stared between him and Möbius, his eyes flitted wildly back and forth. He looked so conflicted. Finally he said, "If you try anything-"

"Hang on, you can't actually be considering this!" Banner shouted and once again the Hulk was there too, in his voice.

Both Loki and Thor ignored him as Loki held out his wrists for Thor. Thor knelt on a single knee on Möbius's other side and took Loki's chained wrists into one hand. He squeezed just a little too tightly as he warned, "One wrong move and they're going right back on and we let him die." Loki nodded and stared intently at the chains as they fell away from his wrists. As soon as they lost contact with his skin he felt his magic come rushing back in a wave. It was like coming alive again- refreshing and so full of bliss.

He wasted no time rubbing the ache away and instead got right to work casting diagnostic spell after diagnostic spell until he was quite sure he had located all of Möbius's injuries. He had severe bleeding his chest cavity, three broken ribs with several more bruised, a punctured lung, a concussion, four broken fingers on his right hand, and several lacerations across his body from some sort of fighting blade.

Starting with the most pressing matters, Loki dealt with the internal bleeding and punctured lung first. Next he healed the lacerations completely, leaving nasty looking scars in their wake. The broken bones were a little bit more tricky since he had rarely had opportunity to practice that sort of magic, but he managed to reset the bones in his fingers and speed along the healing process for them. Bringing Möbius back from the brink of death took quite the toll on Loki's body and he had no energy left to deal with the concussion or the ribs, but since they weren't life threatening Loki wasn't pressed to fix them. He had no idea how to undo the effects of a concussion since Asgardians couldn't get them, so it would need to heal on its own- with lots of bed rest. Broken ribs would make Möbius more inclined to actually rest up and allow himself time to heal.