The Syndicates || "MARVEL: Avengers" || COMPLETED

T W E N T Y N I N E | ' Tortured '

"You should just give it to him," I said, mostly to myself though I still squinted at Loki through the darkness. His clothing clung to his body in shreds and his exposed flesh was encased in blistering, often bloody, skin. Knotted black hair clung to his forehead, just reaching his shoulders and he made no effort to shake it out of his eyes as he looked up, feeling my gaze on him.

Sitting here in the darkness, I didn't know how much time had gone by. Days? Weeks? It felt like months. The hours blurred into minutes and the minutes into seconds- spare those painful times when Loki was dragged outside by Enoch's henchmen and later thrown back in, looking worse than I thought possible each time. Enoch wanted the Tesseract to return to his home-planet but thus far, Loki hadn't cracked, and it was killing him. Starved of proper food and water, I had to wonder how long it would be until he simply dropped dead. I hated the fact that I couldn't heal him- It seemed that whenever my powers were actually of any use, they were unavailable for some reason and I was left to suffer alongside whatever poor soul was with me.

I hadn't seen Enoch myself since he'd knocked me unconscious but by now, his voice was enough to give me shivers. It reminded me of the electric shocks we'd been subjected to when Loki or I had tried fighting back, back when we thought we stood a chance, and that in turn reminded me of HYDRA's electroshock punishments. I didn't even understand why Enoch hadn't killed me by now. Loki had the Tesseract and it had been the tracker under my skin that had led Enoch to him but now, now I was useless. I was a liability. Why keep me alive unless there was something else I had. Something I knew, maybe.

In my sleep-deprived, dehydrated, starved state I couldn't think.

Loki still hadn't replied and he'd taken to staring silently at the back of his hand where I could see a nasty portion of blackened, charred flesh. I cursed the shackles around my wrists. Without them, I could have spared him a world of pain. What made it worse was the fact that I was the reason Enoch had found him in the first place. With that thought, I slammed my cuffs into one of the legs of the bed. Metal struck metal with a loud clang and I hit it again and again, barely noticing my sore wrists. How long? How long would it be until someone found us? Was anyone even looking? I was slowly going mad and the only other person who could tether me to back to reality was refusing to even look at me.

This was all my fault.

A weight rested on my shoulder, pulling me backwards, and I hid my face in my hands as Loki turned me towards him.

"I'm sorry," I choked out, leaning back against the bed frame which was now in shambles, "I led him to us and now we're both going to die here, with no hope of redemption for either one of us. This is all my fault."

I rested my hands on my lap, massaging the red skin on my forearms. All that effort and I hadn't even dented the cuffs.

Loki sighed and his hand slipped from my shoulder, falling onto the floor beside him as if it were weightless. Hesitantly, I looked up at him. His tall frame curled inwards and his breaths came out in short, strangled puffs. Clearly, even the smallest movement caused him pain. Enoch would pay for this.

"No, it is not. You didn't do this."

I laughed bitterly, "I might as well have. I led him straight to us. I'm the reason he's torturing you, I'm the reason you're locked up in this cell and I'm the reason you're going to die here. I'm killing you, Loki, whether you see it or not."

"He wants the Tesseract," Loki said, his tone surprisingly soft, "That has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me."

"Then I should be dead. He has no use for me anymore, right. Why am I still here?"