Above All Shadows [Loki Timetravel fic - Completed]

28. At the Titan's Mercy

'What are you his nurse now?'

'One more word and I'll knock out what's left of your front teeth,' came the reply.

A laugh.

'It's cute, really,' the first speaker said in a condescending tone.

A rhythmic clang of metal. The hiss of a door sliding aside. Fading footsteps. One set of footsteps only.

Cognisant that there had been two people in the vicinity, Loki was careful to avoid moving. Whoever had remained behind didn't need to know he was awake just yet. Covertly, he tried to make sense of the situation. He lay on a stiff mattress, his heels resting on the edge. Thick fabric was draped over him. He longed to pull it off. It was as if he was bathed in heat and wherever the material touched his exposed skin, it left him itching. Coupled with the disinfectant-permeated air, he surmised he was in a medical facility.

As to the reason he was here, the clues were less than satisfactory. His head was a well of misery, everything inside his skull seemed inflamed and throbbing. The rest of his body ached in a more sedate manner. But these pains were the outcomes of whatever had transpired, not the causes.

Loki made a count of his limbs. Four. No obvious traumatic injuries either.

Not liking where this was going, Loki reached for his magic. A hundred needles bore into his skin. He gasped and jerked away to the comfort of the material world.

'Loki?' Nebula asked. 'Can you hear me?'

He sucked in a breath and with a groan, opened his eyes. He didn't see her in the initial blur, but once his eyes stopped watering and the floaters in the field of his vision lost their over-whelming gleam, he found her leaning against a wide set of cabinets at the back of the room.

Loki pulled the stifling blankets off him and paused. That single gesture alone seemed to cost him the bulk of the energy he possessed. 'Nebula, could you fill me in on what's happened for me to end up here?'

She cocked her head, then straightened up and moved a few feet closer until she was by his bed, but not so close as to suggest any sort of intimacy between them.

'Do you remember meeting my father?' she said. At Loki's nod, she went on, 'He wanted to verify your story. Do you remember that? Well, you reacted badly to the method he used. You collapsed a minute after. It's been about ten hours since.'

Loki suppressed the urge to dig through the memories of the previous day and check Nebula's story. Likely, any attempt to do so would only intensify the pain. Nor could he see why Nebula would tell him falsehoods about this.

He slid his hand over the side of the mattress and hunted for the control panel to the bed-frame. He doubted he had the strength to prop himself up for long, but he had enough grasp of his sensibilities to detest the indignity of attempting to converse while lying flat on his back. Nebula caught his hand and guided him to the right set of buttons.

'Thank you,' he said as he nudged the bed frame to lift him up into a seated position. 'So, now that your father pilfered through the contents of my head, do I still have a job?'

Nebula took a moment to form a reply. 'He hasn't said anything about that to me.'

He got the sense she was about to say something more, but Loki lacked the energy to think about Thanos and everything that entailed. He fiddled with the hem of the blanket. 'Doesn't matter. I expect I'll know one way or the other soon enough. Could you call over a medic? My head is throbbing so badly, I can't follow the trail of my own thoughts.'