california 02 // loki's romanoff prelude

twenty // ending/starting

He flung himself at her. She almost didn't recognise him.

All sorts of broken noises were coming from his throat. Moans, wails, sobs, panicked little cries. But he didn't speak - not once. He was falling against her, pressing his body against hers, and she saw his bloodied wrists, rubbed raw from his bonds - but he was alive, he was alive, he was alive-

'Loki,' she said, 'Loki, it's alright - Loki - thank God - Loki, were you burnt?'

He was moaning, wailing, shaking his head. His face was a mess of blood and tears, his hair was falling across his face.

She took his head in her hands, each one of either side of his face, and held it so she could see it, see the damage they had done to him.

She felt the air leave her lungs. She felt her mind go white.

Loki's lips were sewn together - cruelly, tightly, bound in black yarn. His lips, buried in blood and thread. His eyes, full of tears. One was swollen and black. The tears - god, Loki - flowing down those cheeks, mingling with all that blood. She had never seen anybody cry so hard, or a face so broken.

Frisk had died too quickly. He had died far too quickly.

Natasha let out a cry she didn't know she was holding in. She grabbed Loki as tightly as she could, she wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders, she clung to his beautiful body and she wept with him.

He was alive.

Was that any better than being dead?

I told you to run, Loki.

I told you to get the fuck away from me.

Loki, why didn't you listen?

Loki, can't you see this is why I can't love anyone?

Loki, why did you have to be there at the gas station that day, why did you have to be so perfect?

She ended up taking him back to the Roosevelt. She didn't know where else to go. It was remarkably easy to hide his wrecked face in a hood, remarkably easy to get back into their rooms.

She couldn't look at Room 929. She kept her attention on helping Loki walk across the corridor.

She was never good at first aid, but she did what she could. She saw to his stomach wound first - stitching it up, because that was the only thing she knew how to do properly.

He moaned at her stitches. His hands groped the wound, and blood got all over his fingers, all over his skin, all over her skin.

'Loki, don't,' she whispered. 'Loki, please don't.'

In the end, she had to get the remaining injection from her bag in her room to knock him out. She gave him a double dose this time. He fell asleep instantly.

It was only then she allowed herself to cry, because she had no idea what she was doing.

The lips were harder.

She washed them first. They looked like something out of a horror movie.

She cried when she finished taking the threads out, but she couldn't cry for long, because his lips started bleeding again afterwards.

Loki's standing in the throne room of Asgard. Odin sits on his throne, and Frigga stands at his side - is she crying? Heimdall is there also, his helmet tucked under his arm. They are talking in low, hushed voices.

Loki approaches them. They don't see him. They can't see him, he realises - his hands can pass right through Frigga's shoulders, right through Odin's golden throne. Loki is as good as a ghost.