Chapter Text
It is cold. Since it is almost always cold, pointing out the obviousness of the fact seems a bit trite, except that with nearly all of their thin blankets piled on, and around Thor's shivering bulk, Loki is feeling the lack of warmth even more than usual.
‘Loki…’ his brother’s thunderous voice reduced to the barest of whispers, comes through lips cracked with the fever that is slowly devouring him from within. In an instant Loki is at Thor’s side, gently pushing the sweat drenched hair from the beloved face, his own brow furrowing at how dry, and at the same time clammy his brother's skin felt, the unhealthy, ashen pallor of it. ‘Please.. water.’ Even now, holding on to consciousness by a sliver, Thor says ‘please’. Most people wouldn’t think it of him, seeing only the great, threatening giant of a man, and not the shy, often lost, little boy living behind the azure blue eyes.
For Loki, Thor is everything. His brother, his family, his whole world. He would give, has given all that he has, all that he is, to see Thor up and laughing again, not buried under a mound of rags, shuddering himself apart, the infection, like poison, spreading through his arm. What had possessed him to take that job for Fury? Didn’t he, couldn’t he have know better?... The man was a monster. Yes, they needed the money, but to work for Fury is tantamount to selling one's soul to the devil. Even if the job does go down as planned – which it hardly ever does with Fury – he’d have his hooks into you and then... and then... the rumours abound of what happened to Fury’s missing eye. Some say it was in a brawl when he was young, and you should have seen what he did to the other guys. Some say that he’d sold it to the splice pits, and used the seed money to start up his lawless empire. There are other, darker tales spread about Fury and his missing eye – that it was in a bet, a game with the Allfather – it is the same eye that they were both missing after all, but some things are best left un-speculated on.
‘We’re out of clean water Thor…’ Loki admits finally. He’s known all along that there was no water to be had. Not for the past day. At least there had been some for Thor. Loki hasn’t done more than wet his lips for the past two days. Hasn’t eaten in three, saving what little food they had for his brother. Hoping it would give him the strength needed to fight. He can’t lose Thor... he... he just can’t. ‘I’m going to check with Bruce.. see if he’s gotten that purifier of his is to work again… I’ll be right back.’ But Thor has slipped into delirium, calling to their Mother who’s been gone for more than 20 years.
Thor remembers her better than Loki, but then he’s older, he got the chance to know her as someone other than ‘Mom’. Loki was just a kid when she died, succumbing to some anonymous ailment or other, too many of those running around the slums to name. There wasn’t even a grave they could visit – graves took space. Funerals cost money. Money they didn’t have, so Mom was left out on the streets, and the Cleaners took her, and burned her with all the other nameless poor, who even in death, were unable to buy their last bit of dignity. Loki will not let that happen to Thor. Not that Thor is going to die. Not if Loki can do anything about it.
Stumbling wearily from their hovel, Loki takes the short trip to where Bruce has set up his ‘lab’. There are rumours going around about Bruce too. That he was once one of ‘Them’ – the elite few living in the glass towers rising far above the slums. That he was a scientist, or a doctor, or someone equally important, but then something happened, and he was cast down, or even more outrageously, left of his own will. Loki doesn’t question. Loki doesn’t want to know. Bruce has been a shoulder, a friend, a sometimes mentor when he and Thor had no one else. Bruce knows ‘things’ and with that knowledge has helped far more than just the likes of Thor and Loki. Bruce has set up a water filtration system, leeching the impurities from the occasional rain, and freely sharing those riches with the others. Bruce converts the chemicals he pulls from the water into drugs, medicines. Many would have died without Bruce. Such is Bruce’s reputation that even Fury – the overlord ruling the slums through power and fear – leaves him alone. Bruce is protected. Bruce is useful. Every few months Bruce disappears for days at a time, returning bloody, bruised, and exhausted and sleeps for a stretch of days. Loki doesn’t ask. He knows not to ask. Bruce has secrets, and those secrets keep him in the slums, and for all that Loki loves, and wishes better for Bruce if it were not for Bruce, Thor might already be dead, and he will NOT let that happen.
‘Bruce,’ he calls out quietly. It doesn’t do well to have Bruce startled. ‘It's Loki... you got a minute? ‘
‘Yes, Loki, come on in. I’m back here.’ Bruce calls out. His voice is tired, gentle. Just like the man. Bruce is unassuming, clean-shaven most days, with pepper-grey hair and weary brown eyes. His hands are large, almost as large as Thor’s, but Loki has seen Bruce perform the most delicate of miracles with those clumsy looking digits. Bruce is a genius.
‘How’s Thor feeling?’ the older man asks, carefully draining water the colour of pale sand, from one of the larger gathering buckets into a smaller plastic jug.
‘He’s getting worse, Bruce,’ Loki’s voice catches, and he’s not going to cry. Not here, not with Bruce, who has already seen more of Loki’s tears in the past 20 odd years than anyone other than Thor. ‘He started calling to Mom this morning. And he’s burning up... I thought... I thought that maybe you could do something... with,’ he gestures helplessly to Bruce’s mish-mash collection of vials and tubes and jars and the occasional, actual piece of lab equipment scrounged from who knows where and paid for by some unspeakable favours. Favours are the coin of the slums, since most will never see enough actual money in their short lifetimes to make it a worthwhile currency.
Bruce shakes his head, helplessness and misery pouring from him in waves, ‘I can’t.. I can’t, Loki. I wish... if I had the right medicines, I could heal him, if I had the right equipment I could even amputate the arm, but without the proper sterilization or facilities, he wouldn’t even live through the operation.’
‘Amputate? You mean CUT OFF?!!’ Loki gasps. Without an arm, Thor might as well be dead. A one-armed bouncer? An enforcer lacking a limb? It’s not... it’s never been an option for Thor, who thinks he has nothing more than his strength to offer anyone, in spite of Loki’s frequent assurances to the contrary. ‘No... no, Bruce... there has to be… there must be another way. You said medicine What medicine? What do you need? I’ll get it... I’ll find it.’
‘Loki…’ Bruce starts out, but Loki interrupts.
‘No. Bruce, he’s my brother. My only brother. He’s all I have LEFT. What does he need? I’ll get it. Somehow.’ He swallows hard, knowing what that promise will likely cost him, but any price is worth having Thor back.
‘Fine,’ the scientist relents, bowing his head to futility. ‘I’ll make a list. You read, right?’ he asks, not an uncommon question for those living in the slums. Loki nods. They both do, though Thor reads so rarely, Loki sometimes thinks his brother has forgotten how. Their mother saw to it before she died. The few books Loki owned are his greatest treasures. Were his greatest treasures. Sold, bartered, traded to buy medicines for Thor that ended up not working anyway.
‘Here,’ he says, handing Loki a grungy piece of paper covered in his careful print. ‘Any three of those will do. Four would be better, two... try for three.’
Loki nods, swallowing the dust in his throat, staring at the water, and tempted for some for himself, but Thor needs it more. ‘Bruce... Thor... he was asking for water. I know... I know we already owe you... I... I’ll pay you back somehow –‘ he starts, but Bruce cuts him off with a shake, holding out the plastic jug.
‘That’s for you. Drink it. Drink it all. I’ll take care of Thor. When was the last time you’d eaten?’ Loki shakes his head in response, he doesn’t remember and is reluctant to lie to Bruce.
Bruce shuffles off into the depths of his lab, comes out a few minutes later with a few foil-wrapped packages, and shoves them at Loki with a grunt. Sometimes Bruce runs out of words, at least the important ones – like ‘you’re welcome’. And ‘caring’ and ‘love’. Loki doesn’t mind so much, he doesn’t have many of those words stored up either, and most of them are doled out to Thor. His ‘thank you’s though all belong to Bruce.
‘I’m going to go look in on your brother,’ Bruce says, picking up the significantly larger water jug with apparent ease. ‘See if there’s anything I can do to make him comfortable. Where are you going?’ He doesn't ask what Loki is planning on doing once he gets there.
Loki stands, draining the bottle and setting it down carefully, next to Bruce’s instruments, the precious piece of paper tucked away into the recesses of his clothing.
‘I’m going to go see Fury.’