Hidden Troubles

Chapter 31

But he had never needed alcohol more than now.

"Four hours," Tony groaned, finally slumping on an armchair in the communal room. Steve looked up at him tiredly.

"We spent four hours with that damn reptile. That's four hours I'm never getting back. And it wasn't even useful! All it managed to do was piss me the hell off!"

"Soldiers will never willingly give up information. Even torture would not be fail-safe. And it's wrong."

"It's still an option," said Tony. "I know, I know—" He raised a hand to stop Steve from interrupting. "Even if this—Emrath—isn't human, he is still a living creature that shouldn't be tortured, and we shouldn't be those hypocrites. But what are we left with? Counting to three? A truth serum? Releasing him back to the wild?"

"Pain doesn't—"

"Pain does a lot. Trust me," said Tony. He rubbed his arms. "And—hell, even if it doesn't get him to talk, it'll get him to—to—"

Tony groaned and took another gulp of his alcohol. Steve scrutinized him concernedly.

"What's eating you, Tony?" said Steve.

"Nothing's eating me," said Tony.

"Look, I may be somewhat naïve about things, but I'm not stupid," said Steve. "I know something's bothering you."

Tony rubbed his face tiredly. "I just feel like shit."

"Well, you have downed a lot of alcohol."

"You heard what that thing said," said Tony. "What he said about how Thanos treated Loki. Thanos raped Loki. He raped Loki, who knows how many times. And we treated that guy like chewed up chewing gum stuck to our shoe. And now look at him! Wasting away, looking worse than those people out of concentration camps. It's just- this just isn't right."

Tony closed his eyes and downed the rest of his drink. It was likes swallowing lava and he felt his throat blister—it was a grudgingly satisfying sensation. He could still remember being indirectly bitchy towards the guy all those months ago; dirty little side looks as a "bog off" signal, walking out of the room the second Loki walked in. He felt like sludge clogged his veins.

"I know you feel guilty, Tony," said Steve. "But that wasn't what happened. We're all here helping Loki; we care about him. It's crazy, admitting it, but that's what happened, and I don't think any of us regret it."

"But that's not it!" Tony ran a frustrated hand through his hair, slamming the glass a little harder than necessary on the table. Steve said nothing. "When I got back from Afghanistan I had people I could pour my heart out to like Pepper and Rhodey. We literally forced Loki into silence because he felt like he couldn't even look at anyone of us without us giving him a death glare. He's been keeping all of that in him for so long. I don't even know if I ever knew what normal for Loki was, if the whole bag full of cats Loki we knew all those months ago was not who he truly was before.

That's not even the worst of it. He's been having nightmares. You ever have to stay up at night and watch over him? I did. Once. The most pitiful whimpers- he was begging someone to stop hurting him. And all this- pain- it must've been in him for a lot longer. I heard him once begging for that Odin dude, saying sorry and that he'd try harder. You know who that reminds me of? Me. And I was all ready to slam the door in his face- if it wasn't for Thor god knows what SHIELD would be doing to him now if I'd told him to piss off."

"Well, you didn't tell him to piss off. Yes, you said yes for Thor, but now you're letting them stay for Loki. And you stopped all that. You've stopped treating him like that- we all have. We can fix it; it'll take time and effort and a hell of a lot of tape and Band-Aids but we can fix this. And we will."

As motivational as Steve's words were, they did nothing to quell the burning guilt in Tony's veins. Just once, he wished he could build a machine that could fix something other than enhancing the oven to cook any dish perfectly in five minutes. Something to fix a person. Loki.

AN: ok so my phone is like 7 years old and it somehow decided to unpublish this chapter so for anyone who' already read this, feel free to just skip it 😬 it does indeed suck having a phone with an IQ lower than mine

Also this chapter- so for some reason I never really believed that they managed to kill ALL the Chitauri. I mean there were loads of them and as vicious and as ruthless as they may have been, there must have been some that decided to vamos à la playa during the fight because they didn't want to die. I feel like every species, no matter how uniform they may seem, will always have those small groups of like those with more intellect, more cowardice. I'm not sure what I'd classify the Letchworth Chitauri as but perhaps the "live to fight another day" group? I don't know but this is just why I decided to have some alien escapees.