Warnings: drugs, minor ableism from Tony

The world feels weird when Loki wakes up.

Weird, and...

Noisy.

It's noisy.

Somebody's talking.

Who is it that's talking?

Where is he, again?

He's...

Here.

He's here.

He's just... here.

That's nice.

It feels calm.

Comforting.

He likes here.

He'd like to stay here more often.

Is he lying on a cloud? He feels like he's lying on a cloud. He didn't know he could do that. He learns new things about himself every day.

What was he thinking about, again?

Oh.

Right.

Noises.

Not just noises, though.

Voices.

Talking.

That's what he was thinking about.

He wants to know who's talking.

"-- know what's wrong," somebody's saying. Their voice sounds familiar. Is it... Bruce? It's Bruce, he thinks.

"What's wrong is that he's scared," another voice says, almost defensively. It's Thor, he thinks. It sounds like Thor. "I told you we shouldn't have left him alone."

"He was getting anxious." It's a third voice now. Steve? "He needed to rest."

"No, he needed company," Thor says. "He needed us. And you wouldn't let me stay with him."

Steve sighs. "Fine. You're right. We should have–"

"Oh, shut up," Tony interrupts irritably. "Look, Thor, I'm sorry that your life sucks. I really am. But Loki's hanging on by a thread, and you're drunk off your ass every second of the day, and frankly, I don't trust you not to break him. So no, you're not right."

"Tony!" Steve hisses.

"Don't act like you're not thinking the same thing," Tony says. "I told you, it was too soon to get him involved. We should've at least waited until Loki could talk again."

"You shouldn't have waited at all!" Thor snaps. "He is my brother. He's the only family I have left. You can't–"

"Alright, alright." It's Natasha's voice that interrupts him, a sense of resignation in her tone. "Let's all take a breath and calm down.

"Let's all take a breath," she said.

He can do that.

He takes a long, deep breath.

In, and out.

That feels nice.

He should breathe more often.

"What happened, happened," she says. "We can't change the past. Let's focus on what to do now."

What to do now.

What does he want to do now?

He wants to sleep.

That's what he wants to do.

But maybe he should do something else.

Maybe he should wake up? Would she want him to wake up? Would she care either way? Is that his choice to make? He feels like it probably is, and he's not sure how to make it.

"What are we going to do when Loki wakes up?" she asks, her voice calm, soothing, a sharp contrast from the voices he's been listening to until now.

It's quiet for a few moments. They're thinking. They're processing. He should let them do that before he wakes up.

Bruce answers. "We'll have to see how he's doing before we do anything. I don't know how these meds are gonna affect him."

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Thor asks. "You said it was safe. You said you knew what you were doing."

"Thor, buddy," Tony says, a bit condescendingly, "I had to bribe so many doctors to get this many drugs this fast. I don't think anybody in the history of medicine has ever had this many psych meds at once."

"We don't exactly have a human-to-Asgardian conversion chart," Bruce adds, a bit more apologetically. "I'm doing my best, okay? He's still breathing normally. His pulse is normal. He's doing okay. He just..." He sighs. "I don't know. He might act weird when he wakes up. He might be a little out-of-it."

"Can he drink when he wakes up?" Natasha asks. "I think that would be a good place to start."

Drink.

She wants him to drink.

He can do that.

He just has to wake up first.

He opens his eyes, and he finds himself back in his room, back in his bed, back under his blankets, back where he belongs.

He likes this room. He likes the ambience. He likes that he can see the door when he's lying down. He likes that it had windows–

Oh.

Right.

He forgot about the mess with the curtain.

Still, he likes that it has windows – and now he can see out of them better. There's a bird out there. There are a few of them, actually. That's nice.

"Loki!" In an instant, Thor is at his bedside, clasping his brother's hand in his own. "Loki, are you alright?"

Loki squeezes his hand once. Did they tell him about that system? He feels like they did. Maybe he's making that up. He's not sure.

Thor squeezes back. "Good," he says. He brings Loki's hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to it. "You were scaring me for a minute."

I was scaring myself, too.

He feels around the bed with his free hand. Somewhere...

"Oh, here." Thor sets up his Atari controller and tablet, and even turns the TV on and sets it up for him. "There you go."

Loki gives him an appreciative smile, then starts typing.

D

R

I

N

K

"We can give you a drink," Thor assures him. "Where are his drinks? I'll go get one."

"Uh, I can get it," Bruce says awkwardly. "You can... stay here. With your brother."

Loki likes that idea much more – not that he doesn't like Bruce. He loves Bruce. Bruce is a wonderful person. But he's not Thor.

"Wait, hang on," Scott says.

Loki lifts his head off the pillow and looks around. He didn't even realize Scott was here. That was weird.

"Do you think he actually wants to drink," Scott asks, "or do you think he just wants to drink because he heard Natasha mention it?"

Loki furrows his brows, letting his head fall back against the pillow as he ponders that. He's not sure. Both, maybe? He wants to drink because she wants him to drink. And, he supposes, because he's always thirsty, too. That's also a reason he wants to drink. But it's mostly because of Natasha. Whatever she wants him to do, he wants to do.

The others ponder that for a few moments.

"I don't think it matters," Natasha says finally. "He's gotta drink either way. He's not gonna get better if he doesn't."

Thor scoffs. "It doesn't matter?" he repeats, incredulous. "My brother thinks that you're his Master, and it doesn't matter?"

Natasha sighs. "That's not what I meant."

"This should be our priority," Thor says. "Fixing him so he doesn't think you're his Master anymore."

"I tried, Thor," she says. "I tried telling him that. He didn't listen."

Loki squints, trying to make some sense of that. What is it that he's doing wrong? He's confused. More than that, he's tired. The world is feeling weird. If they're not going to give him a drink, he's just going to go back to sleep.

"Then try harder!" he snaps.

"Thor, take a breath, " Tony says.

Loki takes a breath, too.

That feels nice.

"We're going to figure something out," he says. "Loki's not going to be her slave for the rest of his life. We're going to fix it. But I don't think he really cares–" He pauses, then asks, "Loki, are you at all bothered by the fact that you have a Master?"

Without opening his eyes, Loki squeezes Thor's hand twice. He's not bothered at all. He likes his Master. Why would that bother him?

"I can't see if you're squeezing Thor's hand," Tony tells him, "and I don't trust him to tell the truth right now, so can you answer with your other hand?"

Loki's not sure he understands what he's talking about, but he pats the bed twice with his other hand.

"Great," Tony says. "And are you at all bothered by the fact that you can barely move and can't talk?"

Loki thinks about that for a few moments, then pats the bed once. He is bothered by that. He would like to be able to sit up on his own. He would like to be able to talk to his new friends. He would like to be able to hug them – to hug Thor like he should have done on his coronation day instead of letting Odin feed him to the wolves.

But he can't do any of that.

And that's okay.

Everything is okay.

Everything is just wonderful.

His head feels so wonderful right now.

"See?" Tony says. "He doesn't care that he's Nat's slave; he cares that he's basically a vegetable, so let's focus on the vegetable thing first and then we can worry about that."

Steve sighs. "Please don't call him a vegetable."

"I said he's basically a vegetable," Tony says defensively.

"And how do you think he feels about that?" Scott asks.

"I don't think he feels much of anything right now," Tony says.

Loki pats the bed once. Tony's right; he feels more numb than anything right now. He kind of likes it. He likes not worrying about things. He's not sure why he ever worries about things. It sounds so exhausting.

"See?" Tony says. "So let's get him fixed up before we start messing with his head."

"We work on both," Thor says firmly. "You can't sweep this under the rug. My brother is not a slave."

"Trust me," Natasha says, "I don't want a slave. I didn't ask to be his Master. So I want to fix this, too."

It's quiet for a few moments.

Loki likes that.

It should be quiet more often.

Unfortunately, Scott ruins that.

"Somebody did, though."

"What do you mean?" Steve asks him.

"Somebody wanted Natasha to be his Master, right?" Scott says. "Somebody must've wanted this. Somebody did something to make this happen."

"And I had nothing to do with it," Natasha says, a bit defensively.

"No, I know that," Scott says quickly. "That's not what I mean."

"What do you mean?" Thor asks.

"Somebody wanted her to be his Master," Scott says. "Somebody in that other world wanted this. And since that other world is just a hop, skip, and a jump away..." He trails off like they can finish that thought themselves. Loki's brain must be on half-power, because he certainly can't.

It's Natasha who finishes it aloud. "You want to go back and find whoever did this."

"Exactly," Scott says. "If somebody can un-Master you, it's gonna be whoever Mastered you to begin with."

Loki frowns slightly.

He doesn't like the sound of that.

He's not fully sure what it means, but he doesn't like it.

Are they going to take his Master away from him? He doesn't want anyone to sever that bond between them. He likes having a Master.

But he doesn't have it in him to be upset by the notion.

He just feels so...

Tranquil.

The approach of loud, thudding footsteps announces Bruce's return. "I got his shake."

"Hey, Banner," Natasha says. "How easy do you think it'd be to get back to the world he came from?"

"Uh... that depends on why you're asking," Bruce says uncertainly. "You don't want to send him back there, do you?"

Loki would hope not.

That would be... unfortunate.

But it is what it is.

"Of course not," Tony says immediately.

"I think we need to find the other me," Natasha explains. "If anyone's gonna help with the 'Master' situation, it's gonna be her."

So he'll have two Masters? Wow, they really do spoil him.

"Are we sure that's a good idea?" Bruce asks uncertainly. "For all we know, this Natasha could be evil. I mean, Pierce did this to him, right? So if she's his Master, maybe she's part of HYDRA, too. Maybe we don't want to get her involved."

"I don't care if she's evil," Natasha says. "I care that she might have the key to breaking Loki's fixation with me."

"If there's a chance she can give him some semblance of normalcy..." Steve adds.

"Please," Thor pleads. "I just want to help my brother."

Bruce sighs. "Alright," he says. "Let's get Loki something to drink first, and then we can figure out multiversal travel."

Multiversal travel.

On some level, Loki's aware that this is interesting. He's sure he would have been all over it if he'd heard these words a couple decades ago. But right now, he doesn't feel much of anything. He's not interested in multiversal time travel. He's not even all that interested in his drink. He just feels... nothing.

"I'll sit him up," Thor offers.

A pair of arms wraps around Loki's torso, and he's pulled up into a sitting position. Thor hooks one arm under his arms and one under his legs and hoists him up until his back is against the headboard.

Loki doesn't fight against him, but he doesn't help, either. He doesn't react. He doesn't even open his eyes. He just doesn't care.

"You know," Scott says, "I don't remember him being this... lackluster."

"It might be the drugs," Bruce says.

Right.

The drugs.

The drugs of which he has consumed many.

He has consumed drugs.

... He has no memory of consuming any drugs.

They did say something about drugs, though, didn't they? Someone said something about drugs. Maybe that's why he's so sleepy. Maybe that's why he's so numb.

"Can I have the bottle?" Thor asks.

It's quiet.

Very, very quiet.

Thor sighs. "I'll only give him a little bit. I just want to be the one to do it."

Bruce sighs. "Fine. Go ahead."

It takes a few seconds, but Loki feels the edge of the bottle against his mouth, and he parts his lips to let the chocolatey goodness grace his tongue.

"You okay, Loki?" Tony asks. "You don't look like you're..."

Loki pats the bed once. He's okay. He's just sleepy. He'll probably go back to sleep once they're done.

Oh, sleep.

He really, really loves his sleep.