Loki woke up and felt like dying. For some reason his head hurt, his mouth was dry, his stomach didn't feel the way it's supposed to, and then there was this persistent tightness in his chest. The latter he knew whom to blame on. Humiliation didn't sit well with him, but where otherwise he would have lashed out, here he felt like reacting the opposite way. To hide away from the world, wait for all of this to stop. He had time, immortal as he was.
For a moment he chuckled at the thought of staying in his room until all of them had died, but then again, patience wasn't the mortals' strong point and they would surely drag him out pretty soon.
Also the prospect of doing nothing for fifty-or-so years wasn't worth the joy of seeing them die.

Yes, Loki was in a dark place this morning, and hearing the clatter of cutlery and cheery laughter of the assembled Avengers in the lounge didn't heighten his motivation to face this day. And why should he.
Well, a drink sounded nice, and so did food.
Maybe he'd just stand up real quick and stock up on provisions for a couple of days.
He wouldn't have to look at them or anything, least of all at Stark. And who the hell did they think they were anyway? The God of Chaos and Lies, Mischief and Fire, wouldn't be contained by a handful of fleshlings.
So he collected his last scraps of dignity, put on his sane-and-collected face and went to greet the world.

He ignored them, of course. They ignored him, again, that was to be expected.
It bothered him like it had the days before. There was an itchy feeling around his mouth, it made him feel like grimacing and screaming. Anything to relieve this pressure.
He kept still, though, and went to collect some food and a couple of bottles. After all, he really didn't plan on facing his captors again anytime soon.
The feeling worsened as he went on, accompanied by a tightening just under his ribcage. Something was wrong, very wrong. He felt magic seep through him, not his own, it was his mother's. Was the magic barrier to be lifted? Finally?
No. He scolded himself for hope where none was due.
It hurt. Like needles pricking his face. He realised he had stopped dead in his tracks, standing vacantly beside the table.

"You alright?"

Disinterest laced Steve's voice, so Loki didn't even bother to look to him for help.
The blow of energy that hit him next sent him sprawling to the floor, something was taken from him, then. Something more. He felt a part of his being rejected by the power within his own body, and with it the ability to change his shape was gone. What in the nine-

The disinterest had dispersed and suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, attempting to turn him around. He began to taste blood, then.

"He's faking it, don't bother.", Stark snarled, obviously displeased with the attention his whore was given.

The white-hot, needling pain in his face reached its peak and he screamed, yet nothing but a strangled groan would come out. Bright strings of magic held his mouth in place, pulling tighter and tighter, until his lips were sealed shut, only then the hot feeling dissolved and his hand shot up to find cool wires entwined in the flesh of his lips, cutting deeper at every attempt to move, to speak.
He was hyperventilating through his nose now, the hand that had turned him around by the shoulder revealed itself to have belonged to Steve Rogers, but Loki's eyes found no focus as they flicked across the room in panic and confusion, his gaze drowned in tears still unshed.

"You call that faking?!", Cap's voice was shrilller than usual, as he beckoned his team mates to come take a look.

They all did, kneeling down beside Loki, shock and horror in their widened eyes.

Even Tony was over being the distant, arrogant jerk he was and hurried around the table to join them.
"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck... we need to get Thor, stat."

There was more said, more voices' ramblings, incoherent to the shock-deaf ears of Loki.
He saw movement through a haze, heard the distant rumble of panicking mortals aroung him, but all that was left for him to do was breathe and swallow blood and most importantly, find an answer to the all-consuming question: Where had he gone wrong to deserve yet another cruel punishment?

He didn't remember much of those first few minutes after the attack. He knew he had cooled down a little at some point, long after he was sat down comfortably with Cap at his side to calm him, console him. Stark had run off somewhere, too aggrevated to deal.

Thor couldn't be reached, but they had known that before. Gods know they had tried thousands of times throughout those last few days.
At some point everyone had started doing whatever it was they were usually doing. Barton and Romanov were called to deal with a mission of some sort, Tony had gone down to tinker away in his workroom and Cap, Cap had stayed with Loki.
They had given him a notebook and pen, the first few questions had been obvious and were easy to answer. I don't know.
The following ones were harder. What now? How can we help you?

Part of him wanted to reject their kindness, hated to be pitied. Then again, he felt as vulnerable as ever and it helped, it really did. For all he knew, they could be taking advantage of his sorry state, but they showered him with their mortal sentiment. What would Asgardians have said? Suck it up, it's just pain. He had endured worse in his time of punishment, hadn't he? He had survived.

The pain was constant, though the blood had seized flooding his mouth. He'd give everything to be able to wash the taste of it away right now, but no such luck.
At this rate, he'd have to starve.

The hardest part was the detachment of him. He could scribble in his notebook, but what good did it do him? He had to try to keep his messages short to keep up, there was no time for pretty words and his usual eloquence, his silvertongue locked in the cage of his own mouth. Maddening.
The problem of food had been solved quickly, though. The watered down smoothie they handed him tasted nearly as disgusting as it looked, but if any of what they said was true it should at least cover all nutrients he needed.
It was degrading, that's what it was. Sucking greyish goo through a straw like a degenerate shell of a man, incapable of speech, too. The thoughts inside his head raged on, unable to be spoken, presented, freed, they proceeded to nag at him, bother him. A shadow, a pitied shadow of himself. Those mortals didn't fear him anymore. They did not mock him like an Asgardian might have in this situation, but their pity cut just as deep.

He found himself leaning into Steve's hand on his shoulder.

Stark reemerged from his workshop as the sun began to set.
He didn't say a word, didn't even look him in the eye as he headed straight for Loki, his finished work in hand, and knelt down beside him on the couch.
The apparatus looked nothing like the cursed metal binding they had put on him, it was more delicate, complicated. It looked almost like a crown, rather than a dog's collar. A silvery ring, tendrils like spiderwebs coming from both sides of it.
Without further explanation it was sat on Loki's head, pushed in place, dots connected and then something wonderful happened. Sound. Garbled information sputtered from tiny speakers embedded in the left part of the crown. Some adjustments later there were words, his words. Disconnected and without meaning to anyone but him, but they were from his own mind nonetheless. In something closely resembling his own voice, too.

"It's picks up your brain waves and transforms them into audio information. I tried to focus it on your speech center, so only the things you are planning to say will be picked up now. Try it."

"Why?"

It did work, and now the question hung in the air like a bad smell, not understood by any of the Avengers as far as Loki could tell.
Steve just shook his head, sadly and slowly.

"We don't know what happened back there. We were hoping you might have an idea or a guess at least."

"I meant to ask why you were helping me, but I guess that answers itself."

"Because we are human? It's what we do, we see someone suffer, we help them."

He bit back a snarl just in time, the stitches forbade even the slightest of movements.
Stark had pretended to fiddle with some controls, unwilling to acknowledge either the question nor the elaboration of the same, until now.

"I refuse to say I'm sorry. I still think you're a dangerous psychopath and even though you may be a little less dangerous right now, that doesn't change the fact that you're a mass murderer. Anyway. I'd love to see you starve to death without having to hear you bitch about it, but that would make me no better than you, and that's nothing I would like to have said about me, alright? So that's your 'why'. Besides, I had this thing half-finished for ages and no one to test it on without serious brain-fryage, so there you go. You're welcome."

"Charming."

"Damn, you sound like JARVIS through that thing."

The smallest hint of a smile came with those words, quickly followed by a gruff noise of some sorts.

"Whatever, I'm going back to work."

"Thank you for this, I appreciate it very much."

"Whatever."

And with this he was gone, all but fled to the safety of his workshop.
Steve sighed as they watched the elevator door slid close.

"He'll come around, sooner or later.", he laughed, "The one thing Tony can't stand to watch is someone's freedom of speech to be taken away, who would've thought?"

Loki would, but he chose not to comment on it.

"I think I'd like to go to bed, if you won't mind. I'm exhausted."

"No, sure. Just tell me if you need anything, alright? And Loki, don't worry. We'll figure this out, it's going to be alright. Believe me. Now sleep tight."

He might have choked on the goodness that was Steve Rogers, but seeing how he was already busy choking on his own blood whenever he tried to smile, he chose not to and went to bed.