Giftless

Chapter 47

Why wasn't Loki saying anything? Why wasn't he denying Balder's accusations? Even it if was true, he wouldn't want you to believe it. You couldn't believe it was true. Loki could be mischievous and a bit chaotic, but it was all in fun. He wasn't evil. You couldn't believe Balder was right, though. You knew Loki too well, you'd seen his nightmares, felt his soul, saw his joy during the soulbond ceremony. He was so happy with you, with your relationship. You couldn't imagine him betraying you. Even Thor had said he had never seen Loki so happy.

Loki turned and Balder took a step to stay in front of Loki as he continued praising Loki's skills. You watched Loki's stiff movements, heard the faint clatter of chains. He had shackles around his neck, wrists, and ankles, all chained together. Even from where you were bound, you could see the runes in the shackles, binding his magic. Worse, was the metal muzzle-like gag. No wonder he wasn't making any denials. "I am sorry about the bonds, dear little brother, but I can't have that silver tongue of yours telling our new ally any more lies,"

You saw the pleading look in Loki's eyes, begging you not to believe Balder. The emotion was only there for a moment before he returned to glaring at his brother. You knew what you saw though, and you knew you had to trust your heart. Your heart and soul said that after everything you had been through together, Loki would not have lied to you, not like this. Not in any way that would hurt you.

You heart was also quite emphatically saying that you needed to get out of there.

Now.

Loki was in no shape to help you. You weren't in any shape to help yourself, but you weren't going to give up. You looked over your surroundings, and a plan began to form. It was a stupid-ass plan and only 12% of a plan, and would most likely get all of you killed, but it was the only plan you had.

You still had access to your powers, you just needed to get your hands free. You prayed you still had enough power left. That healing had drained you just like Balder had wanted. He had calculated your stamina based on healing Tony.

He had planned for this.

You looked up and over at Loki and managed to catch his eye. You gave him a small nod, signaling to him that you had a plan. You just needed him to keep Balder distracted. Loki gave you a small nod in return. The look of relief you saw in his eyes in that moment was the most heartbreaking thing you had ever seen, and you knew you had been wrong to even consider that he might betray you.

So you got on with your terribly stupid plan.

The clowns had bound your hands with cloth. Cloth was flammable. It just took an incredible amount of effort and concentration to burn through the cloth without being able to use your hands as a focus. If you got out of this alive, you swore to yourself that you'd practice your magic without gestures.

After you'd spent a week unconscious from power drain.

You weren't sure how you were still managing to stay awake and still using magic, except out of pure necessity. You were dutifully ignoring the warning pain in your head and the haze around your vision as you called your powers.

You bit back the scream of pain when the flames surrounded your hands. You couldn't draw attention, not yet, no matter that your own power was burning you.

You still needed three more things for your plan to even have a hope of working.

You only saving grace was that Balder was monologuing about how he had taken control of The Harlequin and her clowns. Loki kept moving just enough to keep Balder's attention on him, distracting his brother from you. It was all he could do bound as tightly as he was.