#((((please ignore all the typos and grammatical errors man i KNOW I USED THE WRONG THEYRE but its 3 am and ive had like

[ulteri0rm0tives]

....and if I said I wanted Johnny and Kerry in the messiest divorce arc since Paul McCartney and John Lennon.. what then...

[ladycaramelswirl]

definitely not old

Aaron Hotchner x Reader

A/N: Did I create an extremely improbable scenario just to suit my need to create another highly improbable scenario? Yes. Do I care that it’s unrealistic? No. Please forgive any typos/ grammatical errors. 

CW: suggestive content, but not explicit (like 15+?). Use of y/n one time. (Technically this would probably warrant one of those hostile workplace environment seminars like they had for Derek and Penelope. But it’s funny? Idk this isn’t serious.) Sassy Hotch. Crack plot tbh. 

Also I know the timeline doesn’t really make sense, because JJ is a profiler and Emily and Rossi exist, but I imagined Season 1 Spencer while writing this! I guess it’s 2005? Btw I do not know how tapes work, so just pretend it makes sense please. This is so unserious. 

Summary: reader wife and Hotch are private people; the BAU team is nosy. Spencer is just constantly in the right place at the wrong time. 

Enjoy!

——————

The screen in front of you depicted horror - just not the kind the BAU was used to. The UnSub had confessed to leaving a message in an old tape. He had already been arrested, but you were all hoping it might contain something that might help the conviction stick. Only he was extremely paranoid, so not only had he left the message in a code, but he had spliced it into a tape he thought people were least likely to watch. His p***. It was the last thing to do for the case and everyone was trying to help. You all sit at the round table, and Spencer shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. Derek laughs at his shyness and Emily laughs at the very unrealistic movements. She and JJ tilt their heads at the shape the two on the screen have put themselves into. 

“That does not look comfortable”, JJ mocks. 

The words are out of your mouth before you think. “Trust me it’s not”. 

Everyone at the table snaps their heads to look at you. 

“Damn Mama”, Derek laughs. “Who are you doing these moves with?”

You try to hold back a laugh. You were not ready to share about your sex life with your colleagues, no matter how close you were. Plus you’re pretty sure Aaron would not appreciate it. 

“That is inappropriate workplace conversation”, you say, pausing the video. “And you’re going to miss the next series of code”, you tell him, trying to get him to revert his attention back to the video. Emily grins at your attempted evasion.

“We already got all the code. She just doesn’t want us to tell Hotch she’s capable of all that. Doesn’t want to make the old man feel bad”.

“He’s not old. He’s only 5 years older than you”, you remind her. She puts a hand on her chest in mock offense like you’ve stabbed her. You roll your eyes. “And this is still inappropriate”.

“So it wasn’t Hotch”, Derek laughs. 

“You’re just annoyed because you haven’t tried it yourself”, you deflect, moving to sit next to Spencer who seems to actually be doing his job. 

“I’ve seen her do yoga and she’s very flexible, so if she couldn’t do it I don’t think you can”, JJ tells Morgan. 

“Oh you have no idea what I’m capable of”, he teases, which earns laughs from around the table. “I’m better than the old man for sure”. They all start laughing and talking about you and Hotch. 

You roll your eyes. “Wasn’t old in bed last night”, you mutter under your breath. You startle at the sound of a book hitting the floor and see Spencer’s bright red face. JJ, Derek and Emily look over in curiosity at what they might have missed, but you ignore them, attempting to give Spencer an apology for making him uncomfortable. He moves to drink his coffee in an attempt to avoid more of the conversation. Only he chokes on it because Hotch enters the room. 

“Have you finished working out the code?”

Everyone’s heads snap to him - JJ, Emily and Derek wearing matching grins. Hotch eyes you patting a coughing Spencer’s back.

“Are you alright?”, he asks. 

“Yes! Good! I’m good!”, Spencer squeaks, afraid Hotch is going to ask him why he’s so nervous. Aaron looks to you for some answers but before you can tell him it’s nothing, Spencer suddenly stands up.

“Got the code! Going to call the local PD. DA is waiting”, he warbles before you all watch him run out of the room. Hotch turns back to the rest of you. 

“Well then that wraps it up. Go home now, get some rest”, he instructs. Everyone starts packing up. You and Hotch walk towards the door when he realises there’s only 6 of you in the room. 

“Where’s Dave?”, he asks.

You’re about to tell him Rossi went to the bathroom when the Italian walks back in. Rossi immediately notes the paused video.

“Wow that looks uncomfortable”, he remarks. Everyone smirks in your direction. Hotch snakes an arm around your waist and looks at the screen. Then at you. 

“It was, wasn’t it?”

He smiles at the jaws dropping to the floor. 

“Good night everyone”.

—————————

A little bonus scene:

In his office later:

“You heard us talking before you came in the room didn’t you”, you question your husband. He was so private, he wouldn’t have said something like that otherwise. 

“They called me old”, Aaron grumbles, but his tone is amused. “Just wanted to shock them a little”.

You make your way over to his side of the desk, pulling him to stand up beside you. 

“Well Agent Hotchner, I have to tell you, there’s been some speculation about your performance”, you taunt. “Care to prove them wrong?”

“Last night wasn’t enough proof?”, he laughs raising an eyebrow. You run your hands up his chest and behind his neck, pulling him close. 

“The results were inconclusive”, you tease. He grabs your hips and traps you between himself and his desk, his mouth trailing kisses down your jaw. 

“Well I can’t have that kind of speculation going around”, he murmurs into your skin. Your breath hitches from the sensation of his lips on the sensitive spot on your neck. But instead of continuing, he pulls away and meets your eyes in a conspiratorial grin. “We should do an in house evaluation as soon as possible”.

You open your mouth to reply when the door swings open, Spencer finding you sandwiched between Hotch’s thighs and your blouse rumpled. His mouth drops open and suddenly all 187 iq points mean nothing when his brain loses function.

“Oh- I- um- sorry!”, he manages before running away. You stare at the slammed door then back at Aaron and burst into giggles. He drops his head to your shoulders and sighs. 

“I feel like a teenager”, he groans.

“At least you don’t feel old.”

—————————

Bonus bonus: 

Still in the conference room: 

“I want to go back to 10 minutes ago when I didn’t know this information”, Emily moans. 

“I think I need 5 more minutes before I can form a coherent thought”, JJ laughs in disbelief. Spencer walks back in.

“I finished my report. Where’s Hotch and y/n? Can we go home?”

“Probably doing it in his office for all we know”, Derek mutters.

Spencer’s brows furrow in confusion. “Doing what in his office?”

Rossi raises an eyebrow at Emily. “Is this kid serious?”

She shrugs back at him. 

“Spence, Hotch says we can go home. But you should probably report about what local PD told you before you go”, JJ tells him.

Spencer nods and makes his way to Hotch’s office. The rest of the team watch him walk away.

“You think we should have told him to knock before going in?”

“Probably.”

The sound of a high pitch yelp and the slam of an office door echo down the hallway. 

“Oops.”

——————

thank you for reading :)

masterlist

[fantasyoverreality98]

Fight the Darkness Pt. 11

Masterlist

Pairing: Gaius x MC

Summary: Sometimes, home is not a place, but a person.

Author’s Note: This chapter is almost purely fluff. Surprisingly, I managed to write something with next to no angst. And it has left me unable to express the (happy) things I’m feeling right now. I think I should attempt to write more fluff. Anyway, hope you enjoy it! And, as per usual, apologies in advance for any typos or grammatical errors!

Word Count: 2,972

---

“Think we could get away with making a run for it?” Amy mumbled to Gaius, reaching for his hand.

He sighed, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “Unfortunately, no.”

They walked the rest of the way without a word. When they were within speaking distance, Adrian was the first to break the silence.

“Finding you was far too easy.” He looked worried, but Amy could also see the anger there too.

Everyone was looking at Amy and Gaius’ joined hands. Kamilah raised an eyebrow, staring a moment longer before she looked Amy in the eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going, but I just had to get away.” She would apologize for that, but not for leaving. It had been the right choice.

“Okay, can someone explain what’s going on? You and him?” Lily seemed the least tense. If anything, it looked like the realization that Amy and Gaius were together slightly amused her. “Damn, Ames.” She smiled when their eyes met.

Kamilah cleared her throat, disapproval written on her face. “Amy, come with us. We’re here to take you home.”

Amy shook her head, refusing to move from her spot. “I’m not going back to New York.”

“Amy, please.” Adrian looked like he hadn’t stopped worrying since she’d run away over two weeks ago. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? For all we knew, you were dead! Our messages weren’t going through.”

She remembered crushing her phone in the hotel lobby the day before. Where she planned on going, a phone wouldn’t be necessary anymore. “I just had to get away. Communicating with you guys would’ve made it harder.”

“You’ve been losing control over your powers,” Kamilah said, daring to take a step closer. “We heard about the airport in Ireland. And the club here.”

A gory mess flashed in her head. Screams rang in her ears, and Amy had to shut her eyes for a moment, willing the horrors to leave her mind. All the death and destruction she’d caused would haunt her for a long time, but she knew that she could fight through it with Gaius by her side.

“She managed to defeat the darkness inside of her. It was quite impressive.” Gaius looked down at her and smiled. Her heart skipped a beat at the gesture.

Both Adrian and Kamilah tensed when he spoke, as though they had purposefully been ignoring his presence.

“She’s coming with us,” Adrian said, finally looking at Gaius. “This little adventure ends here.”

“I believe the one who should get the choice is Amy herself. If she wants to leave with you, I will not try to stop her.”

Amy looked back and forth between her friends and the man she had fallen in love with. It was cruel to ask her to choose. She loved all of them. Imagining life without any of them was unbearable.

“I—” She closed her mouth again, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. Finally, she managed to speak. “I’m not going back. This is where I belong.”

Kamilah rolled her eyes. “Really, Amy? Don’t fall for his games. Gaius is dangerous. He’s irredeemable. How many times do we have to remind you that he killed you?”

“And what about the things you’ve done?” The words burst from her lips before she took the time to consider the consequences. “Why is it that the things you guys have done are redeemable, but his actions aren’t? Why am I redeemable in your eyes? I killed hundreds of people in a little over a day. I’m not better.”

The five of them stood in silence for several breaths. She could see that Adrian and Kamilah were communicating without words, their eyes locked. Amy held Gaius’ hand tighter, unwilling to let go.

“Fine.” Kamilah finally said, her shoulders tense as she finally looked back at Amy. “Suit yourself. If you choose to be a fool, we cannot stop you.”

Without another word, her friends turned and started to walk away.

It surprised Amy that they were so willing to let her go, after spending so much time searching for her. She looked over at Gaius, a silent question reflected in her eyes.

“As I said before, it is your decision.” His smile was sad, but resigned.

She pulled him in for a quick kiss, breathing heavily as her lips brushed against his when she spoke. “I can’t leave things this way, but I’ll be back. Don’t leave without me.”

He held her in his arms, his hands resting on her waist. “Never.”

Amy left his embrace and ran after her friends.

Lily was the first to turn, opening her arms without hesitation. With a harsh laugh, Amy ran into them, nearly tackling her to the ground in a hug.

“The two of you?” her best friend mumbled, “I have to know the details.”

It felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. Lily wasn’t mad. Somehow, in some bizarre twist of fate, she seemed to understand.

“I still say this is a terrible idea,” Kamilah said, arms crossed over her chest as she watched Amy and Lily continue to hug. “Trust me, Amy. I know him. He may have done some good deeds, but he is still corrupted.”

“Sometimes, you just have to follow your heart.” God, did she ever sound cheesy. Still, Amy felt the truth in her words. She needed this. Wherever Gaius went, she would follow. “I need you to trust me.”

Adrian’s scowl softened, and years of things left unsaid passed through the four of them. Amy liked to imagine that Jax was here, too. In his own way.

When Adrian stepped forward, Amy released Lily and stood facing him, a part of her worried about what would come next. Instead, he sighed, holding his arms open for her.

“Why?” he mumbled when she stepped forward for a hug. “You could have told me things were getting bad. You didn’t have to run away.”

“He understands me.” She felt Adrian’s body tense, but continued. “There was only one person who I could think of that might understand how hard it was to fight the darkness. To spend so much time not you.”

She wished she could have Gaius by her side, but it seemed a bit much to have him here. This was something she had to do alone.

After she’d let go of Adrian and fallen into Kamilah’s arms, Amy allowed herself to cry. She told them everything that had happened, trying her best not to feel bothered at the way they flinched when she brought up the vampire club massacre.

“And you have no recollection of what happened in that club? You only remember after you’d already killed them?” Adrian looked like he still wanted her to come home with them, but he hadn’t tried to convince her again.

Amy shook her head, trying to force memories to resurface that simply weren’t there. “I’d been blacking out for a long time before that, too. It started back in New York.”

Kamilah exchanged a look with Adrian, who sighed and nodded. Her shoulders fell and she looked back at Amy. “Are you certain that Rheya’s powers are gone for good this time?”

“I’m sure. The darkness is gone.” Amy couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this free.

Her friends looked at her with concern. Whether it was for her struggle with the powers, or her decision to confide in Gaius, she could not tell.

But she no longer cared. All that mattered was the path to redemption. And that was something she simply couldn’t do in New York.

“Why him?” Adrian asked, watching her curiously.

Amy sighed, turning around to look behind her. Somewhere in the shadows, Gaius was watching them. She could feel his presence. “Have you ever just had a feeling? Like something was right, even if everyone else screamed at you that it was wrong?” Her words probably made no sense, but she’d long given up trying to make sense of certain things.

“The heart wants what it wants. Even if that’s an ancient vampire who has tried to destroy the world several times.” Lily grinned when Amy looked at her, shrugging. “What? It’s true.”

Kamilah’s lips twitched, and she cleared her throat again, standing up straight. “Is there any way we can convince you to come home with us? You belong in New York. We can protect you.”

Closing her eyes, Amy took a deep breath before letting out a sigh. She was really going to miss them. “I think I could do with a little redemption myself. There’s a lot of good deeds I have to do to make up for what I’ve done.”

“You weren’t yourself. The power and your grief over Jax made you that way. It’s not your fault,” Adrian whispered. He took a step forward and took her hand in his. “Please, Amy. Come home.”

Saying goodbye was even harder than she’d thought it would be. She had expected it to be difficult, but the heaviness she felt in her heart was so much worse than she could have imagined. “I am home.” Amy opened her eyes, and gave her friends a reassuring smile.

Perhaps they would never understand her decision. That was okay. Right here, right now, she needed to do something for herself. And that was to choose a path of redemption.

It was time to heal the hurt she’d been feeling the past twenty-five years.

“If anything happens to you, I will personally track him down and kill him myself.” Kamilah looked the most uncertain, but she tried her best to hide the anger and hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Amy said, and she meant it. “I’ll understand if you can never forgive me for this.”

All the pain Kamilah had endured during her relationship with Gaius was not something Amy forgot. But that person was not the one she had grown to care for. He had changed, whether anyone else chose to believe it or not.

Sighing, Kamilah stepped forward. Her eyes met Amy’s, and her face fell. “You are not the one who needs my forgiveness. Just know that we will always be there if you need us. You’ll always have a place in New York.”

“You better get a new phone and keep in touch,” Lily said, looking like she might cry. “I’m not going a thousand years without hearing from you.”

Amy laughed, and the tears that she’d been trying to fight overpowered her. She threw her arms around Kamilah, whose eyes widened in surprise. Laughing, Adrian and Lily joined in. The four of them stood in silence for a long time.

I really wish you were here right now.

This group hug felt incomplete without Jax. Sadness filled Amy’s heart again momentarily. She squeezed her eyes shut, letting the tears flow freely as she mourned her friend one last time.

“I promise to keep in touch,” she said, refusing to let go of her friends until Kamilah patted her on the back and she took that as a signal to stop. “Why aren’t you guys trying harder to convince me to go with you?”

Lily crossed her arms over her chest. “We all knew you weren’t happy, Ames.”

“If this—if…Gaius is what makes you happy, then I guess we need to let you go.” Adrian still looked uncomfortable. “But none of us are very happy about it.”

Amy understood. They wouldn’t force her to return, but she knew they would try their best to convince her every chance they got.

“I did tell Kano I wanted to have more adventures,” Amy said with a laugh. “This might not have been what I had in mind, but it works.” Her smile faltered, and she chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to think of what else to say. “You guys know that I love you, right?”

“We love you too.” Adrian sighed, his eyes flickering to the shadows behind her. “Please, be safe.”

With a nod, she turned and searched the darkness for Gaius. He was still keeping himself hidden. She had a feeling that was for the best. The others most definitely did not have any fondness for him. They probably thought she was insane to make this decision. It had been easier to just run away.

“Okay. I’m gonna go now.” Amy started to walk away, but her steps faltered when a stifled sob echoed in the night.

For some reason, it seemed like all the humans were staying inside tonight. The quiet only made everything louder.

Sobbing herself, Amy turned around one last time. She barreled into Lily again, and this time they really did fall to the ground. The two of them laughed, while Adrian and Kamilah shook their heads. Still, there were tears in their eyes.

“I’ll visit,” Amy said, struggling to her feet. She helped Lily up, and the two of them hugged even more. “Whenever I get the chance, I’ll come see you guys.”

It took a long time for the group to finally part ways.

Once the three were gone, and Amy stood alone, tears burning in her eyes, Gaius emerged from the shadows. He walked up to her, and she leaned back into his arms.

“That went better than I expected,” he said, staring down the road where her friends had disappeared. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Amy nodded, turning in his arms to face him. “You’ll never get rid of me now.”

He grinned, brushing some hair out of her face. “I would never dream of letting you go.”

“Good.”

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled his lips down to hers, not caring who saw.

The past few days felt like an insane dream. How was it possible to go through all the horrors they had, and yet feel this much joy?

For the first time in recent memory, Amy felt happy. The idea of spending the foreseeable future by Gaius’ side filled her with hope. People might try to come for them, might want to kill them, but she knew that it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle.

She had survived Rheya. She had survived the lure of darkness twice. She would survive whatever came next.

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear, smiling when Gaius shivered at her words.

He held her close, pulling back to look her in the eyes. “I will never grow tired of hearing you say that.”

Amy’s face hurt from smiling so much. She wanted to scream it out loud. The entire world might think her crazy for falling in love with Gaius, but she no longer cared. He was her home.

“Well, what do you say we find an airport and make our way to Russia?” Gaius surveyed the surrounding area, his body tensing. “The sooner we leave, the better.”

The last time they had been in an airport, things had not ended well. Amy wanted to remain on land for as long as possible. For the next little while, she wanted nothing more than open sky and deserted roads. Walking through fields at night, listening to the sound of nature all around. Civilization was overrated right now.

She took a deep breath and laughed nervously. “Actually…” Gaius turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “—I was thinking that maybe we should walk to Russia.”

Gaius started to laugh, and Amy had to agree that the suggestion was absurd, but she didn’t care. “Do you have any idea how long that will take? We could be walking for months. There will hardly be many nice places for us to stay.”

“For you, I would stay in a swamp shack every day for the rest of eternity.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “It will not be a pleasant journey. We will encounter plenty of enemies.”

“All it will mean is that we can redeem ourselves that much more,” Amy said, thinking of how fun it would be to finally go on an adventure that didn’t involve fighting terrifying powers. “I’m ready for a real adventure.”

She had lost her mind. And it felt amazing.

“Do not make me regret this decision.” Gaius held his hand out to her, and Amy took it with a grin.

The two of them began to walk through the city, and eventually came across some humans. It was nice when she had no voice in the back of her head reminding her of their inferiority. A few people even smiled at her.

There was nothing but sweet, blissful silence.

The darkness was gone.

After they’d been walking for a few hours, and the sounds of the city were long gone, Amy stopped. She looked up at Gaius, stunned at the way she felt about this man.

“What?” He frowned, uncertainty reflected in his eyes.

Amy smiled again, and shook her head. “Nothing.”

With that typical eye roll, he began to walk again, leaving her behind momentarily.

The future was more uncertain than ever. Amy had chosen to pursue her strange desires over her friends. She had caused death and destruction, allowing herself to become the villain, no matter how short the time had been. Nothing would ever be the same. Yet, she was no longer afraid.

Come what may, she would be ready for it. And Gaius would be at her side. They would become better together. That was all she needed.

Several seconds later, Gaius realized she was still standing in the same spot. He turned around, narrowing his eyes. “Is everything okay?”

Amy nodded, hurrying to catch up. Her heart swelled with genuine happiness when she took his hand, ready to walk into the night.

“Everything is perfect.”

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

To Keep You Safe

Title: Sometimes the wrong ones are just what you need

Chapter: 7/? 

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn’t have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki.

Rating: E (later on)

Notes: Friendly reminder that this is un-Beta’d, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors I may have missed! Also, I can’t stop writing super long chapters. Sorry?

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings: Violence, blood, language

~~~

“It isn’t wise to threaten me, gentlemen,” he warned, anger rippling off of his body as his elegant suit shifted to his traditional leather armor in a wave of green light. He slowly pulled me towards him so that my hands were against his back so that he could keep track of me while freeing his hands. I did my best to hide the tremors wracking through me from the adrenaline, fear, and alcohol still buzzing through my body. It wasn’t very successful, but at least I tried.

“What about threatening her? How’s that for size? We don’t want you. You can just walk away right now. All we need is the girl.” This voice rang out from behind us, and we both turned our heads in that direction to see another pair slowly advancing on us. At least they were only holding up knives and were, for the time being, ignoring the guns strapped to their backs.

“It would be in your best interest to stay away from her, lest you wish to incur my wrath,” Loki promised, the dangerous implications of his tone even sending chills down my spine. Did they know who they were dealing with? Even if they didn’t, he was still a threatening figure to behold.

In an instant, another copy of Loki was at my back, staring down the two men with knives. Loki and his doppelganger both thrust their arms out to the side dramatically, conjuring long daggers into their hands from thin air. Both the real man and the illusion cast a glance at me over their shoulders. “Stay behind me.”

I turned and put my back to the real Loki, making sure to maintain contact so we were both aware of the other at all times. A fight with razor-sharp knives was not the time to be surprised by your partner.

Without warning, the men sprang into action. Gunshots rang throughout the alley, and grit fell onto my bare shoulders and hair as bullets dug into the wall around us. The men in front of me broke into a full sprint, raising their knives as they got closer. The illusion of Loki stepped forward to distract one of the men, leaving me to deal with the other.

I tore at the skirt of my dress, yanking it out of the way and calling my obsidian blade into my hand. It came easily, and I shot my arm out to send it flying at the man closest to me. Using every ounce of concentration I could muster, I directed the knife low, stabbing into where Nat had shown me if I was ever in real danger. Pretty sure that this counted. He fell to the ground with a pained cry and I yanked it out with a jerking motion, dragging it up his leg as I struggled for control in the chaos and doing more damage in the process. My bloody knife came back to my waiting hand as soon as it left his body, but it was too late as the other man was already upon me, Loki's illusion melting away as he ran through it.

More shouts of rage came from behind me, indicating that more men had come in the stead of those Loki had surely taken care of by now. Their anger drowned out the sound of my attacker’s battle cry as he swiped his knife across my midsection. I pushed back against Loki to try to dodge the blade, but pushing against him was like pushing against a brick wall, and it all happened so fast I didn’t have time to ask him to move. The serrated edge of his knife caught the edge of my dress at one of the cutouts, hooking into it and pulling across my middle. Sharp pain sliced through me from the wound he created beneath my ruined dress and the gravity of the situation hit home.

This wasn’t a training session with Nat. All of my hard work did nothing to prepare me for the realities of battle. I wasn’t going to get a break to get a drink of water or catch my breath. The sweat that dripped into my eyes and blurred my vision wasn’t going to be wiped away by a towel. The fresh wound on my stomach sent another spike of adrenaline flowing through my system that forced me to focus on the man in front of me. I grunted as my leg shot out and connected with his wrist as hard as it could, forcing him to drop the knife he had raised threateningly.

“You bitch!” he yelled, curling his fist and pounding it twice into my eye in rapid succession. It felt like my eye exploded and I saw stars. My hand shot up to protect it as I staggered to the side to get my bearings. He didn’t stop coming for me, though. He reared back again to level another fist at my face and I lunged forward and ducked to slam my elbow into his throat. It caused him to choke, coughing and gripping his throat with both hands as he struggled to breathe.

The opening presented to me, I reared back to dig my knife into his throat, intent upon ending the threat, but large fingers wrapped around my wrist and halted my momentum.

Loki stood beside me and forced my hand to my side, prying my fingers from my blade. Without a word he turned to the man and grabbed him by the throat with one hand, tossing him halfway down the alley as if he weighed nothing. I flinched and looked away after his head cracked against the grimy pavement.

My wide eyes took in the carnage from our brief fight. The man that I had stabbed wasn’t moving from where he had fallen, and no matter how much I willed it, his unfocused eyes never blinked. Looking behind Loki were the fallen that he had taken care of, some of them with throwing knives still sticking out of their chests or necks. Something snapped inside of my chest when I tried to take a breath and all of the air was sucked from my lungs. I couldn’t stop my eyes from darting from body to body, skipping over the dark blood that stained the black concrete.

Gentle fingers swiped away a tear from my cheek--I didn't even know I was crying--and I startled at the touch, jerking away so hard that my back dug painfully into the brick wall behind me. Loki stepped up to encompass my field of vision and he, very slowly, brought a hand up to cup my cheek so that I couldn’t continue to look behind him at the bloodshed he had left behind. No, we had left behind. His lips were moving as he stared down at me, but the words didn’t register as my brain couldn’t handle anything more than trying to block out the images that had been seared behind my eyelids. He kept his eyes locked on mine as he reached for the holster on my thigh, very carefully sliding my knife into the sheath so he didn’t cut my exposed skin. When I didn’t react to whatever he was saying, or to his hand on my leg, he slid his arms behind my back and under my knees to pull me up to his chest. My hands gripped the leather over his chest of their own accord, not even letting go as the blood-stained armor changed back into the suit he had been wearing earlier. My head fell heavily into the crook of his neck as he carried me away toward the road.

A different car than the one we arrived in screeched to a stop in front of us, and Sam's head poked out of the passenger window as it rolled down. Loki’s swift strides never faltered as he walked toward the car, opened the door with the use of his magic, and then folded us inside. He tried to disentangle me from his arms once we were safely on our way, but a small noise of protest slipped out of me and I curled deeper into his chest. I wasn’t sure what had switched in my brain that decided that he was what I needed, but I was completely unwilling to let him go. Encompassed in his strong arms, with his heart beating in my ear, I felt safe. Protected.

“It’s okay, darling. I’m here,” he whispered, the hand at my back stroking the length of my spine over and over again. His other hand moved slowly, as if not to startle me, to tuck beneath my chin so that he could lift my eyes to his.

Blood splattered his fair skin but I didn’t see the source of it. His dark hair had gotten unruly, too. But the most startling aspect of his appearance was the look in his eyes. I hadn’t ever seen him look so concerned and sad in all my time of knowing him. I wanted to reach up and smooth my hand over the furrow in his brow, but that would mean relinquishing my grip on his shirt. Instead, he touched me, his fingertips ghosting over the quickly swelling flesh around my eye, causing me to scrunch my face in pain. He lifted his hand from me quickly, only to replace it with a small ball of ice that he had conjured into his palm.

“Cold.” I jerked back.

“My apologies, little one. I forget,” he murmured, conjuring a thin cloth around the ice. This he laid against my skin and I accepted it. The cool cloth felt heavenly against the hot, throbbing injury.

I allowed my forehead to press against his neck once again. Now that we were heading home the adrenaline saw fit to leave my system and my body became so heavy. Everything was too much and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep forever. I closed my eyes to surrender to the fatigue and allowed Loki’s steady presence attempt to soothe my frazzled nerves.

Loki had me, and he would keep me safe. That was an undeniable fact that had cemented itself deep within me, and it grounded me--along with his hand softly tracing shapes onto my back and his lips moving against the top of my head to chant quiet words for my ears only. “I’ve got you, love. You’re safe. I will not let anything happen to you. You can rest now. I have you.”

“How’s she doing?” Nat asked.

“I believe that she’s in shock, but not lethally wounded. All I have found is a wound along her abdomen and some bruising on her eye,” Loki’s voice reverberated throughout my head.

I didn’t realize that I had been shaking until the jacket that Loki had been wearing earlier was pulled around my body. It wasn’t warm, because Loki was always freezing, but it helped further wrap me in his comforting spicy and masculine scent. I burrowed deeper against him in the small cocoon of his body and clothing. He only tightened his arm around me in response, and I was eternally grateful for it.

When we arrived my body was sagging against Loki’s heavily. My erratic heartbeat had calmed to more manageable levels and I didn’t seem to be in danger of hyperventilating anymore. A numbness had swept over my mind and body that left me a shell of the person I had been just an hour ago. I only needed comfort, which Loki was willingly providing for me. I kept my eyes closed and turned so that my nose buried into the hollow of his neck when I heard the doors of the car open. I didn’t want to leave this car. It was safe here.

“Come on, darling. We need to go inside,” Loki purred, and the ice he had been holding against the swelling of my eye disappeared and was replaced with his large hand. It felt like it was made of ice itself and I opened my eyes and pulled away to look at the offending limb. His hand, from his fingertips to his arm disappearing into his shirt, was blue.

“What?” I asked, trying to understand another mystery on top of everything else my brain was fighting with. He just shook his head with a sad smile.

Hands of an unknown origin slipped beneath my arms. I panicked and threw myself away from them, ending up sprawling on my ass outside of the car. Everyone who lived at the Compound, plus Tony, had gathered around me and were offering their hands to help me up. Excluding Sam and Loki.

“Give her some breathing room, guys,” Sam said authoritatively, putting his back to me so that he could corral our concerned friends away from me.

Loki gracefully stepped out of the car and knelt in front of me, holding out his--normal-colored--hands for me to take. I slipped my hands into his and let him pull me to my feet, nodding my head silently when he asks if I can walk. The group parts for us as he escorted me into the Compound with his arm wrapped securely around my shoulders.

Neither of us said anything as he lead me inside. I don’t know what I would begin to say to him. All I can think about is stabbing that man in the leg and killing him. I did that. Even if I hadn’t meant to kill him, it was the result. That’s all that’s really important, isn’t it? Do the ends justify the means?

By the time we reach my room I was able to focus a little bit more. The familiar scents and sights of my safe haven lessened a tiny bit of the weight that had settled onto my chest. So when Loki asked me if I need any help cleaning myself up and getting ready for bed, I declined and sent him on his way. As he left he gave me a firm squeeze of my hand and I found myself missing the steady calm of his touch after I’m alone in the room.

But that is absurd and silly and I shoved that thought into the box at the back of my mind where I put thoughts that I don’t want to dig up again, like where I want to put tonight’s events. Since that doesn’t seem to be working right now, I just repeated over and over again what I need to do to get myself into bed.

Take off the dress. Take a shower. Wrap up your cut. Put on PJs. Brush your teeth. Go to bed. Take off the dress. Take a shower. Wrap up your cut. Put on PJs…

That works well enough until I make to go into the bedroom from the ensuite and I grab my holstered knife from where I had dumped it onto the floor with the rest of my clothing. I need to clean it, but when I pull it out of the sheath, the dried blood on the blade sends my heart racing and my whole body trembling once again.

Not my blood. Not my blood.

The sudden sobs that sounded from deep within me echoed around the large bathroom. I bit my bottom lip to attempt to stifle them as I hurriedly scrubbed the blade with a washcloth in the sink. It knicked my skin a few times, but I don’t stop scrubbing beneath the steaming hot water until my hands are pink and I have no more tears left to give. I left the blade drying on the counter and went to bed, crawling beneath the warm sheets and falling into a fitful sleep.

I woke up screaming what felt like moments later, my body sore and drenched in cold sweat. The visions of fallen, bloody men swarmed around me in the last remembrances of my dreams. A glance outside told me that I had slept through the night, but I didn’t feel like I had gotten any rest at all.

I looked to where Loki’s illusion would normally be waiting on the couch, always appearing when he heard my cries to soothe me back to sleep. But of course he wouldn’t be there in the middle of the day. He was out doing Loki things. Whatever those were.

Frowning to myself, I rolled out of bed and mechanically got ready for the day. It was better not to think at all, I was slowly discovering, so that’s what I tried to do. I threw a towel over the weapon on my sink and made myself forget about it. That could be handled at another time when I wasn’t actively fighting the images that wanted to play on repeat in my mind’s eye.

The one train of thought that I allowed myself to indulge in was Loki’s actions last night. First of all: wow. Second of all, damn. I had to admit to noticing the charisma and confidence he exuded as he went about the Compound, but to bear the full brunt of his attention had been something else entirely. Even just dancing with him, I felt confident and desired and sensual. Those weren’t feelings that I experienced very often. But his body had fit so perfectly around mine. And what a body it was. All lean muscle and hard lines that, when thinking about it, made a light blush tint my fair cheeks. You would think that someone so tall with such long limbs would be more uncoordinated and awkward, but he had spent the hundreds and hundreds of years of his life learning exactly how to work with what he had been given.

And it was impossible not to follow that train of thought to that shadowy corner of the club where he had all but claimed me with his touch. Man, that god could play me like a fiddle. I had kissed a few men in my day and I hadn’t ever experienced anything as breath-taking as that. Did that say something about the men that I had been with or about him? Probably a little of both, sadly. It had started as just trying to blend into the crowd, get the attention off of our backs, but when it was over, something had changed. It had in me, at least. But the vulnerability that I had seen in his eyes as he had pulled away, that was something, wasn’t it? It had to be. I needed to find out.

After dressing in a simple and comfortable outfit of slim-fit dark jeans and a soft blue sweater, I padded out of my bedroom in bare feet to head to the kitchen to tend to the grumbling in my stomach. It was around lunchtime, so I expected more people to be milling about, but I only found Sam standing at the counter assembling a sandwich. He looked up with a smile when I walked in.

“Quite a shiner you got there, Poison Ivy,” he said lightly.

“Not you too with that nickname,” I grumbled, grabbing a plate from the cabinet and moving to stand beside him.

Sam handed me the loaf of bread at his side. “You get any sleep?”

I shrugged and piled some cheese onto my bread. “I did, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.”

“Doesn’t look like you did,” he joked.

I leaned over and nudged him roughly with my elbow. “Hey!”

He finished making his sandwich and placed his hands on the counter, looking at me. “We’re all here for you if you need someone to talk to. Steve doesn’t get it so I gotta have my Office buddy for this next season. ‘Kay?”

I managed a small smile and a nod. “Sir, yes sir.”

He got to work putting away the sandwich ingredients after I had finished up, and I took my plate and headed to the elevator to go up to the roof. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath of the brisk fall air as I stepped outside, feeling a little calmer in the open air.

When I opened my eyes to head to the bench I usually favored, I found Loki already sitting on it, leaning forward with his elbows perched on his knees, his hands clasped together in front of him. Encouraged by our progress last night, I approached him. A few steps away from the still god, I loud bang echoed around the grounds, followed by Tony yelling “Sorry!”.

The crash of my plate falling and shattering came immediately after. I had completely forgotten about it, the sudden sound instantly pulling me back to last night. Snapshots of bloodied bodies flickered behind my eyes. I knelt on the ground at the sudden onslaught of images and sounds, throwing my hands over my ears and clenching my eyes shut. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the world and no matter how much I gasped in great gulps of it it wasn’t enough. I was too hot and my stomach was rolling and I couldn’t do anything about any of it because I was rooted to my spot amongst the broken china and ruined food on that rooftop.

Blissfully cold hands moved beneath the thick curtain of my hair and gently clasped my neck. I instantly knew they were Loki’s, no one else was as cold as he always was, and a sigh of relief whooshed out of me at how lovely the chill of his skin was on my own. His thumbs hooked beneath my jaw and tilted my head upward.

His steady, authoritative voice pierced through the cacophony in my mind. ”Open your eyes and look at me.

I did as he asked, taking in his folded up form as he balanced on his heels in front of me.

“Good girl. Now, breathe. As I do,” he said, out loud this time, his spoken voice holding the same tone as the one he had sent into my head.

He kept his eyes locked as mine as he lead me in taking slower, deeper breaths until I had calmed down and lightheadedness had gone away. His cool touch had lessened my nausea as well. As soon as I closed my eyes once again to focus on holding onto the calm that he had instilled in me, his hands left me and I heard the crunch of his shoes on the rooftop as he walked away.

It was startling to be suddenly without him. Looking up, I watched him settle back onto the bench, this time sitting straight and tall with a detached, expressionless expression hardening his sharp features. Careful not to cut my feet on the scattered remnants of the plate I had broken, I picked my way over to him and eased down on the bench beside him.

“Thanks,” I muttered with a wan smile.

“Sam said that you might be skittish after the events of last night,” he explained, voice bereft of emotion.

I scrubbed my hand along the back of my neck uncomfortably. “Yeah, guess he was right, huh?”

Silence. It was like I was talking to a statue. A very regal, unaffected statue. I summoned all of the courage that I had inside of me and tried a new tactic.

“Um, about last night…”

Loki finally looked over to me, but still without any discernible emotion in his distant gaze. “Ah, yes. I do apologize for being so untoward. It had to be done, you see.”

Oh. That wasn’t what I had expected him to say at all. I rubbed my hands together nervously. “Well, um, I appreciate it. A lot.”

“No thanks are necessary. It was only polite to lend a hand,” he replied flippantly.

Polite? There hadn’t been anything polite about his tongue in my mouth or his leg shoved in between mine. “It just seemed, I dunno, different.”

“God of Lies, darling. We needed to make it believable. And while I will admit that it was very pleasurable to kiss you,” he winked at me, “that is all it was.”

Oh. I wasn’t expecting that. Or for his words to be such a punch in the gut. Beginning this conversation I hadn’t known what I had been looking for, but now that I hadn’t gotten it, I realized that what I had wanted was for him to admit that he had felt something, anything, last night. To let me know that I had remembered it correctly and there might be more to us than a cool working relationship. I was a fool for expecting that from him. What was I, a regular person, to an immortal alien prince? Just someone used in the heat of the moment to ensure our mutual safety. It was foolish to think that I was anything more, but my affection-starved heart had read way too much in the situation. The pang that shot through me at the indifference written on his face was the exact reason why I hadn’t gotten involved with anybody in years.

Salvaging the last of my dignity, I stood up and plastered a fake smile on my face. “Okay, then. I better go make myself a new sandwich.”

He only nodded in response, not even looking at me as he settled back into the same position as I had found him in.

If he could be so unaffected, so could I. I shoved the unexpected hurt to the box of things I didn’t think about at the back of my brain and walked away from the man that had somehow wormed his way into my heart in such a brief period. He had made it very clear that he didn’t want to belong there.

~~~

It took two days for me to leave my room when anyone else was around.

I spent the first day alternating between staring outside and angrily drawing terrible sketches of the cold landscape to cursing myself for being such an idiot for both developing any feelings for him in the first place and for being upset that he hadn’t returned them. He wasn’t known to be sentimental or affectionate, and little ole me wasn’t going to be the catalyst for such a radical personality shift. That night I left my room only after F.R.I.D.A.Y. confirmed that no one else was in the kitchen. I ran in, grabbed a hastily made sandwich, and then darted out without seeing anyone.

The second day I mindlessly watched trashy reality TV, losing myself in the amped-up fake drama of someone else. When I left that night to grab something to eat, I opened the door to find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chips waiting on a plate just in front of my door. It had a sticky note on the sandwich that read, “I made it sterile. -S”

“Just saying ‘sterile’ doesn’t make it so, Sam.” I smiled. I bent down and picked up my bounty, disappearing in my room once again.

And on the third day, after deciding to end my pity party, I rose.

“She lives!” Sam shouted as I walked out of my room looking and feeling like a zombie the next morning.

“Not before coffee. Gimme,” I replied, stumbling over to the ready-made glass of iced coffee with a dash of cream, a pinch of cinnamon, and two scoops of sugar waiting next to Wanda.

I sank into the stool next to her and drank it gratefully, closing my eyes with a contented hum. I wasn’t sure who had made it, or when, or how they knew that I was coming out today, but the kindness of the gesture warmed my heart a little. These were good people who cared and I had been acting like a teenager holed up in my room feeling sorry for myself. I was a huge idiot.

“Miss Jennifer, you don’t look very well.” Vision stepped through the wall in front of me, flashing me a look of concern before heading to wrap his arms around Wanda from behind.

“Door!” we all shouted out in unison.

“It’s a common area!”

“It still counts, Barney, and you know it,” Tony answered as he walked into the kitchen. “Pebbles, glad to see that you’ve risen from the dead. Let’s walk and talk.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, executing a drive-by exhausted-woman-napping as he steered me and my precious coffee off of my stool, to the elevator and then further into his lab.

“Okay, we walked, now talk,” I grumbled into my glass, plopping down on the examination table that he had indicated and crossing my legs beneath me.

“Good news or bad news first?” He asked as he followed me, hooking up a monitor to the finger I automatically held up for him. My heart rate and oxygen levels flashed across the screen next to the table. Perfectly normal.

“Um, bad news?” Best to lighten to blow of things I didn’t want to hear with something positive afterward.

Tony pulled the monitor from my finger, replacing it with a finger pricker. “One, this is going to sting,” he paused to use the damned thing, ignoring my flinch and squeezing out a tiny droplet of blood onto a slide. “Two, your lessons with Wanda are going to have to be put on hold for a while.”

“What, why?” After what happened at the club, and what happened before that with the invasion, I was more determined than ever to get a better grip on my abilities. I was tired of being the damsel in distress to asshole gods with silver tongues and weirdly cold skin.

Tony leaned over the microscope, squinting at my blood and fiddling with the device. “Well, first her and Vision are going to go visit Wakanda. I told you about it, right?” He waited for me to make a grunt of agreement before continuing, “Well, they have a super-smart princess there and we’ve been talking. She thinks that we can get the Mind Stone out of his head and keep him chugging along, so we’re gonna try that out so Wanda can destroy it. Then we need her to poke around some brains for us for a while so we’re gonna send them around to a few places to see what she can find out. We gotta figure out where these Hydra assholes are coming from, and why they were so interested in you last night. If they were willing to take on Reindeer Games to get to you, it’s something serious. You’ll have to fly solo until she gets back. Probably a few weeks, at least.”

I hid my grimace behind another sip of my coffee. He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know, but it still wasn’t nice to hear it out loud. I didn't want to accept the fact that those men had been targeting me but ignoring it didn't make it any less real. I think I had enough of the basics down so that I could keep improving without her. I was always up for embracing work as a coping mechanism so this would do in a pinch. Tentatively accepting this change in my life, I quirked my brow at him as he finally stopped fiddling with checking me over and came to a stop in front of me.

“You said there was good news?”

He clapped his hands loudly and then pointed at me with a smile. “Yes, I have another present for you!”

“Another present? Where is it?” I asked, all negative thoughts driven out of my mind at the unexpected gift.

He retreated to a desk in the corner and pulled out a folded piece of hunter green leather from a drawer. He was practically strutting as he walked back over to me and deposited it on the table beside me.

“Is this mine?” I exclaimed, immediately recognizing the armor for what it was and hopping off the table, abandoning my coffee on it so I could unfold the garment to my full height.

“All yours, kid. It seems that you’re going to be needing it, and now is as good a time as any to give it to you. Since so much of your juju requires flexibility, we couldn’t put in too much bullet-proofing besides a bit on your upper chest, since you seem to be needing that. But the leather is thick, so any knives should have a more difficult time getting through to you since that also seems to be an issue that you have. It’s green because you’re our Poison Ivy, and Nat said the brown along the seams and down the arms would make you look less like a little girl in a onesie. You have built-in holsters for two knives on your outer thighs, and a pair of matching brown boots are waiting for you in your closet.”

“This is awesome,” I said reverently, stroking the smooth material. I clutched it to my chest, knowing the care that Tony must have taken into having it made, and permitted myself to feel the full depth of my gratitude for his kindness. I quickly hugged him before rushing back to where I had left my friends still enjoying their breakfast.

I wasted no time in showing off my new suit to the gang, and I stifled my enthusiasm when Nat demanded that I go try it on to get the full effect. It fit me like a glove. I wasn’t sure where or when Tony got my measurements, but I didn’t let myself linger on that awkward detail for long. I pretended to be in battle, crouching around the room and wiggling my fingers at them until everyone was cracking up at my antics. It felt good to get everybody laughing, but after the laughter died and they all dispersed to go about their daily routines, I was left with the deafening silence of their absence and forced to pay attention to the tiny nagging voice that had been at the back of my head since I put it on.

I wanted to know what Loki thought of it. His haunting presence was nowhere to be found as I had proudly displayed my new gear. I had gotten used to him always on the sidelines, watching over me with that curious look furrowing his brow. Now that he was missing I realized how much I had come to rely on that constant company. But I had gone and screwed that all up with trying to make a bigger deal out of our making out than it needed to be and now I was paying the price for it. I just needed to suck it up and move on from our non-existent relationship like a big girl.

~~~

Taking my frustrations out on fight training with Nat later on wasn’t really working as well as I had hoped.

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Aga-”

“I know. Again. I’m never going to be able to fucking pin you so just give me a second to breathe,” I shouted, jerking onto my feet and ripping off my tank top. “And it’s too damn hot in here!”

“Hey, hey, easy there tiger. You’re bleeding.” She grabbed my discarded shirt from the floor to dab it at the blood on my stomach.

“I’ll be fine. It isn’t deep. Well, it was, but not anymore. I probably just caught it with my nail.” I looked down at the knife wound, rubbing at the small bit of blood that had welled up with my finger.

“Is that from-”

“Yep. One of them got a swing in when I couldn’t push the Prince of Assholes away in time. It’s fine.” I rolled my shoulders and bent at my knees. “Let’s fight.”

“No, we’re talking about this. About what’s been going on.” She was putting her foot down, quite literally, as she had placed her foot on top of mine to keep me from bouncing around. I yanked my foot away and walked over to the practice dummy in the corner, giving it a few anger-filled punches.

“Well, Tony gave me my suit. That was cool.”

‘That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” Nat smacked the back of my head and knocked the dummy over with one strong kick.

“Ow!”

“You’ll be fine. Your black eye from the club is almost gone. This tiny bruise will heal faster than you can grow a pair and tell me what happened with Loki.”

I grumbled while rubbing my head and trying my best to look innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She rolled her eyes and fixed me beneath her pointed stare. “I’m not blind. I saw you both at the club.”

“It was just dancing. We had to blend in,” I supplied, willing her to drop it so this conversation to be over.

“And grind on each other?” Guess she wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Everyone else was doing it!” What was I? 16?

“Was everybody else also having x-rated makeout sessions against the wall?” she quipped with a brow raised in my direction.

I pushed my finger into her chest with a glare, attempting to look as intimidating as she did. “Now that’s not fair. You told us both about using it as a distraction! We were just doing what we had to do.”

“And that included his tongue in your throat,” she teased, wiggling her eyebrows at me.

I tried a new tactic, pretending to ignore her as I righted the dummy and began kicking at its ribs. Maybe then she’d take a freaking hint.

“And when you were in the car, I’ve never seen either of you like that. He was holding you and looking at you like you were the most precious thing in the universe. And you melted into him, Jen. Full-on trust and dependence. You don’t do that. Ever.”

Maybe not.

“I’m so done with this conversation. Keep the shirt for all I care,” I snapped, getting to my feet and running out of the room. I wasn’t going to stand there and have her reiterate the thoughts that had been plaguing my mind for days now. I didn’t need her to tell me what I already knew. It didn’t change anything, so what the hell was the point?

My feet carried me out of the gym, outside, and around the edge of the Compound, and then they continued to drag me in a jog around the perimeter of the grounds for the next forty-five minutes. I used my last ounce of strength to haul my exhausted ass up to the garden, deciding it had the most diverse natural materials for me to use to also tire out my mind while I was at it.

“Just gotta harness my emotions. Got it. I don’t have any extra feelings going on to make that difficult or anything,” I said to myself as I plopped down onto the sun-warmed roof, letting the heat seep pleasantly through my thin athletic shorts.

I reached out for my power just beneath my skin. It was pure electricity running through me, made even stronger by my heightened feelings. But whenever I tried to draw on it, to use it to manipulate my surroundings, I couldn’t focus long enough for anything to happen.

I could just hear Wanda now: If you can’t control your thoughts, you can’t control yourself.

Fat lot of good that was doing me right now.

I was being dumb. I was acting like an immature child. I should just treat that night like any other one night stand, as if those were a regular occurrence to me, and let it go. But no matter how often I told myself that, it didn’t work. His touch had been electric on my skin. I had never felt so desired as when he had been holding me. Or safe, when we had been in the car. I had known without a shadow of a doubt that he would have done anything to protect me at that moment. And he had, hadn’t he? He had killed those men who were trying to take me without any hesitation. And I craved that delectable balance of desire and comfort.

The thing that made it hardest to forget was the look that he had that night. Nat had been right. He had looked at me as if I had been so important, so precious to him. I didn’t mistake the softness in his eyes; I know I didn’t. I hadn’t ever seen him look at anybody that way. I wanted him to look at me that way again, to make me feel that special again. But my wants weren’t important, especially not to a self-obsessed god.

I lost track of time as I sat there trying to focus. Emptying my mind didn’t work. Making those dumb meditation noises and sitting cross-legged with my hands upturned on my knees didn’t work. Neither did counting my breaths, stretching, or saying the same phrase over and over again. It probably didn’t help that that phrase was ‘I’m such a dumbass.’ But what can you do?

Finally, after I could no longer ignore my stomach demanding to be fed, I stood up and glared out at the buildings and greenery below me as if they were the source of my frustration.

“Fuck you!” I shouted, bending down, picking up a rock, and throwing it as hard as I could over the edge of the building. It wasn’t nearly as cathartic as I wanted it to be. I could have made it fly farther with my mind.

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

To Keep You Safe

Title: I’m fired up and tired of the way that things have been

Chapter: 8/?

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn’t have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki.

Rating: E (later on)

Notes: Friendly reminder that this is un-Beta’d, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors I no doubt missed during revisions!

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings: Language

~~~

I quickly established a new routine without my training sessions with Wanda to distract me.

8 AM: Wake up, chug coffee, practice being social, get dressed.

9 AM: Run laps around the perimeter of the Compound.

10 AM: Get my ass kicked by Nat. Repeatedly.

11:30 AM: Inhale lunch.

12 PM: Suck at controlling my powers.

3 PM: Do more laps around the Compound.

5 PM: Zone out to reality TV in my room.

6 PM: Dinner with the gang. Play at being a human some more.

8 PM: Go to the gym to punch stuff.

9 PM: Shower, get ready for bed, pass out.

2 AM: Wake up from traumatic nightmares and fall asleep to more pointless reality TV.

5 AM: If I hadn’t exhausted myself enough, wake up again from nightmares.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

~~~

Over a week into my new work-myself-so-hard-that-I-don’t-think routine, I noticed that my carefully constructed schedule wasn’t fooling anyone.

Nat was staring me down with pointed glares in between each ass-kicking session. She mentioned that I was losing my edge. I didn’t know I had one to begin with, so that was a nice compliment.

One morning at breakfast Steve went full Captain America and pinned me to my stool with an insanely heavy hand on my shoulder, promising me that I can always talk to him about anything. It’s absurd how much strength that guy holds in just one hand. Probably more than I had in my entire body if I’m being honest with myself.

Bruce tried to get me to start going to daily sessions with him again. At the risk of bringing out the big guy, I never showed up to the meeting times he suggested--and that I never agreed to. He left well enough alone and only made F.R.I.D.A.Y. nag me about it once a day. Good guy, that Banner.

Thor seemed determined at cheering me up at any opportunity. He watched my favorite reality TV shows and sitcoms with me, kept me company sometimes when I couldn’t sleep at night, and even tried to help me learn some new techniques in the gym--that was the ass-kicking of the century. He was a sweet, lovable bear of a man who did give a mean hug, but sometimes he was just too much. Too loud and too big and too enthusiastic. He needed an off button or some sort of dial to turn it down.

The last one to break and say anything was Tony. He interacted with me much less than he used to in the past now that I was a mini-Avenger in training and not his Personal Assistant. I went into his lab every three or so days so he could check on any injuries I’d gotten from training, take a few blood or tissue samples, and update me on Wanda and Vision. It’s hard to get a surly word or fake smile in edgewise when he does ninety percent of the talking, so I flew under the radar for longer than I had expected I would. For a genius, he could be oblivious about interpersonal relationships.

His breaking point was when I just flat out didn’t respond to his latest status report on my magical voodoo coach and her door-hating man.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Jen? I just told you that they’re going to be out for at least another two weeks, and you don’t even bat an eye? Since when do you not care about your friends?”

I did care about Wanda and Vision, I did. Tony had informed me a while ago that the insanely smart Princess of Wakanda, Shuri, had successfully managed to remove the stone from Vision’s head and Wanda had promptly destroyed it. Vision was doing fine, but he was adjusting to having to use doors now that he couldn’t just walk through walls anymore. He couldn’t shoot beams from his forehead anymore, or alter his appearance to look human, but those were all minor setbacks when it came to destroying the Mind Stone and keeping him chugging along. Once they were finished with their Hydra brain-digging they’d be headed straight home.

My hands twisted themselves together in my lap. “I do care,” I insisted unconvincingly.

Tony took off his glasses and leveled me with a hard stare, his arms crossed over his chest. “What’s going on?”

“What do you want me to say?” I huffed, unable to meet his disappointed gaze any longer.

“Explain why I’ve had four of our friends and coworkers come up to me and ask if you were okay. If the tests showed anything negative because your piss poor attitude sure does. Did your favorite person get kicked off of Survivor? Did Ben and Jerry’s stop making Hunka Hulka Burning Fudge? What is it?”

I groaned, pulling my knees up to my chest as I sat on the exam table and shoved my face into them.

“You wouldn’t understand, Tony.”

“Try me, Poison Ivy,” he insisted, not unkindly.

“It’s dumb as hell.”

He came over to sit down on the table next to me and nudged my shoulder with his. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. told me that you’ve been having nightmares and I know you haven’t been talking to Bruce about it. I can get someone in here if you need it. A professional. Just gotta ask.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. is a snitch,” I muttered, fiddling with the handle of my knife on my thigh absentmindedly. I had taken to wearing it again, at Tony’s request, and it was equal parts reassuring and daunting to have that steady weight on my leg again. Of course Tony would check up on me when he noticed something. He was basically Dad of the team, and he’d been doing his best to take care of everyone, including me, for as long as I could remember. He would see my restlessness and work ethic and nightmares for what they were. It wasn't as if this was a new pattern of mine. “I don’t need to see anybody. I’m fine.”

“Then get the hell over it. You’re an Avenger now. You gotta sort through this shit however you need to so you can get back on your A-Game. Hydra is still out there looking for your skinny ass. They aren’t going to stop trying to breach the Compound’s defenses or lure you out because you’re throwing the world’s longest pity party for yourself. Wanda and Vision are out there risking their lives for you, so maybe show a little gratitude for their hard work and don’t act like a waste of space,” he snapped, his voice barely restrained as he poked my arm with each point until I looked up at him. He was right in my face, giving me every ounce of disappointment and rage in his clenched jaw and hard eyes that he refused to let out in his words. It was so paternal and there was so much care driving the speech.

And it broke me.

I pulled my eyes from him to stare up at the ceiling, blinking to try to keep the tears that pricked at my eyes from falling. It didn’t work, though, and they slipped down my red face anyway. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and crossed my arms over my chest as I worked as hard as I could to keep from crumbling under the weight of his disappointment.

“Oh, shoot. Hey, kid, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out,” Tony said worriedly, hands fluttering uselessly in front of him.

I took several deep, shaky breaths before I felt in control enough to get off of the exam table and put some distance between us. I needed to lessen the intensity somehow. Why was everybody in this damn Compound so freaking intense all the time? My hands clasped over the back of my head as I paced in front of him and just let my jumbled thoughts spill out of my mouth.

“No, it’s not okay. It’s frustrating as hell and I’m pissed and I can’t do anything about it so I just don’t but that doesn’t work because then I’m just bottling all of this up inside. That’s not good for my powers, so I haven’t been able to use my abilities and practice since it happened. And that’s not good because I need to make sure I can defend myself and that I don’t need anybody to help me. And I can’t sleep at night because I keep seeing those…” I sucked in a shaky breath, “those guys but then I wake up alone and it doesn’t feel safe and I’m so angry at myself and-”

“Woah, woah, woah. There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s start from the top, okay?” Tony asked, raising his hands to stop the rambling tirade as it spilled directly from my brain out of my mouth. He waited until I had stopped pacing back and forth and was looking in his general direction before he continued, “What is frustrating as hell?”

It was too much to pick apart. “Everything.”

“One example, kid. Throw me a bone.”

“Can’t do just one. Better question,” I countered quickly.

Tony rubbed at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger, squinting his eyes together tightly. “Okay... Why can’t you do anything about whatever is frustrating as hell?”

“Because I’m not the one who did it.” Well, kinda.

“Who did what?” he asked, his frustration clipping his words.

“Acted like an asshole. Which is to be expected of him, but it’s frustrating because I believed him and I trusted him and that’s a dumb, naive thing to do when it comes to the God of Lies and Mischief,” I explained, my voice sounding as deflated as I felt after my outburst.

It had been dumb to believe him. He didn’t have me. I wasn’t safe. He wasn’t going to be around like he promised me in that car. The look in his eyes had been a lie. The gentle touches and steamy kisses were easily faked to deal with a sticky situation. That’s all. I had known better than to trust him, I had every reason not to believe that he had changed, and I ignored it all because of two life-saving moments, some making out, and a halfway confession of mind control. I knew better.

He shifted on the table, shaking his head and blinking dramatically as if to make what I just said any less nonsensical. From his continued confused expression on his face, it didn’t work. “I’m sorry, Jen, but you’re gonna have to explain.”

And so, after taking a beat to gather my thoughts, I unloaded everything onto Tony. The admission in the car. The dancing and making out in the club. Our fight against the Hydra assholes. How he was in the car. How he was completely different on the rooftop. And how pissed I was that I was pissed that he was ghosting me now after he’d made himself such a staple in my life over the last month.

After all was said and done, I collapsed onto a nearby chair and hung my head, letting my thick hair fall to partially hide my face while I waited for him to tell me what I already knew: That I was an idiot. I was naive. I shouldn’t have expected any different from Loki. He was known for this sort of behavior, wasn’t he? When the reprimand I was expecting didn’t come after several pregnant beats, I peeked up at him to be met with a very guilty-looking Tony staring back at me.

“Oh, kid. I fucked up,” he sighed.

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. “What did you do, Tony?”

“I, uh, overreacted. I might have flipped out. When Sam and Nat called to tell me what had happened with those guys I lost my cool. And then when you pulled up and I opened the door to see Loki holding you like that, while you looked so broken… It brought out this whole protective thing in me that usually just comes out around the Spiderkid.”

I got up and stood directly in front of him. “What. Did. You. Do. Tony?” I asked through clenched teeth, working very hard to remain in control as my pulse thudded in my ears.

“You know who he is. The Trickster God of Lies and Mischief. All I saw was this thousand-year-old god taking advantage of someone who’s had too many hard knocks in life. So I talked to him.” Tony held his hands up in surrender.

“No shit, Sherlock. What did you say?” I asked, feeling the familiar power roaring to life beneath my skin. It was nice to have it feel so accessible after almost two weeks of frustration, but I smothered it the best I could. I wouldn’t get a good answer out of Tony if I dragged him outside and made a tree give him a nice tight squeeze.

“I told him to stay away from you. That you were off-limits and he’s no good for you. You’ve been through too much to be chewed up and spit back out once he’d finished playing with the shiny new mortal-”

“Fuck, Tony! Damn!” I shouted, throwing my hands to my side. My knife came unbidden into my waiting hand, but I didn’t raise it against him. I wasn’t that far gone to my anger. “You aren’t my Dad! That’s not your place!”

He stood up so that we were face to face, his jaw tight as he glanced at the dagger before looking back at my tight face. “That’s right. I’m not. Because he got them killed. Did you forget that?”

It was like he had stabbed me in the heart and punched me in the gut at the same time. I shoved the unwelcome last images that I had of my father out of my mind as tears that I had just gotten control over pricked at my eyes once again. I took a stumbling step away from him, as if I could walk away from the emotional turmoil he’d thrust upon me. “No, I didn’t. But that wasn’t him. He wasn’t in control.”

“And you believe him?” he asked incredulously. “He’s a liar.”

I hesitated briefly. “Not about this. You didn’t see his face.”

“I don’t need to. I know what he is. You’re not thinking clearly,” he accused, shaking his head at me.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” I stated, backing away from him. I stormed out of the room, fumbling and then shoving my knife back into its sheath. I missed on the first attempt, leaving a steadily bleeding thin slice down my thigh and ruining my leggings, but I didn’t miss a step. I had a god to confront.

I jogged to the roof, standing there panting with my hands on my hips and my head dropped to my chest. My breath condensed in the air in front of me, and I made myself try to slow everything going on inside of me, from my blood rushing through my veins to my power desperately trying to claw its way to the surface, way down while I waited for Loki to show up. He was always creeping around somewhere and he would have been curious about my argument with Tony, I was sure of it. We hadn’t exactly been quiet about it.

Sure enough, by the time I was in slightly more control of myself, the hair on the back of my neck raised at the feeling of someone watching me. I had talked to Thor about this odd sensation, and he agreed that my suspicions of Loki being to blame were probably correct. He was more than capable of messing with my head enough so that I wouldn’t be able to sense him there if he wanted to, which meant that he wanted me to know that he was around. He was too good at his magic to just slip up like that. No, he was playing with me just enough so that I would know he was being an invisible creeper without actually making himself known. It was like knowing that there was ice cream in the freezer while you were on a diet. It was there, but it might as well not have been for all the good it was doing and the torment it caused.

“Stay out of my head, Loki. Don’t be a coward. Show yourself,” I called, holding my arms up in the air challengingly.

“I am a god. A Prince of Asgard. I am no coward,” his voice hissed in my head.

Gotcha.

“You won’t even speak out loud or show yourself. Seems pretty cowardly to me,” I goaded him loudly. “Afraid?”

Loki appeared before me in a flash of green light, gripping my upper arms and shoving me roughly back against the door behind me. His eyes were crazed as they swept over my face. “Don’t you dare assume you know anything about me, mortal.”

I stared him down, telling myself that this was all show even as my body reacted very differently. I was practically vibrating with an electrifying mixture of fear and rage as his fingers dug painfully into my flesh and he towered over me. But he wouldn’t do anything me. I had to believe that. If he was going to kill me he wouldn’t have saved my life twice over by now. That was a little harder to make myself fully believe when he looked so manic and wrathful and I knew just how much damage he could do to me if he wanted to. Very easily.

“I know that Tony talked to you,” I said quietly, continuing when he opened his mouth to probably give some smartass answer, “I know that he treated you terribly. Like a monster. Telling you to stay away from me even though he didn’t have the right. Twisting everything around so it seemed like you manipulated me into trusting you.”

Loki tightened his grip on my arms, only releasing them when an involuntary wince twisted my firmly set mouth. He didn’t back away, though, his angered breaths blowing against my face as he sneered down at me. He dragged a long, cool finger across my jaw. “How do you know that I didn’t manipulate you? Mortals are so easily swayed, especially the fairer sex.”

“What would be the result of that? What would you get out of saving my life twice, tending to my wounds while I wasn’t even conscious to appreciate it, and helping me hold it together after the night of the club? What does that do for you?” I refused to move away from him. That was what he wanted. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

His brow furrowed for half a second, as if he was actually contemplating my question, but quickly replaced it with his mask of fury once again. “I was merely toying with you, love. It was in my best interest to go unrecognized in the club, and then afterward I would’ve been imprisoned again if I had let them take you. Your Avengers hold a soft spot for their new pet.”

He was just lashing out at me to avoid confronting his emotions. I had to keep on digging or we weren’t going to get anywhere.

“That doesn’t answer why you comforted me.”

He finally took a step away from me, and even that small amount of distance eased the rapid beat of my heart in my throat. From the way his eyes ticked to my neck I had to assume that my pulse was visible to him, and he had taken notice. Disgust dripped off of him as he replied, “Because you were pathetic. A warrior does not mourn those that they slay in battle. I had to keep your fragile psyche together long enough to get you to your equally feeble friends, who wouldn’t see it for the weakness that it was.”

His words finally achieved his goal, and I had to look away to try to hide how they had cut me to my core. He was just voicing what I had been telling myself. I did feel weak and pathetic for reacting that way, but it also meant that I wasn’t some robot who had no value for human life. Any normal person would be troubled by the knowledge that they had killed someone and gotten more men brutally killed just be existing. Either way, I couldn’t win.

But the aspect that hurt most of all was that he hadn’t acted out of concern for me. It was all to save his ass and get rid of me, just like I had suspected. At least, that was what he wanted me to believe. I couldn’t accept that completely, though, not when my gut was telling me otherwise.

I straightened up off of the wall and set my fiery gaze on him once again. “So explain this to me, and don’t you dare interrupt. You are going to hear what I have to say and then you can fuck right off to go haunt some other poor soul.”

I hesitated to see if he would try to stop me, but surprisingly he just stood there in stunned silence as if he couldn’t believe that I was standing up to him. It wasn’t like this was the first time. But I was fully done at this point and I needed to get everything out of my system and then I could just leave it. But he was going to let me say my peace, damn it.

“I don’t know how long you think that you can lie to yourself, but it isn’t going to work forever. I’m not going to let it. You spent weeks watching me like I was some fucking science experiment. You slithered your way into my life by constantly hanging around, by making me reliant on you when I wake up from my nightmares, by stopping bullets aimed my way with your own body, and then drop me on my ass. You don’t do all of those things for anybody. I don’t see you doing any of those things for Natasha. I know that girl has to have nightmares with all the shit that she has been through. I don’t see you throwing yourself in the line of danger for somebody like Sam. You don’t get to just thrust yourself into my life like that and then waltz out like nothing happened. I’m not some plaything that you can use and toss away. I’m a person, even if that doesn’t mean much to a freaking thousand-year-old asshole alien prince.”

“You do not get to tell me what to do,” he hissed.

But while his words were laced with anger, I could see the cool facade that he had constructed slowly cracking at the edges. Just a furrowed brow, his lips slightly parted, his eyes darting between my own. But it was enough to give me that last bit of oomph that I needed to continue.

“What are you going to do about it? Stab me? Kill me? I’m just a human woman. It wouldn’t be hard to do at all. If that’s what you want, then do it,” I seethed, pulling my dagger out and holding it to my neck for him, staring defiantly at him even as tension pulled my muscles taut. “Because either you admit that you did those things because you wanted to, because you felt something and that you’re too much of a coward to admit it, or you can get the hell out of my life. None of this halfway bullshit anymore. I’m too tired and too stressed and I’m struggling too much to play games with the Trickster God.”

His shining eyes took me in, and in one quick move he stepped up to me so that our chests were touching and his hand closed over mine, holding my knife at my throat. “I admit nothing.”

His grip hadn’t been very strong and I yanked my hand away easily. I sheathed my knife and shook my head, all of my rage melting out of me, leaving just exhaustion to weigh me down. “You see everyone else so clearly but yourself.”

He flinched at my words and closed his eyes tightly but I didn’t let myself question his reaction. I just wanted to be done with this conversation and never have it again. So everything needed to be said. I wasn’t going to have any regrets or thoughts of ‘what if’ when it came to this moment, consequences be damned. It wasn’t like he could hurt me anymore than he already had.

“If you won’t admit it, I will. That night, something changed. And I’m not just talking about when we were dancing together, or when we kissed. Yeah, that was really good, you weren’t wrong about that. But it had felt right. We… we fit. Even though you’re a giant compared to me, we fit. And then, after...,” I paused and took a steadying breath as I choked out the words around the lump of frustration in my throat, “you were the only thing that felt safe. You were the one that I trusted to protect me and hold me together. And I needed that, especially during my nightmares. And I hate that I needed that so much. I try to be so independent. But you had abandoned me.”

I ran a hand through my hair with a heavy sigh. “And that’s fine. You don’t owe me anything. I’m going to learn to live with what I did and what I saw in time. I’ll do it on my own. But I can’t do that if I’m also trying to figure out this situation on top of everything else. I can only handle so much at one time, and I have to take care of myself. You acting like an asshole to me one second and then treating me so tenderly the next isn’t going to cut it. You have to pick one.”

My hand settled lightly on his bicep. “I hope that one day you can be honest with yourself. Because I don’t think you are right now, and I think that’s hurting you more than you think it’s protecting you,” I whispered, squeezing his arm softly before walking away from him.

I didn’t expect him to stop me, and he lived up to that expectation. I didn’t run into anyone as I took the elevator down to the ground floor, and the few employees that I passed as I made my way outside didn’t even glance up at me as I moved quickly through them. The bite of the winter air returning to the exposed skin of my face was more than welcome as I began my usual jogging route along the perimeter of the Compound. I needed to think, and with Loki currently occupying my favorite thinking spot, this was my alternative that wasn’t the confines of my room. I wanted the open air right now.

I didn’t get very far before all of the emotions that I had cycled through in such a short period of time finally fully released themselves into hot tears that rolled down my cheeks. I always cried when I got overwhelmed. It was embarrassing. I let out a strangled shriek and stopped jogging, bending forward at my waist and pulling my sweater into my fists to wipe away the evidence of my emotions. Loki was right. I really was pathetic.

“I am not worth your tears.”

I straightened up and lowered my hands to my sides, digging my nails into the fabric clutched in my palms. I kept my back to him, not wanting to be seen crying for what felt like the thousandth time that day. “Oh?” I asked, cringing inwardly at the break in my voice on such a short word.

His voice was closer this time. “I am not. No one is.”

I barked out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, well, I guess I’ll keep that in mind,” I scoffed, walking away.

His slim fingers encircled my wrist gently to stop my speedy progress away from him. “Did you mean what you said?”

I turned around to face him, swallowing my pride and looking up to him. The cold hatred that he had worn earlier had gone, and in its stead, his eyes were soft as they took in my tear-stained face. Tentatively, he reached up and swiped away a tear as it rolled down my cheek. “Did you mean what you said?” he implored in a low voice.

“I don’t have any reason to lie,” I replied, just as quietly.

In one swift motion he yanked me against him, encompassing me in his strong embrace. My face collided almost painfully with the hard muscles of his chest he was so fast. I remained stiff against him, even as one hand moved from my back to cradle the back of my head. I wasn’t going to let myself get pressured into enjoying how heavenly he smelled, or how comforting it was to my weary heart to feel his voice rumbling through his chest.

“Only one other woman has been able to see through me so effectively.”

A small smile cracked my lips. “Smart woman.”

“Yes, she was,” he replied, voice weighed down with a terrible sadness that tugged at my heart. “This will not be easy.”

I didn’t say anything for a while, letting myself process everything. If he said that I could see through him, that had to be his weird proud way of admitting that I was right. But what about? Everything? That’s what it sounded like. But my weary heart and mind needed more clarification.

I hesitantly lifted my hands from their place at my sides and rested them on his waist, sliding over the slick fabric of his shirt. “I’m going to need you to be more specific, Loki.”

A sigh ruffled my hair before his hands moved to my shoulders to hold me at arm’s length. That same softness was still there on his face, but it was now laced with a hint of vulnerability and fear that I wasn’t used to seeing on him at all. “I have grown quite attached to you, as of late, little one.”

Stifling the hope that soared within my chest, I raised an eyebrow at him. “No tricks?”

He pushed an errant piece of hair behind my ear and let his hand fall to rest on my shoulder so his fingers could lift goosebumps on the soft skin of my neck from his caress. “No more tricks. Not with you.”

Smiling wearily, I stood on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face into the column of his throat. “Don’t make me regret this, Loki,” I pleaded, my voice muffled by his skin.

His arms crushed me to him so tightly that it was hard to take a deep breath, but it still didn’t feel close enough. I felt his smooth lips move against the skin just beneath my ear as he replied, “I wouldn’t dream of it, love.”

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

To Keep You Safe

Title: You committed, I’m your crime

Chapter: 4/?

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn’t have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki. 

Rating: E (later on)

Notes: Reminder that this is un-Beta’d, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors I no doubt missed upon my revisions!

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings for this chapter: Language, blood, injury, destruction

~~~

After my little stunt on the roof, Tony decided my superpower training with Wanda needed to begin immediately. Waiting until I fully healed wasn’t an option if I was going to destroy the Compound with a–totally justified–mood swing.

Wanda did her very best in trying to help me figure this whole geokinesis thing out. She was patient and didn’t give up on me even when I gathered my hair in my hands and shrieked in frustration. She ignored any bellyaching or whining I sent her way and remained the ever-supportive tutor. Through our combined perseverance, I slowly became aware of the constant thrumming inside me, like a thousand bees buzzing just beneath my skin that got really pissed off when I was surrounded by nature or experienced heightened emotions. We worked for hours outside each day, her coaching me to harness my emotions and funnel them outward properly–AKA not mindless destruction of expensive property and killing of houseplants. It was frustratingly easy for her. She’d been working on her powers for years, while I’d had less than a week.

It was exhausting work, and I hadn’t even started fight training with Nat yet. That woman was going to kick my ass six ways to Sunday, and to say I was dreading it was an understatement of epic proportions. I collapsed into bed each night and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, often forgetting to shower or eat until I woke up disgusting and ravenous the next morning. It was easy to understand some of my new roommates’ preference for protein drinks. I chugged them down on my way to the lawn in the middle of the Compound each morning, forcing myself to get something in my system before we began.

Half of the time I just looked constipated as I stared at leaves or small rocks, willing them to do what I commanded and getting discouraged as the wind proved more effective. Then something would move, but not how I wanted, and we’d have to try again but harder or differently. It wasn’t a very satisfying process, to say the least.

I even had some meetings with Bruce. He knew more than anyone how important it was to keep a handle on strong emotions and, since that seemed to be a huge trigger for me and I refused to let Tony hire an actual professional about it, offered to help me out as best as he could.

“Jen, what seems to set off your anger the most?” Bruce asked kindly during one of our ‘sessions’. Sitting in his office of neutral warm beige and soft lighting, He might as well be my therapist. With him perched across from me in a tasteful armchair and me cross-legged on a plush couch, we at least looked the part. All he was missing was a clipboard and look of feigned interest. But if it meant less destructive outbursts and my eventual freedom I’d pour my guts out to him all day long.

“Loki.” The answer came without hesitation. That Asgardian serpent knew how to get under my skin like nothing else, and always took advantage of that fact at the worst time. Although to be fair, he did make everything worse when he deemed us worthy of his presence, so it wasn’t just me.

“Why does he bother you so much? He can’t hurt you, not here. He’s stuck on base so we can keep an eye on him, so he has to play nice. And you’re getting better at controlling your powers, so you can fight back. He only has the power to hurt you because you let him.”

The truthful answer immediately sprang to mind, but I hesitated, sucking my bottom lip between my teeth and staring at the floor. I didn’t talk about my past. Bruce was a great guy, and he wouldn’t judge me, but talking about it meant feeling it again, and I wasn’t so great with that feeling thing people were supposed to do. Much easier to work myself to death and pass out to some fun nightmares, then repeat. But to make him explain the deeply rooted loathing that I harbored for Loki, I’d have to give him some sort of explanation.

When I looked up to him, hoping that he would just let it go, the curious concern on his face appeared well and truly settled onto his worn features. He even sank further into the cushioned chair, as if he could wait all day for me to reply. “He’s an annoying little shit,” I tried, internally crossing my fingers that he’d believe my easy and obvious answer.

“We all know that. But he also doesn’t make us angry enough that we break an entire wall of windows or kill a tree just by walking by it.”

Oops.

“His face is just really punchable?” I tried again. Going by the unchanged expression on his face, it didn’t work.

Damn. Guess it was honesty time.

“He destroyed my life years ago. Seeing his smirking face every day just rubs it in. He shouldn’t be free to roam around after what he did,” I mumbled quickly, staring down at my hands twisting in my lap. I had taken to carrying a palm-sized pointed stone in my pocket at all times. It gave me something to practice with when I was idle, and the paranoid side of me knew that I might one day need some sort of weapon I could manipulate while surrounded by man-made materials. I fiddled with it now, turning it over in my fingers and rubbing one side absentmindedly with my thumb. Anything to avoid looking at Bruce as he peeled away my protective layers to reveal my soft, gooey insides.

“The Battle of New York? Tony told me you worked at Stark Tower when it happened. But you’re here. You’re safe. He didn’t hurt you, and if he did, it wasn’t permanent,” Bruce soothed, his voice laced with sincere compassion.

“He didn’t hurt me, no.”

“I know that trauma can linger for years after-”

“I don’t have PTSD. Tony paid for me to see a therapist after the attack, and I worked though the trauma of the situation. I’m not afraid of that happening again,” I muttered, clenching the rock tightly as I looked up to him. Anger was simmering just beneath my skin, mixing unpleasantly with deep grief that I did my best to keep safely stored away at the back of my mind at all times.

“If you don’t have lingering trauma, and you aren’t permanently injured, how did Loki destroy your life?” Bruce prodded, digging deeper and deeper. “Without getting to the root of this issue, it’s never going to get better.”

“He took it from me.”

“I don’t understa-”

“He took it from me!,” I snapped and stood up, my anger boiling over as my free hand reached into my grey sweater and pulled out the golden necklace always around my neck. I stepped closer so that Bruce could see the small circular pendant. Etched into the gold were the shaky whorls of a thumbprint. My other hand gripped the stone so tightly that the edges drew blood from my palm, but I didn’t care. All I could feel were the tears pricking my eyes and the swarm of bees searching for release from beneath my skin.

“He took them from me. My mom. My dad. Michael, my twin brother. I see his face every day in the mirror and feel him around my neck, and I see their mangled bodies that I was forced to identify every time I look at his smug, arrogant asshole face! And he just gets to walk free around this place like he didn’t kill hundreds of people that day, and wreck the lives of those left behind! He feels nothing for what he did,” I shouted, my rapid-fire words tearing from my throat in an impressive shriek.

I turned away from Bruce to avoid the pity I knew I would see. It would be the same look that I got whenever I told anybody the story, which is exactly why I didn’t mention it. Ever. I stared up at the ceiling and blinked back the tears that threatened to spill down my face. Without waiting for his response I stormed from the room, leaving a stunned Dr. Banner in my wake.

Outside his office I jogged up the stairs, my eyes downcast as I focused on just getting away from that room. From the words I hadn’t spoken out loud in years to anyone. Speaking it made it real again, and that ache ripping my heart to shreds was one I wanted to avoid if at all possible. So preoccupied with my retreat and holding myself together, I didn’t notice the wall of pure muscle coming down the stairs until I ran straight into it.

“Milady! How are yo-what is wrong?” Thor went from surprised and happy to worry in an instant as I stumbled against him. His hands gripped my upper arms to steady me as he stooped down to take in my red blotchy face, the tears that had slipped down my cheeks, and the blood slowly dripping from my hand. “What happened?”

I lifted my bloodshot eyes to his, searching for pity and coming up empty. Only careful regard and fierce protectiveness furrowed his brow. Rubbing the back of my injured hand against my cheeks, I shook my head harshly. “Ask your brother,” I croaked, pulling away from him and rushing up the stairs.

“Loki!” The booming voice of Thor shook the art upon the walls like the thunder he commanded as he stormed away in the opposite direction. Good. Maybe he could knock that shit-eating grin off his face. If anyone could handle Loki, it was his brother.

I paid no attention to the assembled Avengers in the kitchen, even after Steve and Vision called after me. I needed to get to a safe place, one without rocks or plants or anything else my powers could use as a projectile. I barged inside my room without uttering a word. After my incident on the roof with the windows, I’d come back to find all of the decorative plants removed from my room. At first, I’d been insulted, but critical thinking made me realize it was for the best. The only weapon in my bedroom was the rock clutched in my hand and my body wasn’t going to fight itself for it.

I hadn’t even taken three steps into the room before I heard banging on my door.

“Pebbles, let’s talk, kid. Why is Thor trying to rearrange Loki’s face?” Tony’s frustrated voice projected into my room through F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s speakers installed in the ceiling. Our rooms weren’t fully soundproof, but regular shouting was barely audible through the thick walls and heavy door. The blood rushing through my ears didn’t help matters, either.

I stared up at the nearest speaker in silence, focusing on tamping down the roaring in my ears and itching beneath my skin. I wasn’t going to open that door until I had myself under control, and a chat with Tony wasn’t going to suddenly undo all of the hurt that I fought daily to keep bottled away inside.

“Pebbles?,” I called out, picking up on the new nickname and ignoring his question purposefully.

“Pebbles. You can throw tiny rocks around. It’s cute.” I picked up on the smirk in his voice followed a couple of heavy bangs on the door. “Now open the door and let’s hash this out, Pebbles.”

“I’m good.” I threw myself dramatically down onto my bed. I was not in the mood to deal with Tony right now. I just needed to sit and stew and maybe break a few things. Then it’d all be fine and I could go on my merry way of stunted emotions and repressed thoughts.

“No can do. Gotta be a grown-up and talk it out,” his firm, no-nonsense voice grated on my agitated nerves.

Talk it out? No thanks.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Leave. Me. Alone,” I replied, directing my words and a pillow at the continuous banging on the door. As soon as the pillow thumped uselessly against it, the echoing knocks stopped.

“But I do, Jen,” came Wanda’s soft voice through the speaker. Bruce must have gotten her.

“Ugh.” I stood up, wiping away the last of my tears from my face as I went to the door. Taking a deep breath and blowing it out through my mouth, I opened the door. Thankfully, only Wanda and Tony stood on the other side. The rest of the gang must have gone to watch the spectacle I’m sure Thor and Loki were making. The disappointment on Tony’s face cut me to my core, so I averted my gaze to Wanda. She offered me a sympathetic smile, cocking her head toward the room behind me. I stepped aside and let her through with a flourish of my hand.

I groaned in defeat and looked up at a frowning Tony. “Tell Thor to back off. I’m sure he’s done enough damage as it is,” I muttered, dropping my chin to my chest and closing the door on him.

I turned around to find Wanda sitting on the couch, her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped in front of her. It was still surreal to have The Scarlet Witch just hanging out in my bedroom, even after daily training sessions for over a week.

“You know that I had a brother. Pietro,” she spoke softly, her eyes trained on me as I crossed over to sit beside her. “I also lost him because of another’s hatred. And it is a knife in my chest that never goes away. Sometimes I forget that it’s there, but then it comes back sharper and more painful than ever. But I can’t let that control me.”

I walked over and plopped down beside her with a thoughtful frown. I could feel my slick blood on the stone’s surface as I worried it, but the stinging in my hand was inconsequential to the turmoil inside. It could be taken care of later. “That’s easier said than done,” I muttered.

Wanda raised a hand covered in red light, twisting it. My bathroom door opened, and then I heard my medicine cabinet open and close. The first aid kit found in each bathroom of the Compound, because Tony knows his guests and their occupational hazards, levitated out and into her waiting hand. She gently took the rock from me and set it on the coffee table in front of us so she could tend to my injury with gentle touches as she spoke.

“It is. And I also thought that getting revenge for his loss would make me feel better. I ripped out the heart of Ultron. I watched him die, and the pain didn’t lessen. I still woke up reaching for him each morning and looking for him first when I needed to talk. It doesn’t fix the pain, Jen,” she murmured, dabbing at the small but plentiful cuts on my hand with a cleansing wipe.

“I have to see him every day. He gets to be free around this base without any issue,” I spat, clenching my teeth against the sting of the antibacterial solution.

“Being trapped isn’t without its downsides. Besides, I know for a fact that Thor is giving him a sound lesson as we speak. He has tried to atone for his mistakes,” she pushed, unwrapping a set of bandages and slowly rewrapping them around my hand.

She was at least right about one thing. From the crashes of thunder and darkening sky, the anger a certain God of Thunder currently held for Loki was made clear.

“It’s not enough,” I replied, my extreme emotions slowly fading to leave me feeling drained more than anything else. My usual state after the Battle, to be honest.

“Would you see him dead? If given the opportunity, would you take this rock and drive it through his heart? Honestly?” She finished up the dressing with a piece of medical tape to hold everything in place. Undeterred by my drying blood on the rock, she picked it up and held it out to me.

“I… don’t know,” I whispered, taking the heavy stone from her slowly and staring at it to avoid her knowing gaze.

“I don’t think you’re a murderer, Jen. And I’ve met several of them,” Wanda offered and stood up with a heavy sigh. “I’m not telling you that you’re not allowed to feel this. But you won’t like the person that you turn into if it’s all that you feel.” She squeezed my shoulder before leaving me alone with my conflicted thoughts.

I gathered the bloodied medical supplies and took them to the trash before walking to stand before the floor-to-ceiling windows of my room. Thor must have found Loki outside, as there were scorch marks on the ground and twisted remnants of metal benches scattered around the open green lawn.

I wasn’t a murderer. That I knew deep down inside. If Loki was powerless before me right now and I had a gun to his temple, I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger. I couldn’t have that blood on my conscience. Did I want him to know my pain? Yeah, for sure. He showed no remorse for his actions. He sauntered around like he owned the place, as if the feelings of others were inconsequential and insignificant.

But he didn’t deserve to die. If anything, he deserved to grapple with the guilt of the lives he ruined for the rest of his immortal life. And maybe an occasional beating from his incredibly strong brother. But if he was going to learn from his mistakes, he at least needed to know what he did wrong first.

“Shit, I have to talk to Loki,” I groaned, dropping my forehead against the cool glass in front of me.

~~~

I stayed in my room for the rest of the day. Wanda must have told everyone to give me some space as no one came to bother me. During that time, I practiced. I sat on my bed, staring at my blood-stained rock and forcing it to move around the room, to do what I wanted it to and not lose control. Hours passed with my fighting the weariness of my mind and body until the natural light outside my room disappeared and was replaced with cool blue moonlight.

If there was any time to find Loki, it was now. His displeasure for the company of the Avengers wasn’t exactly a secret, leaving him to do the majority of his skulking around after hours. After his fight earlier with Thor, I knew he’d want to confront me. He wasn’t one to just take something lying down. All I needed to do was leave the sanctuary of my room.

After I stowed my rock inside my pocket, I threw on a pair of black tennis shoes and put my disheveled dark hair into a ponytail. The hum of electricity and fan of the heating system were the only sounds in the Compound other than my steps ringing firmly on the stairs as I jogged up to the roof. It was one of my favorite places and I was banking on that being common knowledge. I settled onto a large boulder in the middle of the garden, my back to the roof access door, and waited. He’d come.

“I should drive this knife through your throat right now,” Loki’s low silken voice was in my ear the second I felt two lean arms constrict around me, one around my shoulders to yank me against his rigid chest, and the other holding said knife to the soft skin of my neck. 

That didn’t take long.

“Why don’t you?” I ground out, stretching my head back against his shoulder to keep the blade from nicking my skin. I was engulfed by his presence. From the feeling of his taut body against my back to the heady scent of leather and spice, to his breath blowing across my ear, I was surrounded.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he hissed, the dagger around my neck disappearing as if it had never existed. His hands went to my shoulders and roughly spun me around before one went to my throat. He squeezed, not enough to cut off my air, but enough to let me know that he was the one in control of the situation. I swallowed and felt his hand shift over the nervous movement of my neck.

In the softly lit garden, I could just make out the damage Thor had done to him. The rolled-up sleeves of his dark button-down did little to hide the bruising blows that must have gotten through his armor, and his strikingly handsome face looked dreadful. Cuts marred his sharp cheekbones, and a large black eye only served to highlight the malice in his piercing emerald eyes.

Handsome? Nope, I didn’t just think that about the man threatening to strangle me.

Still, I couldn’t appear too weak. Calling upon the energy pulsing beneath my skin, I beckoned the sharpened, blood-stained rock from my pocket and put it to his own throat. My hours of practice that I had put myself through earlier showed in the slight tremor it gave in the air, but I dug deep to maintain it’s threatening position against his pulse. I would never do more, press it any harder, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Why did you send my brother to fight me?” he asked, glancing at my makeshift weapon with no concern before shifting his manic eyes back to mine.

Best get to the point before he strangled it out of me. 

“You killed my family,” I choked out around his grip, wrapping both of my hands around his wrist. For all my tugging at his arm, I was rewarded with his grip on my airway tightening ever-so-slightly but not budging besides that. It was enough of a message to still my hands but they remained on his oddly cold skin.

His steely gaze met mine, filled with fury. With a smirk, he grabbed the rock I held to his throat and it disappeared from his grip just like his dagger had. Well, shit. “And now what? You want to fight me? Or, rather, send Thor to fight your battles since you are too weak and irrational to take me on? You wouldn’t stand a chance,” he smirked, stepping closer until he had to look down his nose to see into my eyes.

“Try me, God of Mischief,” I replied through gritted teeth, my eyes flicking over to a tree behind him. With great effort, I directed the buzzing of power inside of me to find the weakest point in the tree. Locating it, my bandaged hand let go of Loki, clenched into a fist, and broke off a bare, dead branch. It flew over at the beckoning of my curled fingers, poised against his throat.

His sadistic smile grew at the thin limb pressing into his jugular. Without moving a muscle, Loki wrenched it from my control and soared across the Compound away from us. I was fighting a losing battle, but it didn’t stop me from trying.

“Learned a new trick, mortal? How quaint. But you won’t win against me,” he whispered, pulling my body flush against his by the hand at my throat, his breath cool against my ear. After one last demonstrative squeeze, he released me, pushing me away from him.

I fell to my knees as soon as I was free, taking deep gulps of sweet, sweet air. His icy touch sent goosebumps down my spine and lingered on my skin for far too long after it was gone. A weariness from manipulating my abilities for so long also tugged on my limbs, urging me to rest and recuperate from the strain. I remained kneeling, gathering my strength, as I scowled at him. “You ruined everything. You deserved it.”

“Get in line, darling. It’s hardly unusual behavior for me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest with a shrug.

“You should pay for what you did!” I hissed, standing up and advancing on him.

He stood his ground, looking down at me with all the fear a panther holds for a mouse. “You know nothing of my recompenses. I know full well what I did on that day,” he seethed, the terrifying anger that radiated off of him made all the more imposing by his tall frame as he towered over me.

I flinched; I couldn’t help it. I was provoking a god, and the tension in his body and rage in his eyes spoke of power much stronger than my own. He had held his own against Thor earlier, only receiving a few bruises and scrapes for his troubles. What did I expect to be able to do if he decided to fully unleash the barely-contained ire that poured off of him? I bluffed that he wouldn’t be able to hurt me, but how far did the protection of his brother and Tony really reach? Besides the threat of another beating and possible imprisonment, there wasn’t anything stopping him from ending my life here and now and then disposing of me just like the throwing knives he so easily manipulated into and out of existence.

“I am not the same god that ravaged that city.” His harsh breath blew across my face as he advanced towards me, forcing me to back up until my body hit the cold glass windows behind me. I desperately clung to any iota of control I had over my powers as they bubbled beneath the surface seeking an outlet for the heightened response his closeness instilled in me. Craning my neck to meet the piercing eyes of the fair-skinned man crowding me, I saw no difference to the same villain that invaded New York City years ago, and I voiced that opinion.

“My actions on that day were not done with my full consent,” he admitted, some of the fury that furrowed his brow escaping with his strangled sigh. I could’ve sworn that he looked haunted for a moment, but I must have been mistaken because the cold gleam shining once again in his eyes was so intense that it appeared etched into his features. “No matter, as I have suffered the consequences either way.”

“Then add this to your list of consequences,” I whispered, reaching between us to pull my necklace from beneath my clothing. I shoved it into his face. “His name was Michael Thompson. My twin was murdered sitting in a cab with my parents from your Chitauri army. And every time I look at your stupid face, at my face, I’m reminded of it. I can never escape it, and you shouldn’t be able to either,” I said, my voice shaking with too many emotions that I wouldn’t name and fought desperately to stifle. I was not going to lose control, not after digging up the courage to face him.

Loki’s eyes quickly glanced down at the necklace before coming back to me, searching them quizzically. His jaw clenched as he took in my expression, and a look I could only describe as pain cracked the harsh veneer he usually maintained.

“I do know what it’s like to lose those I hold dear. This I promise you,” he breathed, his words drifting across my face in a mint-scented cloud before he turned and quickly left the rooftop. Leaving me standing there alone, shaking from an overload of emotions and struggling to catch my breath.

Free from his intensity, I leaned forward and put my hands on my knees, trying to quiet my ragged breath so I could listen to see if he returned to finish what he had barely begun. I had done what I had set out to accomplish. I made him face the harsh realities of his selfish actions years ago, literally shoved the evidence in his face, and forced him to listen to me. For all the good that it did. He had lived for centuries. What was the plight of a woman who was but a blip on the timeline of his life going to change anything?

The first bit of the conversation that I truly didn’t understand was the conclusion. ’I do know what it’s like to lose those I hold dear.’ Who had this heartless man lost? To have lost means that he must have loved someone, and who would he deem worthy of his affections? He made it abundantly clear that everyone was beneath him, dull creatures compared to the superiority of his godliness.

Had Loki had a heart at one point in his life? Was he born with the black shriveled-up stone that he most definitely possessed now? He must have been a little boy at some point in his life. Although, to be honest, I wasn’t actually sure if Asgardians just came into existence fully grown and, in his case, ready to piss off the world or, in his brother’s case, ready to save it. Could there really be a reason for the loathing that he harbored for the world?

Nope. Not going to try to humanize the murdering bastard.

The second thought that nagged at my overworked mind was that he claimed to have not been fully in control of himself during the invasion. Was that a lie? Recalling the haunted expression that had flashed in his dark eyes for the briefest of moments, it was doubtful. That had been the face of someone who had known true pain. Was the God of Lies that good of an actor? This new tidbit of information hadn’t been brought to my attention before, but I also hadn’t lifted my nose from the grindstone to really pay attention to much since I lost my family.

If it was true, then what in the hell had been strong enough to make him do something he didn’t want to do? Loki was a thousand-year-old god with incredible amounts of will, strength, and power. He didn’t just bend his knee and listen to anyone who could manage to get a word in edgewise. No, his cooperation would have had to been taken from him, as there seemed to be no one who he would freely give it to. I was under no illusion that he was playing along with his captivity now, perhaps having nothing else better to do than to hang around until a more enjoyable opportunity came along. 

Did Loki actually fear something and have a weakness like us pathetic mortals?

Obviously I needed to get some sleep if I was starting to go down that road. I was delusional with exhaustion.

Yep. That’s it.

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

To Keep You Safe

Title: I’ll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife

Chapter: 15/?

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn’t have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki.

Rating: E 

Notes: Friendly reminder that this is un-Beta’d, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors I no doubt missed during revisions!

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings for this chapter: Mention of violence, language, description of injuries.

~~~

I had become quite used to waking up from my nightmares.

I wasn’t accustomed to waking because of Loki’s.

At least that’s what it appeared to be. His fingers twitched against my bare stomach, tugging and pushing on the soft flesh, rousing me from my deep, dreamless sleep. Cold lips formed silent words against the back of my neck. I shivered from the goosebumps the tickling touch created and placed my hand over his on my stomach, squeezing gently.

“Loki. Sweetheart…” I whispered, carefully rocking my shoulders back against his chest to try to rouse him.

When he didn’t respond I rolled over in his grasp to squint at his face in the moonlit room. The faint light was enough to see the furrow in his brow and the frown tugging on his thin lips. This was not the contented face I was accustomed to admiring as he slept peacefully. I smoothed the pad of my thumb over the crease in his forehead while my other hand came to rest on his chest, rubbing against the firm flesh in what I hoped was a comforting manner. His muscles were taut beneath his skin and told of the tension that lay within his dreams.

His eyes opened suddenly and he sat up in bed, chest heaving. I pulled the sheet up to cover my chest and mirrored his position. My hand automatically found his spine and traced the length of it. His eyes were wild as they darted erratically around the room. He lurched out of bed, grabbed his discarded underwear and slipped them on before walking across the room to stare out of the window.

“Loki?” I asked softly, staring worriedly at his still silhouette against the glass. His shoulders were hunched and his head hung down to his chest. I could practically feel the tension vibrating off of him. With a muffled hiss of pain I crawled out of bed, picking up his shirt from where it had fallen and pushed my arms through the sleeves. Thankfully he had rolled them up earlier, otherwise they would be comically long on my shorter arms. It wasn’t much to fend off the chill of the room, but it’d have to do because Loki looked like he needed me--or at least a hug. Hopefully I could soothe whatever was wrong with him and convince him to come back to our nice warm bed. I padded over to him and wrapped my arms snugly around his waist. My forehead naturally settled into the dip of his spine between his shoulder blades.

“Go back to sleep, little one,” he said, not unkindly, but without the warmth I had come to expect from him when addressing me--especially in the comfort of the bedroom. But even as he said it his hands went from where they had been propped on his hips to cover mine, entwining with my fingers. His words and body didn’t align, and I trusted his body’s signals more in this instance. One talent that the God of Lies excelled at was lying to himself more than anyone else.

I left a light kiss on his back. “You’re obviously troubled over something. I can’t go back to sleep knowing that you're upset.”

He rotated in the circle of my arms so that he was facing me, and his face was unreadable, completely devoid of emotion. Which is the exact expression he always wore when he had emotions that he didn’t want to reveal or he was feeling something he wanted to stifle. He wasn’t fooling anybody, let alone me. “I’m fine.”

Bullshit.

I leveled him with a firm stare. “You don’t have to tell me everything, but don’t lie to me.”

He pressed a tender kiss to my forehead before turning back around in my arms, setting his hands on mine to hold me to his stomach and chest once again as he stared out into the night. I was acutely aware of his heartbeat racing beneath his skin, but at least his breathing wasn’t as erratic as it was when he first woke. It was better than nothing.

“I’m here for you, just as you are for me. It’s a two way street in this relationship, sw-”

“It is nothing,” he cut me off with the hoarse whisper.

“No, i-”

“It’s nothing!” he roared, throwing my hands off of his body forcefully.

At the sound of his voice--deafening in the silence--I jerked back from him, his force and my shock sent me stumbling in my haste to get away from him. I clenched my eyes shut as I tumbled to the ground. A soft cry left my lips from the impact, but I didn’t care about the pain. It was inconsequential compared to the panic that gripped at my thundering heart. When I opened my eyes, it wasn’t Loki who was standing over me, but Malfoy. He wore an evil grin that chilled me to the bone and stole my breath away.

“No, no, no. Not here,” I whimpered, shaking my head and curling my legs up to my chest. I tasted salt from the hot tears that streamed down my face. My fingers tangled in my hair in a futile attempt to block out the endless soundtrack of familial betrayal that I knew awaited me once I was done being punished for my disobedience. I couldn’t protect my whole body, but in this position at least the most important organs and my face were relatively safe from any blows he would have Brawny inflict upon me.

I didn’t know where Loki was. I didn’t know how Malfoy had gotten into the Compound, let alone into my bedroom. This was supposed to be my one safe place. Shouldn’t Loki have heard me sobbing? The damned rooms were next-to-soundproof, of course he couldn't hear me. But he couldn’t save me then; why would he save me now?

At the first touch on my shoulder I flinched away, my escape foiled by the bed behind me. I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears and my choking sobs. The second touch made me rip my hands from my head and my eyes slammed open to stare at the silhouette crouching over me.

Maybe they forgot to give me that medicine that runs cold through my veins. Maybe I was too well-rested or they fed me too much. But this time, when I called on my powers, they responded. Even in the darkness, I was able to feel about mentally for anything I could use as a weapon, and a broken shard of wood would do the trick nicely. I would pay for it later, most likely with my life, but maybe a stake to the heart would at least get rid of this bastard. It worked for vampires; it’d work for sadistic torturers with terrible fashion sense.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” I screamed, fear turning to anger as I opened my hand to call the wood into my palm. Forgoing my powers--I wanted to feel the asshole die by my hand--I scrambled to my knees and lunged toward him with the makeshift weapon raised above my head.

Cold fingers encircled my wrist and ducked beneath my open shirt to splay across my stomach. The frigid temperature and fragile strength behind the touches weren’t what I expected and it shocked me enough to get through the haze blanketing my mind. I leaned back on my heels and blinked several times at the figure restraining me. Slowly, after a few deep breaths, I could make out long dark hair, luminescent fair skin, and the deepest look of sorrow glittering in emerald eyes.

Loki.

The broken table leg clattered to the floor from my slack hand. I had tried to attack Loki. I had gotten so lost inside my head that I didn’t recognize him and I had tried to hurt him. What if I had succeeded? What if I woke up from a nightmare and he was asleep and unable to defend himself? It wasn’t safe for him to be here with me. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to him.

He must have come to the same conclusion because he released me and stalked out of the room without a word.

~~~

To say that I didn’t get much sleep after he left would be an understatement.

Three sleepless nights later and I was an exhausted wreck.

I had driven him away. He had been hurting from what had to have been a nightmare and I had pushed him too far until he had no choice but to snap. I knew that he had a volatile temper. I shouldn’t have been so shocked that he would respond that way eventually. Admitting to having nightmares, to that supposed weakness, was beneath an Asgardian Prince. He was too prideful.

I should have been stronger. I should have been able to snap myself out of it. I shouldn’t have pulled away from him. But he hadn’t been him. He had been my captor, my torturer, and then he was a faceless man who I had been convinced was there to finish what Hydra had started.

And I was too weak from my stay in that hellhole for my normal routine of jogging to the point of exhaustion to do the trick. Didn’t stop me from trying.

At least until another member of Asgardian royalty decided to interrupt me.

“Jen!” Thor’s voice boomed out over the Compound.

I ignored him and continued jogging until I reached the edge of the lake that formed part of the border to the property. People in movies always stared off into the ocean or lake or whatever body of water they had on hand when they were upset and needed clarity. Maybe it’d work for me, too. If nothing else I could push Thor into the water when he inevitably caught up with me.

“Did you not hear me?” he asked, not even panting as he stopped his lazy jog to catch up to me. Was that a testament to his strength or my weakness?

“The entire state heard you.” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my stomach. It took everything inside of me to not run away from him. I didn’t know if I could trust him. Hadn’t he used me, too? Loaning me his clothes on the first day that I became… this and joking around with me. Treating me like a friend, and eventually, a little sister could have easily been an act that Stark convinced him to partake in.

He reached out to me and I took two big steps away from him, ignoring the painful stitch in my ribs and the shaking of my legs as I stared cautiously at him. I wouldn’t show him how exhausted I truly was if I had any say in the matter. Although my pale skin didn’t allow for hiding the dark circles under my eyes, or the bruises and healing wounds all over my face and neck. He may take those as signs of a battle won, the foolhardy warrior that he was; he may see them as worthy battle scars that told tales of my bravery. That sounded like him. Not worth the risk, though.

He sent a warm, hopeful smile my way. “How are you feeling? I have been concerned for you.”

I couldn’t contain the scoff that demanded to be set free from my burning lungs. “Peachy-keen, Captain Sparkles.”

“I see that spending time with Loki has added to your sarcastic wit.” The light behind his smile faded a little, but it was still plastered on his face nonetheless as he mimicked my pose and crossed his arms over his chest.

I bristled at the mention of Loki, AKA the whole reason I was being broody in the biting cold upstate New York outdoors. My sneaker-covered toe kicked a few loose stones into the frigid water in front of me. “Did he send you out here?”

A chuckle erupted from him and he shook his head good-naturedly. “We both know that my brother would not stoop to such measures.”

I hated that my heart dropped from that statement. But why would I expect Loki to ask Thor to do anything for him? It wasn’t like they were super close, although they had grown closer since losing Asgard. It still wouldn’t change the fact that Loki would never admit that he needed help in any situation, especially to Thor. The wounds between them ran too deep to mend so quickly.

“Then why are you here?” I tried to keep the curiosity from seeping into my voice, but even I could tell that a little bit had still seeped in.

Did all Asgardian men tower over people avoiding them to force them to anyway? Or was that an Odinson thing? Thor walked around so that he was only an arm’s length away in front of me and stooped down so he was at my eye level. I tensed up and closed my eyes, banishing the terror that threatened to slither into my thoughts and sink its teeth into me like a snake. I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding in my chest, but I could blame that on the jog that I had just attempted, and I would continue to do so if anyone questioned me about it. With monumental effort, I opened my eyes to stare up at his earnest expression.

“My relationship with Jane was the only romantic experience that I’ve had with a mortal woman, and Loki did not approve. Compared to us, your lives are but a heartbeat. It is foolish for us to grow attached to something that will be so easily taken from us and will cause us so much pain in the end. And ye-”

I cut him off with a snide, “Gee, thanks.”

“Let me finish!” he raised his voice, face contorting with rage.

I swiftly widened the distance between us, the edges of my vision dimmed and my breath caught in my throat. My arms closed over my stomach and I bent over them. He put his hands up in the air in apology and widened the distance between us even further and plopped down on a large boulder. It lessened the menace of his large frame considerably.

Don’t run. Don’t run. Fight it.

After several moments, I was able to breathe as deeply as I could manage with my busted ribs, and my vision had cleared. I didn’t step any closer to Thor as I straightened up and planted my hands on my hips. The water lapping on the rocky shoreline was also incredibly interesting and I couldn’t imagine looking at anything else at that moment.

“I reminded him of these words when your dalliance was revealed to us. He said that the greater pain would be living the rest of his days without knowing the breadth of your love. He has never made an admission similar to that in all the time that I have known him,” he stated, so sincerely that it lifted my piercing gaze from the water to his face.

Exhaustion weighed down my words when I asked, “What’s your point, Thor?” My fear had died down enough so that I could think relatively rationally, but it didn’t mean that I wasn’t stressed from being alone with him.

“Loki needs you,” he insisted bluntly. “I know that you are both far too headstrong for your own good. Both of you have suffered too greatly to let a misunderstanding get between something that could be great.”

“You don’t know what happened between us,” I hissed. Seeking a release from the turmoil inside of myself, I lifted one hand away from my body and a pebble from my feet floated into it. It took almost no concentration to use my abilities to put a little more oomph behind my throw as I tossed it toward the lake. It plopped into the water so far away that the sound of the impact didn’t even reach us on the shore. "Besides, I'm not... I'm not safe right now. I couldn't live with myself if I lost it and he got hurt as a result."

Thor's brow quirked in a surprising impersonation of Loki's distinctive expression. "You and I both know that that would never happen. You love him too much to ever hurt him, and he's strong enough to stop you if you attack him for failing to recognize him."

To be honest, I knew Thor was right. We were both being stubborn assholes to each other. I needed to realize that he hadn’t meant to lash out at me, and he needed to realize that I hadn’t been afraid of him. But he hadn’t approached me to talk it out. With each hour that passed, the more the doubt grew inside of me. He’d probably already thought it out and realized that tying himself to a broken human was a big mistake and gotten the heck out of dodge.

“I know that he is miserable. And he’s too prideful to come to you.” Thor stood up and carefully approached me. Thankfully he stopped several feet away from me, arms open at his sides in a show of trust and peace. “You both deserve to be happy. I know that you will not believe me when I say this, but I have grown to see you as a close friend, perhaps even a sister. You are good for him, and he is for you, and it pains me to see you both avoiding the other for no reason.”

I hated when other people were right.

~~~

One thing I was incredibly good at was stalling.

It was of great importance that I didn’t miss a single hair while shaving in the shower. Then I needed to moisturize thoroughly. Then my sketchbooks needed organizing, and that made my bookshelf look incredibly disorganized, so that needed fixing. Then I needed to do the stretching the doctor Stark hired recommended to keep my muscles from turning into tense wasted cords until I could begin training again. I wasn’t going to be doing that with Natasha again, so then I had to sit on the bed and worry about how I was going to get into fighting shape just going against Loki. It wasn’t like he was even close to an equal opponent to me.

By the time I was done doing all that I definitely needed to do, it was time for dinner and the sun had fallen from the sky.

I paced a track in the floor of my room, delaying the inevitable.

My heart hurt. It hurt so terribly to have Loki on the other side of the wall and yet feel so far away that he may as well not be here at all. It hurt to know the sound of my name on his lips and long for it. I missed his embrace, his smile, his touch. Him. It was an actual ache in my chest that I hadn’t even begun to feel since the loss of my family.

And it hurt to admit that I wasn’t strong enough to keep on this road to recovery without him. It was too difficult to pull myself out of the darkness of my mind, to discern what was real and what wasn’t, and to remember how to be a functional human being. I needed his help.

I was punishing both of us for what few scraps of dignity I had left.

Because I’m a dumbass.

I pulled together every bit of false bravado that I had tucked away in the recesses of my mind, marched out of my bedroom, ignored the din that I heard coming from the dining area, and banged my fist on Loki’s door.

To be met with silence.

Well, that’s awkward.

I quickly scurried back to my room and leaned against the door after it was closed. I didn’t want to linger in the hallway and give the others an excuse to extend another olive branch. They had been trying so hard since I returned. I found my iced coffee waiting for me in the fridge when I foraged in between meals. Another ‘sterile’ sandwich had been left outside of my door the day before. Tense, anxious smiles greeted me whenever I ran into someone else. Banner had left books for me to read about surviving trauma. Stark even hired a doctor to see after my recovery, and that was the only offer I had accepted thus far--out of necessity more than anything else.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., where's Loki?” If she didn’t have an answer, I’d have to ask the others, and I’d almost rather chop off my hand than ask them for help with something.

“He’s in the rooftop garden..”

Figures.

~~~

I never thought that I would think of Loki as anything but devastatingly handsome, but there’s a first for everything.

He looked absolutely terrible as I walked toward him across the softly lit rooftop. With his back to me, I could only tell his mood by his posture, but that was a huge giveaway in itself: slouched shoulders, elbows propped up on his knees, his face cradled in his large hands. That was not how he normally carried himself.

There wasn’t a universe that existed where he didn’t hear me walking up to stand behind him. He was too observant for that. Especially after I stood there for long enough that, staring at him in silence, unable to breach the distance separating us like it was the greatest canyon, my teeth started chattering in my mouth. Perhaps I should have thrown on more than a pair of skinny jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, but it was too late to go back now. If I left this rooftop without talking to him I wouldn’t have the nerve to do it again.

“Loki.” I was surprised that my voice sounded so hoarse, so weighted. It was as if uttering those two syllables had ripped my heart in two.

No, the thing that truly broke my heart was the look on his face when I knelt in front of him after my calling to him garnered no response. I delicately traced my fingers up his arms to tangle my fingers with his, and he didn’t fight me when I tugged his face from the sanctuary of his hands. His beautiful eyes were dull and bloodshot as they searched my face hopelessly. I couldn’t see the faintest glimmer of mischief or wickedness or arrogance in their depths, only despair and fatigue. The dark circles shadowing them seemed to only have deepened since I had seen him last. His elegant locks that he always seemed to keep perfectly maintained now hung limply to his shoulders, mussed from what had probably been his hands running through them repeatedly. He had even forgone his usual elegant attire for a simple black zip-up sweatshirt, matching sweatpants, and bare feet.

So, of course, the only thing that I can think to say when confronted with the miserable sight is, “You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

That pulls a mirthless chuckle from him, the sound harsh and cruel on my ears. “Oh, love, it is nearly impossible for me to meet my death in such a way.”

His fingers are ice cold in my grasp, so I begged to differ. “Come inside, Loki. Please.”

His lips twisted into a hollow cruel sneer. “Why do you care?”

“Because I love you, dumb-”

My words were cut off by him falling to his knees in front of me and yanking me into his chest. He clutched onto me like he was a drowning man and I was his life raft, all desperation and fear. Panic rose up within me at the suddenness of his actions, but I fought it. I fought the trembling in my body, from both the cold slowly seeping into my bones and panic rising within me. I fought the terror of feeling like I was trapped in the iron grip of his embrace. I fought the fear that he could very easily squeeze just a little bit harder and my life would be over. I fought the pain in my ribs from his tight embrace and around my eye from being smashed into his chest. I fought. I fought.

I fought.

Because this was Loki. He smelled like spice and leather and home. He was agonizing over a stupid misunderstanding we’d had not even a week ago. He protected me when I needed it most, even if he had temporarily failed to uphold that promise. His being an ass didn’t change the fact that he was mine and I was his.

“I do not deserve it,” he whispered, his low voice muffled by his lips pressing into my hair.

When I tried to pull away so that I could address him face to face, his hands only tightened around my waist, so I spoke into his sweatshirt. “You’re right. You don’t. Nobody deserves having a broken, violent, mess of a woman like me as their partner.”

That did it. He loosened his death grip on me to hold me away from him just enough so that he could take me in. I pulled my hands from where they had been pinned between us to cup his strong jaw and stroke the edges of it tenderly.

“And I don’t deserve an arrogant prince who has anger management issues and is slowly freezing me to death on this rooftop.” A small smile crept across my lips. “But you deserve love, and so do I. And that’s what I can offer you. That’s all I can offer you, messed up as I am.”

He shook his head even as he leaned into my touch. “I raised my voice at you.”

“You did, and you will again. And it did scare me, because I stopped seeing you and I started seeing him. But that isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known I would react like that,” I murmured, a shiver ran down my spine both from the flash of my captor’s face across my mind’s eye, and the combined chill of his skin and the breeze.

Concern tightened the corners of his eyes, and Loki wordlessly removed himself from my grasp to lean back and unzip his jacket, revealing the thin white t-shirt he wore underneath. He draped it over my shoulders and I gratefully pushed my arms through the long sleeves. It smelled heavenly and the extra layer of plush fabric provided the protection from the cold that I had unwittingly forgone.

“You’ll get cold,” I protested weakly, not really wanting to give up the jacket, but I had to say it nonetheless.

A frown settled on his lips. “I will not,” he insisted. His tone made it clear that he would accept no further argument on the subject.

He stood up and managed to find my hands buried within the too-long sleeves of his jacket and pulled me up by them. When I gritted my teeth from my still-healing body protesting the action after kneeling on the cold, hard roof for even that brief moment of time, he slipped his supportive grasp beneath my upper arms to further support me until I plopped less-than-gracefully down on the bench he had just left. He settled down next to me and took one of my hands in both of his so he could rub it between his in an attempt to warm them. It only made them colder, if anything, but I would never complain about that.

“I was…” He stared down at our joined hands, indecision written in the furrow of his brow and the lines around his eyes.

“It’s okay, love.”

His limp hair danced around his head as he shook it furiously. The hunch in his shoulders lifted as he sat up straighter to face whatever information he was so conflicted upon giving me. “No. You deserve to know this. I should have foreseen how you would have reacted--and deep down I did know this, my temper just got out of hand--because I have been in a similar situation to yours. Thanos, the Titan that you and your Avengers are trying to stop, and The Other…” he trailed off with a haunted, far away look in his eyes.

I leaned forward enough to prop up my elbows on my knees so that I could comfortably lift his hands to my lips and dot his knuckles with soft brushes of my lips while he spoke. I didn’t want to interrupt him while he was trying to say something so important and obviously difficult. It brought the barest uptick of the corner of his lips for just a brief moment, but it was enough to convince me to continue the tender gesture.

“Knowing from a first-hand basis what you were experiencing while I was powerless to do anything to take you from them.” He lifted his heartbroken gaze to meet mine with a deep breath. “The driving force for my existence became finding you, protecting you, and I failed on both accounts. I know what it is like to be tortured and beaten and… broken and I couldn’t protect you from it. You bear these wounds because I failed you.”

A small noise of disagreement came from my throat, but I didn’t offer him any words of solace. Not yet. I needed to process what he had just unloaded on me. Thanos had tortured him? We knew that he was incredibly powerful, but how powerful would he have to be to hold Loki captive and beaten for a year’s time? What would that do to someone’s mind? I was barely scraping by after a much shorter stint in my own Hell. Loki had to be incredibly strong to be keeping as calm and measured as he had been. Maintaining any semblance of normally must take such a large toll on him.

And it explained how he had become so adamant in caring for me since I came back to the Compound. Before our fight, if that’s even what that was, he had been making sure I’d eaten, reminding me constantly that I was safe, standing up for me against the others, and so much more. It was all because he had to face the same struggles in the past, and he didn’t wish that for me. It was both heart wrenching and incredibly touching at the same time.

“When?”

“Before New York,” he answered tightly, his cheeks colored with shame.

“Oh.” That explained so much. Who could be held responsible for their actions after living like that for so long? I certainly couldn’t, even with how much pain that day had caused to myself and countless others. He had been hurting just as much. Really, it seemed like what Hydra had planned to do to me, Thanos and whatever The Other was had accomplished in him. “Does anyone else know?”

A sarcastic laugh burst out of him, cold and humorless. “Would anyone else care?”

I left one last kiss on the back of both of his hands before lowering them to my lap. Carefully, I trailed my free hand up his arm to cup the back of his neck and rub at the tension I found there gently. “So that was the cause for your nightmare the other night?”

He tugged his hand back into his lap, but he didn’t move away from my hand working at the stiffness in his neck, which was better than I’d hoped for. He needed distance, but not complete separation. I could work with that.

“It was. It is a weakness that I have not yet managed to overcome,” he muttered with disgust.

Oh, that does it.

I crossed my arms over my stomach and leveled him with my best ‘do-not-bullshit-me’ stare. “Am I weak?”

His eyes widened and he cupped his hands over my knees, leaning forward slightly so that he could look into my eyes to convey his sincerity. “Of course not, little one. You have been so strong and brave for what you endured. Those-” he took a deep breath and a muscle in his jaw ticked, “those monsters did their measure best to break you. If you had come away from that traumatic situation without any residual struggle I would have questioned your sanity.”

I quirked my brow at him and tilted my head forward. I could wait all night for him to get my point. Even disheveled as he was, the view was unbeatable. Unless my bare feet froze off first.

Realization dawned on his elegant face, but he crushed it with that same look of disappointment I was growing to hate and he leaned back on the bench with another shake of his head. “It is not the same for me. I’m-”

I cut him off by touching my frozen finger to his lips. “You’re as Asgardian Prince and held to a higher standard than us lowly mortals? You were raised in a warrior culture that worships brutes like Thor who charge into battle with little regard for whether or not that is the right move? You were taught by Odin and Thor that you were lesser than because you weren’t always so gung-ho about jumping into conflict without putting some thought behind it? I know that your asshole of a father made you feel like you weren’t good enough because you would rather use words, or cunning, or even magic to get out of a situation rather than brute force.” I softened the harshness of my tone with a small smile. “Loki Friggason is allowed to have a heart. Loki, my love, is allowed to show that he has more emotions than arrogance or sarcasm. He is allowed to be soft and loving and sad and kind.” I lifted his hand to my face and molded it to cup my cheek over the bruise that still lingered on my skin. “I’m in love with the man who draws me closer to him in his sleep, who smiles at me with nothing but warmth when we wake up tangled together in the morning, who pulls me back from the brink when it seems all I can do is descend into the darkness of my memories. That man is so much better than the one your father was so disappointed that you weren’t.”

As I spoke, the hardness slowly seeped away from his features. The harshness around his eyes faded away to reveal glittering, tear-filled eyes. The firm set of his mouth became a small, hopeful smile that was barely discernible, but it was still a far sight better than the frown he had taken to wearing. His thumb lightly caressed the yellowed skin of my cheekbone as he gazed down at me.

He crashed his mouth into mine without warning. It was a desperate, hungry kiss of teeth and lips and tongues that barely scratched the surface of the emotions boiling inside of him. I met him breath for breath. My hands clamped into the fabric of his shirt to hold him to me as we leaned over our knees on the bench. A low growl came from his throat when I nipped lightly at his bottom lip, and his tongue dove into my open mouth to tangle with mine relentlessly. Each touch of his mouth on mine sent waves of heat through my frigid body, warming me and waking me against the fatigue and cold I had been fighting against only moments ago. He was everything and I still craved more. I would never get enough of him for as long as I lived.

We were both panting by the time he broke the kiss. Our exhalations swirled in the air between us in small clouds as he let his forehead rest against mine and brushed our noses together. I expected to find happiness in his eyes when I opened mine, but instead complete anguish had fallen over him instead. His lips peppered over my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead, and then he pulled away from me completely to stand up and move a few paces away from me, leaving me to watch him breathlessly as he paced before me.

After several moments of watching him fight with himself mentally, I broke the silence with a worried, "Loki?”

My voice seemed to pull him from his thoughts and he stopped pacing to turn to face me, his bare arms crossed over his chest. He opened his mouth several times to speak, but only closed it again with a harsh exhale when nothing came out. I was afraid to break whatever train of thought he was working through, so I sat there silently, the only movement I dared make was to curl my legs up to my chest and wrap his hoodie around them so that I could tuck my feet beneath its edge. My poor toes were slowly becoming popsicles, but I would stay outside for however long he needed.

“You are always so perceptive, and you are right about quite a lot when it pertains to me. But you’re missing one crucial detail. The reasons you listed are not the only justifications for my father’s disappointment or my brother’s lack of respect for me. It is much deeper than that. Thor speaks of how I was adopted, but I was not adopted from an Asgardian mother. Oh, no,” he laughed bitterly, a familiar sound for the evening and one that I am growing tired of, “I am not Loki Odinson or Loki Friggason.”

I didn’t know where he was going with his speech, but my stomach was rolling inside of me. I yearned to reach out to him and stop his hands from fidgeting in front of him. Every part of me longed to soothe the agitation pouring off of him in droves, but I was rooted to the spot by the dread taking root in my heart.

I knew that he was adopted, everyone knew that, but that didn’t make him any less Frigga’s son--I refused to claim Odin as his father. I needed him to just spit it out before I jumped to what would probably be a far worse conclusion that what he was trying to say. “Loki, you’re scaring me.”

Abruptly, his hands seized the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head, dropping the discarded item of clothing to the ground next to him. His piercing gaze commanded mine, and I watched dumbstruck as his frightened, anxious emerald eyes melted into a startling bright red. I was only vaguely aware of my jaw-dropping as his exposed skin shifted from the pale porcelain that practically glowed in the moonlight and turned into what looked like a light blue--it was difficult to tell in the odd mixture of moonlight and warm lamps dotting the garden. Lines appeared to etch themselves in a symmetrical pattern across his forehead and cheeks. Similar lines traveled down his arms and across the defined muscles in his chest, down his abdomen, and disappeared into his pants. He no longer looked like the Asgardian man that I had quickly grown to love over the last few months, but something more, something inherently alien.

When I was able to lift my exploratory gaze back to his blood-red eyes, I found him looking at me with such self-loathing and anger and torment that tears gathered in my eyes and dripped down my cheeks.

“I am Loki Laufeyson of Jotunheim, and I am a Frost Giant.”