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ghostflowerhotpotch · 9 months

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So post Beyond the Spider-Verse. Miles and Gwen have things patched up, you know those two are EXHAUSTED and Peter B. is gonna turn around from whatever celebration they're having (they BETTER end this movie with a cookout if Miles' parents learn he's Spider-Man) and you've got Gwen curled into Miles passed out while Miles is snoring. Gwen's got her hood pulled up to keep the lights out of her eyes and Miles' jacket is spread across them.

I like this idea, mind if I write a bit about it with some variants?

Headcanon: Gwen when she is sleepy defaults to following people who she is close to; Miles may be closer to the top of the list that he may realize.

AO3 link

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In a liminal space, we still find ourselves reaching for each other

As much as Miles wanted to kiss his parents goodnight and hit the bed, Peter's proposition to stop by his house to recharge seemed like the best idea.

He still needed to tell his parents that he was Spiderman, and maybe would be better to do it when he is less beaten down and with some sleep. Miles isn't sure when was the last time he slept; dimension hoping made time very confusing.

As they stepped into the house in Queen's (Miles assumed it was the living room but he couldn't be too sure,) Mary Jane stepped in from another room. It was kind of weird knowing who she is without even being presented first.

"Hi, I'm-" He started, a bit slower than he would like to. Too many hits in the head for one day.

"Miles" She completed seamlessly, smiling brightly at him as she put her hands on his shoulders "I had heard so much about you," And out of nowhere, she hugged him "Thank you for bringing him back to me," she told her in a really low voice, one he wasn't sure if it was meant just for him or not.

As tired and beaten down as he felt, he couldn't help but smile fondly as he awkwardly hugged her back. It was a good reminder too, that some of the greatest things he did weren't for being Spider-man, just by being Miles.

"C'mon honey, let the kid breathe," Peter says as he walks up to them.

"And you-" Mary Janes puts a finger on his chest, she doesn't look especially pleased but not too angry "I imagined it was serious when you went back to leave Mayday with me, but what happened? All of you look like you were thrown into a blender."

"Is a loooong story," Peter said, putting his hands up as he is trying to placate her anger, "Speaking of which, I promised them they could crash here until they recharge, hope that's okay-"

"Hmph," Mary Jane crosses her arms, looking at her husband unimpressed "I prefer a little bit more of a warning when you invite people, but I guess this was an emergency. Help me out to get some stuff for our guest."

"On it ma'am," He said with a mocking salute, to which she rolled her eyes before going to what seemed to be the kitchen. Despite how tired Peter B should be, he smiled brightly at them and said "Relax guys, my house is your house."

"Don't need to tell me twice mate," Hobie said as he looked around for a place where to drop dead, which seemed to be everyone's idea. They were all beaten down.

Miles, despite being ready to sleep for an eternity, followed Peter B and Mary Jane because even half dead his upbringing was stronger than any tiredness could be, and he could hear his mom in the back of his head saying "Be polite, bring a gift, and ask if you can help with anything they may need when you are visiting someone!"

Sadly he couldn't bring anything after trying to defy fate and time itself, but at least he could still be nice.

Aparently the couple didn't realize he was following them, because when Mary Jane turned around with cups in her hands she said "Oh Miles! Do you need anything?"

The place was homey, almost in an old-timey way. Pictures everywhere, a floral wallpaper that reminded him of white old ladies, but the warmth he feel around wasn't exactly for the warm lighting.

The kitchen seemed to have the same vibe, kind of similar to the one the Aunt May of his universe had.

"Um, I was going to ask if you guys needed any help?"

"Oh you are sweetheart," She said cheerily, before softly shaking her head "But you don't need to do anything, you are our guest and you had done more for us than you can ever imagine; please go to rest."

"You hear the lady, sit this one out, we will handle it," Peter said as he patted his back, before looking behind Miles and saying "Hey Gwen, you want anything?"

Miles turned around once he saw Peter looking behind him. Gwen stood at the entrance to the kitchen, she has been so quiet Miles also didn’t hear her come.

At the sound of her name, Gwen straightened her back and blinked a bit, as if she has been falling asleep on her feet, yet somehow she has decided to follow them here for some reason.

As she looked on to the front, she seemed to have the faintest blush, before she groaned and scrubbed her eyes “No, I- sorry, I guess I need some sleep.”

“Oh you can say that for all of us,” Peter laughed gleefully, before leaning his head to the side for Miles “You guys go to the living room, we will see if we can whip something quick to eat and see what we can do about emergency sleep arrangements.”

As they went to the other room, Miles realized that everybody has somehow found an answer to that last issue.

The living room had two loveseats and one armchair, and everyone more or less had found a place. On the loveseat that closest to the entrance, Noir was sleeping with Peni and Ham in his arms, Peni’s robot was turned off in a corner, and on the arm closest to Peni’s and Noir’s head was a hologram that read “Say ‘Spider-byte’ to bring user’s attention. P.S: Don’t wake me up unless the dimensions are collapsing.”

Pavitr has decided to go on the armchair, and you would believe he has been sleeping there for a long time because his head was hanging on the side, one of his legs was on the arm of the couch and the other lying against where your back is supposed to go. If it wasn’t because he was breathing fine, Miles would have thought he lost conscience and someone drop his body from the ceiling.

Speaking of the ceiling, even with one more loveseat available, Hobie had opted to make a hammock out of webbing as close to the ceiling as possible, on a corner of the room. From his position, Miles thought Hobie was using his mask on; maybe he needed more darkness to sleep than he needed to breathe properly.

At least it meant his decision was easy.

Dragging his feet on the ground, he let himself fall onto the side of the loveseat, he would have rejoiced in glee at how soft the couch felt against his beaten body if he himself wasn’t so tired.

Yet he didn’t have time to even sigh before he felt someone else not only fall right beside him but had her head leaning towards him. Miles felt himself go still as he felt the warmth of Gwen right beside him.

Despite the loveseat being big enough to have space for both of them.

How rigid his body was must have alerted Gwen because her eyes fluttered open, and seemed to look a bit confused towards him before she almost jumped on her spot and moved away enough that their bodies weren’t touched anymore.

“Shoot,” She muttered to herself before she hit her forehead “Sorry, when I am sleepy I just- sorry.”

Perhaps is because he was tired and his mind was making stuff up, but somehow things were starting to click in his head. The sleepiness in Gwen seemed to make her follow someone, and for reasons beyond his understanding, Miles has been the person she has decided to attach herself to, even if subconsciously.

“That’s different” Gwen had said to him before in the Williamsburg Tower, saying it as if somehow what they had was different from what she had with anybody else. That conversation felt like a lifetime ago, and yet his heartbeat raced all the same.

There were still a lot of things to talk about, of the lies and the secrets that she has keep, and how he has been feeling about all of this. Even now he wasn’t sure what to say.

“Is fine, we are all tired,” He said casually, before raising the arm that was closest to her side, “Come here, we can catch some zzz together.”

And regardless of all of it, he felt himself wanting to reach out to her too, missing her warmth even if he only got to have it for a second.

In a way, that’s what had ended up happening to him, wasn’t it? She came for what should have been just a blink in his lifetime, and he still was unable to let her go.

Her eyes opened slightly, as if she was surprised he had actually said that; probably thinking all the same things that were still between them and neither of them had the brain to talk about. He saw the hesitation in her eyes, as if she herself wasn’t sure if it was okay to accept.

Maybe it was a bit of wishful thinking on his part to think that way, as he said “Is okay, you can lean on me Gwen.”

Miles has really meant that in a literal way, even if deep down, he knew he meant it all the way. As upset as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at her, not when they were like this.

That seemed to be all the encouragement that she needed, because she quickly went back to his side, in fact so quick he was a bit shocked.

“Thanks,” she whispered to him, bringing her knees up to her chest as she rested her head on his shoulder, one of her arms hugged Miles’ waist as her other hand was left between her knees.

As it was the most natural thing in the world, his arms went around her, holding onto her as he rested his head on top of hers, “No problem.”

Despite the pain, the couch and still being in his suit, it was the best sleep he had in months.

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This was supposed to be a drabble, oops?

I Will upload this to ao3, may as well. I like it more than I expected for something that I made on a whim.

Sorry for not having any analysis yet, I am kind of sick and I feel my brain is fried 80% of the time, HaShem knows how I managed work like this.

Hope you guys like it!

#ghostflower #gwiles #miles morales #gwen stacy #atsv #across the spiderverse #fanfics #peter b parker #mary jane parker #mary jane earth 616

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whoppert · 2 months

Text

Sunna 9 (loki/reader) (stephen strange/reader)

◂ previous chapter first chapter ▴

4499 words

warnings: the after effects of mind violation; canon-typical violence.

AO3 Masterpost

“You said you could handle Stephen,” I whisper at Wong as we descend into the undercroft. The two of us had fallen behind the god and Sorcerer Supreme, who are too busy pointedly ignoring each other to take notice of us.

“And you believed me?” Wong replies, clutching onto my arm as I wobble down the steps. “When have I ever been able to control him?”

Stephen had insisted on staying while Loki worked went into my mind, though I would have preferred if he had left us, since he had done little but argue with Asgardian, the methods and place and magic, he'd had a problem with all of it. It had been especially bad when Loki had mentioned the terms 'diagnostic' and 'exploratory', suggesting that there may be need for more than one session. I hadn't been able to bring myself to speak. It had gotten heated enough that Wong made the final call and they'd both shut up, glaring at each other. They agree on a method Loki explains something about the layers to the mind, but I'm mostly too nervous and ashamed to say anything.

AO3

The curving stone stairs spiral downwards. The four of us had mostly trudged in silence, minus the whispering between Wong and I. Stephen is still brooding and still unable to look at me. My gut knotted uncomfortably every time the sorcerer came into my line of vision. I couldn't shake this sinking feeling that I had ruined our friendship as I knew it. Between the kiss and this betrayal...

Loki reaches the door to the undercroft first, throwing it open and disappearing. Stephen soon follows, and I pause, allowing Wong to enter before me. I'm just about to pass through the doorway when I hear a voice behind me.

“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Turning on my heels, I found Loki a few steps behind me, illuminated by the golden light at the entrance on the stairwell. When I don’t move, he takes a cautious step down closer to me, empty hands outstretched in peace as though he wasn’t a weapon in his own right. “We already started the spell, remember?” His voice is more tender than I'd thought him capable of. “You’ve attached your psyche to the last memory before you went under,” and he gestures behind me to the door.

Following his direction, I glance at the door to the undercroft, and found it closed, though Wong certainly wouldn’t have shut it on me. My eyebrows furrow. Loki’s outfit had changed. He had arrived in Asgardian robes, a green cloak over dark leather and adorned in gold jewellery, but the Loki above me had ditched the finery in favor of jet black trousers and a matching belted overcoat that worked for the autumn winds outside.

Now that Loki had mentioned it I was getting a sense of déjà vu.

I believe him, recalling the rules that Stephen had outlined for me in the moments before I'd gone under: firstly, the only safe way to view a new memory is to go through a door; and secondly, though he had looked troubled at the concept, Stephen had expressly warned me not to leave Loki’s side.

“Let's get this over with.” I step off the bottom stair. “Where do we start?”

“We go through the door,” Loki replies, reaching past me to twist the knob, pushing it open. “After you.”

There was a dead body in the Sanctum’s Weird Hallway.

Despite what you might expect, Memory-Me doesn’t scream. It was just a body - confronting, for sure, but at that point, I'd been at the Sanctum for a couple of months, well, it's called the Weird Hallway for a reason. The hallway isn't there all the time, appearing as a new door off of the kitchen every now and again and to be perfectly truthful, in the desiccated state it was in, I didn't think a dead body posed much of a threat.

Walking half the length of the hall, Memory-Me approaches watchful, but calm. The eyes are open and visibly dry, the skin on his eyelids stretched thin. Completely and utterly dead.

And yet, an eyeball swivels to observe me.

That’s when I'd screamed.

The body pulls itself up.

My knees just give out, and I regain control of them just in time to stop me from completely collapsing, but instead Memory-Me is sent shoulder-first into the nearest wall.

“Hey,” Memory-Stephen must have heard me cry out. “Are you-? Oh. Shit.” As soon as Stephen and the corpse noticed each other, a new energy had been renewed in the rotted body and it leapt to its feet with surprising vigor.

This is the fifth memory we've had to watch and it hasn’t been any more helpful than the others.

“This is useless,” I shove my hands in my pockets.

Loki sighed, rolling his eyes, talking slowly like I'm a toddler. “Your memories are leading us where we need to go.”

“They’ve led us nowhere.”

“It’s a process,” he groans, sauntering up to the door that Stephen and the zombie had disappeared through, wrenching it open. “Do I challenge you in your areas of expertise?”

“Yes! You do. Consistently.” I stomped passed him into the next memory. “I’ve met you twice before and both times you challenged my comprehension like I was an idiot. I have fucking brain, you absolute jackass.”

“I never said you were an idiot! I only imply it.”

“Oh my god, I’m going to kill you-”

“I have to tell you something,” Memory-Wong stands in front of me, blocking access to Stephen’s office.

“Come on Wong, I’m in a rush, I need to get my book back. The museum is gonna kill me if they find out I snuck out a manuscript.”

“He can't be disturbed-”

Memory-Me huffs impatiently. I was sleep-deprived from cataloguing sanctum artefacts. “I don’t care what Stephen's doing in there! I don’t have time for this, I’m going to be late for my shift. Kellye told me not to be late again.”

“Even so, I need to-”

Wong hadn’t anticipated that I would actually push past him.

I'd burst through the door to find Stephen deep in meditation, legs crossed yogi-style, hands in his lap, eyes shut, and hovering three feet above the floor.

His eyes fly open, including the third, which promptly vanishes as Stephen falls on his ass on the floor, letting out a yelp of pain or surprise or both.

“What the actual fuck?"

Loki doesn’t bother to hold back his laugh as we observe the fifteenth memory.

I'd long grown tired of his constant conversation. Recalling the exercises Stephen had given me to practice strengthening my mind when I first started training with him, I decide to make a list of Loki’s qualities to see if I can recall them all later. Right at the top of my list, I imagine the word ‘aggravating' in big looping letters.

“Thought a prince would have been taught better manners than to laugh at other’s misfortune. Distasteful.” My arms fold across my chest. Irritating. Annoying.

“Of course! Forgive me my haughty attitude,” his voice is rich with sarcasm. Loki leans on the memory-table. I'm surprised it's solid. “Because Strange has never held back the opportunity to make a joke out of me. So composed. So gracious, your Sorcerer Supreme.”

I bite my tongue. He's not wrong. “Why do you two hate each other so much?”

“‘Hate’ is a strong word,” Loki’s mouth stretches into a wide smile, as he checks his manicure. “Highly accurate though. And little of your business.” Avoidant.

Behind us, the people in my memory are having an argument about magic and this takes my attention away from Loki. I watch as I pick a fight with my friends. To be fair to my passed self, my anger wasn’t directed at them, it was the result of a series of unfortunate incidents all in a row. At the time I was exhausted, late for work and in fear of the repercussions, and I had just discovered that I wasn’t alone, that others held magic too.

I have a rather explosive approach to emotions.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me- don't you think you should warn potential housemates that your a fucking witch?"

"Sorcerers," Stephen and Wong correct in unison.

"Both of you?!"

"Secrets, secrets," Loki muses.

“I moved in a week before that,” I say, more to myself than anything.

Loki perks up at the comment, his shoulders squaring, “how long had you known them?”

I shrug, “by now, almost a year, I think.”

“But how long before you moved in with them?”

“Two or three months, why?”

Loki is silent. I can't tell what he's thinking.

"What?" I ask.

Memory-Stephen performs a series of gestures, a crack in reality forming, the entrance to the Mirror Dimension. The three of us stepped through, vanishing.

Am I I just realizing now that I never called in sick to the museum that day? I can't believe Kellye didn't hand my ass to me on a platter.

Loki approached the crack to the Mirror Dimension, indicating for me to follow, but I hesitate. “Stephen said only to go through doors.”

“He also said to follow me,” Loki replies, disappearing through the crack, leaving me little choice but to follow.

Rather than entering the mirror dimension, we step straight into another new fresh memory.

Memory-Me writhed in bed, gasping for air. It was the night after Stephen had found me, after Loki had turned my brain into ham and pea soup.

“Hurry up, my dear,” says the voice from my dreams, echoing around the room. “You would not do well to have to join me in my clouded cage.”

My memory flings the sheet off of herself, launching out of bed with barely enough sense to put on some pajama shorts before rushing off to Stephen's room.

I freeze in place, blushing at my memory's lack of clothing. To his credit, Loki turns his gaze away from the sight, just a gentlemanly dip of his head.

The door shuts behind my fleeing figure.

With a wave of his hand, Loki causes the scene to start again.

“What are you doing?” He had not done this to any of the other memories.

The memory is paused in the beginning, capturing my face in a panicked expression.

“There is a magical presence in your dream,” Loki says. A wave of green washed outwards from him, illuminating the previously invisible purple energy. It is centered around Memory-Me, but the steady flow is crawling in from the open window.

“It looks like…” I hesitate. I'm scared to be wrong, but it looked like-

“Your magical signature.” Loki frowns. He looks bothered. “Any idea about why it’s coming to you from an external source?”

“I barely know my own name at this point, why would you think I'd have an answer to that." If the floor could swallow me up, I would have begged it to. I know nothing. About my magic, about magical in general, nothing more than the bits and pieces I had picked up from Stephen and Wong. How embarrassing it is to realize you are simple in the presence of a god. “You’ve been in my head, you probably know me better than I do. I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

There is a prolonged silence, in which Loki watches me and I make eye contact with anything but him.

“Well," he begins, "the following is a generalization, but magical signatures are like radio frequencies. My seidr comes from Asgard, and every one who channels seidr is on the same frequency, so to speak. Wong and Strange’s magic is derived from the energy of the multiverse, which is channeled through their gods. That's essentially its own frequency, as well. Your magic would have had its own unique signature.”

'Would have had'. Past-tense.

"We will learn more once we have located your power well."

"You don't think it's entirely lost?"

"No. I don't. My consciousness remains with this form," Loki gestures to himself, "but I can sense the presence of magic here."

Something released in my gut.

"Any idea where your powers come from?"

"I, uh, never knew, where, or… who was using the same frequency... I get the impression I searched out answers. I think it's what I was hoping to find out through academia, but I never found anything." I cringe at the statement. I wanted to be more definitive, tell Loki exactly how I had searched, but I couldn't offer anything other than vague inclinations. It's prior to my living memory. "Stephen searched everywhere, but nothing, ah, either."

I'm genuinely surprised that Loki doesn't use that as an opportunity to rag on Stephen, or boast of superior tracking skills.

"Can’t we just follow the magical signature back to its source? Like follow it out the window? Then we’d know who was talking to me in my dream.”

“In real life maybe, but in here, I’m afraid it’s not that simple - this is a vision of the past, a ghost of an event that has already happened and been imprinted as memory. We only have access to the parts that directly involved you, and from this slice of your life, I can't tell if you were drawing the magic to you while you slept, or if it was seeking you out. I wouldn't know where to begin."

I nod, it sounded like a stupid suggestion when I said it.

"Actually... I may have an idea." He straightens his lapels. "I cannot track your magic to the source from inside your mind, but if we treat it like an artifact that exists across memories... I might be able to connect each healthy memory of your magic to another. A thread that may lead us to your well of power." He doesn't wait for permission, Loki beginning to hum to himself.

It's a simple and rather beautiful as a form of magic and at times I swear I can hear two or even three notes as once. He is bathed in what I can only call black light.

"Are you ready?" Loki asks, his voice reverberating slightly. The light does not dissipate, instead it hovers around him, his eyes wholly black.

"I guess."

He looks otherworldly. This magic is different from his seidr. "Do you know what would happen if we tried to follow this flow of magic out the window?"

I shake my head.

"See, it's- oh- I'm not sure if you can see it from there- come here. That's it. Now, look over there, can you see-?"

Loki pushes me through the window. It doesn't break, warping against me until I phase all the way through with a pop.

I land on my ass with a yelp, but am lucky that I only fall two or three feet. The window was a door.

"Asshole," I mutter.

This scene is very similar to the last

Again, Memory-Me was in bed, but this time the dream didn’t seem to be quite as disturbing.

“Come now,” it's the same voice as in the previous dream, warm and slightly-accented. “You remember this, just practice.”

From the moment we entered this memory, Loki had drawn the magical signatures in the room to visibility. The purple that was coming in the window previously is still there, but it swirls with my own magical energy

Without warning, my memory's body flickers and disappears, Memory-Me's magical signature disappeared with me.

“Ages of Thunder,” Loki reeled back, surprised, looking back and forth between the memory and my real self. “That is a pretty unique incantation, sunna.”

I ignored the remark, my face scrunching up. “I don’t remember that dream. I learned an invisibility spell from a dream, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything but the motions to perform the magic.”

“I am not sure I conveyed my surprise enough, I have never seen an invisibility spell that works like that,” for emphasis Loki restarts the scene, creating a repeating loop of my flickering form. “You see? You aren’t simply vanishing, you are disrupting your mass in some way.”

When my body vanishes, the comforter, which is draped over Memory-Me, drops entirely, like I had vanished completely. When my memory's body reappears, she is on top of the linen.

“So, it’s more than just turning invisible?” I wonder aloud, placing my hand on the arm of Memory-Me, and sure enough, when her body disappeared, my hand slipped onto the mattress like she had never been there. There wasn’t even an indent in the bed where my bodyweight should be.

Another memory begins to tugs at the edges of my brain, the thread Loki was working calling us, and in unison, Loki and I approach the door leading from my bedroom to the hallway.

We step into the Sanctum gym.

“That was good. The spell I mean. I didn’t realize the extent of it.”

Stephen looks nervous. I hadn't noticed when I lived this memory.

“What do you mean?”

“You were gone-”

“Uh-huh, that is what is usually meant when people say ‘invisibility spell’.”

“Ha-ha ,” Stephen rolls his eyes and begins packing up his sparring equipment, “but I, in all my infinite power, couldn't even feel you. Your presence. Your magic. Anything. It was like you popped out of existence.”

“When you perform this spell, what does it look like from your perspective?” Loki asked, turning to face me.

The memory restarts. Memory-Me vanishes again.

“I don’t know, like how does it feel, you mean?” I shrug. “It’s like looking at the world through a water bottle. I could still feel my body, like it wasn’t like I turned into gas or anything,” I nodded my head to the vision as Memory-Me shoves Memory-Stephen. “I could still interact with the world, but it took effort. I remember-” finding the words to describe the experience was a challenge, “I remember trying to talk with Stephen when I was invisible, but he couldn’t hear me? And his voice sounded so far away.”

Loki’s hand absentmindedly came up to rub his jawline. When he wasn’t parading around like a prized peacock, he was almost tolerable. Add that to the list - ‘almost tolerable.’ 'Relatively knowledgeable' when he'll share.

We walked without talking through several other memories, following the artifact thread along.

It's like glimpsing the most boring parts of your life. Memory-me eats, sleeps, reads, practiced magic and catalogued. Rinse and repeat.

The most confronting part is that, just as I feared, I don’t have any other friends, even anyone else I was close with. It seemed that as soon as I had met Stephen, as soon I found the Sanctum, either I just dropped any friends I had or I just plain didn't have any. No one checks on me, not friends, not coworkers. I move in with the sorcerers without saying goodbye to old neighbors... It's like I was a specter in my own life.

“I must have been so lonely,” I don't really mean for it to be said out loud, “but why don’t I remember feeling lonely, even in the beginning of my memories, when I had just met Stephen. I was living in New York for god-knows-how-long, and I had no one? So why didn’t I feel lonely? Or at least relieved that I finally made friends?”

Loki looks at me with a lifted brow. “Your whole life does seem to be rather Strange-oriented.”

I don’t know what to say to that. He's right.

“Are you in love with him?” There it was, that tenderness again. I am automatically distrusting of it.

“Why would you ask that?”

Loki smirks. “I’ve been in your mind, sweetness. I’ve felt what you’ve felt. You are drawn to him almost against rational thought.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I, Sunna?”

“Again with that stupid nickname. That’s not my name.”

“It means ‘sunshine’, I’ve given it to you in honor of your sunny disposition.”

"Don't."

"So, do you love him?"

My frustration at my situation solidifies, cast into a new form. My hands curl into fists at my side.

The black light surrounding Loki flickers out, and he looks down in bewilderment.

I'm not supposed to leave Loki, but in order to avoid hitting him and causing him to potentially leave me stranded in my own mind, I turn on my feet, walking back to the museum’s entrance and away from him.

My feet echo on the marble floors as I round the ticket booth and pushed the glass door, stepping through-

And halting immediately. No, no, no, no, no.

The night was dark, lit only by the pinpricks of hundreds of stars as the lazy wave of color begins to trace across the sky.

“Well, isn’t this romantic,” Loki mocks.

“I don’t want to be here,” I snap, turning to step back through the portal, through which I can see my bedroom.

But Loki slipped in between, stopping me from leaving. “You manifested it.”

“Let me leave.”

“Why, does something…?” Loki trailed off, his eyes locked on the scene behind me.

I'm frozen, only in the memory I can't feel the cold.

“Ah,” his gaze turned back to me, green eyes dancing with amusement. “Too embarrassed to watch your rejection, I see. I have to admit, you are braver than I thought, to kiss him and handle his rebuttal. Such a lack of explanation would have driven me mad.”

“Fuck off,” I said, attempting to shove him out of the way, but even with my entire bodyweight behind the action, he doesn't move at all.

“Well, this development has completely eviscerated my theory.” Instead of renouncing the scene, Loki strolls right up to the edge, pulling himself onto the rock Stephen and I had shared, and started the scene again with front row seats.

“Hey, cut that out!” but my outrage fell on deaf ears.

“See, I think that the circumstances in which you came under Strange’s care are suspicious enough, obviously, because of the whole diversion-mind-invasion situation, but now that I know he doesn’t feel for you the way you feel for him... Frankly I’m struggling to identify his motivations.”

The kiss. The rejection.

“What are you talking about?”

“The most straight forward answer is that Strange accepted you into his life, his home, because he is in love with you. That he could fall entirely in love with someone in two months goes against his suspicious nature, but that is the only reasoning I could come up with. The desire to help you, to protect you, to be around you constantly,” Loki's tone is torturous, he's trying to get under my skin. “But clearly, the man does not love you. I am at a loss.” Another list word - cruel.

He's just trying to get under my skin.

‘Can’t wait to see what kind of pedestal Strange stores you on.’ That’s what Loki had said the first day I'd met him, like he was already convinced Stephen loved me, even then. My gut twists.

I had thought we were close, but do I even really know Stephen? Clearly, I am not very good at reading him, because I thought we were having a moment under these stars, but why had I thought that? Historically Stephen kept me at arm’s length, he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with himself. Was I delusional?

“You moved in with the man a few months after meeting him? Just joining him on missions and slotting into his life perfectly? Just like that?” Loki snapped his fingers in emphasis.

“I- I don’t know what that has to do with-”

“What about the rest of your life? What about everything else?”

“I still go to work, and- and I have hobbies! Like- like-” I scrambled, trying to name a single thing that I had done since meeting Stephen that would pass the Bechdel test. “It doesn’t matter! I don't have to explain anything to you.”

“Don’t you think that’s just awfully convenient? That Strange finds you one day, a poor lost magical kitten, and just absorbs you into his life without having to make any significant changes? But everything that was you beforehand is mysteriously lost?”

“He’s not a villain, Loki!”

“Of course not,” Loki smirked. “He’s just a man, who has managed to separate you from everyone you know and love, isolating you from your life before him, and now, with your memories lost, has managed to create a permanent form control over you.”

I look away for one second, but when I turn back, Loki is gone, and standing in his place is Stephen. “Is this what you want?”

“Stop it.” I could barely form the words.

“I love you, Sunna, I want the world for you, Sunna. You are my one true love, the star in the night that guides me,” Loki-Stephen crooned.

“I said stop,” I shoved the prince with everything I could muster, and to my surprise he actually staggers back a few steps.

His true form flickers for a second before he appears in front of me, a perfect copy of Stephen down to his scarred hands on my face. “Do you trust me?”

A thumb brushed my bottom lip. Stephen’s eyes held the same pain that I remembered and I gaped like a fish out of water, because this was too close to the real thing. Stephen is too close.

His face is leaning in, and I can’t help but move away like two magnets of the same polarity, his breath fanning across my nose until the last second when his brings his mouth to my ear, his breath warm. “Why do you trust me?”

My eyes are shut tight. I felt Stephen stepping around me, circling me, but not once putting an inch more space between our bodies. It's easy to believe that it's Stephen. He even smells like Stephen, lemons and earl grey.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you regret meeting me?” Stephen asks.

“Is this all a game to you?” I back away from him, desperate to be away from Loki’s appropriated warmth.

“Everything is a game to me. Do you ask a fish not to swim?” Loki's voice comes out of Stephen's mouth.

“What do you even want with me? Do you just want to torture me? I get it, Stephen doesn’t have feelings for me, I already knew that, I didn’t need you to tell me, I know. It was humiliating.”

Loki finally gives me an inch of personal space, a satisfied expression across his features.

Insecurity and embarrassment turned to rage and I slap him hard across the face, so hard that I'd slapped the Stephen off of him.

Loki reels. It looks as though it actually hurt.

For a moment everything pauses and I then I am flooded with pure terror. The ground cracks around him with the force of his seidr.

A step forward and I take a matching step back. Green crackles in the air between us. Another step forward.

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