#Fanfictrashdump
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Imagine Loki's life told through the spectrum of enneagram personalities he has had to adopt to survive for each situation. Sleeping At Last's Enneagram series serves as reference.
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Don't relegate valuable personalities to such cheap slums.🍁
_𝓀𝒶𝓏𝒾 𝐹𝒶𝒾𝓏 𝒜𝒽𝓂𝑒𝒹
@designerdollar
#c suit#powerful woman#ceo aesthetic#personal growth#productivity#getting your life together#balance#likeable#on being likeable#making friends#friends#popular#authentic friendship#dealing with personalities#extrovert#introvert#personalities#Imagine#fanfictrashdump#spectrum of enneagram#survive#adopt#Character Personalities#16 personalities
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So, I've been doing a little experiment. I felt like I was seeing a lot of angel numbers (repeating numbers, palindromes, sequences) when I looked at the time, so I started keeping track of it whenever I glanced at the clock. Y'all... out of a week's worth of data points, I saw angel numbers 83% of the time.
I don't know what the conclusion is but it's a weird coincidence.
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Holiday messages to remind you that a. You're a great writer, b. You bring people joy, c. You deserve happiness, d. You're super cool!
@fanfictrashdump Thank you for this! I have been having the hardest time the last few weeks and I needed to hear this. Thank you for sticking with my stories and with me even when updating takes forever (I'll get there soon, I promise!) I hope you have a great week and you also deserve happiness!
~Birdie
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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/IFSVirJ
by fanfictrashdump
Do I have time to do a series? No. Am I going to? Yes. Writing makes the voice in my head shut up for a while. Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki’s life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Chapters will not necessarily be in sequential or chronological order.
Words: 843, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Loki (TV 2021), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Odin (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja (Marvel)
Additional Tags: sleeping at last, Enneagram, personality, how about a fic about masking to absolute shit for all my fellow neurodivergents, we’re fine
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/IFSVirJ
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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/IFSVirJ
by fanfictrashdump
Do I have time to do a series? No. Am I going to? Yes. Writing makes the voice in my head shut up for a while. Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki’s life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Chapters will not necessarily be in sequential or chronological order.
Words: 843, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Loki (TV 2021), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Odin (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja (Marvel)
Additional Tags: sleeping at last, Enneagram, personality, how about a fic about masking to absolute shit for all my fellow neurodivergents, we’re fine
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/IFSVirJ
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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
TITLE: Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 5/10
AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki’s life told through the spectrum of enneagram personalities he has had to adopt to survive for each situation. Sleeping At Last’s Enneagram series serves as reference.
RATING: T-M, as we go along
NOTES/WARNINGS: Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki’s life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Language (I think), self-hatred, mentions of injury, surly giant blue boi, and lots of fluff.
SUMMARY: When a counter-curse has unintended effects, Loki has to learn how to come to terms with his true self.
XX
FIVE: THE INVESTIGATOR - intense, cerebral; perceptive, secretive, innovative, and isolated. Soundtrack inspiration—->FIVE
~*~
It had started innocently enough.
After a mission gone awry, Loki had found himself cursed, of all things. He was not in bad shape but there was a distinct aching burn that radiated from his center every time he inhaled. His lungs felt like little sparking embers threatening to catch fire. His discomfort had been obvious enough that it prompted Strange to intervene rather than watch the Asgardian argue that the matter was no big deal.
Strange’s logic was sound–he was going to remove any magic with malicious intent off of Loki and draw the curse into an innocuous vessel to imprison it for eternity. This, in itself, did not set off any alarms for Loki inside his head, though, to be honest, he was desperate for the burn to be gone. It did not occur to him to think that malicious intent might not have been reserved solely for hexes, curses, and general illness, but could include a normal magic done for the wrong reasons.
Say, a glamour?
The moment Stephen finished his spell, the pain in Loki’s lungs abated and he sucked in a grateful breath with his eyes closed. He had never realized how much he liked breathing until then. When his eyelids fluttered open, smile on his face and thanks ready on his tongue, he was shocked to find… well, shock.
Time slowed down, painfully slowed, after that. The moment that followed seemed to last forever.
Stark dropped an Erlenmeyer flask filled with dubiously-colored liquid, smashing on the floor with a crash.
Aurum, who had insisted on the whole affair in the first place, remained passive, or it would have seemed that way, if not for the raising of a solitary eyebrow.
Strange froze, his eyes darting in empty space, as if reviewing the spell in his head. It took him a moment to realize he had not done this. Realization hit him, followed by an emotion that Loki could not quite place that was almost pity but not as condescending. “Oh.”
“W-why is everyone…?”
Loki glanced down and regretted it instantly.
His pale hands had turned a dusky blue and textured lines rose as if to mock him. Evidently, this was the first time they had encountered a Loki that turned this particular shade of azure. He knew that. He knew that the Loki of this universe, the one who had perished violently some time ago, was adopted from Vanaheim.
Like a (nightmarish) deer caught in headlights, Loki froze. Breathing hurt again, but not because he was cursed but for the debilitating squeezes of his heart.
“Lo–“
Before Strange could finish the last syllable, the Jotunn had stepped backward until he was far enough to safely (or so he thought he needed) turn tail and flee.
“Loki!”
He could hear them all calling after him, now, but he would not stop until he was in his quarters, locked safe and sound. He would not feel comfortable until the monster was gone, once more.
There was only one problem…
He couldn’t get the glamour to stick.
For as much as he mocked his universe’s and this one’s Stephen Strange (though, playfully, in this one) for being what he considered a party clown, he was fastidiously thorough. The effects of his counter-curse were so all-encompassing that nothing was working. It made him continue to desperately try to pile on spell after spell in an effort to not look like this–to look normal.
Turns out self-hatred was considered ill intent. He would laugh at the wretchedness of his situation if he was able to assuage the fear in his heart.
Glaring at himself in the mirror, admittedly, was not helping. However, if he wanted to counteract this mess, he needed to catalogue himself, and break down the process in steps. If the universe wanted him to learn about himself, he damn well would. He pulled every book and reference from his personal library, sat himself across the full length mirror and made himself a master of the Jotunn. Maybe if it were many small changes the counter-curse wouldn’t care.
His eyes were… horrifying, he decided. They were an angry shade of red that clashed with his skin but allowed him to see in the dark with incredible accuracy. He could counteract the color with a green coloring spell, or teal, more accurately, to restitute his blue irises. The right shade of orange might work on his skin, but he was more worried as to what to do with the very specific raised lines that identified him as a royal of the Frost Giant race.
Not to mention the horns.
Or the fangs.
Norns, even the plum hue of his gums were making him irritable.
Well, in actuality, he chose to become irritable because the alternative was succumbing to the dread in his heart and crying away the rest of his life force while curled on the floor.
No, irritability was better. Safer. So was the ardent note-taking.
“So…”
Loki flinched at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t even heard her come into his apartment. Then again, she was a spy and her livelihood was made in not alerting others to where she was.
“Does this mean that the toadstool houses are actually enormous or…?”
Loki was unsure what he hated more–the lack of disgust on Aurum’s part or the fact that he understood the reference because it was made in every universe. “I am not a damn smurf.” The words were directed at her, despite not wanting to glance in her direction, opting, instead, for glaring at the surface of the table.
“Are you sure? Because, of all the things I have seen in my life, you are the most similar to a smurf.” She dropped gracelessly in the seat beside him, propping her head on her elbow to watch him resume taking notes. If she minded the way he subtly slid his chair away from her form, she did not show it. For a full minute, Aurum watched him as he awkwardly itched at the patterns on his left arm with his right before her hand covered his.
“Careful!” He sounded like a child upset that another had messed with his carefully arranged house of cards. “You could… you could get burned if I’m not paying attention.”
“High heat?”
“Ultra low heat. Frostbite.” He had yet to look at her, but could feel that calculating look she often had on her face when it came to him. The one that informed him she was translating Lokispeak into actual emotions to understand him better. He heard her hum thoughtfully, her fingers tracing over delicate dimples on the back of his hand.
“Are those scars or natural texture?”
“I think they’re natural.”
“Think?”
He could feel her eyes prodding lovingly at him and it warmed at him more than the temperature spells he had attempted.
“We don’t have a good knowledge of Jotunn physiology and the books in Asgard are horrendously skewed to represent them as monsters. But I was adopted very young. I could have been born this way or it could be a ritual–who knows?” He was momentarily distracted by her other hand brushing at his lips to take a look at his purpled gums and gently prod at his overly sharp canines with her thumb. “You’re going to hurt yourself, Aur.” His tone was exasperated but there was an underlying sentiment of fondness or relief or both.
She was curious about him, even going as far as tilting his head toward her by grabbing his chin. Her golden gaze met his with a spark of amazement.
“But your lashes,” she said in way of defense, fully aware it made no sense. “Loki, your lashes are purple. I’ll risk being a little chilly for that.”
He relented, if only a little, pulling her open palm to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the center whose temperature made her spine tingle. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
She smiled, pulling closer until she could rest her forehead to his, giggling quietly at the brush of his horns. “I know you are.” Her hands cupped his jaw, making lazy circles on his cheekbones. “You are the most fascinating creature I’ve ever met.”
“Says the woman whose veins are literally flowing with gold,” he retorted, his voice warm and indulgent.
He wanted to be cross and continue to be the irritable bundle of hatred he was a few minutes prior. He wanted to be self-hating and cruel and bully himself into fitting back into his Asgardian mask. It was hard to want all those things while also wanting to share this part of him with Aurum and her enthusiasm. The fondness when he lightly pressed his lips to hers and she laughed delightedly at the cold was all-consuming. For so long, his mind had been filled with propaganda that he couldn’t see the finer details of his natural features for what they were. Loki could identify every line, dot and hash on his skin, but he couldn’t put into words how it made him shiver when she traced the coronet detailing on his forehead, hidden by his shaggy curls and bracketed by horns. Neither did he know those same horns were velvety and one was slightly crooked, making them look like he had put on his helm askew.
But she did.
She remarked it in quiet, honeyed tones. With fondness and care. She also told him how his hair was the same shade of inky violet as his lashes, and only showed its true color when it caught the light.
After a while, his tender heart could not take more of her lovely praise for tiny details and he kissed her silly. He smiled in earnest as she played with the ends of his hair.
“Stephen feels terrible, by the way. He didn’t think the glamour would give way.”
“It wasn’t his–wait, he knew I had a glamour?”
Aurum nodded, kissing him just under the jaw where his heart beat ever slower than when he was in his other form. “According to him, every version of you is adopted in one way or another. It is reasonable to think that species that don’t necessarily look like us might have been included in the mix.” She winced, then, the words feeling heavy on her before she even said them. “He didn’t think the glamour would be cast with bad intentions, though. That’s why he feels bad. It felt like he was overstepping his bounds.”
“And Stark?”
A bark of laughter left her. “Tony shorted out because he thought you looked hot and he couldn’t comprehend why his mind betrayed him.”
“He’s not wrong, though.” She hesitated a moment, something very much unlike her. “Would you mind if I helped with your notes? I think it’s important that we have better resources than whatever the fuck these are.”
He nodded, somehow now enthused by the prospect of learning about himself. When he attempted the glamour, later, it took on the first try.
~*~
It had started innocently enough.
After a mission gone awry, Loki had found himself cursed, of all things. He was not in bad shape but there was a distinct aching burn that radiated from his center every time he inhaled. His lungs felt like little sparking embers threatening to catch fire. His discomfort had been obvious enough that it prompted Strange to intervene rather than watch the Asgardian argue that the matter was no big deal.
Strange’s logic was sound–he was going to remove any magic with malicious intent off of Loki and draw the curse into an innocuous vessel to imprison it for eternity. This, in itself, did not set off any alarms for Loki inside his head, though, to be honest, he was desperate for the burn to be gone. It did not occur to him to think that malicious intent might not have been reserved solely for hexes, curses, and general illness, but could include a normal magic done for the wrong reasons.
Say, a glamour?
The moment Stephen finished his spell, the pain in Loki’s lungs abated and he sucked in a grateful breath with his eyes closed. He had never realized how much he liked breathing until then. When his eyelids fluttered open, smile on his face and thanks ready on his tongue, he was shocked to find… well, shock.
Time slowed down, painfully slowed, after that. The moment that followed seemed to last forever.
Stark dropped an Erlenmeyer flask filled with dubiously-colored liquid, smashing on the floor with a crash.
Aurum, who had insisted on the whole affair in the first place, remained passive, or it would have seemed that way, if not for the raising of a solitary eyebrow.
Strange froze, his eyes darting in empty space, as if reviewing the spell in his head. It took him a moment to realize he had not done this. Realization hit him, followed by an emotion that Loki could not quite place that was almost pity but not as condescending. “Oh.”
“W-why is everyone…?”
Loki glanced down and regretted it instantly.
His pale hands had turned a dusky blue and textured lines rose as if to mock him. Evidently, this was the first time they had encountered a Loki that turned this particular shade of azure. He knew that. He knew that the Loki of this universe, the one who had perished violently some time ago, was adopted from Vanaheim.
Like a (nightmarish) deer caught in headlights, Loki froze. Breathing hurt again, but not because he was cursed but for the debilitating squeezes of his heart.
“Lo–“
Before Strange could finish the last syllable, the Jotunn had stepped backward until he was far enough to safely (or so he thought he needed) turn tail and flee.
“Loki!”
He could hear them all calling after him, now, but he would not stop until he was in his quarters, locked safe and sound. He would not feel comfortable until the monster was gone, once more.
There was only one problem…
He couldn’t get the glamour to stick.
For as much as he mocked his universe’s and this one’s Stephen Strange (though, playfully, in this one) for being what he considered a party clown, he was fastidiously thorough. The effects of his counter-curse were so all-encompassing that nothing was working. It made him continue to desperately try to pile on spell after spell in an effort to not look like this–to look normal.
Turns out self-hatred was considered ill intent. He would laugh at the wretchedness of his situation if he was able to assuage the fear in his heart.
Glaring at himself in the mirror, admittedly, was not helping. However, if he wanted to counteract this mess, he needed to catalogue himself, and break down the process in steps. If the universe wanted him to learn about himself, he damn well would. He pulled every book and reference from his personal library, sat himself across the full length mirror and made himself a master of the Jotunn. Maybe if it were many small changes the counter-curse wouldn’t care.
His eyes were… horrifying, he decided. They were an angry shade of red that clashed with his skin but allowed him to see in the dark with incredible accuracy. He could counteract the color with a green coloring spell, or teal, more accurately, to restitute his blue irises. The right shade of orange might work on his skin, but he was more worried as to what to do with the very specific raised lines that identified him as a royal of the Frost Giant race.
Not to mention the horns.
Or the fangs.
Norns, even the plum hue of his gums were making him irritable.
Well, in actuality, he chose to become irritable because the alternative was succumbing to the dread in his heart and crying away the rest of his life force while curled on the floor.
No, irritability was better. Safer. So was the ardent note-taking.
“So…”
Loki flinched at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t even heard her come into his apartment. Then again, she was a spy and her livelihood was made in not alerting others to where she was.
“Does this mean that the toadstool houses are actually enormous or…?”
Loki was unsure what he hated more–the lack of disgust on Aurum’s part or the fact that he understood the reference because it was made in every universe. “I am not a damn smurf.” The words were directed at her, despite not wanting to glance in her direction, opting, instead, for glaring at the surface of the table.
“Are you sure? Because, of all the things I have seen in my life, you are the most similar to a smurf.” She dropped gracelessly in the seat beside him, propping her head on her elbow to watch him resume taking notes. If she minded the way he subtly slid his chair away from her form, she did not show it. For a full minute, Aurum watched him as he awkwardly itched at the patterns on his left arm with his right before her hand covered his.
“Careful!” He sounded like a child upset that another had messed with his carefully arranged house of cards. “You could… you could get burned if I’m not paying attention.”
“High heat?”
“Ultra low heat. Frostbite.” He had yet to look at her, but could feel that calculating look she often had on her face when it came to him. The one that informed him she was translating Lokispeak into actual emotions to understand him better. He heard her hum thoughtfully, her fingers tracing over delicate dimples on the back of his hand.
“Are those scars or natural texture?”
“I think they’re natural.”
“Think?”
He could feel her eyes prodding lovingly at him and it warmed at him more than the temperature spells he had attempted.
“We don’t have a good knowledge of Jotunn physiology and the books in Asgard are horrendously skewed to represent them as monsters. But I was adopted very young. I could have been born this way or it could be a ritual–who knows?” He was momentarily distracted by her other hand brushing at his lips to take a look at his purpled gums and gently prod at his overly sharp canines with her thumb. “You’re going to hurt yourself, Aur.” His tone was exasperated but there was an underlying sentiment of fondness or relief or both.
She was curious about him, even going as far as tilting his head toward her by grabbing his chin. Her golden gaze met his with a spark of amazement.
“But your lashes,” she said in way of defense, fully aware it made no sense. “Loki, your lashes are purple. I’ll risk being a little chilly for that.”
He relented, if only a little, pulling her open palm to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the center whose temperature made her spine tingle. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
She smiled, pulling closer until she could rest her forehead to his, giggling quietly at the brush of his horns. “I know you are.” Her hands cupped his jaw, making lazy circles on his cheekbones. “You are the most fascinating creature I’ve ever met.”
“Says the woman whose veins are literally flowing with gold,” he retorted, his voice warm and indulgent.
He wanted to be cross and continue to be the irritable bundle of hatred he was a few minutes prior. He wanted to be self-hating and cruel and bully himself into fitting back into his Asgardian mask. It was hard to want all those things while also wanting to share this part of him with Aurum and her enthusiasm. The fondness when he lightly pressed his lips to hers and she laughed delightedly at the cold was all-consuming. For so long, his mind had been filled with propaganda that he couldn’t see the finer details of his natural features for what they were. Loki could identify every line, dot and hash on his skin, but he couldn’t put into words how it made him shiver when she traced the coronet detailing on his forehead, hidden by his shaggy curls and bracketed by horns. Neither did he know those same horns were velvety and one was slightly crooked, making them look like he had put on his helm askew.
But she did.
She remarked it in quiet, honeyed tones. With fondness and care. She also told him how his hair was the same shade of inky violet as his lashes, and only showed its true color when it caught the light.
After a while, his tender heart could not take more of her lovely praise for tiny details and he kissed her silly. He smiled in earnest as she played with the ends of his hair.
“Stephen feels terrible, by the way. He didn’t think the glamour would give way.”
“It wasn’t his–wait, he knew I had a glamour?”
Aurum nodded, kissing him just under the jaw where his heart beat ever slower than when he was in his other form. “According to him, every version of you is adopted in one way or another. It is reasonable to think that species that don’t necessarily look like us might have been included in the mix.” She winced, then, the words feeling heavy on her before she even said them. “He didn’t think the glamour would be cast with bad intentions, though. That’s why he feels bad. It felt like he was overstepping his bounds.”
“And Stark?”
A bark of laughter left her. “Tony shorted out because he thought you looked hot and he couldn’t comprehend why his mind betrayed him.”
“He’s not wrong, though.” She hesitated a moment, something very much unlike her. “Would you mind if I helped with your notes? I think it’s important that we have better resources than whatever the fuck these are.”
He nodded, somehow now enthused by the prospect of learning about himself. When he attempted the glamour, later, it took on the first try.
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@fanfictrashdump I had to make this because of your reblog addition.
I guess this could be considered MCU lines that make me want to scream pt. 2
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Someone went into one of my One-Shot compendiums on AO3 and left a comment on EVERY. SINGLE. CHAPTER. about what they liked about it and now I am soft and about to cry.
Go leave an author a comment, dammit!
#fanfictrashdump ao3#ao3 comment#i love readers who leave comments#i got all the happy juice flowing in my veins right now#like I need constant validation bruh
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Meta asks: 7 and 17. :)
I honestly haven't thought about either of these very much lol so if someone wants to share their own opinions please do 😂
7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?
I generally try and make my stories reader inserts where anyone can put themselves in the story regardless of gender (does that count lol) I would hope others agree
17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?
I put a LOT of who I am or sometimes who I wish I could be in my stories. For example the story of the reader in Beauty From Ashes is actually my story. Losing my Nana to cancer and the abuse the reader went through all of that is my story. I WISH I had been strong enough to get away, the abuse eventually stopped but I still live at home (I moved out for a bit, it didn't work out) hopefully I'll get my own place soon.
I doubt my readers would be surprised but I write my fics to help me escape whether I'm personally having a rough time or there's just a lot of tension around here. Then there's times I'm having a really good high day (I'm bipolar) and all I want to do is create so that's what I do.
I apologise for the long answer @fanfictrashdump but you did ask lol also if anyone can think of something else please don't feel shy and either add it here or you can even send me an anon if you'd rather
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Coat Hooks
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3fHo89l
by fanfictrashdump
Loki makes friends with the Avengers’ newest recruit and resident plant witch, Lily. A funny series of one-shots of how one emotionally stunted alien attempts to make nice with a genuinely sweet little mutant. Hijinks ensue.
Words: 5859, Chapters: 3/3, Language: English
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Categories: F/M
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton, Original Female Character(s)
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: plant mutant, Flowers, Loki liking flowers and being soft, also Loki being a jerk, Duality
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3fHo89l
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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
TITLE: Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 2/10
AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki's life told through the spectrum of enneagram personalities he has had to adopt to survive for each situation. Sleeping At Last's Enneagram series serves as reference.
RATING: T-M, as we go along
NOTES/WARNINGS: Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki's life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Descriptions of battle and mentions of broken bones ahead.
SUMMARY: At times Loki was led to believe that loud or obvious demonstrations of love were needed.
XX
TWO: THE HELPER - caring and interpersonal; demonstrative, generous, people-pleasing, and possessive. Soundtrack inspiration ---> Two
Loki pretended there was absolutely nothing amiss with the fact that eyes were following him everywhere. Well, there was strictly nothing amiss about it, but he felt the littlest bit self-conscious about the fact that they were. Insistent, heavy, tender–it was hell. Pretending that there wasn't a pit growing in his stomach was hard enough on a regular basis, but when he was put on the spot… yikes.
He turned, only to freeze like a deer caught in the headlights of her burning gaze. It was a potent paralytic that made him swallow hard and want to wither like a child. And to think, she was only sitting on the couch, broken leg propped up on a cushion while she enjoyed the spectacle he had become.
The fracture was a souvenir from the most recent mission they had been sent on. After being dropped into the middle of a frozen wasteland god-knows-where on this forsaken planet, they had been promptly met with gunfire and bombs. Loki was meant to be snuck in so he could wreak havoc on the computer system in the facility, letting his magic do what it knew best–chaos. She was his escort. He never liked when she was his escort.
They had been together just a touch longer than was a casual fling and he dared to say that he actually cared for her. She, foolishly, cared for him, too.
He was nearly indestructible.
She had sprained her wrist jumping in her bed like a trampoline a month prior.
There was no reason for her to be his escort.
And yet… in the heat of battle and the enthusiasm for letting loose his more destructive tendencies, he had allowed his guard to drop. Three guns had been pointed at him by the time he had looked up, although the image was a blur, for he was tackled away from harm a second later. She had still been on top of him, on the floor, when she shot the intruders, point blank. She had barely noticed the sting of the injury until she had tried to stand. Evidently, having a super-dense, alien god crash on your leg when swiping him away from harm tends to leave a mark.
The mark was her tibia poking out of the skin of her shin.
Loki shook his head to clear his mind from cobwebs and smoothed his hands down the front of his jumper. A deep breath settled his trembling heart before he turned to the stove, collected the bowl of carefully prepared food and silverware. He ran the food to the couch, setting it on the coffee table before running back for a tall glass of water. He fussed, fluffing the pillow under her leg, re-adjusting the temperature, conjuring increasingly complicated bouquets of flowers, making sure her favorite show was running on the television–essentially, running himself in dizzying circles around the flat.
"You haven't eaten, dove. Is it not good? Do you want something else? I should have ordered pizza. I can still do that," he said, seemingly on a single gulp of air.
She reached out her hand, fingers wrapping around his wrist as he went to fluff the pillows a fifth time.
Loki was not proud of the way he started and flashed his cerulean eyes at her.
Her eyes narrowed. "What is going on with you?"
"W-what do you mean, flower?"
"This." She gestured the flat, the food, him. "What is all this? I broke a bone, I'm not dying. I've broken plenty of stuff before and you've never been this–"
"Attentive?"
"–manic," she finished, fixing him with a narrowed stare.
She was right.
Loki was not a doting boyfriend.
Actually, that's not true. He was a quietly, secretly doting boyfriend. The type that finished the chores without being asked or hinted. Or the type that went out on errands and came back with her favorite candy bar because he saw it and it made him think of her. He was not the type to frequently flaunt PDA or grand gestures. Perhaps in his youth he would yearn for the theater that was courting in Asgard, but these days, all he wanted was a quiet existence with someone he had very accidentally come to love and admire. She wanted much of the same. That was why they worked so well.
But then she got hurt and he was waiting outside her hospital room, waiting for news and…
Loki rolled his shoulders like he was uncomfortable in his skin. "Well, Barnes mentioned–"
She blinked. "Barnes?"
"Yes, Barnes mentioned that he–"
"Bucky Barnes? James Buchanan Barnes?"
Loki frowned. "Yes, James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier." He reached for her brushing soft curls away from her forehead and temples. His piercing gaze was steadily assessing her own, checking for blown pupils or vacant stares. "Did we miss a concussion, love?"
Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his wrist, once more and tangled his fingers with her own. "Bucky Barnes, the man who hasn't dated in eighty years? Is that who you're going to for advice, now?"
"Well, I haven't had a date in eighty years, either," he started grumbling.
"Yes, but that is not the majority of your life span, buddy." She sighed. "Why are you taking advice from Barnes?"
There was a one-shouldered shrug in response. "He sounded convincing," he retorted, sincerity tinging his tone. He lowered himself onto the seat beside her. "He said that, if it were him and his girl got hurt saving his life he would… you know, be extra loving."
The smile on her face bloomed without asking for permission. She cupped his face with both her hands and kissed him gently, relishing in the small sigh of relief he gave in return. "You are extra loving. Food, a movie, cuddling on the couch; that's all I needed. Not whatever demented Stepford wife routine you started here." She leaned into the soft kisses pressed onto her crown. "The food smells really good, though, baby."
"It was my mother's recipe." He peppered the side of her face with kisses until she laughed. With thoughtful tenderness, he tucked her into his side to bask in her warmth and good energy–the very things that had made him fall for her in the first place. "Shall we watch one of your murder shows, then?"
She instantly perked from the slightly drowsy state he was lulling her into. "Yes, let's!"
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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
TITLE: Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 1/10
AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki's life told through the spectrum of enneagram personalities he has had to adopt to survive for each situation. Sleeping At Last's Enneagram series serves as reference.
RATING: T-M, as we go along
NOTES/WARNINGS: Do I have time to do a series? No. Am I going to? Yes. Writing makes the voice in my head shut up for a while. Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki's life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Chapters will not necessarily be in sequential or chronological order.
XX
ONE: THE REFORMER -conscientious and ethical with a strong sense of right and wrong. Perfectionistic. Soundtrack inspiration--> One
~*~
Diplomacy. That is what they dared call this course in Asgardian education. More accurately, it was called Diplomacy for the negotiation of peace in neighbor realms as dictated by Asgardian law. That was a mouthful and a half… and also a lie and a half.
The exercise given had been simple. How do you handle a discussion concerning resources between two realms who want to be the controlling party?
Thor's answer had been strike swiftly and devastatingly because of course, of course, of bleeding course it had been.
"Strong demonstration of power does send a clear message, Prince Thor. And you, Prince Loki? What say you?"
Loki fidgeted in his desk. His hair was in the awkward place between short and long and continually falling into his eyes. The whole of his was in the awkward place between short and long, if he were honest. Gangly limbs and torso that had not yet grown into the rest of his body in the manner young men were wont to do. He chewed on the inner corner of his lip in thought before crafting a response. "Well, what realm needs it more?" He began, hesitantly. "What are they willing to offer in exchange? An amicable treatise can be reached–"
"This is why you're not allowed to come on the hunts, Loki," Thor interrupted, earning himself a chuckle from the other young students.
Sons of warriors, diplomats, people of the court; everyone who saw Asgard as a beacon of power and brute strength that no one daren't defy, Loki knew them well. They were right. He had not been allowed on hunts, yet, despite the fact he was several decades older than Thor had been when he went on his first. Loki had skill with the sword, the bow, and the dagger, but he preferred his magic. It was less messy, more merciful. Magic was a soft practice, though. And the hunting party made it clear that they were not looking to drag anything soft around.
"Prince Thor is right, Prince Loki. The Realm Eternal is known for its strength. We cannot appear to waver to the enemy."
Loki scoffed, crossing his arms. "You didn't say it was the enemy."
"Everyone is the enemy," Sif hissed from behind him.
The tutor, sensing a brewing storm, green glimmer of magic floating around the youngest prince serving as the eldest's proverbial lightning rod, dismissed the class. Loki wasted no time in bolting rom his seat, taking to the golden hallways in a huff. He pretended the giggles and jeers that followed were not about him. It was someone else they called weak and gutless.
"I thought you would still be occupied with your studies, dear."
Loki barely registered Frigga addressing him before stepping up to Odin in the throne room. "That class is a farce. How am I to learn how to rule if all the answers these so-called scholars can provide is carry a sharp enough sword."
The corner of Odin's mouth tilted upward. "Ruling is a taxing fate. One must be conscientious and firm. That is merely what they are trying to teach you."
"Well, from where I am standing, it sounds like bullying." And it felt like it, too, if he were honest.
Last week alone he had barely managed to walk after battle training because Thor had taken it upon himself to teach Loki to expect the unexpected and took nothing but cheap shots at him. He had not been allowed to do magic and when he did, to shield himself from what might have been a devastating blow, he had been dismissed for cheating. He was trying his hardest to be that theoretical leader that they all claimed every realm needed and he was failing spectacularly at it.
"And that is why you not yet rule, my son." Odin's tone was distinctly a combination of amusement and dismissal that Loki could only grit his teeth against.
Loki looked then at Frigga. With widened eyes he pleaded for her interjection and received but a passive smile in return. Fret not, dear. This is temporary, he could almost hear her say, but she had not even done him the courtesy of entering his mind.
His jaw tightened and his shoulders slumped in what he knew was going to be defeat. Instead, he drew a breath and re-calculated his attack. "May I join the hunt this week?"
"Not until your skills with the sword and bow improve… and you learn to follow rules of combat."
The thin veneer over his neutral expression nearly cracked. A leader is level-headed, calm, calculating; they do not show their cards or entertain petty squabbles.
"But there are diplomats coming in from Vanaheim that you would do well to escort. You will be in charge of negotiations," Odin finished, watching the little glimmer of surprise flicker in Loki's eyes before it was promptly snuffed out.
"Yes, of course. It will be my pleasure."
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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
TITLE: Atlas: Enneagram Challenge
CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 3/10
AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki’s life told through the spectrum of enneagram personalities he has had to adopt to survive for each situation. Sleeping At Last’s Enneagram series serves as reference.
RATING: T-M, as we go along
NOTES/WARNINGS: Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki’s life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Language, implied smut, depictions of blood and gore, death, attempted kidnapping, a raging Loki who just realized he had feelings, and a Tony who can’t take blood and guts.
SUMMARY: The desire to redeem himself and change his perceived fate can sometimes lead Loki to alienate himself from those he holds dear. Or, Loki shouldn’t let Mobius in his head, anymore, not when he has her.
XX
THREE: THE ACHIEVER - success-oriented, pragmatic; adaptive, excelling, driven, image-conscious. Soundtrack inspiration –> THREE
~*~
You weren’t born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That’s how it is, that’s how it was, that is how it will be.
The words echoed in his head as he scrubbed back and forth through the memories on the projector. He rewound the movie and watched every grueling, painful second of failure after failure after failure. The highlight reel was, thankfully, not as crisp and clear as the theater in the TVA. There was something muddled about how the image looked. Like it was somehow being viewed through a fog of thoughts, which checked out, seeing as these were his memories he was viewing.
Overhead, the AI reminded him that he had been in the theater for six hours and that maybe it was time to stretch and take a walk. Loki briefly wondered if the AI used (and was successful) at using those reminders with Stark. Considering the level of advancement in this Universe compared to the one he had originally come from, it was a coin toss. Stark either obsessed harder and managed to do more or he occasionally had a few hours of sleep that refreshed his brain. Either way, the man’s mania ended with Loki having access to technology that allowed him to link his memories, specifically the ones he had of the TVA, onto a screen so that he could torture himself for a few extra hours a day.
The practice was becoming a regular occurrence that he had not intended to sign up for. This form of self-flagellation was both useless and tiring but he couldn’t help but succumb to wanting the pain. Was he truly born to cause pain and suffering? Sure, Mobius had said it in an effort to manipulate him the same way everyone manipulated him. He knew that, deep down, the man probably didn’t think that Loki could be that evil.
It didn’t mean that the end goal was ever any different. The images on the screen were proof.
He needed to be better.
Loki had thought that escaping his other’s, Sylvie’s, crutches was a tragedy. The Fates laughed in his face at that thought. It really turned out to be a blessing. She had cared only for her own plans for revenge; he was merely a pawn in the battle strategy. As much as he wanted to argue that he had touched her in some way, softened her soul, it simply was not true. He had been blasted to Kingdom Come and another reality because he let his guard down.
Once he had gotten past the shock, the heartbreak, it was easy enough to escape this alternate TVA. Mobius thought he was an analyst, anyway, so finding the resources needed for him to jump into another timeline was child’s play. Armed with nothing but his wits and a flaming sword, Loki had run to the only place he could think of–the Avengers.
Endearing himself to the group of heroes was difficult. Loki expected as much; he was untrustworthy in every universe. The Avengers were different, though. Rogers was not Rogers. The wizard lived in the Tower and not the Sanctum. There were multiple Widows but no Barton. Stark… well, Stark is Stark in any and every Universe, he supposed. And it was annoyingly comforting that he felt familiar.
Then there was her.
He had no idea what to make of her. She was everything Loki was not–brash, impulsive, careless, carefree, Stark’s best friend. Within five minutes of meeting him, she had decided he was no more a threat than any other man on the street, which was more than a bit insulting. She had shrugged and let him inside the building, calling Stark over her shoulder to attend to the matter before going wherever it was she hid during the day.
In battle, she was aggressive and direct. There was little strategy other than don’t die and she knew little of boundaries. Loki wanted to hate her approach, and how it reminded him a little too much of Thor in his younger years. The keyword being wanted. He had yet to be successful.
After a decidedly battering mission, they all huddled in the jet, assessing their status.
Loki found himself staring at how the fluorescent lights reflected off her dark skin while she joked with Barnes that the melanin helped disguise the bruises to both her body and her ego. There was a sudden pull of his right hand, making Loki start. She had laid his hand on her lap and was picking glass out of the several dozen divots in his palm with a set of tweezers. No warning, no question, no regard for personal space.
No way for him to look away.
He wasn’t entirely sure how they had ended up tangled in bed if he was honest. Most likely, it was one of those moments where she said something witty or challenging and he had a knee-jerk reaction to snap back. To offer a reason. To explain, because surely she could not be so naïve.
No one had ever tried to fuck with him just for the fun of it, before. No one had ever been that stupid.
The playfulness and lack of expectation in her manner of treating him, no matter the circumstance, made something inside him crack and crumble. Especially now, in their safe-house. He was at the watch station, the scope of a gun acting as his binoculars from where she, Aurum, had set up her nest. However, the second he had been sent up to her position, he had taken over the post with a bullheadedness that rivaled his brother’s, any day. Amused rather than annoyed, she allowed him to take over, leaving her to toss mini marshmallows at his head while he kept watch. He was more irritated at the fact that she was so at ease with him in such close quarters than he was at her tossing things in his direction.
One projectile caught the barest corner of his eye and the sound of irritation that came afterward was something that might have left Alligator Loki. “Would you stop? I am trying to do my job!”
She rolled her eyes, leaning back so that her chair balanced on two legs. “We’re just observing, Loki, not defusing a bomb. You can relax.”
He wanted to bark back that there was no time for relaxing. That he could relax when he was dead, again. And he almost did before she cut across, again, her brow adorably furrowed in what he might have seen as concern.
“You know you can relax, right? That’s why they gave us an easy job. You need to take a breather.”
Though he knew what all the words meant, they did not make sense being directed at him. “What?” He prayed that he had misunderstood and was able to lay his irritation to rest.
“I asked the others to give you the watch with me because you haven’t slept in six days.”
So, he hadn’t misunderstood. “Why would you do that?”
She balked, blinking several times as if processing the words. “Because. You haven’t slept in six days. You need rest.” Aurum had immediately known that was the wrong answer. Along with the clenched jaw, she could almost make out the faint wisps of emerald smoke drifting off him–that only seemed to happen when he was none too pleased and losing his grip on his emotions.
“You thought I’d get someone killed, didn’t you?”
His voice was poisoned honey and she knew it. She couldn’t care less. “Yes. Yourself.”
Loki stilled. The retort dancing on his tongue fizzling out into nothingness. He was going to demand an explanation about why she didn’t think he was good enough for the job or if it was just the fact that she didn’t trust him. To find that it was concern for him was… unsettling. She seemed to think nothing of his confusion as she continued.
“Loki, you’ve been on for weeks. Back-to-back missions, research, recon, gathering intel… You’re not a one-man team. And while I thoroughly enjoy the chaos you bring into my bedroom that also isn’t rest as much as a distraction.”
His heart urged him to speak, to disagree. To talk about the calm he felt while he was panting on her bedsheets, trying to catch his breath. Of the soft way she carded her fingers through his hair when worry wrinkled his forehead. How he wanted nothing more than to succumb to the desire of curling up in bed for hours with nothing but kisses and small talk to distract them. That rolling around the sheets with her was the most rest he had gotten in thousands of years. Instead, Mobius invaded his mind. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death.
And he wanted none of those things for her.
Stiffly, he turned back to the scope, ignoring the hurt expression plastered on her features for the good of them all. “We have work to do.”
“There’s nothing to do. They’re lurking. They’ll lurk here for another hour or so before quieting down for the night, the same as they’ve done for the past week.”
Loki’s jaw ticked as he fought against grinding his teeth. “Forgive me if I want to double-check your intel. You’re so easily distractible, as it were.”
Aurum scoffed, pelting him with one last marshmallow with an unnatural force that nearly almost stung. It wasn’t until he heard the door slam shut that he noticed that she had left in a huff.
Curse those spies with their light feet.
Loki bit his tongue. A sour taste invaded his mouth and made his stomach turn over. He understood what she was trying to do. Truly, he did, but it was hard for him to accept the help. It was nearly impossible for him to accept the caring nature of her silent deeds and not immediately feel like he was taking advantage of her. Had he somehow tricked her into caring for him? Mobius had called him a narcissist once. Was this just his natural ability to make people succumb to his will? To make it all about him? What was–
“No. No no no no,” Loki chanted under his breath as he watched her stalk down the street, muttering to herself and hands in her jacket pockets, walking straight for trouble.
From what he could tell through the scope, she hadn’t noticed the figures hidden in the shadows, just out of the view of the street. But they sure had seen her and were staring at her with great interest.
“Don’t make her. Don’t make her. Don’t make her. Don’t make h–“ He watched one of the thugs nudge his buddy in the ribs and gesture to her with his head. They nodded in agreement and started after her. The one leading reached out, put a hand over her mouth, and pulled her backward into the alley.
Loki lifted a hand to activate his comms, already halfway across the room and a second from wrenching the door open. “Aurum’s been made.”
Tony’s voice crackled over the comms. “What? She’s Spec Ops and you’re on a stakeout. How?”
He took the stairs by twos, hoping his legs would carry him quickly enough from the sixth floor to the ground. “That’s not important right now, Anthony!”
Tony muttered a choice string of profanities before adding. “Sit tight, we’ll be there in 60 seconds.”
“I’m already on my way!”
“Loki, you’re not supposed to be here. Fall back!”
Loki crashed through the stairwell exit and across the lobby to the street. “It’s my fault and she can’t wait!”
Armed with a dagger in each hand, he gleefully breached the alley.
The duo had grown in numbers in the short time it took him to appear. Aurum was fighting off two men twice her size, sparkling golden blood trickling down the corner of her mouth from her cut lip. He sighed in barely restrained relief at seeing her alive and upright. But his relief was immediately marred by the vivid scarlet his vision was flooded with; by the sheer anger of thinking that someone would ever think to put a hand on what he held precious.
His first dagger found its home in soft flesh and flowing blood. The second did not wait much longer to be similarly homed. Blind rage. It was the purest form of anger he had ever allowed himself to experience. He barely had any restraint. He was not looking to disarm, he was looking to tear them apart, limb from limb. He would not be her destruction, today.
Forty-two seconds later, Tony and Strange had arrived at the scene. They skidded to a halt, faces morphing from determination to abject horror at the pile of bodies in the alley. Genius and doctor scrubbed the floor for signs of their team before their eyes fell just a few feet away, deeper in the alley, resting against the wall. A blood-soaked Loki was on his knees, clinging onto Aurum’s hips as his salty tears wetted her equally soiled t-shirt. She looked halfway surprised and elated that this was how he had reacted after sparing no morsel of anger just a few minutes prior.
After the shock settled, Stephen sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and trying his very hardest not to sound like a chiding school teacher. “Not that we don’t appreciate you keeping her safe, but… how are we going to get information out of corpses, Loki?”
Tony made a quarter turn and promptly threw up, waving a weak I’m fine at the team.
“One got away,” Aurum whispered, stroking her hand through Loki’s hair. He nuzzled into her stomach and sighed.
“And that helps us, how, exactly?”
Loki lifted his head and wiped at his eyes, succeeding only at leaving a grotesque red mask over them. He sat back on his heels to take a breath. “I slipped a bug in his pocket.” He dug through his own pocket for the Stark device beeping within and tossed it over. “It’s active. He’ll go to the HYDRA base, most likely. Report back.”
Stephen looked suitably impressed. “Clever.” He raised his eyes at Aurum. “Have you tried, just, dosing him with Nyquil? Seriously, you know the man can’t relax, voluntarily. Just knock him out.”
She shot him a crooked half-smile. “Will do, Doc.”
Tony scrunched his face in confusion. “Wait, what? What am I missing? Why her?”
“Never mind, Tony. Let’s go. Jet is in the back.” Stephen stared at Loki just a second longer. “You did good. Good job.”
The acknowledgment brought a smile to Loki’s face. If he could keep it up, he would certainly make a positive impact on this world. He could do so much to help these people.
His reverie broke with another slow stroke of his hair. Loki looked up, eyes widened and glossy, as if he were staring at a wonder of the world.
“You always do well. Even when you have nothing to show for it,” she added, offering her hands to help him to his feet. “There’s nothing you need to prove.”
He accepted her hands, clambering up to his feet with a sheepish smile. Inside, he mulled over her words.
Maybe, just maybe, he could believe them for now.
Maybe today was not the day he brought death and destruction.
THREE: THE ACHIEVER - success-oriented, pragmatic; adaptive, excelling, driven, image-conscious. Soundtrack inspiration –> THREE
~*~
You weren’t born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That’s how it is, that’s how it was, that is how it will be.
The words echoed in his head as he scrubbed back and forth through the memories on the projector. He rewound the movie and watched every grueling, painful second of failure after failure after failure. The highlight reel was, thankfully, not as crisp and clear as the theater in the TVA. There was something muddled about how the image looked. Like it was somehow being viewed through a fog of thoughts, which checked out, seeing as these were his memories he was viewing.
Overhead, the AI reminded him that he had been in the theater for six hours and that maybe it was time to stretch and take a walk. Loki briefly wondered if the AI used (and was successful) at using those reminders with Stark. Considering the level of advancement in this Universe compared to the one he had originally come from, it was a coin toss. Stark either obsessed harder and managed to do more or he occasionally had a few hours of sleep that refreshed his brain. Either way, the man’s mania ended with Loki having access to technology that allowed him to link his memories, specifically the ones he had of the TVA, onto a screen so that he could torture himself for a few extra hours a day.
The practice was becoming a regular occurrence that he had not intended to sign up for. This form of self-flagellation was both useless and tiring but he couldn’t help but succumb to wanting the pain. Was he truly born to cause pain and suffering? Sure, Mobius had said it in an effort to manipulate him the same way everyone manipulated him. He knew that, deep down, the man probably didn’t think that Loki could be that evil.
It didn’t mean that the end goal was ever any different. The images on the screen were proof.
He needed to be better.
Loki had thought that escaping his other’s, Sylvie’s, crutches was a tragedy. The Fates laughed in his face at that thought. It really turned out to be a blessing. She had cared only for her own plans for revenge; he was merely a pawn in the battle strategy. As much as he wanted to argue that he had touched her in some way, softened her soul, it simply was not true. He had been blasted to Kingdom Come and another reality because he let his guard down.
Once he had gotten past the shock, the heartbreak, it was easy enough to escape this alternate TVA. Mobius thought he was an analyst, anyway, so finding the resources needed for him to jump into another timeline was child’s play. Armed with nothing but his wits and a flaming sword, Loki had run to the only place he could think of–the Avengers.
Endearing himself to the group of heroes was difficult. Loki expected as much; he was untrustworthy in every universe. The Avengers were different, though. Rogers was not Rogers. The wizard lived in the Tower and not the Sanctum. There were multiple Widows but no Barton. Stark… well, Stark is Stark in any and every Universe, he supposed. And it was annoyingly comforting that he felt familiar.
Then there was her.
He had no idea what to make of her. She was everything Loki was not–brash, impulsive, careless, carefree, Stark’s best friend. Within five minutes of meeting him, she had decided he was no more a threat than any other man on the street, which was more than a bit insulting. She had shrugged and let him inside the building, calling Stark over her shoulder to attend to the matter before going wherever it was she hid during the day.
In battle, she was aggressive and direct. There was little strategy other than don’t die and she knew little of boundaries. Loki wanted to hate her approach, and how it reminded him a little too much of Thor in his younger years. The keyword being wanted. He had yet to be successful.
After a decidedly battering mission, they all huddled in the jet, assessing their status.
Loki found himself staring at how the fluorescent lights reflected off her dark skin while she joked with Barnes that the melanin helped disguise the bruises to both her body and her ego. There was a sudden pull of his right hand, making Loki start. She had laid his hand on her lap and was picking glass out of the several dozen divots in his palm with a set of tweezers. No warning, no question, no regard for personal space.
No way for him to look away.
He wasn’t entirely sure how they had ended up tangled in bed if he was honest. Most likely, it was one of those moments where she said something witty or challenging and he had a knee-jerk reaction to snap back. To offer a reason. To explain, because surely she could not be so naïve.
No one had ever tried to fuck with him just for the fun of it, before. No one had ever been that stupid.
The playfulness and lack of expectation in her manner of treating him, no matter the circumstance, made something inside him crack and crumble. Especially now, in their safe-house. He was at the watch station, the scope of a gun acting as his binoculars from where she, Aurum, had set up her nest. However, the second he had been sent up to her position, he had taken over the post with a bullheadedness that rivaled his brother’s, any day. Amused rather than annoyed, she allowed him to take over, leaving her to toss mini marshmallows at his head while he kept watch. He was more irritated at the fact that she was so at ease with him in such close quarters than he was at her tossing things in his direction.
One projectile caught the barest corner of his eye and the sound of irritation that came afterward was something that might have left Alligator Loki. “Would you stop? I am trying to do my job!”
She rolled her eyes, leaning back so that her chair balanced on two legs. “We’re just observing, Loki, not defusing a bomb. You can relax.”
He wanted to bark back that there was no time for relaxing. That he could relax when he was dead, again. And he almost did before she cut across, again, her brow adorably furrowed in what he might have seen as concern.
“You know you can relax, right? That’s why they gave us an easy job. You need to take a breather.”
Though he knew what all the words meant, they did not make sense being directed at him. “What?” He prayed that he had misunderstood and was able to lay his irritation to rest.
“I asked the others to give you the watch with me because you haven’t slept in six days.”
So, he hadn’t misunderstood. “Why would you do that?”
She balked, blinking several times as if processing the words. “Because. You haven’t slept in six days. You need rest.” Aurum had immediately known that was the wrong answer. Along with the clenched jaw, she could almost make out the faint wisps of emerald smoke drifting off him–that only seemed to happen when he was none too pleased and losing his grip on his emotions.
“You thought I’d get someone killed, didn’t you?”
His voice was poisoned honey and she knew it. She couldn’t care less. “Yes. Yourself.”
Loki stilled. The retort dancing on his tongue fizzling out into nothingness. He was going to demand an explanation about why she didn’t think he was good enough for the job or if it was just the fact that she didn’t trust him. To find that it was concern for him was… unsettling. She seemed to think nothing of his confusion as she continued.
“Loki, you’ve been on for weeks. Back-to-back missions, research, recon, gathering intel… You’re not a one-man team. And while I thoroughly enjoy the chaos you bring into my bedroom that also isn’t rest as much as a distraction.”
His heart urged him to speak, to disagree. To talk about the calm he felt while he was panting on her bedsheets, trying to catch his breath. Of the soft way she carded her fingers through his hair when worry wrinkled his forehead. How he wanted nothing more than to succumb to the desire of curling up in bed for hours with nothing but kisses and small talk to distract them. That rolling around the sheets with her was the most rest he had gotten in thousands of years. Instead, Mobius invaded his mind. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death.
And he wanted none of those things for her.
Stiffly, he turned back to the scope, ignoring the hurt expression plastered on her features for the good of them all. “We have work to do.”
“There’s nothing to do. They’re lurking. They’ll lurk here for another hour or so before quieting down for the night, the same as they’ve done for the past week.”
Loki’s jaw ticked as he fought against grinding his teeth. “Forgive me if I want to double-check your intel. You’re so easily distractible, as it were.”
Aurum scoffed, pelting him with one last marshmallow with an unnatural force that nearly almost stung. It wasn’t until he heard the door slam shut that he noticed that she had left in a huff.
Curse those spies with their light feet.
Loki bit his tongue. A sour taste invaded his mouth and made his stomach turn over. He understood what she was trying to do. Truly, he did, but it was hard for him to accept the help. It was nearly impossible for him to accept the caring nature of her silent deeds and not immediately feel like he was taking advantage of her. Had he somehow tricked her into caring for him? Mobius had called him a narcissist once. Was this just his natural ability to make people succumb to his will? To make it all about him? What was–
“No. No no no no,” Loki chanted under his breath as he watched her stalk down the street, muttering to herself and hands in her jacket pockets, walking straight for trouble.
From what he could tell through the scope, she hadn’t noticed the figures hidden in the shadows, just out of the view of the street. But they sure had seen her and were staring at her with great interest.
“Don’t make her. Don’t make her. Don’t make her. Don’t make h–“ He watched one of the thugs nudge his buddy in the ribs and gesture to her with his head. They nodded in agreement and started after her. The one leading reached out, put a hand over her mouth, and pulled her backward into the alley.
Loki lifted a hand to activate his comms, already halfway across the room and a second from wrenching the door open. “Aurum’s been made.”
Tony’s voice crackled over the comms. “What? She’s Spec Ops and you’re on a stakeout. How?”
He took the stairs by twos, hoping his legs would carry him quickly enough from the sixth floor to the ground. “That’s not important right now, Anthony!”
Tony muttered a choice string of profanities before adding. “Sit tight, we’ll be there in 60 seconds.”
“I’m already on my way!”
“Loki, you’re not supposed to be here. Fall back!”
Loki crashed through the stairwell exit and across the lobby to the street. “It’s my fault and she can’t wait!”
Armed with a dagger in each hand, he gleefully breached the alley.
The duo had grown in numbers in the short time it took him to appear. Aurum was fighting off two men twice her size, sparkling golden blood trickling down the corner of her mouth from her cut lip. He sighed in barely restrained relief at seeing her alive and upright. But his relief was immediately marred by the vivid scarlet his vision was flooded with; by the sheer anger of thinking that someone would ever think to put a hand on what he held precious.
His first dagger found its home in soft flesh and flowing blood. The second did not wait much longer to be similarly homed. Blind rage. It was the purest form of anger he had ever allowed himself to experience. He barely had any restraint. He was not looking to disarm, he was looking to tear them apart, limb from limb. He would not be her destruction, today.
Forty-two seconds later, Tony and Strange had arrived at the scene. They skidded to a halt, faces morphing from determination to abject horror at the pile of bodies in the alley. Genius and doctor scrubbed the floor for signs of their team before their eyes fell just a few feet away, deeper in the alley, resting against the wall. A blood-soaked Loki was on his knees, clinging onto Aurum’s hips as his salty tears wetted her equally soiled t-shirt. She looked halfway surprised and elated that this was how he had reacted after sparing no morsel of anger just a few minutes prior.
After the shock settled, Stephen sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and trying his very hardest not to sound like a chiding school teacher. “Not that we don’t appreciate you keeping her safe, but… how are we going to get information out of corpses, Loki?”
Tony made a quarter turn and promptly threw up, waving a weak I’m fine at the team.
“One got away,” Aurum whispered, stroking her hand through Loki’s hair. He nuzzled into her stomach and sighed.
“And that helps us, how, exactly?”
Loki lifted his head and wiped at his eyes, succeeding only at leaving a grotesque red mask over them. He sat back on his heels to take a breath. “I slipped a bug in his pocket.” He dug through his own pocket for the Stark device beeping within and tossed it over. “It’s active. He’ll go to the HYDRA base, most likely. Report back.”
Stephen looked suitably impressed. “Clever.” He raised his eyes at Aurum. “Have you tried, just, dosing him with Nyquil? Seriously, you know the man can’t relax, voluntarily. Just knock him out.”
She shot him a crooked half-smile. “Will do, Doc.”
Tony scrunched his face in confusion. “Wait, what? What am I missing? Why her?”
“Never mind, Tony. Let’s go. Jet is in the back.” Stephen stared at Loki just a second longer. “You did good. Good job.”
The acknowledgment brought a smile to Loki’s face. If he could keep it up, he would certainly make a positive impact on this world. He could do so much to help these people.
His reverie broke with another slow stroke of his hair. Loki looked up, eyes widened and glossy, as if he were staring at a wonder of the world.
“You always do well. Even when you have nothing to show for it,” she added, offering her hands to help him to his feet. “There’s nothing you need to prove.”
He accepted her hands, clambering up to his feet with a sheepish smile. Inside, he mulled over her words.
Maybe, just maybe, he could believe them for now.
Maybe today was not the day he brought death and destruction.
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Imagine HYDRA has been quietly watching Loki living a quiet life on Earth. They decide it’s finally time to bring him into the fold. It doesn’t exactly work out the way they intended.
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Everyone's Problem
TITLE: Everyone’s Problem
CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: One-shot
AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump
ORIGINAL IMAGINE:
After the Chitauri attack on New York, imagine Loki being sentenced to public service on Earth, specifically in aiding people who got hurt during the attack. His magic has been limited to only be enough to aid keeping Odin’s spell in place so he wouldn’t turn blue. His task is to help people with special needs, to do house chores, help them get around, do their grocery and keep them company while they recover. He is assigned to a girl who ended up blind after one of the Chitauri shot at her.
+
Imagine HYDRA has been quietly watching Loki living a quiet life on Earth. They decide it’s finally time to bring him into the fold. It doesn’t exactly work out the way they intended.
RATING: T
NOTES/WARNING: Hi, y'all! I haven’t written in a fair while, so I did a quick little one-shot with Charlie to get myself back into shape. It’s probably rough, but cut me some slack! If you’re interested in reading other Charlie stories (there’s a bunch!), you can find them on my masterlist here. Language, mentions of violence, attacks and blood, one v angry human, and typos probably.
XX
“Loki, it’s a stomach ache. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.” Charlie remarked for the fiftieth time that morning as she gently shoved the darling Asgardian she called a boyfriend away from her.
Loki huffed for about the same number time. “According to your interweb healers, it could be an autoimmune disorder, an ulcer or gastric cancer! Forgive me if I’m a little worried about–”
“WebMD is not a qualified physician, Loki Odinson! Settle. The fuck. Down!”
Though her tone was no-nonsense, a smile was tugging at the left corner of her plump lips, evidence that she was not nearly as cross as she portrayed herself to be. When she brushed past him, Loki circled his arms around her waist and tugged her into his body, peppering her face with kisses as she made noises of weak protest. Despite his best advances (and really, he was doing his best work here) her laughter began to trickle down and out of existence.
“Loki, stop,” she said firmly, though he was only half listening.
“Stop!” The Prince froze, holding her loosely in his arms. Her tone wasn’t exactly what had caused her to stop his affectionate attack, though. It was the fact that her whole frame had stilled, and her eyes danced from spot to spot as she concentrated on something. “Can you hear that?”
Loki tilted his head and focused. It took a moment, as out of practice in paranoia as he was, but eventually he heard the very distinct pounding of military-grade rubber on linoleum. “Boots.” Quietly, he righted himself, taking silent, measured steps around the furniture, leading Charlie along with him. “Come on. Bedroom. Quickly.”
No sooner had he gotten those words out, the front door slammed open, leaving Charlie to yelp behind him, a handful of his gray heather t-shirt keeping her anchored to his frame. As Loki saw it, there were three men in the immediate vicinity, waving odd-looking guns that bore the signature of the Chitauri. These were not aliens, though. They were humans, who somehow found a way to retrofit the technology to make more powerful weapons. Many had been foolish enough to try it throughout the years, but only one entity bore the skull and tentacled monster on their insignia.
HYDRA.
This was definitely not a great time to still be without magic.
At once, he tried to school the rhythm of his heart, knowing that Charlie was distinctly in tune with the beat and would worry if it seemed like he was in a panic. With delicate fingers, he stroked at her curls, intending to burrow into his side. “Put your arm around me, tuck your head in, don’t let go. Got it?”
She offered little resistance to the order, humming her consent and wrapping her arm tightly around his torso. The feeling gave him comfort, funnily enough, that he was still the warrior that he had trained to be in his youth, despite having lived like a spoiled house cat for the last couple of years. Where in his youth there was glory and blood to be won, today there was only one objective–keep Charlie safe. Loki moved the second the intruders set their scopes on him. Reaching to his left, he grabbed a handful of kitchen knives which would have to do in this pinch and engaged with a growl.
Charlie whimpered, her legs struggled to keep up with his. She could not anticipate his movement and was mostly just being pushed and pulled around the floor while Loki seemed to be skillfully weaving like he was dancing. It also didn’t help that with every jerk of her body and awkward moment, there was the sickening sound of injury filling her ears. In one very distinct occasion, she could feel the breaking of some sort of bone reverberate through her own hand as Loki delivered a blow. Surely, it would be a lot easier for Loki to fight if he didn’t have to worry about Charlie behind him, and the awkward shuffle he had to do to make sure she was never exposed to any of these intruders took significant mental acuity.
When the three in the room had been dealt with, Loki reached for one of their weapons and Charlie’s mobile. He wasted to no time in moving them back through the bedroom door and locking it. Surely, more men would come.
“Stark!”
“Loki, I am, er, dealing with something right now!” The sound of bullets and flying mortar filled the line along with FRIDAY’s voice in the suit. “I’ll need to call you back!”
“Loki.” Charlie’s voice was small and trembling beside him.
Sighing, Loki wrapped his free arm around her and pulled Charlie into his chest. “I have you, love. Don’t worry.”
His lips pressed into her crown. A little bit of battle had shaken away the rust of his instincts and he could feel the distinctive prickle of enemies closing in. He prayed quietly to any entity that would bear to hear his prayers that they would be left alone. There was more noise beyond the door and Loki was left to coo Charlie into silence. He understood her fear, everything to her was a surprise, doubly so when she was scared and couldn’t bring herself to concentrate on her surroundings.
“I’m going to need you to run to the bathroom and lock yourself there, dove.”
Her hazel eyes zeroed in on him with rage-filled acuity. “You’re insane if you think I’m leaving you.”
“Darling, I cannot protect you if I’m busy minding you from getting hurt!”
Her eyes widened. There was panic in her empty gaze if the fidgeting of her fisted hands was anything to go by and it pained him to think that he could not even offer her an empty promise. “No, please! Please, don’t leave me. I–I can’t deal with it if you’re not with me.”
Loki smiled, sighing at the sweet ache of her words on his heart, and cupped her cheeks, dusting them with speckles of others’ blood. “You are braver than this, Charlotte Camden.” His thumbs brushed over her bronzed cheekbones affectionately. “I know you are. So you go and keep yourself safe and I will–”
The bedroom door rammed open with a deafening crash of cracked wood and rained splinters over the couple.
“Go! Go now!”
Charlie reluctantly disengaged, taking a running leap towards the bathroom door and slammed it behind her. Her ear pressed up against the wood to hear the scuffling. It sounded like a bigger force had come in and Charlie swallowed the panicked yelp threatening to bubble up her throat. Loki was a great fighter, but without his magic there was little for him to do if he was incapacitated. All she could do was hope that he was faster, stronger, better than these intruders.
And that’s when she heard it.
His voice.
Screaming.
Screaming like he did when he had a nightmare.
Screaming like when he remembered the blood and gore that he caused and the damage he had done.
Screaming like when he discovered that the extent of his monstrosity went beyond a lineage he had been lied about and the fickle lies he had been fed by a tyrant.
And then she heard it again.
And again.
And again…
And just when she thought her heart could take no more, she heard a body thud onto the ground and the shuffling stop and she feared the worst.
And then her bracelets activated.
Nearly a year of having the damn things on her and she had forgotten that they served any purpose other than setting off the metal detectors everywhere she went. The nanites built up around her in one swift wave. It took Charlie a moment to orient herself back to the seeing world. The colors on the screen still gave her a headache, her eyes still were unfocused, but that was due to her nearsightedness more than anything else, but it was still usable. And the updates Tony had made to the AI over the years made it easy to navigate through the controls.
She kicked the door open at once. Five figures turned back to her while another three were trying to get Loki’s annoyingly heavy body onto a cot to wheel him away. There was blood on his shirt, wounds seeping the dark treacly liquid from stab wounds used to subdue him, he looked pale, but his chest was still moving air and he was muttering deliriously under his breath.
He was alive.
So every one of them now had to die.
The gauntlets whined as the blasters charged and knocked them clean out of their boots. She supposed Tony didn’t think she would ever try to blast anything at full power, but lo and behold her rage was transcendental. They tried to restructure, protect the ones trying to take Loki away while fighting her off. Bullets ricocheted off her armor, letting her forge forward, blasters pumping out energy and leaving a trail of crumpled bodies. Taking a run, her body propelled off the ground, landing with a loud thud just in front of the door and cutting off their escape.
“Put. Him. Down.”
Rifles came up to point at her. Seven in total. They fired in unison, and she raised her arms, flinching instinctually from the projectiles that were intent on ripping into her armor. Charlie’s teeth grit tightly as she waited for the jolt of bullets to knock her backwards. They never came.
I thought it might be helpful to unlock Loki’s magic from the bracelets, the AI spoke into her ear.
When she blinked up, a blanket of green held the bullets in place, swirling in the ether of his magic. Her breath caught. This was definitely not something Tony had mentioned the last time she went in for a tune-up. He had failed to mention that the dampener Loki wore, implanted just under the skin of his bicep was feeding directly into the nanites or that there was any way to access the power. What was stranger was that the magic even listened to her, in the first place. By Loki’s tales, it was untamable force and most sorcerers never got very far without proper instruction. This was most odd.
Guns cocked and reloaded, breaking her out of her reverie. With a flick of her fingers, the bullets turned and resumed their trajectory, delivered back to sender. Another flourish, she disposed of the ones carrying the medical backboard with Loki in it and he fell to the carpeted ground with a groan.
Headache in full swing, she ran to his side, pushing away bodies to fall to her knees beside him. Nanites receded from her hands to touch his cheek.
“Loki. Babe, look at me.”
A wry smile curled his lips. “I am. I’m just very tired.” He chuckled, ending it with a cough and a groan. “Well, that answers the question where has my magic gone all this time?” He blinked a little longer each time as the darkness threatened to drag him down.
“Don’t close your eyes. Please. I need to get you to Tony’s.”
He giggled a little deliriously. “Magic suits you, petal.”
“Jesus, I really do need to get you to Tony’s.” Nanites back over her hands, she pulled his long frame into her arms and heaved. Even with the armor, he was decidedly heavier than any human she had ever met. For a second, she debated going out the front door, but seeing as her apartment was pretty much totaled, anyway, she burst through a window and into the New York skyline.
X
Loki blinked awake to the sounds of Charlie berating someone to within an inch of their life. He smiled, settling back into the covers with a grin despite the obvious pain radiating from just under his ribs and the dull ache in his skull. He peeked an eye open to see Stark, actively cowering backwards, away from her tone, narrowly avoiding her walking cane whenever she gestured wildly.
“It would have been nice to know how to activate the damn thing before Loki got fucking stabbed or I felt absolutely sure that he was dead because you put in a life or death trigger on the damn suit! And don’t get me fucking started on the fact that I’ve been carrying Loki’s magic for the last year and had no fucking clue about it!”
“I’m sorry! I was trying to keep you from playing with the suit for funsies instead of–”
“WE ALMOST DIED AND YOU WERE BUSY WITH YOUR OWN HYDRA ASSHOLES! WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO? WAIT FOR YOU TO GET YOUR ASS KICKED BEFORE–”
“Charlie, love,” Loki hoarsed, and the tirade immediately quieted. Charlie rushed over to the bedside, briefly tripping over a chair leg before clambering onto his cot and covering his face with kisses. “Dove, I’m bound to be disgusting at the moment,” he protested weakly, but still pulled her closer by the waist.
“I don’t care. I love you.”
“I love you, too. My savior.” He cupped her face in his hands, absorbing the warmth from her beaming smile. “Glorious. Truly glorious.” He ran his fingers through her curls, bringing them back into shape from their crumpled form. Clearly she had been sleeping here with him and not necessarily keeping up with brushing–that was usually his task, anyway–but her crumpled clothes and dark circles under her eyes belied the worry she felt for him. It made his stomach warm several times over.
“I found your magic.”
He chuckled. “I recall. You can keep it safe for me.” He looked briefly at Tony who was pretending not to smile in the corner. “Do we know what happened?”
“Looking for you, buddy boy. They were a little disappointed you couldn’t do the hocus pocus stuff, but they caught onto the problem pretty quick.”
“I’m the problem,” Charlie muttered, snuggling into his side.
“Mmm, what a lovely problem to have,” he whispered before kissing her crown.
“Look, I’ll talk to your old man and see if we can’t get your sparkles and pixie dust ban lifted–”
“Don’t bother. I can teach Charlie how to use magic if you give her access. He said I couldn’t use seidr, not that I couldn’t teach someone else to wield it.”
Tony looked apprehensive, wincing slightly at the suggestion. “You sure you want to give Live Wire there that kind of ammunition?”
“Oh, if they don’t want to allow me to use my power, that is fine. But I am making her everyone’s problem. Aren’t I, sweet?”
Charlie simply snickered, leaving Tony to groan loudly as he stepped out of the hospital room.
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