#Loki's going to have to prove himself again for real when he TRIED to avoid the war and unleashing the bifrost

[strsburn]

destiny led me to you | loki

pairing - loki laufeyson x female reader

synopsis - driven by the heartbreak of losing your entire world by the hands of thanos, you set out to find him, leaving destruction in your path in multiple universes; thus creating a horde of branches in the timeline and catching the attention of the TVA.

but you would do it all again if it meant you could see him once more.

notes - this is hopefully going to be a series, depending on the feedback i receive, i plan to follow the episodes only slightly because i dont want it to be an exact copy of the show.

[THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR LOKI SERIES]

idea credit ( @horrorisunknowntoyou ) thank you for the inspo and allowing me to run with it!

warnings - death, violence, angst, and possible smut (in later chapters?)

wc - 2.4k

MASTERLIST • AO3

"Dread it, run from it. Destiny arrives all the same." A wrinkled hand reaches for your chin, running prune colored fingers along your jawline, doting; mockingly.

Your heartbeat pulses loudly in your ears, eyes glazing over with exhaustion and pain as you attempt to glare, the notion in vain as the titan merely chuckled amusedly.

"I can see great power in you, little one. An infinity stone pulses beneath your every vein. Tell me, where is the tesseract?"

You remain silent.

"We don't have the tesseract, it was destroyed along with all of Asgard." Thor interjects weakly from where he lies, his body held tightly in the arms of the black order.

Guilt sweeps across your being as you make eye contact with Loki, sharing a single nod as you both know what you must do.

Thanos grows annoyed with your unwillingness to comply as he walks over with loud steps, his footprints visible as he raises his gauntlet up, the power stone shining threateningly close to Thor.

"The tesseract, or your brother's head. I assume you have a preference." It's not a question. Merely a statement, one that Loki knows he must prove unbothered.

"Oh, I do. Kill away." To anyone else it would seem he couldn't care less about his brother's demise, but you know your love better than he does himself and you catch the glance of fear that washes over cerulean eyes.

You can only watch in trepidation as the stone makes contact with the God's head. Agonized cries escaping as his skin is burned by the mere power of the stone.

Loki does his best to look unaffected, but you catch the hitch in his breath as he batters inner turmoil. the universe, or his brother.

"Alright, that's enough!"

Loki turns his palm up, as a familiar blue cube materializes in his hand. The eerie blue glow casting a shadow upon his face.

Thanos steps away, smug. You force yourself to look away from Thor's accusing gaze.

"You truly are the worst, brother." Thor shakes his head, eyes disappointed but not surprised.

As Thanos moves to take the stone from his hand cerulean blue eyes make contact with your own and you feel a wave of fear wash over you as you recognize the look in Loki's eyes.

"I assure you, brother. The sun will shine on us again." He does not move his gaze from your own and you can't help but feel this is an unspoken goodbye.

"Your optimism is misplaced, asgardian."

"Well, for one thing, I'm not asgardian. For another, we have a hulk."

In a blur of color you are shoved from where you lie, a slithe figure covering your own as you breathe in the familiar scent of cinnamon and leather.

"We don't have much time, my love. I just want you to know that I love you dearly, and I am grateful for the time I had with you. May I see you again, in Valhalla." His eyes are teary and you barely process his words, as his hands grab hold of your face and pull you into a kiss.

The kiss is desperate, filled with love and grief and you can only briefly kiss your love back as he steps closer to Thanos, rambling on about undying fidelity.

You catch a glimpse of silver behind his back and you gasp as realization sets in.

You move to reach him just as he leaps for Thanos, the knife poised for his head, frozen in mid air as the stones across his knuckles pulse.

"Undying fidelity, you should choose your words more wisely."

You cry out as Loki struggles in his grip, his skin fading blue. You crawl forward, legs aching as you reach for him, your progress hinged by your inability to walk.

"You will never be a god." The rasped words are followed by a snap as his neck gives out beneath Thanos' hands.

A tortured scream rings out and it takes you a second to realize it's your own. A broken sob leaves you as you crawl forward to reach where Thanos has carelessly thrown the body of your love.

You heave as your shaky fingers caress his face, his lifeless eyes staring ahead as you clutch him to your chest.

You rock back and forth knotting your fingers in his hair as you plead for the nightmare to end.

"No resurrections this time."

A portal opens and closes behind you, yet you make no motion to move.

You simply close your eyes and welcome the sweet release of death as the universe explodes around you.

N E W Y O R K 2 0 1 2

"'Coordinates for search and rescue, on my way now.' I mean honestly, how-" Loki is promptly shut up by the mouth guard that decorates his face, courtesy of his brother.

Displeasure makes an appearance as Loki is led to the elevator followed by the avengers that quickly file in. The only source of entertainment being the temper tantrum the green beast throws as he is denied entry. Loki can hardly contain his glee as he waves mockingly as the doors close.

As he is led to the ground floor his cuffed hands clinking annoyingly with every step he glances wearily around himself, dreading the lecture that is sure to come once he reaches asgard. He has no doubt in his mind that Odin will find perfect reason to throw him to the wolves, lest his mother get involved.

As he contemplates, his attention is caught by the sound of his brother calling for help, the guards holding him, attending to what he perceives to be a heart attack, to none other than the man of metal.

He watches, confused as a small stature kicks the case holding the tesseract away from view as the others tend to Stark.

Looking around bemused he watches to see what will conspire next. Before any other move can be made a shout is heard as the doors to the staircase along with the wall is torn apart, the hulk making his distaste for the tedious activity known.

For once since meeting the beast he feels thankful, as the case holding the tesseract is knocked open, the familiar cube sliding towards his foot.

A beat passes and grabbing a hold of the familiar cube he glances around, vanishing in a thin cloud of blue.

T V A U N K N O W N

Hurried footsteps echo down the corridor as the man moves with barely contained excitement. Tie swinging to and fro, a slightly wrinkled hand pulls at the collar of his neck nervously.

Mobius had seen many variants in his time at the TVA. Yet, none had ever come close to interesting as the file he currently held in one hand. Variant L1130 or Loki, as he was called, was perhaps one of the most complicated cases he had come across.

Born as a legend of mythology it was quite unbelievable to know that not only was he real, but he happened to be in their custody for creating a new branch in the timeline. Mobius could only hope Renslayer would agree to allowing him to be the God's superior.

Entering the courtroom, Mobius sits down and watches with rapt attention as Loki attempts to bargain with Ravonna. His plans are foiled as he tries to call upon his magic in a last effort to escape.

Mobius feels it's time to intervene when Renslayer makes it clear he is to be executed.

"You have no idea what I am capable of!"

"Actually I might have an idea of what he is capable of." He offers as he makes his way up to the stand.

His plea must be written across his face as Ravonna leans over to look at him directly.

"Whatever you're planning, it's a bad idea." She warns.

Nonetheless she reluctantly lets him go and Mobius has to fight off the urge to fist pump the air as he escorts Loki down the hallway.

"Oh, I'm Agent Mobius by the way." He offers a hand that is quickly ignored.

He can practically see the distrust written on Loki's face, his eyes calculating every move he makes.

Mobius is hardly surprised that as soon as he enters the room, his back turned to the God as he adjusts his projector, Loki is surging forward to attack. He doesn't even bat an eyelash as he clicks a button on his remote, resetting the God as if the action never even happened.

"C'mon, let's take a look at some of your greatest hits." Mobius waves a hand, as Loki curiously sits down, eyes trained on the projector.

He finds himself staring back at a hologram of his attack on New York. His blue eyes darting back and forth with glee as chaos erupts around him.

A feeling of something akin to shame runs down his spine as he recalls his reign of terror on the city, an illusion of preying on the weak to hide his own fear, lest he fail and succumb to Thanos and his minions.

Loki clenches his jaw, arms crossing over his form in an attempt to hide himself as he turns to avoid the screen.

"I see no point in this-"

"No, no wait, this is just getting good." Mobius grins as he points to the screen and Loki finds himself once again face to face with another variation of himself.

He briefly recalls the time he had lost a bet to Thor and had to change his form into that of a ginger haired man wearing a clean three piece suit, claiming he had a bomb and required over two hundred thousand in midgardian money just to see if he could pull it off. He did, in fact, pull it off, but his mother was not happy as well as the midgardians who failed to solve the case, naming him D.B. Cooper as they had no clue as to his real identity.

His attention is pulled to the screen as a familiar voice of silk enters the scene and he watches as his mother speaks to his future self, his eyes drawn into her face.

"Then am I not your mother?" He hears her ask. Yes, you are.

"No. You are not." Loki's eyes start to mist as he watches the look of hurt pass over his mother's features before she schools her expression into one of contempt.

"Always so perceptive, about everyone but yourself." She decides.

The screen flickers and he sees himself talking to an intruder, his voice amused as he suggests the monster to take the stairs to the left.

Then, his mother, Frigga, lying on the cold ground, a puddle of red growing rapidly beneath her body as her eyes remained closed.

His breath hitches, anger now licking up his spine. He turns sharply to Mobius who smartly remains silent.

"What is this! Some cruel joke? Where is she?! Where do you have her?"

Mobius steps forward, expression neutral as he speaks.

"She's dead Loki. This is the future, it's destined to happen, again and again because that's how it should be."

Loki falters his eyes narrowing as he spits "You're lying! I'll kill you!"

"What? Like you killed your mother."

There's a split second of silence before an angered shout is heard, a chair splitting the air as it crashes into pieces along the floor.

Before anything else can be said Mobius is summoned by Hunter B-15, his eyes falling to Loki who remains silent and he leaves with a slight tinge of guilt burrowing in his chest at the haunted look in the God's eyes.

"You think yourself so sly don't you." Loki looks up at the unfamiliar voice as the projector suddenly comes to life, a new image flicking gently on screen. His eyes catch upon your form and he watches in awe and wonder as you sit beside his future self.

"I don't think, love. I know." He grins leaning in to steal a kiss from you that leaves you both breathless.

He watches as your eyes are filled with nothing but love and adoration for him as you lean into his side.

"Loki?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you believe in soulmates?"

Loki tilts his head in contemplation as he looks to you, before a soft grin pulls at his lips.

"I didn't until I met you. I know that no matter who or what tries to tear us apart, we will always find a way back to each other."

A smile breaks out onto your face and Loki watches in stunned silence as the clip ends with the two of your voices fading into laughter.

"You two are meant to be together."

Loki turns as Mobius slowly comes to a stop behind him, his expression thoughtful.

"I don't enjoy hurting people you know." He responds, motioning towards the screen in reference to his attack on New York and the death of his mother.

Mobius doesn't respond, and he takes that as a sign to continue.

"I do it because I have to. Because I've had to." He looks down as he fiddles with his fingers.

Mobius hums as he replies.

"Why? Why do you think that is?"

"It's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear."

Realization lights up in Mobius' eyes as he answers back.

"A desperate play for control. You do know yourself."

"A villain." Loki sums up.

"Not the way I see it."

There's a mutual silence between them before Mobius sighs.

"Look I can't offer you salvation but I can offer you something better. A fugitive variant has been killing our minutemen."

"And let me guess, you need the God of Mischief to help you stop him."

"That's right."

"How could I possibly be of use to you?"

"That's the thing. The variant we are hunting, we believe is y/n." Mobius looks towards the projector where your image is still.

"I beg your pardon?"

U N K N O W N

Mutilated bodies line the floor as a hooded figure steps over them, eyes glowing an unnatural hue.

"Is it finished?"

"Yes."

A wicked laugh fills the empty space as a portal opens in the deserted land, a set of footsteps following through.

"I'm coming for you, my love."

#loki series #loki x reader #loki laufeyson x female reader #tom hiddleston #loki spoilers #fanfic #loki fanfic #bizzarebarnes

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Alright so I've seen a lot of opinions floating around and now it's time to add my two cents: the show's Loki is both similar to and distinct from the Loki we remember, and that is, or at least can be, a good thing

We have this idea of the "Loki we know," and we're frustrated that he's not being adapted faithfully--and to a degree, this is correct. Marvel very intentionally chose 2012 Loki as the version to resurrect, because that is when Loki was at the height of his popularity. By doing this, they could get the fanbase that Loki has always had to watch the show, while also avoiding much of the character distortion that came after TDW. A great idea! But then, instead of bringing this character into the show and authentically representing him, they smashed him up with Ragnarok Loki's portrayal. This was mostly done to engage general viewers and to maintain a slightly lighter tone, but both of these are mistakes: first of all, the general viewership has never been Loki's core, active fanbase. But I get it--you want to make money. The second, more egregious mistake, is that you absolutely could have kept a lighter tone with 2012's Loki, and then easily adapted him from there. At the end of Avengers, he's making jokes, and we see even more of these in Endgame. That's humor that's authentic to the character, and doesn't feel disrespectful like Ragnarok was. When we see the Ragnarok style of humor popping up, we immediately get defensive because of how that movie treated him, and we say, "This isn't the Loki we know." But the Loki we know is, to a degree...wrong.

This might seem a bit harsh at first, but I think the fandom as a whole is unwilling to let go of a slightly distorted version of Loki, and that's coloring the fan response to the show. Because we've spent so long with a character that has had relatively few instances of development or even screen time, we've become attached to the version of the character we think we know, sometimes without realizing that collective memory has shifted our perception of him slightly. We're unwilling to let the character change at all, even if at points this growth could be done well--and even if the character was faithfully adapted, he would be met with criticism because he wouldn't be "what we know"; he couldn't be, because we as a fandom created that character, over time and without really recognizing it. To a degree, that kind of misplaced criticism is mixing with the legitimate critiques of the series. It makes us unwilling to look at the good things that are present, even among the flaws.

As an example, let's talk about Loki as a planner, and how his actions in the series compare to those in the earlier movies. A common sentiment I've heard is that throughout episode two (and to a degree, episode one) Loki is just kind of going along with everything. He doesn't seem to have a plan, and this makes people uncomfortable, since the "Loki we know" was a great planner. Wasn't he?

Most of the basis for the "Loki we know," comes from Thor and Thor: the Dark World, so I'll be using those as my "proof texts," so to speak. In those two movies, we see plenty of examples of Loki making spur-of-the-moment decisions to take advantage of a situation; he's a very flexible, adaptable character by nature (as I've discussed before), so this makes sense. The trouble is, I think the fandom memory of Loki has shifted enough that we forget exactly why and how he makes these decisions, and how they turn out. In contrast to what those films actually show us, we tend to think of Loki as a very strategic character, who is too clever to be caught off-guard. That's not the case.

Loki, in those films, has very little grasp or consideration of the consequences of his actions, because his emotions cloud his judgement; because of this, his plans (which are created responsively), and even actions he does not plan, fall apart disastrously. In Thor, when Thor is banished from Asgard, Loki sees an opportunity to step into the role his brother had filled. Then he discovers he is actually Laufey's son, and in response to this news and Odin's falling into Odinsleep, Loki plans to double-cross Laufey and kill him to prove his loyalty, taking the throne in the interim. He does have a plan, but it's one that he developed rather spontaneously based on the circumstances--he didn't plan for Odin to fall asleep so that he could assume the throne, that just...happened, and Loki forms a plan to adapt to it. But when he hears that Thor is trying to return to Asgard, all of his insecurities, compounded by having just discovered that he's actually a Jotun, come back full force; desperate to keep the small bit of identity he thinks he's managed to find, Loki sends an Automaton to kill Thor--whom he loves, and has even said so several times in the film--and then tries to destroy the Bifrost to keep Thor from coming back. These are decisions Loki hasn't truly evaluated; if he had, he wouldn't have made them, because they don't line up with his actual goal, as we see when Thor arrives. When Thor confronts him, Loki essentially has a breakdown, admitting in tears that his real motivation for all of this was just to be considered Thor's equal. He didn't hate Thor, he didn't hate Odin, he didn't even want to be king--he just wanted to be loved as much as his brother. But along the way, his real goal was clouded by his emotional state, and he stopped thinking clearly, instead just lashing out in a desperate bid to protect himself from more pain.

We see something similar occur in Thor: TDW. When Loki sends the guards "up the stairs to the left," he's not thinking about who they might find--he's just lashing out because he's been abandoned by his family, and he wants to exert whatever influence he can over the situation. He wants to do something, especially if it causes problems for Odin and Thor, and he thinks the opportunity has just landed in his lap. He hardly planned for it, but he's not going to pass it up. So he takes it unhesitatingly--and his mother dies. (Coincidentally, after both his father's rejection and his mother's death, Loki nearly dies himself, and at least one of those instances was deliberate. Hmmm...Loki doesn't want to live with the consequences of his actions? It's too painful for him to face what he's done?? Hmm??? But that's beside the point.) Once again, Loki's goals are unclear, and things go wrong because he's just acting on emotion.

All this to say, for Loki, plans are very flexible things that are basically defined as "whatever works best to get what I want," so to say that Loki is just going along with things in the series, and is thus out-of-character, is a bit of an unfair criticism; despite our misremembering, he is, as he's always done, very much acting as a reactive planner. As I've spelled out before, when Loki is thrown into the new environment of the TVA, he immediately starts gathering information, and shaping his responses based off of what he finds. He takes the chances he has to feel things out (at the Renaissance fair, for example), but mostly he bides his time and actively observes until an opportunity arises. This is standard for him, but viewers haven't really been receptive to it, because it isn't what we're expecting.

Now, Loki claims to have a larger plan (something that we think we remember being common), but that's not actually the case. When speaking to Lady Loki/(Enchantress??), he says his ultimate goal is to overthrow the TVA--but he also framed his supposed overall plan as "get an audience with the Time Keepers" when speaking to Mobius. Neither of these are true. In order to more effectively manipulate others, he pretends to have large-scale motivations: with Lady Loki/Enchantress, he knows she will likely only respect him if he claims to have an endgame, since she so clearly does herself, so he manufactures one she likely wouldn't oppose. Mobius, on the other hand, would likely be suspicious without the red-herring Loki throws him; since Mobius believes Loki's trying to get an audience with the Time Keepers, he doesn't become suspicious about how quickly Loki becomes eager to catch the other variant, which would otherwise have been an appropriately huge red flag. But these are just misdirections, further things that Loki is doing to keep himself in the best position possible. That's why his claims of a grand plan (particularly to Lady Loki/Enchantress) sound sudden or unrealistic: they are. But because we think we remember Loki being someone who would have a larger plan, we aren't able to see that he doesn't need to.

This time, unlike in Thor and TDW, Loki's immediate goals are clear: escape the TVA. Be free. Despite Mobius' attempts to get him into a hyper-emotional, and thus, less careful, state of mind, Loki keeps his wits about him. He's intentional with his decisions. He's not lashing out. For once, he's aware of and considers the consequences of his actions--we see him weighing the options as he stands in front of the portal--and he makes the right decisions because his goal is clear in his mind. And this makes all the difference. Loki plays the game expertly, and for the first time, he wins--he escapes.

And I think this is an excellent development, one that deserves more appreciation than we're giving it. It's a good thing that he's not behaving how we think we remember him, as some master planner--that would be being unfaithful to his character. Loki isn't the same as Lady Loki/Enchantress. He doesn't have a grand plan. He just, finally, knows what he really wants. That shows growth, and that is the kind of change we have to want to see, and be willing to accept; so in that regard, it's even good that this Loki is different than he actually was. The Loki we see in Thor and TDW is a highly emotional, and very broken, character, who reacts to his environment often without thinking of the potential consequences; the Loki we're being shown here is still emotional, still clearly affected by what he's gone through, but is now able--or is now being allowed!--to demonstrate his actual capabilities. He ACTUALLY GETS WHAT HE WANTS. That's the first time that's happened, the first time his attempts to protect himself or outsmart someone have actually ended in success instead of disaster. And that's exactly what you should do with a character.

Now, a valid quibble with Loki's characterization is that these things are not obvious, and that is a very legitimate criticism. It's hard to see that Loki is manipulating Mobius by pretending to be helpful, because the show seems to be framing it in a way that encourages us to take Loki at face value. Loki's behavior is an intentional obfuscation, but it can be hard to realize that if it seems like that's what the show is telling us Loki really is. Personally, I justify this by saying that the show is showing us Loki as he wants to be perceived--when Loki is bluffing in episode one, he seems cartoonish and over the top, but certainly nothing like he actually is, and this is what he intends. When he seems too jovial and trusting in episode two, that's because that's what he's presenting to Mobius. It's about whether we buy into the act as much as the other characters do--which is why Loki's most in-character scenes come when he's alone. When he has no one to perform for, he stops performing for us, too, and we see the genuine presentation. But, I could be wrong--maybe this isn't intentional at all. Maybe the writers really are just trying to revamp a character from 2012 and are doing it clumsily, and that's why he seems out of character in moments like those. It's too early to say, and honestly, we may never be sure.

But there are real, valid, and undeniable moments of positive development, the likes of which Loki has never had the space to experience before. They are present if you are willing to look--but they are much less obvious to people who don't want to see them. I agree, they are hard to see, and if I'm being honest, I haven't loved the show anywhere near as much as I would have liked to so far. But I think the fandom as a whole is so caught up in this idea of the "Loki we know" that they don't see the Loki we have for what he is--people are too attached to a misremembering of Loki's previous actions to realize that the change in his behavior isn't a regression or a flaw in his writing but a sign of growth. We're too attached to his brokenness and weakness to let him become strong.

We are defensive about Loki's character because of how it's been mishandled in the past, but if you actually look, you'll find that there is actually a lot of good in what we're being given. I'd agree that the show has to get better about making that obvious if it wants to succeed. But I think some of the harsh criticism the show has been receiving is unwarranted. It might not be perfect, and some of these decisions on the parts of the writers might not be intentional, but Loki has always been a character we've had to think about in order to understand him. Just like this show, there is much good about him beneath the surface. And for as much trouble as it causes sometimes--I'm glad that isn't changing.

#loki #loki series #loki series spoilers #meta #marvel #my meta posts #i just want us to give it a chance ok? if we give it a chance and think about it who knows--maybe it will surprise us just like loki does #and i do think that we have grown so attached to 'our' version of loki that we haven't realized it isn't truly attainable #we've had nothing for so long that we've formed this idealized image of the character that no portrayal can ever live up to #and while this is a natural consequence of how marvel has handled things i don't believe it's fair to judge it so quickly #we should keep an open mind is how i see it. who knows? maybe things will change. #and i have a feeling that that openness to change will be a major theme of the show #loki as a character is finding himself and perhaps we can find him along with him #because some change is necessary to bring him successfully into the present mcu. and they can handle it better--but so can we #this might be a hot take? idk i just have a lot of thoughts #but please no discourse! discussion is encouraged and i know emotions run high bc loki is very important to us but let's be kind ❤️ #kay has a party in the tags #kay can i just catch my breath for a second #quality meta seal of approval #not to hype my own post up i just put that on all meta posts so that i can find them

[midnightsnace]

A Thousand Worlds

Summary: Fix it fic of sorts after the trauma that was episode 6 of the Loki series. Loki is in pain after discovering Mobius doesn’t remember him. He’s been living in apocalypses to avoid capture by this new TVA until he formulates a plan to get his Mobius back.

Rating: T for later chapters

Emotional angst.

Chapter One.

Chapter Two.

“And so that’s where I grew up, the ends of a thousand worlds.”

The ends of a thousand worlds. The words of his accomplice echoed through the god’s mind as he fiddled with the straps of his worn and tattered holster. The fluorescent above him flickered with every gust of wind that battled against the sides of the building that Loki was crouched down in. He slid his long legs out against the tiled floor in front of him and sat with his head propped against the wall. He sighed. Loki tapped his foot on the door of the space he was hiding in to close it, drowning out the cries of fear from the people outside in their final hours of life. There he sat waiting for the tempad to charge. Alone. Living in another world where every person he met would be dead by the end of the day. Another world where Mobius didn’t exist. His Mobius.

Was this what it was like? For her? To never be able to stay in one place for more than a day? To always see the same faces riddled with fear as they awaited their painful fate? To only know destruction, screaming, fires, earthquakes, the literal gates of hel? To be utterly alone with your only desire to live in the hope that one day your glorious purpose would be fulfilled?

Glorious purpose.

Loki scoffed. The god didn’t know what his purpose was anymore. Taking down the TVA was a complete failure. The chances for fixing the mess they started seemed impossible now as branches grew and new timelines erupted, with endless TVAs to monitor every universe. At least, that’s what Loki assumed. He knew next to nothing about what they had unleashed. It wasn’t the same TVA. Different hunters, different analysts, different ruler. Many he recognized, but they were still different people. They weren’t the same. She wasn’t the real B. He wasn’t his Mobius. And Loki was at a complete loss on how to find them again.

The first tempad he stole only brought him back to the place he snatched it from. The same Time Variance Authority where Mobius didn’t remember him and not a single file existed for Loki Laufeyson, God of Mischief, God of Outcasts, God of Lies. Even when he dragged the analyst through the timedoor into the roxxcart parking lot to access his memories, nothing existed of him. No laughter over silly metaphors, mischief at pompeii, not even the memory of their first encounter in the elevator. It was like they never met. This led to Loki wasting away their days hopping from one disaster to the next until his brain racked up a solution. The TVA never once did follow him. Why would they? No one remembered his brilliant discovery about the apocalypses. He could run free. But as the days whittled by, the hope Loki had began to fade into nothingness.

For awhile he kept track of the places he went and the time that had passed.

Day 1 - I finally stole a tempad and left that dreadful place. I came here first. Hoping I’d see you. But I guess that’s not how time travel works in apocalypses. No trace we were ever here. The storm reminded me of my brother. I hope to see him again one day. Now that I know we could have been friends. Everything was eventually going to be okay.

Day 24 - I’ve been sitting in a coffee shop awaiting the earthquake of 2098. Met a lovely redhead with the most peculiar of tattoos. But alas! Little does she know this friendship could never blossom in the wake of death!

Day 37 - I miss him. My brother. The pain that solitude brings makes me think of home more often. How ironic that the very place that caused me the most pain I miss. But anything is better than this. So today I visited home right before its destruction. I saw my brother. I saw Thor from afar. Oh how I wish I could have talked to him somehow and tell him i’m sorry for being such an ass.

Being there brought back memories of the silly metaphor he made using Mobius’ lunch. The corners of Loki’s mouth crept into a smile at the thought. But that smile faded away in the next second and was replaced with tears.

Day 56 - I went to Pompeii again. I stood in the shadows. I tried to picture your expressions of skepticism at my insane ideas. I tried to picture how your face lit up with pride and joy when you realized I was right. I wish I could have stayed longer but I never can anywhere I go.

He whistled like a bird before he exited through the time door.

By day 125 he had lost his will to live again. It was their fourth visit to Lamentis-1. Perhaps it was a mistake on his part to journey here once more and feel both the pains of betrayal and heartache at the prospect of never seeing Mobius again. The second time they had visited Lamentis, the god decided to stay until the very last second with the false hope that maybe him facing death would create a nexus event. His mobius would come find him and save him at the last second. But the time door never came. Maybe it was because he knew there was a chance to escape and he could take it. Or maybe it was because there were so many time branches no one would care to fix a world that was about to end.

“You were always meant to be alone.”

And so this time Loki threw the tempad to the ground and waited. He watched as the lethal disaster unfolded before his eyes once more, ready to die. Alone. Alone with no one to assure him everything will be alright in the face of death. Not a single soul would know he was gone. No one would care.

But at the last second they saw something on the tempad that made them change their mind. A glimmer of hope.

Any hope Loki had, a glorious purpose he had left to fulfill, it was in finding Mobius. It was the only desire left that fueled him to keep existing. He was all that mattered. His only friend. The only person left among the universes who trusted him and saw beyond his flaws. The only person left who hadn’t betrayed the fragile levels of trust the god could give. He was his hope that one day, he wouldn’t have to be alone.

And so he found himself walking the streets of New York in the summer of 2197, on the brink of some disaster he knew nothing about. Not a single idea when it would happen, where it would occur, and what he was doomed to witness. He saw something that could potentially lead him to his destination. The tempad had given him an alert for an aura match - two of the same people in one place. An oddity. Something that wasn’t supposed to exist.

They weren’t just any entity either. They were registered hunters in the TVA database. Which meant one had to be from another universe.

And he knew the TVA would be coming for them.

He had to get there first.

Loki speed walked down the sidewalk frantically scanning his surroundings for any clue as to what was happening. He couldn’t read any signs of fear or confusion on the faces of those who passed him. He didn’t know how much time he had.

Upon hearing shouts of anger, Loki broke out into a run across the street towards the source, dodging every dystopian vehicle that nearly collided with him in the process. It was coming from the roof of the parking tower. With a snap of his magic, Loki teleported himself to the top, hiding behind a parked vehicle to assess what he was working with.

There were two agents standing about 10 feet away who looked nearly identical, one waving her arms frantically while the other looked on stoically, possibly from shock, with a pruning stick in hand. Loki locked eyes on the tempad fastened to the belt of the frantic one. Then he glanced at the one in the other hunter’s hand.

Well shit.

Now he had to figure out which agent had jumped from the other timeline. He quickly flashed himself closer to the two, but not before one caught on that someone was there.

“I was given orders by a man to…what was that?” one of the hunters asked.

Loki crouched down farther on the other side of the wall. He reached for a dagger, ready to pounce once their suspicions subsided. They listened intently to the words from the first hunter for the first clue on who to attack.

“He sent me here to grab this,” the hunter pulled up someone on her tempad, “entity and leave. Those were the orders given to me. So if you’ll excuse me.”

The other hunter planted herself in front of her clone. “I can’t let you do that. Not until you’ve told me everything I want to know. How are you me? How is this possible?”

The first hunter was from an alternate timeline. Loki took that as his cue. But before he could sneak behind the hunter, he was shot backwards by a blast of energy from a ring of light.

Out from the ring stepped a peculiar man with graying hair who was wearing blue robes and an assymetrical cloak that sparked the curiosity of the confused hunter. Within a split second, the portal closed behind him. Loki laid very still on the concrete and held his breath in the hopes that the man would believe him to be dead.

“You know I can tell when someone is playing dead.”

Loki grimaced and winced as he heaved himself off the ground. He came face to face with the strange man, his hand lingering in the air where he placed the pocket for his dagger.

“You.” was all the man said.

“Am I supposed to know you?” the god questioned.

“You always manage to show up in New York again at the most in-opportune times.” The man raised his hands and Loki mimicked his movements, summoning his daggers in place.

“I’m gonna assume we’ve met before sir, perhaps in the future? I don’t know! And i’m terribly sorry about New York! Look let me explain…” they lowered their hands in their attempt to make peace with the angry man in front of him.

“Dr. Strange.” He kept his fist in the air, golden sparks flying from whatever spell he had in mind to attack the prince with. “And until you prove otherwise Im going to assume you are here for hostile reasons.”

Loki blinked. Well he’s kind of not wrong, they thought.

“Well I’m afraid I can’t prove anything else.” and with that the god blasted the sorcerer into the nearest column with their magic and teleported across the space.

Loki noticed that one of the hunters had disappeared. He assumed she had returned to the TVA. The other was charging towards him fast. He whipped out his daggers to face his attacker, but suddenly his feet were dragged out from under him and he hit the concrete hard. He was being dragged backwards, body scrapping against the concrete. So fast, that the god could barely think about what was happening to him.

When he came to his senses he cut the magic ropes with his powers and rolled across the ground. So he was dealing with another magic user, this “Dr. Strange.” Loki teleported again before he was up on his feet to where he was standing directly behind the hunter.

“D-11…” Dr. Strange said with a hint of caution in his tone.

So this was the man Hunter D-11 was working for. Before the hunter could turn around to face them, Loki snatched the tempad off her belt and snapped himself to the furthest side of the building. Dr. Strange reacted quickly and stood his ground in front of Loki, prepared to attack again.

“Loki, perhaps we can work out some type of deal. What is it that you want? Maybe I can help you. Maybe we can reach a compromise.”

Offer him a deal? Nah.

“I’m done trusting people I’ve just met. All they ever do is stab me in the back.” he conjured the time door behind him.

Strange titled his head. “You do realize we can follow you right straight back to the TVA?”

Loki turned to face him and D-11. “You’ll never find me. You won’t know the first place to look.” The time door closed with Loki inside of it, before the two even had a chance to reach their hands out to follow the god.

…….

And that’s how Loki had ended up here. At Roxxcart again, waiting for the new tempad to charge up before hopping through timelines again.

He breathed in deeply as he felt the bubble of excitement, relief, and happiness build in his chest for the first time in months at the prospect of achieving his goal. Being reunited with the only one who mattered: Mobius. His Mobius.

But as he released his breath in a sigh, his chest tightened again and worry clouded his mind. What if this didn’t work? What if this was just another dead end? What if this was just another one of the countless TVAs that might exist in the vast multiverse?

At first, all Loki felt was sadness and regret in the days following Sylvie’s betrayal. But now all he felt was anger boiling deep inside him. That same unwelcome feeling he experienced after discovering his father lied to him. The feeling that harbored in the abyss of Thanos’ chambers. The feeling that never left his soul until Mobius looked him in the eyes and assured him that he didn’t have to be the villain in his story.

She had taken everything from him and he was afraid he couldn’t wash away the resentment this time. He wanted desperately to feel anything besides the pain he had known for the past year.

He needed to feel love again.

“He cares about you.”

Loki couldn’t wait any longer. He picked up the tempad and tapped the time door request for the TVA home base. He drew in a shaky breath as he paused in front of the portal.

This was it.

He was either about to be reunited with his greatest source of happiness, or find himself hiding in apocalypses again for months as he searched for another plan.

And he would do it. He would search through a thousand worlds to find him.

#lokius #mobius and loki #loki and mobius #lokius fic #fix it fic #loki fic #mobius fic #mobius m mobius #loki mobius #time husbands #time frost #loki series #loki series fic #ao3 writer #ao3fic #loki fandom #loki laufeyson #loki 2021 #wowki #mobius x loki

[loki-hargreeves]

You Flower, You Feast - Loki x Reader [PART 2]

[PART 1]

Warnings: pregnancy, relationship issues, morning sickness, angst, fighting, flinching, falling ill, magical medical procedures, mentions of death (possibility of dying, but no one dies), mentions of torture, hurt/comfort, bittersweet fluff and implied smut (love making) at the end

Word Count: 8,1K

Summary: Part 2 of ‘you flower, you feast’. You’re pregnant, but you’re hiding the fact from Loki. After his return, he has been different and you haven’t been able to confide in him like you did before. The truth is revealed after you end up in the infirmary after getting sick. The fear of almost losing you makes Loki realize that things need to change, and he finally tells you what happened to him after he fell from the bridge. It seems like he’s finally back again. 

Author’s Note: You don’t really have to read the first part in order to read this, but it would help paint a fuller picture. The first part has smut, but the plot is quite long as well. I hope you’ll enjoy this! Requested by @sunshineyrosie​

   THIRD POV

The sickness took over Y/N by surprise. She had just woken up and she immediately knew that something was wrong. Without wasting any time, she got up from the safety of the warm bed, running toward the bathroom that was in her and Loki’s shared quarters. By the time she reached the toilet, everything she had eaten the previous day came up, making her eyes and nose sting. It made her stomach sick when she coughed up everything which left a foul taste in her mouth. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she had woken up so abruptly. When she was finished, she cleaned up after herself and had to rinse her mouth thoroughly. 

A thought crossed her mind as she wondered why she was so nauseous. Could it be? Could she be pregnant? 

It had been a few weeks since she and Loki had decided to try for a baby. For countless nights, they had been tangled in a rough dance and her body had every mark to prove that. Not that it didn’t feel great, because the rough sex with Loki was mind-blowing, but that was all it was; rough. Loki was still not letting her in. He was hiding behind his tall and strong walls and she was afraid he’d never break them down. It felt like he used the sex as a distraction. 

Y/N put a hand on her stomach and realized that if she was carrying a child - their child - it would change their lives. Would Loki change? What if he stayed the same, distant and rough man. Could that be good for a child? 

“Are you in there?” Loki’s voice startled her. He hadn’t been in bed when she had woken up, but now he was right behind the bathroom door. 

Although she was still in shock, she tried to push her thoughts away. Her hand dropped to her side and she cleared her throat, “Yeah,” letting him know she was awake and well. 

“Is everything alright?” Loki wondered. It was sweet of him to care. Perhaps he was hoping to hear some positive news, but she wasn’t going to tell him. Not yet. 

Y/N took one last glance in the mirror, noticing just how tired she looked. Perhaps a bath would make her feel better and more at ease? She decided to get the water running.

“I’m fine, Loki. I’m going to take a bath,” She let him know, leaving an open invitation for him to join her. 

The door opened and Loki walked in. He had magicked his clothes on because once they were in private, they came off by vanishing into thin air. “Mind if I join you?” 

The water began to flow silently into the big bathtub. Surely, the hot water would make her feel better. Perhaps Loki would benefit from the relaxation it offered too. 

“Sounds great,” She smiled, but she didn’t sound too convincing. Her morning sickness was fresh on her mind and all she could think about was the possibility of being pregnant. For some reason, it absolutely terrified her. If only Loki was alright, so she could confide in him. How would he react to the news? Would he be mad if she hid it from him? 

As the two of them sunk into the water that smelled of lavender and other expensive herbs and oils, Y/N leaned against Loki’s body. She was still exhausted and she wished that even for a moment, they could just be like this. It reminded her of the good old days when they were so happy. Everything had changed. Being like that, so close was lovely. 

Loki’s skilled fingers traced patterns over her exposed skin. He was careful not to apply too much pressure to the fresh love-bites and bruises among the old ones. If anyone saw her like that, it would be obvious that she was his, and vice versa. Loki’s back was certainly covered in scratches.

Y/N wondered if Loki could feel the way her heart was pounding in her chest. She wondered if he could tell she was troubled by her own thoughts. Did he still care? 

“What’s on your mind, dear?” He noticed that something was different. For weeks, everything had been out of the ordinary. Was he simply imagining it or was she distracted by something? 

She blinked a few times, hoping to get rid of the sleepiness that still had a hold on her. Then she faced Loki, searching for something familiar in his eyes. She knew that he was still in there, and sometimes it showed, like in moments like these. 

What is on my mind? She thought. She wanted to know what happened to Loki on the bridge because Thor and Odin refused to tell her the details. What happened to him after that? Where had he been and who had he been with? Why did Loki show up on Midgard with the goal of taking over the realm? Why had he visited Earth out of all places before coming to her? Had he missed her? Because she had missed him more than words could’ve ever expressed. The nights she spent in the palace where she couldn’t escape his memory, thinking he was dead, had been absolutely dreadful. She had thought of him every single day. 

“Nothing, I’m just tired,” Y/N sighed and decided to keep things to herself, for now. It was better that way. Perhaps Loki saw that she was lying, but he decided not to poke holes in her story. Deep down, he feared he might’ve already known the answer. Guilt was tormenting him already but he had no clue how to deal with it. Where would he even begin? It was easier to shut her out. 

                                                           A few weeks passed, and she held tight onto her secret. By now it was clear as daylight that she was expecting a child, their child. It should’ve been easy to tell Loki, but so far she kept it to herself. Sometimes it felt like Y/N was trying to fool her own mind and lie to herself. Despite it all, she knew that it was wrong. At some point, he would find out whether she liked it or not and she knew it would be best if Loki heard it from her. Yes, he wanted a child. But how would he react? Was he ready? Was he having these fantasies merely so they would stay together? What if he didn’t actually want a baby and he’d be mad? 

Y/N hated the thoughts she had. She absolutely despised the fact she feared him for no good reason. Loki had never hurt her and he had never implied that he would, yet her mind twisted things. He had changed, and she still didn’t know why. Would she ever see the old him again? 

It was midday and the sun was bright enough that even inside in the great library in the palace, she could read with ease without additional lights. With a cup of tea by her side and a book in her hand, she focused on the fictional world she was reading about, completely blocking out her real life for just a moment. In stories that had never happened, nothing mattered. She could look into a character’s life and worry about their problems instead of her own. Besides, for a few days now she had felt sick to her stomach and a headache had been prominent for days on end now. Not even her own magic had pushed it away which was unusual, but she assumed it was because of the pregnancy. Therefore she didn’t think to mention her odd symptoms to anyone. Not that anyone would’ve cared much of a headache anyway. 

When she put the book down, it was much darker. Through the sheer curtains, she could see the sun was setting, which painted all of Asgard golden and pink. When had she finished her tea?

“Y/N?” Loki’s familiar voice caught her attention. Time had passed quicker than she could’ve expected, and she realized that she had forgotten to meet him. They had planned on eating dinner together that day. 

Quickly, she put the book down and she got up, noticing how stiff she felt after having been frozen on one spot for several hours probably. For a moment, she felt dizzy which she blamed on for standing up so fast.

“I’m here!” She let him know about her whereabouts as slowly the occurrences of the protagonist faded away from her mind. 

As Loki walked up to her, he seemed relieved - but only for a short while. 

“I was worried when you didn’t show up,” He said honestly. It was possibly the most caring thing he had said since his return, yet he was probably disappointed. Y/N quickly wiped away her bitter thoughts and focused on the brighter side. Despite how guilty she felt about missing their dinner date, she thought it was a great opportunity to try to dig deeper into what happened to him. Perhaps he’d open up?

“I’m so sorry, Loki, I am,” Y/N apologized sincerely, closing the gap between them. She felt hopeful when Loki let her take his hands in hers. His were always so soft, even when his touch was rougher than before between the sheets these days. His hands never changed. “I wasn’t feeling well and when I opened the book, I didn’t even notice how much time had passed until now.”

Loki overlooked what she said about feeling unwell. Perhaps it was wrong but he assumed she was avoiding him. Truthfully, he knew he had been a lot to handle recently. Hell, if he had been in her shoes, he would’ve probably avoided himself too. Loki couldn’t be too mad at her, because he did blame himself a lot. If only he knew how to change. His mind would surely be the end of him. 

“Hey,” Y/N noticed how lost he seemed in his own head, “Are you alright?”

A smile spread on his face, completely disregarding the sad trace that glimmered in his eyes a moment ago. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

So defensive, she thought. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, I hope you know I’m here for you.”

Loki recognized that look on her face. It was pity, and he hated it. Loki didn’t want her pity, he didn’t feel deserving of it. 

He pulled his hands out of her gentle grasp, “Do you think I can’t take care of myself?” 

The way he assumed things that she would never think was infuriating. Perhaps he was taking a toll on Y/N’s nerves because her headache was getting worse and she felt her blood boiling beneath her skin. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold up with his, and pretend as nothing had ever happened, or how long she could keep it a secret that she was carrying their child and she was unsure whether or not it was a good idea to have this baby. The guilt and pain were tormenting her. 

“That’s not what I said, Loki-”

“You were thinking it, were you not?” Loki didn’t know why he said that, but now it was too late. He didn’t wish to fight with her, but it seemed like his own thoughts and feelings were about to pour over the brim. 

A sigh escaped her lips and she felt like sitting down. The world around her was spinning and she wasn’t sure if it was just her nerves burning up that was causing it. It grew worse at an alarming rate and she felt cold sweat on her skin. 

“Don’t twist my words, Loki,” She groaned, more annoyed at the sick feeling that was overwhelming her rather than his attitude. 

Those words she said were a sharp reminder of the moment Loki shared with Odin. When he lifted the ice casket, when he confronted his so-called father and found out that he had been taken from Jotunheim as an infant. 

Loki’s heart was breaking in his chest piece by piece. The lie he had grown up in was now shattering and he saw through the cracks. Everything was beginning to make more sense. The pain and pure agony he felt was barely contained. He kept his teary-eyed glued onto his father, Odin, who wasn’t that much of his father after all. 

“The casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?”

Odin looked shocked, but he didn’t look sad. It was like he cared more about being caught in a lie rather than being caught as a liar and a terrible father. Odin never cared about Loki, did he? Loki began to believe that he had never even been loved by him. Why did Odin know about Loki’s blue skin? Why did he know that it wasn’t a curse? It should’ve been a major shock to anyone, but Odin knew...

“No,” Odin eventually answered him.

Loki stopped walking once they were close enough for his liking. He wanted Odin to see his wrath and fury, and he wanted to see the shame on Odin’s face. 

“In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the temple and I found a baby - small for a giant’s offspring,” Odin recalled the day he found Loki. Of course, he didn’t tell Loki the exact story of the events that occurred. Odin wanted it to seem more glorious and heroic than it actually was. Loki would never know. “Abandoned, suffering....left to die.”

“Laufey’s son,” Odin confirmed.

“Laufey’s son,” Loki had to repeat that in order to process what he just heard. They were only two words, but he felt tears gathering in his eyes and he was choking up which he tried to ease by swallowing thickly, nervously. 

“Yes,” Odin nodded. He was oddly calm.

Loki stood there in shock, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. As if it wasn’t worse enough that his family had lied to him his entire life, now he was hearing that his actual family hadn’t wanted him either. Could it be true? That he was a prince that no one wanted to see become a king? Had he ever been worthy of love? What would Y/N think of him once she’d find out about his true origin? Would she stop loving him? 

“Why?” Loki struggled as he searched for the words he wanted to use. His thoughts were racing in his head and he felt like he would go mad if he tried to think too much right now. “You were knee-deep in Jotun blood, why would you take me?” 

“You were an innocent child-”

Loki could smell Odin’s lie from a mile away and it fueled his rage, “No. You took me for a purpose, what was it?” Loki had to know, even if he feared it would torment him for the rest of his life. There had to be a reason, Odin didn’t care for abandoned babies - otherwise, the palace would be full of children.

Odin was shocked that Loki had interrupted him, let alone refused to listen to his sorrow story. How would he react if he told him the real truth? Odin wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

The silence in the vault was uncomfortable, and it was burning on their skin. For Loki, the silence was dreadful and he couldn’t take it, 

“TELL ME!” He demanded loudly, his painful cry echoing throughout the entire room and surely beyond the golden walls. 

Odin couldn’t look Loki in the eye, “I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, bring about permanent peace through you.”

Tears rolled down Loki’s face now, which he couldn’t control anymore. What Odin said was almost worse than not knowing at all. Odin had only seen an opportunity in Loki as an object, as a piece in negotiation. 

“Why?” 

“But those plans no longer matter,” Odin was quick to reassure him, but Loki doubted that. How could he ever trust another word that came out of his mouth ever again? That man had lied about Loki’s entire existence, made him believe that his own race was the pure evil enemy of the nine realms. Loki had heard Odin bash about how he had defeated the Jotuns in battle, and killed unimaginable amounts of Jotun soldiers. He had said those things as he kept the secret of Loki’s true nature. It was gross, it made Loki taste muck in his mouth.

“So I’m no more than another stolen relic,” Loki looked at the other stolen things in the vault that he was surrounded by, which was incredibly ironic, “locked up, here, until you might have use of me?” 

Odin didn’t enjoy being talked back to. He couldn’t foresee this ever happening and he couldn’t imagine what Loki was going through. The old king could only think about himself, about how he had faced this before with Hela. Why were his children not good enough? 

“Why do you twist my words?” 

Odin’s question echoed in Loki’s head and for a moment, he forgot the conversation that he had with his wife, one that was quickly escalating into a fight. It was a miracle it hadn’t happened sooner.

“Loki,” Y/N noticed that somehow, her words had affected him terribly. She wanted to know why. One side of her mind told her to give it up, to keep pretending like everything was fine because clearly Loki was still hurt. Another part of her wanted to encourage him to open up, to trust her again. She wanted to help him. The rough sex and silence afterwards would only get toxic and it wasn’t good for any of them long term. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” Loki made up his mind. 

Being pushed away constantly was not only frustrating but painful. When they got married, they had become a team. They had to be there for each other through the good and the bad. She had promised to be his rock, to be the one he could confide in no matter what. Suddenly, guilt overwhelmed her. He had promised that to her as well, and yet she hadn’t told Loki about the baby. 

“How can you say that if you don’t even try to make me understand?” She wondered, almost demanding him to say something, anything at all other than dismissive sentences and strange gazes.

Where would he even begin? It had been so long, and Loki had seen so much. Would he tell her about what happened on Asgard? Or should he begin with the titan that still haunted him like a shadow. 

“Loki, what happened to you on that bridge?” Y/N dared to ask him about something that surely was a sore spot. No one had told her, although she had asked many times. Thor had tried to come up with a heroic explanation for it all, but Y/N knew it to be all lies. Something darker had happened and she wanted to know so that she could help Loki. 

Had they really not told her? Loki was surprised at how little she truly knew. A broken smile spread on his face. Odin and Thor hadn’t had the guts to tell her the truth. They were so cowardly, it was almost comedic in a way. 

“What did they tell you happened?” 

“They told me lie after lie. I don’t care about their version of the story. Loki, the only story I care about is yours,” She let out a shaky breath. The spinning was getting worse by the second. Had she consumed something bad?

Loki wanted to tell her, but he knew the truth would put her through a lot of sorrow. Would she still care for him if she knew everything?

He held onto his words for a while longer. Every cell in his body was burning with longing, wanting to tell her everything, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Besides, he kept thinking about Odin which agitated him. Why did he have to make it into every aspect of his life? 

Loki fell silent and watched her walk away. Instead of trying to reach for him, she walked to the nearest bookcase and leaned against the fine wood. 

“What’s going on?” Loki realized how oddly she was behaving. Perhaps she was genuinely feeling under the weather? His anger began to fade as it was replaced by worry. 

“Nothing!” She hissed, lying, but only because she didn’t want to focus on her. 

Loki couldn’t bear hearing her lies, as ironic as it was. “Don’t lie to me, Y/N, I can tell that something is off!”

As he spoke with a loud voice and walked towards her, Y/N flinched. She didn’t mean to, but the loud noise and his abrupt movement had startled her. Her hand quickly covered her stomach, which was completely unintentional and her eyes widened in shock. Why did she react like that?

Loki stilled completely, unable to believe what happened. Did she think he would harm her? Was she afraid of him? 

“Did you think I was going to hurt you?” He muttered in disbelief. Seeing the look on her face made Loki feel disgusted with himself. He felt like a monster. 

Y/N let her hand fall to her side. 

“No, I just...I don’t know, Loki,” She felt awful for even thinking about it. That was Loki! Her husband. The man she was in love with. If it wasn’t for the torturous headache and nausea she was suffering from, she would’ve hugged him and reassured Loki that she wasn’t afraid of him, but right now all she could do was  lean against the steady bookcase. Y/N was convinced that her balance would betray her if she tried to stand all on her own. 

It was definitely not something she could’ve ignored furthermore. In a desperate attempt to make things right, she tried to walk to Loki. Although she was lightheaded and everything around her began to turn into a blurry mess, she knew one thing; she needed Loki. She couldn’t let him think he was a monstrous creature. She hadn’t meant to flinch like that - it just happened. 

Whenever times were troubling or she was afraid, she always wanted to be with him.

Loki noticed how quickly her demeanor was changing. It almost looked like she was intoxicated. The way she massaged her temples and how she leaned into her own touch, looking dizzy even though she was standing, was strange. As he looked closer, he noticed that her body was trembling ever so slightly. The sight of her like that calmed his anger since it got replaced by worry. 

“Y/N?” He wanted to see her face. Was she crying?

She took a step toward him and almost tripped over her own feet. Loki caught her in his arms just in time. 

“That’s it, I’m taking you to the infirmary,” Loki made up his mind, past conversation now long forgotten. The only thing that mattered was her well-being. Frankly, seeing her like that terrified Loki. During all the years they had spent together, he had never seen her like this and it was more than alarming. 

The walk from the palace library to the infirmary wasn’t that long, but it felt like it took them hours. With every step they took, she seemed to get weaker. By the time they were walking down the hallway to the infirmary, Loki had to wrap his arm around her waist to keep her on her feet - otherwise she would’ve fallen on the cold, hard floor. 

The healers had seen them coming. Without a shared word being said, they took Y/N from him and placed her on the bright inspection bed nearby where they could figure out what was wrong with her. Loki wanted to stay, but everything escalated incredibly fast, leaving him in the side. There was no way he would’ve pushed himself between the people who were trying to help her.

The words everyone said merged together, and it seemed like he could only hear his own heartbeat ringing in his ears. He just stood there and watched as the love of his life was surrounded by the best healers in the nine realms and even they seemed panicked. Something was terribly wrong. 

The gold magic surrounded her and Loki caught a glimpse of the soul forge that the healers were examining. Even if he had wanted to focus on it, he wasn’t sure if he could’ve. Loki looked at Y/N again whose eyes were closed by now and she looked to be asleep, only he knew that she wasn’t resting. 

He didn’t really phantom how much time had passed until a healer walked up to him, gesturing Loki to walk further away.

“We need to use drastic magic in order to heal her,” She explained carefully, not wanting to upset the prince.

“What’s wrong with her?” Loki had to know, worry clear in his voice. 

The healer looked lost, almost nervous. “There is a blockage in her head. The magic it requires to heal her is strong and we do not know if the baby will survive it.”

The baby?

Loki’s mouth fell open but he didn’t find any words. He was already in shock when she fell ill so fast, but to hear about a baby was like a bucket of ice cold water was doused over him. She was pregnant?

The lady knew that there was no time they could waste, so she was forced to move on, “Since you are the father, we need your opinion on the procedure. Are you willing to risk losing the baby-”

“Yes!” Loki couldn’t believe they were asking him that. “Yes, please, I just need her to survive.” He didn’t want to lose the child that he just learned existed, but most importantly he couldn’t imagine losing her. Nothing else mattered than his wife’s well-being. If he lost Y/N, he would lose himself. As tragic as the idea was of possibly losing their unborn child, it would be even worse to lose her. After all, there was only one of Y/N. They could always try to start a family of their own again if they wanted to.

They took her away and Loki was forced to wait outside the infirmary. He had no clue what they were doing to her, and he couldn’t just stand in the hallway and wait. Loki was going to retreat to the privacy of their shared quarters, but it felt like his legs had turned to pillars of ice. As he stood there, taken back by shock and tears that threatened to spill from his eyes, he heard footsteps coming his way. As Loki glanced in the direction, he saw Lady Sif walking there along with Frigga. Right now, the last thing he desired was to talk to anyone. 

“What happened?” Frigga seemed concerned, looking into the infirmary and then at her son who had tears in his green eyes. It hurt her to see him like that. 

“I don’t know,” Loki realized he hadn’t spoken in  a while. He wasn’t sure how long he had stood there, but by now it was dark outside. His heart was still racing and it felt like the world was caving in on him. “She fell ill so suddenly, they said it’s serious,” Loki pushed the words out of his mouth. Saying it out loud just made it real, and now he felt like crying the pain away. 

Lady Sif didn’t say anything, but Loki felt a pair of judging eyes on his skin. She probably thought it was Loki’s fault somehow,

Was it?

He couldn’t help but wonder if he had noticed these signs sooner, would she be alright?

Frigga pulled Loki into a hug and he didn’t resist it. In fact, it felt comforting to be held. Had it been any other day recently, he would’ve pushed her away but not now. Loki hugged her back and wished that Sif would turn around. As he leaned against his mother’s touch, he felt his own tears rolling down his face silently. 

Y/N was pregnant, but he wouldn’t tell them. Not now. 

“She’ll be alright,” Frigga attempted to comfort him. There was a certainty in her voice that Loki wanted to find solace in. He knew there was no way she could tell whether or not Y/N would be alright, but in that moment it was nice to believe that. 

               The headache had turned into a dull pain, which felt so good compared to what it had been before. It was warm in the air around Y/N and she felt oddly comfortable. She was waking up from sleep, but she couldn’t remember falling asleep. Why was it so dark? 

As she opened her eyes, she quickly learned where she was. The palace infirmary. The healer’s weren’t anywhere to be seen, but someone was holding her hand. 

It was Loki.

He was awake and he looked at her with glistening eyes. She noticed just how exhausted he looked and it made her heart sting. 

The baby!

Y/N had to know the baby was safe. In a moment of worry and confusion, she put her hand on her belly and opened her mouth, “is it safe?” 

Then she realized she had never told him. For so many mornings now she had been woken up because of the feisty little thing, that she had grown accustomed to it. If Loki hadn’t known, now he certainly did.

“The baby is safe, Y/N,” Loki finally spoke. He didn’t sound resentful at all. Instead, there was a calm in his voice, because of how relieved he was. Not only did the baby make it, but so did she. The healers had worked their magic just in time and therefore both of them had been saved. For a moment, Loki had been afraid that he had lost them. 

Guilt began to crawl beneath her skin. Although she rested comfortably on the soft bed, she didn’t feel good. Nothing had gone to plan. Loki had deserved to find out about the pregnancy differently. 

“I was afraid I’d lose you,” Loki admitted, his grip on her hand tightening ever so slightly. It felt so good to hold her, to know she was alive and well. 

Slowly, she tilted her head so she could face him. Had Loki been crying? The sight of him like that, with slumped shoulders, messy hair and sad eyes was heartbreaking. As if he hadn’t gone through enough already. 

“Thank you,” She barely got the words out of her mouth. Loki had been the one who took her there in time. Surely, if he hadn’t come to the library, she would’ve been sprawled on the couch, book in hand and with a terrible headache  - or worse. She didn’t want to think about it. 

“They said you had something in your head. It could’ve...it could’ve taken your life,” Loki recalled what the healers had explained to him as he had listened half-heartedly. His mind had been tampered with worried thoughts and guilt-riddled ideas. All that mattered was that they were both safe and sound. 

Whatever it was, Y/N was just glad they were alright. All she could think about was the baby. She felt bad for ignoring her symptoms for so long. Had she endangered the fetus? What had caused it? Would she ever know?

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” By now she had teared up. The words struggled to pour from her quivering lips. 

Loki brushed his fingers on her face, attempting to comfort her the best way he could. His touch was so gentle, so affectionate. It sent shivers down her spine. The gentle touch reminded her of how things used to be. 

“How long have you known?” Loki was almost afraid to ask. 

“A few weeks. I wasn’t sure until recently.”

“Right…” He couldn’t blame her for hiding the fact. During the several hours he had spent sitting by her bedside, he had thought over the time they had spent together in the past few weeks since his return. The fact that she could feel guilty about it was mind boggling to him. Loki was angry at himself for just how much he had pushed her away. It was no wonder she didn’t fully trust him. Each time she had tried to connect with him, he had turned a blind eye or he had distracted both of them with sex. As he thought of it, it made his stomach twist in knots. 

Y/N could tell that Loki was deep in thought. She squeezed his hand lightly, “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Loki was quick to reassure her. Once again, he felt tears in his eyes, blurring his vision. He hated crying, but sometimes he couldn’t make it stop. It was time for them to fix things.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N blinked and felt tears sliding down across her face and her neck. Despite his comforting words, she felt guilty. The pain she had carried in her heart for weeks now was seeing daylight and it felt fresh. It was all so overwhelming. 

Loki leaned closer to her and pressed a kiss on her forehead. She could feel how his lips were trembling ever so slightly.

“It’s going to be alright,” Loki whispered after a while. “I promise. I’ve shut you out for far too long.”

Was he going to open up to her? 

Loki recognized the hopeful gleam in her teary eyes. He knew how important it was for both of them to discuss what had happened. They couldn’t move on if they pretended that he had never been gone in the first place. But he wasn’t going to speak of it now when she was recovering. 

“I love you, Loki,” She murmured softly and managed to crack a smile. 

His heart swelled with affection. God, he loved her more than she could ever know. Loki couldn’t understand how he had treated her, it made him angry. 

“I love you too,” He returned the words to her. Loki might’ve been a master at lying, but when he professed his love to her, no one could deny the sincerity in his words. 

Carefully, he moved his hand and placed it over her stomach, where he figured the baby was. He felt goosebumps all over his skin as he laid his palm flat over her. Knowing that their child was growing there was astonishing. Loki felt so lucky that he was going to start a family with her. 

No more words were needed. Y/N could tell what he was thinking. He loved both of them so much.

                                A few days later, she was feeling much better. The healers had told her to take it easy for a while, especially now as she was pregnant. Returning to her and Loki’s quarters was exciting. Finally, some proper privacy. 

Ever since the incident, something changed in Loki. Perhaps it was the startling revelation that he almost lost her that changed him. Time was precious, even for them. He had been away from her long enough and he wanted to make up for the wasted time. 

Although they had been quite happy for the past few days, he knew it would all come to an end, at least for a while as he’d open up about what he had gone through since he last was on Asgard. 

Candles had lit the room, making it comfortable and warm. There were a few candles on their nightstands, others on the shelves nearby and some were levitating midair with the little help of magic. 

Loki had certainly made her feel welcome in their private space again, after she had stayed away for only a few days. As she saw the tea on a tray by the bed, her heart swelled in her chest. It was so sweet of him. 

“You didn’t have to,” She turned to Loki who was right by her side. The joy on her face was irreplaceable to him. 

“But I wanted to,” Loki reassured her.

It had been yet another long day and they couldn’t wait to get wrapped in the blankets and fall asleep in each other’s arms. Despite how scared they both had been when she ended up in the infirmary, the time afterwards had been wonderful. Loki had finally softened up again, at least to her. 

The two of them sat down on the bed with warm teacups in their hands. For a while, they embraced the silence that settled around them. It was nice. 

“You know,” Y/N was the first one to speak, “I’m having a great time, but I was wondering if you’d like that. It’s okay if you don’t.”

“I suppose now is a good time,” Loki’s reply surprised her.

She put her nearly empty cup away as Loki magicked his on the nightstand. The mood shifted slightly, but it was less dramatic than anything that they had went though in the past few weeks. They sat on the bed in a way they could face each other and they were still cosy. 

“Where do I even begin?” Loki laughed, but he didn’t sound full of joy. He was genuinely nervous. No one had ever heard this story. No one knew. 

Y/N put her hand on his shoulder, attempting to make him relax as much as he possibly could. She sensed that whatever it was that he was going to say, it would be extremely difficult for him. “Were you alone?” She asked him, initiating the conversation. By now, even her heart was racing in her chest. The thought of him being all alone for so long made her sad. She hoped he had good company at least.

Although he sat safely on his bed, Loki could feel the vastness of space around him. He could see the darkness and the stars that were so incredibly far away. There was nothing but stone beneath his feet and he was cold, inside out. 

“I was found by a titan, who calls himself Thanos,” Saying his name felt wrong. It was like fire burning on his tongue. “For a while, I was trapped with him. Wherever he went, I did too. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

Loki’s entire demeanor changed. He couldn’t look her in the eye. It almost seemed like he was mentally in an entirely different place. Seeing him like that was so unusual for her, and it made her feel terrible. 

She put her hand on his arm, running her fingers up and down his skin every so softly, to remind him that she was right by his side.

“When he found me, I was weak. I tried to put up a fight, and he saw what I was capable of. When his puppets showed up, I was outnumbered,” Loki felt ashamed that he hadn’t been able to fight them off. They were more powerful than he liked to admit. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” She reassured him as she recognized the hint of guilt and shame on his face. Loki had been weak when he fell. Most would’ve died after being sucked up by the portal and being thrown out into the emptiness of outer space. The energy was so strong it could end someone’s life in seconds. It was a miracle he survived that alone.

“Thanos wanted me to work for him, to do his dirty work. I refused,” He smiled but it was an empty smile, “which resulted in months of torture.” His smile vanished completely, leaving behind only a shadow of misery. 

Although she had expected something awful, she hadn’t thought she’d hear that. Suddenly, it made sense why he had been like that when he returned. Why it looked like he hadn’t slept in months, why he was afraid to put pressure on his other leg almost like he was in pain. Why he had shut everyone out completely and distanced himself physically and emotionally. 

Y/N wanted to say something, but it felt like she had eaten flour. Her mouth was dry and she was speechless. Instead, she pulled him closer ever so slightly, hoping to comfort him with her actions. 

Loki let himself be embraced by her. In fact, when she wrapped her arms around his body and his face nuzzled the crook of her neck, which made it so easy to inhale her sweet scent, he realized how much he needed it. Loki thought he would have spoken more without getting so emotional, but to even think about the pain he had endured was hard. It made him cold to his core and he felt nauseous all over again. When he hugged her back and let himself get lost in her arms, he could begin to heal. 

“I don’t think...I would’ve survived if I hadn’t thought of you,” He said so softly he wasn’t sure if she heard him.

She did.

Picturing Loki being tortured by a titan made Y/N so angry. She hated the fact that someone had made him feel so terrible, forcing him to feel so much pain after everything that he had gone through. Hearing that he thought of her when he was going through it all broke her heart. If only she had been there, right by his side. 

“You didn’t deserve that, Loki,” She was surprised she was able to speak. Her lips were quivering as she tried to stay strong for his sake. 

Her words were warm. They pushed the cold he was surrounded by away. Perhaps she was right?

Loki pulled back ever so slightly, because he wanted to face her. When he did, he was surprised to see that she was holding back tears. He already had silent tears on his skin that he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. What had he done to deserve her?

“I agreed to work for him,” He revealed, skipping ahead of time because there was no way he could’ve gone into details about the nightmare Thanos put him through. Most of the memories were dark, just barely there. It was like his mind didn’t want to remember the tiny details. 

“I saw places I didn’t know existed - far beyond the nine realms. I became friends with Nebula. She was Thanos’ daughter,” Loki wasn’t sure if they were quite friends, but she seemed to understand him despite her harsh words and mean attitude. Out of all the children, only Nebula had been someone Loki could tolerate. “We were supposed to find something. I suppose they were called the infinity stones.”

Y/N could’ve sworn she had heard someone mentioning them before, but it didn’t ring any bells now. It did make her curious. Why wouldn’t Thanos go seek them himself? “Did you find them?”

“Well, soft of, yes. Thanos sent me to Midgard to fetch the tesseract. In exchange I was going to be freed,” He explained why he had gone to New York. It had been quite recent, but it felt like so long ago. Loki had been so scared but incredibly determined to get the job done too. He thought it was the only way he’d ever get to see her again, and live a day without excruciating suffering. 

Y/N suddenly understood more than before. He hadn’t wanted to go to Earth out of his own will. He was on a mission to win his freedom. She wondered what had happened. Thanos didn’t have the tesseract, but Loki was right there by her side. Did it mean he was safe and free?

“I’m happy you’re here,” She let him know. Having Loki back was the greatest gift she could’ve ever asked for. Although the things that had happened on Midgard weren’t good, she wasn’t mad. She was more furious over the fact that Thor, and others who had done much worse things, pretended that Loki was some kind of villain and they were the heroes.

“I was so scared that Thanos would come here,” and I still am, he thought but left it out. “I failed to deliver the tesseract,Y/N. They…”Loki couldn’t say it. He blinked, and remembered the Other who had threatened him repeatedly. 

...If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can not find you. He will make you long for something sweet as pain… 

“You don’t have to say it,” Y/N noticed that he got lost in his memories again. She understood if some of them were too hard to speak of now. He had said so much already. It couldn’t have been easy for him. “You’re safe, you’re here with us again. We have all the time in the world to speak of this, one step at the time.”

Gosh, her words were keeping him sane. Loki was able to take a deep breath as he heard that, keeping himself grounded there. He wasn’t with Thanos, and he certainly wasn’t being harmed. He was in the arms of his wife and they were in the palace of Asgard with numerous guards and warriors outside their door. It was quite the resistance if Thanos or his children would show up.

“I think I’ll have to continue tomorrow, dear.”

“That’s okay, Loki. I understand,” She was so understanding.

As Loki looked at her, the daggers in his heart twisted. Thanos knew that she existed. Thanos also knew how to torture others, and the worst torture Loki could’ve possibly imagined was that Thanos would find her. There was no way he could ever let that happen. Loki knew he had to do something to get Thanos off his tracks. Could he make the titan believe he had died? It was something he had to think of sooner than later.

“I love you,” Loki had to voice his feelings. He caught her by surprise when he leaned in for a kiss, but she didn’t seem to mind it. Instead, Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head, deepening the kiss ever so slightly. This time it was sweet and tender. His hands cupped her face and the back of her head and it was sincere. The kiss was bittersweet. It tasted salty like their tears, but it was so passionate. They truly loved one another. 

When their lips parted, they stayed close. Their foreheads touched gently and they both closed their eyes, enjoying each other’s presences for a moment. They let reality sink in.

For the first time in months, Loki felt more like himself again. A weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He was beginning to deal with his issues. There was hope for the future. 

“I love you too,” Y/N exclaimed after a while. She placed a sweet kiss on Loki’s neck, then another. There were so many kisses they had to catch up with. She wanted to touch him with love and kindness where others had hurt him, until there wasn’t a trace left of the others. 

And Loki wanted to be pampered by her, to get lost in her and forget about all the rest. 

His hands travelled down her side, slowly but surely making their way to her hips. Loki wanted her closer, but for the first time in so long, he didn’t know how to ask her. Usually, it was so easy to pull her in and take her, but not now. Everything felt so much more intimate and he felt slightly lost. It had been so long since the last time they had made love. 

She felt the way he touched her, so needy, silently asking her to get closer, so she did. Carefully, she straddled his lap which made it so much easier for her to hold him, to touch him and to kiss him. Loki’s hands never left her body as she sat on his lap. There was no rush whatsoever. They wanted to enjoy every little moment they could share. 

“Are you sure you want this?” Y/N wondered. After all, he had talked about quite heavy things. Was he in the right mindset? 

Loki almost yelled out how much he desired her, but managed to contain himself. “I need you, Y/N.” He needed to feel her, he needed to make her feel his love. He needed to be one with her. 

“Okay,” She quickly replied with a small smile. Once again, their lips met in a loving kiss. It felt wonderful. Between the kisses, she made sure to tell him sweet little nothings, “I’m here,” “I got you,” “Everything’s going to be okay.”

A/N: I hope you liked it! I originally planned on having fluffy smut in this, but it would’ve been so long. I’ll have to write sweet Loki smut separately in the future. Please leave your feedback. It always makes me so happy and it means a lot to me. Thank you!

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[fanficshiddles]

Recovering, Part 1/2

Summary: Two parter. Loki comes across a failed Hydra experiment. A young woman has the mind of a wild animal, but is still a human. Loki rescues her and then has to try and gain her trust and teach her to be a human again. 

Just a little something I can’t get out of my mind so I had to write it out. 

-

Loki had been part of the Avengers for over a year. He had proved to be trustworthy enough of a team member, his past mistakes forgiven.

But he still got up to mischief, which often caused the other Avengers to get annoyed with him. But they were getting used to it. Sometimes they found his pranks funny, if they weren’t directed at them, that was.

Fury sent him on a mission with Bruce and Steve to clear out a Hydra base. To pick up any essential information that might be of use, and take out any Hydra soldiers.

Bruce had Hulked out and was fighting outside with Steve. Loki went inside the old warehouse base, to see what he could find. It seemed to be mostly empty, apart from a few soldiers loitering around that were swiftly dealt with.

But after picking up some documents that looked important, he heard a strange growling sound come from the back corner. There was a large sheet covering it.

Too curious to just leave it, he wandered over and hauled the sheet off. His eyes widened in confusion when he saw a woman in a large cage, wearing nothing but a night gown by the looks of it. Her hair was a mess, matted and pretty long. She was crouched over in the corner, looking terrified.

He could hear some more soldiers coming his way, but he wasn’t about to leave the woman there. She would die otherwise. So he opened the cage with his Seidr, the lock no match for him. When he opened it, she didn’t move.

‘It’s ok, I won’t hurt you. I’ll get you to safety. I work with The Aveng’ He was cut off when she suddenly darted out from the cage on her hands and feet, moving like an animal would do, barrelling past him.

Loki watched in confusion as she ran around the place, looking panicked. Making weird grunting noises. But then two soldiers came bursting into the room, Loki was about to teleport to her to get her to safety, but she launched for the nearest soldier and attacked him like a tiger would. Ripped into his neck with her teeth, killing him quickly.

Then she launched for the other solider.

Loki noticed a file attached to her cage door. He picked it up and realised his mistake.

It said she was a failed experiment, highly dangerous and should never be let out. She had turned half feral, had the mind of a wild animal and half the strength of one, too. But looked just like a human, aside from her brain wasn’t working like it should.

‘Oh dear.’ Loki was now in a bit of a dilemma. But he still didn’t want to just leave her, she was a victim. Part of Hydra’s horrible experimenting.

Steve came across comms. ‘Loki, have you got the information? We are almost finished out here!’

‘Yeah, nearly finished. I’ll meet you back at base.’ He said to Steve.

The girl continued running around the room in a panic, trying to get out. Scrambling at the doors and windows, but Loki had locked them with his Seidr. Not wanting her to escape and get hurt by Hulk or Steve thinking she was part of Hydra.

‘Hey, it’s alright.’ Loki managed to get her into a corner and he put his hands out to try and show he wasn’t a threat.

‘I’m not going to hurt you… I just want to get you to safety.’ He said softly.

She looked at him, wide eyed, panting and snarling. Her teeth looked sharper than the average humans, but not overly so. He couldn’t tell what colour her hair truly was, as she was very dirty. He dreaded to think how long she had been locked up in that cage for, there was no date on the information.

Using his illusions, he made a distraction across the room. Her head whipped round in the direction of the noise, so that’s when Loki striked. He used his cape and covered her with it. She struggled and tried to fight back, snarling like mad.

But Loki was able to pin her down underneath his cape. He waited a moment, glad when she calmed down. She was like a feral cat, but much stronger and obviously bigger. Though Loki was able to scoop her up easily into his arms, still snugly wrapped in the cape.

He didn’t want Steve to freak out, so instead of going back with them in the quinjet, he teleported himself and the girl back to base, straight into his room.

When he put her down, she started struggling again and managed to get out from under the cape. She launched for him, but he was able to fight her off and she realised his strength wasn’t ordinary, so she went running across his room.

In her confusion and panic to get out, she jumped up on his desk and knocked everything flying off. Breaking his lamp in the process.

‘No, no, calm down. Get down from there.’ Loki said as he ran over and tried to get hold of her. But she leaped onto the bed and made a mess of his covers, knocked his pillows flying as she scrambled to get away from him.

‘Not the pillows!’ He groaned.

Then she bolted to the window and tried climbing up the curtains, but instead just pulled them down. The railing too, making a huge racket.

Loki by this point was now just hiding his face behind his hand.

‘What have I done?’ He muttered to himself.

After a bit of a fight, he managed to get her into his bathroom and he closed the door and put a spell over it, to make sure she couldn’t open it and that no one else could go in but him. He leaned back against the door and sighed as he slid down to the floor. Who knew trying to wrestle a human female with the mind of a tiger into a bathroom would be so exhausting?

He looked around his room and his heart sank. It was an absolute mess. But luckily, with a wave of his hand, he managed to get it back in order. The scratches from her scarily sharp nails on his arm healed up quick enough. He was just glad he had managed to avoid her teeth.

The team were a little confused when Loki got a lot of food from the kitchen and went back to his room with it. But they learned not to question Loki and his sometimes odd ways, so left him to it.

Loki knew he was going to have to try and earn her trust. But he knew that wasn’t going to be easy.

Whenever he went into the bathroom, she would either lunge for him or cower in the corner. But he was able to slide food in for her and quickly leave her in peace to eat. Each time he checked in, she had devoured the food.

She was a skinny little thing, he wondered how she still had the strength to remain upright. Never mind attack.

Over the following few weeks, he was able to get into the bathroom with her and not have her attack him. So he would take food and sit with her while she ate.

He also had some snacks with him, mini cookies. She seemed to like them as when he threw her one, she would gobble it up. So he was going to use those as treats.

‘I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help. I know that you’ve been treated badly, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.’ He spoke softly with her, which seemed to help.

She tilted her head at him often, like she was trying to understand what he was saying. Trying to process it.

He had tried giving her clothes once, but she didn’t know what to do with them and ripped them up. As the simple gown she had on wasn’t much use. But at least she liked the multitude of blankets and pillows he gave her, she snuggled up against them in a pile under the sink.

While she was in there, he had to use the communal bathroom to shower and use the toilet. The team noticed he was using it over time and asked questions, but he just shrugged them off and never gave them a proper answer.

‘I need to think of a name for you, at least until I can learn your real name.’ Loki said one day to the girl while he was sitting with her.

She was lying curled up on her pile of pillows, just watching him carefully.

‘I think you look like an Alice.’ He smiled and threw a cookie to her.

She reached out and she snatched it from the floor, eating it quickly.

‘Alice.’ He said again louder, when she was looking at him. Then he threw her another cookie.

Over the next couple of days, he continued to say her name and gave her a cookie when she seemed to respond to him. By the third day, he would say her name and she would sit up, looking alert and waiting for a cookie.

‘Good girl.’ He praised and threw her a cookie.

Then he decided to try and train her a bit more. So he put a cookie down closer to him. She was wary, keeping a close eye as she moved over on her hands and feet, crouched right down. When she got within reach of the cookie, she grabbed it and moved back to her safety distance to eat.

Loki kept doing it, having the cookie closer and closer to him. Until, eventually, she would sit on her knees and eat it quite close to him, within reach.

But then he made a mistake and reached out towards her when she wasn’t paying attention. So when he touched the side of her head, she freaked. In a bad way. She attacked him, ripping his jacket and scratching his face before she managed to rush back to her pile of blankets.

Loki didn’t want to end it on a bad note, so even though he was slightly startled at her attack, he said her name and got her attention, threw her a cookie then swiftly left the bathroom. A little frazzled.

As he exited the bathroom, Thor and the rest of the team were in his room, glaring at him with their arms folded over their chests.

‘Alright, Loki. Spill the beans. What are you hiding in there?’ Steve asked firmly.

‘Judging by the state of you it must be some wild animal.’ Natasha said, noting the way the stuffing was poking out of his shoulder and his sleeve on his other arm was torn.

The scratches on his face were starting to fade already as he healed. Luckily his favourite green waistcoat and tie was unscathed.

‘We know there’s something, all the food you’ve been sneaking away and using the other bathroom. What are you hiding? I knew there was something, you’ve been far too quiet!’ Tony said.

Loki chuckled and put his arms out to his side. ‘Come on. What did you expect? Of course there’s something in there.’

‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Clint said and went to push past Loki, but Loki quickly moved on front of him to stop him.

‘You don’t want to do that, trust me.’

‘What have you got in there?’ Bruce asked.

‘Ok… So, remember that mission where we raided the Hydra warehouse?’ Loki looked to Steve and Bruce, who both nodded. ‘Well, there was a failed experiment in there. She has been battered and bruised by Hydra agents, the experiment has completely messed her up… She’s a human, but with the mind of a tiger. Or some other, wild animal.’

The team looked between one another, not believing him.

‘You’re lying.’ Thor chuckled. ‘A wild human?’

Loki’s jaw clenched. ‘I am not lying, not this time.’

‘Prove it.’ Said Natasha.

Loki sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Alright, you did ask.’ He reached behind him and opened the door.

Alice was confused when she saw the door open, but Loki didn’t appear. She had heard voices, but was wary about going to take a look. But curiosity quickly got the better of her and she carefully wandered over to the door, into view of the others.

She snarled when she saw a bunch of people behind Loki and she quickly backed away again, running to her bed.

Loki swiftly shut the door to give her privacy. Then he turned to the others, who all looked completely stunned.

‘I did tell you.’ He shrugged with a smirk.

#recovering #Loki #Tom Hiddleston #fan fiction #1/2

[lailyn]

This Magical Journey Called Multiple (Chapter 3)

“Tony, help me get all the equipment away,” Stephen urged as he darted forward, hands glowing with magic. He had always known that this day would come, when he would finally catch a glimpse of Loki’s true nature. He only wished he had been more prepared for it. 

But this was still Loki, and right now, Loki needed his help. 

Stephen thawed the frost surrounding Loki’s bed with his magic and raised the Mirror Dimension around them to contain Loki’s once-dormant ice magic from overspilling into the real world.

 

Amid the swirls of vapor where ice met fire, Loki stirred.

“Loki,” Stephen heard Tony exclaim and felt his heart begin to pound. 

He was forgetting something, something very, very important. What had Thor told him once?  

Then he remembered. “Don’t touch him, Tony!” 

Loki let out a low moan, and either Tony did not hear him or chose not to, he watched in horror as his husband reached for Loki all the same. 

A magic lasso lashed across the room and seized Tony’s wrist just in the nick of time. 

“What the hell did I just say?” Stephen barked. “Do you want to lose your fingers?”

Tony stared at the shackle around his wrist for a second before shaking it loose. 

“I’ll apologise later,” Stephen said grimly, nodding at the figure on the bed. “I think he’s coming around.”

“Loki, wake up,” Tony commanded. 

“Tony?” Loki mumbled. His eyes opened to reveal pupils as red as rubies. 

Tony uttered a gasp but quickly reined in his astonishment but it was too late; the hand Loki was already extending toward him froze in mid-air.

“Loki…” Tony wanted nothing more than to take the outstretched hand, as blue as it was with its gleaming onyx nails, tapered and razor-sharp. “Loki, don’t freak out.” 

Loki raised his hand to the level of his eye. He studied his skin intently.

"I don't understand," he finally said, voice wavering. "Why is this happening?"

Stephen braved a step closer. “Can you shift back?” 

Loki frowned at the absurdity of such a request. At the speed of thought, blue bled away starting from the head all the way down to the feet, leaving in its wake the milky complexion and bright green eyes their lover was renowned for.

A palpable relief fell over the room but it was short-lived, for almost instantly, Loki’s hand flew to his stomach. 

“Is the pain back?” Stephen asked.

Loki nodded with a great wince. “What is happening to me?” He tried to sit but it proved too difficult. “Ah.”

“Well, change back,” Stephen urged. 

Loki shook his head slowly. “No.”

“Loki, shift,” Stephen ordered. 

Loki ignored him and turned to his other lover standing silent and stricken by his side, face stricken with anguish and fear.

Was Tony afraid of him? 

Ignoring the invisible blade knifing his stomach with every breath, Loki pulled himself up into a sitting position. 

All Loki could think of was the hand Tony would not take...with good reason too. Loki could not bear the thought of hurting Tony, or Stephen, or anyone. 

Tony, Loki implored with his eyes. He could live with this pain, he had felt worse. This was nothing. Maybe if he stayed just like this…

“Tony,” he whimpered and it was the pain in his voice that broke Tony free from his trance. His husband rushed forward and gathered Loki to his chest, hugging him tightly. 

“It’s okay,” Tony whispered in his ear. “We’ll figure this out together, I promise you we will.”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” Loki cried.

Tony could not agree more, and to emphasise, he pressed a fierce kiss to Loki’s temple. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. But you’re hurting, and I need to get you better.”

Loki allowed the change to come over him again and the relief was instantaneous, his limbs relaxing with the cessation of pain.  

Stephen and Tony took a few involuntary steps back as the Jotun prince vaulted off the bed, seemingly possessed of as much grace as his Aesir form ever displayed. 

In this form, Loki’s hair was longer and straighter and as he cast a curious eye at what the rude awakening of his ice magic had done to the room, he almost seemed like a different person. 

“Is the damage extensive?” He queried. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony said, guarded. “Everything’s insured.”

Loki hummed dispassionately. He directed his next question to Stephen. 

“Are you ever letting me out of here?” Carefully avoiding eye contact, Loki needled him further. “Or are you keeping me here till the baby comes?”

Stephen could not take the Mirror Dimension down quickly enough judging by the displeasure on Loki’s face, and as he fumbled with his sling ring, Stephen could not help but ask. “Are you okay?”

When Loki blinked, the film over his red eyes deepened in colour. “I wish to sup.”

Tony blinked in confusion. “Sup?”

“Something light will do. I will take my meal in my room.”

Stunned, they could only watch as Loki stepped out of the Mirror Dimension and stalked out of the medical bay without so much as a glance.  

“That’s a bit anticlimactic.”

Stephen closed his eyes and shuddered. “Tony, can you please try not to jinx us?”

“Sorry. Count your blessings. Got it. Coz it could be so much worse, you’re right. Of course you’re right.” Tony exhaled loudly through his nose. “So what are we doing about lunch?”

**********************

 

 In a vain attempt to return to normalcy, Stephen and Tony found themselves in the kitchen shortly after, with Stephen taking the helm to prepare a light meal, seeing how he seemed to be the only one remotely functional. 

Tony sat at the counter, unable to bring himself to help, for there were simply too many questions hanging over his head. 

Was Loki really pregnant, or was he simply ill? Was it an affliction, bearable only in Jotun form? And if so, was it a fleeting or a chronic condition?

Why couldn’t Tony touch him? 

Staring down at his hands, Tony could not help but wonder what would have happened had he given in and touched Loki like he wanted.

He could not keep from touching Loki forever, could he? That was simply not possible. 

“Is he really pregnant?” Tony finally asked when he could no longer bear the silence. 

The sudden stiffening of Stephen’s shoulders was the only indication that he had heard him. 

“Why didn’t you look inside him?” Tony pressed. “I know you wanted to.”

Stephen finally turned around from the stove. “Without his explicit permission? And after what he said?”

“You know he didn’t mean that,” Tony said weakly. 

The spatula dropped from Stephen’s hand. “Oh my god. You think I did this to him too.”

“I don’t know!” Tony lashed. “I don’t know what to think, Stephen, hence why I am asking!”

“How long have we been together?” Stephen demanded.

“Come on, let’s not do that.”

“No, no, I’d love to hear why my partner of ten years would think I’d stoop so low that I would force something like this on someone?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You are putting words in my mouth.”

“Only the ones you don’t have the balls to come out and say.”

“Oh, you want to talk about balls?” he growled. “How about this. How about you stop pretending like everything is fine and freak out for real?” 

“What does that even mean?” Stephen asked, sheer frustration bleeding from every pore in his body.

“We’ve talked about wanting children one day. Maybe it was unintentional, you know that happens all the time,” Tony pointed out. “And why are you so certain it was you anyway?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a healthy, virile man. Me and Pepper had a few scares of our own when we were still together,” Tony said, spreading his arms out. “So why couldn’t it be me?”

“Really? That’s what you’re concerned about?” Stephen’s voice rose. “What the fuck, Tony?”

Tony banged a fist on the kitchen counter. “I don’t know, okay?” 

Stephen reared his head, clearly taken aback. “Tony…”

“I don’t know what’s happening, and honestly, I don’t really care.” His eyes began to water. “I just want Loki to be okay.”

Stephen sighed, feeling some of the tension drain away at the sight of the tears on Tony’s lashes. 

He walked over to where Tony sat and gathered his husband’s fingers into a fist. “Hey, hey. Nothing’s going to happen. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

Stephen searched his husband’s face. As unpredictable as Loki’s moods were, Tony could be the more difficult to read sometimes. So much for being fellow humans. “Tony, what are you trying to say?”

“It’s not important,” Tony said finally, pulling his hand out of Stephen’s grasp gently. “I think you and Loki need to talk.” 

Stephen shook his head, adamant. “No. I know you. You’re upset about something.”

“Me? Upset?” Tony pasted a big grin on his face. “I’m ecstatic. We’re finally going to be parents, just like we always wanted.”

“Tony…” Stephen said warningly. 

“Just go see to Loki, okay?” Tony pushed himself off the bar stool. He needed to get out of the kitchen, he needed to be alone. “I got shit to do.”

**********************

 

“Where is Tony?” Loki asked when he saw Stephen standing alone at the door.

“He thinks we need to talk, just the two of us. So do I.”

The staring contest dragged on for a full minute, before Loki became the first to drop his gaze. 

“If we must,” Loki sighed, and let him in. 

Stephen figured asking the easy questions first would pave the way for harder ones, as well as help him gauge just how willing Loki was to talk. “How are you feeling?”

“I am feeling fine.”

Stephen nodded at the bed that had clearly been slept in. “Did you have a good rest?”

“Somewhat,” Loki said softly. “I am hungry.”

“Come on. Let’s have lunch.”

Loki took a seat at the very end of the long table and watched Stephen ladle out something from the tureen he had brought into a bowl. 

Stephen brought it over and held out a spoon. "Dig in. It's your favourite zucchini and potato soup. You scored some nice ones at the market today."

Loki was about to sip his first spoonful when he realised that Stephen was not eating. “You will not join me?”

“I’m happy just watching you.”

“Anyone ever told you that you’re very strange?”

“More times than I can count,” Stephen said. “Mostly by you.”

“It is a compliment.” Loki shrugged. “Most of the time.”

They spent the next fifteen minutes sitting in complete silence as Loki ate.

For someone so used to being watched, Loki seemed unusually self-conscious, fidgeting with his oversized dressing gown every few minutes to keep it from slipping down his shoulders.

Stephen refilled Loki’s glass to the brim with ice water, trying not to stare at the swirls of lines on his husband’s once-pristine skin. “Would you like some more? I made extra.”

Loki shook his head, looking uncomfortably full despite having had only a small serving of broth. 

“Go have a rest.” Stephen started clearing the table. Cleaning staff would have done it but he needed it, if only to give him a moment to think. 

Loki on the other hand was only too happy to be out of his way and do as he was told.  

Once he was cleaning up, Stephen walked over to the couch but before he could sit, Loki stopped him. "No. You are too close."

A hollow pit formed in Stephen's stomach. "You don't trust me."

Loki looked away. "Not you."

Stephen swallowed down most of the hurt and let the rest wash over like water. He was about to turn to leave and do this another day when an almost inaudible whisper reached his ear.

"Me."

Blood rushed to his head. Like a stone, Stephen dropped onto the couch and lunged, gathering his husband in his arms. 

All life returned to the silent form and Loki gasped. "Stephen!” He flailed in a flurry of blue limbs as he pushed Stephen off of him in a panic. 

“What the hell are you doing?" Loki berated. When Stephen did not speak, true panic coloured his voice. "Did I burn you? Show me!”

"It's fine, I'm fine!" Stephen showed Loki his hand, intact and unblemished. "See?"

Loki’s red eyes scanned Stephen from head to toe in bewilderment. "You're unhurt?"

Stephen shook his head. "Not a bit."

"How?" Loki’s mouth fell open. "Is it because of your magic? It's protecting you?"

"Your ice didn't hurt me earlier so I took a gamble."

A beautiful fury flushed Loki's face into a ruddy sangria. "You took a gamble."

"I had to. I didn't know how else I could get you to talk."

"Does this mean Tony could - ?" Hold me too? The unspoken question was unmistakably loud. 

"I don't know. Not yet," Stephen said quietly.

“Oh.” Loki’s shoulders slumped with a devastation Stephen knew too well. 

“Are you ready to talk?” he asked quietly.

Loki did not answer but instead of pulling away, he inched closer. With overwhelming relief,  Stephen took the chance to wrap an arm around his back. He could feel the coldness of Loki’s skin through the thin silk of the gown and unconsciously began to rub a hand up and down Loki’s arm. 

“I know you’re scared,” Stephen murmured. “I’m scared too. More than you know.”

Loki shook his head slowly. 

"I wasn't avoiding you. I was...trying to process." A blue hand rested over a stomach as flat as a board. "Still processing, in fact. I had my suspicions of course.”

Stephen frowned; this was news to him. “When did you first start noticing?”

“The unbearable heat? A few days ago.”

Stephen gaped, but Loki remained blithely insouciant. “This morning at the market, it just got a bit much.”

“We should go see someone. You know, just to confirm.”

“No.” Loki shook his head. “There is no need.”

“Loki,” Stephen tried again, but an icy glare stole his words and breath both.

“There is no need,” Loki repeated flatly. 

“Okay, Loki,” he relented, despite his heavy reluctance. He had gotten Loki talking now and that was an achievement in itself. “I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“I understand,” Loki said. “I thank you for your concern.” 

Still, his voice wavered as his resolve faltered. “I don't want anyone to see me like this. I am not ready."

"Will you believe me if I tell you that it doesn't matter how you look?"

"To you, maybe. To the rest of the world? Never." Loki closed his eyes and saw Odin, lying on the staircase to the vault that fateful day on Asgard. “There is no universe where a world exists that does not demand perfection.”

“Noone knows that more than me,” Stephen said, a haunted gauntness descending on his suddenly haggard features. “I can only see the world as it should be. Any imperfection, any deviation from reality...it stands out.” 

"And that is how you see me," Loki said bitterly. 

"No, you misunderstand. I seek imperfection, but at the same time, I fail to see imperfections in myself.” Stephen decided it was time for another gamble. He reached for Loki's hand. “Maybe you were right. Maybe this was my fault.”

Loki visibly hesitated. “About that....I think I misspoke earlier." 

“What do you mean?”

"Remember that night we spent together?"

"Just you and me or - ?"

Loki shook his head. "The three of us, on our anniversary. When I showed you both my other form?"

"Go on," Stephen said warily. 

"That night when we slept, I...may have neglected to reinforce my wards."

Stephen must have heard him wrongly. "What?"

"Contraceptive charms aren't a one-size-fits-all,” Loki mumbled. “Apparently I have to cast a new spell everytime I shift."

"And you didn't know this?"

Loki was furiously blushing now. "It slipped my mind, alright? It's been a while!"

"Oh God." Stephen could not stop himself in time from echoing Tony's words from earlier. "This is a nightmare."

Loki recoiled, as if slapped. "You don't mean that."

But Stephen was barely listening, his headspace catapulted to a time when a few too many drinks were had and the taste for the exotic followed them out the restaurant door all the way to their bedroom. 

Loki's female form was every bit as alluring and irresistible as his preferred male; to say that Stephen was besotted would be an understatement and he dared say that Tony too had felt the same.

The sudden drop of temperature in the room brought him out of the reverie and into the present, bringing with it a horror the likes of which he had never felt before.

Stephen swallowed hard. "Loki…"

"I thought you wanted this."

"I did. Babe, I still do," Stephen implored. "I just don’t think I’m ready."

"To be a father?"

A vehement shake of the head. "No, that I'm sure I can manage somehow. I can't imagine it'll be easy but with help...lots of help, and mistakes I’m sure, but it’s not impossible.”

“Then what is this fear I am seeing in your eyes?”

Stephen heard the fear mirrored in Loki’s voice and knew there was no going around it anymore. It was high time he brought his deepest, darkest fear out into the open.

“I fear not being able to help you," he confessed. “My knowledge and my skills only go so far.”

“Because I am not...human, you mean?”

Stephen’s silence provided Loki with all the answers he needed.

“Stephen, everything will be fine,” Loki said. “I will be fine.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

"You have to make peace with not knowing everything, Strange." 

“Makes my job harder when I don’t.”

Loki leaned into Stephen’s shoulder and sighed, "So young and already so burdened.”

Stephen rested his cheek gratefully against the top of Loki’s head. "Sometimes I forget you are so much older than me." 

His heartbeat picked up pace at the thought of asking what he had to ask next. "Is that why it's so difficult for you to trust me?"

"Don't take it personally, Doctor. I don't even trust myself." The contrast between his blue skin and Stephen’s tan was jarring and it took everything Loki had not to pull his hand away. "I am the embodiment of chaos and yet here I am, with you."

"Then you wouldn't have liked the old me. I was a committed hedonist. Work hard, play harder."

"Urgh. A hedonist and a perfectionist." Loki made a pained face, the disdain all too familiar but for the faint heritage lines fringing the hollows of his cheeks. "We wouldn't have lasted a day."

“Ouch.” But Stephen had to agree. “Yeah, we would have been too similar.”

Loki remained quiet for a while. “I have said terrible things to you.”

“You do that all the time,” Stephen soothed. “It’s music to my ears.”

At the sheer gentleness of Stephen’s voice, Loki’s eyes filled. “I have hurt you.”

“I’ve had worse. Remember our first trip together, the three of us?”

“Please, don’t remind me.”

“I still have the scar from that.” 

Loki studied the sinewy lines of Stephen's hand. Even with the old scars, it was beautiful to his eyes. "Poor Stephen. Why does the world always hurt you?" 

"Better me than anyone else," Stephen said, patting the back of Loki’s hand placatingly. “I’ve got tons, what is one more? They all tell a story.” 

Just like the lines on your face , Stephen thought. He longed to trace each of them with his fingers first, then his lips. 

Catching his husband staring, Loki suppressed the urge to turn away. “How can you stand to look at me?”

“You are the most exquisite thing I have ever seen.”

“Liar,” Loki whispered. 

Stephen shrugged. “You didn’t believe me the first time I said I love you either.”

“You do not find me...unsightly?” Typical Loki, he simply had to ask what deep-down inside he already knew, “You love me still?”

Stephen kissed Loki’s lips gently. “I never stopped.”

“Stephen…”

But Stephen was far from done. “I can’t do words very well...but I’d take a bullet for you, Loki.” He grasped the cold fingers and clasped them against his chest, just as he had done on their wedding day. “And if there's a child, for them too."

Loki's eyes blurred. 

“I can’t do words either,” he sighed, leaning forward until they were forehead-to-forehead proper. “Nor do I understand Midgardians’ courting gifts, but my Brother said you should accept them if the feeling is mutual.” 

“So...thank you.” Loki finally smiled his first genuine smile in days, bittersweet albeit a little watery. “I’ll make sure to stand behind you at all times.”

Stephen chuckled. "Yeah, you do that."

#ironstrangefrost mpreg #ironstrangefrost #frostiron #strangefrost #ironstrange #ao3 #fic #pregnant loki #mpreg loki #loki #loki whump

[imagine-loki]

Recovering, (Part 1/2)

TITLE: Recovering CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Part ½ AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki comes across a failed Hydra experiment. She looks to be an ordinary human, but Loki quickly learns she has the mind of a wild animal. 

RATING: M

Loki had been part of the Avengers for over a year. He had proved to be trustworthy enough of a team member, his past mistakes forgiven.

But he still got up to mischief, which often caused the other Avengers to get annoyed with him. But they were getting used to it. Sometimes they found his pranks funny, if they weren’t directed at them, that was.

Fury sent him on a mission with Bruce and Steve to clear out a Hydra base. To pick up any essential information that might be of use, and take out any Hydra soldiers.

Bruce had Hulked out and was fighting outside with Steve. Loki went inside the old warehouse base, to see what he could find. It seemed to be mostly empty, apart from a few soldiers loitering around that were swiftly dealt with.

But after picking up some documents that looked important, he heard a strange growling sound come from the back corner. There was a large sheet covering it.

Too curious to just leave it, he wandered over and hauled the sheet off. His eyes widened in confusion when he saw a woman in a large cage, wearing nothing but a night gown by the looks of it. Her hair was a mess, matted and pretty long. She was crouched over in the corner, looking terrified.

He could hear some more soldiers coming his way, but he wasn’t about to leave the woman there. She would die otherwise. So he opened the cage with his Seidr, the lock no match for him. When he opened it, she didn’t move.

‘It’s ok, I won’t hurt you. I’ll get you to safety. I work with The Aveng’ He was cut off when she suddenly darted out from the cage on her hands and feet, moving like an animal would do, barrelling past him.

Loki watched in confusion as she ran around the place, looking panicked. Making weird grunting noises. But then two soldiers came bursting into the room, Loki was about to teleport to her to get her to safety, but she launched for the nearest soldier and attacked him like a tiger would. Ripped into his neck with her teeth, killing him quickly.

Then she launched for the other solider.

Loki noticed a file attached to her cage door. He picked it up and realised his mistake.

It said she was a failed experiment, highly dangerous and should never be let out. She had turned half feral, had the mind of a wild animal and half the strength of one, too. But looked just like a human, aside from her brain wasn’t working like it should.

‘Oh dear.’ Loki was now in a bit of a dilemma. But he still didn’t want to just leave her, she was a victim. Part of Hydra’s horrible experimenting.

Steve came across comms. ‘Loki, have you got the information? We are almost finished out here!’

‘Yeah, nearly finished. I’ll meet you back at base.’ He said to Steve.

The girl continued running around the room in a panic, trying to get out. Scrambling at the doors and windows, but Loki had locked them with his Seidr. Not wanting her to escape and get hurt by Hulk or Steve thinking she was part of Hydra.

‘Hey, it’s alright.’ Loki managed to get her into a corner and he put his hands out to try and show he wasn’t a threat.

‘I’m not going to hurt you… I just want to get you to safety.’ He said softly.

She looked at him, wide eyed, panting and snarling. Her teeth looked sharper than the average humans, but not overly so. He couldn’t tell what colour her hair truly was, as she was very dirty. He dreaded to think how long she had been locked up in that cage for, there was no date on the information.

Using his illusions, he made a distraction across the room. Her head whipped round in the direction of the noise, so that’s when Loki striked. He used his cape and covered her with it. She struggled and tried to fight back, snarling like mad.

But Loki was able to pin her down underneath his cape. He waited a moment, glad when she calmed down. She was like a feral cat, but much stronger and obviously bigger. Though Loki was able to scoop her up easily into his arms, still snugly wrapped in the cape.

He didn’t want Steve to freak out, so instead of going back with them in the quinjet, he teleported himself and the girl back to base, straight into his room.

When he put her down, she started struggling again and managed to get out from under the cape. She launched for him, but he was able to fight her off and she realised his strength wasn’t ordinary, so she went running across his room.

In her confusion and panic to get out, she jumped up on his desk and knocked everything flying off. Breaking his lamp in the process.

‘No, no, calm down. Get down from there.’ Loki said as he ran over and tried to get hold of her. But she leaped onto the bed and made a mess of his covers, knocked his pillows flying as she scrambled to get away from him.

‘Not the pillows!’ He groaned.

Then she bolted to the window and tried climbing up the curtains, but instead just pulled them down. The railing too, making a huge racket.

Loki by this point was now just hiding his face behind his hand.

‘What have I done?’ He muttered to himself.

After a bit of a fight, he managed to get her into his bathroom and he closed the door and put a spell over it, to make sure she couldn’t open it and that no one else could go in but him. He leaned back against the door and sighed as he slid down to the floor. Who knew trying to wrestle a human female with the mind of a tiger into a bathroom would be so exhausting?

He looked around his room and his heart sank. It was an absolute mess. But luckily, with a wave of his hand, he managed to get it back in order. The scratches from her scarily sharp nails on his arm healed up quick enough. He was just glad he had managed to avoid her teeth.

The team were a little confused when Loki got a lot of food from the kitchen and went back to his room with it. But they learned not to question Loki and his sometimes odd ways, so left him to it.

Loki knew he was going to have to try and earn her trust. But he knew that wasn’t going to be easy.

Whenever he went into the bathroom, she would either lunge for him or cower in the corner. But he was able to slide food in for her and quickly leave her in peace to eat. Each time he checked in, she had devoured the food.

She was a skinny little thing, he wondered how she still had the strength to remain upright. Never mind attack.

Over the following few weeks, he was able to get into the bathroom with her and not have her attack him. So he would take food and sit with her while she ate.

He also had some snacks with him, mini cookies. She seemed to like them as when he threw her one, she would gobble it up. So he was going to use those as treats.

‘I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help. I know that you’ve been treated badly, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.’ He spoke softly with her, which seemed to help.

She tilted her head at him often, like she was trying to understand what he was saying. Trying to process it.

He had tried giving her clothes once, but she didn’t know what to do with them and ripped them up. As the simple gown she had on wasn’t much use. But at least she liked the multitude of blankets and pillows he gave her, she snuggled up against them in a pile under the sink.

While she was in there, he had to use the communal bathroom to shower and use the toilet. The team noticed he was using it over time and asked questions, but he just shrugged them off and never gave them a proper answer.

‘I need to think of a name for you, at least until I can learn your real name.’ Loki said one day to the girl while he was sitting with her.

She was lying curled up on her pile of pillows, just watching him carefully.

‘I think you look like an Alice.’ He smiled and threw a cookie to her.

She reached out and she snatched it from the floor, eating it quickly.

‘Alice.’ He said again louder, when she was looking at him. Then he threw her another cookie.

Over the next couple of days, he continued to say her name and gave her a cookie when she seemed to respond to him. By the third day, he would say her name and she would sit up, looking alert and waiting for a cookie.

‘Good girl.’ He praised and threw her a cookie.

Then he decided to try and train her a bit more. So he put a cookie down closer to him. She was wary, keeping a close eye as she moved over on her hands and feet, crouched right down. When she got within reach of the cookie, she grabbed it and moved back to her safety distance to eat.

Loki kept doing it, having the cookie closer and closer to him. Until, eventually, she would sit on her knees and eat it quite close to him, within reach.

But then he made a mistake and reached out towards her when she wasn’t paying attention. So when he touched the side of her head, she freaked. In a bad way. She attacked him, ripping his jacket and scratching his face before she managed to rush back to her pile of blankets.

Loki didn’t want to end it on a bad note, so even though he was slightly startled at her attack, he said her name and got her attention, threw her a cookie then swiftly left the bathroom. A little frazzled.

As he exited the bathroom, Thor and the rest of the team were in his room, glaring at him with their arms folded over their chests.

‘Alright, Loki. Spill the beans. What are you hiding in there?’ Steve asked firmly.

‘Judging by the state of you it must be some wild animal.’ Natasha said, noting the way the stuffing was poking out of his shoulder and his sleeve on his other arm was torn.

The scratches on his face were starting to fade already as he healed. Luckily his favourite green waistcoat and tie was unscathed.

‘We know there’s something, all the food you’ve been sneaking away and using the other bathroom. What are you hiding? I knew there was something, you’ve been far too quiet!’ Tony said.

Loki chuckled and put his arms out to his side. ‘Come on. What did you expect? Of course there’s something in there.’

‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Clint said and went to push past Loki, but Loki quickly moved on front of him to stop him.

‘You don’t want to do that, trust me.’

‘What have you got in there?’ Bruce asked.

‘Ok… So, remember that mission where we raided the Hydra warehouse?’ Loki looked to Steve and Bruce, who both nodded. ‘Well, there was a failed experiment in there. She has been battered and bruised by Hydra agents, the experiment has completely messed her up… She’s a human, but with the mind of a tiger. Or some other, wild animal.’

The team looked between one another, not believing him.

‘You’re lying.’ Thor chuckled. ‘A wild human?’

Loki’s jaw clenched. ‘I am not lying, not this time.’

‘Prove it.’ Said Natasha.

Loki sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Alright, you did ask.’ He reached behind him and opened the door.

Alice was confused when she saw the door open, but Loki didn’t appear. She had heard voices, but was wary about going to take a look. But curiosity quickly got the better of her and she carefully wandered over to the door, into view of the others.

She snarled when she saw a bunch of people behind Loki and she quickly backed away again, running to her bed.

Loki swiftly shut the door to give her privacy. Then he turned to the others, who all looked completely stunned.

‘I did tell you.’ He shrugged with a smirk.

#Loki #God of Mischief #Submitted fic #submission #recovering #chapter 1 #fanfichiddles

[thearvariblues]

The Real Loki Always Chokes Me

Sooo... I might have actually written a fic for @zombieporno​‘s prompt from... last week, I guess. Except that my brain only managed the first part, since I don't have the patience for the asshole avoiding Tony. Bear with me, writing this took me a week. :D I might write an alternate version of this when he does avoid him, though - when I find my patience again, and maybe stop spending my evenings playing Witcher 3 instead of writing. :D

But until then... enjoy this, I guess?

*

Contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark didn’t really enjoy being a superhero. Well, yes, he enjoyed some parts of it, but others he kind of hated.

Like being dragged out of his workshop (when he was getting so fucking close to finding the solution for the problem that had been on his mind for two weeks now) by yet another attempt at world domination.

Though, to be fair, their current opponent wasn’t really trying to sit on the ruler-of-the-whole-world’s throne anymore. He was more or less just being an annoying piece of shit, probably just wanting to have some fun while he was stuck here in ‘Midgard’ as he insisted on calling it.

It was Loki, of course.

For the past five months, it had always been Loki. Almost as if he had bribed all the other villains not to attack.

Since his ‘having fun’ mostly consisted of robbing quite a few banks by teleporting in and out of them, he very well might have had. The guy would soon get richer than Tony himself.

“So what’s our drama queen done this time?” Tony asked as they took off in the quinjet. “Please don’t tell me it’s a dildo rain again.”

“I’ve told you a million times, we don’t call it a dildo rain,” Steve growled.

“It was literally raining dildos, Cap, what do you want to call it?” Clint smirked.

“I… I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. It’s not dildo rain today, so could we just stop talking about it?”

“Sounds like someone should have stolen one of those dildos and taken it home,” Natasha chuckled. “Like Tony did.”

“Like Tony what?!” Bruce blinked.

“What?” Tony shrugged. “Purely technically, Loki stole my credit card and used it to pay for all those… toys.”

“It’s worse somehow when you call them toys instead of dildos,” Steve sighed.

“Yeah, well. They were paid for with my money. So they were mine, weren’t they? I could have taken all of them instead of like… five most interesting.”

“My brother would be delighted to hear someone takes pleasure in his mischief,” Thor commented.

“Oh, yes. Lots and lots of pleasure.”

“Guys. Stop,” Bruce said, clearly fighting a chuckle. “I think Cap’s about to start crying…”

*

It really wasn’t a dildo rain this time. It was more of a… Loki rain. Or a Loki avalanche.

It was a few hundreds of perfect clones of Loki annoying the living daylights out of everyone they could find. They disappeared upon being touched, yes, but they were also extremely good at avoiding being touched in the first place.

As the team found out when Hulk ran straight through three of the clones and into the building behind them. This incident made Tony stop trying to assess the damage and give JARVIS an instruction to just pay for everything the idiots manage to destroy while ‘saving the world’.

Then he proceeded to turn off his comm, fly up to the roof of the nearest high building and just watch the spectacle underneath. Cap would give him hell for that, he was sure, but he kind of didn’t care.

“And what in Hel’s name are you doing here?” asked a growling voice just a few seconds after he had landed.

Tony turned around, let his helmet fold down and cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, look, a clone Loki. Hey. How you doing?”

The Loki in front of him frowned, tilting his head.

“You’re supposed to be fighting the clones.”

“Nah. Too boring,” Tony shrugged. “You make Loki disappear. Turn around, another Loki. And look, another. Loki, Loki, Loki.”

“That’s the point,” the clone hissed.

“Yeah, I got that much. But hey, look, even though you’re all hot as fuck, the battle isn’t particularly amusing, you know?”

Loki blinked, so puzzled that Tony almost felt sorry for the clone.

“Hot as…” the clone whispered under his breath.

“Yeah, I mean… God, I hope you’re not connected to the real Reindeer Games. Fuck. If you are, can we pretend I never said what I said? I tend to let my mouth talk without my brain controlling it.”

“Connected to the real…” the clone gave an ugly chuckle. “I am the real Loki!”

Now it was Tony’s turn to frown and tilt his head.

“Nah,” he said after a long inspection. “You’re not. Haven’t tried to kill me yet. Not even to choke me. The real Loki always chokes me.”

The clone’s face went completely blank at that.

“Uhm… Hey?” Tony said after a few seconds of silence. “Did I actually manage to break a clone? Error 503: Brain Unavailable?”

The clone shook his head, probably to clear it, and took a step towards Tony.

“You idiot,” he growled. “You impossible mortal. I will crush you underneath my heel, you–”

“See? Now you sound like the real stuff!” Tony grinned. “Just a little angrier… That’s it! Perfect. Now to the crushing, while I’m not exactly into hard BDSM, I do like to get a liiittle kinky… Uhm, back to the question, you really aren’t connected to Loki himself, are you?”

“I am Loki!” the clone snarled.

“Yeah, we’ve been through this. The choking, baby. Except you can’t. Because you can’t touch me. Because if you touch me, poof, you’re gone.”

“Are you asking me to prove to you that I am real?”

“Yup. Indulge me.”

“As you wish.”

A split second later, Tony felt a very real and totally non-disappearing hand close around his throat and he came to a realization that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

But before he could utter the words ‘Don’t kill me, it was just a joke’, or even a mere ‘Oh, fuck’, Loki’s lips crashed against his in a wild and passionate and hungry kiss.

Tony’s brain stopped working for a second. Or two. Maybe even ten. Because when he came back to his senses, Loki was just pulling away, breathing heavily, his face a perfect mask of horror.

“Wow,” Tony gasped, licking his lips. “I know I said indulge me, but I haven’t expected that. If I say I’m not entirely convinced yet, can I have more?”

Loki’s eyes went even wider at that, and then he disappeared in a flash of green light.

“Okay,” Tony nodded. “I take that as a no. Shame, really.”

A look down to the street revealed that all the clones were gone, too.

Right. Time to go home.

*

It had been four days since the whole clones-and-kissing incident and if Tony was to be honest, he kind of couldn’t stop thinking about it. Well, he could – but the thought was always somewhere at the back of his mind, always ready to show up and remind him that hey, Loki, as in Thor’s brother Loki, as in the wannabe-world conqueror, kissed you and you liked it.

And he did. Very much.

That was why he didn’t mind when he walked into his penthouse only to find said god sitting on his couch and reading a book.

A fucking book.

“Uhm,” Tony commented. “JARVIS?”

“I tried to alert you, sir,” the AI said. “Two hours ago. But you told me to, I quote, shut the fuck up, J, or you’re gonna spend the rest of your days in a fucking elevator, calling out the number of the floor. End quote.”

“You might have said it was… urgent,” Tony muttered as Loki looked up from his book and smirked.

“I really don’t wish to spend the rest of my days in an elevator, sir.”

“Right,” Tony nodded. “Hey, Lokitty. How you doing? J, I’m gonna need an armor at the ready.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Loki said and the book he was holding promptly disappeared. “I came to apologize, Stark.”

“Uhm… For what? I mean, there’s a long list of things you should be apologizing for, so let’s be specific there. Drink?” he asked, already heading for the kitchen.

“The kiss.”

That actually made Tony stop dead in his tracks. He frowned, turned around and stared at Loki.

“As in I’m sorry I ever kissed you, or…”

Loki sighed, avoiding his gaze. Tony realized the god wasn’t wearing his usual armor – only a pair of simple black jeans and a loose, long-sleeved green T-shirt. He looked… weirdly normal. Almost like a human.

“Oh, dear. No. Never,” Loki said, a corner of his lip twitching. “But I shouldn’t have done it without your permission.”

“Seriously?” Tony laughed, taking a step towards the couch. “You’re apologizing because you didn’t ask for consent first?”

“Well… Yes. It was inappropriate. Improper. Brutish.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Tony said, sitting next to Loki without really thinking about it. “I mean… It’s not perfect, I’ll give you that, but do you see me complaining?”

Loki kept staring anywhere but at Tony.

“I’m not some kind of an animal, unable to control my impulses…”

Tony’s brain kept trying to alert him that this was Loki, who was very much wild and unpredictable and, yeah, sometimes even unable to control his impulses. But Tony didn’t listen. Because this wild and unpredictable deity was just sitting there, biting his lower lip and apologizing for something as simple as a kiss.

“Impulses?” Tony repeated after him. “Sorry, just to be perfectly clear, was the impulse a one-off thing, or something you’d like to, perhaps… happen again?”

Loki’s eyes flicked to Tony’s, then to his lips, then up again, and away.

“I should go,” the god said. “I shouldn’t have come. It was stupid of me–”

“Or…” Tony murmured, his own eyes straying to Loki’s lips. His brain was screaming at him to stop, but Tony wouldn’t listen. He’d always been bad at controlling his impulses. “Or you could try again.”

“Anthony, are you seriously suggesting…”

“Fuck,” Tony whispered, a shiver running down his spine. He could have sworn that he hated his full name, but when he heard it from Loki’s lips like this… “Say that again.”

The god’s green eyes were so close and so full of longing that it took all of Tony’s willpower not to simply crash their lips together.

“May I… May I kiss you, Anthony?” Loki smiled.

“Yes,” Tony hissed. “Please. Yes.”

This kiss wasn’t wild and passionate and hungry. It was calm. Sweet. Loving.

And long.

Very… very long.

*

“Six months!” Steve growled. “Loki hasn’t been seen for six months. No attacks, no robberies, no showing-off, nothing. Thor isn’t even sure his brother is still on Earth!”

“I said I think he is,” Thor specified. “But it’s possible that he isn’t.”

Except that Tony knew perfectly well that Thor knew too damn well where Loki was at the moment, having visited the god only a few hours ago.

“Come on, don’t make a big deal out of it,” Clint sighed. “Maybe he’s just grown bored of us.”

“You? Maybe. Me? Never,” Tony smirked. “Everybody knows I’m amusing as hell and completely irresistible even to Norse gods!”

“And so very modest, too,” Natasha added. “But I’m with Clint – I think Loki’s just had enough. He might be back in the future, but for now, we should enjoy not having to see his fucking magic tricks every other day.”

“Agreed,” Bruce nodded. “I don’t think there’s a bigger plan. Just Loki being Loki.”

“I’d like to point out that even before his disappearance, Loki was mainly just causing mischief. I mean, we were the ones who did the most damage during his last, uhm… attack?” Tony shrugged.

“What if he just wanted to lull us into a false sense of security?” Steve asked. “While he prepares for something big?”

Tony sighed and shot a quick look at Thor.

“What do you think, Point Break? Does your baby bro have a great sinister plan to murder us all, or does he just have better things to do than being an annoying little shit?”

“The latter, I’d say,” Thor smiled, because he knew he was right. Loki did have better things to do. Tony, for a start.

And reading.

And watching sci-fi movies and TV shows.

And yelling “That’s not how space works!” at the TV.

Also cooking. Which was something he was surprisingly good at.

And studying all the ancient tomes and spellbooks Thor managed to sneak out of Asgard. There were a lot of those. So many that Tony had to transform a spare room into a study.

And if he was bored, he could always do Tony again. Of course.

Or, well, cause some minor mischief all around the Tower – like hiding Clint’s arrows in weird and random places, replacing Bruce’s herbal tea with mate (and then sulking when Tony spend the whole night in the lab with hyperactive Bruce, working on a project), making the elevator stop working so everyone had to take the stairs…

Or the thing he was doing just now, which was kneeling right in front of Tony, naked from waist up and undoubtedly invisible to everyone but him, stroking the inventor’s thighs not with his hands, but with his magic, slowly getting closer and closer to his crotch...

Tony drummed his fingers on the table and got to his feet.

“Alright, so are we agreed that Loki isn’t dangerous at the moment and his sudden disappearance doesn’t mean he’s got some nefarious secret plan?”

“Agreed,” Natasha said before Cap could even open his mouth.

“Good. If you’ll excuse me now, I gotta go. I also have better things to do.”

Loki, for a start.

The second the elevator door slid closed behind them, Tony felt a pair of hot lips on his neck.

“Let me guess. You got bored?” he chuckled before sighing softly.

“Very much so,” Loki purred. “And don’t even try to pretend that you were having fun, my love.”

“It wasn’t about having fun, sweetie. It was about you being… Oh, god, right there, Loki… It was about you being a threat to all of humanity and…”

“Oh, please. I’ve only been a threat to your fridge and alcohol stash lately.”

“And my poor T-shirts. I’m still waiting for you to find the pocket dimension where you hid the Black Sabbath one, you know.”

“That was one accident, Anthony! And it wasn’t exactly my fault. To think that they call me Silvertongue…”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Tony murmured, burying his fingers in Loki’s soft, curly hair. “I still want it back.”

“I’ll look for it, I promise.” Loki’s long fingers found their way underneath Tony’s T-shirt. “When I’m done with you. But I promise to deal with all your clothes the non-magical, old-fashioned way in the meantime.”

“You’d better,” Tony said.

The elevator stopped in the penthouse. Loki took Tony’s hand and dragged him out, grinning.

“You know what, Anthony? I’m really glad I kissed you on that roof.”

Tony smiled back, his heart suddenly so full of affection that it was almost hard to breathe.

“Yeah, Lokes. So am I.”

#frostiron #ironfrost #tony stark #loki #tony x loki #fluff and humor #domestic avengers #marvel fic #avengers fic #my fics

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas : The Original Sin

Also on AO3! 

TL;DR: 

Midoriya Izuku is born incomplete, part of him lacking in a way that makes him abnormal - inhuman. When he turns nine, this changes.

( shamelessly based of the young loki storyline in marvel comics a while ago with the title stolen from there as well. Look - "I am the crime that can not be forgiven." is a baller line ok.)

Midoriya Izuku is born blue and silent. There is no gentle rise and fall of his chest, no pulse, no movement. The Doctors whisk him away in a blur of activity – they tell Inko they will do everything they can. They do not expect a happy ending.

20 Minutes later, Izuku begins to breath on his own. With no previous reaction to treatment this spontaneous respiration is shocking. They expect major brain damage, only to see the infant open his eyes and squint in the bright light of the room. He yawns. They cheer.

They return him to his near hysterical mother’s room. He’s hooked up to countless monitors, but they assure her its just a precaution. She is warned he may have some form of brain damage that will become apparent as he grows, but he is alive and healthy and that in itself they can promise.

Inko cries – her son is alive and he is smiling and that’s all she could ever ask for.

Izuku grows up strange. As a baby he rarely cries – so rarely in fact that Inko can’t stand to have him sleep in a different room, so scared her near silent son will drift away without her knowing. He never does. He seems to understand her from day one as she tells him stories about heroes and dragons. His little hands wipe her tears as she cries. She doesn’t know how, but her son is special.

He doesn’t speak a word until he goes to daycare and meets a firecracker blonde, upon which he shows he can speak far better than most of his peers.

Despite this he seems somehow – lacking – to the other children. Like he’s missing something he needs to be one of them, to be human. They hurt him and push him and take his things. He does not cry.

The only child mostly unaffected by this is Katsuki. He still admits Izuku is a “weirdo”, but he’s smart and fast, sure on his feet with dexterous hands. He seems somehow older and younger than all of the other children in a way that makes adults baby him, but children fear him. Katsuki will not be scared.

Katsuki gets his quirk first. It’s bright and colourful and everything they expected from him.

He asks Izuku about his quirk. His looks into the middle distance for a moment before smiling. It’s small but bright as ever. “Mine will be late.” He then frowns, looking down at his own two hands. They seem ever so small at the moment. “Not sure why.”

Inko asks if he wants to go to the doctor, to see if he has a quirk. Izuku shakes his head gently. “I have one – I know I do. It’ll be late though.” Inko asks him if hes sure, but she trusts her son. He’s much smarter than they remember to give him credit for.

Still, the others don’t believe him. He grows up labelled quirkless with all it brings. Katsuki stays by his side, the quiet and kind boy is something different from the extras - he knows this as well as he knows the sun will rise. They make an interesting pair. One quiet, calm, too knowing, the other brash and loud. They are both whip smart.

Izuku has an eye for quirks better than anyone, always teasing out their mechanisms and probably limitations faster than someone with decades of experience. Katsuki is convinced this will prove to be an aspect of the elusive quirk that refuses to show itself.

Izuku dreams of horrors he has never seen – blood on his hands and quirks at his fingertips. He feels powerful but oh so alone. In the dark on night when he retches silently into his bin, the feeling of hot blood still so real under his shaking hands, he vows to be nothing like the man in this dreams.

Never again.

Izuku is nine when it happens. Katsuki is dragging him through the forest excitedly, hands warm and gently crackling in his own. His head begins to ache.

What started as a nagging irritation quickly shifts into a blinding pain worse than anything Izuku has ever felt in his life. He stumbles to the ground, clutching as his head and he screams and sobs, tears hot down his face.

Katsuki has seen Izuku cry plenty – but never from pain. Not when they got their shots, not when the bully from two grades about them slammed his fingers in the heavy oak door, not when he felt from the tree Katsuki had begged him to climb; bone sharp and pink through his skin. Katsuki wraps his arms around his friend and screams for help.

The screaming stops. Izuku slumps. Katsuki panics. He can feel his friend’s breath on his shoulder but he will not wake. Katsuki can only hold his friend and hope.

All for One had known this day would come. He had known All Might would kill him – it was only a matter of time. That’s why he had a plan B.

A quirk he’d stolen nine odd years ago, creating a shell his mind and quirk would snap to upon his original body’s death. It would kill the original holder of the body, ideally leaving nothing more than an empty shell of a person he would become should he die. He felt some what bad knowing he had killed an infant before it got to draw it’s first breath, but the feeling was fleeting. He had work to do.

He watches Izuku grow. He always had a link to the boy – something about him being an extension of himself making it ever so easy to find him. The boy’s soul – because what else could it be – is stubborn. Parts of it linger in the body, only growing stronger as he ages. He can’t help be grow fond of him. The boy is almost like a son to him, in some strange and twisted way. A creature that should have died but refused to at every turn. All for One could empathise.

That’s why, them All Might’s final blow falls, he feels a flicker of sorrow. Izuku would be no more soon, simply a body he would wear as a puppet. There was no choice though. His work was not yet done.

All for One / Izuku finds themselves in a world of pain, two souls waring for life in a body that can only hold one. What astounds them the most is that Izuku is winning.

All for One plunges them into darkness – away from the pain, so they can talk. They have a time limit though, they are tearing the small body to pieces from the inside out.

Izuku doesn’t want to force All for One out – that will kill him. All for One doesn’t want him dead either. They strike a deal : Izuku will keep his own body until he dies, All for One’s quirk his to use (though the man will keep every quirk he’s personally acquired close to his chest). When Izuku dies – as he will, All for One insists, because the boy wants to be a hero – All for One will take control. They agree.

Izuku opens his eyes and smiles. What once was dull green is now bright and electric, flickers of crystalline white running through them. Izuku feels whole – normal. That makes Katsuki worried most of all.

He explains everything to his only friend – everything he knows. Its not a lot admittedly, only that there is someone else in his head now – their quirk his to use, and that when he dies he will no longer be himself. They do not tell Inko. They train – they will become heroes.

All Might meets Izuku under the bridge, a scraggly man trying to wring his neck as he screams incoherently. All Might knocks out the man before asking is Izuku has seen the villain he was looking for. Understanding blooms in the child’s eyes and suddenly the man on the floor is liquid once again. All Might feels deathly cold.

Izuku gets his autograph, the strange man sharing his mind griping idly about the “blond buffoon” as he insits on calling All Might. Izuku doesn’t mind, ecstatic to meet his hero. He doesn’t miss the flinch on All Might’s face when he lets the man’s quirk flow back into him, but he brushes it away. Everyone is scared of his quirk, its nothing new.

As All Might is distracted by memories long after the boy leaves, the slime villain slinks away

Izuku saves Katsuki, clutching the boy’s own quirk in his gentle grasp, pulling it into his own fold ever so gently, never truly severing it from the blonde. The villain recoils from the blasts as Izuku pulls his friend. All Might swoops in.

Later he asks to train the boy – revealing his smaller side. He says nothing of One for All. He is considering it but he is so scared of any possible connections to All for One he dares not mention it. Izuku takes this with a smile and open arms.

Other stuff:

Izuku is told about One for All a few months in to training because All Might sees his boy is good and kind and nothing like the monster the thought he could be. Izuku immediately goes on about all of the good someone with All Might’s quirk could do, never once assuming it would be his to use. That makes up All Might’s mind – he will pass it to him.

Izuku calls All for One Zero. For All for One it’s kind of a pun about he is One for All wielder number 0. He starts calling Izuku Ninth, or Niner just before he get’s One for All – Izuku thinks it’s a pun on his name.

Izuku can both take quirks and borrow them. Taking them severs their connection from the wielder, borrowing them is just like holding them for a second – they snap back when he stops paying attention. Borrowing is faster and easier and can be reversed without contact. Taking means he will keep the quirk even if he is knocked out or stops concentrating – he tries to avoid doing that because it hurts to give them back and he doesn’t trust himself to do it no matter how guilty stealing something would make him feel.

All for One is actually big soft on Izuku and really doesn’t want the boy dead. He chats to him a lot, offers to help him cheat on tests – which Izuku never takes – and subtly heals their shared body while Izuku sleeps. He wants to kill the children who hurt him. Izuku can’t bare the thought.

All for One and Katsuki get along like a house on fire, even if their interactions are all mediated through Izuku serving as a mouth piece, and its scary. Katsuki and Inko were the only people he told about Zero until All Might. Others in 1A find out at various points in time.

Izuku eventually finds out about the weird quirk hes a part of and has a crisis knowing he is not the Izuku that should have been born into the world. He tells his mother, expecting her to hate him, but she only smiles. "You're still my son - I couldn't ask for anyone better."

#original sin au #bnha au #bnha #all might #izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku #midoriya #izuku #deku #bakugo katsuki #yagi toshinori #midoriya inko #all for one #mha

[sneykat]

You matter to me - Dashingfrost fic

Rating: Teen and up audience

Fandom: Thor (Movies)

Pairing: Dashingfrost, Fandroki, Fandral/Loki

Characters: Loki, Fandral, Thor

Tags: Pre-Thor (2011), Romantic Fluff, Fluff, Flirting, Secret Relationship, Loki needs a hug

Summary:        

Loki is sad. Fandral tries to comfort him. All in all a little piece of them referring to their secret relationship and their current feelings.

Notes:    

This is kind of an excerpt of a background story I am imagining for Fandral and Loki in which they share a secret relationship. It is more of a snippet than a real story. It is un-betaed. Sorry, if there are mistakes but English isn't my mother tongue and I haven't found someone willing to beta for me, yet. Aaaand: there will be snow. I wanted some snow to fall in Asgard.

“Thor, your stories are the best of all Asgard! Tell us how you’ve slain the beasts in Vanaheim!”

“Yes, do that, Thor! Wasn’t it in the blink of an eye that you wielded your hammer against their battle hog?!”

“I’ve heard it was your bare fist.”

“I’ve heard Loki assisted you by causing a fire storm.”

The men and women in the ceremonial hall were cutting in on each other in all their excitement about the return of Thor and his warrior friends. Their burning desire to listen to yet another glory story about victory and battle fueled them on. Loki could hear their shrill laughter and the praise from the hallway as he was about to make an entrance. It was Thor’s voice, which stopped him.

“Oh, you know how that works: some do tricks, others fight battles.”

There was mockery and ease in Thor’s amused voice and the joy and pride of a warrior, who was well used to claim the recognition for his achievements. To Loki these words felt like yet another stab, which was causing his heart to wrench in pain and anger. It wasn’t the first time for his brother to deny the importance of the part Loki had played in battle. It had been his magic which had given Thor and the Warrior Three the needed barrier of protection from the enemy to make their attack against the opponents work without getting hurt during battle.

With his own feeling of pride regarding the new magic trick and its success Loki’s mood had been in lighter spirit than usual and against his aversion of taking part in feasts he had had decided to take part in the one held that evening. It proved that once again all it needed was another sting coming from his own brother to ruin his mood.

Loki hoped that no one had noticed his appearance as he quickly slid to the side to hide between two colons.

He felt anger and sadness burn inside of him over the words, which he had overheard without the intent to. The combination of these two feelings was a dangerous mix for it turned into desperation if only it lingered long enough within the heart of a person – and the storms within Loki had had too much time to build up during the last years of constantly feelings of rejection and mockery put upon him. The despair he felt wanted to lure him into giving in to his hate of situations like these and the people who he blamed for them. The young Trickster tried to think about a way of teaching Thor and his audience respect. Nothing fancy. All he wanted was to scare them a little. However, it was hard to come up with a decent thought while tears were burning in one’s eyes and one’s heart was aching.

It was no other than Fandral, the Dashing, who made Loki snap out of his thoughts. He had just excused himself from the celebrating crowd for a moment to take care of his personal business as he caught Loki in his hiding spot. Sure, Loki could trick some people and hide well, but Fandral was an experienced Warrior and he had seen enough of Loki’s games and disguises to fall for a quick attempt of getting out of line.

“I see you are trying to yet again avoid another feast,” he spoke up to Loki with a teasing voice as he was nearing in on him.

Damn Fandral for finding him in a condition like this!

Loki quickly tried to blink away the burning tears as the warrior stepped closer. He bowed and gave Loki a charming smile. “Will you allow me to guide you wherever you plan to leave to?” Fandral’s voice still held a little tone of mockery, but it was also gentle and respectful. It was a mixture only a few men could pull off without being annoying and Loki sighed. “If you must,” he agreed. His acceptance of the offer made Fandral smile and he wrapped his arm around Loki’s lower back way too easy-going for the fact that he was talking to a prince. “I’d like to show you something, Loki.” Since there was no protest coming from the young prince, Fandral took the lead and guided Loki closer to the entrance of the patio farthest away from the celebrating people. Loki was everything but surprised for the warrior to seek a moment of peace for them to share without witnesses.

It was a cold winter’s day and snow had befallen the Realm of The Gods. On contrary to Jotunheim there still was a golden glow above the layers of snow which were covering the land. Loki adored the scenery of winter in Asgard. It made Asgard’s beauty look even brighter and, in a way, also more peaceful.

Once they had stepped out of the warm hallway Fandral took the fur he was wearing off his shoulders to place it around Loki’s. It wasn’t like Loki would feel cold but Fandral was a gentleman regarding things like these and he also felt responsible for the wellbeing of the princes when he was hanging out with them. He felt especially protective of the younger prince. Loki knew about that and he didn’t protest but rather accepted the act of kindness. Fandral gently pulled on Loki’s shoulders to make him turn around and face him. He then cupped the prince’s cheeks with his warm hands and gently wiped the barely visible trace of tears from Loki’s eyes with his thumbs.

“What has caused these tears, my dear?” Fandral asked gentle-voiced and looked directly at Loki while he was waiting for an answer. He knew the young prince. He knew that he hated feasts like the one celebrated tonight but a brief glance at Loki’s well-chosen attire had proved that the Trickster indeed had planned on attending the celebration anyway. While it was common for Loki to hide whenever he felt like it, it was uncommon to do it in a not very thought through way like in which Fandral had found him.

Loki gave a little sigh as he pondered about what to say. He didn’t want to reject Fandral, but he also wasn’t very fond of portraying himself as vulnerable.

“You stink,” was the answer of choice he came up with and Fandral chuckled. “I’ve had some mead as you would well expect me to during a celebration like this,” the blonde man replied kind of unimpressed, yet with a tone of affection. “If you will excuse me for a moment, I will get you a fair share of it, too. It tastes wonderful tonight. It is an exceptionally fine serving of your father’s distillery.” Loki considered the offer for a moment and nodded his agreement a few seconds later. Fandral gave him a bright smile. “I’ll be right back, my prince.” Again, he bowed before he left both – the patio and Loki.

Upon Fandral’s return his arms were packed with furs, blankets and a basket. He gave Loki yet another bright smile. “If you would follow me, my dear.” He took the lead and Loki did follow as Fandral was searching for a quiet corner, well hidden among some sculptures, flowerpots and snowed in bushes. On a bench which was carved into marvel walls he created a warm nest for them and gave Loki a smile as he reached out his hand to offer it to the Trickster. Loki accepted the invitation and let Fandral guide him to take a seat on the furs. The warrior took his seat close to Loki and wrapped them up in the blankets and furs before he pulled a candle holder from the basket. He attached a fitting candle. Loki noticed very well that it was one of the candle holders from the ceremonial hall. He grinned and so did Fandral.

“I’ll return it later,” he promised, and Loki chuckled. “I don’t mind you stealing from my father.” “I would never steal from anyone,” Fandral emphasized and Loki chuckled. “I know. But you would borrow a candle holder if you would want to impress your date.” “If that means that you are willing to be my date for tonight, I will have to agree.” Fandral smirked and it was the kind of behavior which made Loki’s spirit rise again.

“You are way too desperate for my attention, dear Fandral,” it was Loki’s voice which held a mocking tone but also a hint of affection by then. He used his magic to light the candle and it was enough of an answer for both.

With a smile on his lips Fandral poured them some mead from one of the bottles. “Not only a candle holder but also mead and festive cups,” Loki noticed seemingly amused. “You deserve the best, my dear.” Fandral laughed and Loki watched him with a gaze, which was brighter than he would want to admit. They clanged glasses and Fandral brought his lips close to Loki’s ear to whisper right into it: “You are not less of a prince than your brother, Loki.”

Fandral had quite a good guess on what had made Loki feel upset earlier on and he disliked seeing the young prince troubled so all he wanted to do was to help him get back to a more cheerful spirit.

“You better tell Thor and my father,” Loki replied bitter-voiced. “Thor can be mean and selfish if he brags about his achievements in battle, and your father will see how wonderful his youngest son truly is,” Fandral replied and added a hesitant “eventually” after he had noticed Loki skeptically raising his eyebrow. Loki pressed his lips together for a moment. He then raised his cup and had a sip from the mead, closing his eyes as the wonderful warmth and sweetness spread in his mouth and his throat.

Fandral kept on watching the young prince. He knew a troubled and pained expression if he saw one and even more one of a young man who tried to drown his worries in alcohol.

“You know that Thor’d rip your head off your well-defined shoulders if he’d figure out how much you’re trying to get into my pants,” Loki spoke up eventually. The usage of contractions usually indicated that Loki was beginning to either be drunk or be in too much inner turmoil to still care for a more formal usage of language.

“I rely on my trust in you and the idea that you probably won’t give away our secret after all we’ve been through,” Fandral whispered into Loki’s ear as he started to nibble on the prince’s earlobe.

“I don’t know who is playing with whom any longer,” Loki admitted after he had another sip from the delicious mead.

“I can assure you, that I will never play with you, my prince. It was in all honesty when I told you I’d wait until you have made up your mind about how far you want to go with me.”

Loki felt how gently Fandral was playing with his hair. The warrior let his digits cart through the hair tips on Loki’s neck and did not hesitate to caress as much of his skin as he could reach. He noticed how his prince leant into the touch with the slightest of movements. It had been like that for a while: both sharing intimate gestures, which often resulted in Fandral trying to cheer Loki up. He held honest feelings for the young prince, and he was sure that Loki too had feelings for him. It seemed a lot harder for Loki to admit to them, but Fandral could live with that. If the warrior could be close to Loki, he did not care about hiding what they shared from the rest of the world.

“Sometimes I feel like you’re the only one who understands me, Fan,” Loki sighed. Fandral noticed the usage of the nickname Loki accentuated as sweetly as no women he had ever bedded. He loved it when Loki relaxed enough to turn into his softer and more open self.

“It is not easy to understand the complexity of your mind, my dear, but I sure notice when you’re not feeling well.” “How? How is it you notice when no one else does?” “Because you look beautiful even when you’re sad and I cannot take my eyes off you.”

Fandral’s words reached Loki’s heart and his lips turned into a little smile. “You really think that”, Loki replied. He had understood that much during all the time they had shared together. “Yes, I do. And I always will think that. You are most beautiful, my prince.”

“Will you ever stop courting me?”

A soft laughter from Fandral was the reply to Loki’s question and he held him a little tighter. “No. Unless you want me to.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Well, in this case, my prince, I will never get tired of telling you that you mean the world to me.”

“Will you tell me about this when I forget?”

“You will hear it as often as you need to.”

Loki watched how fresh snow started to dance from the sky. He wondered whether his soul would ever come to find peace. Meanwhile Fandral wondered about his beloved prince. He was concerned about him. Loki’s loneliness seemed so big and consuming that he could only hope that the young prince would find a way out of his misery someday. Fandral was willing to help as much as he could but it was not the first time, they shared a moment like this, and he had understood that a lot of what troubled Loki came from within the prince himself. Fandral could not take away Loki’s pain but he might as well help to soothe it.

After a while of just sitting together without a word spoken, it eventually was Loki who found his voice first.

“If I’d ask you to sleep with me tonight, would you?”

Fandral took a deep breath at that question. He had waited for bedding Loki for so long that naturally he wanted to push forward. However, he also knew about the meaning this question had for Loki.

“I would. If that is what you genuinely want. It is your first time after all and the alcohol…”

Fandral could not finish his sentence for Loki put his fingertip over his lips and watched him so intensely that he felt like his stomach would jump up and down.

“I want someone to make me feel like I matter,” Loki tried to explain. He seemed somewhat embarrassed as he spoke. Fandral started to smile and he gently grabbed Loki’s wrist to take his fingertip of his lips. He held Loki’s hand and placed a tender kiss on its back.

“I will prove how much you matter to me, my prince, and I’ll make sure you’ll never forget about it.”

 ***

the end

#pre-thor #fandroki #dashingfrost #fandral #loki #fandral/loki #fic #loki needs a hug

[mostfacinorous]

Stoki Whumptober Day 15: Into The Unknown [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

When he was removed from the cell the next day-- or let out, depending on how you looked at it, he had managed to get himself back to a state of being reasonably well put together. 

“So I uh-- heard you didn’t sleep so great. Sorry about that. I had forgotten that Jarvis has problems when I ask him to monitor Thor’s vitals, too.” 

Loki flapped his hand dismissively at Stark’s apology; he didn’t feel like going into the fact that his baseline would be wildly different from even Thor’s. It didn’t matter much. 

“How is the Captain?” He asked instead. 

Stark hummed. 

“Seems fine now-- that was a pretty wild treatment, though, so I think it’d be good to keep an eye on him.” 

He held the door open to allow Loki to board the elevator. 

“We got breakfast delivered, so I imagine he’ll be there-- and Barnes, too.” Stark looked wary, and Loki wondered what part of the gathering caused that. 

He found it odd that Stark seemed suddenly at ease around him, but perhaps his performance with Rogers the night before, and his relative lack of ill-will after being nearly roasted by his machine had given him some sense of confidence in Loki’s intentions. 

Bold of him to assume that Loki’s goodwill extended to him. But then again, all of his windows were thus far intact, so perhaps there was some small basis for it. It wasn’t a high bar to clear. 

“You seem… somewhat less than enthused about breakfast.” Loki offered it as an observation, but it was a question, ever so delicate, probing gently to learn more about these people he’d fought so often. He’d certainly never been allowed this close before, into their home. Or, home-base, at least. He knew Rogers had a place of his own, outside of the tower. 

Stark lifted one shoulder listlessly. But before he had a chance to elaborate, the elevator announced their arrival with a cheerful ping and the doors slid open onto a scene of surprising domesticity. 

The Avengers were gathered around the table, shy only Stark and alongside Barnes and a woman that Loki only knew peripherally as Pepper Potts, Stark’s good half. 

“So, now we’re all here-- good morning everyone--” Stark began, but was interrupted by Barnes snorting.

“It’s after noon.” Banner pointed out, clearly amused, and Loki blinked. He must have slept longer than he’d thought, to compensate for the heat and his efforts the day prior. 

“Well, yeah, okay. After noon. Happy brunch. Point is-- Loki. Steve. James Barnes-- what are we calling you these days? Bucky?” 

Stark’s edgy energy was back, and Loki realized it was centered around the Soldier. Fascinating, that Stark was literally more at ease with Loki at his back than with Barnes at his table. 

“James is probably fine.” He said mildly, buttering some toast and casually avoiding eye contact. 

Rogers, too, seemed unsurprised but on guard. 

Interesting. And charming. A crack in their united front, and Loki wasn’t even the cause. He ought to be offended, he supposed. Instead, he was merely amused. 

“Right. So. James… after you stopped in on Loki last night, did you notice anything… weird?” 

Rogers looked thoroughly confused-- Loki wondered at that. Had Barnes not told him about his stepping in? Loki would think he would-- to curry favor, prove himself as a good person, if nothing else. 

Barnes sat his toast down, only a single bite taken from it. 

“Define weird.” He said slowly, almost like the words were a threat. 

“Your arm.” Stark said, clearly trying not to sound eager and coming off as smug instead. “I got your message after you were asleep, and asked Jarvis to run a scan, make sure Loki didn’t do anything to you.” 

Loki felt his mouth falling open to protest, and, without looking, Stark held up his hand to stop him speaking. 

“Your arm has some weird stuff going on with it, but it doesn’t match Loki’s power signature. And last night, it started flaring up. So, did you notice anything weird?”

“You’re asking if I noticed anything weird with my arm while I was asleep?” Barnes reiterated, speaking slowly, as if he was becoming more and more convinced that Stark was an idiot. “No. Because I was asleep.”

“Hang on, why were you scanning him in his sleep?” Rogers demanded. “And why would you visit Loki?” 

“To have a chat, Steve, why else do people go see one another?” Barnes snapped back. “Anyway, it didn’t matter, because when I got there, Stark’s robot was in the process of frying the guy’s brain, so…” Barnes trailed off with a sharp glance in Stark’s direction. 

Rogers whipped his head around, glaring at Stark who raised his hands defensively. “Loki?” He asked firmly, turning his eyes on him next. “Are you alright?”

“I should be asking the same of you, though your voice is much improved. In fairness, Stark’s machine was concerned because my vital readings did not match that of humans. No harm was intended.” Loki spoke mildly and strode forward to take a seat directly across from Barnes. “But tell me more about this ‘weirdness’. Do you suppose it’s related to the time stone?” 

He helped himself to some bread and jam, and began to paint the latter across the former, performatively, of course-- a show of unconcern. 

When he glanced up, though, it was his turn to receive the full weight of Barnes’ glare. 

“Time stone?” The widow asked sharply.

“Oh. I’m sorry-- did they not know?” Loki asked, pretending at surprise.

“Is there a magical artifact in my house, and you didn’t tell me?” Stark demanded. 

Banner stood. 

“I’m sorry, I’m gonna excuse myself. Ah-- Pepper, can you update me or give me a call if I’m needed?” 

“Of course.” She said smoothly, watching him go then turning her eyes back to Rogers and Barnes, who looked both cornered and uncomfortable. 

Loki took a bite of his toast. 

“Look, as much as I’m not excited about having the time stone here, I think we’re burying the lede. What weird stuff did Jarvis pick up, Tony?” the Hawk spoke up, having held his peace and just made faces for a bit, but, as ever, keeping his eye on the big picture. Loki shot him an appreciative glance.

“Like I said, it started flaring up-- and with the time stone present-- I assume you have it stored in the arm?” Stark asked pointedly, his gaze dropping to Barnes’ shirt sleeve covered prosthetic. 

He pushed the sleeve up and opened a compartment, revealing the time stone, glowing a soft green. 

To Loki’s eyes, it was pulsing, however faintly, but that wasn’t the real concern. 

“It’s corrupting the metal. Or-- the metal is absorbing it?” He murmured, surprised and enthralled. “I’ve never seen something like that happen before.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, at the same time as Barnes snapped “It’s what?” 

“Jarvis?” The Widow asked, standing to come closer. 

“The stone is emitting a low level of power. I can confirm that the metal of Sergaent Barnes’s arm is absorbing it. It is, however, also releasing it back and amplifying the power in the stone’s direction at a .20 percent increase from the original radiation.”

Loki nodded.

“The pulsing-- the arm is absorbing the power, storing it, and then releasing it back stronger. This, in turn, overflows the limits of the stone-- causing it to release more.” 

Barnes immediately plucked the stone from the compartment with his flesh hand. 

“That’s all well and good,” Loki said, “but that leaves us with one problem: we’ll need to draw the power out of your arm.” 

Rogers looked to him. “Can you do that?” 

“I can.” Loki said. “I cannot guarantee there will not be lingering effects, but the excess we can draw out. Only, I will need to do something with it.”

Loki turned to look at Stark. 

“Are you capable of building some sort of containment for it?”

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, that’s a power source unlike any we’ve seen before.” 

“And the longer it stays within the cavity of Barnes’s arm, the more it grows.” Loki said calmly, then sighed. 

“I can… try to ground it, or disperse it, but until I try, until I have it in my hands, I will have little idea as to the best way. Is there a safe place that Barnes and I may go to try and mitigate any damage we may cause?” 

Loki saw Barnes narrow his eyes, and it did not escape him the way his flesh fist clenched all the tighter around the stone. 

“I have the space upstate-- pretty isolated, big plot of land. That should be safest. I’m going with you, of course-- I gotta see this. And I doubt Steve’s gonna want to stay behind.” 

“Nope.” Rogers responded quickly. 

“We’ll hold down the fort here.” The widow responded, clearly not needing to ask the hawk how he felt about such exercises. Loki nodded in acknowledgement. 

“To upstate, then.”

---

The upstate facility seemed to be somewhat more like a hangar than a tower, which Loki was grateful for. Less to fall on them, should something go wrong. And Stark insisted it was well built, launching into specifications and logistics than Loki had no interest in and didn’t understand. 

Instead, upon arrival, he’d begun arranging a table with chairs for himself and Barnes-- opposite sides, to keep the surface between them. For Barnes’ peace of mind, more than anything else. 

Loki settled down and gestured at the table.

“If you’re ready.” He said. 

Barnes took his seat, and lay the limb out. Loki had been, admittedly, curious about it, and was finally being allowed his first close up examination of the thing. 

“The workmanship is beautiful. Utilitarian, yes, but intricate and graceful all the same.” Loki ran his fingers gently up the edges where he knew the hollow was, able to feel the energy humming beneath his fingertips. 

“I don’t need a narration.” Barnes said, sounding uncomfortable and cross, which Loki decided likely translated to scared and trying to hide it. 

“Of course.” He answered smoothly. 

The panel folded back and away, and he dipped his fingertips into the glowing green pool that had formed in the absence of the time stone. 

“Ah.” He said, brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of what it was. 

It was cold and hummed, the sensation not unlike being buffeted by a river. But it climbed his arm, and he felt it pulling at him, trying to toss him to or fro, back into the past and forward into the future simultaneously. 

He put out a few tendrils of his own power, anchoring himself to the here and now, and urged the energy of the stone up over his fingers, across the back of his hand, and then, as he rolled his wrist, into his palm to pool. 

Once he held it and was certain it would not leap forth nor spill through the cracks, he flicked his eyes back to Barnes. 

There was no further trace of it there, though the metal sang with the empty echoes of a newly hollow vessel. 

“I think you must take care to keep it separate from that metal, going forward. It is… It reacts oddly.” 

Indeed, it was vibrating with a movement he was not used to feeling from time related magics. It had become agitated with its constant duplication, and it wanted now to burst free. 

He frowned. 

He could not put it to ground in such a state; it would merely spread itself out, affecting all it touched. 

He could attempt to contain it with his own magics, however, and with any luck they might be able to lock that away in more conventional metals, for study or future use. 

This course of action decided upon, Loki called his magics up and through him, pulling from the soles of his feet, though the core of him and down his arm to wrap around the power in his palm. 

But in doing so, he made one critical error. 

Before the power was contained, Loki became unmoored. And the power was interested only in spreading, now. He felt as it latched on to his power and tried to pull back, but it was no good, and too late. 

The power of the stone slid within him, and he felt as time within him lurched, shifted, and changed.

#Stoki Whumptober2020 #Stoki #Frostshield #Capfrost #Steve Rogers #Loki #MCU Fanfic #Whumptober #That Writing Thing I do #I am so excited for tomorrow's installation you guys

[innaminitus]

I am your king

Pairing: Loki x Jotun!reader

Request: Loki breaking in his new pet who's not one to take orders from anyone. Like, she has a tendency to fight back, and he's finally gotten her into a state of submission (from anon)

Warnings: language, smut, violence?, Jotun!reader, Jotun!Loki, bdsm but like without the b?

Chapter word count: 2227

You had to see him. They forbid you to, but how possibly could you stay away from such a man? A powerful god, a villain who hypnotized best SHIELD agent and extraordinary scientist.

You sneaked from your room on the ship and silently walked through the corridors knowing your way perfectly despite the darkness. You hoped that no one would interrupt you at night and you were right – everyone was asleep, too tired of the events that happened during the day. You avoided the corridor where Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff slept, though. Just in case, since they didn’t look like someone who sleeps instead of working.

When you finally got to the cage they kept Loki in you were surprised that there weren’t any guards. Did they think that this glass bubble could keep him locked? Not if he wanted otherwise, you were sure of that.

You slowly walked down the bridge keeping the cage separated from the rest of the ship. You could see him from there; he was lying on the mattress, his head laid on his hands as he watched the ceiling, probably thinking about getting out.

“You’re not a very good sneaker,” he said without looking at you and you stopped. “I could already hear you coming five minutes ago.”

You smirked and walked to the cage, but slower this time.

“I’m good enough not to get caught.”

He turned to you and got up. Oh, he was handsome. They didn’t tell you that. You were expecting a real monster, preferably scarred, muscly and ugly, not the God of Sexiness or something.

“And why did you come, little mortal?” He came over to the glass and leaned his forearm on it.

“I had to see this horrible monster they talked so much about for myself.”

“Like what you see?”

“More than I imagined.”

He smirked at you, somehow making you shiver with just that.

“Tell me, girl,” he cocked his head “do they keep more monsters here?”

You knew you shouldn’t talk to him, that you should walk away or not even come here in the first place, but… You didn’t like SHIELD. They would lock you in that same cage if you weren’t so useful. They told you that you were crazy or something. Dangerous.

“Oh, they do,” you answered and came a little closer. “Some of them are really ugly and green, but some of them wear pretty dresses and sneak out at night.”

The smirk on his face widened.

“Am I supposed to believe you are a monster?” He raised his brow.

You innocently held your hands on your back as you walked so close to the glass that you could almost touch it with your nose.

“You have no idea.”

You put your hand flat on the surface of the glass. His eyes followed your moves. You felt and itch of cold when your fingers, wrist and some of the forearm turned deep blue and the frost covered the glass.

He took a deep breath and took a step back, there was disbelief and shock in his eyes.

“You’re a frost giant,” he gasped.

You cocked your head and smiled sweetly before nodding.

“One of the… small ones.” You shrugged. “Jotuns leave us to die, but my mother was… weak, you see. She let me live.” You took a step back and moved your head from side to side. “I lived alone my whole life until I came here. They said it made me… insane.”

He smirked and came closer.

“The prettiest little thing…” He titled his head and you just couldn’t help yourself; with a laugh you stuck your tongue and licked a line through the frost on the glass. He laughed. “Gods, you really are fucked up, aren’t you?”

He raised his hand and laid it on the frost deferring itself to the warmth. His hand started to turn blue and you felt pure ecstasy. He was a frost giant, too.

“I need to get you out of here,” you whispered and looked around, searching for a switch, a button, anything.

Your eyes lied on the control station nearby. You knew nothing about the technology, but hoped that if you would push every possible button something will happen. When the screen for the third time asked for a code you just placed your hand on the control and froze every possible cable it lead. The glass finally let go and Loki stepped out of the cage with a smile.

“What do we do now?”

*

“Holy… fuck- fuck!” You moaned as he kept furiously pounding in and out of you by the wall.

He was panting into your neck, marked with bruises and hickeys.

You were having the roughest, the fiercest sex of your life and you were both sore already, but none of you wanted to let go. For one reason only – you were both tops and none of you wanted to submit to the other.

He suddenly let you go and you fell on the floor, your knees bent slightly, but you didn’t fall down.

“Kneel,” he ordered, but you only smirked.

“No.”

He grabbed your cheeks and pulled your face closer to his.

“I said: kneel,” he whispered into your ear, his voice was opinionated.

You laughed at him and he squeezed your face even harder.

“Why don’t you kneel?” You licked your lips.

“Oh, you’d like that to happen, wouldn’t you, pet?” He smirked before pulling you for a kiss, his tongue forced its way into your mouth.

You placed your hands on his shoulders and pushed, first just slightly.

“You know what, I kind of like this idea now.” You pushed harder. “Get on your knees.”

“I am going to be merciful and let you talk like that to me for the last time.” He moved his hand a bit to push his thumb into your mouth and press your tongue hard enough to make you gag. “And now… get… on… your… knees.”

He pushed you hard and your knees bent and hit the floor. He won that round.

“Good girl. Now open that pretty mouth of yours.”

You hated that he used the fact of being much stronger than you to make you obedient, but it somehow made you even thirstier for him at the same time.

You did as he ordered and let him put his wet shaft into your mouth. You licked the droplets and sucked on him, but he was eager for more. His fingers dived into your hair and begun to push himself deep into your throat. He was making you gag and cough, but he didn’t care, it only turned him on more. All you could and, well, wanted to do was to look at his delighted face with your watering eyes. Your mascara was dripping down your cheeks and he rubbed it with his thumb. You pushed him away and took a deep breath.

“Enough of that,” you coughed and he laughed.

You got up and pushed him onto the bed.

“You already lost, what are you trying to prove?” He pulled you onto himself, but you turned to your Jotun form and pinned his hands above his head.

“That was just me being nice,” you hissed and licked his jaw. He groaned. “But that’s it.” You bit his neck before leaning to his lips. He tried to kiss you, but you moved away slightly and smiled. “And now you are going to eat me out.”

He smirked.

“Oh, am I?” He tried to move his hands, but your Jotun form was stronger than his human.

This time you kissed him, slowly, enjoying the moment.

“Yes, you are. And you are going to enjoy it.”

He laughed and turned Jotun as well.

“You do realize that I am your king?”

You shivered.

“Very well. You are going to eat me out, your majesty. And you are going to enjoy it, highness.”

He laughed, but didn’t laugh for long. You were already hovering over him and his hands squeezed your thighs when his lips touched your folds. He stuck out his tongue, caressed your clit and collected your juices before slowly sliding inside of you. You let out a silent moan when his cold, Jotun tongue and lips were so deliciously enjoying you. You couldn’t help but to move your hips slightly to fit in his moves. You tilted your head and sighed out of pleasure building in your stomach. Loki’s hand travelled from your knee to your inner thigh and just a little further, his fingers caressed your entrance before he pushed two of them inside you. You couldn’t held a moan any longer, he knew exactly how to bend them and how far to push, ecstasy spilled all over your body and through the moans and shaking legs you realized that he was once again in control of the situation. Fuck.

It looked like you lost.

As soon as your orgasm ended he pushed you off of him and pressed his lips onto yours. You could feel your taste on his tongue when he licked your lips.

“Are you done denying the truth?” He asked.

You were panting, under his gorgeous blue body, still horny and almost begging for more. You fucking lost and you had to admit it.

“I am the top and there is nothing you can do to change my- Fuck!”

He didn’t let you finish, with one swift move his cock was inside you and he was fiercely pounding in and out of you.

“Submit to me,” he groaned into your ear.

You moaned under him, but shook your head.

“No!”

He pulled out and you squirmed at the sudden emptiness, but he forced you to turn and grabbed your hips. You were prepared for him entering you again, but that didn’t happen; instead his hand smacked your ass and your front fell on the mattress, your face buried in the pillows. He hit you again.

“Submit to me.”

Tears flew to your eyes but the heat between your legs kept growing.

“No,” you muttered on the pillow.

He raised his hand again, but this time it hit your thighs, dangerously close to your pussy. You tried to move, but he was using his magic not to let you. Another slap hit your ass and you squirmed silently. You could feel him smirk. He massaged your hurting skin for a second before pushing two fingers into you, releasing a moan from you. At first slowly, he was pushing them in and out, but the pace quickened fast. You could hear obscene sounds of his fingers working your juices. His thumb caressed the skin of your buttocks and with each thrust was getting closer to another entrance.

“Loki, what the fuck are you doing…?” You murmured, the sheets were muttering your words.

“Submit to me,” he said in a husky voice.

Your cheeks were burning and your pussy was already sore and wrecked. You had to let go.

“No.”

His thumb slid inside and you let out a squirm. His fingers were furiously thrusting in and out, the new sensation was unbearable. You were so close to the ecstasy, but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t come. Something was blocking you, keeping in that destructive state of near orgasm.

“What are you doing to me?” You cried, your fists clenched on the sheets.

“You will come when I allow it. Unless, of course… you submit yourself to me. I might be generous then and let your feelings go.”

A tear flew down your burning cheek. You couldn’t take it anymore. You brought back your human form, his fingers in you felt unbelievingly cold now.

“Fine! Fine,” you squirmed. “You won. Let me come now!”

He took his fingers out and his magic left you. He grabbed your thighs and turned you around, so you were facing him. He was sweaty, a smile bloomed on his face when he saw your rosy, wet body, smudged mascara and bruises forming on your skin. He leaned and kissed you, softly, sweetly.

“That’s right.”

He positioned himself between your legs. You both were exhausted but thirsty for more. He parted your legs and kept them wide before slowly sliding his cock into you. You moaned when he quickened his pace and soon he was pounding in and out of you. His moves were rough and fast, the bedsprings were protesting against sudden moves but you didn’t care about any of it when orgasm was once again building up in your lower stomach. Loki’s lips were on yours, his hand held your throat.

“Fuck… Don’t stop! Yes!” You moaned in his mouth, you could tell he was close as well.

“”Yes” what?” He groaned, fucking you into the mattress.

“Yes… my king.”

He moaned on your neck when his moves became uncoordinated and he wasn’t controlling switches of his human and Jotun form. Pleasure spilled itself all over your body and when you screamed he stepped out of the edge, too. Your moans mixed in the air when you rode your orgasms, his hand squeezing your throat hard enough to leave bruises, but you loved it.

He slowly slid out of you and panting lied down next to you. He grabbed a handful of your hair and pulled you to kiss.

“I won.”

___

Tag list for Loki smuts: @lokislilslut @princerowanwhitethorngalathynius @darkprincessloki92 @marvelrose

#loki x reader #loki x reader smut #loki smut #loki x you #loki imagine #loki #jotun!loki #jotun!loki x reader #jotun!loki smut #tom hiddleston #marvel #marvel imagine #avengers #avengers imagine

[iamartemisday]

90 and 32 for Loki and your choice?

Is there really a choice? lol

Pregnancy Fic + Unexpected Virgin

...hoo boy.

Okay, so Loki decides one day to go to Midgard. No real reason why. He’s just bored.

While there, he meets some mildly interesting people, including a young woman about to graduate college named Jane Foster. She’s just escaped an incredibly painful blind date and Loki further helps her avoid the hapless human by pretending to kiss her in an alleyway. Her hot breath on his face actually makes him think of kissing her for real, but that’s a ridiculous notion. What kind of prince would he be cavorting with mortals? 

Regardless, as they talk about life and Jane’s plans for grad school, he finds himself intrigued by her. She’s highly intelligent for her species and while her grip on the Bifrost could not be more basic, if anyone was going to figure it out, he’d say it was her. 

Over the next month or so, Loki starts visiting Midgard and Jane more and more. As far as she knows, he’s another student like her home for summer break. As they grow closer, Loki thinks more and more about what it would be like to kiss her. Finally, the day comes and by Odin, can she ever kiss. 

Of course, there’s no way something like this can last. Even putting aside Loki’s greater longevity, there are so many people out there he’s pissed off. If they know a vulnerable mortal woman has caught his eye, no way they won’t take advantage.

That’s how Jane ends up a hostage of one of Loki’s many enemies. He is able to save her and kill the perpetrator, but he realizes now that their relationship can only end in pain. He knows now just how deeply in love with her he’s fallen. He loves her so much that he can find it in himself to erase every trace of him from her memory. Everything from their first meeting to the day they first kissed. He gives her one more kiss before he leaves her, pouring all his love and magic into it. Along with a wish that one day, somehow, their paths would cross again.

And so, Loki leaves her. Jane wakes up the next morning in her apartment with no recollection of her harrowing adventure or the prince she once loved. It’s as if nothing ever happened. 

Except as the days go by, Jane starts to have some odd symptoms. She’s weirdly sick in the morning and feels faint during the day. She’s moodier than usual, only wants to eat food she hates and gets random headaches.

There is an obvious answer that is also completely impossible. Jane is not ashamed to admit she’s never had sex (like it even matters how long someone waits). In fact, she hasn’t dated since that one awful blind date a few months ago (every time she thinks about it she feels sad for no reason, and she still can’t figure out why). Days later, the symptoms persist. As a joke, she buys a home pregnancy test. Not like it’s going to mean anything.

The test comes back positive.

Jane buys three more. All positive.

She goes to the doctor, who confirms it. 

Pregnant. 

Now, this is a major problem because again, Jane has never had sex. She rarely drinks and hasn’t been to a bar recently. A few guys in her department like her, but there was no way they’d ever do something like that to her. Right? 

The time frame of conception is determined. Jane recalls a day during that time when she did go to the bar, and now that she thinks about it, her memory of that week is a bit spotty...

At that point, Jane, being the determined woman she is, decides she can’t worry about what might’ve happened right now. She needs to think about what is happening. The obvious answer is abortion. That or adoption. How can she, a grad student going into astrophysics of all things, take care of a child? It’s not that she doesn’t want kids, it’s the idea never even crossed her mind because she’s just that focused on her goal. 

Now, motherhood is an actual reality. It’s still early enough for her to make an appointment at the clinic. She’s online researching, still unsure if she’s actually going to call, when she feels something. At first, she thinks she’s imagining it. She feels her stomach and there it is again. The tiniest movement. Maybe not even a movement at all. Maybe just a heartbeat...

At that moment, something fundamental within Jane changes. She closes her current web search and opens a new one on pregnancy guides and nearby baby stores.

A few months later, Jane’s daughter is born. While it’s definitely a bit on the nose given the circumstances, Jane can’t resist writing Christina on the birth certificate. 

It’s not as hard as she thought it would be. Erik and her mother are both huge helps. They immediately fall in love with the baby and watch her while Jane is at school and studying. By the time she gets her degree, Christina is five and has spent the last few years providing constant encouragement for her mother. She walks at Jane’s side during her graduation. She gets a little stuffed bear with a cap and gown while Jane gets her doctorate. 

The next few years are a bit hectic. Jane tries to give Christina as much stability as possible. They live in one place for a few years while Jane teaches at the university and builds up goodwill with the staff in order to get the grant money she needs to fund her research. Her efforts finally pay off when Christina is about to turn nine. Jane sets up her lab in New Mexico and they move there for the summer. They might stay longer depending on what Jane finds, but she doesn’t tell Christina that just yet. She’s already complaining about how boring Puente Antiguo is.

To entertain herself, Christina reads and writes about all sorts of fun adventures she could be having. She’s never showed her mom this, or anyone for that matter, but she has a few strange little talents no one else seems to have. For example, she can sometimes move things around without touching them. One time, she swears she turned a mean kid’s hair blue when he was bullying her and her friends. Snakes seem to really like her. She can’t talk to them like Harry Potter, but they do follow her sometimes. There are tons of snakes in New Mexico, but she’s not too bothered by it. They all seem pretty nice.

Soon Darcy arrives and she more or less bonds with her new boss’s kid. When some guy in town starts hassling Darcy, Christina asks one of her snake friends to make him go away and the guy never comes back. Another guy makes fun of Jane on the street, calling her a crackpot. He rather suddenly trips over nothing and knocks a few of his teeth out. 

Jane does notice a lot of this stuff, but not once does she think to connect it to her innocent daughter. Meanwhile, Christina is well aware that she’s the one doing this. Somehow or other, she does have powers no one else has, and she’s starting to realize just how strong those powers might be.

It all comes to a head with the arrival of Thor. Jane went out with Darcy and Erik to watch for an incoming storm. Christina had to stay home, as this could be dangerous. So, of course, she snuck along in the back hidden under a blanket. She’s right there when Thor falls from the sky. Terrified that they’re all about to die, Christina unleashes a HUGE wave of magic. Big enough to disrupt the bifrost and send Thor flying into a nearby rock formation. He hits his head hard, and as he is now human. this is not an insignificant injury.

In fact, when they get to the hospital, the poor stranger has already slipped into a coma. Jane is left to comfort her hysterical daughter who won’t stop blaming herself for what happened, She finally admits the truth about her powers to Jane and demonstrates by summoning a pen from the nurse’s station. Jane is shocked and has no idea what to do. Christina interprets this as her mother being scared of her and runs away. Jane chases after her. By the time she turns the corner, Christina is gone. Jane searches the entire hospital, but her little girl is nowhere to be found.

Now comes Loki. He’s been pretty out of it ever since losing Jane. Though it’s been close to a decade on Earth, that barely feels like a week to him. Now Thor has been banished, he has some truly uncomfortable questions to ask Odin about his origins, and to top it all off, one of his old enemies has just randomly appeared with a little girl in tow.

(NOTE: I honestly have no idea who the enemy would be. If I actually wrote this I’d just figure it out later)

His enemy mocks him for growing soft and not protecting his progeny like he should have. Loki has no idea what the hell this guy is talking about until he gets a better look at the girl. Her midnight black hair, terrified blue eyes, that face just like a younger Jane.

Jane...

He hadn’t looked in on her since he left. He just couldn’t bring himself to. Now he wishes to all his ancestors that he had. The enemy issues a challenge, daring him to come and save his newfound daughter. He disappears with Christina, and try as he might, Loki can’t trace where they’ve gone. He has a few ideas, but he’s going to need some help.

And he’s going to need to correct some old mistakes as well.

At the hospital, the police have arrived and are searching for the missing girl. Jane curls up in the waiting room, thinking of everything that led them to this point. If only she hadn’t accepted the grant money. If only she’d gone somewhere else to search for bridges. If only she’d paid enough attention to her own fucking child to know that she was literally psychic. Or magic. Or something!

While she cries, a shadow appears over her. When Jane looks up, a tall man with dark hair and eyes like Christina is watching her.

It all comes flooding back.

She remembers Loki. She remembers their kiss, that monster thing that kidnapped her. Loki saved her, and then he told her they’d never see each other again. Then she woke up at home as if from a dream and it was like he never existed at all.

But he had. She knew now that she had, and she had a daughter to prove it.

Which still begs the question of how. She knows now that they definitely didn’t have sex. Loki’s theory is that his magic somehow infused with latent abilities within Jane herself (she might actually have a small percentage of Asgardian in her) and created a child born of them both. It’s a tenuous idea at best, but it’s all he has right now, and who even cares how Christina was conceived. Point is, she exists and she’s been kidnapped and Thor is in a freaking coma now and can’t help them. Time to gear up and save their kid!

Not going to go into too much detail here as I’ve already written way too much. Basically, Loki teaches Jane to harness the magic within. She already knows a few knife tricks from self-defense classes, so Loki gives her a new knife that never dulls and is virtually indestructible. When she’s ready, they strike out to find their daughter in the enemy’s secret hideout. At some point, Thor wakes up and rushes to help his brother. His willingness to go to a far off planet and fight to the death for a child he’s never met makes him worth of Mjolnir again at just the right time. Loki and Jane rescue their little girl, who instinctively knows her father the moment she sees him. The enemy is defeated and now they’re free to start over and live as the family they were always meant to be. 

#Lokane #Loki #Jane Foster #fic prompt #fic I won't write

[veliseraptor]

it slips between my fingers now, 3.9k, thor pov, endgame fix-it, thanks @portraitoftheoddity​ for this idea it was a lot of fun to write as you can tell by the fact that I did it in less than a week when I should have been working on other stuff, anyway a lot of angst but there’s a happy ending?

Thor had been with the Guardians for maybe a week when he first caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. When he turned his head, though, there was nothing there.

Of course there wasn’t. Whatever else he was (and Thor could think of a number of things he could call himself), he wasn’t mad - at least not yet. So it was impossible that he might have seen his brother.

Because Loki was dead. And the piece of Thor’s heart that whispered you thought he was before - that piece was poison, a deadly hope that could kill (and stubbornly refused to entirely die).

So no - he had not seen Loki. A trick of the light. His brother was far from here, at peace in Valhalla, along with Frigga, and Odin, and the Warriors Three, and Heimdall, and probably Sif as well. All gone, and he remained.

A fist clenched around Thor’s heart and he went to raid the hold for drink.

**

On an unnamed planet in the Thaumis system, cleaning Stormbreaker of the blood of the creature he’d just helped slay, Thor saw him again.

He froze, and this time he was certain, or nearly: it was Loki, or a shade of him, translucent as mist. He looked just as he had in the moments of his death, frozen in time as he was in Thor’s memory. Bruises ringing his throat, hair disheveled.

A cry burst from Thor’s lips, and as though the sound drove him away Loki vanished into nothingness.

“What, did you chop one of your toes off with that thing?” Rocket asked. Thor shook his head.

“No,” he said. “That isn’t…” He swallowed hard. My brother. I saw my brother’s ghost.

Half Rocket’s comrades already thought Thor was a little mad. He did not need to prove them right. He might have imagined it. (You didn’t.) Conjured Loki from thin air out of wishful thinking. (When you try to avoid thinking too much of him at all.)

“It’s nothing,” Thor said, calling up a smile. Rocket eyed him dubiously, but didn’t question him. That was one of the things Thor appreciated about his new comrades: for the most part, they didn’t question. Did not want to ask probing questions about Thor’s thoughts and feelings.

There was too much, and if he spoke it it would drown him.

“Okay,” Rocket said. “Sure. Sometimes you just gotta yell for no reason.”

“Yes,” Thor said. “Exactly.”

**

In the dark, lying awake in his bunk, Thor tried to recall everything he knew about ghost-lore.

It wasn’t much. It had hardly been an area of study for him - he’d found the very idea unnerving, and Loki’s pranks at his expense–

Thor cut himself off and redirected his thoughts before he could sink in them. Ghosts, or shades, were rare. There were the undead, like the soldiers Hela had raised, but a true spirit was something else, less common, that resulted only from specific circumstances.

But what were those circumstances? Improper burial rites, Thor thought he remembered. Some unfinished business tethering a soul from taking its proper place in the afterlife.

Loki had not had any burial. And unfinished business? He - Loki’s murderer - was dead. What else…

You. You let him die. You let them all die.

For a moment Thor could not breathe. He had to focus, hard, to make his lungs inflate again, and then again, and again.

Was it possible? Was he being haunted?

Was his failure keeping Loki from Valhalla?

He was cold. Thor wrapped the blankets tighter around himself and bit the inside of his cheek. Let it not be so. Let it be something else, anything else, let it be creeping madness, but let this one thing not be his fault.

When he fell asleep, eventually, Thor dreamed he was floating amidst the shattered remains of the Statesman, Loki’s body just out of reach. His eyes snapped open and he said in a voice like death, “why did you leave me, Thor?”

Thor woke with tears on his face.

**

The next time Thor was alone, he tried to call him. “Loki,” he said, “show yourself.”

He did not. Did not appear to explain to Thor what he wanted, did not tell him what he needed to do. Of course he didn’t. Loki had never done what he was told. Why should his shade be any different?

Thor wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry or laugh.

Instead, later, when Thor was in the middle of attempting to explain why visiting Muspellheim was a bad idea, there Loki was, standing in the cockpit with his back to Thor, and his voice choked off in the middle of a sentence.

“I don’t understand,” Drax said.

Thor didn’t dare blink, or look away. He seemed clearer this time, more solid and the only word Thor could force out of his throat was, “look.”

The Guardians turned, looked, and then turned back to Thor, to a one with expressions of total incomprehension.

“Look at what?” Peter asked.

“Don’t you see…” Loki’s head turned, and then he did. His eyes looked through Thor, blank and lifeless.

“Are you seeing things that aren’t there?” Mantis asked politely. “That isn’t a good thing.”

He is there, Thor wanted to say. He’s right there, right in front of me, but he couldn’t speak and couldn’t move and Loki didn’t seem to be seeing him at all.

Then Loki’s eyes moved, locked on Thor’s, and widened. His lips parted like he was about to speak.

Drax stepped into his line of sight and said, “I don’t see anything,” and Loki was gone.

For a split second Thor could have struck off Drax’s head. The fury evaporated quickly, leaving a hollow in its place.

“What just happened,” Rocket asked.

Thor turned and walked away without answering. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

What had Loki been about to say? What words were so urgent that they bound his brother here? He feared them. He needed to hear them.

“Loki,” Thor whispered. “Can you hear me?”

No answer. Maybe he really was going mad.

**

“Thor.”

A voice that reached down through his dreams, drawing him up out of alcohol-soaked slumber. It was little more than a whisper, but he answered its call instinctively, and for a moment he hung between sleeping and waking where he almost believed that the last five years had been some terrible dream.

Then he woke entirely, and remembered.

Loki was standing by his bed, looking down at him. Thor stared back, barely breathing, not daring to move. Something built in his throat and exploded out of him, an inarticulate sound, and he reached out but stopped himself before he could feel that there was nothing there to touch.

“Loki,” Thor said, his voice choked, and the next words, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry–”

Loki blinked at him, eyebrows knitting with confusion as they might have in life, and if it weren’t for the translucence of his body, the fuzziness around his edges, he might have been. Thor could almost pretend that it was one of Loki’s projections, the early attempts.

“For what?” Loki said.

“You-” Thor could not say died. “I didn’t save you.”

Loki just stared at him. “You couldn’t,” he said. Simply, sensibly, and it wasn’t good enough. Thor had dreaded his brother’s rage, a ghost’s need for vengeance, haunting Thor for redress of his wrongs. But it was worse to be so easily released.

I should have. I should have been able to. If I were everything I am supposed to be…

“How can I set you free?” Thor asked. Loki looked blank, and he said, “you are trapped here, when you should...you should be at peace in Valhalla.”

(Some hideously selfish part of him said don’t go. Stay. Stay with me.)

“I,” Loki started to say, and broke off at a sharp knock on the door.

“Who are you talking to?” said Nebula’s harsh voice, and Thor almost snarled. Loki was gone again.

He stalked over and yanked the door open. “What do you want,” he snapped.

“I heard you talking,” Nebula said. Her gaze was direct and apparently without emotion. “Are you losing your mind?”

“I wouldn’t know if I was, would I,” Thor said harshly. “I was busy.”

Nebula shifted slightly. She seemed, Thor thought, uncomfortable. “Look,” she said. “If you ever want to, I don’t know, talk...Mantis is actually a decent listener.”

Thor sighed. It wasn’t her fault. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. (Except his.) “Thank you,” he said, what he hoped sounded like it was sincere. She shrugged.

“If you’re going to talk to yourself, just do it a little quieter,” she said. “I can keep my mouth shut, but no one else on this ship can.” She walked away before he could answer, and Thor retreated. Loki didn’t reappear, though. Thor stayed up the whole night, just in case, but he never came back.

**

“All right,” Rocket said, plopping himself down across from Thor and stealing the rest of his drink. “If no one else is going to ask...spill.”

“Give that back,” Thor said, gesturing at his flask. Rocket drained it and then tossed it back in his direction.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re dragging the mood down. Get it out of your system and stop moping.”

Thor’s jaw tightened, then relaxed. Hel with it. “I’ve started seeing my brother’s ghost.”

“Your dead brother,” Rocket said. “The one Thanos-” Thor twitched, but Rocket didn’t react. “-killed five years ago. That one?”

“Yes,” Thor said.

“And you’re seeing his, uh, ghost.”

“Yes,” Thor said. Rocket just stared at him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Sounds reasonable. Not crazy at all. Does that happen a lot where you’re from?”

“Not often,” Thor said. “But it does happen. The restless dead have been known to linger.”

“Seems like maybe he’s a little late,” Rocket said. Thor gave him a sharp look, and he held up his hands. “Just saying.”

Thor faltered. “I wasn’t exactly…” He paused, and said carefully, “I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings.” And that was a thought that struck him like a blow. That Loki might have been there all along, and Thor hadn’t seen him, hadn’t known.

“You know you’re kind of fucked,” Rocket said. “In the head. Right?”

“I am not seeing things,” Thor said loudly. “I spoke to him, and he answered me. He is real. My brother - Loki-”

There was an odd look on Rocket’s face. “That was his name, huh?” Thor glanced at him, and he shrugged. “You’ve never actually said it before.”

“Oh,” Thor said after a moment. “Hm.”

They were both quiet. Finally, Rocket shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “So you’re seeing your brother’s ghost. How come no one else has?”

“I don’t know,” Thor said. “Maybe because he’s my brother. Maybe he’s not strong enough.”

“Or maybe,” Rocket said, “ghosts aren’t real and you’ve got a bad case of wishful thinking.”

Thor’s temper surged and for a moment he almost lashed out. He shoved back and stood instead. “You asked what I was thinking, and I told you,” he said. “You don’t have to believe me. But don’t mock me.”

He didn’t wait to hear any response. His heart beat in his stomach, but a part of him wondered if he wasn’t angry because of the possibility that Rocket might be right, and he’d somehow wished a shade of Loki into existence out of desperation.

**

Loki appeared to him again in the middle of the night when Thor was drinking instead of sleeping. He sat down, or seemed to, and said, “you don’t look well.”

Thor didn’t look at him. “Don’t attempt to appeal to my vanity. I haven’t any left.”

“I’m not,” Loki said. “Only…” He almost heard him sigh. “You left Asgard.”

“What’s left of it,” Thor said. “Valkyrie is in charge.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Loki said.

“She’s better at it than you’d think.” Thor set down his drink and raised his eyes to look at Loki. “Are you real?” Loki’s brow furrowed in that too familiar expression and Thor’s eyes burned. “I mean - am I imagining you because I want so badly for you to be here?”

Loki seemed to think about that. “Would I know?” he asked.

“What do you remember?” Thor asked. Desperate. For a moment, Loki seemed to flicker, then solidify again. He seemed stronger now, Thor thought. Like glass instead of mist, though as likely to shatter.

“I died,” Loki said. “I remember that.”

Loki struggling, clawing at Thanos’s arms, gasping out his last words and then that horrible crack, his body going limp. Thor took a shuddering breath in and downed the rest of his mug. “And then…?”

Loki’s hands twisted together. Another gesture so familiar from life, from their mother, a tell of unease and discomfort. “I was in Valhalla, I think,” Loki said. “It’s not...clear. But then I wasn’t.”

“Why?” Thor asked. “Why did you leave?”

“I don’t know.” Loki looked lost. He wrapped his arms around himself.

“Is it me?” Thor asked. His eyes prickled. “Is it because of me that you can’t rest?”

“Why would it be because of you?” Loki asked. “I just know that I’m cold, now. I remember sun and light but now it’s just...the cold. And you.”

Thor felt a pang. So Loki had been at peace, and now...and now he wasn’t, drawn back it sounded like against his will, suffering…

Pulled out of Valhalla - back to the land of the living. Cold - like the depths of space.

A spark bloomed in Thor’s belly and his breath caught. Bruce had tried, he remembered, to bring back Natasha, and said he had failed. What if he’d been wrong?

What if he’d been wrong, and Natasha wasn’t the only one he’d brought back, only...only they had stayed just where they’d fallen?

“Loki,” Thor said, and he could hear the vibration in his voice, knew he was treading on dangerous ground, ice that if it cracked would plunge him into black depths from which he might not surface. “Do you know...can you see anything?”

“You,” Loki said. Thor shook his head.

“Anything else.”

“No?” Loki was giving him an odd look, but Thor’s heart was pounding, and he ran for the cockpit.

“Do you have the coordinates for where you found me,” Thor asked.

“What?” Quill said.

“I said, do you have the coordinates for where you found me,” Thor repeated.

“I...might, I guess,” Quill said. “Course, that was five years ago. Why the fuck do you want to go there?”

“Because I think Banner might have been wrong,” Thor said. “I think maybe...I think maybe he brought them back after all.”

Nebula jerked. “Brought who back?” she asked.

Thor took a deep and unsteady breath, his eyes fixed on the stars in front of him. “My brother,” he said. “At least. And maybe...maybe not just him.”

There was a profound silence.

“All right,” Rocket said. “I’ll say it. You’ve officially lost your fucking mind.”

**

Thor dug in his heels. He argued. He pleaded. He stopped just short of threatening, though only just. Finally Nebula said, “either humor him or knock him out, I’m sick of listening to this,” and Quill threw up his hands.

“Fine!” he said. “Fine, we’ll go check it out. I hope you’re happy.”

Thor didn’t respond, his eyes fixed forward. He was thinking of how Loki’s ghost had been growing more and more solid. Closer to death? Even a Jotun could not live forever in the cold depths of space, without air, or sustenance.

Would Heimdall be there as well? The other Asgardians?

Had Bruce brought Natasha back after all?

Too many questions. At the moment his focus was narrowed to one: finding Loki and bringing him back.

“What are you doing?” Loki asked.

“Saving you,” Thor said. As he should have before. But at least now...perhaps now he could redress at least this one thing. “Hold on,” he whispered. “I am coming.”

**

Thor had expected the wreckage of the Statesman, but of course it was gone. Dispersed, drifted apart, and Thor’s heart plunged into his stomach. The bodies were gone, too; of course they had not simply stayed in place all this time.

Which meant he still had no idea where Loki was. How far his body might have drifted after five years.

“Okay,” Rocket said. “So...what now?”

“He’s here,” Thor said. “He has to be here...somewhere.” He scanned the stars as though he might see him. “Search for anything living,” he said, and could hear the desperation in his own voice.

“Thor,” Peter said, and he almost sounded kind, “there’s nothing out there.”

His chest tightened. The now familiar onset of panic, and he tried to force himself to calm. “No,” he said. “I am sure...look again.”

“Buddy,” Rocket said. Thor banged his fist against the side of the ship.

“I said–”

“Watch it,” Nebula growled. Thor glared at her, and she looked back at him, her jaw tight.

Something went out of Thor. The ice cracking under his feet.

He turned and walked away before he could break down in front of any of them. His eyes burned, and he found a quiet corner and collapsed into it, burying his face into his hands.

Loki was here. Somewhere. Thor was sure of it. And yet...space was enormous, and he didn’t know how much time they had before Loki died again. Thor failed him, again.

He almost heard the whisper of air as someone sat down next to him, and knew without looking that he was no longer alone.

“Thor,” said Loki’s voice. “It’s all right.”

“No,” Thor said, raw and hoarse. “It isn’t.”

“I’m not in pain,” Loki said. “Only...a little cold.”

Thor shook his head, his throat closing. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t try to make me feel better. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that you died, and it isn’t fair that everyone else…” He swallowed hard. “If you could just tell me where you are. You shouldn’t have to...I was going to save you.”

Loki had a small, strange smile. “It’s good of you to try,” he said. “But I’m not certain I’m alive at all.”

Thor shook his head. “I know it,” he said desperately. “Why would you be here, otherwise? Why would you not be in Valhalla anymore? Why appear to me?”

“Bad luck?” Loki said. He sounded so clear. So real. The sound Thor made was akin to a sob.

“Loki,” he said, and stopped. He didn’t know what to say, other than that, and fell silent. They were both quiet. How long, Thor wondered, did he have? How long before Loki was gone again, and this brief glimpse of what it was to have him ripped away?

“How did you find me?” he asked. Loki shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was alone, and cold, but I reached out and you were there.”

“Reached out,” Thor said. “With what?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know that either,” he said. “With...whatever it is that binds us together, I suppose.”

“Could I…” Thor trailed off. “Could I do it? Reach back, and...and find you?”

Loki blinked, and was quiet. Thor reached for his hands, but his fingers went through.

“Tell me how,” he said, soft and frantic. Loki shook his head, mute, and Thor said, “please,” with all the desperation in him, all the grief and pain and need, and Loki flinched back like Thor had struck him.

“I don’t know how,” he said.

Thor squeezed his eyes closed. He tried to imagine Loki: his face, his voice, the gestures of his hands. The sound of his laugh. His knives in Thor’s side, the force of his rage. The feel of him in Thor’s arms. The texture of his scales when he was a snake, or fox-fur, or feathers. Trying to hold everything that was Loki in his mind, his heart aching.

He imagined on the Bifrost, as he had a thousand times, reaching for Loki’s hand and grasping his wrist.

For just a moment, his awareness doubled. He was sitting on the ship, and he was drifting, frozen, heartbeat slowed almost to stillness. Thor sucked a breath into his lungs and he was only himself again, but he still felt it, a tug in his chest like there was a string wrapped around his heart.

He lurched to his feet and strode back to the bridge. “That way,” he said, without preamble, pointing.

“Um,” Peter said.

“I’m certain,” Thor said. “Go that way. Not too quickly.”

Silence met him.

“Go,” Nebula said, finally. Peter muttered something under his breath, but he went. Thor held very still, barely breathing, all his attention dedicated to that string pulling him onward, onward–

“There,” he breathed, because he could see it, just see it, one body in all the dark. “There.” His heart was pounding in his ears, fear and hope warring in his chest, and he did not dare move, as if to move would break him.

**

They brought him aboard. Brought Loki’s body aboard, and placed him on a table like it was a bier.

Thor drew close, slowly, and looked down at Loki’s face. There was ice rime on his eyelashes, his skin Jotun blue and Thor had never seen him like this before but he could scarcely even care. Just as on his ghost, the bruises lingered, a deeper purple on blue skin. He looked dead.

No, Thor thought. No. Don’t you dare. Not when we’re so close.

“Mantis,” he said. “Do you know...can you tell…”

She moved closer, tentatively, and reached out to lay fingers against Loki’s temples. Her antennae glowed softly, and Thor held his breath.

“He is alive,” she said, and Thor heard himself make a soft noise. “But sleeping very deeply.”

“Wake him,” Thor said, and remembered to add belatedly, “please.”

“I’ll try,” Mantis said. She sounded uncertain, but closed her eyes, brow furrowing in deep concentration.

Loki’s chest rose. Movement flickered briefly under his eyelids. Thor leaned forward, barely breathing himself.

His fingers twitched, and heaved in a ragged breath.

Red, red eyes opened.

The sound Thor made was weak and wretched, what another version of himself might have called pathetic. He didn’t care. He lunged for Loki, seized him and pulled him into a hug, not caring if the cold burned him, not caring about anything but this, this gift, the universe at last giving him something back after all it had taken away.

He could not speak.

“Thor,” Loki said, almost a wheeze, and Thor loosened his hold, pulling back just enough that he could see Loki’s face, drink in the familiarity under the unfamiliarity. Loki looked at him, clearly dazed still, blinking out of whatever hibernation might have saved him. Thor could not tell if he was laughing or crying; perhaps both.

Loki blinked at him twice. “Thor,” he said again. “Where did you get a new eye?”

Thor grabbed him again, not answering. The string around his heart thrummed, and he didn’t think he would ever let go again.

#endgame fix it #thor odinson #loki odinson #wth putting it in the tags #thor is my favorite puppy #i don't know how to write the guardians at all and it shows #loki's a goddamn mess #a wild fic appeared #and then they go rescue heimdall and the rest of the asgardians the end #endgame spoilers

[linkspooky]

persona top 1-5?

There’s only four characters in the persona series I’d call “Faves” so sorry for shortening the answer, but these characters are some I especially love. 

1. Ryoji Mochizuki - “You’ll have… to kill me.” 

Ryoji is a dead boy. No, he’s not just a boy who died, he’s a boy who never lived, due to the fact that he’s the living embodiment of death. He is the idea of death, made conscious and given an ego. Ryoji is the person who is going to call for the deaths of everyone in existence, and…

He loves life. There’s no one more in love with life than Ryoji is. It’s like he loves every single aspect of being alive, and every single person alive. Ryoji is somewhat aware that his vague existence (or non-existence) is wrong but he forces himself to forget. Because all he wants to do is live. He wants to live like everybody else does. 

In a story where death is a tragedy over and over again, Ryoji is the most tragic character at all because he’s not given a choice the way the other characters are. He was never alive in the first place. All he gets is the solace of feeling alive, and pretending to be human for a few short months before he kills everything. 

His character reminds me of why people want to live so badly, despite struggling with loss, despite the fact that it’s all pointless in the end. Ryoji had no choice in the end, he became a monster and couldn’t become a real boy, but still he was alive once, there were people he loved. He lived for something. 

2. Minato Arisato - “…” 

Choosing a silent protagonist is basically just cheating, but everyone choose sone persona protag they would die for, and Minato is mine. I’ve always read Minato not as someone aloof, but rather avoidant. He’s not strong, but gentle. The reason Minato is quiet all the time is because he’s desperately trying to hide his vulnerabilities, to not feel things, because what he feels is always much too much for one person. 

Minato lost everything before he was even old enough to process the lost. In a way he’s been frozen in time since the accident on the bridge. He hasn’t been living simply going through the motions with headphones in his ear. Minato’s a wonderful person but nobody would ever notice, and Minato does not know himself because he’s too busy trying not to be a person.

Which is why the year in the plot is so meaningful, because the entire year is Minato learning to be a person once more, to live as a person knowing that one day he might die. He might lose everything again like the time he lost his parents, and still he keeps on struggling to live.

3. Goro Akechi - “Why? Why? Why? Why doesn’t anybody want me around?”

Atlus doesn’t love him so I have to. Goro Akechi is a character I see as focused on survival above everyone else. He was thrown into society at a young age, and had no agency at all in the early circumstances of his life. He was made aware of just how much an unwanted child he was and you can tell that’s stuck with him his entire life.

What I like about Goro is how much of a controlled mess he is. He’s like a perfectly composed symphony of people screaming all at once. He has so many unresolved issues, but he tries to file them away into neat little drawers in his brain and keep smiling.

Akechi spends all his time playing the part of a perfect, likable,v ersion of himself. Which means he’s like some young celebrity. He’s adored by fans, and constantly in the news media, but it also means no one really likes him as a person and he has no real friends. And for Goro this has always been a means of survival for him. The only way he could survive among the adults was by tricking them and getting the adults to like him. He doesn’t have the same solid ground to stand on as everyone else, it’s like he’s constantly drowning. 

Akechi’s act does no favors for him in the end. The person he’s most afraid of is himself, all of the horrible, ugly, negative resentments inside of him as he tries to keep them down and keep up his perfect good boy act. However in the end they all come out anyway, and what you get is not the shining white hero he desires to be, but Loki, the murderer in black. 

4. Makoto Nijima 

Makoto is a character I did not expect to like, because I thought she was going to be strong all the time. However, when we meet her in story she’s almost nothing like the motorcycle girl she’s advertised to be.

She’s a fussy stickler for the rules. She’s an anxious nerd who studies too much. She always tries far too hard on everything she wants to accomplish. She has practically no friends because she spends most of her time sucking up to the adults around her. She gets pushed around by basically everyone in her life, from her sister, to the teachers taking advantage of her, and Makoto still lives practically only to please them.

Makoto’s projection of strength in the world of shadows is what she desires to do. To break free from everything and just do what she wants, to prove that she’s strong and powerful on her own, and not useless. Then Makoto returns to the real world and goes back to smiling at everyone. The fact that her change is so gradual over the story and means integrating both sides of her personality, the strong decisiveness she projects, and her weak and indecisive self she despises is what makes her character so impactful to me. 

#spooky speaks #makoto nijima #akechi goro #minato arisato #ryoji mochizuki #number five is just the rest of the persona 3 cast #can an entire cast as a group be faves?? #Anonymous #jun should be on this list but i haven't played persona 2 in so long i'm afraid i can't do justice to describe why i like his character

[imagine-loki]

Not as it Seems

TITLE: Not as it seems 

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter three

AUTHOR: Technically a-pandoras-box-of-characters, but my story blog (a-pandoras-box-of-stories) is a side blog, so I’ll likely be reblogging my story there too. 

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that Loki is banished to Midgard shortly after Thor: the dark world. However, as punishment for his crimes, he is forced into the form of a common animal on earth to prevent his use of magic and silver tongue. This common animal is a cat. 

RATING: Right now should be fine for anyone to read, next chapter rating may change. 

NOTES/WARNINGS: The characters I’m using are Rp characters, but I thought that this would be fun. Feedback would be appreciated! :) (Also, her name is pronounced “Eye-zale-ia,” similar to ‘Azalea,’ but different because I’m weird and like the sound of my spelling better.) 

** Chapters may run longer or shorter depending on what ideas I have for them! 

Second + third note: He finally tells her his name! And I’ve started to upload this to my AO3 account, here.

Tagging: @puppens101, @whosaidididthat 

—————————————————————————————– 

The black cat now sat up, a bit unsteady because of the pain that it caused him. Seeming to be undeterred by it, he sat up anyways and curled his tail around his paws. His greenish-blue eyes drilled into Izzy, although it was only now that their true beauty was completely evident to her. The only reason that it hadn’t before, was because she had mostly been concerned with taking care of him and trying to get him situated. Now that she was able to sit down with him and have some sort of response other than hissing or growling, she could see it so much better.

  Unable to suppress the fact that him answering her made her happy, Izzy smiled a bit and sat up a little more. True, it hadn’t been very polite - nor had it been helpful in any real sense of the word - but it was something. And something, she could work with. 

“I’m going to guess that you’re not originally a cat, then, are you?” Izzy asked, raising an eyebrow. She tried to be gentle in tone when posing such a question, given that she was aware that if the answer to that was ‘yes,’ then there must have some kind of situation that put him in this form. And, depending on whatever - or whoever -  he had been before, it might be considered by him to be an extreme step down in the food chain. However, her attempts to be gentle were met with cynicism. 

“How astute of you to notice.” If cats could frown or roll their eyes, she was sure that he certainly would be. His ears were already back as it was, and he seemed to be impatient with either her, or his predicament, or both. “What tipped you off, my blatantly ineffective efforts to read this book, or was it because I wouldn’t talk to you from the start?”  

“Look…I just want to help you.” Izzy started, holding a finger to his mouth when he began to object. “And I can’t do that; if your only answers to me are rude and unhelpful. Alright?” With all seriousness, Izzy looked him directly in the eyes. He got his breath hard but did not answer her this time. Changing how she was holding him, Izzy went to go sit on her bed and put him on her lap. 

“Now, I’m going to try and heal you some..is that okay? I’ll have to use magic; if you know what that is…” she trailed off, trying to ignore what sounded to her like a bunch of indignant nonsense coming from him in response. “Shhh..” Aizalea whispered, resting her forehead to his. It was a strange and initially unwelcome thing to him. He just wanted to be put back down so that he could return to his pillow and sulk - to be allowed to avoid her and her loud, bothersome friend Ash. As well as Luna, since he just wanted to be left alone. Despite the fact that she hadn’t really been a problem to him so far. 

A calming chill ran through him, relaxing him in almost an instant. It was like no magic that he had ever dealt with before. It washed through his body and seemed to target exactly where he’d been hurt, then to carry it away just as quickly as it had arrived. Colors were seen differently to him right now, but the mist-like magic coming from her seemed to be of some darker shade of something to him; in effect, the whole thing was making him feel much more curious and much less frustrated. After she was finished, the pain was substantially lessened. It did not hurt as much to move, and the soreness had eased up. While he did not really feel much like talking anymore at the present time, he leaned up and licked her cheek a couple of times - an action that was completely embarrassing to him once he realized what he had done.

Reasoning that it was only because he was a cat right now, and it was natural for a creature of the feline species to do something like that, he decided not to think about it anymore. A decision that was made harder to keep, after she kissed the top of his head. Drat. Whatever! He would just stay silent, and wait to be put back down on the floor. Perhaps if he were patient– Ah, yes! She was putting him back down. Wonderful. Now maybe she would leave again, and he could–

“I have something to show you if you want to see it.” Aizalea smiled softly, heading towards the door again. Opening it, she waited to see if he wanted to come to the other room. He hesitated, but the offer had him intrigued. With the lack of so much pain, walking wasn’t really that difficult now…Alright, fine. 

Standing up again, he cautiously ventured out into the living room. From this point of view, everything looked huge. Not like how it had when he was up in the air, being held in Izzy’s arms the night before. It was daunting, but Izzy had moved to the side to let him through at his own pace - something that he appreciated, although he didn’t say so aloud. 

“It’s this way,” Izzy’s voice caught his attention, bringing it away from looking around the room, and from staring apprehensively at Ash - who was standing not too far away and watching him and Izzy. Looking instead in the direction that she had motioned in, he took a few more steps that way. What came into his sight was not what he had been expecting at all - it had multiple levels, looked to have places to hide, maybe a place for claw sharpening, and a dangly toy thing off to the side. At first, he wanted to feel insulted. This thing was for pets. For animals! It was not for him. And yet… the cat in him compelled him to at least go and check it out. 

At first sniff, it smelled funny. Venturing inside one of the little hiding places proved it not to be such a bad thing, though: it was soft, warm, and only had enough space for him inside. Right now, it was perfect - the perfect place for him to sulk and be aggravated. Because, while it was nice and he had decided that he didn’t mind it so much, he still wasn’t ready to let go of his frustrations about being stuck this way yet. For all he knew, the magic that Izzy had only extended as far as nice-feeling healing powers, and that was it. Well, aside from the ‘being able to communicate with animals’ thing. How weird was this Midgardian woman going to turn out to be? He could only wonder. 

“Did he tell you his name yet?” he could hear them talking from across the room. Ash was talking to Izzy, and Izzy looked to be upset when she answered her. 

“No, all he did was snap at me. I was able to heal him somewhat, but for now, I have no idea whatsoever if he even has a name. I’m beginning to think that even communicating with him was just all in my head.” she sighed, back leaned against the wall, arms crossed loosely beneath her chest. 

For some reason, her tone and expression made him feel a little guilty. He had been a bit rude with her when all that she had apparently wanted to do was help. Then again, why should he have to be in charge of her emotions or her well-being? She was the one who had brought him into her home. He hadn’t asked her to pull him out of the rain. To bring him in, clean him up, feed him, and give him a bunch of things to try and make him happy… No. He’d not asked for any of it. That was the bottom line. He was here because of her, and that was all. He didn’t care how she felt about it, he was done caring about other people or trying to help. That was what he’d been trying to do before he’d been stuck in this mess: he’d been trying to help; the expected outcome was to be rewarded - not to be turned into an animal with no means of changing himself back, or of communicating with anyone. Anyone but her…

An impatient sigh left him. If he was going to be stuck like this, then he was going to be free to sulk and be mad about it if he wanted to - no matter how it affected some woman. This was the decision that he had come to, and he was sticking to it. 

At least, this is what he thought that he was going to do. 

                                  ✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ 🐾 ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

The following days were nothing, if not at least interesting. 

While he had had it in mind to keep to himself and sulk alone, the three women in the apartment did not seem to be getting that memo; even Luna was paying him attention, not that he had expected it. Still, he found himself welcoming it more than he had with Ash - he still very unsure of her, most often because she was too hyperactive for his moods and got on his nerves - but there were some of her efforts, that he found himself later admitting that he had maybe not minded them as much as he originally thought that he did. She was trying, he could give her that, he supposed. 

The real bond he’d found himself making, however, was not with either of them. It was with Izzy. 

Even if he’d gone off to be alone, she’d usually leave him some sort of a treat to try and coax him out again anyways. Not that it usually worked, but she did make the attempt. And it was her perseverance that was most intriguing to him - for, he knew that he was not giving her the information she wanted; she wanted to know his name, but he had not budged. No name had been given, yet she did him the favor of not giving him some ridiculous or absurdly offensive name in place of it. He wasn’t cooperating well with her, yet more than once, she brought him up to lay on her bed with her when she noticed that he wasn’t sleeping well. It was unexpected and at first, rather unwelcome. No such comforts had been afforded to him since the passing of his mother, and so actions like these were greatly off-putting to him. Izzy was being kind to him, although she had no real reason to do so. It baffled him. Why should she be so nice, when he was being so stubborn? With all of his resistance and frequent bad moods, he had assumed that by now she would have given up and put him out. Or put him in a cage; as his not-father had done before when he’d done something that he perceived to be ‘bad,’ without even once trying to see if there were some cause for it: a reason for him to act in such uncharacteristic ways. 

But she never did.

Aizalea got upset with him for nipping or scratching and would tell him so, but had yet to lock him away and ignore him. Which, was part of why he slowly began to feel that it might be okay to allow himself to be closer to her. A little bit? It was something that he kept going back and forth on, especially with his nerves on edge lately. He’d been thinking about what all had happened the last time that he’d been on Earth - what had been the reason he’d been sent there; the torture preceding and the one responsible… It was the cause of his more frequent nightmares - and; subsequently, the reluctant relenting of his stance on staying up on Izzy’s bed. It was not so bad, he decided. She always allowed him to curl up on one of her pillows, as close to or as far away from her as he chose; if she thought that he may be cold, Izzy would reach for a blanket and put it over him. He usually really wasn’t that cold, but the thought was nice. 

Aside from slowly becoming more agreeable in nature, he found himself slowly giving in to the new - if a bit odd - instincts and urges that he had, as a cat. One of which, being to actually play with the toys that had been gotten for him. To his surprise, there were some of them that he quite enjoyed; ones meant to be mentally stimulating, or the ones with the stuff in it that was apparently known as “catnip.” Whatever the stuff was, it was amazing! …Though also a bit embarrassing later on, when the effect had worn off. 

When not in the kitty condo, carting around a toy, or getting healed up by Izzy, he had taken to exploring more of the apartment. There was a lot to it, and everything from this angle looked a lot bigger than it would of, had he been a person at the time. He was sure of that. 

There were plenty of places where he could lay in the sun - as he’d discovered was quite delightful - rooms to peek inside of and investigate and things nearly everywhere to climb on. Which, he’d learned, seemed to be another one of those odd ‘instincts’ that he’d found he now had: to climb up on everything and anything that he could get up to, whether he technically should, or not. 

In the end, none of this compared to when Izzy would sit and read to him. Whether on a pillow beside her or in her lap so he could see the pictures too, it was calming. Her reading voice was clear and concise; he nearly felt sometimes like he was inside the stories that she was telling, it was truly amazing. In all his years, very few had such a gift for reading this way. Couple this with her habit of running her fingers through his fur or scratching the top of his head as she read to him, and it made for quite an experience. It was quickly becoming yet another thing that he thought to be delightful; yet, he also found that it made him feel bad. 

She had given so much, and yet he’d still not given her so much as a name of which she could call him by… 

                                   ✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ 🐾 ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

“Ugh..” Izzy sighed, running her hands through her dark hair. She was hoping to get this song done before they had to start booking performances again. It was supposed to be the leading song for the album that they were trying to put together, but it just wasn’t coming out right at all. Digging her nails into her scalp and shutting her eyes, Izzy gripped her hair so tightly that it was starting to hurt her head. Ash and Luna had gone to hang out with their brother, so she was the only one here except for the kitty - that she still didn’t have anything to call by.

Getting her breath hard, she let go of her hair and sort of limply fell forward. She’d been at this for a good couple of hours now, and it was driving her crazy. Nothing that she put down sounded right, or like it fit together, and she was so frustrated with it. It was not only supposed to be the first song on the list of their new album, but their manager/agent had stated that he wanted her to write it all on her own. Ash and Luna weren’t allowed to help her, he’d made that pretty clear. And the stress of it was getting to her..again. This was why she almost didn’t notice the feeling of her hair being pawed at, from the end of the couch. 

“You’re crying.” Blue-green eyes stared up at her from where he sat on the floor, a matter-of-fact tone in how he’d spoken to her. As “matter-of-fact” as one who was currently a cat could be, anyways. 

Sitting up a bit and wiping her eyes with the palms of her hand, she sniffed. “How observant of you,” she sighed, her brows creasing together. She had a lopsided smile on her face, but it wasn’t fooling him. He knew she was upset. He could feel it, somehow; or..almost smell it, maybe? Whatever it was, he knew that she wasn’t having a great time right now. That much was evident. Even despite that she’d tried to repeat back to him what he’d said to her the first time that he’d spoken to her. It was in part..especially because of that, really. 

“You aren’t funny, Aizalea. I can see that you’re upset, I’m color-impaired right now. Not stupid.” He stated, giving her what she could only think was his attempt at a ‘knowing’ look. To which, she rolled her eyes. 

“No. But you are a smart-aleck,” Izzy answered him, offering a smirk and trying to boop his nose with her finger. It earned her the funniest of looks, and a moment of silence, that she couldn’t help but to laugh at even though she’d been so frustrated with her song not coming out how she wanted it to. 

“Hmph.” Giving her an indignant look and swatting at her when she tried to do it again, he sat up straighter. “Be that as it may, you are avoiding my question. So, tell me. What is it?” He pressed her, gaining a frown in response. She didn’t seem to want to let him see it, whatever it was. 

“..I’m trying to write a song. It’s for the new album that we’re supposed to be putting together..it’s the first one, I saved it for last because our manager wanted me to do it by myself. And I’ve been stuck on it, I can’t think of what to write. I have half a song, and can’t think of anything else. Nothing that I’ve tried makes sense!” Aizalea sighed, hiding her face in her hands. A short amount of time passed by before she finally looked up again; when she didn’t see him anymore, she was going to ask where he had gone off to - when she then felt paws walking up her back. 

“Let me see,” he meowed at her, nudging her cheek and peeking over her shoulder. 

“Hey, what’re you-” Izzy looked over at him and exhaled slowly. “Alright, but you won’t be able to understand it…” she muttered, adding “Persistent thing.” Moving the page over, she finally let him see it. It looked like a mix of musical symbols, and then a bunch of..weird squiggles..to him. Again. To hide his frustration with this, he stared at it awhile longer before answering her. 

“Well, what do you expect from one named Loki?” 

#Loki #Others #Submitted fic #submission #chapter 3 #not as it seems #a-pandoras-box-of-stories