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ijuststareatstuffhereok89 · 1 year

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Chapter 15- Lokabrenna

You and Loki separately absorb the terrifying news that almost certainly leads to death for you, but in spite of your shared fears, the light between you grows only brighter, and you vow to keep it burning at all costs.

Pairing: Prince Loki x Concubine!Reader Rating: 18+ ONLY (Minors DNI) MASTERLIST HERE **Please reblog if you like it!**

Content Warning: Threat and mentions of assault, eventual smut, indentured servitude and sex slavery, mean people being mean, violence, executions, more warnings likely to come

Three days. Ase had managed to keep Loki away from the palace for three days, while you sat in the garden, awaiting him like a prisoner awaiting a sentence, going back and forth in your mind between deciding that either Loki would be so excited by your news he’d insist you run away together, or that he would order your immediate banishment as he chose his duty to his nation over his heart.

Either way, there you sat for three days, under the pavilion in his secret garden, pregnant with his child.

Noma had been the one to take you to a healer, who only needed to examine you for a moment before declaring that you were expecting a Lokisson or Lokidottir at some point within the next six months. As soon as you found out, Noma took you to Stieg, who immediately brought you to the garden to hide, saying that he would bring the baby’s father to you as soon as he was located.

Stieg kept close vigil while waiting for news of Loki’s return. He sat with you, insisting that you eat your fill while you waited (in spite of the continuing stress and nausea). He promised that he ‘took care’ of the young, blonde healer who’d diagnosed you, so that only you, he, Thor, and Noma were at all aware of your condition. Only Stieg visited, however. Thor was frantically trying to quell the storm before it hit in full, and Noma was unaware of the garden’s existence.

“Stieg, what will become of me? If the best case happens?” you asked with hesitancy on the afternoon of the third day in your exile.

He shrugged and held up an apple. “I cannot possibly know that, little princess.”

“Do you think we could actually be together?” you sighed, little hope in your voice, shaking your head and pushing the apple away. “Could we be a family?”

“Sadly, friend, I don’t see such a road being possible,” he admitted. “I imagine, if fortune blesses you, that you will be spirited away, perhaps to a small home on the edge of the realm, bribed into rejecting any claim to the throne for the babe, only able to see Loki from afar whenever a military parade marches through Asgard.”

“And the worst?” you further inquired.

Stieg immediately shook his head, taking out a small knife and paring the apple, holding out a half to you with more insistence. “I refuse to entertain the idea, let alone describe it to you. More than ever, you need to avoid fears…and you need to eat more.”

“If we are doomed,” you said quietly, “there is no point to eating, is there?”

“Please don't start talking as if you are already dead,” Stieg insisted, further pushing the apply half in front of you until you surrendered and grabbed it. “Have some faith in your prince.”

“How can I when he’s been gone for so long?” you whispered, taking the tiniest bite of apple in order to satisfy your guard.

“You know that is through no fault of his own.”

“And yet after the wedding, it will only get to be more impossible,” you grumbled, taking another nibble. The apple’s flesh was too sweet against your tongue. “Regardless of who is to blame, Prince Loki will marry Princess Ase, while the realm has no idea that the true firstborn Lokisson or Lokidottir is mine, nor will their father ever be allowed to meet them.”

“As I said, perhaps you will be spirited away and sheltered from Odin’s wrath,” Steg suggested. “I won’t say that it won’t be a lonely existence, but think of the alternative!”

You shook your head, throwing the apple down in front of you. “A part of me would rather die.”

Stieg bit his lip. “I grow weary of this suicide talk, Y/N. You are worth so much more than your own defeatism, and so is your little prince or princess.”

You scowled, looking down at your belly, laying a hand on it. Your front was still flat, aside from a small, nearly imperceptible fullness between your hips. Your breasts were what were growing first, and noticeably so. They were tender to the touch, and even when you walked, the sensation of them moving beneath your robes was enough to send an ache down your back. Your face was also getting fuller, but you didn’t resent the new, rounder shape that gave you a healthier glow.

Were you glowing? Were you ashamed? You couldn’t decide.

“And tell me, pet, do we have children? Have I made you pregnant?”

“Not yet, though we’ve been making a fair try at it for some time…”

You shivered. According to the healer, you had been pregnant when you and your beloved exchanged those words in playacting.

In spite of every indication that you were either going to die under Odin’s blade or rot in a hovel on the edge of Asgard for all eternity, you were also already beginning to feel warm at the idea of being the mother of the Prince’s child. You were already dreaming of what they were, but nothing seemed decisive or prophetic. The first night you saw a Lokisson, taller than his father, the very image of a prince with all of the confidence even Loki couldn’t muster. The second night it was a Lokidottir, dressed in gold armor in the manner of a Valkyrie, with your eyes and smile, but her father’s shiny black hair hanging in curls to her waist.

You couldn’t feel anything stirring within you yet, but your instinct knew they were there, waiting to enter a world that would immediately disown them.

Who are you? you asked the little one. Are you like him or me? Will you care if you never know your father, or will you have that urge to seek him out one day? What will become of both of us?

“Y/N, I will go make another round around the palace now. I plan to visit Prince Thor as well,” said Stieg, rising. “I will return just after dusk.”

“Please don’t go far,” you said fearfully, getting up and following him to the passageway. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Stieg took you into his arms, embracing you almost too tightly. “You aren’t. You never will be again.”

Leaving you alone with your thoughts and your future child, you went back to the waterfall, sitting by the poolside and dipping your feet in, letting the warm water send little, warm waves of comfort lapping at your ankles.

You’ve gotten me into a Hel of a lot of danger, you said silently to the bump under your robe. I just hope we both survive to meet each other.

Loki nearly destroyed the doors to Thor’s apartment when he burst in.

“My sentry says this is incredibly urgent, so make it quick,” he demanded. “I have a headache from my…excursion.”

“Close the door,” Thor commanded, his voice eerily subtle and low in volume.

“Is it our father?” Loki asked, shutting the door and staying put. “Has he fallen into an unexpected Odinsleep?”

“No,” said Thor, going to his buffet table and picking up a goblet of wine, holding it out. “You may want to drink this first.”

Loki grunted. “I have no patience this evening, brother!” he said, briskly strutting up to Thor, grabbing the goblet, and tossing it to the side, sending red liquid spilling all over the floor. “I did not come here to make toasts!”

“It’s Y/N.”

The Snake Prince’s aggressive demeanor instantly softened. “Is she well?”

“She carries your child, Loki. It appears you are to be a father.”

The younger Prince didn’t move, twitch, blink, or breath as the words took several seconds to sink in.

“...no,” was all he could mutter, quiet and incredulous.

“Yes,” replied Thor. “It is the truth. We uncovered it three days ago.”

Loki shook his head and could only repeat his ‘no’ from before. This meant that day he'd left for the lodge with Princess Ase, possibly the very hour he'd left, you'd learned of your condition, and had probably needed him more than ever.

“Loki, my brother! Do you not hear me??” Thor asked, grabbing his brother’s shoulders and shaking him (less than gently). “Are you under a spell?”

“It seems so,” Loki replied in a whisper. “Where is she now?”

“The garden, of course,” Thor answered. “No one knows aside from myself, Stieg, and the maid who first noticed her illness. The maid is a friend of Stieg, and she has been sufficiently bribed into silence.”

The younger Odinson shook his head, still trying to fight his denial. “I’ve…I’ve killed her, Thor.”

“No, Loki, I won’t allow that to be so,” admitted the God of Thunder.

“Impossible!”

Thor looked down for a moment. “Do you recall Tuva?”

“Who?” the younger brother reflexively responded, sinking into a chair nearby while Thor replenished his own goblet with more wine.

“My concubine, Tuva, the one I loved several years ago,” he explained. “Do you remember the agony I felt when Odin took her from me, and then from life?”

Loki searched his brain for a familiar face to match the name, but he came up short. “It is unfair of you to ask me to recall such details when I still am not sure I understand this news about my love.”

“Loki, I must confess that I have been sneaking around behind your back. Stieg has been in my employ for months, to take care of Y/N and watch over you, to protect you from the harm that was done to me,” he admitted.

“But why would you concern yourself so much with my welfare?”

Thor took a long sip from his glass. “Because, dear brother, I love you more than anyone in this world. You’ve deteriorated as of late, and it worries me greatly. I would do anything to re-grant the happiness you once had. Y/N and Stieg were both in on my plotting, only out of love and affection for you that matches my own.”

“So, now what do we do?” asked Loki. “How will this end? The moment Ase finds out--”

“--that lantern-creature won’t ever know, of course,” Thor said matter-of-factly. “We have to move your beloved girl out of Asgard before the wedding.”

“That is less than a fortnight from now!”

“We can move her tonight, if haste is necessary,” suggested Thor, taking another gulp of wine.

Loki shook his head. “Ase wants to send her home to Vanaheim anyway, to rid herself of Y/N. She thinks it will draw me closer to her.”

Thor put down the goblet. “That isn’t a good thing,” he said. “You do realize if she allows that to happen, you will never be allowed to travel there to see her? Ase would immediately suspect you of a tryst, and she would run to Odin. It would be just as easy for him to arrange to murder Y/N in Vanaheim as it would here. In fact, it is possible Ase could be planning to do just that.”

“Then what must we do?” Loki asked. “I can project copies of myself and trick people with wordplay. What good are those talents in saving a life?”

“We will all come together tomorrow night,” Thor answered. “Unfortunately, Father has a few tasks for me in the morning that I cannot deny him, but you need to go to her tonight. After tomorrow, we will all think of something. Together.”

“Y/N?”

You were leaning against a tree, looking up into the black canopy above, disheartened that the light pollution from the rest of the palace prevented you from seeing any stars, when you heard Stieg’s voice.

“Well?” you asked quickly. “Have you found him?”

“Yes, little princess,” he answered quickly, causing your heart to skip a beat.

As if on cue, Loki appeared from behind him, looking pale and almost a little disoriented. You looked down sheepishly, unsure of what to say, but suddenly realized that you couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eye.

That didn’t matter, as within seconds, Loki brought a finger under your chin, drawing up your gaze, and as if triggered, tears began spilling from your eyes upon seeing that he was smiling.

“You wear maternity like a jewel at your neck,” he whispered gently, tipping your chin this way and that, as if inspecting you with affection. “You shine, and it only brings more shimmer to your skin. Norns, not even in my deepest dreams could I ever imagine you appearing so…so radiant. Imagine how you will look when your belly is fully round…”

He brought his lips to your brow, laying a delicate kiss between them before kissing your nose, then your lips. “Oh, I would shout my joy to the skies, if I were allowed such a luxury.”

“Then you are happy?” you finally asked, your lower lip trembling.

“Happy? I am renewed at this blessing! My sparrow, once we figure out how to get you safely out of Asgard, I will never leave your side,” he vowed.

“That is quite impossible,” you sobbed. “Sometimes you can be so thick, Loki!”

“Don’t you see?” asked your beloved, running a soft thumb back and forth over your lower lip. “I can abdicate! I can follow you wherever you go! Y/N, surely you know I cannot leave you and our precious little one alone for one minute to go be some stone-hearted star-drop’s husband.”

Without moving your head to look, you felt Loki’s free hand gently press itself against your abdomen, right where the little prince or princess was kept.

“Damn the monarchy, and damn Asgard,” Loki said slowly. “You are my only light and purpose now, you and whoever this little one turns out to be.”

“Your wedding is in two weeks,” you reminded him. “You must go through with it.”

This surprised Loki, who finally pulled back from you. “I must go through with it? Why is that?” He looked at you for a moment, not sure of what to say, before realizing it for himself. “She’s already threatened you.”

You nodded. “My aunt as well. That is what I fear more.”

I should have known, Loki thought. I could have foreseen and prevented this!

“With death?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Permanent exile, in shame.”

Loki cringed as he heard the words. He knew exactly what they meant. “Exile in shame” was a polite term for “marooned,” usually on some asteroid or smaller realm without much accommodation for life. No food, no water, little air, and less than a lunar month to live was what always awaited one who was sentenced to such a fate. Even if your constitution was as strong as Prince Thor’s, you would be guaranteed to die before long. You were pregnant, and only somewhat adept at outdoor survival (and that was only in the Vanaheim forests you were used to). It was possible you’d only survive for a few days.

“Listen to me, sparrow, I will never let Ase or her servants lay a hand on you,” he promised.

“Loki, unless we leave this moment, Ase will wonder where I’ve gotten to,” you mentioned.

“Actually,” Stieg chimed in from further away, “she has been sending sentries out looking for her. I told her that you’d chosen to spend your time wandering around the deeper parts of the palace and had perhaps gotten lost, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Norns, have you been standing here this entire time? Leave us, damn you!” Loki barked.

“Sorry, Your Highness,” he said quickly, bowing and backing away.

You meekly commented, “He’s been like a father to me, Loki, please be kind.”

You began crying again as you threw your face into Loki’s chest, and it was all he could do to rock you back and forth, hugging you tightly, brushing your hair out of your eyes and humming a gentle ‘shhh’ into your ear in an attempt to calm you.

“I can’t go back there, my love,” you said helplessly. “Even if she doesn’t find out today, she may tomorrow just by looking at me. Or perhaps on your wedding day, she’ll notice that my gown is tighter and understand then!”

“This seems fraught,” Loki agreed. “But there is nothing the God of Tricks cannot solve.” You sniffled and felt your body go heavy in his arms. You both sank down into the grass, not letting go of one another.

“Loki…” was all you could whisper before he kissed you into silence, putting a hand again on your belly.

“I won’t miss a moment as you grow,” he mused. “After all of this is over, I will spend from sunrise to sunset serving you, and from sunset to sunrise pleasuring you. And I’ll protect our baby from my father, from Ase, and from every monster in every realm.”

You burrowed your nose into the side of Loki’s neck affectionately, making him sigh with love.

“The first step will have to be to get you both out of here, and safely back to Vanaheim on OUR terms, not Ase’s,” he mentioned. “She’s told me she intends to send you back on my wedding day, but don’t be fooled by the kind-sounding offer. She would have you poisoned within the hour of your return.”

“Why would she kill me? Isn’t being rid of me enough?” you asked, your heart speeding.

Loki shook his head. “Never count out a determined elf princess. She is as cutthroat as any ambitious royal. You are a threat to her plans. She will only rest after she’s eliminated you.”

“So you expect me to go back to her?” you whined, frantic. “Especially now that I know, how can I keep it a secret?”

“You MUST,” Loki insisted, taking your cheek in his hand. “And I know you can…and will.”

Nodding quietly, you felt another hot tear roll down the side of your face, which Loki was able to brush away with a finger before it fell to your lip.

“And darling, it will only be for a day or two now, I promise you will be out of Asgard before the wedding,” he vowed. “This is not like before. I am sorry for seemingly abandoning you--”

“--I never thought you’d abandoned me,” you answered.

“Norns, you are a light,” he mumbled romantically, keeping his palm against your face. “How can I possibly stay apart from you, or our tiny, beautiful lokabrenna?”

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ijuststareatstuffhereok89 · 2 years

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No Net Ensnares Me

A Conclusion to The Birds They Put in Cages

Summary: A year has gone by. Danielle is expecting, Loki is enduring, and you are slowly attempting to rebuild your life without him. When Hydra terrorists take Avengers Tower (and everyone inside) hostage, you find yourself reluctantly taking your love for the God of Mischief out of storage in order to save the day.

I guess people like happy endings. I was definitely not planning a sequel for this, yet here we are. The lesson? Don’t listen to your parents, friends, family, clergy, or probation officers, kids: peer pressure always works!

Content Warning: hostage situation, thematic danger Word Count: 4.8k

“Happy Anniversary, darling!” Marcus Ashton-Banks toasted his daughter and son-in-law with a small flute of champagne, grinning like a victorious war general. “To many more years of bliss!”

The party in Avengers Tower was in full swing. The room was filled with only about one hundred-fifty or so of the most elite of the social scene, all dressed to the nines in celebration of Danielle and Loki’s first wedding anniversary. Soft, classy music twinkled throughout the room, drinks flowed freely, and Loki spent the entire time hanging out with Thor and Tony over by the bar, watching his wife flaunt her pregnancy underneath a slinky red dress.

Every time he looked at his wife’s belly, he sighed in sadness.

“So, you’re really saying it’s not yours?” asked Tony, throwing back a shot of top-shelf whiskey.

Loki nodded. “We came to an arrangement when I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with her. It’s her tennis partner’s. He agreed to give up parental rights at birth.”

Tony chuckled. “You really couldn’t bring himself to, uh, what do you fancypants gods call it? Sire an heir?”

“Absolutely not,” Loki sighed. “But Marcus and Dany wanted a baby almost immediately. As long as the public doesn’t find out—”

“—you know, brother, out of everyone in the Nine Realms, you’d be one of the last people I’d expect to roll over for the will of mortals like a lapdog,” Thor scoffed, taking his favorite beer glass and chugging the last third of the ale within it.

Because they broke me, Loki thought, although he wouldn’t say that part out loud. Dark elves and vengeful deities couldn’t do what two Midgardians accomplished with one blackmail scheme. Fucking humans.

Loki was eternally grateful to Danielle and her father when they agreed to have another man father her baby. The wedding night had been an absolute disaster, and Dany quickly discovered that even a creature with the sex drive of an insatiable immortal could not be moved when it came to affairs of the heart. She was no fool, she knew what she was taking away from her husband. Angry as she was that she had a dead-end marriage from the get-go, Dany wasn’t a quitter.

Sadly, she had not called for an annulment when the sex issue was decided. In fact, she doubled down on insisting that they share everything and would grow closer with time. After she showed him her positive pregnancy test six months ago, Loki felt the trap door finally release from underneath him. Fate was his hangman, and now his life had come to a quick drop and a sudden stop.

It was a boy, and Loki already knew that Dany was planning on making the announcement tonight, along with the declaration that he would be named Marcus Lokisson Ashton-Banks Jr. He found the name laughable. The kid was going to sound like a law firm.

In the end, the Ashton-Banks family called it a compromise: the baby (and any future children) would be Loki’s on paper only, and Loki would be given the precious gift of a separate bedroom from his wife (provided he didn’t have extramarital affairs) in return for continued compliance with the charade.

“Oh, honey! Darling, come here!” Danielle shouted excitedly in the general direction of the bar. “It’s time to announce!”

Loki looked at Thor, who shrugged. “Duty calls,” he quipped, setting his glass aside, painting an expression of contentment on his face, and striding slowly towards his wife, who greeted him with a mouthful of veneers (half of the past year alone was Loki sitting and waiting for Dany to get back from her cosmetic dentist after some new procedure to make her teeth glow even more).

“Everyone! We have something to share!” Dany clinked her wine glass, as did Marcus, until the room fell silent. Danielle took Loki’s hand, playing the part of loving wife to a T. Loki, for his benefit, did a quality job looking happy about becoming a father.

“So, Loki and I just found out what the gender of the baby is!” Everyone oohed and aahed with artificial interest. Loki had to keep from rolling his eyes or giving a sarcastic look to Thor. “So, we’re having a bouncing baby—”

A crash broke through the room. Glass and people went flying as a bomb on the floor below exploded up into the party. Screams and blood filled the room as people began ducking and scrambling. Loki and Danielle fell to the floor, Loki spreading himself over her body until the debris settled.

The Avengers instantly assembled in the middle of the room. Steve Rogers, of course, was commanding the attention of everyone else with his assuring authority.

“Everyone stay low and stay here!”

“Oh, nobody should be moving at all, Captain.”

A swarm of masked men entered the room, all armed with AR-15s and rabid looks in their eyes. People were still trying the scream for help, at least until they were met with the barrel of the mens’ rifles and orders to stay quiet.

The man at the center of the situation, tall and imposing, spoke with an Eastern European accent. “I apologize for forgetting my invitation to this soiree, but I have been hunting for years for something that I believe is hidden here, and no one will be leaving this Tower alive until it is in my hands.”

“You have no idea what you’re up against!” someone shouted bravely from behind the bar, just before a terrorist standing next to him fired his gun directly into the brave fool’s skull, sending the room into a chaotic fit.

Loki looked to Thor and mouthed “call your damn mallet already.”

Thor shook his head. “Too many guns on the people.”

Loki closed his eyes, wishing he could send out a projection without anyone noticing, but even that would be entirely too dangerous right now.

Suddenly, a certain classic novel came to his mind, and something from within its’ pages gave him an idea on how to summon help. Maybe he could try a different kind for projection, and he knew exactly who he wanted to send it out to. Loki closed his eyes and began to concentrate.

Meanwhile, over near the bar, Tony looked down at the dead man near his feet. “Thor, do we have anyone on the outside?”

Thor thought a moment. “A few minor employees, maybe. Oh, and Clint couldn’t make it tonight. Sick kids.”

“Well let’s hope Katniss has the smarts to gather who he can, and soon, because this is Hydra, so we may be here for a while.”

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Well, here’s to a year without you, babe, you mock-toasted from your apartment in Newark, raising a half-empty can of Labatt and grunting at the TV. You had decided to leave the City entirely. You couldn’t stay around. Even in a town of millions upon millions, you just knew you’d bump into your former flame at some point, and you didn’t want to risk it. The day Danielle and Loki announced that they were expecting a child was the day you spent moving your few possessions into your cousin’s place. Your cousin Luke Rivers was nice enough, but a little cold, and a LOT religious.

“Y/N, maybe you should switch to water, you’ve had eight of those in three hours,” Luke said quietly, bringing out a tray of pizza rolls and potato skins. “We can put on Blazing Saddles or something to take your mind off it.”

“Like you’d know how to take your mind off of the man you loved having a baby with that silicone-based lifeform,” you answered, reaching for a pizza roll, not caring that it burned your fingers. “You’ve never even had a date.”

Luke shrugged. “No one interests me. Is that my fault?”

“It is when someone DID interest you, but you let her get away,” you mumbled bitterly. “She was nice too, and she was really into you, moron.”

Luke sighed and took a pizza roll. “She deserved better than me. I didn’t have what she needed.”

“God, you’re dumb,” you replied, popping the pizza roll in your mouth and letting the pain of the roof of your mouth instantly scald you without so much as a flinch. “The Toxic Avenger was right. There’s no hope in New Jersey.”

Luke took up the remote and began switching through channels. “Maybe a DC movie is on.”

However, the instant you saw the image of Avengers Tower smoking from the top floors on NBC, a “Breaking News” banner flashing along the bottom of the screen, you held up a hand and told Luke to stop with the remote.

A deep-voiced announcer was explaining the breaking story. “Local authorities and federal SWAT agents are on the scene, but the group known as Hydra, has explosives and trigger sensors placed at all doors. Police believe nearly all of the Avengers are among the 143 hostages, including billionaire tech tycoon Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, and Thor and Loki, Gods of Asgard.”

“Fuck!” you cried out. Luke cringed.

“Also inside are Loki’s wife, heiress and philanthropist Danielle Ashton-Banks, and her father, Marcus Ashton-Banks. Loki and Ashton-Banks are expecting a child later this summer.”

“Christ, was THAT detail really relevant to the story?” you sighed.

“Language,” Luke muttered.

The day the news came out that Loki was going to be a father was the day you began drinking. You thought you could handle the announcement (hell, you’d been bracing for it since hearing those stupid gossip segments about the pair of them honeymooning on a private nude beach in Cabos), but things somehow became more bearable when your brain was swimming in Jägermeister. Anything to block out the fact that Loki had been able to stomach a way to have sex with Danielle, even though the whole time, you knew he’d be procreating with her.

It didn’t help that on occasion, you could swear you heard his voice calling you. On several nights, you found yourself waking up with a voice hoarse from screaming, your arm outstretched as if reaching for someone, and Luke standing in the doorway, puzzled and startled.

“Hydra has admitted to already killing three staff members inside the building, bringing their bodies and laying them out in front as a testament to their lethality and the seriousness of the situation. They have disabled the Avengers and pledged to kill one person for every two hours that their demands are not met. Hydra has yet to make those demands clear to the press, although the Chief of the NYPD is on the scene, insisting they are currently in negotiations, and that he is optimistic that a peaceful solution can be reached.”

“Not likely,” you said sharply. “I need to go.”

“No, you don’t,” said Luke. “You haven’t worked there for ages. You aren’t even ALLOWED back there!”

“But there’s a way in the building they might have missed. I know about it. I should at least tell the police about it.”

“I know what this is about,” Luke assessed. “You think if you become the Avengers’ Great Savior, that Loki’s marriage will break down and he’ll run back to you. Well, newsflash my cos, he’s having a baby! That’s kind of the final nail in the coffin, yes?”

“But this is his LIFE! This is his baby’s life! This is about everyone up there!” you fought.

“You can’t go,” Luke insisted.

Someone knocked at the door. You got up. “I ordered egg rolls, by the way. Tonight is the Feast of the Deep-Fried Saints.”

You peeked through the peephole and couldn’t believe who you saw waiting for you. It was Hawkeye, in full armor, arrows sticking out of the quiver on his back. Four people stood behind him, and two of the women you recognized, for they’d also worked in the Tower with you for a while, albeit downstairs in HR.

“Y/N? Are you—”

You opened the door. “Clint? What are you doing here?”

“Can we come in?” asked Clint. “I trust you’ve seen the news.”

You motioned quietly for everyone to pile in to your small living room. Luke looked confused.

“Hey, you’re Hawkeye,” Luke said, stunned. “Wow.”

“Clint, are you seriously planning a violent breach without police approval?” you asked sternly, putting your hands on your hips.

“Yes.”

“Good, then you came to the right place,” you replied. “Let’s have some fun.”

Luke stood up and gently put a hand on your shoulder. “Y/N—”

“—I will do the right thing, Luke. If it bothers you, go in your room,” you answered, shaking your head and delicately pushing his hand off of you. Luke nodded and left you along with your former co-workers.

“Now, Hydra has every door guarded,” said Clint. “Motion triggers and bombs, mostly, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there was a sniper or two.”

“Probably not at the old dumbwaiter by the loading dock. That garage is open-air, and so they would be guarding the door inside the garage, but the dumbwaiter is on the other side, and it’d be easy to get to without being seen by anyone by that door. It’s pretty large, big enough for two if we can curl up and deal with tight spaces for a few floors.”

Clint shrugged. “But a dumbwaiter wouldn’t go up 140 floors.”

You nodded. “Correct, it goes as high as the kitchens on the third floor. It gets us inside, but after that, the rest has to come from us.”

“So, if we can get to the kitchens, we can arm the rest of you and ninja our way up,” Clint strategized. “Y/N, you and I can lead.”

You nodded. “I just hope we know what we’re doing.”

------------------------------------------------------------------

Four more people were killed and left outside by Hydra during the night, all four were rich acquaintances of the Ashton-Banks Family, but Danielle hardly cared to know them. She and Loki spent the night sitting in a corner of the meeting hall on the 105th floor, where everyone who hadn’t been gunned down execution-style was herded into, away from windows and sight of the military. Thor sat next to them, quiet and uncharacteristically nervous.

At 7:30 am, dawn was breaking, and soon Hydra would likely be taking another victim. Danielle had fallen asleep, slumped in the corner, leaving Loki and Thor a little freedom to quietly whisper, although Loki was still busy trying to concentrate on manifesting his idea.

“How is she doing?” Thor asked.

Loki looked over his shoulder at his wife’s sleeping frame. “She’s fine.”

“I didn’t mean her,” Thor said, winking.

“What the Hel are you talking about?”

Thor raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been trying to covertly send a projection to Y/N. I know it. I may be a bit of a fun-loving lout at a party, but I’m not brainless.”

Loki shook his head. “She knew the building. Trouble is I can’t splice myself without a physical separation. You saw how I had to hide behind the altar to send myself out to her at the wedding! It’s not something I can do with just my mind.”

Danielle shifted in her sleep, and the rustle of her dress was almost too loud.

Thor cringed. “And that’s what you’re trying to do now? Any hints of a success?”

Loki thought back to six months ago, the night after he’d held the press conference announcing Dany’s pregnancy. He’d been woken up by her, and apparently, he was speaking out in his slumber, calling out for an unnamed entity. Loki recalled seeing your eyes floating off into the darkness as he hovered in that void between consciousness and the plane of dreams.

“I think she’s too far away. She could be anywhere in the world by now. Knowing her, she left town a long time ago. She was in Newark when I last saw her, one year and one day ago.”

Loki sighed with quiet longing. One year without you down, the rest of them to go.

Suddenly, several of the soldiers guarding the room began to scramble. Orders were being barked out in some Cyrillic dialect. Something was going on.

“Does anyone speak Russian?” someone from near the door asked.

“No, idiot, it’s Sokovian,” a second chimed in.

Gunshots from several floors down rang out, and the shouts intensified, making the hostages rustle.

“There’s been a breech downstairs. Not police. They think it’s Hawkeye,” a lady explained. “Be quiet! There’s more!”

Thor turned his head just in time to see Steve scooting over in his direction. “Hey Thunder. I think now’s the time to act. Loki, if you want to stay here and protect your wife, I understand. Things will get hot.”

“Loki’s cooking up something different, I think,” said Thor. “But I am with you. Where’s Stark?”

The woman who spoke Sokovian chimed up again. “They said there’s a huge trigger three floors below us in the stairwell. Everyone, get away from the doors!”

“Hawkeye’ll die if he hits it!”

Loki’s ears perked.

“He’s with a small group of office workers and lab assistants. They’ve been making their way up the tower all night!”

Loki felt his body run cold, and something akin to an explosion of darkness blinded him from behind his eyes. He could hear something new. Your heaving breaths, as if you’d been running for hours without rest. Or, perhaps, slowly snaking up a building over a hundred stories high to try and rescue your former lover.

Y/N…can you hear me? Y/N? Use the west stairwell, not the main one…

------------------------------------------------------------

“Chickenhawk, I think we need to switch to the smaller stairwell by the west corner,” you informed Clint as you were hiding in a bathroom stall, the doors locked and the lights out, waiting for the soldiers to clear the floor.

“You know, Y/N, we don’t need the code names,” he replied.

“I know,” you smiled. “I just think calling you Chickenhawk is funny.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “I’m going to ignore that for now, and anyway, why do you want to do that? We’d have to cross the whole floor! If they didn’t have triggers all over this place before, they sure as hell do now.”

“We’d need a distraction,” one of your compatriots suggested from the next stall. “So…who wants to get a water fountain dedicated to them in the atrium? Not it!”

“Not it!” “Not it!”

“Um, people,” Clint chimed in. “Did you forget that I have arrows with tiny bombs on them? I just need someone to cover me.”

“We have to do this. I think…I think it’s trapped,” you said softly, trying to decipher the voice softly cooing in your ear in Loki’s baritone. You were definitely losing your grip.

“Well, then you and I go out there. Beta Squad heads right for the west corner, got it?” Clint commanded. “If we can subdue them here, it’ll probably be easy to take out the rest of ‘em. My arrows will do that work. I just have to not suck at shooting them.”

“Then let’s go!” you said back. Clint nodded and popped out of the stall, you trailing, then the others following behind you.

Clint began shooting as the barrage of bullets almost immediately greeted you, sending you into a spiral down to the floor, hoping the shadows would cover you. One arrow, two, then four, each exploding and sending bodies shooting up and over you as you crawled and shot. Everything stood still and rushed by you all at once as you continued your progression through the floor, the Beta Team successfully making it to the safe stairwell and starting to make their way to the party to liberate the hostages.

“Keep going!” Clint hollered. “I almost have them!”

“Not yet you don’t!” you replied, aiming a pistol at a terrorist, screaming like a fool as he attempted to charge you and taking him out easily.

“You know what? Sure, I could use you,” he caved. “Now, let’s finish this. I want to go to bed.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Five minutes later, the bombs and gunshots ceased. The Beta Team had swept the area of guards, so when it was you and Hawkeye who came up through the smoke in the stairwell, cheers and shouts of thanksgiving erupted.

Police and military flooded the building in minutes, of course, questioning everyone in the room and arresting the terrorists who’d survived the scuffle downstairs. You just wanted to leave, because out of the corner of your eye, you could see Danielle Ashton-Banks, round with child and in an impossibly tight red dress, run towards Loki, crying “Darling! I was so afraid! Thank God you’re alright!”

They kissed and Loki smiled, looking up and suddenly spotting you from across the room.

You couldn’t deal with this anymore. You saved the day, very good. Now, you had to fulfill your obligation to them to leave them alone. It would be best if you just slipped away…

You didn’t notice Loki follow you with his eyes as you left the room, making his stomach fall. He took a deep breath and pushed away from Dany’s grip on him.

“Dany, I know this is probably the single worst time to bring this up, but if I don’t do this now, I never will.”

“What is it, darling?” she asked.

“Look, Danielle,” Loki began. “I can offer you mountains of Asgardian gold and jewels. I can give you a noble title and a place in our society that would make your position here on Midgard look like a play act. I can even offer you my patience, time, and ear. But there is one thing I cannot offer you, no matter how hard to try to paint the tableau of an ideal family for the world to see.”

“Your heart,” Dany replied, looking down. “I do love you, you know. For real.”

“I understand this,” he replied. “But you’ve known that another has had my soul for a long time. She still has it now, and in your love for me, you thought it was best to rip my happiness away for your own benefit.”

Tears began pouring from her eyes and she nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry. I always get what I want. And I…I want you.”

“When I was on Asgard, I had to rely on my wits and magic to get what I wanted. You have to learn to be resourceful, Dany. You don’t love me in the way you think you do. And out there, there’s someone who does love me in that way, and every step she takes further from me I feel more need for her.”

Dany looked up again and held her belly. “You’re calling for a divorce?”

Loki shook his head. “I can’t. Your father is keeping me here on threat of death, you know that. It would have to be you who asked for it.”

Dany sighed. “I don’t want to, Loki. You are mine.”

“Dany, listen to me, this is for you too,” Loki said, taking her hand in his and looking her directly in the pupil. “Why would you want to spend your days living a lie like this? When you too could be finding a lover that would fall at your feet of his own choosing?”

“I…I never thought of it like that,” Dany said, turning away. “You couldn’t bring yourself to have sex with me. I wanted it to be your baby. I thought when I had it, you’d feel a fatherly instinct and start to bond with me.”

Loki shook his head. “I must be blunt, I could not love you like a husband should. In my heart, I’m married to Y/N. I was with her in spirit there last year, even as my corporeal body recited their vows to you.”

Dany sighed and thought a moment. “Well, then, if that’s true, that settles it.”

“What does?”

“We don’t need a divorce, because you weren’t of sound mind and body when you married me. Legally, that’s not consenting to a marriage. We just need an annulment,” she said sadly. “And…I’ll sign off on it.”

Loki perked up, smiling. “Really?”

“Yes,” Dany said quietly. “And don’t worry about Daddy. I’ll talk him down. You’ll be fine.”

Loki put a hand on her shoulder and kissed her eyebrow. “Thank you for this gift, Danielle. You’ve made me happy.”

Danielle was crying openly. “We can make arrangements to move you out later. I just…I can’t be around you right now. I’m sure you get it.” With that, she turned away and briskly walked towards where her father was hysterically having a freak-out.

Loki looked after her a moment and smiled, thankful to say goodbye to his wife. Then he turned on his heel and made his way in the direction he’d seen you go, hoping he could catch up to you before you left the city.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were able to slip away from everyone. You didn’t want to stay there with Loki and Danielle a moment longer than you needed to. So, you were able to disappear into the night and find the nearby subway station, surprisingly crowded for the late hour.

Smushed in between a young girl in a miniskirt readying a book and some older woman with a paper bag full of fish, you just wanted all of this to be over forever. If you could have wiped your mind clean of any memory of Loki, you would have gladly taken the opportunity in that moment to do so.

You noticed that the young woman in front of you was reading Jane Eyre, and you felt the memories make you want to cry all over again.

“Wait’ll you get to the part about what’s in the attic,” you said quietly. “You don’t see it coming the first time.”

The young girl looked up to you and grinned. “This is far from my first time reading this, Y/N. In fact, I can quote it, as can you.”

Somehow, no one around you seemed to notice the teenage girl morph into one of the most notable men on the planet. You even gasped.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you whispered. “You should be back with your wife and child!”

“My what? I don’t have a wife, nor do I have a child as far as I know.”

You looked at him inquisitively. “What do you mean? Danielle? And the baby?”

Loki shook his head. “Because I projected myself to you on our wedding day, the marriage is going to be annulled, and she has agreed to it,” he said softly but happily.

“But the baby?”

“I couldn’t, Y/N, I couldn’t bring myself to make love to her. It’s her tennis instructor’s!” he declared.

“Oh my god,” you replied, and it was all you could muster before Loki took your face in his hands, giving you the greatest kiss of your life, making fire shoot down your back, making your legs feel unstable.

Someone from further down the car yelled ‘getta room!’ making you pull away and laugh.

“Once the annulment is made public, we can make our own arrangements,” he promised you. “And for the rest of our lives together, I will lay myself and everything I have at your feet.”

Your heart raced as he took your hand in his, placing a kiss on your knuckles.

“Loki, when I was down with Hawkeye and the others making my way up to you…I thought I heard your voice in my head for a moment,” you confessed.

He nodded. “Then it worked.”

“What worked?”

“You would have fallen into a death trap if I hadn’t isolated my voice and sent it out to you. I always had to physically separate my body from my projection before now.”

You looked down at the book he had in his hand. “I wonder where you got the inspiration for that?”

Loki smiled at you, not letting your hand go. “We made it, my love. Let’s have our forever start now. I don’t even know if I could wait another month. We’re finally together, so let’s not waste another day.”

Danielle, to her credit, made the annulment and the ensuring shitstorm of a paparazzi mess as easy for Loki as possible, claiming that she’d made a mistake by rushing in to things (which wasn’t a lie) and the separation was on her. She used her team of lawyers and publicity agents to make the entire process complete and smoothed over within the month, leaving the pair of you open and free to be a couple again.

Loki found a place outside of the city for you both, a small retreat, but far enough away from the others and the hustle and bustle of New York, and on the day he brought you there for the first time, he got down on one knee before you in the doorway.

And, Reader, you married him.

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