#CURSE ME FOR WATCHING THOR LAST NIGHT-

[catstack17]

SPOILER FOR LOKI EPISODE 6 :

“i could have done it father, for you, for all of us.” - loki in Thor (2011)

“i know what god i have to be for you, for all of us.” loki in Loki S2 (2023)

THIS PARALLEL IS KILLING ME PLEASE- SOBBING CURRENTLY

[vbecker10]

Language (Part 6 - Final)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5

Pairing: Loki x female reader (Y/N)

Summary: Captain Rogers thinks you curse far too much at work so he came up with a way for each word to cost you fifty cents no matter where you are in the Tower. You are desperate for it to stop and go to Loki to see if he has a spell or trick that can help you outsmart J.A.R.V.I.S.

Warnings: swearing lol... obviously?

A/N: Thank you everyone who read this series! I'm sorry this last part took me so long to get to but I hope you all love it!! 💚💚 I'll be working on finishing the Night Nurse now then going back through my requests! 🙂

You watch anxiously when Thor pulls away from his younger brother. "Remove the spell from Y/N," the God of Thunder demands.

"To do that I will need the vial," Loki counters and takes another step forward, closing the distance between them. Loki reaches for it but Thor pulls his hand away, holding it just out of reach.

If you weren't so concerned about the safety of the vial, you might be able to appreciate how much they simply look like bickering brothers and not two Gods arguing over your voice.

Tony steps in, "Thor, give it back to the sea witch."

Loki glares at Tony, "I do not have the patience for you today tin man."

He looks back at Thor and without a word, he flicks his wrist, sending his seidr towards his brother. The green cloud surrounds his hand in an attempt to pull the vial free but Thor clenches his hand and pulls violently against Loki's magic.

"Stop!" Natasha yells.

Your eyes go wide and you cover your mouth with both hands as the vial slips free from Thor's grasp. Loki's seidr doesn't react fast enough and the small glass vial falls to the floor at the older Asgardian's feet, shattering into pieces.

You lower your hands slowly, watching the cloud of gray smoke quickly evaporate into nothing before you can even think to move. Your hand runs slowly up and down your throat, vaguely listening to the reactions of the team around you.

"Y/N... I did not think... I am so sorry-" Thor tries to apologize but you don't look at him.

"No... this was not supposed to happen," Loki runs his fingers through his hair, his expression full of guilt and concern but in an instant he becomes angry. "Thor! I told you not to touch the vial, why do you never listen to me? Look what you have done!"

"What I have done?" Thor asks, taking a step towards his younger brother. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't been so reckless with your magic."

Your attention finally shifts from the broken glass to the two Gods. Walking between the brothers, you interrupt their argument. You point angrily at Thor and ask, "Why the fuck couldn't you just listen to Loki, for once!? All you had to do was not touch the damn thing and you fucking broke it!" Your mouth moves quickly and you breathe harder but you don't make a sound. You turn to look at Loki and slowly mouth, "I never should have trusted you. I knew you were fucking useless."

Loki lowers his head, putting his hands behind his back to fidget with them while Thor rubs his beard, trying to think of something to say to you.

"Y/N, don't worry," Natasha says, keeping her voice calm and level as she pulls you into a supportive hug. Over your shoulder she glares at the trickster, "Loki is going to fix this."

"Damn right he is," Tony agrees angrily. "How the hell could you have screwed up this badly?"

"I do not see why all of the blame is being put on me," Loki takes a small step away from the team. "Thor is the careless oaf that dropped the vial after I specifically instructed him not to touch it."

"I was just trying to help Y/N," Thor defends his actions.

"As was I," Loki argues back.

"By stealing her voice?" Clint asks.

"I will remind you one final time, I did not steal anything," Loki clarifies. "How was I to know someone," he glares at Thor, "Would be foolish enough to disregard my very direct warning and break the vial?"

"What was the plan then?" Bruce asks as everyone gathers closer.

"It was supposed to be a simple trick. We thought once you saw the lengths Y/N went through to avoid swearing, Captain Rogers would turn off that ridiculous computer program to appease her," Loki explains and you nod along as he speaks, confirming that was the plan. "As soon as it was off, I was going to return her voice."

Loki turns to face you, "I am truly sorry Y/N. I never meant for this to happen-"

Steve interrupts Loki's apology, "I can't believe you trusted him to do this Y/N, you know how unreliable he is. Who's to say he would have given you your voice back even if this didn't all go to sideways?"

"Whatever other sea witches do when they steal voices," Bruce mumbles.

"Of course I would have honored our agreement. What would I do with Y/N's voice?" Loki asks.

"I am not a sea witch," Loki reminds them all angrily. "I am a god you pathetic mortal," he looks directly at Bruce who takes a step behind Clint.

"So if you weren't going for the shittiest impression of Ursula possible, why the hell would you take her voice if you knew it could be lost so fucking easily?" Tony swears at Loki.

Before Loki can answer, J.A.R.V.I.S activates three times in close secession. Each time it says, "Tony, fifty cents has been deducted from your upcoming paycheck as you are in violation of SHIELD's Inappropriate Language Policy, per Captain Rogers' orders."

"Oh, shit," Clint says and J.A.R.V.I.S charges him a second time. "Steve your little project is going rogue."

"What the hell was that?" Clint asks, looking at the holographic display.

"Clint, fifty cents has been deducted from your upcoming paycheck as you are in violation of SHIELD's Inappropriate Language Policy, per Captain Rogers' orders," J.A.R.V.I.S. announces.

Steve ignores the computer and Clint, grabbing Loki by the collar with one hand, "You will help Y/N and you will do it now. Is that understood?" You look quickly between Steve and Loki, biting your lip nervously.

"I may have a spell that can restore her voice," Loki pulls himself free from Steve and straightens his clothing. "But I cannot think with all of you swearing at me and threatening me."

"I haven't started threatening you," Tony says.

"Maybe you'll think faster if the hulk was around," Bruce adds, finding his confidence once more.

"That is not necessary," Loki says, his expression switching from annoyance to nervousness at the mention of the hulk.

"Then you better start fucking thinking," Tony says.

J.A.R.V.I.S activates, charging Tony again.

"If you wish for me to think here, I must insist you silence that useless program," Loki waves his hand at the holographic display.

"Steve, seriously shut that damn thing off," Tony says to the captain as J.A.R.V.I.S repeats the announcement.

Steve groans, "Fine. J.A.R.V.I.S, disregard SHIELD's Inappropriate Language Policy."

J.A.R.V.I.S confirms the order from Steve.

"Are you happy now?" Steve asks Loki, his arms folded across his chest.

Loki asks, "It has been turned off for everyone?"

"Yes," Steve nods.

"Even Y/N?" Loki looks over at you.

"Yes, not that it matters unless you can figure out how to get her to talk again," Steve answers.

A smirk creeps across Loki's lips and you take a step towards him. "I can't believe that worked," you tell him.

"I told you it would work," Loki responds proudly.

(This morning)

"Ah brother, what a pleasant surprise," Loki smiles when he opens the door to a very confused looking Thor.

"Um... it is?" Thor asks, immediately feeling concerned by the God of Mischief's greeting.

"Of course," he opens the door wider and gestures inside the apartment. "Won't you join Y/N and me for a moment?"

"Okay..." Thor shrugs as he enters Loki's apartment. "Wait, Y/N is still here?"

"Morning Thor," you wave at him from the couch. He looks from you back to his brother and you don't miss the smirk of approval he gives Loki. You push aside the awkward feeling that Thor assumes you've slept with his brother and ask him to sit.

"I would prefer to stand, if you don't mind," Thor refuses your suggestion politely. "I sense my brother is playing some game with me and I am not willing to relax quite yet."

Loki smirks, "You are finally becoming more perceptive, but you are not the intended victim this time."

"I'm not?" Thor asks, his shock obvious in both his voice and his expression.

You try not to laugh, knowing he probably walked in here expecting the worst. "We need your help to pull off our plan actually," you tell him.

"I would love to help you, Y/N," he replies then he looks at Loki, "But I am not sure I want to help him."

"That hurts brother," Loki's smirk doesn't fade. "Would it change your mind if we offered a trade for your assistance?"

"I'm listening," Thor answers cautiously.

"I know where your wallet is," you tell Thor.

"I believe you have something of mine," Thor holds his hand out towards his younger brother. Loki nods and with a flick of his wrist, the missing wallet appears in a flash of green in Thor's open palm. The older Asgardian frowns, "Where is my money?"

"The deal was for me to return your wallet," Loki grins. "Which I have. You did not specify that you wished to have your money returned as well."

"I assumed that would have been obvious," Thor groans and tucks his empty wallet safely away.

"Wait... so the three of you planned this whole thing just to get Y/N out of being charged for swearing?" Steve asks, placing his hands on his hips in annoyance.

"Midgardians have a saying about making assumptions, I believe," Loki says and you roll your eyes at him. He chuckles and adds, "Consider it a charitable contribution to Y/N's swearing fund."

"Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me," Tony says, throwing his hands in the air.

"I only wanted my property returned to me," Thor insists, holding his hands up and taking a step away from you and Loki to avoid any blame.

"And what's your excuse, Laufeyson?" Steve turns his attention to the God of Mischief.

"Do I need one?" Loki doesn't seem phased by Steve and Tony's disapproving looks.

"You know you are not permitted to use your magic on any member of SHIELD or Stark Industries," the captain reminds him of the rules. "This was reckless and-"

"He was just trying to help me out," you cut off Steve and offer a defense for Loki which only brings everyone's focus back to you.

"By using his magic to trick us into overriding a SHIELD policy?" Steve asks you.

"Yeah..." you fidget with your fingers nervously. Loki might have been prepared to face the wrath of the team as calmly as ever but you hadn't thought this part of the plan all the way through. You had been focused on having the swearing policy reversed and not much else.

"Y/N," Tony says your name and you can hear the disappointment in his tone. He folds his arms across his chest. You recognize his expression, it means he is getting ready to deliver a long speech about how he expects better from you.

"I... well..." you stumble over your words then makes eye contact with Loki for a brief moment. He looks towards the door and back at you, signaling that it is time to go. "Well, this was a lot of fun but I've got shit to do... somewhere else."

You barely register that J.A.R.V.I.S is still quiet as the two of you quickly move towards the exit. Loki pushes open the door, ignoring Steve and Tony telling you they are not done with either of you yet. He laughs when the sound of their voices is cut off by the door closing and walks with you towards the elevators.

"You played your part excellently," he complements you, pushing the call button. "You are a natural trickster."

"Thanks," you feel yourself blush and look down, hoping he doesn't notice your red cheeks. "You and Thor were pretty good too."

"My brother has his uses," he says. "But do not tell him I said so," he adds quickly, looking at you.

"Oooh, I'm definitely gonna tell him," you laugh.

"Turning you into a frog is still on the table," he says with a wicked grin.

"I think you would hate that more than I would," you smile back and he furrows his brows in confusion. "I'd just hop along after you all day and sit on your pillow, ribbiting in your ear while you tried to sleep. You would turn me into a human again in no time," you snap your fingers.

He laughs at your response and shakes his head, "It seems I need to find a new way to threaten you, hmm?"

"Yeah... or you could just be nicer to me," you shrug.

"I'll think about it," he smirks.

"Don't try to act like I'm not your best friend after last night," you say sarcastically.

The doors to the elevator finally open. You step inside first and select the floor your office is on. Loki doesn't move to select the floor his office, apartment or training room are on and you realize he is following you.

"That reminds me... your question from earlier this morning," he says when the doors close. You turn to face him, remembering when you asked if you were friends now or something you hadn't defined yet. "I do not wish to be your friend," he informs you and you look at your shoes before you have a chance to read his expression.

"Oh... Okay, yeah, that's fine," you feel your heart sink in your chest. You knew you shouldn't have gotten your hopes up that Loki would still want to be around you. He had done what he promised and aggravated the whole team in the process, that was good enough for him.

"I would very much like to take you on a date though," he says and you look up, seeing him smile at you.

"Wait, really?" you ask, sounding more surprised than excited.

He clears his throat, looking unsure of himself and asks, "Would that be something you are interested in?"

You smile and nod, his smile returning quickly, "Yeah, absolutely." You laugh when he relaxes and add, "But we need to work on how you phrase stuff cause it sounded like you were tired of being around me, not that you were going to ask me on a fucking-"

"Y/N, seventy five cents has been deducted from your upcoming paycheck as you are in violation of SHIELD's Inappropriate Language Policy, per Captain Rogers' orders," J.A.R.V.I.S. announces from a speaker in the elevator.

You look at the holographic screen that appears in stunned silence, the rest of your sentence lost. Loki chuckles and says, "It seems they not only reinstated your punishment but raised the rate per word."

"I can't believe this..." you shake your head in disbelief. "Ugh! This is fucking-" you feel a rant of swear words getting ready to be unleashed.

Loki's arm wraps around your waist and he pulls your chest flush to his, the swift action shocking you into silence. He smiles at you, cupping your cheek gently, still holding you close with his other hand on your waist. "I have thought of one more trick to help you," he says, his lips coming closer to yours.

You giggle nervously, "If you say anything about frogs..."

He laughs and shakes his head then clears his throat. "J.A.R.V.I.S, disregard SHIELD's Inappropriate Language Policy," Loki repeats Steve's order in the captain's voice and J.A.R.V.I.S confirms the command. In his own voice he says, "I am not sure how long it will take them to notice so you might want to get in all the swear words you can now."

"I knew you liked me," you smile up at him, his arm still holding you close to his chest.

"I tried very hard not to," he says, his fingers running gently down your cheek to your chin. He tilts your head slightly up and brings his lips to yours, kissing you deeply. You grip the fabric on the back of his shirt when he takes a step forward, pressing your back to the wall of the elevator.

The elevator stops much too soon and Loki smiles down at you when he breaks the kiss. As the doors open, you sigh and rest your head on Loki's chest, "I can't wait until Steve and Tony find me."

"Tell them to come speak to me," Loki runs his fingers through your hair.

You laugh, looking up at him, "Why, so you can turn them into frogs?"

"Would it make you feel better?" he asks as you walk out of the elevator together.

"A little," you tell him with a shrug and he grins mischievously.

I hope you liked this!! Please like, share and comment if you did 💚💚 Please let me know if you want to be added to my taglist!

@soubi001 @mochie85 @lokiswife-dark-fox-queen @animnerd @cabingrlandrandomcrap @icytrickster17 @mischief2sarawr @mjsthrillernp @holdmytesseract @lulubelle814 @goblingirlsarah @alexakeyloveloki @siconetribal @lokidokieokie @kneelingformyloki @jiyascepter @eleniblue @loreniscrying @muddyorbsblr @alyeskathewave @loz-3 @firedrakegirl @javagirl328 @princess-asgard @morally-grey-variant @soulpiercing @km-ffluv @glitterylokislut @biodegradable-glitter-fest @wolfsmom1 @simone818283 @hopefuldreamers-world @blackhawkfanatic @slut4tonystark @dracoswhorexx @sunglasses-in-the-bentley @anukulee @latriacy @trojanaurora @babygirl-panda19 @catsladen @stargazer-luna @rcailleachcola @lunarlopt @gruftiela @bolontiku @scrumptious-finicky-illusion @lokischambermaid @clemthecustestmonster @lovinglokilaufeyson

[sserpente]

A/N: Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! ♥ Requests from @incurablyromanticsblog​ and six (!) anons. I had so many super short requests that wouldn’t have made a whole story on their own, so now… here we have a spicy-President!Loki-Bonnie-and-Clyde-like-but-somehow-also-fluffy-Valentine’s-story! Enjoy, everyone!

Words: 4768 Warnings: succubus!Reader, smut, fluff, violence, poison, imprisonment, blood, starvation

Moaning in a satisfied manner, you rolled over, letting the warm morning sunlight warm your naked skin. The sheets shifted a little during your movement, revealing your bare back to the barely awake God of Mischief resting next to you on the enormous king-size bed his magic had conjured up.

You shivered when his long digits ghosted over your spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “Good morning, pet,” he purred, his mischievous smirk speeding up your heartbeat in an instant.

“Morning…”

“Are you hungry?” His left eyebrow rose a little, daring you to an answer. You smiled, your eyes falling back shut.

“I’m good, actually. Not many men keep me up all night, you see.”

Loki chuckled. “There are no men like me, I can assure you.”

You had been fucking like wild animals for the past few weeks now. The sexual tension had been growing ever since you two met and when the God of Mischief found out you were a succubus… he offered you to feed on him in exchange for pleasure. He was different from the other men—the men back home who didn’t treat you like more than a body to have sex with because you needed it to survive anyway—no. Loki saw you. He saw your desires, saw your will and your persistence to survive after you had confessed your life story to him.

That you had fled your home to not be married off into a harem. To not serve incubi and their mortals men-slaves as warm a warm body to keep their cocks warm. Loki must have been sent to you by fate. When he told you about the Tesseract—an ancient artefact powerful enough to send you to different dimensions—you were intrigued and he had proposed a deal.

Help him, become his ally, and in return, he would ensure the blue cube would send you wherever you wished. You scoffed into the soft pillow. When you’re on the run, it was easier to flee to another dimension altogether. They wouldn’t search for you or find you there.

There wasn’t much you knew about Loki aside from the fact he was an Asgardian God and a Frost Giant by birth. You had learned quickly enough his adoptive father had neglected him and that his brother, Thor, was irritable enough for him to curse his very existence even though part of him loved the God of Thunder.

Having sex with him started out as a means to an end—to help with the constant sexual itch lingering between you two, a distraction as you raided Midgard for the Tesseract like a modern Bonnie and Clyde, leaving nothing but chaos and havoc behind. But then, one innocent morning, when he had still been asleep peacefully and you’d watched his relaxed features, stroking his gorgeous cheekbones… you realised you had fallen for him. Loki was an outsider much like you. He was mischievous, intelligent and oh, he could be so deliciously evil if things didn’t go his way.

Just now, you had lied to him. You were hungry again already. But if you fed on him now, a quick fuck would likely turn into Loki chaining you to the bed and having his way with you until you could all but whimper his name, over and over again. It wouldn’t be the first time.

You had work to do. The Tesseract had last been located in a government facility here in New York—a place Loki was only too keen on keeping away from even though he had no intention of letting you know why.

“I will get dressed and head down to the facility, lurk about and spy a little. I’m sure I’ll find a security hole within an hour.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. We need the cube sooner rather than later.”

Loki frowned, propping himself up on his elbows when you stood. Stark naked, you tiptoed through the room in search of your clothes that were scattered all over the floor thanks to your uncontrolled passion last night.

You resisted the urge to jump back into bed and lick every single inch of his godly body. His naked upper body looked gorgeous in the sunlight shining through the open windows. You hadn’t bothered closing the curtains yesterday.

“You have barely slept, pet. It will take time to retrieve the Tesseract. You don’t know the Avengers like I do. They will do everything in their power to keep the cube out of harm’s way.”

“Why? What do they want with it?”

“Nothing, except for an undying power source for electricity and weapons. They have no interest in travelling through dimensions, even though I would argue SHIELD does indeed.”

“The Avengers… SHIELD… you speak in riddles, Loki.”

The God of Mischief smirked. “That shall be a story for another time.”

“You say that a lot, you know.”

Humming, he stood, revealing a delicious view of his behind before eventually turning around to face you again. You licked your lips, your eyes automatically travelling down to his length which had been inside of you only a few hours before.

“You need rest, pet. You will be of no help to me if you drop unconscious out of exhaustion sooner or later.”

“I’m fine, Loki. I’m not human either, remember?”

The God of Mischief lifted his chin, his hands coming up to cup your face, thumbs stroking over your cheekbones. Your eyes fluttered shut. You did love his gentle touches. In fact, now that you thought about it, Loki’s hands were on you constantly. It wasn’t just the body parts men usually found sexually attractive, though you had little grounds to complain about his palms exploring your breasts, buttocks and pussy whenever he got the chance. Sometimes, Loki’s knuckles brushed over your forearm, other times, he would rest his face on your bare stomach after a long day of causing just enough mischief for the guards and SHIELD agents to remain distracted and stressed. It was almost like… like he was touch-starved.

You had seen this god murder men who stood in his way, had seen him drive another insane with wit and manipulation but with you… with you he was as soft as the light touch of a feather sailing to the ground.

Standing on your toes, you brought your palms against his well-defined chest and kissed him hungrily. Your senses awakened as soon as you initiated the act of intimacy, your body more than ready to feed on the sexual energy seething inside of him.

No time, not now. You could still fuck him senseless tonight when you were both back in this mediocre hotel room Loki’s seidr had turned into a small palace. Perhaps, however, there was just enough time for you to suck him off in the shower, to sate your hunger just a little?

“I’m going to get washed,” you announced, reluctantly releasing his lips. “Care to join me?”

Loki’s grin was louder than any verbal yes could have possibly been.

-

If he truly loved you back, Loki was guarding the secret like the SHIELD agents were guarding the Tesseract. You decided to make your move the same night before you’d pass on from impatience. Perhaps it was ridiculous to hope that once the Infinity Stone was in your possession, Loki would take you with him wherever he went. Perhaps it was selfish, too and yet, the closer you stepped to the cube, the more you began to despise the very idea of parting ways with the cheeky God of Mischief.

The horrifying thought, ending up alone yet again and losing the man you had fallen in love with, kept you distracted. You had to rely on Loki once he opened a green, shimmering portal to the inside of the facility.

“Let’s have some fun, shall we?” he whispered into the utter darkness, allowing you to cling to his leather armour as you sneaked through the dark and empty hallways. The guards were positioned around the securely locked room containing a “confidential” object. You could feel it in your very bones. It must have been the Tesseract.

Loki nodded at you once you were close enough. You could barely make out his features but it was enough for a mute understanding. Kill everyone on sight because they will not hesitate to take your life either.

You had murdered many times in your life. It was necessity and raw survival instinct that had made you who you were—what were a few more deaths, now that your freedom was so close you could practically feel it?

Your senses were tingling, your breath shaky. It was then you heard it. Footsteps. Footsteps that did not belong to Loki or you. Bracing yourself for the fight, you clenched your fists, claws replacing your manicured fingernails. There were perks to being a succubus, after all—ripping your foes to shreds was one of them.

“Brother?”

The warm and deep voice, however, let you pause. Tilting your head, you glanced over to Loki whose lips had parted ever so slightly. He took a deep breath, lifting his chin proudly. One heartbeat passed, then another… and then someone turned on the lights.

You squinted in order for your eyes to get used to the sudden change of brightness. You spotted five people blocking your path, one of them you recognised as Loki’s brother himself, if only because he was carrying his beloved hammer. The others, you did not know but you were fairly certain it was the infamous Avengers Loki had warned you about.

“Thor… what an unpleasant surprise,” the God of Mischief mused. You remained silent. They were a bunch of awkward creatures indeed. One of them was dressed in black, wearing sunglasses even though it was night. Strapped to his back was a quiver filled with arrows you doubted only pierced through people’s skin. Another one was wrapped in a red and gold metal suit, with only his face showing through an open hatch. The redhead woman was pointing one of her guns at Loki and the average guy wearing glasses had put his hands in his pockets. The last one was wearing the most ridiculous superhero suit you had ever seen. You raised your eyebrows at them.

“Listen to reason, Loki. You don’t have to do this.”

“Do I not?” He chuckled. “I am not the Loki you fought here in this monstrosity of a city, Thor.”

“Why, because you got a new haircut, dipshit?” The man in the iron suit bellowed.

You, on the other hand, frowned. “Loki, what are you talking about?”

“So it is true then. We were warned about you. I should have listened,” Thor roared all the while the other’s gazes travelled over to you for a moment. “How did you escape the Void?”

“The Void? What’s the Void?” Loki ignored you completely, fomenting your anger.

“How did you know we were here?” he asked instead, possibly stalling. You were unsure what his plan was—but if the Avengers were as smart as he made them out to be, brute force would likely not suffice to beat them, not tonight.

“We had help—a lovely organisation calling itself the TVA. You might have heard of them, Loki. Rumour has it you’ve been causing them quite some trouble,” the man with the ridiculous blue eye mask and stripes and stars on his armour said.

Loki rolled his eyes. “The TVA was no more than a detour on my journey to glorious purpose. I write my own destiny and for that—I will need the Tesseract.”

“Over our dead bodies.”

“With pleasure.”

The redhead kept her gun pointed at Loki. Her expression did not let on a single emotion. “Agent Romanoff,” Loki chided, directing his attention towards her. “You know those bullets will not so much as scratch my skin.”

“I know. That’s why they’re drenched in poison. You might be a god… but she isn’t.” Her threat came too fast for you to react, for in the next moment, Romanoff had already pulled the trigger. The bullet hit you in the shoulder, knocking you back and against one of the metal pillars. You barely registered the pain of your back colliding with it, too great was the stinging and burning sensation of the foreign object in your flesh.

Loki attacked, daggers materialising in his hands. Any moment now, he would slaughter them where they stood—not for you, you weren’t naïve enough to think that—but in order to end this nonsense once and for all, to bring the Tesseract into your possession at last and then get the hell out of here. You’d survive. It wasn’t the first time you had been shot, although… although it was the first time the bullet had been poisoned. You were warm. No, you were hot. You were sweating. Dizzy, you sank to the floor, shaking like dry autumn leaves in the wind. What… what kind of poison was that? How could it have such an effect on you, an immortal being?

“L-Loki… s-something’s wrong,” you choked out. Hoping he’d hear you, you covered your wound with your right hand, your dark-red blood—almost black—staining your palm. Your sight was too blurry to make out the details of the fight, couldn’t make out if Loki had the upper hand. What you did register was him flipping around, concerned… for you. The blow your involuntary distraction earned him sounded painful, lest it was Mjölnir knocking the God of Mischief to the ground. Still—his stunning blue eyes never left yours and they widened when he realised… when he realised… you gasped for air. You might actually die tonight if you didn’t feed soon to heal yourself. Whatever poison this was… the Avengers had been prepared for him, for you both. And they’d had help—possibly from this secret TVA organisation Loki seemed to know only all too well.

“Alright, stop! Stop!” he shouted. Panic was sizzling in his voice, an emotion you had never seen him display in all of your time together. In your delirious state, hope crawled up your guts. Hope that perhaps the God of Mischief did in fact reciprocate your romantic feelings for him. “I yield! I yield! Let me take her away, she needs to feed.”

Loki’s defeat was the last thing your ears were able to process before you succumbed to darkness and fell unconscious.

-

“Thor, listen to me! If you lock her up on her own and don’t provide her with sustenance, she will die.” Loki hurried to keep up with the God of Thunder. The handcuffs they had used on him had been forged on Asgard, blocking his magic and enough of his strength to keep him in check—for now.

“She is a succubus, Loki. Mother warned us about them when we were young. They lure you into their trap and before you know it, they suck the life out of you. It’s good riddance.”

“Brother, please. Let me into her cell then. Let me be with her.” Thor halted so suddenly that the God of Mischief almost bumped into him. It was obvious he was unfamiliar with such strong emotions from him but so was he. Loki had realised the very moment that bullet had hit you that he loved you, truly.

The sheer thought of losing you to death was unbearable, suffocating. For once in his life, he had an equal. Someone who understood his ways, someone who sided with him, someone who had chosen him over Thor. He dreaded what would happen once you would ask the inevitable question and find out who he truly was. But none of that mattered as long as you stayed alive.

-

When you came to, your surroundings had changed. Thick metal walls trapped you inside a cold and sterile room with a metal floor. Somebody had laid you down on a hospital-like bed but there was no blanket, no pillow.

Coughing, you attempted to sit up only to be greeted by a singeing pain tearing through your shoulder. The bullet. The poison. Loki. Loki!

Your eyes darted around the room but you were alone. Where was he? Was he alive? You would skin them alive if they had hurt him…

Terror rippled through you when the cell door was unlocked with a start—the amount of relief you felt when the man in question stepped into your view even overpowering the pain you were in for a moment. As soon as he had slipped inside, the door was pulled shut again—with the sound of the locking mechanism echoing through the small room yet again. Loki did not seem to care. He rushed towards you in an instant, worry evident on his handsome face.

“They will not let me stay with you for long.”

“You’re okay… I thought they… you’re okay…” you mumbled. Loki nodded. “What… What is wrong with you?” You failed to sound reproachful or threatening even though part of you knew the answer to your next question. “Why did you surrender?”

“You would have died had I carried on. I have seen death too many times than I can count, pet. I know what it looks like when it reaches for you. You need to feed. Now.” Loki would not allow any contradiction when he lifted you off the mattress as if you weighed nothing and sat you down on his lap. Green shimmering light surrounded his whole body for the fraction of a second, dancing on his naked skin as his armour melted off of his body, leaving nothing but the shoulder piece with his green cape, the arm pieces and his boots behind.

Arousal surged through you like liquid fire at the sight of him despite the growing weakness of your body.

“I will remove the bullet now. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.”

You nodded, resting your forehead against his shoulder.

“One… two…” He did not wait until three before his magic ate through your flesh to pull out the foreign piece of metal in your body. Screaming, you bit down on the remaining bits of his armour, squeezing your eyes shut so tightly you saw stars blinking before your vision.

Whatever spell Loki used on you though eased the pain only the twinkling of an eye later. You sighed when it subsided, making way for the growing hunger in your core. Loki acted on your behalf. His magic took care of your leather trousers and underwear, leaving you naked from the waist down and leaving behind a faint tingling.

He had you ignited within a single heartbeat, heat pooling between your legs, your cunt getting ready to welcome a cock inside for you to feed. With a quiet moan, you ground against him when a tingly sensation spread all over your pussy, an aching reminder that you wanted him, needed him, now.

But you were too weak to even buck your hips up to let him impale you. Was he hard already? Was he… Releasing his shoulder plate at last, you swallowed to chase away the taste of leather and instead, buried your face in his neck. He was. Whether it was the fact you were a succubus and lured men into your bed for your own survival or the effect that you had on Loki, you did not know and now was not the time to ponder over it.

Your breathing hitched when he lifted you once more, this time carefully guiding you onto his awaiting length. Inch by inch, Loki slid inside of you, your wet walls gripping him eagerly. He kept you just high enough to thrust up into you slowly and intimately but changed positions when he realised that you couldn’t take the initiative.

“Am… too weak…” you uttered, your eyes threatening to fall shut yet again. With his cock still sheathed inside of you, he laid you back down on your back, positioning himself between your legs. His blue eyes never left your face when he started fucking you, his strokes more controlled and firmer this time.

It took you longer than usual to feel his energy flow into you like a gushing river, sizzling through your veins and pumping strength back into your body in tune with Loki pumping into your willing cunt. Normally, when you were fucking, your hunt for pleasure and completion had him rutting into you like a beast. Hair was pulled, flesh was bitten, skin was spanked. But this, right now… this was love-making. You did not have enough energy left to prepare your body for an orgasm this time and yet, it felt more intimate and more pleasurable than anything you had ever experienced with the God of Mischief.

“L-Loki…” you whispered, his name leaving your lips like a prayer. “Fill me… please… I need you… t-to cum… in me.”

The way he hovered above you like you were his most prized possession filled you with both pride and satisfaction and as Loki neared his climax, his arousal nearly overwhelmed you. Wave after wave of delicious energy filled you from head to toe, healing your wound and fighting the poison in your blood until you felt your strength returning to you.

You never realised you were moaning when Loki came with a grunt, burying himself as deep inside of you as he physically could. You could feel his member throbbing against you, his hot seed coating your walls.

Loki drew out his orgasm for as long as he could but instead of collapsing on top of you once you had fed, he wrapped his arms around your middle and rolled you both over so you came to rest on top of his naked and sweaty chest.

“Thank you…” You weren’t sure whether you muttered the words out loud. Only there was no time to rest yet, not even after escaping death. “Loki… who are the Avengers, really? Why are they your enemies and why did Thor ask you how you escaped a void? What was he talking about? You are keeping something from me and I don’t like it.”

The God of Mischief sighed—the sound was directly at your ear all the while you drew invisible circles on his exposed skin. He was still inside of you, filling you up, making you feel whole.

“You’re on the run too, aren’t you?” you muttered, inching up a little and leaning your forehead against his in the aftermath. “You’re wanted for murder, you… what did you do? Why did you never tell me?”

“Tell you what exactly? That I attempted to subjugate this very planet? That I manipulated thousands of humans to make me their president, their voice of prudence and wisdom? Or that I failed and was hunted down by brainwashed Variants with prune sticks?”

“I’m not sure what you thought was going to happen if I found out. If you assumed I would be disappointed you were no good and if you thought I’d leave if I knew or if… or if you thought I’d be disappointed you failed. Which one is it?”

Loki took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted. A pause, heavy and suffocating. “The TVA—the Time Variance Authority—controls the multiverse. There used to be only one single timeline. The sacred timeline, they called it. Until there was not. One of my Variants killed the keeper of time to take revenge for her stolen life. Chaos was raging when the TVA found out about the dozens of timelines they could no longer control and annihilate. I’m assuming… they turned against each other, for when they ended up in the Void—it is a place without time, a place where every unwanted reality and their parts go once the TVA prunes them—my people turned against them and stole the one thing that could get us out of there.”

“They pruned you before,” you concluded. Another sigh.

“According to the TVA, a reality where a Loki rules Midgard must not exist. And the Void… the Void is a battle for your life with no way out.”

“I don’t care, Loki. What you did, what you were about to do, even what you’re doing now. I’m not exactly a saint either like the humans would say. I feed on men. I’ve killed to guarantee my own survival and…” you paused, hoping you would not go too far with what you intended to say next, “…and I would not hesitate for a second to be your queen if you did end up ruling Midgard as its king.”

“I must say I am relieved to hear that,” Loki responded with an audible smirk in his voice. “You are mine, pet. I will not allow you to leave my side. Do you trust me?”

You nodded, feeling his seidr tickling over your skin once more to put both your and his clothes back onto your bodies. You whined at the loss of him inside of you, even more so when he turned over yet again to stand.

“Wait here for my sign.”

“What, what sign?”

“You’ll see.” He disappeared with a wink, your lips parting. One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three. You started pacing around the cell, not realising until a blue portal opened up right behind you that… Loki had it. He had the Tesseract. How…? Wait here for my sign.

You took a deep breath—and then jumped into the portal.

Loki caught you with ease. His smirk was so triumphant you couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear, wrapping your arms around him in relief. It instantly got colder here.

“How? How did you do it?”

“Thor. He might be strong but he can be quite dull. Removing my handcuffs was his first mistake. Remaining so persistent on not letting me roam free around the facility was his second. I realised soon enough the Tesseract was not where we had presumed it to be—there was something Thor did not want me to find out. And while I took care of my dying bride, one of my duplicates distracted my brother—another stole the Tesseract for me.”

Surely, it must have been more complicated than that and yet… all your mind could replay on repeat was bride.

“Bride?” you stressed. Loki’s smirk grew even wider but he did not elaborate.

“So where… where are we?”

“Jötunheim, for now. We’re near a friend of mine. She will give us shelter until we have planned our next steps.”

“Oh, will she now?” A woman stepped out of the shadows—she was beautiful, a sorceress without a doubt. Dressed in a long black dress complimenting her raven hair, she crossed her arms before her chest.

“Angrboda… it is good to see you.”

“You too, Trickster. Is there a particular reason for why you bring a succubus to my doorstep?”

Well, you could not blame her for her suspicion. If she took you in and away from the Jötun cold, you would be grateful. Loki introduced you to her quickly, your name rolling off his tongue so deliciously you felt to urge to pounce on him again already. Angrboda shook her head when he proceeded to summarise your situation and eventually nodded in defeat.

“Alright, then. Come inside. I have cherry ale that will warm you up.”

Angrboda’s space was nothing but an open cave, presumably warded through spells and other supernatural means of protection and you assumed that she shielded the parts of her home that she didn’t want you to see with equal measures. In the middle of the room, however, there was a cosy fireplace with dozens of furs spread around it to get comfortable.

“Sit by the fire. Drink, you two… lovebirds,” she said when two cups filled with a red liquid appeared next to the small bonfire. “Only you would manage to fall in love with a succubus, Loki Laufeyson.” She chuckled. “You see… Midgardians call this very day of the year Valentine’s Day. Did you get her chocolate, Trickster? And roses?”

“He saved my life today,” you responded for him.

Angrboda nodded. “Ah, I see. Well… I have a feeling this is only the beginning of the story then.” Giving you a knowing look before disappearing off to only the gods knew where, you smiled at Loki, inching closer to kiss him. Fireworks exploded within you as soon as your lips touched his, the gentle affection quickly turning into a heated fight of lips, teeth and tongue. Angrboda was right. This was only the beginning. Your beginning.

-

A/N: Did that NSFW statue of Loki that I saw the other day inspire the smut scene? No. Maybe. Yes. Absolutely, 100%.

[ellephlox]

Embers and Ashes

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: It's not easy to keep a low profile when you've got the power to heal, but you've managed to carve out a home for yourself in Hell's Kitchen. By day you're an assistant at a literary agency, and by night you mend broken bones and bloody cuts. It's a double life that constantly forces you to question your morality, because the wounds you seem to magically heal don't vanish forever — they've got to eventually go somewhere.

But after you make the mistake of healing the wrong people, you become Daredevil’s next target, and suddenly your double life becomes far more tangled than you could ever have predicted.

Set post-S3. Slow burn Matt x Fem!Reader. Chapter one will be posted here on tumblr, but ensuing chapters will be uploaded to AO3. You can read Ch. 1 on AO3 here, if you'd prefer.

Warnings: Description of injuries and profanity.

Most normal people in the city dreamed of being an Avenger. 

You overheard them at work constantly, ever since it became increasingly commonplace for people to crop up with super-strength or freakishly accurate aim with a bow and arrow:

“I actually ran into Spider-Man this morning — the real Spider-Man! I begged him to sign my arm, obviously, because there was no paper around, and he actually did it! Look, right here. I'm going to get it tattooed after work.”

“Well, last night I had a dream that I was recruited by the Avengers. It was absolutely amazing, Debbie — Tony Stark wanted me to be his girlfriend! God, it was fantastic. He even let me try on his Iron Man suit.”

“Oh, I’d give anything to be enhanced. I’d want to be able to fly. Or teleport. Any power, really, if it could get me a one-way ticket to fighting with them.”

“But did you hear my friend got threatened by Daredevil the other night? That red horned suit is gone, though. He’s in that black suit from the days when we called him the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. I’d love to run into that guy — he’s so strange, isn’t he? Handsome, in a mysterious way.”

At this point in these types of conversations you always tried to tune them out. Their rosy idea of enhanced ignored the things that you saw whenever footage of the Avengers was shown on the evening news. After the battle in New York, they raved about Captain America’s strength, that magic hammer of Thor’s, and the way Dr. Bruce Banner metamorphosed from a man into a monstrous hero, as though it were the best thing in the world to have super-powered abilities.

But when you had watched that footage on the news, after the battle was over, all you saw was the blood. The bodies. The expressions on the Avengers’ faces, of the anguish and turmoil they had witnessed. Being enhanced was a curse, not a gift, and you came to resent the word itself — not for the political controversies it provoked, but for its connotation. In the mouths of anyone else, enhanced was a good thing. 

But you knew. 

As you held the temples of the man lying in front of you, his skin burnt severely from his fingers to his wrists, you knew. 

He writhed, his hands flopping like gasping fish. They were scorched as though in a paisley pattern, leathery and swollen. Second-degree, if not third-degree burns, you thought, as the man jerked away from the light emanating from your own hands, but you kept your grip steady. Slowly the skin began to return to its normal color — splotches fading like they were diluted, heaves of scars sinking back and reshaping as though they had never been there, the energy of his wounds transferring into your hands and through your bloodstream. 

You knew, better than anyone, that every gift had a price.

 

TWENTY-ONE HOURS LATER

It was snowing, yet your hands were blistering. 

The plows hadn’t come through yet, and there wasn’t much foot traffic on this side of Hell’s Kitchen, so the sidewalks were thick with snow. Despite your best efforts to hop in the few existing footprints, snow kept falling down into your boots. Your toes were numb, and your ears felt like they were about to get frostbite; you weren’t dressed for the weather. There hadn’t been time to grab a hat and thicker socks when you left your apartment, because you were more preoccupied with the searing burns that were popping like budding flowers on the palms of your hands. They weren't yet to the severity of the burns you had healed on Lynch's hands the previous night, but it was only a matter of time before they began to worsen. 

Only one more block. 

It was past midnight, and all you wanted was to be in bed, curled up with your pillows and quilted blanket, but just before falling asleep, you’d felt the skin tear open on your hand as though someone were holding a blowtorch to it. It was unnerving. You'd estimated another eight hours, until morning, before the energy you had taken from Lynch's wounds would make itself known.

Clearly I was wrong. You seethed with irritation at yourself and at the fact that Lynch had burned his hands in the first place as more snow collected in your boots. A warm pair of socks would be really, really nice right now.  

But situations like this came with the job, even if most people didn't realize it. Whenever people discovered you were able to heal — and they never truly knew it was you, because you were careful to keep your identity obscure — they assumed it was simple. As though you could just lay your hands on someone’s bleeding wound and it magically stitched itself back up. Poof, problem solved! Sort of like all those Avengers your coworkers persistently chatted about. Yeah, if only healing were as easy as doing a few fancy finger movements to open up a portal into another dimension. Doctor Strange doesn't know how good he has it.

Because fancy finger movements definitely wasn't how it worked for you. It wasn’t even close. 

You inhaled sharply as another burn made itself known, this time higher on your hand. A quick handful of snow against the welt soothed it slightly, but not much, and you picked up your pace down the street.  Your destination was an unassuming brick building, wedged between a hardware store and auto repair shop. LYNCH FUNERAL HOME AND CREMATORIUM, read the sign outside, underneath a layer of graffiti. It was one of your closest friends who owned the funeral home, and the previous day he'd sent you an emergency call for help, though you still hadn't heard the story of how he'd burned his hands in the first place. Not that it mattered much. You didn't ask questions very often; healing was your only responsibility. 

There was no one else on the street. There wasn't even much light, because most of the street lamps that weren’t burned out had been buried in a pale coating of frost. Your thoughts turned abruptly to the reports of the so-called vigilante Daredevil, who had reportedly been back on the streets lately. With what you had done in the past, and even with what you were doing now… well, you hoped you never crossed paths with him. Quiet streets like this always made you wonder if today was the day you’d run into him, but it had never happened. Sometimes you wondered if the media simply made him up as a fear tactic to keep crime off the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. 

You hurried inside the funeral home, searching for the only person who you knew would be up and about. Please, be here, please, please…

He was. “Grey,” the man at the desk said, surprise crossing his face when you burst into the crematorium. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Grey . Just like the word itself, it was ash on your tongue. It wasn’t your real name. Years ago it had been bestowed on you as a code name, a way to keep your identity impersonal from the people you worked with. But it stuck, and now you could count the number of people who knew your real name on one hand. 

“Emergency visit, Thato,” you said, showing him your hands. “I’m sorry. I thought I could manage it until tomorrow, at the very least, but—” You cringed as another burn blistered forth, erupting on the pad of your thumb. “Ow. Shit.”

Thato got to his feet, wincing in sympathy. “Never apologize for this. It’s not your fault.”

You shook your head. “I should be getting better. Improving… this . And I’m not.” It was true. For years, you had been at this same level. If you healed someone — which wasn’t really healing , if you were being technical; it was more like taking their injury and transferring it elsewhere — you could only hold onto it for a short amount of time. 

Option One was taking that energy from the injury and transplanting it onto someone else — typically, a corpse. You had a strict policy for yourself to never inflict a wound from someone else that you’d healed onto someone who didn’t receive the wound in the first place.

Option Two was just holding onto that energy until it began to manifest itself on you instead. And that was never pleasant. 

Case in point: the damn burns on my hands right now. 

You glanced at the door to the morgue. “Please tell me you’ve got bodies in for cremation?”

“As a matter of fact, one arrived tonight,” Thato said, and he put his hand gently on your back to steer you inside. “Let’s go.”

The morgue was cold. Goosebumps pricked up your arms. Thato worked quickly, and within a minute he was pulling out a storage drawer. A woman, her body pale and lifeless, slid out in front of you. 

Even when the bodies were dead, this was never easy.  You averted your eyes, opting instead to look at the ceiling, and placed your freezing hands on the sides of the dead woman’s head, against her temples. Gradually, after a minute, your hands began glowing — not the yellow glow of the man the newspapers called the Iron Fist, nor the red glow of that Avenger you’d seen on television, Wanda Maximoff. Instead, it was a pale slate color, as though smoke itself had become a source of light. It was this color that earned you your nickname. 

“Grey,” your brother had told you, lifting your chin up roughly to stare you down. 

He wasn’t really your brother, but he might as well have been. You’d known him as long as you could remember. Kane was the one who raised you, who had been with you since... for a long time. “Got it? Here with us, that’s what you’ll answer to.”

“But my name is—”

“No. When you’re with us, you don’t use your real name,” Kane said. Of course, just like your name wasn’t really Grey, his name wasn’t truly Kane. “You use Grey instead, okay? Grey Arztin, if anyone ever asks for a last name.” He handed you forged identification papers. 

“Why Arztin?” you asked, reading the name, and fumbling over the pronunciation of the word. 

“It means doctor, in German. Come with me. I have people for you to heal.”

“But I’m not very good at it.”

“Then you need to practice that ability. It’s going to be your greatest gift someday, Grey.”

The energy pulsed in your own temples as it transferred to the corpse, and slowly you began to feel it drain out of you. There was no comparable feeling to this moment, when the build-up of pain was finally relieved from your mental storage space — your cache, you liked to call it.  And, suddenly, burns just like the ones on your own hands bloomed across the white hands of the dead woman — raw, fiery welts, discolored in the center and streaking from her wrist bones to her fingertips. They were identical to the burns that had stretched across Lynch's hands the day before, down to the charred bit of skin just below the thumb knuckle. When the energy was gone, you dropped your hands, and the smoky glow faded.

The few burns that had already marked your own skin were still there, of course, because your healing abilities could never fix what had been done to your own body — yet another shortcoming of your power — but they wouldn’t get any worse. It was over. 

The corpse was rolled back into her drawer. The family would never know that her hands now bore severe burns that hadn’t been there at her time of death. She’d be cremated tomorrow, Thato assured you. It would be as though you had never even touched her. Guilt curled in your stomach at her desecrated hands. Maybe she had been a pianist. Those hands might have been held by someone else, once upon a time — a mother, a lover, a child. She could have used those hands to climb mountains or type out a novel on a laptop or serve plates of food at a restaurant. 

Now, because of you, they were mottled and burnt. 

“She’s dead,” Thato reminded you quietly, once you were outside of the morgue and back at the funeral home desk. “She’ll be burned anyway.”

“I know.” You played with the edge of the desk. “I just always feel bad. It feels like I’m… spitting on her memory, or something.”

“It’s a price you have to pay,” he agreed. “But it’s in exchange for the good you do, each time you use your skill. You even bore some of the price yourself.” He nodded at the burns scattered across your own hands. “I don’t like to see you feeling bad, Grey. Anything I can do?”

You smiled. “It's okay. You already helped me. Thanks, Thato. Really.” 

I don’t want to keep doing this, you wanted to add. I’ve had enough of all this. The healing, the transferring of the injuries and scars and bruises, the role I’ve played in Hell’s Kitchen. I’m done.

You wanted to tell him, so badly that it made your chest feel tight. Thato had been your friend for as long as you could remember. But if you told him, then your brother would find out, and if your brother found out…

Well, Kane wouldn’t be very pleased with you. He'd see it as a failure on your part, or worse, a betrayal. But it didn’t matter anyway, because you couldn’t leave the organization. Not after everything Kane had done for you, and especially not while you were the one thing that stood between him and death every night that he risked his life. 

You tightened your jacket around your shoulders before heading back out into the night, towards your apartment. You took your time; your earlier exhaustion was gone, and with your hands bandaged now, you were able to appreciate the falling snow as it amassed silently, insulating the streets from the sounds of the city beyond. 

But you might not have had such a leisurely walk back if you’d happened to tilt your head upwards and look at the roofs — if you had been able to hear the footsteps above as someone followed you in the shadows, if you had known the man they called the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen stalked you, having listened to every word of the conversation in the crematorium.

[thewritetofreespeech]

Hello! Can I request an Angst Thor x fem reader. Where the reader was a normal human and went to the heaven's, and go into a relationship with Thor. During the ragnarok, she was sitting on the human side and saw Thor fighting for the gods. (A LOT of Angst and sadness, please, I want to cry) Love your stories, Tyy ♡♡

*cracks fingers. Ok. You asked for this*

As he watched the illuminated dust of perhaps the last opponent he would ever face worth swinging his hammer, Thor felt nothing but….empty.

His last chance to feel the thrill of combat he so desperately craved. And, for what? So, his peers could laugh and jeer at the humans. Show their might again to the beings that raised them up. Petty vengeance and annoyances of those who have lived too long and too decadent to realize there are no better than their lessers.

As he watched the last motes sail off into the unknown, the nothingness, Thor’s eyes refocused on the crowd. The long eyed stare of [Y/N] looking back at him as if through him. An unrecognizing of him and he to her. As if they were strangers again.

When he told her about what was going on, she had been shocked. She asked him why he was doing this, and all he could answer was that he was bidden to. Thor didn’t want to at first. A pointless exercise of the humans clawing at their hems to seek glory. He never expected it to be this fun. This exciting. This kind of battle.

But now that it was over, and the blood no longer rushed to his ears, all he can think about were her words before she left that night. “Do you hate me so?” Never. Not in another thousand years. Not in a million years. Yet, how do you explain to the woman you love that it is not her, but the blight of her species that needed to be cleansed. That just as she was his blessing, they were a curse. A man such as himself, with so few words about him, of course could not. So Thor just left for the fight.

And now it was over.

The god watched as [Y/N] got up and left the arena. Not even looking back at him. Each step feeling like more & more of a chasm between them building.

He had won the fight, but at what cost. What did the victor have to lose to achieve such victory? Thor felt as if all his joy was floating away on the air like his friend Lu Bu. The price was too high, he decided. He may have lived but he had lost. He lost everything.

[freckled-words]

Animal Transformation

This took way too long, but that tends to happen when you don't have a really strong idea for the plot. I'm also super rusty, but I think I got my swing back towards the end.

Hope you enjoy the read, and let me know if you spot any spelling mistakes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turns out even frost giants have allergies, and it has the funniest effects on a certain trickster’s shapeshifting control.

Or

Darcy watches as Loki loses control of his shapeshifting magic, and she just can't resist a furry face.

“Community service” was the polite term used to describe Loki’s return to Earth.

“Doing whatever the Hell we say” is the more accurate description, as coined by Director Fury during the initial meeting.

Thanks to a curse/spell from Odin, Loki’s magic and strength was moderated by whichever task Loki was assigned to at the time.

When he was sent out to clean up trash in Central Park (disguised and under Natasha’s supervision) he was as strong as an average citizen.

If he went out with the Avengers to deal with a threat, he was allowed just enough magic and strength as was needed to defend himself.

In-between his assignments, and back in the Tower, he was set to about mid-level Godly might (just in case a Hulk suddenly appeared or an accidental arrow went flying his way.) 

The combination of ‘cursed weakness’ and menial labor, unsurprisingly, lead to a consistently pissy Loki. The closest thing Darcy had seen to a smile on him was the trademark smirk, right before he said something snarky.

Even though Darcy hated Loki’s guts for all the death and destruction he’d brought to New York, she also couldn’t stop herself from adding him onto her ‘Take Care List.’ Much to most everyone’s surprise (Jane had long since accepted that Darcy couldn’t help herself.)

She didn’t go out of her way to kneel and curtsey around him or anything, but she did make sure he got a mug of tea or coffee when she was doing the rounds in the morning. As well as a decent portion of food like the other bottomless pits that had to be fed (with Thor back on Earth, the grocery bills knocked up another couple hundred.)

Anytime Loki bothered to acknowledge Darcy, it was never in a polite fashion, and Darcy made sure to give just as good as she got.

“I see Midgardian cuisine is just as lacking as the people.”

“I see your manners didn’t make the trip from Asgard.”

“If you’re going to offer me food, at least make certain it's cooked.”

“Gee why didn’t I think of that? Oh right, dumpster fires don’t get a say in what they get.”

It became something of a routine for them to exchange barbs at least once or twice a day, and by Loki’s second month in residence, the other members in the Tower stopped bracing for Loki to lash out at Darcy.

Darcy just came to accept this as part of her new normal, and rolled with whatever weirdness that came along with it.

Right up until the weirdness took a detour into ‘omg wtf’ territory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**********~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“...Avengers were seen fighting against what was described as a hoard of mutated bi-pedal flowers.”

Anytime the Avengers were called out for a mission Darcy kept the TV on in the background so she could get updates on what kind of mess she might be helping to clean up later. JARVIS was great for giving her updates on everyone’s physical well being, but he couldn’t necessarily predict how the team’s mood was going to be once they got home.(When there was a HYDRA mission, it was home-made pizza night. Apparently slamming around a massive ball of dough was very therapeutic for Bucky.)

The news being a bit slower than actual events, Darcy wasn’t surprised when JARVIS announced the team was returning in the next 10 minutes, along with a cryptic note of, “No major injuries to report, however Dr.Banner does advise no immediate physical contact.”

The last time JARVIS passed on this kind of note, the Avengers had gone up against a T-Rex made of enchanted septic waste (sometimes D&D nerds manage to get their hands on blackmarket magic, and it never ends well for anyone.)

Having (barely) survived Death-By-Foul-Poo-Stank, Darcy figured her nose could handle some overly strong floral perfume coming from the team’s gear. With Jane’s blessing, she was ready and waiting for them in the kitchen 20 minutes later. She’d brought out multiple boxes of kleenex, a handful of neti pots, and every brand of allergy medication in existence.

The first waft of thick flowery perfume drifted in with Steve, and nearly had her choking as her eyes watered, “Cripes Steve, how is this almost worse than the Fecal-Rex?!” Grabbing a handful of kleenex she blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes.

“Just be lucky you’re getting this, and not the full bouquet. There was every kind of flower there, and everyone but me, Bucky, and Bruce nearly dropped from an immediate allergic reaction.” Steve grabbed one of the neti pots and looked over the instruction card that came with it.

Darcy could just imagine Tony having to flip up his face visor to keep from coating it with his sneezes, while Clint cursed trying to zero in on his target with his eyes burning and watering.

“Wait so even Thor -”

What had to be the loudest sneeze in existence went off, followed by the lights flickering erratically throughout the room.

Thor entered a moment later blowing his nose into a wad of paper towels. The skin around his nose and eyes were bright red, evidence that he’d been rubbing at them for a while already.

“I didn’t think anything on Earth would be able to infect your whole Godly-Alien-Race?” She asked while pushing a box of lotioned kleenex towards him. 

Thor accepted the softer tissues and yanked out ten to hold in his hand, ready for the next sneeze, his voice was congested when he answered, “Nor did we. Banner believes their mutated state amplified their pollen’s properties.” He blew his nose again, and Darcy winced at the sound of his tortured sinuses.

“What about Loki? He’s not human or Asgardian, how is he faring?” Thor had explained his brother’s origins to everyone over drinks the night before Loki had been brought to the tower. A couple members of the team concluded that Loki’s destructive behavior must have been a kind of psychotic break, what with his whole life being flipped upside down and dipped in ice water.

Thor and Steve exchanged a look, one that nearly had them both coughing back a round of laughter.

Squinting Darcy pressed, “What happened to Frosty the Snow Giant? It was something good wasn’t it? Give me the deets ~” She crept closer to Thor, wiggling her fingers towards the box of kleenex as though she were going to snatch it back.

Thor grabbed the box and turned away, his smile spreading, “During the fray, Loki was met with the misfortune of having his entire head swallowed by one of the flowers.”

Steve’s smile curled towards ‘I enjoy trouble’ and added on, “Turns out getting a nose of the stuff is worse than just breathing it in.”

“So Loki is…?” She prompted already knowing the answer had to be good.

“Hiding in his room.” Natasha supplied, slipping around Thor to grab a box of lotioned kleenex herself. Unlike Steve and Thor, she’d gone straight to her room to shower and change into clean clothes.

Images of Loki with a purple rash all over his face, or icicle snot hanging out of his nose popped into Darcy’s mind. 

“Well if he’s feeling that rough, then I’m sure he’d appreciate some tissues and allergy meds. I’m just gonna…” Darcy grabbed the extra strength Benadryl, the last box of lotioned Kleenex and one of the Neti pots.

Her arms full she made a beeline for the elevator, and chose to ignore Steve’s question of, “Is she still safe?”

One quick elevator ride, and a hop-skip down the hallway had Darcy standing in front of Loki’s door. 

Since her hands were full, Darcy called out,“Loki, you in and decent? I’ve got a sniffles care package for you.”

“Go away, Serf.” 

Darcy rolled her eyes. ‘Serf’ was Loki’s default nickname when he couldn’t be bothered to think of a better insulting name. 

Even through the door she could hear the rapid fire sneezes that followed, as well as a muffled cough. 

“You can either let me in, and choose what state of dress you’re in, or JARVIS opens the door and I get to see just how much of a rash you have on your ass right now.” It was a shallow bluff at best, but she couldn’t just walk away without trying first.

The annoyed noise that traveled through the door sounded an awful lot like a growl, more so than the usual one she was able to get out of him when she pushed his buttons.

A second later the door opened.

Biting down on her lips to try and not smile too smugly Darcy marched in, “Good choice Frosty. You’ll thank me later when you’re not missing three layers of ski…nnnnyah?” 

With all the apartments in the tower having the same layout Darcy had gone straight for Loki’s small living room to place her bundle on the coffee table. 

She’d glimpsed Loki from the corner of her eye as she’d breezed into the room, and hadn’t spotted any bright red or pink on him. When she straightened and faced him properly, her brain and mouth had a disconnect. 

Loki still stood by the door, which he was still holding open, his battle gear was gone and his hair was damp from his shower. Like Thor the skin around his nose was chaffed from blowing, and his eyes slightly puffy, and for reasons that Darcy’s brain couldn’t fathom there were two black, white tipped fuzzy ears on his head and a twitching, fluffy, black, white tipped fox tail peeking out from his back. 

“Uhhhhhh….” 

“Make your jokes, then leave.” Even congested Loki’s tone was clear in his frustration.

Darcy held her hands up, “Hey there’s no shaming here, just confusion. Last time I checked, allergies didn’t turn people into furries.”

“I am not…” He broke into a fit of sneezes, “Whatever nonsense term that is. I’ve simply…” More sneezing, “Been struggling with my Seidr.”

Darcy hummed and nodded, not really understanding but didn’t think it smart to push him into a more in-depth explanation. His sneezes were so close together and harsh, she was getting worried about the amount of air he was getting into his lungs.

“Regardless, maybe some meds will help. I suggest taking like, 4 of the Benadryl. If it works it’ll knock you on your ass, but it’ll also stop the sneezing and congestion.” She was making her way towards the door as she spoke and stopped just by the opening, “Any chance I can-” She reached towards his twitching tail.

“Leave.”

“I’ll come check on ya in a couple hours!” As badly as Darcy wanted to touch the fluffy tail, she was not ready to die for the attempt.

~~~~ THREE HOURS LATER ~~~~~~~~

Darcy juggled the three tupperware containers of food in one arm while she did her best to knock with the other, “Loki you good? I’ve got food.”

She didn’t hear any approaching footsteps, and was startled when the door was opened.

Darcy barely got clear of the door before Loki shut it. Turning to face him, she just about dropped the food.

“I can’t tell if this means the Benadryl helped or not.” She offered as an opening for him to explain.

Loki still had the ears and tail, but now there was fur around the edges of his face, covering his hands and feet, his nails had blackened into claws, and there were definitely whiskers growing out of his cheeks.

Loki blinked down at her, his nose twitched (was he about to sneeze or was he testing her scent?) and she saw something shift in his mind as his pupils widened then shrank, he blinked and his usual scowl returned to his face, “How did you get in here?”

Darcy cocked her head to the side, “You let me in, just now, and almost hit me with the door. Did fur grow inside your brain too? Do I need to call Bruce?”

Her concern crossed from surface level to genuine as she watched Loki look down at his hands and wiggle his clawed fingers, his expression was hard to read with his eyebrows blending into his new furry hairline but she was certain he was looking confused himself. “Damn.” The word was uttered so quietly Darcy might have missed it if she weren’t standing so close.

“Loki, you’re seriously worrying me dude.” Again his ears twitched in her direction.

“I’m touched.” Darcy took the dry sarcasm as a good sign, “The only thing you should be concerned about is keeping your blithering trap shut. It was bad enough when it was just the ears and tail. If The Oaf hears of this, there will be no end to his ridicule.”

The more Loki said, the more Darcy relaxed. It was a sad reflection on her life when she was happy to have the mass murdering alien give her a hard time.

Opting to ignore his bluff (she’d long since realized that he could bark all he wanted, if he ever hurt her he’d immediately be kicked back to Asgard) Darcy went to his kitchen and put down the tupperware containers, “Don’t worry your fuzzy little head, I won’t tell anyone…” Faster than Loki could anticipate, she whipped up her phone and snapped a picture, “I will show everyone though, unless you let me touch your ears or tail.” She shoved her phone down the front of her shirt and between her boobs, uncaring of the extra cleavage she was flashing him in the process.

Loki’s upper lip drew back revealing some rather pointy canines, “Impudent wench.”

Darcy smirked as she rocked on her heels, “Oh come on Fuzz Butt, you can’t tell me no one’s ever wanted to see what your transformed fur feels like.”

“None have ever been so brazen or foolish to try.” Loki bit back. He was becoming so agitated his tail was swishing, and his ears had flattened on his head.

‘Dammit, now he’s just looking cute.’ 

He was also looking a little unsteady. With each swish of his tail, Loki wobbled the slightest bit, and his eyelids seemed to be struggling to stay open.

“How many of those Benadryl did you end up taking?” She hadn’t heard him sneeze once since she came in, and the skin around his nose and eyes had returned to normal.

“The four you recommended had no effect, so I added another five. The sneezing stopped just before…” Loki caught himself before he could finish outing himself. Shaking his head he staggered off towards the couch, “Leave Serf. I require rest.”

She really, really wanted to push her luck and remind him about the whole Fuzzy Picture threat, but it wasn’t as much fun if the other member of the party was spiraling towards a crash. Cause damn, NINE?! If one Benadryl was enough to turn a regular human into a zombie, then nine must be bordering on a coma.

“Fine, but don’t think this isn’t over. I’ll come back in an hour and make sure you’re still breathing.” 

She saw a feeble, black fuzzy hand lift up to acknowledge he’d heard her.

Darcy left but made sure to leave the door unlocked. Quietly she called out, “JARVIS keep an eye on his vitals and let Bruce or Thor know if his heart stops or something.”

“Of course Ms.Lewis…Shall I let you know when it’s been an hour?” 

Unsurprised that JARVIS had been listening in on the conversation in Loki’s room, Darcy gave a thumbs up to the nearest camera she could see, “That’d be great J.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 45 MINS LATER ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ms.Lewis, I thought I should inform you that there has been a change in Prince Loki’s condition.” Darcy tried not to cringe too much from having JARVIS say this directly into her bluetooth headphones (a welcoming gift from Tony.)

Glancing over to where she could see Bruce working at his station she figured this wasn’t a life threatening change to Loki’s condition. Not many realized just how much intelligence Tony’s AI had, but Darcy was no fool. She grew up worshiping the internet, and treating ‘The Matrix’ and ‘The Terminator’ like prophecies. 

If JARVIS thought this was something only she needed to know about then she’d take it as the gift that it was.

A quick elevator ride later and she was back at his door.

She knocked lightly and let herself in, “Loki? JARVIS says you might need help.”

There came a slight whimper (or was that a whine?) from the living room.

This late in the afternoon the sunlight had moved away from Loki’s windows, and none of the lights had been turned on. Everything was cast in shadows and patches of darkness, making it hard to see anything.

“Loki?” 

Darcy hit the switch for the kitchen light so she didn’t accidentally blind/enrage the half-transformed frost giant.

Able to see Darcy watched as what she had initially thought to be a deep pocket of shadows uncurled from the bottom of the coffee table. 

A black fox the size of a St.Bernard stretched out like a cat as unfocused green eyes blinked in her direction.

“Oh my Gods.” 

She wanted to take all the pictures, but she also wanted to try touching him. When he was still humanoid the fur had looked silky, as a full fox it looked absolutely luxurious and Darcy just had to get her fingers into it.

She had never interacted with foxes before though, and didn’t know how unhinged Loki’s brain was going to be with all that Benadryl in his system.

Finished stretching he ventured a couple steps closer, his nose to the air to scent the new presence in his home. Some of Loki’s consciousness must have been working, cause the fox’ ears went down and it spun around to hop onto the couch.

‘I’ve just been brushed off by a fox.’ Loki could brush her off a million times and she wouldn’t bat an eye, but Fox-Loki showing her such little interest just felt like a bitch slap.

“Rude.” 

Going over to the couch she watched as Loki laid down with his head resting between his two front paws. His eyes closed and a rather un-fox like sigh came out through his nose. 

Darcy crouched down to eye level and told him, “You know you make a very pretty fox.” Other than his ear twitching Loki didn’t acknowledge her.

“May I please pet you, your Foxiness?” Murderous Asshole or not, Darcy wasn’t going to touch without consent. 

His eye cracked open, regarding her for a moment then closed and another long sigh was released. Darcy took it as one of resignation and beamed. Finally she could get this out of her system!

As gently as she could she placed her hand on his head; he didn’t move away or twist around to snap at her, confirming that he had given in. 

She stroked down along his spine, marveling at the feel of his thick, silky fur. Bringing her hand back to his head she lightly scratched around the base of his ears, the fur there was much softer and she had to bite her lip to keep from gushing out more praises to him. 

Her petting was kept strictly to his back and the top of his head, areas that most animals considered to be safe zones. As much as she wanted to touch his tail she didn’t know how sensitive it was and didn’t want to push it. 

Darcy cut herself off after about five minutes, plus her legs were screaming in protest from holding that crouched position so long. 

A woman of her word Darcy dug out her phone and deleted the picture of Loki the Were-Fox. Satisfied she whispered to Loki, “There now no one but me and JARVIS knows what a half fox, half Frost Giant looks like. I also won’t tell anyone that you totally lost control due to overdosing on allergy medicine. You’ll be back to your entitled asshole self by tomorrow morning.”

This got her a small indignant huff. 

Darcy let herself out and made sure the door locked behind her. 

It was only after the door’s lock had clicked that Loki released his animal shape. It took a bit slower than usual, but he wasn’t quite back in focus just yet. 

Back in his usual form he resettled on the couch. With not a single piece of clothing on his body, the material didn’t feel quite as comfortable as it had in his fox shape. 

The Midgardian medicine had thrown his control off balance, just not as much as he’d let Lewis believe. He could have reverted back to his proper state a half hour ago, and gone back to his bed for a proper rest. 

Instead he couldn’t resist seeing what the woman would do when faced with the full transformation. He’d been somewhat hoping she would startle or scream and flee, calling for Thor’s protection. Instead she’d looked at him like he was the most beautiful animal in existence. It was a delicious boost to his ego.

Loki chuckled to himself, picturing her face when she might learn that her ‘petting’ along his fur had translated to the feeling of a lover’s touch on his skin. 

There would be sputtering, possibly some shrieking and all the threats and profanities. 

The image was so entertaining he drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face. 

[imawreck]

Status: Active

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Ghost is active, and that means bodies are dropping.

Warnings: Cursing, mental abuse, physical harm, depression, all that stuff. Again, this is the thick heavy part of the story. Won’t be like this forever, but it will be for a bit. It’s for the PLOT.

Word Count: 5,014

Mission: Deactivate security systems. Infiltrate enemy compound and select target. Eliminate target. Return to base immediately following. 

Status: Active.

"Soldat." 

Silver eyes snapped up from the manila file held in her hand. Cold, calculating, removed.

"Do you understand your orders?"

A singular nod before her hand snapped the file closed, sliding it onto the table beside her. She was smooth and precise, the perfect weapon. 

Human flaws had been eliminated. The Asset took orders like a machine. Take orders, execute mission, return, repeat. That was all she knew. That was all she had ever known, and she was damn good at it.

"You leave at dawn."

She didn't hesitate to move, turning towards the exit and moving with the grace and silence very few possessed. Other agents parted like the sea at the sight of her. They would gawk and cower, some outright fled from view. They had seen her skills, her ruthlessness. The Asset's methods were brutal and gruesome. She didn't have feelings or preferences, that much they had been told, but many had seen the way she executed her missions. Many had seen the way she would draw it out in the most painful ways. 

None wanted to be her target.

Word of the Ghost's return had taken like wildfire in a drought. Every member of Hydra knew of her return. Some of the higher-ranking agents had come to view her displays, watched and reviewed the improvements Dr. Giles had done to her. All the while she would stand there, waiting. Watching them as she took in their words. 

But none of that mattered to her. She felt nothing, only the singing in her veins and the deep dwelling urge to cause pain and destruction. It was what she was made for, so she'd been told. 

The chopper guttered to life as she clipped her last blade into place. No bullets, too loud and draw far too much attention. This kill would be up close and personal. The Asset boarded, strapping in and settling a headset over her ears to bark orders to the pilot. There was no room for mistake. 

Because her targets were the untouchable, the admired and revered.

The Avengers.

_____

Pepper-

It was no secret that the Avengers were falling apart. It was clear as day in their bruised under eyes and increasing meetings. Every SHIELD agent in the building knew it, and they were trying their hardest to help where they could.

Where there was once a team were now crumbling friendships and strained patience. I was convinced that if it carried on for a minute longer that this whole building might collapse with the tension. It was time for an intervention.

I stepped into the main living area where I had called the team in to sit. They were all strung around the room in various slumped positions. Some friends had been called in to aid them in their endeavors. Wanda, for instance, had called in her brother Pietro to assist in any way he could. He had tried to brighten the mood as much as he could with his occasional lighthearted joke, but not even Sam had the heart to laugh nowadays. 

Tony had been trying to get a message out to Thor in hopes that having the God of Thunder to help would give us an advantage, but so far, he had been unsuccessful. I had been watching the weight of it all begin to crush him, and it was devastating.

So, it was time to make them all get some good rest at least for a night. None of these all-nighters were helping anyone.

"Alright," my voice drew their attention to me, "All of you look like hell warmed over. I'm sure you are very aware of that. So, I'm calling a mandatory early curfew for eight. That means all of you go to bed right now, no arguments. Like I've told Tony repeatedly, being exhausted and worn to the bone won't help anyone. Get some rest, all of you. Please tell Mr. Barnes, this applies to him too." I looked each of them in the eyes once I was finished, making sure every one of them knew I was absolutely serious.

None of them tried to convince me I was wrong. They probably didn't have the energy to. I walked over and carded my fingers through Tony's hair, shooing all of them off from the living room and watching as they all dispersed to their respective rooms. Tony remained in the living room nodding off as I combed through his hair. 

"Tony," I whispered, "I'm going to grab you a blanket. Promise me you'll get some rest in here alright?" I knew he wouldn't make it to our level, let alone a few steps down the hall to the elevator. He nodded, and I walked over to the other side of the room to snag the throw blanket off the other couch and covered him up. 

He smiled in his bleary state, "Thanks, Pep. Love you."

I hummed, "I love you too, Tony. Get some rest." With that, I decided I would camp out on this floor to ensure he wouldn't wake up in the dead of the night and start working on lord knows what. I pressed open the spare bedroom door and began my nightly routine, shower, dress, brush teeth, organize for the next day. By the time I finally got into bed it was nearly two in the morning. I was lucky it was a weekend. 

My eyes drifted shut, finally the calm had begun to sweep over me. I was so close to drifting off, so close to getting the rest that I needed after stressing about those poor heroes just down the hall, when something clattered to the floor down the hall. From the living room or the kitchen just off of it. 

I silently cursed to myself, just knowing it was Tony trying to get away with some late-night reviews over files or analytics.

Tossing the sheets off of my legs, I crept over to my door to try and catch him in the act. Perhaps the guilt of being caught would make him finally get some shuteye. The doorhandle was cool to the touch as I gently shoved it open. I was lucky Tony kept all the hinges well-oiled or I'd be done for. All the lights were still off, so shuffling down the hall was a little more difficult. I kept to the wall in hopes that I wouldn't trip over my own feet trying to find my way to the living area. 

It was a full moon tonight, the bright blue light cascading into the room through the curtains. It was the only source of light in the room. I was ready to pounce as soon as I peeked around the corner, so sure I had caught him read handed, only to feel my heart drop to my stomach.

Tony was still sprawled out on the couch, only there was a silhouette casting a looming shadow over his face. Black, all black, like one of the shadows had sprung to life in the night to terrorize anyone up at the hour. I watched in utter horror as they removed something from their pocket. 

Metal glinted in the moonlight as a finger struck the needle, their thumb pressing on the end of the syringe and letting a drop of liquid slip down the end of it. I watched, completely frozen with fear, as they jammed it into his neck. Tony's eyes snapped open, mouth gaping for a moment, before his body went slack again against the white cushions of the couch.

I could hardly pull air into my lungs. They tucked the syringe back in their pocket before slipping their fingers into one of the circlets of the multitude of knives lacing every inch of them. It twirled once, twice around their finger. Each time it caught the light my heart lurched in my ears. I wanted to scream, to throw something at them, anything to get their attention off of Tony's collapsed frame. But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

A door creaked down the hall and I whipped my head around to see blonde hair and pinched brows as Pietro made his way quietly down the hall. I waved my arms as subtly as I could, remaining behind the corner out of view from the intruder, trying to catch his attention. He eyed me with confusion. I pointed to the living room, desperately trying to tell him that someone was here. Someone had gotten in. When I snapped my head around to look back at the room, certain that they had probably heard the door, there was not a trace of them.

I felt my eyes stinging as tears of frustration and fear threatened to spill down my cheeks as I tried to silently communicate with him. He seemed to understand that there was something awry, because he fisted his hands and began to creep down the hall a little quicker. He threw a hand towards a door across from where I stood as he neared my corner of safety. My eyes followed his gesture to a closet door. He meant for me to hide. 

I didn't want to, not when Tony was helplessly unconscious on the couch a few feet away and a killer was in the house. I thought about my chances though. I was an assistant, a simple not-superhuman woman who could definitely not stand even the most reasonable chance against someone trained. Someone who had broken into the Avengers tower.

It hit me then, like a brick tumbled onto my head. Why hadn't Friday notified us that someone had gotten in? Why hadn't she been able to keep them out?

I was afraid to whisper for the AI, afraid to call out to her in the darkness of the hallway as I watched Pietro sneak around the corner. 

I reached for the door, swinging it open as quietly as I could before I clicked it shut against the pressure of my foot to quiet the noise. I knew in my gut that if I called out to Friday she wouldn't answer. Something told me she had been dismantled. Whoever this intruder was, they were trained and serious and lethal.

The darkness from the closet enveloped me, covering my senses and forcing me to blink it away as my eyes adjusted. I scanned over Tony from the slats in the door, studying him for injury I was terrified they had caused while I had looked away. There was none, thank God, and he still remained sleeping on the couch. Pietro had snuck around to the kitchen out of sight, but I could hear his subtle footsteps against the tile as he checked around. 

My breathing was ragged in my ears and muffled by the hand I had tossed over my mouth to keep my panic at bay. Pietro came back around the corner looking much more relaxed. His arms had dropped to his sides from their defensive position as he made his way back to scope out the rest of the living room. I was starting to think that it was all in my head. Maybe I had made it all up out of stress. I read somewhere that hallucinations can happen under extreme cases of stress.

But I wanted to be certain.

I reached a shaky hand towards the doorhandle, wrapping my fingers around it. I kept my eyes on the blonde as he made his way over to Tony, looking him over once, before he started to track around the couch.

He didn't seem to find anything. Pietro turned towards the window, bending down and retrieving something from the ground. It was slim and black, likely the remote to the tv that normally sat at the end of the couch arm. Tony must've knocked it off in his sleep. I was beginning to think that I had really, truly made up the apparition. I believed it so much that I was pressing down on the handle to come out when it walked out of the kitchen.

I stopped dead.

In the dim light from the window, I could finally see their face. Her face. With her short white locks that glowed silver in the dark along with her eyes that caught the light. Max. It was Max.

 But something was wrong, very, very wrong. 

She simply walked up behind Pietro as he examined the remote, looking around the floor for something as he did so. Max stood there, watching. Just watching him. He didn't hear her, I realized, as she tilted her head to the side as if she was intrigued by his obliviousness. Taunting.

He turned his head towards the closet where I remained, and she merely sidestepped to remain out of sight. Pietro shot me a reassuring smile. I wanted to cry, I was crying, as I watched her raise her knife still clutched in her hand and slice clear through the back of his knees.

Pietro's whole face morphed in agony, but before he could even get a sound out there was a hand clamped around his mouth guiding his body down to the floor. A second knife was plunged into his stomach, and she twisted it with a blank face, simply pressing her hand harsher against his mouth as he cried out. 

His hands clawed at her arms, dragging long lines of blood but she didn't seem to notice it. She just twisted the knife more and mumbled something low into his ear. Pietro's whole face paled as his eyes snapped towards the closet again. I backed away from the door instinctively, afraid she would see me. Tony had told me she was enhanced, but he never stated how enhanced.

Max released him then and stood from the floor. Pietro didn't call out, didn't dare open his mouth even as he winced in pain. Max moved away from him and out of view for a moment only to reappear right in front of the door.

I nearly screamed.

Silver blank eyes stared directly at me through the slats in the door. She knew I was there. I couldn't breathe as she just stared at me, watching the panic wash over my face. Pietro shook his head behind her, trying and failing to push up from the floor. Max moved, drawing my attention back to her as she raised a single finger to her lips and blew out a hushed breath.

Then she was gone.

My body shook as I stared at the door, through the slats at Pietro's fallen form across the room. I didn't know if she was really gone, but I couldn't just stay in here and let him die. I clutched at the knob again, hesitant in my exit as I looked down the hall where I was sure she had disappeared through, but no one was there. The tower had gone quiet again.

I rushed over, pressing my hands over the wound. "Oh God, oh God!"

Pietro moaned in pain, "G-get someone."

I didn't waste a second rushing out of there and barreling down the hall. I slammed my fist against every door I came across. "Help! Somebody help me!"

Steve was the first to stumble out of his room half dressed in a t-shirt and shorts dangling from his waist. "What's wrong?"

"Pietro's been stabbed! He's in the living room. T-there's so much blood!" I clutched at my heart as it threatened to pound right out of me. "Tony was knocked out or something. I-I don't know what she did to him!”

Steve rushed down the hall, and more of the heroes were quick to follow. Natasha, with her hair all wild, was next followed by Clint. I teetered back into the room behind them.

Steve knelt down next to Pietro, pressing his hands down against the wound much like I did. "What happened?"

Pietro swallowed hard, "There was a woman. She-." He clenched his teeth and whimpered. "She cut my legs and then plunged this thing into me." He nodded weakly towards the hilt of the knife sticking out of him.

Steve took in the pools of blood below his knees, a grim expression overtaking his features. "Friday!"

The AI didn't respond.

He tried again, but nothing came from it. Natasha checked Tony's pulse, nodding to me when she found it. Selfishly, I was relieved he wasn't in any condition like Pietro. It was a fleeting thought, but I found myself relaxing just a fraction.

Clint was quick to wrap a kitchen towel around each of Pietro's legs, trying to staunch the bleeding as best as possible. Pietro cried out loud enough to wake the last person down the hall. The one door I hadn't beat on.

Wanda's small voice whispered from the end of the hallway. "Pietro?"

It was a broken, confused sound that had guilt pooling into my stomach. I should've knocked on her door first.

She took one step, then two, dropping to the floor and crawling over to her fallen brother. Wanda had begun to cry, spouting words in a language I didn't understand and fumbling to grab his hand. She caressed his face, mumbling something softly to him, almost begging him with them.

We could all see that he wasn't going to make it. We wouldn't be able to get him to the med bay in time, not with the building down. This was it and everyone knew it. 

"Pepper, please tell us what happened." Clint squatted to rest a hand on Wanda's shoulder as he spoke to me. 

I swallowed a lump forming in my throat and blinked away my tears, wiping them hard with the back of my hand. "Um-- I, uh, I heard a clatter in the living room and thought it was Tony. I came in to check and someone was standing over him. I didn't know who it was at first, they stayed in the dark and injected him with something. Then Pietro came out a-and then she was gone! I-I—"

Steve pulled me to the side, pulling my attention to his face as he held my eyes. "Did you see their face?"

I nodded, just about the only thing I could do at the moment as the anxiety began to pool in my stomach as I recalled the events again.

"What did she look like?" Steve's thumbs brushed over my shoulders in a calming manner. I appreciated it, but I don't think anything was going to help me calm down right now.

I took in a shaky breath, "Max. It was Max.”

_____

Steve-

It was like a bomb had gone off at her words. 

Clint stood from his squatted position beside Wanda as anger clouded over his features. "What?"

Pepper looked like she was going to faint, and her eyes looked far off. "It was her, I'm sure of it. B-but something was wrong with her. Her... her eyes were silver, all silver, like a cloud was covering them." A shiver wracked her body under my hands that remained planted on her shoulders. "She was so different."

I felt my brows furrow at her words, "They must have figured out a way to brainwash her like they did with Buck. But how?" 

Natasha spoke up from behind the couch, still checking Tony over. "They have the scepter. Who knows what they did to her. It could be anything."

I nodded, because she was right. We had no idea how it worked without Thor here to explain it to us. Wanda was the only person we knew that had gotten that close with it, and she ended up with superpowers none of us had ever seen before. The possibilities were endless and not at all good. I dropped my hands from Pepper's shoulders with a grimace, "We need to get the generators back up and try and get Pietro to the med bay."

Clint gave a subtle shake of his head as the room went quiet. "He's not going to make it Cap, not in this condition. Even if we did get him down there, the machines won't be running. She's taken out the whole building if Friday is down. Even the backup generators if she's smart."

Silence enveloped us as we turned to watch the interactions between Wanda and her brother. Both of them were crying, speaking fast and hurriedly in their native tongue. We all knew what was happening. We knew he wasn't going to make it out of this room. "We'll give you some space, Wanda." I nodded towards the hallway, motioning for the rest of them to follow.

I headed past my door and into the stairway, making my way down towards Bucky's floor. I moved floors because his nightmares had gotten so bad. Bucky would scream so loud Tony would hear him four floors up. I had tried to console him, but he had shut me out, even went so far as to force me out physically. He didn't want help or comfort, he wanted her back. At this point, I think it's just about the only thing that would bring him any sense of peace. He's been so torn up over what he had said to her that it's tearing him apart.

As worried as I was, he deserved to know what was going on. He had to know. I was concerned that if he found out about things any other way that he might just snap.

When I lifted my head from the floor, I was standing in front of his door. He hadn't even put a name plack on it and I was sure only Tony and I knew where he had moved to. I knocked, "Bucky, I need to talk to you." I could hear shuffling, but no footsteps approaching. I knocked again, "Buck, something happened in the tower. Pietro is... he's dying."

At that, heavy thumps echoed on the other side before the door was practically ripped open. His room was dark, and I wouldn't have seen him if it weren't for the light cast over him from the hallway. The angle the light hit him accentuated the bruises blooming under his eyes and the coldness of his gaze. "What do you mean he's dying? What the hell happened?"

I dropped my eyes to the floor once again, trying and failing to find a way to break the news any easier than it was. "Buck—”

"Spit it out, Steve." His metal arm whirred to life as he gripped the doorframe, stepping further into the light. 

I blew out a breath, "He was stabbed. Pepper witnessed it all, said... said it was Max."

At the mere mention of her name, he seemed to come alive. "What?" Gone was his cruel exterior. Like a whole other person had stepped into his body. His voice was so soft, so broken when he spoke to me. "What do you mean? She wouldn't do something like that."

I hesitated. Not because I didn't want to tell him what Pepper said, but because the man in front of me looked like if the wind blew too hard, he'd shatter. "Pepper said she acted wrong, like she wasn't really there. She said when Max looked at her, her eyes were cloudy and silver. I think that Hydra has found a way to brainwash her." 

Bucky's face fell at my words, a shaky hand coming up to comb through his hair. It didn't look like he had washed it in a while. "What are we going to do? What can I- What can I do, Steve?" Tears sprang in his eyes, "I don't know what to do!”

I wrapped my arms around him, trying desperately to hold him together, keep him from shattering all over again. "I don't know just yet, but we're going to fix it, alright?"

His arms weakly rested over my back. I could tell by the way his shoulders shook that he was crying, but I didn't say a word about it. I just held onto him. It was the only thing I knew I could do for him. 

_____

Max-

Why was it always so damn cold? Always cold with these assholes.

When I blinked awake, meeting my lovely metal cell, that was the first thing that came to mind. That, and the aching pain in my forearms.

It took me a few minutes to clear my head, groggy and a little slow coming out of whatever drug induced sleep I was sure I had taken. Hydra loved their injections. That annoying clicking filled my ears, instantly triggering a headache that was slinking around the back of my skull. I cursed it along with the bastards guarding my door. When I had finally managed to push myself up into a sitting position, I took a look at my arms.

To my surprise, they were scabbed over. I couldn't recall what on earth I had done to them, but they hurt like a bitch. 

Twisting them around, I examined the long stripes of bloodied skin. They ranged in length, but they were all about the same width and distance apart. It almost looked like someone had—

With a wave of nausea, flashes—memories—began to hammer into my head. I cried out, gripping the sides of my head and pinning it between my knees, anything to make them stop. 

Watching from across a roof, the Avengers spoke with a woman- Pepper- in a living room. Pressing a button and watching the few remaining lights in the tower flicker out as I killed their generators. Breaking into the stairwell and climbing up, up, up... Standing over Steve, contemplating how his death would affect the team, affect the world. Moving down the hall to Tony, thinking-no, deciding- that his death would hurt the most.

I remember jamming that syringe into his neck and hearing him gasp. I felt him go limp. Then there was a noise, a heartbeat, and steps down the hall. I hid, deftly moving to situate myself on top of the fridge in a shadowed area. A man I didn't recognize turned the corner with his fists raised, blurring into the kitchen. That was his giveaway, memories of Wanda talking about her brother swept through mind. Pietro was his name, and his death would put yet another nail into the Avenger's coffin. It would shove them farther apart, break them from within.

Jumping from the fridge once he had cleared the kitchen, I mirrored him. I heard someone gasp from the hall, but I knew there wasn't another Avenger awake. I had heard the woman leave her room. She wouldn't, couldn't, do anything against me. So, I cut him at the knees and slotted a knife in his stomach. A slow death, one that there was no way he would pull out of without the power up. I had spoken into his ear, "Scream and she dies." 

He hadn't screamed, hadn't even whimpered. I had quieted her too before I left, taking a quick exit out of a window and down a grapple rope. Then I had returned to base.

By the time the memories had collected themselves within my head I was breathing hard. Too hard. My throat contracted and I was afraid one of my short gasps would be my last if I didn't get ahold of myself. I clutched at the bars behind my head, desperate for something to ground me. Anything. 

I counted to ten, trying and failing to breathe along with the numbers. I picked out seven different things I could see, earning a little bit of a reprieve from the invisible vice around my neck. My eyelids snapped shut, forcing myself into darkness and focusing solely on the feeling of pulling air into my lungs before I finally pulled myself out of the panic. 

Then the guilt hit. Hard, fast, and ruthlessly. Wanda would never forgive me, not ever. Pietro was all she had. Her only flesh and blood left. I had stolen him from her. I wouldn't lift a finger against her if she were to come after me. Not after what I had done. The others too, they'd be hurt. They would mourn his loss. 

Would anyone mourn me? If I died here in this god forsaken cell, would anyone care? 

I didn't think so. Not now, perhaps not ever. 

My arms pulsed in pain along with my shredded heart. I let the cold metal of the cell floor ease the itching scabs. I still felt weak and useless, my veins felt like sand was grating the insides. Withdrawal more than likely. Whatever they were shooting me up with was taking my sobriety with it. Soon enough I'll probably be begging them to inject me just so I won't be in pain any longer. At least the kind I could feel physically. 

The door wrenched open, knocking me out of my thoughts and dragging my attention up to Giles as he entered. "Hello, little bird. You did so well! I wish you had taken out an actual Avenger though, but the witch's brother will do just as good." He circled around, a long case in his hand. 

I knew that case. My body did too, slamming itself away from him. "Don't you fucking touch me with that."

Giles frowned, lifting the case, "What, this? But I need even better results! I ordered you to kill an Avenger. Obviously, you need to be more inspired."

I was too weak to do much else but snarl at him, baring my teeth. It didn't do much to dissuade him from unclipping the case and lifting that awful scepter. Just like he had before, he inched it through the bars. I tried to cover my chest, but it didn't deter him. He just pressed the end directly to my temple and I was swept into darkness.

Tags<3

@cjand10 / @calwitch / @blackbirdwitch22 / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @hzdhrtss / @imdoingathingmom / @greatmistakes

[mediocre-writerr]

congrats on 2k! if you can, i'd love a wanda maximoff x romanoff!reader! based on the prompt "all that we are is all that we'll ever be because he's the one waiting at home." - smoke slow, joshua bassett

maybe reader and wanda had a secret relationship going on, but wanda is dating natasha right now. just super angsty, maybe with a happy ending or not, it's up to you!

thank you! and congrats again!

smoke slow [wanda maximoff]

summary: a college au; you and wanda started breaking away from the crowd and it started innocently, until it wasn't. the biggest problem, she's dating your older sister.

warnings: a few curse words, mentions of smut, angst, smoking, mentions of death, mentions of addictions

pairings: wanda maximoff x fem!reader, natasha romanoff x sister!reader, yelena belova x sister!reader

*not my gif*

The night was alive. The air was so thick and smokey. The music thrummed straight through the bodies surrounding you and into your eardrums. It mixed with a variety of conversations, half of them were high-induced philosophies and theories, while the other half were drunken confessions. Sweat flicked through the air with the start of every dance move. Tony Stark’s parties, always a rager, no matter what the occasion. 

You shimmied off the dance floor, avoiding the hormone monsters that are college students grinding on one another. You were desperate for some sort of fresh air, away from the stuffiness of the dance floor. The kitchen was somewhat empty, more sober people maintaining intelligent conversations. Grabbing a red solo cup, you filled your cup with beer, as you people watched. Thor was trying his hardest to be Valkyrie in beer pong, but by the looks of the cups, he was failing. Steve, Bucky, and Sam had their arms wrapped around one on another as they sang along to some tune. But your eyes were torn from the scene when shouts of her name rang throughout your ear. 

“Wanda!!” Clint yelled the loudest. 

Her emerald eyes found yours, like it was the most natural thing in the world, her lips quirked upwards slightly. As quick as it appeared, it faded away, like reality finally caught up to her. You let out a deep breath as you maintained eye contact, trying to slow your racing heartbeat, “Y/N! Dude!” Scott yelled and you looked down at your cup to see it spilling over the edge like Niagra Falls. 

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath, turning off the tap, and wiping off your beer soaked hands. Your eyes filtered back up to Wanda, as the redheaded Russian appeared behind her, intertwining their fingers together. You reach for the paper towel roll, ripping off a few pieces to clean up the mess you made. 

“Wow sestra, the party started an hour ago and you’re already making a mess,” Natasha’s voice made you freeze in your spot. You turn to face your older sister wearing her infamous shit-eating smirk. 

Your eyes drifted down to their intertwined hands as you gave them your best smile, “Ouch Nat, no, how’s my favorite sister doing? Or I’m so happy to see you!” You tease and she playfully rolls her eyes. 

“Yelena would kick my ass if she heard me say that you’re my favorite sister,” Nat said, her eyes scanning the crowd. “Where is she anyway?” 

You shrug, “Last time I checked she was about to play a game with Kate. Something about shooting arrows at beer bottles that rested on top of Peter’s head,” Natasha’s eyes widen at your nonchalant tone. Her eyes once more scanning the crowd for your younger sister. “Anyway, back to the whole favorite thing. She can’t kick your ass if it’s the truth. I mean I’m your favorite sister, right?” Your sister rolls her eyes, as she starts weaving her way through the crowd in search of Yelena, “Wait! Nat! I’m your favorite, right?!” you yell over the loud music and the indistinct chatter. 

Wanda chuckles, “Are they really shooting beer bottles off of Peter’s head?” She asks with a knowing look in her eyes.

Your eyes shined back with mischief, shaking your head, “Nope! Kate and Yelena suggested the idea, but Peter quickly shot it down, despite them trying to blackmail him.” The two of you share a giggle at the thought of the best friends. 

“They’re gonna kill that poor boy one day,” she says and you nod your head in agreement. The two of you stand there in a comfortable silence, people watching.

Wanda’s hand drifts closer to yours, desperate for some sort of contact with you. Before she intertwines your fingers together, you pull away quickly, “Shit. I promised Steve I would bring him this beer. He’s probably looking for where I am, I’ll catch you later,” you smile at her before taking the red solo cup and whisking yourself away. You left so fast, you didn’t get a chance to see Wanda’s disappointed look on her face. 

The stuffy room suddenly felt suffocating, slipping out to the backyard, it was a lot less crowded. You slipped your shoes off, rolling up the cuffs of your jeans, as you dipped your legs into the pool. The cool summer night breeze brushed through your hair, drying the sweat that lingered from the dance floor. You grabbed your pack of cigarettes from your back pocket, flickering your lighter to slowly kill yourself by inhaling the small cancerous stick. 

Your mind drifted back to the brunette inside, you could marry her. You really wanted to fucking marry her. You had never felt this way about anyone before. Even though you shouldn’t, you know damn well that you shouldn’t. But that night over winter break changed everything for you. 

The winter breeze shook through your body, as your legs dipped into the freezing water. You hugged your jacket tighter against your body, pulling out the pack of cigarettes from your jacket pocket. You felt someone’s presence next to you, as they sat down, dipping their own feet into the pool. You slowly inhaled from the nicotine lit stick, as you turned your head to face the unknown presence. Wanda had a sheepish smile on her face, her brunette hair tucked back behind her ears, “Can I have a light?” she asks. 

You chuckle softly, flicking the ash onto the concrete next to you, “Wanda Maximoff, having a smoke? Since when?” 

“Since right now. I want to try one,” she said, sitting up straight, her voice sounding confident, like she knew what she was doing. 

“No, I’m not gonna give you one,” you laugh at her shocked face.

“But why not? You do it all the time!” she questioned with her eyebrows furrowed and matching pout on her face. 

God she looked so adorable, but you quickly shook that intrusive thought off, “Exactly I do it all the time, which doesn’t make it a good thing. These little guys are terrible for you, especially when you get addicted. They slowly kill you from the inside out. I mean I have one every day and you know what? It’ll probably kill me one day. At the time, I didn’t have anyone care enough about me to tell me to stop.  So no you absolutely can not have one because if I give you one my sister would probably kill me before the smoking does."

She looks at you with her eyes widened and a small smile, "Are you sure this is about Nat kicking your ass or do you not want to give me one because you care about me?" She teased in a sing songy voice as a light pink coats your cheeks.

“Definitely more about my sister kicking my ass. Speaking of my sister, I’m honestly surprised you came to this party. My sister is off on a work trip in Boston and you’re usually attached at the hip.” 

She rolls her eyes, “Well, someone was a little convincing today with the whole ‘Wanda please! We haven’t hung out together since you started dating my sister!’ begging act that you pulled today.” 

“Excuse me! I was not begging!” you bring your voice down to a whisper, leaning towards her ear, “Trust me Maximoff, when I’m begging there'll be much less clothes on,” you wink at her, causing her eyes to widen and a soft blush to dust over her cheeks. She slaps your shoulder, throwing her face in her hands before letting out a groan, “C’mon, pretty girl, let’s get you a drink!” 

You get thrown back into reality, when Thor drunkenly jumps into the pool and the cool water sprays across your face, “Sorry Y/N! Thor lost at beer pong and this was the punishment!” Valkyrie explained and you gave her a tight lipped smile before getting up and going back inside. 

You were just going to sit by the window sill away from the rest of the party, but your eyes found Natasha and Wanda’s figures on the dance floor. The two of them moved sensually to the beat and you couldn’t help, but feel the ache in your heart. You couldn’t seem to tear your eyes away until those god damn green eyes found yours and you quickly looked away, sneaking off towards the balcony. No one else really knew about it. But you knew it, all too well. 

Wanda’s breath was close to your ear, as she tried to get you to hear her over the pounding music, “Do you want to break away from all of this? I think I need a little breather.” 

You nod, “C’mon, I know the perfect place,” you extend her hand out to her and she intertwines your fingers together, not wanting to get separated in the crowd. 

Leading her through the house and to the balcony on the top floor, you opened the door for her. The rest of the party seemed to have faded away from your secluded spot. The only real noise was the muffled music coming from downstairs, but even that seemed like it was miles away. The drinks were taking effect, not too bad enough to have you spinning, but a nice little buzz in your head. 

The two of you take a seat on the little patio chairs, looking up at the bright city skyline. People like to think of the New York City skyline as one of the most beautiful views in the world, but as Wanda sits next to you with the bright city lights illuminating her face, it definitely tops the city. Once more, you fetch out your pack of cigarettes, lighting another one as it rested in between your fingers. 

“You said that when you first started smoking it felt like you had no one who cared about you, why is that?” the brunette asks, staring at you intently as you exhale a puff of smoke. 

You shrug, flicking the ash onto the ground, “I started back when we were seniors in high school, after my mom died and my dad left. Nat turned 18 not too long before my mom died and she was forced into the role of being an actual adult because when you turn 18, you’re not really an adult even though you’re labeled as one. Some 18 year olds just finished high school, and are still living with their parents, but Nat had to take care of two younger sisters. She had to put her life on hold for me and Lena. Instead of helping her and supporting her, when our mom died I kind of blew off all responsibilities. I turned rebellious, stopped playing volleyball, hung out with the wrong crowd. Nat always had the disappointed mom look and she was always angry at me, which made Yelena angry with me all the time. So, when I started smoking our relationship was so bad, that it felt like neither of them would have cared.” 

“I didn’t know that,” she whispered. It was eye opening to her, you were her best friend. Of course, she knew that your mom died and that your dad left as soon as she died. But it seemed like a new side of you was shining through. 

“Not a lot of people do. It’s one of the things I regret the most, you know? I was so selfish back then. I mean even Yelena acted like more of an adult than I did. Now every time I light one of these guys, it’s a constant reminder of what I did…or well I guess what I didn’t do. My punishment for how I acted back then,” you chuckle lightly, “I’ve never said that before, so I better not regret telling you Maximoff.” A lighthearted tone in your voice, as you try to hide the self depreciation in it. 

Her head tilts to the side and her eyes are lit up, like you just showed her the most amazing thing in the world, “You won’t.” 

A shiver ripples through her body and you quickly shrug off your jacket, placing them over her body. Your scent of smoke and subtle hints of vanilla invaded her senses, quickly becoming addicted to it. “Why didn’t you bring a jacket, Wands? My sister’s not here, so who are you trying to impress,” you quip and she smiles, shaking her head. 

“No one,” she mutters, but she desperately wishes she could say, ‘you’. 

“What’s got you so angry?” Yelena asks, plopping down next to you with her own red solo cup in her hand. The soft memory fading away from your mind as you shrug. The itch to reach for another cig was becoming too strong.

“Nothing. How’d you even know I was up here?” 

“I saw you pouting like Peter Parker when Kate and I make fun of him, so I followed you up here,” she shrugs, “So do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not really," you say pulling at the loose thread from the rips in your jeans.

She scoffs, “Let me rephrase that question, do you not want to talk to me about it because it’s about Wanda?” 

“Yelena don’t-“

“No Y/N. Look, whatever you and Wanda had going on, it needs to stop,” your younger sister scolds.

You stand up abruptly, rubbing your face with your hands, “Don’t you think I know that? You’ve already lectured me once and I’ve kept my distance from her since then. I am trying my best! Now please, just leave me here to sulk, I’ll be fine just like I always am.”

She throws the pack of cigarettes that you didn’t even know fell out of your pocket. Some of them rolling onto the ground, “You told me you quit these too! You don’t think I could smell the smoke off of you right now? I may be your little sister, but I am not stupid. So if you were lying about these, how do I know you’re really lying about stopping things with Wanda?” 

She opens the balcony door about to walk in, but she stops just as she enters the frame, “You’re supposed to be the older sister, right?” She looks at you intently like she’s waiting for an answer and you just nod. “So fucking act like it.”

Yelena slams the door shut. You collapse onto the patio chair, dropping your face into your hands as you let out a shaky breath. Your shaky hands reached for the pack of cigarettes on the floor, neatly placing it in a box, but keeping one of them out, lighting it as it rests in between your lips. 

How did everything get so fucked up?

“I’m not this type of girl,” Wanda whispers in the middle of the night. You and your sisters had your closest friends over for a small party. Everyone else seemed to have passed out from Yelena’s drinking games. But both you and Wanda were fighting dreamland and instead giving into your fantasies.

The spring breeze rippled through the two of you as you stood out on your apartment balcony. “What do you mean?” 

She shrugs, leaning in a bit closer, “I don’t sneak around in the middle of the night and secretly hope that my girlfriend's sister is awake. I don’t hug someone for longer than what is deemed friendly in a stranger’s eyes. I don’t immediately look at someone who’s not my girlfriend after anyone tells a joke just to see their smile,” she says, as the two of you just continue to get lost into each other’s eyes.

You start shrinking under her gaze, reaching for the pack of cigarettes in your hoodie pocket. You were about to light it when Wanda grabbed the lighter and the rest of the pack that you held in your hand. Your eyebrows furrowed as you stared into her beautiful green eyes, “You once told me a month ago that you felt like you had no one who cared enough to tell you to stop smoking when you first started. So, I’m telling you right now that I care about you and I don’t want you to kill yourself with these stupid sticks.”

A shy smile curled onto your face, as you let her throw your pack into the trash can. “I’m not that kind of girl either, but as I’m staring into those goddamn eyes of yours all I can think about is how much I want to kiss you.” You quip back, ignoring the guilt induced thoughts that are trying to betray what your heart is screaming at. 

She snorted at your response, a mischievous smile on her face. The pad of Wanda’s thumb gently traces over your lips and your body freezes. Her hands hesitantly move from your lips to your cheeks, as she stares into your eyes begging for approval. Without thinking, you leaned in and kissed her lips, and the brunette immediately returned the kiss gently. 

You place your hands on her chest, pressing harder against her lips. She smiles to herself as she places her hand on your waist. Your kisses become more passionate as your tongue battles for dominance. Her hands on your hips pulled you closer and your cold hands quickly slid under your shirt.

As she ran out of breath, she decided to slide down to her neck, leaving sloppy kisses. You let out a small moan in pleasure, “Wanda?” She hums in response, slightly nipping your neck, “Do you want to take this to my room?”

“Please,” she mumbled against your neck. 

When it was over, the two of you lay next to each other. The pants of your breathing filled your bedroom. Your bare chests moving in perfect rhythm to your shared heartbeat. The beautiful brunette shifts her body towards you, looking at you with droopy eyes and tired smile. 

“Hi,”  Wanda whispered shyly. 

“Hi,” you said, charmed. 

She grabs your fingers and plays with them, weaving her own fingers between them, bringing your hand up to your lips, pressing a soft kiss against it. Your hands trace figures along your hip. Her gentle hand brushes away a stray piece of hair that fell across your face, as she tucked it into place. 

“I have always wanted you,” she whispers, “It’s always been you.” 

What should’ve been the last time turned into a past time. Two best friends breaking away from a party started innocently. Gossiping in the bathrooms quickly turned into heated makeout sessions. A breather on the balcony away from your drunken peers turned into deep conversations with her head tucked into the crook of your neck as you hold onto each other.  

That one tiny spark that the two of you wouldn’t put out was slowly coming to the end of the cigarette. The cigarette stick was nothing, but a nub as it was about to disintegrate into thin air.

At first it was fun, making a million excuses just to have a simple moment alone. Until, the need for something more came to be and the realization of what the two of you had done seeped into your bloodstream like some sort of drug. A drug that you couldn’t kick. You had stopped smoking for her, but she was this new drug that you were terribly addicted to.  

Wanda’s head rested on the top of your chest, as your arms wrapped securely around her. From the curtains of your window, you could see the sun start to slowly rise, and the soft snores from her mouth filled the room. 

You kiss the top of her head gently, “Wands,” you whispered in her ear, scratching her back. A soft hum escaped her lips as she stirred in your arms, “The sun’s coming up, you should sneak out before Yelena wakes up.” 

“Just a few more minutes,” she whispers, nuzzling deeper into your neck. 

“We don’t have a few more minutes, darling,” you respond with a soft smile on your face. She lets out a soft groan before lifting herself off of you. Wanda sat up, pulling your oversized t-shirt over her, and a pair of shorts. Her hair was slightly disheveled and her tired eyes were one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. “You’re a work of art, Wanda Maximoff.” 

She snorted, “That was lame,” she mumbled, leaning down to kiss you. Her lips slightly chapped, but you didn’t care, you just loved the feeling of her lips on yours. “I’ll see you at the party tomorrow night, where we are going to go through with our plan and tell Natasha together, right?”

Even though her eyes were still droopy, she looked at you intently, “Right,” you mumbled against her lips, pressing another kiss to them.

“Y/N, I need you to promise me this time. Every time we’ve made a plan to tell her the truth, you’ve backed out. We can’t keep lying to her like this. I want to be with you the right way. So, please…for me?” she whispered to you.

You let out a sigh, pressing a kiss to her forehead, before touching them together, “I promise.”

“I love you,” she whispered into the thin air. 

“I love you. I have loved you, well…definitely longer than I should have. We’ll tell her tonight and we’ll face the consequences together. I promise,” A wide smile crosses her face and how you so desperately wish you could hold onto that smile forever. She wraps her arms around your neck, pulling herself closer to you as she kisses you with so much love, you don’t know how your heart hasn’t exploded. “Now, you should probably get going before Lena wakes up. C’mon pretty girl, I’ll walk you out,” you whisper to her, kissing her quickly. 

The two of you reach your apartment door, kissing her once more before asking her to text you when she gets home. You were about to stumble back to bed, desperate for some shut eye, when you bumped into a figure. Your eyes flickered onto your little sister. 

“What are you doing up so early?” She questions.

“I needed some water, so I just chugged a glass,” you lied. “Why are you up so early?” 

“I promised Kate that I would go on a morning run with her, Peter, and Lucky this morning,” she answered, staring at you intently. 

You give her a tight lipped smile, “Well, I uh hope you have fun. I’ll see you when you get-“

“Are you sure you were just grabbing some water? Because from what I saw from here, you were just walking Wanda out of the apartment. She was wearing one of your shirts, which I thought was fishy. But I just thought that maybe she just spent the night. I don’t know why you wouldn’t tell me, but that’s cool. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, I didn't want to jump to conclusions. But all of that benefit of the doubt bullshit I told myself flew out my head when I saw you kiss her goodbye. What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Lena, look-“

“How long?” She interrogated you and your eyes drift down to your hands as you fiddled with them. Your little sister looked down to meet your gaze, forcing you to look her in the eyes, “How long, Y/N?”

“For the last three months, but we’re planning to tell her the truth  tomorrow night at Stark’s party.” 

“I need you to listen to me very carefully, Y/N. Nat has sacrificed everything for us! Everything! She declined her top college on the west coast to stay home and take care of us. She took crappy jobs that she didn’t want just to make ends meet when she was just 18 years old! She wasn’t like you. She didn’t throw away her volleyball scholarships. She gave them up. She sacrificed and lost everything! For me,” she took a dangerous step closer to you, pushing her finger into your chest. “And you! Natasha wanted us to have the best life that mom had always promised us, even if that meant putting her life on hold. And this is how you’re going to repay her for that? You're going to repay her by sneaking around with her girlfriend?!”

“That is not fair, Lena!” you scold her. 

She scoffs, “Not fair? Do you know what’s not fair, Y/N? The money she saved in her savings account all throughout high school quickly drained, because she had to bail you out of jail more than once. You were lucky that Steve’s dad was the sheriff so it never touched a sliver of your record, but Nat still had to pay the fines. It’s not fair that when I was a sophomore in high school, I couldn’t go to any football games or dances because I had to grow up and cover all of your shifts while you were off getting shit faced somewhere else!”

“My mom died-“ you were about to argue.

“So did ours, Y/N!” she screamed at you. “Yet, Natasha and I were picking up the pieces and you kept destroying everything in sight. So, I want you to think about this when you and Wanda tell Natasha all about your relationship tomorrow night, she has given everything she loves up for you and me. Wanda is just going to be one more thing she loses because of you.”

The two of you stayed there in a tense silence, just staring at one another with tear filled eyes. Until the front door swung open. Out of the corner of your eye, you watched as your older sister wheeled in her suitcase from her latest business trip. 

A low whistle left her lips as she saw the standoff between the two of you, “Is everything okay?” 

Yelena was first to break her gaze, forcing a smile on her face, something she has gotten far too good at. “Yeah, welcome home, sestra. I’m about to head out to go on a morning run with Kate and Peter, I'll see you guys later.”

“What was that about?” Nat asked as your younger sister left. 

You shrug, “No idea,” you clear your throat, subtly wiping away at your eyes while she starts brewing some coffee. “How was the trip?”

The balcony door creaked open as you lit another cigarette. “Detka? What are you doing?” Wanda’s voice filled the thick air, grabbing the cigarette from your lips and throwing it out. “You haven’t smoked for the last three months, when’d you even get a pack? What happened?”

Your eyes were bloodshot from holding back the tears that you were so desperately trying to keep in. You know what has to happen. 

The drug that is Wanda Maximoff gave you such a high. You were so addicted to the illusions of the love between you and her. A love that never was and never will be. The worst part about any addiction is that it’s so intimate. You become so close with your addictions that leaving them behind is like killing a part of you that taught you how to survive. And all that’s left of you is pain and misery. 

“Y/N, why have you been avoiding me?” Wanda questions, her voice shaking just a little bit. 

You shrug, “You seem a little preoccupied. I didn’t want to intrude,” you look out at the skyline, desperately avoiding her gaze. 

“Oh okay. So this has nothing to do with what we’re going to tell Nat tonight?”

You shook your head, “There’s nothing to tell. There’s nothing going on between us, Wanda. There can’t be anything going on,” you look at her, the tears that you were trying to hold back were falling like droplets of rain against your car window. “You’re my best friend and you’re my sister’s girlfriend. That’s all.”

“You’re not just my best friend, Y/N, and you know it. You can’t pretend like we never happened because it did, it happened. And I don’t regret it, not one bit. I am in love with you, Y/N, and I know what we did wasn’t right, but I can’t help but love you,” she explains to you, trying to wrap her arms around you, but you shake your head once more as you step away from her. 

“This can’t happen. We need to pretend like none of this happened-“ you begged her. You didn’t want to make this harder than it needed to be. 

“We have been sneaking around for months! Even if she doesn’t know it, we have already hurt her! If we tell her together, we are doing right by Natasha. She’s going to be heartbroken and angry, but she’s going to realize one day that this was the right thing to do. She deserves better than someone who’s in love with her sister.” 

There was a silence that followed, as you just continued to stare at her speechless, “I can’t-“ your voice breaks, as you look down at your hands. 

Wanda’s arms wrapped around your waist and you weren’t fighting it anymore. She placed her forehead against yours, her voice pleading, “I’ll fix it please, I’ll do anything. We don’t have to tell Nat until you’re ready, just please don’t do this.” 

“You can’t fix this, Wands. The only person who can fix this is me. You’re right, Nat deserves better, and after all the shit I put her through the last five years, I'm going to give that to her. I’m going to be the sister she should’ve had by her side when our mom died. So that means letting you go,” you whispered, biting your lip to stop the sobs that are trying to escape. “You deserve better than me anyway, Wands. Someone like my sister,” 

You kiss her forehead, before pulling away from her embrace, “I’m sorry,” you whisper to her. 

You avoided her tear stained cheeks and glossy eyes, as you continued to sit out and stare at the city before you. You destroyed everything in sight, but this time you were going to be the one to pick up all the pieces. Suddenly, her gaze wasn’t on you anymore and the balcony door was being slammed shut. 

Your eyes drift to the voices at the front of the house, “Wanda, what happened?” Nat’s voice rings in your ear and you can see them from where you’re sitting. 

“Nothing, it was just too crowded and everything was too overwhelming. I think I just need to go home,” she says and you hate how her tears are because of you. Your older sister wrapped her strong arms around the distressed girl, holding her tighter. 

Fishing out your pack, you lit the small cigarette, enjoying the way it made your head feel. Wanda’s eyes flickered up towards the balcony, noticing the smoke emitting off of it. You let out a sigh, staring at the girl in front of you. All that the two of you were was all you were ever going to be because she always had someone waiting at home.

“C’mon, let’s go home,” Nat whispered to her, intertwining their fingers together, and leading her to the car.

Nicotine doesn't taste the same as Wanda did, but it’ll have to do.

[haveihitanerve]

Some things the avengers do because they’re little shits and live to torment each other-

Bucky and Sam are required by law to sing the itsy bitsy spider every time Peter walks in the room

Tony will at any opportunity push something in front of Steve, or place it strategically, because he will, without fail, not notice and stub his toe

Natasha steals everyone’s food from the fridge. Not to eat. Just to watch the chaos when they realize their food is gone

Clint will tape notes to peoples backs, especially right before missions and important formal meetings. It’s not even things like ‘punch me’ it’s more along the lines of ‘stop staring at his ass’ ‘have a great day at rehab babe!’ ‘He gave me aids’

Thor got about seven replicas of mjolnir made and placed them around the tower to see who would pick it up and then be awestruck (his plan backfired tho when he couldn’t figure out which one was the real one and then recruited Peter and Steve to help him which did absolutely nothing)

Peter will casually fling a web at his fellows, without them noticing until they try to take their hand out of their pocket, or with them noticing because suddenly the floor is really close and they’ve eaten shit because their feet are attached to the floor

Clint uses his bow and arrow powers for evil and will shoot food, phones, people, anything out of his friends hands

Peter does the same

Tony created a bunch of powerful magnets and placed them around the tower on the second floor and whenever Bucky pissed him off he turned it on and just watched as the super soldier flew up

Steve got Thor to place a similar “curse” onto the shield that was on Mjolnir (because as King of asgard he can do that) and then threw it at his friends yelling ‘catch!’ and then watched as they slammed into the ground because Steve had Thor change it to “anyone who has never said a rude word to Captain America is worthy to wield this shield.” and then naturally Peter was so proud when he was able to lift it and bragged around but then he also fell to the floor because he called Sam a pig and he was captain america. (sam and bucky laughed themselves hoarse. Peter pouted)

Bucky can and will detach his arm and use it to terrify the shit out of people at night, especially during movie night where he can reach around four people to poke Sams shoulder or when he can hide underneath the couch when Peter goes to the bathroom and grab his ankle. (both screamed like children and Peter started walking on the ceiling whenever he needed to use the bathroom late at night)

Long rounds of Hide and Seek are played where some members are unknowingly the seekers

Sometimes the newer avengers band together and play pranks on the original four which led to quite fun quotes such as “I have enough gray hairs without my own team stabbing me in the back!”-tony “I didn't dive into the ice seventy years ago for this!”- Steve “I will never forgive you!” (nat after kate opened her favorite and last yoghurt and ate it in front of her) “I swear one more fucking verse and I will green all over you!”-Bruce

Okay now some of them being nice to each other, or just some sweet stuff they do all living together-

Clint makes everyone breakfast in the morning on saturdays. Its sweet but hes also the only one who can cook decently

As an attempt to help him they will sometimes try to make him breakfast in bed but it always ends with egg on the ceiling and them sitting at a Dennys

Peter falls asleep anywhere and everywhere because when his energy runs out(he didn't eat enough) he just drops and sometimes he’ll be found on the ceiling, sometimes attached to a wall and they always wrap a blanket around him, maybe tuck a pillow under his head because he likes sleeping in random spots but that doesn't mean it cant be comfortable

Pepper and Nat have girl night at least once a month and at this point its just all the avengers huddled in the den Tony made specifically for the two of them, painting nails and doing hairstyles and complaining about everything

They each wear each others clothing. Tony and Peter do it the most often, Tony being too sleep deprived to notice that hes slipping on Steves shirt and Bruce’s pants and what are most definitely clints shoes, but Peter does it on purpose, sneaking into Buckys room to nab his sweatshirt, snatching Steves shirt off the bench while he changes, unwinding Nats scarf from around her neck as she walks past. Bucky and Sam honestly don't even have their own wardrobe anymore they exchange clothes so much, and Steve has to buy new shirts and hoodies and sweatpants almost every week because his clothes are one of the largest out of all of them and everyone takes his

Peter cannot cook while awake but sometimes he will sleepwalk and make an entire five star three course meal at three in the morning and whenever someone hears him (Bucky and Steve with their enhanced hearing or Clint and Tony who never sleep) they will sneak into the kitchen and watch him to make sure hes okay before carrying him to bed once hes finished and cleaning the kitchen and packing the food away to be eaten the next day

They have mandatory tower cleaning day and everyone pitches in

Even if they're all in different parts of the world (or galaxy) they all facetime on Saturdays and catch up with each other

Tony keeps the fridge stocked up constantly with everyone's favorite foods and has a list taped on it with a reminder of everyone's allergies

Every hero with a side kick/mentor child has a specially designed bag with all the things they might need from bandaids to noise canceling headphones to gogurts. 

feel very free to add any you think of

[cozy-the-overlord]

The Lighthouse

Summary: Stabbed by Kurse on Svartalfheim and fading away in his brother's arms, Loki expects to wake in Valhalla, having finally died in battle like a true Asgardian warrior. Instead, he finds himself drowning in a sea of inky black, the only light coming from the stoic tower guarding over the darkness. The woman who tends the lighthouse is as mysterious as she is caring, and Loki can't shake the feeling that she knows far more than she's telling …

Word Count: 10,141

Pairing: Loki x Sigyn

A/N: Summer before last I watched a video about a creepy old lighthouse and thought it make a fantastic location for a scary story. Two weeks ago I was going through my notes trying to find an idea for a spur-of-the-moment Halloween fic and I came across it again. This story ended up being quite different than I originally envisioned -- I'm not even sure you can even call it a Halloween fic anymore lol -- but I'm still very happy with it. Also huge thank you and shout out to @lokislittlesigyn, who both researched and beta read for me as well as just cheered me on throughout the whole process. I don't think this story would have come together as well as it did if not for her <3<3<3

Thanks for reading, and happy Halloween!!

Warnings: Injury, grief, death/afterlife

Tags: @lucywrites02 @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @the-emo-asgardian @imnotrevealingmyname @electroma89 @lokislittlesigyn @moumouton4 @theredrenard @justdontmindmetm @lostgreekgod @naterson

If you want to be tagged, feel free to send an ask/message :)

Read it on Ao3!

“I’ll tell Father what you did here today.”

“I didn’t do it for him.”

There’s a light haloing his brother’s face, growing brighter and brighter until his silhouette has been washed away with the barren landscape as his own vision turns white behind his eyelids and even still it grows brighter, so bright it sears his retinas, so bright it hurts–

Loki gasps for air without realizing, breaking through the bitter cold of the water—water? There’s no chance to process it—another wave crashes over his head and thrusts him beneath the inky black of the sea. He thrashes against the current, fighting his way back to the surface even as the piercing pain in his chest explodes throughout his torso. It takes everything to keep himself from going under again. The light has moved—no longer on his face, it cuts through the starless void of the night sky, a glowing beacon in the dark, moving slowly across the horizon. Loki can’t breathe.

This isn’t Valhalla.

That much is clear, and the realization numbs him more than the cold. He died in battle. He died fighting for Asgard, for Thor, for her. She was supposed to be there to greet him. His eyes burn with salt and tears. It’s supposed to be over—he fought and died, why can’t he rest? Why is it not over? Norns, he just wants it to be over!

If not Valhalla, where am I?

He can’t think of any story that told of an ocean waiting beyond death, but he doesn’t have much time to try to remember either because yet another wave is cresting, and he barely has a moment to gulp a mouthful of air before he goes under yet again.

He must get out of this water. He can’t last like this. The light swoops across the ocean once more in the same steady movement. A lighthouse, he realizes suddenly, and curses himself for not making the connection sooner. A lighthouse means land, and people to tend to it. A lighthouse means safety. In this moment, nothing else could matter more.

Loki gasps a great heaving breath and begins kicking towards the light.

It’s a slow process. He has no way of knowing how long he’s been there, thrashing along the surface as best he can with what feeling he has left in his extremities. Between the waves slapping him back and the current tugging him every which way, it’s hard to believe he’s made any progress. The wound in his chest burns with every movement of his arms, a searing pain that zips up his spine and streaks all along his torso. His mouth is dry with blood. And all the while, the light flashes before him, soft and mocking as ever. Perhaps the lighthouse isn’t real, he wonders hazily; perhaps it exists only in his mind, and he’s condemned to suffer these waves until Ragnarok comes as penance for his failings in life.

He’s barely conscious enough to register when his feet scrape against sharp rock, his fingers almost too numb to grasp the stony shoreline. He collapses in a heap where the waves deposit him on the coast, his labored breathing drowning out all other sound. He knows he should crawl up, at least get his lower half out of the water, but his body is leaden and heavy, and Loki can feel himself drifting away.

I’m dead. Above him, the light flickers around a shape, a dark silhouette, a woman’s form. As weary as he is, his heart leaps in relief.

“Mother?” he calls out weakly.

There’s no response. The light is fading around him, and he’s fading with it. I’m dead, he thinks again. What an odd way to be dead…

…

He wakes gradually—so gradually that he doesn’t quite realize what it is he’s doing even as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. There’s the plush of mattress beneath his back, cotton blanket bunched around his waist. He’s in bed. For a brief moment it’s his bed, the one in his palace bedroom just down the hall from Thor’s, and he’s a child stirring awake after having fallen asleep atop the book he stayed up too late reading. But Loki blinks again, and the memory fades back into its place in a past life.

The room in which he wakes is no palatial chamber. It’s small, and quite barren—aside from the bed (which is more of a cot, now that he’s looking at it properly) there’s nothing more than a modest nightstand and a faded rug for furnishing. The stone walls are gray and dusted with age. A lantern flickers on its hook next to the door. The window to his right is draped with thick black fabric, with not the slightest hint of daylight peaking through.

Loki shivers, and it’s then that he realizes his chest is bare. Both his armor and his tunic have vanished, and his torso is wrapped in white cloth bandages. He presses his hand to the spot where the dark elf’s sword pierced his body. The pain is still there, but it’s muted ache rather than a biting hurt—the ache of a wound attended to briefly by a healer’s magic. Loki’s head is spinning. He presses harder and winces.

Is he dead? Alive? Surely a deceased soul would no longer require a healer’s touch, but in the same vein, if he had somehow been rescued from Svartalfheim, would he not have awoken in his Asgardian cell rather than … whatever this place is? And the ocean—had he dreamt that? Or had someone pulled him out? Who healed him? Where is he?

Loki pulls himself up with a groan. His body feels stiff, out of use, and he wonders how long he’s been laying here. Beneath the blanket, he finds that his boots have also been removed, although thankfully his mysterious guardian deigned to leave him his trousers. He sighs, bracing himself against the chill in the air, and staggers towards the door.

It leads him out into a cramped hallway, the right side ending in a wall and another covered window, the left twisting around what appeared to be the base of a staircase and disappearing into another room. Loki’s chest aches with a new vigor, and he leans against the doorframe to catch his breath, glaring daggers at his bandaged torso. It’s ridiculous that such a short distance would demand so much effort, he barely walked his own length—

But he’s distracted from his frustration by the sound that cuts through the silence—a lilting, feminine hum from somewhere down the corridor. Loki freezes.

He knows that melody. It’s a lullaby—a soft, gentle little tune that Frigga would sing to them as children to soothe them at night. The thought brings a lump to his throat. How long has it been since those days? All at once he remembers the woman on the beach.

Could it be?

Loki is too afraid to let himself hope. Instead, he rushes down the hallway with a new urgency.

The space he finds himself in is not much bigger than the room in which he awoke. It’s a small kitchen area, lined with cupboards and shelves and a meager counter space. A simple stovetop rests in the corner, a looming grandfather clock in the other. A table and a pair of chairs sit across from the large window on the left wall, a window covered, just as the ones that came before. On the right, a narrow staircase ascends into darkness.

The source of the humming stands at the stovetop, tending to a whistling kettle. Loki’s heart falls—it’s not his mother. No, this woman is much younger—a slender, almost ghostlike form in her creamy white dress, frayed hem brushing against the floor as she sways gently to the sound of her own voice. Her dark hair rests in a long braid down the length of her back. She wraps the kettle’s handle in a stained cloth as she moves it from the stove with the practiced motion of someone who’s done so a hundred times before. It’s then that she turns to see him standing at the room’s entrance and freezes with a gasp.

“Oh!” Her brown eyes wide, she stares at him as if he’s risen from the dead. Perhaps he has. Her expression turns hard. “What are you doing up?”

Loki stiffens. “Who are you?”

The woman ignores the question, dropping the kettle on the counter with a clang as she rushes towards him. Loki tenses, half expecting a struggle, but before she even reaches his side he finds himself whisked into one of the chairs, landing with a thud against the wood, head spinning.

He grunts. Seidr. It shouldn’t be a surprise—after all, he had known that his injuries must have been treated with magic—but he finds himself caught off guard just the same.

Loki moves to stand up, but the woman is in front of him now, gently but firmly pressing him back into the seat. Her hands are clammy on his bare shoulders.

“You’re not supposed to be up yet,” she frets. “You’ll hurt yourself—” She tips his chin up to peer at his eyes before pressing two fingers to his pulse. Loki flinches away instinctively. Her skin is cold, but it’s not just that—there’s something about her, the ease, the familiarity with which she touches him, that he finds disquieting.

“Who are you?” he demands again. “Why did you rescue me?”

She glances back at him, as if the question caught her off guard. “I-I’m Sigyn. I tend to the lighthouse.” She bites her lip. “You washed up on the beach.”

The lighthouse. Loki remembers the beam of light he had so frantically kicked through the waves towards. So that had been real after all. This ramshackle building must be it. Still, it explains very little of his predicament.

His eyes narrow at his rescuer. “You’re Asgardian.” Sigyn looks as though she is going to argue, but there’s no denying her accent. He continues without giving her the chance. “What is this place? It’s not Asgard.”

She hesitates. “It’s … it’s a kind of in-between.” Her gaze drifts to the covered window. “Not many find their way here.”

“In between what?” Loki asks. “The realms?”

Sigyn huffs a dry laugh, straightening to her feet. “The realms don’t exist here.” She returns to the kettle on the counter to pour a cup of steaming tea, a cup she then presses into his hands. “You should drink this. It will help with your healing.”

Loki eyes the tea suspiciously. The color is normal enough, but it has a medicinal stench about it that makes his eyes water. He has no intention of drinking it.

Instead, he glares back at her. “You didn’t answer my question.”

She sighs, collapsing into the chair across from him. “This is a place in between life and death. Somewhere neither living nor dead.”

Loki frowns. “That’s impossible. There’s no such place.”

Sigyn laughs again, but the sound has a far more bitter edge than before. “I thought so too,” she says. “Then I woke up here. It’s not so bad, though. A bit lonely, but …” Her voice goes quiet. After a moment she smiles, but it seems more of a pained act than anything else. “It could be worse.”

His frown deepens. None of this makes any sense. “But … then … if that’s the case, how did I come to be here?” he asks. “Why am I not simply dead?” He strains to remember his last moments on Svartalfheim, strains to recall anything out of the ordinary that could have happened to cast him here, but there’s nothing. He fell to an Elven sword in battle. There’s no reason why he should be anything but dead.

Sigyn only shrugs. “I don’t know. I just found you.” She’s not looking at him, picking at a splinter on the side of the table. Loki’s gaze darkens, but he doesn’t show it in his voice.

“How did you come to be here, then?” he asks.

His hostess doesn’t answer. Instead, she shakes her head, closing her eyes and motioning towards the tea. “Please drink it.” Her voice is thick. “I promise it will help.”

Loki raises his eyebrows. “And I’m to trust the promise of a strange woman who claims to be neither living nor dead and won’t give a straight answer?”

Sigyn looks back at him, eyes wide. “I couldn’t kill you if I wanted to.” There’s a desperate tinge to her voice as she leans forward. “Death doesn’t exist here.”

“If that’s the case, why bother healing me?”

“I …” She stops, and Loki is stunned to realize there’s tears pooling in her eyes.

“I don’t like to see you in pain,” she whispers at last.

There’s a heaviness in the air that sends a shiver down his back. Loki opens his mouth to question further—who are you really?—but he’s cut off by the sudden ringing of the grandfather clock, a sinister, resonant tolling that seems to echo in his chest. Sigyn trembles, closing her eyes with a shaky inhale. A stray teardrop drips down her cheek. After a moment, she lets out a breath.

“Excuse me, I must tend to the light.” She stands and turns to start up the stairs. “Please stay here. This place—it’s quite a labyrinth, and you’re still injured. I’ll be back soon.”

He watches her disappear up into the darkness, the creaking of her steps echoing throughout the building for several minutes after she vanishes. Loki sets the tea down on the table. This place—it’s quite a labyrinth, and you’re still injured. Was it a threat? Maybe, maybe not, but Loki takes it as a challenge.

The first thing he examines are the many cabinets and drawers lining the walls of the kitchen. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find—evidence of spellwork, perhaps? Weapons?— but the contents turn out to be fairly ordinary. Really, there isn’t much at all. He’s surprised to find most of the cabinets are bare. It seems she’s prepared to serve a party of two—he finds two plates, two forks, two butter knives, two spoons, the matching teacup to the one he left on the table. Loki frowns. Sigyn had given the impression that she lived alone prior to his arrival. Had she expected him, he wonders?

The grandfather clock reveals little as well. It appears to be of Midgard, and it’s easily the most ornate item he has yet to see in the lighthouse—an intricately carved overlay of mahogany rests above the glimmering gold pendulum encased in glass. The pendulum swings with a soft tick, just as any normal clock would, but Loki is surprised to realize that the clock’s face is completely barren. There’s no numbers, no hands, no way to tell the time—just his own face reflected back at him in the pale slab of metal.

Odd.

Loki supposes that in a world beyond the bounds of life and death, the time would be irrelevant, but the clock’s rings had clearly signaled something for his strange rescuer. Perhaps it served as more of a timer? Regardless, it’s confusing.

He moves to the window, peering beneath the heavy black curtain. It doesn’t make much of a difference. The world outside is just as dark, the whole place smothered in the inky black of night. Even the sky is starless.

The only reprieve is the glowing beam of light from somewhere in the tower above him, slowly passing across the horizon with a steadfast resolve. Only through its reflection can Loki make out the choppy waves in the ocean below. He shivers despite himself and moves away from the window.

There’s not much else in the kitchen, so he goes back down the corridor through which he first came, returning to the little bedroom he awoke in to see if there was anything there he missed. There isn’t—the tiny room is just as barren as he remembers it. The ache in his chest is beginning to grow once more, and Loki sits down on the bed to rest a moment as he catches his breath and decides what to do next. He shivers again. Goodness, these old stone walls are so drafty, and here he is in nothing but his trousers. He had forgotten to ask Sigyn what she had done with his clothes. They certainly weren’t down here.

Come to think of it, there were several things that were missing from this level. There was no washroom anywhere to be found, and unless she had tucked him into her own bed to sleep off his injuries (a thought he finds too unsettling to accept as reality), she too must have a bedroom somewhere else in this tower. His thoughts return to the staircase—he had assumed it only went up to the light at the top of the spire, but perhaps it also led to a second level before that. It was a thought worth exploring. With a groan (his body seems reluctant to rise from the mattress), Loki pulls himself to his feet and hobbles back to the kitchen.

The spiraling staircase is steeper than he would have preferred, but Loki forces himself to ignore it. If he (seemingly) survived a sword to the chest, he can manage a few steps. By the time he comes to the second level he’s panting and out of breath, leaning against the wall for support, but he’s pleased to find that he was in fact correct in his assertion.

There’s a long hallway stretching before him, lit only by a flickering lantern dangling on the wall at its end. He can make out the outline of closed doors resting on either side. This is what he had intended to explore, but there’s another, far brighter light flickering above him, and Loki glances back up the spiraling staircase. Was it just his imagination, or did he hear a voice? His brow furrows. That hadn’t been Sigyn speaking—no, that had been a masculine sound. He thinks back to the pair of dishes in the cupboard, the pair of chairs resting on either side of the table.

There’s someone else here.

He can’t hear the voice anymore. Had he even heard it at all? Loki starts up the staircase again—perhaps if he gets closer, he’ll be able to better make out what is happening in this tower. The pain in his chest is almost masked by the rapid pounding of his heart.

To his horror, once he passes the second level, the spiral widens to be the full circumference of the tower. So many stairs. Loki peers up at the lantern room above him—the bright light makes it difficult to tell how high it is, but the staircase stretches nearly beyond his vision. He can make out the shadow of a person moving about the balcony, but if it’s Sigyn’s or another’s, he can’t tell. Loki gulps a breath and continues on.

Just a little farther, he tells himself, just so you can see better.

His head aches—it’s the flickering of the light, it’s straining his eyes and making his vision all spotty. He tries to ignore it, but then his chest sears in pain, so potent that for a moment everything goes white. With a soft cry, Loki leans against the stone wall. His hands are trembling.

It’s alright. It’s alright. He presses his back against the wall, trying to keep his legs from buckling under his weight. It’s alright. He just needs a moment to rest. His legs give out anyway, and he slides to the floor with a hard thump. The stairs are spinning. The whole tower is spinning. His chest is beyond just pain now, it burns, stinging with every heaving inhale he gasps.He gulps, but he can’t seem to find a breath.

“Loki?” The sound is one of shock and terror, and for a moment it pulls him free of his dizziness. Sigyn is standing a few steps above him; even silhouetted by the glow of the lighthouse, the look of horror on her face is clear as day. He’s barely processed the realization that she said his name before she does it again.

“Loki– oh Norns—” She rushes down the stairs to kneel in front of him, hands fluttering to his chest. He follows her frightened eyes and realizes dimly that his bandages have soaked through with blood. “Loki, I told you to stay—”

Loki tries to respond, but his tongue doesn’t seem to be working, and the words turn to mush in his mouth. Sigyn doesn’t seem to be looking for a reply anyways. She presses a hand to where his shoulder meets his neck, and for once the coolness of her skin feels pleasant against his—when did this tower become so unbearably hot? She’s murmuring something, words he can’t quite hear, but the pain in his chest is slowly melting to a dull ache, the fuzziness in his vision fading away. When she looks up at him again, he’s struck by how her brown eyes sparkle in the eerie light.

“Can you walk if you hold me?” she asks, and he can only nod, gripping her shoulder as she guides him with an arm around his torso back down the staircase. It’s slow work, but she’s gentle and steady, her earlier admonishments replaced with soft words of encouragement as he stumbles along.

He’s expecting her to take him back to his original room, but instead Sigyn leads him to the unexplored second level, and he’s grateful to not have to walk as far. The door on the right opens to a bedroom almost as threadbare as the first, although Loki does catch a glimpse of his tunic hanging on a clothesline to the side along with other various articles of laundry. He huffs a laugh to himself as she lays him down on the bed. At least that’s one mystery solved.

Sigyn wastes no time getting to work on his wound, cutting away the soiled bandages with a surgical precision and dabbing the blood with a damp rag. Loki watches in silence as she begins to redress the injury. He’s skilled enough in emergency care—after all, knowing such can mean life or death on the battlefield— but these are the movements of someone who’s been trained with far more proficiency.

She’s a healer.

Loki had already suspected as much, but this seems to be confirmation. However, that doesn’t explain everything.

“You know my name,” he says at last.

Sigyn jerks her head up. “What?”

“You called me Loki. I never told you my name.” He studies her with an exhausted sort of suspicion. She confuses him. There’s clearly much that she’s not divulging, but she seems so sincere in her actions. “Who are you, really?”

She inhales, her gaze planted firmly on his bandages. “I told you already. I’m Sigyn.”

Loki huffs. This woman is a terrible liar. “You also told me that you didn’t know me, and yet here we are.”

She bites her lip. “I never said that …”

“So you do know me?”

“It’s …” The bed creaks as she shifts her weight against it. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“How? It’s a yes or no question.” Loki jerks himself up into a sitting position with a grunt. She lets out a soft cry, but when she moves to push him back down he grabs her wrists and holds them still. He’s had enough of this.

“I don’t know you,” he growls. “Before today, I have never once seen your face. And yet you know me by name. Who are you?”

She’s squirming, still avoiding his gaze. “You’re going to hurt yourself again—”

“Tell me what’s going on here!”

A tense beat of silence passes, but then she sighs, her arms going limp. When she tries to pull away, Loki doesn’t stop her. There’s a shift in the air that tells him he’s won.

Sigyn walks over to the window, runs her hand down the dark fabric of the curtain as if in a trance. She stands there for several moments, immobile and silent. He’s wondering if she’s going to say anything at all when she turns back towards him, an anxious look on her face. “Do you … are you familiar with the concept of … alternate lives?

“The concept of – what?” Loki’s thoughts stutter – he’s not sure what he had been preparing for her to say, but that’s definitely not it.

“I mean – goodness, I’ve never explained this out loud before.” She lets out a nervous laugh and comes back to sit beside him on the bed. “I mean … you’re you,” she says, gesturing towards him, “as you are here today, because you made a series of specific choices, and the people in your life made a series of specific choices, and all the generations of people who came before you made a series of specific choices, and that all lead to you, with your specific set of experiences and feelings and beliefs. Yes?”

She’s looking directly at him, her gaze as intense as it is apprehensive, and Loki swallows. He almost wishes she would go back to being afraid to make eye contact. But he nods.

She studies him a moment, as if deciding whether to believe him. “But if any one of those choices were different,” she says finally, “If you did something different, or your parents did something different, or a person in the distant past you don’t even realize you’re connected to did something different—if anything changed—your life would look different to how it is now. Perhaps it would be a small change, or perhaps it would be such a drastic alteration that it doesn’t look remotely the same. Are you still following me?”

“I believe so …” Loki says, although his voice sounds less certain. He pauses for a moment. “It sounds like Skuld’s Net.”

He’s not sure if it’s a fair connection to make— the matrix-esque symbol is meant to represent the web of fate’s possibilities past, present, and future, but he is very aware that he’s grasping for something familiar to cling on to in this sea of strangeness.

But Sigyn’s eyes light up. “Yes, that’s a good way of thinking about it!” she exclaims. “So now, imagine if every different choice, every variation, every individual thread, exists in its own separate reality.” She interlocks her fingers together, then slowly pulls her hands apart to demonstrate.

Loki’s frowns. “But if that were true – if every infinitesimal difference created a different universe—” Norns, his head is spinning “—that would be impossible to quantify. There would be infinite possibilities.”

She gives a wane smile. “Precisely.”

He’s lost in thought for a while, grappling with her words. A separate reality for every individual thread. It’s too fantastic, too absolutely ridiculous, to be believed. And yet …

“And you mean to tell me that you knew me in an alternate universe?” he asks finally. “That’s what you’re trying to get at?”

“Oh!” Sigyn is clearly caught off guard by the question. She swallows, glancing up at the ceiling. It seems her eyes are misting over again. “A … a version of you, yes.”

Loki is quiet. Does he believe her? Can he believe her? He’s not sure himself.

“How?” His voice feels thick.

“What?”

“How did you know me? What was I to you?”

“You—” She’s definitely fighting tears now, furiously trying to blink them away. Her words come out strained. “My husband. You were my husband.”

Loki feels as though he’s been doused in cold water.

“What?” He can barely dislodge the sound from his throat.

Sigyn gives a jittery nod. “Yes. I, uh –” She reaches under her collar to pull out an oval locket on a gold chain—it’s an Asgardian style, a trinket he remembers as being a popular gift between courting lovers after their first solstice together. Sigyn unlatches the mechanism to open it. It projects a holographic image in her hand, soft and warm in the dismal shadows of the candlelit room. Loki’s heart stops.

It’s him, unmistakably him, gentle curls resting against his shoulders as he beams down at the woman he’s cradling against his chest—Sigyn, he realizes dimly, although it takes a moment to recognize her smiling visage, lively and joyful in a way that seems lost to the haggard woman who sits across from him. Loki stares, unable to take his eyes off of it. It’s me. His chest feels empty. His hologram’s face is crinkled with a jubilance that Loki’s not sure he’s ever experienced in his life. Sigyn watches the projection in silence for a moment before clicking the locket closed once more. She looks over at him, waiting for him to speak. His mouth has gone quite dry.

Loki doesn’t know what to say. He can’t meet her gaze. He swallows. “How did we meet?” he croaks at last. “Or … you and him, how did you meet?”

She lets out a soft little breath—surprise, perhaps? Or was she upset? “I was a novice, in the healing ward. You – him – he was always getting into trouble, always needing something patched up … we just got to talking a lot.” Her voice is drifting away, into something lighter, dreamier, and she lets out a small giggle. “There was this one time, on Alfheim, you took an arrow to the shoulder—it had been dipped in something, so healing spells didn’t work properly, and we had to give you a sedative for the pain, and you completely out of it, just saying the most ridiculous things—”

“Hold on—” Loki reaches out without knowing what he’s reaching for. Alfheim … shoulder … poisoned arrow … Words and images click together in his mind, leaving behind only confusion. Is this what it’s like to go insane? “I remember that – happening to me, I mean.” He gulps a breath. “Thor had gotten into a row with an Elven militia … you weren’t there, though. Eir handled it …”

Sigyn hums—it’s a soft noise, with only just a hint of sadness. “That makes sense. I … I don’t think I exist in your universe.”

He furrows his brow. “How’s that?”

“I don’t know. The circumstances necessary for my birth just didn’t happen.” She shrugs. Her smile seems tired. “Infinite possibilities, remember.”

Infinite possibilities … He’s struck by a sudden thought. “Is my mother alive in your universe?”

“Frigga?” Sigyn sounds surprised. “Yes, of course – or at least she was when I was there.” She lets out an awkward laugh. “I’ve not exactly kept up with current events since landing here.”

Loki stares into space. He feels rather like he’s falling again. There’s a world where she’s alive. Where I’m happily married. Where everything is different. What is reality anymore? Does any of it matter? Is any of this real?

Sigyn reaches forward, resting a cautious hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry – I know this is a lot to take in, all at once. I really didn’t want to just drop it on you—”

“How do you know all this?” he interrupts. “With the different universes, and all the rest? Is this common knowledge in your world?”

“Oh …”  she stutters, glancing away again. “Well … no, not exactly. I … I sort of stumbled into that knowledge on my own.”

His suspicions are roused again instantly. “What does that mean?”

“I was …” Sigyn gulps. “I was studying. I was looking for something else, a different kind of magic, and I … I inadvertently discovered all this.” She motions distractedly to the air, and it reminds Loki of their surroundings.

“Is that how you ended up here?” he asks. “Because of your studies?”

“Essentially …” her smile seems anxious, uncomfortable. “I … I disrupted things.”

“What things?”

Sigyn stands abruptly. “It’s … it’s probably better if we don’t talk about it.”

“Why?” Loki stands too, perhaps a bit too fast given the ache in his temples, but he ignores it in favor of maintaining his questioning glare. “Don’t I deserve to know? As your husband?”

She flinches, and he can’t help but feel a bit guilty—he didn’t mean to sound so mocking. But he pushes the thought from his mind. Remember the voice in the lighthouse tower. There are things she’s not telling you.

“What if you get dressed first?” she asks finally. “Get dressed and eat something? Then we can talk more.”

It’s tempting to refuse, to insist that he will not be moved until every secret has been revealed to him, but her words make it difficult to ignore the chill running down his spine.

“Very well,” he relents.

…

Loki never would have expected dinner in a land between life and death to be so delicious.

“What did you call this again?” he asks as he scrapes the last bits of tartly sweet scarlet sauce from the plate. When they had sat down to eat, he had insisted that Sigyn eat a bit from both plates first, to alleviate his instinct to expect poisoning (she had done so without arguing, a slight amusement on her lips, and he found himself wondering if his interdimensional counterpart was similarly prone to suspicion), but now he was almost sorry that he had given up even the smallest portion.

“Kompe with lingonberry compote.” Sigyn grins at him from across the table—it’s the first time he’s seen her truly smile, and he has to admit, there’s something endearing to the sight. “Have you not had it before?”

“I don’t think so.” He licks his lips, chasing a final taste of compote. “I feel I’d remember if I had.”

“In my universe, it was your favorite.” She’s still smiling, but it’s fading into something dreamier, more reflective. “I actually learned to make it because you liked it so much. I surprised you with it once.”

Loki sits back in his seat, gaze drifting to the covered window. It’s strange—how she knows him without actually knowing him, how she has all this history with him, and yet simultaneously not with him. It’s a bit like talking to an omniscient being. He wonders what his interdimensional counterpart is doing right now.

“So we’re very similar, I presume?” he says. “Him and I?”

Sigyn is quiet as she clears the table of dishes. “Yes. It’s … it’s a bit uncanny, to be honest.” She huffs a fond laugh to herself. “He was about as terrible at following my medical advice as you are—never wanted to stay still.” Smirking, she adds, “I threatened to tie him to the bed once.”

“Oh.” How am I supposed to respond to that? “… did you?”

She seems to realize all at once what it was she just said, and her cheeks flush crimson red. “Oh goodness, no, not – no, definitely not.”

He chuckles at her awkwardness, but this train of thought leads another sudden station, and he goes quiet for a moment. “Did … did you and him, did you have children?”

Goodness, what a strange thought. Somehow Loki has never been able to picture himself as a father—even when he was younger, before he knew the truth of his existence, when he thought he would have to produce heirs like any normal prince might, the idea felt like something that would happen to a faceless stranger in some sterile future that didn’t belong to him. Knowing what he knows now, it’s a relief he never had the chance to pass his biological baggage on to an unsuspecting child.

Sigyn places the dishes into the washbasin with a soft sigh. “No … we had been talking about it though.” She pauses. “You—he was nervous. Which was fair—I was nervous too. But I think it would have worked out.” She smiles fondly. “Your poor mother—she never wanted to push, but she was so eager for grandchildren, and with Thor off traveling most of the time she had basically given up on any from him—”

“Thor traveling?” Loki interrupts, frowning. “How’s that?” He can’t imagine a world where Odin would take lightly to his firstborn spending most of the time away from the realm.

“Oh yes, he had a huge falling out with your father several years back.” She leans back with a huff as she recounts the tale. “Odin banished him to Midgard, then changed his mind and said he could come back but Thor was too stubborn to return unless Odin said that Thor had been right all along, and Odin was too stubborn to ever do that, and it just turned into a whole mess.” Sigyn turns back towards him, her brow furrowed slightly at the memory. “It was hard. You got caught up in the middle of it all, trying to be the mediator, and it was just overwhelming.”

 “Huh.” Loki’s head feels a bit odd. “Something similar happened in my world but … but that’s not how it ended at all.” He shivers, but for once it has nothing to with the cold. He can feel Sigyn’s quizzical eyes on him, and so he clears his throat before she has the chance to question him further. “If Thor’s not there, then does that make me the crown prince?”

“Oh no, that’s Hela. The crown princess, I mean.” She’s turned back to the washbasin, so she doesn’t see the look of utter confusion on Loki’s face.

“Who?”

“Hela. Odin’s firstborn.” Sigyn glances back, eyes widening. “Does she not exist for you either?”

“I—” Loki’s voice doesn’t seem to be working properly. “She – he – Odin has another child?”

Sigyn nods, leaning against the counter. “At least for us. She was his first wife’s daughter. She’s quite a bit older than you and Thor – I don’t think you and her were ever particularly close.” She lets out an anxious huff of a laugh. “She always rather frightened me, to be honest.”

“Goodness …” is all Loki can manage.

Sigyn looks thoughtful as she dries the plates and puts them away. “I’m really surprised she’s not in your timeline,” she says. “I would have thought – because I don’t think yours is that different to mine? – but I suppose so.”

“Yes …” Despite everything—the overwhelming, mindboggling cascade of sudden information—Loki finds himself chuckling. “It seems my version received the short end of the stick. I don’t have you, I don’t have Hela, and I don’t have kompe.”

Leaning back against the counter, Sigyn cackles. “The most painful loss of them all!” She cocks her head to the side, still laughing. “Norns, do you not have harvest festivals? That’s always one of the main dishes for us!”

“Oh, we do—in fact I think we may serve every possible dish at them except for kompe.” He shakes his head, grinning. It feels good to laugh. “Although usually the food comes second to the mead. I remember once I was dancing with a young lady who had had far too much to drink, and she ended up losing the contents of her stomach all down my front.”

He’s not sure where the memory comes from, why it’s bubbling to his mind now. He hadn’t thought of it in years but … Norns, that seems a lifetime ago. He had been so young, a boy still, his hand trembling as he held his hand out to her—it had been the first time he had found the courage to ask a girl to dance. Funny how he can’t remember her name now, or even her face. No, when he thinks of her, all he can remember is standing frozen on the dance floor, dripping in vomit, as somewhere to the side Thor howled with such laughter that he nearly made himself sick as well.

Sigyn looks absolutely horrified. “Oh goodness, that’s terrible!” she cries with wide eyes. “Was she alright? Were you?”

Her concern is a baffling thing. “Oh yes, we were both fine,” Loki says slowly. “She was very embarrassed, if I remember correctly. And I was uninjured—I just needed to change.” He chuckles dryly. “Needless to say, it put me off dancing for a bit.”

“Not permanently, I hope?” There’s a sadness to her that he doesn’t quite understand. “Do you not care for it still?”

“I’m not sure I would say that.” Loki shrugs. “I never had any particular talent for it to begin with. And I was never a very coveted partner.”

“Really?” Sigyn bites her lip, crestfallen. “I remember you dancing so beautifully in my universe. The first time you asked – I felt so unworthy of your hand. I remember the other ladies were quite jealous.”

Jealous. He snorts at the very idea. “I’m afraid we’ve stumbled on to another interdimensional difference.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you say …” Her hesitation is a palpable thing, hovering by the counter as she gazes back at him with unsure eyes. “I’d love to dance with you.”

“What?”

“I’d love to dance with you.” As if to emphasize, she crosses the room and offers him her hand. “Now, even, if you’d like.”

He stares at her hand, unsure how to respond. Is she joking? She must be …

“I appreciate it, but …” he glances up at her. “I’m not your husband.”

Sigyn inhales softly but doesn’t move. “I know,” she says. “I’m not asking my husband.”

Loki raises his eyebrows. Norns, she’s serious. “There’s no music,” he says cautiously.

“We don’t need music.” Her smile is affectionate. “I want to give you a nice dance.”

He huffs. This is absolutely ridiculous, and yet … there’s something almost comforting about the way her fingers close around his when he takes her hand. Sigyn grins as she pulls him to his feet.

“You know how to waltz, don’t you?”

Loki smirks. “I did at one point, at least.” His free hand comes to rest on her hip, some long dormant instinct flickering back to life. She’s the right size to dance with, he thinks suddenly. She fits perfectly into his arms. It’s an odd feeling.

Sigyn reaches out to stroke a loose bit of hair from his face, her fingers lingering on his cheek for a moment before placing her hand on his shoulder. “Think you can follow my lead?”

He inhales. “I’ll do my best.”

It’s hardly a proper waltz—there’s not enough room in the small kitchen for a full dance floor, it’s hard to keep a rhythm without any sort of music, and besides, he’s woefully out of practice, but … there’s something freeing about it. They stumble about the room, Sigyn giggling as she tries to count out the beats as he bumps into the chair again, chuckling through his apologies – “You’re doing fine, just keep going, just like this—”

He smirks. “Still think you’d be jealous of my partner?”

She laughs. “Immensely so.”

He bumps her arm as he tries to twirl her and makes a face. “See, I told you—”

“No, no, you’re doing wonderfully, just like this—” Sigyn tries to spin around, but trips and nearly loses her balance. Loki grabs at her in an attempt to hold her steady, but any semblance of balance has been lost and they both go stumbling into the counter, giggling hysterically.

“Oh goodness!” She manages to gasp between fits of laughter, reaching for his chest. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

He shakes his head, bracing himself against the countertop as he tries to catch his breath. “Are you sure all the ladies wanted to dance with me, darling?” he teases. “Perhaps it was you they coveted, with your unique dancing techniques.”

Sigyn collapses into giggles again. “No, I swear, I—”

But she’s cut off by a somber tolling from the corner, rattling the window beneath its cover. Through the course of the after-dinner pleasantries, Loki had forgotten the faceless grandfather clock, forgotten the flickering tower room above them, forgotten everything he had aimed to uncover. How had he let himself become so thoroughly distracted? He glances at his dance partner, who has gone very still beside the counter. The room seems to have dropped in temperature.

“What does that indicate?”

“It …” Sigyn inhales. She looks quite pale. “It means I have to tend to the light.”

“And that means?” When she doesn’t answer, he huffs in irritation. “I want to go with you.”

She shakes her head. “No … no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Again, she’s silent, staring up at the heavy darkness of the staircase. Loki grips her arm, and she flinches. “You promised to tell me everything, remember?”

“I … it’s too many steps. You’ll reopen your wound again.” She won’t look directly at him, not even to try to free herself from his grasp.

“What is up there that you don’t want me to see?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that, it’s just – it’s best if you stay down here.” There’s a desperate tinge to her voice. “Please, just believe me—”

“Why should I?” he snaps. “What are you hiding from me?”

“I’m not hiding anything, I swear—”

He lets out a puff of air, lets go of her arm. This is getting him nowhere. “I suppose I’ll have to see for myself.”

Her eyes widen. “No—Loki—” She’s grabbing at him, but he brushes her off as easily as a fly and heads towards the staircase. Her pleas are frantic, wild behind him, but he doesn’t turn. She won’t look at him, why should he look at her? “Loki please, just listen to me—” All at once, her voice hardens. “Loki, STOP.”

And then the world goes black.

…

He comes to gradually, the flickering candlelight seeping back through the corners of his vision. Something doesn’t feel right – it’s as if he’s floating. His limbs are numb.

Where am I?

 Loki blinks groggily, taking in his surroundings. Stone walls, plush mattress, modest nightstand … didn’t this happen already? He blinks again. No, he’s not dreaming – he’s back in his original bedroom, the one he woke up in earlier. How did he get here? Images and words come trickling back through his mind, memories of the dance, the clock, the staircase …

She used seidr.

His gaze darkens. Of course she had—how could he have been such a fool to think she wouldn’t? He had known she was capable of it, known that she was hiding something, and yet somehow she had managed to bat her pretty little eyelashes and fill his head with stories of an alternate world – imbecile, he hisses under his breath as he rushes to the door. He knows better than this. He is better than this.

The door is locked tight. Of course it is. She isn’t pretending he’s anything but her prisoner anymore. He bangs with his fists, yelling at her to open it, but there’s no answer. Letting out a frustrated howl, he slams the door with his side. Pain explodes across his shoulder. The wood bends but doesn’t break. Loki huffs. So, she didn’t seal it with magic. An odd choice, but one that would work to his benefit. Still, there must be a better way to go about doing this. He glances around the room for something to use as a battering ram.

His eyes land on the nightstand.

A resounding crash later, and Loki is storming down the hall into the kitchen. He hasn’t much of a plan – finding Sigyn is the goal, but what is he going to do when he does? Force her to reveal her secrets to him? Yes, because that worked so well last time. He grimaces, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. At least this time he’s prepared for her tricks.

But it all comes to nothing, because the kitchen is empty – their dinner dishes still untouched on the counter where she had left them. The grandfather clock looms menacingly in the corner. Loki bites his lip, staring at its faceless visage.

How much time has passed since he lost consciousness? He has no way of knowing. Still, he thinks, his gaze drifting to the shrouded staircase, it’s no mystery as to where she’s gone.

The steps seem less steep this time – perhaps it’s the adrenaline pounding in his ears, or perhaps Sigyn’s talent for healing is really that incredible, but he passes the second level far more quickly this time, climbing into the tower without skipping a beat.

The lighthouse chamber is just as eerie as he remembers it, the flickering lantern casting shadows that dance on the stone walls like spindly spider creatures. There’s another shadow too, a figure moving methodically around the light at the top. Sigyn? Or perhaps someone else? Loki slows his pace as he nears the top to hide his approach.

There’s that voice again—Loki cranes his ears to try to make out what he’s saying, but the words escape him. There’s something familiar to it, something he can’t quite place. Is that … are there multiple voices? He frowns. Yes, there’s definitely more than one person speaking, and not in unison—they’re all talking over each other, yelling over each other, goodness, how had he not heard this before? How had he not heard this panic? It’s clearer and clearer as he climbs closer to the top. Someone, multiple someones, are being tortured. His heart jumps to his throat.

Some of them are breathless, gasping, shaky voices weak with injury as they struggle to gulp a last bit of air.

Some of them are calling out, begging, wailing, howling in pain and screaming for help, piercing shrieks that make his hair stand on end.

Some are just screaming.

What is she doing to them?

Sigyn is up there—he can barely make out the sound of her footsteps on the wooden platform through the sounds of agony. Loki kneels on the steps just beneath, hidden out of sight. His knees are shaking. Because there’s something else. Something lingering in the back of his mind, something that’s been there ever the first time he entered this chamber but that he hadn’t been able to recognize, didn’t want to recognize—he presses his palms to the step in front of him, as familiar words break through the cacophony

“I’ll tell Father what you did here today.”

“I didn’t do it for him.”

It’s him.

It’s all him.

All of the voices, all of the pain, all of the horror, it’s all him.

Loki feels as though he’s going to be sick.

He’s not what he’s expecting to see when he stands. The light burns his retinas but he doesn’t waver in his gaze. It’s white, whiter than anything he’s ever seen in his life, searing deep into his skull, but the more he looks, the more he sees the flashing images flickering past his vision. It’s him—they’re all him—different versions of himself that he’s never seen before, drowning, dying, bleeding out in a prison cell, chests crushed, limbs broken, lips shown shut, all strangers to him except one, a gray body on a gray planet, fading away in his brother’s arms …

He doesn’t see Sigyn until she’s practically upon him, grabbing his wrist and yanking him back down into the staircase. He’s too stunned to fight back.

“I didn’t want you to have to see it,” she whispers hoarsely. She’s crying, he realizes suddenly, her eyes puffy and red. “It’s bad enough for me, I didn’t – I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for you—”

Loki gulps, a great heaving gasp as he collapses against the wall. His cheeks are wet – it seems he’s been crying too. “Why – what is it? What are they?”

“Different timelines. Things that have happened, or are happening, or have yet to happen.” Another Loki shriek breaks through the air, and she shudders. “We should go back downstairs.”

“No—” Loki grabs her wrist. As desperately as he wants to leave this place and never come back, he can’t let her avoid her explanations any longer. “Why are they here? What is this place?”

Sigyn swallows, and another tear drips down her cheek. “They’re connected to the light,” she says at last. “You are too—every Loki is. I have to keep the light burning, or else—” her voice breaks. “Please, can we go downstairs?”

He doesn’t let go. “Or else what?”

She draws a shaky breath. Her voice is barely audible. “Or else you’re all erased.”

Erased. The word hits him like a bucket of cold water. His whole existence, every version of his existence, dependent on the burning of this lantern … He stares at her with wide eyes. “Why?”

“It’s … it’s my fault.” Sigyn is trembling, pressing a hand to her eyes as if to block the tears from coming. “The Norns had to do it, to keep everything stable. They made the light show the worst parts of every timeline. They know—” she hiccups a sob “—they know with those stakes I’d never let it go out.”

There’s something in her eyes, something grey and dead that Loki hasn’t seen before. All at once, he realizes the truth.

“This is a punishment. It has nothing to do with me—it’s your own personal agony.” He’s confused – the Norns do not act as judge and jury, nor do they interfere with the lives of those beneath them. To earn their ire … “What did you do?”

“I … I messed with things I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t trying to, I just … I thought I could—” she inhales again, barely suppressing another sob. “I ripped through reality. Destroyed … several timelines. Once it started, I couldn’t stop it.” She lets out a sigh. “So they put me here. To control me. Connected all the universes to fix what I had done, and left me here to tend to it.”

“Oh …” He believes her – there’s a truth in her face that he hasn’t seen before – but he still doesn’t quite understand. “But … what of your universe? Surely it would be changed by the loss of you? Your Loki, is he not affected?”

“He isn’t. He can’t be.” Her tone is uncharacteristically short. It catches him off guard. “He – he’s gone. My Loki, he’s gone.”

“Gone—” Oh. Loki inhales. All at once, the pieces click into place. Her protective urges towards him, the soft air of sadness that always seems to follow her … Loki’s chest is aching, but it has nothing to do with his wound.

Sigyn continues in halting sentences. “That’s why … I thought – I thought I could save him. Reverse time, start it over again, stop it from happening … Because I couldn’t … without him, I couldn’t—” She gulps a shuddering breath, as if shaking away the memory. “But I couldn’t. I just ended up breaking everything. And the Norns put me here. They made it especially for me.” She laughs, but it’s a humorless sound, broken and bitter. “Keeps me out of trouble, and reminds me … reminds me of what I lost.”

“What you lost?” Loki’s voice is soft.

Sigyn laughs again, tears freely streaming down her face now. “There’s two of everything. They made sure of it—two plates, two chairs, two bedrooms. But it’s just me. It’s only ever just me …” she gulps, then nods in the direction of the great lantern. “Then there’s that … I see every version of you, every awful thing that’s happened to you, all of it, every time I come up these steps. I have to look—” her voice breaks. “I have to watch it all, I have to keep the light going, I can’t lose any more of you—”

She looks up at him, her eyes wide and desperate. “I wasn’t trying to pull you here.” Her voice is thick with emotion. “I really wasn’t. I didn’t think it was possible. I just saw you, on Svartalfheim, drifting away … you weren’t dead yet, but you were so close, and I, I just – I’m so lonely—”

And then she collapses in on herself, shaking with the weight of centuries-old sobs. Loki gingerly reaches towards her – this feels like something private, something not meant for his eyes, but once he touches her she melts into his arms, clinging to him like a life raft as she bawls into his chest. It’s a bit unnerving – he’s never been one skilled at providing comfort. But he holds her firmly, cradling her head against his tunic, and it must be right because she tightens her grip, and it’s just the two of them, two broken souls alone together in a broken world.

“It’s alright,” he hears himself whisper, so low he’s not sure she can even hear him. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

…

The first thing he notices when he opens his eyes is the dust.

Svartalfheim is as dark and barren as he left it, the dirt like ash beneath his fingers as he stretches and twitches, feeling slowly returning to his extremities. His armor is still stained with blood, but the wound beneath has vanished. He’s alone – Sigyn had told him he’d be alone.

“Thor and Jane go off to find a way off world,” she had said. “They think you’re dead, and they can’t afford to take your body with them.” She didn’t know what happened to them after. The light only shows her him.

They had decided to spend one last meal together – she knew that if she didn’t send him back, it wouldn’t be long before someone came to force him to return, but they wanted to take their time with it. She made kompe once more, since he wouldn’t get to taste it again.

“What were you going to do if I hadn’t found out?” he asked her. “Surely you didn’t expect to keep me here forever.”

Sigyn had sighed. She seemed to have aged a century since their moment in the tower, but there was something beautiful to it – an invisible tension that had melted away. “No … I didn’t really have a plan. I just … I didn’t want to lose you again.”

She wasn’t sure what he would remember when he awoke in his own world once more. Would it be as though no time had passed? Would the lighthouse seem like a hazy dream? “That might be for the best, honestly,” she said with a slight smile. “You won’t have anything to grapple with.”

“Perhaps,” he had hummed, but secretly he hoped she was wrong. He didn’t want to forget.

Waking up on the dark planet’s blood splattered soil, Loki’s relieved to find he still can picture her sparkling brown eyes clear as day.

They had danced, too, one last time before he entered into the light. “We can’t let whatever happened with that first one be our dancing legacy,” he had teased. Sigyn laughed and took his hand.

He wondered about her, as they swept across the room in perfect harmony. Perhaps there’s a reason no one else had ever clicked, no one else fit into his arms like the final piece to his puzzle. Maybe she was right – maybe his Sigyn doesn’t exist, through some cruel twist of fate he had no say in. Or maybe she is out there, somewhere in the world, waiting for something she doesn’t realize she’s been waiting for, just as he’s been his whole life. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but perhaps not.

He had kissed her hand at the end, when they were saying goodbye – it was a gesture that might have seemed oddly formal, but he wasn’t sure how to put his cocktail of emotion into words. Her eyes misted up.

“Thank you,” he had whispered – for the food, for the healing, for keeping him alive in a way he couldn’t put into words. It was a meager thanks, but she seemed to understand. She stroked his cheek with cold fingertips.

“No … thank you,” she whispered back. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

And I you.

Loki sighs, sits up. There’s an emptiness in his chest, but he exhales it away. His stint at death has lasted long enough.

Now, it’s time to live.

[antigone-ks]

Lantern of Evil, Chapter Eight

MARVEL MASTERLIST

CHAPTER SEVEN

Chapter Eight: And the Leaves that Are Green Turn to Brown

And the leaves that are green turn to brown/

And they wither with the wind/

And they crumble in your hand.

____________________

For the first time, Steve curses the decision to group the team’s suites around a common area. He thinks it might be possible, on a Saturday night, for most of the others to be busy – Sam and Bucky and maybe Rhodey gone to the city, or Bucky and Nat out on a date, Wanda and Vision being uncomfortably . . . whatever they were, there was definitely something going on there, but Wanda’s like a kid sister and it doesn’t bear thinking about. But it was just as likely that they’d be piled onto the giant sofas watching a game, or a movie that half of them would complain about, or blatantly cheating at poker (Nat’s never been caught cheating, which is how they all know she’s doing it). Once he walked in on Natasha brushing Wanda’s hair, with this look on her face that was so soft and wistful. He still thinks about it, sometimes. Nat would smother him in his sleep if she knew.

He’s moderately lucky, he thinks, because only Nat and Sam and Bucky are there tonight. And deeply unlucky, because literally any other combination might have let him walk on by.

There’s no point sneaking, so he puts as much authority into his stride as he can manage.

“Hey, Tiger.”

Oh, goddammit Nat.

“You’re back early.” Bucky sits up from his spot on the couch.

“Too early for the walk of shame.” Sam’s in the kitchen area, fiddling with the popcorn maker. He winks at Steve. “You like the dress? That was a great dress.”

“Dress like that shoulda kept you out all night, punk.”

“How’d you know what her dress – you know what, never mind. Good night.” Steve hunches his shoulders and stalks down the hallway toward his suite. He has a brief moment of irrational rage at the door – sliding, hydraulic – and his inability to slam it.

There’s whiskey in his suite, a good brand, too nice to waste drinking himself blind. He pours two fingers and bolts it, then refills the glass.

“Used to be you’d choke on a drink like that.” The traitorous door slides shut silently behind Bucky.

“Used to be we’d get rubbing alcohol mixed with caramel and call it whiskey,” Steve retorts, emptying the second glass and refilling it again, warmth already spreading through him. Used to be even Thor's mead didn't work this fast, he grouses to himself. Wish I had it now. Wish I could drink myself stupid. Stupider.

Bucky laughs. “God, it’s a wonder we lived past fifteen. You remember that time you puked till you bled?“

“Behind the Pyramid? You acted like I was gonna die.” He pours a glass for Bucky, who takes it appreciatively.

“I thought you were dying. And I sent Walter . . . god, what was his name? I sent him to get Father Corby to your place for the last rites, and then I carried you home, and your ma . . . Stevie, I swear she was seven feet tall when she got mad.” Bucky crosses himself fervently.

“And they both put the fear of God into us.” Steve chuckles, a reluctant smile crossing his face. His ma, God rest her, was gentle as a dove – but not when her boy was acting stupid.

“It worked, too,” Bucky says vehemently.

“You’re damned right it worked. I didn’t touch a drop for years, not til that party at Kathy Bock’s place, you remember, she was doing those deco paintings for that hotel, and she had them all over the place?”

“You were sweet on her.”

“For all the good it did me.” And that brings him back to his present trouble. He stares into his glass, knowing he shouldn’t drink it. He does anyway.

Bucky takes the glass from him and sets it in the little kitchenette sink. “Didn’t work out like you planned, huh?”

Steve groans and flops face-first onto the sofa, the whiskey hitting his bloodstream hard. He’d forgotten what this felt like. “I told her the truth. She didn’t believe me.”

“Did you wait to tell her until the worst possible time? Like when you were naked?”

“Aw geez, Buck.” Steve lifts his head on a neck going noodly, and glares at Bucky.

Bucky stares at him, eyebrow raised. “Well?”

“We weren’t naked.”

“Were you or were you not in the process of becoming naked? Was nakedness imminent?” Another glare. Bucky sighs. “Worst possible time.”

“She called me Grant.”

“You told her to.”

“Had my hands on her . . . you know, well I had them close to her y’knows. And she said she loved me, and then she called me Grant.” He lays back down, flat on the sofa, his face pressed against the cushions. “And now she hates me.”

“Doubt it.”

“Thinks I was just tryin’ to make it with her.”

“Well then she ain’t smart enough for you, Stevie. Write her off. You tried, you failed, move on to the next one.”

Steve’s voice is muffled in the cushions. Bucky grabs a fistful of hair, more or less gently, and turns his face to the side. “What was that?”

“Won’t be a next one. She’s it, Buck. She’s the only one.”

“Stevie, if you start cryin’ I swear to God . . .”

Outraged, Steve manages to roll over and sit up. “’M not cryin’, you jerk.” He’s silent for a minute, staring at his hands. “She loved me like this, Bucky. She looked at me, looked at this, and decided she loved me. She didn’t love Cap. She didn’t fall for the big guy with the muscles and the household name. She saw who I really am and loved that.”

The room is quiet. Bucky rocks on his heels, shoves his hands in his pockets, takes them out and puts them on his hips, pretending not to notice as Steve scrubs at his face.

“You love her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I love her.”

“Alright.” Bucky puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder, gives it a squeeze. “Okay, lemme talk to Sam.” He grins, and Steve finds himself relaxing. “Between the two of us, we know how to handle dames.”

“Aw, Buck.” Steve slaps Bucky’s hand away and flops back down.

“No, we got this. It’ll work. We got your back.” Bucky heads for the door, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“Hey, Buck?” Bucky pauses at the door and looks back, eyebrow raised. “You ever make time with Millie Finch?”

“Jesus, Stevie.”

***

The flowers were starting to wilt, but you weren’t ready to toss them out yet. They’d arrived the morning after that disastrous night, a delicate blue and white bouquet in a pretty glass vase: purple hyacinths and blue violets, with a smattering of almond blossoms throughout.

There was no note, only a drawing folded up small and tucked into the little envelope where a note ought to go. You’d almost thrown it out in a rage, when you’d first unfolded it.

He’d drawn your hands. He’d drawn your hands, intertwined.

Hands are the hardest, he said.

You know they’re your hands, yours and something like his. One hand is small and soft, the fingers shorter, the nails a little longer, dimpled and plump and marked exactly as yours are. You carry it into the kitchen, to the trash bin, and catch sight of your own hand and those marks and those dimples, and wonder how many times he’d looked at your hands to know them so well.

(It’s your right hand, the one he held most often, the one he kissed when you called him sweet. The one he held against his chest on the bridge when he told you . . . when he lied to you the first time. Or maybe not the first time. Maybe everything was a lie.)

The other hand is wrong.

It’s a little too big, fingers not quite as slender. Just barely too much meat at the ball of the thumb, wrist too thick. You know Grant’s hands. You know how they look holding a pencil, holding a steering wheel, holding a fork. Holding your hand. Reaching toward your face. You know the tops of his hands, when they’re shoved into pockets. You know the tips of his fingers.

How does he not know his own hands as well as he knows yours? Does he imagine this too-large hand is his?

It’s Captain America’s hand, obvi. Maybe he is . . . maybe he actually is out of his mind. I mean, he’d have to be to obsess over your fat little hands.

Purple hyacinths, blue violets, almond blossoms, and a picture-perfect drawing of your hand holding someone else’s.

You folded it back up and left it on the counter by the trash. You could walk by and just knock it in without thinking, one of these days. If you felt like it.

You just haven’t felt like it. Just like you don’t feel like trashing the flowers.

You’d recognized the violets and hyacinths, but the white blossoms on the slender branches were unknown to you, so you’d snapped a picture and sent it to the florist. The next day you’d sent another message asking if this was a standard bouquet. It was not, they said. Almond blossoms were very hard to come by in the fall, they said.

You’d held off for another hour before looking them up.

Purple hyacinths for sorrow. He could have just left it there, because god knew he ought to be sorry.

But then blue violets for faithfulness, almond blossoms for hope, and how dare he.

No call, no text, just a bouquet of lies and a drawing of the wrong hands and how dare he. What did he expect out of this? Were you supposed to call him? “Oh hi, got the flowers, I totally forgive you toying with me for months and then ending it with a bizarre and humiliating lie; want to get lunch?”

What the fuck, Grant?

You almost threw it all away right then. But the flowers smelled nice, and looked pretty on the table. That’s it; that’s the only reason. Certainly not any lingering feelings for the man who sent them. Certainly not out of hope that he might call, might come by, and explain all of this in a way that made sense.

And now they’ve wilted til the petals have gone crunchy (like my heart, your brain sighs melodramatically at you), and you’ve thrown yourself into work and are avoiding Kate and Lila like the plague, in case they ask any more questions.

(“Soooo . . .” Lila draped herself across the microfiche reader, the Tuesday after the dance. “Haven’t seen you in a couple of days.”

“I come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays; you know that,” you muttered, fiddling with the dials, looking for the article you wanted.

“Yeah, so this is my first chance to ask you!” You kept scrolling and ignoring her. “Did he get fresh? Please tell me he did. He’s good at it, right? I bet he puts a lot of effort into it.”

“He . . . yeah, he did,” you squint at the screen, trying to will away the pounding in your head. “We had a nice time, and that’s all I’m going to say. Ladies,” you said haughtily, “don’t kiss and tell.”)

The work is going faster, now that you have no distractions. You’re on track to finish by early spring; you could leave then, ahead of schedule, and be done with this whole town.

You’re thinking about that one Thursday morning a couple of weeks later, debating the merits of getting the hell out of Dodge with your crusty broken heart, versus riding out the fellowship, when Lila tells you there’s a man at the front desk who needs help with the fussy microfiche.

“I think it’s the Falcon,” she says, leaning in confidentially. You look confused. “Sam Wilson, the Falcon? We see him around town from time to time.”

“The Avengers just come into town and like – just walk around?”

“I mean, even heroes need to socialize,” she says. “I had dinner next to the Black Widow and War Machine once. She was . . .” Lila sucks her teeth and pats her heart, “so fine. Used to see Captain America every now and then, but he hasn’t been spotted in a while. Probably busy helping old ladies cross the street up in Esopus.”

what

the

shit

He’s leaning on the desk when you walk up, tall, dark, and handsome, and flashes an amazing smile at you. “How you doing?” he asks, in a familiar voice. Your mind races. Where . . . “How’d that dress work for you?”

Oh. Oh, no no no don’t you dare start crying it’s been weeks for god’s sake.

“Hey, oh no, I’m sorry,” He reaches across the desk and hurriedly snatches a couple of Kleenex from the box. You take them and turn away, wiping your eyes.

“That . . . is not how I hoped this would go.”

You whip around, eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

He holds up his hands and takes a step back. “Peace. I just came to check on you.”

“How the . . . who are . . .” an awful thought crosses your mind. “Did Grant or, or whoever he is today send you?”

“That man would kick me off a roof if he knew I was bothering you. Look,” he held out a hand. In a daze, you shook it. “My name’s Sam Wilson, and I’m here ‘cause I think you might have some questions.” He shrugs. “And the rest of my team think like assassins and super soldiers, so I’m the closest thing you’ll get to a regular person.”

You blanch at the word ‘assassin,’ and barely register ‘super soldier.’ Your eyes focus on the badge he’s holding up as proof, an Avengers facility ID – one that looks just like the example on the ‘Valid IDs’ board for researchers. “Sam Wilson? Like, definitely Sam Wilson? Like actually the Falcon? Like the Avengers, Falcon, Sam Wilson.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s get you set down real quick.” He helps you into a chair and kneels in front of you. “Put your head between your knees and count with me. That’s it, honey.” He squeezes your hands and directs you to squeeze him back as you breathe together.

“Tell me five things you see,” he says after a minute or so, and you jerk your hands away and sit up straight.

“I’m not having a panic attack; I’m having an extremely rational reaction to meeting a superhero at a nerd museum.”

“All museums are nerd museums,” he laughs, and stands up. “Sorry, the locals are so used to us by now; I didn’t even think about it.”

You glare at him through glassy, red-rimmed eyes. He smiles again, and holds out his hand. “Let’s do lunch.”

“You gotta try the one with the bacon-tomato jam,” Sam informs you. “It’s got a truffle aioli.”

You shrug, looking at the menu. “Truffle is so trendy now, it’s getting overused.”

He gives you a measuring look. “Okay, I can respect that.” A smile twitches at the corners of his mouth. “Be nice to have someone around the place who knows food. Hey, quiz time – how do you cook a steak?”

“I go to my mom’s house and have her do it for me,” you say promptly, and Sam laughs. “I think she pan-sears it and puts it in the oven. She has a rub for it.”

“Your mama’s a keeper,” he says, as you head to a table with your meals.

“Yeah, I like her,” you say, eyeing your burger and planning your angle of attack. Your hand reaches for a knife.

“If you eat that with a knife and fork, you’re off my ‘good opinions’ list.” Sam’s got his own knife pointed at you. You make a face and cut the burger in half.

“So,” you start. Sam raises his eyebrows and waits. “So.”

“So?”

“So, uh, not to be rude, but what the hell.”

He laughs shortly. “Yeah, that’s the question. Look, most of what you want to know you’ll have to get from Steve, if you still want to talk to him, and I get it if you don’t. I’m just here to make sure you’re doing ok, and to let you know that at least some of what he told you was true.”

Your blood heats up and your lip curls. “Some of what he told me? Exactly how many lies did he tell me?”

“Well, I don’t know everything he told you.” Sam takes a bite of his burger, apparently unbothered. You’re silent as he chews, swallows, wipes his mouth. “I think he stuck as close to the truth as he could. But specifically, when that scrawny little blond dude told you he was Steve Rogers, that was true. So if, for example, a very large blond dude shows up at your door one afternoon, I’d prefer you not panic and shoot him.”

I wouldn’t shoot him in panic, you think. I might do it on purpose, though.

Sam’s smirking like he knows what you’re thinking. “I have a question, if that’s ok.” You nod. “Why’d you believe me and not him?”

“Lots of reasons," you say slowly. "Lila – the other volunteer – she recognized you. And you look like . . . well, you. And you didn’t have your hand down my – anyway, when you told me, and you hadn’t been using another name for three months . . .”

“So you know what Cap looks like?”

“Everyone knows what Cap looks like.”

“Uh-huh.” Sam folds his napkin and fixes you with a look. “You still interested? Even if he looks different?”

“I don’t know.” He’s watching you, silent, and you plunge on. “It’s not how he looks; it never was. I mean, I did like how he looks. How he looked. Is he still . . .?”

“No. Been yapping at the labs like an angry little chihuahua to get him fixed; they got him back to good a couple days ago.”

You bristle a little. “He didn’t need fixed, he was good the way he was.”

“Except the asthma and the blood pressure and the bench-pressing 30 pounds.”

“The bar’s 45 pounds by itself.”

Sam points a fry at you. “Bingo.” He’s got this soft kind of half-smile, like you did something right.

You fiddle with your straw and stare at the table. “I mean, I’m glad he can breathe now. I just,” you sigh, “I get why he lied to start with, I guess. But the way everything else went. That wasn’t right.”

“Yeah, Nat told him he was gonna mess it up.”

“Oh my god.” You bury your face in your hands. “Does everyone know? Does literally every Avenger know what happened?”

“Clint hasn’t visited for a couple of months, so he probably doesn’t know. Unless Nat told him.” Sam pauses, thinking. “Yeah, Nat definitely told him. Probably Tony doesn’t know.”

“You know, relationships are hard enough without it being a superheroes’ soap opera.”

“Don’t get all full of yourself; you’re not that entertaining. We have other things to do, you know. Worlds to save. Babies to kiss.”

“Kittens to rescue,” you mutter sarcastically.

“I don’t care what he told you, I only did that once.” You raise an eyebrow and Sam slumps back, glaring at you. It’s only moderately intimidating, probably on purpose.

“You think my fake-ass boyfriend, or whatever he was, who wouldn’t tell me his own name, would tell me all about the Falcon’s kitten habit?”

“He told you he was friends with the Falcon?” Sam looks reasonably skeptical.

“Of course not. He told me he had a friend who’d poke at him when he spent too much time in his head.” You tilt your chin up, challenging. “I assume that was you. He said I could meet you,” you get quiet, “sometime. Some other time. At some later date. I thought he . . .” your voice breaks. “Hell, maybe he was embarrassed by –“

“No.” His voice is sharp. “No, he wasn’t.”

Sam looks away while you compose yourself, swiping through his phone.

“Since you tricked me into telling you about my alleged kitten habit,” He mock-glares at you for a second. “Want to see a picture?”

“Of course I want to see a picture.”

“I named him Daniel Striped Tiger. He sheds on all my clothes.”[1]

[1] As of July 20, 2024, Forklift (aka Daniel Striped Tiger) is available for adoption! https://www.adoptapet.com/pet/42083306-middletown-new-york-cat

____________________

Simon & Garfunkel – Leaves That Are Green

And the leaves that are green turn to brown/

And they wither with the wind/

And they crumble in your hand.

READ CHAPTER NINE

[xomakara]

The Highlights of Romance

THoR Chap. Masterlist | Next>

Chapter length - 1,979 words

Chapter 001 - That One Chance Encounter

“I’m officially moving into that apartment I was telling you about. Visit me on your next day off.” You muttered into the phone as you watched the movers unload the couch from the truck and moved it up the stairs to your new apartment. “Yuta and Jaehyun said that they were going to stop by and help.”

Here she was. Starting to make a name for yourself. 

Finally.

After a hit of continuous bestsellers, you finally earned enough to move out of that dingy studio you lived in and into an affordable yet cozy three bedroom apartment. Why three bedrooms when it’s just you moving in? One was for when your brother, Taeyong, decided to spend the night. The other was to make it into your office space for when you were working on novels.

“Please be careful and don't get hurt.” You said as you watched the movers. Seeing that they were okay with the heavy furniture, you made your way back down the stairs to the moving van trying to figure out what you could grab. “Oppa, I have to let you go. I need to finish moving and unpacking. Yes, I’ll let you know when I finish so we can grab dinner. Sure, some of the guys can come too.”

You ended the call with your older brother and lightly shook your head, a smile on your face. You and Taeyong weren’t even that far in age, only a year difference, but your brother was a nag and overprotective when he was around. You couldn’t wait to see him later for dinner so you could catch up. Last you heard, he and his wife were expecting their first child.

Now where to start?

You looked at the boxes that were on the ground and decided to pick up a moderately sized box.

Slowly making your way up to your new apartment, you made small steps up the stairs, slightly scolding yourself for picking a box that was actually bigger than you thought though it wasn't heavy. You softly cursed yourself, not being able to see the stairs unless you leaned your head to the side. “Damn. I should have gotten the other box instead.”

You continued to grumble, only slightly hearing a group of raucous chatter coming into the lobby. You heard the pitter patter of footsteps running up the stairs, careful not to bump into you. Only half of your attention on your surroundings and more on the stairs and box, you missed a step and thought you were seeing the end of your life. 

Great, you can already see the headlines.

Bestselling author, Mimi, passed away after moving into her new home.

Fuck.

You started to fall backwards, the box flying across the lobby. Your eyes were closed, ready for the concussion heading your way but it didn’t come.

Did you die already? 

Wait…

Were those arms wrapped around your waist?

“Are you okay? You almost had a nasty fall there.” A voice said. You opened your eyes to look up at your rescuer.

Oh man, look at that face.

Is he single?

“Miss?”

Who was this cute man and why did he look so familiar? Did she know him from anywhere? She would remember if she knew a cute looking younger man. Was he one of Taeyong's friends?

The man continued to look down at you in concern. His hands were around your waist and your chests were pressed somewhat intimately. There was just something about him that drew you in.

Was it because he was cute?

"Miss, are you okay?"

You slightly pushed yourself away from the man and looked down, biting on your lower lip. "Y-yes. Thank you for catching me before I fell."

"It's no problem but I don't think your box got lucky." He muttered, scratching at the back of his head. He was averting his attention from the contents of the box and you noticed that his cheeks were a bit red.

You looked down at the lobby floor and your eyes widened. Your bras and panties were scattered about and you rushed down the stairs to gather them up and put them in the box. No wonder he looked all shy! "I'm so embarrassed now."

"Let me help." The man said, coming to stoop at your level. He paused as he saw that your underwear was all lace and satin and drew his hand back to the top of his head to scratch it. "On second thought... I'll let you do it. Considering that it's your intimates."

"Thanks for trying to help." You let out a little chuckle, hints of red coming to your cheeks. "But I definitely got it."

As you were gathering your stuff, the man had a small smile on his face and he couldn’t help but whisper. “Cute.”

“Did you say something?” You asked, only to have him turn his head away. 

“Ah no.” He shook his head, his cheeks a bit pink. “By the way, I’m Mark. Mark Lee.”

“Oh, I’m—” Before you could finish, a hand was extended to you. 

“Here.” You took it and looked up at the person the limb belonged to. “Are you okay?”

Oh. Who was this hottie?

He was tall and looked imposing in the dark business suit he wore.

You nodded, your voice catching in your throat. “I-I’m okay. Thank you.”

“Thank god Mark was slow to catch up.” A voice called out and you saw a duo of college students making their way to you. The young man who spoke, let out a relieved sigh, a hand clutching his chest in worry.

“You could have been seriously hurt.” The man in the business suit said, stooping low to pick up some sort of garment that was laying on the floor.

“Thank you. My first day in my new apartment building and I have this mishap. Must be my lucky day. I must have been a saint in my past to be able to bask in this moment.” You managed to say, a smile on your lips as you made a joke. “I’m Lee Y/N by the way.” 

“I’m Johnny Suh.” The older man introduced himself. He pointed at the college students. “The one that was glad you’re okay is Huang Renjun. The one next to him is Liu Yangyang. They’re college kids and roommates.”

“And I see you’ve met my coworker, Mark, already.” Johnny pointed to the man that rescued you.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you neighbors.” You chuckled, noticing that Johnny was holding one of your sheer nightgowns. “Oh that’s mine.”

After realizing what he picked up, Johnny handed you the garment. “What floor are you on? Just so we can stop by and help with anything you need.”

“I’m on the second floor.” You responded. 

“No way! We’re on the second floor too!” Yangyang beamed at you.

“What apartment are you in?” Renjun asked you out of curiosity.

You looked at him with wide eyes. “Oh! I’m in 2B.”

Renjun exchanged glances with Yangyang and Mark. You couldn’t help but see a mischievous glint in his eyes. “So we’re neighbors! Yangyang and I are down the hall in 2A and Mark over there is across the hall from you in 2C.”

“Johnny is on the first floor.” Renjun continued, the older one nodding his head. “He’s in 1B which is right under yours.”

“By the way, what year were you born in?” Johnny asked, stuffing his hands in his pocket.

“Oh, I was born in 1996.” You smiled.

“Oh! That means I'm older than you.” Johnny nodded, a wide smile on his lips. 

“Is today moving day?” Renjun asked, you nodded in return. “Do you need help? We all just came back from work and classes so we have time to kill.”

“I’d like that. Thank you.” You exclaimed, a big smile on your face. “Seems like I chose the perfect day to move in.”

Mark blinked a few times before taking the box in your hands. “And I….will take this from you.”

“Yeah, especially since he already saw what’s inside.” Yangyang wiggled his eyebrows teasingly.

You casted your eyes down, a small hint of red coming to your cheeks. You couldn’t believe that your neighbors saw your underwear. You saw the others pick up some boxes and they started to make their way towards the stairs when more noises came into the apartment building.

“Miiiiiiiimmmmiiiiii~” Came a screech, you knowing all too well who it was. You were engulfed in a hug by your older brother. “The guys and I are here to help you move!”

“Oppa!” You slapped your brother’s back. “You said you were busy! I thought Jinkyung was due any second?”

“Nah, Jinkyung shooed me away because I was hovering over her. I ran into Yuta and Jaehyun along the way.” Your brother, Taeyong explained, the other two men behind him waved excitedly at you. Noticing the other men that surrounded you, Taeyong's eyes widened. “Oh, Mark, Johnny. Nice to see you outside of the office.”

Wait…that explained why Mark looked so familiar. He worked for your brother!

You also didn’t know that Johnny was an employee for the company as well. Yuta and Jaehyun would have told you something.

“Hello there, Director Lee.” Johnny called out, giving a respective bow. “It’s nice to see you too.”

“Why are you here?” Taeyong asked, before pointing at you. “I’m here to help my younger sister move. ”

“Wait…” Johnny wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion. “She’s your sister?”

“Didn’t I tell you at the last company get together that I had a sister?” Taeyong nodded before turning to look at the two men next to him. “Yuta, Jaehyun. I did mention my sister, didn’t I?”

“I would have thought you’d knew based on our last names.” You pursed your lips. “Plus, we look alike.”

“Apparently they didn’t know that.” Yuta chuckled, patting Johnny’s back. “It’s a small world isn’t it?”

Jaehyun came forward to give you a hug. “Congratulations on your new place. You’ll give me the grand tour later, right?”

You rolled your eyes and playfully swatted his arm.

“It’s nice to see you again, Director Lee. We’re helping your sister move too.” Mark nodded his head and gestured to the box he was holding. Taeyong moved to grab the box but Mark shook his head. “It’s okay. I got this one, sir.”

"You and Johnny could just call me Taeyong when we're not in the office." Taeil said, both Johnny and Mark giving a small nod.

You couldn’t help but bite your bottom lip. Luckily Taeyong, Yuta and Jaehyun didn’t notice it. You grabbed one of Jaehyun’s arms and smiled at each of the men. “Thank you for the help everyone! Let’s get things moving and I’ll treat everyone to dinner. Deal?”

“Deal!” Yangyang and Renjun called out, moving to grab the boxes that were waiting to be moved.

“But how funny is it that you moved into the same building as these guys?” Taeyong gestured to Mark and Johnny.

You looked at the two men as they lugged your boxes upstairs. You shrugged, still hugging Jaehyun’s muscular arm. “Got lucky I guess. I didn’t even know they worked at the company and lived here.”

“Should I move in too?” Jaehyun called out, a teasing hint in his voice. Taeyong hushed him, trying to dislodge their arms from each other.

“I forbid it!” Taeyong teasingly retorted, Yuta letting out a chuckle. “I absolutely forbid any of you guys to be with my sister.”

“You’re no fun, Taeyong.” Yuta said, picking up a floor lamp. “It’ll be fun.”

Taeyong retaliated by throwing a pillow. You let go of Jaehyun’s arm and grabbed the pillow only to throw it back at your brother.

“Oppa! Don’t be throwing my pillows!” You huffed, moving to walk up the stairs and leading the way to your apartment.

Mark shook his head, a smile on his lips, as he watched you stomp your way to your door. “Cute.”

THoR Chap. Masterlist | Next>

[ladyvaderpixetc]

Rules: List the First Line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

Tagged by @theangrykimchi *SMOOOOOOCH* because she's a) lovely and b) I swear, even if it's only subconsciously, trying to tether me to thorki to make sure I don't FULLY backpedal into AE, but I promise bb, I am capable of more than fixating on One True Pairing at a time ;)

“Maybe we should talk to the town elders, I said. Maybe it’ll be best to honour their ways if we mean to secure a trade deal with them, I said. Nooo, you said. I know someone who owes me a favour. Someone who would be more than happy to help us with everything we need, you said….”

2. Loki capered down the stairs with joy surging through his veins, trying like hell to keep his excitement from his face.

3. “Don’t let go!” Loki hissed through his clenched teeth, watching the tree unfurl with relief weighing so heavily on him that he nearly tumbled to the ground, Thor’s hand his only anchor.

4. The club was a fluttering mass of pink, purple, and blue, and Thor almost rolled his eyes at it, grudgingly grateful that the lighting wasn’t all rainbows at least.

5. Loki practically skipped back to his apartment, ignoring his burning feet and aching back.

6. Thor had been holding a polite smile in place for so long that it felt like his teeth and cheekbones were about to shatter and hit the floor in shards.

7. Loki shuffled in place, cursing his long legs as the bench in front tried to invert his kneecaps for him even as his own seat seemed intent on making him numb from the asscheeks down.

8. Loki swayed with the motion of the carriage and sighed.

9. This was his father’s revenge; Loki was sure of it.

10. Laufey froze, echoes of his name still ringing in the crisp night air.

What are my patterns? lol aside from a clear leaning towards human AU's (7 human au's, 1 vamp/werewolf, 2 post-Rag canon-based ignoring IW natch) I appear to favour Loki's POV and either write him grumpy or practically walking on air when he thinks he's imminently about to get a) railed b) his own way or c) both, whereas I appear to write Thor tolerant if longsuffering if only because he's about to get everything he wants by giving Loki A, B & C, hell everything up to Z etc because the bone-deep devotion is eternal *nodnod* so yeah lol no real surprises there ;)

Am tagging @roosterbox @lolahardy @angrymadsygin @deinvatiwrites @strangegeology @thesaltofcarthage @midnottart @dls-ao3 @gracerene @tamat9 and anyone who sees this and fancies a crack at it, basically ;)

[hellsenthero]

Suffer the Cost

Written by: hellsenthero

Bucky x Fem!Reader

Every relationship has its secrets, but who knew yours could be so deadly?

Warnings/themes: Swearing, smutish, fluff, angst, death, female reader.

MASTERLIST

*****

Exhaustion clung to you, keeping you in bed and in your lover’s arms. The two of you had had a long night, one filled with many drinks and lots of fucking. Now you were left with a raging hangover and the returning question of why you always put yourself through these hangovers on your post-mission breaks.

“I’m never drinking again.” You curse out, false conviction evident in your voice.

“You say that every time,” Bucky says from his spot in bed beside you. You narrow your eyes, shooting daggers at him.

“Fuck off Buck. You say the same thing about the Asgardian mead but every time Thor’s here you meet your match at the bottom of a glass.”

A low, rumbling chuckle escaped Bucky. “Touché.” Silence echoed in the room for a moment before Bucky spoke up again. “We should get out of bed, start the day.”

You wanted to shove your head under your pillow and ignore the world, but you knew he was right. "Fine." You huffed out.

The day went by as any non mission day went. Get to the kitchen for some coffee and oatmeal, watch Sam annoy the hell out of Bucky and then go train. But you were a part of the Avengers, you couldn't remember the last time you had a normal day.

"Who locked the storage unit?" Bucky asked once the two of you entered the gym.

"I did," you said as you headed over to undo the lock. "I'm convinced Sam has been hiding my favourite practice knives on purpose."

Bucky let out a laugh as he stood behind you. His warm body pressed softly against your back. "That sounds like Sam."

"The code is seventeen, nine, one, if you ever need to open it up." Bucky froze behind you just as you got the lock freed and opened the storage unit door. "Bucky?" You asked as you turned to face him.

Bucky's face was unreadable, but it was clear he wasn't in his happy, cheerful mood any longer. "I, I don't feel great." He mumbled before rushing out of the training room.

After locking up the unit you went in search of Bucky. You found him in your shared room, sat down on the bed, head bent low. "You okay?" You asked as you closed the door behind you. Bucky shook his head and you knew he was deep in thought. "What's got you all bothered?"

"Hydra," Bucky whispered softly.

“Oh," you begin before taking a moment to yourself. "I know you can never talk about it, but-”

“No,” Bucky answered gruffly. He looked up from his lap, his gaze locked on your own. “I’m ready now. I want to talk about it. With you.”

You silently held back your feelings of pleasure. “Okay. Tell me whatever you need to get off your chest.”

“It’s hard to know where to start from, the first life I took under Hydra’s control, the last? Those lives, along with the pain of it all, are what I remember most about my experience. I don’t know what they fed me, what I did when I was locked up or how long they would freeze me for, but I remember the people I killed, the lives I blew out like a candle wick.” Bucky looked up at you. “But no matter how vividly I remember them, they won’t come back. I’ve killed innocent people, people like Tony’s parents.” Bucky’s gaze dropped back down to his lap. “I think the only good I did back when was work to bring down the men and women in league with the red room.”

You nodded, choosing to keep your silence as Bucky thought back to his past.

This, this is what you needed.

"I killed the recruiters too. The people that brought in the girls. The ones that took them from their families. I killed them."

"Do you remember their names?" You ask.

Bucky nods. "Tristan Charles, Yvonne Draghouse, David Graham, Maria Torchevski."

Bingo.

Bucky trails off. "There's so many." Again, you nod along.

"I'm glad you opened up, baby. One step at a time." Bucky looked into your eyes, his own blue ones glassy with grief. And goddammit, he looked at you like you hung the moon in the sky just for him. "Let's rest now. Do you want to watch something?"

"You're okay to watch a show in bed with me after what I just confessed?" Bucky questioned.

You gently patted Bucky's chest as you curled closer to him. "Yeah baby, I'm good." You said as you grabbed the remote and turned on the TV that was mounted on the wall opposite you.

"Thank you." Bucky murmured before he settled in to watch an episode of The Witcher.

It was midnight and your squirming in bed was keeping Bucky awake.

"Y/N," he breathed, "settle down doll."

"I can't." You answered truthfully.

"Why? What's wrong?" Bucky asked as he turned over in order to face you in the darkness.

With a huff of air you got up from the bed and moved to the center of the empty floor. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes you stared at the floor instead of meeting Bucky's curiosious gaze.

"Y/N," Bucky tried again as he too stood from your shared bed.

"I'm just, restless…agitated."

"Are you stressed?" Bucky questioned. He wanted to step towards you but he knew how much you needed your personal space when you got agitated.

"I… yes. I am."

"What's stressing you out? What can I do to help you doll?"

You knew Bucky really wanted to help you, but you shook your head and took a step back from him.

"You can't."

"Doll-" Bucky began before you cut him off.

"Stop Bucky, you can't help me. You've done enough!" You growled out as you hand twisted with the hem of your silk nightgown.

Silence filled the room for a moment too long before Bucky's head bent low and his sorrow filled voice filled the room. "It's about my past, isn't it?"

Your silence to Bucky's question was louder than any spoken answer he could have gotten from you.

"Fuck, it's too dark. I'm too dark for you." Bucky shook his head with shame. "I'm sorry, I never should have told you all the dark shit about myself. I shouldn't have told you those kills I made… how can I fix this?

"Are you sorry, Bucky? Do you actually want to make it up to me?"

"Yes!" Bucky hissed out loudly before lowering his voice. "Yes, I'm sorry." He said. "I want to make you comfortable."

A humorless laughter escaped you as you shook your head. "What will you do?" You ask him.

"Anything." Bucky answers. You hum in acknowledgment.

"Truely?" You ask, your voice lowering to a whisper. Bucky nods his head in answer. “You say you’re sorry?” You asked. Bucky quickly nodded, his eyes wide. “Then get on your knees.” Bucky instantly obeyed. “Good boy.” You purred.

“Y/N-” Bucky began before you cut him off with a low growl. “Mistress.” Bucky corrected. He understood the old game you were now dragging up in the bedroom.

“Better.” You smirked. “Now crawl.” Your foot tapped against the floor, slow, calm, unlike Bucky’s racing heart. Bucky stopped just before your feet, kneeling, waiting. “It’s funny,” you began as you made your way around the man begging on the floor for your forgiveness. “That a man like you, an Avenger, didn’t see the warning signs.” Stopping back in front of Bucky, you peered into his wide-open, stormy blue eyes. “I'm not upset about your past, Bucky. I just needed you to give me a bit of info on it, that's all." Bucky's head tilted to the side as he tried to understand your point. "Maria Torchevski," you said in a whisper. Bucky's head bowed in shame as he heard the name of one of his kills. "She was Dreykov’s partner, his wife." Bucky's head shot up as he heard the red room leader's name. "It's funny really," you pur as you take a small step back from your lover, "that you never realized the woman sharing your bed was a Widow,” Bucky only had a second for the words to register in his lust-hazed brain before you were crooning, “the red room sends its regards.” Pulling your gun out from behind you, you raised it.

And you pulled the trigger.

[marveldiaries]

🥀 angst | ☁️ fluff | ✨ faves | 🔥 smut

🪐 already on notes | 🍂 to be read

Loki 1

By lokiprompts

Burning words 🥀☁️ - Loki is terrified to tell you that he loves you, but a whispered confession in the dark throws him for a loop.

Melodies For Wellness 🍂 one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight - AU - Negotiations with Norway are taking longer than expected to set up New Asgard. Meanwhile, Asgardians make Stark Tower their new temporary home.

Appropriate 🍂 one | two - Loki is banished to Midgard and he has to live an average life as penance...and you, a social worker, is there to help him along the way.

By darkserenity24

Freedom and Forgiveness 🍂 - When the infamous God of Mischief escapes his cell in the basement of the Avengers Tower, he accidentally comes across you while looking for revenge.

By teamatsumu

Broken Mirrors 🍂 prologue | one | two | three | four | five | epilogue - On Tony’s request, Loki agrees to help him undo some ancient curses on objects. During his work, he finds a girl trapped in a mirror.

I Think He Knows ☁️ - You’re suspicious that Loki can read your mind so you decide to test that theory.

Lessons Learned 🍂 - In order to learn magic, Thor invites you to stay in Asgard for a while, offering his brother Loki to be your teacher.

See Him Again ☁️ - The reader goes back in time to 2012 and sees Loki for the first time since his death. Alternative ending.

Confused 🍂 - You’re oblivious to how Loki feels. He does nothing to help the situation.

Trust Me ☁️ - The reader has to trust Loki during a mission when he turns out to be the only man who can save them both.

Dance With Me ☁️ - The reader needs to learn how to dance, and quick. Loki offers to help.

Deserving ☁️🥀✨ - To him, he’s a monster. To her, he’s her everything.

Nightmares 🍂 - You have nightmares about him in the night. And you daydream about him in the day.

Seven Days, Seven Books ☁✨ - Someone is leaving books on your table, with love confessions highlighted in them for you to find.

I’ll Be Human ☁️ - It’s the reader’s job to teach Loki to be nice. She falls in love with him along the way.

Dreams of You ☁️ - he has nightmares and he wakes up one night and the reader helps him get back to sleep.

By thelovelylolly

Comfort 🥀☁️ - you go comfort Loki in the dungeons after Frigga's funeral.

By maple-seed

Thrown 🍂 - After the timelines have broken free, Loki decides that all he wants is to join Thor in New Asgard. Now Loki helps his brother in rebuilding a home for the displaced people of Asgard while simultaneously learning to live a universe where it feels like this is the last place he should be. He wants nothing to do with the humans living nearby, but one in particular is not getting the message.

By spicyhiddles

Wounded 🥀✨ - The reader checks on Loki in his chambers following a heated argument between Loki and Thor.

By lokiandbuckysdoll

Cockwarming Loki 🔥

Gimme little sign 🍂 - When you’re invited to the annual ball in Asgard things get revealed between yours and Loki’s close friendship. 

By writingliv

Love you again 🥀 - Loki comes into your universe after destroying the TVA, hoping to live what he had watched the other Loki experience. You, however, have been grieving the death of your Loki for years and cannot seem to accept him. 

A lucky god 🥀☁️ - A classic wounded realization of mutual affection.

By mochie85

Midsummer pining 🍂 - It's summer in Asgard and you and your brother, Hogun, have come to stay with the royal family for the season before you are presented to society.

Pheromones 🔥

By michelleleewise

Chocolate and promises 🍂 - your friendship with Loki and grown over the last two years, until something threatened to take it away.

Bewitched 🔥

Close to you 🍂 - you work in stark tower and have fallen hard for a certain god, but he would never feel the same....would he.....

I hate you 🍂 - y/n and Loki have "hated eachother almost since he arrived back on earth....but are things as they seem.....

By last-herondale

You belong here, with me ☁️ - reader is hidden on Asgard while the Avengers fight a threat for her back on Earth. Loki is stuck being the host, but he really doesn’t mind.

By earlgreydream

Anxious ☁️ - being really anxious at one of tony's parties and finding comfort slow dancing with loki to get ur mind off it.

By lokisninerealms

Memories to bake 🍂 - Loki never used to celebrate his birthday until you came along to give him new experiences.

By lady-rose-moon

Library meet cute 🍂

By anonymousfiction211

Cuddles 🍂

By chickenfics

Security blanket ☁️ - The reader can’t sleep thanks to a true crime podcast. In their anxiety, they seek out comfort from a certain God of Mischief.

By fluffyfantasticducky

Focus on the good 🍂 - Loki is overwhelmed dealing with being accused as a traitor, although this time he's innocent. But this time, he is not the man he used to be, and he has you by his side.

By tripleyeeet

Sorry for dying 🍂 - After going through the motions of his death, Loki decides to pay you an unexpected visit.

By mischievzx

Lose you twice 🍂 epilogue | one | two | three | four - After losing the love of your life to the mad titan, it seemed like there was no hope for the future. That is, until a rather interesting idea flashes your mind.

By acciotherapists

Protective 🍂 - Abusive relationship dynamics, reader's boyfriend is toxic, abuse is implied, Loki being an adorable bean.

By st4rymoon

Cockwarming Loki 🔥

By ladychota

Come home 🍂 - Y/n left Loki to keep him safe and prevent him from getting hurt, but her actions had the opposite effect.

I missed you 🍂 - The Avengers leave for a mission, leaving you and Loki alone in the compound to do whatever you want... but something unexpected happens.

Terrified 🥀☁✨ - Loki wakes up after one of his nightmares distraught.

All good things 🍂 - Loki invites Y/n to his place for a date.

I'm fine 🍂 - Loki's been avoiding Y/n after a mission and she wants to know why.

By heliads

Empath 🍂 - a super kind empath Avenger and comforts Loki, who also has been recruited as an Avenger (very reluctantly) but is still a bit ostracized from everyone else on the team.

By lokidokieokie

When silence speaks 🍂 - When the compound gets attacked, Loki's mind is on one person only: you.

[justafairytailofinnocence]

Hello :) I was just wondering if I could get a matchup with me and a marvel character or slasher (yandere maybe?) if that's okay with you and if so, this is my info:

Well, my name is vi, I have autism, I am 173 cm, I have short Orbin hair, my favorite color is yellow, I wear big baggy clothes, I am pansexual, I Love horror movies and marvel movies because it keeps me distracted, I have a kind of cursed humor 😭, I mostly sleep, play games, watch movies, and hang out with friends, I have a kind of midsized body? (Big thighs, wide ribcage, large breasts,) I am pretty clumsy (mostly because I don't watch where I am going 💀💀) I am REALLY pale, but I have freckles on my cheeks, I LOVE READING FANFICS THEY GIVE ME BUTTERFLYS 😍🤚, and last of all, I am aggresive as hell 😎.

Thank you for reading this :)

Hello dear 💖, thanks for your request.

For marvel I ship you with:

Loki🐍

You were a descent from an asguardian as a demi God betrothed to thor.

You often studied in mythology and found the most fascinating in romance stories.

You met loki one day while he took the form of a snake and he appeared to you.

You and loki had similar things in common.

You both spent time reading books together.

Eventually you landed on earth to help with the avengers.

Loki started to become mesmerised by you and decided to name you heir as his queen.

You decided to accept Loki's proposal and lived with him as a queen of choas.

You took on a new form and outfit.

You married loki and had a child with his hair and your eyes. They had both your powers and was deemed the heir of the underworld.

For slashers I ship you with:

Jason voorhees🔪

Jason was stalking you when you were in a camping program.

You felt like an outcast from the others due to you liking different things from them.

Jason related to you, he thought you were both similar.

One night on a hunting spree he killed the counsellors and approached you.

You were frightened but instead he kidnapped you and took you to his mother's tomb.

In a way he acted like a child, he gifted you things out of curiosity.

He kept you close and prepare for being close to his body.

He would kill anyone that would disturb the two of you.

He often gifts you food and likes to touch your hair.

As creepy as he may be, your lucky enough to be his first survivor.

He ignores his mother's tangents about you being alive.

He would allow you to roam free in the camp but if you were to tell the police, he would lock you away.

Hugs would be quite hard but he would get used to it, if he doesn't mistake it for crushing someone.

Jason would keep you close and safe while trying to show his affection.

Anyways that's all I have for now:

Ta Ta ✨️