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Male!Loki x Enhanced!Female!Reader: A Place Like Home [Ch. 1]

Summary: Be careful what you wish you for—the clichés might never stop coming.

Challenge: "160 Collective Drabbles" on Lunaescence Archives

Rating/Tags: T (Reader-Insert; Female Reader-Insert; POV Second Person; Not Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant; Canon Divergence - Post Movie: Avengers (2012); Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence; Alternate Universe; Enhanced!Reader; Redeemed!Loki; Not A Deconstruction; Established Relationship; Panic Attacks; Other Tags Not Added to Avoid Spoilers)

Pairings/Relationships: Loki/Reader; Avengers Team & Reader; Background Canon Relationships

Tag List: @imaginesfire

Master List

Ao3 Version

Notes: I've been working on this fic for months now. It is, in fact, a prompt-response fic. It was supposed to be just a one shot, but the more I worked on it, the more scenes I needed to add to actually make the point of the story worth the emotional payoff. So here it is in all its (YMMV) glory! That's right; it's done. I finished the entire thing before I started posting it. I'll be posting one chapter a week until it's all taken care of. I hope you enjoy it!

Just an FYI ahead of time: There are a couple of sarcastic narrative asides about clichés in MCU reader-insert fic. These are directed at literally no one but myself. After all, goofy, cliché reader-insert fic is my bread and butter! As the tag indicates, there's no Doki Doki Literature Club!-esque deconstruction here; just good, old-fashioned self-insert fun.

Chapter 1: Things Looked Better Yesterday

The first sign that anything was amiss came swiftly and alarmingly—despite the complete lack of an alarm. One moment, you dozed in blissful unconsciousness. Mere seconds later, your eyes drifted open to the sounds of distant traffic and the accompanying short blasts of car horns. Warm, yellow sunlight filled the room. Your heart lurched at this sight, and you rocketed up from the mattress at once. With that kind of lighting in your bedroom, you had no doubts whatsoever: You were absolutely, definitely late for work.

"Mmm. Unless it's an emergency, let's have five more minutes, shall we?"

More overt warning signs came barreling at you one after another then. You had gone to bed alone, for one, so who on earth did this sleepy male voice belong to? And soon after that thought chilled you to the bone, a long arm draped across your waist to pull your back against a flat, naked chest. As your heartbeat reached hitherto unheard-of speeds, your brain finally registered three more upsetting details: This was not your bed; this was not your room; and these were not your pajamas.

You screamed, lurched toward the nearest edge of the mattress, and tumbled chin-first onto the soft rug below.

Someone—whoever the voice and the arm and the chest belonged to, you guessed—snored themselves properly awake. Now there could be no escape. Though you scrambled to get yourself into a kneeling position, you barely managed that much before the sheets above you shifted to reveal a shirtless man sitting in their midst.

"Was it an emergency, then?" he asked around a yawn. "I didn't hear a siren. Are you sure we need to get up this early when we don't absolutely have to?"

No reply occurred to you. Your entire being felt frozen to the spot.

The man cracked open a single green eye to look at you. The arms he'd risen in a luxurious stretch fell to his sides. "[Name], are you all right?"

There in the bed you'd only just vacated sat Loki Laufeyson, a man you knew only as a fictional character in the MCU. And he wasn't just shirtless either. As the silky sheets slid a few more inches down his sides, you saw that the man had no clothing on at all. You squeaked as you clapped your hands over your face—though what for, you didn't know. All signs pointed to you having seen him naked already, although you could find no memory of the event.

When had you last attended a comic convention anyway? And sure, people teased you about your crushes on fictional characters even as you aged into adulthood, but you weren't this pathetic. Even after being out of any long-term relationship for months, you weren't so desperate that you'd stoop to having one-night stands with random cosplayers!

"I should hope not," said the man. "I suspect many of the cosplayers downstairs don't bathe regularly."

Oops. You'd made that last self-depreciating comment out loud. A deep, shuddering breath preceded the removal of your hands from your eyes. Still, you kept your gaze carefully averted from the man's pale torso as you replied: "I didn't mean to offend you. You smell pretty good, as far as I can tell."

The following pause extended so long that you dared to allow yourself a glance at his face. His sleepy expression faded as the two of you stared at one another. Somehow, this looked movie-accurate, too. If your heart hadn't been thundering in your chest from sheer terror, you might have asked him for a headshot. Then again, probably not. How could you pin up a photograph of a man you'd slept with for no other reason than that he happened to look uncannily like an attractive movie character?

The Loki lookalike opened his mouth, seemed to think better of saying whatever was on his mind, closed his mouth, then threw his legs over your side of the bed. "Is there any particular reason you're sitting on the floor?" he asked.

Mostly because you weren't confident that your own legs would hold you up if you tried to stand. Your head felt fuzzy and light; the curtains shifting in the breeze from the heater sent sparkles across your vision. You really didn't need to add vomiting on a hot stranger's rug in front of said hot stranger to your list of suffered mortifications that morning.

"I don't remember how I got here," you said weakly.

"Well," he patted the empty space next to him on the bed, smirking, "why don't you come back up here, and we'll jog your memory with a little reenactment?"

You surged to your feet. "No!"

"No?"

"Thank you! No, thank you. I appreciate the offer, but this is really not like me at all. I'm late enough for work as it is."

"I thought you had the day off." Now the cosplayer sounded confused.

"I'm sorry that I lied to you." The apology probably would have meant more had you recalled lying to him about such a thing in the first place, or if you'd put in any effort at all to sound sincere. You were too busy craning your neck every which way to give your tone much thought.

"Are you looking for something?"

"My clothes."

"Have you tried the closet?"

Considering your complete blackout of the night before, you sort of assumed anything you'd been wearing would have been haphazardly strewn around the room. Everything around you looked immaculate—no, not just immaculate. Glistening. Gold and green. Grand. The idea that you'd bedded a man serious enough to keep his bedroom in character made the whole place blur as you swayed and groaned.

"[Name], what's going on? Have you fallen ill?"

You hadn't been drunk enough to experience a hangover since your college days. But whoever this guy was, as worried as he sounded, he didn't need to know that this was your first in quite some time. He'd already taken advantage of the situation from the sound of things. No need to give him more ammunition.

"Please just give me my clothes," you begged him. "I can't go to work like this."

"I don't see why not."

"Look, it was sweet of you to lend me these pajamas. They're actually really comfortable. And I promise that I will still take them home, get them cleaned, and return them to you as quickly as possible."

"That might come across as an insult. I believe Mother intended them to be a gift."

"I've never met your mother!"

Panic swept through your veins in one mighty surge. Goosebumps erupted over your skin as your heart beat faster than ever. Your throat clamped around itself. You couldn't breathe. And just as quickly as the cold tingling began, a swift wave of heat crashed over you from head to toe. You heard rather than saw the man leave the bed to pad barefoot in your direction. Perhaps you'd have to reassess your statement about his scent; a sour, acrid smell that burned the back of your tongue arrived alongside him.

Once he reached you, he crouched so that your eyes were level with his. You couldn't recall collapsing. The lookalike lifted an arm to grasp your shoulder, but the moment he touched you, he hissed and drew back as though your skin burned him.

"Darling, I can't help you when you're doing that."

Doing what? Dying? Because that's what a complete stranger calling you "darling" made you feel like you were doing! By then, the fear had grown so overwhelming that you couldn't speak. Frantically shaking your head would have to do to keep him at this short distance.

"I see," he said. "I'll call the good doctor. At the very least, his little green friend should be able to touch you."

The man disappeared from your narrowed field of vision. You could hear faintly, over the noise of your own ragged breathing, him saying something to someone. His absence gave you a little time to think. Surely you could figure out how you'd found yourself in this situation, right? All you needed to do was think hard about what had happened to you the day before.

You couldn't come up with much. You'd gone to work. It had been a particularly long, boring day in the middle of the week. After clocking out sometime after sunset, you went straight home by yourself. A shooting star streaked across the night sky as you unlocked the door to your apartment, and a wish had swiftly passed through your mind: If only your life could be just a little less lonely.

A granted wish? No! That was insane. Wishes didn't come true. And what did people say about the answer to mysteries? Something about the most logical solution often being the correct one? You'd probably gone out to a bar for some socialization after work, met this guy, had one drink too many, and agreed to follow him home. Which only meant that this panic attack—another first in a long time—was completely stupid. Nothing could be more mundane than making enough bad choices of your own to land yourself in some weird guy's bed.

Someone knocked smartly on the door, which in turn knocked you right out of your trance. You could only imagine how embarrassed you would be when another person saw you like this. Being humiliated wouldn't help your current condition; the alien surroundings weren't doing much for you either. Closing your eyes, you tried to focus on the solid details around you: the soft rug beneath your hands; the familiar noise of New York traffic; the clean, almost herbal scent that filled the room; two voices, clear as day from across the room.

"Really? You had to answer the door naked?" asked a new male voice.

"Why, Doctor, whatever are you talking about? We both can clearly see that I am fully clothed."

"You know that I can smell your illusions, right?"

A pause, followed by a sulky: "I'll put on a robe."

"A real one this time, if you don't mind."

This exchange gave you the opportunity to attempt to control yourself. You still didn't feel a whole lot better. If you put any thought into your present circumstances, your breath began to hitch again—but being marginally less convinced of your own impending death counted as a win. How long such conviction would last, you could not say. The sound of two sets of approaching footsteps caused you to seize up once more.

"[Name]?" the new voice asked kindly. When you didn't reply, the man went on, "Is this why you called me?"

The cosplayer answered, "I am utterly at a loss as to what to do. One minute, we were fast asleep in bed. The next, she's flailing about, saying she has to get to work. And when I mentioned my mother, she just crumpled."

"As many mortals might at the mention of the goddess of love and beauty," the second man said wryly.

You felt your first stab of annoyance at this display. In fact, you managed to feel something other than fear long enough to open your eyes and glare at the Loki lookalike. "It's called a panic attack."

He blinked. "A panic attack? You don't have panic attacks."

Obviously, you did, and how would he know anyway after a single night of lovemaking? Before you could say as much, the newcomer sighed:

"You called me for a panic attack? Loki, for the last time, I am not a practicing medical doctor."

"Yes, right now you are practicing being a pain in my ass instead. All I want is for you to fix my girlfriend. Helen isn't here, so you'll have to do."

You really, really wished you hadn't looked at the second man. So many questions filled your mind as you listened to the conversation—who did this lookalike think he was, referring to you as his girlfriend? And he was so committed to the role that he had his friends call him Loki?—but every single one of them fell away as you spotted the man standing next to the cosplayer—another cosplayer, by the look of things, this one shorter and scruffier, with a mop of graying brown hair and a vibrantly purple shirt.

Moaning, you buried your face into your hands. "This cannot be happening."

Unfortunately, everything pointed to it happening. How? Why? You had no idea. But it really did seem as though you were sitting on the floor and trying not to cry in front of Loki Laufeyson and Bruce Banner, two people that, as far as you knew, didn't really exist! It made no sense at all. Nor would it ever, so long as you couldn't pull yourself together.

The two men murmured back and forth during the time you struggled to calm yourself using every ounce of panic disorder-related advice you'd come across during your several years of therapy. You ignored the conversation, breathed deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth, and concentrated on your slowing heartbeat until, at last, you had the capacity to think clearly again.

"Oh, thank Bor," said Loki as you exhaled a final sigh. Then, before you could do anything to prevent him drawing nearer, he threw himself onto the ground and pulled you into a warm embrace. "Stifling" might have been a better word for it. He didn't stink this time, but you stiffened as his soft arms wound around you nonetheless.

Bruce placed his hands on his thighs and leaned toward you. Loki didn't pay him the slightest bit of attention, choosing to focus instead on nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. If you hadn't been so laser focused on simply staying upright, you probably would have squirmed out of his grip.

"[Name], are you feeling better now?" Bruce asked.

"No thanks to you, Doctor I’m-the-Smartest-Man-on-the-Planet," Loki said, voice muffled by your shoulder.

Bruce rolled his eyes and waited patiently for your answer. You hesitated to give one, "better" being a relative term in this situation. But maybe these two would have some idea of what was going on than you did.

"I'm fine now, thank you," you said before rushing on with: "I don't think I am who you think I am, though."

That got Loki to release you, though he didn't move far. "What do you mean? You're [F Name] [L Name], aren't you?"

"Well, yes. But—"

"Then I know exactly who you are."

"Let her finish, Loki," Bruce admonished him. The doctor’s brow crinkled with concern as he watched you chew on your lip in thought.

This might be more difficult than you'd first anticipated. After all, you couldn't just tell them they didn't really exist. Saying something like that would only get you sent to a loony bin. You'd rather skip that trip, much as you might have belonged there.

"Er," you began awkwardly, eyes flicking between both men's faces. "I, um, don't think I'm the right [F Name] [L Name]? I know that probably sounds crazy, but I really don't remember any of this," you gestured at the room at large," "or either of you," you motioned to them," or anything leading up to being here. This isn't my life. I don't know how I would have ended up in a place like this."

Loki and Bruce stared at you. The longer the silence dragged on, the more you shifted in place. They exchanged a look with one another. Then:

"Ah," said Loki.

Relief flooded through your veins. They knew. They believed you. Soon, you would be back home, or on the way there, and—

"Dr. Cho did warn us that something like this might happen," Bruce said.

And the relief vanished. "W-What?"

Nodding, Loki gripped both your shoulders in his hands. He looked far more serious than he had at any other point during that morning. "There was an...incident during a skirmish yesterday. You got overwhelmed. Helen stabilized you before things got too bad, but she did advise us to keep an eye out for any other possible side effects, such as amnesia."

Amnesia? Could that really be? A sharp tingle like that of an electric shock raced up your back. Although you wanted to come across as firm when you said, "No. I remember what I did yesterday. I wasn't here," you didn't manage to keep the quake out of your voice.

"And what do you think you did yesterday?"

"I went to work, and then I went straight home."

"Exactly!" Loki grinned. "See, you do remember. You're just a little confused on the details. I'm sure with a little help from yours truly, you'll be back to normal in no time."

Could that somehow be true? Could the life you recalled up until now be entirely made up? Could you have dreamed up a backstory to explain why you already knew Loki and Bruce despite knowing nothing about yourself? You didn't think so—but the all-too-familiar fatigue following your recent panic attack had started to sink into your bones. Thinking about anything that life-changing that deeply would have to wait until you recovered.

You climbed to your feet. If you could just lay down for a minute or two, perhaps then you could figure things out. Neither Bruce nor Loki attempted to stop your drowsy line in the direction of the bed. Just as you reached to peel the sheets back to slip under them, however, your stomach gave a tremendous gurgle.

Loki's laugh shattered the uncomfortable quiet. "Hungry, are we? Well, that we can fix right away."

He wrapped a hand around your wrist and whisked you out of the room without offering you a chance to protest.

******

Sometime later—your current state made it difficult to pinpoint an exact amount—you found yourself sitting at a huge black table located in front of a massive wall of windows. Outside unfolded a dizzying view of early morning traffic weaving through the streets all those stories below. Inside's view didn't inspire much more confidence; it only served to remind you that this wasn't your kitchen. Your kitchen had clutter, a single skylight, and the occasional dirty dish waiting in the sink gifted to you by your lazy past self. This kitchen looked as though it had never seen a dirty dish in its entire life—even though you had to assume seven or so people used it regularly.

But you couldn't really make that assumption, could you? In your reality (or your memories, if Loki and Bruce were to be believed), Bruce Banner and Loki did not live together, nor did they trade subtly friendly barbs back and forth with one another. Who knew what other differences existed that you hadn't noticed yet?

"And voilà! A breakfast fit for a queen."

Loki placed a plate in front of you with an exaggerated flourish. On that plate sat a slice of toast with butter, scrambled eggs, and a piece of bacon. "Fit for a queen," though? The toast was charred, the eggs runny, and even if you weren't too full of anxiety to eat, you couldn't imagine daring to put that bacon in your mouth. But he looked so pleased with himself that you voiced none of your thoughts; you simply smiled back tremulously.

His own grin softened. "You're very welcome," he said before leaning down to brush his lips against your nearest temple. This oasis of sweetness in a desert of confusion lasted all of a second before he startled you with a light smack on your back.

"Well, then, I'll be off!"

"Off? You're leaving?" you asked.

"Right, you'll have forgotten. Thor has insisted that we visit our parents today. Normally, I'd be begging you to come along, of course, to spare me a portion of the tedium. But I'd hardly be any sort of gentleman if I subjected you to Odin while you're in such a condition. So be a good girl, and I should be back this evening, provided traffic is light on the Bifrost.

"Look after my beloved for me, would you, Doctor?"

With that parting, Loki dashed from the room. Bruce hadn't even replied. He had to still be nearby, however. You could practically feel his concerned gaze boring into the back of your head. Most likely he just wanted to make sure you ate—but if he'd seen the fruits of Loki's labor, he'd know that waiting for that was a lost cause. It took what little energy you had leftover to keep yourself from shoving the food clear to the other end of the table.

Bruce did not say anything as the time stretched on. Neither did you. Just as the thought of asking to be returned to Loki's bedroom dawned on you (at least you knew it would be empty), someone else strutted into the dining room.

"Good morning, Toxic Avenger, Mr. Incredible!"

Whoever this new person was, their level of cheer made your head throb painfully. You turned your head in the direction of the entrance—and felt your jaw drop at the sight that awaited you. There in the room stood none other than Tony Stark—Iron Man—the beating heart of the MCU.

He flinched as your eyes met. "What happened to you? Didn't Dr. Cho tell your boy toy no mead for the foreseeable future? He knows that doesn't treat blunt force trauma, right?"

All you could do in answer was open and shut your mouth repeatedly. Logically, if Bruce and Loki were real, Tony would be, too. But given the complete lack of logic in the entire affair, you thought you could forgive yourself for short-circuiting like that.

Tony's expression grew more worried. "[Name]?"

"She experienced a panic attack this morning," Bruce supplied helpfully from somewhere just out of your line of vision.

"Yeah, yesterday was pretty rough, wasn't it?" Tony approached to pat you sympathetically on the shoulder, then grimaced as he spotted your plate. "And that looks even worse than you do. Let me guess: Prince Charming decided to cheer you up with a little force-fed poison."

You heard Bruce stifle a chuckle.

"And you let him! You know he knows that he's not supposed to waste my food on his disgusting attempts at gaining a culinary education!”

"I offered to help him. He declined."

"Of course he did. Not to worry, [Name]. Real breakfast is on the way."

Your plate of painstakingly- (if not well-)crafted food disappeared. Tony marched it over to a trash can and unceremoniously scraped its contents into the bin. As he went to place your unused utensils in the sink, he said:

"JARVIS, tell the team to meet up in the kitchen. Bruce and I are making waffles."

"I take it that you mean Bruce is making waffles while Tony gets in the way," Bruce remarked, but he didn't look upset. He simply rolled up his sleeves and walked over to the counter. Tony smirked at him while he pulled ingredients out of the fridge and cabinets.

"Hey, did I hear JARVIS right? Breakfast?"

This eager voice belonged to Clint Barton. Tony waved him into room.

"We're gonna have a 'We Survived' party following yesterday. Midgardians only."

Clint clapped his hand together before sauntering inside. "Excellent! Tasha's just finishing up her morning training session. She said she'll be here soon." He, too, joined the commotion in the kitchen. A few seconds later, you heard him call: "Do you want coffee or OJ, [Name]?"

Your tongue remained glued to the roof of your mouth. One after one, fantastical visions you had only seen on the screen entered your life and spoke as though they knew you—as though they cared about you. How could you even begin to respond?

Thankfully, you were spared having to do so by the arrival of Steve Rogers. He'd barely poked his head through the open doorway when Tony said, "Hit it, JARVIS!" and the Star-Spangled Banner erupted from what sounded like speakers hidden in every surface. Wearing a comically serious expression, Tony placed a hand over his heart. Clint saluted. Even Bruce got into things, albeit merely by hiding another smile behind his whisk and a bowl of waffle batter.

"Do you have to do that every morning?" Steve sighed.

"Learning real humor will do you some good, Cap. Think of it as your payment for the otherwise free room and board."

"I'm really starting to miss Brooklyn."

Steve caught your eye as he passed and offered you a nod. Thank goodness he stopped there. Any further attention from Captain America might have stopped your heart completely. You couldn't even manage to squeak in greeting. Then he had moved on to the group busy with food preparation:

"How about I make us some eggs, Dr. Banner."

"I'd appreciate some help from someone who actually understands that setting the stove on the highest dial doesn't simply produce the food faster," Bruce said.

Clint spluttered something about growing up on a diet of circus peanuts and popcorn; how was he supposed to know the finer details of making burgers?

"Thanks, Steve," Bruce added over this added noise of indignation.

Once the national anthem came to a close, JARVIS switched the music. Hard rock played next. At least he kept the volume low. The men continued to bicker and work in alternating bursts, and soon the smell of baking waffles, frying bacon, and percolating coffee filled the air. The thick scents made your stomach turn. You tried to grip your knees to keep yourself in the moment, but no matter how hard your knuckles tightened, you couldn't stop thinking.

Odds were you were just crazy. Now that you thought about it, the real crazy idea was that you'd somehow got sucked into an alternate universe where all your favorite characters were flesh and blood. No. You'd been in an accident, and it wouldn't be much longer before you woke up in a hospital bed. Acquaintances would no doubt react with raucous laughter when you described your coma dream to them.

Most people already thought your passion for certain fictional worlds was strange and oftentimes too intense. This was proof of your very own. Could there be a bigger loser than someone whose subconscious put them straight in the middle of a bad self-insert fan fiction?

"Good morning boys and girl." The chair across from you scraped against the tile floor as someone pulled it back. Into that chair plopped Natasha Romanoff. She took one look at you, then placed her elbow on the table and her cheek on her fist to shoot you a catlike grin. "Jeez, you look like you got hit by a truck—or maybe an Asgardian with a penchant for horned helmets. I think you looked better yesterday."

You couldn't do it. Natasha was the last straw. No one seemed to have noticed you hadn't said a single word since Tony had come in anyway. With nothing more than a vague mutter about needing the bathroom, you shot out of your chair and into the hall. You heard Natasha make a confused noise. No time to answer her. Your pace would not slow until you fully escaped this bizarre nightmare.

******

Night had started to fall when you staggered out of your apartment building on shaking legs. You collapsed onto the empty steps out front, too dazed to so much as hyperventilate. Above you stretched a matte, starless sky with red along the visible edges. All around you swarmed patches of light: warm windows, haloed streetlamps, blinding headlights. How often had you sat in this exact spot at this exact time to wait for taxis? These surroundings ought to have been something you knew. But you didn't know any of it, not anymore.

Your bare feet stung and your back ached from your day of running around Manhattan. Maybe fleeing from breakfast without trying to find proper supplies—like shoes or actual clothing—had not been your smartest plan. You had just been so scared of being stopped and so convinced that you'd soon regain consciousness that figuring out how to get back to the room you'd woken up in felt like a waste of time. Now you had to face the truth wearing someone else's pajamas, alone, with no money, no phone, and no food.

And what was the truth you had to face? That you didn't live here. Oh, no. Worse. You didn't just not live there anymore. You’d never lived there at all. A single chat with the building manager proved that. He refused to let you into your former home. Bursting into tears in reaction only got you so far as an allowance to accompany the manager to knock on the door. Someone did answer, and that someone didn't know you, and you didn't know them.

Probably the only reason either the resident or the manager had been polite enough to let you leave of your own volition was that you were recognizable. A day of wandering the streets had not changed your appearance enough to avoid stares, murmurs, and the occasional request for an autograph.

The same held true outside as well. People walking by came to a complete stop when they spotted you. More than a few phone cameras flashed in your direction. You heard more voices the longer you sat there: "Isn't that Cinnabar?" "What's an Avenger doing here?" "Do you think there's some emergency?"

Great. As if you didn't find your own terror difficult enough to deal with, your mere presence had passersby scared, too. Your disheveled appearance wouldn't help matters. If only you could have opened your mouth and reassured them—not that you had any idea what comfort you might offer someone else just then.

Slowly, you forced yourself to wobble to your feet. It had been December last you knew. The visible puffs of air raising from your lips indicated that that remained true. Without money or a coat, you needed to get moving if you wanted to find somewhere indoors to stay warm overnight. You wouldn't be able to make it back to Avengers Tower before being outside became dangerous, and truth be told, you weren't so sure you wanted to return.

You'd gathered a small crowd of onlookers during your vigil. They backed up to give you space as you made it to the sidewalk. Their mumbling grew so soft that you could no longer eavesdrop. Better for you to focus on taking one step after another. You could do that. One step after—

A tremendous flash of light lit up the sky. Thunder roared so loudly that the ground shook. Your head snapped upward as you pitched forward. Though your knees screamed in protest as they hit the cement, you could only find the room in your mind for one thought:

Hadn't the sky been clear only moments ago?

"Brother, I have found her!" a voice boomed nearly as loud as the thunder itself. Then you were swept up into a pair of huge, unyielding arms. You squirmed fruitlessly in their grasp, anxiety mounting. Your captor only laughed, a sound you could feel reverberating in their chest.

"Thor, release [Name] at once. You're clearly suffocating her."

"Apologies."

The arms withdrew, and you stumbled backwards as you gasped for air. A face above the limbs swan into view: Thor Odinson, grinning broadly down at you.

"We returned to find you missing. We were worried for you," he said.

"Quite," Loki agreed. "But come. Let us move to a more private area before you send the mortals to a hospital."

You allowed him to gently pull you up the street. A quick glance backward showed you the throng from earlier watching your trio leave. Several of them swayed on their feet; one or two held hands up to their heads. Now that you thought about it, Loki and Thor's arrival had brought with it another scent. This one was different from before. Minty, perhaps?

"Lucky for us, Asgardians are immune to this variety of your toxic fumes!" Thor said.

Heat filled your cheeks. Of course it would be that your first discussion with two of your fictional heroes would involve them casually chatting about your gas. Did that mean the stench from the morning had belonged to you as well? But Loki had not been able to touch you then, and as soon as he'd marched you to an empty street corner that evening, he gave you a brief hug. He cupped your face between his palms the moment he drew away.

"What in all the Ten Realms are you doing out here?" he asked.

The sudden softness of his expression made it impossible for you to lie. You opened your mouth, but no words exited it. "I just...needed to know for sure," you said after a moment of struggle.

"And you couldn't have waited for me to join you? Or, Heven forbid I encourage such behavior, but one of the many do-gooders we reside with?"

Tears filled your eyes at the suggestion. Normally you weren't such an easy crier, but it had been a long day, one of the longest in your memory. Refusing to ask for help from a group of people who didn't appear to mean you any harm felt incredibly stupid in retrospect. If these were the real Avengers—and you had mounting evidence that they were—obviously they would have assisted you. Maybe they would not have believed you, but they probably would have agreed to take you to your old apartment.

Loki's thumb caught one of the tears that spilled over your bottom eyelids. After that, he grazed his hands down your neck to your shoulders. "There, there. We'll simply blame your ordeal on Dr. Banner's horrendous babysitting. I swear, once that woman—"

Thor loudly cleared his throat. Loki paused, rolled his eyes, and went on:

"—Natasha enters a room, all his supposedly genius mind can think about is her ass—"

"Ah-hem."

Loki hesitated a little longer this time before continuing, "—her assets." He glared at his brother, who merely beamed in return and gave him two thumbs-up. "Still, one would believe he could remain focused on you for a few hours, given your condition."

"Loki tells me that you are suffering memory loss after yesterday's battle," Thor said.

You were too tired to argue the point any longer. More importantly, you were too tired to run. Thor and Loki would only catch you again in short order. Where you could run off to anyway, you didn't know. So you simply nodded and said, "It looks like it," in a small voice.

One of Loki's hands tightened around the shoulder it rested upon; he pulled you to his side as he took a step forward. "And as you are ill, I refuse to let you wander the streets like this a second longer. Let us retire to the tower, where I will draw you a hot bath and see to it that you are well taken care of until this has passed."

You cringed despite your bone-deep exhaustion. To your surprise, Loki noticed, moved a little away from you, and let you go.

"Or," he said slowly," you can clean yourself up however you see fit and get some rest. I can sleep on the floor."

Another peal of boisterous laughter shocked you awake; you'd almost forgotten that Thor was there. No longer could you ignore his presence when he slung one of his arms around you and then Loki in rapid succession. "Truly proof of the depths of my brother's love for you, [Name]! Never in all my years have I heard him offer to sleep anywhere but on the choicest of beds available."

"Yes, well..."

Were you actually going crazy, or did Thor's observation have Loki blushing? The bad lighting made it difficult to tell for sure. Before you could give the idea much space inside your head, Thor squeezed you tightly against himself.

"Then let us be home!" he cried, releasing Loki to spin his hammer in front of himself.

"Wait! Thor! No! There is a perfectly good subway system just a—"

"Better hold on tight, Loki, or [Name] and I shall make it to the tower long before you will!"

Loki did not need telling twice. He quickly threw his arms around Thor's neck just in the nick of time. Both of your screams were swallowed up by the night sky as the ground zoomed away from your feet.

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