Summary: Loki x fe!Reader -> After a mission goes wrong, you're hurt. Badly. And, surprisingly, Loki is there to help in the aftermath.
Disclaimer: Brief mentions of kidnapping, blood, wounds and injuries. Loki patches reader up, strangers to friends to more, friends to lovers, inevitable meeting, agent!reader, a trip to Asgard, hurt/comfort.
Never in your life had you expected a God to ask for your forgiveness.
“Forgive me,” you heard Loki’s voice say across the darkened suite. “I was looking for my brother.”
“He’s not here.”
“Clearly.” He replied, quickly, before you could feel his gaze wander across your entire being. Others might have found it flattering, but there was a stark contrast between being ‘checked out’ and being ‘checked over’. “You’re bleeding.”
“Clearly.” You replied without looking up at him, not that you would have seen him through the drying tears and blood caked across your eyelashes.
“Would you care for some help?” He asked you after a few moments of deafening silence. “It’s just, I don’t think I can just…leave in good conscience.”
“I’m fine,” you gritted out as you ran your hand under the water before hissing and holding back a long string of swear words. “Thank you.”
You’d heard stories of Loki’s…stubborness. His inability to obey orders and requests. Apparently that applied to the moment, too.
“You have far more extensive wounds than I gather you’re willing to talk about,” he said, swiftly pulling a clean towel from the oven door and wrapping it around your hand that he pulled from under the running water. “But, even without being a God, or my mother’s son,” he continued as he waved a hand and a chair appeared behind you. “I can see you have more injuries than most doctors are willing to count. Please, sit.”
Maybe on a good day you would have done the same; disobey his request, opting to stand simply out of pride and/or stubbornness. But your soul was tired, nevermind your body.
Around you, Loki moved at a pace you’d only ever seen when Bruce was in a caffeine fueled panic. Although, Loki didn’t seem to be in a panic. In a rush, definitely, but not in a panic. He knew what he was looking for and what he needed to do.
“I’m surprised you know your way around the kitchen,” you managed to say.
“I might not be here often, but when I am, it’s mostly to cook. I’ve heard stories of my brother’s abilities and…well, I’m sure you know.”
You nodded, because you did. Thor could do a lot of things, but cooking despite being a favourite new hobby of his, he was still learning. But he was starting to get better.
“Mind me asking how you came by these injuries?”
You squeaked a noise you didn’t even know you could make as Loki lifted your blood soaked t-shirt in order to place a cleansing solution onto your wound. The blood had dried which made it difficult for him to do the next thing; patch it back up.
“I-I-” You tried to breathe. “I was kidnapped.”
“You were what?!”
You breathed through your nose heavily and closed your eyes. “I-I was kidnapped. But…I got free. My job. I finished early. Which I found unus- ahh – unusual.”
“Sorry,” he quickly apologised. “Deep breaths.”
You nodded, squeezing your eyes tighter. “And, I, uh, I…” You bit your lip, trying to think of the rest of your story rather than the searing pain at your side. “I went back and my company was infiltrated. I saw something I shouldn’t and they didn’t like it. I wasn’t there for very long and I sent a message– a message to the team. That’s why they’re not- that’s why your broth- Thor.”
You tried to keep breathing but it was getting more difficult to ignore the pain. “That’s why they’re not here.” You managed to finish.
“Shouldn’t you have gone to your medical wing?”
You shook your head, and then nodded. Then shrugged. “Eventually maybe but not…not for this.”
Loki studied your face for a few moments as he held a compress to another wound. “Easy, easy.”
“Me easy?! What about you?!” You tried to breathe, again. It hurt a little less. Or maybe you were used to the pain. Then you lowered your voice. “Sorry, you’re just trying to help.”
A sympathetic chuckle left Loki as he leaned in a little closer. “It’s alright. You’re in pain. Tell me why you won’t go to med-bay.”
You swallowed and nodded. “It’s not my first time getting kidnapped or coming home with these injuries.”
“When was the last time it happened?”
“Longer than the time before it.”
“How vague.”
You felt air blow through your nose in a slight laugh. “The last time I went to med-bay, the doctors and nurses there…they didn’t exactly have a neutral face, or even a sympathetic one. By the time they’d finished patching me up, I only felt worse. I don’t want to feel like that again.”
“And they still work here?”
You nodded. “Some do. Others either quit the next day or were asked to leave. I couldn’t blame them…my injuries were extensive and worse than these. But they also left scars. Noticeable ones.”
Most of the dried blood had run away from your skin and beside your open scars he was mending, he could see healed scars running across your body in different directions.
Some were medical, others were…medevial.
“It’s not that I’m ashamed of them,” you told him, quietly. “I’ve been through enough mandatory therapy sessions for work to know I’m not meant to be. But…I can barely step out of a shower without having a rather stark reminder of what happened to me.”
Loki peeled his eyes from your wounds, to your eyes. It was almost like you were healed but still in pain; a cake that had a burnt crust but somewhere inside, deep inside, still remained slightly underbaked.
His gaze was as gentle as his voice when he spoke to you.
“Scars are to be admired,” he told you. “It may not be a story you like, but each of them holds their own. How they were made, yes. But also how you healed. And how you moved forward.”
You swallowed, for the first time, a little nervous in his presence. You could feel the warmth of his fingers against your cold skin. You could feel them gently moving in a comforting graze.
Then you felt a sharp pain on your other side. Unknowingly, you leaned forward a little, crunching over in pain. But Loki stood quickly and held you steady, gently shushing you in your ear. “You’re alright. Where is the pain?”
You pointed, unable to voice it. “Guide me to it.”
Taking his hand, you held it against your side by your ribcage. If they weren’t broken, they were definitely fractured.
“Do you think you can stand?”
“I don’t know,” you said quickly. Again, you tried to breathe through the pain, but that only made the feeling worse.
“I’m going to take you to a medical facility, but we need to get outside.”
“Outside?” You tried to stand, but your body seemed to hate that idea. You groaned. “Why outside?”
“Because the medical facility isn’t exactly on Earth.”
“What?”
“Do you trust me?”
You managed to look at him for a moment, and for that moment, a lot of the pain slipped into a case of distraction. “You should know I’m banned from at least five non-earth planets.”
“I don’t believe Asgard is one of them,” Loki replied as he helped you out to the balcony. “But five?”
You tried to shrug. “It might be more. I didn’t exactly make good friends with Quill when I met him.”
You heard Loki laugh before you were both wrapped in beams of bright flashing lights.
Landing in a golden globe, you held onto Loki tighter. You’d lost a lot of blood in the last few hours and you were fighting with your own body to try and stay upright and awake.
“She needs-”
“I’ve had them prepare the room,” a man whose name you knew but was slipping from your mind, said.
Somewhere in the back of your head, you told yourself Hemindall.
You heard Loki call your name and you tried to reply, but your voice was slurring in your own ears. After that, you must have passed out because the last thing you felt was the feeling of warm fingers curling around your legs.
It started with the sounds of birds, squawking somewhere in the far distance. Then there was a light breeze and a bright light behind your eyelids that began to grow. A subtle feeling warmed your hand as it rested against something soft.
You took in a small breath.
When it didn’t hurt, it shocked you. Then things started coming back to you in flashes in your mind. Although they didn’t come back violently. Mostly you remembered…
Loki.
Turning your head, you felt a soft pillow protecting it. Braving it and slowly opening your eyes, you took in an unfamiliar room.
Tall and vaulted ceilings, grand furniture that was nothing but regal, an open stone window with light flowing curtains that were parted only a little in the middle. Through the small gap, you could see clear skies and flashes of other golden buildings.
With posts guarding the bed, there was a painting on the ceiling of the canopy; constellations. Only, when they continued to move did you realise it wasn’t a painting but rather…magic.
Slowly turning your head once more, you realised the comforting feeling against your palm wasn’t your imagination or magic, either.
Beside you, surrounded in a pale blue bedding, was Loki.
He was fast asleep beside you, looking simultaneously content and worried in his sleep. All the while, his hand held onto yours beside him.
In peace, you took a moment to study him. The way his body seemed to be relaxed, but the crinkle in his brow told you otherwise. Both of you were blood free and he’d changed since you last saw him. No longer in black shirt, he wore a t-shirt in a softer green shade and grey…joggers?
For a god, he sure did dress a lot like a Mortal.
You felt a soft breath leave you, wrapped in a quiet laugh.
Then he moved.
First, asleep. Then half-way between. And then…
“Y/n?”
“Morning to you, too,” you smiled. “At least, I think it’s morning.”
Loki smiled; something you weren’t used to seeing but was a delightful sight. Only, when he moved, there was a shyness that appeared. He’d fallen asleep holding your hand; and you knew it.
“How are you feeling?” He asked as he sat up.
“Like I was never injured,” you told him. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember…passing out. After that?” You shook your head. “Nothing.”
Loki ran a hand through his hair as he stood out of the bed and walked around it towards the table by the window. He poured a glass of water before walking to your bedside and carefully handing it to you. “Well, after you passed out, I got you here and quickly as I could. My mother knows a lot of remedies. They rushed me out of the room the minute I laid you on the table so I can’t say for certain I know what she’s used but, I suppose she’s healed anything that needed it.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A few days.”
“And have you stayed with me every night?” You didn’t move your eyes from his face as you asked him. If he lied, you wanted to still know the truth.
But he had no reason to lie. “Yes,” he told you, keeping his gaze fixed on yours.
In the shared silence, you smiled at him and he smiled back as the awkwardness washed away. As you sat up, you reached out for his hand that lay beside him on the bed covers.
However, as his fingers danced over and through yours gently, there was a loud clambering noise outside that broke the small bubble that had just started to grow.
“I’ll go and check on that,” Loki told you, standing. “Stay here.”
Maybe on another day, you would have refused and stood; you would have gone with him. But it was his home; you didn’t know your way around but you knew the noise couldn’t be anything good.
Until you heard the voices.
“She’s awake? Thank the gods!!”
You heard Loki trying his best to protest against his brother. “No- Thor- she needs rest-”
As Thor entered the room, followed by a beautiful woman you assumed to be his mother, you couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the distressed look of Loki as he stood at the doorway, running a hand down his face.
“Y/n! Thank tha gods! When my brother told me what happened, I swore I’d hunt down whoever-”
“Thor,” you said, gently. “I think I can gather what happened after I left.”
He lowered his voice a couple of decibels. “Then you should also know Natasha is facing a board meeting today after her actions when she found the company that hurt you.”
You raised a brow. “She’s facing Sharpe?”
Thor nodded a little. “The name sounds familiar.”
Then you laughed. “Good luck to him, then.”
“Romanoff is rather formidable.”
You smiled and nodded in agreement just as Thor stood and introduced his mother, Frigga, to you, officially.
That was when you watched her politely dismiss both of her sons from the room and took a seat on the side of the bed to face you. She didn’t ask you about your injuries, initially. First she told you the medicine practices she’d used and how she’d healed you. She explained, due to your mortality, there would be some scarring, but not too much damage.
Then she asked you about your job. And your previous injuries. Apparently Loki had spoken of you; his worry at your injuries and your recovery, his initial impression of you which wasn’t unlike others you’d heard before.
A few days ago, you and Loki had very minimal interactions. The majority of his impression of you came from the stories told to him by his brother. All of which he found to be true in the best sense.
Before you knew it, you were touring the grounds with Frigga, learning more about her sons, her life and Asgard. It was just before dinner when you were reunited with Loki who walked with you the rest of the way through Asgard.
And you both, quite simply, talked.
From the past stories you’d heard from people about Loki, never in your lifetime would you have thought he would have been who he was when he was around you, or others for that matter. Clearly, a lot of change had happened both within him and around him; some you knew of, most you didn’t.
You both shared stories of childhood; some good, some bad. You both shared stories of school and of life, before sharing the stories of love.
Eventually, as time passed, your conversations with Loki became less introductory ones to more…natural conversations. Ones that could start and end anywhere, at any given time.
Eight months after being healed at Asgard, you’d been home for almost seven months and saw Loki more than had done in the last four years working with the Avengers.
Not that you minded.
His friendship with you calmed you in ways you hadn’t ever expected. He made you laugh when you least expected it and whilst other friendships in your life had often set you on an edge where you didn’t want to be too much like yourself in fear they wouldn’t want to keep you in their life anymore; you didn’t have that fear with Loki.
Not once.
Not even for a moment.
“You’re going to wear yourself out.”
Loki’s voice shocked you a little as you stopped throwing hits to the punching bag in front of you. “I’m fine,” you told him, out of breath.
As you turned and looked at him, clean and pristine, you laughed internally. If anyone was looking at their pair of you, you couldn’t have looked more like total opposites. Whilst he somehow managed to seem godlike and regal, you probably looked like you had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
Your old and ratty t-shirt was starting to cling to you because of the sweat, you were out of breath and because of your pumping blood, your scars were a little more noticeable where your skin remained exposed.
And yet Loki looked at you as if you were some kind of goddess.
Eventually his gaze was torn from where he was tracking your scars with that same expression he always seemed to have; it wasn’t one of pity or curiosity but…admiration.
Part of you sometimes wondered if he’d still look at them like that if the setting was closer. More intimate.
“My brother tells me you’ve been quiet for the last few days,” Loki told you as his concentration was brought back into the world. “Like you’re trying to fix something in your mind.”
You barely nodded. “Is that why you’re here? To check up on me?”
He nodded. “But not because my brother asked me to. I’ve been meaning to come back…this just gave me an excuse.”
Loki watched you for a few moments longer. “Is there something you’re trying to fix inside your head?”
You looked at him, your breath catching once more as his striking gaze met yours. “Do you really have to ask?”
“No, not really. I could just read it but..forgive me, but I’d rather you tell me yourself.”
You couldn’t help but smile a little. “You’re a good man, Loki.”
“Some would beg to differ.”
“They don’t know you like I do.”
Loki smiled as he looked at you. “No, I guess they don’t.”
You took your time to look away and sit down, and when he sat beside you, you tried to find the right words to explain what was going on. And he stayed. And he listened. And he let you talk.
There was no guilt in the tears or in the anger or in the fear. There was no guilt in opening up to him, no guilt or worry about him resenting you as a burden who only talks of misery or darkness.
He listened. He held your hand when you finished. And he stayed with you as you remained in the inexistence of time and emotions.
“I think it was inevitable we found each other,” Loki told you one evening, months after the evening in the gym.
The days had been getting lighter and longer, your work toll had lessened and the scars shocked you less when you stepped out of the shower and looked in the mirror.
“You do?”
Loki nodded, his thumb absentmindedly running along your leg. There had been a documentary on the TV, acting as background noise as you finished the last of your paperwork for the quarter. Loki had been watching it intently, barely tearing his eyes from the hour long video about whatever animal was trying to hide, or find a mate, or survive.
“I do,” he said, turning to look at you. “I have lived…centuries. I’ve met millions of people, most of whom I haven’t exactly liked. But you’re the first…”
“I’m the first…what?”
Loki smiled, unable to find the words. “What I’m trying to say is…you’re special to me, Y/n. More than I think I could ever put into words.”
“You’re special to me, too.”
It was in that moment, leaving the paperwork on the coffee table, that you moved closer to him, tucking your legs under you. For a moment, Loki wondered what was missing from him. But when you looked at him, he realised the thing that was missing was the rest of the world.
It had happened more than once when his gaze met yours. His mother had told him when he was a boy, one day he would fall in love and the rest of the world would simply disappear into colours and noise.
For the first time since she had told him that centuries ago, he finally understood. It finally understood it when he met you.
You had been in pain and the rest of the world had slipped from his grasp. All that mattered, despite knowing nothing but stories about you, was in fact you.
Neither of you said anything as you stared at each other without guilt. Simply existing in each other's presence was enough to hold you both together for the rest of your lives. But there was a chance. A chance without fear that there could and would be more.
His hand, gentle against your face, mapped the curve of your cheek, the small crinkle in your eyes as you smiled and the soft lift of your lips as you looked at him. When he looked in your eyes, all he saw was you. He saw the light and the dark, he saw the depth of your emotions and the breeze of your thought process come to a soft break and calm.
As his nose bumped yours, he felt the exchange of air from his lips to yours. And when you finally kissed, he kissed you back.
Later, as you were both surrounded by creased pillows and crumpled sheets, Loki pressed single kisses to each scar, bruise and graze that was still held against your skin. To him, they were beautiful. Something to be admired and cherished.
They may have once held painful memories, but after his kiss, each injury seemed to hold something golden within them; a memory of…love that you could always look back on as a reminder of him, and you, together.
