Powerlessness ( Loki x Reader )

XL.

It was as if my chest was collapsing, bone piercing my lungs. I was drowning. Gasping for air. Fingers that claw until their bloody. A throat peeled in desperate flesh. I was muted. I was small.

~ Y/N ~

My legs nearly give out as his footsteps echo down the hall. It feels like I can't breathe, like all the life ~ all the power has been sucked out of me. And suddenly I am helpless. Tiny. A spec as the walls tower over me. The chandelier that hovers as it teases. I only want to be in his arms again.

My tears come soon before the silence is deafening. I can barely process what just happened. Am I angry? Am I devastated? But the lines only blur. And two feelings become one. Sombering like a desperate flame to a wiltering oak.

But the more I thought, the thicker the daze became. I was slipping. Teetering on a thin plank as the wind threatened my balance - I was falling. I was plummeting.

What did he mean by memory? Those were visions, right? Warnings. A prophecy yet to be fulfilled, right? Right?!

I've never done this before?

I've never been here.

Have I?

"Fuck." I whimpered.

Loki.

Why'd you have to go snooping where you don't belong?

Why couldn't you have just listened to me?

Do you really think I'm a monster?

"Knock! Knock! Knock!"

Meek knuckles pressed against Bocote paneling, my ears rose to the sound of company.

"You awake in there, bud?" Steve's voice called behind the railings.

I sucked in an audible sniffle as I stood.

"Can I come in?" He asked softly.

"Go ahead." I muttered.

Footsteps transitioning carpet, he spoke again as the doorknob shifted. "I heard yelling, are you-"

He heaved as my body collapsed into his, the impact forcing him into a slight stumble. I cried in his chest as his arms folded into an embrace.

"Hey? Hey, now. ~ Shh. I got you." He rubbed the mid of my back. "Come on, let's sit down."

Leading me to the edge of the bed, he took a moment to ease me to a seat; resting next to me soon after. His arms tightly wrapped around my shoulders.

He was silent awhile, my sobbing muffled by the fabric in his shirt. He knew how I was when I got like this; to let the initial blow be filtered by the knitting in his sark. Gentle whispers to reassure he was here and willing, and a moment to let the pain dull; at least until I was willing to speak.

But the pain didn't dull. In fact, it festered. Ignited at the bottom of my stomach. Tore at my insides. A fullness where emptiness should lay, I felt soured.

He held me tighter as that registered to him. That this was different. That this was heartbreak. And that he, as well as I, was out of his element.

"Boys, huh?" He chuckled nervously.

I could feel him cringe against my shoulders. "I...Sorry."

The room awash with broken sobbing, he took a moment to think before speaking again.

"Hey....Remember that S.H.I.E.L.D picnic?" He started. "Your freshman year, remember that?"