100 Marvel One Shots✔️

The Painter >> Loki X Reader

"Yes, Mom, there's no relationships on my end, perhaps for eternity." You'd reply. "And Dad wasn't a deadbeat, you said he was a security guard?"

"Something like that." She'd reply. "I miss you, baby."

You'd smile at the phone. "I miss you too, Mom."

But your roommate! He was just infuriating. Too smart for his own good, and a mix of a sullen, sulky personality with a hint of stick up the ass and maybe some manners, under all that hair product. Maybe you didn't trust anyone well enough to see a good side in anybody. Maybe you didn't trust yourself, what, with the world suddenly having superheroes and aliens and mad scientists turning into giant teddy bears when they got angry. Loki would often fold in on himself, or cough late at night, or the shower would be running, but there'd be no sound of any washing going on. You weren't a perv, you swear, but you know it when someone was in or not.

But he'd just come back from his shift at Harlem's Paradise when you heard a crash outside the door. Of course, you were in your painting smock, and running to see the problem – who knew if it was Mr. Murdock falling over, you'd be the devil of Hell's Kitchen if you didn't do anything to help – you opened the door to see Loki, and through his black tee, blood seeping through onto his pale palm.

"Don't tell me you're in the mafia," you gritted out, helping perhaps the heaviest man alive into the apartment, to sit on the couch that wasn't covered in your painting stuffs. His blood was all over your smock, painting the otherwise clean item red. "'Cause that'd really suck on my tenant record."

He'd frowned at that, but there was no reply. Lifting his shirt, you see a mark on his chest, and gape.

"Why on Earth did you come here when you've been stabbed?" you ask him, quite frankly flabbergasted. "It's like, straight through! You need the hospital, not an underpaid artist!" You run your hands through your hair, and too late remembering there's blue paint and blood on your fingers.

"I'm, fine," Loki replies, but there's red on his lips.

You shake your head. "You're really not! No, I will not have a guy bleed out on my couch. I am a reputable young woman! I can't have murder on my hands!" you shriek, and dive for the phone on the table. "I'm calling for an –,"

Loki's head shakes, hair falling into his eyes. "Please, just drive me yourself. I'd rather die a swift death than go in one of those loud automobiles."

And thus, it went that you're toting the bleeding out handsome roommate of yours to your Nissan Versa, and laying a drop sheet on the seat so he doesn't ruin your poor car's upholstery (priorities, indeed). Before too long you were in the ER at the Metro-General Hospital and while Loki was being wheeled away by nurses and medical jargon, you were left with paperwork. And explaining that you had no idea why the guy had been stabbed – no, it wasn't me! – and why you hadn't come sooner.

Turns out that there were still fractures of the blade in his stomach, and after almost twelve hours of surgery, Loki had been given almost twice the usual anaesthesia regularly used to adult males, and you were left sitting beside his bed, waiting for him to wake.

"When I was a little girl, I'd pretend my dad was in the picture," you found yourself talking to his knocked-out body, low enough so the person in the next bed behind the curtain wouldn't be disturbed, or let in on your secrets. "Kind of pathetic. I'd say he was a pilot, and that he had a big plane, and flew people around the world.

"Mom found out, and told me about what he did, but I know she lied. You probably know already, but I'm just someone who can't let things lie. I don't know, it's like there's something in my blood that makes me want to do things beyond what I'm comfortable with, make things come from nothing, find answers to impossible questions." You confided to the sleeping Loki in the bed.