Drift (Loki x Reader)

II. Incidental

It was rather ironic that you would be concerned about the potential of socially isolating yourself from the other individuals within the Stark facility. After all, weren't the Avengers supposed to be Earth's mightiest heroes, strange misfits and mutants that had all sorts of weird abilities?

You thought so. Though, you weren't a mutant. Your abilities hadn't come from enhanced genetics, some random DNA mutation or weird experimentation by German scientists. They had come from somewhere else and you weren't sure if you would ever figure out where, or if you even wanted to. You were different, to put it the least. Plus, you weren't technically an Avenger. The man with the eye patch had never given you the paper work to formally fill out.

A bemused grin flitted across your features as you pushed open your door and entered the laboratory, observing the case of shattered beakers. "I hope those didn't contain radiation or some deadly virus," you chuckled as you walked to the opposite end of the room to grab the broom and dust pan.

"No," Banner confirmed. "Though I was going to store some hydrocloric acid since Stark got one of his shipments in last night."

"Do I even want to know what sort of thing the two of you are building?" You asked as you began to sweep several of the shattered glass contents onto the dust pan.

"No, he just likes to dilute his vodka with it," Banner replied seriously as you dumped the shards of glass into the trash can. "You know, proper laboratory protocol indicates that all glass shards and items be disposed of into the Sharps Bucket."

"Well frankly, I don't give a shit," you muttered and walked out the door, ready to raid Stark's fridge for some pancakes.

"Wait (Y/n)!" Banner's voice called after you as you quickened your pace to find the kitchen as fast as possible. The scientist and his green friend were very different in many respects, including their physical fitness. Whilst one was rather in-shape, the awkward man that chased after you seemed quite out of breath by the time that he reached you. "I know you don't want to talk about last night's epis - "

"If you say episode one more time I'm going to throw you out the window," you snapped, then quickly regretted your comment upon seeing Rogers enter the kitchen.

"Language," he warned. Rogers seemed the most concerned (actually, the only one to give a shit) about the way that you sometimes spoke to Banner, as if even speaking to the scientist would send him into a raging fit. It had only happened once, mind you.

When Rogers had exited the kitchen, you ran to the fridge and began to pull out a bowl of somewhat molded pancake batter. "Fine," Banner muttered, eyeing the entrance to the room to ensure that there were no unwanted ears. "Your migraine - "

"Bingo." You proceeded to shove the pancake batter into the toaster, though you weren't sure if that was how you made pancakes.

Banner hesitated before continuing, somewhat concerned about your breakfast ritual. "I've been monitoring your brain activity during the migraines, which I know you're aware of. It seems to go in phases and a dramatic increase in brain frequency indicates the next level of the migraine. I think that if we monitor your cerebral activity for the next few weeks, we can detect the next event and have a warning sign in advance."

"You're not sticking probes on my head," you muttered and then frowned at the smoke that began to rise from the toaster.

This seemed to irritate Banner. "I'm trying to help you," he pushed. "The only way we can fix this is to monitor it, to collect data and to understand - "

"You can't understand it!" You snapped, turning away from the toaster. "You can't understand any of this! You don't know what it's like to have one of these migraines, to feel like your skull is ripped apart and in two places at once. You think you understand it through charts and graphs, but those are just numbers. I'm not another experiment that you can probe and test to figure out a solution. You can't fix this, you can't fix me."