TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER
Harm to people
Self-harm mention
Brief attempted suicide (slightly detailed, not fully)
Depression
Main character has some form of mental breakdown
Kidnapping
SO AS USUAL PLEASE SKIP PAST THE <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> MARKERS
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After a few weeks, Thor had been going back and forth to Asgard since there were problems (specifically with Fjinn, you see this was all a part of his plan).
"How the hell could a God - specifically a God Of Seduction And Love cause problems for an entire realm?" asked Espoir confused.
"Well, you'll find he can be very persuasive." Loki explained.
"What, like you are with me?" she said, laughing.
"That's because you're infatuated with me, my love." he smiled, before kissing her lips and holding her close to him. "Especially after last night." he said, grinning as she blushed, thinking about the previous night before he began kissing her again.
Loki leaned over here, beginning to make out with her before Benjamine burst in.
Benjamine fake screamed in horror. "PDA! PDA! PDA!" she pulled a pretend disgusted face at Espoir.
Espoir stuck her tongue out at her, childishly, looking behind Loki's shoulder.
"PDA?" Loki asked, getting off of her. "What does that mean?"
"PDA. Public Displays Of Affection. The 'of' is silent." he looked at her a little confused. "It means you don't say the 'of'." Espoir explained.
"What is the issue with...PDA? It happens all of the time where I'm from.."
"Well, it doesn't happen here!" Benjamine said annoyed. "People don't wanna see it sometimes. Especially me!"
"Then go away." Espoir said smiling.
"Make me." Benjamine challenged.
"I'll fight you." Espoir jokingly threatened, standing up.
"Fight me then. I learnt a thing or two when you weren't there." Benjamine smirked.
"Wait, who's hitting who first?" Espoir asked quickly.
"Whoever can get to the other first."
Espoir sped across the room within a second "Try and catch me then." she grinned.
"No cheating, Ess. No powers allowed." Benjamine said teleporting to her.
"Then no teleporting." she laughed, preparing herself to fight. "You may know how to fight, but yeah, so do I. I'm a black belt in karate, and firebending follows Northern Shaolin, which as you know, I am a master of. But I'm not bragging here, I'm just listing off how cool I am." she smiled.
They weren't actually fighting, they were just pretending to, so if Benjamine put her fist near Espoir's face, for example, she'd pretend that she'd just been punched in the face.
Loki was quite amused by this, seeing his love actually fight.
Although they were only pretending to fight, at one point one of Benjamine's attacks had been where she was behind Espoir and hit her from behind, but it was onto where one of the bad burns was.
"Shit, Espoir, I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry." Benjamine said freaking out as Loki watched on confused.
"I-I.." Espoir began, tying up her hair before Benjamine shushed her.
"Remember how I calmed you before? Just do that. It's okay." she smiled, as she quietly explained to Loki what happened if you accidentally hit where one of the burns was, or if you touched it without permission. (If it was one she got in training, a flashback would trigger to where she'd get sort of dangerous-ish, and so she had to surround herself in fire and let all the anger/fear out otherwise she'd completely flare up.)
Espoir had walked into the middle of the room (she'd moved the furniture and other things out of her way first) and then she began attacking the air, she'd put a fire shield surrounding her, and hit the air, letting the fire come out from her fists, hands, and feet, screaming and shouting. Letting it out.
Tony came in confused, as did most other people.
"What in the actual hell is...oh. Ess, you okay?" Tony asked, noticing how there was now a large fire shield surrounding a screaming and shouting Espoir who was attacking imaginary people.
"Fire is the element of power. Gotta be powerful. Can't be weak. Can't be weak. Can't be weak." Espoir repeated, on, and on. "Fire is the element of power. Powerful. Weakness is not powerful. Can't be weak. Can't be weak or I'll get burned."
"Benjamine, I don't understand what's going on. Can't you help her?" Loki said, hating that Espoir was distressed.
"No." Benjamine said sadly. "Nobody can. It's how she's always been."
"FIRE IS THE ELEMENT OF POWER! BEING WEAK IS NOT BEING POWERFUL! IF YOU ARE NOT POWERFUL YOU WILL GET BURNT!" she roared, before she calmed down, clearing her throat a little, breathing quite hard, and flicked her head so her hair wasn't in her eyes.
The shield had left and she noticed that people were staring pretty much gobsmacked.
"You...okay?" Tony asked awkwardly.
"Oh, hey." she smiled, nodding. "Yep! Just, uh, can't let people touch some of the burns. It, uh, triggers a flashback from the intense training. Got 'em all over me so it's bound to happen but yeah."
"You mean completely insane training?"
"Well, that's how things were there. I had to learn to defend, to attack, to..."
"Be what they called powerful?"
"Yeah. They were asses there, pretty much. They believed in the old ancient ways of fire bending, wherein which you have to be powerful because fire is the element of power, and you can't fail. You have to be tough. Strong." she explained. "They would hurt us if we weren't trying our best and the exams were brutal. Only a few people have passed it and if it wasn't for my healing factor I'd have died, and it's why I take being a firebending master very seriously."
"Oh."
"Yeah." she said, before noticing something that was falling from the sky. "What's that?" Espoir asked, running to the window.
"Probably a meteor or something." Tony replied.
"Yeah. A meteor. In the fucking day, Uncle Tony!"
"Well whatever it is, it's coming down fast. I'm gonna freeze it so we don't have another dinosaur problem! One second." Benjamine said before teleporting to the thing, freezing it, and with the help of Thor brought it down. "What..who the hell is that?" she asked, confused, seeing a male.
"That is Fjinn." Thor said, going to bring him back to Asgard.
"Wait, don't we have to ask him what he's doing down here or something? People just don't decide to fall from the sky." Benjamine said, curious at this attractive guy.
"I don't think you're aware of when I was banished here to Midgard by my father, then."
"Well, I don't really pay attention to New York events, Thor. There's a load of things happening in France already. Plus, my mother is kind of ill."
"Lady Benny, I'm sorry to hear that, but you are unaware of what we are dealing with currently. This is Fjinn. And he is the God of Seduction and Love." Thor replied.
"That seems to be pretty useless, then. What's the point in a God of Seduction and Love?"
"The point, pathetic bright-haired Midgardian, is this." Fjinn said before snaking his way to Benjamine, and pulling her towards him so they were incredibly close. Then he held her chin and tilted her head so she was face to face with him, and before she could speak he kissed her intensely, leaving her both dumbfounded and slightly intrigued. He'd stuck his pointed tongue in her mouth too and stopped after a few minutes.
"Oh."
"You see, that is what I do, and then when you believe I will never leave you, or you truly believe I am different as others say, I will drag you down and crush your heart and leave you broken, worthless and destroyed. And I believe I have work to be doing...I've got somebody to torment." he said, before promptly disappearing into the air.
After a few weeks of no luck trying to find Fjinn, they thought all hope was lost, until Espoir was late home.
Tony had been trying to ring her phone about 30 times - which wasn't an exaggeration. Thirty whole times in a row, even waiting for her answer phone (which was her awkwardly saying she was probably reading or saving the world and saying sorry for it) to finish. His hair was a mess, he'd run his hand through it about fifty times already.
"She's probably at the library or something. She really likes reading the old stuff." Benjamine tried to reassure him.
Loki vanished into thin air for a second before appearing back again.
"No. She isn't at the library." Loki said half worried. Now he mirrored Tony's actions of slight panic, running his fingers through his hair.
"What if she's dead? What if she ran away?" Tony asked again.
"She'll come back, Tony." Benjamine said again. "She always does."
"What if she's killed herself because of Pietro's death?" Tony repeatedly ran his hands through his hair yet again, as though that would alleviate any stress from him.
"She seemed happy with me..." Loki said, feeling quite insulted by Tony's words, though frowned at the thought of Espoir not being 100% honest with him as he had thought.
"Yeah. Seemed. She seemed happy. She might have lied. She might have been using her mind powers to trick you."
"It's very difficult for me to be tricked in the mind, Tony." Loki said.
"What if she's jumped off a cliff? Or, or she's...hanging somewhere from the ceiling?" his voice broke slightly, as tears appeared.
Benjamine gently touched his shoulder, as she sent calming thoughts through him. "She's not dead." she said, fixing his messed up hair.
"How would-"
"-I would feel it, Tony. We have a mental connection. That's how I managed to come all the way from La Guardia to here. I was planning to go straight to Spain to see my cousin up until Christmas that just went and what happened? I went straight to Espoir because she needed me. If she needs me again, I'll be sent straight there, always. Trust me. Please."
"Then-" Tony began before Benjamine interrupted.
"-However, I don't feel her fire anymore. I don't know why. She's still alive, I know that much."
Loki sighed, frustrated.
Unbeknownst to them, she had been kidnapped by a certain God of Seduction. He had been planning this since he witnessed Loki and Espoir together. He absolutely loathed Loki and wanted to see his love suffer to the point of near suicide.
"Whoo, boy, you are so gonna regret this. You may have rid me of my powers, but I will kill you...you strangely attractive man." she said, half awkwardly.
"Is that a threat?" he asked, smirking.
"No. It's a promise...and I don't break promises." she smiled slightly, feeling a little more confident.
"How will you do that, pathetic Midgardian?" he teased. "I am immortal." he smirked.
Her smile faltered, as she sighed a little in anger. "What is it with you Asgards coming to Earth, like what the fuck? Who's coming now, fucking...Odin? Y-Y-Your grandma?!"
"You're incredibly irritating...but it makes me want you even more." he said, seductively.
"One, ew. I have a boyfriend and two, he is going to kick your ass if he finds out you of all people have got me here. Either my boyfriend or my uncle will kick your ass...but they'll kick your ass either way!" she replied annoyed, but his magick flowed into her, causing her eyes to turn to a light pink.
Fjinn smirked. "See, you're giving into your desires now, and you'll be mine, all mine. All you have to do, is yield." he said, going to kiss her but she tried to move away. "Do not resist me, Midgardian. Just yield. Yield." she resisted, as he repeated the words.
"No. I won't! You can't tell me what to do!"
"Oh, but I can. I can tell you what I want you to do and you'll do it, and you won't even know. You know why? Because I'll control you. You could slaughter everybody you love with a sadistic grin, yet have no memory of it ever happening." he explained.
He summoned something that looked like a perfume bottle and sprayed it in her face.
"What's that supposed to do, make me smell nice?" she mocked, before realising it had done something to her, worried about her sudden attraction to him.
Jet, I know you can hear me. Tell the others! Please! she said in her mind.
Jet refused but she still continued to protest. Please, I'm scared. I don't want him to hurt me. I feel weird and I'm suddenly sexually attracted to him.
Tears began to spill from her eyes.
Jet came from her, then flew to Stark Tower very fast, coming in through the ventilation system as smoke then fire again. Tony was incredibly stressed, as was Loki and many others. They were looking everywhere for Espoir, yet they hadn't thought to check places that weren't on maps.
"Jet!" Benjamine said, alarmed. "This is bad. Jet would never leave Espoir, not if she was in danger."
"Don't tell me she's..." Tony said before Jet roared. "I don't speak freakishly huge fire creature."
"She's not dead." Benjamine said.
Tony and Loki loudly breathed out in relief in sync.
"A man has got her trapped in some warehouse type of area." Benjamine translated.
Jet growled.
"But..." Benjamine said, before sighing sadly.
"But? But what?" Tony asked, worried as Jet roared in response.
"She's being controlled by a God that is trying to seduce her." Benjamine said. "He's...she's been made to feel certain feelings towards him against her control."
"Fjinn." Loki growled, irritated, clenching his fists. He began pacing, breathing heavily. "IF HE'S DONE WHAT I THINK HE'S DONE I'M GONNA KILL HIM!" he roared.
Tony was furious. If she had been assaulted again, something had to be done about him, and about her flashbacks again.
"In order for her to use her powers Jet has to be where he belongs, but she's incredibly vulnerable and weak now. She wouldn't normally order Jet to do this. She knows how dangerous this is for her." Benjamine said.
Fjinn was walking around her, looking.
"Why do you not yield? You can, you know. Loki wouldn't know, and I'm not going to tell."
"No! I will not! I will not do that to Loki! I love him, and him only! I'm not going to give into you!" she yelled, attempting to ignore the feelings of attraction.
"But you will. I hear Loki's thoughts all the time, he thinks you're so easy to control, but he doesn't control you like I would. He thinks of you like you're small. Nothing. Not a true partner at all. He wants to show you our home, but knows you're too weak and he grows tiresome of the way you hate living." he smirked, lying. "Now, you're deliciously wet for me. And me only. So your best thing to do right now is yield..."
Espoir gasped slightly, how would Fjinn know something like that? Why would Loki say anything like that, for one thing? Thoughts raced into her mind as her jaw dropped.
Fjinn took the opportunity of her open mouth to steal her strong soul, he sucked it in, and swallowed it whilst his red eyes bored through into her eyes, doing something to her brain.
Jet roared aloud in anger, the roar echoing throughout the entire building.
"Jet?" Benjamine asked, noticing how he was getting larger and angrier.
He roared at Benjamine, then everybody else.
"Guys, we have to hurry. Apparently, he's taken her soul. It won't be long before her body tries to heal itself, but it can't without the full power of Jet inside to help her." Benjamine said, as everybody pretty much suited up, and Loki donned his full armour, and Benny saw Loki's helmet, to which she started gigling slightly.
"What is it?" Loki asked slightly irritated as the helmet disappeared into just the horns, but considerably smaller.
"Nothing." she said, focussing.
And so they were on their way to rescue Espoir.
"By the way, I dislike referring to you as 'Midgard'. What is your actual name?" Fjinn asked.
"Flare." she replied, breathlessly.
"No, no. That is a nickname, I know. Just as you called Loki 'God of the Assholes'."
"Fine. Espoir Stark." she sighed. "(Dick.)" she said, under her breath.
"What did you call me?"
"Nothing." she said innocently, before whispering. "(Dick.)" She had been losing her strength fast, but tried to hide it. She wasn't going to give into somebody like him. She wasn't about to show her weakness to the very person who was trying to make her break.
In the long hours that the Avengers took finding Espoir, he had been mentally hurting her. Bullying her, teasing her, calling her names, saying lies to her, and had beat her up a few times too.
"They're not saving you. They don't care for you.." he said, holding her up by his hand around her neck. "Nobody cares for you, you pathetic weakling."
"Don't worry. Just you wait..." Espoir said, beginning to be unable to breathe from the tight grip.
"For what?"
Suddenly, a large blast of ice shot at Fjinn, in his face, and Paranoid by Black Sabbath blasted from somewhere.
"That." she said, before Fjinn let go of her neck, making her fall to the ground, to which she hurt her head as she grasped it, groaning a little.
"I will always hurt you, and I will never, ever stop." he said before knocking her out.
Loki appeared, and noticed Fjinn knocking out Espoir, and teleported over to her.
"My love..." he said quietly before turning to Fjinn and going to attack him before Fjinn disappeared.
Pretty much everyone was fighting against clones of him, strong, difficult to defeat, and they were just plain annoying to get rid of.
Loki had experience with clones, so he knew which Fjinn was the real Fjinn, and he was next to Espoir.
Iron Man blasted one Fjinn in the face to have the face come back again.
"These goddamn Gods are so goddamn annoying!" he said annoyed.
"You just said the word 'god' three times." Nat said.
There were millions of Fjinn everywhere and it took about an hour or so to get rid of about sixty of them each.
"Man of Iron! The real Fjinn is next to Lady Espoir!" Loki exclaimed, to which Tony blasted every version of Fjinn up to the one next to Espoir. At the sight he saw, he saw nothing but fire and rage in his eyes.
Loki looked to see the same thing too, and at the same time, Tony and Loki attacked Fjinn up to the point of almost death.
In fact, the Hulk had to drag them both away from Fjinn or they would have actually killed him.
Loki picked up Espoir, and held her close to him.
"My love...I will not let anybody hurt you again. Ever." he said quietly. "I promise you this. I'm sorry."
Jet appeared and growled.
"He said that when he goes in there she could either be possessed by Fjinn and kill us all, or she could be in great pain." Benjamine explained. "Or both."
They nodded.
Jet turned into a speck of light and once again returned to Espoir, to which she awoke, tensed up and convulsed a few times, her arms and legs kicking and punching out, screaming from pain and feeling Fjinn's presence in her brain.
"Espoir, c-calm down! Please! You're safe!" Loki said, worried since she had injured her head and she was moving around - she was surely going to be even more injured - and then she suddenly stopped, breathing heavily, looking at Loki and trying to get away from him, and then everybody else.
"Get away!" she said, afraid, preparing to fight, standing as she used to do when she was about to before. "Get off of me!" she yelled, when Loki put his hand on her shoulder to try and calm her.
"What happened? Did he hurt you, did he touch you?!" Loki asked concern and anger in his voice.
"You hate me! I know you do! He told me about you! He told me about all of you!" she yelled, burning Loki's arm to which he moved away quickly, healing himself with his powers.
Everybody was so confused. They had no idea what was going on.
"Espoir? You know who I am...don't you?" Loki asked nervously.
"Ess? You know me, your uncle Tony. Your Dad before he died was my brother, you know that don't you?"
"Of course I know that! I know who all of you are, but what I also know is that you think I'm a burden to you!" Espoir said, defensively. "You all hate me! All of you! You don't like me anymore! You've never liked me!" she yelled. "You wanted me home the second I freaked out the first time!"
"What?"
"I heard your thoughts way back then...I didn't say anything because I thought I was only gonna stay a week.."
"We never wanted you to go home!" Steve tried to say to her.
"None of that matters anymore anyway! Nothing does!"
"What do you mean?"
She stood up, looking at Jet.
"Jet, we need to get out of here." she said as he roared in reply. "No, Jet! I don't care what you say! We are going and that's final! I'm going home! I need to be at home! I just have to get out of here!" she yelled.
She looked at everybody, and she thought they were going to hurt her.
"Jet, full flame now."
"ESPOIR, NO!" Benjamine shouted, afraid.
"You don't tell me what to do. You're not my mother - she's dead, and if I recall correctly, you said she was a bitch and died a whore." she said to Benjamine annoyed. "Jet, full flame."
"Wait, what's 'full flame'?" Tony asked.
"Her ultimate defence mechanism when she's scared, terrified. More scared than those words put together. Her and Jet fuse together to create one huge fire-demon." Benjamine said worried and concerned.
"Cool." Tony said, speaking before thinking, unsure on what to say.
"It is not cool! We will all most likely die!"
"JET FULL FLAME NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO FULL FUCKING FLAME!" she screamed, as fire surrounded her. "If you won't leave me alone..." she began before her eyes turned a bright fiery reddish-orange. "I'll just make sure you'll never hurt me again by getting rid of you." she said in a demonic voice.
Her entire body was engulfed into flame as she turned into something that looked like Jet in appearance but different somehow.
Bursts of flame blasted out at everybody, as Jet/Espoir roared at them, who were staring in shock.
Everybody pointed their weapons at her.
"Enough water or ice will get rid of flame, right?" Tony asked Benjamine, as they defended the shots of magma, bursts of lava and dodged fireballs.
Benjamine created a strong room of ice surrounding her and Tony. "You couldn't have done this before?" he asked, sarcastically.
"If I ice her too much her flame will end up going out and that'll kill her." she said, sadly. "As much as I know about my powers, I don't know the velocity. I don't know if I'll go too far. I don't want to kill her. The real her in there, I can hear her thoughts. She believes she's far too gone, she's been hurt, tortured and bullied by Fjinn all mentally. She can't cope with that and she's afraid...she's so afraid, and..." she sighed. "...she wants me to kill her."
Tony sighed, sadly. "Then..." he huffed, getting lost in his words. He was incredibly stressed. "Then ice her til' she passes out."
She nodded.
"We need to hold her off so Benny can ice her." Tony informed the rest of the group.
"We're lucky." she said.
"We are?"
"She's a fire element, as you know. All her kind get their powers from the sun. It's not even a sunny day today. If it was a normal bright, hot temp weather kind of day, we'd literally be burnt alive." Benjamine explained. "Plus, her fire would have to be blue to be dangerous anyways."
It took a while to get Espoir's full attention focussed on Benjamine, and she'd had the greatest idea: which was to insult her until she got so annoyed she had to focus on Benjamine, which wasn't difficult since she was easy to piss off.
"Hey, Espoir! Don't you wanna burn me, too?" Benjamine shouted.
"I'm ignoring you." Espoir said slightly annoyed.
"Is it true you're scared when it's an eclipse because you lose all your powers? How childish is that?!" she yelled. "Only scared of the dark because your Dad scared you as a kid by jumping out of the wardrobe pretending to be a monster so it haunted you for life!"
"Shut up, Benjamine!"
"So you do remember me?" she challenged. "What else do you remember? Do you remember when I set your Mum's hair on fire and she blamed you for it because I control water and ice?"
"Benjamine, I said shut up!" her voice shouted sounding demonic.
"Why, aren't you gonna burn me?"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UPPP!!" Espoir screamed, getting madder.
"Do you remember when I called your mother a bitch and said she died a whore?" with that, Espoir stopped. Stopped trying to kill The Avengers and Loki. Stopped moving. Just stopped doing everything altogether.
She flew very quickly to Benjamine and stared right into her eyes, and Benjamine could see them burning with intense anger.
"You have no right to say that. So you stop while you can, or I'll have to turn you into ash, pretty girl. So insecure about her name she changed it to a model's.
Used to be so afraid to say a simple 'hi' to the famous Captain America because she fancied the guts out of him. She wanted him in bed the minute she laid eyes on him but was too scared to say it because of her weight!
So unable to look after your own mother so you go on holidays to avoid looking after her, leaving your precious little sister Alexis to look after her but you know she can't do it on her own. You can't cope with a constantly-ill mother and a disabled little sister so you go on holidays to avoid that." She said annoyed, her voice wasn't demonic anymore since Jet had calmed down. "Your father, he's not even your real father. He's Alexis's. You don't even know who your real dad is. So you pretend that Samus is your real dad, but we both know he isn't.
You're jealous of me because I happened to grow up with a wealthy father, and live in fancy houses and rich parts of London just because he earned a fuck-ton of money from his adopted parents. You think me and my parents had the greatest life together just because you didn't. It looked happy from the outside, sure.
But it wasn't. You just think that because you don't care. You're too busy focusing on avoiding your own problems to think about if your friends have any themselves!
My Dad would yell at me all of the time, constantly push me to get the highest grades and be in the highest classes. He'd threaten to kick me out. Do you know what it feels like to get a B on an English report aged ten? You tried your goddamn hardest because you'd broken your arm so couldn't write properly, so you try and write the fucking paper, and you get a B. Not a B+, not an A, not an A*, a B. Who got the A*s? Fucking Jessica Whitehall.
At three in the fucking morning, he threw the report at me, grabbed ahold of me and pushed me out of the house and I had to walk around dark, scary parks of Kensington at that time. I was terrified. A homeless man tried to steal my things from me, okay? To be a scared little kid and have a grown, smelly, hairy man come up to you when you don't know where you are...that shit causes nightmares.
How else do you think I got the bruises? From practising firebending too much? From accidentally running into walls because I run faster than you saying a small one-syllable word? Because I run faster than you blinking once?" she scoffed. "No." Espoir sighed, and growled in annoyance. "So shut up."
Benjamine stopped. In an instant, she shot freezing blasts at Espoir until her entire body temperature went below the point it normally should for a firebender, to which Espoir fell to the floor, passing out.
"Okay, quick, we need to get her back or her temperature will keep depleting until she's too cold, and then she'll die." Benjamine said as they took her back in one of Tony's planes (well, smaller planes, that is.)
Bruce spent his time listening to music and Tony had turned up the heat at an incredible number so Espoir wouldn't go any lower.
"She needs to sleep. I don't know if she'll remember us when she wakes up, but for now her body's exhausted." Benny said, reading her levels. "And to make every problem worse, I've got to go soon. I've pretty much extended my original holiday plan. I should've been in Spain for a few months, and then spend New Years with my cousin Aron who moved there. Like she said, I've got to keep an eye on my mother, and running away from that stress and letting my little sister and step-father take it all on board isn't fair."
"How old is your sister?" asked Steve, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Twelve. Thirteen in August." she explained. "It's just not fair to her, considering she's autistic as well. I just feel really bad and I shouldn't have left it all."
"You know Espoir probably didn't mean half of what she said to you."
"But it's true. Every word of it." she sighed. "Espoir is like my little sister. I was only six when she was born, and since then we've been really close. She knows and makes time to understand what I'm going through but I don't even think to ask her." her hair was a darkish blue, signifying she was feeling depressed.
"Just forget about it, honey. It's okay." Steve comforted, before hugging her closely, as she began crying.
"How could I have been like that? I'm an awful friend, sister and daughter."
When they'd gotten back, Espoir had been placed in a panic style glass room that was specifically set to a high temperature so she'd be at the heat she's supposed to be in since 95% of the time she'd have to be iced down again because she freaked out and tried to attack people, or herself.
It'd been about a month of nothing but defence from her. Constantly afraid she was about to get hurt, and constantly trying to hurt herself.
They sedated her. A lot.
"It's not her fault. She just can't cope with Fjinn being there." Benjamine said sadly.
"How do we get him out without going near her then?" Tony asked, irritated.
"We can't." she said. "Unless we want her to either go full flame or just completely freak out then we can't. The doctors said she'd had a mental breakdown twice. And in those moments she...she just wasn't right. It upsets me to remind myself of what she was like. Her mind wasn't there and...you know. They were gonna send her to a hospital."
She'd attack herself sometimes, hitting herself; scratching at her face and her arms to find some way to get rid of the mental torture, hitting the walls and hitting herself against the walls. Any other time she'd be screaming and shouting and yelling until her body gave out and she'd pass out.
~(A/N: TRIGGER WARNING!! MENTION OF BLOOD AND ACT OF SELF HARM ALSO SUICIDE ATTEMPT! YOU CAN'T REALLY SKIP PAST THIS SINCE IT'S THE END OF THE CHAPTER BUT BASICALLY LOKI STOPS HER FROM SHOOTING HERSELF PLEASE JUST SKIP TO THE NEXT CHAPTER IF YOU REALLY CAN'T READ WHERE SHE TRIES TO SHOOT HERSELF!)~
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One time, she was scratching her arms harshly, blood coming out, her arms healing a few minutes after.
"Please don't do that." Loki begged, tears in his eyes. "It hurts me so much to see you in pain." he looked at her and was reminded of himself the time he had freaked out back on Asgard.
"Fuck off, Loki! You're an asshole and you tried to possess me into liking you!"
"Don't you remember the good times we had?" he asked before she punched the wall and then retorted to falling to the floor and grabbing her hair, pulling on it and tearing strands out, scratching her arms again, making them bleed every two seconds as they repeatedly healed. "Please. I don't like you hurting yourself." he said, and he walked into the room, using his powers to walk through the strong glass walls and over to her, holding her hands gently. "Stop this, this isn't you."
"Get off of me!" she yelled. "I have to do this!"
"Fjinn. Please leave my love alone. She is losing herself and I don't want her to die."
Fjinn laughed, leaving Espoir's body as Jet had done to warn the Avengers previously.
Thor had grabbed Fjinn and sent him back to Asgard where he was placed in prison, but not before Tony had beaten the crap out of him.
Loki had left for about twenty-five minutes to explain to Tony that Espoir should be a bit better now that Fjinn wasn't in her head, but that had all changed, Benjamine had screamed, and everybody looked concerned.
"What? What are you screaming at?" Steve asked.
"It's Espoir! I can hear her thoughts!"
"What are they saying?" Loki asked, afraid.
"Suicide. Nothing but suicide!" she screamed and within a second Loki was in the room she was in and trying to talk her out of shooting herself, but she was just stood, a blank expression on her face, tears rolling down her cheeks and her hand shaking like crazy as the gun was pointed at her face, cocked and she had her finger on the trigger.
"ESPOIR, NO!" Tony screamed, as everybody had run to the room.
She was about to pull the trigger, but in a second, Loki had teleported to her and hugged her, as the gun fell from her hand, shooting and shattering the glass wall as she collapsed to the floor, sobbing. "Please! I just want to die, please, please!" Espoir begged as Loki held her tightly. Still, in her crying fit, she tried reach for the gun and when she couldn't do that she attempted to claw at her arms but Loki stopped her by tensing his arms around hers to hold her close while at the same time stopping her from hurting herself.
"No. Not now and not ever." he said.
The entire room was a mess since she'd trashed it in the fit of anger and rage. "Please!" she continued to sob, repeating the word 'please' as Loki comforted her, hugging her and holding her closely.
"You will forget Fjinn. Forget he ever happened, darling. It's alright." he said, kissing her head. "He can't hurt you. I'm here."
"Can't you just let me die, Loki?" she sobbed.
"Never." he said. "Never."
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