AN: my brain spontaneously combusted when I saw 7K. You guys...I adore you all ❤️
I also feel like I should just start mailing automatic apologies to you all for this chapter being late. It seems I'm not fully recovered in strength, and so I keep falling asleep. A lot. I slept for a full day and a half, woke up, slept again and I've only really been conscious enough to write for the past three-ish days. I am really really sorry about this—I hate disappointing you guys and I apologise if I have done so.
My writing won't be the best while I try and recover, but I hope it's acceptable enough ❤️
KEEP IN MIND: Eros is romantic love. Philia is affectionate/ friendly love.
It didn't take long for Natasha to find Loki— curled up in the corner of the library with a book held loosely in his grasp.
Even exhausted, he looks beautiful, she thought, especially under the yellow midday sunlight beaming in through the window, light reflecting off his raven hair like a halo. He looked warm and golden, breaths near silent apart from the lilts of soft squeaks when he inhaled.
She wondered how Loki saw himself as nothing but a monster— as nothing but the ice cold heritage in his veins, and the actions of a past self riddled with desperation and pain. Because to her, he was simply Loki. Loki, with eyes that sparkled with subdued wit, lest you present him with a book or challenge. Loki, who could defy and persuade all but a like-eyed cat. Loki, who loved so much he hurt himself in place of others, who refused to show love to conceal such weakness.
Her Loki, in a way. Because she had claimed him a thousand and one times. Their ledgers were stained and soiled red. They had lied and killed, in the service of liars and killers and sadists because it was, in their individual moments, all they knew to do. They had been taught not to love, at least to hide it well, for love hurt so terribly when broken it was better not to love at all.
But then did she not love him?
Love is a fantasy, the sum of varying parts. Affection, devotion, lust, convenience, infatuation; all human traits that when brought together often lead to weakness.
She knew the lecture the Mistress gave her by heart. Love, in no matter what form, was dangerous. Eros could claim and tear your heart, grin devilishly as the fibres of muscle dripped with bloody heartbreak. Philia ran deeper; it would attack more than the heart. It would make the stomach twist and churn and burn with caustic acid, shape ribs into spiteful daggers, crush them to shining shards of bony glass before reducing them to fine powder. Love left you open to betrayal, and your own destruction. And for the sake of self preservation, for the sake of the cause she was being sculpted to serve, such weakness was unacceptable.
It was why they had so mercilessly removed the prime threat from her for any other future love.
But perhaps that fear was unwarranted. Or perhaps that fear should be discarded. Because love gave strength, and it was strength she would require to put Loki through what she must.
***
The web trails of sleep had banished the moment she pushed the bowl of fruit towards him.
"No." Loki rose to leave on annoyingly stiff legs, because he would not—could not—
"Loki. Please sit down."
Blocking his only path to freedom, Banner and the Man of Iron stood. And Loki could see the lingering Captain and archer.
The doctor sounded too calm against the raging in Loki's ears. They had let him be for so long, could they not continue? And then they could all be happy; the monster would go and if they could simply see that—
"I refuse."
Even the Man of Iron looked grim at Loki's refusal, his usually playful air replaced by stony soberness.
"Can you not leave me be? Can you not see—" His voice broke desperately but he had to make them see, he did not deserve to eat, he shouldn't. "I scourged your prized bowman. Why do you persist in aiding in the wellbeing of a monster?"
"Because you're not a monster." And this time it was the archer that spoke, and the two scientists parted for him to step through. "Yeah, I'll admit you used me, messed with my mind and my morals. You were a psychopath. You made me fight my friends, go against someone I would die for. But you're not a monster, because monsters don't regret, and monsters don't feel pain. And I've seen the scars on your back and I see the scars inside you now."
Loki flinched. The sinful relics of his torture were ones he had hidden with care— or at least he though he had. It seemed they all knew, and it was a wonder he didn't slaughter them all where they stood. He would've done so, a lifetime ago.
"And you would show forgiveness towards me? After all I have done against you and those you hold dear, you would give me an amnesty?"
"Yes." Loki's legs trembled beneath him but he would not fall. Barton however, persisted. "You were tortured. They tore your mind apart, and warped it enough so that you would do what they wanted you to? Sound familiar?" Barton hesitated, and Loki cocked his head slightly. "And if—if I can forgive myself— at least a little for what I did, then I can forgive you too."
Loki sank to sit on the stool. He had never, never anticipated for this to be an outcome.
"Loki." This time it was her voice, sounding too pained, too fervent to prove her coming point. "All of us here, we've all killed. We've all got red in our ledgers, we've all done things we can't forgive ourselves of. You know, more than most people, what I've done. But it doesn't define us, it doesn't make us monsters because we came from somewhere and did things to stay alive. We can't keep running from our past, and we can't get trapped by it. We have to face it, accept it, and know that what we did in moments where we couldn't do anything else doesn't make us monsters, it makes us human."
And as much as he didn't want to be human, he was amongst them, and humanity was contagious. And if he wanted peace so much, perhaps he had to face the raging inferno before he reached the cool sea.
A small mew alerted him to a new presence by his feet. Jade green eyes looked to his, and warmth he hadn't felt in so long doused him lightly, affectionately. A tug in his stomach reminding him of a vague childhood memory with that same gaze, only a warm azure. There was always something about that gaze that compelled him to acquiesce.
***
The other Avengers lingered in the kitchen, avoided having themselves in close proximity with the kitchen island he and Natasha sat at. The Man of Iron, he could see, was certainly acting wonderfully oblivious. He had rushed towards a bottle of bourbon, and poured himself a glass. An action that seemed innocent and inconspicuous, if Loki had not learnt to detect such deception that followed. The way he swirled the aperitif for longer, placed the glass down for more unnecessarily boisterous, animated gestures as he spoke avidly with the doctor. Loki ought to applaud him for that show of self control he'd never seen before.
The archer and the Captain were talking quietly, lingering by the toaster as Clint continued to pile Poptart after Poptart on a plate. Deceptively guileless, if it wasn't for the small mountain of Poptarts untouched and slowly increasing to become a sugary platter. And Naeva was by his feet, calmly lapping her plate of milk, pausing only to lick the starry droplets on her black fur.
He knew the superfluous observations he was making were futile attempts to distract himself from the small fruit, balancing on the tips of his thumb and index finger. He felt almost dirty touching it.
The red skin felt soft and cold. The grape was firm; it would release a satisfied crunch if he bit into it.
If? When?
Natasha's piercing gaze through her casual chatter looked at him insistently. When then.
Only—
Only he liked the taste of nothing that had dangled on his tongue these past couple days. He liked how clean he felt; months under the Chitauri's hold, he'd choked on his blood, gagged on rotting flesh and faeces. His mouth felt pure and clean and uncontaminated. And he could feel the monster—not monster, some part of him whispered, but the voices within rioted at this defiance, and for now he could only know and not accept— the monster was rotting; the cramps in his stomach and tremors in his hands said so.
He liked the peace, the blandness on his tongue. Why could they not see that he couldn't let this go? He couldn't go back now?
But he also knew that this was not the way to true peace. And if he wanted that, he had to face chaos first.
He was Loki. He was the god of mischief and mayhem. He could not fear what he ruled.
He bit into the grape.
And the explosion on his tongue nearly made him sick, because look at what you've done, you've ruined everything and now the monster is going to live—
It tasted sweet—too sweet and too strong and Loki squeezed his eyes shut as his eyes stung with frustrated tears and his mind argued back and forth, swinging like a mad pendulum. Something warm clasped his hand, and the trickster found himself clenching harder, turning anguish to pain and strength.
And as the taste receded, merely ghosting a soft sweetness over his tongue, he opened his eyes. A dull ache pounded in his head— he felt flushed and hot and clammy all over.
But it didn't stop the alien yet welcome bubble of pride that burst and settled comfortably in his stomach. Because he had done it.
Picking up the next grape did not seem so hard as before after that, even if he had to take a few breaths. And he kept his hand clasped with Natasha's, her warmth so familiar he felt safer, more peaceful than he had done in a while.
AN: I don't know if it's clear, but the "prime threat of future love" being removed refers to Natasha's sterilisation. My brain's half baked and it's 4am I'm sorry ❤️