#feat. steve

You pressed a hand to the side of your head and winced. Youdidn’t remember hitting it on anything, but it was pounding. Like there wassuddenly too much inside of it and it was trying to claw its way out. It was astrange and difficult to describe feeling, and you hoped that it would passsoon.

“Y/N, you alive over there?” Tony’s snarky, if slightlyconcerned voice, rang clear over your earpiece, and you huffed out a laugh asyou pushed yourself up to your feet.

“What, you think I can’t handle a blow to the head?”

You were met with a tense silence, and you could almost seethe team looking at each other as someone decided what to say.

“Y/N, what are you talking about? Nothing hit you.” That wasNat’s voice, and she sounded like she was questioning your current levels ofsanity.

“…what do you mean? Did you not see what hit me? Knocked meright on my ass.” You laughed, but stopped when you realized no one waslaughing with you. By now, a few of the others, Loki, Thor, and Steve, had madetheir way closer to you, and were still looking at you strangely.

“Y/N, nothing hit you. One minute you were standing, thenext you were on the ground,” Loki explained gently.

“We thought you were shot,” Thor added, immediately stridingover to check you for the gunshot wounds he expected to find, giving a humphwhen he found you unharmed.

“What happened?” Steve looked around, as though he werelooking for a chair or something for you to sit on, and you shrugged a shoulderas you wrapped an arm around yourself.

“…I don’t know. I guess it’s just like you said, except… Ifelt something hit me. Like, feltsomething knock me over.”

“Stark, what are the chances it was someone or something wecouldn’t see?” Steve asked as Tony landed the suit a small distance away fromthe area you’d all met in.

“Won’t know until we get a medical examination.” Tony caughtyou rubbing at your temple, and frowned. “You hurt your head?”

“Must have,” you muttered.

“Well, I think the best course of action is getting you backto the compound and getting you checked out,” Loki decided for the group, whoall nodded. “Stark took care of those buffoons, so we’re in the clear. Let’sgo, before more come out to play.”

You nodded, and let Thor put an arm around you as you headedback to the Quinjet with the whole team.

A couple of hours and one medical examination later, and youhad no answers to what had happened or whyyour head felt like it was going to split in half.

“Here. The peppermint will help with the headache,” Lokiinsisted as they handed you a cup of tea, and you took it with a mumbled thankyou.

“…you really didn’t see what hit me?” You tilted your headonly enough so that you could meet their gaze, unwilling to stop cradling it inyour hand in a meager attempt to get the headache to subside.

Loki shook their head, concern evident in their gaze as theykept watching you. “It’s like we told you. You were on your feet, and then… youweren’t.” They were quiet for a long moment, as though considering something tosay, and then they abruptly cleared their throat. “Something’s off about you,though.”

You snorted out a humorless laugh, holding your head in yourhands. “Yeah, no kidding. I feel like I got hit by a train that no one else wasable to see.”

Loki shook their head. “No, it isn’t that. You feel different. Your… composition.”

You made a face as you looked up at them. “Okay, explain,please?”

Loki pressed their lips together as they searched for words.“…humans, most of them, are vastly unmagical. Save for the extreme few, as you knowby our teammates. They feel… normal. Ordinary. It’s almost as though there’sa…lack. Between how those that have some sort of power and magic, and thosethat… don’t.”

You nodded slowly, trying to comprehend what Loki wassaying. “And… What, you’re saying that I… don’t have that lack anymore?”

Loki gave you a look that felt both apologetic andbeseeching. “…something like that.”

You nodded once. And then laughed. And kept laughing.“That’s ridiculous. I don’t have magic. I’m not magic. Look.” You waved yourfingers around in a shameful imitation of how you thought it looked to performmagic. “Nothing. Nothing at all. No magic. Nothing special. No anything.”

Loki steeled themself for the panic they could tell you weresettling yourself into, nodding along as you spoke, but completely oblivious tohow the lights in the kitchen had begun to flicker.

“The idea is absolutely laughable, when you think about it.I get knocked over by some invisible force, have a splitting headache thatfeels like something has been put inside my brain that my skull simply doesn’thave the spare room for, and… and the medical examination comes back normal.Absolutely normal! No injuries, no mind control, no traces of anything. And you… You tell me that I suddenly feel like I have magic like that’s acompletely normal thing to say to a person and not something absolutely insane that makes you sound like you’vegone bonkers mad. And there’s no proof. Noproof to validate your statement whatsoever.”

“Y/N.” Loki said your name calmly, but you were having none ofit as you clenched your fist at your side, not because you were angry, butbecause you had worked yourself into such a stressed tizzy.

In fact, you were so worked up that you hadn’t noticed thatevery cabinet in the kitchen was rattling, the tea kettle was suddenlywhistling, despite the stove not being on, and the lights were flickering withsuch intensity that the room was flashing between pitch black and normallighting.

“No, no. Don’t try to take back what you said. You’vealready said it, and now you’ve got me so worked up that I can’t even thinkstraight, which is doing absolutely fuckall for my headache, and I want it to all just stop.” You accentuated your final word with a frustrated wave ofyour hands, forgetting that you held a tea cup in your hand.

But a shatter never came. Instead, you blinked dumbly as youwatched the teacup hover where your hand had originally been.

“Y/N,” Lokirepeated calmly, and this time you looked at them. They only raised an eyebrowin response, before nodding their head toward the kitchen, and you looked overto see all the cabinet doors still swinging back and forth on their hinges, andthe lights flickering, though with much less intensity than they had in themiddle of your argument.

“…huh.” It was all you could manage as you looked back downat the mug floating in front of your hands, taking it gently before you lostwhatever focus you had and it crashed to the floor.

Loki smiled, an insufferable grin that made you want tothrottle them. “Do you believe me now?”

You huffed out a breath, and the cabinets all swung shut,making you jump slightly. “…it would seem I have no choice but to.”

Good. Now that we’vegot that all squared away, I think we should let the rest of the group knowwhat happened.

“…yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“What?” Loki looked over at you, brow furrowed.

“We’ll go tell the others, like you said.”

“Y/N, I didn’t… say anything… out loud…” They looked at youfor a long moment, and this time, it took less of a push for you to comprehendwhat had just happened.

“…okay. I can… read minds now, too? Is that…? We’re doingthat now, I guess.”

“I think we should tell them now.”

“Good idea.”

A couple hours and some tests later, and you had no more conclusiveresults than you had after the firstmedical examination.

Nothing in your brain looked out of the ordinary, nothingshowed up in any scans.

You just… suddenly and unexplainably had telekinetic powers.And then some.

No big deal, or anything.

“We should work on controlling them.”

You made a face at Loki as you walked next to them. “I just got them. How am I supposed to controlthem already?”

“By practicing. A lot.”Loki opened the door to one of the training rooms, holding it open so you couldgo in before them, and then closing it once the both of you had gone inside.

“Because that sounds somuch fun.”

“Well, your options are control your powers through endlesshours of training or risk tearing the entire complex to pieces, not just thekitchen, the next time you have a little… flare-up.”

“It wasn’t a flare up!” You didn’t mean to say the words asharshly as you did, and they were accentuated with the lights flickeringoverhead and the weights shaking on their rack across the room. “…maybe youhave a point.”

“Of course I do.” Loki sounded so sure of themself that thephrase didn’t even sound snarky. They just knew that they knew more about thesubject than you did, and you couldn’t even blame them for it. “Sit down.”

You watched as they dropped to the floor in the middle ofthe room, and you followed suit, crossing your legs as you sat across fromthem.

“We won’t know for certain until you have better control,but… at least for the moment, it seems that your powers are… connected to youremotions. Or at the very least, heightened by them. I don’t have to explain whythat’s a horribly dangerous correlation.”

You nodded. “So how do I fix it?”

“You fix it by controlling your emotions.” Anticipating yourgrumpy response, they held a hand up. “We all have emotions that get out ofhand sometimes. Nothing against you, or anyone who lets their emotions get thebetter of them. Myself included. The trick is minimizing it. Allowing yourselfto feel it for a brief moment, and then… tucking it away. Until you need it.”

“You make that sound ridiculously easy,” you grumbled,pulling one knee up to your chest and wrapping an arm around it.

“It isn’t. I’ve just had centuriesto perfect it.”

You heaved a frustrated sigh, flopping back on the ground.“So what you’re saying is that I’m doomed. Beautiful.”

“I’m saying youhave to work for it. It won’t be easy. But it will get easier. In time.”

“And how do I practice this exactly?” you argued, staring upat the ceiling.

“Well, for one, breathing techniques. They help keep you calm.And steady breathing is the key to steady magic.”

“Not magic,” you reminded them.

“As good as,” they shot back.

“…fine. So… what, I practice breathing techniques like I’mabout to go into labor, is that it?”

“Look, do you want the help or not? I can always let you letyour powers tear the whole compound to shreds and deal with Stark in theaftermath.”

“No!” You answered a little too quickly, and the lightsflared with a quiet buzzing noise in response. “…no. Please. You’re the onlyone that’s going to be able to help me with this. I… I’m sorry. It’s all… new.Having powers. Give me a gun or a knife or hand-to-hand combat, and I’m fine,it’s just… there’s so much skill required,with this.”

“And was there not for any of the other things you haveproficiency in?”

You were so annoyed that you pulled yourself to sit back upjust so you could level Loki with a glare, because you knew they were right.

“That’s what I thought.” They were silent for a moment, andthen heaved a deep breath. “Look, I won’t tell you that any of this is going tobe easy. You’re… largely alone in this, and I and the others can help you trainto some degree, but the majority of it… is just you. And I’ll do what I can,but… you have to commit to it, too. Okay?”

Your lips twisted to the side as you considered what theysaid, and as you drew your knees back up to your chest and settled your chin ontop, you nodded. “…okay. I… appreciate it. Your willingness to help me…navigate through all of this.”

Loki only smiled. “What are best friends for?”

You smiled, as well.

“Now, about those breathing techniques.”

You tried not to roll your eyesthis time.

“Easy… A little anger goes a long way.”

You nodded once, visualizing your energy and emotions focusinginto a small, concentrated ball between your hands. Careful not to let yourselfdwell too much on your anger, butfeeling it just enough that you could feel it feeding into your power.

With a slow, deep breath, you pushed your hands out in frontof you, watching as the semi-circle of dummies surrounding you fell as ifknocked over by an invisible wave. It was the last move in a series of movesthat had been more successful than anything you’d tried in the six monthstraining with Loki to get your emotions under control so that you could workbetter with your new powers, and the excitement of finally nailing it left youpunching your fist in the air with an excited squeal, the small burst ofhappiness making the lights flicker overhead.

“I did it! Did you see that? I finally did it!” You beamed as you walked over to where Loki wasstanding, swiping up your water bottle so you could take a lengthy sip from it.

“Only took you six months,” Loki teased, and you shot them afaux glare.

“Keep it up and I’ll tell Thor about how much you missed himafter you faked your death on Svartalfheim and pretended to be Odin.”

Loki scowled. “That is a privatememory, how dare you use that as leverage.”

You rolled your eyes. “Well, I only learned from the best,after all.” You stretched your arms out before nudging Loki with your shoulder,smiling all the while as the both of you began heading back toward the commonareas. “Your secret is safe with me. Just like everyone else’s are.”

“You know, I think technically you might be the mostdangerous of all us now.”

You made a face. “What, because I have telekinetic powersthat have taken me six months just to minorlyget a hold of? You or Wanda or Strange could do the same in a matter of seconds.”

But Loki shook their head. “No, no, no. No, no. You’re dangerous because you know all of oursecrets now. You know all the dirt. Blackmail central, if you think about it.”

You made a face and nodded slowly, considering that. “Yeah,if anyone on this team ever does me dirty, it’s curtains for you lot. Though I have gotten much better about…accidentally tuning in.”

“What a nice way to say you’ve been eavesdropping.” Lokishot you an amused look, and you crossed your arms over your chest.

“Hey. It’s not exactly an easy thing to ignore. Especially when it’s quiet or if there’s onlyone or two people in the room with me. It makes their thoughts so much louder.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. I’ve never had the abilityto do anything like that. To my knowledge, anyway.”

“To your knowledge? What, as if you could hear someone else’svoice in your head and not realizeyou were reading their mind? I call bullshit.”

“Alright, fine. I’ve definitelynever had that ability. But it’s probably for the best. More for… back then,than for now. Who knows the shenanigans I would have gotten into? The chaos Iwould have caused, for Midgard and my parents and my brother. Norns, I couldhave had it all, if I’d really wanted.”

“Whoa there, you’re a reformedbaddie now, remember? No talk like that.” You knew they were only joking, butyou wanted to set the record straight, justin case they were having any ideas.

“Sure.” Loki nodded thoughtfully for a moment, cutting theireyes toward you. “Though I suppose I could always have just used them to figureout whether or not anyone had a crush on me or something mundane like that.” Apause. “Like you do with my sister?”

Your cheeks flushed brightred, and with them, the lights overhead buzzed loudly. “How the hell did you catch on about that?”

“Well, I mean, the way that you concentrate on her sointensely when she’s around made it rather obvious in and of itself…” Lokitaunted.

“Oh, you are so dead,” you grumbled.

“You’d have to catch me first.” And with that Loki took off,leaving you to chase after them as the lights shattered one by one in yourwake.

Five years.

And you hardly had any time to think about that at all, because you were being gathered up by a handful of Avengers, some you knew, and some you weren’t sure you’d met before. Sam and Bucky were among the familiar faces you remembered fighting with whenever… whatever had happened had happened, but there were others, too. Warriors, you thought, by the look of it, who had likely been in the middle of the fight, as well. You didn’t know any of their names, but they looked just as confused as you did, and you hoped that someone would explain what had happened.

Your explanation came in the form of a very hurried rundown from a woman who was using a sling ring identical to the one you knew Stephen Strange used. She explained that, in the five years since everything had happened, things had come to a head and that, long story short, everyone was needed in some sort of battle that would likely spell the fate for not only humankind, but the entire universe, if not the multiverse.

No pressure, or anything.

You had no time to speak to any of your teammates. The most you managed was a weak smile at Bucky, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘just another day, huh?’ and then went about checking his gun to make sure it was loaded properly.

You looked down at your own weapons; a dagger on each hip. They felt grossly inadequate in the face of whatever battle was about to happen, but it wasn’t like you were going to have the opportunity to trade them in for something better, at this point. Not when the lady Sorcerer was already using her ring to open a giant portal so everyone could file through.

Steeling yourself for the fight to come, you fell into step at the head of a group of Wakandan warriors, hoping you didn’t look as scared as you felt.

Your fear dwindled in favor of sheer awe once you’d made it through the portal to the battlefield beyond. Everywhere you looked, you saw more portals, and even more people. The area was crowded. Warriors and Avengers and so many people you’d never seen before in your life, all joining together for this fight.

This fight against Thanos, once again. You recognized his larger than life ships and armies now, lined up across the rocky expanse separating both sides. This wasn’t going to be pretty, you could already tell.

“Avengers!”

You jerked your head up, recognizing Steve’s voice. Something was about to happen. The entire crowd grew silent in preparation, the eeriness of it a little chilling. You rolled your shoulders back, and drew your daggers out of their sheathes, preparing.

“Assemble.”

That was all you, or anyone else in the massive crowd, needed, as the air around you filled with the sounds of battle cries as people began to run, swarming together as a singular unit, aimed toward the opposite side of the battlefield. You surged forward with the rest, darting in and out of empty spaces lithely as you watched Thanos’ legions run forward, as well.

You heard the fighting before it began for you; heard the clash of sword against sword, felt the static of magic being used, and smelled the gunpowder as bullets were loosed from their weapons. You kept as far away from it as possible, only fighting when you had to, only because you knew you had to pick and choose who you were going to go after. What good would it be, coming back from the dead only to be taken out immediately while showing up with a knife to a literal gunfight?

Occasionally, though, you couldn’t avoid battle. You did your fair share of stabbing and cutting at the enemy fighters, with a precision that hadn’t been hastened by your brief disappearance. It felt as natural as breathing, to go back to doing what you’d been trained to do. You only hoped that it was doing some fraction of good in the grand scheme of things.

After one particularly nasty one-on-one with an alien who’d left you with a nasty cut along one arm, you heaved a sigh, wiping the sweat from your brow before wrenching your dagger free from a body. You were so tired, but the battle was far from over. You knew that.

“Y/N?!”

Whatever exhaustion had been weighing you down lifted immediately as you spun around, blinking at the black-and-green clad figure standing in front of you, looking just as shitty as you felt.

You huffed out a grateful little breath. “Loki.”

“I thought you were dead!” Loki rushed forward, and you met them halfway in a desperate hug.

“I thought you were dead!”

“I think I might have been,” you admitted, drawing back so you could look at them a bit better. Whatever had happened to you, hadn’t to Loki. The five years showed in their face, though hardly. There were deep worry lines in their forehead, and they held an immense exhaustion that seemed to envelope their entire body.

You stepped back entirely then, chest still heaving from the effort of your fighting, regarding them with a bit of a nod. “You look old,” you teased, though it was a little true. You didn’t know someone who could live for thousands of years could look so much older in only five.

Loki smiled tightly, but you could see the ghost of their usual smirk hidden somewhere in there. “And you look the same.”

You huffed out a tense laugh and nodded, looking around at the different fights going on mere feet away from you. “Some battle.”

“Yeah.” Loki looked around, as well, before looking back at you, eyes glinting with that familiar sense of mischief that was just Loki. “Shall we get back into it?”

New York had two types of summer.

Manageable, and all hell has broken loose and there’s no escape from the sweltering heat of a thousand suns raining down on any who step outside.

Although, to be fair, being inside typically didn’t help matters much, either. It was just that at least you had shade, and air conditioning, if you were lucky and the weather hadn’t caused a grid brownout.

The Compound, it seemed, was not exempt from heat-induced power outages, as you had quickly come to find out when you woke up one morning, drenched in a layer of sweat that let you know the day was going to get off to an absolutely fantastic start.

After changing into some clothes that didn’t threaten to suffocate you where you sat, you trudged yourself into the main living room, curious to see if anyone else had woken up in a similar manner.

The sight of half the team absolutely thrown across furniture in an attempt to stay cool would have been amusing, if you hadn’t been cursing to yourself that all the good spots had been taken.

Natasha had set up camp by the patio door, which she had propped open in hopes of catching any sort of breeze that might pick up. Thor was sprawled across the couch, fanning himself with a handheld fan made up of folded papers that you sincerely hoped weren’t anything important. Sam was in the kitchen, taking ice cubes out of the freezer every five seconds while Steve scolded him that opening and closing the door was going to cause everything to melt much faster.

And then there was the fact that almost everybody was in the bare minimum amount of clothing to keep themselves decent while cooling off.

It would have been a funny sight, if you all hadn’t been absolutely miserable.

“Where’s everyone else?” You glanced around the room, trying to figure out who wasn’t accounted for.

“They either left in hopes of finding somewhere else that has power, they’re soaking in a cold bath...” Steve spoke with an apologetic smile, as though the heatwave was his fault entirely. “…or they’re down in the basement arguing with F.R.I.D.A.Y. about getting the power back up and running.”

Well, that explained where Tony had disappeared to.

You nodded, and heaved a sigh, wondering how you were going to figure out how to stay cool when it dawned on you that someone else was missing from the room.

Someone who would be particularly helpful at the moment.

“Loki in their room?”

“Are they ever not?” Bucky quipped from somewhere out of sight, but you simply couldn’t be bothered to figure out where he was. You were now on a mission.

“I’m gonna go… check on them. See if they need anything.”

Before anyone else could do the math that you had, you turned on your heel and made a beeline straight to Loki’s room, knocking politely exactly one time before heading in anyway.

“You know, you defeat the purpose of knocking when you just barge in, Y/N.” Sure enough, Loki was sat comfortably on their bed, looking like they had no care in the world as they glanced up from their book to look at you. “You look…”

“Like I just ran a marathon in a hundred degree marathon? Yeah. It’s hot as shit.”

Loki shrugged a shoulder and glanced out the window boredly. “Is it? Hadn’t noticed.”

“Exactly. Hey, quick question. Your dad was a frost giant, right?”

Loki didn’t tense at the question; they’d long since come to terms with their parentage and all the messiness that had come along with it, and it wasn’t (usually) a topic of distress for them anymore.

“…yes?”

“Does that mean you’re, like, eternally cold and don’t have to worry about getting hot at all?”

Loki narrowed their eyes at you, quickly putting two and two together quicker than you had. “Y/N, don’t you do it.”

Too late.

You’d already jumped toward the bed, landing halfway on top of Loki, who gave a rather loud “oof” as you got yourself comfortable, laying perpendicular of them, with your shoulders and head against their chest.

The relief was, frankly, instantaneous, and you couldn’t help your content little sigh at finally not feeling like you were going to melt right where you stood.

“Gross, I don’t want your sweat on my clothes,” Loki complained, but they didn’t move away or try to get you off of them.

“Oh, give it a few minutes and there won’t be any more sweat left. You’re like a freezer. How have I never noticed that before?”

“Well, I promise you this isn’t something that started today, so…”

“Are you calling me stupid?” you whined, giving Loki your best, albeit playful, look of offense.

Loki grinned in that cheeky way that made you want to throttle them. “I mean, I was going to say imperceptive. Unobservant, even… But you said it first.”

This time, you really did look offended. “Hey! Not nice.”

“Neither is tackling someone because you know they’re going to keep you cool.”

“Keep it up and I’ll remind everyone else of your little party trick, and then you’ll wish it was just me in here bothering you.” This time, it was your turn to grin cheekily. How the turn tables.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

You shrugged, and looked toward the door, opening your mouth as though you were going to call for someone, and Loki immediately covered your mouth.

“Fine. Fine. You can stay. But if you leave sweat stains on my shirt, you’re buying me a new one.”

“Such a priss. Deal.”

“Deal. Enjoy your personal air conditioning unit.” With that, they opened their book again and went back to reading, and you got comfortable, closing your eyes with a content little hum.