Word Count: 6,500 (Yikes, sorry. I had a lot to say)
A/N: This fic was created for @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan‘s Angsty Marvel challenge. And because Steve Rogers is beautiful. My prompt was ‘You can’t live your life based on ‘what-ifs’.
“I’ve lapped you three times. Pick up your pace.”
Feet slap pavement as a broad shadow overtakes you, momentarily blocking the warmth from the evening sun on your back.
You grit your teeth as Steve slows beside you to match your speed, his stride effortless and unlabored. His words aren’t a chide. There is no arrogance behind them. They are clinical. Matter of fact. Commanding.
There wasn’t anyone else waiting for the elevator when I pressed the “up” button. That was a little unusual- there were almost always a few other people going up, this was a busy building. A door ding-ed and as I stepped into the elevator, a man rushed up behind me and slipped inside with me. I glanced at him. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been running for the elevator and there really hadn’t been anyone around a moment ago.
I smiled nervously at him. “Thirty-seven?” I asked, reaching out to hit the buttons for both of us since I was closer. I’d seen him around the building when I came for my appointments. We seemed to end up in the same elevator often, although we’d never been alone like this. Usually it was a crowded elevator but he’d manage to find a space near me and reach across or around me to hit the button for thirty-seven, brushing up against me as he did so. In my more confident moments, I thought he was doing it on purpose, trying to let me know that he was interested in me. But then I’d remember what he looked like and I would laugh at myself. No, it had to be just a coincidence, he was far too good-looking to be into me. But I would be lying if I said I hadn’t started dressing a little nicer on the days that I came here, though. Just in case.
A/N: Don’t know if I should make this a series or an imagine, but I intend to write a second part regardless sooo…series? Positive feedback and critique is always appreciated!
Summary: You’re a junior scientist working at a world renowned facility. In a sick twist of fate, your life turns to chaos as you find yourself being the sole witness in a string of ongoing attacks, being investigated by the Avengers.
Warnings: Descriptions of violence, weapons, blood, profanity, etc.
PART I
Had you been told what your future held, you would have made different choices when you were younger. You would have broken up with your first love a lot sooner, tried sushi despite the concerning health risks, or bought that crop top from the boutique below your flat. In this moment, there is no doubt in your frantic mind that the culmination of your apparent, short life, was nothing but painful and bitter regret.
Your eyes are tightly shut and there’s a ball of fear lodged in your throat. You’re on your knees, hiding, praying, and trying not to scream, but the feeling of your coworkers’ blood is warm and wet and-
Click.
Your eyes open to see the culprit- the murderer– with her gun aimed at your head.
“Get up,” she orders and you comply. The once white laboratory is a mess, and you whimper at the carnage before you. With a harsh nudge, the blonde, masked woman pushes you forward. You don’t ask where she’s taking you.
You already knew.
Of course, working at a world class facility for biochemical research comes with certain risks, but you’d expected to be taken down by a super bacteria, not a freaking bullet.
“Stop walking. Open the doors.”
Common sense and self-preservation told you to comply, but you knew how dangerous the materials behind those doors were, especially in the hands of that sick son of a bitch.
‘Don’t be a hero, Y/N. Do what she says. Don’t die. Don’t die today.’
“Hurry the fuck up. My patience is dwindling. Fast.” She presses the gun into your temple.
“I…can’t.”
‘I’m such a dumbass. Fuck. Shit…fuckfuckfuckfuu-’
“Oh?” she nudges the gun against your head. Harder this time. “How about now?”
You want to scream. You’re terrified, angry, frustrated, sick. You want to live, but the math is simple. One life- your life- versus the several out there…
The heavy rhythm of someone’s footsteps cause your oppressor to still. You hold your breath.
“You heard the lady.Back away from the door and drop the gun.”
Your focus shifted from the woman in front of you to the source of the deep voice- a long haired man in a combat suit, holding a rifle in his metal arm.
“You alright, ma’am?” He asks kindly. You give him an incredulous look.
You want to say: “I’m covered in the blood of my coworkers, their murderer has a gun pressed to my head, and I’m being forced to aid someone in possible biochemical warfare.”
Instead, you shake your head ‘no’, incredibly wary of your attacker’s presence. The man inches closer at your response.
“Forget it, Soldier. She comes with me, or this facility, along with every civilian within a five-mile radius, is blown to dust,” the blonde assassin threatens.
Your would-be saviour is about to call her bluff before she interrupts him.
“Go on,” she taunts, “confirm it with your fellow Avengers.”
‘Avengers?’ you think, daring to exhale in relief. Perhaps there was hope for you yet.
“What’s your name?” There’s a tense pause before you realise the soldier directed the question at you.
“Y/N. My name is Y/N.” You whisper. The man- the Avenger– lowers his gun and you begin to panic even more, but he holds your gaze steady in his and says,
“I need you to open the door for her, Y/N?”
‘What?’
“But I-“ you begin to protest, but the stern look he gives you, combined with the smug demeanour of the deadly woman stops you. With slow and heavy hands, you tap in a code you’d never used until now, and lead the woman into the open prohibited zone.
“See, Y/N. Was that so hard?”
You don’t need to face her to notice her smirk. Her tone was expression enough. Blonde hair and black eyes were her only identifiable features, but the image of her half-hidden face and the fear it invoked within you was now burned into your memory.
She glides past you and approaches a clear case in the back of the room. Picking it up, she tucks it safely under one arm, and raises her gun with the other, aiming it at you one last time. The heavy rhythm of footsteps follows. The assassin speaks.
“You should have opened the door the first time, Y/N.”
A single shot echoes throughout the room.
You’re on the floor in the same instant, ears ringing and blood seeping from the man on top of you. The blonde woman is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey. Y/N, hey, listen to me-“ his words are cut off by a loud noise. You don’t realise the terrified screams are coming from you until a metal arm pulls you into a chest. His chest. Your cheek lays on the rough material of his suit, but it doesn’t feel real. Nothing feels real.
“You’re okay…you’re okay now. It’s over, Y/N,” he tries to comfort you. Soon enough, your screams turn into shaking as you stare into his blue eyes.
“Y-you…you’re bleed…blood.” You point to his injured side to compensate your incoherent speech. You look down at your pants, and almost retch at your still blood soaked attire.
‘This isn’t real.’
“Don’t worry about that. C’mon, let’s go”. He slowly rises, holding his side with one arm and you shakily join him. You watch him put a finger in his ear, and his lips begin moving. Your hearing fades in and out.
Asgard was – overwhelming. Not necessarily in a bad way, it was just – a lot to absorb, and a lot going on, and everything was so bright. Steve was finding it all hard to absorb and even harder to process, not sure he was even past the stage of I’m a diplomat on an alien planet part. (If Bucky heard about this – Steve shut that thought down, ruthlessly.)
They were on their fifth feast in four nights and he’d managed to slip out, begging a need for fresh air and managing to fend off three offers (two women, one man) to accompany him. Steve exhaled in relief, safely outdoors, letting his feet wander without paying too much attention, watching the horizon. He did not realize until he took a deep breath and smelled a fragrance heavy enough to make his head spin that he’d wandered into a garden. ‘Garden’ seemed inadequate, though, for something like this – lush and half wild, but even Steve could tell that it was carefully tended, deliberately nurtured. A flower that shaded from purple at its center out to white closed as he brushed by it with a sound like wind-chimes; he could see one of the vines moving, curling tendrils around a trellis like a snake.
The Grandmaster never cared for anyone but himself, except for you. You were the closest thing he would ever have to a daughter. This meant that on the rare occasions you asked for something, he would look past what he wanted and grant you what you wanted, and right now you wanted the dark haired man who had been brought to the Grandmaster.
“Who is this?” the Grandmaster asked the scrapper who had brought him in.
“I am Loki, king of Asgard,” the man declared, absolutely infuriated. “I demand you release me at once!” The scrapper activated the shocker on his neck in response, and his knees buckled before he fell to the ground.
“No one demands anything from the Grandmaster!” The scrapper snapped at him. When he deactivated the shocker, Loki struggled to his feet again.
“You will pay dearly for this,” he seethed as a glimmer of light raced down his hands.
“Be careful with that magic,” the Grandmaster said, gesturing to you. “I have a bit of my own.”
Loki’s eyes darted to you, looking you up and down as if he doubted your abilities.
“I want this one,” you said.
The Grandmaster gave you a look of surprise. “This one, Y/N? Why? He’s so—”
“Handsome,” you said, stepping away from him and towards Loki. He regarded you carefully, clearly not knowing what to make of you. The two of you were strangers, and he would kill you without a second thought if it meant escape from Sakaar, but he wisely chose not to.
“What do you think, your majesty?” you asked softly so only he could hear, your fingertips grazing his chest. “Stay by my side, and you can have anything you desire in all of Sakaar.“
He held your gaze after his eyes drifted over you once more, a smirk curling his lips. “Anything you say?”
You ordered the scrapper to remove the shackles and shocker as the Grandmaster paid him.
“You ask to keep the oddest things,” the Grandmaster said as you went back over to him to give him a kiss of gratitude on the cheek.
“Trust me. This one will come in handy,” you told him. When you looked back to Loki, you didn’t miss the look of desire you shared.
Prompt + Summary: “Okay…this is new,” Dark World AU. I’m not saying anymore.
Pairing: Loki x Reader
Fandom(s): Marvel, MCU, Tom Hiddleston
Warnings: Fluff, a bit of heavy petting, spoilers for the last season of Friends
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“You what?” You stared at the agents in front of you incredulously. “He’s – he’s what? With me?”
“Lady Y/N,” Thor interjected “My brother is serving his punishment for New York, but with the death of our mother he isn’t safe on Asgard,”
“He isn’t safe in your magical jail cell!? What did he do, kill the woman!?” You snapped, your brain refusing to compute the information from the Agents. Thor’s face softened into an appeasing smile.
“Not at all. He is distraught. I have discussed with the other agents and we have decided that he should finish his punishment on Midgard.”
“We think it would be beneficial for Loki to have something to focus his, ah, energy on,” Agent Coulson added in a careful tone, it took everything you had not to turn on him and bite his head off, especially when he had been on the receiving end of Loki’s stick.
“Fine. I can understand that but why me?” You whined, the battle of New York was still fresh in your mind and you were nowhere near forgiving Thor’s demonic little brother for the trouble he had caused.
At which point Agent Romanoff felt it was her time to speak up
“Y/N, you’re tracking gamma signals similar to those given off by the Tesseract, no one knows that thing better than Loki,”
“Incorrect,” you butt in before she could win you over with a reasonable argument “There’s Rogers or Banner!”
“You know they’re on standby for missions,” she spoke gently, reaching out for your shoulder. You flinched away.
“I can do it by myself,”
“You need help,”
“Not from him!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Another voice joined the small argument between Thor, Coulson, Natasha and yourself.
“Mister Stark,” you said politely, but through gritted teeth, as Iron Man himself waltzed down the staircase and joined the three agents trying to ruin your life. “Agent Y/L/N, sweetheart. I’m assuming Point Break has broken the news?” Stark let out a small laugh at his own joke.
“Hey!” Thor protested. Tony ignored him.
“I’m taking that look as a yes. Sorry, Y/N, but you really don’t have a choice this time,” Stark said in that insufferable voice that told you not to argue with him.
“Please Tony, please don’t make me do this. I can handle the research by myself, please, I’d rather struggle than cope with him. I had friends who died in that battle. Don’t make me live with the cause of their death,” you had always sworn that you were beyond begging, but at that moment you would have done whatever it would take to get out of this.
“Y/N, don’t be difficult. If one of the Avengers were around to babysit Reindeer Games then we would, but we aren’t. And you’re our most trusted Agent and a member of the intelligence team, plus I know you kick mean butt,”
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Stark,”
“No, but your job on the line might,” he said it so casually it made your blood boil, especially when he walked away planting a kiss on your cheek.
“Good luck with the research, Y/N,”
Absolutely smarting you turned to Thor, jabbing a shaking finger in his chest. “Fine. But he sleeps on the couch.”
As it turned out, Loki did not sleep on the couch. He was released from his handcuffs once inside your small camper-van and Thor read shakily from an Asgardian book, placing a spell on Loki that stopped him from leaving the van. He rubbed his wrists from the shackles, sent Thor and you a scowl that made you want to drop dead and stalked straight into the only other room in the van – your bedroom – and promptly slammed the door.
Maker's Breath 