Unbroken (Loki x Reader)

*Chapter 32 - Ruin*

Kærasta? Please, speak with me, love.

You put up your walls, forcing Loki out of your mind. His presence fights for a moment, clinging to the edges of your thoughts but you send waves of reinforcement to the barrier between his conscious and yours, and he retreats unwillingly. Curled up in the back of the flyer, you have put as much space between yourself and Loki as possible. 

"Darling, please," he mutters from the front of the flyer, resorting to spoken communication as he casts a worried glance over his shoulder. 

But you don't answer. You can't. Your words are locked behind a heavy tongue and racing mind. They are drowned out by the beat of your heart, and frozen by the frost of adrenaline that still settles over your nerves. 

"Very well," Loki frowns. "I shall...wait," he whispers, his concerned gaze falling over you once more before he reluctantly turns back to the console, leaving you to your thoughts.

You don't have the strength to speak to him about them yet. 

Vacillating between disappointment and disbelief you stare numbly at the floor of the flyer battling your desire to Bleed. Ever since joining the Avengers, you had made a promise to yourself to stop preying on others, and instead allow yourself to feel things again.  But coping with the intensity of your own feelings is still new. You may be a master of your own mind, but you are still a slave to your emotions. And right now there are too many to process. 

First and foremost, you're rattled from seeing Thor. It's as if you've lost a limb, the phantom pain of the friendship and trust that used to be yours overwhelming. You long for your best friend. For his confidence and reassurance. But in your mind you see his blue eyes, and the shock and betrayal that have lived within them the last two times you've seen him. You know that things will never be the same.

You're also shaken from the violent encounter in the street. In your mind, blood still pours from filleted flesh, trickling through cracks in weathered cobblestone. Screams of agony echo through the alleyways as a sick and twisted smile spreads across Loki's lips.

And Loki. 

For the first time, you're scared of him. You thought that your time together had quelled those desires. Had softened his bloodlust. But he had been cruel to those men. He had wanted to make them suffer violently - painfully - for no other reason that to see them die in agony. 

A protective hand floats subconsciously to rest on your stomach, and to your own horror you discover that you're wondering if Loki would ever hurt you, or your child.

For the next several hours, you and Loki fly in silence. He never leaves the pilot's seat, giving you space. But you can feel his occasional, worried glances. You ignore them, immersed in your own dark musings. And try as you might to rationalize what happened - to justify his actions on the basis of love and protection - you can't keep from coming back to the same question. A question fueled by years of living on a razor's edge waiting to be punished for any and every mistake.

What if I make a mistake? Would he hurt us?

You knock away another silent tear, and wrap your arms protectively around your stomach even tighter as the ship shifts gears, and your ears pop. 

Finally, the landing gear drops and locks into place with a loud hiss moments before the flyer gently hits the ground, coming to a stop. In silence, you gather your bags and wait patiently near the ship door. As Loki nears, he reaches out his hand. You tense, anticipating his touch. But it never comes. Instead, he reaches past you and taps the control panel to lower the jet bridge. You waste no time walking out into a large rolling field of green crested by patches of white and orange wild flowers. Grateful to be free of the flyer's cold metal walls and hard floor, you take a deep breath in through your nose.