Working Title : Loki & Annie

67 Breathing

Annie sat on the bed in the boy's room, her back against the headboard while Loki slept in her arms. He was asleep against her chest, Hulk gripped in one hand that shoved him up under Loki's chin while the fingers of his other hand gripped the ribbons of his kudde. Occasionally he would breathe in a stuttering shiver but for the most part, his breakdowns were over. Despite his being asleep she continued to soothe herself by running one hand through the short spikes of his hair while the other held her phone. Taking just a short break from her reading she closed her eyes while leaning her head back against the wood to once more go over the events that had happened this evening.

Once she had left Thor behind she had stomped up the stairs, her fury getting her all the way to the second-floor landing before her legs had protested to the point she had to stop. Even though Loki had almost no weight to him, he still had enough that she needed to rest. After several deep breaths, she would have pushed on but this was the spot Loki finally couldn't keep his emotions inside anymore. The first sobs didn't catch her off guard, she had been feeling his silent crying all the way up the stairs despite her pace. What did surprise her was the sound of the utter suffering and despair that came from him. He sounded as though his feelings had been crushed and Annie thought that they probably had been. She lowered herself to sit on the landing, her feet resting on the step so she could create a chair shape with her legs she could perch him on. 

Straddling her lap he pushed his face into her chest, muffling the sounds escaping from him. His hand was crushing the soft figures, squeezing them tight enough to turn his little fingers white. In a sudden movement, he threw them onto the wooden landing, his face scrunching up in anger that only lasted moments. Deep sounds began coming from him, near growls that had to be shredding his throat. His breathing quickly turned jagged as he tried to cry and breathe at the same time until he was coughing enough to trigger him into gagging.

Annie was worried Loki would throw up which would be bad for so many reasons, mostly because he needed even the small amount he had eaten to build his body back up. She rubbed at his back, trying to offer him any kind of comfort but knowing he probably wasn't even aware of her. "I've got you, buddy, I'm right here." She had to fight against telling him to hush or that he was alright because she didn't want him to hush and he certainly wasn't alright.

Loki could feel Annie's arms around him but he wasn't aware of her words, only the low murmurs in his ear. As his sobs grew even that comfort faded away and his thoughts lurched from one to another. He was so angry with Not-His-Thor! He had insulted Loki's honor and made him feel that everyone was judging him and finding him wanting. The fact that made him most angry was that there was nothing he could do about it. He was too little to issue a challenge and even if he was older he didn't know how to fight with weapons yet. He knew there was nothing he could do. He wanted to hit him but he knew that too wouldn't do anything because he couldn't hit hard enough. He was just too weak to do anything at all. Too weak. He growled out in frustration, squeezing his hands into tiny fists.

Annie had looked over when she heard footsteps quickly coming up the stairs and her heart jumped when she saw Thor. He had come to a sudden stop when he looked up, most likely hearing Loki's cries and she watched as he seemed frozen. He stared at them, in the lights she could see his eyes seemed to be locked onto Loki, staring with an expression that appeared startled that quickly changed into embarrassment. With a glance to Annie, he had wordlessly set the forgotten pizza on a step then turned and gone back down. She only moved her eyes to watch him go around the staircase and towards the backyard. What he was planning to do she had no idea and with a sobbing child in her arms, she really didn't care.

Her emotions were tangled as part of her was furious with Thor for treating Loki the way he did while at the same time she was once more feeling her heart aching for what Loki was going through. Yet she also felt guilt. Guilt because she hadn't said anything, hadn't stopped Thor from his little insidious comments. At the time she had felt uncomfortable at speaking up, that it wasn't her place to contradict how Thor wanted to speak to and about his own brother. But now she felt anger at herself that she hadn't been strong enough to stand up for Loki. She knew exactly what it felt like to be that little kid who no one protected and it had sucked. And here she had done the same as those adults in her own past.