♤Magical Entertainment♤《 Loki X OC 》

Chapter 15 ~ Baby steps

Recap:

"I do not believe any of us expected this," Loki agreed before he stood and left the room in long strides. The rest soon scattered to go back to the tasks they'd been doing before, trying not to think about what they'd just seen. 

♤

A few hours later, Tony had finally finished Reyna's new limiters and hurried to her room to switch them before the old ones gave out. When the genius entered Reyna's room, he found her sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring out into space as she subconsciously created illusion after illusion about the turmoil in her mind. He stood there and watched for a minute, trying to figure out what she was thinking from the images floating around her. Most of them were a distressed blur and hard to read, while others were a bit clearer, showing memories from her time in the Palace.

"You sure have some shit to work through." The woman whipped around as the illusions disintegrated and threw a dart of smoke at Tony, which narrowly missed him. "Easy, Pitch, it's just me. I've got your new limiters. Let's get them switched out before those collapses." He held out his hand and helped the apologizing mutant off the floor. Tony assured her over and over again that it was alright, that he was the one who scared her.

"Okay, these limiters use the same neurotoxin that your old collar had. It's the only thing that can hold you back, apparently. There are small needles in it too. You shouldn't feel them, but if you do, you know what it is," Tony explained patiently.

"Just put them on. I don't need to know the details, sir." Reyna lifted her arms straight in front of her so Tony could put on the limiters. He clasped the silver bands around her arms just above the old ones and locked them in. Taking out a tablet, he pressed a few buttons.

"Here goes nothing," Tony announced before hundreds of hair-thin needles pricked her skin on both arms and released the toxins into her blood. Reyna took a deep breath, trying to get used to the uncomfortable yet familiar feeling.

"This is the highest setting, meaning that you can't use any of your abilities. I'm going to turn it down two levels to start things off. Then we're going to reduce the dose by one or two steps once a week, so it all goes smoothly for you. Are we clear?" The genius explained to the mutant as he removed the old bands from her arms. Reyna nodded and moved her arms around to get a feel for her new limiters. Then she disappeared into her own little world, trying out what she could do, and Tony left her to her discoveries.

He went down to the labs, where Bruce examined the handkerchief with Reyna's black tears on it.

"How did she react to the toxins?" Bruce asked, not bothering to look up from his work.

"Great, actually. Reyna's body is so used to them that her blood absorbs them immediately. What you got there?" He asked the doctor as he went over to a drawer where he put the two limiters.

"Did you see when Reyna cried earlier? Her tears were black, just like everything else about her powers, so I got curious, and if you look over here. They have almost the same properties and consistency as crude oil. It's fascinating," Bruce ranted. Tony came around and looked at the samples.

"That is something we're going to have to look into, for sure," the billionaire agreed, and the two science bros got to work.

♤

"Dinner will be served in the kitchen in 10 minutes." A voice rang through Reyna's room some hours later. The woman jumped at the sudden noise, and the book she had been trying to levitate smashed into the floor when her concentration broke. She looked up from the cover on the ground, and her bright yellow eyes found a pair of forest-green ones through her curly hair.