Loki Imagines

On My Mind

You really, really need to get some rest.

You're fairly sure that you're only a few seconds away from the whole world spinning, before your body gives up and just knocks you out itself. You haven't been sleeping well, not for a while, not for months. This lack of sleep isn't because you haven't been able to force yourself into unconsciousness, quite the opposite. It's because you're too afraid of what you'll see when you close your eyes.

You don't know how to describe it. If what you saw when you went to bed were just nightmares, you'd be able to handle that. Everyone on the Avengers has nightmares, ranging from manifestations of guilt or an endless parade of their worst nightmares. Your brother, Tony, has them just the same as you.

However, your night terrors are different. It's like you can feel yourself being ripped to pieces, but every time you wake, you're hypothetically fine, other than the horrifying visions that refuse to leave your memories. You wake up in different places from where you went to sleep, and the amount of times when you've opened your eyes to find your hands dashed with blood is frightening, especially because you have no idea whose blood it is.

After a while of this, you'd gone to Tony for help. Surely, he'd be able to come up with something, right? Yet no matter how many medical studies or treatments you undergo, ranging from therapy to sleep assistive drugs, nothing seems to work. Every night, sleep still waits for you, and it terrifies you every time.

The worst part is that you're not entirely sure that the other Avengers believe that this is truly happening. You tried to explain it to them, how you swear you can feel your mind trying to fight itself, that you feel so much pain and fear and paranoia that it's probably going to drive you insane, but it wasn't until J.A.R.V.I.S. was able to turn up security footage of you screaming your lungs out and trying to break out of the Avengers Tower at night while still asleep that they realized something was more wrong than just typical nightmares.

Now, they're trying to wrack their brains, thinking of some way to fix you. You're an invaluable member of the team, or at least you'd like to believe so, and therefore there are some pretty good reasons to solve this problem other than the fact that you're a friend of theirs.

Besides, you want to get back to the field as soon as you can. Usually, you fight with the Avengers wearing your own modified version of the classic Stark suit. You helped Tony make his first model of the Iron Man suit, but in the time since you've designed your own. It's less bulky than his, a little easier to move in. In fact, it's more like panels of armor independently attached instead of a full on suit, which is less protective, but it still works out for you.

You love your suit, which is why the Avengers grounding you until you manage to figure out whatever is going on with your head is absolutely crushing. You can't begin to name how many missions you've led, sprinting headlong into danger with your own inventions keeping you alive.

Now, though, you're too far gone for them to trust. The only way you can keep the nightmares at bay is to simply not sleep at all, but it's not like that's a sustainable outcome. You've started hallucinating during the day, too, seeing enemies around every corner and trusting no one.

Your hands shake as you pour yourself the billionth cup of coffee in the past week. You'll need to pay attention today, as Tony's leading yet another 'Find Out What's Wrong With My Sister Or Else' conference amongst the Avengers. The last few haven't amounted to anything, but the thought counts.

However, today it seems as if you might be getting somewhere. Thor just arrived in town from another job up in Asgard, and his face is brightening with realization.

"I may have an idea. My brother, Loki, is well versed in the arts of the mind. He has some magic of his own, so he may be able to look around in Y/N's mind and see if he can find anything unusual."