Test Me [Loki x Reader]

Chapter 7: Tentative Touches

The team had been impressed by the report you delivered following your interaction with Loki. They seem to think your conversation provided them with an angle to question further. You had obviously left out the bruises on your neck, they wouldn't have exactly been approving of your reckless behaviour. You knew what you were doing. Getting Loki angry was a sure-fire way to get him monologuing.

"You know nothing of the power I've seen."

"His anger drives his tongue, he mentioned seeing power." You speak calmly trying not to think about his hand wrapped around your throat. "This leads me to believe some larger force was or is at work."

"You got that from that?" Steve says confused.

"Well, I have a hunch that this power lays outside the realm of his abilities, or else he would have just gloated." You roll your eyes. "Which he did. A lot by the way."

"Not surprising from a narcissistic psychopath," Tony mutters.

"I need to talk with him again to get a better read." You hadn't stopped thinking about him since yesterday's verbal knife fight.

"I agree, if there is something bigger going on we can't waste any time." Steve nods.

Once again you found your way up to the East wing. Your nerves crackling under your skin. You mutter a calming enchantment. A cooling sensation coats your body as you take a deep breath opening the secure doors.

Once again you find Loki pacing. He seems to do that a lot.

"I was wondering when you'd be back." Loki's cool voice hums sending a prickling sensation under your calming enchantment.

"How are you settling in." You ask smoothing your nerves with a mask of ingenuine concern.

"Don't bore me with your false geniality." His eyes stare sceptically at you.

You chuckle to yourself, unsurprised by his cynicism. Looking back up to him you take a second to take in his form just as he had done to you the first time you spoke. His tall lean frame. His sculpted face. His dark hair. Those emerald eyes, and the intelligence behind them. The curve of his eyebrow as he looks at you curiously.

"Afraid to step through the glass fearless Agent?" His smooth voice teases.

"Y/n."

He hums to himself still looking at you expectantly.

"Would you like me to step inside? Are we friends today?" You raise an eyebrow at him.

"I'll never be friends with a mortal." He snaps back.

"Ouch and here's me thinking we were finally getting along." Your cold sarcastic tone silences him as you hit the buttons on the door.

Stepping through the archway you lock the door behind you.

"I brought you something to read, seeing as you were unsatisfied with that one." You say motioning to the book that remains on the floor from when he threw it yesterday.

"What is your play mortal?"

"I told you Loki. I'm not here to play games." You deadpan.

He takes three careful steps towards you. Stopping right in front of you. The buzzing of your powers snaking under your skin reminds you to be careful.

His eyebrows furrow slightly at the bruising on your neck. The makeup must have smudged when you got changed and if you didn't know any better you'd say he almost looked guilty.

"I must say Mischief, you have a firm grip. Don't try that again though, unless you want a very angry hulk to kick your godly ass."

"I don't threaten" He maintains but his eyes give way to a fleeting look of fear at the mention of the hulk.

"Here." You say holding out a copy of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Eying you curiously, he takes the book from your hands tentatively. His fingers graze yours slightly when a sudden shock of electricity shoots through your fingertips at the contact. Most similar to a static shock.

"Do your precious Avengers know of your injuries little mortal?" He raises an eyebrow at you.

"It didn't come up." You shake off the effects of his touch.

"You protect me? How sweet." Loki purrs smirking.

"Don't flatter yourself."

You suppress a flinch as he raises a hand to your neck. This time he is being gentle, almost careful with you, it is unnerving. His long fingers gently touch where the makeup had rubbed off. Pulling his hand away to look at the remnants of concealer on his fingertips.

"Then why go through the effort of hiding it?" 

"I don't want them to worry about me. Not everything is about you."

"You wound me." His smirk is playing on his face again, any previous concern wiped away.

"I don't think that's the real reason is it?" He says closing the gap between you. "I don't think your little friends would take much pleasure in your recklessness." His warm breath fanning your cheek. "Or is it something else entirely darling?" Your chest pangs at his use of darling. He's walking you back again, your calming enchantment breaks down, and the sparks crackle.

Careful Mischief.

His eyebrows twitch it's almost as though he heard your thoughts. Dragging a finger over your face he lowers his tone to almost a whisper.

"Something you fight so hard to conceal?"

"Enough." You step around him, causing him to turn around to face you, a playful grin on his face.

"Oh no-no, but it was just getting interesting."

"Don't toy with me Loki, this isn't a game you should be playing."

"No, but I like this." He says darkly closing in on you again. 

Your breath catches in your throat as he towers over you. The pounding in your head increases.

"I think you enjoy our little games." He teases. He brings his hand back up to your neck once more touching the bruises. Waves of energy surging through you direct themselves to his touch.  He wraps a gentle hand around your neck lowering his mouth to your ear to whisper.

"I know what you're hiding."

The pounding in your head has become overwhelming. You try to back away from his touch but a firm hand has placed itself on your waist. His touches have begun to overwhelm your senses and you struggle to conceal your pulsating energy that threatens to spill from every pore.

"I thought you were unafraid of me darling?" His lower tone thumps in your ears as he brings his lips from beside your ear to settle inches away from your own. "You're fighting with your control, little witchling."

Your heart drops. Your mouthparts as you look at him with wild eyes now glistening with your iridescent magic. Shoving him away from you with what little strength you have left, he lets you push past him with an amused chuckle.

"Over so soon?"

You don't respond as you leave the wing securing the doors behind you.

That couldn't have gone worse.