Packless Monsters

Chapter 7

You woke snarling and enraged, your eyes snapping open as you shot up into a sitting position...on the couch? You fell asleep in the car. "It's ok!" multiple voices jumped to reassure you, which just made you turn your attention to the room. The Avengers were all gathered around the living room, waiting for you to wake.

It took a long moment, and cool arms pulling you back against an equally cool chest for you to calm enough to remember what was going on. Loki had slid onto the couch behind you when you'd shot into a sitting position. Brave, stupid man. "It's alright," he soothed. "No one's upset."

You blinked back the haze of your wolf's fear and answer and reigned in your control. She was pissed at being poisoned with silver and it took some work to reassure her that you were ok now that the silver was gone. She huffed, but remained on alert. You'd have to be careful to keep your control over her. "It's ok," you told Loki softly, carefully. His arms were wrapped tightly around you. "Sorry," you murmured to the rest of the team.

"Look at me, love," Loki bid you softly before he'd let you go. You leaned back further against him and tilted your head back, letting him see your eyes.

"I'm fine," you told him firmly and he let you sit up when he saw that they were green again. "You shouldn't do that, by the way," you told him when you were sitting on your own on the cushion next to him. He raised an eyebrow in question. "Hold a snarling werewolf like that. It's not safe,"

He smirked. "I think I can handle one little wolf," he teased.

You rolled your eyes. He didn't understand the danger. You had to make him understand before he did something stupid and got himself hurt or worse. With the briefest moment of concentration and only an instant, your shifted your eyes to wolf's, you canines extended, your nails turned to claws, and your ears were sharper furred wolf ears. It only took an instant. "A single snag of a tooth or claw can turn you into a monster like me," you told Loki firmly while the others gasped at how fast the change was. Yes, a full shift took a minute even for you. Natural wolves shifted faster and easier than made wolves. The partial shift for you was an instant.

"You are not a monster," Loki told you firmly. Then added quickly before you could argue more: "I'm careful, and besides your wolf would not harm me. She would have done so already were she going to. She has woken before you twice now," Loki told you gently. You shook your head and shifted back to human. You still didn't think he understood and you'd have to be extra careful for his sake.

"Yeah, your wolf scared the shit out of Tony when he tried to help Loki carry you inside," Nat added with a grin.

You flushed and looked at your lap. "Yeah...she doesn't like silver, and blames him. He was also the one who carried me bound and drugged down to the cells in the basement. She doesn't like him for that either..." That earned a laugh from the others at your understatement. You finally saw the time and cursed. "I'm going to be late for work!" you exclaimed as you moved to jump to your feet. Loki grabbed your arm and hauled you back down on to the couch.

"Stark already called off for you," Cap explained while you glared at Loki.

"The excuse 'Y/N can't come in because Tony Stark is stupid' apparently gets you a paid day off. It's double pay when the call comes from Stark himself," Nat added with a grin. You remembered that rule from the employee handbook, as well as the warning that the excuse had to be verifiable, but never thought you'd have cause to use it.

You laughed and relaxed and eventually went shopping with Nat and Loki to fill out your destroyed wardrobe.

*

Your life settled into a routine after a couple weeks of living there. You continued your classes at the university, intent on getting your degree, and continued working at Stark Industries, though you had a better job working directly with Pepper now that your cover as a werewolf had been blown. Loki pestered you one day until you took him to work with you. He annoyed everyone so much all day there that you were told your job for the rest of the day was to take Loki home and make sure he never came to work with you again. They never did tell you what he'd done to annoy everyone so bad.