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Everyone deserves a second chance

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Prompts - ‘Everyone deserves a second chance’ & ‘I dreamed every day of being by your side’ & ‘I don’t mean to stare’

You don’t know how you ended up down here, staring into the eyes of the most dangerous being in the tower. Tony had expressly forbidden you from going down, told you it was too risky, that the man in that cell could manipulate you into doing anything for him.

Naturally you hadn’t listened to a word he said, too curious, too stubborn? Who knew? All you knew now was that you were sneaking around the tower for nightly visits with the prisoner occupying the lower floors.

As you looked at him tonight, really looked at him, it was hard to remember he was a dangerous person, hard to remember he’d killed people, tricked and deceived people for his own gain. Watching as he sat cross legged on the floor in front of the glass that shut him away from the world, listening as he read a worn novel aloud to you.

It was easy to forget in moments like this you were breaking every rule, easy to forget this man could quite easily just be playing you.

For some reason you thought the risk of getting hurt amounted to nothing compared to how happy these stolen moments made you.

-

“Ah the one with the magic, I presume?” Loki asked as you entered the room after minutes of pacing.

When you didn’t reply Loki continued, “you’re clearly not down here for some friendly chit-chat, what can I do for you?”

A funny question considering you didn’t have the damn clue on how to respond. Why had you come down here?

“Still nothing? Ok then, magic one, won’t you have a seat?” He offered, gesturing to the large sofa that was placed on your side of the glass, you assumed it was used by Thor on his daily visits down here.

“I don’t know why I’m here.” You said after an uncomfortable amount of silence had passed.

Loki looked up at you, his face giving nothing away about what he thought.

“I don’t know why you’re here either,” he replied eventually, “but it’s not often a pretty face comes to visit me so you won’t see me turning you away.” He smirked causing you to suppress an eye roll.

“I don’t know about that, Thor is definitely pretty.” You stated causing Loki to chuckle, his eyes lighting up with emotions you couldn’t place.

“One would have to question your taste.” He shot back.

“See Thor’s got the looks and he seems like he’d be very gentleman like, whereas you...well I’m sure the angsty teenager look will come back into fashion at some point.”

You watched as Loki laughed again, he sat up as if he was intrigued by you, leaning forward from his seat on the chair.

Maybe you hadn’t known why you went down there but you hadn’t regretted the decision after leaving.

-

‘Whatcha reading?” You asked as you entered the room, grinning at the glare you received for the interruption.

Loki held the book up so you could see the cover, “Thor decided to bring me a selection of Midgard books, admittedly they’re not all terrible.”

“The Great Gatsby? Not bad, meant to be a timeless classic here on Midgard.” You said, scrunching your nose at the foreign word, noticing the corners of Loki’s mouth twitch upwards.

“You’ve never read it?” He asked, looking from the book and to you, giving you his full attention whilst his finger pressed against the sentence he was on.

“Eh, not a lot of time to read the classics when you’re being experimented on for your magic.” You shrugged.

“They experimented on you? For you magic?” Loki asked as he filled anger bubbling inside him, he hadn’t known you for very long but you were one of the last people who deserved treatment of that kind.

“Well magic isn’t as common here as it is for you. It’s fine, I mean they tried for a few years and then Tony got a hold of me, helped me with my magic and to deal with what had happened.” You explained, giving him the brief version of it.

You still weren’t entirely sure who the people who took you were, just that they were an organisation who had no trouble torturing you as they tried to figure out how your magic worked, if they could extract it from your DNA and if it could be implanted into their weapon. The way they spoke of the weapon made it sound like it was a human but you were never able to find anything out about it.

Tony had found you because he was looking for a friend of a friend. You didn’t remember much of the day only that you had woken up briefly after a bad session with the organization doctors to see the door being blasted off by a robot and then you woke up in a real hospital bed with Tony sat waiting for you.

“And what of the people who hurt you?” Loki asked, snapping you from your thoughts.

“They’re dead. Tony blew their base up when he found me.”

“Good.” Was Loki’s dark reply.

Loki looked at you, there was still plenty of anger but he could see how you’d gone a shade or two paler, how you were getting lost in your thoughts. He had never been very good at comforting people, so instead he began to speak, softly, soothingly.

“He smiled understandingly- more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced-or seemed to face-the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour…”

Loki continued to read, glancing up at you every so often until he saw that you had fallen asleep, curled up on the couch with no trace of the unwanted memories from before.

Loki felt himself fill with pride and couldn’t control the soft smile on his face no matter how hard he tried.

-

You had no idea when or if Loki was going to be released from the cell he was in. It wasn’t a conversation you had ever brought up with him, too distracted by other things to dwell on the negative. But at night when you were alone with your thoughts you couldn’t help but wonder about Loki’s future.

You knew what he had done, you’d heard all sides of the story, Loki’s included, and whilst, yes, he needed some form of punishment, the pain and control lost to Thanos would probably have covered it.

It’s why you brought the topic up with Tony one day when the two of you were alone in his workshop.

“But I have magic!” You protested when Tony cut you off without hearing you out, “between the two of us, your mind and my magic, we could create something to keep Loki’s magic at bay.”

“Alright kid, what’s the sudden fascination with Loki?” He asked, turning to face you.

“I heard what happened to him, ok? I just-” You trailed off, looking down and missing the expression of disbelief on Tony’s face.

“Please, please tell me you haven’t been going down to see Loki, Y/N.” It wasn’t a question, it was like Tony was begging that the answer wouldn’t be yes.

You debated on whether you should tell him the truth or just lie but eventually you just sighed.

“I’ve been going to see him every night for months.” You confessed.

“Y/N!” Tony yelled before turning his attention to the ceiling. “JARVIS why the hell was I not informed that she’s been sneaking down there?”

“Miss Y/L/N was never in any danger. My settings only require me to alert you when a person who enters floor thirty four is in danger.” JARVIS responded promptly.

“See!” You exclaimed, “I was never in any danger, Loki hasn’t tried to hurt me.”

“You don’t know Loki-” Tony began but you cut him off angrily.

“I know him more than you do! Tony, please, give him a chance. We can work on something to restrain his magic but please, you can’t keep him in that cell forever, it’s not right, not when he was a victim too.”

“Y/N,” he sighed tiredly, “it’s not up to me and you know it. You’d have to convince the whole team and believe me when I tell you that’s not gonna happen, the only person you’d have on your side would be Thor.”

“Please Tony,” you said quietly, “he deserves a chance. I hurt people too, I killed people because they forced me too. I deserved to be locked up but you gave me a second chance.” You admitted. You knew the organisation had made you do things, somehow they got into your mind, made it so it wasn’t your own once they realised they couldn’t extract your magic.

“Oh kid…” Tony sighed but you were suddenly exhausted. There was only one place you wanted to be and it wasn’t here.

With a quick goodbye you asked JARVIS to take you to floor thirty four.

Loki immediately knew something was wrong.

He watched you lay on the couch, facing him but your eyes showed you weren’t seeing much of the room, instead locked away in your head with your thoughts.

“Darling?” He asked quietly, not wanting to startle you.

He hadn’t even noticed the term of endearment that slipped out until he saw you smile, no matter how tiny it was.

“What happened?” He wasn’t shocked when his question was met with silence but he carried on talking so that you didn’t get too lost in your head.

He knew your favourite thing to listen to him talk about was Asgard, your face was always beautiful as he spoke about the planet, your eyes lit up as he explained the beauty of the palace, the calm of the gardens, the peace you could find in the library and the excitement that was always in the air.

You loved to hear the stories of his childhood, of him and Thor, the adventures, the pranks. You loved watching him talk about Thor and his mother, a different kind of softness took over Loki when he recalled the fond memories.

“Did I ever tell you about the time that I accidentally broke Thor’s leg whilst trying to sneak past Heimdall to visit another planet?” He asked, watching as you shook your head as if to clear your thoughts before looking at him, looking a lot more aware than before, before you shook your head again.

You were fast asleep before Loki had gotten to the end of his tale.

-

It took months before the team shifted their views on Loki but they could hardly deny Tony’s technology mixed with your magic to create a non-intrusive device that would contain Loki’s magic. Naturally you hadn’t told them about some minor adjustments you had made, i.e letting Loki use magic that was good, he couldn’t use it if he had bad intentions.

You wanted to be the one to tell Loki the news but after seeing how happy Thor was you let him.

“No, please Y/N, I insist you tell him, after all this is all your doing.” Thor replied.

“Thor really,” You began but he cut you off.

“How about we both tell him?” He compromised and you readily agreed, both of you grinning as you made your way down to Loki’s floor.

“Ah brother, Y/N. To what do I owe the pleasure?” He asked and your smile got even wider if at all possible.

“JARVIS,” you began, “would you please open the door?” You asked watching as Loki rolled his eyes. It was something you’d asked JARVIS a hundred times and you’d always gotten the same answer of how it was against protocols.

This time however…

“Right away, Miss Y/L/N.” JARVIS replied and you watched as Loki’s eyes widened as the door opened for him.

“What is this?” He asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“Lady Y/N here managed to convince the team to let you out, though you will have to wear this magic suppressing bracelet.” Thor explained and gestured to the thin black bracelet he held in his hand.

You watched as Loki took a hesitant step forward, as if he expected the door to slam shut, but the second he stepped foot past the threshold he exhaled in disbelief before looking directly at you.

“You did this, darling, for me?” He asked as he took another step forward.

“Everyone deserves a second chance.” You replied quietly, almost shyly which was strange considering you’d been with him every day for the last few months but this was different.

Loki didn’t respond, he just smiled softly at you, eyes still full of disbelief.

It wasn’t until Thor cleared his throat that he spoke again.

“I don’t mean to stare but…” He trailed off for a moment before taking another step forward so he was directly in front of you, “I dreamed every day of being by your side, a foolish dream I thought, a terrible, hopeful dream of being able to touch you one day. I thought I’d never have the chance, yet here you are. So beautiful, my darling.” He said as he reached a hand out to cup your cheek, smiling as you learnt into the touch.

“Thank you, darling.” He whispered before leaning down and pressing his lips gently to yours.

You didn’t have a clue what the future had in store for you but you were content, here and now. Loki was out of his cage and even if the two of you crashed and burned, everyone deserves a second chance.