Chapter Text
You are surrounded by darkness, and you are alone.
So alone…
You don’t remember how you got here, or where ‘here’ is, but you do know that you don’t want to be here! Not anymore. Alone in the dark. Trapped. There has to be something to see, somewhere to go, someone to run too!
Then you see it, just a sliver of light, and without thinking you rush toward it, reaching out to the safety the light promises. The warmth and happiness it’s supposed to bring.
But it’s too bright, it blinds your eyes. The light that was supposed to save you is instead hurting you! It hurts so badly, everything hurts. It burns your skin, electrocutes your veins and destroys your core.
You slam against the glass of your cage, looking into the eyes of the man with the star scar. “Welcome home Stella,” he says with a sadistic smile as he reaches for a switch on the machine.
“NO!” You gasp as you sit up straight in your bed, sweating and shaking. Your fingers clutch the fabric of your night shirt, clambering over your hammering heart as your eyes dart around, trying to remember where you are.
You are in your room.
Right, you and Loki decided to end your space travel when you were getting homesick. Going back to earth and the compound.
You wrap your soft blanket around you as you slide out of bed, grabbing your pillow too. The shine from the moon outside the window is strong enough that it is not necessary to turn on a light, even though it’s the middle of the night.
The Avengers welcomed you and Loki back with open arms. You came back in the middle of a fight that had left everyone rather tired, so afterwards you had all just gone to dinner together at some shawarma place, only talking about positive things, and then went back to base and crashed into bed, promising to have bigger talks come morning light.
You make your way toward the door. Your room has not changed since you left, though you were gone for months. There is no dust so it’s clear they still cleaned it, but everything was sitting where you left it.
The same could not be said for Loki’s room, but that was of his doing. When you first arrived back at the compound his room had also not been messed with, but right away he demanded his room be moved to the one across from yours, and no one dares to question it.
You open your door and quickly make your way to his door. The others probably thought the only reason Loki wanting to move his rooms across from yours was just because you were romantically involved, but you knew there was another reason for it, the same reason why all the places you stayed while traveling the galaxy with Loki that you always had bedrooms that was connected or across from each other.
This was not your first time waking up in the middle of the night because of nightmares.
You hesitated with knocking on Loki’s door, a foolish thing to do at this point, seeing as you have done this so many times before, and it only resulted in the door opening before your hand even had a chance to connect to the wood.
Loki looks down at you, his eyes giving no indication of him being annoyed that you woke him up, but were filled only with worry and love. You don’t even need to tell him why you are here at this point, he just opens the door more for you so you can walk in before closing it behind you.
You make your way to his bed, which is easy since there is dim magical light all around the room, drop your blanket at the foot end and throw your pillow beside his. Quickly crawling under his duvet as Loki gets into the bed too, taking off the silk shirt he wears when he sleeps and grabs the book on his nightstand.
Once he has gotten himself comfortable he pulls you closer to him. You snuggle against his bare chest and breathe a sigh of relief. His cold skin seems to chase away all the uncomfortable heat from your nightmare and let you relax again.
He starts reading the book out loud for you, his voice soft and soothing, starting up where you left off last time, and you just snuggle like that while calming down.
This was your night routine when you got nightmares, which at the start of your vacation with Loki had been a lot, but toward the end of your journey had appeared less and less. In fact your last nightmare was weeks ago, so it was a bit worrisome you got one just as you got back home.
Loki noted that too.
“Are you sure about this, Darling?” Loki asked after he had finished a chapter in the book. He leaned down and kissed your forehead. “If the nightmares return because we came back perhaps you were not ready,” he said worried, looking into your eyes.
“I’m sure my love,” you whispered, moving up to kiss his cheek and giving him a reassuring smile, “I’m honestly not surprised I got a nightmare again, being back here would trigger the memories.” You sigh as you snuggle against his chest again. “But I do not wish to run away from it Loki, this is my home now, and I wanna fight for it.”
“You are my home,” Loki whispered, kissing the top of your head, “if this is where you wanna be, then I will stay and fight for it with you.”
You were both not thinking of a big enemy that you would have to fight to protect your home, but more of an emotional battle to come. At this point you had forgiven your friends and family, but you were still a little hurt.
But the best way to move forward was one step at a time, and you would do it, together.
༺☆༻
During breakfast the next day you and Loki spend a lot of time talking to the others about all the adventures you had out in space. The whole team was there, along with some of their partners and even Fury with some other S.H.I.E.l.D. agents.
You had experienced so much out there you didn’t think you would be running out of stories to tell them anytime soon. You had met so many people, had been to so many places, and found some rather interesting things.
One of the most fascinating things you found was a sort of crystal that reminded you of the ones you summoned and controlled. And after getting near them you found out that they seemed to have a reaction to your presence.
“The man who was overseeing the mining and study of the crystal was so excited. After I helped him a bit and pointed him in the right direction about what they might be, he let me take some samples with me home!” You said excitedly, holding up the box.
In the box were 24 crystals, everyone was cut in a Marquise shape and were clear and well made. You demonstrated to the group how you could charge up the crystal, giving it a white glow, and that it would give a small general boost to whoever held it.
You were going around giving everyone in the group one, but when you got to Fury you frowned slightly because the crystal you charged to him gave a purple glow instead.
“Oh, I can feel that it’s working fine, but it’s a different color from everyone else's,” you said in a worried tone, but Fury just took it with a big smile. “That's great, it will be easier to find it among the others then!”
Well, you could not argue with that, so if it made him happy you would not protest.
Fury had not only kept his promise of letting you and Loki have your vacation by not tracking your ship, but he even worked on calming down the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the government.
There was however one party that was upset about your vacation that he had not been able to keep calm.
“Father wants to see you,” Thor said seriously, looking at Loki, “I told him that you should be allowed to settle back in first, but he is not a patient man.”
Loki looked nervous and you took his hand in an attempt to comfort him. You remembered what had happened the last time he had gone home, he had been sad and convinced that once you saw his true form you would call him a monster and run.
You really wanted to know who had put that idea in his head, and then kick their ass.
“I’ll go with you,” you said, looking at him and Thor with determined eyes.
Loki looked at you shocked, and a bit worried, and so did Thor. “Father is not fond of mortals,” Thor said seriously, looking at you, “I once tried to bring Jane with me, and she was in need of help, but he still tried to throw her out.”
You could see the resentment of that in Thor’s eyes. Jane was Thor’s girlfriend. You had not seen a lot of her, as she was traveling a lot as a scientist.
“I think you are both forgetting that I apparently have been to Asgard many times before and that they are surely missing me,” you said in a teasing noble-like voice, giving them a grin.
The brothers look confused until they realize what you are saying and look at each other, big grins on their faces.
“Oh, please let us surprise ‘dear father’ with that,” Loki said, a mischievous grin on his face. Thor looked a bit unsure about that but shrugged. “Alright.”
You did notice the way Loki said ‘dear father’ in a rather sarcastic voice, and remembering the words Loki had used after his last visit and the fact he was adopted, you suddenly had a very good idea of whose ass needed a good kick.