A Kind Of Magic

Chapter 7

Swift and graceful like the python, Natasha Romanoff crept into little Loki's assigned chamber at approximately 2am that morning, her nimble fingers feeling her way across the furniture. She breezed to a halt at the foot of his bed, which dwarfed him in size. She paused, startled once again by the youthfulness of his appearance.

Loki was so pale he was almost translucent in the moonlight, his features soft and dark; she wondered how it possibly took so long for the brothers to discover they truly had no relation. It falls in the genre of ironic, light and dark, yin and yang.

'Sleep, dorogoy,' she hummed into the darkness, a feeling of intense contemplation washing over her. How often was it that she ever truly got to spend time with a child and allow their untouched, inquisitive nature to heal the worries of the world? When was the last time she could truly sleep at peace like he was, completely detached from the concept of survival and safety? It just simply existed to him. Would he be terrified of the monster his future self had become?

'It's weird isn't it,' She didn't flinch; the goosebumps on her neck recognised a disturbance in the room temperature when Stark had entered. 'Seeing him all tucked up like a goth burrito really makes you miss being a kid,'

'It makes me mourn,' she shrugged in response, gently flipping her eyes to him before settling back to the trickster. '-for a childhood that was never mine,'

A few moments of silence passed before Tony aptly responded with, 'Deep,'

'You have me at some sort of moral crossroad, Stark; I'm not sure how to proceed with this mission. Loki, discovered under any circumstance, should be eliminated; effectively, immediately. I owe that to the world, to Fury, to Clint, to... Coulson,' she sighed, sounding vaguely irritated as opposed to conflicted. 'But there's just something so... precious about him, like he has the potential to be something truly-,'

'Extraordinary?' Stark interjected, a whip-lash grin rocking his features. 'Tell me about it, the little tinker's got a lot of haunted charm about him,'

'Haunted,' Natasha repeated, eyebrows furrowing as though she just had a mind-boggling revelation. She turned, then, and silently stormed out of sight.

Tony blinked and absently watched her slink away; he was used to women doing that now. They trickled out of his life over time. The tower was his only source of friendship really, a dum social-need bar to fill for his therapy notes. Jesus, how did life come to this? How was this the reality he was existing in? Wormholes, aliens, baby tricksters, more wormholes, more aliens...

'I used to stay up past my bedtime too,' a small, distinctive voice called out from the four-poster, far too literate for a toddler-esque body. 'Except... I never used to spy on people as they slept.'

'Touche,' Tony said, rolling with it. 'I have to say, it's a first for me too.'

'Regardless, why are you here? Where's Thor?'

'Thor's high-fiving the cosmos right now, completely off-world. He's trying to look for something to cure you! Which would be so fun, right buddy? As for my lingering, the ginger assassin was hanging out here so I joined the party,'

'You're insufferable; She's been staring at me all night! I don't know why she mistrusts me so, I'm weak as the day I was born,'

'How'd you know she was watching you?'

'Oh, I simply cast my soul to the other end of the chamber and it reported back to me,'

'You're not supposed to be using your powers!'

'It's hardly magic,' he scoffed. Tony bristled. 'Like a meditation, almost,'

'You hardly look sick at all,'

'My own cells are being swallowed by stone, slowly, as we speak,'

Loki's bottom lip trembled and Tony's resolve dissolved. He opened his arms tentatively as the child ducked his head and belted full force into Tony's chest, engulfing him.

'This place is so cold and different, I just want my mama,' he sniffled. 'I don't want any of this. I want to go home!' 

'You will soon, I promise. You'll go home and you'll be okay, but you're okay now aren't you, kiddo? You're going to breeze past this and you're gonna be just fine.' 

He supposed they'd just have to wait and see... 

HI GUYS, 

So i haven't posted a lot, this is a hobby I haven't picked up in ages! I'm totally willing to keep writing if that's what you want me to do. PLEASE LET ME KNOW!! 

I've also posted a completely original story on this page that I'm working super hard on. It's about three siblings who uncover abilities after the 'death' of their mother and learn to adapt to this new life and its lessons together. 

Your support is heart-warming as ever; your comments make me laugh and cry. Thank for for STILL reading my stuff. I love every single one of you.