Giftless

Chapter 32

You had to get up stupidly early the next morning, which majorly sucked with how late you had gotten to bed the night before. You really weren't looking forward to that day, either. It was your first day of officially training your powers and it was going to suck. Miserably. There was no way in any universe that you knew of that training would not in fact suck.

You dressed in workout clothes, tied up your hair, and headed down to grab a bite to eat before you had to meet with Fury. Loki was already at your table, looking way more awake than you felt. You kinda hated him for it.

"Fury wishes for me to train with you this morning," Loki explained by way of greeting. You weren't sure you were awake enough to comprehend his words, but you nodded anyway and bolted down your meager granola bar breakfast. Loki looked disapproving, but he didn't complain for once. He knew you was nervous about this and you were glad he would be there with you. That would make it slightly more bearable.

Slightly.

The next hours were hell. There was no other word for it. Except maybe torture. Torture was pretty close.

Fury had you remove the bangle as soon as you arrived in the training room so you could get to work. He did everything he could think of to make you activate and try to use your powers. You had spent the last week trying to keep calm and avoid activating your powers when they would hurt you so badly. So it was beyond hard to summon them on command. Fury made you practice calling fire and floating objects for hours, despite the pain that ran through your brain when you did. He was also barking at you for control. It just wasn't happening. It was like a light switch. Your powers were either active or not and you couldn't do anything to control how active or inactive they were. Which is exactly what Fury wanted you to do.

After hours of work, you were drenched in sweat, whimpering from the pain in your head which just got worse at every movement or thought, and so raw and bruised by your own powers that you feared you'd never get any control over them. Loki had been using his ice powers all day to help control the fires you made. Other ice and water supers had had to be called in to help.

Your powers were just too out of control. You were kneeling on the mats with tears streaming down your face, wondering when this torture would be over. Fury just kept barking and barking about control and how you had to control the fire and not just let it loose. He didn't understand that you couldn't. That just letting your powers activate was so painful you wanted to puke to make the pain go away. There was just nothing there to even try to get a reign on your wayward powers.

"Loki, come help me with this," Fury called. Loki went over to him, but gave you a sympathetic look on his way. He knew how hard you were trying. You could feel his anger at Fury for putting you through this. You tried to block his thoughts out, but your mind was too weak and aching to shut anything out, especially your Loki.

The moment Loki made it to Fury, Fury pulled out a knife and dragged it roughly across Loki's arm. "Loki!" you screamed, jumping back to your feet and running over to him, despite your exhaustion. You threw Fury away from you and Loki, managing somehow to only throw him away from you and not across the room and into the wall. With some focus and imagination, and a strong determination to be safe, a circle of flames surrounded you, keeping you safe while you placed your hand over Loki's arm. With a softly glowing blue light, his wound knit itself closed.

You collapsed against Loki the second he was healed, too drained to even stand on your own. The flames vanished and Fury took a couple steps toward you. Instantly, your hands were back up. You couldn't summon the flames again, but a tiny candle light of a flame appeared in your palm. "The battle is over, soldier," he told you in his drill sergeant voice, as he moved toward you with his hands up in surrender. You collapsed back against Loki. "Very well done, Kat," he told you with a rare smile.

"That was planned?" you asked, confused and so brain dead that it just didn't make any sense to you that he would trick you. He nodded, but softened at your expression.

"I'm sorry that you had to push you so far, but you knew you had the capability for control. You just had to prove it to yourself,"

"But all day-" he had tortured you with your powers all day. He had drained you to breaking point

"I had to see what you can do," he told you. You realized then why all the new recruits looked like death after their first day of training. Fury did this to everyone. "Sorry, Loki," he added. Loki just nodded. "Someone had to be injured for you to heal them and learn that you could. I figured you'd heal loverboy here," he smirked. He'd put your Loki in danger and smirked at him over it. Loki just accepted it. "You will learn control, Kat. You're capable of it. You demonstrated that here tonight. Get something to eat and some rest," he told you firmly.

Loki half-carried you from the room. It as a good thing you were so dead or you might've killed Fury for hurting your Loki. You stumbled next to Loki as he half-carried you. Even with him holding you up you stumbled over your feet. He swept you up into his arms when it was clear you weren't capable without his help. "I'm so sorry, love," he whispered, his tone soothing and gentle. "I hated seeing you like that,"

"I know," you murmured, laying your head on his shoulder. "Can you cold for me?" you asked him softly once you were upstairs. You had zoned out for the entire trip to the common room He settled you on your couch in the common room. "It's so hot playing with fire all day," you whined at him.

"Let me get you some dinner and then I will," he promised. You nodded and closed your eyes, willing the headache to go away. It didn't listen. Loki had to shake you back awake to get you to eat something. At least he sat next to you with his cold hand on your neck.

You couldn't even remember what you ate, while you were eating it, but managed to get the food down before even holding a fork became too much effort.

"First day of training, huh?" some of the supers asked sympathetically as they came into the room to watch TV. You nodded wearily, too tired to properly answer.

"Come on, darling, let's get you upstairs. You might actually sleep tonight after all of this," Loki told you gently. You let him lift you off of the couch and carry you up to your room. He set you on your feet in your bedroom. "Kat, darling. You have to wake up now. Just for a little while. You cannot sleep drenched in sweat like this. Can you shower on your own, or should you get one of the girls up here?" he asked you gently. He wouldn't presume to help you himself, not after all you'd been through, but he was going to help you even if he had to get one of the girls to come help you to accomplish that. You blinked up at him, dumbly, but his words finally got through your hazy mind.

"I can," you replied and somehow made it through the shower and into pajamas and stumbled into him when you left the bathroom. Loki steered you directly to your bed. You were pretty sure you were asleep before you even laid down.

Loki was sitting in your recliner when your alarm went off in the morning. "I thought you had finished with your exams last week?" he asked you with a disapproving expression as you shut off your alarm and moved to get up.

"Those were the AP exams. My regular finals are this week. I only have a couple since I took so many AP classes," you explained. Again. Loki really didn't understand how Midgardian education worked. "They're also a lot easier and a lot less vital to my future,"

You made it through your exams that day and training that afternoon. That training session was a lot easier and focused on trying to manage the size of a fire once you had made it. It was only a couple more days of that draining experience, since your last exam was Wednesday and then you'd be free to focus on learning to control your powers all summer.

What a wonderfully fun summer that would be.

Not.