Beauty and the Beast

Chapter 37

Loki, Morgan, and the entire team enjoyed a few weeks of peace. Or at least as much peace as one could find in the Avengers tower. Peace was definitely a commodity around the tower, and one the team reveled in. Sure, there were still missions and such, but nothing major happened.

Until one afternoon when Morgan came into the common room long enough to give Loki a soft kiss. "I'll see you later," she told him warmly. She was dressed to leave the tower, though not for work at the office. There was no sign of anyone going with her and Happy hadn't come up to pick her up.

Loki took her wrist before she could leave. "Where are you going, love?" He asked her, concerned for her safety.

She huffed at her wrist trapped in his frozen steel grip. "Out," she replied with an eyeroll.

"By yourself? It isn't safe, my love," Loki reminded her, perfectly willing to go with her to wherever she was going.

"Yes, by myself," she huffed, quickly going from excited to go out to defensive and grumpy. "The grown adult should be able to leave her house without bodyguards," she replied heatedly. It was an ages old argument. And one she always lost, moreso now that she was blind.

"But it isn't safe. You live with the Avengers and you are dating a known villain. There are countless enemies out there," Loki reminded her logically. He wasn't even insulting her intelligence by mentioning that she was blind. She knew that already.

"It's a sunny Tuesday morning, which seems like a perfect time for me to go to Starbucks and get coffee. And you're not a villain," she told him firmly and tugged on her wrist, silently telling him to let go of her.

"No. It's too dangerous. You are the daughter of an Avenger. I will not let you go out there alone and risk you getting taken from me," Loki told her with desperation in his voice. He didn't want to risk her needlessly, not when all it would take was someone, anyone, going with her to get her coffee. Even if she didn't want that someone to be him. He would accept that to keep her safe and happy.

He glanced around at the others for help, but they were letting Loki be the bad guy, assuming that Morgan would be kinder to him than any of them.

"I don't need a babysitter," she replied with hurt, frustrated tears in her eyes. "I'm not some princess to lock up in a tower for her safety," she hated being treated like an invalid.

"I don't plan on locking you up," Loki tried to reassure her, tried to get her to see reason. "At least take someone with you if you're determined to leave. It isn't safe out there, my love," he pleaded with her. Surely, she had to know that she had to take guards with her.

"No. Now let me go," she told him firmly, tugging on her wrist again.

"Ana, please. Think about this," Loki told her, refusing to loosen his grip on her.

"I have been thinking about this. For the months I've been locked in this tower with constant guards and babysitters, being smothered and waited on like an invalid!" She protested, clearly upset and frustrated.

"We only want to keep you safe. Being a stark, you have a target on your back. Don't you understand that?" Loki asked, getting frustrated with her stubbornness. Why couldn't she just take someone with her so she'd be safe?

"I've understood that since I was 14. Now let me go!"

"No. It isn't safe to go without someone to keep you safe," why couldn't the rest of the team help him? Why'd they have to make him the villain?

"I can protect myself," she insisted, tugging again on her captive wrist. Her tug was much harder this time in warning. She didn't want to hurt Loki, but she wanted to prove to herself and everyone that she wasn't an invalid.

"Ana, stop. Does your father even know that you're trying to leave?" Loki tried that route to get her to see reason. Though he knew she was blinded by emotion, blinded by feeling so helpless and smothered.

"Of course not," she growled. "He's even more overprotective than you are. And I'm just going a block to get a cup of coffee. And I'm an adult who doesn't need her dad's permission to leave the house!" There were tears in her eyes. She just wanted to be normal for once. And a normal adult, even a normal blind one, would be able to leave her house on her own to go get a fucking cup of coffee at the Starbucks on the corner.

"Be reasonable about this. There could be anyone out there willing to grab you,"

"You be reasonable," she replied hotly. "I beat up your brother's idiot friends. Held my own against Lady Sif. Built my own weapons and have magic. I lived on my own on a college campus for years without guards and babysitters. Why is it suddenly different now?" She demanded. The stubborn, annoying chit wasn't listening to Loki and it was scaring the shit out of him.

Loki's eyes went wide. "Things are different now," he argued, trying to be calm and reasonable. "Do you not remember the fact that Hydra almost kidnapped you recently?"

"Before I was Asgardian. Before I had magic," she replied just as logically. "I was still sick from getting out of the hospital," she had a desperation in her tone for some small touch of freedom and felt caged in the tower. She'd scarcely left since they returned from Asgard except a couple visits to the office to show her face.

Her stubbornness cracked something in Loki's emotions and with it his instinctive control over his Jotun abilities. He'd never learned how to properly control his Jotun skills. He'd never needed to before his illusion broke.

Now?

Morgan's eyes went wide for a moment before she wailed in pain, yanking on her wrist to get it away from his now beyond icy, painful grip. The skin he could see around his hand on her wrist was turning blue and when he finally peeled his hand from her wrist, a black frost burned handprint was burned into her skin.

Loki gasped and stared in horror, quickly backing away from her. "Ana, I'm so sorry. I never meant to-" he trailed off, without words to express his horror at hurting her with his ice magic, with his frosty skin.

Morgan cradled her arm to her chest, confused and hurt as tears spilled from her eyes, whimpering in pain. "Loki? What? I don't understand-" she said softly through the pain and confusion. She didn't understand why she was suddenly in pain.

She didn't realize that it was Loki who had hurt her.

And that only broke Loki's heart more.

Loki couldn't even answer her as tears cascaded down his cheeks.

He couldn't face the monster that he was. A monster who would hurt the woman he loved.

There was nothing else he could do but turn and run before he hurt someone else.