Drift (Loki x Reader)

III. The Essay

What would you do for the ones you loved?

Your fingers posed over the edges of the keyboard, eyes fixated on the blinking cursor, urging you to begin typing. It was a simple task and every aspiring college student had to complete one if you wished to begin the next phase of your life. 

Though in all fairness, you weren't really sure why every college applicant had to write an essay. It wasn't like a pure mathematics major was going to end up writing Shakesperian sonnets across a chalk board over differential equations mind you. You weren't the best writer yourself when it came to composing personal essays that related to previous events of your life, this topic in particular seemed to hit straight home.

You hadn't talked to Banner since the morning encounter two days ago. There was an icy silence that existed between the two of you. There had always been some distance ever since the initial Incident, though the root of paternal familiarity still seemed to extend towards you. But the argument seemed to have broken that and Banner had recoiled back to his experiments and playthings in his laboratory, not wanting to be disturbed. Rogers was adamant (of course) that you remain separated from Banner for a while longer in order to minimise the possibility of triggering a 'Code Green.'

College had been something of quiet discussion between you and Banner, though Stark seemed to be more enforcing of it, assuming more of a fatherly figure to you than Banner had been in the last few years since the Incident. He remained persistent about the subject, suggesting that if you weren't going to use your 'Friends without benefits,' your powers, and suit up with the rest of the Avengers, then you might as well try to live a normal life. 

Normal life? 

You scoffed at the idea, the thought of living in the suburbs in the United States with a family, waking up to the smell of coffee and sunshine every morning like one of those insurance commercials for Viagra. Even if you assumed the facade of a normal individual, there was the inevitability that you would have another migraine. And with little hope for the near future of stopping them and that they only seemed to be lasting longer, you didn't see the point of trying to live a lie that you were anything but abnormal. 

Plus, you had told Stark, you had seen the biogenetics chart spelling out your internal metabolism and cellular division rates. You knew what those numbers meant, what they spelled out about how the Incident had permanently altered your life. Apply for college, major in physics as your father and ancestors had done for years and years, get a job and settle down? You had all the time in the world for that!

You didn't want to talk about it any longer, about how long you would live for, about what the energy raging inside your veins was doing to your genetic code. It was one day at a time for you, one day in a span of eons that would await. But you didn't want to think about that now, you had an essay to write. 

Loved ones?

Did it mean Banner, your only living biological relative (the whereabouts of your mother was a story for another time)? Or could you talk about others, those who weren't related to you by blood and bone? You could talk about Stark, you supposed. You cared for him with an emotion that you assumed you would have felt for Banner had he not been the way he was. You felt the same emotion towards others within the Avengers unit, for Romanoff, for Barton, Odinson, Rogers and the countless others that roamed the building from time to time. 

The blinking cursor continued to throb in sync with your incoming headache. No, it wasn't like the migraines that ripped your consciousness in half. This was your normal, average headache that any young individual was prone to after having been sleep-deprived for several hours and hopped up on a pint of coffee.