Meant To Be (Loki x reader)

Chapter nineteen - In which Tony's previous thought comes true

Author's note: Hey guys, hope you're all hanging in there. Update on the uni situation, they've offered me an unconditional place now so I'm definitely going in September! That is if this virus has calmed down by then :( ANyways, here is chapter nineteen, I've been thinking about ideas for a part two of this (I have a lot of time on my hands now okay) involving the events of Ragnarok/IW/Endgame, but I'm not actually sure I have the emotional capacity to write about Loki's death (or Nat's... or Tony's...), so yeah. Comment or message ideas, also include a title for this bcos I still can't think of anythingggg. Okay I'll stop rambling now byeee <3

...

It had been two weeks since the building collapsing incident, and there had been no missions since then, leaving you plenty of time to get back to full health and do a load of training with both Nat and Loki. You felt stronger than ever, both physically and in the sense of your magic; you were certain that, if tasked with holding up a building now, you would be able to hold it for much longer than you had two weeks ago. Although that might just be you being optimistic.

This morning you had trained with Loki for a couple of hours, and were rewarding yourself for your efforts with ice cream and a movie, as there wasn't much else going on. It was a cold and gloomy November afternoon and you were quite happy to curl up under a blanket with a tub of your favourite flavour of ice cream and a film. It was barely ten minutes before Loki joined you; he was rarely not around you recently, and you couldn't say you minded. Your feelings for him were definitely... progressing, but you were determined not to think about it too much in case he heard you and your friendship (if you could call it that) was ruined. You couldn't afford for that to happen. You'd find a time to sort things out when there was no chance of him overhearing... is what you'd been telling yourself for the last fortnight.

"What's this?" Loki asked you, positioning himself a respectable distance from you on the sofa. The same sofa, you noted happily, before shoving that thought far down into the deepest crevice of your mind.

"It's called Harry Potter. It's about a boy who finds out he's a wizard and goes to a school of magic where he learns... did you just compare me to Harry Potter?" you laughed, hearing his thoughts in your own head.

"You're getting too good at reading minds, it's beginning to get quite unnerving." Loki told you.

"Maybe you're just-" here you paused and looked around dramatically. "Letting you guard down?" you finished in a whisper, looking at him in wide-eyed sarcasm. He rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Maybe." he replied, and you fought to stem the thoughts that had been about to enter your head.

"Tell me more about this odd sounding film." he said, and you obliged; managing to get him to sit all the way through it: an achievement in your eyes. Various people had joined you throughout the course of the film, including Bucky, Clint and Thor – you had to re-explain the whole plot to Thor when he arrived, assisted this time though by Bucky and Clint.

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, and you turned in for the night early, tired despite not having done anything much all day. You got into your pyjamas using magic (an insanely helpful trick, especially when you needed to get changed quickly, which you had taught yourself) and lay in bed listening to the rain against your window and listening to the sounds of the city below. Deciding to finally honour the lie you'd been telling yourself for two weeks, you put up the mental wall around your mind which meant that Loki wouldn't be able to hear you even if he wasn't trying to listen in (which you very much hoped he wasn't). Better safe than sorry.

It felt weird finally being able to think about it freely after so long trying not to. You loved that you could talk to Loki in your head, and sometimes even hear bits of what he was thinking, but you would be lying if you said it didn't get tiring sometimes. It made you better equipped in training when he was trying to explain something though, you were able to do whatever he explained fairly quickly; if it was in his head it was in yours too. The two of you had an odd relationship, but then, not many people could read each other's minds. It was only now you thought about it you realised how close you were, much closer than you'd ever been to anyone else before in your life. And now you'd stopped lying to yourself, it was safe to say that you liked him, and not just in a friendly kind of way. But shit, now you'd admitted that to yourself it was going to be hard to not think about it when he was around, and if you kept this wall up he'd get suspicious... things weren't looking good. Unless...? No, you couldn't tell him. You'd gone mad with that last thought; you were too tired. You fell asleep thinking about his eyes, those gorgeous eyes... how on earth were you meant to carry on keeping your thoughts quiet around him?