Linked

The night was magical, the lights reflected the life of the city perfectly, but most importantly they made those dark green eyes looking directly at you shine. The way his eyes moved from looking into yours to your lips made you want to melt into a puddle right there on that balcony. The irony of it all made you laugh. This is where it all started, that night you went to sleep bubbling with hatred and pain. Tonight was wildly different though, by the way he was looking at you, you knew you would be going to sleep with only a smile on ur face and a memory to wipe all the bad ones.

“I hate the way you keep me up at night, Cereus.” His hot breath mixing with yours as if they were meant to be one. “I thought the only emotion you could feel was hate.” Your smirk was wide, distracting him from the hunger you felt for his lips you knew he could sense. His cold hand clinged onto your cheek making your eyes unintentionally shutter. Those cold lips so close to touching yours -

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Groaning, you woke up to the most obnoxious alarm Tony could possibly make. “Alright JARVIS I’m up, shut that stupid alarm off right now before I figure out how to disable you.”

“Good morning Y/N, Miss. Potts has enabled this alarm and without her clearance I am not able to disable it. My apologies.”

With another groan, you slowly opened your eyes which revealed the dreadful morning sun that hit your face. This is probably the worst part of your day, it was honestly offensive that Pepper started working at 6 in the morning… WAIT. You just had a pleasant dream, actually the only dream that hasn't been a nightmare in the last month. But, it wasn’t that part of it that was rattling you, it was the fact that it was about DARTH mother fucking VADER. Even worse, it was about you having feelings for him. To you this was worse than having a sex dream, because now you’re going to carry whatever you felt in the dream with you for whoever knows how long.

Last night was the most enjoyable night you’ve had with the man, but that doesn't mean you have feelings for him. Yeah, you talk to him in the library because for some reason he helps your mind not wander off into deep thought, and sometimes you play tricks on him just because it's fun and need another distraction, and you definitely don’t want to make cookies tonight just because of how much he liked them last night. Oh fuck.

You just needed to get on with your day, distract yourself per say. Putting on one of the brand new dresses from your endless closet you start getting ready for work, or at least that's just what you call it.

“Good morning, how’d you sleep last night!” Pepper was cheery as always but her question caught you by surprise causing you to almost choke on your hot coffee. “Oh um good, nothing really new just the nightmares you know.” You say with your head down, speed walking behind her as she walks around the office.

One thing about you is that you can never lie about your feelings, lying about Dylan, your dad, and bestfriend is easy at this point. You’ve rehearsed the story countless times that if it wasn’t for the flashbacks you would start to believe your stories were true. Plus, you pushed your true feelings about those situations so deep down that they only came up during panic attacks. In all honesty, those ‘check-ups’ with Bruce were slowly helping you. Even if you weren't telling him the whole truth most of the time, just being able to talk about them openly made you a little more comfortable.

This dream being so new and shocking is taking you by surprise, it's like when you were a little girl and couldn’t lie about who you had a crush on. You hated this.

“Are you feeling alright honey?” Her body fully facing you with that concerned motherly look in her eyes. “Ye-yeah why, do I seem weird because I swear I’m perfectly fine. So, what did you need filed again because I already did-” Pepper cut you off, putting her hand on your shoulder. “I think you should see Bruce today, he’s already in the lab. You have the day off.” With a small smile on your face you followed Peppers orders and headed to the lab. Pepper has done everything she can to make you feel at home while you’re on ‘suicide watch’ and it hasn’t gone unappreciated. You admire everything she does and couldn’t thank her enough even if this wasn’t what you wanted.

Something about Bruce made it easy to talk to him, truthfully it was hard to see how he was the hulk but you never dared to bring that up to him. The beginning of the check up went like normal, running through the daily wellness questions, doing a blood and urine test for drugs and to make sure your eating habits were better. Then, it came to the talking part of the session. He would usually start by asking if you had anything on your mind, and everytime he would have to pry some lie with a hint of truth from you just so you could go back to the common room. Today was different though.

“So, is there anything you wanna talk about during-”

“I had a romantic dream about Darth Vader.” You basically blurted out, filling the room with an awkward silence. “Like from Star Wars…?” His eyes did nothing less than darted at you as he pulled his glasses off a little looking like the uncomfortable one this time.

“Oh god no no, and that sounded wrong. It wasn't a sex dream, it was like one of those dreams when you have feelings for the person and like kiss or whatever and you wake up and have those same stupid feelings that you had in the dream.” You were rambling, you knew it, he knew it. This is just what you do when you have feelings like this, and to be frank you haven't felt like this in ages so you really didn’t know how to handle it. You could handle pain any day, aside from the panic attacks but still you weren’t spilling your guts about what you get flashbacks about.

“I see, but who’s Darth Vader?” Bruce looked confused and you were frantic. “Right, do you know what guy with the overly greasy black hair, super sharp cheekbones, and always looks miserable?”

“You mean Loki…” He basically looked at you like you had a gun in your hand. What could be so bad, he obviously wasn’t a fan favorite to be around but still. Also, you're starting to understand why the guy never wanted to tell you his name, Loki’s kinda a weird thing to go by.

Nodding you gestured for him to go on. “Do you not know who he is…what he's done?” You didn't feel anger in his voice, just pure confusion. “No, why, what did he do?” you asked.

“I think that’s something you should ask him. If he hasn’t told you there's probably a reason. All I can say is that he’s Thor's brother.”

_ _ _ _ _ _

You’ve basically done everything to avoid the guy ever since you talked to Bruce. You’ve been basically brainstorming all day to try and ask this guy ‘Loki’ what his story is, but at the same time you can’t expect him to open up to you when you haven't spoken a word of your own past to him. One thing you did notice however, is it's basically almost dinner and haven't had a panic attack yet. Usually you have 2 a day and they’re before dinner because you’re too tired to even think by night time. Progress.

You’ve been spending time with Nat, Steve and Clint in the living room watching movies with the occasional conversation. You’ve gotten pretty close with Nat over the last 2 weeks and while most of your conversations were her begging you to start training or at least learning some self defense moves you see yourself opening up to her at some point. Steve is different, you enjoy spending time with him but he acts like the older brother you never had. The advice is never ending, Clint and him try and act discreet but you know they’re only giving countless amounts of snacks throughout the day because they care. While at first it was infuriating, after taking blood tests every week you can only thank them.

Out of habit, you found yourself pressing button 78 on the elevator.. It wasn’t until you stepped in that you realized your mistake. Well, you couldn’t leave now he definitely knows you're here by the loud squeaks of the wood beneath your feet. Mentally cursing Tony for having a 90 floor tower but not being able to replace the floors of the library you sat on the couch where your stack of books was waiting for you, while Darth Vader or Loki sat in front of you in his normal chair.

“More seems to be on your mind than usual.” His tone dull as always, eyes not lifting from the book he seemed to be enthralled in.

“Did you just call me dumb.” You huff out, mostly fake but he didn’t need to know that. He looked up at you with that signature smirk on this face. “Partly, you’ve been looking into the fire for over a minute now. I was truly making sure you weren’t broken.”

“Very funny.” Your eyes darted bullets in the hit head. “I had a session with Bruce this morning, I’m just thinking.” He seemed to think your excuse was believable and quickly nodded before going back to his book.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

You seemed to get through dinner and the library without conversing with the mystery man anymore than needed. You knew you wanted to bring up what you found out today though. You just needed to figure out how.

In the kitchen you asked JARVIS to pull up a recipe for red velvet cupcakes, you weren't going to make cookies two days in a row, even with these new found feelings you’re not actually doing what the guy wants.

Just like as you expected you could basically feel the eyes on your back while you made the cream cheese icing in the mixer.

“You’re making something different.” A familiar smooth voice spoke from behind you. “Do you like red velvet cupcakes?” You asked not bothering to turn around.

“I have not heard of that dessert before.” Quickly darting around you looked at him with powdered sugar smeared all over your cheeks. “You are so confusing.” You rolled your eyes, wiped off the remnants on your face and brought the tray of cupcakes in front of him. Before you could even get out your next words he took a cupcake and bit into it, paper and all.

“Woah woah, be patient.” You scolded him, grabbing the cupcake from his hand. His eyes were watching you intensely, too intensely. You frosted half the cupcakes before you started to get uncomfortable. “Do you wanna do the rest, I don't think I can handle your eyes on me for another second.” You huffed out dropping the piping bag and moving the tray towards him.

“Why is that so, darling?” He purred, making your breath falter. Again, you were not good at these situations, especially with guys like him. “Your face just pisses me off.”

“Ah, are you certain it’s not due to the dream you had last night?” His eyes basically sparked with mischief as he took a bite of the frosted cupcake. “These are divine.” Moving his gaze to the cupcake instead of your body, you finally let yourself take a deep breath.

“Wait what dream?” Your voice dripping with confusion, his response was only that stupid grin as he grabbed another cupcake. Pushing his hand away from the tray you continued. “H-How did you know about my dream?”

“They might have taken my seidr but I’m still able to play mind tricks Cereus.”