A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, especially PsychoticWaffle! God knows I enjoy the feedback. Don't worry, I'm not going to be too hard on Loki…though the trial's coming up next, so that should be interesting. Keep R&Ring guys -JC
When everything you say
I'm on my knees
Baby I'm on my knees
-Ellie Goulding, Only You
Chapter 4- Loki
I was falling apart.
Slowly, agonizingly being torn to pieces from the inside out. And it was all because of her.
I don't know what in Hel possessed me to stay what I did to the girl the night before the master plan was to reach its high point. The words spilled from my mouth of their own free will, and I could tell some part of her actually believed them.
They were, after all, the first bits of truth in a suffocating net of lies.
Of course, by the time I was leaving her again, the twisted lies were back. The resulting look on her face was very nearly to the death of me. Thanos certainly hadn't expected this.
One of the…interesting side effects of the curse he'd put on me, the same curse that was impossible to fight, impossible to rebel against no matter how hard I tried, the same one that allowed me only a few moments of absolute clarity, was that I didn't feel anything more than the most basic of emotions. Maybe that was why I couldn't place the ache that burned relentlessly in my chest whenever I thought of the girl.
She had a name I didn't use often- Luna. It didn't seem to fit her. I didn't even know why the heck I cared. There was something odd about her, though; something that separated her from the millions of other mortals I'd seen. It intrigued me for reasons I didn't understand, made me want to stop snapping at her- not that the curse would ever permit me to do something as soft-hearted as that. Instinct told me to kill her, to eliminate the factor that was nothing more than a distraction in the end. But more likely than not, that so-called 'instinct' was Thanos toying with me in an attempt to make me even more of a tool at his disposal.
I couldn't even trust myself anymore.
Dreams plagued me that last night before it all ended. Over and over again I jerked awake with the feel of Luna's blood still between my fingers. And every time I closed my eyes all I could see was blonde hair and green eyes, shadowed by that same strange ache.
I didn't come to see her before I went to the inevitable battle. Better to let her stay innocent to the destruction I was no doubt going to leave behind in my wake for a little while longer.
000
{Insert climax scene from Avengers}
I failed. I knew it. Thanos knew it. Even the pathetic group of broken mortals that called themselves the Avengers knew it. It had my intention ever since I had had Selvig build in the failsafe in one of the rare periods of time I had reasonable control over my actions.
Getting thrown around by that beast had shattered the curse; thank the gods, so I was finally seeing things through glass that wasn't tinted red. There was no relief the freedom, though. I was acutely aware just how temporary it would prove to be. Because no tortures Fury or Odin could ever concoct could compare with what I was facing when Thanos's wrath found me.
Found her.
It takes a horrifying amount of carnage to make me feel remorse. That much was clear, judging from the pile of debris that used to be Manhattan. There was no telling how many bodies lay beneath it all. So why should it affect me at all if one insignificant mortal woman lived or died?
I could count the people I really cared on one hand. And each one was a dangerous weakness. The last thing I needed was another one.
D*** Luna Haunting.
A/N: Sorry that was so short. Next chapter will be the normal length, I promise. –JC