Loki held me while I trembled in the aftermath of a mind-shattering orgasm. After he insisted that I spend the two days after the night of my panic attack at the Hydra base home, he had told the Avengers what had happened. My understanding was that Carol and Rhodey had to do some damage control since Walker had still had a hard-on for arresting Loki and myself. He didn't tell me the details of what they did, and of course Sam and Bucky had gotten involved after they heard I picked up Steve's scent there. A federal judge had gotten involved, there was some talk, Loki did his usual smooth-talking and charming, and in the end Loki and I had received a warning and a slap on the wrist.
He had gone into Ultra Protective mode and hadn't even allowed me to speak to Bucky, Sam, or any of the others on the phone, handling everything himself and basically telling me not to worry my pretty little head about anything. That he would take care of it. He also checked up on me every five minutes, decided at several points that I looked cold and tucked blankets around me I didn't want, decided I looked peaked more than a few times so made me take naps. After about a day and a half, his fussing had finally begun to drive me apeshit and after the second time I snapped at him he had dragged me into the bedroom, having taken my snarling as a sign that I was feeling better and deciding that some intimate time was necessary both to settle my ass down and also to erase the memories brought up by the flashback. So far, he was doing a stellar job at the latter, and as for the former...well, I had long since forgotten why I had been annoyed with him.
He kissed my neck as his skilled and dexterous fingers began playing with me again, sliding inside me one by one until three were stretching my inner walls and stimulating nerve endings that were so sensitive that I saw stars as he rubbed. Loki was not gentle in bed, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was generous and there was some tenderness in the way he took pleasure in causing me pleasure. I never fully appreciated just how torturous it had been for him not to be able to touch me in the beginning of our relationship until he had been able to. It wasn't just sex either. He loved affection, loved hugging, kissing, touching, any type of physical connection. He'd been so starved for love for so long, and now he had a lot to give, and I was the exclusive recipient of it. It took my breath away when I experienced the depth of his feelings for me like I was now.
Loki kissed away the memories of the agony from that flashback, replacing those sensations with tender and passionate love, taking me to heights I never knew before meeting him. Every time tears sprang up, he brushed them away. He turned my memories of my screams of pain into screams of pleasure. He played my body like a maestro, and took care of my heart as well. I had already had more orgasms than I could count, and he hadn't even entered me yet. He stopped me every time I tried to reciprocate, preferring to keep me pinned down as he toyed with my body, gazing into my eyes as I came over and over again. He was doing it now, his fingers reaching inside me, touching parts of me that responded to every thrust of the digits with pulses that made spots dance in my vision until I exploded again.
I felt him ease himself between my thighs, pressing himself forward and inward. He established a mental link with me, aided by my own empathy, turning our lovemaking into something way beyond sexual and physical. He touched and caressed my mind, making us one both physically and mentally, his tongue in my mouth while his pelvis pushed into mine. We were completely intertwined, to the point that I couldn't tell where he ended and I began. I had been scared to allow anyone that close ever again after what had happened to me, and remembered when I swore to him that he would never get into my mind. How things had changed.
His lips slowly parted from mine and he leaned his forehead against mine. "Do you remember when you told me that you didn't like sex?" I heard the smirk in his voice. "What do you think now?"
I couldn't answer. I was incapable of speech, and moaned as he mentally brushed me again. As usual he kept his movements agonizingly slow, savoring me while ramping up the tension before finally thrusting with his full strength, wanting me to feel every single inch, experience his power and his pleasure.
I often worried that he, who had spent centuries used to bouncing between different lovers, would start to get bored just being with me. Times like these helped put those fears to rest, because I could feel how much he treasured having someone who was his very own, and treasured belonging to someone who had claimed him.
It was after I had spent some time recovering in the afterglow that I found out what the "slap on the wrist" was.
"You're off the Steve Rogers case," Loki informed me as he caressed my back, right before flattening his hand on it to keep me still. He knew what I was going to do if he didn't restrain me. I would start pacing and would probably do something stupid like get in my Rabbit and head to the mansion to yell at someone.
I held still. It took a lot of effort, but I managed not to make a fool of myself by trying to shove Loki's hand away. I was strong but Loki was stronger, and he wouldn't hesitate to reward my attempt to move with a swat somewhere that would really sting. "According to who?"
"It was a condition of you not being arrested. Danvers and Rhodes agreed."
I blew out a breath. "I see." My voice was flat and expressionless. I wasn't happy at all. I vibrated under Loki's palm.
"Don't," he warned solemnly.
"Did anyone bother to explain that my enhanced senses have been crucial to the search?" I couldn't hide the irritation in my voice, and then I yelped as a harsh smack landed on my ass.
"Do you think I would just sit quietly by while they argued for your imprisonment and then argued for you to be 'benched'?" It was Loki's turn to sound very annoyed. "What do you take me for?"
The very slight hurt I could feel was enough to take some of the hot air out of my sails. "I'm sorry," I said sincerely, and not just because my butt was now on fire.
"Wilson and Barnes also made their displeasure known via some very curt texts, from my understanding."
Okay, that made me feel a little bit better. Still, I was being shoved to the sidelines. I started to wring my fingers, closing and opening my hands into fists, and Loki grabbed one of them. "None of that, Pet."
"So, what, I'm just supposed to do nothing now?" Nope. I could not do that. I could not do nothing with Steve still missing, going through God knew what. All of those nightmare scenarios began flashing through my brain again, and the bed rumbled.
"Stop that," Loki snapped and smacked my ass again. The impact made me realize I had been growling.
"I can't just not do-" I started but he cut me off.
"I am well aware of that. That's why I waited to tell you. I wore you out, so you would be less likely to snap something in your body from straining, and you are nude. Since you still have not managed to succeed in dressing yourself...at least not completely..."
He had to bring that up. I'd been learning how to summon and change clothes, but so far it hadn't been going great. The results were often mismatched shirt and pants, no shoes, and no underwear. I could summon things to wear alright, just nothing to go under what I wore, and nothing for my feet.
"...you would be far less likely to wander away." He smirked. "Not that I didn't enjoy doing the things we did to get you in this state."
I decided not to comment on that.
"I know your angel instincts are screaming at you..."
"I'm not an angel," I corrected.
"Nooo...but you do have some characteristics. And over the time I have known you, I have noticed an increased tendency in you to be overprotective and more prone to intervening in the lives of other people you consider 'yours' even when you are not asked to do so."
"I do NO-" I had started to bolt upright but Loki's hand had me pinned. I held back another growl.
"Thor and Sif," he reminded me.
"I just wanted to stop feeling like I needed a cold shower every time I was around those two. You don't unders-"
"I am fully aware that the struggle with your empathy and being around people who are feeling certain strong emotions is real for you. But I did warn you not to go poking about in that little drama, did I not?"
I sighed and grumbled. "Yes."
"And you did anyway."
"I learned my lesson," I pointed out, and that sounded like I was sulking. Probably because I was.
"Did you? What about Barnes?" He was speaking in his patient "lecture" voice. I hated that tone.
"That chick who was sniffing around him was a viper. I saved him a lot of heartache."
"I will admit the way you chased her off was rather inspired," Loki mused. "Implying in conversation with her that Barnes ate kittens, and then actually placing a small cage containing a few kittens in one of his kitchen cupboards minutes before she arrived with him at his home..."
"Hey, I saw your face when she ran out of the building, despite you trying to hide it from me. You thought it was funny too."
"Along with a set of 'kitten de-furring' tools..."
"You were with me when I bought those, and procured the kittens, and you could have stopped me! The fact that you just stood there watching me as I picked out the 'de-furring' tools and claimed all the kittens that teenager in the shopping center had in that box tells me you have no right to lecture me about that now—OW!" Another swat.
"I am not lecturing you," Loki claimed with a hint of indignation in his voice. "I am simply pointing a few things out. And taking your mind off Rogers so you will settle down a bit more, because I was receiving the rather distinct impression that you were ready to spring up the moment I let you go in order to do something foolish."
"You manipulative bast—OW!" He had just spanked me again. "Well, you are!"
"I am not disputing that. I gave you that because I felt like it." I grumbled into the mattress again. "What was that? Speak up, Pet, I can't understand you when you're growling like an angry cat."
"I said this is different."
He petted the area he'd been landing his blows on. "I know," he said soothingly as he stroked. After a minute of that he asked me, "Do you trust me, Pet?"
"No. HEY!" That was in response to the pinch he just gave me on my backside. "I'm kidding! Of course, I trust you. You know that." I was a bit hurt that he even felt the need to ask, but then he still wasn't used to being trusted wholly and loved unconditionally. Or at least, not used to actually realizing it. I had spoken both to him and to Thor about their family more over the past year. Loki and his mother Frigga had been close. From everything I was told she had loved Loki fiercely. He had been her treasure. When she was murdered, it had devastated him, and at the time he was a prisoner in Asgard's dungeons. He was down there for a year, alone, with no one to comfort him while he grieved his mother's death. Thor's description of the way Loki was when he finally broke him out had made me cry.
His father had loved him as well, in his own way, even if he had trouble connecting with Loki the way he did with Thor. I knew how much Thor loved his brother, I felt it the very first time I saw the two of them together, which had actually been the day I first met Loki. I also knew how protective Thor was because I had felt his wariness when his younger brother began expressing interest in me, knowing what I was capable of. Loki had later confessed to me that Thor had actually tried to warn him off me, informing him that I was unstable, dangerous, and the reason I worked for the Avengers was because they wanted to keep me close so they could watch me.
Apparently, Loki's response had been a shrug along with the words, "You don't need to sell me on her any further, Brother, I already have every intention of courting her." Bruce had helpfully supplied that bit of information.
The point was that Loki had already been surrounded by people who loved him, it just took him a very long time to realize it and admit it to himself. And if that doppelganger of his hadn't taken his place on that ship and died instead of him, it would have been a realization made too late. It would have been an unspeakable tragedy, and I wouldn't be here now. I'd most likely still be that angry, terrified woman who repressed her emotions worse than Banner did, lashing out verbally at Stephen, ignoring the Avengers when I was at work, sitting in my apartment alone with nothing but books for company since I turned down Bucky's offer to hang out again. Or I would be locked away in Kamar Taj because I would have become too unstable and dangerous to even live in the gilded cage Stephen and the Avengers had constructed for me. Maybe I'd even be dead. I had possessed a death wish after all, and I'm sure I would have eventually found a way to die given time.
I owed that doppelganger a lot. "I do trust you."
"Good. While officially, you are off the case, and I am not allowed to aid in the search either...well, I was never one for doing things the official way anyhow..."
This man was going to get me into trouble, but at least his way we'd be less likely to get caught. That was if I didn't screw it up again. "Alright," I breathed out, feeling the tension that I'd been building releasing. "Alright. Can I get up now?"
His response was to roll me over, pin my hands by my head, and kiss me.
Guess not. But I didn't complain.