Author's note: It's been years since I've written anything, so be gentle, I'm open to feedback though. This fic will be Loki/OC and slightly AU, and will occur after the events of Avengers: Infinity War and the beginning of Avengers: Endgame. I will try to update with new chapters fairly regularly until the story is marked "Complete".
Rated M for chapters to come, spoiler warning for anyone who has still not seen IW/EG.
Chapter 1 - Fall From Grace
*Timeline, 3.5 weeks after the snap*
Amber jolted awake around 3AM, sitting upright in bed. She had felt, rather than heard, the impact outside. Something had hit the ground, hard.
A quick glance out her bedroom window revealed smoke evident by the glowing of a strange green light coming from her neighbor's cornfield, or rather, the cornfield that had belonged to her former neighbor, who had disappeared almost a month ago, along with almost everyone else she knew.
Amber threw her emerald green silk robe around herself quickly, tucking her feet safely into her boots, and dashed down the stairs and out the back door, flashlight in hand. It didn't take long for her to find the smoking crater in the middle of the field, having followed the smoke trails which still glowed a faint green color, though that was fading fast.
She soon found herself staring down at what seemed impossible. She watched the news enough to know who she was staring at, though his face was slightly burnt from what appeared to be re-entering the atmosphere, and his head appeared to be at an odd angle, that was unmistakably Loki, Thor's brother, the god of mischief, half sunk into the dirt in the middle of a cornfield in her too-small town in central Kansas.
Too many questions flooded through her head at this discovery, and at first she thought that there was no way he could be alive, Asgardian or not, surely no one could survive what appeared to be a broken neck and falling from who knows where to land in the dirt. Surely enough though, she could see, even in the dim glow of her flashlight, that his chest was rising and falling, though only just.
"You have no idea how lucky you are," she muttered in her soft English lilt, as she quickly assessed the situation and ran back to her house for some supplies. A few minutes later, more sensibly dressed in a camisole and tight fitting jeans, her sleep tousled strawberry blonde locks tied back in a loose bun, she was back with rope, a small shovel, a blanket, some bungee cords, and a sledding toboggan.
Amber was amazed that though he seemed to have been through so much, he was still alive and his pulse was weak, but steady, though she supposed Asgardians were strong, much like herself. She was an "enhanced" individual, as the Avengers would classify her, though she had managed to avoid their watch lists so far. This freedom, however, she feared may come to an end given who she now had in front of her.
It took her almost an hour, but she managed to carefully dig him out from where he had been half buried in the soft earth and gently eased him onto the toboggan with the blanket, so as not to injure him further, securing him down with the bungee cords and rope, taking great pains to ensure that his obviously broken neck was secured before she attempted to move him.
She sent out wave after wave of silver glittering power, erupting from her hands like smoke through the breeze, to clear a way through the corn field as she gently guided the toboggan back to her house, taking one painstakingly slow step at a time, trying hard not to jostle the injured man too much. The three stairs up into her living room, however, were another story, and one she hadn't quite considered.
She opened the sliding glass door at the top of her small back porch and gently lifted her makeshift backboard, head first, up the stairs one at a time, wrapping the blanket down over the injured god's feet and back up to her other hand, so that he would not slip from the sled as she tilted it, but eventually she managed to get him into the living room, and all the way to her first floor guest room before collapsing into a heap on the floor, exhausted from the magic she had used in getting him this far. It had been years since she had used any at all, and, like a muscle, she had found that disuse had caused her magic to atrophy severely.
Loki drifted to awareness in an unfamiliar room, dimly lit by sunlight filtering in through what he assumed was a window, though he could not see it. Black wallpaper, with a silver filigree design adorned the walls, swallowing some of the meager light that entered the room, and a bed with deep green covers lay immediately to his left. He became aware that he was tied down to what felt like wood planks beneath him, and was instantly on high alert.
The last thing he remembered was slipping in and out of consciousness while floating through space for what seemed like forever, unable to move after the damage Thanos had done to his neck, and the explosion of the Asgardian ship, using his magic to keep himself alive. He knew he had eventually drifted through a jump point, and had a vague recollection of hurtling down towards Midgard, using all the rest of the magic he could muster to slow himself on his descent, but knew nothing beyond that.
What had become of his brother, and of Thanos, and more importantly, where in Odin's name was he. Had he been taken prisoner?
He tried, and failed, to move, and found that while he was aware of his body, and could feel it there, sore as it may be, and feel the restraints which tied him, he could not move so much as a finger, no matter how hard he tried. His eyes darted around, growing more and more agitated by the second, like a feral cat stuck in a trap, when they stopped on a figure he could just see, out of the corner of his eye, lying on the floor next to him.
'Are they a prisoner as well?' Loki thought, unable to get a good look at them. He weighed his options, and then cleared his throat as best he could and said "I demand you release me at once", in his best facsimile of haughty derision, though the injuries and the weeks spent without oxygen floating through space had done no favors for his voice, and it came out gravely, as though he had something lodged in his throat.
The figure next to him did not move, and he wondered if perhaps they were dead, so he repeated himself, this time sounding slightly more himself "I demand you release me. At once!"
At this, the figure stirred slightly.
Amber came to, as Loki's demands for release hit her ears, and slowly sat up, though the world still swam before her vision. A quick glance out the window told her that she'd been down for at least a few hours, if the ever brightening morning sun was any indication. Magic use didn't used to exhaust her this much, but she hadn't touched her reserves of magic for years, and found that even the slightest parlor trick, like flattening a path through the corn, was too much.
She felt as though she had been swimming in molasses, sluggishly rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she assessed her position on the bedroom floor. At least she had been lucky enough to land on the lush dark green rug and not the hard wood floor merely a foot away.
She moved closer, slowly, and into his field of vision, still slightly disoriented. The first thing Loki saw was her ice blue eyes, nearly silver in color, framed by thick lashes. Her hair, still tied, had escaped it's bun in her collapse slightly, and a few locks fell delicately around her face, framing her heart shaped features. A smattering of light freckles covered her small button nose, and across lightly accentuated cheekbones. Full lips, which were pale from her exertions, drew his attention next, then his eyes wandered farther, noticing her thin, swan-like neck, delicate collarbones and ample bosom. Loki thought, with a smirk, if he had to be held prisoner, he could do far worse for captor than a beautiful young maiden, especially one as small and frail looking as this.
She had dirt smeared across her cheek, shoulders and shirt, and a large leaf stuck in her hair, as if tucked behind her ear. This didn't detract from her beauty, however, and he found it rather gave her a more ethereal grace.
"Ah, so you are alive," she heard Loki grumble, "I demand you release me, and tell me where I am, and what is going on."
Amber didn't know where to begin, so she asked "What is the last thing you remember?"
Loki, not knowing whether to trust her, simply questioned "Is this Midgard?".
"You're in Kansas," Amber said carefully.
Loki sifted through his memory for where that was. "That is in the United States, yes?"
"Yes," she replied, "Right in the middle of it."
"How did I get here?" Loki questioned. He knew he had been crashing to Midgard, but not where, and assumed he hadn't simply landed in this woman's house.
"I was hoping you could tell me that. You fell from the sky, I found you in the cornfield behind my house, and you were badly injured. I brought you in, hoping to help with some of the injuries, but I fear I may have over-exerted myself getting you in here and I passed out," Amber explained, finally fully awake and the full gravity of what had occurred finally hitting her.
"As for how you got to the cornfield, I have no idea, but excuse me if I wasn't expecting the unhinged brother of an Avenger to come crashing into the corn in the middle of the night, a few weeks after his brother and friends announced that half the life in the universe was just gone." Amber covered her face, struggling to calm her breathing, utterly overwhelmed.
That last word hit like an ice bath to Loki's blood.
"Thanos succeeded then," Loki said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Yes," Amber exhaustedly exclaimed, "And then your brother killed him for it a few days ago, if I am to believe the news."
"Where is Thor?" Loki asked, devastated, but pacified by the fact that at least the one person he cared about had made it through the carnage.
"No one knows," Amber explained carefully. "He went into hiding, shortly after killing Thanos." She noticed Loki straining, as if trying to break free, though he didn't seem to be moving except for the muscles in his face and neck. She kneeled and carefully got closer, examining him. "Try not to move, you broke your neck somehow, and if it gets much worse, I don't think I'll be of much use to you in fixing it."
"You," Loki scoffed, "Fixing my broken neck? How, pray tell, do you plan on doing that?"
"Well it has been a while," Amber stated, while rolling her eyes, "but this might be of some use." At that she wiggled her fingers in front of his field of vision, her fingertips lighting dimly silver with magic to let him know that she wasn't as useless as he seemed to believe she was.
"Who exactly are you?" Loki asked, amazed at his good fortune to have stumbled across another magic user, though not willing to let that show.
"I'm Amber, it's nice to meet you." Amber stated, while carefully untying Loki. She began inspecting him, looking for injuries, and found that he had suffered a broken leg, wrist, and at least 3 fingers during his fall, along with several deep cuts along his torso, and some burns from the heat of re-entry across his face and upper body. Without removing his shirt, which seemed half melted to him, it was hard to tell what other injuries he might have sustained. "You're in bad shape." she exclaimed, tucking the blanket underneath him so that she could move him to the bed.
"Can you fix it?" He asked, tentatively. He had never had the aptitude for magical healing, but even if he had, his own magic stores seemed empty. If his inability to move was any indication, even with the bonds that had held him to the sled now removed from his body, the injuries would be quite extensive, and could prove challenging.
"That's where this gets complicated. It's been years since I've practiced, and I used up what I could access for now just in getting you this far. I will do what I can, but it's going to take time. With injuries this severe, it could take weeks, months even, between my magic and your own natural healing, before this is fixed," she explained carefully.
"Months?!" Loki shouted, incredulously. "You mean to tell me that I could be stuck here, unable to move, for months?!"
Amber sheepishly confirmed, and then lifted the whole toboggan onto the bed, carefully but without a hint of strain or so much as a hitch in her breath, much to Loki's wide eyed disbelief, and then dragged him off the toboggan and onto the bed using the blanket. "I suggest you get comfortable."