Dreams (LokixReader pt. 7)

Three days. Three days pacing the floor of your small room. Three days when you didn’t know anything that was happening. The first two days nearly drove you mad. By the third day, you didn’t care. Fury made sure you had everything you wanted. Books, drawing paper, he even had a portable telly set up for you. You knew he was just trying to use these as distractions to keep you in the dark, but you were grateful. Keeping yourself distracted meant that you didn’t have to think about what Loki had said.

You buried yourself in novels and your favourite television programs, sketching randomly. You ate when food was sent to your room, but aside from that, you really had no interaction with anyone. You had been told not to wander around, to stay in your room, and no one had visited you. Not even Natasha. Now that she was back with S.H.I.E.L.D., it was as though she had forgotten you. The books helped distract you from that, too.

But you couldn’t escape once you fell asleep. You had been plagued by dreams every night since you had spoken with the god. They had started only as flashes of colours and images. Gold. Pink. Green. A woman’s face. A sun through an archway. Flowers. Being pulled away from her. Falling backwards. Loki’s face.

Then, on the third night, it had sharpened into clear images. A golden room. The sun shining through the archway. You were looking up at the ceiling, being held in someone’s arms. A woman was on the last notes of a scream and another woman was shushing her gently.

“It’s a girl.” The person holding you said and you were handed to a woman lying in a bed. Her face looked down at you and she was extraordinarily beautiful, her brow glistening with sweat, the exhaustion clearly written upon her face, she still had an unearthly beauty that took your breath away. She smiled and her blonde hair, damp with sweat, cascaded in gorgeous curls over her perfectly formed shoulders. You smiled back at her and she cuddled you close. She lifted you slightly, and suddenly, you felt someone else take you away. You heard the woman cry your name and, as you were carried away, you looked up into Loki’s face. He smiled down at you, but it wasn’t his customary smirk, rather, it was genuine and almost…hopeful. Then, he let you go. Down you fell…down, down, down….whirling colours….every colour of the rainbow….falling…falling…

You jerked awake, gasping, drenched in a cold sweat. You looked around the room, half expecting to see the warm, golden walls of your dream, but instead saw the cold, impersonal grey of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier room. You leaned back on the pillow and passed a shaking hand over your mussed hair, squeezing your eyes shut.

It was one of those occurrences when you desperately wanted to go back to sleep because you knew you needed the rest, but you just couldn’t force yourself to close your eyes. You were completely wide-awake and entirely alert. You tried to read to lull yourself back to sleep, you tried to draw to occupy yourself, but nothing you did could turn your mind away from the dream. Finally, you threw the book aside and got to your feet. You knew what you needed to do. You cracked the door and peeked out. There were no guards. Usually there was at least one agent lurking about to make sure you didn’t try to leave, but the hallway was deserted. You didn’t know if you were relieved or if that frightened you. You padded down the hallway, your bare feet making no sound as they poked out from the legs of the warm flannel pants which, like the soft cotton long-sleeved shirt, was marked with the S.H.I.E.L.D. crest.

Having already found your way to the holding cell once, it took half the time before you found yourself before the doors. There were no guards there as well, but you only hesitated a moment before pressing the button, the door sliding open.

He was standing in the middle of the cage, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed upon the door, waiting. “I knew you’d return.”

“You hardly left me with a choice.” You didn’t stop walking until the tip of your nose brushed the cool glass, “Now, tell me. What do you know about my parents?”

“I know who they were.” His voice was soft and amused.

You flattened your palm against the glass, “Tell me.”

“No,” his eyes glittered slightly and his voice was cold, “not until you tell me about your dream.”

“How do you know—?” you began, taken aback, and he let out a breath of laughter.

“I can see it in your eyes,” he murmured, baring his teeth slightly in a feral grin, “hear it in your voice, smell it in your fear. Don’t try to deny it.”

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes, trying to calm your beating heart and easing your breathing. Your eyes slid open and you looked up at him. “Yes. I had a dream.”

He opened his hands in an almost warm gesture taking a step back, towards his bench, “Tell me.”

Leaning against the glass, you slid to the floor. Quietly, you told him about your dream. You told him every detail you could remember, determinedly looking at the floor when you described being carried in his arms. You could practically feel his smirk. When you finished, you sat in silence for a while, your forehead resting against the cool glass, your eyes lowered to where your hands were clasped in your lap.

“You’re remembering.”

You lifted your head, unsure you heard him, he had spoken so softly. “Remembering what?”

He locked eyes with you, glittering green, “Your birth.”

“My birth?” you shifted closer to the glass, “I didn’t think it was possible to remember being born…”

“Perhaps not for normal people,” he said quietly, “but you have never been normal, have you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, tired of his show of dancing around the truth you desperately wanted him to tell you, “I’m just a normal human. Just a normal human. Besides, if what you’re saying is true and I am remembering being born, it didn’t look like a hospital. Hospitals have white walls, not golden archways.”

“You weren’t born in any Midgardian hospital,” he sounded amused by your ignorance.

“No?” you snapped at him, irritated by his arrogance, “Then where? Where was I born?”

His smirk sent shivers down your spine, “On Asgard.”