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You were situated on the roof of Stark Tower, legs crossed and back leaning up against the structure that held the door. Your tired eyes were fixed intently on the sky, simultaneously comforted and shaken by the fact that the air was clear enough for you to see the stars. There were so many, more than you could possibly comprehend, and your anxiety was rising like a violin crescendo in a horror movie. It rose to a buzz in your throat and limbs and cheeks and you felt your nails digging subtly at the exposed skin of your calves to gain some sense of presence and grounding. Your body was sitting on the top of the tower and your thoughts were swirling among the stars in a disorganized frenzy, refusing to slow down and return to the present. Being alone with the stars was surreal, providing an unusual sense of unreality. You felt like you were completely isolated in this universe, so tiny and insignificant and unimportant against the star-splattered inky blue-black expanse of the sky, and this feeling was only slightly eased as you felt Loki settle on the ground beside you.
“That would’ve made me jump, but I’m used to it by now. You need to up your game if you want to keep startling me,” you commented, referring to his sudden and unannounced presence. He hummed thoughtfully in response.
“And who says that my intent was to startle?”
You snorted. “When is it not?” you nudged him slightly with your elbow. “Sudden appearance is such an overdone trick. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you were running out of pranks to pull on me.”
His chuckle was quiet. “I, the god of mischief, out of pranks?” he said in a mockingly affronted tone, and you could hear the smile in his voice.
“I don’t know! Maybe you’ve gone soft, Laufeyson,” you teased.
“Never.”
The silence that followed was comfortable, like most silences tended to be between the two of you, but he was not the cause of your current distress, so your anxiety continued to push on. You could feel the crushing weight of it squeezing at your lungs, making you feel dizzy and trapped and completely helpless.
“What’s on your mind?” he questioned softly, his voice prodding at the bubble of thoughts you had been trapped in. You noticed that he never asked you what was wrong at times like this, and you appreciated that. If he had asked that, your answer would have been everything and nothing all at once and you never seemed to have the ability to articulate the specific reasons for your looming fear properly, even to yourself.
“Stuff,” you said quietly.
“Stuff?” he echoed, gently teasing.
Your lips curled involuntarily up into a smile. “And things,” you elaborated.
“That makes much more sense, thank you. Stuff was incomprehensibly vague, but the addition of Things really assisted in narrowing down what you meant.”
“You’re welcome,” you replied cheekily. “I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the inner workings of my mind.”
“It’s been enlightening,”
The two of you were quiet for a few moments, sitting with six inches of separation between you in easy and respectful enjoyment of each other's presence. You broke this silence after a little while, and your soft voice felt loud and foreign in your ears after so much quiet.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s weird how big it all is,” you said. “Like, how there’s so much for me to do and how, best case scenario, I’ve got a hundred measly years left to do as much as I can. And how spending so much time, like, thinking and being nervous about all this shit is just eating away at the time I have left to have all those experiences. And then that makes me nervous and then I spend more time being nervous instead of doing things.”
Loki seemed thoughtful.
“Not that you’d really get what I mean by that. I mean, shit, you’ve been a prince, a god, a frost giant, a trickster, a criminal, a ruler, a prisoner, an alien, an honorary Avenger, and a million other things I probably don’t know about! For god’s sake, Mr. ‘Loki of Asgard’, you’re in your, what, your thirties for your species? You’ve still got so much time left to be a million more things and I’m just (y/n) of Earth, weird human girl, part-time Avenger and full-time overthinker,” you laughed a little bit at that. “My universal significance is so tiny.”
There was a heavy silence in the air as you finished your statement, and Loki’s voice was even and held none of its usual amusement or condescension when it finally broke through the quiet. “This so called ‘universal significance’ holds far less value than you place upon it,” he said.
“You understand, though. I know you do. Your attack on our world wasn’t just for kicks, dude. It was a desperate grab at importance,” you said, somewhat bitter that he was invalidating your feelings of inadequacy, which was silly, but so were all of your worries once you voiced them. That didn’t make them hurt any less.
He paused, and you couldn’t read what his silence meant this time. Was he angry with you? You and he had an odd relationship in that you always felt compelled to tell each other exactly what you meant. No tricks, no lies, no deception. Your powers were in a similar category as his, manipulation and tricks being a particular talent of yours, so it was incredibly refreshing to have someone you never felt the need to lie to. It did, however, often result in you and he getting into spats, and you prepared yourself for another confrontation.
“How do you mortals say it again?” he murmured, partially to himself. “Ah, yes. Having experienced a taste of this ‘universal significance’ of which you speak, I can attest to the fact that it is...” he cleared his throat. “...not all that it is cracked up to be,” he stated, amusement seeping into his tone as he added unnecessary annunciation to the Midgardian phrase.
You snorted loudly. “Really, now?”
“Really. It is highly overrated.” His eyes, glittering with amusement and teasing, looked at you sideways, lips quirking ever so slightly to form that compelling Mona Lisa smile of his. His obvious attempts to cheer you up made you giggle with relief as some of your anxiety started to retreat from your body, leaving the places it had touched feeling drained but more content. It was not gone, but it had been eased.
“Good to know,” you replied with a large, relieved grin, voice wavering slightly with the jitter you seemed to get every time you were anxious.
He chuckled and you beamed, eyes on your lap and focused on your twiddling fingers. The comfortable silence visited once more, and for all you knew it could have remained for minutes or hours before he broke it.
“It is also terribly lonely,” he confessed, slightly more serious now, and when you glanced over at him you saw that he was looking up to the skies with a complex expression on his face. You followed his gaze to the stars, and your hand dropped to rest on his.
“Lonely is the one thing that I am not tonight,” you replied, carefully but with confidence. He was still for a moment, then adjusted the position of his hand so that he could lace his fingers with yours. Your cheeks were hot as you seemed to realise your vulnerability in this moment, but it was not an unpleasant sensation. You let out a puff of air, and felt yourself growing amused. “I don’t think I’ll ever really matter in the end. Like, in the scheme of things,” you stated, this time with no anxiety accompanying the statement. It was a fact in your eyes, and you had come to terms with it.
“Who really does?” came Loki’s soft reply.