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Frustrated doesn’t even begin to cover it.
They had how many years and a patient teacher. You’re stuck with a crash course in control from the pair of them, and have just about had it with their endless bickering - and the kids gloves they refuse to remove. The most you can say for either of them is that they don’t let you wallow in a failed attempt at what they’ve taught you for long.
It’s when Loki repeatedly stops you from following a particular thread, which is the best way you’ve got to describe the feeling of the magic you’re pulling from him, by overloading you, that you snap. It’s not even that it temporarily makes your nerves scream, or that you sometimes stumble. It’s that he gets this look on his face, every time. Like he’s laughing.
“Stop -“ you’re nearly shaking as you jab your pointer and middle fingers into his chest, stabbing at him with those darkened fingertips of yours, “using me. For your. Entertainment!”
Loki tips his head, unblinking in response to your anger, “Careful, my agent.”
Careful. Careful!? You grind your teeth, remembering all too well what typically happens when he adopts such a manner. It makes you pause, your jaw clamped shut, but only for a fraction of a moment. That self-satisfied smirk ghosting across his lips makes you snarl right back at him in return, “Fuck careful. And fuck this.”
You barely glance at Thor as you turn, disgusted with the pair of them. They can keep right on bickering. You need air.
Aiming for the doorway to the room and whatever lay beyond, you continue ranting, mostly because for the life of you you can’t figure out how to stop, “Fuck all of it. I--”
Loki’s leather clad arm stalls your forward progress, snaking around your midsection, causing your upper body to lurch with the sudden block. His other arm slides into place and you feel yourself being hauled off your feet, your attempt to walk away from him forcibly stalled. He takes a few exaggerated steps, rocking the pair of you as he drags you away from the hallway, away from the doorway, away from Thor. Where he’s headed, or if he’s just attempting to corner you again to trap you in preparation for further argument, you hardly care.
Fuck arguing. Fuck being manipulated. You writhe against him, trying to find purchase again, trying to find your way free of the steel bands wrapped around your waist.
“Stop.” He snaps, his body jerking in conjunction with the word.
You don’t listen. You refuse. Enough. Enough. If you could just peel yourself away, even for a second.
Even trying to elbow him in the chest has no effect. “Fuck you!”
“Fuck me?” He takes another jarring step before setting you down, maintaining one arm firmly around you while quickly using the other snare the arm you’d just used to try to wedge yourself away from him.
No more elbows to the torso for the time being. You’re slightly out of breath for trying to struggle for your freedom. He’s also breathing hard, but you suspect not for the same reasons. Once again he’s enjoying this. He’s playing games, even in the face of your fury. “Let me go, damn you. Let go of me.”
You feel his body twitch as he shakes his head, though you can’t see the motion. His voice comes again, closer to your ear. “No. I’m trying to help you.”
“Help.” You snort out a hard laugh. Keeping you braced against him like this? “How is this helping?”
He he adjusts his grip to find your wrist and then dig into your palm. He wants to force you to open your fist? You try start to writhe against him anew, not that it does you any good. He shifts his stance with every motion, reclaiming every bit of space you win, keeping you locked you against him.
“Look. Look!”
You shake your head, refusing his insistence. You know what your fingertips look like now. The blue-black smudges that marred your fingertips are hard to forget. And then there’s the few digits of the hand he’s trying to pry open - the darkness starting to creep down your nail bed. He’ll wind up breaking your fingers if he’s not careful.
“This does not control you.”
“Neither do you.” You fire back.
You feel him shift his jaw against yours before he lifts you off your feet again. He’s headed towards the side of the room. Good. As soon as he draws close enough you can use the wall to your advantage -- kick off it and hopefully throw him off balance enough to gain your freedom again.
Guessing your mind, Loki leans forward to force your feet down, half-dragging-half-turning you backwards to get you close enough to face the wall without having room or time to kick out. Damn him. As he continues to wrench your fist open he pulls your arm out, reaching until your knuckles hit the unforgiving surface.
He means for you to cooperate. Far from gentle, he presses hard on the back of your hand, on your bent digits, trying to get you to splay the evidence of what’s happening to you on the wall beneath his hand. “Stop. Fighting. Me.”
“No!”
Your joints ache, protesting to the pressure he’s applying, the way you’re being forced to shift your weight forward onto your hand and into the wall. “Go ahead,” you growl. You don’t want to look at your hand but he’s not leaving you much option. It’s painful enough without watching in fascination as he threatens to crush it. How far will he go? How far will the bones, the joints, allow this to go before yielding, popping, rendering your hand useless? “Do it. Push harder.”
Taunting him now is stupid, so very stupid, but you can’t help yourself.
He gives your midsection a squeeze, using his chest to jar your arm, timing it with a jerk of his hand - all of it jarring two of your fingers straight beneath his hand. “Stop it,” he hisses, “or I will.”
He will? Promises, promises. Yet another threat, another attempted manipulation. Yep, that’s the perfect way to get you to do what he wants. “Then do it, asshole.”
Loki leans against you as he responds, your hand screaming from the additional pressure that results and pulling an unintentional whimper from you, a low snarl almost bitten into your ear, “You will stop calling me that.”
A white hot pain rockets through your hand, traveling up your arm and momentarily blinding you. Bastard! He’s done it? You called his bluff one time too many and - you give your head a little sea-sick shake, finally relaxing within his grip. You swallow, blinking the tears away and force yourself to look at the damage of your stubbornness.
Your five fingers are dispersed beneath his - not broken, you realize as a tingling pain brings feeling back to your hand, but each slightly more blue than they were before. The darkness that had once simply dusted your fingertips is now up to the first knuckle on each finger.
He used a shock of raw power to do what he wanted. To get his way. Again.