Chapter Text
Fate watched the universe intently, her eyes gazing over to her sisters as she picked up a thread.
“Come now sister, aren’t you tired of this? Surely you can’t expect a different outcome this time.” One of the other sisters, the eldest of the three, spoke.
“I know. Yet, I'm just so tired of seeing her so lonely, every life. She ends up alone, with naught but her cat to keep her company to the end of her days. Surely we can find a way for the two of them to be together,” She was the romantic of the three, the one who had designed the system for soulmates.
Until two soulmates meet, their world is devoid of color. Only at which time the two should meet, will they each see color.
Some could gradually become soulmates while others were instantly linked to each other forever.
But you, after a thousand years and a handful of lifetimes, you and your soulmate were worlds apart. Even to her, goddess of fate, this was unfair. She would never meddle in the affairs of, especially when it involved only two beings, Earthlings or Asguardians.
“Not this again, sister. Y/N is just simply not meant to meet him yet. There is a reason for everything we do.” The oldest of the sisters spoke once more. The youngest huffed and looked back at the vision of you sitting in your apartment, alone and typing away at your computer on a Saturday night. Surely there was more to life than this for you! You and your Soulmate were her favorite thing to watch. So clearly meant for each other, yet so far apart. It broke her heart, if she had one, every moment she gazed upon your entwined souls.
The eldest turned away but the middle and the youngest sighed as they watched you.
“Surely there must be something we can do.” The youngest whispered, she knew if she was to finally get the two of you together, this was the sister who could let slide some...intense meddling. She had watched with the youngest plenty of times as well, the two growing fond of the both of you, together.
“I’ve been thinking, perhaps he just needs...” the middle sibling trailed off as she picked up his thread. She placed the end, on earth, New York City, the city you lived in.
“A bit of a push.” The two smirked, the meaning being a bit more literal than Loki would have like.
/ / / /
People had attempted to describe colors to you before, but it was really rather dumb to try. Perhaps that was why black and white movies were your favorite. (Ok all movies were technically, to you, black and white but the ones that were intended to be black and white were your favorites.) Here you were, stuck in a world meant for color where you hadn’t the ability to see it.
Sure, you weren’t alone, all the other suckers who had yet to meet their soulmate were just like you, struggling just like you. There were support groups, dating sites, private investigators (if you had the money), but still you came up short.
Your mother had liked to describe the way she had met your father for the first time. He was a biker and she was the daughter of her small town priest, forbidden love at its finest. He’d shown up and the rest was history as the two of them eloped and practically lived on the back of that bike.
Looking back on your life up till now, you realize just how boring it was. If your life was a movie, you were certain it would be rated 1 out of 10 stars. It’d be boring and filled with half finished plot lines. You had terrible luck but not the kind that makes the audience feel bad or anything. It was all due to your stupidity. You knew you weren’t special, especially in a world with superheroes popping up left and right. Part of you was grateful your world had a way for you to escape. It was easy to imagine you had powers, and would fight alongside the hero’s you write about. Instead, you were a boring desk lackey and that’s where you’d stay.
Maybe you’d fall in love but it wouldn’t be the magic you’d dreamt of like the movies you adored or even like your parents. It’d be normal, which wasn’t bad, but it’d be no epic romance.
/ / /
Monday morning would start like any other day, you’d wake up just late enough to be forced to hurry your morning routine but not late enough where you would actually show up late to your job. Yawning through your shower, you blasted music through your phone. You had a particular soft spot for moody boys who sang about love. Your current favorite being ‘The Weeknd’.
Part of you enjoyed his angelic voice that clashed with his bad guy attitude, or maybe it was how he seemed to make your knees weak when he talked about sex. Regardless, you clearly created a pattern for yourself.
‘Bad Guys Do It Better,’ you thought to yourself. It was a phrase you’d found fit your infatuation with certain...fictional characters well.
Kylo Ren from Star Wars, Amy from Gone Girl, The Joker from the Batman comics. If someone was attractive and evil, you likely had a thing for them. Obviously this wasn’t information that you shared willingly. Mostly because, well, you were supposed to hate villains. They were evil, cruel, murders, heartless.
Most of the time.
But you knew better, if they were truly meant to be evil then why did you always identify more with them? Were you planning on killing someone? Or committing war crimes? Not likely as you could hardly raise your voice at someone. No, the part of those bad guys that drew you to them was their trauma, their compelling backstory, the way they’d usually make you feel sorry more for them than the hero.
It wasn’t normal, which is why you kept that part of you hidden, from your friends, your partners, your family. Thankfully, you didn’t have to worry about the partners part, seeing as you hadn’t had a date in forever. Your last romantic relationship had ended your Junior year of College when your girlfriend Katherine had dumped you. It was at least 3 years since and you hadn’t had a single second date since.
The breakup mostly had to do with the fact you had yet to find your soulmate in her. Again, it was a rather big deal here on Earth, to find one's soulmates. Rom-Coms, YA Novels, music, dramatic tv, each and every available medium had shown that you were supposed to be with the one you saw colors for and no one else. No room for error, no room for free will.
This was why, at only 25 you’d given up on finding your soulmate. You’d resigned yourself to having your cat, media and your job be your only lifelong companions. Which is why you pride yourself on being in such a high position at ‘The Daily Bugle’. You’d gained the Editor position on its Superhero Activity section as the youngest person to hold that position, regardless of the section, in the newspaper's lifetime.
You got to sit at your computer, watch superheroes and the accompanying villains do their thing on YouTube and then spend a couple hours writing about it and there you go. That was your entire career and with your Editor-in-Chiefs decision to be on the cutting edge of journalism and how it was presented, you never worried about losing your job. Someone would always wanna hear what a sexy guy in tights with the strength of god, sometimes literally, was doing.
This week has been slow, unusually. Even Peter, your best friend from college and your coworker had struggled to find hero’s to take any pictures of. He hadn’t shown up to work in weeks, making you enjoy your days there a bit less. Thankfully gossip always got people going and a well made “Which Avenger would date you?” Quiz would always do the trick.
You only hoped for a story and soon.
/ / / /
Loki had grown tired of thanking his brother for the chance to live in Asgard. Norway had suited him; cold, windy, isolated. It was just like him. Odin had done something right at least, in suggesting Asgard’s new location.
The people had taken their time in opening their hearts once again to him, with Thor gone and Loki’s desire to rule diminished completely, he’d had little motivation at the moment. Valkyrie was welcoming, allowing him to sit in on discussions of how things would be run and of course. She’d hidden his presence on Midgard from most prying eyes. Only her, Thor (wherever he was) and the Avengers had known he was there.
Thor had welcomed his brother with open arms, The Avengers? Not so much. Not many of them had trusted him enough to be included on the only thing that Loki got excited for anymore.
While the “battles”, he could hardly call what they were as battles, were boring, it brought a welcomed break from his boring days alone in his cottage. It was the only time he could even use his magic freely and practice what he was capable of.
He had gained a...friend ? (no, much too strong a word) Co worker? (Too business) Ally (close enough) in Dr. Strange. While their initial meeting had gone poorly, the two often spared magically together. It was the closest he had to a friend on The Avengers team at all, besides Thor.
/ / / /
Today was a good day for Loki, he’d woken up, having no recollection of his dreams from the previous night. The book he’d started yesterday had ended wonderfully and now Strange was standing in his living room. The orange glow of the portal lit up the small room. Loki didn’t bother to look up from his book, the familiar noise of a portal opening only ever came from one person.
“Loki.” Strange greeted, the timbre of his voice more strained than normal. Loki tilted his head. “Are you free right now?”
“You know as well as I do that I am” He frowned, normally there was a bit more banter between the two sorcerers. Something must have been up.
“Great, I’ve got a job for you then.” Strange moved his hand and moved the portal past Loki, transporting the two to the top of what seemed to be a rather large building.
Loki watched as Strange stayed silent, so he took the time to gaze out onto the skyline of New York at Night. He missed seeing the lights at night like this. It was something he wasn’t supposed to see, which made Loki enjoy it all the more.
He wasn’t a fan of the whole, waiting till you find your soulmate to see color. Loki would have to use a portion of his magic every day to recast the spell so he could see it but he didn’t want to have to deal with the lack of color in his vision. This trick had been used ever since his mother began to teach him magic.
New York looked magical to him as he gazed upon it once more, it reminded him of Asgard if you used a bit of imagination. The golden lights look like the once golden palaces of his home. Loki wasn’t one for nostalgia for much but his mother and his brother, when he was a child, were one of the few things he remembered fondly. It wasn’t often though as more recent memories of both left a sour taste in his mind.
“As much as I enjoy this date, Strange, I don’t think you brought me up here to woo me.” His lips curled slightly at the sight of Strange’s discomfort with his obvious flirting. Strange cleared his throat and straightened up, moving a step aside from the Asgardian.
“It’s difficult to explain. I’m not sure why but I feel a disturbance in the force.” Strange looked to Loki who, clearly, didn’t get the reference. “Ok, well, there’s been an unusual amount of energy here. I can’t explain what but I’ve felt a massive presence over that building.” He pointed a gloved finger over in the direction of a nearby apartment complex. The building didn’t look any special.
“What makes you say that?” Loki countered. His own eyes scanning along with Strange, he did pick up a sense of something but he couldn’t tell what.
“I just wanted a second pair of eyes is all. I take it you can’t tell me anything I didn’t already know either?”
“Whatever it is...” Loki shivered as he felt it hit his spine. “The magic is old, older than either of us.” He stepped towards the edge of the building, attempting to try and get a closer look. “What’s been happening?” He turned around, facing Strange again.
“Nothing I couldn’t fix. There’s been an abnormal amount of couples color meeting for the first time there.” Loki took that to mean that soulmates had met each other for the first time.
“It couldn’t be that bad.”
“Over 200 couples in the past hour in a one square block area? That’s more than statistically unlikely. Along with that, there’s some sort of magical pull there, like a siren call to anyone with powers saying. Look here.”
Loki agreed at this point something was going on, what he couldn’t fathom was why? Why would someone increase soulmate meetings for such a small area?
“My theory is someone is casting a single powerful spell in the area. Whoever is there has to be in that building. It’s too powerful and concentrated to be anything else.”
“I agree. Well good luck with that.” Loki gave the other sorcerer a tense smile, this may have been interesting but not enough to distract him for long. This would take an hour, at most. It wasn’t nearly worth leaving bed for. He waved stiffly and tried to go back home.
Unfortunately for him, fate had other plans. “Did you just try to leave?” Strange asked, his voice incredulous that Loki would just leave, although it wouldn’t be the first.
“Yes,” he hissed and tried again, but it still wasn’t working. Ok, now the magic had his attention. After a minute he blinked his eyes open to the ever present gray scaled world he woke up to each morning. “Damnit.” He rolled his shoulders; he could feel his magic draining; his powers weakening. “What’s happening Strange?”
“Well if you had been listening, you’d know I have no clue. What’s happening to you?” Strange was loving this, secretly, watching Loki flounder without his powers temporarily. “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it now and I’m sure you’ll be-“
It was almost comical as a strong wind pushed Loki backwards. The breeze was sudden and forceful, like it had a mind of its own, pushing Loki backwards.
“What the hell are you doing Strange?” Loki, grunted as he fell to his knees, body dangling precariously close to the edge of the building. He was worried if he fell, he wouldn’t have a way to make it back up.
“I swear it’s not me.” Strange had to practically run forward to try and catch Loki but the breeze split its attention between the two men and began to force Stephen in the opposite direction. Meaning he could do nothing but watch as Loki was forced off the edge.
“Fuck-“ he wheezed as he began to fall. Loki attempted spell after spell to get him to transport away or make his fall slow, but it wouldn’t work, he was going to crash. He put his arms out, knowing it wouldn’t make much of a difference as he waited for the impact. His eyes screwed shut as he felt his body crumple against the pavement.
/ / / /
Loki’s eyes blinked open wearily, he was in immense pain, he couldn’t move or speak, even opening his eyes was a chore. He let out a groan of discomfort as he placed a hand on his side. He coughed up a rather large, and definitely unhealthy amount of, blood onto the black button up he wore. His eyes squinted as he couldn’t see the red of the blood staining his shirt. In fact, he couldn’t see any color.
It didn’t take long for recent events to click together in his head. He had fallen off a building and hit the ground. Yet he’d made it out alive? Well, not by much, his body was in an intense amount of pain and he couldn’t heal himself at all.
He looked around, trying to guess where he had ended up, because it wasn’t a concrete sidewalk. His head turned slowly, so as not to cause any pain more than necessary, to look around. Loki recognized he’d been leant up against the side of a fire escape of some kind of apartment. A large window, with a rather ugly set of curtains, looked into the studio apartment of whoever he’d been forced outside of. He jumped, scared of the movement as a cat jumped into view.
The window had been opened and it meowed at him. Loki hissed at his unintentional movement, blood gushing a bit quicker for a moment. “Fuck.” His fingers touched the spot for a brief moment. He almost wished he would have died from the fall. His breath labored as he watched the cat jump from the stoop of the sill and made its way towards him.
The creature's head nudged against his shoe and then began to rub its head along his body. He was thankful the unwanted touch was, at the very least, gentle enough to not hurt him more than he already was. The cat made another loud meow at him, was this thing trying to communicate with him or something?
“Kylo! Cmon sweety, you know better than to-“ A woman’s voice came from the house as she pulled back the curtains. Loki braced himself for a scream at the fact a strange and bloodied man had made its way outside her apartment.
He was not expecting what actually happened.
/ / / /
Color. His eyes were blue, ice blue. His face splotched with purple bruises. Deep, Red blood covered him. The green tint of his pants is the signature color that the rest of earth had associated with him. Before this moment you hadn’t ever known what green was even like, you knew it was the color of trees. It meant going in a streetlight. Luke’s lightsaber was green. But before now, you never knew what it was like.
Why was Loki, the guy who’d tried to decimate New York and rule over earth, on your fire escape. And most importantly, why was he your soulmate.