Title: The Painter

Paring: Loki X Reader

Warnings: mentions of blood, and references to Loki's torture from Thanos. 

Spoilers: Set after Thor: The Dark World but set also in Hell's Kitchen, NYC around the time of Daredevil. Not too many spoilers, but hope you're up to date with that neck of the woods. 

Author's Note: I'm a big sucker for writing Matt Murdock in places where Matt Murdock isn't really supposed to be in (sort of like seeing animals in places and predicaments they shouldn't be in). I'm also a big sucker for Loki. Based on a prompt from the tumblr blog @lokiprompts. 

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The day after you got the new tenant in your apartment, your neighbour turned up bruised and battered on his way home. It should be known you lived beside the up and coming lawyer Mr. Murdock, a lovely blind man who made passing jokes on the stairs. Of course, you wanted to think it was just a coincidence, and your tenant was just a hipster drifter with too much money and hotness genes. But it became a regular kind of thing, and when Mr. Murdock would come back to his place across the hall with bruises and cuts, Loki had an alibi, and your mind settled.

"You're not beating up the blind man who lives next door?" you accosted him over strawberry jam toast at seven o'clock one morning.

"Of course not," he replied, and retreated to his bed in the other room. Calling out over the hum of the vacuum cleaner a few doors down, he added, "I was receiving medical attention all of yesterday!"

Perhaps you were just naturally suspicious. Your mother played cello in the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and father had passed away at his job (he was something like a security guard, your mom never really said). But all that left you as was the bastard daughter and an art student living out her student debt in Hell's Kitchen where crime was unfortunately high and rent slightly lower than the average NYC prices. But naturally suspicious or no, the guy who answered your advert was oddly strange. Stranger than the blind neighbour who gave you boxing tips.

Loki had too much money. Perhaps, for anyone who spoke English and had only one pair of shoes, and didn't know what a Ferrari was, or even the function of a toaster. The man knew loads about philosophy and the arts of stuff you weren't sure were even arts, but life skills? None. He also spoke too perfect English. Like he had been raised to make everything grammatically correct or no deserts as a child. He had no job, but promised he'd get one, and you swore he wasn't American, or even perhaps, human. Nobody could recite poetry off the top of their head, at least, normal people.

But as naturally suspicious as you were, the was not an investigative bone in your body (a lie, but you told yourself that to keep out of trouble). So, life went on. You used your art degree and the studio in the apartment to create semi-masterpieces, and Loki got a gig as a bouncer a few suburb overs at a fancy club. Rent went on to be paid, the world kept spinning, people tried to forget about the alien invasion that came to Manhattan. Mr. Murdock's lawyer business was starting to kick off, and there were masked heroes in the night time beating up mobsters and making headlines. But you stayed out of it, sending your things to the Scene Contempo Gallery, half of your money to your mother in Oregon.

"You're sure you're eating and sleeping okay? Please tell me you're not sleeping with some lead singer or drummer from a garage band. Don't end up like me." Your mother would fuss over the phone. You can always hear the birds on her end of the phone, and half miss them. But your soul loved the city more than birds. Nostalgia was for weak.

"Yes, Mom, there's no relationships on my end, perhaps for eternity." You'd reply. "And Dad wasn't a deadbeat, you said he was a security guard?"

"Something like that." She'd reply. "I miss you, baby."

You'd smile at the phone. "I miss you too, Mom."

But your roommate! He was just infuriating. Too smart for his own good, and a mix of a sullen, sulky personality with a hint of stick up the ass and maybe some manners, under all that hair product. Maybe you didn't trust anyone well enough to see a good side in anybody. Maybe you didn't trust yourself, what, with the world suddenly having superheroes and aliens and mad scientists turning into giant teddy bears when they got angry. Loki would often fold in on himself, or cough late at night, or the shower would be running, but there'd be no sound of any washing going on. You weren't a perv, you swear, but you know it when someone was in or not.

But he'd just come back from his shift at Harlem's Paradise when you heard a crash outside the door. Of course, you were in your painting smock, and running to see the problem – who knew if it was Mr. Murdock falling over, you'd be the devil of Hell's Kitchen if you didn't do anything to help – you opened the door to see Loki, and through his black tee, blood seeping through onto his pale palm.

"Don't tell me you're in the mafia," you gritted out, helping perhaps the heaviest man alive into the apartment, to sit on the couch that wasn't covered in your painting stuffs. His blood was all over your smock, painting the otherwise clean item red. "'Cause that'd really suck on my tenant record."

He'd frowned at that, but there was no reply. Lifting his shirt, you see a mark on his chest, and gape.

"Why on Earth did you come here when you've been stabbed?" you ask him, quite frankly flabbergasted. "It's like, straight through! You need the hospital, not an underpaid artist!" You run your hands through your hair, and too late remembering there's blue paint and blood on your fingers.

"I'm, fine," Loki replies, but there's red on his lips.

You shake your head. "You're really not! No, I will not have a guy bleed out on my couch. I am a reputable young woman! I can't have murder on my hands!" you shriek, and dive for the phone on the table. "I'm calling for an –,"

Loki's head shakes, hair falling into his eyes. "Please, just drive me yourself. I'd rather die a swift death than go in one of those loud automobiles."

And thus, it went that you're toting the bleeding out handsome roommate of yours to your Nissan Versa, and laying a drop sheet on the seat so he doesn't ruin your poor car's upholstery (priorities, indeed). Before too long you were in the ER at the Metro-General Hospital and while Loki was being wheeled away by nurses and medical jargon, you were left with paperwork. And explaining that you had no idea why the guy had been stabbed – no, it wasn't me! – and why you hadn't come sooner.

Turns out that there were still fractures of the blade in his stomach, and after almost twelve hours of surgery, Loki had been given almost twice the usual anaesthesia regularly used to adult males, and you were left sitting beside his bed, waiting for him to wake.

"When I was a little girl, I'd pretend my dad was in the picture," you found yourself talking to his knocked-out body, low enough so the person in the next bed behind the curtain wouldn't be disturbed, or let in on your secrets. "Kind of pathetic. I'd say he was a pilot, and that he had a big plane, and flew people around the world.

"Mom found out, and told me about what he did, but I know she lied. You probably know already, but I'm just someone who can't let things lie. I don't know, it's like there's something in my blood that makes me want to do things beyond what I'm comfortable with, make things come from nothing, find answers to impossible questions." You confided to the sleeping Loki in the bed.

He lay there like a sleeping beauty, his dark hair tangled, eyes still under his eyelids, breathing regular. Just by sitting here to make sure he didn't swallow his tongue, you were costing yourself time and effort with the painting Ms. Marianna needed by the end of the week. Literally costing yourself money by being around to watch a sleeping man lay. It wasn't that you felt anything for him, stars, no. He was under your duty of care in the apartment. He never spoke of family, or his own friends, heck, now it felt strange to think about those facts, but it also made you the only person the guy had.

"But you don't care. You're just Mr. Comatose." You sigh.

Of course, it took another day or two before he was himself again, and a week after that when the bandages came off. Finally, there were tell-tale signs of him healing with modern medicine and your panic levels reduced until it was just the dull ache like always. You went back to painting. Loki went back to the club he worked for. Your Mom called every Friday, and he never spoke of his family.

But you were going to find out. You were determined, and naturally suspicious. It was a Tuesday, and coming from a slow shift at the club in Harlem, you cornered him.

"We need to talk," you point your brush at him. It's still loaded with green paint from the abstract you're working on, and is dangerously close to his pristine jacket. "Sit."

Loki obeys, following instruction to sit in the lone dining chair you own. You watch him, seeing how cool he is under inspection, and sigh. But he speaks first. "What is this about? I'm tired from working, and require rest."

You shake your head. "Your references you gave me for judge of character for tenancy?" you run a hand by your hair, and move a fresh canvas onto the easel to paint upon. "Fake. The one who's real got back to me today. His name is Tony Stark. The Tony Stark, who is also the freaking Iron Man, and said you were the guy who fell from the sky and brought aliens to America." Placing your brush behind your ear, you grab the carpenter's pencil and sketch out the picture.

Glancing to Loki, you see his pale face is paler.

"I can explain," he whispers.

"Okay, then," you nod, and stare deep into his green eyes that make you want to pull at his hair and kick his ass but also kiss him hard enough to leave a crater. This wasn't your first interrogation (you used to play interrogation with your toys as a kid), but you knew that having feelings for the perp would make it that much harder. "His pal Thor, the Avenger, said you're his brother. And were supposedly dead."

"I can explain," he iterates.

You huff. "Then explain, Loki Laufeyson, son of Odin and Laufey, God of Lies," you narrow your eyes. "I may be just a human being, but I'm up to here with halfway truths and shitty explanations."

He swallows. "Thor and I were on Svartalfheim, home of the Dark Elves. I faked my death, but was stabbed in the melee by Kurse's blade, and injured. With what seidr I had left, I transformed myself, and fled through Asgard to Midgard, to where we are now."

You make a face, and dip a brush in the pot of yellow paint, and white for the background. "Sounds complicated, but makes sense. Why me? Why choose me? And why not get medical attention from the stab found?"

"I'm not sure why I chose to stay here. Something about this place made me feel as if I could be who I am, and not what I am supposed to be here." He revealed. It sounded like the truth. On the phone, Thor spoke of his adopted brother as feeling lost at times from his bloodline and abilities. You sympathised, but not because you were a sympathiser for those who tried to take over the world and were brainwashed by otherworldly titans, but because he was just a guy who made shitty choices not on his own violation. "...I am not a human being, like you. We heal faster. Our technology is not so primitive, and I did not trust it."

You pull a face, painting green clothes. "Like most Americans with the healthcare system. You're becoming one of us."

"Though," he added, "if you did not take me to the medics at the time you did, I would surely be more unwell than ever. I am indebted to you."

You smile. "When you speak like that, you make me feel like a fairy-tale princess. But also, like you're admitting you were wrong. I can tell that was hard for you to say, but still, I'll take it." You motion to the canvas, to Loki, "Interrogation over. You can pay me back with your 'indebted' business by buying drinks at Josie's Bar tonight."

He lifts a brow, and stands, "Once, when I was sleeping I heard words about your father." He tells you. "I do not think you realised that I could hear. But I wished for you to know some truth about him."

For once, there are no words coming from you.

"His name is Philip Coulson, and has no fixed address. He is an agent for a facility known as S.H.I.E.L.D., and when I was under the influence of Thanos, I killed him." You feel your throat grow dry at those words. But Loki adds, "But with technology beyond human understanding, he was brought back to life, and now has a plane and a team of agents who work to save the world, much like your Avengers."

You feel a wet feeling on your cheeks, and realising too late they're tears, go to swipe them away. "How – how did you know this?"

He shrugs. "The agent Romanov released all information into the world after the disaster that had befallen in the capital city of this country," he tells you, moving to see your side of the canvas. "I simply have access to the internet like anyone else, and a passion for lies and truths."

You turn to Loki, "Wait, you said he's alive, does that mean...oh God, he probably hates you. And my mother acts like she doesn't know, but –," you turn to the canvas once more and wave it off. "I don't know what it is, it's not what you look like now, but..."

His eyes are wide. "That is me," he tells you, "But that place is not here. That is the cell that I was kept within in Asgard, for my crimes here in Manhatten." Loki turns to the paintings that are drying on the walls, and adds, pointing, "That picture reminds me of the wastes of Jotunheim, where Thor declared a war on Laufey," turning, he adds, "and there, that looks like the library in Asgard," he sighs, wistful, "the largest library since Ancient Library of Alexandria."

Your throat grows dry once again, head feeling heavy. "Are you saying I'm painting the past?" you question Loki, the paint brush in your hands falling to the floor of the apartment. "That is so not an ordinary human thing." You close your eyes, and shake your head. "I think it's time I got some help from my dear old dad."