Mischief and Magic

Chapter 15

Morgan desperately needed the rest after the attack. Loki kept checking up on her while she slept. He was concerned that she was so drained and exhausted. It seemed unnatural and he didn't like it. There wasn't anything he could do, not until he learned more about what was wrong and why. Which meant Morgan needed to wake up so he could ask her.

Loki was a patient hunter. He could wait. For awhile. In the meantime, she made sure that they were as protected as they could be and as off the grid as they could be. They needed to not be found until it was safe.

Morgan finally woke late that afternoon. She wandered out from the bedroom to the kitchen to look through the food that was stored there for emergencies to see what there was to eat. She doubted it would be much. The safe houses only held nonperishable supplies for emergencies.

She wasn't doing any better. Her skin was too pale, her breathing shallow. She looked like she was barely on her feet. Loki rushed over to her and wrapped an arm around her to steady her. He noted that her arc reactor was flickering, like it was on the last dredges of power. It should have lasted for years and years. Was it damaged?

Loki gave her a stern look, one that clearly said that he wasn't going to let her squirm out of giving him answers, and a look that demanded the truth. "Why is your arc reactor going out?!" He asked her, his voice and expression full of his concern for her.

Morgan hesitated a moment. She wasn't sure how to explain. How to reassure Loki. There was no way. And he could smell lies. So she had to tell him the truth. He wouldn't let the subject drop until she gave him a straight, truthful answer. "It's not designed to support armor," she explained softly, sheepishly. "It's designed for keeping me alive, not for combat." She hadn't gotten to upgrade it yet. Her armor was only supposed to be for absolute emergencies. She'd done what she'd needed to, but she'd drawn too much power to help them fight.

Loki's eyes lit with understanding. He didn't know all the technology involved, but he understood that it was running out of power well before it should. Power, he could help with, hopefully. He considered his question before he asked "Will my seidr fuel it? Seidr is literally energy I can manipulate,"

"I don't know," Morgan said truthfully. She didn't know enough about his magic and how it worked. What she did know was that Loki's magic tended to blow up electronics when they interacted. "Doesn't your magic not like technology?" She asked, remembering the poor microwave that had been his magic's last victim.

Loki nodded with a sigh. Magic and technology couldn't be trusted to interact safely, especially not when Morgan's life was on the line. "That's true. Maybe Thor can help? Is there any way to charge it?" Loki was desperate. He would take any answer he could get. If that reactor went out, his friend would die. He couldn't allow his only friend to die.

He loved her too much.

Morgan considered that. Thinking was hard and she had to sit down, she was already winded. "It needs a new core...." She said after her mind went through the possibilities of how to fix the reactor. "I know Thor jumpstarted dad's once, but that was just restarting it. This? The core is drained. I need to look and see if dad has any emergency supplies here," if the reactor went out, she really would die.

Loki thought out options, watching as the lights faded one by one on her arc reactor. They were desperately running out of time. Thor wouldn't get there in time. They searched for supplies, but there was nothing in the safe house. They couldn't go back to the tower. Even Tony wouldn't make it in time to help his daughter.

Time was the one thing they didn't have.

Loki scooped her up in his arms. Desperate times called for quick action. Morgan squeaked and blustered a question through wheezing breaths. "The healing stone! We have to remove the arc reactor and then I can heal you. You won't need it or your medicines anymore," he explained as he carried her back to the bed.

"The healing stone? Things aren't that desperate," she tried to reassure him. That was for real emergencies. Surely things weren't that bad, despite the last bar of the arc reactor flickering. They were out of time and they both knew it.

"Morgan, you already can't breathe, and I have no intention of losing my only friend here. I was tasked with your safety, and I will not be letting you die on my watch. Please, let me try," he begged. The real last resort was the golden apple Loki had nicked. That would get him in easy too much trouble at this point, and was truly a last resort.

Loki laid her gently on the bed and summoned the healing supplies he had in his dimensional pockets. He still had a couple of healing stones along with the usual medical kit. He took a breath and began to focus, drawing on his magic reserves. "This is going to hurt," he warned her. He couldn't stop the pain and save her life at the same time. Even he only had so much magic. First, he had to remove the shrapnel, the pieces of metal still injuring her all this time later. He carefully summoned each tiny piece out of the dying machine's pull and the tug-of-war with her heart, putting the bloody shards in a nearby bowl. He tried to tune out Morgan's shrieks of pain. His magic held her still so he could work, but each piece of shrapnel hurt more coming out than it had going in.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Loki soothed gently, automatically. He'd healed many, many people over the centuries, but none of them mattered to him as much as his only friend. The arc reactor flickered one last time and died completely. Thankfully, by then, Loki had removed all the pieces of metal from her chest. She was safe from that. His magic kept her heart and lungs working properly while he worked to heal her fully. He crushed the first healing stone over the wound. It began to close almost immediately from the inside, the veins and arteries reconnecting as Loki poured his magic into making it heal faster.

It was grueling work and Loki was almost thrown out of the healing trance when Morgan's own magic activated fully. It came to the surface, helping to heal her with a golden glow. Her magic was how she'd survived in the first place, though it hadn't activated fully until now. As her magic flared, her body changed, her ears became pointed, fox ears popped out through her fox-colored hair, and a floofy fox tail appeared to match them, her eyes glowed gold with her uncontrolled power.

That... explained everything. She was half-Vanir. And more specifically, one of the Kitsune.

"I know, you're almost there," Loki soothed, helping to control her magic, to guide it into helping, manipulating the power they both wielded. The rest he would explain to her afterwards. It wasn't important now. "Almost there." They soon finished, leaving her asthma and shrapnel free. Loki smiled, though his eyes were starting to turn black from overuse of magic. "Done," he told her, both of them panting. He laid on the bed beside her, needing to lie down after all of the.

"Are you ok?" Morgan asked, concern in her voice for him after what they'd both just been through. Her voice was stronger now, her breathing clear for the first time in years.

"I used... A lot of magic," Loki panted. "That was... a... big spell." It was hard to keep his eyes open. He needed to rest

Morgan understood that. They both needed rest. "You can drop your illusion if that will help." That would save him some magic exertion. Loki nodded and turned Jotun, immediately groaning in relief. He curled around her on the bed, protective over the little Kitsune. He held her safe in his arms and she was soon asleep. Her magic still coursed through her, running rampant now that it was activated. And activated too early.

Kitsune didn't come into their powers until they came of age.

But Morgan's had to save her life.

Loi managed to wrap his own power around hers, to keep it contained for that night. Only when he was sure she was safe and asleep did he allow himself to close his eyes and sleep. She was safe. She was alive. He'd done it.

Now he could rest.

The explanations could come later.

If Tony didn't kill him for being the big spoon, cuddling his daughter, first.