It was hard to get out of bed the next morning, it felt like all of the emotions from last night had caught up to me. When I reluctantly left Loki's room to have a shower in mine, my face looked like a puffy red mess in my mirror. The cold water from my shower did help to bring it down a little, but I still felt completely drained. Loki tried to suggest that I just rest up for the day, but I knew I needed to burn up some of this restless energy that was still churning from the nightmare, so when he helped with washing up after breakfast, I quickly slipped away.

Bucky was more than happy to spar with me, his eyes holding some hint of worry at the start, but it quickly morphed into a teasing banter when we fell back into the rhythm of our training. It was easy with him, we both had our demons but we never brought them up to each other and in some twisted way, it made us feel more normal around each other.

"Beating yourself up in training is not the answer Em." Loki sighed, finger running over a thin slice in my cheek for the fifth time.

He had immediately appeared in the training room no more than two minutes after I had gotten there, but when he saw me talking with Bucky, he had no choice but to sit down against the wall and watch. I felt his eyes on me the whole time, but I knew he wouldn't tell me to stop and he instead settled for healing me immediately after Bucky accidentally hurt me with his quick movements.

"It helps me feel less restless." I replied, giving him a look, basically feeling the concern radiating off him. "It's okay. I'm fine."

"There are a lot safer ways to burn off energy." He sighed, but reluctantly let me go back to Bucky.

I kept myself within the compound for the whole day, not even daring to look out the windows out of fear of bringing up the nightmare again. Loki hovered around me the whole day, literally watching me constantly. Concern continued to radiate off him, but I tried to ignore it as best as I could, knowing that if I paid attention to it for the slightest moment, it could overwhelm me too much, and that was the last thing that I needed.

It was after lunch that I finally managed to work up the courage to go stand by the window, knowing that I was just being stupid and I couldn't stop one nightmare from letting me look out of windows ever again. I took a deep breath as I looked out across the swaying grass, wrapping my arms around myself in comfort as I swallowed back the lump in my throat. The sun was shining, reflecting off the grass and the leaves of the trees as they moved with the wind. Several birds stood in the branches of the trees, no doubt singing songs that were muted by the thick glass of the windows.

"It's much better outside, I can promise you that." A voice spoke up from behind me and I slowly turned around to see Loki standing there.

He gave me a soft smile, still holding the hint of worry in his green eyes, but I could see he was trying to hide it. He walked up to me and gently wrapped his arms around my shoulder, gently pulling me in close to him while his eyes darted over my face.

"The sunlight looks beautiful on you." He murmured, gently sweeping back some of my hair that had fallen over my eyes and I looked down at myself to see the sunlight warming my skin.

"Thank you." I smiled softly. "You don't look too bad yourself." I tried to distract myself a little, my head tilting back as I looked up at him.

"Come on." He chuckled, hand slipping from my shoulder. "You should come outside rather than staying behind a window. It's better out there."

He pushed open the door and held his hand out to me, the soft smile making the lines of worry disappear from his face. A warm breeze drifted in from outside and I breathed it in deeply, putting my hand into his and gently letting him guide me outside. There was a tiny voice nagging in my head, telling me to go back inside, but I tried to push it as far back as I could, knowing that last night was only a dream and couldn't actually come true.

"Isn't this much better than staring through glass?" Loki's voice caused me to look back at him and I saw him smiling softly down at me from where he was stopped now in the grass.

"Much better." I replied, nodding slowly as I forced back the beginning of another lump in my throat. "Thank you."

"No problem darling." He smiled, reaching out to tuck some of my hair out of my face again from where the wind had blown it out of place.

His eyes were darting over my face, but it wasn't in a panicked kind of way, but more like he was trying to soak up every inch of me. The thought made me blush softly and he chuckled, gently running his thumbs over my burning cheeks.

"You're adorable." He murmured, gently leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my forehead.

The action, which I normally would have loved, was suddenly too strikingly familiar to my dream last night, and instantly my heart dropped. I pulled back and quickly grabbed Loki's wrists, tugging him back towards the door.

"We need to get inside, now." I muttered, eyes darting around rapidly like I was looking for any sign of Strucker or any of HYDRA.

"Hey, Em, calm down." Loki didn't exactly tug against my hand, but he wasn't letting me pull him along easily either. "Hey, talk to me. What's wrong?"

I practically had to shove him into the door, quickly shutting it behind us before I finally let go of him. His hand dropped back to his side and I turned back towards the door, eyes darting across the long grass again for any sign of HYDRA, but it remained undisturbed.

"Em, come sit down." Loki's voice had suddenly changed from confused to soothing and I felt his hands gently rest on my shoulder, turning me away from the window. "Come on."

I let him guide me, my head whipping over my shoulder every couple of steps to try and see back out the window. He carefully moved me over to the couch, sitting me down and crouching down in front of me, putting his hands on my knees.

"Hey Em, look at me." He gently squeezed my kneecaps, pulling my eyes towards him. "What's wrong? You're trembling."

"It was the nightmare, from last night." I looked down at my hands that I had clenched in my lap, realising that he was right about me trembling and I tangled my fingers together to try and stop them from moving.

"What triggered it?" He asked softly. "That's if you want to talk to me."

"Going outside." I murmured, not really wanting to talk about it but I knew better than to hole it up. "Last night, I drempt that when I went outside, HYDRA... they killed you."

"Oh darling." He breathed out heavily as my words wobbled at the end. "Can I hug you?"

I nodded, knowing that I wouldn't be able to get my words out properly, and sunk into his open embrace the moment he moved up onto the couch next to me and held out his arms. His scent, which I didn't know what it was exactly, felt like it wrapped around me in a comforting embrace. His heart thudded in my chest from where my ear was pressed against him and his hands gently ran up and down my back as my body continued to tremble softly.

"Going outside isn't going to get me killed darling." He murmured after a couple of moments. "HYDRA can't find us here, okay? You're perfectly safe."

"I don't feel like it though." I managed a couple of trembling words. "I feel like I have to constantly watch out for them. Tony said it himself that they wouldn't stop hunting me until they had me. They will do anything to get to me, which includes going through you. I thought coming here all that time ago would help me to live a normal life, but it feels like its as far as possible from normal."

"How do you feel about going back to Asgard?" He suddenly spoke and I sniffled, slowly pushing off his chest to look up at him, eyebrows furrowed.

"Asgard?" I repeated, wondering why he was bringing that back up now. "What are you talking about?"

"We can go back to Asgard." He straightened like the idea was suddenly hitting him. "HYDRA doesn't know about it. You'd be safe there, and you wouldn't have to worry anymore. Just the two of us, we'd have such a good time don't you think?"

"Loki, I can't exactly just pick up and go off to a completely different world." I huffed out a startled laugh, completely thrown off by his sudden announcement. "I can't just abandon the others, what if HYDRA comes for them?"

"When they realise that you aren't here, they will leave them alone." He broke out into a smile. "Come on Em, think about it, its basically the perfect solution. Plus, the others will want you to go somewhere to relax."

"They probably would." I sighed, realising that he was right. "Let me just think about it a little, okay?