It had never been about love.
Jane knew it had never about love and had to keep telling herself that love was still not an option. She knew she had been tricked, that she had played right into Loki's hands, that in the end it had been him that came to her and that meant something because Loki was many things but he was not fragile. He would not come to Jane in a moment of weakness for comfort. He had come to her for revenge, revenge against Thor. And she had let it happen.
Perhaps it had been the way he had said her name, when she had opened her door and saw him there.
"Jane Foster," he drawled, one corner of his lips lifting as he caught her wide eyes.
She could have shut the door then but didn't. Jane should have thought of Thor then but didn't. She had instead been distracted by the way the rain dripped off of Loki's hair and ran down his face. And he had just seemed so tired.
What had she been thinking?
If she was trying to be honest with herself, because there was no reason to lie to herself now that Loki was gone, she knew it was about more than revenge. It had been about the fire that raced through her when Loki had taken her hand for the first time and held on longer than necessary but not long enough. Jane had been so surprised at the time because that single touch had made her blood boil and sent her heart racing and hell she had thought Loki was anything but warm.
He was cold and distant. He was a liar. He was all words and smirks and arrogance. He was ambition. He was the first breath you took on a cold morning that froze your insides and made you want to run back inside.
He was not suppose to be warm. Thor was warmth.
Except in that moment Loki had made her body react in a new way. She had trouble breathing and instead of commenting on the way she had flustered so easily he had simply squeezed her hand and sighed.
"I do not hate you," he said in one soft breath. "Try as I have, I cannot hate you, Jane Foster."
And everything had unraveled from there.
It had been about the game.
That was it, the game. Loki had made her mind dull itself and her body wake up. Because why else had she tossed and turned all night? It wasn't thoughts of turning Loki into Thor or SHIELD that had kept her awake. It had been the fact that she just wanted to touchkisslickhugbeone with the man, the god, in the other room. And when she finally got up in the blackness of the night and opened her bedroom door to get water, just a drink maybe it would calm her a bit, she had instead made eye contact with Loki who was awake, sitting up on her couch.
"Having trouble sleeping, Jane?" he asked, the slow drawl of his words catching on her name.
She had gone to him then. Wasn't that part of the game? Making her want him? Jane had gone to him and hit him in the chest, so angry.
"I want you to leave, Loki-"
Perhaps it had really been about the way his name rolled off her tongue. Because as soon as she spoke his name she watched his pupils dilate. How interesting of a reaction, she thought, before realizing instead of walking away from him as she intended she was straddling him- what was this madness- and Loki wasn't smirking in satisfaction as if he had just won a game. Loki was staring at her with his lips parted, about to say something that she would never hear. Because she kissed him.
It had been about the sex.
Jane would have thought with Loki's dismissive thoughts on humans that he would have been rough, that he would have hurt her on purpose because he could. She had thought he would have ripped her clothes off and thrown her around and made her cry on purpose. But he had been so gentle. It had driven her insane because while her body raged he kept things slow. Her mind raced but his hands took their time in taking off her shirt, touching her stomach, running through her hair. She had hated it and loved it and had never felt such frustration. Not even when Thor came to New York and never saw her because she had been able to make excuses for Thor then, he was saving the world, but she could not make excuses for this teasing Loki was doing.
The sex wasn't always gentle and slow and kind, Jane soon found out. It could be rough and heated. And she had been so wrong because Loki was warmth and heat and fire. But she liked to think Loki was proving something to her that first time, he could be kind, or maybe to himself, he wasn't a monster. There should have never been more than a first time but there was.
Maybe it was about the aftermath.
Loki had a habit of ruining everything he touched. He caused destruction. And wasn't that what he had done? Wasn't she destroyed?
Jane wasn't sure when she had allowed the sex to become something more. She didn't know when she had started to like Loki's snide comments and the way his lips curled upwards like a predator spotting a prey whenever she walked into the room. Jane hated that she missed the back and forth banter they had, that she never made Loki explain the reason he showed up on her doorstep because she had just known he was so tired of having to answer to others and he was so tired of fighting- whether he was fighting Thor or himself or his family or the demons in his mind. Jane hated that she did this to herself.
He had left her without a kiss. They had been in the middle of a conversation-
"Have begun to feel better, Jane?"
"What do you mean?"
"Have you begun to feel better since I've arrived?"
She paused, her eyebrows furrowing. Her hand wavered mid-air, she was reaching for plates for their dinner, and she lowered it, opting to turn around and face him.
Felt better since he arrived? Had she been upset when he first got here? Or had she been sick? But whether or not she had been upset or sick she couldn't deny that yes... yes she did feel better. There was a calm about her that had been missing for a while now, a calm that Loki must have brought with him despite the fact that he was all chaos. Her thoughts must have shown on her face for Loki's lips twisted into a frown and he broke eye contact before nodding.
"Good," he said.
And then he disappeared.
Just like that he had disappeared into thin air, while the food continued to cook and the radio was playing and the clock was ticking. He left her for no reason just as he had showed up for no reason.
It had never been about love.
But whenever Jane tried to convince herself of that she felt a bit like Loki. You're just lying to yourself, Jane. She was lying, she knew, because if she didn't love him she wouldn't still have trouble sleeping at night- not because the spot beside her was cold but because she could not stop staring at the stars out her window hoping, hoping, hoping... And if she didn't love him she wouldn't think she randomly felt him around her. But what was she suppose to think when she knew Loki could be there and she could have no idea? What was she suppose to think when she woke up randomly, still so drained, because she thought she felt his touch on her face? Was she mad because she was so sure sometimes that he would whisper her name behind her and when she spun around she found she was alone?
Loki was destruction and ambition and revenge. He was not love. Jane should have known better than to think anything else.