Affinity
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Warnings: Explicit Content
A/N: Based off a conversation I had with a friend, on what we wanted to happen in Thor 2, and the leaked plot details. If pigs could fly, and in my personal mind space they can…
So enjoy!
The wind roared and howled outside the flaps of the tent, trying to sneak its way through the folds of Jane's cloak, but the Asgardian fabric held true, refusing entry to the wintry wind's sneaking fingers.
Adrenaline and fear still rushed through Jane's blood, as she forced herself to focus on the task under her fingers. She inwardly shook, but as she felt Thor's eyes on her, watching her intently, she forced it down, so her hand was steady.
They had been only a few days out on their journey through the wilds of Asgard to the place where the worlds fractured and their destination awaited them.
The Dark World.
Jane shuddered, the very name making her heart pound with fear and half-recalled nightmares. The creatures that had possessed her, and taken Asgard for their own, that was their home.
A part of Jane still felt irrevocably guilty that through her, those creatures had been able to invade Thor's home. That because of her, they were stuck in this wilderness, travelling towards likely certain death, as Darcy liked to moan when the cold got to her a bit too much.
She felt piercing eyes watching her, so different from Thor's. The Asgardian Prince's eyes warmed her.
His burned.
Loki. The man who had tried to destroy an entire race, who had torn apart Puente Antiguo, who had killed hundreds when those things had attacked Manhattan under his command.
Loki who was now their guide to the edge between Worlds, his magic bound by a golden band around his wrist, the All-Father condition for his release. Loki whose green eyes burned her as they watched her every move, who smiled in such a sly, wicked way that Jane shuddered just thinking about it. Loki whose mind had been warped and played with by a creature Thor had told her was all but invincible, and possessed of cruelty that knew no bounds.
Jane knew how it felt to have her mind taken from her, leaving her powerless to resist. She was torn, ambivalent in how she felt towards the slender, dark Prince of Asgard.
She concentrated on the movements of her fingers, the quick in and out, up and down, of the needle as it pierced and knitted his flesh. Without his magic, he could not heal as quickly as he would have done before. The wound needed to be closed manually if it was to heal quickly.
The knife had bitten deep, and Jane's teeth pressed against her bottom lip. The wound still seeped beneath her fingers, and Loki tensed with every movement of her fingers. With a glance at Thor, pensive and concerned beside her, Darcy behind him, she huffed out a breath, crystallising on the frigid air.
"Could you go and get me some more water? I can barely see what I'm doing through all this blood," she asked, Darcy scurrying away gratefully. She had never liked the sight of blood.
Jane wished she hadn't been brought into this, but the young student had insisted. She suspected it had something to do with a certain golden-haired warrior, but then wasn't that why she was here?
No.
Jane knew why she was there, and it wasn't because of Thor. Well, not entirely.
She was there, currently knelt in a tent, in the middle of the wilds of an alien world, because she felt unbelievably guilty about everything that had happened.
Because of her.
Jane glanced up, and met the burning green gaze of the God sat before her on the cot, heaped with furs and blankets. It singed deep inside of her, drawing her in hypnotically, and she fought to look away.
Even he was there because of her. He had saved her during the ambush. He had pushed her from the path of a flying dagger, had protected her with his own body before pulling the knife from his shoulder and throwing it back at their assailants, impaling Jane's would-be murderer.
They'd barely said two words to one another.
The guilt was sickening and poisonous, bitter on Jane's tongue. She didn't want to feel guilty, not for any of it. Not for Thor, for Loki, for Asgard, but she did and she was.
"Thor?" Fandral ducked inside the tent's entrance, brow furrowed and eyes darting between the three of them watchfully. "We need to discuss the watch for tonight?"
Jane glanced at Thor, who smiled reassuringly at her, his golden face crinkling with the warmth of his smile, before he left the tent with a concerned look at his brother. Jane noticed a bitter quirk of the lips from Loki, and guessed that despite all appearances, the Warriors' Three treatment and suspicion of him stung more than he let on.
"Is my visage really so enthralling, mortal?" his voice, smooth, sibilant and seductive, tore Jane from her thoughts, and she flinched. She eyed him warily.
"Not particularly," she shrugged. Silence fell between them once more, and Jane concentrated on her task of sewing up the gash in his shoulder and pectoral. It was a long cut, and nasty looking. Jane was grateful she wasn't squeamish, and at least useful in this circumstance. She hadn't been much more than a burden to Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three since they left Asgard.
She felt useless outside of a lab.
She sighed, and supposed someone needed to be the grown-up. "Thank you for protecting me," she murmured, catching his sharp glance her way.
"May I suggest that next time, when someone tells you to stay hidden and not jump into a fight, you do as you're told?" he replied coolly, and she glared at him.
"I was trying to help!" she snapped. He eyed her derisively.
"Clearly you failed," he replied, and she really felt like driving the needle in her hand into his eye.
"Screw you," she growled under her breath. "Do you always do this?"
"What are you referring to, mortal?" he asked, in a bored voice. "If you're referring to sitting still while a clumsy mortal attempts to sew my shoulder shut, then no-"
"I meant insulting someone when they try to thank you," she said over him, meeting his eye as she tugged the needle a little too hard. His face didn't change, except for a spark of annoyance deep in his emerald green eyes. "Did that hurt?" Jane asked, sweetly.
"Yes," he growled, warningly.
"Good," she snapped, tying off the knot and cutting it with a knife. He tried to rise, but she shoved him back down. "Sit down!"
"I am not a dog, mortal!" he snapped.
"I didn't insinuate you were one," Jane snarled back, hands on hips. "But if you don't like it, do as you're told, and sit down!"
"I am sitting down," Loki replied mockingly. Despite the annoyance coursing through Jane's veins, she just smiled mockingly.
"Good boy."
She was playing with fire, she really was. This was a man who could snap her neck in seconds, although she was pretty sure Thor would kill him if he did, and she was baiting him. She could see it in his eyes, as they narrowed, watching hers, as she finished winding the thread up and storing it away in a saddlebag.
"You're braver than I thought, mortal," he finally murmured, catching Jane off-guard. "Not many are game to taunt the God of Mischief."
"I'm not many people," Jane replied firmly, meeting his eyes defiantly as Darcy ducked back inside with a bowl of water, melted from ice. She stopped dead, eyes darting between the two, wide-eyed. Jane sighed and pulled the bowl from her unresisting gloved hands. "Thanks, Darcy."
"No problem," Darcy murmured, and Jane glimpsed Loki's unholy smile from the corner of her eye as she washed her hands, then returned to kneel before Loki, a rag in her free hand. "I'm gonna go find Fandral."
"Sure," Jane murmured distractedly, eyes now focussed on the task of cleaning the blood from Loki's shoulder.
"Why are you here?" Loki asked, suddenly, breaking the silence between them. Jane's eyes narrowed, as her fingers wiped crimson from alabaster white, interlaced with the black of the thread.
"I have a name, you know," was all she said, dryly. "Perhaps you should try using it. Improve your nonexistent people skills."
In truth Loki's question had caught her off-guard. She remembered all she had heard about the manipulative mischief-maker, and wondered if he was just mocking her, somehow. She really didn't want to talk about this with him.
"Sarcasm will not deter me, Jane," he replied, placing emphasis on her name as she glanced up at him, warily. It was a mistake as his eyes entrapped and held hers, then searched them intently. Jane, enthralled, could not move, the rag wet beneath her fingers. "You should not be here."
"Thanks but I'll decide for myself what I will or won't do," she snorted sarcastically. She half-expected anger to flare in those deep, forest-green eyes but they only became gentler, almost tender, and she inexplicably warmed by what she saw in them.
"Guilt will not protect you on this quest, Jane. Dying will not undo the past," he told her softly, rocking her to the core, and her fingers trembled against his chest. "I know what you feel, the turmoil and the sickening guilt in your heart, tearing you apart. Do not let it do so, Jane. It will destroy you."
"I suppose you're an expert," she muttered, trying to fight free of his hypnotic voice. This close, he exerted an aura of heat and power, even shackled as he was, ironic considering he was a Frost Giant and born for the cold. His dark hair, shorter than she remembered seeing it on the TV, gleamed in the dim light of the lantern in his tent.
Beneath her fingers, his skin, silken alabaster steel, rose and fell with every breath and she was exquisitely aware of his heartbeat, pounding against her palm, the roughness of the stitches in his flesh, the torn muscle hot beneath her fingers.
"You could say that," he replied, with a bitter twist of his lips. "Is it so hard to believe that I am sincere in my words?"
Yes. No. She didn't know.
Jane's heart pounded in her chest, and her skin thrummed with electricity as she met Loki's eyes, clearly, unblinkingly, and saw there the same pain, the same anguish and a kinship that she could hold with no-one else.
Affinity.
It wiped away her wariness and her annoyance at his rudeness, and he seemed to unconsciously lower some kind of guard, as her hand shifted on his chest, bare beneath her callused palm.
Here was a man, broken, wounded almost beyond healing. Darkness ate at him, devoured him once and would do so again, but something blazed in his eyes as he looked at her, and she at him.
One and the same, but she could still break free. He wanted her to.
Thor and the others could not understand. None of them had ever experienced what it meant to feel one's mind stolen, warped, destroyed and remade until one looked in the mirror and did not recognise the soul staring back from one's eyes. Loki did. Jane did.
She broke free, and stood, panicked by the compulsion suddenly rushing through her blood. "I should go see…if dinner's ready," she muttered, excusing herself but his hand caught her back, ensnaring hers and raising it to his lips.
They pressed against her knuckles once, his eyes never releasing hers as she stood, breath suspended, heart pounding, body unresisting. "Thank you…Jane," he whispered, and then she was free and she turned away, inwardly shaking.
Later that night, Jane stood in her tent and waited for the light of the campfire to diminish. Volstagg was on watch soon, and that would be her chance.
She flicked her hood up and left the sleeping Darcy in their cot, praying that if she woke up, she'd think she had gone to Thor.
Don't think about what you're doing, just don't…the mantra rang inside Jane's head, as she closed her eyes, blocking out all the recriminations that echoed underneath it. She was crazy for doing this, crazy for wanting this but she couldn't resist.
As soon as the light dimmed, and she heard the voices outside die down, she ducked silently out of her tent, into the shadows between the other tents and circled around, heart hammering as Volstagg sat with his back to her, staring at the fire. With one quick glance at the giant's cloaked back, Jane slipped beneath the flap of Loki's tent, letting it fall shut behind her, blocking out the howling wind.
Inside it was dark but for one lantern, already dim and getting dimmer, but Jane could see Loki's form, clothed only in breeches and a loose black shirt, watching her from his cot, eyes glittering even in the near darkness of his tent. It was warm, almost stiflingly so, and Jane felt a bead of sweat glide down her spine beneath her tunic and cloak. She tossed the hood back, and took a wavering step forward.
The compulsion in her blood, the understanding in his eyes, fuelled her courage and she crossed the space between them in three long strides, all but launching herself into his lap.
Their lips met with a relieved moan from Jane, as she pulled herself astride him, hands buried in his dark hair. There was an inherent seductiveness to Loki, to his every movement, his every word, that made it easy, that made Jane able to stop thinking for the first time in years. He seemed to sense the need in her, the lies she told herself to appease the guilt inside her, and seemed determined to heal her.
Heal her where he could not be.
His tongue caressed the seam of her lips, warm and soft beneath her own, and she willingly parted them with a gasp as he surged in, hot and commanding, utterly dominant. She felt her cloak fall away, then his hands, strong, graceful and irresistible, slide beneath her shirt, up the line of her spine, pressing her into him.
She rocked her hips against his, and he groaned into their joined mouths, his hands tightening around her.
Her head spinning, Jane pulled her lips away, panting. Undeterred, Loki's mouth marked her neck, as she arched and rocked her hips into his again. "What if someone hears?" she asked, shuddering when his tongue laved the thudding line of her pulse.
What if Thor heard?
"They will not," he assured her, pausing to look up at her, perched on her knees, nestled in his lap. She could feel his arousal against her abdomen, and felt a shudder of excitement race over her skin. "There are spells woven into the canvas, spells to drown noise and protect against the elements. We shall not be heard."
Jane smiled, feeling her breath leave her on a long, low exhale, and his eyes searched hers. "What do you want, Jane?" he asked, gazing up at her. His handsome face, half-bathed in shadow, stern and uncompromising yet smouldering with sensuality, his dark hair, the expanse of teasingly revealed skin under her gaze, all called to her, as she returned his gaze unwaveringly. "Tell me."
He was giving her control. Control over her body, over his own.
"I want to be with you, to be equals. I want to feel again, and know it in my own body," she breathed awkwardly. She had been so numb for so long, ever since they had set her free from those creatures' magic. Loki's skin, Loki's kiss, his taste, his touch…they made her feel again.
That same affinity rushed through Jane's body once more, as she met his eye, unblinking, unafraid. A dark, seductive smile crossed his face, making her shiver.
"Your wish is my command, my lady," he whispered, reaching up and bringing her lips back to his. This kiss was gentler, more coaxing, letting her set the pace as their hips moved together in a mutual search for pleasure. Jane felt heat slowly build between them, as Loki's lips marked her, her mouth, her neck, her breast as his hands gently stripped the shirt from her, and all the while his hips moved against hers unrelentingly, slow and drugging as his kisses.
Suddenly Loki pushed her to stand, before reaching for the laces of her breeches, swapped for her jeans before they left Asgard, making Jane's breath hitch. The soft, worn leather fell down her legs as soon as the laces were free, and he stood to undo his own. Jane didn't look down just lifted herself for his kiss, as their naked flesh met, eliciting a rush of heat and pleasure through every nerve in her body, and she suspected his, and his arms closed around her possessively.
But not suffocating. His grip was protective, claiming, but Jane realised that if she wanted, she could pull away and he would let her. She had control.
She pushed him back, laid out on the cot, and followed him down, filled with a confidence she'd never known. She had never really felt so powerful, but it was inevitable when she looked into his eyes, this strong, formidable God from legend, who had killed and hurt thousands, who has so nearly destroyed her world and others, who could betray them at any moment, and saw the desire, the need there and she did that to him. But she also saw a warning there, that he would only allow her control for so long, and it made her smile, unconsciously seductive as he shifted and rocked beneath her.
Jane lowered her lips to his, feeling one hand spear through her hair, as she lowered herself onto him, feeling him fill her, hot and hard within her. She sat up, taking him deeper and he groaned, sitting up and gathering her to him as she began to rock against him, the pleasure building in waves with every roll of her hips. His lips went to her breast, lips tender even as his teeth, blunt and hungry, marked her again and again. Jane held him to her, feeling something slot back into place within her with each and every movement of him inside of her, and she moaned his name.
He was healing her.
As she felt the waves of pleasure coalesce and break over her, she cried out his name, just as she wondered if anyone had ever tried to heal him.
Thor had told her what had happened to Loki, the revelations about his birth and the torture he underwent at the hands of the Chitauri to create the monster he became, and some part of him still was. There had been no one to heal him, to give him back control.
As she clung to him, feeling him still hard within her, she raised her head and met his gaze, heated and dark, and leant in to kiss him. Hard.
Giving him permission, telling him to take control.
With a growl, he twisted her beneath him, covering her with his body. When he slipped from her, she whimpered from the loss but he broke the kiss with a devilish smile, gliding down her body, laying a trail of biting kisses down her neck, making her arch and undulate beneath him, until he reached the hard plain of her sternum, and the space where her heart beat frantically. He paused, pressing a tender kiss to it, making Jane gasp, tears coming to her eye as she met his, so dark and lustful, but filled with an anguish she was not sure she could assuage. But she would try, after all he had given her.
Rational thought was soon driven from her mind, as he returned his attentions to her skin, his teeth marking then his tongue soothing the pinch, pain mingling with pleasure. He trailed down her rippling stomach and thighs, before coaxing her legs open wider, still moist and heated from before.
She cried out his name as his tongue caressed her slick folds, then entered her, making her arch and cry out his name. She gripped the frame of the cot for dear life, nails digging into the wood, as he drove her higher, forcing pleasure on her until she sobbed and begged for release, but he would give her none.
Not yet.
Without warning, his mouth left her, and as he surged over her, the weight of his tongue was replaced by the weight of his body, driving into her forcefully, making her spine curve into his body, one hand clutching her hip as he drove into her again, his own face awash with pleasure. Jane felt her body turn into a molten pool of heat and desire, as it washed over her in waves, cresting until she broke, every thrust marking her as his, possessive and commanding.
He twined her legs around his waist and lowered his weight fully onto her. While heavy, he was not crushing her, and Jane wrapped her arms around him, seeking his lips with hers, as their bodies rocked together, his hips between her thighs, intimately connected, the smooth planes of his chest riding against the swollen, aching mounds of her breasts.
He framed her face, fingers spreading out through her long caramel hair, as Jane felt the final wave of molten heat and need begin to rise. Desperate, she bucked her hips into his, smothering his growl with her kiss, welcoming his invasions of her body, branding her irrevocably his.
Jane arched and Loki ducked his head to her breast, one hand beneath her to support her back as he feasted on her, his tongue rasping over the sensitive skin, his thrusts growing faster and harder until Jane was sure they might even go through the tent walls.
She broke first, no longer herself, no longer coherent or aware, as Loki cried out her name into the column of her neck, their bodies rippling and shuddering in unison, as they both spiralled into heaven, or Valhalla, Jane didn't care, just so long as she never lost this feeling.
Hours later, or minutes, Jane stirred in the circle of Loki's arms. She squinted at the scant light seeping beneath the flap of the tent, but there was none. It was still dark.
She needed to get back to her tent.
But as Jane went to move, his arm tightened, and his voice, husky and warm from sleep, filtered into her ear. "Stay awhile yet with me. It was not near dawn."
"I can't," Jane breathed, glancing over her shoulder at him, shielded by the dark. This night had been mind-blowing, overwhelming, all-consuming, and a thousand other adjectives Jane could think of, but she still needed to get back to her tent before anyone woke up.
But when she met his eyes, and felt his whisper of her name against her forehead, unconsciously pleading, audibly resigned, she felt all thoughts of Thor, or Darcy or anyone else disappear into the ether. He needed her, and she needed him.
"Ok," she murmured, leaning up and blindly finding his lips, kissing him gently. "I'll stay."
It might have been dark, but Jane could sense the warm, blinding smile against her hair, and felt that warmth, that confidence he had instilled in her spread and grow under her skin. She felt the guilt dissipate forever, and smiled, content.
Jane didn't know what the future held, and she really didn't want to think too much about what was going to happen when anyone found out about this, and well…
Thinking was overrated.
Finis
