a/n: I'm just gonna come out and say it: I'm in love with Tom Hiddleston and Loki and all things Thor right now, so here is another Loki/Jane one shot. It's quite lengthy considering the plot, but I read a similar story and wanted to put my own spin on it and really flesh the ideas out, I hope I didn't move to fast, the pace felt natural to me. I hope those who read it will enjoy it.
There are a lot of undertones in this story ranging from names to plants and I hope you all can pick up on them.
I don't know why the Avett Brother's music just screams 'Loki' at me, but it does. Thus the title and quote are the property of that incredible band.
Anything you recognize isn't mine.
–
'the perfect space'
'I wanna have friends that I can trust,
that love me for the man I've become not the man I was.
I wanna have friends that will let me be
all alone when being alone is all that I need.
I wanna fit in to the perfect space,
feel natural and safe in a volatile place.'
–
I.
Jane decides the moment that Thor falls back to Earth that she can never be happier than she is in that one moment. She's waited so long to see him again and the moment his eyes reach hers she finds herself struggling to breathe. For many of the months she'd assumed that he wasn't coming back, that he had found a new life on Asgard, but this was Thor and he always kept his honor. Later she will come to resent this trait of his character, but right now she thinks of nothing but Thor.
For the first two months he's back everything is wonderful, they stay in her small house, watching the stars at night and exploring during the day. Thor is larger than life in so many ways, but Jane does not feel inferior standing next to him. She finds herself completely content for the first time in her life; she is no longer chasing a myth and if she's honest, she doesn't really know what to do with herself.
She takes up painting; she was always painting when she was a girl, usually the stars and the night sky, but that hobby had died when she started her in depth research of the universe. Now, however, she had the time to look at the world through an artist's eyes once again. She was best at painting scenery, the flat land and how it seemed to touch the sky; the evening sunsets that never failed to amaze her. Thor would sit behind her as she painted, just watching her in awe, because she's really the only person he's ever given all of himself to.
It's not until the third month that they get the call from S.H.E.I.L.D. requiring Thor to come to their high security facility in New York. She flies out with him, because she'll be damned if she lets him out of her sights again. Nick Fury and Tony Stark greet them at the door and Jane briefly wonders how on Earth this could be real life. Their faces are grave and she knows that something terrible is going to happen, she knows it to her core.
When the news of his brother's plots reach Thor's ears he simply nods in a solemn way, almost like he's been expecting it. Jane sits, confused, wondering what kind of team these rag tag group of men are forming. When Steve Rogers bumps into her on her way to the restroom, she thinks that things are much more serious than she previously thought. She'll never truly know how right she was about that.
–
II.
She doesn't see Thor much over the next month and a half; he's always off fighting and defending the mortals of Earth, but she throws herself into her art and the canvas. She loves being in control of something and the blank canvas gives her that satisfaction. The paintings from that time period are more vibrant, more passionate than anything she's ever done before but she's too heart broken to be proud.
One night he drags himself into their shared kitchen, his face is bleeding heavily and he's panting but he looks triumphant. She immediately sets to caring for his wounds, because she's in shock to see him so vulnerable and in that moment she realizes that no one is ever completely invincible. She takes this understanding as a step in the right direction for her, because she's noticed a trend with the Avengers team- all the women associated with them end up dead. She shudders at her sudden thought, her conscience feeling heavier.
"We've contained Loki." He says quickly, as though there is something else in the undertones that he's not telling her.
"I hope that means I'll get to see you more." She says playfully, her tired fingers making their way over his many lacerations with alcohol wipes. He winces slightly before catching her small hand in his large one. With just one look Jane knows that whatever he's going to say next will not please her.
"After we captured him I learned that the Frost Giants gained access into Asgard; they are close to taking over our world and using the Bi-frost for their own gain." He says quickly, his earnest blue eyes searching her face, trying to make her understand something, but she doesn't know what it is.
"I don't understand- what are you saying?" She whispers, not really wanting him to answer, because she knows once he does everything will change.
"I must leave, Jane. I must protect my people and yours. I am the god of thunder and I'm bound by my race to save Asgard." He says in the stupid, noble way about him that she once found so endearing. "I am going to seal off the Bi-frost permanently. I cannot come back to you in this lifetime." His voice quavers only in the smallest way towards the end of his statement.
She feels her legs start to go limp and she falls into the chair next to him, her eyes filling with tears and he reaches out a comforting hand to her shoulder. She looks up amidst her blurry vision and sees him looking at her in anguish.
"Thank you, for all you have done for me." He glanced towards her painting of the night sky, "I will never forget the beauty you brought to my life." With that he has stood, making his way outside, but she can't even find it in her heart to follow.
She knows that if she watches him leave then it means that this isn't some horrifying nightmare. She ponders momentarily if she'll ever be happy again.
–
III.
It takes knocking over the contents of her cabinets a few days later before she realizes that she's never been this late before. She eyes the harmless cardboard box that had fallen from over her sink and notices that it hasn't been opened. Her lungs contract and she can't find a way to get them to expand again. All she sees is Thor over her, his warm body mingling against her own.
She slides her hands to her lower abdomen, but before she allows herself to even think she calls Darcy. Of course, in all likelihood this is a decision she'll regret, but Darcy is really the only one she trusts to do this for her and so she paces her home for forty minutes before the young girl makes her way in through the front door.
"So you wanna explain why you had me buy a pregnancy test at six thirty in the morning?" She asks, her eyes puffy from being tired. Jane doesn't respond, however, she simply takes the box from between her friend's fingers and walks towards the bathroom in a shocked haze.
Her fingers fumble on the packaging and she feels more anxiety than she's ever felt before. Once she's used the rest room, she lays the stick on her counter and rationally starts naming stars and constellations to keep herself from panicking.
After three minutes she turns to puke in her toilet. The test has two very clear pink lines glaring up at her from the plastic stick. She stumbles out of her bathroom, half crying, half trying to remember how to breathe before Darcy can catch her. She leans into the familiar girl and starts to cry harder than she has in months.
"I thought you said that you and blondie were done?" Darcy says softly, when Jane finally gets a hold of herself.
"We are. He's gone back to Asgard." She whispers slowly. "But we've both made sure that I'll never forget him." She lays a hand across her midriff, closing her eyes and wondering why this had to happen to her.
–
IV.
Pregnancy isn't kind to Jane, neither is being pregnant in the New Mexico desert. She finds herself being smothered, and so she leaves with nothing binding her to that place any longer. Darcy accompanies her to Maine, where she moves to a smaller town, fully anonymous. She has finally come to accept the fact that Thor is truly not returning to her.
When she enters her sixth month she starts to feel discomfort. Things start of small with nudges and bumps, but she is holding a demi god within her womb and soon she finds herself unable to breathe from the pain of kicks and jabs within her body. The doctors tell her that it is simply a difficult pregnancy, but she knows that it's rare thing that a god and human breed anymore. Her daughter may be one of the only human hybrids left.
Her home is empty, too empty usually, but sometimes at night she hears things. One night as she lies awake, eyes clenched from pain she swears she hears a song chanted in an unfamiliar tongue. Before she can try to deduce who it might be singing, her eyelids grow heavy and she falls asleep almost at once. When she wakes she barely remembers the voice from before.
Suddenly, little things start happening around her- odd things. Sometimes she'll swear she fell asleep on the couch, but will wake up instead in her large bed, covered in her blankets. She thinks that perhaps she is going mad. Especially when she walks out to retrieve her morning mail and stumbles into a lawn bursting with the most beautiful green flowers she's ever seen. For the first time in nearly seven months she pulls her canvas and paints out of their forgotten place and sets to work.
She feels alive again as she splashes color against the white of the backdrop. The greens mix and the flowers bloom from her finger tips onto the page and she's certain that this must be what magic feels like. She tries to guess who is leaving her such things, but she knows it cannot be Thor for he is not a magician, in fact the only magician she knows is Loki- but the idea of Loki leaving her flowers is borderline ridiculous.
She shakes her head, anyway, wishing she could at least thank whomever it is for giving her back the joy of painting.
–
V.
It's a cold night when her daughter comes screaming into the world, her cries giving Jane all that she needs to start crying again. The baby is the most beautiful thing Jane has ever seen including the heavens and the universe. This does not stop her from naming her child Lyra, which has always been her favorite constellation because it holds the bright star, Vega. As a young girl she always looked to Vega for comfort, it seems that even as an adult this name still holds solace for her.
She has known her child's middle name since the morning she walked out to her front lawn and saw all the green flowers. Bryony is unique enough that it suits her as a name for a demi-goddess, and in the following months when the baby's small eyes shift from their newborn dark blue into a light green, Jane thinks she couldn't have picked a better name.
When she was a child she never really had a mother figure, hers was always off chasing different storms, so the realm of motherhood is hard for her to adjust to. She loves her child more than she ever thought she could love anyone, but she fears for her also. The universe is full of many terrible beings and she doesn't know if Lyra will have any gifts or not when she matures, so she finds herself walking around like the ground is glass that may give way at any moment.
Darcy, or as her daughter begins calling her at around the age of one, 'Darie', stays with Jane through most of the first few years of her child's life. She finds it odd that when Darcy moves in all the supernatural things she's come accustomed to just cease to happen. She wonders if it's because she's no longer pregnant, perhaps it was Lyra all along. The idea of magic tends to just make her head hurt, so she pushes it to the back of her mind.
However, Darcy gets engaged around Lyra's third birthday and stops staying with Jane at all. She watches her daughter play outside in the snow one evening and it strikes her how much she looks like Jane, in her dark hair color, but how much she was unlike her father in almost every aspect. Even at three Lyra has already started treading carefully, she is much quieter than most children, but Jane assumes her child has received this gene from her mother.
It's a dark and snowy night when Jane brings Lyra home from going to see her aunt Darcy for her third birthday. The roads in Maine are never good this time of year, but she never expected to hit the patch of black ice that sends her vehicle spinning towards the edge of the road. Jane lets out one cry of, "Please, help us!" And she doesn't know why she does it, but she suddenly feels her car stop spinning altogether.
She doesn't know who has just saved their life but she can't stop shaking the whole way home.
–
VI.
She steps into the kitchen later that night to find a small box laying upon the counter, wrapped in a plain sheet of green paper. Attached to the present is a small card.
"Happy birthday." Is the only thing written upon the small card, and Jane is taken a back for a moment. She can't think of anyone who would leave a gift for her child unless it was Thor, but he doesn't even know of her existence without the bi-frost.
"What is it, momma?" The small, dark headed child asks. Jane puts on her big smile and hands the box down to her daughter against her better judgement.
"It looks like someone left a birthday present for you while we were out." She says kindly to Lyra, watching as the little girl grins and pulls the green paper from the box. She lifts the lid to a small wooden box and squeals with delight.
Inside the delicate box sits a a beautiful butterfly and upon further inspection Jane realizes the butterfly is made from crystal. She sucks in a huge breath trying to cope with not knowing who is watching her family so closely.
"He knows I love butterflies, momma!" The words momentarily stop Jane and she simply looks at the small girl in a shocked way.
"Who does, baby?" She asks, looking around her home like some strange man is going to jump out at an given second.
Lyra's face falls, "I don't know who he is. He just comes sometimes." Then she smiles, she squeezes her green eyes shut and snaps her fingers. A small blue butterfly bursts from thin air and Lyra grins. "He taught he how to make them!" She seems so proud and Jane hides her horrified astonishment well and insists her three year old go to bed.
Jane Foster doesn't sleep at all that night.
–
VII.
Lyra's abilities continue to progress by her fourth birthday. She can now produce dozens of butterflies at one time, and though she has never spoken of the man again, Jane fears for her. However, she realizes that sorcery is not uncommon in Asgard, it's simply hard to manifest without true skill. Perhaps her daughter was not destined to be a warrior, but a sorceress. This does very little to comfort her, because she knows who the most infamous sorcerer from Asgard is.
She watches her child play out in the spring weather while she sits with paints in her hands. She's begun to paint their view when she looks over her easel to see her child talking animatedly to a tall man standing at the edge of her yard. The small girl is holding a bouquet of flowers, and Jane quickly stands, making her way to Lyra, but the man is gone before she can reach him.
Lyra is still clutching the flowers in her small hand, her green eyes bright when she looks up to her mother. She gives them over and before Jane can question her, she's run back off to play on her swing set. The flowers, she realizes a few moments later, are her daughter's namesake. She feels the stirring of unease in her stomach, something just doesn't feel right to her anymore. Who is this man and what does he want with her child?
After dinner she takes her four year old up to her small room and lays her down. Lyra yawns animatedly causing Jane to laugh slightly. She places the covers over the little girl's shoulders and pushes some of her long dark hair from her eyes.
"He told me to give you the flowers, momma." The small girl says sleepily, "He said to tell you that you weren't the only one Thor left behind." She mumbles, and Jane's heart stops for what seems like an eternity.
"Who is Thor, momma?" The small girl asks and Jane feels a tear slip down her face, wiping it away quickly she gazes down at her half-asleep daughter. "No one you need to worry about right now, sweetheart."
She leaves Lyra's room after the girl falls asleep and stumbles into the living room to find someone she thought she'd never see again sitting on her couch.
"Hello, Jane Foster." His smooth voice wafts over her.
"Loki." Is all she can choke out.
–
VIII.
She finds herself calculating ways to get ahold of the old S.H.E.I.L.D team as he stares at her from his place on the couch. His features seems so sharp to her after all these years since his brother left her. She gazes at him in horror and relief because at least now she has full proof evidence that she isn't going mad.
"It would do you no good to try and contact any of the Avengers, Jane Foster." He says lightly, standing to his full six foot four height. He towers over her but she does not feel intimidated by him. He's dressed in casual colors, a dark blue button up and black trousers, he looks relatively harmless to her. She feels something stir within her that she hasn't felt in over four years. Yet, she knows who he is and what he has done and so she can not bring herself to trust him in the slightest.
"I am not here to harm you." He says quietly and she really wishes he'd stop answering as though he could read her mind.
"Then why are you here?" She asks once she's able to form words again, "Why should I even believe anything you have to say?" She adds because she knows what he's the god of back in Asgard.
He sighs, leaning against the wall, "I fear that you will not like my answers to your questions, Jane Foster." He says seriously, his green eyes boring holes into her own, she briefly thinks his eyes remind her of something else that she can't quite place.
Her eyes glance over to the vase holding the flowers her daughter had handed her earlier that day. "They're very beautiful, aren't they?" He asks softly, his gaze shifting to where her focus lay. "It is my favorite plant on this planet. Most people discard them because they can be poisonous, but I find that just because something has the potential to be dangerous doesn't make it any less beautiful." Jane suddenly feels like he's no longer speaking of just flowers.
He turns towards her and his green eyes flash with something she can't catch. "I will leave you for now, I simply wanted to reveal that it was I helping Lyra. She is extraordinarily gifted, you should be very proud of her." He says, causing anger to swell within her.
"There will never come a day that I will no longer be proud of my daughter." She says vehemently, but he simply nods towards her.
"Then you are far better than many parents that have come before you, Ms. Foster." His tone holds sadness, and she thinks she knows why he's said what he has. Before she can respond he has disappeared and she's left with more unanswered questions.
–
IX.
Lyra makes it to her fifth birthday before she asks why she doesn't have a daddy like the other little girls at her preschool. Jane thinks it's a miracle that her inquisitive child has made it thus far without posing the important query to her mother. Jane decides that honesty is the best way to approach the delicate question.
"Your father was very important where he came from and he had to leave us when you were still in my tummy to go home because some very bad men were going to hurt all his family and friends there." She says softy to Lyra, behind her she glimpses the book on Norse mythology located on her mantle. She thinks back to how foolish she was back then, believing in happy endings and a life untainted by war.
"So my daddy is a hero?" Lyra asks, and Jane smiles. "Yes, sweetheart, your daddy is a hero." Sometimes Jane wonders if Thor is still alive, but if he is she knows that he would be so proud of the child he has left back on earth. The loneliness seeps into her skin at night and she finds herself missing him more than she should after him being gone for five years.
She pushes her way into her bedroom before she sees a green ball of light floating in an outstretched hand. The sight of Loki does not scare her, she simply sighs as he comes into view. It seems that he has come a permanent part of her life now. He's saved her life and he's become something of a mentor to her child, and she's not sure why, but she trusts him to protect them.
"To what do I owe this pleasure, Loki?" She asks as flicking the lights on, the green flame leaves his fingers abruptly. He looks uneasily at her, causing her brow to furrow with worry, because Loki seems, if possible, nervous.
"I have come to find something which may dismay you, however I feel it would do far more damage to not enlighten you." He says and so many things race through her mind that she can't focus properly. It must be Thor, she sucks in a huge breath of air and forces herself to look at the god of mischief.
"As you have no doubt deduced, during your pregnancy I used my magic to help you several times. I ensured yours and Lyra's safety." She nods because all of this is true, but she can't fathom where he could be going with this. "In Asgard it's well known that fetuses are extraordinarily sensitive to magic and that sometimes the transfer of magic can affect them whilst still in stages of development."
"Are you saying that the reason Lyra can perform magic is because you used magic around her while I was pregnant?" Jane asks, wondering why he thinks this would dismay her, considering her child had turned out quite fine.
He shakes his head in the soft way about him, "No, Jane, in the instance of these transfers the source of the magic tends to dominate in the child's genetic make-up. As it would be, Lyra is, in fact, more my daughter than she is Thor's." His words cause Jane's mind to halt, because she doesn't understand how this could be true, but as she looks into his eyes she gasps in horror, because he isn't lying to her.
–
X.
"Everything- everything makes more sense now." She whispers, falling onto her bed in shock, thinking that so many things were more convoluted than she could have ever imagined. She looks up at Loki her eyes searching his face.
He nods slowly at her, "Yes, she has my eyes, my complexion and your hair. Furthermore I believe it is my genetic make up that has given her the powerful magic she's learning to wield." Jane's eyes fill with tears and suddenly she's crying and she can't stop even if she wanted to.
"She- she was the on-only thing that tied me to him." She chokes out, coming to the full realization that Thor is never coming home and suddenly she's angrier than she's allowed herself to be. "If he'd never left this would have never happened. But no, Asgard and the Frost Giants were so much more important than his family. I hate that damn planet." She exclaims viciously, but suddenly there is a hand on her back, resting very gently and she feels calm.
"I understand, Jane. I didn't want to cause you this much stress, after the Avengers contained me my magic was greatly weakened and I didn't expect it to have any affect." He admits earnestly, for some reason when he is around her he finds no reason to lie. It's an unusual feeling for him.
"After all, you must remember that when Thor closed the bi-frost I lost my home too." He says in a soft tone and Jane feels her heart flutter as his hand lingers over hers. He is close to her, probably too close, but as she looks up at him all she can feel is safety.
"I know that you have no reason to trust me. I have done many terrible things, I am the reason Thor left you for so long during the first month of your pregnancy, but Lyra is my child and I would like to ask for the right to see her. I am always going to be the God of Mischief, but I've grown to realize that mischief and malice are mutually exclusive terms." He says it gently, like he's expecting her to yell and tell him no and to leave but she can't do it.
"I respect that you came to me, Loki. I respect that you were honest. I see no reason why you can't see Lyra." She says gently, and she swears she sees him smile after a moment.
"I always found it ironic that you gave the child of Thor a name with the sound, 'lie,' in it." He speaks candidly, causing her to smile. She shakes her head softly, because it was almost destiny that her child be his.
"I do have a question." She says and his green eyes glance up at her and his expression softens.
"Why the Bryony in my lawn?" She asks thinking back to all those years ago and the joy to walking out to the blooms.
He gives her a small smirk. "Because they're beautiful and because you were very sad. But also because I knew it would cause you to paint again, and you've never-" He pauses for a moment, obviously hesitant in what his next words will do, "You never look more beautiful than when you are painting." She can't quell the smile that starts spreading across her features.
Before she can truly think about it, she pushes her lips against his and she finds that he's not near as cold as she thought he would be. His lips are warm and she swears she can feel a spark of something as her moves against her.
They part and she thinks he can see right through her very soul. "All I have ever wanted was someone to appreciate me, who cared for me though I wasn't like Thor." He speaks softly, like admitting this was one of the hardest thing he's ever had to do.
She smiles gently, running one of her small hands through his long dark hair. She has to stand on her toes to reach his head, but it's the most gentle touch he can remember feeling. "I think you're completely different than Thor, in the best way possible." The words warm his generally cool heart and he gives her a rare smile.
–
XI.
Throughout the rest of Lyra's life she would learn many things about magic and gods and her father.
Jane will spend time worrying about Thor but in a nostalgic sense because she comes home every evening to a home bursting with flowers and plants and the God of Mischief, singing their daughter to sleep. Jane's fairly sure that she's correct this time in assuming that she can never be happier than she is in that moment.
After Loki has efficiently put his ten year old to sleep, he looks up to his wife, his wicked smile dancing across his face. "She was telling me how she wants a little brother." He said softly, and Jane grins.
"I wouldn't dismiss the idea." She says mischievously to him, her eyes bright. He stands to kiss her and she sighs into him.
"I love you." She hums into his ear. Loki will never tire of hearing these words from her. She's the only person to truly ever love Loki Laufeyson.
"I love you too, Jane Foster." He replies, his fingers tracing the lines of her face. He knows that Thor can see what's happening, but as he has yet to show any sign of distress, he can only assume that his brother is proud of the man he has become.
Loki watches Jane and Lyra decorate their house the following year for Christmas, Jane's hand resting on her heavily pregnant stomach and thinks that he's fairly proud of the man he's become, also.