This is far sillier than I ever usually write, but I was challenged to do fluff - or at least as close as I get. May Loki and God have mercy on my soul for inflicting this level of adorkable on you all.
She was watching that movie again.
Normally, Loki enjoyed it when she lost herself in a film. When her hand would dip in and out of the bowl of popcorn she insisted on eating, and he was treated to the sight of her absently sucking salt and butter from her fingers. She'd start out curled on her own end of the couch but gradually she'd stretch out, until by the time the credits rolled her toes were burrowed beneath his thigh and she lay warm and languid, practically begging to be kissed.
Sometimes he watched too, because these quiet evenings were the only time she wasn't fixed before her computer typing away, but more often than not he was content to open a book and wait for that moment when she pushed the power button and she was all his again.
Nothing ever seemed to catch her attention long. She alternated between movies packed with loud explosions and quiet conversations and crying women and rambunctious men, seemingly at random.
But this movie…this one was different. She'd watched it at least seven times in the past month since they'd come back to her lab, and he couldn't for the life of him seem to figure out why. It looked brutally depressing, alternating between desperate nude kisses and weeping. Occasional angry yelling. And every time it ended she let out this little sigh that sounded uncomfortably close to the noises he'd thought only himself capable of drawing from her.
Tonight, as the familiar faces went through their pantomime on screen, he found himself gritting his teeth waiting for that moment. And when it came, when that small sound flitted out, he snapped his book shut with a scowl.
"Must we watch this same film, over and over and over?" he growled.
Jane blinked up from reaching for the remote, startled at his outburst. "I wasn't aware you were even really watching."
"How could I not?" he groused. "All that wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's quite distracting."
Jane punched the power button and the screen winked to black. Old leather creaked faintly as she settled back on the battered sofa, crossing her arms and fixing him with a glower. "It's a good movie. You don't have to sit here if you don't want to see it, spoilsport."
"It's not that great. I've seen better acting from those hams in traveling troupes on Asgard," he scoffed. "And don't think I haven't noticed that this same actor has been in at least three different movies you've watched this month."
"Don't tell me you're jealous, Loki!" She laughed, and his frown only deepened.
"I fail to see the humor in that remark," he said icily, but to his horror he felt a dull flush climbing up his cheeks.
Her hands pressed over her mouth, smothering her laugh, but her eyes still sparkled above her fingers. "Oh my god," came her muffled voice. "You are jealous!"
He turned away from her amused grin with a grunt of irritation.
She picked up the movie case and studied it exaggeratedly. "I do suppose he's rather handsome," she drawled, and he couldn't quite smother the growl that rumbled in his throat. "And wonderfully articulate. Educated, intelligent, well-mannered…quite a specimen." She angled a coy look at him from the corner of her eye, and he had to stifle the urge to bat that piece of plastic from her hand."He reminds me of someone, actually."
He refused to play this game. Which is why it was a total mystery to him as to how his lips and tongue formed words. "Who?"
She tossed the box back atop the table before them, and his mouth suddenly went dry as she began to crawl across the cushions towards him, deliberate as a prowling cat. Her brown eyes were coffee-warm as she fixed him with a look that had him shifting his trousers, and a knowing smile curved her lips. "Why, you of course."
He swallowed thickly as her hands walked up his chest and she buried her nose beside his ear, her breath curling about the shell of it and bringing gooseflesh to his arms. "It's a good thing you seem to like me, because you've ruined me completely for any other man, Loki. They all seem like pale imitations of the real thing now." She punctuated her sentence with a nip on his earlobe that fell like a lightning strike and jolted him into motion.
Her squeal echoed through the lab as he scooped her off his lap and into his arms, and if he held her just a bit tighter than usual as they tangled together that night he was sure she would forgive him.
But no matter what she said, he felt infinitely better once they'd left Midgard the next morning and that 'Tom Hiddleston' was realms away.