Favorite Appearance

"You're—?"

"Loki. You may have heard of me."

"That was for New York!"

Every morning, Jane drinks her first cup of coffee in the cockpit, curled in the pilot's chair, manually verifying Amy's flawless course, speed, and system calibrations. It's a routine she's fallen into, comforting as the milk and sugar she measures into her latte every morning, courtesy of NASA's zero-g espresso maker. It assures her that things are fine, that she's alone. That everything is going according to what threadbare plan she has.

When she steps into the cockpit that morning and sees his long legs stretched across the navigational panel, she isn't surprised, not really. She squeals as boiling coffee slops over the back of her hand at her involuntary start. It hurts. The heat, that is.

He grins. She grins too, with a somewhat sharper edge, and wipes her dripping hand on his quilted tunic, enjoying how his smile wilts into disgust.

"How on Earth did you—that wormhole," she marvels, "The entrance was only three millimeters wide. How in hell did you manage to fit through?"

"Need I remind you of my shapeshifting abilities?" he's so smug it's like oil dripping from the walls. "I make do when it's required."

"And was it required?" she resists the urge to throw his feet off the console and instead makes herself as comfortable as she can in the copilot's chair. It's cold and stiff. She's never sat in it, after all. It puts a sour taste to her morning that she refuses to acknowledge.

He won't—he can't—put her off her stride like this.

"Hmm. You aren't pleased to see me?"

"You risked missing me entirely and possibly suffocating in the vacuum of space. Even Frost Giants aren't completely invulnerable. I'm happy you're not dead, but we haven't seen each other since—" her throat spasms involuntarily. Involuntarily, she insists. Ragnorok is long behind her; she isn't still frightened of it. Or of Hela, and her holocaust of emerald flames.

Loki understands, and his grin softens.

"I only missed you, Jane. We had such a sweet encounter, last time around. Can you blame a man if he finds himself still captivated by your many sterling qualities?"

She sips her coffee to hide her smile, which is a little more self-satisfied than she'd like it to be. "I am pretty damn charming, it's true, but I don't think my smile dragged you six hundred light years from Asgard."

"I have not called Asgard my home since Thor took the throne."

It sends an odd shiver down her spine. "He's King, then?"

"He is. Three months since."

"I didn't hear about it."

"You have been...beyond the reach of most news."

Jane wonders why no one from Earth had told her, but what difference would it make which King was sitting on the throne of the Realm Eternal? Odin had given her whatever she required to embark on her journey in order to separate her from his beloved son, but whether he had died or simply ceded the throne to Thor could mean nothing to her now. Her orbit and Thor's have long since spun asunder.

She had assumed she and Loki had as little to do with each other, but clearly she was wrong.

She drinks her coffee, watching him over the rim of her mug. He can't bear the silence, no more now than ever he could. He tells her precisely what she wants to know.

"Thor and I have parted ways."

"Didn't you want to go?"

He doesn't answer. He wants to lie to her, she can tell, but his journey across the universe must have exhausted him. He's too pale; skin transparent and thin as paper. He can't summon a lie, he can't confess the truth. She guesses at both; his wince tells her she's right.

"He told you to go."

"You are," he doesn't gasp, but the words tear from him as though she's knocked the breath from his lungs, "No one can flatter you, can he, whatever he might say? I have crossed galaxies to see you again, Jane Foster, and you will not spare a smile for me?"

She does smile, then. It would be cruel not to.

"I'm happy to see you, Loki." It's true. She's a little miffed that her usual routine has been so unceremoniously disrupted, but she's been alone for over eight months now. A guest, even one so mercurial as Loki, is a welcome distraction. Well, not a distraction, but...

A girl has needs.

She likes to put her feet up on the console. It takes her a moment, but eventually she stretches her legs across his and flexes her toes. She's wearing a new pair of socks, fluffy pink and purple. It took her ages to get the chevron pattern correct, and a few rows are wonky from where she'd unraveled stitch after stitch. They look ridiculous against his tall black leather boots, shining hard and pure as obsidian in the cold light of pale stars.

She wiggles her toes again and slurps loudly at her coffee. Whatever else, she won't have him romanticizing her. He'll have her as she is or he'll have nothing at all.

He doesn't. It's clear in the sweep of narrowed eyes from her odd socks to her unbrushed hair and the sneer on his thin lips that she isn't giving him the illusion he came here to find.

But she hasn't given him an illusion, not now and not ever, so she waits to hear the truth. Or as close as he can come to the truth, anyway.

It comes soon enough.

"I dreamed of you."

She doesn't reply. She hasn't dreamed of herself, or him, or anything but the stars in weeks. Not that she can remember, anyway.

"You were in Asgard. Dressed in blue. You were...with Thor."

Cold unease congeals in her gut. "It was a dream."

"Then you're not going back?"

To him goes unspoken, but not unheard.

"No."

"Good."

"Would it matter to you if I did?"

Now he's the silent one. Jane smiles. He doesn't love her, not at all. No romantic entanglement has dragged him, fish in net, across the universe. It's only...he doesn't want to be alone.

If Thor has really ascended the throne, Jane can only imagine the reverberations of joy that are spreading throughout the 'civilized' branches of Yggdrasil, the millions upon billions upon trillions of people who are chanting his name. Asgard's golden, prodigal son. Tested in dust and fire, proven worthy time and again.

Jane looks out the viewscreen and has a moment to be glad that she isn't there to see it. The severed edges between her and Thor are still ragged; like Loki, her instincts are to shy away rather than endure raw, rough pain.

He isn't going to reply, she realizes. Silence is thick between them. It's like being alone, only a thousand times more awkward. She won't stand it.

"Amy, set heading back to the entrance of the wormhole we discovered sixteen hours ago."

"Acknowledged."

"Throwing me out so soon?"

"You're not here for me."

"Perhaps not," he doesn't bother to lie, which makes Jane feel a bit cheap, all things considered. He spreads his lies so liberally elsewhere. "But I cannot deny that you make the voyage worthwhile."

"Hmm."

"Ah," he gasps, putting his hands over his chest. She's reminded of Shakespearean actors playing for the balcony, and smothers her smile in the pretense of enjoying his performance. What could the Globe offer compared to this? "I have wounded you. How may I remedy my mistake?"

She's been on her own for over eight months. That explains the rush of slick arousal that pools between her thighs. Given the reptilian dilation of his slitted nostrils, he smells its salty sweetness. His smile is sickening, sinful.

"Well, well. Ms. Foster."

"Shut up," she mutters, pretending not to feel his long fingers tickling her instep. "Or I'll smack you again."

When he pulls her into her lap—she goes willingly, but whatever—she finds him hard and ready. And if she'd been doubtful before, well...doesn't that just stroke a girl's ego?

"What if Thor could see you now?" he hisses against her parted lips.

"Shut up," she murmurs between greedy kisses, "Or I'll hit you again."

Note: It has been A Day (TM), so this was written under the influence of four (maybe five) very stiff gins. Reader beware!