Chapter Seven: Favorite Toy

Darcy just happened to be walking past the lab when she caught sight of a certain brunette beauty laying perfectly still on one of the counters. She burst in and rushed over to her friend slash boss, who sat up immediately in alarm. "Darcy, what is it? Is Thor back? Where is he?" Jane asked at the speed of light.

"Whoa, hold up," Darcy backed up a few steps, "I thought you were dead or something. Why are you still in here?"

Jane sighed and readjusted herself, dangling her legs off of the edge and leaning back on her arms. "He's not back yet?"

Darcy shared a meaningful look with the wall clock. "You know that was just this morning, right?"

"Yes-I know. But he was just supposed to go there, find out where Loki was, and come right back!"

Darcy hopped up onto the ledge and put her arm around her colleague. "I know what the plan was. Jane, if there's something you and I know better than almost anyone else, it's that things don't always go according to plan. In fact, they never do. I would be in more shock and awe if everything went as it should for once instead of getting all messed up in the middle. Erik said the machine worked. You have to trust a little more."

Jane bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling, uneasy tears plaguing her eyes. "I only got to see him for one night."

Darcy brought her other arm around to embrace her, squeezed and leaned her head on Jane's shoulder. "He'll be back."

"But-" Jane blurt with a catch in her throat.

"But nothing! He'll be back."

"What do I do in the meantime?"

"Come have a drink with me. Now. Let me point out that he probably won't appear right back in this room, and that SHIELD will call us both up when he's spotted." Darcy dislodged herself and pulled on Jane's wrists until she eventually gave in and walked by her side. As they moved to leave the lab, Jane took a moment to stare into the empty room and sigh anxiously before Darcy pulled her away.

Elsewhere

Eve stayed in the shower for longer than she normally would. After cleaning herself, she simply stood and leaned against the tile as the lukewarm water streamed out onto her skin. She examined her fingertips and murmured to herself at the sight of the raised, pruny wrinkles that coated them now. "I'm getting out," she communicated evenly, a false advertisement for the back-flips her stomach was doing.

"About time," Loki groaned. The door slid open and he had to concentrate to keep his lids glued together.

"Okay," she spoke meekly, and when he opened his eyes she was holding a towel in front of her, wet hair pulled off to one side and trickling down over her collarbone. He ripped his eyes away as they switched places and she closed her eyes. He undressed and found it hard not to look at her. Though all he had a clear sight of was the better part of her legs, he admired the smooth way they arced in and out. When his gaze made its way to the line between the towel and her upper thighs, he felt a definite brand of dismay. He allowed himself a moment to absorb the image of her shoulders, neck and chin, but stopped himself before admiring her face. He threw his clothes to the ground and stepped into the water, rather annoyed with himself. Out of sheer boredom, he had developed a minor fascination with this inconsequential mortal. He scrubbed his skin, trying to wash the very notion out of his pores. It was something to pass the time, something to think on. In any case, he knew where his mind needed to be focussed, and it was definitely not meant for that girl.

Eve opened her eyes for a split second just to find the toilet, flip the lid down and sit on the fuzzy fabric that covered it. She moved her head back to look ahead of her, completely prepared to shut them again. However, she found herself peering attentively at the shadow that stretched along the only barrier between the two of them. What she saw was an echo, a mere blueprint of what she would see if he stepped out. She looked on for longer than she ought to have allowed herself to and her mind wandered to thoughts of what would happen if she-

"I'm finished," Loki stated abruptly.

-sat there quietly with her eyes closed. She berated herself internally, humiliated at where her thoughts had almost gone. Unfortunately, the moments she spent punishing herself were enough time for her house guest to exit the shower gracefully and catch her with her eyes open. She blinked and moved her irises to his face, which had a satisfied grin on it. She jammed her lids together and tried her very best to forget that knowing look.

They got dressed in her bedroom, turning and closing their eyes the same way they had before. When they were done, that same cocky look was permanently sewn onto his devilish lips. She chose to ignore it-a pointless choice, really, it soon became all she could think about. She brushed her hair furiously, ripping at knots and grumbling all the while.

He approached her from behind and took the brush from her hands, their fingers brushed for a second and she inhaled sharply. "Take a break," he chuckled as he took the bristles to his own hair, "before you really hurt yourself." He finished up and handed it back to her. His head turned as her 'vague rectangle' vibrated on the bedside table. He walked over to it eagerly and checked the messages-all from Sam. "He's sent you an essay," he proclaimed, causing Eve to groan for the four thousandth time in the past two days. He plopped down on the bed and began to read.

"What does it say?" He flicked through the messages and laughed to himself, not sharing any information with her. "Come on, what does it say?" The God merely continued reading and laughing, laughing and reading. "Is it really that long? Come on-"

"This man really, really cares about what you think of him," he mused in between chortles before starting to type a response.

"What are you saying?" Still no reply. "Loki!" She shouted in agitation before running to jump on the bed to peer over his shoulder. He made brief eye contact with her, torn out of the moment by the first time his name had passed through her lips. He leaned away, tilting the screen out of her sight, hit send and smiled the most genuinely happy smile she'd ever seen on his face. She sat back, honestly in awe of this, suddenly no longer concerned what he'd sent to Sam.

The moment broke apart when the phone went off again. "Oh, he is not amused," Loki stared at the screen and grimaced. Eve attempted to snatch the phone from him to no avail. The phone buzzed again, and then again. "He wants to speak to you, he says you should call him."

"See? Look what you did."

"I only said one thing, Eve, I doubt one phrase has ruined your relationship with this pathetic creature."

"He's not pathetic!" This came out louder than she'd planned.

"You insist he is not your lover and yet you defend him? How do his actions merit a defense? He wants more than you are willing to give him. A real man would move on, find another senseless shrew to woo."

She backed up off the bed and ran her fingers through her damp hair. "Senseless shrew?" He made no effort to extinguish her anger. "You don't know me in the slightest. If you did, maybe you'd see why a man would want to be with me so badly. I have been good to him-"

He glanced at the paragraphs on the screen and then back to her, providing an insensitive shrug coupled with an equally insensitive look. "Maybe, but not in the way he'd like you to."

"Fine," she bit at him, teeth clenched, "I guess with one look you know the situation better than either of us do."

He stood to mirror her and cocked his head confidently to the side. "Let me see if I've got this right, and we can put an end to this argument right now. That boy has always loved you, since the moment your feet touched the ground. He's always looked at you the way a child looks at its favorite toy. He's spent countless hours courting you, and you, the strong, independent woman you are," he said those particular words with a gruesome sarcasm that hit her right in the chest, "informed him that he would never be your one and only. This was of course for his own benefit. This way, he could move on, find someone else-I'll omit the 'senseless shrew' remark here to spare your oh-so delicate feelings." He walked around the bed, their eyes locked for every moment, until he was holding her forearms and speaking to her closely. The next section, he almost whispered. "Yet, given the choice, you would have him pine for you forever. This boy makes you feel significant, wanted, needed, loved and all those things you need to feel to go on. You consider him your property. So no matter how many times you've told him, you've always coated it in a savory syrup he could digest with ease. You just want him to hang onto this dream, as your fallback, forever."

When he was finally finished, she was crying. Not sobbing hysterically, not making any noise at all. The tears had escaped her eyes without her permission, desperate to get away from the wicked, black inside of her. He was right.

He placed a steady hand on her left cheek and wiped a tear away from her eye with his thumb as it came careening down. All she could do was stare, mouth agape, as he placed the thumb at his lips and sucked the salty liquid off of it, smiling all the while.