A/N: *crashes through window with chapter in hand* I'M HERE! I'M HERE! I GOT IT! EVERYTHING IS OKAY NOW! *faints*
Oh boy, am I glad to have this chapter done. It was supposed to be an easy one, you know? Just a simple transitional chapter bringing things up to date with the prologue so we can move on to more important things. I don't know if it's me or if it's just the Lokidayverse!Loki and Jane in my head that insist on being difficult (and horny), but man...
Anyway, I hope you can forgive me for taking so long to post this. I can't say when the next chapter will be up (much as I wish I could), but I'm trying to get into the swing of writing a little bit of this story each day while still working bit by bit on my other in-progress fics. Hopefully, that'll work towards getting the next chapter out much faster. We're getting closer to scenes I've been dying to write, so while I'm kicking my ass into gear, enjoy the new chapter!
PS: there is sex in this chapter. A lot of sex. You have been warned.
Day 25: Loki Laufeyson
He's stayed away for too long.
But it's only been three days, he reminds himself.
You mean the equivalent of three days, says a new voice that sounds vaguely (and infuriatingly) like Jane Foster.
He squashes that one down for a number of reasons: to call semantics a non-issue at this point would be a charity, and Jane Foster's voice is shrill enough on its own without his subconscious mind needing to emulate it.
He's steered clear of her these past few days, completely and totally. Not even a shadow of his presence follows her in her day-to-day activities. She could be anywhere for all he knows, and yet he is not the least bit surprised to find her back in that decaying lab, under a mountain of books, with a half ruined green board covered in numbers. However she wants to describe it, Jane Foster is tenacious to a foolhardy degree. She is blind to her own limitations. It makes him sorry that she and Thor will never be, they seem so perfect for each other.
At the moment, her research has been exchanged for a steaming cup that she drinks deeply from. Whatever that beverage is, he can smell it from here. It doesn't seem like something that warrants such enthusiasm. Loki's magic closes the door she's left ajar, the one he never walked through in the first place. Her head turns slowly as she lowers the cup. Nothing of the wariness he knows is plaguing her goes past her eyes. She's lost that capability. Her skin has its healthy, if pale, lacquer. Her hair is lightly tousled from bed. Whatever it is about her appearance that has him watching her long enough to notice all this is beyond him. Perhaps he isn't sleeping enough.
He takes a chair beside her, hands in his lap as she finishes her drink, and he memorizes the number and length of the cracks crawling along the ceiling. At ten minutes past, he glances at Jane and smiles.
"It's a pleasure to see you too."
Jane Foster pushes off the counter and walks to the very end of the room. She presses her head to the wall. The chilly surface would soothe an aching skull for all of five seconds, but he doubts that is her reason. Her shoulders draw together, a long stream of air releasing from her mouth.
"When I was in second grade, my class had this pet." She walks back to him, hands in her pockets. "It was a fish, a… actually, I don't remember what kind of fish it was. We called him Mavis, and at the end of each week, one of us got to take Mavis home over the weekend and take care of him until Monday. When my turn came, I didn't tell my mom. I'd been asking for a pet for a long time, and she always said I was too young to be responsible for one. I wanted to prove her wrong."
She stops in front of him, her head bowed in wistful recollection.
"The problem was that I really had no clue how to take care of a fish at all. My only experience with animals up to that point was the two dogs my cousins up north owned. I didn't release that you couldn't feed a fish the way you feed a dog," she laughs to herself, like it's only funny in how unfunny it is. "The first night, I dumped half the bottle of fish food into the bowl. The next morning, I went to check on him. All the food was floating at the top of the bowl, and so was Mavis." She clicks her tongue. "I was traumatized. I mean it, I cried for days. I never asked for a pet again. To this day, I don't think I could handle one. That's not even getting into what the other kids did to me. We got a new fish right away, but they never let me forget it, right up to summer break."
He doesn't know what that means, or what 'second grade' is, though he can infer from the rest of her tale that it has something to do with her schooling. He's certainly not going to ask.
"Fast forward to just before college graduation. I was at the top of my class, so me and the other top students were invited to this exclusive party for all the big names in my field. It was supposed to be a time to make friends in high places so you have better chances for funding later on. I wasn't doing so well on that end, but I did start a conversation with another graduate from a different school. He was a nice enough guy, more into astronomy than astrophysics, but after a while, I started to feel like I'd seen him somewhere before. I couldn't put my finger on it, then suddenly, he goes 'hey, were you in Mrs. Caville's second grade glass?' Turns out, he was in that class with me. In fact, he one of the worst of the bullies, and he moved away just before third grade, and suddenly, here he is again!"
In the time since she's started talking, she's gotten more to drink, and she pauses to take a sip, wiping the stains off her upper lip with her sleeve.
"And he told everyone there that night about it, and suddenly, I'm the butt of this great big joke that everyone is laughing at. To this day, I'll sometimes get emails from jokester professors asking for 'Captain Ahab.' I hate that book… and you know, I try to laugh it off, because it's been twenty five years almost, and I'm not seven years old anymore, but every time I think about it, I still want to dig myself a hole and never come out."
He half expects her to bow at the end, but her story has no grand finale (or beginning, or middle). On the final word, she bites her lip and takes up her mug, breathing deeply the scent of the nauseating liquid like she can actually stand it. Occasionally, she meets his gaze, never with a hint of emotion he can see. It's easier to come to his own conclusions, even as he is shaking his head at her.
"Why are you telling me this?"
She lifts one shoulder, and releases it just as fast.
"It's one of my biggest secrets," she says, the words a jumble in her mouth as the table become more interesting to her than him. "I figured since I know one of yours, you should know one of mine. It's only fair."
"So your thought was to equate your childhood negligence of a pet to my being a member of a race of savage monsters that would eat your entire race alive if given the chance."
It's a punch to the face in all but name and action. That it wears off fast both is and isn't a surprise. How many days must she have spent schooling herself to never bow to defeat? She'll need a few more, he'd wager.
"You make it sound even stupider than it was in my head."
Loki leaves soon after, without a show or parting word. It bothers him little that he will be going back the next day, and that there is no arguing with himself on that front. It's the hollowness in her final words that stays with him well into the night.
Day 26
She's drinking again. Really drinking, and he almost leaves right there.
"Good morning," she says. Her words and her steps are as steady as if she was sober, keeping him still for a few moments more.
"Good afternoon," he responds.
Jane hums, tapping a finger on the side of her beer bottle. He thinks about asking where she got it, but alcohol that pitiful won't wet his parched throat for more than a second. Still, she catches his lingering eyes, and tilts it in his direction. Loki turns his shoulder in refusal, and she takes it back without a word. He doesn't know how much of it she's drank, only that it's her first, and inarguably her last for the day. Maybe forever if she's lucky.
"I wanted to apologize for yesterday."
He eyes her. "Is that so?"
It's a challenge, one she is eager to face. Her drink goes unfinished, the liquid sloshing around as it flies into the trash, leaving tiny droplets to form a path to the garbage can. Loki's eyes trace them until Jane Foster blocks his view, and commands attention with the mere force of her alcohol charged emotion.
"I mean it," she says. "It was stupid of me to think I could relate to you, when you've probably lived through all sorts of horrible tragedy and death, and I've spent most of my life alone with lab equipment. I wanted to cheer you up a little, but I guess I screwed that up."
She didn't do much of anything, he thinks. One day later and he barely remembers her story at all. Best to keep that one under wraps. She's much easier to deal with under the influence of guilt.
"This must be taking a lot of effort," he says.
"Not that much." Her good humor today is a little stronger, but true joy continues to evade.
Loki's eyes flick to the trash can. "It drove you back into the bottle."
"I'm not even drunk," she says defensively, and it's only now that they are standing so close that he can see the beginnings of disorientation fogging her perceptions.
"Are you sure?"
She opens her mouth, but stops short and re-thinks it. "Fine, I'm just tipsy enough to have, at one point, seriously considered giving you a blowjob as an apology."
He takes back everything he ever said or thought about her being mundane. The human race as a whole may still count, but Jane Foster, especially an inebriated Jane Foster, is a true diamond in the rough.
"Not anymore?" he asks, inserting more disappointment than he really feels, like she probably knew he would.
"I'm not that drunk," she says, smiling sweetly. "Or that sorry."
Day 27
Loki groans and throws his head back. He thinks and speaks words in a dialect he could've known since birth or made up on the spot. It's hard to say when Jane Foster's tongue is running up and down his shaft with hot, pulsing motions. Her hands on his balls are clumsy, but keen. That he is going so high is another reminder of just how long it's been since he knew a woman's touch, but that's a perk as much as it is a drawback.
She sucks harder, taking him in as far as she can and bobbing her head as the hands that steady her lose their strength and fall into limp, noodle-like appendages. When he comes, she holds steady, and takes it all in. Loki would have preferred it if she pulled away so he could see, but there is something undeniable about the way she forces it down and then falls on her side to catch her breath.
Loki can relate. He's never been happier for that cold and dirty table that seems to grow out of the floor and can't be moved to save a life. A sliver of shame slides through as he comes down, only to wither away and die under a mountain of disbelief that he could feel anything remotely negative about what just happened.
There had been many women in his youth; several man as well. All from the more beautiful realms of the nine, all for his pleasure and enjoyment. To say that Loki, in his youth, had been chaste was to say Thor had been cautious. Certainly, he had been inexperienced once. He'd needed to learn, and he'd learned well if he did say so himself. Never once had he heard a complaint from a bedfellow, verbal or otherwise.
A grin spreads on Jane Foster's face, now that she has control enough to think clearly.
"Not bad for a virgin, huh?"
Loki snorts. "You are hardly a virgin, Jane Foster."
"For that I was."
She meets him at eye level, so that he is inclined to draw himself up, even though his legs are still trembling. He masks it with cool indifference, the kind only Frigga had ever been able to see through.
"Well, you will learn," he says.
Jane rolls her eyes. The chalkboard is her obvious destination when she starts to turn away, but she's no match for his reflexes, and she finds herself locked tight in his grasp.
"What are you doing?" she demands, futilely trying to twist herself free.
Loki pulls her back, picks her up, and sits her on the table. He spreads her legs apart, ignoring her protests. A single finger to her lips is all it takes to silence them.
"Jane Foster, I am many things," he says, "you know a great deal of them already, but one thing I am not is a selfish lover."
He lowers his voice in that practiced way all women love; Jane Foster is no exception. She's shivering with delight long before Loki removes her pants and undergarments and covers her clit with his mouth.
Day 29
"I'm taking another look at those articles I showed you yesterday."
Jane Foster clicks away on her computer, moving with lightning speed from one page to another. She's very much in her element here, before a blinking screen. Just yesterday, she'd spent hours walking him through this 'laptop' of hers; how it was used, and each of the many programs she'd broken her back creating and installing. He thinks about telling her that he got all the information he'd ever need on her life's work ages ago, but at this juncture, bringing up Erik Selvig feels like a step backwards.
"Which ones?" he asks over the rim of his book. "I hope it's that science fiction encyclopedia again. That was fascinating."
"You know, it's not really my fault time loops aren't supposed to exist," she snaps. "You want to complain? Take it up with basic common sense, assuming you have any."
"When are you going to admit that this is something your 'computer programs' are incapable of explaining?"
"Maybe when you start being useful and stop contradicting me no matter what I do!" she retorts. "Why are you even here if not to help me?"
Loki smirks lecherously.
"Don't answer that," Jane says, shoving her open palm in his face. "Just keep quiet."
"If I don't speak, then how can I help you?"
"By being quiet!"
"There's no need to shout, dearest."
Day 35
Loki pushes her against the wall, his hands roam all around the hot, sticky skin of her stomach. He feels her soft muscles, first with his fingers and then his tongue. He swirls circles over her belly button until she's gasping so hard he thinks he may have cut off her breathing entirely. Then he goes lower.
Day 38
"It's called a conscious time loop. The effects encompass time itself by resetting the conscious minds of everyone within its scope at the beginning of each new loop, excepting a conscious few immune to the reversal-"
"-for reasons unexplained beyond a theoretical concept that the phenomena revolves around them," Loki interrupts both her speech and his reading to engage her in yet another heated stare. Her worthless scribbling skids to a halt, and if that jagged line didn't tear the page in half, removing it surely will.
"Oh, so you are listening," she says with feigned approval. "Glad to hear it."
"It's more a creeping suspicion that this is a conversation we've had before. Am I wrong?"
She grips her pen so tightly that it breaks in half.
"If you'd actually been listening, you'd know that we're starting from the beginning again, because my last experiment… failed."
She grumbles in the face of Loki's grinning, but if she thinks that will dissuade him, then she has no idea what she's dealing with.
"Ah yes, a dismal failure if I remember correctly. Still, watching your little friends lose their sensibilities once the power went out made for some quality entertainment."
She lets out a hard, tired sigh.
"Were you aware that this facility came complete with cell blocks?"
"No," Jane says bluntly, and Loki pouts at her and her disregard for the silver linings that cloud held. "And I still wouldn't be if you'd- you know- helped me?!"
"Oh really now, I've spent many a night in lockup, and most others underground in the dirt. Am I complaining?"
Her response is that gesture again. This time, she doesn't have the benefit of alcohol to keep him at bay. Loki grabs her, her hesitance is non-existent when their lips crash together, and the control Loki thought he'd have no trouble exerting is challenged. Jane pushes into him, her hands tracing the lines of his stomach and chest. His armor removed, a thin tunic is all that separates her nails from his skin, but it won't stay that way for long. Their fight continues this way; the push and pull of their mingled desires drives them to claw at each other like ravenous animals. Loki can't be bothered to move them elsewhere. Magic is beyond him in this frenzied, aroused state of mind. He takes a page out of Thor's book and rips off her clothes barehanded. Right away, Loki can see why he does it.
The table is new to them, and makes for an less than comfortable afterglow, but there is a certain charm to having her here, in the open air with no walls to hide them. It means nothing that no one comes down here, because they freely could, and Loki decides they'll have to do this again.
Day 41
She's not in the bedroom or the basement. Loki finds her upstairs with those friends of hers, the chatty ones. They're in the middle of a deep discussion on the fineries of dating men in the service industry. According to the taller friend, they extend no further than getting free 'French fries' and grease stains on your clothes when you go to 'have a snog'. The shorter one finds that highly offensive, but isn't exactly disagreeing. Jane just goes with the flow, speaking little and siding with neither. That she is there at all piques his interest, as does the strange glow she has about her that he's never seen before, and doesn't dislike.
She changes positions to sit more comfortably, inadvertently focusing on the door. She finds the small square window he is looking through, is idle for a time, and then goes back to her friends.
Odd, she shouldn't be able to see him right now.
"I'd never had a sip of alcohol before that night," says the shorter one. By now, the conversation has moved on to a point too insipid to follow. Loki is seriously considering leaving her alone for another day. He hasn't visited since the 38th, needing a little time to himself without any source of exasperation, and certain that she needed it too. He could come back tomorrow, or not at all if she's so happy to forget him and spend her days in nonsensical jabber with a pair of fools.
"Well, we can't all be as crazy as you," says the shorter one to the taller one, in response to… something.
"Yes, and you never will be."
He tries not to smile at Jane, hiding her face in her shirt collar, mouthing along with them.
The women laugh at their own, flimsy jokes until even they get bored. Conversation tapers and if he's not wrong, Jane is smiling at him when her name is called.
"Jane? Hey, Jane?"
"Hmmm?" Jane casts eyes on the shorter one. "Sorry, I was just thinking."
The shorter one blinks. "What about?"
"Well, it's a little weird…" Jane says, stopping short for reasons Loki can't explain beyond gaining momentum, "but I was thinking about this girl I used to be friends with in kindergarten. You ever just have some random old memory come up out of nowhere before?"
The taller one, in the middle of studying the red paint over her fingernails, hums and nods.
"I hear you. I think of my ex-boyfriends all the time. Then, I laugh. I laugh a lot."
The shorter one smiles weakly at her friend, but that's the extent of acknowledgement the tall one gets.
"She and I were like sisters," Jane goes on wistfully. "We were the only friend either of us had for the longest time, so we kind of created our own little world together. Every day at recess, we'd run out to the playground and sit under the slide on the playground. We treated it like our own private fortress, even though other kids ran through all the time playing soccer or baseball. Then one time, her older sister taught us Pig Latin and we started speaking it everywhere to confuse people."
"That's really cute, Jane," says the shorter one.
"I think you mean, 'at-thay's eally-ray, ute-cay, Jac."
Jane extends her thumb to the taller one, rewarding her with a prize-winning grin.
"You got it, Hilda! In fact, let me show you guys how we worked it out. I swear, it's the cutest thing."
Jane Foster must have had some sort of mental breakdown in the time since Loki last saw her. It's the only explanation he can think of for why there is a happy, hair-twirling little girl in there possessing her body. All she has do now is literally take up some hair and twist it around her fingers, while dancing and singing in this 'pig Latin' or whatever it is (and it sounds ghastly).
The shorter one must agree, as she is entirely displeased to have Jane Foster holding her hand and gazing intently upon her. She looks to the taller one, hair hiding her face from view, but whatever plea for help she makes is ignored. Clearly, the tall one is the type to step right over the body of a fallen comrade and steal their sword.
"So it worked like this: every morning, when we got to school- are you listening Jacobine?"
The short one gives a nervous chuckle, which somehow translates to a 'yes' for Jane Foster.
"I think you said that wrong," the tall one says brazenly. "It should be 'Are-hay, ou-yay istening-lay'?"
"You're getting some kind of sick thrill out of this, aren't you?" asks the short one.
The tall one sticks out her tongue and goes to look over some spreadsheets and charts, leaving the short one at Jane Foster's mercy.
"When we first got to school, I would say 'Ood-gay orning-may, ancy-Nay.' Then she would say…"
She motions at the short one, awaiting a supplication she should know isn't going to come. Loki knows. The tall one knows too.
"Ix-nay, Jane. Jac doesn't have much aptitude for guessing games… do you ever wonder what ix-nay means?"
"Nex!"
"Er- no," Jane says to the irate short one, "it's actually nix. N-I-X. You know, like 'nix it'."
"Oh yeah, I knew that…" says the short one. She shies away from Jane and the tall one, like she's just made a very stupid mistake, and the latter's expression makes it worse.
Jane moves along like it's nothing, and it is. Not compared to the way she wrangles cooperation out of her baffled friend, the tall one looking on like an amused puppetmaster. In the space of several minutes, she teaches the short one to respond to her 'pig Latin' with 'Good morning to you, Jane.' After four or five times of the short one repeating the mangled phrase, Jane is satisfied, and she expresses it with a slap of the short one's palm and a springy little turn on her heel as she excuses herself.
Loki follows her out the door, down the hall, and into her room. He only lets the illusion drop when she's locked the door tight and is turning around. She doesn't scream or jump at the sight of him.
"I knew it," she says, cheerfully bypassing him with an upbeat tune on her lips.
"May I ask what that was all about?"
Jane seats herself on the bed, her legs crossed over each other, her hands resting together atop her knee. She throws back her hair over her shoulder, revealing the smooth, creamy skin of her neck, clean of all the bruises and nips he's deposited over the last few weeks. He's suddenly very hungry.
"You may."
Weary eyes don't faze her, or wipe the little smirk off her face that he is more accustomed to seeing in the mirror. He's a terrible influence indeed.
"I'm doing an experiment," she says after a time.
"An experiment?"
"A thought experiment, of sorts."
It leaves him with more questions, most of which he could answer well enough on his own, but let her have fun with this. He can admit that her way of theorizing, when they are both clear headed and fully dressed, can be worthwhile at times. If nothing else, he can give her that.
"Go on." He seats himself at her vanity, the chair growing and molding into a regal throne that is molded specifically to his form.
Something like longing flits across Jane's face as she eyes the ornate sculptures and velvet seat. A shame for her, Loki's not getting up.
"I've been doing some thinking," she starts, and he can tell already that she's not going to stop for a long time. "The books on time travel that I've been reading take some time to discuss time loops, mostly to joke about how impossible they are…"
"We should arrange a meeting with the writers," says Loki.
Jane snorts. "Yeah, we'll do lunch. Anyway, one of them mentioned the idea of subconscious time travel. It was only brought up in passing, but I cross referenced with a few online scientific journals. Unfortunately most of them were more about dreaming of the future than actual mental time travel, and as we have no control over other people's dreams-"
"Speak for yourself," Loki says casually.
It's really a half-truth (dream infiltration requires extensive training in meditation and a highly complex potion that takes eight days to brew), but of course, those are his specialty. Her subtle horror flickers out fast, but even that lightens the monotonous mood.
"W-well, we'll talk about that if this doesn't work." She clears her throat. "As I was saying, the articles I dug up weren't much help, but I was struck by the idea of a subconscious resistance to a conscious time loop. It's all theoretical for now, but what if the people around us really are retaining their memories of previous cycles, but can't consciously remember them? If that's the case, then it might be possible to draw out a memory of a previous loop. Do you understand where I'm going with this?"
"I do," Loki says as he adjusts the softness of the right side armrest to better match the left. "I understand perfectly that you have gone from mildly rational to utterly desperate, and in record time."
"Oh hahaha, smart guy," Jane says, moving her head from one side to with each laugh. "Have fun lounging around in your easy chair. I'm just going to be over here looking for a way out of this."
"By teaching people to speak like a pig."
"It's called pig Latin, and it's part of my experiment. So far, I haven't been around anyone but you long enough to establish any sort of routine like they have with each other. For the next few weeks, I'll repeat that story to Jacobine verbatim and teach her that phrase. I'll condition her to remember it and know how to answer, so one day, I'll walk right up to her like it's nothing and greet her 'Ood-gay orning-may, acobine-Jay,' just like I did today. If I'm right, she'll respond correctly without needing to think about it. She may not know why she knows, but she will."
"Pray tell how this will help us in breaking the repetition?" Loki drawls, but his indifference is sucked into the void of Jane's ill-advised enthusiasm and negated by it.
"The more we know about what we're dealing with, the better chance we have at finding a way out. If I'm right, this'll be a step in the right direction, and I'll thank you not to slack off and mess around with my stuff while I'm working."
From the pile of books strewn about on the floor, Loki has created a footstool; magic binds the covers together better than any adhesive. It could do with a little more height, but she doesn't have any more books. Jane Foster walks by, keeping close like she's going to try and kick them out from under him. He'd like to see her try and see where she'd end up: on her stomach, over his knee, receiving the handy punishment he's been dreaming of giving her ever since their first night together.
"So what do you plan to do in the meantime?" he asks. "I don't suppose you're just going to waste away practicing your hog language."
"I'll find things to do. Maybe I'll look into a few other ideas, or get some light reading in, or even go to the lounge and watch TV. I haven't done that in a while." She shrugs, and gives him a look that lets him know she's baiting him on purpose. "Why? Do you have any ideas?"
A slow and deadly smile creeps up Loki's face. "Well…"
Day 42
She moans into his shoulder as he nips her ear lobe. The hands that once held her wrists over her head now roam the gentle curves of her hips, while she is too lost in sensation to question how she is still unable to move her wrists apart. His tongue trails along her jaw and down her neck, where he leaves a few bites for good measure. He finds home over her nipple, which he thoroughly devours to the beat of her frantic panting.
Such wonderful sounds she makes for him.
Day 45
She's in an aggressive mood today, which is fine by him. She pushes him bodily into the mattress, riding him for all he is worth. His hands encircle her waist to aid her in staying on. At the last possible second, he bucks his hips, getting as far inside of her as he can as climax washes over them, and she throws her head back to scream.
Day 48
"…I swear, I will never look at raspberry jam the same way again."
Day 50
Spanking is out of the question, at least for now.
Her refusal strikes him as odd. He's bound her with magic more times than she can count, and never once has she stopped him. He's avoided pain, though. Today is the first day he's brought it up, and she is immediate and upfront in saying no. She needs not even stop reading to think about it. How long has she been thinking this over, to come to this conclusion before asking was even a wisp of an idea in the back of his mind.
No matter. Her hesitance is understandable someone, inexperienced as she is. He has no doubt she'll come around to the idea. She's not nearly as innocent as she looks.
He thrusts in deep, kicking the book she's abandoned off the bed, where some choice articles of clothing cushion it. The silk scarf over her eyes protects them from the huge beads of sweat trailing down from her hairline. At the moment of completion, she rears herself up. Loki removes her bindings but not the blindfold, preventing the potential injury that she's too far gone to consider. He lets her catch her breath before he removes it, ready to see those eyes of her glazed over in the final waves of pleasure, or else watching him reverently, begging him for more.
What he finds is fire. Her tiny hands push him down. He goes along with it, letting her believe her own strength has overwhelmed him. She mounts him, scarf in hand. The mischief she exudes is unmistakable, and it fills him with more pride than he could've imagined.
"My turn," she says.
Day 53
"What a grey room. It's so depressing."
"Well, if you recall, Dr. Ahlberg isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. Now, did you do the spell?"
"As soon as we walked in. Are you certain you want to do this?"
"Why not? She already hates me. Now shut up and fuck me on her desk."
"This vengeful side of you is highly appealing."
"Desk. Now."
Day 59
For the second time, Loki stands behind a glass wall with Jane and her friends on the other side. Today, it's in the morning. People are scattered about, making pleasantries and partaking in a traditional Midgardian breakfast. (Jane tried to introduce him to select 'delicacies' some days prior. All but the coffee was intolerable to him, which was hilarious to Jane for reasons she had yet to divulge.) Jane herself is in the assembly line, choosing her gruel for the day. Jane's tray is sparsely filled compared to the piles everyone else is gulping down. It's horrific to watch. Even Volstagg had better taste than this. A carton of milk and a plate with three eggs and a piece of bacon are all Jane brings back. No wonder she's so tiny.
Her eyes slide to the window, unseeing but all-knowing. She winks, speaking clearly to him, 'watch and learn.'
He'll certainly watch.
He steps aside when a man in a lab coat makes his exit. A blast of sound hits him full force, but it's nothing to him like the lighthearted laughter of the two women who are the object of his and Jane's attention. Loki strengthens the spell that dulls the volume of those around them, their voices rise above the noise like a bird taking flight in a storm. The words themselves go in one ear and out the other, but Jane's voice rings out loud and clear.
"Good morning, Hilda!" She greets the tall one with a grin and wave that is uncommon for her, or so the taken aback look of the tall one tells him. Before she can answer, Jane rounds on the short one. Loki can feel her anticipation, and hear the drums rolling in her head.
"Ood-gay orning-may, acobine-Jay!"
The short one blinks her eyes twice, eyebrows scrunched together like she is trying to understand something. Jane subconsciously leans in just a tad, enough for no one but Loki to notice, as the short one answers:
"Gesundheit."
The short one takes a big bite of eggs and goes back to laughing with the tall one about nothing, while Jane's face, arms, and general disposition plummet into the ground.
A while later, Loki is back in his modified chair. Today, he goes with a leather based material for the cushions and uses a less overt design for the headboard. He likes it better this way: much more subtle and befitting of him , and perfect for watching Jane bury her face in her pillow in a pitiful attempt at suffocating herself.
"So, would we call that a failure?" he asks conversationally, pressing the pads of his fingers together and kicking his feet up. "Oh I'm so sorry, I meant to say 'ould-Way e-Way all-Cay-'"
"Stop mocking me."
Day 61
"Oh, now what are you doing?"
Loki steps around the empty food tray haphazardly upturned o her floor and left to rot. He gets a whiff of it, and banishes the tray to the farthest place he can think of. Someone halfway across the globe will be very confused when pieces of brown lettuce drop on them from the sky.
Jane, meanwhile, has the biggest book he's even seen in this realm propped up on her stomach, and she diligently takes in the information it offers without a care for what Loki has to say about it. He doesn't ask what she's reading. The picture on the cover, with its towering white pillars and uncial script engraved in them, too faded to make out but impossible to miss. She's thumbed her way to the very back of the book- he can't imagine she's read the whole thing in just one day. It takes her time to finish the page, though as the clock strikes the hour, Loki can't help but wonder if she's not doing this deliberately. Such is the reason for him to lean over her head, pushing the book back with one long finger. It brings to light a charcoal drawing of a masculine figure, his wrinkled face is mismatched with a youthful, muscular body wrapped in a toga that barely covers his torso. His white beard drags on the floor, and that he is seated makes its length no less impressive. An hourglass in his lap marks a halfway point between now and the inevitable future.
"Where were you yesterday?"
Her question is anything but off-putting. It's actually the first thing he expected her to ask.
"I… took a walk," he answers after a beat.
"Must've been a long one."
She must have a treasure trove of ideas of what he gets up to when he's not with her. Loki sits back and stares through her honey brown hair. He could probe her mind and learn them all without her ever knowing. Someone like her was bound to have entertaining scenarios in mind. Entertaining and highly implausible.
And yet, there is something unattractive in the idea of violating her mind, something he can't quite put his finger on, something that stays his hand.
"I see you've kept busy," he says, returning to those light little jabs that keep things normal between them.
"Someone has to."
That was well-timed, and had much better flow than previous comebacks. Her biting tone refreshes rather than annoys. He shows it in non-verbal ways: a rub on her upper back and a peck over her ear. All of it is either ignored outright or earns him a glare that lacks bark or bite.
"So, no questions for me?" he asks, and not because her silence bothers him in any way.
"What about?"
Loki eyes the book, which Jane then hides from view for whatever reason
"Oh, right," she says, as if it could have been anything else. "To be honest, that book didn't say much about Chronos."
"If nothing else, I suppose it's nice to have a change of pace. Your old plan was becoming quite tedious."
"I haven't given up on that yet," Jane says, pushing herself into a sitting position. "I think I didn't give it enough time last time. Another few weeks' worth of cycle, maybe. If it doesn't work after that…"
Her fingers rub together, and she appears to be picking at an otherwise well-trimmed nail, ruining the smooth, pale surface.
"I suppose you're covering your bases until then," Loki says.
"Well, what do you think I do when you're not around? Stare at the wall and wait for you to come back?"
"I wouldn't judge you if you did."
If looks could kill… well actually, Loki has survived far worse than a single woman's ire, so he would be fine.
"I wanted to ask," she says with enough forced civility to send a small village into destruction, "though I know I'm going to regret it: is it true that Chronos has three heads?"
Loki lowers his eyes. Laughter builds, and he lets it out only after the extended silence gets to her and she lifts her head.
"Three heads?" It's almost a shame Odin and Frigga aren't here. With their experience, they were sure to have a riot. "Oh, you mortals are indeed creative."
Jane releases air out the side of her mouth, but has no words for him. Loki hopes she's not developing a tolerance for his sense of humor. He'll have to step up his efforts if that's the case.
"So what?" she asks. "He's an old guy with a beard like he is in this book?"
"You're getting warmer," Loki says while wiping a tear from his eye. "However, the one time I saw his face it, made several drastic shifts between old age, youth, and boyhood, all in the span of a minute. I highly doubt he has a true face, given his position."
"I guess that makes the most sense."
Jane rolls over, freeing her sheets from the mattress that holds them evenly. The ends touch the floor, swaying gently to blow aside gathering dust mites. Jane's pillow sags off the side, in a way Loki doubts is comfortable for her. For the first time today, she doesn't seem quite so downcast.
"Know anything about his wife? Ananke?"
"Dead."
"Of course."
Jane reads the cover of the book a couple dozen times. Loki counts the number of times her eyes move from side to side, and doesn't realize he's doing it until it occurs to him how utterly dull this day is becoming, and that so many other days have been exactly the same (there are 2,783 bricks making up this room and the basement lab combined).
Her arm crashes back to the bed and slides up with the rest of her. Teetering on the edge, her pillow loses its leverage and completes its journey to the floor, flopped over the blanket.
"So you're telling me that the Goddess of Fate died," she says, like it's a statement of a fact and not the gobsmacked exclamation it should have been.
"It's a sobering thought, I know," Loki says, toying with her a few, brief seconds,"but you have answered your own unasked question, Jane Foster. To be the ruler of fate is not the same as to be fate itself, as much as it may seem so. Before now, it had been centuries since I set foot on earth, yet people lie and cheat all the same, do they not?"
Jane is silent, perhaps going back to all the lies she has told in her life, the ones he knows to exist, no matter how small they are.
"Ananke's death, while surely a tragedy for her beloved husband, meant little in the grand scheme of things. Chronos may have double the workload, but you can rest assured that your future is still written in the stars. Of course, it's most likely taken on a more circular pattern as of late-"
"I don't believe in fate," Jane says definitively.
She gets up to the bathroom, but she stops at the threshold to lean against the doorframe, staring pensively into a space Loki can't enter. His throat feels dry all of a sudden. The weight of a coffee mug forms in his cupped hands, and he drinks deeply, eyes closed to savor the hazelnut taste. She's moved by the time he opens them. Humor appears where he never would have thought he'd see it, at least not today. That it's at his expense, he can excuse, especially if it enables him to get this question and answer game over with faster and move on to something more enjoyable for the both of them.
"I'm still waiting for you to tell me what is so amusing about my drinking this coffee."
She shakes her head. "I'm afraid knowing might sour your taste for it."
"You should let me be the judge of that." Loki's cup has lost steam by now, and with it goes the smoky flavor. The mug vanishes, while Jane gives up on relieving herself and goes back to the only seat available to her on the bed. It's an attractive image on its own, though it doesn't do for him what it typically does. He might as well wait for another, better day to try. "Is that all? Or is there more you'd like to know?"
In the time between his question and her answer, there is not a moment where she appears to be thinking about it. She has nothing to contemplate, because the question that needs asking planted its seeds in her mind long ago. In all this time, and for all the ways they've danced around the issue, now is the time for her to remove the proverbial gloves and attack head on.
"Why are you so apathetic to all this?"
Loki frowns, hard, and he bares his teeth, all for himself and not for her. Just because he's right doesn't mean he has to relish in it.
"Apathetic? How do you mean?"
"Don't turn this around."
She's brought a hand to her chin, stretches the index finger over her cheek. They're strong, well-shaped hands for someone her size, but he is not here to admire her. Her expressionless face is for once a mystery to him, and yet, for all that he can't decipher the look of her, he knows exactly what she is thinking.
"I would not describe my emotions in so general a term," he says, and he can tell she is already tired of listening. "Apathy is not the right word. Resignation, while a bit too strong and no more to my liking than the former, would be a bit more accurate."
"Okay, that I don't believe for a second," says Jane.
She no longer wants to sit and talk, it seems. When she gets up this time, she has nowhere to go. She stares him down like she really is godly one. Even when it stops being cute and Loki gives back three times what he's given, it bounces off her like bullets off his shield; like she has just become the predator and he is the dinner she's back against the wall. She catches his gaze and holds it, with strength she must have spent days building up just for this moment. Where they go from here depends on her, if she can keep her head up, or if she will burn out, and much as he wishes he could count on the latter, he knows better than that.
At his core, there is a buzzing that spreads from his heart and into his bloodstream. It is the kind he felt as a boy, at the end of a successful hunt, or when he mastered a new spell, or achieved a rare victory over Thor on the training grounds. It is a feeling best reserved for a worthy opponent, and Jane Foster, with a form he can wrap his hands all the way around, and a fierceness smoldering behind a pretty face and locked away in a façade of submission, she is worthy.
Loki stands. Close to twelve inches separates them at his full height. If one took only this into account, they would never understand the way he barely notices anymore that he must look down to see her. If they knew the full power he wields, they'd call her crazy for acting like she is his equal. The difference is that Jane Foster wouldn't care about them. He knows she wouldn't.
"Alright, fine," he says, like she's had no effect on him whatsoever. "I can spare a minute or two. Why don't you tell me how I really feel?"
"I can't do that."
A silent 'oh' is his answer. It chips away at her carefully constructed walls like the first attack by a great army.
"So once again, Jane Foster, you are setting yourself up for a fall. You dive in recklessly, never once considering the truth of your folly, am I right?"
"Well, you really like the sound of your own voice. Am I right?"
Now from the fortress comes the counterattack. It's a weak one, as far as she knows, and he is not down for long. In fact, that buzzing is turning to full-blown shivers, and not a single blow has been traded.
"If you really want to know what I think," she walks around him, assessing him with something that could be mistaken for objectivity. "I think… that I've never met anyone as complicated as you, Loki."
"Is that an insult?" he asks, lowering his voice to that level he knows undoes her, and indeed, she crumbles just a bit.
"Maybe," she says, recovering quickly, "but maybe not. You'll have to wait and see."
She backs up, closing the bathroom door with her body and then leaning herself against it. She might look a little more impressive in something other than the red shirt and loose fitting pants which, in terms of hideousness, gives her nightgown a run for its money.
"Either way, I know you haven't given up." She pokes him on the chest. "Call it whatever you want, apathy, resignation, boredom even- in the end, it's all just blowing smoke."
His mouth goes tight, an act she isn't able to bear witness to as he walks away from her. The weakness of it is not lost on him, quite the opposite. This is becoming far more than he wanted. She's digging too deep; uncovering truths like all of his defenses are mere child's play. Anxiety fills him, none of which he can fully blame on her. It was him, after all, who opened up to her. He had come back to her a second time, and then a third, and a fourth, when he should never have darkened her doorway in the first place. It would have been so easy to leave her alone in isolation that it's disgusting. He lost control- not once, but twice- and showed her the cold reality that existed beneath his even colder exterior. With her every word is a hidden need to warm him, and for the very first time, he thinks she may succeed. It fills him with a raw, powerful fear. (Or is that anticipation?)
"Well," he says, coming close just to remind himself once more that she really was no match for him in any way. "You have just enough good sense to know how little you know about what you are dealing with. I'm sorry to say, your feelings are entirely one-sided. For you, my dear Jane Foster, are not complicated in the least."
'What you are is intriguing,' says the voice of a traitorous mind.
Day 65
For the last few days, he hasn't gone to her.
He cannot go to her.
At night, he wants to ram his fist into any hard surface he can find, until the skin peels from his bones and his blood paints the wall. In the day, he keeps busy with whatever he can think to do. He takes a trip up north to see if Midgard's winter air is as biting as Asgard's. He is mostly disappointed. He spends one night at a meeting place for the dancers of Midgard, though the flashing lights and pounding 'music' are dreadful to behold, and their moves can hardly be called dancing. The writhing and grinding of their bodies bares a greater resemblance to some sort of deviant sex act, conducted by hundreds if not thousands of young men and women, their better judgment tainted by the seductive glaze of alcohol.
All the women leer at him from across the bar at one time or another. The bolder ones try to talk him up, and the foolish ones 'drunkenly' grab his rear end as they pass. There are two women in total who show no interest and only because their lust is reserved for each other. He could leave right now, and come back in his female form, see how they respond to that. If he'd done it, he could have spent an eventful night in their company, depending on how much they are open to. Yet even in his fantasies, there is no freedom. He pictures the two women, both blonde and fit with skin tanned brown, crowding around him on too small bed, trailing the length of his feminine body with sharp, eager tongues. Halfway through, their forms begin to morph. The yellow of their hair darkens into brown, their skin whitens, their bodies soften, and then there is only one of them, and it's Jane Foster's lips he seeks to claim with his own. It pulsates in his stomach, going lower, and leaving him to suffer a filthy sort of shame when he is through. Shame and anger. Anger at her.
How dare she do this to him?
On day 65, he starts the invasion. He could use the distraction and the exercise, and a night in the cell would be a change of scenery, if nothing else.
He leaves Selvig to his work and waits for Stark inside. It's the first time he's been around the Tesseract in weeks, and he feels it's the force of crippling power more greatly than before. He's nearly staggering to get away from it.
He leaves his armor on today, though he doubts it'll do any better at intimidating Tony Stark. That man is criminally reckless; he puts Jane to shame.
Here now, he arrives to his robotic servants dismantling his armor, a wholly unnecessary show of his technical prowess. Loki is aghast to think anyone could be that arrogant with their abilities.
"Let's do a headcount," Stark says at his bar drink in hand. Loki forces an unaffected smile and quietly recites along with him.
'Thor…'
"Your brother, the demigod,"
'Captain Rogers…'
"A supersoldier and living legend who kind of lives up to the legend,"
'Banner…'
"A man with breathtaking anger management issues,"
'Mummy and daddy…'
"A couple of master assassins, and you-"
"Have managed to piss off every single one of them?"
Stark pauses, those very words tripping over themselves on his lips. He fingers the bracelet, and Loki prays he'll stop wasting time and activate it now, allow them to move on for once.
"Yeah," Stark says awkwardly, "and that sounds really weird when you say it, by the way."
He goes on with the rest of his speech, a man of stature to the end. Loki waits for his cue to 'fail' at taking Stark's mind. He advances on the tough, but tiny man. He sees the fear mount, though he can no longer feel it, and he wishes that was the only thing eating away at him today
"How can they stop me," he says without a hint of infliction as his will melts like ice under the sun. "When they're so busy fighting… oh, forget it."
He makes just one stop- to blast Selvig's device into a million pieces and to crack Selvig himself over the head. Then, it's back to the lab.
The first thing he sees is Jane hunched over a book of papers, which she proceeds to hurl at the wall with all the strength she can muster. Something about that picture, and the fire inside dulled to a complacent spark, brings a chuckle to his lips. She tenses at the sound.
"That's not polite," Loki says. "Someone is going to have to clean it up."
"No one comes in here but me," she replies. She doesn't turn to face him yet, but she will. "Even if they did, what do I care?"
He clicks his tongue, in place of another, more boisterous laugh that, at this point, would feel a bit redundant.
"Now, now, Jane Foster, you don't wear apathy well."
Those are the magic words, it seems. She whirls around, fully facing him as the flames flare to life.
"And you don't wear those antlers well, but it's never stopped you."
Oh, how he hates that.
How he hates the way he craves it.
The day wears on fast. She taunts him, he taunts back. She seduces him, he takes the bait. In the end, she's a mess of uncontrollable need, screaming his name like it's a prayer. The night falls through a hazy filter. They are either in Jane's room or on a pile of pillows in the far corner of the lab. Later on, Loki will forget which was then and which was the day after. On one of those days, Jane ends it abruptly. A new idea has struck that will need to be tested.
She relays her latest theory to him, and he sits up and he listens. The next day, he comes back to hear more.
He thinks it's an awful idea.