You've Got Sucker's Luck

AN: Get ready for a lot of expository text. Also, ahoy there to those who are faint of heart, thar be smut ahead…! (Cue the chorus of readers saying, "It's about damn time!")

Also-also – you will be getting bogus chapter update notifications in the next little bit. I'm adding a prologue and tweaking the order of the first two chapters - nothing is changing with the actual text (the prologue is a section from chapter 1, so you've already read it), but I have to create an additional chapter as a result. The first time I attempted to do this was a complete clusterfuck, and I'm doubtful I'll get it right on the second try either, but I wanted y'all to know I'm not trying to troll you with chapter updates, and I am sorry in advance if my Ao3 ineptitude results in cluttering up your inboxes.

The days that followed were some of the sweetest Loki could recall since his childhood. He and Brynn were left to their own devices, and short of the times she went running, they were rarely apart. Had it not been for the ever-present shadow of Dr. Ives's eventual return looming over them, he would have described this time as almost carefree.

And if anyone took notice of the fact that Brynn had started spending every night in his chambers, they had enough sense not to mention it.

How they occupied their days was of little consequence. Her knife-throwing lessons resumed in earnest, and although the first time Brynn successfully hit the target did not culminate in a kiss as Loki had once fantasized, she did throw herself into his arms with a gleeful whoop of triumph, both of them laughing as he spun her around in celebration.

She took up her old habit of prowling the Helicarrier, her efforts beautifully enhanced now that she was equipped with both an invisibility bracelet and sorcerer on-call. Thanks to her brainchild and Loki's magic, Fury spent the morning shift wearing a rhinestone encrusted eye patch, an accessory that he failed to notice until returning to his recently-fumigated office, where he then discovered that his antihistamines had been transformed into Viagra.

Loki marked Brynn's first full week of being seizure-free with an impromptu fireworks show off the top of the Helicarrier's Air Traffic Control nest – for while it was true that all aboard were at the mercy of SHIELD's 360-degree infrared cameras, cold-blooded reptiles were not, especially one small dragon in possession of opposable thumbs and a modest supply of pyrotechnics.

Most evenings found them in his chambers, sharing the tablet and watching a movie, other nights playing cards, or sometimes indulging in what Brynn coined 'Loki Coasters.' He had been thrilled to learn that she was as much a 'speed junkie' as he, and after sharing her memories of various amusement parks, Loki was able to design his own Seidr-fueled virtual reality rides that left both of them giddy and high on adrenaline.

He noticed she was spending more and more time running. He finally thought to sneak a look at her watch one evening when she was in the shower and discovered that the distance she ran each day was slowly trending up. It took him a few moments for his mind to make a connection, but he soon recalled the comment Brynn had made weeks earlier:

He was after me for years about trying to train for a marathon, and I'd always tell him he was insane – that the human body isn't mean to run that far, and that's why cars were invented.

Loki met her outside the following afternoon dressed in athletic shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt.

"How many miles are in a marathon?" he asked as Brynn openly gawked at him.

She bit her lip, then murmured, "Twenty-six-point-two."

"Let's go, then," he said simply.

It seemed to be an unspoken rule for them both to not acknowledge whatever it was that continued to build between them. Loki was growing bolder by the day in showing his affections, usually in the form of lingering hugs or quick caresses here and there – and while Brynn was perfectly willing to accept these overtures, she never reciprocated beyond giving him the occasional embrace.

There were missteps.

His attempt to surprise her with the long-forgotten satchel he had absconded from her apartment the day they first met had disastrous results. Brynn immediately dug through its contents to withdraw the laptop; after plugging it in, she turned it on and went straight to a file saved on the desktop.

A black-and-white ultrasound picture appeared, showing the profile of a baby. Loki left her staring the screen to quietly step out to the washroom and vomit, and then returned a few minutes later to find she had already shut down the laptop and was balled up on the chair, soundlessly sobbing.

But amidst the missteps were also glimmers of promise.

Brynn tended to latch onto him like a magnet at night, and while it was not unlike being bedfellows with a limpet, Loki welcomed the close contact. He developed the habit of absently playing with her wedding ring as they were falling asleep together, usually spooned beneath the blankets, Loki curled around her from behind with one arm draped over her waist, holding her hand while his thumb idly twisted the broad band of gold back and forth on her finger.

The ring was intimately associated with Sammy. Yet Loki now felt an odd sense of comfort knowing she had been loved so well by the man who had come before him, who had fallen so rapidly in love that he started setting aside funds to buy Brynn a wedding band only days after meeting her – a secret he did not own up to until many years later.

"We were both in so much debt from student loans that I gave him a plastic spider ring as a joke the night before our wedding," Brynn mused when she was relaying the story to Loki one afternoon. They were sitting on his bed, learning to play Cards Against Humanity. "I knew we couldn't afford wedding rings. And then the next day I find out he not only had bought me a ring, he had gotten it from Tiffany's. Tiffany's!"

Brynn's eyes dropped down to her left hand and she let out a watery laugh as she remembered.

"I've never taken it off," she added, "Not once, not even in the hospital. A nurse told me afterwards that I came out of the coma long enough to throw a fit when they tried to take it off me."

Her voice had grown distant, her mind having drifted to that faraway place it occasionally wandered – a place where Loki was slowly learning to accept he could not accompany her.

"Tore out my ventilator tube and everything," she continued softly, "They finally just gave up and taped it to my finger."

The poignant pride in Brynn's words did not escape him – that even being near-death could not overpower her loyalty to Sammy.

Hence his heart-stopping shock later that evening when they were lying in bed. He reached for her hand, as usual; his thumb drifted across her ring finger, and instead of the sensation of smooth metal, he touched only skin.

Brynn – understanding why Loki had gone rigid behind her – grasped his wrist and brought his hand to her chest, pressing his palm flat over her heart. She said nothing, but her silence conveyed far more than words ever could.

It was that night that a fierce but terrible hope began to bloom in Loki's heart.

A few days before Ives's scheduled arrival, Loki came up behind Brynn one morning as she was about to leave for a run and gave her a hug. He had not intended to linger but she fairly melted into him with a quiet sigh, her sneakers forgotten on the floor, and without thinking, he lowered his head to kiss to the underside of her jaw.

Her breath caught.

His heart stuttered.

Treading with care – convinced she might flee at any moment – Loki drifted down and pressed another lingering kiss into the curve of her neck.

Brynn leaned her head back towards his, nuzzling his cheek, and then automatically tilted her head to her opposite shoulder as Loki went to attend the other side of her neck, this time with soft, barely open-mouthed kisses.

His ears were beginning to roar as he grasped Brynn's shoulders and turned her around to face him – and his mouth went dry when she gave him a hesitant smile and murmured, "I didn't tell you to stop."

Eyes locked with hers and heart pounding faster with every passing second, Loki guided her a few steps back until they reached the bed. Slowly he helped her lie upon the blankets, following her down on his hands and knees as she pushed herself back towards the pillows.

"I will be as gentle as I can," Loki told her, bracing himself above her with both arms, "But I am fearful of…getting carried away."

She looked up at him in puzzlement. "What's wrong with getting carried away?"

Loki grimaced, remembering the times he had inadvertently bruised her in the past.

"I am much, much stronger than you, liten vannfe," he reminded her quietly.

Realization dawned on Brynn's face.

"I'll tell you," she promised. She reached up her hand and hesitantly traced the line of his jaw with her fingertips, and his eyes drifted closed as she added, "I trust you…and I don't think you could hurt me even if you tried."

The words, "Min frelser," fell from his lips in an absent mutter when he heard these words.

What a marvel this woman was. This fragile, damaged mortal, whose courage outstripped the fiercest Valkyrie when she had held him in his Jotunn form, and whose compassion allowed her to still see the man beneath the beast. The blinding light of a potential future with her far eclipsed the horrors of his past, flooding his soul with hope that perhaps redemption was possible, even for one such as he.

"Loki?" He felt her thumb sweep up and down his cheek. "What's wrong?"

Lids still shut, he smiled with a small shake of his head before opening his eyes.

"Nothing, kjærlighet," he assured her, "Nothing is wrong. For the first time in more years than I care to count, everything seems to be right. And it is all thanks to you – min lille dronning."

"Are you ever going to tell me what all these nicknames mean?" Brynn wondered aloud, letting her hand drop away.

They both had been speaking in hushed tones all this time, but Loki's voice grew husky as he leaned close and feathered his nose and mouth against her cheek.

"My salvation," he answered her softly in her ear. She pulled back with a startled exhale, but he gave her little time to process this revelation and continued on with his murmurings. "My love," he tenderly tucked her hair back and kissed her temple, and then moved to kiss the velvety spot of skin behind the base of her ear, "My little queen."

Brynn released a longing sigh as Loki allowed his lips to briefly ghost across hers over hers, following it up with a grumbled whine of frustration when he did not linger.

Shifting his weight, he eased onto his side, peppering kisses along her collarbone as he continued, "My water fairy," there was an edge to his words now, filled with promise of what was yet to come, "Mine," he finished hungrily, "always, always mine."

Using Brynn's running shorts to his advantage, Loki reached down and firmly swept his hand along her bare skin from her knee all the way up to her hip, deliberately spread his fingers wide to ensure his thumb dragged along the inside of her thigh. He did not stop when he reached the apex of her legs, and tucked the lone digit beneath the fabric of her shorts and into her underclothes.

Brynn's fingers digging into shoulders told him he was correctly reading her cues, yet he still felt a rush of shock when his thumb slipped between her folds and was met with slick, velvety warmth. He exhaled sharply; she was wet, so exquisitely coated that all intentions Loki had of making their first encounter careful and slow promptly flew right out of his head.

The tenderness in his eyes warmed to smoldering heat, and a knowing smile came over his face as he leaned back to look at her.

"Why, darling," he chuckled wickedly, "And to think all this time I've been the one concerned about getting carried away," and then gave an experimental stroke with his thumb before she could reply.

Brynn shuddered, twisting and pressing her face half-into the pillow. Stubborn pride was driving her to internalize her body's wanton responses to his touch, and the fire in Loki's eyes ignited further, his blood thrilling to the challenge of making her come entirely undone beneath his hands – and growing rock-hard at the mere thought of what the experience would entail.

"I thought you said you were capable of controlling your baser instincts," Brynn panted when she was able to speak again. She turned her head back to face him but then gulped; he had leaned in so close they were almost nose-to-nose.

"I am more than capable, my dear," his voice dropped to a low rumble, "but allow me to warn you that those instincts are very, very base. Shall I demonstrate?"

Brynn's casual half-shrug stood in direct contradiction to the yearning Loki saw in her eyes. "Sure," she gasped.

This single breathless utterance ended in a quivering moan as he found her most sensitive spot and began gliding the pad of his thumb against the swollen bundle of nerves. Changing speed and pressure based upon the shallowness of Brynn's breathing, he alternated between lazy circles and long, vertical strokes, flexing his knuckle as he went to create additional surges of friction.

Try as he might to lead with his brain and not his cock, however, the increasing slipperiness between his fingers, combined with the sound of her helpless panting soon meant Loki was in danger of becoming entirely undone himself. He was so engorged that not even plate armor could have concealed his erection.

Steeling himself, Loki drew upon centuries' worth of self-discipline and stalwartly re-donned his role as calm and collected seductor.

He ducked his head and used his teeth to tug down the neckline of Brynn's shirt, exposing her left breast, and then began to leisurely suckle his way along the silken curves.

"More?" he lightly inquired, pausing.

Her reply was a groaned curse of pleasure.

Chuckling darkly, Loki changed the angle of his hand and thumb and then began attending her left side – and grinned outright as she cursed a second time.

When he noticed she had started to fist the sheets, Loki dragged his lips back up along her breast and neck and withdrew his hand from beneath her clothes, pushing back up on his forearm to admire the mouth-watering result of his efforts.

Brynn looked up at him in a daze, flushed and speechless, her top deliciously askew, and her breathing grew ragged as he moved to settle himself between her thighs. He was unable to repress the sharp hiss that escaped from him when his aching shaft – by now swollen, heavy and leaking inside his trousers – came to rest snugly against her, but he quickly recovered and reached back, hooking her knee over his elbow.

"I am going to ravish you," Loki informed her as he, "I am going to ruin you," he gave a slow thrust of his hips, grinding his length into her, "I am going to put you through such sweet agony that you will beg me for your release. But until I hear you screaming my name," he thrust his hips again, harder, "until I see you writhing beneath me," the word 'writhing' was uttered in a strained grunt, and he drove against her one last time, "only then will I give you relief."

She stared up at him, open-mouthed and wild-eyed.

"You – talk – too much," she panted.

Loki's smile was sin in its purest form, and he dipped his head to nip her lower lip.

"You belong in my bed, Brynn Nolan," he whispered against her mouth, "and by the end of this night, you shall never want to leave it."

A tremor went through her the moment he uttered these words, and he felt every muscle in her body go rigid beneath him. Loki froze and drew back, alarm dampening the heat of his lust when he saw her eyes were welling with tears. She did not look away but said nothing, and started to tremble the longer he studied her face.

Understanding came into his eyes. "Too much?"

Brynn gave a tiny nod. Loki immediately went to release her, but she shook her head and clasped his cheeks between her hands.

"I don't want you to stop," she choked. Her fingers curled into his hair and held fast, "It just got to be too much, for a second. I…I'm okay now."

His face softened. She was clearly responsive to being roughly handled, but it was still too soon.

Slow, he reminded himself.

Loki gently disentangled himself from her grip and straightened to kneel back on his heels as Brynn tugged her shirt back into place. Clasping her hands in both of his, he pressed a kiss to each of her palms, subtly resetting the impassioned atmosphere by keeping his every move slow and relaxed. He drew her left arm around his waist, and then interlaced the fingers on her other hand with his own before he eased back down to her once more.

"You realize the problem with this," Loki murmured teasingly as he continued to close the gap between them.

"What?" Her voice almost inaudible.

"We shall have to do it all over again," he lips lightly brushed against hers, "with our clothes off."

He had just started to kiss her when Brynn gasped, "I can't! I'm sorry, I'm sorry – "

Loki instantly rolled off and away from her. They lay alongside one another for a few seconds, both gasping for breath, until she whimpered and balled up on her side opposite him.

"It's all right," he rasped, but he was so erect that it was physically painful. His mind and body had been several steps of the game, already anticipating the sensation of sheathing himself deep within her for the first time and then taking her slowly, deliberately, until they both were no longer able stand such a languid pace and –

"It's all right," Loki dizzily repeated.

Brynn had sat up and was sitting with her face buried in her hands. He took another ragged breath and pulled her down to him in a one-armed hug.

"It's all right," he told her a third time. He was actually starting to mean it now.

"This is just all so fucking complicated," he heard her moan into his shoulder.

"I like complicated," Loki insisted.

Brynn let out a derisive laugh and lifted her head to look at him.

"No, I mean really, really complicated." She took a deep breath and explained, "Loki, Sammy and I were together from the time we were fifteen. There's never been anyone else but him."

An awkward moment of silence elapsed before Loki realized he had been staring.

"….Oh," was the only response he could think to muster.

"I know," Brynn muttered. "I'm a widow who's only ever slept with the same man, and then I meet you, Mr. Twelve Hundred Years of Dalliances. Like I said: complicated." She miserably pressed her face into his neck, mortified.

Concealing his amusement, Loki kissed the top of her head. "You know my heart, liten vannfe," he said into her hair, and then drew back. "And contrary to whatever misconceptions you persist in clinging to, I am a patient man."

"Yeah, well," her eyes flicked back up to him, "what if you stumble into one of your immortal fuck buddies in the meantime?"

He knew she was speaking in jest but her words felt like an icy slap to the face all the same. "Don't be a fool," he told her seriously.

"I am a fool," she cried. Brynn shoved herself away from him to sit up again, "I'm a fool and I'm scared and right now all I want is for you to rip my clothes off and let you keep doing what you were doing – all of it! I want everything! I want you do whatever you want to me! But," her voice broke, "then all I can think of is Sammy and –"

"And that is why I am going to ensure that you keep your clothes on," Loki interrupted her. As if to demonstrate this point, he reached forward and began fussing with her shirt, which hung over-stretched around her shoulders as a result of his earlier attentions.

"Were you a monk in a previous life or something?" she asked skeptically when he finished readjusting her top.

Loki replied with a polite cough and took a deliberate-down-and-up glance at the enormous bulge at his crotch. She followed his gaze, balked, and then fought to keep a straight face when he gave her a wink.

"I can say with utmost certainty that I have never been a man of the cloth, in previous lives or otherwise," he smiled, "But when you are as old as I, a – what's the phrase? A dry spell has a somewhat different meaning."

Brynn perked up, cat-like. "How long of a dry spell are we talking about?"

She was all curiosity now, her embarrassment forgotten, and began to protest in earnest when Loki ignored her demands to elaborate and rose from the bed.

"Just throw out a number!" she said, exasperated by his reticence to confess. "I know you said there were a lot but, like, what are we talking? Double digits? Triple digits?"

Loki looked away, but not in time to avoid seeing the humor alight in Brynn's eyes falter.

"I don't want to know the answer to this question, do I?" he heard her mumble behind him.

In truth, he had lost track of the number early on in his youth, as it had not taken long for his idealistic view of love to be shattered. The few to whom he chose to open his heart either saw him as second rate or a stepping stone to Thor, and after finally accepting this painful reality, every woman to grace his bed since were encounters borne solely of physical need and loneliness – and, thanks to the fact his prowess was such that none ever left unsatisfied, he was never in lack of a partner.

Brynn was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap and face downcast when Loki turned back around. He came to stand before her, cupping her chin in his palm when she refused to look up, but her gloomy expression changed to puzzlement as she watched him sink to his knees and gather her hands in his.

"Hear this and listen well, Sabrina Mae," he said, looking up at her intently. "Age is no measure of experience, and certainly not in matters of the heart. I have lived many your lifetimes, but in all those years, amidst all those dalliances…" He saw her lips press into an unbidden smile, and his face grew boyish, such was his earnestness to reassure her as he finished, "None have I longed for as much as I do you."

Brynn's gaze drifted down to their hands, still unconvinced.

Loki gave her fingers a quick squeeze. "Do you trust me?"

Her eyes shot back up to his. "Of course I do."

"Then trust my patience," he said simply. "Of all the things for you to concern yourself with in the coming days, this should not be one of them. I will be faithful to you, always."

Her chin started to tremble when he told her this; Loki gently tugged her down from the bed and brought her onto his lap, but he was not certain she had truly taken his words to heart until she wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could and whispered, "Me, too."

AN 2: This is not some Twilight thing where they have to wait for the sacred bonds of matrimony to do the deed. There's purpose in dragging it out.

I mean, other than fucking around with you guys. Which I'm doing. Because I am a horrible person.

In all seriousness, as I've written Brynn, at this point she's still not capable of that level of intimacy. Those who have been paying attention may notice that aside from one or two instances when she's feeling particularly bold, she has yet to truly reciprocate any of Loki's advances.

HOWEVER. How smutty do you want Sucker's Luck to get? My original intent was to keep things fairly vanilla, but that can be...tweaked...if folks indicate otherwise.

As always – massive amounts of thanks and appreciation (truly) to everyone who has followed, favorited and commented, and also apologies to my mom in case she read this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯