**Yay, lots of reviews! Thank you! I've been wrestling with this chapter, because, damn, that was a lot that sprung out of Pandora's box last chapter, and Jane and Loki haven't dealt with the fallout yet. So this chapter is entirely about them. Consider yourselves the proverbial fly on the wall. Let me know what you think!**
When they reached their chamber, Loki let go of her waist and instantly headed for the bathroom. Jane followed her husband, certain that he needed her presence if not her words. She was surprised to watch him unbuckle his armor manually, setting each piece aside carefully in a pattern that only made sense to him, she suspected.
"Let me help you," Jane said, her fingers more adept at the smaller buckles holding the armor at the top of his shoulders. It was impossible to see them normally—Jane suspected they were designed to disappear when all the pieces were present. She didn't look at his face yet, just focused on the task at hand. The piece came off, and she pulled it away gently, looking at her husband's face as she did so. "You're tired."
"Yes," Loki replied as he studied her, traces of regard, melancholy, and reserve in his dark green eyes. "I have no words to offer, wife. I think it best if you just ask me what you wish to know."
Jane left him to fetch a cloth, wet it at the spout before she came back in front of him. "You have blood on your forehead," she said by way of explanation, dabbing at it gently. "I hope it is not your own."
Loki grabbed her arm gently, stopping her ministration. "I was not hurt, Jane. You have no cause for concern on that score." He released her hand, and she returned to cleaning his face.
"Well, that's something I guess, Loki." She felt unequal to the weight of the conversation they had to have, tried to shift back to more familiar quibbling. She knew from the look in his eyes that he recognized her tactic, and that it would not work.
"I know you cannot say half of what you wish to say, Jane," Loki removed the last piece of his armor and put it in place, then stretched his neck. "I would prefer it if you would swear at me, call me a bastard, and/or pound your fists on my chest. It would be better, and less painful, I think."
"And yet, I know it would be strangely more awkward than this," Jane observed, lifting his hand to wipe at the blood staining his cuffs. It would not come off. Apparently, bloodstains were permanent even on Asgardian cloth. She darted her eyes to his, the hurt visible in their caramel depths before she turned her attention to his neck, gently blotting with the cool washcloth. "If we haven't hit the rock bottom of your depths, I'd rather know it right now," she admitted shakily.
His hand finally moved, cupping her cheek and pulling her into him, her face fitting into his neck, the hand holding the cloth pressed against his shoulder, the wet soaking through his shirt. It did not matter. "I cannot say that. I wish I could say so, but some things have been buried so deeply that I myself am not sure what they are anymore."
His words were soft, regret lacing them. She did not want to dwell on the coppery scent of the blood on him, mixed in with the sweat that she was used to from the physicality of his duels. By dint of his experience, Odin hardly ever moved, but Loki was constantly moving when he battled someone. It was just another part of his nature.
"It is different to see it." It was a hopelessly inadequate start, but it was all she could say.
"It is. It is different again to live it."
"I want to know why. It's the one question that keeps the images replaying, and I am not sure that you can even give me an answer. I just…" she stopped, allowing herself the small comfort of her fingers petting him, feeling the wet shirt, the warmth of his chest, the rise of his breath and thud of his heart. "…I want to hear it from you. Why Earth? Why so brutal? What did you need?"
"You sound like a Healer," his breath kissed her forehead. "That's not a compliment, for the record. As to your questions, brutality is nearly the only thing that Midgardians universally respond to. Before you stiffen and pull away, consider how long we have watched your realm. Your history as a species is filled with brutality. Your most successful rulers were ruthlessly brutal. Diplomacy and negotiation—these are recent developments on a large scale for your race, and even those are littered with failures and broken agreements. And it is a waste. Then Thor was exiled there, and he found something laudable amidst the waste. I was jealous of that, and how casually he left it behind. I wanted to refine it, to be responsible for clearing the detritus of your civilization and allowing it to grow and flourish."
"By razing everything to the ground? That is hardly development, Loki."
"I don't pretend that I didn't want revenge on you specifically, and humanity in general. How dare you take my arrogant brother and turn him into someone worthy of a throne? But even with the relentless damage from Thanos, I still thought I could do something with your planet. Brutally at first, yes, but it is how you achieve new beginnings. Granted, not all beginnings are that brutal, but they are often the most effective."
"Your methodology is sorely lacking." Her voice was flat, and Loki knew that meant she was angry with him. Good. It was better than shock, or studied indifference.
"And how many civilizations have you nurtured? Your species is incapable of even learning the lessons of your history, let alone apply them consistently. That is the conclusion that is drawn from watching you for so long."
"Is there no progress that you've observed at all? I would have thought that the chaotic nature of human civilization would appeal to you more than frustrate you."
Loki paused to think about her words. "There are many reasons why I felt like conquering Midgard was an appropriate course of action." He stripped off his shirt and threw it to the floor, then looked at her. "I still have not fully determined exactly what those motives truly were. They were certainly not straightforward." Jane snorted, but he ignored her.
"But you are correct, I appreciate the disorder of humanity more than I did previously. It somehow makes Midgardians such as yourself more interesting specimens, because you are more rare." He parted her hair softly from her shoulder, his other hand resting lightly on her arm.
"Hmmm. I don't agree with that either, but then again, how many Midgardians have you bothered to get to know?" She felt his concession that this was a fair point, but their conversation had the makings of a philosophical discussion that could drag on for hours. Right now she felt like dinner could not come soon enough, and—"Loki, you stink. Please, have a bath!"
Loki's lips quirked a tiny bit in response to her order, but he did not step away from her. Jane took matters into her own hands, going to work on his pants.
"This could be interesting," he observed, amused. Only his wife would be so intent on bathing him after an attack on her.
"Turn on the taps," Jane ordered him, seeing that there were flecks of blood at his hairline. She wondered if assassins had this problem. She would have to ask Natasha the next time she saw her. Her thoughts were as aimless as the tumbleweeds that she had occasionally seen on the highway in New Mexico. Loki realized that she was distracted and decided to take pity on her.
"As my lady commands." He helped her get his pants off, then crossed to the giant, spa-like bath and exhaled loudly as he entered the water.
"Here." Jane thrust soap and a washcloth at him, causing Loki to look at her with a bit of a glint in his eye. She ignored it and poured an entire pitcher of water slowly over his head as he reclined, her fingertips slowly rubbing out the blood at his hairline.
"I owe you an apology." Jane spoke slowly, focusing on Loki's hair instead of his eyes, which flew open at her words. "You tried to tell me, and I didn't listen to you…about your perspective."
Loki sighed. "It is of little matter to me, Jane. If I learned nothing else from observing similar bonds over the years, it is that I could not hide anything from my mate, if such an event befell me. I think it is less hurtful to share my secrets with you as opposed to an Aesir, steeped in my history from birth."
Jane's hands paused. "Frigga said the same thing to me. She reminded me that I had no context in which to place you." She looked at him, his upside down face an apt metaphor for today. She felt like all of her conclusions about his past had been reshuffled again. "I don't like feeling incompetent and naïve, but I suspect I am going to feel that way for a long, long time. I hope you don't expect me to dance the Macarena to celebrate that, or just blindly accept all the things I saw with a blanket 'I just didn't understand the circumstances' philosophy."
Loki grabbed her wrist and pulled her around the side of the tub so he could look at her fully. "If you had done so, I would have killed you myself," he growled. "It is a sign of a weak mind to accept things without questioning. Such a mate would be an eternal weakness to me. Better to impose pain on myself than to be stuck with such."
Intellectually anyone other than Jane would have considered this to be a threat, but she understood that he was paying her a compliment in a backhanded and twisted way. He was also exhausted, so she was getting the "raw" Loki without the benefit of his charm. It did not frighten her as it would have three months ago. His grip on her wrist loosened by the tiniest of margins, and he continued in a low tone, his voice modulating again to a pleasant cadence. "You are far from incompetent, Jane. Farther than I have ever seen in a Midgardian. Do not denigrate yourself to me. You tolerate far more than most women. I—" he had to grit his teeth, an expression of almost comical pain on his face, "—appreciate your honesty."
Jane couldn't help herself, and laughed. The irony was just too rich to fail to appreciate it, however unwise it was to do so. Loki responded as she knew he would, pulling on her wrist quickly and deftly flipping her into the bath with him, her long dress instantly soaking up twenty pounds of water.
"I can't believe you did that," Jane said, sputtering from the mouthful of water and pushing her sopping wet hair back from her face.
"You knew full well I was going to do that, and you chose to laugh anyway," he replied silkily, feeling better from behaving more in keeping with his nature. The warm resurgence of some energy from the close contact with his mate helped as well. He turned her so she was sprawled across his chest, never relinquishing his hold on her. "You are overdressed for the bath."
"It was supposed to be your bath, remember?" Nonetheless she made no protest when he removed her dress the old-fashioned way. She noticed it was dry when it hit the floor, however.
"That was never my intention," he said, placing his very talented mouth on her collarbone. There were other effects from the aftermath of a battle, and he intended to see to them. As always, her warm skin relaxed and distracted his mind, the vibrating hum of his pleasure receiving its equal response from Jane.
"You're exhausted," Jane observed audibly, both from the tiny lines around his eyes and the gentleness of his kisses. Her eyes had softened and were more relaxed. She was rubbing at his neck now, the washcloth slipping in a pleasant way down toward his chest.
"Not that exhausted." She didn't need to see his face to know he smiled against her neck. He really did love her mark, spending a lot of time there.
"So I see," she pulled up, settling herself more comfortably against him. "I have more questions…for later."
I expect nothing less. He didn't know if it was spoken aloud or not, but she tilted her head slightly for him, her body shifting beneath the water in a delicious manner. The message had been received.
Jane expelled a big breath, focused on their bond. Loki could feel it, something strange sliding and twirling along it…he looked down at his wife. "Jane?"
"Shhhhh," she hummed, smoothing, smoothing without knowing how she was doing so. She only knew it was necessary, and right. If this was their filter, she had to help shape it, infuse it with her personality, her ethics, her morals. He would feel her conscious influence in how it finalized and matured, the loose strands and irregular threads tying themselves and smoothing into the unbroken bond. She was intent on finishing it, her eyes closed, holding tightly to him physically. She perceived a new layer of silken threads knitting themselves around her, something that he had started in response to her. After a few skips, she felt herself pulled into his mind. It was like hovering above a fathomless, dark and yet clear lake, with the blurred outlines of objects far below the surface, closer thoughts and memories, both dark and light, having more crispness as they neared the surface. It was complex and multifaceted, information being tracked and sent purposefully all over, an ordered…chaos. Slowly, slowly, he pulled himself back, leaving her lips half fallen open, the 'o' of surprise on her mouth.
"You have truly seen me, wife. As clearly as I see myself. It is all I can give you." He didn't have to say that it was not an apology, that he could no more apologize for the events and choices that shaped him than he could apologize for the breath of the wind, be it in hurricane or zephyr.
"Why did you show me?" Jane grabbed his face in both of her hands, looking closely at him.
"Context." Loki's succinct one word reply was all that needed to be said.
"My mind must seem tame by comparison," Jane said quietly, closing her eyes. She smiled a bit when she felt his response to that.
"Why did you do that to the bond?" His words were quiet, but they sent ripples deep and long through the now placid lake of his thoughts. He tightened his hold on her instinctively. She was precious.
She met his eyes, her own a smooth, calm caramel. "Because it needed to be done. We both needed to make a commitment voluntarily. You made yours long ago. It was the right thing to do right now."
He cocked his head slightly as he studied her, focused entirely on her. "You knew what to do. You, with the barest wisp of magic, did it all instinctively." The compliment paid by his eyes was the better one—respect.
"If I did not have a part to play between us, I would not have been able to do so. It was what I was supposed to do, from the start. I didn't understand how it worked." Jane held him tight, tears slipping unbidden from her eyes. Finally it was starting to make sense, the small ownership of her own magic giving her entry to how Loki's magic shaped his perspective. She understood him more, and he was giving her what she needed, when she needed it, to move their marriage along. They would be okay.
"Jane, you will not always be mortal. I spoke to Odin…he wants things to settle a bit more concerning Thanos. It will provide more perspective, I think, when your mind realizes it is not limited by time." Loki felt far more peaceful than he had felt in a very long, long time. It was a relief to have had the first bitter taste of horror flowing away from them. Previously he had just been waiting for it, as it would have inevitably come. He did not let Jane know of his own agonies while she was wrestling with it, apart from him. Frigga had had her own talk with him, and with the unerring knowledge of all mothers everywhere she had flayed him with her tongue while simultaneously supporting him.
"I can't think about that right now." Her mind was too full, too many thoughts and processes spinning around.
"I understand. I just wanted to tell you." He felt her shiver. So fragile, to be torn so between two worlds and very different existences. "Are you hungry? I need sleep."
Such a simple admission reinforced her earlier assessment about his exhaustion. "Yes."
"Pardon my haste, love," Loki said, moving them swiftly from bath to bed, all of the water siphoned away by a brief scouring current of air, warm sheets and a plate of nibbles waiting. Jane started eating, still spread out on top of Loki. He was asleep before she got to the second bite.
"You weren't kidding." She kissed his lips quickly, and returned to the savory crackers and cheese. It was filling. She fell asleep herself as soon as her stomach was satisfied, her arm knocking the plate to the floor. They were dead to the world.