RATING: T
GENRE: Canon Divergence AU, Drama, Dark, Dark Loki
SUMMARY: He holds her prisoner, but she's discovered how to thwart him.

LETTING GO

It's not about him.

She's not sure how she's come to this revelation, but as she studies the smirk that twists his mouth—at odds with the glassy pain in his eyes—she comprehends this plain truth: it's not about what he's done and what he's still capable of doing. It's about her.

"I forgive you." Anger and hatred bleed from her with that simple statement. Emotions which have had their own black heart in her chest, beating poison through her veins. She feels lighter, freer.

He sneers at her. "I don't need your forgiveness, mortal."

She smiles. Because he doesn't understand. She needed it. She needed to disentangle herself from the web of deceit and violence he's spun around her, around those she loves. In forgiving him, she's no longer his victim.

She's taken away his power over her.

"I forgive you," she repeats, reveling in the sweet taste of these three words. They strip him of the veil of power-mad god. She now sees a broken little boy and a new feeling thrums beneath her skin. Pity. Sympathy. Empathy. This is why Thor has loved his brother in spite of Loki's attempts on his life. This is why Frigga never turned her back on the black prince of Asgard.

"I forgive you," she says again.

"Enough!" Loki slams Gungnir against the gilded dais, rises from the throne. He descends the steps with a menacing gait until he's standing over her. "I don't want it."

"Sometimes you get what you don't want, Loki," she returns. Not an invective. Merely a point of fact. One listed among the things he's given her that she never wanted: the glories of the Realm Eternal, when she was satisfied with the meagerness of Earth; a crown to rule at his side, when she preferred her makeshift research lab in New Mexico; his relentless obsession with possessing everything Thor once had—including her.

The muscles in his jaw flex, just briefly before he trains his expression to that of playful trickster diety. "Perhaps," he says. "But I also get what I do want in the end, Jane. Always." His long fingers trace a line from her chin to the bend in her jaw, and she shudders at his touch. Equal parts revulsion and the unwelcome tendrils of desire—the former because of the latter.

"Come to me tonight," he murmurs. "Surrender to me, once and for all."

She closes her eyes for a breath before looking up at him with a gaze infused with steel. "I still don't love you."

He bares his teeth in growling rage and withdraws his hand. "You will," he threatens. "You will love me more than you ever loved him. Even if it takes a thousand years."

He grabs her arm and, with long strides, hauls her out of the throne room. Out of the palace. Toward the gardens where Idunn's tree grows and bears the fruit of immortality.

Something else she never wanted.

She'll have to forgive him this, too.

~FIN~

A/N: Thank you so much for reading this dark little ficlet. If you care to share your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!