A/N: This is another repost of an old fic. I know I wrote this as an answer to a challenge. I'm trying to remember if it was my very first Lokane story, though. It might have been.
TO DROP A QUESTION ON HER PLATE
"I wonder," Professor Laufeyson says casually as he leans over Jane at the computer terminal, "how it is you've come to date Odinson?"
The unexpected question catches her off-guard and she doesn't know how to respond. He hasn't been very conversational with her in the months since they've begun to work together on her thesis, and what dialogue they've shared has never been personal. Despite the rather notorious reputation of Professor Laufeyson—a darkly handsome and enigmatic man who apparently thinks rules are suggestions to be ignored—he's been nothing but the model of decorum with her. Jane's only other experience with the professor was last year when she took one of his classes: Science of Dark Energy. She sat in the back of the hall and tried not to develop a school girl crush on him as he lectured in a deep, crisp British accent. She failed miserably in that endeavor.
Even now, she ignores his sharp masculine scent as he hovers over her shoulder. What was it he asked again? Something about Thor.
"No," he says before she can formulate a response. She is momentarily confused until he places his long, slender fingers over hers and redirects the mouse in her hand. His skin is cool and dry, smooth without callouses. Unlike Thor.
"The Hubble images you'll want to study are here," he continues, pressing her finger to click open the files. "You haven't answered my question."
A blush creeps over Jane's cheeks and she turns slightly to hide it. How had he even known she was seeing Thor? Why should it be of any interest to him? If Darcy were here, she would have some kind of snarky comeback. Jane, on the other hand, is at a loss.
"I..I don't know," she answers with a nervous laugh and instantly chides herself for being silly. His hand is still over hers and she finds it incredibly distracting.
The professor makes a derisive noise, his breath stirring her hair. "Oh, come now, Miss Foster," he says with the barest hint of mockery, "as a student of the sciences—a doctorate candidate, no less—surely you've analyzed your relationship with Mr. Odinson ad nauseum."
Jane's blush deepens at being so transparent. He's right. She has looked at her relationship with Thor, examining it from every angle like it held the secrets of the universe. She's given the professor an honest answer, though; she isn't quite sure how she came to be the girlfriend of the university's star quarterback.
Jane is not as old as other graduate students. She began her collegiate career at the tender age of sixteen, being a mathematic savant and all-around genius level teenager. In her third and final year of undergrad work, she moved out of her parents' home and into the dorms, finally old enough to have the full college experience. There she met Darcy Lewis, a quirky sarcastic girl who knew all the right parties. They quickly became best friends.
Two years later, the right party just happened to be where Thor Odinson, charismatic frat boy and football star, had laid eyes on Jane. A drunken make-out session later, she discovered that Thor was far more honorable than his supposed bad-boy reputation claimed him to be. For him, a kiss was a symbol of more serious intentions. Jane hadn't minded then.
But now…
But now, nothing. She chases away the old doubts before they can form into a damning conclusion.
Professor Laufeyson is still waiting for her answer, still leaning entirely too close for decency, still resting his fingers on hers. Tension blossoms between them, electric like the air before a thunderstorm.
Jane sucks in a shuddering breath and tries to keep her tone light as she says, "I guess when the school's golden boy decides he wants to go out with you, it's pretty hard to say no." She shrugs, attempting nonchalance but suspecting she's coming off as stiff and uncomfortable as she feels.
"Mm. I suppose he can be…irresistible," the professor replies. "But I would have thought that a girl of your caliber wouldn't be as readily swayed by such empty charms."
Jane frowns. She's insulted—for both herself and Thor. "I'm not that naïve, thank you very much. And Thor's a good guy." She bites back a more scathing retort about people sticking their noses where they shouldn't.
Professor Laufeyson laughs and the sound vibrates across her skin. Why hasn't he moved his hand yet?
"Oh, I know he's every bit the gentleman," he says. "If history serves, however, you're not exactly my brother's type."
Jane's eyes widen. Brother? She swivels to face him and nearly bumps her nose with his. Too close. "You don't look anything alike," she blurts out. They don't sound alike either. Thor has a British accent—he moved to the States as a teenager—but Professor Laufeyson's inflections are more refined, more upper-crust.
He straightens with a sardonic grin. His fingers caress a line across the back of her hand, fanning tingles up her arm before he breaks contact. She unconsciously rubs at the goosebumps prickling her skin.
"It could be genetic diversity—I always believed so." His gaze never leaves her as he pulls off his jacket and drapes it over the desk next to her. "Or it could be the fact that I'm adopted."
Jane tastes the bitterness in his words but doesn't respond. Had Thor ever mentioned a brother? Yes, she remembers now. Only once when they doing the requisite "who's in your family" swap. The man before her is claiming to be Thor's sibling—his only brother, if she recalls correctly. Loki.
She studies him while so many questions spin in her mind. She has never considered the professor's age before; he's always had a worldly air about him—dressed in impeccable three piece suits, black hair slicked back with the barest of curls at the nape of his neck. His smiles bear a secret which one is only privy to after acquiring age and experience. And his eyes—his most striking feature—seem to carry unknown decades worth of living. Pain. Disappointments. Desire.
Jane's thoughts stutter on the last descriptor. The corners of his mouth turn up in a tiny grin, as if he knows the treacherous path her mind has begun to wander down and he's amused by it.
She redoubles her scrutiny of him, examines the slope of his nose, the line of his jaw. He's not nearly as old as she assumed he is. In fact—
"I'm the younger brother." He bears his teeth in a broad smile.
She oddly notices the dimple she and Darcy had written late night inebriated odes to. The expression is far from disarming—so unlike his brother's easy grins. Jane is reminded of a predator toying with his prey.
He loosens his tie, undoes the top button of his shirt. "Did you think you were the only prodigy to grace the halls of this campus?"
His question snaps Jane back to the moment. She does a quick calculation—recalling Thor's rueful expression when he admitted that he was two years older than his fellow students, thanks to being held back in grammar school. Twice. She has since learned that his repeated grade levels had less to do with his intelligence than with his inability to acclimate to the classroom environment. Holy terror does not come close to describing little Thor—at least, according to him.
He's a senior now, though it is his fifth year at the university. He'd been something called a "redshirt freshman"—some college football thing where he didn't play his first year (in his case, by choice—or rather his father's) and was, therefore, able to play the next four according to NCAA rules.
But even if Loki was only a year younger…
"You're tenured, though," she says, feeling a little like she just discovered that red had always been green.
He nods slowly, still wearing that unsettling grin. "I am." He offers no more than that. Tilting his head to the side, he lets his gaze roam the planes of her face, pausing briefly on her lips before traveling back to her eyes. "Do you love him?"
No. The swiftness of her response unsettles her and she swallows it down before it can slip out. Loki could tell Thor over Sunday dinner, and Jane suspects he would actually like to be the bearer of bad news. "Does he love me?"
Her question isn't sincere, merely a deflection, but her heart pounds against her ribcage all the same. Because what if Thor does love her? She has fun dating him, kissing him, sharing a bed with him—even if they have nothing in common. She hates football. He hates math and science. How long can she keep up the ruse if he loves her? All the way to the altar? She has the unwavering attentions of the man every girl would die for. Wouldn't she be a fool to let him go?
These are the thoughts she tries not to think, but they've begun to plague her more each day. She spends less time with Thor. His smile twists her gut when it used to make her a little giddy. He's a good man. He's a good man. She repeats a statement like a mantra every time they lie next to each other, panting, sweating. He's a good man.
"I don't think he can," Loki answers.
Jane blinks at him, momentarily disoriented. "What?"
He raises a brow, amusement replaced by a piercing intensity. "I don't think he can know you well enough to love you—not properly."
His words smash through the crumbling wall she's crafted out of rationalizations and compromises. She feels exposed and suddenly wants to be done with this conversation. She can't stand the way Loki's looking at her now—as if hecould know her well enough. As if he wants to—if not for love, then to prove he could make her entire being sing for him. She hates the traitorous part of her that wants him to try.
He grabs her hand and yanks her from the chair, forcing her nearly into him. He's so tall—as tall as Thor if significantly thinner. She glances away—down—and stares at the undone button at the bottom of his vest as her heart crashes painfully against her ribcage like a sledgehammer. He's going to do something, and she should stop him. She isn't entirely sure she can.
"My brother may soon fancy himself in love with you, though, erroneous as that affection may be," he says. "But you'll never reciprocate. End it, Miss Foster. Tonight." His tone carries all the weight of a command.
Anger flushes through her body—anger at him for daring to interfere, but more anger at herself for thinking, hoping, that his motives were something less than altruistic. She brings her eyes up to his, blinking away the tears of embarrassment. "Is that why you offered to be my adviser?" she asks, despising the tremor in her voice. "So you could vet your brother's girlfriend?"
His tongue drags across his bottom lip. "Yes—among other reasons."
Her tears fall freely as outrage makes her go numb. "So, what? I failed? I'm not good enough for the mighty Thor Odinson? Is he such a fool that he needs some lackey to filter the good from the bad? Am I not pretty enough? Dumb enough? Tall enough?" She is being irrational, but she can't stay the tide of invectives charging out of her mouth. "Or is this some scheme you two concocted to help Thor break up with me because he's too chickenshit to do it himself? I can't believe—"
"Enough!"
Jane's lungs constrict at the sneer contorting his lips, the unadulterated rage burning in his blue-green eyes. She takes a step backward and falls into the chair.
"Thor has always had everything. Everything!" Loki leans over her, caging her with his hands on the armrests. "Even the privilege of being born a proper Odinson. He's always had friends. He's always had dim-witted girls throwing themselves at his feet."
Jane flinches as if Loki slapped her. Dim-witted? Is that what he thinks of her? Does she care? Her chest aches. She can't breathe. But she dares not interrupt his tirade.
"He's the hero of this school. He'll go onto an illustrious career in professional sports," Loki bites out, his face twisted with disgust. "And when age or injury takes that from him, he will take over the family empire. So forgive me, Jane Foster, if I find it galling that he has this, too."
He stares down at her expectantly, searching for some reaction from her, and she doesn't know what the appropriate one is. She fumbles for some kind of response, though she's lost the thread of the conversation. "This?" It's the only word, the only question she can muster.
Loki flexes his jaw, bringing his chiseled features into sharper relief. "You," he hisses as if she ought to have understood. "I mean you. He doesn't deserve any of it—but most of all, he doesn't deserve you."
Jane reels from the confession. Just moments ago, she thought he was accusing her of being no good for his brother, but now the tables have inexplicably turned. "Why do you care? If you hate him so much."
He sags, blows out a puff of air like a deflating balloon. "I don't hate him. He is an arrogant fool whose shadow I can never hope to escape. No matter what accomplishments I accrue, he will always be the favored one." He's looking through her as he bares his pain in utter resignation.
"I'm sorry." The words sound flimsy to her ears and she wishes she could take them back.
His eyes come into focus again and every muscle in his body seems to go taut at once. "I don't need your pity." He draws himself up to his full height, a tactic very obviously meant to intimidate her. "End it, or I will find a way to end it for you."
Jane almost screams. The man somehow manages to have a one-track mind while being mercurial at the same time. "End it for me? What? You'll go to Thor and spew a bunch of lies about me?"
Surprise flutters across his features momentarily before he schools his expression back to haughty indignation. "Sadly, he believes your virtue to be infallible." He pulls her up again, though gentler this time. "Is it? Are you the paragon of fidelity, Jane?" The way he says her name, letting it roll languidly off his tongue as if tasting each letter, ignites a heat in her belly.
"Yes," she breathes, desperate to stifle the fire seeping lower, lower. "I won't hurt him. He's a good man."
"And I'm not?" His face is carefully blank.
She is suddenly overcome with the desire to tangle her fingers in his dark curls and kiss him until she forgets her name. Because in this moment she knows he is not the gallant brother. He won't hold back out of fear of hurting her. He won't be honorable; he won't care about her reputation. He'll do what he wants with her—use her to exact some sick revenge on the brother he hates that he loves. And she wants to let him because his brilliant mind, his darkness thrills her far more than Thor ever has.
This understanding shakes the very foundation of what she knows about herself. It churns her stomach even as lightening seems to crackle across her nerve endings. Never has she wanted a man more than she wants Loki. Never has she felt deeper guilt than she feels now.
"I won't hurt him," she repeats, unable to answer Loki's question with a lie—or with the truth. "Not like this. I'm not going to let you use me to hurt him."
He smiles as if she's said the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard. "Use you? Oh, my dear Jane. You are sorely mistaken."
Her cheeks burn with mortification. She's got this all wrong. He doesn't want her. Not that way. Oh, no. Oh, stupid, stupid Jane. She has to escape and find some rock to live under for the rest of her life. She's just accused a tenured professor of trying to have an affair with her.
Loki grabs her wrist and she realizes she has already begun to flee. "I'm not going to use you," he says, stepping closer to her. "I'm going to take you from him."
Everything inside of her short-circuits. She's barely aware of an object being pressed into her hand. She lifts it up and stares at it dumbly for several breaths before she recognizes her cell phone.
"End it now," Loki murmurs. "One way or another."
One way or another. He means for her to either break up with Thor or he will break Thor's trust in her—literally. And he can do it because no matter how horribly she's misread this entire affair—misread him—he's read her like an open book. Even if that book had been closed to her until now.
It takes her three tries to dial Thor, and as his ringback tone plays, she alternates between praying he won't answer and hoping he will.
"Jane!" His overly cheerful voice comes over the line and she wants to throw up. "It's been several days since I've heard from you. Have your studies truly been so encompassing?"
Yes, she wants to say. Yes, I've been busy. I haven't been ignoring you or been a hairsbreadth away from jumping your brother's bones just now.
Loki mouths a word. Hurry. He slips his fingers in the belt loops of her jeans in case he's not being clear enough. Before, his eyes only hinted of desire, like the afternoon sun peeking through the cracks of the blinds. Now he's drawn the blinds back and everything he plans to do to her—with her—is written on his handsome face. She nearly drops the phone.
"Jane?" Thor asks.
"Yeah." The word is too clipped, too hoarse. "Listen…" She pauses, trying to find the Right Words for this. "I'm a total chicken for doing this over the phone but—"
"You want to see other people?" Thor finishes for her. He's not surprised.
"Yes?" That wasn't supposed to be a question, but his easy acceptance throws her off-kilter.
"I sensed this coming for some time now," Thor says. He doesn't sound heartbroken and she nearly cries in relief. "In fact, my brother warned me that we might be too incompatible."
Jane goes rigid again. "He did?" She glances at Loki who smiles back at her unabashedly as if he knows exactly what Thor said.
"Yes," Thor answers. "He may be given to mischief sometimes—most times…" He trails off with a laugh. "He's very wise, though, my brother. When he deigns to be."
Or very manipulative, Jane thinks. She should be offended, but she's flattered that Loki has gone to such great lengths to orchestrate all of this. Because he wants her. Later she will ponder the implications, maybe question whether he really desires her or merely wants what Thor has. But for now, she chooses to believe this was all for her and only her.
"Shall we be friends then, Jane," Thor asks. She can hear the smile in his voice.
She looks at Loki again. Probably not. "I think we could use some time apart, don't you think?"
"Perhaps you're right." This is the first time in the conversation that he sounds disappointed and only mildly so. "Be well, Jane. I hope someday our paths will cross again."
Oh, they will. She doesn't look forward to that day. "Goodbye, Thor."
The line is dead for less than a second before Loki plucks the phone from her hand and sets it down. He leans against the desk, half sitting, his long legs open wide and stretching out on either side of her. She's taken back to last spring when she and Darcy were perusing the antique shops in old town. They came across Professor Laufeyson sipping tea and reading a novel in an outdoor café. When Jane pointed him out, the first words out of Darcy's mouth were "He sits like a whore." He glanced up when Jane let out an involuntary laugh and the girls ducked into the nearest store before collapsing in a fit of giggles.
Loki tugs at her shirt and the memory is forgotten as he pulls her into him with a triumphant grin. "You're mine now."
Any protest she might make—she should make—dies in her throat as his cool fingers find skin and begin to trace beneath the low waistband of her jeans. She sucks in a sharp breath at the sensation and feels she will float away in the growing heat. She reaches for him, any part of him, to anchor herself, and her hand grasps his tie. Feral hunger flashes in his eyes and it's the only warning she has before he attacks.
His kiss is not tentative, not a request like Thor's had been, but a demand that she subject herself to him. The hands which have slipped under her shirt rake over her flesh greedily. And even though the unrelenting inferno clouds her thoughts, Jane knows this is the moment. A fixed point in their budding relationship which will determine everything. If she treads carelessly ahead, caves to his whims, then she will never have the upper hand. She will never be his equal. She will always be his possession.
So she is the first to breach the barrier of his lips with her tongue. She is the first to grind her hips into his. She is the first to recklessly begin undressing him. The acts feel both natural and unnatural to her—as if she is two people trapped in a single body, warring over what is right and what she wants. The former is losing to the latter. Her thoughts narrow to a single desire: she wants to find out if he can make her entire being sing for him.
He does.
Afterward, she sits in his lap on the office chair they've defiled seven ways from Sunday. Her fingers are splayed against his bare chest, wondering at the coolness of his skin. Even in the throes of their battling passions, he was the ice to her fire. She glances up at him and smiles at his hair, wild curls making a black halo around his angular face. She likes this. She likes that she's undone the immaculate and collected Professor Laufeyson.
He returns her smile with a small one of his own. There are still secrets in that little upturn of his lips. He's never going to be as transparent to her as she has been to him, she realizes. The only unabridged honesty he'll give her will be when she's straddling his hips.
The mystery doesn't frighten her, though. It makes him all the more enticing.
~FIN~
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts! XD