"Why Earth?" Gwen asked him one evening, through a mouthful of greasy food. "If you hate us so much, why try and take over here?"
He watched Algernon scamper around the debris on the table and wondered what to say. "You could do so much better under my rule," he ended up telling her.
"If you say so, but that could apply anywhere. Why here?"
"Asgard was unavailable," he said coolly, and she raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him.
"You really don't strike me as the type to settle for second-best, posh boy. You can tell me," she assured him, "who else am I gonna blab to? And it's your turn to backstory, anyway."
She made a surprisingly compelling argument. "I never truly believed the plan to take over Midgard would work," he sighed, "if it did then that would hardly have been a bad thing, but it wasn't hard to guess what would happen if it didn't. I had spent years trying to claw myself back to Asgard… being taken there as prisoner seemed far easier."
"You expect me to believe you thought that far ahead?" she asked incredulously, "I know you're smart, but dude. That's not a plan."
"It was the most preferable of two back-up plans," he replied, "all I knew was I somehow had to gain the attention of my supposed brother in order to get home. And in the darkest corners of the universe, there are whispers of a…" not a man, he thought. "… of a creature capable of immense power."
"Thanos," she guessed, and he nodded.
"I was desperate enough to turn to the bastard's help, and for some reason I trusted him." He laughed bitterly. "He didn't believe I wouldn't double-cross him, all he saw was the spoiled prince of Asgard who had been spurned by his father."
"That makes two of us," grinned Gwen, and faltered as she saw his expression. "Right, not funny, sorry. Carry on."
"If there is one thing Thanos hates, it is impudence. I spoke out of turn and he punished me for it, with-" he shuddered as the memories returned- "with fire, endless fire. Never underestimate pain as motivation to get somebody to bend to your will, Gwen. And when he thought he had me broken, he gave me an army and a sceptre with the Mind Gem in its core."
"Huh?"
"It is what gave the sceptre the power to hypnotise. In its purest form it can also be used as a weapon, as can all the relics, but mind intervention is what gave it the name. They didn't trust my silver tongue, so they gave me that instead. Then they used the Tesseract to burn a hole through space-time, which was almost as unpleasant as the torture in the first place, and I found myself on this stunted excuse for a planet.
"And then the Avengers happened upon me," he said in a lighter tone, leaning back in his chair. "And here we are."
"They tortured you," she said, black eyes wide.
"Gwen, I do not pity you and I ask that you afford me the same courtesy," he said severely.
"Right," she muttered, "of course, sorry. I won't let these revelations affect my view of you as a moderately shitty person."
"Only moderately?" he asked, "that's an improvement."
"You're growing on me," she admitted. She had dyed her hair recently; it was a slightly more orange-tinted shade of pink, one that put him in mind of sunsets, and she had cut it shorter too. Although still quite odd-looking, she was becoming more and more put-together; he was really quite proud. "Aren't you going to ask about Thunderboy?"
"I trust you to tell me if there is anything important," he said.
The corner of her lip twitched, showing the gap in her teeth. "You trust me? That's new. I feel like I should get a certificate or summat."
"It's probably a terrible mistake," he replied, "an anomaly in my otherwise excellent judgement."
"Modesty really isn't your thing, is it? You're lucky you've got somebody as grounded as me around," she said in a falsely well-spoken voice, pulling what she must have thought was a haughty face. "Have you heard any more about Lucy?"
"You seeing your daughter was a one-off, Gwen, for a myriad of reasons. Don't expect it to happen again." She looked rather unhappy about that. "I am sure her mother would know if she was in trouble."
"I guess," Gwen said, but she didn't look very certain.
"If you're going to continue being such wonderful company," he announced, "I'm going back to Asgard."
"Hmm? Oh, sorry, just… nothing."
Loki rolled his eyes. "What's the matter with you, mouse?"
"My daughter's on the other side of the planet, she has no idea who I am and I'm never going to see her again," she snapped, and buried her face in her hands. "Oh god, I'm sorry again, I didn't mean to say that. I'm very tired."
"Maybe you would sleep better if you didn't have an aversion to beds," he suggested, as if it wasn't incredibly obvious. Gwen was one of the cleverer mortals he had met, but she was still occasionally very stupid.
"Yeah," she said in an over-earnest voice, "and maybe if I didn't have a complex about 'em, I might sleep in one."
"Isn't it time you got over that?" he said with a trace of exasperation.
"You would make the worst therapist ever. 'Doctor, I'm depressed!' 'Stop'."
"Hilarious. Get up," he said, and she hesitated before standing. Jaw jutted out in frustration at her, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the bedroom.
"Oi!" she yelled as she struggled, but her strength was non-existent compared to his. "What d'you think you're-" he threw her face-down onto the bed. "Holy shit," she said in a muffled voice, "it's like a cloud."
"It really isn't," Loki told her. "A cloud couldn't sustain your weight, it's a cluster of condensed-"
"Shut up. This… this is really nice," she admitted, sprawling out her limbs.
"I'm so glad you've caught up with the rest of civilisation," he said, and she rolled over to glare at him. "Aren't you going to thank me?"
"No," she said adamantly, and faceplanted the pillow again. "I'm going to lie here and have a religious experience. God is real, and he's in feather pillows."
"So long as you're happy," Loki said drily. "Goodnight, mouse."
"Posh boy."
He didn't fully know why he followed her to museums and watched as they lit her eyes up like black light. She was just so fascinating to him, more than any Midgardian ought to be, and she intrigued him, too. Loki's knowledge of adopted children was first hand, and yet Laufey had never shown any interest in him other than as a way to get to Odin; the same way Loki had used killing Laufey to prove his right to the throne of Asgard, even though he had known by that point it wasn't his birth right. He had always believed, since then, that family could be chosen- he had chosen first to abandon the name of Odinson, and then reclaim it before his supposed death. And yet she couldn't have chosen to love her child so fiercely when she had never known it, so why? Why did she care?
And why did he care about her?
A/N all I could think of when I wrote the "you would make a terrible therapist" bit was the Doctor Free episode of RTAA on youtube. Actually, a surprising amount of Rooster Teeth stuff ends up in my fics one way or another. Probably should try to stop with that a bit. Anyway, hope you liked!