Chapter 31: The Right Words
When he wakes from his nightmares it is to whispers.
There is a group of SHIELD and Stark employees congregated on the concrete walk lining the patch of dead grass where he spent the remainder of the night.
Although his presence here is well know to the mortals, sighting the God of Mischief is a rare thing. He stays in the privacy of the laboratory or the courtyard, removed from the areas where these mortals work and live, venturing to this part of the compound only when Eleanor insists they attend dinner with her mortal companions.
His strange position is now causing a scene as they whisper and watch, but Loki knows not how to rectify the situation.
Eleanor's location is an unknown and he is unwilling to move away from the building. He will not risk coming to the boundary of their bond and causing her undo pain.
Still, the presence of these mortals is vexing.
There is a commotion in the crowd and Loki gets to his feet as Jane Foster elbows her way towards him.
"She is behind that wall," says Thor's Whore when she comes to a stop in front of him. "On the second flood. That window. Is the lab within a hundred yards?"
He calculates.
"The courtyard," he replies.
"Okay, that's pretty secluded. Let's— Shit!"
Jane Foster curses as Loki touches her shoulder and they materialize by his tree.
"Give a girl some warning," she murmurs, rubbing her abdomen. "No wonder Eleanor hates that."
"She spent the evening with you." He hopes.
"Where else would she go?" asks Jane Foster, appearing exceptionally confused for such an intelligent mortal.
Loki does not answer her inquiry, nor does he understand her purpose in seeking him out, but there is no crowd of curious, gawking mortals and this is a large improvement.
"So you are plotting to kill her?" Jane Foster asks. For a moment he understands Thor's attraction to the mortal. She is fierce. "This whole time, you've been planning to kill her? How is that even possible? Given the command and everything."
Loki clenches his jaw and looks to the sky, hoping to find patience there.
"Is that what she told you?" he asks.
"Honestly, it was a lot of drunken babble, but yeah. Something like that."
"I never plotted her demise." He paces, wringing his hands. "When it became clear that her death is the only recourse to do away with Odin's magic I considered the option as I would any option before quickly determining that Eleanor's safety is priority over all things."
That was far more information than he planned to share, but Loki is exhausted by nights on the couch, by nightmares without Eleanor. Honesty seems like the only course of action that will repair the damage caused by similar honesty.
"Ah, I see," Jane says. Her tone gives him pause. There is such understanding there.
"Eleanor remains distressed to know that I will not allow her to die," Loki says, looming over the puny woman of science. "Yet you do not even blink."
"I get it," she replies, shrugging. "It sucks and Ellie has a right to be pissed, but I get it. That's how my mind words too. I consider all the options before determining what is viable. It's a scientist thing."
"Eleanor's death is certainly not viable."
"Why not?"
The mortal before him has no right to question his affairs and as much as Loki longs to remind her of her place, it would do nothing to endear Eleanor to him once more. This annoyingly insightful paramour of the thunder god is in a position of influence when it comes to the songbird and Loki is in dire need of any assistance he can acquire at this point. It would serve him well to have Jane Foster as an ally.
"Would Thor's demise be a viable option to solve your most urgent problem?" Loki murmurs.
The mortal is terrible at disguising her shock.
"You love Eleanor like I love Thor?"
Loki balks at her word choice but steels his nerve, finding the correct words to sway Jane Foster to his side.
"I imagine so, yes."
Once again he's managed to shock the mortal of science.
"Okay," she replies, expelling a great huff of air. "But still. You've been trying to undo Odin's magic. You've been trying to leave her."
"I had no plans for our separation to be permanent."
"Okay," she says again. "So why worry about breaking the bond? If you trust Eleanor enough to stay with her, why undo the magic?"
He does not feel the need to explain to Thor's Whore. Odin holds power over Loki and this is unbearable.
"So why now?" she presses when he fails to respond. "You've just suddenly stopped trying to break the bond?"
"Yes."
Jane Foster waits for further explanation. She gets none. Loki is forcing himself to partake in this discussion to win an ally, but he will not stoop so low as to give her an excess of detail.
"How did she find out anyway?" Jane Foster asks.
"I told her," Loki snaps. This is a ridiculous inquiry. How else would Eleanor come to know such a thing?
"You told her? Why? Do you usually go around telling people stuff like that?"
In confessing his efforts of these last months, Loki hoped to assure her that her trust in him is not misplaced, but his confession had the opposite effect.
"It was a miscalculation on my part. A mistake. I thought to please he with my decision to allow the bond to stay, ensuring that we will not be separated."
Jane Foster appears to experience a moment of revelation. This conversation is intolerable. He will show no more weakness to Thor's Whore.
"Wow," murmurs Jane. "This is like your own, messed up way of asking her to go steady, huh?"
"Pardon?" Her words are incomprehensible.
"I'll tell Eleanor that you're here," Jane Foster says, stepping away.
Loki sits with his back to the tree and attempts to mentally prepare himself for Eleanor's inevitable decision to send him away for good.
"Wake up!"
This is the last thing Ellie wants to do in this moment. Her head is pounding. Her heart is broken. Her stomach is rolling.
"Wake up, Ellie!"
"Shut up, Darcy."
The blanket is pulled from her body and Ellie pulls a pillow over her head.
"Dude, you're god is passed out in front of the building and it's causing quiet the stir," Darcy says.
The whole sorry state of affairs over the last week rushes back into her head and the rolling is her stomach becomes a heaving. She sprints passed Darcy, barely making it to the toilet in time to puke.
There isn't much for her to throw up besides stomach acid and bile. She's been off food for a few days now, making her hang over that much worse.
When she's done she curls up on the cool tile floor, trying to stop shivering. She is crying. The sobs wrack her body and she can't remember when the tears started. Before last night she didn't let herself cry once over this whole mess, but now she is hung over and freezing and puking up nothing into her boss's toilet.
Pulling on the mask after living with her own face for so long is more difficult than she expected.
"Ellie, come on," Darcy murmurs. She is gentle and serious as she pulls Ellie to her feet. "You're shaking."
Ellie nods, her teeth cratering as she stands before Darcy in her stupid little black skirt and tank top.
"Shit," Darcy mutters as she moves away. Ellie doesn't turn her head to see where the woman went. She is too busy staring at herself in the mirror. The image there takes her back years to when this was so common an occurrence she barely even noticed the feeling.
Eleanor is so ashamed and she can't stop shaking.
The shower is running and Darcy is back. Her lips move but Ellie can't hear the words. There is pity in her gaze. Ellie studies the floor as Darcy pulls on the hem of her tank top. She puts her hands up, letting Darcy strip her and then guide her to into the shower.
The water burns but it feels good and Ellie lets it purify her for a few minutes before she feels like a person again.
"Darcy?" she croaks.
"Yeah?"
"You're still in here?"
"Just making sure you don't fall over or start convulsing or something. Do you need anything?"
"No." Ellie's face flames with embarrassment. It's been a long time since she's been this out of it. "I am okay now, Darcy. You don't have to wait around in here. I'll wash my hair and everything."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Darcy is still wary. "I'll go get you some clean clothes. Jane's will fit. You can stay in as long as you want, but I'm going to come check on you in ten minutes."
"Thank you, Darcy."
Twenty minutes later she is warm, clothed in jeans and an oversized flannel. She sits across from Darcy at their small kitchen table, trying to eat a piece of toast. She is having better luck with the coffee, but Darcy is making her try the whole food thing. After everything Ellie's put her through this morning – and probably last night but she can't fucking remember how she even got here – there is no way she is going to deny Darcy this now.
"Where's Jane?" Ellie asks.
"She went to go drag Loki away from the crowd and beat him up for trying to kill you," Darcy says. She is far too angry and far too serious. Serious looks weird on Darcy and Ellie has another thing to feel bad about.
"He didn't try to kill me," Ellie murmurs, dropping the toast on the plate. She'll see if she can keep this half down before attempting the rest.
"Well, that's sure what it sounded like that night," she replies, crossing her arms over her chest as she glowers at Ellie.
"I'm sorry, Darcy. I can't remember."
"Probably a good thing. Are you finally ready to tell me what the fuck's been going on all week?"
Ellie wants to shake her head and slip back into the mask of old, emotionless Ellie, but she's owes Darcy an explanation at the very least.
"He wasn't trying to kill me," she says. And even this simple statement hurts. "He just thought about it. I guess he's been trying to figure out away to undo our bond this whole time."
Darcy blinks as if she is waiting for Ellie to say more but she can't because something painful is twisting around in her chest.
"That's it?" Darcy asks.
"It?"
"Well, this is the freaking god who almost leveled this town and then released an alien army on New York. We've all been expecting him to try something and frankly I am relieved that he only thought about killing you," Darcy says. "Did you really just expect him to sit around and accept this punishment?"
No, Ellie really didn't. She's seen his weird behavior for months, starting with that strange bubble of magic with the bird and culminating with the obsessive reading. There was no doubt in her mind that Loki was plotting something, she just didn't think he'd try to leave her, let alone that he'd think about killing her.
"So what happened?" Darcy asks.
Ellie makes herself explain every little detail of the conversation. It calms her, some how. Telling Darcy helps Ellie center herself and going through it a second time is somehow less sickening than living it the first time.
"I don't get it," Darcy says when Ellie finishes.
"What's not to get? He wants to leave me but not enough to kill me. And then he wants me to feel grateful for it. I don't know how to be happy about that," Ellie mutters.
"Yeah, that part sucks. I just don't get why he told you at all," Darcy says. "He does everything so intentionally, right? So if he decided to stop trying to break the bond and to not kill you, why tell you about it? You could just go on having no idea what he was up too, but he told you. Why the hell would he tell you?"
The question stuns Ellie. She just sits there gaping at Darcy, amazed by this new insight.
"Did I break your brain?" Darcy asks.
"A little bit," Ellie says. "I might need a minute."
"I'll make more coffee."
When the front door opens a few minutes later Ellie tenses, fully expecting to see Loki stroll in. Her mind is still too full and too foggy to deal with him, so when Jane comes into the kitchen and slides into the chair next to Ellie it is a relief.
"Did you beat him up?" Darcy asks, refilling Ellie's mug and handing Jane one of her own.
"No," Jane says, reaching out to rub Ellie's shoulder. "He was too pathetic to beat up. How are you doing, honey?"
"I've been better," Ellie admits. "What do you mean pathetic?"
"You do know that this relationship of yours is really bizarre and super unhealthy and it would probably just be better to cut your losses and try to figure out a simpler life, right?"
"I guess," mutters Ellie, although she really doesn't see that happening any time soon. Or ever.
Jane sighs heavily.
"He made me feel all sympathetic for him," Jane says. "Even after what he did to New York and what he did to Erik and everything he's done to you, some how I, like, want to be on his side. How does he even do that?"
Ellie's laugh is a bit hysterical. It hurts her throat.
"He's not going to kill you," Jane says.
"I mostly know that," Ellie replies.
"And I don't think he ever wanted to leave you. It just took him awhile to figure out what was more important to him, you or undoing Odin's magic. He's got some serious daddy issues."
"I know."
"You've got to talk to him, Eleanor." Jane is pleading now and Ellie blinks, surprised. "You are both unnecessarily miserable and terrible at communicating. And I am pretty sure that telling you all this was his way of being gallant."
"I told you there had to be a reason," says Darcy.
"Gallant?" Ellie is skeptical, to put it mildly. "Really? Gallant?"
"Maybe not gallant. Maybe real is a better way to put it. I don't know. Just talk to him, okay?"
"Okay."
"Hey."
Loki scrambles to his feet at her quiet greeting and Ellie feels at bit guilty for waking him up from his little nap against his tree. It's pretty obvious that he's been getting even less sleep than she is.
"Eleanor." He is both tentative and desperate, not like himself. It makes her feel like such an asshole. "How are you? Did you sleep? Did you eat?"
She closes her eyes, his frantic questions doing her hang over no favors. In this moment he very obviously cares about her wellbeing and that little flare of hope that Darcy and Jane started this morning grows. Maybe this is something she can get over.
That really depends on the god before her.
"I apologize," he whispers, understanding her headache without her saying a word. "I will speak in hushed tones."
"Can you drive?" she asks. "You drove last night, right? "
She remembers screaming at him in the parking lot, but that is pretty much the end of her memories from the previous drunken night.
"Yes. I will drive us home."
She manages a small smile and resists the urge to grab his hand as they make their way back to her jeep.
She chugs a huge glass of water in the kitchen and Loki watches her with wary, concerned eyes. He lingers on the far side of the breakfast bar as if he doesn't want to risk getting too close.
His hesitancy makes sense, given the way she treated him last night. Thinking about it now makes her stomach roll but the coming conversation she promised Jane makes Ellie want to drink.
She pulls a bottle of whiskey out of a cabinet.
"No," Loki says, angry. Still, he makes no move to approach her. "I have kept my tongue on this long enough. No more, Eleanor."
She rolls her eyes, unscrews the cap, and empties the handle into the sink.
"I know," she murmurs, hoping he'll take this for the apology it is.
"Will you talk with me now?"
"Yeah," she says, sighing. "Eventually. But I need sleep and food right now. I must have eggs."
"Whatever you like."
She can feel his eyes following her as she gathering the proper breakfast materials. With every move she winces and then Loki's hand is on her shoulder, taking the spatula from her shaking hand as she completely fails to flip the potatoes in the pan.
"What are you doing?" she asks, to tired to feel much of anything, even with him frowning down at her in concern.
"I will do this for you," he murmurs, nudging her toward a stool.
"You don't cook."
"I think I can manage. Now sit, Eleanor."
She sits.
All those hours spent watching her cook serve him well now and Ellie is begrudgingly impressed as whips together eggs in a bowl, adding the perfect amount of milk. She lays her head on the counter and watches him move around the kitchen with confidence. It's oddly soothing.
Loki goes all out, chopping up veggies for omelets and adding bacon to another pan. The smell makes her groan.
She is so fucking hungry. Thinking about anything else is completely impossible. It's a good thing. She's spent all week stewing in hurt and anger, but now she's done with the bullshit.
Maybe they'll work through this and maybe they won't. There will be no grand, life-changing decisions made until Loki has his say, and Eleanor won't be up for hearing it until she eats and sleeps away this hang over.
"Drink," Loki says, putting a glass of orange juice in front of her face.
Eleanor drinks.
"I will not hurt you, Eleanor," Loki murmurs as he dishes a huge amount of food onto a plate. "There is nothing I would not do to keep you safe."
"Okay," she says, drooling when he sets down her plate. "Can I just eat please? I'm starving."
"As am I," he confessing, taking the seat next to her and digging into his own plate containing even more food than her own.
They eat in silence. Ellie doesn't even try to "eat like a lady," and for once Loki has no scathing comments. Being near him doesn't hurt as much as it did yesterday. Jane and Darcy have her all hopeful. It's a dangerous thing, this hope, but Ellie is too tired to feel anything else but hope and exhaustion and delight from this fuck awesome meal.
"This is so fucking good," she moans around a bite containing eggs and cheese and potato and bacon. "Seriously, so good, Loki."
He beams like a proud little boy and she can't help but smile back.
Ellie eats everything off the plate and puts it in the sink.
"We'll do the dishes later," she murmurs, yawning. "I'm going to go lie down."
"May I join you?" He question is so quiet and unsure, but Eleanor can't bring herself to say yes, as much as she might want too.
"Just let me have my nap? Okay?"
"Whatever you like, Eleanor. Whatever you like."
Patience has never been one of his many strengths and the waiting now is unbearable. Her promise to speak to him should be calming but the anticipation brings him nothing by anxiety, and he sits with his back straight on the couch for hours as Eleanor sleeps the day away.
He pulls a blanket over his lap to ward of the chill. It does no good.
The change in her this morning is a stark blessing that should ease his nerves, but the waiting is increasing them moment by moment.
For hours he sits on the couch, gaze fixed on the door.
Despair swallows him and he struggles against the rising tide of panic swelling in his chest. Just before he rises to attempt to pace away his fear, the door cracks open and his songbird peaks out at him around the wood.
She is perfect and silent as she watches him, clothed only in an overlong male shirt and undergarments.
As much as he'd like too, Loki cannot even manage to speak her name. He wills her to come close, to bestow her affections upon him once more.
When she finally does move towards his position on the couch, a bit of the choking panic abates and his breathing clams slightly. She sits as far away from him as possible, causing him undo pain, but she turns to face him, truly looking at him.
The thoughts behind those brilliant blue eyes are completely unfathomable to Loki, but regardless of her hurt and anger, she appears to have come to some sort of decision.
"How were you going to do it?" she asks.
Loki is forced to clear his throat twice before he can manage a response. "Pardon?"
"How were you going to kill me?" she clarifies, her voice breaking.
Suddenly meeting her gaze makes him ill so he closes his eyes.
"Look at me." It is a demand, but not a command, and for once he does as she says without complaint. "How?"
"I had not thought on it."
"Loki, tell me."
"Honestly, Eleanor. I did not want to think on it. My old contacts could have been utilized, I suppose," he admits, fulfilling her request and maintaining eye contact becomes much more difficult. "Or I could have put you in some dangerous circumstance and just stood passively as you…"
He cannot speak the words.
"Say it."
"I will not."
She stares at him for long, tense moments.
"But the command—" She starts but he does not allow her to finish.
"Your words are no match for a liesmith," he snaps as his temper flares. Eleanor does not so much as wince.
"How close did you come to doing it?"
Again, Loki curses himself for giving into the bizarre urge to be truthful. Only with her, it seems, does he feel compelled to be honest. Eleanor constantly claims to desire his honesty and inner thoughts so he delivered.
Look where his truth got them.
"I was no where near making such a decision. Given the situation I would have been remiss not to at least consider—"
"Okay, okay. I get it."
Her close proximity is torturous and as much as he wants to reach out and run a finger down her cheek, somehow he refrains.
Loki does not like it when Eleanor glares at him and she is doing so with a ferocity that would be adorable in any other situation. Worse even then her glare is the way her expression seems to crumble a moment later. The tears return to her eyes and she tilts her face down, hiding from him.
"I would never even think about killing you," she whispers. The sound is ragged and pathetic. "I don't want you dead."
Loki wants nothing more than to pull her into his arms, but he dares not touch her now. Eleanor angry and so sad is truly a disturbing sight, and Loki understands her power for the first time.
She could so very easily destroy him and surely she will abandon him, just like everyone else.
"Because you are bright and good while my heart resides darkness," he replies. This truth is more painful than it should be, and Loki hates it because one such as Eleanor deserves so much more than he is capable of giving. He pities her, but not enough to let her go. If these last days taught him anything it is that life without her is not an option.
Eleanor deserves so much more than to have her life chained to his.
"And I broke my promise not to hurt you." He mumbles to himself, unable to look at Eleanor. "I told you this once, did I not? Somehow this hurt you."
"You don't understand why this hurt me?" Her voice breaks again. Loki cannot stand the sound.
Feeling like a young child and a fool, Loki shakes his head.
"How would you feel if our positions were reversed? If I considered killing you? Is your life here with me really so awful that you'd think about killing me to escape?" Eleanor asks.
And Loki understands.
"Oh," he says, exhaling heavily. You are just so determined to ruin your own life, aren't you? "Oh."
"You want to leave me. If you hate it here so much I'll go to Odin. We'll end this whole thing."
"You are not the reason I despise this situation, Eleanor. Before I understood that ending this would mean killing you, I planned to take you with me once I was free of Odin's oppression."
"You shouldn't look at it like that."
"I will try," he promises. "If you allow me to stay, I will try."
Eleanor lets out a great huffing breath.
"Tell me everything," she murmurs, stealing Loki's blanket and resting her head sideways against the cushions as if she is settling down for a fanciful story before bed.
Frowning, Loki considers what not to divulge.
"All of it, Loki," she insists. "Don't leave anything out. I'm not going to force you back to Asgard no matter what you say, but I want all the details."
For the first time in memory, Loki tells the truth, complete and unabridged. He keeps nothing from her even as she frowns or rolls her eyes or loses a battle against her tears.
It is a freeing sensation, this total honesty, but not something he'd do for any with the exception of Eleanor. All he confesses now if a calculated risk, but she is very good at keeping her promises so he must believe that she will not hand him over to Odin when this is done.
Nothing ever seems to work with Eleanor but honesty, but he is rather out of practice with truth telling.
He feels both better and worse simultaneously when he completes this detailed account of his secret goings on these last ten months.
With bated breath he watches Eleanor silently study her hands.
"I didn't get it," she murmurs.
"Pardon?"
"You see this magic between us differently than I do. For me it means you are safe and here and if I don't use the power than who cares that it exists? For you it is the same old shit with your dad."
"False dad."
"It's a big deal, you accepting this."
He rolls his eyes. "Indeed."
"But you still thought about killing me and I just don't know what to do with that," she says, miserable once more.
He shrugs, in no position to deny this unpleasant truth.
"Why did you tell me in the first place?" she asks. "If you were going to just go on the way we were but without your secret plotting, why tell me at all?"
"I know not."
"Loki, come on. You know."
He holds his frustration within. How much more could she possibly expect of him? Does she not recognize the allowance he is making for her? His participation in this discussion is unthinkable but he does it because there seems no other way for them to go to the way they were before.
"It is truth, Eleanor. The words passed my lips without thought."
"That's just not good enough."
He's up and pacing, so frustrated that she does not understand and he is lacking the words to make her.
With Eleanor, he is backwards. He is not cunning or eloquent or strong. Aspects of his character and skill he once valued are lost against the intensity of her wide, blue gaze. She looks at him with expectation and for once he would like very much to be what she wants and needs. She looks at him with hope and hurt. He wants to kiss away this pain he caused her and he needs her to understand.
With Eleanor, he is backwards, needy and weak before her. Loki is no longer alarmed to experience such sentiment. Fear continues to plague him, but its origin is not his devotions to the creature who watches him in silence but the crippling knowledge that he may very well have destroyed her unerring faith she once held in him.
Blinded by his own pride, Loki did not see the possibilities here and now she might be forever beyond his reach.
So Loki drops to his knees, willing bowing to the altar of Eleanor. Loki kneels, desperate for her to understand.
Her lips part into an appealing O of surprise. She may not understand his words, but the significance of this position is not lost on her.
She blinks and blinks again as if her eyes lie to her mind, but she is looking at him still. Once he found the depth of her stare disconcerting and far too knowing. Now she fixes him in her gaze and Loki is not a monster, for it is Eleanor that is doing the looking.
He is something fresh and vulnerable and visible only to Eleanor.
Now if only she will understand.
"You're kneeling," she says, dumfounded.
"Yes."
"You're not going to propose, are you?" Her awe transforms to horror.
"Propose what, exactly?" he asks, annoyed to stray from the topic at hand.
She shakes her head once and cracks a smile. "Never mind. You're kneeling."
"Yes."
Eleanor is patient and she allows him a moment to gather his words. She does not object when he grips her knee.
"You questioned by decision to inform you of my planning these last months." If an unconscious spew of words can feasibly constitute a decision, as Eleanor seems to think.
She nods.
"Do you recall out time together in the bunker?" he asks.
Her eyebrows nearly reach her hairline, but still she looks at him. "Yeah, I remember when you kidnapped me."
The guilt he now feels is new.
"Yes," he continues. "Our last conversation. Do you recall what you told me?"
Eleanor nods and holds his gaze, even as her hands shake.
"You, my sweet songbird, told me that you would never truly belong to me in full, not unless I belonged to you in return."
Eleanor's breath hitches and there are tears gathering in her eyes. Finally, he finds the words.
"To have you, I must give myself, and to give myself I must be here with you in true, accepting Odin's punishment, atoning."
The tears fall from her eyes and her expression gives him hope. She covers her mouth with her hands but still she looks at him through the wet veil of her tears.
She sees him.
Her hands drop from her mouth as his kneeling position becomes uncomfortable and they flutter around his face. He wills her to reach out, to touch him, to forgive, but above all to understand.
But instead her hands fall to her lap and Loki sighs.
"But you thought about killing me," she says, voice cracking. She stops looking at him to study her hands and it is more than Loki can stand, so he pushes closer, thighs pressed into the couch, knees digging into the carpet.
When he cradles her face and lifts it towards his Eleanor does not recoil and his hope is renewed.
"Considering your death was truly about me rather than you," he says.
She is angry now, glaring and crossing her arms over her chest, so Loki once more clutches at her knees. With her expression she clearly says "try again." The words are never right the first go round when it comes to Eleanor. He much nearly be out of second chances at this point.
"I did not so much think about your demise," he says. "More, I thought I should be able to sacrifice your life, given what I am."
Head cocked to the side, she squints and Loki is crushed under the weight of his disappointment because still, she understands not.
But then she does.
Her eyes light up, her expression shifting from horror to shock before settling on something dangerously near to pity.
"Oh, Loki." She is sad for him. She is aching.
"I am not a good man." There is no argument from Eleanor, but she reaches out to hold his hand. "I am selfishly motivated and arrogant. Before this week, I thought myself other things. Without mercy. Willing to sacrifice all to achieve my goals. We are raised thinking the Frost Giants to be demonic, twisted, cruel, evil, and utterly barbarous. There is a commonly held truth that Jotuns eat their young ritualistically. I am growing to doubt this."
Eleanor traces his knuckles with her thumb and Loki breathes deeply.
"If my nature was truly so monstrous, I could sacrifice you with ease."
"Loki." With his name she offers forgiveness and understanding. Perhaps he does not have her devotion once more, but it is enough. There is no need to continue, but he gives into the inexplicable urge to do so.
"Perhaps you are correct," he murmurs, closing his eyes as she pushes a hand through his hair. "A monster could ensure your death in exchange for freedom, but I cannot. Even if it means I must lick Odin's boots clean, I could not do this thing. Not ever. There are no circumstances that—"
"Loki!"
He glares, annoyed to be interrupted, but she is smiling t him as if he is the epicenter of her own personal universe. He hopes it's true.
When she tugs on his shoulders, he goes towards her willing.
"Come here, come here, my beautiful God of Saying the Right Thing."
His arms are full of Eleanor and he's done the right thing, said the right thing. There is a mass exodus of tension from his body and he is awash in relief.
She understands.
Eleanor wraps her arms around his neck, hugging him close. Loki closes his eyes and feels lighter than he has in years. For once breathing is easy and he is content to go on holding Eleanor forever, if she'd let him.
"You were kneeling," she says, speaking her words into his neck.
"Never speak of it again." In this moment he can't manage any real bite in his words. "Do not expect to see such a thing ever again. Desperate times and what not."
When Eleanor laughs, she finally sounds like herself. "Then don't fuck up like this again."
He did not expect his bliss to last, but he would have liked a bit more time before the worry descended once more. Worry he does because he has no idea how to truly be what Eleanor deserves and he will most assuredly "fuck up" again.
Will the next time be unforgivable? Or will it be the time after that? Eventually, Eleanor will come to know that her life would be much better without him in it and he's agreed to allow her power over him to stay. When she tires of him there will be no way for him to combat her decision to banish him from her side.
"Loki," she says. "I was just teasing. Everyone makes mistakes and as long as you don't go around killing me or anyone else we'll be fine. If you misbehave, I'm not going to just send you away. That's not how this works. The only conditions on this arrangement are Odin's, but… can you just respect the command? For me? Please?"
"If you insist." Loki can feel her smile against his neck. "Eleanor, I am sorry. Truly."
"I know. We're going to be okay," she says. "We're going to be okay and we're going to stay together."
As Eleanor clings to him for reasons unknown and Loki struggles to understand her reasons for keeping him here, her reasons for forgiving him with relative ease.
Obsession.
She said the word after his original confession and he sees it now for truth. All signs point to her obsession and obsession is a malady so easily manipulated.
Loki pushes a hand through her wild locks, his lips curling into a smile against her temple.
A plan to guarantee Eleanor's continued devotion begins to take shape in his mind. He will play upon her weakness for him, make her grow ever more dependent on his presence. He will gain her trust and perhaps even her love.
Eleanor is just the sort of foolish creature to believe in such a childish myth.
She will grow to need him as she needs to breathe, insuring that she never elects to leave him no matter how he might "fuck up" in the future and most importantly, never issues another command. This arrangement could very well last for years, until a whim strikes Odin and Loki is declared rehabilitated, but the God of Mischief is patient.
And if Odin thinks Eleanor is going a poor job punishing Loki, let him come. Let him try to separate them now.
Loki will play their game and bide his time. Eleanor will love him as Loki plots out their glorious future.
So I know this chapter ends a bit abruptly, but originally this was going to be the end of the story so I had to rewrite it when I decided to continue.
And continue I shall!
I guess we can call this part one. I hope you enjoyed the end of part one!
It's probably going to be a bit before I get the next chapter written. We are at the end of my plan for this fic, so I need to get organized (assuming the movie doesn't kill me, because it might.)
Also, I am halfway through NaNo, so that's going to be a priority this month.
You are all so very lovely! Thank you so much for reading and your kind, kinds reviews! You all are making writing this whole thing so much fun! See you soon!