Surpriiiiiise! Told you it would be quick :P

Painful silence stretched between them as they stared at one another, each at a total loss for what to say.

Reagan tried, she opened her mouth but nothing came out. She managed to tear her eyes away from the Loki now standing before her to look back at the form who lay dead by her side. She was still holding his hand.

Reagan shook her head in confusion as she stared down at the lifeless body beside her, hardly able to comprehend what was happening in that moment. And then, with a brilliant flash of green light, the Loki she knelt beside faded away before her very eyes.

The shock sent the air rushing from her lungs and she leapt to her feet, staggering back slightly, as her eyes remained fixed upon the patch if spoilt soil where he'd just been laying.

He'd faked it.

She could hardly stomach the thought.

Her face was still wet with tears she'd shed mourning him. And he'd watched it. He'd watched her cry for him while he played out some sick fucking joke.

She'd trusted him.

She'd told him that.

And he betrayed her.

Slowly, her gaze shifted back to him, her features etched with anguish.

Loki stared back at her, unblinking, utterly helpless. He hadn't any idea what to say to her - what to do - to fix it. He wasn't even sure it could be fixed. He just needed to make her understand. If he could just make her see then maybe there'd be hope.

In a desperate attempt to reach her, Loki lifted the magic he'd cast to conceal the bond between them. The tether came rushing back - overwhelming, disorienting - anchoring them once again to one another, and he was plunged headfirst into the cataclysmic storm raging within her.

Loss.

Sorrow.

Disbelief.

Indignity.

Confusion.

Betrayal.

It was a mistake - a monumental one.

Because right now, after what he'd done, he wasn't welcome in her mind. He should have realised that. He wasn't going to be a comfort to her. Not now. And so his presence there, him bearing firsthand witness to the storm of emotions coursing through her, meant that they were now joined by a growing ember of unfiltered fury.

A sob escaped her lips the moment she felt the invasion and she slammed her shields down with such alarming force that Loki actually recoiled.

He tried to take a tentative step towards her but she staggered backwards, refusing to allow him to close the distance between them by so much as an inch.

"I'm sorry," Loki spoke at last with such gentle desperation. "Reagan, I'm so sorry."

"How could you do that to me?" she whispered, her voice was so raw - so pained.

"I never imagined... I didn't think you would care."

"You didn't think I would care?" Reagan repeated in utter disbelief.

"Not like this."

A beat of silence passed between them.

"Are you insane?!"

Loki couldn't help but smirk just a little at that.

"There's actually some pretty strong supporting evidence out there to suggest that may just be the case."

Reagan glared at him.

Loki loosed a breath, he tried moving towards her again cautiously. She took an equal step away from him and he froze. He breathed her name, pleadingly, but she didn't even waiver. Rather, she seemed to be growing all the more defiant as fresh tears sprung to her eyes.

"So, was it all just fake then?" Reagan asked, trying to remain calm, though her voice quivered with emotion. "All of it. All this time we've spent- Everything that I thought was happening between us, was it all just bullshit?"

"No," Loki insisted, adamantly, utterly horrified that he could have ever made her think such a thing.

"Was I just something for you to toy with while you were bored in lock up? Just something to pass the time with?"

"Of course, you weren't," he said, his voice raw. "You know that's not what you were to me - what you are to me... Reagan, you- you must know how much you've come to mean to me."

Reagan scoffed, it was a vicious noise.

"You're so full of shit," she said, glowering at him through unshed tears. "You're really going to stand there and act like you care about me after what you did?"

Loki didn't respond. He just gazed at her, deflating a little as her rage only grew.

"You let me watch you die, Loki. You let me think that you were gone forever... You left me to fight those things without you."

"I didn't leave you," Loki whispered.

"You did."

"No, Reagan, I didn't," he insisted firmly - a little too firmly. He willed himself to remain calm. He just couldn't stomach the idea that she thought he could do that. "I didn't... I didn't leave. I concealed myself. Reagan, I stayed by your side every step of the way, I swear it. I never could have just left you to face that danger alone. I was always going to keep you safe but I needed..."

Loki ran a hand over his face in frustration, feeling slightly defeated. He didn't know how to do this. He didn't know how to be open. Even now, alone with her. And it mattered now more than it ever had.

He sorely wished he could just show her; to open the bond and let her see the way he'd regretted it the instant he'd seen her face fall. The way he willed time to unravel itself so he take it back - go back to a moment when he'd never made her cry like that. He wanted to show her that he walked beside her then, every step she took - through Svartálfheim and on Midgard - and all the while, trying to figure out how to fix it. How he wanted to hold her when she cried for him, but knowing all too well that she would push him away, that he deserved her rage. He wanted her to see that not for one second had she faced the creatures from the Dark World alone. She'd been so impossibly angry as she fought them, she'd been reckless, and so Loki had cast protection after protection to keep her safe - from falling debris, from attackers who snuck up on her blind spots. He wanted her to truly understand that he would never have risked her safety. And he loathed himself in the knowledge that his actions had caused her to act so carelessly - if he'd even thought for a second that she might react that way he never would have-

He sensed her there then, prodded tentatively at his train of thought. Loki lifted his head to meet her eyes again, hopeful. And he opened - allowed her in fully to explore those memories and emotions that churned within him. She didn't do the same, her mind remained off-limits to him, but he didn't care. Not so long as she might understand.

She was silent for a long time as she turned the events over, pairing them with her own experiences, and not once did her gaze leave him. He waited. He'd wait for an eternity if that's what she needed.

"You didn't leave," she said at last, her voice a little distant, as if she were still inside the memories.

Loki shook his head slowly.

"I would never have just left you to face that alone."

Reagan's expression crumbled just a little, her lip giving the smallest quiver before she managed to compose herself.

"I don't understand why you did it," she admitted in a whisper.

"It was a mistake," Loki told her, desperately. "I made a mistake. I... I panicked."

"About what?"

"About you," he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Reagan, I had to get away from you."

The sound of her shocked gasp was the worst noise Loki had ever heard. It was like glass shattering. It was pain. Vinegar in an already open wound.

"No," he said quickly. "Reagan, please just- I didn't mean it like that, I-"

His shoulders slumped slightly.

He was making it worse.

He just kept making it worse.

Normally, words were his weapon. He could twist them, use them, make anyone and anything bend and be what he willed it. So why now, did they fail him so? Why couldn't he make her see-

Loki stilled, realising. He closed his eyes. Took in a steadying breath. He couldn't make her see, because this wasn't about making her do anything. This was about giving. She needed him to give to her. He needed to give her the truth. He needed to give her his vulnerability. He needed to... open. And in doing so, he just had to hope that he was giving her what she needed from him. He had to hope that could be enough.

Loki looked up at his mortal, meeting her eye once more.

"Reagan, I had to get away from you, because I didn't want to be away from you," Loki told her, his voice felt raw as it made its way up his throat, but still he persisted. "My thoughts are consumed by you... day and night. Any time you leave, it takes everything in me not to beg you to stay."

As she watched him, wordlessly, Reagan's chest began to rise and fall just a little faster.

"I want to hear every thought you've ever had," Loki went on, a smile ghosting over his features at the idea of it. "I want to give you the universe, piece by piece, because I want to hear that sound you make when something delights you over and over again. I want to make you laugh. To make you happy. I want to touch you. By the stars, Reagan, I want to touch you. You - not just an illusion of you. I want to be with you, always, and that is why I had to get away from you. Because I am terrified of you... This hold you have over me, it's effortless. It's like nothing I've ever experienced. And the worst if it is that I welcome it... and because of that, I ran."

A tear slipped down Reagan's face, and he hazarded a step towards her.

This time she didn't move away.

"What you said to me, about being free, doing anything I wanted, it terrified me to my very core because it made me realise that if given the option - if it was the only way that I could have you... I'd choose to go back to spending my days alone with you in that infernal prison cell. And paired with that came the reality that it was over. That I don't get to have that anymore. That I don't get to have you anymore."

Loki's fingertips brushed tentatively against hers... And she laced her fingers slowly through his. It was slow and hesitant, as if she wanted to resist but couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

"But I told you that I wasn't going to leave you," the words were barely more than a whisper, still watery with emotion.

"I know you did," Loki said gently, dropping her gaze. His eyes fell to her fingers entwined with his. "But that just made it all the worse..."

"Why?"

"Because you didn't mean it the way I wanted you to mean it."

"How did you want me to mean it?"

"Forever," Loki answered earnestly, his eyes flicking to hers once more. "You made that promise when I was to be locked in a cage for all eternity and you were free to live your own life, coming and going as you pleased. You didn't know that Thor would free me. So your having said that meant that I would have to endure you unsaying it and I couldn't stand the idea of having that conversation with you - watching you attempt to break me gently. I couldn't bear to hear you say goodbye. This way I wouldn't have to watch you make that choice... That is why did what I did."

"Why are you so sure that's what was going to happen?"

Loki opened his mouth to speak, but once again, he fell short. He hung his head, tension coiling into his shoulders as if he'd suddenly been wounded. Gently, almost subconsciously, her fingers squeezed his as if, even now in her anger, she couldn't help but comfort him in some way.

Reagan studied him, her brows pinched together slightly, her eyes wide as she tried to figure it out. She looked at him like she was trying to read him - searching every last line on his face as if searching for clues about how his mind actually worked.

She'd thought she knew him so well. She was so sure she understood him... She did understand him.

He was Loki.

Loki, who hid how gentle his heart really was behind a cold demeanour and snide remarks.

Loki, who pretended that he was superior to everyone and anyone, but really, thought that he was so much less than he really was.

Loki, who couldn't bare for anyone to see real emotion in him because to him it was a weakness.

Loki, who readied himself for rejection from the people who cared about him and couldn't quite believe when that wasn't what he was met with.

Loki... who desired a Throne so that he could be adored from afar because he believed that anyone who got too close would see that there wasn't really anything there worth caring about.

Reagan's heart clenched suddenly. He didn't think she would stay, because didn't think she would choose him. He didn't think she would stay with him because he didn't believe that anyone would. Not even his own soulmate. Not even when he knew that she-

"Oh..." she breathed as something slowly became clearer to her.

Slowly, she reached for him, took a gentle hold of his lapel as she gazed up at his face. Loki glanced down at her hand, surprised, before he looked at her face again and watched as comprehension dawned upon her features as she drank him in.

"You really don't know, do you?" she asked, gently.

"Know what?" his brow furrowed.

"How can you not know?" she said, shaking her head as she stared at him. "I thought it was so obvious... How can you be inside my head and not feel it?"

Loki hesitated, looking confused momentarily.

"If you're referring to your - quite frankly - awe-inspiring anger then rest assured I-"

"Loki, I love you."

He froze.

"I'm in love with you," she insisted, her voice painfully gentle. "I know I told you that I didn't want the bond. I know you saw how badly I used to want to go home. But that... that was before. Before I knew you. And the more I got to know you, the more I realised that you're everything I could ever want. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner. I think I distracted myself trying to shield it from you so I could figure it all out, when I should have been doing the opposite. And I didn't realise that you didn't-"

Reagan was rambling, she knew she was, but she couldn't quite stop. His gaze on her was so intense, it always was, and she couldn't believe she hadn't just seen it plainly for exactly what it was. She sighed gently and met his eye once more.

"I should never have fought the marks," she told him. "I shouldn't have resisted. Because they're right... Everyone told me they were, that I should have trusted them, and I wish I'd listened. I'm so sorry that I didn't. I don't want to go home, Loki. I don't want to be anywhere that you aren't. I love you. And more than that I like loving you. I want to love you... So even though I could absolutely just about fucking kill you right now for the shit you just pulled, I'd never just leave you because I-"

Her sentence was cut short when Loki, at last, leaned in, closing the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers. He kissed her as if it were inevitable. As if it were the only thing that could possibly happen next. Tenderly, he cupped her face, drawing himself closer to her even as he towered over her - as if she were this gravitational force drawing him in.

Reagan's eyes fell shut as his mouth moved against hers, her hands coming to settle on his forearms, holding him there, willing him to never be any further away from her again.

If she didn't know so intimately what it was to catch fire, she would think that this was it. As the kiss began to grow more urgent, Loki's tongue swept into her mouth and she welcomed it. She felt his hand entangling in her hair, angling her head so that he could deepen the kiss. She gave into him freely, gave into the desire, the pull.

It felt so right.

He felt so right.

Energy surged up her spine as she felt Loki's other hand trail reverently down the slope of her neck, over her shoulder, down her arm, and to the curve of her waist. She pressed herself up against him, encouragingly.

And it was only as his arm snaked around her torso. and he drew her in closer to him, held onto her as if at any moment she might be ripped away from him, she was reminded of how unnaturally strong he was. He could have crushed her to him, pinned her there so that she had no hope of ever escaping him, and yet there was something so gentle to the way his arm encircled her. He held her as if she were precious. As if she had but to say the word and he would release his grip and fall to his knees before her.

There was something vulnerable to it. And though she still held her shields in place, it was as if she could hear him anyway.

Please don't break me. You have that power.

Reagan moaned softly into his mouth as her hands roamed up his broad chest, to lace around his neck.

And when their mouths finally parted for need of oxygen, neither moved to pull away. They stood, pressed together, holding on as if each was the only thing left in all the world that mattered to the other.

"Will you let me back in?" he whispered, his forehead pressed to hers. "Just- I know I haven't the right to even ask but please, let me back in."

Reagan ran her hands down his chest as Loki brushed her hair back from her face with one hand, the other still at her waist. He was so warm - so comfortingly warm. He smelled of cedarwood and amber - a scent she was sure had all but consumed her dreaming state.

"If I do, that doesn't mean that I forgive you," she warned him, even as she smiled playfully. "You've got some grovelling to do."

"Understood. Though, I am taking the fact that you haven't set me aflame as a good sign," he murmured, his forehead still pressed against hers.

"Oh, I'm still thinking about it," she rebutted, though her smile grew all the more.

She felt him brush, tentatively, against the newly forged bond and though part of her was still afraid, she let down her defenses. Let him in.

Waves of emotion coursed over her, causing her breath to catch in her throat. Adoration. Pure adoration. She hadn't realised - she'd seen glimpses of it, but she hadn't realised just how much Loki had been concealing from her as well. And she felt it. His fear that this wasn't real, that she was going to break him. But also hope. And relief. And... love. Love, without expectation. Love that would have been there even if she'd told him to go to hell. Loki's grip on her tightened just a little more as he experienced her own tidal wave of secret things she'd concealed from him. He held her close, savouring anything - everything - that she gave him. Loki closed his eyes and kissed her again, gently this time, and when he pulled away to gaze down at her again, her eyes met his.

She smiled.

Loki swept his fingers tenderly through her hair, watching as confusion etched her features then.

"I don't understand," she murmured to him as her smile fell away, suddenly vulnerable. "The bond was gone. It wasn't just blocked off, I- I couldn't feel you at all anymore. It was like you were gone... How did you-"

Loki sighed, low and long. He dropped her gaze, his fingers flexing a little as if he wanted to pull her closer still. Reagan watched him as he grew hesitant, unsure of how to word his response.

"I figured out how to seal it off completely a few months ago," he admitted with a grimace as if bracing himself for her anger. "It was something I was working on while you were sleeping. So that if I did find a way to escape, you wouldn't be able to warn anyone. But then I stopped wanting to leave. I started wanting..."

Reagan rested her hand over his heart and he covered it with his.

"I knew I should have told you that I'd figured it out, but I was worried you'd ask me to do it so that you could leave. I didn't want you to leave... I remember the way you'd felt when you'd learned what the mark meant. You were utterly disgusted-"

"Loki-"

"I couldn't bear the idea of telling you it could be done and feeling your...happinessat the idea of being rid of me. You'd come to mean too much to me."

Once more her eyes welled with tears as she cupped his face, she swept her thumb over his cheekbone.

"I need you to know, that if you had told me I would have said no," she murmured and Loki offered her a pained smile before he caught her hand by his face with his own and turned his head to press a kiss to her palm.

"I can show you how if you-"

"No," she said quickly, her grip on his lapel tightening. "No... please, don't do it again."

"Reagan..."

Loki leaned in once more to capture her lips with his. And though she melted into him for just a few moments, she soon pulled back to look up at him again, her expression suddenly stern.

"But, I mean it, if you ever do anything like that again I'll kill you. Slowly," she promised, poking his chest pointedly.

Loki laughed, it was a low steady rumble in his chest that Reagan felt in her very bones.

"I wonder how many other declarations of love include death threats," he mused.

Reagan smiled.

"Could you really see ours going any other way?"

"Are you still angry with me?" Loki asked, his voice warm with affection

"Oh, definitely," Reagan nodded. "But I can't help but to predict that'll be a staple between you and me, so I suppose it's okay."

Loki beamed at her.

"I love you," he murmured.

"I love you, too," she whispered, and he kissed her once more.

When they pulled apart at last, Reagan glanced around, slightly uncertainly, at the dead wasteland that surrounded them.

"So... now what?" she asked.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Loki admitted, a grin spreading slowly to light up his features.

Reagan laughed as he pressed his forehead to hers once more.

And as they held each other on a decimated planet, surrounded by nothing but an endless windstorm, bathed in the muted light of a black hole, they were home.

I know, I know - FIIIIIINALLY, right?

But fear not, we're far from finished! There's still SO MUCH to come. With the Atraxis and Ragnarok and that whole mess in Infinity Wars that we need to sort out. So settle in. And get ready for some, quite frankly, ridiculous fluff along the way. I've written some scenes that are so sweet that my laptop now needs regular insulin shots. Omg and spicy scenes. Yay. Oh, and if you're worried that these two idiots are going to stop squabbling now just because they're in love then you're the most insane person I've ever met.

Sending my thanks to David Wallace, the patron saint of patience, for sending me readers who would wait 135k+ words for a first kiss. I love you all. You're absolutely amazing.

Lastly, I've started drafting a Bucky/OC fic if anyone is interested? I want to finish this one before I start posting that though so it'll be a while, just wanted to put the feelers out 3

Next chap coming soon :)