Prompt: "Concilliabule with Lokane please. I miss them. Thank you." —rosalysaoirse (on tumblr)

Concilliabule - A secret meeting of people who are hatching a plot.

Summary: Loki checks in with his asset and discovers that something has changed.

Genre: Modern/Non-Magical AU, Spies, Drama, Angst

Rating: T

A/N: I tried to do comedy with this one. I really did. It came out…something different. Hopefully you still enjoy it!

BREAKING POINT

When Loki grabs Jane from behind, hand over her mouth, she resists like a rabid animal, clawing at wherever she can find bare skin, throwing her head back in a fruitless attempt to butt his. Just like he taught her. He'd be rather proud if it weren't for the burning tracks her nails were leaving in his forearms.

"It's me," he murmurs and blessedly the fight goes out of her. He waits another breath or two before releasing her.

She spins around, steps back, a haggard look on her grey features. Moonlight drifts through the gauzy curtains in the otherwise dark hotel suite. There is something missing in the scientist before him, that ineffable spark he's found both irritating and compelling during their time together.

"What's happened?" he asks. If anyone dared lay a finger on her… His cold, apathetic mien threatens to crack under the bloom of perpetual rage that he keeps hidden beneath.

Jane doesn't answer immediately but drops instead onto the sofa nearby, her head in her hands. He follows her, sitting on the coffee table opposite her. He reaches over her shoulder to the lamp on the end table, turns it on, and studies her for a moment. She seems smaller—broken—so unlike the fiery thing he brought on as an asset several months ago. Every step was a battle with her and her overwrought sense of right and wrong. She would willingly die on the altar of her principles if he didn't find a way to work with the damnable things. But this woman before him is no longer her.

He gently pries her hands from her face and grimaces at the redness in her eyes, the hollowness written in them. "Tell me." He wants to know who will meet an agonizing demise at the end of one of his knives. They don't deserve the mercy of a bullet.

A ghost of her usual fire passes through her haunted gaze as she whispers, "You said you were going to protect me."

The accusation pricks him. He did make that promise a half year ago, and at the time, he hadn't minded that it would be flimsy at best. In the last week, however, those words became the steel in his bones as he searched for her. She left for the lab one morning and simply vanished. He had to call in every favor owed him, chased every breadcrumb, hitting dead end after dead end.

Until tonight.

His relief when she crossed the threshold of this hotel suite was as unfamiliar to him as it was staggering.

"I'm here, aren't I?" he says in a feeble attempt at their usual banter. When she only stares at some point past him, he sobers. "Pack your things. I'm getting you out." They'll lose months of careful work, but he finds he doesn't care for the price of this gambit anymore. He'll find another way into the shadow organization known only as the Heralds of Dawn.

"You can't." She looks at him then, anger clenching her jaw. "I'm in, and I'm going to take every last one of those bastards down no matter what."

He's unsettled by her vehement declaration. He might have liked this sudden no-holds-barred attitude back in the early days of their association, but a Jane Foster without an unfailing moral compass feels wrong.

He shakes his head, captures one of her hands in his. "This has—"

"You weren't there!" she shouts, jerking out of his grasp as she stands up. "You weren't there!"

"Jane." He rises, reaches for her, but she steps back.

"They made a weapon of my work," she says, pinning him with a glare. "They made me explain how it works to potential buyers. They made me participate in a demonstration yesterday. An entire village just…gone. Sent through a wormhole that leads to nowhere." She squeezes her eyes shut. A tear makes a glittering track down her cheek. "I can still hear the screams."

Loki refuses to trivialize this horror with insipid platitudes. She's right, they must be stopped, but she's wrong if she believes it has to be her. She's done enough. He'll take care of the rest. "I want names."

"No. I'm doing this," she says, jabbing a finger at him, iron in her tone. "They have Erik."

Ah. Doctor Selvig, her beloved mentor. If Loki finds him, gets him to safety, perhaps—

"Either help me or get out." The words are laced with finality. She won't bend, not on this point.

Well, then. He closes the distance between them, cups her chin in his hands, and brushes his thumbs over the wetness on her smooth skin. "Command your servant, milady," he murmurs. It's a throwback to the derisive comments he's made over the months on her unyielding, authoritative nature, but he's entirely sincere now.

She bites her quivering lip, nods her head, and then sags into his chest as if trusting he'll catch her. As if he's her anchor. A novel role for the man who is usually the maelstrom. He wraps his arms around her, carries her to the bed where he holds her while she weeps into his shirt.

An hour later, after her tears are spent, she whispers, "We're going to burn it all down."

"Yes."

~FIN~

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your thoughts!