My love.

Those two words kept swirling through Jak's head as she went about her work the next day. They were all she could think while she mopped the lobby floor, they echoed in her ears as she changed the filter on the pool, they chimed sweetly in her mind as she scrubbed the sink in the bathroom.

Had he really meant it? Did he actually love her or was he using the pet name teasingly? She wasn't sure that she could work up the courage to ask. Or even if she wanted to know the answer.

What did it mean if Loki, Asgardian Prince, Norse God of Mischief, Destroyer of New York, loved her? He couldn't. What did it mean if she loved him back? How did she even know if she did? The only people she'd ever "loved" were her parents and that was only because her mother told her that she did. Well… there was that one person she thought she might love… but that had been long ago and brief. Even then she hadn't truly understood her feelings.

She felt childish, not knowing what it was to love anyone. Toddlers knew what it was to love parents and siblings. Children loved their friends and family, their teachers, their schoolyard crushes. Teenagers fell in love all the time, and felt true heartbreak if things didn't work out. And yet, here Jak was at two hundred and fifty (give or take) years and she wasn't sure that she'd loved one person in her whole long life.

Frustrated as Loki's voice filled her head once more, whispering elskan mín - my love - Jak threw her scrub brush against the marble sink top. It clattered and splattered onto the floor, skittering under one of the bathroom stalls. This was a public restroom meant to be used for reporters during press conferences, so she wasn't expecting anyone else to be there. Until she heard a surprised "oh" from the stall.

"Lady Janitor, you have dropped your cleaning instrument," Thor's voice told her.

"Oh geez, I'm sorry Mr. Thor, I didn't realize you were in here!" She cringed, trying very hard not to imagine what the Asgardian might be doing in the stall. "I'll come back later."

"No need," Thor burst from the stall with a forced smile and puffy red eyes. "I am, uh, finished with my business."

Jak raised a brow, having not heard a flush.

"Oh. Okay. Are you alright?"

He headed for the door - without washing his hands - and chuckled loudly.

"Never better!" He nodded vigorously, "Nothing like a successful bowel movement, right?"

"Riiiight…" Jak tried not to look completely disgusted, "Err, I'm done cleaning the sinks… you can use them."

"Oh! Of course!" He laughed even louder and made a derpy face, "That's obviously what I was thinking. That you had some sort of, uh, cleaning chemical in the sinks that made them unfit to use, and I was just going to another bathroom to wash my hands. Because I had a bowel movement. And it is only proper and necessary to wash up after… yep. You get the idea."

He drew a sharp breath through his teeth and then applied a mountain of foamy soap to his hands before washing them with conviction.

"Mr. Thor, are you sure you're okay?" She asked gently. If her time with Loki had taught her anything, it was that Asgardian princes were cagey about their feelings.

"Please, just Thor," he told her with a smile, "Or Mr. Odinson if you must be so formal."

"Odinson," she repeated, "I, uh, I guess I didn't know you had a surname."

"Sort of," he replied, adding more soap to his hands and beginning the process of washing over again. "It is basically just saying that I am a son of Odin."

"Ah. Makes sense," she briefly considered that this meant Loki's surname was most likely also Odinson. Or was it? Thor had once mentioned that Loki was adopted, but surely that didn't make a difference. Though… his strained relationship with his father might.

"I understand that Baker is not your real last name, is that right?" Thor asked curiously.

"Legally it is," she shrugged and picked up the scrub brush from the bathroom stall where it had landed. She also noticed that, though Thor hadn't flushed, the toilet was empty. Thank goodness. She'd cleaned up a toilet that the big blond had clogged before and it had traumatized her.

"Is it the name you prefer?"

"For now," she replied, "I've had so many names over the years that it feels odd to have had the same one for so long. I guess that's what happens when you get caught trying to kill Captain America. You get stuck with whatever name is on the paperwork."

"What was your father's name?" Thor asked, finally ending his cycle of hand washing and grabbing some of the paper towels from her custodial cart. "Perhaps you could make your surname the way we do in Asgard."

"I don't know his real name," she said softly, trying to remember all of the names she'd known him by over the years. She remembered the family name they'd all used in her childhood. They'd been the Van Vucht family, but she'd learned from a young age that Ernst Van Vucht was just another mask her father wore. "The one he had when he died was Leroy Embry."

"You could be Jaklyn Leroydottir! That is a bit of a mouthful."

Jak smiled. "Yeah, probably not that, but it's a good thought. Although, I'm not sure I really want to associate myself with him anymore."

"Understandable," Thor nodded, "From what I hear, he was not a father to be looked up to. Of course, depending on who you ask, neither was mine."

"I got that impression from Loki," she admitted, not wanting to offend Thor's own feelings toward his father.

"My brother… he and Odin have a complicated relationship. One that I doubt shall ever heal fully," Thor sighed, "Loki has not been himself in several years and much as I am loath to admit it, I believe a large part of that is because of my father's actions."

"What happened between them?" She asked.

"I think Loki would rather tell you himself when he feels ready," Thor patted her shoulder, "Though, he likes you well enough that I'm sure you could just ask him."

That reminded her of her earlier spiraling thoughts and just as Thor was set to leave her to her cleaning, she stopped him.

"Thor?"

"Yes?"

"Loki… he told you he likes me?"

"Not in so many words," the prince grinned, "But I have known him long enough to recognize when he is besotted."

"Is there… is there anything else he might have said about me?"

"Oh plenty," Thor's smile grew, "But as his big brother I am sworn to secrecy."

Jak laughed. "Fair enough, I would not do anything to break the trust between brothers."

"Ha! Trust? I'm not sure there has ever been trust between Loki and I. But I would never let him down. Especially not on a matter of such importance."

He turned to go again, but she stopped him once more.

"Thor? Were you crying in the bathroom stall?"

"Whaaaat? No. Certainly not. I was obviously using the toilet for its intended purpose. Not as a spot to hide away while I wallowed in misery. That would be stupid of me."

She raised a brow at him.

"Well. Perhaps just a bit. There was no wallowing. I'm fine. Completely fine."

"If you say so," she reached out and patted his gigantic arm, "But if you aren't okay and you want to talk about it, I may not have any advice, but I can listen."

His lip quivered for a moment, but he pulled it into a smile and then left in a hurry. Jak sighed as she watched him go and then got back to work.

She should have asked Thor how he could still love Loki after being betrayed time and again. Jak had never been really tricked by Loki, but knowing him it was only a matter of time. Did Thor still love him just because of family obligation? The way Jak loved her mother no matter how many times she hit her or insulted her? Or did Thor genuinely care for his brother, despite the betrayals and literal back stabbings? Why? How?

Or maybe she should have asked Thor how he knew that he loved Jane Foster. He'd left a kingdom full of gold and gods to be with her. It must have been because he loved her, but if Jak had a stable life and family, she could not imagine giving it up for someone who might break her heart anyway.

Of course, her life was hardly stable and she had no family left, so there wasn't really anything to risk.

This thought comforted her somewhat. She supposed that her life had been so tumultuous that having Loki break her heart would not even disrupt it that much. Like a strike of lightning during a hurricane. There were bigger things to worry about.

So, she supposed if she did fall in love - if she even knew what love was - it would not be able to burn her if she fell back out of it. But that still left the question of if Loki loved her. This was not something she felt she could ask him, even if Thor claimed that Loki was besotted with her.

"Gah!" She groaned, taking her headphones off the cleaning car and shoving them on her head. She cranked up Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Waltz and tried to drown the irritating thoughts of love and romance out of her head. She tried to remind herself that there were more important things to focus on at the moment.

Her mother's bones.

The sorcerer who'd sent them.

Bucky Barnes.

She dropped her scrub brush again thinking of Sergeant James Barnes. With her time devoted to learning magic and dating Loki, and then with the crippling emotions that came with seeing her mother's bones in a box, she'd hardly had time to process that the assassin who had been after her was actually the Winter Soldier.

"Bucky…" she murmured as she picked up her brush. She ran the bristles over her gloved hand as she stared into the mirror. The music in her ears was by a Russian composer. She'd met James Barnes in a frigid Russian base after the war. And maybe she knew him a bit better than she'd let on. Maybe she and her mother had spent longer at the Winter Soldier program than she'd told them. Maybe she'd made friends with Sergeant Barnes before her mother and Arnim Zola had erased his mind.

Maybe she just didn't need the Avengers - or Loki - knowing that, apart from her mother and father, Bucky had been the first person who she thought she might have loved.