#lokane ff

[iamstartraveller776]

"Trouble" by Natalia Kills (consider this an experiment to see how many times your askbox eats it.)

(Pretty sure this one didn't get eaten because I didn't save it to drafts!) I hope the first chapter of Rumor Has It from Loki's POV will suffice!

Summary: New country, new school, and yet everything continues to be unremittingly tedious. Not even his brother's rager can cure Loki's apathy—that is, until he finds a surprise waiting in his bedroom. Perhaps life in the States won't be so boring after all.

Rating: T

Genre: Modern/Non-Magical AU, High School AU, Humor, Teen Romance

Also on AO3

A NEW KIND OF FUN 1/1

“Just a few friends,” Thor’d said. Loki knew better. He leaned over the second floor railing, rolling his eyes as, in the large foyer below, his brother greeted yet another swarm of eager groupies. Typical. He doubted Thor knew any of them by name, but that didn’t stop each one from acting as if a beloved god had deigned to shine his light upon them. New school, new country, and nothing had changed.

How dull.

“Loki!” Thor called up to him. “Stop lurking and join us!” When Loki didn’t snap to it immediately, he glowered. “You promised!”

Loki exhaled a sour laugh, then gave Thor a winning smile. God forbid anyone disappoint the Golden Son. “Of course, brother!” He straightened, spreading his arms out. “Let’s get this party started!”

As if on cue, music boomed suddenly as the Marshmello-wannabe Thor had hired began his set in the ballroom. The sycophants below ate it up, jumping up and down with excitement. Loki sucked in a deep breath, slipping into his role like an old familiar second skin. With an unintelligible shout that matched the energy below, he hopped on the banister and slid down toward crowd. Thor and his fellow athletes surged forward to catch him, to lift him above their heads and carry him through the house.

Woo. Hoo.

It wasn’t long before every level of the estate was wall-to-wall with teens and crashers from the nearby university, nearly every one of them clutching a plastic cup of alcohol as if it were the elixir of life. Loki did his obligatory circuit, starting in the kitchen with the first keg stand competition of the night. He was suitably enthusiastic when Thor won. (Shocker.) Next came a few games of beer pong—which became easier to win each round as his opponents got more tipsy. Hurray for him.

He wandered through the crowds, keeping up his cheery demeanor despite the unspent sigh burning in his lungs. For the whole of two minutes, he seriously considered polishing off a bottle of hard liquor to get through the hours of absurdity that still lay ahead. But no. Drunk Loki would do stupid shit he didn’t want to have to pay for later. It was better to pretend.

A few idiots had started riding down the grand staircase on large baking sheets that they’d pilfered from the kitchen. One of them tried surfing instead of riding his bit of metal like a sled, and inertia flung him head over heels into the horde. Hardly scathed, he leapt to his feet with a howl, throwing his arms into the air in victory. The baking sheet was warped beyond repair, and the family housekeeper would positively lose her mind over it—until Thor paid her off with a lethal dose of charm and promises to replace everything. And money. Lots of money. The cure to all the ills of the world.

Loki’s snort earned him a sidelong glance from a nearby celebrant. It only took a second before recognition widened in her gaze. Shit, she was one of those girls from school. A giggling, hair-twirling girl who would flirt shamelessly with him if it meant getting closer to his brother. Unlike the popularity-chasers back home, they weren’t subtle here. At all. He could probably get her to do a double flip off the roof into the pool with only the promise he’d pass her number along.

Boring. Boring. Boring.

Her friends eyed him with varying levels of the same social-climbing interest. Oh, even better. They were of the less common breed that actually wanted him—or, rather, his reputation. It took very little effort to keep his disdain from his face, as practiced as he was. Perhaps he could find some entertainment in this. He made a show of looking them over, mouth curved up with an appreciative grin that he didn’t feel. Predictably, they all leaned toward him with almost feral anticipation.

“Why aren’t you dancing?” He laced the question with a measure of enticement.

Not bothering to wait for a reply, he headed toward the ballroom. They followed like the squealing lemmings they were.

The music was loud enough that he didn’t have to talk to any of them. He did, however, have to endure their pathetic attempts to grind against him seductively for the next half hour. Definitely not an amusing distraction, this. One of them tripped into him and her drink sloshed onto his shirt.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” she yelled over the thumping bass. Her face twisted into a bad imitation of a come-hither look as she bit her lip. “I can help you clean it up!”

Leaning forward, he didn’t miss the naked excitement in her large eyes. “Oh, darling,” he murmured against her ear. “You really can’t.” With a parting wink, he pushed past her and the others. He might have taken the slightest bit of perverse pleasure in the sneering “Bastard!” she shot at his retreating back.

Why were they always so surprised that playing with fire got them burned? Americans were so stupid.

He weaved through the masses toward the staircase in the back of the house, pulling his shirt away from his skin. God, what the hell had the girl been drinking? A little of everything from how awful it smelled. He ascended the stairs two at a time and nearly made it to the landing before someone caught his arm.

“Loki! Where are you going in such a hurry?”

He rolled his eyes, recognizing that overly saccharine feminine voice. Lorelei. The most boring of all the would-be temptresses. She’d been trying to sink her talons into him practically from the beginning of the term. Flanked by her two lackeys, she was dressed in whatever went for club chic in Cambridge—metallic and sparkly. And very, very short.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He wasn’t about to mention needing to change his clothes lest she mistake it as an invitation. She seemed to think their brief interactions were some kind of distorted foreplay.

“What I want to know,” she said, inching closer to him and walking her fingers up his chest, “is why I never see you at Hal’s.” She gave him a pout he was supposed to find fetching. He didn’t.

“Not my scene.” He pried her fingers away from him. “Too pedestrian.”

There it was, the flash of confusion across her Instagram-worthy features whenever he used a big word. The girl had probably never read anything longer than a fashion magazine.

“Enjoy the party.” He stepped around her and hurried to his room.

Once inside, he pulled off the malodorous shirt and chucked it toward the laundry bin. He could still smell the unholy cocktail on his skin, though. Disgusting. There wasn’t time for a shower sadly. He’d rather not suffer whatever humiliation Thor would mete out should he try to skip the rest of the festivities. Because Loki promised. To stop brooding over their move across the pond and be happy for one night. Blah. Blah. Blah.

He'd just finished washing the stink off his chest in his private bathroom when he heard the latch of his bedroom door. Had he forgotten to lock it? If someone thought to make this their temporary love nest…

His trespasser wasn’t a couple in the throes of inebriated passion, but a petite girl with long brown locks, her jeans and flannel shirt more suited to one of the bonfires the townies put on every weekend than a party at a mansion. She didn’t notice his presence, her attention fixed on his library. He hung back as she ran her fingertips over the spines of some book or another, her touch bordering on reverent. Terribly curious, this. He felt as if he ought to know her, though he couldn’t say how—not until he caught her profile as she pulled down his copy of The Evolution of Physics.

Jane Foster? The driven student in his maths and science classes who gave him a run for his money when it came to earning top marks. He’d actually had to study to keep up with her, and the girl was in the year behind his. What was she doing here and in his room, no less? He was pretty sure that her sole ambition in life was in academia. Status-seeker she most definitely was not.

She whistled softly in admiration as she gently opened the book, likely noting that it was a first edition. He could stay in the shadows and quietly observe what she did next. Or he could have a little fun.

And fun was, well, fun.

Loki stepped more fully into the room. “Do you always go through people’s things without their consent?”

Jane let out a startled squeak, the book almost slipping from her hands. “I’m sorry. I—” The rest of her apology cut off abruptly when her gaze landed on him.

Emotions passed over her face in rapid succession. Sheepishness, followed by chagrin, then a different kind of surprise as she took in his state of undress. Her eyes seemed unable to leave his bare torso, cheeks turning a brilliant shade of pink. Did she just swallow? He grinned. This was too perfect.

“I’ve only come to change my shirt,” he said, reaching back to turn the lock on the door, “but if you insist…” He began undoing his belt buckle as he slowly crossed the room toward her.

Her eyes went comically round. “No! I’m not—” She backed into the shelves. “I’m not here for…that.” Was that a fight stance she just stepped into? That tiny thing thought she could take him?

Hilarious. Literally hilarious. He couldn’t keep a straight face anymore. He laughed harder than he remembered ever laughing. God, even his stomach hurt. “The look on your face,” he said once he could get a hold of himself. “I’m going to remember that for years.”

She huffed in disgust. “You’re such an asshole!”

Unmoved, he admitted with a shrug, “I’ve been called worse.”

She opened her mouth, probably to unleash another paltry insult, when someone knocked. “Jane?” a girl’s voice called out on the other side.

Oh, but Loki wasn’t ready for playtime to be over yet. He hurried to the door ahead of Jane, opening it hardly more than a crack to imply that his companion had to make herself presentable.

“Looking for your friend?” he asked the dark-haired girl in the hallway.

“Whoa! You’re actually kind of hot,” she said, sizing him up with the same kind of annoying interest the others had shown him earlier.

He gave her a wry smile. “Shocking, I know. But you’ve come for Jane.” He nudged the door all the way open and said conspiratorially, “She’s been keeping me company.”

Jane’s friend gasped as her gaze flicked between the two of them, very obviously drawing the conclusion he’d intended.

He let out a sigh. “It’s a pity we were interrupted when things were getting really fun.” To Jane, he gave a forlorn expression. “I suppose you have to leave now.”

She was gearing up to deny everything by the wild glint in her eyes, and on impulse, he took her face in both hands and drew her up to him for a kiss. He’d only meant to shut her up and perhaps lend weight to the misconceptions he’d been seeding, but damn. When she forgot herself and relaxed into him, tilting her head just the right way, he was tempted to slam the door shut on her friend and have a good snog. Who knew the teacher’s pet had it in her?

But despite his every instinct to deepen the kiss, he broke apart from her. Because—yes, that. The glazed-over look she gave him, rosy lips parted in an absolute stupor. That was worth cruelly ending their interlude too early.

“I’ll see you on Monday, then,” he said with another wistful sigh as he stepped back from her.

She nodded numbly, staggering as her friend dragged her out of the room. It wasn’t until they were halfway down the hall that he realized she still had something of his. A wondrously horrible idea came to him as he leaned out of the doorway.

“Oh, and Jane!” he called after her loudly, making sure to get the attention of everyone milling about nearby. “You can borrow my books any time you want.” He winked at her horrified expression before shutting the door and succumbing to another fit of laughter.

Finally something new. And he was only getting started.

~FIN~

#lokane #lokane ff #lokane fanfic #loki x jane foster #jane foster x loki #loki x jane #jane x loki #my fic #rumor has it #a new kind of fun #prompt fill #star replies #averbaldumpingground

[plainlo-inthemorning]

Remember that time when Loki got shushed in the library at the TVA?

You know who else got shushed in a library?

Jane Foster, that’s who.

These two bookish rebels were made for each other.

#lokane edits #lokane #jane x loki #loki x jane #loki #lokiedit #marveledit #thor the dark world #loki series #tva loki #loki tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston #jane foster #natalie portman #marvel #daily marvel #loki laufeyson #lokane ff

[stardust--and--magic]

I'm overwhelmed y'all!

My Reylo piece got like 100+ notes, like WHHHHAAAT???? I'm utterly flabbergasted and I'm not even sure if I'm reacting to this correctly.

That may not seem like much at all considering there are pages on here with much larger followings and thousands of notes on their posts. The whole reason I dug up this forgotten tumblr blog of mine was to find help me find my passion for creating again and have a place to share it. The views, likes, reblogs, whatever - those things never mattered even when I posted regularly on other sites years ago. But I didn't expect the simple act of people just liking silly things that I've drawn or written to affect me so much the last few weeks. I've pretty much have spent it trying not to cry and I have the ugliest cry face in the world too.

For background, I used to draw and post my artwork quite regularly years ago, mostly on deviantArt (though I can't even access that page anymore cause I'm dumb, changed the password a year and a half ago, and now can't remember it - I'vetried recovering it 3 times but dA customer service hella sucks). I also wrote fanfiction on FF . Net but that was on and off.

Around 2011/2012 though, everything started to go downhill. As my life, in general, started falling apart at the seams, it effectively killed any drive I had to be creative, whether it was through art or writing. I essentially went into survival mode for a number of years and the effect it had on my art was devastating.

It couldn't be helped, and with time and a lot of effort, I'm in a better place now, but I can clearly remember the deep depression I fell into and everything it affected. I remember trying and one day, I just couldn't bring myself to draw anymore. I couldn't think of ideas and when I did, I would either stare at a blank piece of paper for hours, or work on it for 5 minutes before crumpling it and throwing it away. I essentially lost a sizable chunk of myself and I've tried for years to recover it.

In 2015, I tried posting again but shortly after, I fell back into the dark hole I'd been hiding in. It didn't make me happy and I couldn't do it anymore. So I stopped. Again. And it hurt like hell.

I was so distraught and disappointed in myself that I would go on and convince myself that I had other things more important to do than dabbling in my childish dream to draw and write. That I wasn't that person anymore.

Every once in a while, a friend would ask me to draw something cute, or my son would ask for a superhero, and I'd oblige. Most of these, however, were just doodles on napkins or scrap pieces of paper meant to be forgotten. It didn't feel like me.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, when I decided to just give this journey to find myself one more shot cause the internet is a deep pit that consumes my soul (thank you, Lokane fandom!). With a lot of convincing from my SO (bless the UNIVERSE for that man and his neverending patience), I started drawing and writing, and I started posting. Then after a few notes (literally like the first 5-10), I found myself sitting in alone in my bathroom, about to cry with my brain going, "Holy shit! Someone actually liked this nonsense!"

Frankly, I'm not even sure I'm making much sense right now or if I'm sufficiently expressing why this has struck me so profoundly. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is:

All kind words, all the reblogs, and all the likes that I still don't feel like I deserve - just thank you! All you wonderful souls made this girl feel like she was valid again, both as an artist and as a person.

#personal AF #sorry i just had to let this out somehow #i probably sound stupid but this is how i feel #i only hope that this helps someone else struggling with their own art journey #i love you all

[dontmindme-imjustfangirlin]

A breakdown of my excitement for Thor 2:

10% Thor b/c it's still his movie

50% Loki

30% Lokane

10% for the Alydia Rackham fanfiction that will inevitably follow

#lokane #lokane ff #thor 2

[iamstartraveller776]

"Don't mock me by acting so surprised. You had to know about my feelings for you."

Jane blinked at Loki. "Know about your feelings for me?" she repeated numbly as his words sank in. He'd spent years making her life a living hell and all this time he had feelings for her? "When?"

He canted a brow. "When what? When did you worm your way into my affections?" Only he could make a declaration of love sound like an insult.

"No," she replied evenly. "When was I supposed to know how you felt? Was it when you decided to make it your life's mission to disprove my work? Or was it when you, the trust-fund baby—" she jabbed a finger at his chest, "—stole that grant out from under me?"

"You're still sore about that?" He scoffed. "It was ages ago. Besides we both know I had the better proposal."

"That's not the point!" she snapped. "You didn't need the money and I did."

He shook his head. "No, Foster," he said in a low voice as he crowded her, forcing her to take a step back. "What you needed was someone to challenge you. You'd gotten used to being the smartest person in the room, and you were getting lazy."

Now it was her turn to scoff. "No I wasn't!"

"Oh, you weren't?" His pale eyes searched her face so intensely that it almost felt like a physical caress. "Tell me, how many grants have you lost since then? How many papers have you published?"

She ground her teeth, refusing to answer. She would go to her grave before she gave him the satisfaction of being right.

The corner of his mouth quirked up as though he knew exactly what her silence meant. He inched closer to her again. "You like what I bring out in you."

"Abject loathing?" she returned with a glare.

Her stomach did a rude little flip at his soft laugh, at the way his gaze darted briefly to her lips. "The thrill, Foster," he murmured. "Easy and nice bore you—as evidenced by the poor sods left in the wake of your pathetic attempts at dating"

She glared harder, but it was difficult to do as he traced a gentle line across her cheek. "Like your dating life has been stellar."

"Mere placeholders," he replied with a dismissive shrug. "Unlike you, I've always known what I needed."

He brought his other hand up to cup her jaw, and her throat went dry, her tongue suddenly too clumsy to form a rebuttal. And when he pressed his mouth over hers, she realized that this was a battle she just might let him win.

For now.

#lokane #lokane fic #lokane ff #loki x jane foster #jane foster x loki #my fic #alternate universe #non magical au #prompt fill #star writes

[iamstartraveller776]

*rubs hands together*

Okay, I was gonna ask a different one but I figured Loki would know how to get rid of a dead body so

“tell me i’m the only one who makes you feel so good, no one could make you feel the way i do, isn’t that right?” for Lokane please

Rating: M

Genre: Canon divergence-ish, Drama, Romance

Summary: [Post-Thor: Love and Thunder] He’s there in the afterlife she’s chosen, always watching, always wanting. (ao3)

A/N: For a full second, I really considered going crack!fic with this. I swear I did. But alas the muse had other ideas. Important note: despite this being Infinity War Loki, I tend to ignore nearly all canon changes to his (and now Jane’s) characterization(s) beyond Thor: The Dark World.

ALIKE BUT NOT

His gaze has substance, she’s learned. A touch almost, a whispered caress. She hadn’t noticed it when she met him in Asgard, too angry over the Battle of Manhattan, too anemic from the Infinity Stone razing through her insides. But she feels the press of his regard now while she drifts through Valhalla.

Those pale eyes are an unspoken question as he enters the practice yards. It’s a strange thing to learn that the destruction of the Realm Eternal wasn’t the foretold Ragnarök, that the crowning battle is still somehow yet to come. While there is drinking and feasting and carousing, skills must be kept sharp. And so many want a turn to face off against the Mighty Thor. She’s a novelty, the frail mortal who was worthy of Mjölnir. Though she no longer carries the weapon, its power still resides with her.

(Along with a residue of something else too.)

Settling on top of a low wall, he watches her fight, dragging a finger thoughtfully across his lips. She bristles under that unblinking stare, at the bare lift of his brow that seems to ask, “Well?” She answers. Her opponent finds himself laid out within seconds. The next three as well. One of King Valkyrie’s sisters gives her a real challenge, and she wins by a hair. It’s only then she catches a bare shift in his expression, a trace of respect.

He's not quite maligned, but not truly welcome. It’s subtle. He’s never denied the opportunity to join in recounting epic battles and even more legendary antics. They’ll laugh at his silver-tongued anecdotes. They’ll toast. But he’s not one of them.

Neither is she.

Because the Mighty Thor is not all she is, but in this bellicose society, it’s all that matters. She aches for more and is disturbed when she recognizes the same dissatisfaction in his tactile gaze.

He disappears occasionally. It’s impossible to count the hours, the days, in a place without time, yet his absences span too long. As if his weighted interest has become the gravity keeping her tethered to this existence. Without his muted grin as he looks on, sparring in the practice yards feels tedious. Without his bald glances in the dining hall, the tales recited by others are less vibrant, less alive. The halls are too cavernous without his towering stature devouring the space, and she despises that she notices.

She knows who he is, what he was. She hasn’t forgotten the aftermath from his failed attempt at world domination. Her beloved mentor never fully recovered. He may have earned his place here by saving his brother (again) and the Asgardian survivors, but she catches glimpses of the truth when no other eyes are on him. He still despises. He still wants. She knows better than to follow when he slips away from the evening banquet.

Yet she does anyway.

His trail meanders through the sprawling palace, to wings she hasn’t explored before. There is beauty here surpassing anything she’s laid eyes on. Colors so vivid, gold and silver so smooth and pure, that she has trouble not being pulled into rapture. It’s distraction enough that a hand on her arm surprises her. She’s yanked around a corner, pushed against a wall before she thinks to call on her power in defense.

He grins, and there’s a wild delight in it. “The Mighty Thor,” he says with a blend of mockery and something else she can’t name. “What an honor.”

“Let go, Loki,” she returns evenly.

His eyes flick to where his fingers cage her wrist against the marble near her head. He raises a brow as if considering whether the price of defying her is worth paying. She lets loose a flare of the electricity that lives in her chest, only enough to galvanize her skin in warning. His smile becomes strained, but he doesn’t release her, not until she sends another biting jolt.

“Oh, don’t be cross,” he says, holding up his hands. “It was only bit of harmless sport.”

She snorts. “There’s nothing harmless about you.”

Dimples press deeper into his cheeks when he laughs softly. He likes that she seems to know him. That she won’t underestimate him like the others do. His gaze dips, taking her measure in languid appreciation—as if he doesn’t underestimate her either. Her stomach stirs with a fetid blend of repulsion and promise.

He turns, heads down the hall a few steps before casting a glance over his shoulder. “What?” he says. “Already bored with playing my shadow?”

She scoffs at the notion, almost leaves out of spite, but curiosity has always been her siren song. With a glower, she gestures for him to lead on.

A few more corners and then their destination is before them with spanning, gilded arches. Of all the possibilities, she would never have guessed that this is his hiding place. Shelves extend beyond sight, filled with scrolls and leatherbound tomes. Her heart leaps, the sting of almost-tears in her eyes as she steps through the entrance.

“The great archive,” he says behind her, though she barely hears him. “Where all the knowledge of Yggdrasil lives.”

This is where she belongs. This is home.

She pulls down a book, tenderly cracking it open. But she can’t read the runic language on its vellum pages. Replacing the book, she takes another. Then another and another. Every one inked in the same strange hand. Revelation sinks like poisoned lead in her middle. All the information she could ever want at her fingertips, and she doesn’t have the literacy to access it.

“Oh, dear,” he murmurs next to her. “Did my vaulted brother never teach you Aesir?” He sucks in a breath in feigned condolence. “How terribly sad for you.”

She glares at him, but her anger, her disappointment is clearly the food and drink he craves. Swallowing back a rising invective, she tips her chin up. “I’ll figure it out.” One way or another.

He raises his brows as if her obstinacy amuses him. “This I will have to see.”

Hours, days, or more pass under his unwavering eyes as she makes very little headway in deciphering the foreign writings. He sprawls across a recamier in a corner of the archive, near the table where she’s laid out a dozen open books and scrolls. There are sheets of parchment with notes scratched in pen and ink. His only commentary on her efforts is the smirk he barely hides behind his own tome.

Linguistics isn’t her field, but she thinks that it can’t be all that different from extrapolating data from the models in her lab. It is, though. Frustration sets her nerves alight, sparks her fingers with blue-white energy. He huffs a laugh, and she’s tempted to hurl a bolt at him.

She goes back to the practice yards. He doesn’t follow.

It becomes an unending round. Retreat and return. No matter how she promises herself she’ll stay away from the archives, from him, eventually the clarion bell of it—of them both—becomes too loud to ignore. She cannot resist what is at the core of who she is, that insatiable appetite for learning. She cannot go long without being seen, even if it is through his eyes. But then the impossibility of her self-inflicted task and the taunt in his laugh grows oppressive, and she flees again. Over and over.

He breaks this cycle with a hand over hers as, on tip-toes, she reaches for a scroll high on the shelves. His fingers are smooth, cool, and she hides a shiver, ignores the chills sweeping down her arm.

“Let me,” he says, grazing her skin as he stretches over her. He retrieves a different scroll—not that it matters; they’re all the same to her untrained eye.

When he steps back, she turns, holds out her hand with a grudging “thank you” ready on her tongue.

He cocks his head with a vulpine grin. “Admit defeat.”

She scoffs. “No.” Never. Not to him.

He advances on her, forces her to back into the shelves. “Say you need me.”

“I don’t.” She squares her shoulders, sets her jaw, though her pulse falters when his tongue briefly crests his bottom lip.

He leans forward, warm breath against her cheek, and whispers, “Liar.” His nose brushes against her hair, and her eyes flutter closed. “Tell me the truth, Jane. Tell me you need me.”

She opens her mouth to deny him, but something inside of her sings. It’s faint, straining toward him, and she can almost feel an answering harmony resonating from him. Alike yet not. He draws back, holds her gaze, and in this timeless place, the moment is suspended. A hitched breath between one blink and the next.

She remembers who he is, what he was. Yet, like before, it’s not warning enough to keep her away, not completely.

“I do need you,” she confesses, and before triumph can fully bloom on his angular features, she finishes, “to teach me Aesir.”

His grin turns both sardonic and wider. With a gaze that flicks briefly to her lips, he says, “Ask me nicely.”

“Please.” She doesn’t bother to soften the barbed edge in her tone.

He hums in approval, and the sound pebbles on her skin. “All that fire in such a tiny form,” he says. “So much life. He didn’t know what to do with it, did he?” But I do. The unspoken affirmation is written in his predacious expression.

She pretends not to see it. “Are you going to help me or not?”

He presses the scroll into her hand. “Since there’s nothing better to do in this never-ending purgatory, I think I will.”

Hours, days, or more pass under his exacting tutelage. He is her Rosetta Stone, the cypher to unlock the texts. At times he is too impatient. Others he is too indifferent. Always, though, he is too close. Hovering over her in the stacks, thigh pressed against hers at the table. She reasons that it’s a small price to pay to finally have access to limitless knowledge.

It has nothing to do with that tune buzzing inside her chest. Still faint but growing.

He stays at her side even when she no longer needs his help with the words. She doesn’t complain. Because he can bandy theories with her as easily as the others cross weapons with her in the practice yards. She still goes, though not often, and only when he sours their enthusiastic discussions with a cutting reference to his brother—how the God of Thunder couldn’t have hoped to keep up with her singular mind.

But I can.

He follows her there too. Sitting on the low wall with his ubiquitous gaze trained on her. It’s less a whispered caress, more grasping. Not a question. Not even a dare. But intention. She throws herself into every skirmish as if each opponent she bests will crack the steely blade of his focus. Again and again. Until the archive calls to her.

He breaks this cycle too.

She’s reaching for another scroll to high for her fingertips, and he crowds her into the shelves. But he isn’t there to help. Instead, his hand slides against her hip, down and forward, while his sigh smolders against her neck. The song inside of her swells at the heady sensation.

“Stop,” she whispers with fragile resolve.

“Why?” he asks in an equally fractured voice. His lips brush where her flesh curves toward her shoulder. “You have been touched by a power greater than any of them can fathom. You were chosen—as was I.”

His words are a voltaic truth that she can deny no longer. It’s not only his gaze that is ever stretching toward her, but the fragment of the Tesseract he carries in his soul. Calling endlessly to the Aether in hers.

She doesn’t have the will to fight it anymore.

When he tangles his other hand in her hair, nudges her head to the side, she relents without argument. She leans back into him, eyes closed as he marks a path on her skin with his mouth.

She expects him to hurry. He doesn’t. He draws out each touch, each kiss. Undoes a buckle, a tie in their clothing between each step toward the recamier, between each press of his lips and tongue against hers. She expects him to be rough. He isn’t. He lays her down gently like a devoted acolyte preparing to worship his deity. The music inside builds to a blinding crescendo as he, with rapt attention, raises her body to the same staggering heights.

It's only when he joins her, when he has her at the precipice once more that she sees a shade of the depraved dark prince.

“Tell me,” he rasps, clearly affected but stubbornly refusing to let her fall, “that no one else can give you this. Tell me you need me.”

She’s furious, but she thinks she might go mad if she remains balanced on the knife edge between critical urgency and blessed release. “Yes,” she hisses, digging her heel into his spine to encourage him to finish the job. “Yes, I need you.”

He smirks before capturing her mouth with his. She doesn’t leave him unscathed when he tumbles with her from their soaring peak.

He laughs afterward at the scorch marks her lightning left down his back. She thinks she should feel guilty, though she can’t manage even a facsimile of the emotion. Not guilt for her retaliation, but for giving him what he’s always coveted—anything that belonged to his brother. Yet, he’s right. Who else has had a taste of something as old as the cosmos and been irrevocably changed by it? Who else drinks from the fountain of knowledge and is never sated? Who else can equal her?

Who else can equal him?

“You need me.” Cradled against his bare chest, she says the words in the same moment that revelation dawns. She did not succumb to him. They succumbed together. Though she isn’t sure that he will admit to such weakness—

“Oh, yes.”

She smiles.

~FIN~

#lokane #lokane ff #lokane fanfic #loki x jane foster #jane foster x loki #my fic #alike but not

[iamstartraveller776]

A/N: In jest, @averbaldumpingground challenged me to write all 20 prompts from this fake dating list. Well, joke’s on my friend, I accepted the challenge. I’m doing 500-word ficlets for each, using different fandoms/ships.

Another Modern/Non-magical AU for these two.

3. “I think they bought it. We can leave now.” “No way, this was just 5 minutes and I have a reputation to uphold.” —MCU/Lokane (ao3)

LOCKED IN

Jane paced by the door, throwing an occasional glare in the direction of the bane of her academic existence. Loki lounged on the queen-sized bed, hands laced behind his head. He smirked as if amused they’d been thrown into this ridiculous situation. As if it hadn’t been his fault.

It began with the panel on Traversable Wormhole Dynamics earlier this afternoon. Debate devolved into a shouting match that culminated into both of them being escorted out after she stood on a chair to punctuate her points with a finger jabbed in Loki’s chest—and the bastard jabbed her right back!

Next came the invitation from Tony Stark to attend one of his elite mixers. She’d been thrilled; she’d watched Bruce Banner’s career skyrocket through his association with the multi-billionaire, and she couldn’t wait for her own work to gain the same kind of traction. Her enthusiasm died within minutes of her arrival when she laid eyes on Loki. He’d been invited too. Great.

She tried—really tried—to be civil during the small soirée. She could have succeeded too if Loki hadn’t been bent on hanging by her elbow the entire time, ready with some self-congratulatory rebuttal to everything she said. Next thing she knew, her fist was cocked and aimed at Loki’s stupid face when Tony interrupted.

“I want to show you something—both of you.” He headed toward a hallway.

She exchanged a glance with Loki before scrambling after Tony. Loki was on her heels, and she resisted the urge to elbow him in the gut. A couple of turns later, Tony opened a door to…a guest room? He gestured for them to enter.

“You two need to take care of this tension,” he said and then locked them in!

After what felt like hours, she decided she was done with this. “He’s got to let us out of here now.”

Loki checked his watch, shook his head. “It’s been twenty minutes. That’s not nearly enough time.”

She snorted at his implications. “Yeah, right. I bet it only takes you five.”

The look he gave her made her skin prickle. It was a different kind of wild than when they argued over academic minutia. “Foster, you’ve no idea.” He rose from the bed and crossed the room toward her, his voice deeper, quieter as he murmured, “Tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

Of course she never—well, there were the dreams, but those didn’t count. She raised her chin. “I haven’t.”

He grinned as if he didn’t believe her. “I have.”

Was it hot in here? It was definitely getting warmer. “You have?” She had no idea where that question came from because she didn’t want to know. Not even a little bit.

He hummed in agreement, now so close she caught the faint scent of his aftershave. “I have so many theories.” He glanced at her mouth. “Let’s test them all.”

Before she could object, his lips were over hers, and dammit.

Maybe Tony was right.

~FIN~

#lokane #lokane fanfic #lokane ff #loki x jane foster #jane foster x loki #my fic #locked in

[iamstartraveller776]

Concilliabule with Lokane please. I miss them. 💚

Thank you.

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

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! This is loosely based on this story summary of mine. (AO3)

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~

#rosalysaoirse #my fic #lokane #lokane fanfic #lokane ff #loki x jane foster #jane foster x loki #star does prompts

[iamstartraveller776]

A/N: In jest, @averbaldumpingground challenged me to write all 20 prompts from this fake dating list. Well, joke’s on my friend, I accepted the challenge. I’m doing 500-word ficlets for each, using different fandoms/ships.

Modern/Non-magical AU for this one.

17. “You want to practice kissing to make it believable? How about we practice having an argument and you sleeping on the couch?” —MCU/Lokane (ao3)

PRACTICE

“Tick tock, darling.”

Jane rolled eyes. She had half a mind to stay locked in her room and scroll through her phone for the next twenty minutes just to spite Loki. He was the one who needed her, after all. Okay, fine. He was taking her next three night shifts in the lab, and she did want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Dr. Geller’s guest lecture on Tuesday. Maybe she was getting something out of this unholy arrangement too.

Huffing a sigh, she gave her reflection a final check. Hair pulled up in a passable updo. Make-up not terrible, thanks to a couple of how-to videos on YouTube. Dress… Actually, she loved the red gown that was off one shoulder and hugged her petite figure in a way that gave her more curves than she had. The shoes were fantastic too. But since Loki picked them out, she’d sooner tell him that his theory about FRBs was correct—it wasn’t—than admit he had good taste in anything.

She just had to get through some stuffy charity function while pretending to be smitten with her academic nemesis. No problem. She could do this. She grabbed her handbag and swung the door open.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said, walking into the living room.

Loki lounged on her old couch in a full tuxedo, ankle crossed over his knee, looking like a giant in her tiny apartment. He gave her a critical once-over, and no, her heart absolutely did not flutter at his appreciative grin. He stood up, slowly crossed the room to her as if he hadn’t been hurrying her along just a minute ago.

“Not so fast,” he said. “I think we ought to practice first.”

“Like getting our stories straight? How long we’ve been dating and all that?” She supposed it made sense.

Loki shook his head. “No, I mean the typical displays of affection between a couple. Hand holding and—” he licked his lips, “—kissing.”

She snorted, cursing the funny little flip-flop in her middle. “Maybe we should practice fighting in public instead.”

He smirked. “But we’re quite good at that already.” He touched her forearm, dragged his fingers down to hers. She could only stare as he drew her hand up and brushed his lips over her knuckles, sending a wave of chills skittering across her skin.

Oh, this was a bad idea.

He tugged her toward him. “You can’t look like I’ve never touched you before.” His voice became gravelly as he murmured, “Because if you were truly mine, I wouldn’t keep my hands off you.”

“Loki,” she began but the rest of her flimsy warning died in her throat when he leaned forward. She closed her eyes, reminding herself that this was all fake.

As he tipped her head to the side, though, his palms on her jaw felt very real. So did his warm mouth over hers. And the way he breathed her in—oh, god.

She was in trouble.

~FIN~

FRBs = Fast Radio Bursts

#lokane #lokane fanfic #lokane ff #loki x jane foster #jane foster x loki #my fic

[iamstartraveller776]

THE ONE - Lokane One Shot

Summary: He awakened her to a whole new universe with a single glance and, at the same time, obliterated everything good in her life. Now inexplicably tied to him by fate, she's forced to answer a chilling question: what do you do when your soulmate isn't your better half, but your worst nightmare?

Rating: T (includes canon-typical violence)

Genre: Avengers 2012 Canon Divergence, Soulmates AU, Dark, Drama, Dark Loki, Romance(ish?)

Word Count: 9467

Also on AO3 and FFN

A/N: One night my brain said, “what if soulmate au but dark?” and then held me hostage until I wrote it. The theme song for this is Chase Holfelder’s dark cinematic cover of Tainted Love. Enjoy? (I hope.)

I watched Avengers 2012 more than a dozen times in a row for this. Help me.

THE ONE

Jane is in the lab, having a quiet conversation with Bruce about tracking gamma radiation when he trails off mid-sentence, suddenly distracted. It’s a second before Jane can hear it too—the rhythmic thump, thump, thump of several sets of boots hitting the deck in perfect cadence, though one pair is out of sync. She turns, following Bruce’s gaze toward the steel-reinforced window that separates them from an adjoining corridor. Outside, a large retinue of soldiers in black gear march past, surrounding a tall man in burnished exotic armor.

Loki. Thor’s brother. The demi-god who has stolen her mentor’s mind and forced him to do his bidding.

The being in question turns his head, gaze fixing on Bruce as his mouth stretches in a malevolent grin. His pale eyes turn on Jane next and—

A sudden kaleidoscope of color flares in those eyes, rippling over the geometric planes of his face and then bursting outward in a breathtaking explosion that leaves nothing within view untouched.

No.

Jane’s heart bangs in her chest as he stops, as he stares at her, smile replaced with a startled dip in his raven brows, acute interest written in his features. He moves toward the window, and in defiance of the overwhelming impulse to mirror him, she forces a conscious step backward. But she can’t bring herself to look away.

A guard nudges Loki with the butt of his rifle, and finally—finally—he turns, breaking the disquieting connection between them. He glowers at the offender, but allows his escort to lead him on without complaint. Jane sags against the table behind her, drawing in a quivering breath once he’s completely out of sight.

“That was...disturbing,” Bruce murmurs, and she glances up at him. Is that what purple looks like—his shirt? Is “purple” even the right name for that color? She’s never seen it before.

“Doctor Foster?”

“Yeah, disturbing.” She closes her eyes, praying that when she opens them again her surroundings will be painted with the muted spectrum she’s always known. But they aren’t. Everything is incredibly vibrant. So alive. Her first instinct is to exult in this surprise awakening, but bile stirs thick in her middle when she recalls the reason for the change.

This can’t be happening. Not him. He can’t be the one.

“They’re probably going to want us on the bridge,” Bruce says.

Jane makes a noise of agreement, follows him out of the lab and tries to act as if she’s not seeing everything for the first time.

Thor is there. Thor! She waited for him for a year, tried to build a wormhole generator that would reach the Realm Eternal, though she wouldn’t have the first clue where to point the thing once it was complete. She remembers that night on the roof when he explained space in Asgardian terms to her. The soft flutters in her stomach as he smiled at her. The feel of his lips pressed against hers before he had to return home to stop Loki.

Loki.

Him, she only knew as a faceless antagonist. Anger would twist in her gut whenever she thought of him. She still feels it, but there’s a thrill woven now into that dark emotion.

In a heartbeat, Thor is in front of her, pulling her into his strong arms as he explains about the destruction of the Bifrost. In the heartbeat after, he’s kissing her, and oh, she understands now. She and her ex, Donald, vowed that they would remain true to each other, even if one of them crossed paths with their “fated” other half. The romantic phenomenon isn’t rare, but it also isn’t as common as movies, television, and books make it out to be. She and Donald used to mock people who spent their lives chasing it.

But one night after a shift at the hospital, he came home different—off. The next morning she woke to him sitting at the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped. His suitcases were waiting by the bedroom door.

“You don’t get it,” he said in a dejected voice. “You can’t until it happens to you.”

He was right. Because Thor’s mouth on hers tastes like ash. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong, and she wants to cry. But she doesn’t. She pulls back, gives him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and tells him they can catch up later. She ignores just how deep the red is in the accents on his armor.

During the meeting, she’s a wind-up doll with all the right answers, physically present but disconnected. The others stare at her when she lets out a wet laugh at Thor’s defense of Loki. Is that supposed to be her job now? Defending the indefensible? Simply because some greater power in the universe paired her up with the maniacal prince?

She’ll die first.

Or maybe he will. (She hates the dark part of her that hopes he will.)

The meeting adjourns, everyone given their task, and Jane excuses herself. To take a moment, she reasons. To find untainted air. She walks the long corridors for what seems like miles, taking apart this equation, rearranging the variables in the vain hope that she can find a solution that isn’t horrifying.

Her heart climbs into her throat when she becomes aware of her surroundings. Like a child following the pied piper, she’s been led to a crystalline cage. Loki stands at the center of it, back to her, but as she takes a tentative step onto the metal grating, he turns slowly. He’s striking, otherworldly, sharper as if nothing else is real—only him. He studies her, chin tipped up in an imperious expression. She glares at him in return.

“Jane Foster.” His baritone is sandpapery, smooth and edged with some unnamed thing that pebbles her skin with chills. An algid smile lifts the corners of his lips, presses long dimples into his cheeks. He’s beautiful and deadly. Like a red dwarf balanced on the precipice of going supernova.

“What?” he asks in a caustic tone. “Not overjoyed to have finally met your destiny?”

The serrated question neatly slices the lifeline she’s latched onto for the sake of her sanity: the theory that foreordained romance is an anomaly that exists solely on Earth. Cut loose from the false idea, she’s in a free fall, spiraling toward an appalling fact that will obliterate her.

With a quiet, raspy laugh, he gives voice to her rising fear. “What does that say about you, I wonder—that out of the billions who live among the branches of Yggdrasil, I am your best match.” He assesses her in liquid perusal. “And you are mine.”

No. She shakes her head, grits her teeth against the plasma arc of his unwavering gaze. “Never.”

“He speaks of you often—Doctor Selvig,” Loki says, unmoved by her declaration. “He’s so terribly proud of his bright young protegé.”

Her fingers curl against her palm as an ember of indignation flickers to life inside of her. How dare he. How dare he mention Erik as though her mentor isn’t one of his living victims. “Stop.”

“He boasts that you’re not only intelligent, but exceptionally clever,” Loki continues. “Apparently one day your work will eclipse all those who came before. You will become the impossible standard that others futilely throw themselves against.”

“Stop it,” she warns again, pulse thrumming erratically in her ears.

“Do you know how often he’s asked me to find you? Begged me to open your eyes as I have done for him?” Loki inches toward the wall between them. “Oh, but I don’t think I will now. I won’t risk muddling that singular mind of yours.”

“Stop it!” Outrage blazes through her veins, and she dashes the short distance to the cell, swinging at it as if she could somehow reach him. Hurt him. Pain splinters through her knuckles when her fist slams against the unyielding glass.

Loki bends forward, expression turning manic as he splays his long fingers over the smooth surface opposite her hand. “Did you feel it, Jane? Did you feel that impregnable tether snap into place between us the moment we laid eyes on one another?” He glances at her fist, brushes the wall there, and she almost feels his fingertips ghosting on her skin.

She snatches her hand back, sick from the answering heat in her middle.

“Open the door,” he murmurs, his breath misting the glass. “Open it.” In his feverish eyes, she can read what he leaves unsaid. Let me out. Let me touch you.

Let me have you.

It’s a siren song, crackling along the invisible cord that binds them, tugging her toward him.

No.

Jane retreats, looks away, and her gaze lands on the console—on the clear box that covers a large red button. Her heart pounds heavy in her chest as she recalls the demonstration Fury gave Loki a half hour ago. She could push the button, put an end to this distorted new universe before it can suffocate her with its thorny vines.

But he’s the murderer, not her.

She blows out an anemic exhale and turns on unsteady legs.

“You can’t run from me, Jane Foster,” Loki says. “I am inevitable.”

Jane leaves without a backward glance, repulsed that a part of her needs him to be right—no matter how badly she doesn’t want him to be.

She heads to the tiny cabin she was assigned, lets the door fall closed behind her with a soft clank. The air is too thin, but she gulps for it anyway. More and more and more until she becomes dizzy from want of oxygen. He’s stolen all of it. She can’t breathe. She can’t—

She dashes toward the closet that serves as a bathroom, and the sensored light blinks on with a tinny whine. Cool water streams over her hands when she thrusts them under the faucet, and she splashes her face. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Again. And again.

What is she going to do? What can she do? She took Introduction to Predetermination Studies years ago as an undergrad, but it was a throwaway course—something to fulfill a humanities requirement. Did the professor talk about this kind of anomaly, this awful link between a decent person and someone so wretched? Can the soulmate bond be broken?

Or is it only death that can sever it?

Her gaze drifts to her hand, at the red and purple blooming like a blurred flower over her skin. So vivid. Is that what a bruise has always looked like? She brushes a shaky thumb over it.

I am inevitable.

“Doctor Foster to the lab.”

Jane starts at the voice coming over the intercom, and she shakes off the conflicting swell of emotions. She will not have her agency stolen from her this way. She’ll watch that smug expression melt off of his angular features when he learns that she found the Tesseract, that she stopped him. Then Fury or Thor can do with him what they will.

Loki will never have her.

A few feet from her destination, Fury steps into her path, Agent Hill at his shoulder. “Doctor Foster,” he greets her in his usual gruff manner. “Care to explain how you know Loki?”

The answer is a barb in Jane’s throat, chokes her voice. She can’t tell him. She won’t. Because it’s irrelevant. Because Fury will tie her hands, and she needs to get to work. “I was there when he tried to kill Thor with the Destroyer last year,” she says. Not a lie. She does her best to stand tall under his scrutiny.

He snorts with disbelief, swipes a finger over the tablet he holds, and turns the display toward her. It’s a video of the holding cell, of Loki’s hand against the glass where her fist is, and dread sinks like poisoned lead in her stomach.

Did you feel it, Jane?

“You were saying?”

She looks up at Fury, forces on an impassive mask to hide the trepidation pinking her cheeks. “I’ve never spoken to him before today.” Another parceled out truth, but she needs him to accept it, to let her go.

Fury opens his mouth, but swallows back whatever he was going to say. Instead, he glances over her head, pressing a finger to the comm in his ear. “Copy that.” And then his focus back on Jane. “Agent Hill here is going to keep an eye on you until we can finish this conversation.” He spins toward the lab, his leather duster swirling behind him.

“Fine. Let’s go, then,” Jane says to her new keeper with a nod toward Fury’s retreating back.

But Agent Hill doesn’t let her into the lab. She escorts them to the bridge instead, points to the conference table with a significant look, and Jane is rendered useless. She refuses to sit, though. She can’t. Voltaic apprehension scurries across her nerves, and she falls into the elementary school habit of reciting the planets of the solar system as she paces the platform. Back and forth. Back and forth. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter…

Asgard, Alfheim, Vanaheim, Midgard—

No. Stop.

It’s no longer Thor’s voice in her memory labeling the realms of Yggdrasil for her. It’s not the image of his open smile that flashes across her vision, but the predatory grin of the dark fallen prince. The spike those hungry white teeth send down her spine is disconcertingly close to anticipation. She presses her palms to her eyes to chase it away. She’s losing her mind.

“You’ve got to let me go to the lab,” she says to Agent Hill. Desperation cracks her voice, and she hopes the other woman will take pity on her.

Agent Hill only spares her a cool glance. “I don’t have to let you do anything, Doctor Foster,” she replies. “Not until we can vet your story.”

Jane wants to scream. She wants to laugh. “I told Fury the truth.” The part that matters, anyway.

“And you can prove that when he’s back,” Agent Hill returns. “Until then, please have a seat.” Her tone is firm. There’s no more arguing.

Before Jane can reach for one of the chairs, the ship reels with an explosion and again with an aftershock that reverberates an ear-splitting boom. Hands on her ears to muffle the sudden cacophony of alarms and shouts, Jane watches a cloud of black smoke whip by the windows.

Agent Hill dashes to a station to report. “External detonation. Number three engine is down.”

All hands to stations. All hands to stations.

Loki.

Jane breaks for the exit and, with the pandemonium, no one stops her. An agent jumps out of her way as she races down the corridor toward the detention center. Toward him. A tide of adrenaline makes her faster, more agile as she dodges others. She knows what she has to do now. A horrible roar echoes through the ship, and urgency becomes paramount. Hurry. Hurry before it’s too late.

She lies to the guards outside the chamber, tells them that Fury sent her to check on their prisoner. (Was this how she got past them the first time? It frightens her that she doesn’t remember.) The pair of square-jawed men point their muzzles down, letting her pass. She steps inside, heart knocking against her ribcage, but she waits until the thick doors latch shut behind her before she faces Loki.

He’s seated on the bench, head tilted as he studies her, unblinking. “Couldn’t stay away?” he says as if he isn’t surprised—as if he expected her.

Jane presses her lips together to stay the well of scathing retorts unfurling on her tongue. He likes wringing a reaction from her, craves it by the dare in his eyes, and she won’t glut his sadistic appetite. There’s a distant clamor on the Helicarrier, resounding through the bulkheads.

Hurry.

Loki’s indifference vanishes when she turns to the control panel. He’s on his feet, crossing the cell, planting his hands on the glass. His gaze follows her fingers as she flips up the acrylic cover over the release button. It’s so red.

Will that go away when he’s gone?

“I underestimated you, Jane Foster,” Loki says. “When Thor returned to Asgard so...soft—” he spits the word, “—I had thought you some gentle goddess of unfailing virtue. But you aren’t.” He presses closer to the barrier. “You’re like me.”

“I’m nothing like you!” she snaps. Why? Why is she shackled to him? “I don’t kill innocent people.”

“But you would kill someone who is utterly defenseless.” He casts a telling glance at her hand hovering over his demise. “How is that any more moral than what I have done?”

He’s wrong. He’s committed countless atrocities for his own self-interest. She’s committing one sin to save millions. To save herself. No, no. This isn’t about her—about their aberrant bond. This is about stopping him. Even if she has to sell her soul to do it.

She forces herself to look at him, to take in the rapid rise and fall of his chest that belies his insolence. He stares back at her, silently challenging her to prove him wrong. Or to prove him right. Do it, she commands herself. End this nightmare for everyone. She touches the button, sucks in a breath, and—

Her hand is yanked away from the console, arms wrenched behind her back. “No!” she cries out. She struggles against her captor, a man in charcoal S.H.I.E.L.D. battle gear—a man with dazzling blue eyes and an iron grip.

Loki backs away with a laugh, but she sees the infinitesimal drop in his shoulders. She made him afraid, and that revelation—that she has any power over him—is terrifyingly heady. Her diseased triumph is short-lived, however, replaced by the bilious rise of panic when the cell door hisses open. He steps out of his prison, boots ringing against the grating as he rounds the cage toward her. A knot pulls tight in her middle as he draws close.

Let me have you.

He measures her with a keen gaze, amused when she attempts to tear her arms free. “Hesitation,” he says, “will always cost you the advantage.” He leans in close and, warm breath against her ear, whispers, “Remember that for next time, darling.”

“Why wait?” Jane grinds out as he straightens back to his towering height. “I’m ready for another round right now.” In a distant corner of her mind, she realizes how irrational it is to goad him. But contempt has eclipsed any logic she has left.

Loki makes a noise of approval, and the sound transudes beneath her skin like hot black tar. “I don’t doubt it,” he says. “Unfortunately, I’ve a more pressing engagement.”

He raises a hand, twists his wrist, and she gasps. Because he’s back in the cell, marking the perimeter like an untamed animal. Ignoring her as if he hadn’t just been standing in front of her, smelling like leather and brass—like the air before a December storm. What’s happening? Is this a dream?

(Please let it be a dream.)

He pauses at the door, waits for it to open—again. Steps out. Again.

“Loki, no!”

Jane’s eyes go wide as Thor leaps through a side door, hurtles toward Loki and falls through him. With a swish of the hermetic lock, the God of Thunder is sealed inside.

Loki reappears near her in a ripple of green light. “Are you ever not going to fall for that?” he asks his brother.

Thor jabs a finger toward Loki. “You open this cage or I will…” The rest of his thunderous warning tapers off when his gaze finds her. Anxiety washes over his guileless features, and when he turns back to his brother, his tone is solicitous. “Let her go. Your quarrel is with me, not Jane.” The appeal slashes her heart. If he knew, would he still beg for her safety?

“You’re right,” Loki agrees, spreading his hands in concession. “I have no quarrel with the good doctor—even if she did make a worthy attempt on my life. But surely you must know that I cannot let her go.”

“Don’t—” Jane begins through gritted teeth the same time Thor says, “If this is about revenge—”

“It isn’t about revenge,” Loki cuts in with a lip curled in a sneer. “Not this. Not anymore.” He draws closer to the cell. “Did she not tell you?”

Thor’s gaze darts to Jane with a question in his furrowed brows, but she can’t manage the words to explain the hideous snare that fate has tangled her in.

What does that say about you, I wonder, that I am your best match.

Loki clicks his tongue in mock disappointment. “Oh, Jane. How wicked of you to keep such glad tidings to yourself.” He gives his brother a cocksure grin. “Doctor Foster and I are bound. We are lýst yfir.”

The news hits Thor like a physical blow. He staggers back, caves into himself as shock and anguish contort his features. “No,” he breathes. “That can’t be. Jane?”

With every cell in her body, she wants to dispute Loki’s claim, to say it’s a weaponized lie meant to hack at Thor’s heart. She can’t, though. “I’m going to find a way to break it!”

“The young are so recklessly optimistic,” Loki replies with a dismissive snort, addressing his brother. “I do like her fire, but she’s so terribly…mortal. Do you think Mother will still approve?”

Thor lets out a feral growl, swings at the cell wall with his massive hammer. The glass fractures an inch with tiny spidery lines, and Loki takes a step back, laughing—reveling in Thor’s impotence.

“Take her to the ship,” he orders, tossing a glance at the man who holds Jane. “I have unfinished business with my brother.”

Jane digs her heels into the grating, leans forward with all of her strength to slip out of her captor’s vise-like grip. She locks her jaw against the pain splintering down from her shoulders. If she has to dislocate them to get free, then so be it. Loki can’t have her. He can’t!

She shrieks in frustration when his minion easily lifts her up, drags her backward to the exit. Thor is shouting, but it’s Loki’s voice that congeals her blood as she’s wrestled over the threshold into the corridor.

“The humans think us immortal. Shall we test that?”

Her screams rebound fruitlessly off the closing doors.

The journey through the Helicarrier is a blur of pealing klaxons, smoke, and chaos. She battles every step, yells for help from anyone rushing past, but it’s pointless. After a quick glance at her warden’s uniform, her desperate cries fall on deaf ears.

And when they finally don’t—the good samaritan gets a bullet in the chest.

It’s so sudden, so senseless, that Jane can only watch in a stupor while the poor flight deck operator crumples to the tarmac. Horror and guilt intertwine in her chest, drain the fight from her as Loki’s minion manhandles her into a stolen Quinjet, as he shoves her into one of the jump seats and straps her into the harness, as he zip-ties her hands together.

Someone died because of her.

No. Her nails dig into her palms. Someone died because of him.

As if summoned by her furious thoughts, Loki appears at the bottom of the ramp. There’s a slight hitch in his step as he enters the jet, scepter in one hand and the other folded across his torso. The muscles in his jaw flex briefly when he takes his seat. He’s hurt and good.

Or at least, that’s what she has to tell herself, scream it internally to smother the bond growing like a noxious weed behind her sternum, reaching toward him, demanding that she care. She stifles the compulsive worry for his condition. He doesn’t deserve it.

Her stomach dips as the jet lifts into the air, bay door closing. Smiling, Loki takes a final glimpse of the havoc he’s caused before leaning back in his seat. His gaze slides over to Jane, and his eyes on hers is a closed circuit, electricity zinging across the space between them. She pretends she doesn’t feel it, glares at him in spite of her faltering pulse. Displeasure pulls his lips into a thin line, but he’s no longer interested in her bravado. Instead, he’s zeroed in on the thick black bands circling her wrists.

“Release her,” he commands in a flat tone.

The man who hauled her aboard doesn’t agree, though, as he dares to protest, “But—”

“She’ll behave,” Loki says with a confidence that grates on her.

“Why?” she shoots back as his man hurries to obey. She rubs at the angry red marks on her wrists. “Because we’re soulmates?”

“No,” Loki replies. “Because your cooperation ensures Doctor Selvig’s safety.” Somehow his dispassionate delivery makes the threat more reprehensible.

Eyes narrowed, Jane gives him her own cold warning: “You better not hurt him.”

“Or what?” He grins as if she’s nothing more than a little girl stamping her foot. “Do go on, dear Jane. Describe in illicit detail what violence you intend to mete out upon my person.” He looks her over, tongue wetting his bottom lip. “You have my rapt attention.”

Let me—

She turns away, mouth clamped shut. This is a depraved game to him, and she’s not playing.

The jet lands minutes later, and the bay doors open to a city landscape. They’re on a skyscraper in New York—a tall one, by the view. She scrambles to unbuckle her harness when Loki stands to exit.

“I want to see Erik,” she says. When he cants a brow at her demand, she crosses her arms over her chest. “You want me to cooperate? I want proof that he’s okay first.”

Loki hums as though he likes the flavor of her boldness, and again, it’s a clarion bell ringing through her body. He extends a hand toward her. “How can I deny my lady?”

She doesn’t move, gives his slender fingers a glower instead. But the truth is she’s afraid to touch him, afraid that it will somehow amplify the gnarled thing between them. She’s more afraid that he’ll force the issue—or try to. He’s stolen minds, taken lives, plans to rain terror down on her world. What other malicious liberties would a demigod like that be willing to take?

With a soft laugh, he lets his hand drop to his side, and her lungs remember how to function.

He leads her to the pinnacle of the building, and looking down, she thinks she recognizes this place from some news segment she caught a few months ago: the newly minted Stark Tower. She’d find Loki’s audacity hilarious if there wasn’t a very real chance that he’ll succeed.

At the top, Erik drags equipment across the graveled roof, assembling it together with deranged focus. It takes a moment before he notices his audience, and his face lights up when his gaze lands on her.

“Jane! He found you!” He almost trips as he rushes over to pull her into a bruising hug. Just as quickly, he steps back, gripping her by the shoulders. His unnatural cerulean eyes search her face, but he’s looking through her rather than at her. “Can you see it? Did he awaken you?”

“Oh, yes,” Loki answers with perverse amusement. “Doctor Foster is seeing everything in a whole new light.”

“That’s wonderful!” Erik exclaims. “You can help me complete the generator!” He enthusiastically returns to the device without a backward glance.

Tears of helpless anger brim in Jane’s eyes. She’d known what happened to Erik, what Loki had done to him within minutes of his arrival, but witnessing it first hand—watching her friend and mentor aid in the demise of Earth with brainwashed glee—the breadth of this cruelty is staggering.

The devil behind it all glances at her. “Come. You’ve had your curiosity satisfied.” He takes a step toward the ladder where one of his human automatons waits for them. When she doesn’t immediately follow, he turns his head, profile cut in angles by the sunlight, and again she’s reminded of how hazy the rest of the world seems in comparison to him. “Keep your promise, and I’ll keep mine.”

Jane looks back at Erik, stomach writhing as she leaves him behind—but not without a silent pledge that she will come back for him. Somehow.

Loki is quiet on the elevator ride to the residence, says nothing as he crosses the great room to the floor-to-ceiling windows—to the glass door leading out onto a circular terrace. His brief glance back at her is an unspoken command to join him. With his lackey shadowing her, she understands that this is not a battle worth fighting.

Outside, Manhattan is spread before them in a sea of glistering buildings. They’re too far up to hear the day-to-day noise of the city, but she thinks of the faceless population, going about their routines wholly unaware that they are on the cusp of a ruthless alien invasion. The thought is overwhelming, and she turns away, glances up at the silver glint at the top of the high-rise. Maybe…maybe she can save them all by saving one.

“Let him go,” she says to Loki. It’s not a plea, not quite. “I’ll take his place. I’ll finish it for you.”

Loki cocks his head. “Would you?” he asks, advancing on her in languid footfalls. “Would you submit as this”—he raises the scepter, gleaming tip mere centimeters from her chest—“digs its talons into your mind, claws out your will and fills the void with its own?” He gives her a brittle smile. “Don’t be so hasty to offer up your neck when you don’t understand the cost.”

She shudders at the image he painted, but it’s his white-knuckled grip on the staff, the wet glaze in his pale eyes that smothers her breath. The first drops of aching sympathy begin to gather around her heart and—no! He’s done unspeakable things, even before his appearance on her world. The Destroyer he sent to Puente Antiguo. The attempt at genocide on Jotunheim, as told to her by Thor.

Thor.

“What did you do to Thor?”

The scepter drops, and Loki’s gaze slips from hers, years falling away from his expression, leaving behind a haunted boy. “I let him go,” he says in a quiet, hollow baritone.

Jane stares at him, and no matter how she shouts his iniquities in her mind, she can’t see beyond his broken vulnerability to the villain he’s played. White knuckles. Glassy eyes. Is he…is he under duress, too?

“You don’t have to do this.” She’s pleading now. If there’s a chance—a chance that the man she’s chained to isn’t a remorseless demon, a chance that she can somehow head off this disaster before it begins—she has to try. “Loki, you can stop this.”

But these are the wrong words. He comes back to himself, shutters away the lost child behind a veneer of malice. “Why? So you can save me from myself?” he asks, bending forward so he’s nearly nose to nose with her. “Will you cut me apart, bleed out all my darkness, stitch me back together as a tame, benevolent god?” He straightens to his full height, spreads his arms. “Ah, but I have already been reborn. Make no mistake, Jane Foster. You are not my redemption. I am your curse.”

Each syllable is tinder for her ubiquitous rage, stoking it from a controlled flame to a violent bonfire, and she swings her fist at his jaw. Her bruised knuckles connect with a stinging crack. “You’re nothing to me!”

He touches the rosy mark budding on his pallid skin, lips tipping up in the corners. “No, I am everything.” Before she can let loose a cutting retort, he glances past her at his underling. “It’s time to secure Doctor Foster elsewhere.”

She crosses her arms, plants her feet as the nameless man approaches. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Loki lifts her chin to draw her attention back to him, and his fingertip is a brand, searing an invisible, indelible print into her flesh. “Remember the stakes, darling,” he murmurs.

Her heart stops when his eyes drop to her mouth. Because she doesn’t think he’s talking about her mentor anymore. That pernicious vine inside of her grows, stretches and twists from her chest outward. “I don’t want this.” The confession comes out as a strangled whisper.

Loki laughs and the sound is colorless. “Freedom has ever been an illusion. Your lot was cast from your first breath. As was mine.” It’s there again, a trace of something in his watery gaze, breaking at the fringe of his voice. But in the next blink, it’s gone. “Take her.”

Jane wants to fight. It feels so wrong not to, but his threat is an axe hanging over Erik. She’ll let herself be guided from the terrace and locked up somewhere in the tower—though not before giving Loki a final, stabbing glare. He nods in return, impervious to her hostility, and then his gaze points heavenward.

The room she’s sequestered in is meant for guests—visiting dignitaries, perhaps, or Tony’s billionaire associates. It’s made of sleek greys and steel, and she’s irrationally offended by the monochromatic theme. As if it’s a subliminal reminder of the life full of naive dreams and bright possibilities ripped from her moment she crossed paths with Loki. A reminder, too, of what she might lose if she manages to cleave their snarled connection.

A distant boom cuts into her scan of her decadent prison cell, and gelid anticipation clambers up into her chest as she crosses the large room to the tinted windows on the far side. She crowds against the cool glass, willing it to grant her a better view of the world outside. One breath passes, then another with no change in the afternoon cityscape, but she doesn’t find relief in the fixed scenery. No, these are the ticking seconds before a neutron collides with plutonium.

And there it is. Something flung from the building, falling, falling, falling, chased by a glimmer of metal. The something becomes someone, shooting back up in a blur of red and gold. Iron Man. Tony Stark. Not long after, a swarm descends from the sky, mottled grey—no, grey-green—creatures in brass and tin armor flying in like locusts to raze everything. They come and come and come without end. Bursts of red and charcoal grey mushroom from nearby buildings, leaving craters in the cement and metal, and she’s frozen by the unreality of it all, fingers listlessly sliding down, streaking the clear surface of the window.

The only reprieve from this relentless devastation is when lightning charges upward, wielded by a distant figure with a hammer. Thor is alive. But that's a thin consolation.

She watches until she can’t stomach the relentless mayhem anymore, until large ships with serrated, snapping teeth swoop into the fray, destroying, consuming. Hatred roars in her ears, louder than the overlapping chorus of explosions. She is going to stop him. And then she’s going to make him pay for every drop of blood spilt by him or on his behalf.

There’s no way out of the room, though. The door is locked, guarded by not one but two of his puppets. She tries the closet, the bathroom, but she’s met with immutable walls. For an absurd second, she considers trying to breach the windows with the heavy bedside lamp, but the panes are too thick—and she wouldn’t know how to scale the sheer drop on the other side. With a shout of frustration, she slaps her palms against the impliable glass, then jumps back when it lights up.

But it’s not a bomb or blaster fire that has come too close to the windows. It’s some kind of computer interface winking to life over the glossy surface in rich color.

“Can I help you, Doctor Foster?” a crisp British voice says, and she whirls around in search of its source. She’s alone, though.

“Who are you? How do you know my name?”

“I am JARVIS, Mr. Stark’s automated aide. Part of my programming includes personnel files of his colleagues,” the voice answers. “Your heart rate and respiration indicates distress. How may I be of assistance?”

Jane licks her lips. It’s a long shot, but— “Can you get me out of here?”

There’s a protracted pause, and then: “First, Mr. Stark would like me to ask if you’ve been compromised.”

Dread sprouts anew in her middle. He can’t know, can he? “Compromised?”

“His exact words were, ‘Find out if Marilyn Manson used his evil wizard staff on her and turned her brain to mush.’”

Jane blows out a sigh, offering thanks to the universe for keeping her horrible secret a little while longer. “No,” she says. “I haven’t been compromised. In fact, if you can help me get to the roof, I think I can find a way to shut down the portal.”

It’s Tony who responds through the hidden speakers. “Good enough for me. JARVIS, she’s all yours. I’ve got a party to get back to.”

The display on the windows changes to a schematic of the residence floors. “In order to avoid Loki’s men, I’m afraid you’ll have to take an unconventional route,” JARVIS explains as a yellow line traces a path through the blueprints.

She steps closer to the plans, narrows her eyes at the exit from her temporary cell. “Are those air ducts?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he—it?—replies. “I’ll be able to track your movement.”

“And Tony?” she asks. “Does this mean you’re not helping him?” As anxious as she is to get to Erik, to undercut Loki’s brutal rise to power, she remembers now that Tony’s suit relies on an AI, and New York needs Iron Man more than she needs to escape.

“Although a significant portion of my central processing unit is dedicated to Mr. Stark’s assistance, I am capable of being in two or more places at once.”

She nods, glances at the vent in the corner. “I guess we better get to it.”

The crawl through the ducts takes longer than she hoped for. As she inches on her belly through the maze of galvanized steel, she lists stars by classification, murmurs constellation names and their current position in the heavens. The first one hundred digits of pi. The atomic numbers of all the elements she can name. (But not the planets of the solar system.) She’s not claustrophobic, but in the cramped, dark tunnels with only a disembodied voice to guide her, panic laps at the edge of her thoughts.

When she finally makes it to the end of the last duct, she’s nearly undone by a vent cover. It won’t budge at first, and in the confined space, she’s stuck head first with only her hands to produce any kind of force. She swallows down a scream, afraid she’ll be overheard, and using her toes to press her body forward, shoves with everything she has. With her fear of being too late. With her contempt for Loki. The cover gives way with a creak, and she shimmies out to the floor on the other side, guzzling the fresh air for a painfully short respite.

The next leg in her clandestine journey is a series of sprints, timed to avoid Loki’s soldiers prowling nearby. Her heart pounds thickly as she darts from hiding place to hiding place. She doesn’t breathe until she makes it to the stairwell and slips into its relative safety. JARVIS tells her that it’s six stories to the roof access. She runs every step, ignores the burning in her lungs, the ache in her thighs.

“I’m afraid that we must part ways here,” JARVIS says when, panting, she finally reaches the door. “My surveillance of the roof is limited.”

“Thanks.”

“Good luck, Doctor Foster.”

She pushes open the door.

It’s so loud out here. The sharp bang and echoing rumble of alien ships crashing into buildings. The zip and zing of energy weapons. The savagery around claws at her, turns the oxygen in her chest stale, and Jane is tempted to fold into herself, to cover her eyes like she did as a little girl when reality became an oppressive, suffocating weight. But she’s not a little girl, and she has the power to end this.

(She hopes.)

She climbs the ladder to the final peak and discovers there are worse catastrophes than a fatal alien encounter and a madman bent on world domination. Erik is lying on the ground, face down and unmoving. No! She dashes to him, rolls him over. He can’t be dead. Loki promised. He promised.

Did she really expect the God of Mischief to keep his word?

No, but she unconsciously believed that her soulmate would.

Erik stirs, and she lets out a wet sob. His eyes stutter open, and the inhuman bright blue in his irises fades away.

“Jane?” he asks, brows furrowing. He twists, crawls toward the edge to take in his surroundings. Horror blanches his face as he sees the decimation. “What have I done?”

She opens her mouth to reassure him that this wasn’t his doing, to tell him that they need to shut down the generator, but an explosion booms nearby. A figure in black lands on the roof in a roll. Natasha. Jane only catches a glance of the other woman before a deafening bellow draws her attention below—just as the Hulk flings himself into the building. What is he doing?

Loki.

An unwanted filament of unease quivers inside of her.

“The scepter,” Erik murmurs. “Loki’s scepter.”

Jane follows his gaze and sees it, shining on the terrace. Abandoned. But he would never leave it behind. Her unease magnifies into alarm.

“The energy,” Erik goes on. “The Tesseract can’t fight, but you can’t fight against yourself.”

Natasha replies, but it’s lost to Jane. She hears something else, a distinct sound above the din of the invasion. Craters slammed into marble. Everything turns sideways, spinning, and she clutches at the ground to anchor herself. She glances at Erik, worried that the high-rise’s foundation has been shaken, but he’s unperturbed. He’s explaining to Natasha that they can use the scepter to stop the generator.

It’s not the building. It’s him. It’s the tether, urgently yanking at her.

She’s down the ladder, racing toward the stairwell on another wave of adrenaline. Natasha is hot on her heels; she seems to think they have the same goal. They should. Jane wants an end to it all. But she knows that it must start with the puppet master plucking at the strings.

Natasha makes it to the scepter first, and Jane yells for her to get it back upstairs. She lets the other woman believe that she’ll follow. She doesn’t.

Her pulse strikes an erratic rhythm as she enters the great room. The floor is splintered, chunks of stone displaced, and Loki lies in a depression, wheezing softly. She shoves back at the obligatory compassion the bond is attempting to force on her. No, she will not have any sympathy for this devil. If only she’d been able to push that red button. She could have prevented the insanity that followed, the lives lost.

He has to be stopped. She has to stop him.

There’s a knife in her hand, and she has only a vague notion of picking it up from the set on the wet bar. She grips it tighter as she walks over the man who exists solely to contaminate everything he touches. Alert, Loki watches every step she takes toward him, gaze trailing the blade. His handsome features are marred with dark bruises, with a cut across the bridge of his nose, another through his bottom lip. When she stops above him, his eyes meet hers and he angles his head, stretches his neck as a challenge—as an invitation. The taunt is fuel tossed on the inferno inside of her. She can do it. She will.

She drops to her knees, pushes the sharpened steel against his throat. He grunts when it nips at his skin, just enough to release a tiny bead of blood. Crimson. A color she’s never seen before today but experienced enough of to last a lifetime. Both because of him.

Do it. Save the world from him.

Save yourself.

He stares at her, a smile ghosting across his mouth. Not in ridicule but in resignation—as if he had always expected it would come to this. As if he knows that he’s a malignant tumor, one that has unlocked parts of her mind, given her a glimpse of a different way of existing but will kill her eventually. A cancerous thing that has to be excised. She tries to make her quaking hand finish the deed, tries to ignore the maelstrom of emotion—guilt, terror, longing—frothing in her stomach. Do it.

He reaches up, drags a thumb across her wet cheek. “Tell me,” he says, his deep timbre hoarse.

“What?” Her question is barely more than air.

“Tell me what you’ve done to earn the ire of the Norns.”

“Shut up,” she whispers, but it’s not a demand like she intends. It’s an appeal.

He glances toward the trembling knife at his neck. “Make me.” When he looks back at her, the curtain of megalomaniac parts briefly, and again, she catches a glimpse of the fragmented boy behind those onyx lashes.

She squeezes her eyes shut in a desperate attempt to unsee the fathomless pain in his gaze, to blot out the image conjured by her mind of a man who has been locked in a perpetual cycle of torment so long that he no longer begs for release. Stop, stop, stop! But it’s too late. It was too late from the moment he set foot on the Helicarrier.

She can’t do it. She can’t.

With a dejected cry, she lets the knife fall to the floor with a clatter. Loki knots his fingers in her hair, pulls her down to him, and captures her misery with his lips. Thor’s kiss was ash, but Loki’s is a gamma-ray burst—an preternatural blossom of florid wavelengths overlapping one another, so bright that it scorches her from the inside out, burning away everything she thought she understood. About the cosmos. About herself. Replaced by something new. A primal metamorphosis, coded into her DNA from birth, needing only the catalyst.

Needing only him.

The bond isn’t merely a physical thing, but deeper, visceral. Shards of a half-remembered life never lived—or a life not yet lived. It’s belonging, home, even as turmoil wraps its spindly fingers around her heart and squeezes. As he sits up, chasing her mouth when she draws back, as he snakes an arm around her waist, crushing her against him in an attempt to make whole what the universe apparently sundered eons ago, she finally believes him.

She is cursed.

Because none of this changes who he is and what he’s done. She’s the one irrevocably altered, and she’s frightened of the Jane who will emerge from the remaking.

Their vitiated communion is interrupted by a series of crashes outside. Ships and Chitauri alike drop from the sky, lifeless, and she scrambles upright, inches toward the window, chips of stone and broken glass crackling beneath her feet. The invasion is over. He lost. She laughs softly, basking in the victory even though she ultimately had no part in it. Loki staggers to her side, surveying his defeat with an oddly sedate reaction. No sneers or snarls. No threats. Only a fractional droop in his shoulders as if the thread of tension sewn there has finally been snipped. Only a wisp of a smile that appears almost like relief.

His gaze cuts to her, and he wordlessly offers her his hand.

Open the door.

Every atom that makes up her body, her mind, her soul—if such a thing exists—lurches to answer the silent request, but she doesn’t move. She clings weakly to the disintegrating belief that she has any say in the matter. That she can still somehow stop his charred darkness from consuming her, stop him from resurrecting her in his image.

He raises his brows at her reluctance, makes a derisive noise. “Have you truly not understood our roles?” he asks. “I’m a scourge. I’m ruination, but you, dear one? You’re the bit and bridle meant to rein this monster in.”

He’s telling the truth. He is a blight—septic, venomous. He needs to be restrained, rendered fangless. But he’s lying as well. Because a monster isn’t all that he is. Raw truth bleeds out from the fissures in his mask, though she can’t discern the full size and shape of what lies hidden beneath. Can she coax it out, subvert the beast? What if—

What if he is the one to save in order to save them all? To save herself?

She takes his hand.

An illusion hides their hobbling trek to the roof, Loki’s teeth clenching with each step as he leans on her for support. Natasha unknowingly passes them on the stairs, carrying the scepter as she descends, and his gaze follows it with an unreadable expression. Jane worries that he’ll try to reach for the staff, but he turns back to the risers going up.

Erik is still on the roof, dismantling the machine that had allowed another universe to infest theirs. He starts when Loki releases his magic, backs away from the demigod in terror, his shoes scraping precariously close to the brink of a fatal drop. Jane darts forward to catch him by his shirt, to embrace him.

“Jane,” her mentor whispers urgently. “You have to run, get away from him.”

She chokes back a sob, blinks away a surge of tears, and confesses, “I can’t.” She doesn’t expound further; he won’t understand. She’s not sure she does.

“It’s time,” Loki says, and she glances at him. The Tesseract balances on the fingertips of his right hand, frenetic energy dancing and twisting within the cube. A discarded case lies open at his feet.

Jane pulls out of Erik’s fervent grasp, pained by the betrayal in her mentor’s eyes as she joins the man who ruthlessly imprisoned his mind. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

“W-what are you doing?” Erik stumbles forward, reaching for her.

Loki steps in front of her and ticks a finger. “I wouldn’t if I were you.” The warning has jagged teeth, ready to snap at the first provocation.

“Loki.” She lays a hand on his bicep, and the gesture feels right—familiar. But then, this is her role. Rising up on her toes, she parrots his earlier words back to him: “Keep your promise, and I’ll keep mine.”

With a quiet, rasping laugh, he slants his head toward her. “Yes, darling.” He drops his arm, wraps it around her middle, and tows her against his side. To Erik, he says, “I’m afraid we really must be going. Do send my regards to your Avengers. I’d apologize for the mess but”—he gives the carnage a flippant glance—“I don’t actually care.”

His large hand envelops Jane’s, lifts it as he brings the Tesseract down to her level. She resists when she realizes that he intends for her to touch it. She can’t. She won’t. At best, the ethereal power has left others permanently incoherent. Institutionalized for life. At worst, they don’t survive at all. Loki leans down, nose nudging the crown of her head as his breath stirs her hair.

“Promises, Jane.”

Her palm kisses the smooth side of the cube and the world falls away into an eddy of vertiginous color, luminescent beyond anything she’s ever witnessed before. Worlds, galaxies, universes swirl around her, born, expanding, dying. Born again. Billions—no, trillions of civilizations rise and fall. Over and over and over. And she knows every single one, every life from first wail to final exhale. The Tesseract brushes against her mind, a beguiling invitation to come and play. To create.

To destroy.

Loki is at the center of the onslaught, his flesh a fulgent, leathery azure, marked with raised patterns. It’s his eyes that frighten her, though. They’re lurid red. A hue she’s coming to associate with death. He advances on her, exigent hunger pulling his mouth in a wide grin, and with each step, phantoms—each a different version of him—appear and fade away behind him like discordant echoes. When he speaks, their distant voices follow.

“Now do you see what I am?” he asks.

What am I?

Tell me!

Because I-I-I’m the monster that parents tell their children about at night?

Jane shrinks from him, but the Tesseract stalls her retreat, pushes back from the other side, begs to be let in. No. No. Her own echo shouts behind her, but the sound is hardly above a whisper.

You’re nothing to me!

Loki cups her cheek with fingers so cold, they burn. He forces her gaze to his. “I shall make you my equal.”

I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness.

I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal.

He tips forward, down, and breathes ice against her lips. “Stop defying fate.”

It’s too late. It’s too late to stop it.

Open the door.

Open it.

And then, impatient, the polluted force of the Tesseract floods into her. Everything it showed her before cascading like a relentless, violent waterfall. Worlds, Galaxies, Civilizations. All inside of her now, infecting her cells like a virus, filling them to bursting. She opens her mouth to find air, to scream, and with his frozen tongue, Loki drinks the deluge from her lips until her drowning is complete.

As darkness creeps over her, she irrationally recalls that black is every color—absorbed. Devoured.

She wakes in a garden of striking greens, dramatic purples, lively pinks, and a dozen other colors she has no name for. Before her is an ancient tree, its trunk wider than she is tall. Glowing, gilded fruit hangs from its bowing limbs. Idun’s Tree. Before she can ask herself how she knows it, the answer slithers underneath her skin: a part of the Tesseract left inside of her—a parasite feeding her knowledge so far beyond human imagination that it twists her mind. What is it taking in return?

A rustle draws her out of these unsettling thoughts, and she glances up to find Loki standing beneath a bough laden with apples. His skin is fair, eyes pale, and when he looks at her, it’s a closed circuit again, only this time more. So much more. The tether that binds them seemed unassailable before, but it’s become an invincible iron serpent. Living, breathing, winding them tighter together, and the Space Stone—the Tesseract’s true name—is woven inextricably in its scales, delighting in the eternal connection between its two hosts.

Loki reaches up, curls long fingers around a large fruit, and yanks it from the tree. She stares at it as he crosses the lush grass to her, as he crouches down and casually holds it within reach. She understands the significance of this gift. He won’t let her escape him through her mortality.

“You’re not going to corrupt me,” she says with steel in her voice, but she leaves the cogent word unformed on her tongue: further. He’s taken too much already. The Tesseract will take more.

Loki is undaunted by her resolve, even smiles as though he likes it, but there is an unspoken “We shall see” in his brow. “What sort of goddess will you make, I wonder? I have dominion over mischief and lies. What will you rule over?” he says. “Perhaps compassion for your bleeding heart. And”—he tilts his head, his expression sobering with a heart-clenching intensity—“fidelity.”

The weight of that word is beyond the loyalty she displayed toward her mentor, toward her world. Loki means unwavering fidelity to him. There’s a nuance in his hooded gaze that hints of a need unfulfilled. A flash of the broken boy—whom she truly reached for in Stark Tower when she put her hand in Loki’s. Who she hopes will keep her from eventually becoming someone unrecognizable to herself.

It’s too late.

She takes the proffered apple and bites.

~FIN~

#Lokane #lokane fanfic #lokane ff #my fic #the one

[iamstartraveller776]

Can you do a drabble in which Loki shows Jane for the first time looking like a Frost Giant and he's afraid of her reaction, not knowing that Jane is into alien romance novels and the one she's currently reading is about blue skinned men from an ice planet, so it turns her on when she's sees him this way. Btw yes there's a romance novel of that its by Ruby Dixon its called Ice Planet Barbarians.

rating: T (strong)

genre: canon divergence (post-thor: ragnarak; infinity war never happened. all the asgardians have made it safely to earth), humor, romance, jotun loki

summary: Jane Foster, brilliant astrophysicist with several degrees, has a dirty little secret—one that Loki finds very interesting.

Also on AO3 and FFN.

a/n: i changed some things from your prompt, vampi. also, my version of jotun loki is based on fan art by dyana wang. we are also going to pretend that jotuns can control whether their touch can injure other species. i mean, they can make ice come out of their hands and turn it into a weapon; it stands to reason that they can choose to cause frostbite in others—or not. i hope you enjoy this bit of crack fic!

FROST REALM JOTUN

It started with a pair of shoes.

Well, if Jane really wanted to pinpoint the beginning of things, she might say it was in the gilded halls of the Realm Eternal. Or maybe she could even blame the moment a deity out of mythology fell from the sky during a freak storm in the desert. Because meeting Thor meant eventually meeting Loki, and she learned that once you were on the radar of the God of Mischief, there was no escaping him—when he finally stopped hiding under the guise of his adopted father.

Some time after defeating Malekith, Jane and Thor went their separate ways. She’d been swept up in the romance of meeting an admittedly hot demigod from another world, but when they weren’t in the thick of a world-ending crisis, they discovered that they didn’t have all that much in common. He was often gone with the Avengers. She was often so wrapped up in her work that she hardly noticed his absences. They were better off as friends.

A year ago, a spaceship of Asgardian refugees showed up, seeking asylum on Earth as the Realm Eternal had been obliterated. Thor led the motley crew of survivors with Loki at his side. Loki, of all people! Jane had watched him die on the obsidian hills of Svartalfheim. She even shed a tear—for Thor’s sake, of course. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Jane was too busy to worry about immortals coming back from the dead.

Unfortunately, said resurrected immortal wasn’t too busy to worry about her.

Off and on over the last several months, the raven-haired prince popped up out of the blue at the oddest times. In her lab, at a Harvard alumni dinner, during a really awkward blind date. (That one she hadn’t minded as much.) And yes, at her apartment.

Hence the shoes.

It had been a long, fruitless day at the lab, and all Jane wanted to do was go home and fall into bed. Maybe read a passage or two from her favorite book to wind down. She trudged three flights to her floor, balancing a box full of data printouts under one arm and her satchel under the other—the strap had finally broken on the dilapidated thing—only to trip over something as soon as she stepped through her front door. Papers went flying, scattering across the entryway. When her eyes landed on the pair of large shiny Oxfords, she groaned.

Loki.

For one whole second, she entertained the idea of dragging him by an ear to the mess, demanding he help her clean it up. But last time she’d done something like that, he repaid her by changing all of her slides to cat memes when she was invited to present at the annual Astrophysics and Astronomy conference.

She heaved a sigh—hopefully loud enough to be overheard—and crammed all the printouts into the box. It was going to be hell to put them back in order, but right now she needed to get rid of her uninvited guest. She was too tired for whatever “harmless bit of fun” he had planned for the evening.

Jane found him in the living room, stretched out on his side across her second-hand couch. One long leg was bent up, arm propped on his knee. Today, he wore all black. Slacks, button-down, tie loosened at the color. An equally colorless jacket was carefully folded and draped over the back cushion. He didn’t immediately notice her, instead he was riveted by whatever book he was reading, pale eyes widened with profound curiosity. The expression reminded her of when she took him to the planetarium last month. How, during the show, he looked less like the cunning semi-reformed villain and more like an earnest student. He’d peppered her with dozens of questions afterward about Midgardian astronomy.

Her cheeks flushed at the memory. Because a switch flipped inside of her that night. One minute, he was a nuisance she grudgingly tolerated—she might even call him a friend on a good day, if she was pushed hard enough—and the next, butterflies took wobbly flight in her stomach whenever he flashed his dimples at her.

Like right now.

He glanced up from his book and gave her his signature grin that was on this side of feral. She pursed her lips to keep from smiling back. She was not happy to see him, she told herself. This was Loki. The maniacal demigod who had once tried to take over her world. Who faked his heroic death and stole the throne of Asgard. Who sometimes stared at her as if there was nothing else in the universe that could intrigue him more—that he could want more.

No, stop that. This was just her sorely neglected hormones latching onto the nearest available male. Darcy was right; Jane needed to get out of the lab more.

She crossed her arms as if to ward off his troublesome charm. “What are you doing here?”

Loki nonchalantly waved his free hand. “I couldn’t endure another insufferable evening of Thor recounting his exploits across the nine realms.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought I might find better company here.”

She snorted. Better entertainment, he meant. “I’m flattered,” she said, tramping down the little thrill in her middle that declared she actually was, “but I’m not up for visitors tonight. In fact, I’m heading to bed. So, if you’d just”—she mimicked the wrist-twisting he did whenever he used magic—“that’d be great.”

“Oh, but I’m already quite comfortable,” he said, not moving an inch. “I think I’ll stay and finish this fascinating tale.” He held up the book.

No. Please no. Her heart stopped. In his hand was her well-worn copy of Ice Planet Barbarians.

Jane had a dirty little secret. It wasn’t that she read the occasional romance novel. There was nothing wrong with that. It was that she really, really loved this particular love story—between a petite human woman and a seven-foot blue man with horns. She could say that her obsession with it was more about the absolute devotion the sa-khui males had for their human mates, argue that the female protagonist was surprisingly three-dimensional, but that would be a lie.

Jane had a very particular fetish. For aliens. Which might explain her whirlwind fling with Thor.

And her recent misplaced attraction to Loki.

“Where did you get that?” she asked, knowing that the book had been in her nightstand drawer among other things she’d rather he didn’t see.

“You took so long to return, and I exhausted your small library of mortal academia.” He said the last word with a note of derision. “This, however”—he gestured with the book—“has been terribly enlightening.”

She closed her eyes as mortification set her face on fire. Where was a catastrophic event when she needed one?

“Tell me,” Loki went on, “do all mortal women dream of being ravished by monsters?”

“Vektal is not a monster!” Jane snapped before she could think better of it.

“Oh? He’s not?”

She clenched her jaw, ready to let Loki have it for insulting her favorite romantic hero, but the tirade withered on her tongue when she looked at him. He was sitting up now, back straight, and though his expression was carefully neutral, he stared at her with fervent interest. As though the universe itself hung in the balance awaiting her answer.

Her throat felt suddenly dry. “He’s not.”

The corners of Loki’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t a smile, but something else. Something hungry. “And you,” he murmured, rising from the couch and crossing the small room toward her, “wish for an interlude with such a creature?”

Her breath hitched when her back touched the wall. “It’s just fiction. It’s nothing.”

He raised a brow in disbelief, giving a significant glance to the book with its dog-eared pages and tattered cover before setting it on the bookshelf next to her. “That isn’t what you want?”

Yes, she did. With every cell in her body, she wanted it. Not just the rabid loyalty of Vektal, but his otherness. But she’d die before making that confession to Loki. She tipped her chin up and, glowering at him, said, “Nope.”

Why, oh why did her voice have to betray her by sounding so airy?

His gaze dropped, traveling languidly from her eyes to her toes and back as he wet his bottom lip. “You’re certain?”

“Mm-hm.” She didn’t trust herself to speak, not when her heart was trying to bang its way out of her chest. Not when he was so close to her, she could grab him by his tie and—

What was happening?

He hummed with mock disappointment and took a step back. “Such a shame,” he said. “Particularly when you’ve had a very real Frost Giant at your disposal all this time.”

She frowned at him. “Frost Giant? What are you…”

The rest of her question died when he flicked a hand in the air. A wave of glittering green washed over him, taking with it his Asgardian, human-esque appearance. What was left in its wake made her lungs forget how to function. He was a bare-chested behemoth—at least a foot or two taller. And his skin was blue. With ridges etched into his flesh in intricate designs. He wore a crown with golden horns, and a kilt that reminded her of ancient Egyptian gods.

Was he trying to bring her fantasy to life as another prank? But his eyes were all wrong, a brilliant red instead of a glowing, pupil-less cerulean. Why would he change that important detail? In answer, a vague memory climbed out of the cobwebbed corner of her mind. Thor had told her once that his brother was adopted, that Loki had been born on Jotunheim as the son of the…Frost Giant king.

Oh.

This was what he really looked like?

Unable to stop herself, she stepped forward, brushing her fingers over the lines in his muscled abdomen. His skin wasn’t like suede—not like the imaginary sa-khui. It was supple, though, like well-cared for leather. And cool to the touch instead of hot. He didn’t have a tail, either. But all these differences were completely negligible according to the warmth building in her middle.

He was—dammit, he was breathtaking.

A low rumble in his chest startled her, and she yanked her hands back, glancing up at him. “Did you just…purr?”

Loki bore his teeth in a broad grin. “There are a few qualities I share with your beloved barbarian.” His voice. It was deeper and more resonant with a bare scratch of sandpaper. He retreated when she reached for him again. “Pity that you have absolutely no desire for any of this.”

“None at all,” she absently agreed as she tried to close the distance between them. Just one more touch. For the sake of science. She was absolutely not behaving like a toddler with grabby hands. (Gimme. Gimme. Gimme.)

What was wrong with her?

Keeping rudely out of range of her questing fingers, he let out an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose I should be going then.”

“No!” Jane’s eyes went wide at her involuntary outburst. “I mean…you don’t have to.” Her entire body was on fire now—from embarrassment and nothing else. Totally. One hundred percent.

Mirth left his crimson gaze, replaced by something wild. Something ravenous. He was on her without warning, picking her up as if she weighed nothing and setting her on one of her bookshelves so she was closer to eye-level with him. The wood groaned when he planted his large hands on either side of her thighs. Her middle came alive with feverish anticipation.

He was practically nose-to-nose with her. Gah, he even smelled delicious. Like an exotic spice sprinkled over winter. “Say it.”

She pressed her lips firmly closed and shook her head. She owed it to Morning Jane to resist temptation with every last rational brain cell she had left. There were disturbingly very few.

“Say you want this,” he murmured, and did she hear the tiniest hint of insecurity in his tone? Did he mean “this” as in “the real me”—as if no one had ever wanted that before?

And there went another dozen brain cells, lost to a pang of compassion in her chest. She started making silent apologies to Morning Jane. At this rate, she wasn’t going to last long, especially when his long fingers grazed against her hips.

“As for me,” he said with an impish grin, “I’m infinitely curious about Midgardian anatomy, particularly that third—”

“Don’t!” she hissed, heat flooding over her face. (Flooding other places too.) “I swear, if you say one more word—”

He swallowed her threat with his mouth over hers and yep. That was it. Every last brain cell happily gave up the ghost in favor of letting her live out her secret fantasy. She ran her hands over his wide shoulders, down his chest, tracing the raised lines in his skin. He rumbled in response, and she grinned against his lips as he carried her to her bedroom.

Morning Jane didn’t get a chance to regret anything later. Loki was too good at keeping her distracted—indefinitely.

It started with a pair of shoes.

Well, if Jane was being honest, she might say that it started with a book.

~FIN~

thank you for reading!

#lokane #lokane ff #lokane fanfic #my fic #frost realm jotun

[plainlo-inthemorning]

UPDATE 2023 (yes, 2 years later ...): The entirety of this fic is finally up on AO3 right here.

Poured out at 2.40 am last night. Loki series + Lokane.

Shine a light

For the longest time he sits there. On the steps of the kill me kind of room.

Outside in the hallways, chaos has erupted. Frantic orders are shouted over hysterical alarms blaring. He no longer pays it any attention.

He is drowning.

We may lose a lot. Sometimes painfully. But we don’t die.

Perhaps death would have been more kind.

Perhaps this is what he deserves for believing he could cheat fate. A cruel, yet inevitable twist waiting for him all along.

He is alone. He has nowhere to go. No place in time.

And so, spurred on by a perverse impulse, he goes back again to the beginning of the nightmare. Sits himself at the table and turns on the projector.

He skips through the cursed film at random, pressing pause and play on the track of destiny he was meant to have fulfilled. His insides now so wrecked by defeat, he has hardly any regret to spare.

There are no more tears at he watches himself suffer devastating humiliations by way of glorious self-sabotage. He watches himself break his brother’s heart over and over. He watches himself die.

Then he rewinds and starts anew.

Time works differently at the TVA. He has no idea how long he has been in here.

Play, lie, pause, deceive, die.

Play, lie, pause, deceive, die.

Just as he finally tires of the pathetic showreel of his failed existence, a different face flashes into view.

Wide, brown eyes. Eyes locked curiously on his.

With a jolt he recognizes her, though not the scene.

She strikes him across the face, defiantly. He smiles down at her until she blushes and lowers her gaze.

Once, he remembers now, she stood in the desert town and looked on while he wrecked destruction from afar.

He lets the film roll.

He watches himself save his brother on a barren rock of a planet.

He watches himself save her.

He watches himself crouch protectively over her lithe frame as she looks up at him in surprise and shock.

His breath catches in his throat as the man he never became saves her again, without hesitation. And nearly pays with his life.

Her eyes never leave his.

When he rewinds, his hands are shaking. His apathy has given way.

Painted across the brick wall, the frozen image of a stolen moment that makes him ache with strange insistency.

Understanding too well why this act was buried to break him, a bitter taste of poison rises.

You are meant to cause suffering and death.

You are alone and always will be.

Here, finally, is his unyielding love for his brother.

But knowing what he knows now, after everything the past days has wrought forth of his soul, another truth whispers at him, too.

One the man he did not become would not have understood as readily.

His face is buried in her neck. And though it cannot be, a faint scent of lilacs fills the kill me kind of room.

In her brown eyes, he sees the stars.

And as he wills the roll alive one last time, he stares in wonder as she sees him right back.

He gets to his feet.

Perhaps fate is not yet done with him.

PART II

#lokane #lokane fanfic #lokane ff #loki x jane #tva loki #loki fanfic #loki series #loki #marvel #loki laufeyson #loki show #tom hiddelston loki #jane foster

[iamstartraveller776]

Lokane Ficlet: Allies

Summary: Jane Foster has found an unlikely ally in the mercurial God of Mischief. Rating: K+/PG Genre: Canon-compliant with Loki (the series)—technically. SPOILER WARNING: For episode 5, Journey into Mystery

Also on AO3 & FFN

A/N: So, it's my birthday, and I'm having a lot of feelings about the Loki series. I decided that I needed some Lokane in there somewhere. So happy birthday to me.

ALLIES

Jane wakes, blinking away the grit in her eyes. A tall shadow sits at the end of the bed, posture rigid as he tilts his head, listening for something beyond her hearing. She clutches the emerald pendant at her chest, relieved when it pulses faintly.

“Something’s happened,” murmurs a dry, familiar baritone. Loki glances up at the bulkhead of the cabin, his patrician features drawn in consternation.

She sits up, instinctively pulling the threadbare blanket up to her chin. It’s a habit from childhood, when she believed a layer of fabric and batting would protect her from the imaginary monsters in her closet. She’s since learned just how very real monsters are.

A dozen questions lodge in her throat, tangled with a thread of fear. Have they been found? Will they have to pack what little belongings they have and abandon the dilapidated submarine that has served as their refuge for so long? She doesn’t want to run, not again.

“What is it?” she asks, drawing near to the man—no, demigod—who has become her unlikely ally in this neverending apocalypse.

He’s silent for a beat before answering. “Something different.”

She rubs at the chills prickling her skin. Different. That word has come to mean dangerous.

It’s been months or years—she’s not sure which—since she stood in an odd courtroom, accused of the baffling crime of building a successful Einstein-Rosen bridge device “too early.” The gavel banged, tried and convicted before Jane could form a single argument in her defense. The sentence was carried out in the next breath when one of the TVA agents jabbed her with a pruning stick.

She woke to a world in a constant state of collapse, a strange man hovering over her with a halo of dark hair framing his handsome face.

He gave her a triumphant smile. “I knew they’d send one of you eventually.” He held out a hand to her. “You had better come with me if you want to live, Jane Foster.”

She ignored his proffered hand, eyeing him with suspicion. “How do you know my name?”

He let out a soft laugh. “I’ll gladly explain everything, however—” he glanced over his shoulder at the angry clouds billowing behind him. Was that purple lightning? “We have more pressing matters at the moment. Namely, survival.”

A head emerged from the storm, a gigantic skull made out of obsidian smoke with smoldering red eyes and chomping fangs. Jane took the man’s hand and scrambled after him to safety.

She used to try to keep track of the passage of time, tried to count hours and days, but this is a place beyond time. A purgatory for outcasts like her, like him, to scrounge a meager living or succumb to their grisly warden, Alioth.

Jane shakes off the memories. “Different how?” she asks Loki. “Is it another one?”

When an event or pruning is sent to the Void, Alioth often makes short work of the hapless variants who arrive. But a Loki? A Loki nearly always survives. And the more Lokis, the more treacherous this place becomes. Most are a combination of rage and chaos, starving for power. Factions of them fight each other for dominance over their prison.

She asked her Loki once why he never joined their deadly game. He is, after all, cut from the same cloth—cunning and mercurial. He sneered in derision, said his ambitions weren’t so pathetically pedestrian. I plan to escape this wasteland, not rule it. That’s why I have you. She suspected there was more he left unsaid, but didn’t push him. Because he got annoyingly broody when she did.

“I’m not certain,” he answers her question, rising from the bed. As he does, his Asgardian armor ripples over his bare chest in a flash of green light.

Jane climbs off the mattress. “I’m going with you.” He opens his mouth to protest, but she levels him with a flat look. The truth is she feels safer with him than waiting behind, hoping he won’t be caught by the more bloodthirsty versions of himself. “You can’t stop me. You know what happened last time you tried.”

“Oh, indeed,” he agrees with a quiet chuckle. “It is how we ended up in this predicament.”

He draws a fingertip over the small mound in her belly. She twines her fingers with his, and his expression becomes a conflict of emotions. Briefly, he looks younger, the hardened veneer—forged by centuries of anger, jealousy, and vengeance—slipping away to reveal a broken boy who has been given an unexpected miracle. A miracle he believes he doesn’t deserve but desperately wants, all the same.

In the next beat, the awe, the fear and hope vanish from his pale gaze, and he wears again the mask of a volatile trickster tiptoeing at the edge of madness. Sometimes she wishes he would drop the facade, give her more than a glimpse of the complicated being that hides beneath. But the prospect scares her, too. He’s told her who he is, what he’s done. He painted the portrait of a villain in graphic detail—and it’s an image she can easily believe after her harrowing run-ins with the other versions of him.

And yet, he’s never been a villain with her. Even when they stand toe-to-toe, screaming at each other. Even when she let her fist fly after he confessed to stealing her beloved mentor’s mind during his invasion of New York. He only rubbed his jaw, huffed a laugh.

I like you, Jane Foster.

He sighs, steps back from her, and flicks a wrist in her direction to conjure armor for her—gear to match his, complete with a set of knives at her side. The pendant she wears is now embedded in her breastplate.

Tapping the glittering jewel, he says, “So you don’t forget to which Loki you belong.”

Jane rolls her eyes. One time she was nearly fooled by the wrong Loki—the variant who considers himself the “president.” Once. The gemstone will only glow for the fallen prince in front of her. Fortunately, most of the other Lokis look nothing like him.

“I don’t belong to anyone,” she says automatically in the old dance between them, but the words are belied by the unconscious touch of her hand to her growing middle.

He doesn’t miss the motion and raises a brow as if to say, “Liar.” His fingers curl around her shoulders, and he fixes her with a look that teeters on the verge of being earnest. “Now, Jane Foster, you will stay close to me and not wander off.”

For a heartbeat, she has the irrational urge to stick her tongue out at him. Her nerves are making her giddy. She can’t remember the last time he’s warned her like this. Not since combat practice became a part of their daily routine.

He’s afraid, and that terrifies her.

But she swallows back the anxiety bubbling in her stomach and sets her jaw. “Are we going or what?”

The corner of his mouth ticks upward. “Reckless mortal,” he murmurs. “My reckless mortal.” And then his lips are on hers.

He always kisses her as if she’s the only thing that can slake his unending thirst, as if he’ll never have the chance to drink her in again. It sets her body alight with electricity—with power. Too soon, he pulls back, head tilting again toward the bulkhead.

“We must hurry.” The urgency in his tone sends another wave of chills skittering down Jane’s back.

Their boots echo off the deck as they race toward the hatch. Loki climbs out first, dagger in one hand in case one or more of his counterparts lie in wait on the other side. When it’s clear, he reaches back to help her through the hole, though she doesn’t need it.

Outside, wind whips through the barren landscape, carrying the thunderous bellows of Alioth in its wake. The skies are an infinite lifeless grey beyond the perpetual storm. Loki heads for the nearest crest overlooking the valley where most pruned events arrive—the feasting grounds for the cloud-monster. Loki crouches down, gesturing for her to do the same. He magicks himself a pair of binoculars. She has to nudge him before he creates another pair for her.

Her gaze is drawn to a flash of verdant light. A city is rising from the ground, silver and gold, though it shines dully. At the center is an aged Loki, the one who wears a ridiculous costume made out of a leotard and tights. He’s raising his arms high in the sky, laughing maniacally as Alioth opens its gargantuan maw in a booming roar.

“Is he trying to kill himself?” Jane whispers. She’s never come across a Loki who doesn’t have an exaggerated sense of self-preservation, but maybe the eternal monotony of the Void has finally gotten to this one.

Her Loki grasps her chin, turning her gaze to the right. “Look.”

Farther down the valley is one of his doppelgangers holding a woman’s hand—another Loki?—as together they throw seidr at the cloud-monster. Alioth consumes old Loki and turns on the pair, but its crimson suddenly winks out, bursting into a brilliant green. A shockwave sends some of the black fog outward, blanketing the Void with dusk. There’s a pathway through the storm in front of the pair, though from this angle, Jane can’t see what lies beyond.

Her Loki rises, shock rounding his eyes. “They’ve done it. They’ve subdued the creature.”

A revelation explodes in Jane’s mind and she drops the binoculars. “We have to get to the lab! Right now!” Without a backward glance, she shoots off in the direction of the decaying warehouse where they’ve hidden a makeshift Einstein-Rosen bridge generator.

Loki rescued her for this purpose—so she could build the way out for him, for both of them. It took an inordinate amount of time to scavenge or jury-rig the necessary parts, all while ducking the other Lokis or bands of cannibals. The first and only test had drawn the eye of Alioth, and it was only her Loki’s magic that had saved them from being consumed. They’ve spent an eternity trying to come up with a way to distract or defeat their lethal warden, and Jane isn’t going to waste this opportunity.

Loki strides past her on long legs, grabbing her hand as he does. Elation swells alongside the fear in her chest, and she almost laughs. They’re going to do it. They’re getting out of this horrible hell. After that… She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care. Freedom is on the horizon.

And so is President Loki.

Jane slides to a stop, air congealing in her lungs. He’s pacing in front of the warehouse, looking for a way in. Aside from the tattered suit and golden horns, he’s a near perfect replica of the man beside her, chiseled features and dark hair curling at his shoulders. But the eyes, those are different. Devoid of light.

Her Loki squeezes her hand. “Run,” he commands in a low voice. “Save yourself and the child.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she returns, reaching for one of her daggers.

Loki shakes his head with a brittle laugh. “Do you want to know what my nexus event was?”

She frowns at him. “Now?” He wants to tell her this now? When he spent the last several months—years—refusing to give her that tidbit?

His gaze turns soft, watery in the corners. “It was you, Jane,” he says. “On the hills of Svartalfheim, I chose you over vengeance, over power and domination.” His face hardens. “But you were meant for Thor, and the only role allotted to a Loki is a self-serving foe. And so I shall play on.”

The full magnitude of his confession is difficult for Jane to grasp—she never experienced the event he referenced. She’d been removed from the timeline before Odin cast Thor to Earth for his insolence.

“Screw that. Screw the TVA,” she hisses, her voice a little shrill. She’s not about to go on the lam alone and pregnant with a half-human, half-frost-giant baby. “We’re in this together, for better or worse.”

The president has stopped pacing. He’s finally seen them, and though he cradles one arm to his chest—is he missing a hand?—a blade glints in his other hand, his mouth stretching in a wide, anticipatory smile.

“Are you finished having an existential crisis now?” Jane says, waving a dagger toward the despicable man standing between them and liberation. “Can we take care of him and get off this intergalactic landfill already?”

Her Loki grins that beautiful, feral grin. “As my lady commands.” Hand in hers, they charge their enemy.

President Loki doesn’t stand a chance.

~FIN~

#lokane #lokane fanfic #lokane ff #my fic

[plainlo-inthemorning]

A Loki TVA / Lokane fic. Rating: T.

Part I

Part II

Shine a Light, part III

There are no ominous storm clouds overhead, no wind howling, no black Svartalfheim soil under his boots.

No Thor.

The sun is still shining and, frustratingly although not entirely surprising (the rushed departure considered), he once again finds himself on what can only be Midgard.

Is the tempad damaged after all?

In that case, as miserable as it would be, he should probably count himself fortunate he wasn’t dispatched to an imminent apocalypse.

Gone is the faraway sound of the ocean as he steps into an empty cobblestone alley that might have passed for a medieval city, were it not for the sound of traffic close by and -

“Where did you go, handsome?”

He inhales sharply.

Even with his eyes wide open, trying to take in the surroundings, all he sees before him is her face.

So close to his, he can almost still feel her sweet breath on his lips.

He leans his back against one of the building walls and screws his lids tightly shut, willing the feel of the cool bricks to ground his thoughts.

It proves pathetically futile.

In 2016, somewhere on a different timeline, a variant of him got … together with Jane.

Happily, intimately together.

No matter how hard he tries, he cannot connect the dots from the TVA reel of his supposed fate to even begin to understand how a branch like that could have formed.

It doesn’t help one bit that he’s burning with such all-consuming jealousy, it nearly overshadows the pressing question of why his brother had allowed for such a union.

Dead.

Thor must have been dead.

At that sudden, dreadful realization, Loki is abruptly brought back to reality (whatever that means these days).

Had Thor passed whereupon the replica variant had swept in to comfort the grieving Jane?

The mere idea that a variant sharing his temporal aura exploited her vulnerable emotional state makes his stomach turn.

Granted, the variants in the Void had shared certain characteristics.

Nevertheless, the majority had appeared so entirely … different that, disturbingly, it doesn’t seem implausible for some of them to have been capable of unspeakable evils - living embodiments of his soul’s darkest, most shameful desires.

Even from their brief encounter, the air of the variant who had lost his hand in such absurd manner had sent chills through Loki’s bones.

Could the tyrant have been the one he just met who defended Jane so passionately?

Would he have gotten the wicked impulse to seduce her with a silver-tongue laced with acid honey?

The nauseating image makes him want to turn back and kill him in a most violent fashion right there in front of the white house.

On second thought, unless the variants of both Jane and the metal man were significantly more gullible than the ones of his own timeline, Loki cannot truly believe that they would be fooled to easily.

Thus, the variant was an entirely different Loki. Apparently a better man than he would ever have had a chance of becoming.

Another decidedly unpleasant fact.

However sour the reminder of his own shortcomings in courting affection, he must not let it distract him from his quest.

He has nothing else but the faint hope that his own finest hour on Svartelfheim will be enough to appeal to Thor’s (and in the best of worlds, her’s) unshakable faith in justice, and to convince him and the All-Father to aid in facing the monstrous spawns of He Who Must Remain.

Lest all realities be torn to shreds of unamendable chaos (he suspects).

That the multiverse has apparently caused the tempad to jump between alternate timelines at random is terrifying, but all the more reason for him to exercise greater patience in mastering it to the best of his abilities.

If a child could do it …

He has to gather his acclaimed wits (ha!). Regain a semblance of calm and control. Having let go of so much of his pride, he will not let something as petty as impatience be his downfall.

“Where did you go, handsome?”

Her arms around his neck.

The taste of her as she explored his mouth.

Intoxicating sensations both startling new and impossibly familiar.

He tries to shake the hopeless longing and instead follows the noise of what he hopes is a street. A place of information where he can get his bearings.

//

Bicyclists and cars pass him as he walks down a tree-lined avenue towards what looks to be a large park.

He has finally changed his clothes into a clean outfit of tailored pants and a crisp blazer, entirely in black. His raven locks are slicked back to his preferred style, his gait more confident.

Despite everything, his polished reflection in the windows of store fronts makes him feel more centered.

Albeit a thankfully less haunted self than the one who attacked New York in the throes of blinding madness. Deep inside hoping the destruction would either kill him or free him of the nightmare of being reduced to a mere tool in the mad titans plans.

It feels a millennia ago.

At a newsstand, he picks up a paper in English. The langue of this country is not one he recognizes, never having thought to seek further education on Midgardian culture beyond that strictly necessary for his schemes.

Printed at the top of the paper is the year 2015.

So far so good.

Only two years ahead of the events on Svartalfheim. Perhaps it will make his travels easier? He has no idea.

In the park, he finds a secluded corner under the shade of tall oaks and sits himself on a bench.

It does not occur to him to teleport somewhere else on the planet.

It hardly matters.

And so he takes out the tempad, making sure to handle it delicately, and studies the options presented on the small display.

So lost is he in the mechanics, that he almost jumps to his feet, ready to draw his daggers from his pocket dimension, when a man suddenly settles next to him.

Unnervingly close.

To think there was a time when people sneaking up on him had been, well, unthinkable. Besides the cunning woman in black that is.

Turning to curtly ask for some privacy, if you please, all blood drains from his face so fast his vision blurs.

No.

No, no, no.

//

“I know lowering yourself to use our primitive mortal ways of communication offends your delicate alien sensibilities, but seriously Loki, would it kill you to pick up your phone?”

The man sighs, annoyed.

His hair is different than the last time Loki saw him, but other than that, he might as well have stepped right out of a fever dream.

A dream in which he tried to send an arrow through Loki’s eye.

The bow is just about visible in the backpack he sets on the ground between his knees.

Clint takes in the view of the park, posture relaxed but his ever sharp gaze keenly alert to passers-by.

Loki knows that look. Although back then, of course the man’s grey eyes had been an eerie shade of toxic blue and his boyish expression a blank slate.

“Nat has located Dreykov’s lab outside the city. Right now she's trying to talk sense into her sister so she’ll join us, but she’s still under the influence of that blasted drug. I don’t know how much luck we’ll have with her”.

The God of Mischief’s mind has temporarily left his body.

“Of course I personally sympathize a great deal with her … condition,” Clint grumbles under his breath and shoots an icy glance in Loki’s direction.

“If somebody had told me I’d be back in Budapest with you of all people in tow…”

Silence.

“I’m … sorry?”. Loki’s voice is hoarse. His feels like he may start laughing hysterically at any second.

“Yeah, well. We got this far. And I did promise Tony I wouldn’t ‘accidentally’ kill you so, you know … at least until we’ve completed the mission”.

The Avenger’s tone has eased towards a more jovial blend of sarcasm.

“All things considered, I’ll admit you’ve pulled your weight as promised. No offense, 'cause I know you hate his guts, but it's almost like having Strange on the team. And the thing with turning the sniper into a baby goat yesterday? One of the most satisfying things I've ever witnessed on a mission”.

Clint guffaws.

“That said, man, you gotta stop taking off on a whim, alright? Gets on my nerves - and Nat’s, which frankly ought to scare you more. We're going against our better judgement counting on you for the showdown at Dreykov's”.

Loki hears himself mumble his apologies, utterly detached from his own voice and too flabbergasted to even question the hero he tortured for days (did the others call him Eagle-eye?).

“Okay,” Clint is saying. “I’m gonna head back to the apartment. Stay here for a few hours if you need some space to, I don’t know, do your thing or whatever. But be back for prep at five, yeah? If not, I’ll have to tell on you to Fury. Oh, and maybe you can have a look at Yelena? Reverse mind powers or something? If Nat will let you near her.”

He gives Loki a half smile. It’s strained, yet Loki can tell he’s trying.

“This is not easy for me. You know that. I spent weeks before we left convincing Laura you won’t stab me in the back. Literally. But I figured there would be trouble in paradise for you too if things went sideways…”.

Another sigh.

Then Clint slings the backpack over his shoulder and walks away, leaving Loki on the bench to wonder if he’s actually, at long last, going certifiably insane.

A beep sounds from the tempad in his hand. He has been clutching it way too hard again.

He stares at the screen without seeing the numbers or letters that are now flashing in a neat row.

The door appears in front of him.

He stumbles through it as clumsily as if someone had pushed him.

Part 4

#loki #marvel #loki series #loki laufeyson #tva loki #loki show #lokane ff #lokane fanfic #lokane #loki x jane #shine a light #plainlo-inthemorning #loki fanfic #loki ff #tom hiddelston loki

[plainlo-inthemorning]

A little written-in-the-middle-of-the-night Loki fic snippet that just grew another leg. TVA Loki + Lokane. Rating T.

(First part is here)

Shine a Light, part II

The tempad feels hot and slippery in his palm as he stalks down the hallway, quickly putting distance between himself and the hunter he left unconscious amidst overturned chairs and tables in the canteen.

The mess had already been there, leftovers from workers rushing panicked to man their stations. He had simply added one more touch.

Tiny droplets of sweat bead his brow and blood has started seeping though the tear in his crumbled shirt.

The fabric is clinging wetly to his bicep, but in the mayhem unfolding around him, nobody gives him a second glance.

For the first time, he is thankful at least to be wearing the anonymous uniform dictated by the oppressors.

He reaches the kill me kind of room again and shuts the door behind him.

You were meant to cause suffering and death.

You’re a cosmic mistake.

You were meant to die at the hands of the mad titan.

Lies.

All lies.

Still projected on the wall is the paused image of a lost memory of his unfulfilled fate.

He sees himself, Thor and her on the barren planet with the black soil. The man he never became is lying on the ground, Thor cradling him.

She watches them both in shock.

It resonates in his bones. He has to go there.

He has to reach his brother at this precise, excruciatingly rare moment of heroism. His act of heroism.

Before the scheming and deceit poison their bond once more in an endless loop of disappointment.

In this moment, all is forgiven. Thor will listen and help. A different path will branch.

And he has to go to her.

It is ludicrous, this riddle, yet the truth of it presses hard on his chest.

On the grainy roll of film, he saved her life and her eyes bore into his with such intensity, his acute need still reverberates like an echo between the walls of the kill me kind of room.

The smell of lilacs lingers.

What will happen when he faces his own self on the timeline, he can’t imagine. Also, he gives it little thought at this late stage with universal logic already suspended as it is. Hopefully he can reason with the man he was meant to be.

He has had quite enough of being his own past, present and future selves’ worst enemy.

And so he pushes the buttons on the tempad.

//

Something is very wrong.

The sky is too blue, the distant sound of waves lapping calmly at a shore is misplaced.

He has emerged from the door onto a quiet gravel road lined with tall grass and low pines. A single, white wooden house stands to his left, surrounded by a lawn dotted with wildflowers. The sun is warm on his back.

This is Midgard, he is sure of it.

How could he shoot past his destination so spectacularly?

He is about to scroll down the list of numbers and names on the tiny screen of the tempad when he notices a man approaching. Old, walking leisurely with a round, short-legged dog much the same white color as the mortal’s own wispy hair.

The latter starts a little when he spots Loki.

And then he does the most unexpected thing and speaks his name.

Loki’s name.

He almost drops the tempad (no! Not again) and the old one grins good-naturedly. “Hold on to your fancy phone there. Far away, were we?”

Loki only just about stops himself from shaking the man by his shoulders. His fists clench uncontrollably.

“What year is this?! How do you know my name?”

His voice sounds shrill, feverish, and unsurprisingly the eyes in the lined face before him go wide with puzzlement and … something else.

“Loki, what on Earth? Are you quite alright?”

Shock washing over him, Loki staggers back. H-how?

But the man is closing the gap between them, oozing concern. “Have you - are you drunk?” he asks incredulously.

He reaches out.

What is happening?

Loki shies away from the touch, his mind spinning.

Forcibly gathering his composure, he straightens and wills his words to come out steady. “No, I’m okay. Apologies. A bad joke”.

He smiles reassuringly. It takes more effort than parting an ocean.

The dog is sniffing insistently at his ankles.

The man looks him over with suspicion but the worry is subsiding. “Okay, then… no harm, no foul. You know, sometimes these peculiar ‘jokes’ of yours can make a neighbor all kinds of slightly worried”.

Neighbor?

“Most understandably, won’t happen again. Sorry to have bothered you”. Loki cuts him off smoothly. “Have a nice day”. He nods and turns before hysteria can creep into his voice.

“In case you need it for your punchline, the year is 2016”, the man calls over his shoulder as he shuffles away, pulling the reluctant dog after him.

Loki’s blood runs cold. 2016. Oh, this is so wrong. Three years wrong.

Did he hit another button at the last minute? He had been clutching the tempad so hard the edges cut into his fingers.

He curses his own impatience. Tech savvy indeed.

Holding up the blasted piece of TVA wizardry, he tries to enter a new series of numbers when his name rings out again.

And again, he almost jumps. But this time, his heart stays in his throat.

//

“Loki? What are you doing out here? I’ve been looking all over for you”.

Her voice reaches him from the porch of the white house. She is skipping lightly down the steps, the screen doors left open behind her. Music drifts into the garden from somewhere inside.

She is crossing the lawn. He is no longer breathing.

Her long auburn hair is tied back in a ponytail, and she is wearing a light blue summer dress. Her feet are bare.

Absurdly, he notes that she looks more tanned than the last time he saw her through the visor of the destroyer in the desert. A year and a lifetime ago. To him.

His grip on whatever reality he’s been clinging to since New York is seriously faltering.

She is beaming. He cannot move a muscle.

She comes all the way up to him and without pause wraps her slender arms around his neck. He can feel the warmth of her body through his shirt, smell the perfume of her skin. She smells of … -

“Where did you go, handsome?” She smiles playfully.

“Pepper called earlier to say that she actually got Tony out of the door on time, if you can believe it, so they’ll be here any minute. And her and I agreed that you two hotheads are going to play nice tonight, okay?”

She is teasing him but he hardly understands the words she’s saying. It makes no sense.

And then, before he can begin to form a response, she stands on tiptoes and kisses him and the world falls away.

Reflexively, he puts his arms around her, drawing her close to him. She moans happily. He leans into the kiss, not knowing what he’s doing other than that he never wants to stop.

Her mouth is soft and warm and new and familiar all at the same time, and the way her fingers curl in his hair sends electricity shooting down his spine.

It should be all anguish and tragic confusion, like before in the castle beyond time, but it is not.

It feels more right that anything he can remember since before his fall from the Bifrost, more real and yet more magical than his recent journeys into mystery.

Then it’s over all too soon and she draws away.

His arms are suddenly much too empty and he almost reaches for her again, craving her touch.

For a fleeting heartbeat, his soul had no longer felt torn apart to the point of forgetting he’d ever been whole.

The chaos had crumbled in on itself like a bad dream.

He is surprised he still knows what peace of mind feels like after what has happened to him since arriving at the TVA.

But now she looks at him with alarm in those beautiful brown eyes and he is crudely reminded that he is an intruder in her reality.

What she thought she saw, she clearly no longer recognizes.

It takes him all of three stupidly long seconds to remember that she said his name. That he’s wearing his own face and not a disguise.

That she knew him immediately, just like the old man.

She kissed him.

Too many impossible possibilities and the thunderous sound of his own heartbeat (surely she can hear it too) blur his vision.

He’s only vaguely aware that he is stepping towards her, trying to say something without the faintest idea of what’s going to come out of his mouth.

If it’ll even be words.

Her eyes dart over his clothes, his face.

“Loki, what - Why are you dressed like that? Have you been gone? Is that … blood?”

She retreats further, fear building.

“Jane, I-“

Her name rolls of his tongue with a sweet-tasting intimacy like he has said it a thousand times before.

But he doesn’t get to dwell on this, nor gather his thoughts to say anything else before something abruptly lifts him off the ground and hurls his body across the road.

“How dare you touch her, beast?!”

Immediately as his back connects with the rough gravel, someone is there, a knee pushing him down, fingers closing around his throat. A sharp object presses against his chin.

There is a dangerous, unhinged growl as his attacker breathes hotly in his ear. “You will die for this!”

The man is strong and somehow blocking Loki’s own magic, but he still manages to twist his head -

And looks right up into his own eyes, nearly black with rage.

//

“Speak! What are you??”

The man with a face exactly like his presses the tip of his blade closer to Loki’s left eye. “You will show yourself right now or -“

Gathering his magic tightly around him (focus!), Loki pushes back, hard.

With a surge of energy, their bodies are separated, and the other version of him lands heavily in the middle of the road some meters away.

Both of them are on their feet with the fluid movements of two panthers ready to pounce, the other now in full armor.

He has to leave, right now, even if means leaving her which is a catastrophe that might either kill him or make him try to kill his other self if he stays here another minute.

This timeline is clearly not his own.

It cannot be.

Arm outstretched to ward off his furious twin with a shield of magic, he tries to work the tempad with one hand.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

A booming voice above their heads.

“You know, when Jane pressed the panic button just now, I thought we had an actual emergency. Not that you were preparing a little dinner show for us, Reindeer Games. Gotta be honest though, this doppelgänger stunt was never my favorite -“

“Stark!”

The variant - for he must be a variant - angrily interrupts the man in the metal suit hovering in the air.

Of course, Loki remembers him all too clearly.

What has it been, less than a week since he threw him, or a version of him, out the window of the glass tower?

“This is not my creation”, the variant hisses with venom dripping from every word. “I caught him assaulting Jane. Kissing her”.

“What?!”

Stark focuses all his attention (and one of his iron fists) on Loki. A metallic humming rises steadily from inside the suit.

“A man on a suicide mission then. Boy, did you smooch the wrong wizard’s baby-mama. He may look all domesticated and cute now, but I assure you he’s still all kinds of crazy. In fact-”.

“Hey!”

“What?”

“I know it’s asking a lot, of you in particular, Stark, but could we possibly save the personal insults till we have dealt with this right here?”

Wait, just wait.

Damn it, he can’t tap in the destination on the tempad without looking at it.

Green smoke is swirling around the hands of his other self. He knows what’s coming.

“This is your last warning, devil! I will not have you hiding behind my face as I -“

“This is my face! I’m you, you fool! Bigger things are at large here and-“ Loki falters, his silver tongue failing once more with rising predictability within what seems a disconcertingly short period of time.

Although he honestly can’t tell anymore.

“Please, take a minute -“

He can’t help but shout, sounding hopelessly desperate.

In another life, he might have felt humiliated, but letting pride dictate his emotions is no longer a luxury he can afford to indulge.

Still, the silence that follows his outburst is not nearly as long as he needs it to be.

The variant stares blankly at him, mouth slightly ajar, but Stark recovers easily, his voice now icy.

“Yeah, dude, that one might have worked better if you’d put on a clean shirt. Time to fess up real quick or we’ll have to-“

Drawing what might become his last breath, Loki looks away and down at the tempad. He presses the button. No more time to double check.

“What the?!”

Both Stark and the variant visibly flinch as the door appears.

He quickly makes for it. “I - I’m sorry. Truly, I am”. He looks to their stunned faces before turning to his exit.

Out of the corner of his eye, he registers the variant move (he has to be a variant). His mouth twists in an ugly snarl and two familiar daggers are appearing by his sides.

Before the door snaps completely shut, Loki sees Jane run up to the man and grab his arm.

“Love, no, don’t!”

He sees the slight bump under her dress that he didn’t notice before.

And then the scene disappears and he’s gone.

Part III

#loki #loki series #tva loki #loki laufeyson #lokane ff #lokane fanfic #lokane #jane foster #loki x jane #loki fic

[plainlo-inthemorning]

A Loki TVA/Lokane fic. Rating T.

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (of 6)

Shine a Light, part 5

He is aware that the love of his life is digging her fingers into his arm and saying his name.

He is aware of Stark standing to his other side, visor off, speaking to someone on the phone. His voice is hard.

But most of all, Loki is aware that all their lives were just changed by a great big terrifying rip in the seam of reality.

Neither Jane nor the Avenger could possibly be completely sure of what they saw. Loki, as much as he desperately wants to, harbors little doubt.

The man he held in a death-grip only minutes ago and who just now disappeared through a doorway conjured out of thin air was somehow … himself.

Another him. Just as the man had said.

After witnessing from afar the double kiss Jane, Loki, who was coming back from a swim, had been more than ready to skip past introductions and just sever the intruder’s head from his body.

But as soon as he had laid hands on him, a torrent of images had flooded his mind – chaotic, confused images that seemed to span past, present, future and beyond.

The shock had made him lessen his grip and the double had used his (his!) magic to throw him off.

With some distance between them and Stark suddenly there as well, Loki had tried to let his rage quell the dizzying realization. Unsuccessfully.

He is still shaking, clutching a dagger in each hand. He drew them instinctively as the other made for the door.

He should have caught him!

“Loki! What did he say?!”

“What?” His thoughts are racing in too many directions to hear her.

“The … man, what was he saying to you?!”

Jane is looking up at him with those beautiful brown eyes, worry and urgency all over her delicate features. Though not fear, Loki notes. His ever-brave wife. Both her hands are now clamped around his wrist.

That thing kissed her.

The daggers disappear and Loki wraps both arms around the mother of his unborn child, almost crushing her to his chest while still staring at the spot where the double vanished.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, love”, he murmurs. He suspects things are very much not okay.

So does Jane, of course.

“Loki, was it … oof, not so tight … “

She wriggles against him, and he remembers his amor. And her condition. He immediately relaxes his arms a bit while letting the leather and metal melt back into the clothes he wore before: Black jeans and a fitted, dusty green t-shirt (his “rockstar outfit”, Jane had called it, when Loki first started switching up his human wardrobe some years ago now). Drops of saltwater still cling to the ends of his slightly curly raven locks.

“Tony! Jane, Loki! What on Earth was that?”

Pepper jumps out of the car parked in front of the house and runs towards them. She must have seen everything as she drove down the road following her flying husband.

“The verdict’s still out, Peps”. Tony nods at Loki. “You wanna chip in here? I just called the boy-scout at headquarters and told him to be on guard for one of the magician’s interns playing a prank”.

Loki shakes his head slowly.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think Stephen had anything to do with this”.

“You’re right, I didn’t”.

All four of them turn around to see the sorcerer step out of a swirling ring of light, his cape billowing around him. The mahogany floor and paneled walls of his Manhattan mansion are briefly visible behind him before the portal closes with a hiss of little sparks.

Strange is wearing an even sterner expression than usual which only adds to Loki’s growing sense of dread.

Tony, however, groans loudly.

“Dude, really? Couldn’t you at least have let us have dinner before party crashing? Not shaming your bachelor lifestyle or anything, but this was couples’ night!”

“Tony!” Pepper hits her husband on the arm.

Strange ignores him.

“I’m afraid the arrival of your surprise visitor indicates that a set of … unfortunate events have been set in motion”.

As always, his voice is as even as if he was reading the weather forecast, but by now Loki has learned to differentiate the (very) subtle nuances between scorn and sincerity. Strange places his hands behind his back and regards them coolly. “I’ve had Wong reach out to Doctor Banner and director Fury. They should be here shortly. Stark, you may want to-”.

Tony narrows his eyes, lip twitching.

“Hey, Bleeker Street, you know I have low tolerance for you showing up and barking orders without giving two f**** for context. How did you even know that something was going down here? By all means, don’t keep us in suspense until the cavalry gets here”.

Strange doesn’t answer, but the way his eyes dart to Jane sends needles through Loki’s heart.

“Let’s go sit down, shall we?” With one eyebrow raised, Strange puts on a suave smile and gestures towards the house. The effect is a little startling.

Jane ducks out from under Loki’s arms. “Jane, don’t you want to-“. She brushes him off.

“Yes, good idea, Stephen. Let’s go sit down”. She motions for Strange to follow. “Welcome to our home. I was actually making drinks before, but I think I need to add a bit more kick to them…”

Her voice is oddly calm, and Loki fights the urge to grab her and magic them both far, far away, not caring that she would be furious with him for making decisions on her behalf.

He’s brought back to the present by an even odder sound as Strange actually chuckles.

Loki is not sure he’s ever heard it before. Then again, it’s not that he really knows Strange when it comes down to it. Like Tony, Loki finds the wizard exceedingly arrogant.

Pepper is the first to follow Jane and Strange across the lawn while Loki and Tony hang back.

“Real ladies’ man when he wants to. Who would have thought”. The billionaire superhero scoffs. His suit has folded itself off and into a briefcase next to his feet.

“Tony-“

“Uh oh. First name basis. So this really is an emergency”.

Loki faces his friend. Often in the past years, as they’ve grown steadily closer outside of “work”, he has secretly marveled at how long they’ve come since someone threw someone else off a building after being called a diva.

And attacking a city with an alien army.

Jane always insisted the two “hotheads” (her word) had a lot in common when not trying to murder one another (be it with weapons or sarcastic commentary), and Loki has to admit she was right. The metal man is fiercely intelligent, and Loki has been enjoying the quick-witted snark between them infinitely more than he ever valued the company of Thor’s band of gullible warrior groupies on Asgard.

“Well?”. Tony is regarding him with eyebrows raised, expectant. “Give me your take on this cause I’m starting to put together some rather outlandish theories myself here that I’m kinda hoping you’ll thwart ASAP”.

Loki draws in a deep breath.

“That thing with Banner at the tower two years ago-“

“Fuck!” Tony exhales, exasperated. “I knew you were gonna say that”. He squints into the distance towards the ocean, his mouth a tight line. It’s a rare day that Tony Stark is caught under a clear blue sky without sunglasses but for once he doesn’t seem to notice.

Loki takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice so they won’t alert the others just yet.

“I told you then and you didn’t want to listen! Everything about Bruce’s story was off. I know he didn’t remember much after Steve took him down, but you all pretty much accused me of trying to get back at him for, well, you know what, and I kept telling you I thought someone had gotten to him! Now-“

Loki searches for the words. It’s beyond absurd.

“That man was a version of me, Tony. I have no idea how, but I felt it. I saw into his mind. It was filled with images from my past and then … other, recent memories. Dark ones. He came from nowhere. Literally. It didn’t feel like a place. I tried to discard it as a trick, you saw that, but…” Loki runs his hand through his moist hair. “Stephen obviously felt something tear open too. And that is not a good sign”.

He has Tony’s full attention.

“Tear open? Could this other you be associated with your old boss? With Thanos?”

Loki winces.

“No, I don’t think he’s involved”, he says sharply. “But I can’t be sure …”

Tony catches his tone pats his shoulder. “Okay, okay. Shake it off. Didn’t mean to suggest anything. Let’s say he’s not. I’d much prefer that, at least until the wizard presents us with an even uglier imminent threat to the universe. Which, judging by the fact that he’s even here, willingly sipping cocktails in your kitchen as we speak, he probably will”.

Tony throws his hands up with a dramatic air.

“And here I thought the most challenging part of this weekend would be to convince you two to come see Hamilton with us in the city next week!”

“Who’s-“

“Never mind. Did you get a look at that gadget your guy was holding? Boy, he looked like an office slave who’d slept under his desk for a month before getting fired, didn’t he? Were you ever into accounting yourself by any chance?”

Loki shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Immediately he sees the image of the double kissing Jane, his arms wrapped firmly around her supple body. Rage rushes right back through him and his eyes snap open.

“Stark - I can’t. But yes, I did notice the device. It looked like a phone”.

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think it was the new iPhone”.

Tony shakes his head.

“The two of us and we didn’t take him down. Fury’s gonna have our badges”.

//

The director of SHIELD and Bruce Banner arrive barely 15 minutes later through a portal in the middle of the meadow-like lawn, following Wong and both looking grim and out of place as they weave around patches of wildflowers to reach the porch.

“Gentlemen, I trust you’re well”. Loki greets the trio with an only vaguely sarcastic nod as he holds open the screen doors to them, like a good host. Despite what some may still think, he can behave.

He could have just used magic of course, but he figures Banner is freaked enough as it is just by being here. The scientist hasn’t spoken more than five words to him since 2014 and at least three of them were expletives.

Once inside the small living room, Bruce goes to stand by the window and busies himself polishing his glasses with a little too much vigor than seems warranted.

He avoids Loki’s eyes but looks up and smiles wearily as Jane comes over to say hello.

Fury leans against the doorframe to the hallway and crosses his arms, face a closed book, and, by the sound of it, Tony is going through the cabinets in the kitchen trying to find something to spice up Jane’s pre-dinner cocktails.

Pepper is talking to Strange and Wong on the blue IKEA couch (assembled by magic after the attempt to go at it “as a team” turned into a shouting match), and Loki is about to politely ask Strange to please spit it out right this minute, when Jane is next to him, taking his hand.

“We need to talk. Now”.

Her voice is low and steady but her eyes insisting. She squeezes his fingers.

He squeezes back. “Come”.

Loki looks to Fury but he’s focused on Strange who’s listening very closely to something Wong’s saying.

Not letting go of Jane’s hand, he turns towards the kitchen. In the doorway they pass Tony who’s now holding what appears to be a glass of scotch. He must have given up on the gin and tonics.

“Hey, where are you two going? Forget about playing hosts okay, let’s just get started with part two of the evening’s entertainment”.

“In a minute”.

Jane pushes past him, ignoring Tony’s look and dragging Loki with her.

She closes the door behind them.

“Okay, so…” Jane looks around nervously in the small kitchen with the rustic white fronts and old brass handles. She loves that kitchen. They haven’t changed a thing since moving in. Loki reaches for her, but she takes a step back. “Jane, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have gotten there faster. Did he …“

“I need you tell me exactly what he said to you”.

She is absentmindedly opening and closing her fists in the way she does when that brilliant astrophysicist mind of hers is working out an intricate problem in the lab.

Or, Loki knows, when she’s about to deliver him bad news.

He clears his throat. “He said he was me. And that something big was happening”. There. “And then he said he was sorry”.

Jane studies his face.

“That he was sorry? For what?”

“He didn’t say. He stepped through the door”.

Jane is quiet and now it’s Loki’s turn to try and read her expression.

“What did he say to you? I assume he pretended to be me …?”

Jane holds up a hand and bites her lip. Loki swallows.

“Loki, when we were staying at the flat in London, after we defeated Malekith…”

“What?” Loki furrows his brow in confusion. “Why are we-“

“The poison from the monster’s blade, it had you slipping in and out of consciousness for days. You were so feverish…”

“Yes, I know. I was there”. Loki’s blood is slowly turning very cold, but he musters a smile. “And you were amazing, love. Although some might say you took adv-“

Jane interrupts him in the middle of his blossoming smirk. A slight blush appears on her own cheeks.

“Yes, um, it’s not about that day”. She gives him a stern look. “The other day, later, when Thor left after you two went and had your, um, talk … there’s something I need to tell you …”

The door to the living room opens behind them.

“Actually, if you don’t mind, Doctor Foster, I would very much like to hear this too”.

Stephen Strange steps into the kitchen. The door closes behind him.

Part 6

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