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Second Sight -- Part Twenty

Fandom: Marvel Avengers AU/MCU AU

Pairing: Loki Odinson X fem!Reader

Characters: Loki Odinson

Author: @amandaoftherosemire

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 7,886

Format: Series WIP

Warnings: Language, angst, fluff.

Summary: You begin visiting Asgard regularly. You and Loki fight and make up.

A/N: If I was reading this, I would not have believed me that this wasn’t a dead fic, especially when over a year passed since the last update. I didn’t really believe me either, but knowing that this story is out there in the world, loose ends dangling, weighs on me. Thus, I made a rule for myself that I’m not allowed to write any other fanfic until this is complete. But that just meant I didn’t write anything. And now I’m dropping a fairly slow transitional chapter after a year and a half of nothing, long after everyone who cares is gone. That seems reasonable.

I make absolutely no promises as to when the next chapter will post. I clearly have no idea what I’m doing, and I cannot be trusted with those kinds of predictions. I would like to believe that it will be soon, as the next chapter is where we meet back up with canon, but I also have come to know myself quite well and there’s no point in pretending to be something I’m not. But please send good vibes to the part of my brain that controls executive function. I could really use it. 😉

<<Part Nineteen here

Second Sight Part Twenty

Three years after you met, at least as measured in the flow of normal time, and nearly nine months after you'd exchanged rings, Loki was finally satisfied that he'd taken every precaution necessary to protect his illusion from your anti-magic aura. Once he began taking you Asgard, he couldn't stop, too gratified to see his childhood home through your eyes. Things that had once only inspired anger and resentment became beautiful again at your side, watching your eyes widen in wonder, your lips part in gasps of awe and astonishment. Walking next to you, pretending to be his father, sharing Asgard with you, he began to acknowledge the attachment he had to the place, regardless of where he had been born.

Draped in the various tokens, baubles, amulets, and bejeweled chains that carried the net of spells Loki had created to protect you both, you, at long last, got your first sight of Asgard, stepping through shimmering silks into Odin's bedroom. The room was lavish and luxurious in a way your imagination could not have created before you saw it for yourself and left you speechless with awe, feeling almost stupid with it. Everything around you seemed soft and lush in a way you had never before experienced. Even the air itself caressed your skin more gently; never piercing, the light shimmered and bounced against every surface, scattering in a way that seemed to slide more easily into the eye.

Between the overwhelming awe and heart-pounding excitement sat weeping gratitude for the NPC effect of your wedding ring as you were openly gawking by the time you reached the main hall of Odin's palace. Struck dumb with awe at the grandeur you could see in every direction, you couldn't remember to close your mouth. Looking out across the length of the throne room, you fully understood for the first time why Loki's private domain was so dizzyingly lush. The room was bigger than Madison Square Garden and a thousand times more impressive. Faced with the reality that Loki's childhood home was a palace filled to the insanely high rafters with gold you began to comprehend in a new way how far apart the two of you had started. How you'd come together at all was a mystery and how you'd stayed together was incomprehensible, only becoming more so the more time you spent at this side.

The murals on the ceiling of that throne room, three stories high, made you imagine the dizzying task of painting such things and sent your own head spinning. You only made it worse trying to imagine yourself in the painter's shoes, and knew you could never match their skill with your feet on the ground, let alone suspended in midair above a possibly lethal height.

That first time you walked through the throne room, those massive, imposing murals high above you, you stopped in the middle, tilting your head all the way back, until the back of your skull was touching your upper back. Loki stopped next to you, fussing with something at the hem of his tunic to cover for his pause in the center of the room.

You couldn't move, needed utter stillness to strain your eyes enough to see the picture so very high above you. Though you were at risk of drawing attention from the guards, as painfully upright as their spears, who were placed at strategic points through the hall, you didn't care, needing to examine the portraits circling the centerpiece of the grandest mural of all. Even from this distance, you could clearly see that the work was incredibly fine and detailed, rich with color and edged in gold.

You peered carefully at the family portraits, closely examining each of Loki’s family, putting faces to the names you'd heard by now thousands of times. As the years had worn on, Loki had told you about his world, his childhood, his family, and you felt you knew them, despite having never met them. You recognized Thor easily, from his appearances on the news, and moved on quickly, wanting to focus on those you'd never seen. You studied Odin thoroughly, having an urgent need to understand what he was supposed to look like. As you couldn’t see Loki’s illusions, you hadn’t been sure how he'd appeared to others as you'd walked through his kingdom on his arm.

You wished that Frigga’s face was turned toward you, found yourself lingering as you'd fiercely wondered for years what Loki’s mother had looked like, whether her good heart was apparent on her face. If there was something worth loving inside Loki, it was clearly Frigga's doing. That he could love anyone in return, that he could love you, was because of the love she'd so freely given him. You’d imagined what she looked like, hoped to see that loving heart reflected in her face, had wanted confirmation. Knowing it didn't really matter, you let Loki pull you into motion just as your eyes fell on his portrait. Unable to help yourself, you scoffed out a laugh that echoed around the high ceilings.

"Did the mural painter have a vendetta?" You murmured the question half-seriously, incredulous at the way your husband was depicted in this masterpiece painting. He had been flawlessly painted, true to his features, but with such a sinister cast to his expression that you couldn't help the amusement bubbling up inside you. With such skill on display, the wicked portrayal had to be deliberate; none of the other portraits had anything like the aura surrounding him.

Loki paused a moment, glancing up at the mural above the two of you, a frown of confusion digging a line in between those undeniably wicked eyebrows. He was baffled as to what could have prompted the question as he couldn't remember the last time he thought about the painting. He honestly never even looked up at it anymore, so long had it graced the ceiling. "I don't know what you mean,” he replied, looking back down at you still puzzled, as he'd seen in the painting what he'd always seen, and had long, long since become accustomed to ignoring.

Chuckles tickling the back of your throat, you turned with a teasing smile for him. “Are you kidding me?” With a nod of your head toward the portrait, you didn’t quite hold back a small snort. “You are looking at the same painting of you that I am, right?" You asked, laughter thick in your voice. Despite the height of the ceiling, you could clearly see that his portrait was plotting something.

Loki looked once more at the ceiling, focusing this time on his own portrait amongst the riot of color. His eyes narrowed when he saw to what you were referring, acknowledging internally that his portrait was not as flattering as his brother’s, but that was expected and beneath his notice. Still, once you'd pointed it out, he could easily see the shadows around his brow, the menacing tilt of his head, the closed posture and understood why you had asked about them. The painter had made decisions.

He searched his memory, trying to remember who had painted the mural and what, if anything, he’d done to offend them. He had a vague memory of cruelties, both given and received. It had never occurred to him that his teeth could have been sharp enough at that age for his bite to have any impact, but your sight was often more clear than his, especially with the things he saw so often as to take them for granted. Speaking slowly, he looked back at you as he answered, both his voice and his face guarded. “She's a very talented artist, well-respected amongst my kind."

You couldn’t see through all of Loki’s lies; he was far too clever for that. That didn't mean that you hadn't learned how to read the expressions that flashed across his face. You knew when he wasn't telling you everything, when he was speaking around something and the way he was speaking around this made you wild with curiosity. He never talked about old flames and all it did was make you want to know more, but you couldn't pester him about his centuries-long love life. That felt unhealthy. But this was a chance to find out something, finally. There was no way you were letting this go.

You raised an eyebrow and looked back at the dark-eyed, shadowed figure that represented the man at your side as the two of you moved past the throne, heading toward the door out of the throne room, and ultimately down to the gardens. Your lips were curved in amusement as you pressed him further. "Then she had a personal problem with you, because you look sinister as fuck.” Lowering your voice as you were getting close to a guard, you finished with a wink, "Still sexy, though.”

Loki’s face relaxed into a wide smile and he chuckled at the wicked eyebrow wiggle you gave him. He wasn't worried about the guard overhearing your conversation; he'd piled so many illusion spells into the pendant at your neck, the ring around your finger, anyone who didn't directly interact with you would have a hard time remembering that you'd been there, and would never remember that you spoke.

The truth, something that would never pass his lips because he would never tell himself such a truth, was that he never talked about the lovers he'd had before because he barely remembered them anymore, barely remembered what it was like before he met you. Having you in his world, seeing his world through your eyes had banished even the memory of what came before, at least for the moment. He couldn’t imagine why he'd ever bother trying to dredge up memories from before, when he’d felt like no one understood him, or ever would.

"I'm sure she had a reason,” he tossed out carelessly with a shrug, grinning at you unrepentantly. “Who remembers?"

You rolled your eyes, trying and failing to suppress a smile. You knew you were overindulgent, but you liked seeing him happy too much to dim it with questions about the past. "You're right. What am I thinking?” Loki drew you through door behind the throne, intending to take you through the smaller corridor to the back way to the gardens. He knew how natural beauty could awe you and he wanted to once again see your bottomless eyes go wide with wonder. You let him guide you, letting go and laughing out loud at his relentless nonchalance.

“How could you possibly remember every person who hates you enough to immortalize it in gold leaf?"

Over the following year, you became very familiar with Asgard. Loki drew you into his daily life as fully as he'd drawn you into his shadow realm, getting very comfortable with having everything he wanted in reach with nothing and no one in his way. He disliked being parted from you, often requesting that you join him on Asgard as soon as you were done seeing to your everyday life on Midgard. You'd gotten into the habit of coming home from work, hopping into Loki's extra-dimensional palace to change into an Asgard-appropriate gown before popping through the portal in his study that led to Odin's private quarters.

Each piece of jewelry Loki had seen fit to drape over you had its share of spells designed to keep you hidden and safe. You had yet to discover any weaknesses in your adventures, and Asgard was no exception. On the rare occasion that you'd drawn attention to yourself, it had been deliberate. To both your and Loki's relief, you'd been perceived as an Asgardian, and one of note only due to your place as Odin's companion. Everyone who met you had a vague sense of having met you before, an implicit understanding of your place in their world, but neither were they allowed to consider it for longer than a moment.

You learned the royal palace until you knew it the way you knew your own neighborhood, able to find your way through without ever passing by an ounce of Nidevellir iron. Like your own neighborhood, the palace had become familiar, but never routine. Unlike New York, however, the sprawling golden floors under soaring lavish ceilings never seemed fully real. Neither did the rivers the Asgardians skimmed in their flying boats, or the forests in which they hunted. You couldn't explain what it was about the world in its entirety, but it had a dreamlike quality that made you question reality. At the same time, there were moments with Loki where everything sharpened into an almost painful clarity. Asgard itself, however, or perhaps the interaction between the world and its occupants and the spells that Loki had woven around you, left you floating through.

Sometimes, however, for no discernable reason that you could see, you would be standing hand in hand with Loki, a new wonder spread out before you, as Asgard was full of them, and that dreaminess would fall away and it was like you were looking at the world through fresh eyes, eyes that were being allowed to see all that they could for the first time. There were moments, your heart pounding, your breath speeding, that you could almost feel your vision shift into a different state, as though you were seeing another range of color, or yet another layer of reality. Some moments, it seemed as though the practice with Loki's magic had made your unique sight even more powerful.

Though the merchant on Alfheim had provided Loki with his first real clue about that sight's origins, only part could be explained in such a way, and it did not explain why Asgard seemed to affect that sight. In many ways, knowing a possible source had left both of you with only more questions.

But questions and the search for answers animated Loki, gave him new excuses to hop from world to world, taking on new disguises and tricking others out of what he needed from them. If this wild love affair had ever been meant to last, you'd worry that his fascination with you would end with the solved puzzle. No matter how devoted, adoring, possessive he was toward you, about you, it seemed impossible that he could love you the way you loved him.

Everything about him, the flash of mischievous eyes, the curve of a wicked smile, even the dip of a sullen brow could make warmth and heat tangle inside you. The emotion was so much, swelling and filling you up until you felt like you were made out of love for him. Sometimes it felt like you were trying to be more than only yourself, like love had changed you, and you sought to be something more, something that could match how tall he stood in your esteem. Despite everything between you and Loki, a part of you remained always braced for the day he stopped making the thin chain around your wrist ice over in summons, the day he stopped craving your company, the day this crazed dream ended.

As it was, you could comfort yourself with the cold truth that you'd probably never have to find out if Loki would tire of you as he was bound to be found out any day, so little did he seem to care about his illusions. Nearly four years after he'd stolen his father's throne, he'd gotten too comfortable in the lack of resistance from the Asgardians. As long as life remained calm and their lives undisturbed, they were uninterested in challenging the status quo. Loki had used that for years to his advantage, had known that peace and prosperity would be more than enough to quell any questions about the man on the throne. Over the years, that lack of challenge had led to complacency.

And in that complacence, he began to chafe.

"Is there a protection spell on the floor?" You were sitting in Loki's pocket dimension, paging through a book about the Aesir language to look for familiar symbols, and trying to ignore Loki as he paced his study floor in long strides. You didn't look up as you spoke, but in your peripheral vision you could see him narrow his eyes as he snapped his head toward you.

The sneer on his face was becoming a familiar sight. "I beg your pardon?" he snarled softly, through almost gritted teeth. There was an undercurrent of warning to his tone, as though he suspected you were trying to bait him.

His suspicions completely accurate, your voice remained bored as you answered, "I’m trying to figure out how you haven’t worn a track in the floor yet." You raised a brow but kept your eyes on the book in your hand as you casually turned the page. "You pace it often enough." Well aware that you were testing him, were in fact deliberately taunting him, attempting to get under his skin, you kept your face mostly serene even as you lifted a single brow in mild disdain.

Loki's smile was sharp as a blade and his voice acid sweet as he replied with mock surprise, "My apologies for disturbing you." He stopped and turned to face you in a whirl of emerald velvet and midnight silk, his eyes firing with insult. "I didn’t realize this was your study."

For the first time, you lifted your gaze with a deliberate sweep of your lashes and met Loki's heated stare with cool frustration, letting a humorless half smile curve the corner of your mouth. "And I didn't realize you summoned me to watch you pace your study." Glaring at him on the emphasis, you shifted your attention back to your book in dismissal, though you knew he could hear the way your heart was starting to speed as the confrontation wore on.

"You're free to leave." Loki spat out the words in tones as cold as the world of his birth, one hand gesturing toward the armoire holding the portal that led back to your apartment, as he turned away from you and walked toward the desk in the corner. As he bent over the front of the desk, keeping his back to you, you rolled your eyes behind him despite the way your stomach dropped at his words.

You couldn't help but wonder if this was it, if the years you'd spent together had finally rendered you familiar enough to be worth his contempt. The part of you that had always believed it was only a matter of time before he tired of you would always hear rejection when his voice lost all warmth and color. Pushing back against the emptiness that echoed inside you at the sound, anger rushed in to fill the void and made your voice tremble slightly, making you sound more hostile than you intended. "And you're not. And that's why you're wearing a rut in the stone."

"Enough." The single word was an order. Loki bent to brace his palms on the desk, his head dropping down to look at the book open in front of him. When he didn't look at you, merely dropped his command like a stone, as though you'd ever obey, your icy façade crumbled in the blaze of flaming rage. Fury propelling you to your feet, you jumped up, eyes wide and mouth opening with the first of the flood you'd kept dammed up inside of you.

"It's not enough, Loki! You-- It's like--" You were so furious you were sputtering with it. With a stamp of rage that had him finally turning, you tried to clamp down on yourself but everything you'd been biting back came pouring out of you. "You're like a tiger dying in captivity! For months you've been chewing on me like I'm the bars of your goddamn cage!" Your hands clenched into your fists at your side, your eyes glittering with the beginning of unshed tears, you looked him in the face and finally said what you'd been most afraid to say. "If you want me to leave, stop being a coward and fucking say it."

Loki rarely flinched, and this was no exception. Anyone who hadn't spent years of time outside of time alone with him would not have had the opportunity to memorize his microexpressions as you had, would not have been able to see the pain tightening the corners of his mouth, his eyes. His voice still cold, though his eyes blazed with emotion, he stated firmly, "Do not put words in my mouth." He paused a moment, then spoke in a voice perceptibly more gentle. "If I no longer wanted you here, you would have no doubt on the matter."

Your knees went weak in relief as the fury drained out of you. Somehow, you hadn't known how badly you'd needed the reassurance until you'd received it. You didn't know it, but the look on your face was broadcasting clearly exactly what you were feeling and Loki's heart hurt with the realization that you'd indeed had doubt, but about him. Knowing he'd hurt you with his own frustrations made him ache with a rare remorse that, for once, he didn't bother to hide.

When Loki's face softened with tenderness, with apology, you ran forward, into his waiting arms. Grateful that, if nothing else, you still wanted each other, he caught you close and enfolded you tightly against his chest. You buried your face in his throat and let him take your weight as you felt his lips brush over the top of your head.

"I wasn't exaggerating, you know." You didn't move your head, simply spoke against his throat, your lips moving against his skin. Though his arms didn't loosen, you felt him pull away in resistance despite the fact that he didn't really move. Your arms tightened in response, and you felt the burn of swallowed tears at the back of your throat. "You're so miserable, like you feel trapped and it's killing you."

Loki wanted to pull away, not from you, but from what you were saying. He knew you were right, but he didn't want to consider what it meant for either of you. He'd found so much joy in simply making you happy that he didn't want to examine how he'd been ignoring his own growing dissatisfaction. "I have the weight of the Nine Realms on my shoulders." He could hear himself giving you half-truths, but couldn't make himself acknowledge the truth to himself either. "Our enemies stir and I have lost track of my brother, Heimdall, Sif. I have a few things on my mind."

You shook your head but you didn't take your face from its place beneath his ear. Though that was all true, it wasn't what was destroying his happiness. "You hate pretending to be your father. You like being in charge, but you hate the responsibility of actually ruling." At this, Loki began for the first time to physically recoil, but now that you'd uncorked these thoughts, you couldn't keep them to yourself anymore. You held on, refusing to take your own weight back from him, forcing him to either hold you or drop you, betting that he wouldn't do the latter. "No, don't. As much as you despise straight communication, you have to hear this. You have to listen." Tilting your head back, you looked him in the face and said, bluntly, your throat still aching from the tears you were still holding back. "Because living like this is killing you."

Loki wouldn't drop you, no matter what nonsense you were babbling about, but it took the sight of your eyes drenched with tears to make him listen. He sighed, and softened again, vaguely annoyed that anyone had such power over him, even you. "Living like what?"

You sighed in relief when you felt him relax against you, saw the annoyed indulgence moving over his face and knew he would hear you. Grateful for the chance to finally speak, you did so in a rush. "Without any real use for your talents. No one disagrees with you, no one argues." A line began to form between Loki's eyebrows as your words sank in, and he didn't interrupt. When he didn't protest, you didn't stop. "Not even maintaining the farce of pretending to be your father amuses you anymore because no one will call you out no matter what you do. Whether you've done it consciously or not, you've tested them by acting strange. They notice that you're not quite right as your father, but they don't say anything. The only people who would are gone, and you're bored out of your mind."

Loki's mouth had opened partway through the flood of words, but he hadn't tried to speak. Once you fell silent, however, he realized he wasn't certain what to say. As was your habit, you'd seen more deeply than he'd expected and had spoken a truth he hadn't acknowledged for himself. He couldn't deny that he'd been dogged by a sense of dissatisfaction, a feeling that had once presaged his most audacious mischief but now only made him pick at those around him, mostly you. "It's not boredom," he replied, slowly, his voice guarded. "Not exactly."

Even the guarded tone couldn't stop you, not now. You'd been trying to pry this door open for weeks, if not months, and you wouldn't be dissuaded now that you'd succeeded, even this little bit. "Then what is it?" You still had your arms wrapped around his waist, your chest pressed to his and your face lifted to search his with eyes desperate for understanding. Squeezing him, you pleaded with him, needing him to confide in you, explain why he was so unhappy, why he was pretending he wasn't. "Please, Loki. Tell me. Trust me."

Loki scoffed out a laugh, disbelief audible in the sound, and grinned wryly down at you. "I do. As I trust no one else in this universe." He shifted his weight as he paused, his face turning inward as he contemplated your question. As he moved to brace himself against the desk at his back, he dipped his head to brush his lips over yours. If he'd thought he could distract you, he may have tried, but the determined look on your face, the heartsick look in your eyes, told him not to bother.

With a deep sigh, Loki tried to put his feelings into words. "Boredom isn't quite right," he murmured, slowly, contemplating the itchy sensation that drove him to pace his study, "because I really do have a great deal to worry about." Looking inward, he didn't realize he was staring deeply into your bottomless eyes, falling in and speaking the truth without thought. "I can wear my father's face, but I cannot wield his power." At the sound of his own voice, the truth he'd been hiding from himself, he began trying to extricate himself from whatever lay in the depths of your eyes and would have the truth from him whether he liked it or not. Still, he spoke, "If these stirrings become more than a nuisance, I may have to call my brother back to Asgard. If that happens…" trailing off as he worked to disentangle himself from the power of your gaze.

A teasing grin flashed across your face, and the crinkle at the corners of your eyes allowed him to fully break free, amazed as always that you could catch him so. "Admit it." You spoke the words with a warm indulgence and a gentle shake, your arms still wrapped tightly around his middle. "A part of you cannot wait for Thor to come home." At the look of disgusted consternation that moved across his face, you burst out laughing, throwing your head back. "Don't look at me like that," you snickered, shaking your head at him, and not letting go despite the way he was tensing in your arms again. "Thinking about having to deal with Thor made you look alive for a second. You miss him."

You said the last gently, with a wealth of understanding, but that didn't stop the insult from bubbling up inside him. With a huff of indignant irritation, his hands lifted to your upper arms to pull them from around his waist, setting you away from himself with a cold, "I do not."

You didn't bother to disguise your amusement as he turned away from you to face the desk, pulling a journal toward him and turning it to focus on the notes there, pretending to shut you out. "Fine," you retorted as you turned and plopped down in the spot on his desk he'd just vacated, "if not Thor himself, you miss having an adversary." You snagged the coin Loki habitually kept on his desk and started practicing bouncing it across your knuckles. Loki thought your dexterity could use work, and though you had no aspiration toward pickpocketing, it made him happy to corrupt you. "One who knows you well enough to be a genuine challenge." You glanced over at him and smiled at the sulk forming on his face. "You're stagnating without one."

Loki flashed a smile at you, but made sure he didn't get caught in your eyes again. He really didn't want to have this conversation but you weren't letting go this time. "I'm still trying to understand you," he purred, leaning in to take your mouth in a kiss designed to deflect, as was his usual, as you usually let him. "That's become the greatest of challenges, my sweet."

You kissed him back, lifting your hands to his face to hold him there, taking you both somewhere sweet and dark for a moment. When you pulled your lips from his, it was to nuzzle your mouth against him, humming in pleasure as your fingers danced over the silk of his skin, the sharp edge of his jaw. "Flattery will not deflect me this time," you murmured, dancing kisses over his cheeks and mouth and making his eyelashes flutter, "no matter how sweetly you kiss me while you do it."

Loki's grin flashed again and he sidled over press a palm on the desk on either side of your hips, nudging your thighs apart with his knee and stepping between in one smooth motion. With that wolfish smile on his face, he took your mouth in a kiss both deep and hot, his tongue sliding between your lips to tangle with yours. You kissed him back with fervor, letting him wipe your mind clean for a moment.

Despite the part of you that wanted to dive into the oblivion he was offering, wanted to go back to pretending that everything was fine, you only allowed yourself a moment to indulge before gently withdrawing. You kept your hands on his face, even as you pulled your mouth from his to pin him with a solemn stare, though the corners of your mouth turned up in the slightest of sweet smiles. When you lifted an eyebrow, he sighed in resignation.

"Not deflect, really." While he'd been kissing you, he'd moved his palms from the surface of the desk to the tops of your thighs, and he squeezed gently now, pressing them open with his hips. "Divert, at worst," he quipped with a winning grin and a nip at your lower lip.

You fixed him with a stern look, using your grip on his hands to hold him in place. "Loki." You waited until he stopped fighting and looked you in the eyes. You hadn't wanted to force the issue, but he was more stubborn than anyone you'd ever known. As the silence stretched and he tried to resist the pull of your gaze, you waited, love making you patient. When his eyes met yours and his body seemed to sag in surrender, you leaned forward and kissed him, your lips a velvet brush against his. When you pulled back and met his eyes again, you tried to show him in your expression how you felt. "You're my heart." An understatement, if there ever was one. You felt like he'd become a part of you, and to lose him would be to destroy the part of yourself you loved most. "Do you understand that?"

Loki could see how you felt on your face and his heart throbbed in response, as he felt exactly the same. This time, he gave you the truth without a fight. "As you're mine, I understand nothing better."

"If what's happening inside you was happening to me," you kept your hands on his face, your eyes on his, looking deep as you spoke, "what would you do to put a stop to it?" You saw the emotions chase each other in a spasm across his face, love, pain, anger. He seemed to want to move away, a shiver moving through his body, but he stayed in place, his eyes on yours. When he didn't speak, you prompted, "Answer me honestly for once."

Loki's mouth twisted sardonically, struck by the irony of that statement while trapped in your truth-extracting gaze. With a laugh that was a half-scoff, he lifted his hands to take yours where they still cupped his face. Long fingers twined around yours, bringing the backs of your hands to his mouth, brushing his lips over your skin with a tenderness he so rarely indulged, even with you. "There is nothing I wouldn't do." The words had a fervor that made them resonate, the low rumble of his voice seeming to seep into your bones. His silver tongue could give lies lovely dancing rhythm, but the truth fell from his mouth in a pounding beat. "There's no end to which I would not go to shield you from any pain."

You cocked a brow, waiting for the acknowledgment that you were only acting in his best interests as he would act in yours. When he stayed silent, you sighed as your mouth curved in an indulgent smile. "Something has to give, love." You leaned forward and over your still joined hands, brushed your mouth over his. "I will not have that something be you."

"I'm not--"

Despite his sudden scowl, you cut him off with a shake of your head. "You should think about when to cut and run, and whether that's sooner rather than later, for your own sake." You smiled and snaked a leg around his hips, pulling your hands from his to slide your arms around his neck. "Maybe you should break the spell on your father from some luxury resort on a planet that doesn't have an extradition treaty with Asgard."

Loki's head was spinning. He didn't know how you could ever think that he'd be bored or tired of you when there was never an end to the surprises with you. He could never predict you, no matter how much time you spent together, no matter how he studied, what he read. The thrill of it never failed to awe him.

Nor did the thrill of loving you, he thought as his body curled toward yours in response to the invitation he recognized in the way your limbs were wrapping around him. More than willing, he bent to slide his arms around your waist, his hands spreading open to press his palms over your back, pulling you closer. "Are you ready to leave then?" He asked the question when you were nose to nose, then tilted his head to close his teeth gently around the edge of your jaw.

Your breath was already speeding, your body arching to his, and you ached with gratitude that this remained unchanged between you, that this feeling always rose within you both to meet the other. "At a moment's notice. I already have my go-bag packed." The words still packed a punch, for all they were said with only half your breath. You'd lost the rest when Loki began nuzzling his face into the skin of your throat where your pulse beat, the sensation sending shivers of pleasure over your whole body. "If that's what it takes to put the light back in your eyes."

The slightest of pauses and the breath of a sigh before the words, "So dramatic," were all the acknowledgment you were going to get, but you'd long since learned how to read the man you called your husband; for all the vows were said in private, with no witnesses, you'd bound yourselves together as surely as any two beings could, tying your fates together for good or ill. What happened to him happened to you happened to him happened to you. You would not be a passive object in your own fate.

You slid your hands into his hair, softly dragging your nails over his scalp as you went, glorying in the purr you pulled from him in response. Tightening the thighs you'd wrapped around his waist at the same moment you tightened your hands into fists, you pulled his head up, surprise leaving him without resistance. "I know you are, but I love you anyway," you murmured with a soft-eyed smile. Taking advantage of the surprised laugh you'd pulled from him, you pulled his face to yours and pressed your mouth to his, wanting to remind him that you weren't one of his treasures, another object in his hoard.

The tangle of tongues was more like a duel than a kiss, but neither wanted nor called for quarter, for mercy. When you finally broke apart, you tossed back your head to gasp for air, your body already yearning for him. The rumble of his voice, the vibration of his lips settled into your skin as he murmured, "You're the light in my eyes." Your legs tightened around him in response even as one of his hands dropped to your thigh. He slid his hand, surprisingly hot, underneath your thigh and gripped tightly, using the leverage to press more firmly against you. "You're a part of me, Y/N," he paused as he lifted his head to look you directly in the eye and what little breath you'd managed to catch fled, "and I miss you as such when you're not with me. I don't think it's possible for me to ever want you to leave."

For some reason your throat had flooded with tears, as though this had been eating at you and the reassurance was something you'd needed more than you'd been able to acknowledge until you'd received it. Whatever the reason, you had to speak through them. "You're not tired of me yet? Even after all of this time, and not-time?"

Despite the smile you'd given him on the little half-joke, he could hear the tears clearly, could see the beginning threat of them in your eyes. That you could question for even a moment what you meant to him told him more than anything else you'd said that his mood and behavior had become untenable, that something had to change.

Using the grip on your thigh and the arm wrapped around your back, Loki lifted you, the room spinning around you as he turned away from the desk and toward the sofa. His eyes seared into yours even as his voice caressed your ears with a velvet purr, "Was it not yesterday?" The whirling journey ended when Loki placed you on the couch and stretched out on top of you, his hips spreading your thighs wide. The arm behind your back lifted to curl around your head, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone as his eyes continued to burn on yours. "When I first found myself caught in bottomless eyes that saw deeper than any I'd ever before known?"

Your heart melting, you went soft in the face of such sweetness. Loki was next-level charming when he turned it on, but this wasn't that. This was something sincere and heartfelt in him that cut to the core of you faster than anything else ever had. You'd always been unable to stop yourself from wondering if this would have been who he'd been if he hadn't needed the armor of lies against his world. Defenseless in the face of it, you met his mouth eagerly with your own when his head dipped to yours.

By the time your head cleared enough to remember that he'd never actually addressed your original concern, he had dragged the loose collar of your sweater down over your shoulder and was devouring the skin of your neck and collarbones with soft, sucking kisses that were making it impossible for you to catch your breath. Still, you stopped arching your neck into his mouth and spoke, "Wait. You're trying to deflect me again."

Loki had tensed at the word 'wait' but relaxed immediately with a laugh. "Divert!" he cried, burying his face in your throat to laugh for real when you scoffed in response. Nuzzling into your skin, he rubbed his face on you like a cat as he cuddled you close with a shimmy of his whole body that had you melting again. "If the stirrings become rumblings, we'll run." He lifted his head to smirk into your face. "Does that satisfy?"

You tilted your head and leveled a serious look at him, wanting him to take this seriously, just this once. "I worry that we're pushing our luck, that if we're not ready escape will become more difficult, or even impossible."

"Are you doubting me?" Loki lifted up on the elbow braced next to your head and looked at you with mock indignation.

"Loki." The wealth of patience in one word carried the years of living and playing alongside this man and made his lips twitch whether he would or not. When you dropped his favorite endearment for you, "Darling," and looked at him like you were already tired, he wanted you like it was the first time all over again. "You act like you've never miscalculated."

A flash of a grin, he knew his part in this dance. "I don't know what you're talking about." Everything about him cried innocence and an outside observer would never know that he was anything but sincere, but you could see the twinkle in his eye, the twitch at the corner of his mouth, and knew what he was doing.

"The day we met." You said the words sharply, with the tone of someone who'd had to say these exact words many times before, and indeed you had, as Loki loved this kind of play. Indulging him would lead to him trying to distract you from the conversation with seduction, as he had already begun pushing your sweater back so that he could trail his fingertips over your collarbones.

"Please." He waved his first miscalculation as though it wasn't the catalyst for all the came after. "Hardly of note." His head dipped, his mouth replacing his fingers and brushing delicately over your skin.

You did nothing to stop him, simply focused on keeping your wits despite what he was doing to you. You weren't trying to stop him, wanted him as he wanted you, but you needed to resolve this. You arched into his mouth even as you said, "Attracting Heimdall's attention by forgetting not to touch me."

You felt his lips curve against your skin before his breath, "Easily remedied," then his lips, pressing more of those soft, sucking kisses into your skin. His hands slid underneath your sweater, and the slight chill of his skin against the warmth of your skin made you shiver.

"Nidevellir iron," you said, the sound more like a moan thanks to the sensations his mouth, his hands, his body were inspiring.

"Shhhh." Loki was chuckling even as he lifted his head to press his mouth to yours in an attempt to shush you.

You wiggled away, your head twisted so you could glare at him. "That luck spell you put on my necklace that almost had us interrogated in an alien casino dungeon."

"Stop!" He almost cried the word, openly laughing and the sight of him genuinely given over to humor had your stern expression melting into loving indulgence. The sight of you looking at him like that, like he was worth the love and devotion you'd shown him, had him leaning back down to kiss you, another sweet meeting of mouths that said what words could not. When he pulled his mouth away from the kiss, he rested his forehead against yours and sighed. "I will endeavor to create an escape plan so perfectly mischievous that even you'll have to stop fretting." The words sounded like they were teasing but you recognized the promise buried underneath the teasing.

You lifted an imperious brow and smirked at him. "That is all I ask."

Loki threw his back and laughed out loud, delighted with you. His face soft, he brushed his lips over one eye then the other, admitting softly, "Your life on Earth brings you joy," and for once it didn't seem like the truth was being pulled from him against his will. "I don't want to take any joy from you until I must." Your breath caught at the expression on his face and when he paused you didn't speak for fear he'd stop. He seemed to be thinking deeply for a moment before his face cleared and he continued, "But, in the meantime, I'll speed up my preparations to leave quietly." Now that there was a problem to be solved and plots to be hatched, Loki could feel the fire light inside him and knew you'd been right, that he'd been stagnating. "I want to cover our tracks thoroughly. Thor will send Sif after us and she's relentless when she feels insulted."

You could see that he was already more animated than he'd been only an hour ago and grinned, ready to tease. "Old girlfriend I need to worry about?"

Loki snorted. "Hardly." With a wolfish grin, he lifted up enough to pull the sweater up over your head, tossing it with abandon. The next instant most of his clothing was gone, and the cool skin of his chest was pressing against yours. "I prefer my women sweet and sarcastic," he said, satisfaction all over him as he smiled into your eyes, as you smiled back. A twist of his lips, "And she prefers my brother," and you understood immediately the nature of that relationship.

"Ah." You sympathized; unrequited love was always a bitch.

Loki could hear the sympathy and knew it could be detrimental, especially when dealing with someone was dangerous as Sif could be. "And she is loyal to her core," he warned, "so she'll hunt us with her all."

You grinned and reached between you to flip open the button at the waistband of your jeans. "So you're saying you have a challenge," you retorted with a grin and started working your jeans down as best you could with him in the way.

Laughing again, Loki realized that he hadn't let himself really laugh in a long while and reveled in it. Grinning back at you, he straightened enough to help you wriggle out of your pants. "I suppose I do."

Part Twenty-One here>>

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