Work Text:
They’d been talking for hours when Jane finally got it. The conversation had gone on so long that she could barely remember even half of what they’d talked about, but it was impossible to forget how it’d started—from when Loki had first appeared in her kitchen by magic as she was heading in to wash up the solitary dish she’d dirtied making dinner for one. It had been completely unexpected, his out-of-thin-air arrival, and because she wasn’t an idiot she had started out scared shitless.
And it wasn’t just because it was Loki, who was not known for being the god of sweetness and mercy: more than that, he’d popped into existence there at a time when Thor and every other superhero—and hell, even all the regular law enforcement—were all busy with the seemingly coordinated movements of a whole bunch of bad guys at once. Not to mention that it was only three days until she and Thor were supposed to be going back to Asgard to start making wedding preparations (however, just then she did have the sudden urge to suggest eloping to Vegas and being married by a skydiving Elvis. She’d made it through the culture shock of visiting a whole different dimension and the awkward moments of meeting her boyfriend’s parents who happened to be both royalty and gods, without hesitation. But this was putting her to the test.) So, what with all that, the first thought to flash through her head that the timing was too perfect to be coincidence and he was definitely there to kill her, and she’d been on the edge of a total freakout with her heart trying to break its way out straight through her ribcage, pondering how many steps it was to the door and how it’d take way too long to get to it even if he weren’t blocking the way, because maybe if she bolted he’d be startled enough to kill her quickly.
But then she'd found out that she’d been all wrong about him, and maybe so had everyone else.
“I’m not here to harm you. In a few days, you’ll be my sister-in-law, as you’d put it,” he’d said, hands spread in a plea as he stood awkwardly by her kitchen counter, looking horribly out of place and horribly aware of it. “Family of a sort. And I thought that perhaps… if we had a chance to get to know one another… things could be different.” Objectively she knew he was nearly as tall as Thor and not really a frail thing either, but standing there at that moment he seemed somehow small and broken. His longish, dark hair, usually kept tidily brushed back, was a mess, and his clothes had a vaguely slept-in look. As she stood there with the spoon still dangling from her hand and the adrenalin still jittering through her with every heartbeat, he folded in on himself yet further and turned his face away, practically closing his eyes. “I’m sorry to frighten you. I didn’t think you would talk to me if I didn’t show up this way, and I had to try. I’ll leave if you ask.”
And she’d been almost dumbfounded. What she knew of Loki from the news and Thor and SHIELD had not led her to expect that sort of vulnerability, that sort of anxious fear of being rejected once again, that desperation to have family who didn’t hate and distrust him. It was utterly human, and she felt a stab of sympathy.
And this sudden glimpse of a hidden aspect of him came as a relief, because it meant that maybe if she played her cards just right, he actually wouldn’t hurt her. And that was definitely a good thing.
So she gave him a tentative smile. “Maybe it can be different,” she said.
0o0
And so they’d started talking. On her suggestion, they’d moved into the living room where they could sit and talk without leaning on the piles of astrophysics papers that cluttered her kitchen counter, and they’d even gone through a couple of beers each as the evening wore on. For the first while, he mainly asked her questions, and they were all so ordinary that it gave her a surreal feeling—sitting there on her couch in her grubby jeans and t-shirt while Loki sat across from her, perched cross-legged on the armchair with the ends of his long coat splayed out under him like a raven’s tail-feathers, telling him about her experiences back in grad school and the problems she’d had getting funding (at least in her pre-SHIELD-consultant days) while he murmured in quiet astonishment that what she did was not more valued or chuckled at her tales of roommate woe and spacey colleagues. Then after an hour or two the questions got more personal, and she found that she didn’t mind, and she even felt comfortable enough to ask him a few. Nothing too serious, but the sorts of things you ask a new friend when you’re feeling each other out.
(She had a sudden, ridiculous urge to call up Erik or Darcy or, hell, Agent Coulson, anybody, and say, “You won’t believe who I’ve got at my place right now. It’s Loki, and he’s being nice to me, and I know it’s really weird but I think we’re actually going to be friends. Tell me I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy, right?” And she probably would have done it if her phone weren’t still buried in her bag in the other room. She’d have definitely at least texted furiously back and forth with Darcy for a couple of minutes, and that right there was a sign of just how giddy the whole situation had made her, because she never texted like that with Darcy.)
She was starting to feel that she had really known nothing about him before. It made her curious; she wanted to understand, because that was something else—she’d never really gotten why he freaked out so badly in the stories that Thor told her of when he went bad and how their lives were before that. So now she found herself fascinated by him, by everything he said and just by little things like the delicate curve of his fingers as he gestured while he spoke and how it was completely not the sort of mannerism she’d ever seen in any of the other Asgardian men, and she had a sudden realization that there were probably thousands of similar tiny details that had made him a perpetual outcast at home and led up to him finally cracking.
And there was the way his too-green eyes flashed when he had a clever thought, which was often—she had no doubt that what Thor always said about Loki’s intelligence was more than just brotherly bragging. It was obvious he was smart, and he knew ten times as much about Earth as Thor did, and he was quick as hell on the uptake. He caught her oblique references and tossed them back at her with his lip barely quirking in acknowledgment of the game. It wasn’t long before she realized she was having more fun in their verbal jousting than she’d had in a while, and she began to understand exactly why it was that Thor always got stormy when others said bad things about the brother who was half the time actively trying to kill him. She had caught a glimpse of what it was that Thor loved in him—all of the same things that made him so different from other Asgardians.
It was admittedly a little unsettling when he interrupted this line of thinking by leaning forward, elbows on his knees and an intense expression of curiosity on his face, asking, “Does he ever speak to you of me? What does he tell you?”
She’d shrugged a little. “Of course he talks about you. Pretty much all the time.”
She’d watched as his eyebrows rose in a shy little grin like he didn’t want to admit how pleased this idea made him. But it was true, and she didn’t bother to tell him that it had gotten annoying starting about a month into her relationship with Thor. For a while she’d wondered if it was healthy for someone to spend so much time thinking about their estranged sibling, though she’d chalked it up to the guilt he clearly felt over his role in what had happened combined with old habit from centuries spent together—as it was, practically every story of his life involved Loki at some point. But the more she’d thought about it, the less she understood it. Sometimes she wished he would do what anyone else would and drop the homicidal relative like a goddamned hot potato, although she knew the fact that he wouldn’t was part of what made him the Thor she loved.
Now, of course, she felt a little bad about that wish.
And somehow she felt at ease enough to say what she said then. “You obviously still care about him. You have to know how much it hurts him to have to fight you all the time. Why don’t you just… stop?”
For a moment he didn’t say anything, busying his hands toying with his empty beer bottle as a series of expressions crossed his face. She caught anxiety, sorrow, resignation, something darker.
“I don’t think you understand,” he’d said at last, so softly that she could barely hear him, and he didn’t meet her gaze as he said it. “I don’t think you could.”
“Try me,” she replied, leaning forward insistently. She desperately wanted to make it through the conversation, make it work. Maybe she was in the middle of the best chance there would ever be to win back Thor’s brother to the side of not-evil. Clearly, fighting him was never going to help anything—most likely it would result in Loki’s death, and Jane didn’t want to think about what that would do to Thor.
Loki appeared to struggle for words, shoulders tense, body bent over his knees, and Jane watched anxiously as he ran his fingers through his hair and glanced between her and the floor.
“After everything that’s happened… at least this way, he and I, we are still…” He made a wavering gesture, blew out a breath in a nervous sigh. “You cannot possibly understand how it feels, after centuries of being able to rely only on him for love and attention, to have that threatened. I cannot give that up. I cannot.” He shook his head, denying the thought, and there was a sheen of sweat on his skin.
“Do you really think he’d stop caring about you if you stopped trying to kill him?”
And then he’d looked up at her, his demeanor suddenly changed, and a funny little grin flashed across his face. “You never can be sure about something like that. I don’t think I want to risk it.” Then he’d seemed to compose himself, drawing up and brushing the stray hairs out of his eyes with careful fingertips. “Let us speak of something else instead.”
0o0
And they had; she’d let it drop, they’d gone back to talking about things that weren’t his brother and her soon-to-be-husband, and she’d put aside the thought of the whip-crack curve of his lip as he smiled at that moment and the shiver it’d sent racing down her spine. Because she felt bad for him, despite the evil, and just wanted everything to be as okay as possible for his sake and for Thor’s.
And another hour later, she’d completely forgotten about it, as he’d fetched them both a couple more drinks from the kitchen and then he’d squinted and frowned at the Budweiser label, and the next time she’d put the bottle to her lips she almost spat out her mouthful because it was sweet and had a cloying honey taste, and he’d laughed delightedly—it seemed he’d magicked both their beers into mead, and boy did that stuff have a kick to it. Not much later, she’d patted the couch cushion next to her, fed up with having to talk across the room at him, and he had wobbled over and plunked down beside her.
“Your eyes are really, really green,” she’d said, staring at him from somewhere in the wide territory beyond tipsy, probably about ten paces into Drunkytown.
“Yes, I suppose they are,” he said, amused.
And ten paces into Drunkytown appeared to be the point where everything wrong with the world was just a silly misunderstanding and where it was her obligation to let the world know it. She put her hand to his shoulder (partly to steady herself) and focused with some difficulty. “Y’know, I told Thor I didn’t think it was a good idea not to invite you to the wedding. Y’know, considering that one story,” she said, words slurred slightly. She’d said it to Thor as a joke, though she’d quickly followed it with apologies for being insensitive after Thor fumbled for a reply and landed on a forced smile and a “Verily.” And now she almost wished she had been serious. They ought to have invited him, bad guy or not, because he was Thor’s brother, and you don’t exclude family. He was certainly worth five bucks of gilt-edged embossed cardstock, or would have been if they’d actually been bothering with things like that. And she told him so, leaning closer to throw her arm around him. And then, peering at his amused expression from her skewed angle, she had an idea. “Maybe we could talk to Odin and Frigga and you could come home for the wedding, at least. I know they’d let you! I know how much Thor would want you to be there, too…”
Loki had pulled back then, slipping out of her grasp, and fussed at the cuffs of his jacket for a moment. He seemed a lot more sober than she felt. “No, I don’t think he would, really.” He bit his lip. “I must tell you something. A confession, if you like.” He waited for her to answer, and all she could do was nod, grinning uncertainly. “I was not lying when I told you that I didn’t come here to harm you. The reason I wanted to speak to you was so that I could give you your wedding present, since I won’t be able to attend the ceremony.”
Ah, she thought blearily. That made sense. “Okay. So what is it?”
“I didn’t know, at first. I had to come here to find out just what sort of thing I could get for you. Something that would truly have value to you. That’s not the sort of thing you can do for a stranger,” he said, and if she’d have been soberer she’d have noticed the slow shift in his tone, the spreading smile, the look in his eyes as if he weren’t seeing her at all.
His hands were folded together as he continued, his voice filled with eerie calm. “Once I was known for being a bringer of magnificent gifts. It wasn’t just a matter of being able to acquire such wonders; anyone can swindle a necklace out of a dwarf’s hands, but it takes effort to discover just who will need to have it around their neck from the moment they lay eyes on it.” He traced the tip of his tongue across his lips, slow and careful. “Once it was rare good fortune to have received one of my gifts. And I enjoyed doing it. It made me happy to find beautiful, powerful things to give to those I cared about. I don’t think anyone remembers that now, but it is true. So you should feel honored that I would revive such an ancient tradition for this occasion. For you.”
“I do feel honored,” Jane said, peering at him through the alcohol haze. There was that subtle curve of the hand, the graceful gestures, the flash of impossible green. And he suddenly took her hand in his. She felt it distantly as he stroked his fingers across her knuckles before he brought her hand up to his face, and it reminded her a little of when Thor had kissed her hand right after they’d first met. But instead he pressed it to his cheek, and she felt the softness of his skin against the back of her hand. But it was oddly cold. Too cold, really.
“So will you accept a gift from me?” he asked, his breath stirring the fine hairs on the back of her wrist.
“Sure,” she said, nodding and feeling almost entranced. “Whatever you want to give me.”
Then he smiled. “You have been so kind to me. So accepting. I could almost be glad to call you sister. Almost.”
“…What?” Jane asked in a sluggish voice, confused. “What do you mean, Loki?” He was still holding her hand in his, and though he was still sitting just as he had been a moment before, he seemed somehow farther away.
He tilted his head as he looked at her. “You are a scientist. You value facts and knowledge; you enjoy teasing out secrets that others do not comprehend. I can understand that, even share the feeling in my way. And perhaps it would please you if I were to gift you the secrets of the Bifrost, or of Yggdrasil, or even some of the simplest of the old rune magics. But nearly anyone in Asgard could give those to you, and if you are to be going to Asgard it would be like gifting water to a fish on its way to the ocean,” he said with a low laugh. “Hardly a worthy present. So I tried to think of what other knowledge I have that would not be so common. And do you know? I think I have thought of just the thing.”
Then his lips pulled back and his teeth glinted white. It was not a comforting smile. Something in her was finally sounding an alarm and she tried to pull her hand away from him only to discover she couldn’t. She couldn’t move. Terror stabbed through her—she couldn’t move, and while she’d thought at first it was just the alcohol, her vision was going dim, blurring around the edges in a way that wasn’t at all normal. It felt peculiarly like being in your own house at night during a power outage, all the more disorienting because of the sense of familiarity. Soon she could barely see Loki’s outline as he moved to stand in front of her and dropped into a crouch so that he was peering closely at her face. It was too dark to see his expression, but she knew it was cold.
“I want you to remember that you accepted the gift when I offered it,” he said, trailing his fingers down the side of her neck, wrapping them around, gently and inexorably, though he did not squeeze. “I was lying when I said I wouldn’t hurt you. I would hurt you. I would enjoy nothing more than ending your existence, if I didn’t fear it would finally be a crime for which he might never forgive me. And do you have any idea what that means? For you, a mortal who will last just a few short years more, he would abandon the brother who has loved him for centuries. Do you have any idea how that feels? Of course not. I told you; you cannot understand.”
Part of her, the part that stood up to SHIELD agents, was screaming and trying frantically to move, to shake herself out of it, to do something. But another part was watching everything and murmuring over and over again—oh no, oh Jane you idiot. Everything she’d ever known about Loki came rushing back and her face burned with the knowledge of how badly she’d misunderstood what had happened. He’d been manipulating her the whole time, playing on her sympathy, winning her trust only to shatter it and kick around the pieces. The lies he’d woven were easy to believe, but she hadn’t even had the sense to question. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Anger at herself overwhelmed her terror, but only by a little.
His hand idly traced along her collarbone, making her want to squirm, and he smiled at her again, more unnerving than a wielded knife. “So since you so highly value knowledge, that will be my gift to you, a gift to carry with you as you wed my brother: I would have you know what it is you are interfering with.”
And then, in the darkness behind her eyes, she saw it. The illusion shimmered into being, just translucent enough that she could still see the outlines of the room through it and the barest hint of the shape looming near her. It began as an indistinct swirl of angles and vague colors and then gradually resolved into the image of a dark space in which two figures could be seen. One of them, the larger of the two, she would recognize anywhere. And the other, leaner and full of serpentine grace, moved in, only to be pulled closer. For a moment they simply stood there, foreheads pressed together, still and silent like it was a ritual. And then Thor nudged his nose against Loki’s, and Loki tilted his head up to meet him in a kiss, their mouths brushing with a brief, motionless intensity that almost took Jane’s breath away.
And she knew. Immediately, she knew, and she got it, why Thor always let Loki escape and why Loki never quite managed to kill Thor, and the worst part was that she couldn’t disbelieve. Loki was certainly capable of using magic to make her see something that had never happened; he could lie and twist the world around into whatever contortions he chose. But she knew better than to deny it. She remembered the warmth in Thor’s voice when he talked about his brother even when he still had injuries from their battles. It made too much sense. It answered questions she hadn’t even realized she wanted answers to. Maybe she’d known it, sensed it somewhere deep in her subconscious, because part of her was not surprised at all.
But still, she wasn’t expecting how much it hurt.
The image grew clearer, closer, letting her see the indulgent smile on Thor’s face as he smoothed his hands across Loki’s shoulders and the mischievous one Loki wore as he pressed in for another kiss, his hands disappearing under Thor’s shirt.
Loki was going to make her watch Thor fuck him. And she couldn’t even close her eyes to escape it. The realization moved through her body like a cringing shiver from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet and back. It coiled tight in her belly, and she could feel her fingernails cutting into her palms and cold sweat running down her sides. She had never been a particularly jealous person—she considered herself reasonable about it—but she had also never had to watch her fiancé screwing his own brother. The brother that he was practically obsessed with and had spent centuries with and had just kissed like he’d never need air.
She focused hard through the scene and could just barely see the glint of Loki’s eyes as he watched her suffer, drowning in the spell he’d worked. She wondered if he was seeing the vision too, or if it was just coming from his mind and memories. She got her answer when an almost imperceptible sigh escaped his lips as Thor nuzzled into illusion-Loki’s neck. And that was the odd thing, she realized suddenly: he was showing her this but not making her listen to it. The vision was utterly silent. It made it feel even more voyeuristic, more like a violation of something private, something that she was not meant to see. But she wondered if it was also that way because he couldn’t bear to let her hear whatever words they’d said to each other.
It wasn’t like her mind couldn’t fill in the blanks anyway. In the vision, Thor had dropped to his knees in front of Loki, groping at fastenings and pushing cloth out of the way as Loki’s fingers twined and twisted in his hair. And his head was pulled back to stare up into the wolfish look on Loki’s face for a moment. As she watched, Thor’s lips moved, a few silent words slipping from him, and then a moment later he was sucking Loki’s cock into his mouth and she could practically feel Loki’s groan at the contact even if she couldn’t hear it.
Ice water coursed through her veins. Her body was hollow, her head light. “I didn’t know…” she said, reeling.
“Of course you didn’t,” he hissed from inches away. “Now shut up and watch, or else I will also tell you the names of every one of the multitude of lovers that Thor has taken over the years, so you can know them when they smile at you over the feast table in Asgard.”
In the vision, Loki slumped backward against the wall and Thor got smoothly to his feet, grinning and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
And she watched as Thor pushed Loki towards the bed, stripping both of them as they went, shoved him down roughly onto his back. Loki let him, unexpectedly submissive, drawing his knees up as Thor bent over him, guiding himself inside. And oh god, they were beautiful. Brightness contrasting with shadows, strength and grace, two parts of a whole. Thor pushing slowly into him and drawing out again with a roll of his hips, Thor holding Loki’s wrists above his head to pin him as he writhed, Loki throwing his head back and wrapping his legs tighter around his brother, intent on pulling him yet closer.
With that image in her mind and Loki’s ragged breaths filling the silence and the sick tension in her belly twisting tighter, Jane felt tears spring to her eyes. She felt small.
She choked down the feeling as a thought occurred to her, forced herself to surface.
“When? Tell me… when was…”
She could feel Loki’s breath on her face as he laughed softly. “Centuries ago. Last week. Does it matter?” His voice was deceptively calm; she could feel the tense twitch of his fingers against her skin. “Suffice it to say I’ve had to deal with smelling you on him as many times as I can stand.”
She believed him, remembering times she had lain next to Thor in the afterglow, half asleep, and he had stroked a pensive hand along her bare shoulder and kissed her there in silence. And when she half-rolled to look at him, she had waited for him to come out with whatever it was, but he never had.
Thor had never told her. And although under the circumstances that wasn’t surprising, it still meant he had been lying to her from the beginning. She was definitely going to have some hard questions for him later, she thought, anger rising again to wash away the pain.
Maybe she would have said something to Loki then, something sensible about how they’d both been wronged, how they’d both been hurt and she wasn’t any happier about it than he was. But just at that moment, cutting like lightning through the vision, she saw something else: Thor’s fingers digging into the back of Loki’s neck, pressing him to the ground. Loki sprawled out, a gout of blood running down from his nose, washing his smile in red. Caught in a stark silhouette, the angles between Loki’s body and Thor’s hips and Thor’s outstretched arm.
And just as quickly it flashed away, back to Thor pressing wet kisses into Loki’s palms.
Jane’s heart pounded. That was the lie. She was sure he hadn’t meant to show her that. It meant this was still happening, but it wasn't the sweet and tender vision anymore. And she suddenly remembered a bite mark on Thor’s shoulder among his other scrapes and bruises after a fight with Loki a while ago, and how quickly he had shrugged it off as nothing.
“Do you know? I think he almost feels torn,” Loki said contemplatively, as if nothing had happened, giving no sign if he knew what he’d shown her in that flash.
“I bet he does,” she muttered.
With a snarl he shoved her backward in the dark, pressed her against the back cushions of the sofa. It made the feeling of drunkenness, of disorientation and vague nausea swell up in her, and she would have struggled if she could have. But then the dark of the illusion faded away and she could see again. Loki was bent over her, too close. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth set in a grim line. “He was mine before you lived and he will be mine after you have gone the mortal way. Yes, he will play the loyal husband to you in the meantime, and I will tolerate it because you do not matter.”
And Jane realized she was completely insane when she heard herself answer, “Yeah, I matter so little that you had to come and do all this just so I’d know it.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she cringed and waited for the inevitable blow.
It didn’t come. Instead, when she opened her eyes again, she saw him standing over her, unmoving, staring at her as if he’d never hated anyone more than he hated her in that moment. Maybe he wouldn’t take the risk of hurting her, though his hands tensed so subtly she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the sight. But when she looked up at his face… the glint of fire in his eyes had gone out, leaving behind a hollow shadow.
Somehow, that was worse.
0o0
As he watched her from imperious heights, she slid down further, sank gasping and dizzy to sit on the carpet, feeling like a mouse waiting for a snake's strike. She couldn’t meet his gaze anymore. Couldn’t take it. Needed it all to be over. Needed to think.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, her voice an empty croak. She knew he’d come there to make her hurt the way he hurt. She couldn’t begin to guess what he thought would happen next, what he thought she’d do about it.
With her head slumped over her knees, she watched him in the corners of her vision. Saw the tilt of his head as he considered it. Saw the shift of his shoulders. She knew without looking up that he had gotten himself together enough to flash her a bitter smile, though there was no laughter in his voice. “Enjoy your wedding day, dear sister, and your gift,” he said. “And do not forget whose he is.”
She did look up then, just before he turned away, and for a moment their eyes locked.
Then he was gone.
An hour later, Jane lay curled up on the floor, unable to make herself get up. Her stomach felt queasy and empty from the magicked mead and her head fuzzed and throbbed with the impending hangover.
She could still feel the ghosts of Loki’s fingers stroking down her neck like a promise of worse to come, could still feel the hiss of his voice in her ear as he crouched close, looming over her and making her remember every single thing she’d forgotten about him over the course of their evening’s conversation. She was still kicking herself for that. She should have known. Should have remembered what Thor told her—among everything else—about his brother’s lies. Should have never let her guard down.
But far worse than the self-recrimination was the numb spot in her guts, the images replaying themselves in her mind, a memory she couldn’t shut off and which only grew more vibrant and pressing when she closed her eyes.
She tried to make sense of everything she’d seen. Tried to understand how centuries of love could turn into that. Tried to understand what the hell kept them both coming back. And she realized that she couldn’t. What she’d seen in that flash was... chaotic and brutal and fucked up and so far from the Thor she knew, so far from the Thor who told nostalgic stories of his brilliant brother Loki with warm light shining in his eyes. So far from the Thor who’d promised to come back for her, and who had proposed to her nervously as they stood together in Asgard, looking over the edge of the void at wonders she never would have believed she’d get to see.
It didn’t fit, and she didn’t understand. The images swarmed.
A stray smile. A bruise just coming up. A bite mark.
“I would have you know what it is you are interfering with.”
The graceful curve of a hand as it moved through darkness.
“Do not forget whose he is.”
A still kiss in silence. Skin and shadows. A lightning flash.
“You couldn’t possibly understand.”
Maybe she didn’t know Thor as well as she thought she did.
And she really didn’t know what she was going to do. She would have to tell Thor… confront him about it, although she had no idea how.
As she lay there, her phone began to go off, Thor’s ringtone playing softly from the inside of her bag.
Sick to her stomach and almost too weak and wobbly to stand, she stumbled across the room toward it. And without giving herself time to question, to ask herself what she was doing or whether she even wanted to, she answered.
0o0o0o0o0