Chapter Text
You say nothing as the tempo of your breathing slows and your tears continue to fall in warm rivulets down your cheeks. Everything goes empty and blank as an unmarked page. Time moves slowly and strangely as you watch his respiration still alongside your own, his broad gold chest plate rising and falling.
It's the calm at the eye of the storm, the calm of the unwritten and unknown, and you fear that it cannot last. A catalyst is coming.
There's a kind of relief to failing spectacularly, you observe.
The green tentacles of magic still gripping you emanate a pulsating glow, cutting through the late evening darkness with a preternatural liquid luminescence. With the dusk, the cold smooth walls of marble, and the ghostly light, his chambers feel like a tomb, all the warmth of the day banished by their master's mood. You wonder, in fact, if this will be your tomb soon. You shiver visibly.
Without the sorcery securing you, you might have collapsed by now. Standing feels far beyond the capability of your shocked system. All you can do is hang your head, tremble, cry, and await execution for your insolence.
Gods, what have I done?, you wonder.
Gods, what have I done to her?, he wonders.
“Look at me. Meet my eyes,” he orders haughtily, but his voice sounds oddly brittle, as if he's about to cry. Yet, when you obey and gaze upon him, there are no tears, no...anything. He looks like a perfect, stunning sculpture; alabaster smooth.
The snaking vines of magic recede and his arm supports you instead, sliding gently around your waist. His nimble hand rubs a comforting little circle against the small of your back. He's suddenly so careful, like he's holding porcelain.
Loki scolds himself for not realizing that you could actually be breakable, that you would have cracks in your armor just like everyone else. The pedestal he kept you on was too high up to see them.
His brother had always been the one accused of handling his “toys” too roughly, but Loki is horrified to realize he is guilty of the same crime, albeit in a different way.
It shocks the prince to see that his cruel games may be a good deal worse than Thor's less convoluted sins. Thor is a hammer, recklessly swung; Loki is a subtle poisonous knife, surgically precise in the violence he causes. His harm is persistent, insidious. The God of Mischief can shatter anyone and anything into a thousand pieces, whether he intends to or not.
This time, he didn't intend to. This time he regrets it to his core. This time, he would do anything to fix you.
Must I unravel every good thing? Must I even make love so terrible and twisted?
He shook his bowed head, heavy with culpability, trying to banish the thought.
“May I...may I show you something?” the prince asks, carefully.
You nod, unsure of what else you could possibly do but follow him in shaky, adrenaline-addled, steps while he supports you.
With a swallow, you find your raspy voice and ask the dreaded question. “Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?”
Loki stops in his tracks, holds your face as he gasps out, “No! No. How could I destroy such a priceless treasure which I labored so hard to find...to have here with me?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I'll show you. I'll show you everything.”
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The prince leads you into a smaller alcove off of the main hall of the library, some kind of curated collection. As you peruse the volumes, you notice every spine has the familiar imprint of your name. Every one of your books, your works, your essays, stand meticulously organized on elaborate shelves.
Loki steps away from you, carefully releasing you from his grasp and pacing away, avoiding your eyes as he confesses.
He asks, “Now, do you see? I fell in love with you long before I ever saw your face.”
You open you mouth to speak, but no words come out. No one had ever told you they loved you; not your honorable but unaffectionate family, not your esteemed colleagues. There were no friends. There was no time for them when you had so much to achieve. Your family had praised your accomplishments in tightly-admitted “well done”s and “congratulations”. Your colleagues held you in the highest regard; bestowing awards and glowing letter of recommendation .
But love? No. Love was never something admitted outright. Love was conditional. Love was earned, and you could never be sure if it was actually love or something more like pride or respect or approval.
But this god-prince is standing before you, telling you he loves you; for your mind, for who you are. He loves you for those words you've sent out on paper, like origami boats sailing into the night; patiently crafted love letters to a world that never loved you back. The irony isn't lost on you; he loves you for your words, yet now you can't find any to offer him.
He continues, still unable to meet your eyes.
“I loved your stories, most of all. What splendid worlds you build out of thin air! Such beauty, such poetry,” he says wistfully, gently brushing his fingertips along the spines. “But, they always had such a bittersweet loneliness about them...a loneliness I imagined we both understood all too well. And because of that, for once in my life, I didn't feel alone.”
He meets your eyes, finally, and a shimmer of green light flickers down his face. The alabaster mask of his composure vanishes and unveils his true face, flushed a raw, pale, pink over his ghostly pallor. His large bright eyes glimmer with tears. His expressive mouth presses tightly shut as he wages war with his tumultuous feelings.
With a shuddering breath he goes further. “And I deeply admired your work, your vision, your desire for Asgard to leave its ignorant dark ages behind and move into the light of reason and equality. A society where knowledge of the broader universe is the right of all, rather than a horded commodity for royalty.”
You take careful steps towards him. Though you feared this might be yet another trick, he seemed heartrendingly genuine.
He's being honest, and it's tearing him apart.
As you near him, he takes your much smaller hands in his. He's suddenly painfully aware of how much more powerful he is than you, and how paradoxically fragile and formidable you are. He lifts one of your hands, the same one that had struck him, and settles it carefully against his cheek with an affectionate nuzzle. Then he turns his head, pressing a kiss softly to the lifelines of your palm and staying there, letting the moment settle around him like sand in an hour glass.
You find your words, and wince because you know they're not really the right ones. “I...I'm so sorry for hitting you. I've never done anything like that before.”
Loki chuckles...a genuine one this time, an amused little puff of air that pushes up the apples of his cheeks. You feel the contour of it shift where your palm still curls against him.
“It's alright,” he says with a sniff. “I rather deserved it.”
His smile fades and he meets your eyes. This time the aquamarine orbs shine brightly with the varnish of tears, and the frame of faint pink lining his tear ducts only emphasize them more strikingly. He's stunning; rapturously pierced and vulnerable like a saint in a Renaissance paining. It's impossible to look away from him.
“I adored you for your truth, your freedom, and your goodwill, and yet I've rewarded it with deception, captivity, and cruelty.”
You just stare at each other for a long moment. He's taken your breath away (something you didn't think could actually happen, something you always assumed was only a cliche). You try desperately to find some air in your lungs in order to speak again. Yet again, you feel as if you're not saying the right thing. Your responses seem so common and clumsy after these eloquent speeches from his silver tongue.
“I'm sorry. This is new for me. I don't know how to do this,” you explain, fidgeting with your hands.
“Do what?”
You rise to your toes, bracing your hands on the golden armor around his shoulders.
Be brave, you tell yourself. Be brave. Be brave. Be brave.