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Normally you like the outdoors, even love it. But not right now, not in the dead of night, with a flash light and a thin cardigan sweater thing instead of a proper jacket. The fact that you agreed to splitting up to help Thor find a wayward dog should have been your first clue this night wasn’t going to go smoothly. You’d seen enough horror movies and knew all the signs of a bad cliché about to happen to have known better. But damn Thor and those big sad eyes of his.
“Y/N! Help me!” You muttered to yourself in a mockingly deep tone. “There is some sad creature, some dog outside. Surely, you can help me find it.”
You step over another log and try not to get a face full of branches as you trudge through the woods.
“Why the hell did I listen to you, Thor?” You ask the emptiness before you.
“Thor?” You call out.
Nothing. Near perfect silence greets you as you listen for Thor or this dog that you are still, for some reason, looking for.
“Pretty sure I’m freaking lost.” You mutter, trying to untangle your shirt from a thorn bush. “This dog better be cute as all get out.”
A twig snaps, piercing the darkness around you. Did you break that particular twig?
“Hello?” You call out without thinking. You shake your head at yourself. “Ask the ominous forest, ‘hello,’ whatever could go wrong? This is how I die. I just know it; I’ve managed to walk into a horror movie. I’m not looking for a dog, I’m looking for the fucking Blair Witch. Thor set me up to die alone in the woods.”
You crunch your way through some undergrowth towards what you hope is a trail, nearly loosing a shoe in the process.
You stumble out of the dense brush and into a tree. No, not a tree. A body. A warm, strong body. Definitely, not a tree.
“Hello.”
Your scream rips through the still, darkness of the night air.
You turn, sweeping your arm out defensively. You strike at the body with your flash light, grateful that you grabbed the large metal one before leaving the safety of the compound.
You strike their hand. Rising your arm for another blow, a strong hand catches your arm. Shaking, you move the unsteady beam of light into their face.
“Loki!?”
“It’s a pleasure to see you too, Y/N.” Loki squints in the light, releasing your arm. “If, in fact, I could see. Do you mind, darling?”
“Sorry.” You drop the beam from his eyes. You hunch over, resting your hands on your knees, and take several deep breaths to try and steady your racing heart.
“It’s quite alright. I suppose that’s what I get for blending in with the night so well.” He says, amusement evident with every word. “Besides your terrified scream, your attack would have been fairly successful.”
You huff out a laugh, drawing yourself back up to your full height. “Are you critiquing me?”
“Possibly.”
“How are you feeling?” You ask, still shaking a little.
Loki flexes his fingers slowly, looking to you in amusement. “If I were mortal, I think you would have broken my fingers.”
“Better your fingers than your face.” You laugh out awkwardly, not fulling believing that you had just tried to bludgeon him with your flash light. “You scared me!”
“Well, I am naturally terrifying, Y/N.”
“I’m sorry, really. Is there anything I can do?”
“It takes more than that to break me, my dear. Your concern is endearing.” Loki chuckles darkly, looking you over. “Tell me, do you normally roam the moonlit woods at this hour? Perhaps searching for other foul creatures to beat?”
“I don’t normally attack people in greeting if that’s what you mean.” You sigh. Your reaction to his sudden arrival was a bit dramatic but you should have known he was more than alright.
“What brought you out here?”
“On a fine evening such as this, how could I not?” You jest, suppressing a shiver as you look through the shadows in woods that lay over what you think is a path or trail of some sort. “Well, I heard something.”
“You heard something?” Loki eyes you skeptically. “What exactly?”
“Okay, I didn’t actually hear something. Thor did.”
Loki rolls his eyes dramatically. “By the Norns.”
“Did you hear it too?” You ask in confusion.
“I did not.” He says, holding a branch up for you to continue down the trail. “However, that bumbling oaf of a brother of mine…”
“He told you about it too, huh?”
“He was rather convincing.” Loki follows you, dropping the branch after he passes under it. He watches you shiver again. “Darling, are you…? Here, allow me.”
He flicks his wrists together in front of himself, conjuring a thick shawl. He drapes it around your shoulders, the simple action more than comforting in the eerie, chilled woods.
“Thank you.”
Loki nods, a smirk barely evident on his features as he adjusts the wrap just so, using the dark wooden toggles to keep it closed. He stares at you, perhaps, a little too long, making your checks flush with heat.
“So. What did Thor tell you?” You ask, trying to drown out the crunch of dead leaves that accompany every step as you continue to wander through the dark nothingness of the trees that surround you.
“He implied some terrible noise. Some specter, something familiar… he thought I could aid in calming it. I’m still not sure what he meant, or what, if anything, we truly are looking for out here.”
“A specter, like a ghost?”
“Precisely.”
“And you can ‘calm’ a ghost?” You ask, willing your thundering heart to calm. This is not exactly what you thought you’d be talking about while lost in the woods.
“In the past, yes. There’s a few things that can sometimes help settle them, appease them.”
“I suppose magic helps?”
Loki nods. “More often then not. It’s a great starting point. Sometimes they’re easier to deal with than the mortals they bother.”
“Did you help with the ghost in Steve’s building?”
“That was no ghost.”
“I’m pretty sure it was a ghost.”
“I’m pretty sure it was not.” Loki responds, nearly mocking you.
“Oh, really?”
“Of course.” He chuckles. “Ghosts don’t bleed.”
You let out a half laugh as his smile turns dark. “No wonder Steve never brought it up again.”
“I suppose I can be rather handy with these things.”
“But – wait a minute. Thor told you that that’s what he heard?” You sigh, piecing together just how much of Loki has rubbed off on Thor after all these years. “He told me that he thought he heard something like a dog. That maybe it was lost. That if we split up we could find it faster. Though now I’m certain there is no dog. Unless you had some canine business to do out here earlier?”
“No, no, this has been my form all evening. Finally figuring him out, are we?” Loki chuckles at your tone. “I am both pleased and irritated that some of my manners have worn off on him. At least, this time the company isn’t terrible.”
“That can’t be a coincidence either then, yeah?”
“You mean that we both are seemingly lost in this forest, with the moonlight fading behind the clouds, all thanks to my brother?”
“Yep.” You try to sound upbeat, though the dark woods are wearing on your nerves. “Specially in a place like this.”
“Thor has an odd sense of what will spark romance.”
“Roh-romance?”
Loki sighs, stopping beside you, taking your hands in his.
“I believe this is yet another attempt of his to get us alone together.” Loki says, searching your eyes. “He believes we should be pushed together, that he is the catalyst the Norns have chosen for us.”
“Thor’s playing matchmaker?” You would laugh, if you didn’t also want to thank Thor later, secretly, with cookies or some over sized cake that he’d no doubt eat in one sitting.
“Precisely.” He says slowly, not releasing your hands, nor turning his gaze away from you.
“What do you – how do you feel about him doing this?”
“I,” He chortles. “I wouldn’t mind, if this wasn’t so dramatic. I could have truly lost you to the woods this night.”
“We can’t be that far out, are we?”
“You were when I first heard you chattering with yourself.” Loki says, his eyes sparkling. “I think I’ve managed to steer us in the correct direction.”
“Mocking Thor for sending me to my death in a darkened forest, you mean.” You correct him with a laugh and a pointed look that sets Loki chuckling. “It can’t be that dangerous if you’re out here.”
“It’s not dangerous now that I’m out here with you.” Loki’s face becomes serious. “There are so many forces at work. Not just here, in Midgard, but elsewhere too. You’ve no idea. No idea just what I’d do to keep you safe.”
“Loki.”
“As much as I try to push it aside, I cannot deny the pull I feel toward you. Perhaps that’s why my brother has been so adamant about pushing us together.”
“If even Thor can see it, I suppose I don’t feel so ridiculous for being hopeful.”
“Hopeful? With what?”
“With you.” You smile, squeezing his hands. “I’m always hopeful when it comes to you.”
Loki smiles, it’s warmth hits you like a truck. “Perhaps we best get you inside. Seems we have much to catch up on. If you’ll have me, that is.”
“I’d like that.” You nod and smile as Loki kisses your hand before tucking it into the crook of his elbow.
You both continue through the woods back towards the compound. Both unknowing of how many times Thor had tried and failed to set your paths to cross and intertwin in such a manner.