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Perhaps it was the swinging of the hammock in the salt-flavored breeze. Maybe it was the fourth cerveza coursing through his body. It might have also been the gentle warmth of the sunset and the body flush against his side—for this was the first time in forty-eight hours that he felt relaxed enough to drift off and, with any mercy, avoid nightmares about a red-and-blue atrocity and a certain curly-haired witch...
“Truth or dare?”
Loki cracked an eye open. The woman lying beside him shoulder-to-shoulder grinned.
“Truth or dare?” she asked again.
He clicked his tongue. “Oh, for fu—”
She shifted to her side, a precarious move considering they were on a hammock made to cradle only one person. “ Truth ,” she demanded, “or dare ?”
Loki knew the glimmer in her dark eyes meant that she was not to be denied. With a burdened sigh, he murmured, “Dare.”
Her smile grew; it was not what any normal person would call ‘nice’. Her smiles had an impish tilt, as though she were scheming to ruin someone’s day, and, since this was Pansy Parkinson, that would normally be the case. But it was one of the things that drew Loki to her, and so he leaned a bit closer as she said, “I dare you to steal Stephen Strange’s cloak.”
Loki blinked at her lazily as he lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. The long, red cloak appeared above them, fluttering in the wind as if startled before pummeling them with its heavy fabric body.
Loki turned to block them both from the assault. “Calm down! We’re just playing a prank on the wizard. I’ll send you back shortly.”
The cloak flicked a collar.
“I promise,” Loki said.
With a haughty flap, the cloak wrapped itself around the slim trunk at the foot of their hammock, its collar turned down in an obvious pout.
Beside him, Pansy’s shoulders shook in silent laughter. Loki fought to keep the amused grin off his face, careful not to goad the temperamental garment.
Pansy dug a manicured finger in his side. “Your turn.”
He rolled his eyes. “Are we seriously playing this game? It seems so…” A word popped up from a recent memory. “Juvenile.”
“You’re the bloody God of Mischief . Being ‘juvenile’ is literally your job.”
“I’m on holiday,” he said. “ Supposed to be on holiday.” The blanket of relaxation that had fallen over him only minutes before was quickly replaced with unease. “I’m supposed to be on a romantic holiday, but instead I’m here with you.”
Pansy curled her fingers over her sternum, her face twisted melodramatically.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Give me a minute, will you? I need to pull this dagger out of my heart.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and he received a wry chuckle in response. “It’s just…it was one of the things she said.” He cleared his throat. “One of the reasons .”
“Of why she left your sorry arse?”
“Thanks,” he said, letting sarcasm bleed into his tone before releasing a defeated sigh. “Yes. That I’m flippant and juvenile. That I thrive in chaos, and that someone with more gravitas would be a better match for her.”
“Ah. It all makes sense now.” Pansy nodded deeply. “For the last couple of days, I’d been wondering why she had left you for Steve Rogers. You know,” she added, “aside from the obvious.”
“I don’t want to know what you mean by ‘the obvious’—”
“Does he have better manners than you? Yes.”
Loki groaned. “I don’t want to hear this—”
“Does he work harder? And possess better leadership skills? And is he beloved and respected by everyone who meets him rather than reviled and generally avoided at social gatherings? Yes, yes, and fuck-yes.”
“Odin’s ball—”
“Does it look like he’s smuggling two firm, juicy Christmas hams in the back pockets of his lycra pants? He most certainly does, and I honestly don’t blame Granger for craving a slice—”
“Fuck! Pansy.”
“But do you know why, despite all of Rogers’ best assets , you’re the far better choice?”
He stared at her, mostly hoping for a cheeky answer while the part of him still hurting and needy wanted something a bit more genuine.
Perhaps she had seen all that in his expression because her own gaze softened. “Because Steve Rogers is one note. You—” She straightened his collar, which had flipped up sometime after they had laid on the hammock. “You are magic and mischief and mayhem mixed with a sense of decency. You’re a symphony.” A challenging grin flashed on her lips. “That, and you’re always game for a few rounds of ‘Truth or Dare’.”
He was caught between blushing at her sincerity and laughing at her tenacity. Finally, he relented. “Truth or dare?” he asked.
“Truth."
He pinned her with a mock-serious look. “Was your trip to Japan really canceled due to bad weather? Or did you cancel it so your pathetic best friend wouldn’t be alone on this holiday-for-two?”
“Neither. I’m here for the free drinks.” She stared at him, wide-eyed and innocent—a sure sign that she was lying. “I wasn’t worried about you at all.”
“Good,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve been through worse.”
Her eyes narrowed briefly before she gave him a succinct nod. “My turn. Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
“Again?” she whined.
“Why bother with ‘Truth’?" he asked. "You’re my best friend. You already know everything about me. And I know everything about you.”
“That’s not true at all! There is still plenty of mystery in this relationship.”
He raised a fist in the air and flipped his fingers up as he counted off mundane facts he knew about her. “I know you like your toast burnt to a crisp.”
She shrugged. “I like a smoky flavor.”
“I know you organize your clothes by how much cleavage they show.”
“That’s the only method that makes sense.”
“And I know that ‘Pansy’ is short for ‘Pansimilian’.”
She shoved him, and he almost tipped out of the hammock. “I told you that in confidence!” she hissed as she checked to make sure the beach was still empty, save for the cloak that was studiously ignoring them.
“See?” He guffawed as he righted himself. “I know everything about you, Pansimilian Parkinson.”
“Not everything.” A teasing gleam sparkled in her eyes. “There are certain things that, say, Weasley knows about me that you don’t.”
Loki scoffed. “The only thing Ron Weasley knows that I don’t is how to function with a single brain cell.”
Pansy quirked her eyebrow suggestively.
Loki pressed his lips together, quelling the coil of discomfort every time he thought of Pansy with the gangly redhead. “Well, of course. He would know that . You two were together , and you and I have only ever been…not-together.”
The word released an onslaught in his chest, a mix of jealousy and regret so violent that it filled the crack in his heart, the one from his recent heartbreak. It drowned all the pain Hermione had caused until there was nothing left but Pansy and their sorry state of not-togetherness.
A state that, at that moment, he wanted very much to correct.
“Dare me,” he whispered.
“What?” she replied, sounding as though the air had been snatched from her chest.
“I chose ‘dare’.” His gaze flicked down to her rose-hued lips. “So dare me.”
Pansy took a deep breath. “I dare you,” she started, careful and guarded. Closing her eyes, she parted her lips and exhaled. “I dare you to learn something new about me.”
Slowly—very slowly—Loki reached up and combed his fingers through her dark locks. “I’m learning that your hair isn’t just black,” he said as he admired the way her hair caught the last rays of the sun. “It is shades of charcoal and midnight and the space between galaxies.” He was grateful for their intimate position in the hammock, for, as he turned his head, his lips ghosted the hollow of her neck. “I’m learning that your skin smells like the sea from a hundred feet in the air,” he murmured. “Like I’m standing on a cliff above tempestuous waves, daring me to jump.”
Gradually, her eyes blinked open.
At the depth of her gaze, his heart raced. “I’m learning that your eyes—”
“I’m learning that you wax lyrical right before you kiss someone,” an intruder said flatly.
Their eyes snapped up to find Stephen Strange glaring at them.
Loki grumbled, “Making house calls, Doctor?”
“Finding something that disappeared on me.” Doctor Strange lifted an arm, and his cloak flew over him in a gleeful arc before settling on his shoulders. He gave it a comforting pat before throwing Loki and Pansy another withering stare. “Don’t do that again.”
“Do you mind giving us some privacy?” Pansy growled. “Kindly summon your glitter bomb portal and get off this beach, please.”
With a huff, Doctor Strange stalked away from them and departed in a trace of golden sparks.
“How ostentatious,” Pansy muttered.
“Completely unnecessary theatrics,” Loki said.
“An embarrassment to the name of magic.”
“Where were we?”
“You were saying something about my eyes.”
“Right,” he said, gazing into those eyes once again. “I’m learning that your eyes—”
“Actually—” She placed a finger over his lips. “Do you mind skipping down to more urgent parts of my face? As much as I would love to hear what you’d say about the constellations in my eyes and the charming upturn of my nose—”
“I would love to learn about your lips,” Loki said—or, more accurately, mumbled, for his lips were already pressed on hers before the sentiment was expressed in full.
For several minutes after, he transformed into an eager scholar as he studied the shape of her lips and the taste of her kiss. And, while he learned his lessons, his heart fluttered at all the things she might yet dare him to do.