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You stood in the large room, as close to the wall as you could get, and let the wall of noise wash over you. Music, people laughing, the clang of glasses and bottles from the bar next to you, it all mingled together into one loud whirl of sound that, when added to the colored lights and smell of food and people, threatened to overwhelm you. It was all you could do to anxiously nurse you glass of wine and not flee to the safety of your own cozy set of rooms seven flights down.
It was not that you were anti-social. You had a circle of close friends, mostly fellow scientists, with whom you enjoyed doing things. Some of them were even in this room! Just last weekend you had spent a boozy evening out at a pub with Bruce, Jane, and Darcy giggling until last call. It was not like you were a killjoy all of the time! But at events like this...
Looking around the crowded room you smiled at the sight of Darcy going for broke on the dance floor with a very stiff and overwhelmed looking Steve Rogers. Bruce was deep into a conversation with that bane of your life, Tony Stark, and of course Jane had been practically glued to Thor’s side since he returned from Asgard the day before with his arrogant brother Loki. They all just looked so natural, like they were completely at home amid all the sensory onslaught thrumming through the hall. Which of course they were. Letting out heartfelt sigh you took a large swallow of your admittedly excellent wine.
"My sentiments exactly," an overly cultured, bored voice said from directly beside you.
Jumping with a start, you managed to send a large amount of dry Riesling down the wrong pipe, while an equivalent amount splashed over the front of your dress. As you fought back a fit of coughing you looked over to see none other than the God of Mischief leaning against the wall, startlingly close to you. That he had managed to get so near without your knowing was almost as alarming as his presence itself. You had not heard him approach, though with all the other noise you supposed that could be expected, but you has also not sensed him, and that was remarkably rare. You could always feel everyone around you; no one got within shouting distance without you picking up on their energy. How had you missed that of Loki, who all but dripped presence and demanded notice?
"Oh dear, I didn't mean to scare you," he said in a smugly amused voice, not sounding at all sorry.
"Not scared, startled," you managed as you regained your ability to breath and speak.
"Of course," he condescended, a smirk on his elegant lips.
He really was remarkably, unfairly attractive. Standing well over six feet tall, even when slouched against the wall, his legs seemed to go on forever in their tight leather casings. The way he had one booted foot pressed up against the wall behind him accentuated his prominent thigh muscle in an unsettling fashion. His torso was a perfect V-shape, broad shoulders, slim waist, all lithe muscles. How an outfit could show so little skin and still radiate sex was a mystery, but somehow his managed. And then there was his face. All sharp edges and perfect pale skin set off by ebony hair, it belonged on a statue or in a painting, not on a living, breathing, creature. The disdainful mouth and bright eyes that seemed to see everything and give away nothing were the final coup de grace. In a room full of desirable people of every type he put each one of them to shame.
"I am Loki," he said in an off handed way, as if you weren't aware. "Of Asgard."
"Thor's brother," you nodded. "Yes, I know."
A look of annoyance chased across his face and you had to stifle a giggle. As a younger sibling yourself with a sister who seemed to have been impressive from birth you knew all too well the frustration of always being in the shadow of your elder. Still, it was no more than he deserved for sneaking up on you in such a way.
You stood there next to each other in silence for a moment or two. Now that you were aware of him, you were doubly amazed that you had missed his approach. His energy screamed out so loudly it made you wonder that everyone couldn't sense it. You could feel the coiled readiness coursing through him, regardless of his apparently relaxed pose. Stealing a quick glance you caught the muscle in his jaw twitch as he surveyed the room and its occupants. Of course he could not possibly be comfortable, you realized. It had not been that long ago that he and most of the others in attendance had been trying to kill each other. True, there had been extenuating circumstances as Thor had explained, but just because people knew the truth intellectually did not mean that they would rush to party with him.
"Shall I get you another drink?" he asked after a bit. "You seem to be wearing most of your previous one."
Looking down at the stain darkening the blue material over your chest and admitting that he was right, you blushed slightly and nodded in agreement. Loki reached out and snatched the empty glass from your hand, moving with catlike grace to the bar. You realized that he had not asked you what you were drinking, but couldn't quite bring yourself to call him back. Oh well, you decided, all of the wine Tony stocked was first rate. You would just go with whatever white he selected. You always drank white, it was easier to wash out the stains.
"Here you are..." he trailed off, speakingly.
Blushing even deeper for no reason you could think of, you told him your name and thanked him, reaching out your hand for the wine glass. It was only as he handed it to you that you realized instead of wine he had brought you a large shot of slightly off-clear liquor that smelled suspiciously like tequila. Warily you took it from him, trying to decide how to dispose of it politely. Unfortunately, you were not given that chance.
"To the only person in the room who looks like they want to be here less than I," he said, clinking his glass against yours.
And really, what was there to do at that point but screw up your courage and shoot back was definitely a double slug of top-shelf tequila.
"Adequate, if barely," Loki sniffed as you tried to control your sputter from the burn down your throat.
"Do I really look that miserable?" you asked, feeling mortified at being so easy to read.
Loki simply raised one highly expressive eyebrow and gave you a half smile. You groaned internally.
"It's not that I don't like parties," you found yourself explaining for no reason you could think of. "Just not ones this big, or this loud. When there are so many people, you never really get a chance to have a real conversation with anyone. It's all just small talk and I am horrible at that."
Realizing you were babbling, you stopped abruptly and wished you hadn't drank your drink so quickly. Having a glass to sip from had always been a good way to occupy your hands when you felt nervous.
"No need to explain to me," he insisted. "I can think of few places I would care to be less than here in this room."
"Why are you?" you could not help but ask, looking up at him.
"My brother can be quite... persuasive," he ground out, glaring across the room to where Thor was relating a story to a group of admirers, including Jane of course, who all hung on his every word. Once again you could feel for Loki. You adored Thor, everyone did, but you could only imagine he would not be the easiest to live with, particularly in adolescence.
"He made you come?" you asked sympathetically.
"No one makes me do any thing," Loki bristled. "Let us say that he strongly urged me to put in an appearance in order to... endear myself to his irksome friends."
"Perhaps he hopes you will make some irksome friends of your own," you said with a small smile.
"He probably does, the simple minded idiot. As if I would be friends with the derelicts a fools he surrounds himself with."
"Well, if such pretty words are not a way to earn their affection, I don't know what is," you laughed.
"Ooh, see that there. Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?" he said with forced chuckle.
You closed your eyes for a moment and let the energy waves flowing from his tightly wound body engulf you, opening yourself fully to the feel of them. There was superiority there, certainly, he was a God after all, and condescension for the rest of the room, but you sensed no hatred, other than that directed at himself. That, along with a blinding insecurity and loneliness the like of which you had never felt before were almost enough to buffet you to your knees.
"Everyone needs affection," you breathed, trying your best to retreat from what you had felt. It was too much, too private a mixture of feeling for you to be intruding on. You could only imagine his reaction if he knew you had read him so clearly.
"Affection is weakness," he replied coldly.
"Yet you feel affection for Thor," you countered, knowing it was true, hoping he would not ask how you knew.
"As one would for a puppy," he sniped back. "One not overly bright, who has been nipping at your heels and occasionally peeing on the furniture then blaming you for centuries. They are a nuisance, but a familiar one that you grow accustom to."
Smiling at the analogy you looked at his profile as he watched his golden brother. Now that you had tapped into his emotions, even if briefly, you couldn't help but see the sorrow and the almost longing in his eyes. He pretended to be cold, to shut out all emotion, but clearly the younger Agardian prince was nursing a world of psychological trauma. Not surprising, considering what you knew of all he had endured at the hands of the Mad Titan and his cult.
"I was blackmailed into coming," you blurted out, wondering if the shot was loosening your tongue.
"Indeed?" Loki turned and looked at you, attention captured. "And what skeletons does your closet hold? Do tell me."
"Another drink first," you hedged. "Something I can sip this time."
"Your wish is my command," he grinned in a way that made your stomach do a serious flip, and sauntered over to the bar.
As you watched, Loki had a brief conversation with the bartender before pushing him out of the way and beginning to rummage through the bottles behind the counter himself. His hands moved too fast for you to catch what he was concocting, but you were fairly certain that at least half the contents of the bar were precisely measured out into a pair of pint glasses. You weren't sure what to expect from the evil grin on his handsome face as he handed you your beverage, but when your took a tentative sip you discovered to your delight that it was the tastiest thing you had ever drunk.
"You like it?" he asked, eyes bright with mischief.
"What's in it?" you questioned, nodding as you took a second sip.
"Oh, a little of this, a little of that," he shrugged airily. "Now, you were going to tell me all about your scandalous secret."
"It's nothing really all that scandalous," you demurred, not sure if it was the conversation or the alcohol causing your face to get warm. Or the man. There was a distinct possibility it was the man. "I write, stories mostly I guess. Tony found my journal file that I accidently left on the server and threatened to read it if I didn't attend tonight."
"Would that be so bad?" he asked, looking amused but clearly underwhelmed.
"I... use some of his coworkers as inspiration. For the characters."
"Oh, I see," a glint twinkled in Loki's eye. "Tell me, these stories, they wouldn't happen to have an erotic bent to them, would they?"
"That's not the point!" you insisted, looking away, hating that he had guessed your dirty secret so quickly. "They are personal. Private. I use the writing as a way to process everything going on around me, as a way of dealing with excess emotions."
"What do you mean, excess emotions?"
"I'm empathic," you admitted, half stealing yourself for the push back. In a world full of superheroes and alien Gods, people still somehow had a hard time believing that you could read people's emotions as almost physical manifestations. The number of times you had been mocked for being some sort of new age quack was enough to send you into hiding. Instead, Loki merely narrowed his eyes and peered intently at you.
"What do you mean? Explain. Exactly."
"I don't know if I can exactly," you sighed. "People radiate energy. Emotions. It comes off of them in waves all the time. I seem to be some kind of conduit for them. It's like my senses are on overdrive, and all this information that the conscious mind doesn't usually see floods me. My mind is constantly struggling to make sense of it all."
"That sounds exhausting."
"You have no idea!" you groaned, glad to have found so unexpectedly sympathetic a listener. "I know everyone's secrets, or at least how they feel about them, even if they don't tell me. I know who is angry, who is infatuated, who is depressed. The closer I am to someone personally, the more I feel what they feel. And as I experience it along with them, my body tries to figure out what to do with it all."
"So you use stories to sort it all out. That makes sense. You would need some way to expel it all or it would overwhelm you."
You beamed up at Loki over the rim of your glass, pleased beyond measure that someone seemed to get it.
"But why would Stark insist you come to his obnoxious gathering? I would think something like this would be hell for you."
"You would not be wrong," you said with a slightly bitter laugh. "The problem is twofold. One, Tony has taken to thinking of me as a younger sister. Since I moved into the Tower to join the team full time, he has set about trying to order my life more to what he thinks would be good for me. And two, he is a realist. He doesn't quite believe in my ability. He thinks I need to toughen up and get a thicker skin. Forcing me to come here is his way of expressing tough love for my own good."
"Ah. I have had some experience with that in my own past," Loki's eyes darkened. "I did not care for it overmuch."
"Nor do I," you agreed. "I get it though. I mean, I'm a scientist too. I understand that something like this, that can't be measured or controlled goes against everything he believes in."
"You're a scientist?"
"I am," you smiled.
"What field?"
"Chemistry. I've loved it since I was a child and used to play at making witches brews."
"It suits you," he smiled. "Chemistry and witchcraft both."
"Should I be offended?" you asked, uncertain.
"Not at all," he said with a half smile. "My mother was raised by witches, and she taught me their magic in turn. Many of the bravest, smartest women I know are witches. I think you might be right at home among them."
"From the five minutes conversation we've been having?" you didn't know why you putting up walls suddenly. Perhaps it had something to do with the way your heart started beating faster when he smiled at you.
"I am a quick study," he replied assuredly. "And rather good at reading people myself. Tell me, are you able to shield yourself at all? From your gift?"
"One on one, yes," you answered, "especially if the emotions being experienced aren't very strong, or I do not know the person well. However, if say... Jane..."
"Jane?" he stopped you.
"Yes, we're friends," you told him. You weren't sure why he should look surprised by the information, but it seemed to disconcert him for some reason. "As I was saying, if Jane was feeling a very strong emotion... such as when Thor first went back to Asgard, I would be bombarded by the sorrow she experienced. We are close, and I read her instinctually. There were a lot of tears. It was a bad time for both of us."
"And when they reunited?" he asked with a sly look. "What did you do then?"
"I shut myself in my room and tried to find something to take my mind off of them."
"Such as writing smut?" he teased.
"I plead the fifth," you said, mortified.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh, of course you wouldn't know the expression. Pleading the fifth is when..."
You launched into an overly involved, tipsy explanation of the Bill of Rights. Loki seemed to follow you for the first bit, but by the time you had meandered your way to explaining why Miranda Right was the most ridiculous name for a baby you had ever heard and you couldn't believe a friend of your father's had saddled their child with it, you realized that he was no longer really listening to your admittedly tangential diatribe. He was instead, rather alarmingly, staring at you mouth with a look in his eye that you could not place. Letting your walls slip just ever so slightly, you gasped as you felt what you could only describe as a shiver of desire course through your veins.
"Ah," he said softly, eyes raising to meet yours. "You finally felt that, did you?"
"Felt what?" you gasped, lowering your eyes to your glass and realizing it was almost empty.
"Don't play dumb, my dear, it doesn't suit you," he all but purred, raising your face with a hand under your chin.
"I don't understand," you stammered.
"Don't understand what?" he asked, smiling in a way that made you feel like you were about to fly apart from beneath your skin.
"Anything?" you breathed, trying to remember how to think.
"For someone of high intelligence, you have a remarkable blind spot," he grinned. "Perhaps I should have given you a slightly weaker drink. Now I feel almost guilty doing this."
As you opened your mouth to ask what he meant, Loki lowered his head and brought his lips to yours in a searching, almost tentative kiss. It was as if a flood gate had opened. All of his feelings washed over you, and your own sprang to life in response. The kiss was fleeting, barely more than a few seconds in length, but it was enough to make you feel as though you were flying and falling all at the same time. When he pulled back and searched your eyes with his, you were uncertain what you were revealing to him. Whatever it was seemed to please him, however, as a slow smile spread across his expressive mouth.
"Oh!" a cheerful, energetic voice laughed from behind you as for the second time that night someone came upon you with out your being aware. "I see you two have met!"
"Indeed," Loki turned and gave Jane a Cheshire cat grin. "We were just getting aquatinted."
"Didn't I tell you?" Jane beamed, mischief in her eyes.
"Tell him what?" you asked, feeling uncharacteristically out to sea.
"Loki had lunch with us this afternoon," Thor told you, wrapping a possessive arm around Jane's waist. "Jane was singing your praises."
"She seemed to think we might make good friends," Loki said, eyes trained on yours.
"Oh," was your terribly intelligent response.
"Of course, Loki doesn't need friends," Thor needled his brother. "He has blind hatred to see him through."
"Thor, hush," Jane elbowed him in the ribs. "So, was I right?"
"Is that why you started talking to me?" you asked, somehow uncomfortable with the idea.
"It was not," Loki replied, ignoring his brother and Jane and focusing all his energy on you.
"Then why?" you asked quietly.
"A combination of things," Loki shrugged. "For one, as I told you, you were the only person in the room who looked more miserable than I did."
"Ah."
"And for another," Loki added, "I thought that you had the most beautiful, soulful eyes of any mortal... of any woman... I had ever seen. Now I understand why."
"Oh my," Jane said on an expelled breath.
It was more eloquent than you could manage, as you stood there gaping at the God before you.
"I was wondering," he asked, sounding oddly formal, "if you would care to dine with me tomorrow evening."
Jane cleared her throat as you simply blinked at him stupidly. You glanced over at her and she indicated frantically that you should answer him.
"Oh!" you said, shocked back to a verbal state. "Of course! I mean, yes, I would like that very much."
"I am glad," he smiled. "Now, if you will all excuse me, I believe I have put in my time here. I bid you all good night."
With a nod to Jane and Thor and a swoon worthy kiss to your hand, Loki turned and sauntered towards the door.
"Wait!" you cried, running after him.
"Yes?" he smiled down at you.
"I mean," you suddenly felt shy, and not a little drunk. "I live in the Tower, you see," you stammered. "If you wanted to join me in my room for a night cap..."
"Darling," he said, the term of endearment in his rich, velvety voice doing remarkable things to your body, "I think we both know what will happen if I do that."
"Would that be a bad thing?" you managed to ask in a small voice.
"Only because you are on your way to being very drunk," he replied, voice affectionate.
"I'm sober enough," you insisted, biting your lip.
"Perhaps. But if... when you and I progress to that place, I want none of your senses dulled with alcohol. I want you alert and aware of every last thing I do to you. Let your walls down, sweetheart, and feel what I mean."
Unable to resist, you obeyed him, dropping your shielding and moaning at that sensual energy that engulfed you.
"Exactly," he nodded smugly. "Now, I am for my bed. But I want you to promise me something."
"Anything," breathed, trembling from the intensity of what he had shown you.
"When you write your story to help you process my emotions," he said seductively, "you will give me a copy. That way I know what you want me to do to you when the time comes."
That did it for you, you had to sit down. Fortunately there was an obliging couch beside you. As you watched him walking out of the room, admiring the way the leather set off his assets, you decided that perhaps Tony had been right after all. You were, against all your expectations, very, very glad you had attended the party tonight.
