Archive of Our Own

Written for Lokane Week 2020

Prompt: Blind Date

Jane sighed, hitching her handbag up again as the tiny strap slid down her shoulder. Stupid thing. It was her fanciest purse, only big enough to hold her phone, a wallet, and a tube of warm berry lipstick she'd borrowed for the night. It had long since smudged off onto her wineglass, and the date hadn't lasted long enough for her to need a touch-up. Serve her right. Darcy had many things, but her string of week-long relationships should have told Jane that discerning taste in men wasn't really one of them. Jane made a mental note never to trust her friend with anything more serious than her opinion on a new outfit, and resigned herself to another early Friday night in their shared London flat.

Around her, the city was ablaze with Christmas lights and tinsel, tinny canned carols playing on a loop from the door of every shop she passed. If only the earlier sprinkling of snow on the street were still fresh and white, rather than filthy from the passage of cabs and cars, she could imagine herself in some idyllic holiday scene. Maybe that was why she was so irritated with her failure of a date; if Chris had been a more interesting man, maybe she'd be walking this street arm-in-arm, the two of them exclaiming over each beautiful shop window, before stopping somewhere for a hot chocolate topped with whipped cream.

Jane didn't often indulge in fantasy, but for some reason, this one was hard to let go of. Maybe because this was her first holiday away from family and her heart twisted with loneliness every time she let herself dwell on the people she was missing.

She should just go home. Darcy always let her drink from her wide selection of flavored vodkas, there were stacks of Jaffa cakes in the pantry, and A Christmas Story had just come back on Netflix. The night could still be a good one, if not the one she'd pictured.

Then again...Jane paused at the Tube entrance, ducking aside before she was jostled down the stairs by irritated pedestrians. No. No. For once, Jane Foster, sensible doctoral candidate of astrophysics, would not do the smart thing. She looked fine (bomb, Darcy had said) in her black sheath dress and red pea-coat, and she deserved to show herself off, even if no one was watching!

A quick check of Google Maps showed her a nearby bar serving—yes! Baileys coffee. That would put her in the Christmas spirit for sure. Maybe she'd text Darcy later and see if she wanted to leave her own date to join Jane. Maybe if Jane said she wanted to go clubbing later...

That could wait. Her feet were frigid, her ears tingled with cold, and she wanted something hot, sweet, and alcoholic.

The pub was an old one on the outside, newly-made over on the inside, and was crammed with glamorous businessmen and women, perfume and cologne hanging off their one-thousand-pound suits. The scent hung heavy as smoke in the air; Jane stifled a sneeze in her coat sleeve and struggled through the crowd until she found an unoccupied sliver of bar. She caught an elbow in the stomach and a careless apology while waiting for the harassed bartender to notice her.

Ugh. She hated crowds. She hated noise. And she hated the eight pounds she was going to spend to be surrounded by dozens of strangers all having a much more pleasant December night than she was. Doubt gnawed. This was probably a mistake. She didn't belong there. Even her drink, topped with a glistening spiral of cream and a sprinkle of cocoa, was out of place beside all the martinis and—and—

Damn. She wasn't even fancy enough to recognize what most people were drinking.

But the glass was warm in her cold hands and smelled delicious, sweet and spiced and chocolaty. Drinking it left a dab of cream on her nose; she wiped it away with a smile. Perfect. Precisely what she wanted. She'd drink this slow and go home afterwards, fuzzy and soft around the edges, and watch a movie and eat cookies until she passed out on the sofa.

Smiling contentedly, Jane took another sip and let her eyes slide closed.

The noise in the bar reached a fever-pitch, a group behind her arguing in spirited tones about...sports, maybe? Jane's American ears often had trouble catching a London accent when it was at full throttle, and after half a drink (two and a half, if she counted the ones Chris had bought her) her ears weren't communicating all that smoothly with her brain. It had nothing to do with her anyway...or at least, it didn't until someone backed into her, spilling the other half of her drink all over the bar.

"Ow!" she squealed, more from shock than pain. The coffee was lukewarm, not hot. She grabbed for napkins as the drink spread across the bar, face flaming as people around her lifted their glasses with a sneer. When the spill was contained, Jane whipped around and snarled, "Be careful!"

A pair of green eyes under a rakish fringe of black hair blinked down, first at her, then at the mess behind her.

"Excuse me," his voice was smooth and polished, so English-y it made Jane feel instantly two feet shorter. "Did I bump you?"

"Yes," she sighed, "but it's all right. I was almost finished anyway."

Those green eyes flicked again to where the bartender was sweeping her pile of napkins into a bin. "I don't think you were. Can I get you another? Baileys coffee, isn't it?"

Jane bit her lip. It was a good drink, and it was eight pounds she didn't want to lose. "Yeah. Thanks."

The man, easily a foot taller than Jane without the intimidation of his accent, didn't have to wait for the bartender to notice him. With a wave of his hand and some unintelligible sign language, another drink materialized in front of Jane before she'd even cleaned the remainder of the last one off her fingers.

"Thank you," she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. You didn't have to do this."

"Of course I did. Besides, is that an American accent I hear? Shouldn't you be threatening to call a manager on me?"

"Oh," she laughed, chagrined, "I try not to be a stereotype."

"I might have guessed that, considering you just apologized to me for spilling a drink all over you. Loki, by the way," he extended his hand, catching hers when she lifted it and pressing a swift kiss between her knuckles.

Jane didn't go out often, and she almost never dated, but the way her heart flip-flopped...she might have to start.

She covered her fluster with a sip of her drink. "I'm Jane. Nice to meet you...Loki? That's not an English name, is it?"

"Norwegian," he nodded, signaling the bartender for another drink. His scotch—or was it whiskey? God, she was uncultured—arrived in seconds. "My father's business often requires me to travel, so he had my siblings and I educated abroad. And you? Work or study?"

"Study, mostly. Although I have to teach for my stipend."

"Let me guess," Loki's eyes fixed on her with quiet intensity; it took only a moment or two before Jane felt her skin prickling with a flush of blood. She didn't look away though, despite her racing pulse. "You're writing a dissertation on...Anne Brontë."

She shook her head, chuckling. "I'm not much for fiction, sorry."

"Ah. Then you're an anthropologist, doing a study on English socialization habits. Your research doubtless brings you to pubs all over the country."

"This is the first drink I've had in weeks," she said, "Guess again. Although you never will."

"I won't, will I? I do love a challenge. Will you bet a drink on it?"

"Sure," what was happening? Jane, plain Jane, was chatting up a glamorous, foreign man at a bar, and he was chatting back! Was she flirting, was this what flirting was? And could she actually be doing it right?

She almost wished Darcy were here to see this, but then was wildly glad she wasn't, because who would look at Jane when they could stare at Darcy?

But maybe she was wrong. The way Loki was looking at her, it was almost as if there were no other women in the room.

"History?"

Jane's nose wrinkled.

"Biology?"

"Warmer."

"Something in the sciences, then?" at Jane's nod, he continued, "Chemistry? Physics?"

She punctuated each of his wrong guesses with another sip of her drink, but this time the liqueur seemed to sharpen her focus, not haze it.

His lips twisted, playful frustration furrowing his brow, "I should have paid more attention in class. My knowledge of the sciences is clearly too limited. Botany? Marine Biology? Meteorology?"

"That's the closest so far, but still not quite."

He sighed. "I give. Tell me then."

"Astrophysics," she declared, draining the last of her coffee. Licking her lips, she clarified, "Specializing in the discovery of exoplanets, mostly. I want to work for SETI when I graduate; I'm just fascinated by the idea of finding life in space, and I think finding planets outside our solar system is the most likely place to start looking."

"Life in space? You mean aliens?"

"Maybe," she said, "But life could take any form...a radio signal, a plant, a microbe. I'm not saying I'm going to find flying saucers or anything, but don't you think that the universe is too big if we're the only ones out there? Mathematically, it just can't be possible. We're finding new worlds almost every day now."

"If you say it, I tend to believe you. Another coffee?"

"Please. Although," she swallowed her enthusiasm, "you really don't have to, even if I did win the bet. I'm sorry. I tend to get carried away with this stuff, and you're here with your own friends."

"They're business associates, not my friends. And I have gotten them drunk on my father's tab three nights running. They will hardly notice I'm gone. But," Loki nodded at the bartender, "that is the third time you've apologized for something that is not your fault. Don't underestimate yourself. What could be better than discovering someone like yourself, who has a wealth of information on a topic about which I know nothing?"

"Not everyone thinks like that," she grumbled, "Would be nice if they did."

"I was going to ask," his gaze darted down at Jane's slush-covered pumps, dress, and coat, "If you don't work for a multinational bank, you're probably here to meet someone. Did he stand you up?"

"No," she shifted on her heels, "He just...I think I talked too much. He's an engineer, so theory doesn't really interest him. We didn't click, I guess. It was a blind date anyway, so I didn't expect much."

Loki gave a dramatized shudder to Jane's delighted laugh. "Blind dates are uniformly disappointing and serve only to show the poor taste of our so-called 'friends'. I hope you didn't waste too much of your time."

"I didn't," Jane swallowed, "I actually...I told him I had to get home and feed my cat. I don't have a cat."

"Wicked girl."

The words tugged something inside her, something sheltered and buried. Was she wicked? Did she want to be wicked? For him...for this man with the stunning eyes and elegant voice and fixed attention, maybe she could be.

But if she couldn't be wicked, at least she could try to be bold.

"Hey," the word came out in a gasp, "I heard there was a Christmas market near here tonight. I was hoping to go later. I know its a little touristy, and I understand if you don't want to, but...do you wanna—"

"Yes," he interrupted, his wallet out and a fifty-pound note slapped on the bar almost before she finished, "I would love to. You know," he tucked his arm under hers and steered her away from the bar, "I almost feel inclined to thank your hapless date. If it were not for him, we would never have met."

Jane's head was swimming, half from the booze and half from what she suspected was the intoxication of being near Loki. Something in his attitude inspired her to be a little bit mischievous.

She smiled up. "His loss."

Loki grinned down. "His indeed."