Outliers fascinate you.

Those little dots that sometimes appear in your scatter plots and look so completely out of place. That according to reason shouldn't be there in the first instance – somehow they speak to you.

There are statisticians that automatically ignore them, because outliers sit so far outside the average group of a data set. It's all very much about the bigger picture for them, no room for let's call it individualism there.

However, the difference between a statistician and a good statistician is that a good one would never disregard outliers. After all, you might be removing the very effect you were looking for in the data set in the first place.

And maybe it is because outliers fascinate you, that Loki intrigues you.

You see him almost every night when you pass the communal living room of the Avengers on your way from the risk assessment unit to your room. He sits and reads. Sometimes he just sits there staring at the pages of the book. You can tell when something's bugging him and when he's okay. You're not sure how. You just... know.

Sometimes you're in the same room, when you're pulled into staff meetings, or in the canteen. You've come across him twice in the park, when you needed some fresh air. There's something about him that seems so incredibly familiar, but you don't know what.

You do your daily job, mining and analysing data, pointing out risk probabilities and wondering if people ever do anything about them; and he does his - saving the world in some shape or form. You're playing on two completely different levels, and yet, you feel connected to him. Thankfully, you don't have anyone to talk to about it. Otherwise they'd probably say you're obsessed or delusional.

Potentially, both are true.

But it's not like you follow or stalk him. There's just this feeling somewhere in your ribcage. That little tug you feel when you see him. The twist of your heart when you see his eyes, because he looks not at you but at something that is vaguely in your direction.

Loki is an outlier.

He certainly isn't to be found in the mean data group. He's standing out, proudly so. However, you can't help but feel there's sadness mixed in it. Maybe you're reading too much into it. You're definitely reading too much into it.

But when you see him on the way to your room, month after month, you often wonder if you should stop to talk to him. Last week you almost did. Almost walked into the communal living room. But at the last moment your feet carried on along the familiar path.

Maybe you feel a connection to him, not only because he's an outlier. Maybe it is, too, because you don't understand how he can be dismissed and yet you witnessed it on several accounts. People, you feel, dump Loki in a pigeon hole readily, reluctant to analyse. It's bad ethics in data mining, it's bad ethics in being a human in your opinion.

But then, maybe you feel a connection, because you are an outlier, too.

And a coward on top of that.

So you walk on tonight as well. All the way to your room, where you close the door and stand listening to the silence bouncing off the four walls. When you go to bed you allow yourself to imagine what it would be like.

To have someone next to you. To hear them breathe. Feel their presence.

You don't even allow yourself to dream of Loki. Because... two different worlds. Most literally.

It gnaws away at you. Tonight, it keeps you awake.

*****

The landing pad has indisputably the best view the tower offers. The platform reaches out so far that if you're standing in the right place you almost get the sense of floating in the air.

You lean against the balustrade, looking up at the late August night sky. Though the light pollution of New York is substantial, you can still make out the major constellations. The fact that you're looking at the light of stars that have burnt out millions of years ago is both sobering and grounding.

"Not many stars can be seen from here," someone says behind you.

You turn your head, expecting one of the patrolling security guards. Only it isn't. Instead, there stands Loki, hands in his pockets, head tilted back, eyes on the night sky.

For a moment you're certain he's not talking to you, so you take a second or two to take him in. You don't remember ever being so close to him. He's tall and broad. His face pale in the lights of the city, his hair moving softly in the breeze. He looks regal, powerful – and lost.

Your eyes drift back up to the stars.

"We could see so many in Asgard." His voice is next to you now. "They felt so much closer than the stars do here."

You tilt your head to him and he's actually looking at you. He actually is talking to you after all. Good heavens. His eyes knock the breath out of you.

Loneliness. That's what's in them.

"In the mountains," you say quietly, " where I grew up it would be pitch black at night, the milky way crystal clear above. The sky was bigger there."

You're not really sure why you divulge this information. Particularly to someone you don't really know.

There is a moment of silence, before he exhales. "I know precisely what you mean."

A beat and then he asks: "Do you miss it? Your home?"

A lump clamps down on your vocal cords, so you just nod.

"Me too."

It's so quiet you almost don't hear it. Except you do.

"That sucks." You can't quite meet his eyes. "Being alone and away from home, I mean."

His turn to nod.

There's another silence as you both look up at the stars, trailing after your own thoughts for a long while.

"Why can't you sleep?"

You opt for the truth. "Loneliness."

He isn't prepared for it, stumbles a step forward, grabbing the railing.

Bravely you ask: "How about you?"

The silence between you stretches and expands, like the universe above you.

He doesn't want to answer, fair enough. But you feel awkward, like you overstepped, and want to shove the question back into your mouth.

He is a god after all. What on earth were you thinking, talking to him like that?

You peel your fingers off the balustrade and stuff them in the pocket of your hoodie. Shuffling your feet, you think maybe you should leave.

"Ditto."

Its fragility cuts right through you and halts your movement.

Maybe you misheard.

"What?"

"I said," he takes a step towards you and your heart no longer is part of your body. It's beating somewhere outside of your chest cavity. How ridiculous. "Ditto."

His eyes are on yours now. You couldn't look away if you wanted to. There's so much in them, pain, desperation, it makes you want to cry. Of course you don't.

The air between you hums, maybe it's his magic. You heard what he can do. It feels charged, like before a thunderstorm. Making the hairs on your skin stand up.

Then he lifts a hand and his fingers curl around the base of your neck. You can't remember the last time someone touched you. He steps so close that you feel his chest moving against yours with every breath he takes.

"I don't want to be lonely tonight." His words are raw and puff against your lips, his forehead lowers and touches yours.

Numbers are your coping mechanism.

The probability of Loki being here and saying this to you right now is 1.0E-10<s>10^100</s>. A reverse googolplex, if you will.

You look up at him, his eyes genuine.

It would be scandalous to not take the opportunity the universe is offering up to you, despite the insanely high unlikeliness of this ever happening.

However.

Even though you know you will kick yourself for this later, because fate rarely plays out in your favour, right now you don't care about future you. God has spoken. It matters little that he's Asgardian.

"Neither do I."

There is a second where you stare at each other, then you both move simultaneously, lips colliding. It's messy, awkward and clumsy in the desperate need to chase away the loneliness. Your noses bump, your teeth catch on his lip, but all he does is hum in approval. His tongue slides against yours, demanding, erotic and you can feel your knickers go more than damp.

Somehow, you make it back to your room. Clothes are tugged at and pulled off and then you're both naked. His skin on yours. It's been a long while for you. You don't hold back the sigh that escapes you, not entirely sure about the source – desperation or happiness. He swallows it with his mouth, his fingers and hands tracing the lines of your body, its rises and slopes, its edges and softness.

Then you're on the bed, his mouth hot on your body, kissing, licking, nipping, determined to leave marks. As if we needs to prove, if only to himself, that you give yourself to him willingly and that he can possess you for tonight. He leaves you little room to explore him, and you want to, desperately want to. But he's parched and you're the oasis in his desert. You're so ready, so willing, to let him deplete you.

"Tell me to stop," he commands roughly, as he's feasting on your throat, hands full of your flesh.

You shake your head, fingers in his hair, legs wrapped around his waist, holding him close. Trying to make sure this is real and not a mirage.

"You need me, Loki. And I need you."

He finds your mouth in a deep kiss. Desperation seeps from his skin into yours, or maybe vice versa. You're not sure you could tell even if you wanted to. Loki's teeth sharply graze your neck drawing a hiss from you, which turns into a moan as his lips soothe and suck the spot.

He adjusts his position and then he rocks inside you in one move, to the hilt, groaning at how ready you are for him. You're hovering between pleasure and discomfort. He stills, his forehead on yours, letting you both adjust. His hair falls around you like a curtain, closing off the world around you. There's just him and you now.

In the eye of the storm. In that quiet moment, loaded with anticipation, before the force of nature wreaks havoc again. His eyes are on yours and there is so much in them that it overwhelms you. His ragged breathing, his dilated pupils, his tongue wetting his lips, his flushed cheeks – he looks beautiful.

Loki moves. His touch is neither gentle, nor rough. He feasts on your breasts, your throat, your lips. He's unlike any lover you've ever been with. Your pleasure is his, spurs him on and he's not satisfied until you fall apart several times at his hands, or rather fingers, all over his cock that fills you so deliciously.

He seems to glow with every orgasm he pulls from you. As if this is more important than his own fulfillment. You can feel how much he's controlling himself, his muscles trembling under your fingers as your muscles are contracting around him and he's riding you through your orgasm, only to build it back up again.

It's chaotic and powerful. It leaves you breathless and disoriented, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing.

Your hands roam over his shoulders, his chest; his skin is soft, the tense muscles underneath hard. His curls are silky and you're tugging, scraping at his scalp. He shudders under your touch, eyes not leaving yours. It leaves you exposed and vulnerable. With every minute of his eyes diving into yours, the walls you didn't know you had built crumble more, until they fall and leave you completely bared to him.

The movement of his hips is starting to get sloppy and messy. You feel the coil inside you wind up tight. He rolls his fingers over your clit with just the right pressure and you spring free, come undone with a stuttering moan. Loki's right there with you, his strong hands holding you still, his hips jerking into yours as he reaches completion with shuddering breath.

The room is quiet but for the laboured breaths from the both of you. Both your hands are touching, Loki pressing a kiss on to your knuckles.

But after another moment, dread bleeds into the bliss. Any moment now he'll get up and get dressed. Any moment now turn to you with that look on his face, scrambling for some words and he'll walk out and away from you.

Only... he doesn't.

Instead, he stares into your eyes, peeling a strand of hair off your damp cheek. It's such a tender, gentle gesture it makes your eyes sting and your heart constrict.

And then he kisses you.

Everywhere.

Loki does it so tenderly it breaks you. A silent apology, perhaps, for the marks he's left upon your skin, on your soul. Until you are once more shaking with need.

You push at his shoulder and he allows you to roll him over. You return the favour. Ever dip, every curve, every scar you explore, with your fingertips, your hands, your lips, your tongue. Maybe, just maybe, you can kiss away his loneliness, the pain, tame the demons for a while. Maybe, if you pour all your love on him, he will feel whole again. At least for tonight. Maybe you can kiss a crack into his mask, tear down his walls and lay him bare. Just as he's done with you. And then he's ready to mend himself again.

Maybe.

It feels like something is happening between you. The probability that you're not completely delusional is, well, incalculable. But right here, right now, it feels like you're sharing something. More than sex. It shatters you to the core and you can see in his eyes that he feels it too.

Whether or not he'll admit to that in the morning, you'll find out – undoubtedly. But morning's still a fair few hours away and the cloak of the night covers your bodies as you chase away the loneliness together.

*****

When you wake up, the first thing you see is rain. It's coming down so hard, it looks like curtains moving in the wind, veiling the buildings beyond the Tower. Your body is wonderfully sore from last night. The room smells of sex and two people sharing a bed. For a moment you enjoy the fact that you don't have to be out there in that weather and bask in blissful ignorance.

The rain is thrown against the window, so you have to concentrate to listen for his breathing. Nothing. You turn your head.

The space next to you is empty.

Your fingers glide into the sheets, maybe he's only just left. But the fabric's cold.

You shouldn't be surprised, and yet your heart plummets all the same. You knew this would happen, so no need to be hurt by it now. And still. You curl into a ball for a moment. Then the alarm clock goes off and you get ready for the day.

Washing off his scent goes against every fibre of your being, but you can't go to work with sex hair, smelling of the best night of your life. His touch still lingers on your skin. The water can't wash it off. It's as if every touch is imprinted on your body and the essence of him is still here. A shadow you can't quite catch, but know is there.

The mirror shows you the hickeys he's left on your throat, along the collarbone and on your breasts, your fingers trace the outline. You'll have to wear a top with a high collar and a scarf, even though a part of you wants people to see that he marked you. Only, you don't know if he would want that. And because you have no clue what... this... is, you feel you can't face your co-workers' teasing about your evident amorous activities without a public meltdown.

How you make it through the day, you don't know. On the inside you're a mess. Your emotions are all over the place and it doesn't help that your brain provides constant vivid flashbacks to last night. All of a sudden you can feel his touch on your body, or him moving inside you. It has you blushing so hard you tell your concerned co-workers that you're feeling a little off and yes, you might be coming down with something, whilst tugging on your scarf a bit for emphasis.

And it's true, but you can't tell them the truth. And the truth is... that it's loneliness like never before. Because now you know.

You know.

Your body, soul and heart crave him. How is it possible to become addicted to someone so quickly, so irrevocably? How can his touch embed into your every fibre after only one night? Maybe because you haven't had a partner in such a long time and you are starved for touch, for love. Maybe because he is the best lover you've ever had – unsurprisingly.

Or maybe because you've been pining for him like a teenager for over two years and somehow your ridiculous daydream has come true. Only it was so much better than you ever could have imagined and he's effectively... well, ruined you.

He reached parts of your soul.

Or maybe it's the knowledge that for one night you touched the end of the universe and never will again.

There are certain unwritten laws in the universe, passed on by instinct in the DNA of all beings. Like the simple fact that Loki is not the kind of man that would ever choose you. The knowledge that you were merely in the right place at the right time is equally flooring and hurtful. Your body's still processing encountering him, physically loving him. You doubt you'll ever recover. You're not sure you want to.

He's not in the common room when you return from work. Maybe it's better that way. If you're honest, you're not sure you would be equipped yet to deal with the awkwardness and heartbreak an encounter inevitably will bring. Words would spill out of your mouth before you would be able to stop them, because your heart wants to understand. But your brain already knows Loki would be horrified. His rejection will be very painful.

So you go back to your room and fall asleep in the bed you both shared mere hours ago, hugging the pillow he slept on (eventually). His scent is still wrapped in the sheets, forming a cocoon around you. You can feel his touch as if he's here. You allow yourself to pretend. It lulls you into a restless sleep filled with dreams of him.

*****

The next few days are pretty much the same. Until you decide you really need to change the sheets and with them goes his smell, his presence. The bruises start to fade. And with them the proof that it wasn't a dream, that it was reality.

You find yourself up on the landing pad again. You've come here before, why stop now. Yet you're not sure why you're here. Maybe in the hopes that, against all odds, he'll turn up behind you. Which is unrealistic, because you know he's on a mission – he left the morning after your tussle in the sheets. It's easily accessible information.

It feels a bit like trying to retrace the steps that led you to your current emotional state. The place where it all began, just a few days ago and yet it feels like years have passed and you're a different person. Shaking your head, you make your way back to your room.

The lift counts down the numbers to your floor and when the doors slide open you step out. You walk down the hallway – you can't help glancing into the communal area, though you know he's not here. The door of your room closes behind you and you exhale. Let the disappointment wash over you.

You know it's silly, because he's out there, somewhere, in a dangerous situation and you just can't take the thought that something might happen to him. And at the same time you feel guilty for wanting him to be here. He has greater purpose than your little human life ever could have.

*****

Loki's back after a few more days.

Back in the Tower and back in your bed.

You've just turned off your bedside light when he knocks on your door. He's standing there, holding onto the door frame, knuckles white, breathing hard, pupils blown out as he looks at you.

And then he takes that stride over the threshold, cups your face and kisses you. It's like a wave crashing over you and you're too relieved to do anything other than to melt into his kiss. His hands hold your body to his as if you're his lifeline, anchoring him. To what you don't know.

He could magic your clothes off in a green wisp, but he peels each item off reverently, discarding them wherever they fall. His hands hoist you up, grabbing your thighs and the flesh of your ass as he pushes you up against the hallway wall, breathing you in like he's been suffocating.

When his fingers find your wet core, he moans a curse into the skin of your neck. You're not sure what makes you squirm more: the sound of his buckle and zipper coming undone, or his hot mouth feasting on your breast. Your nails scrape his scalp lightly.

He doesn't say a thing, other than a few whispered feverish praises as he loses himself in you. You're torn between feeling happy and wanting to know what happened, but the lust and the wish to pretend a little bit longer quickly drown out all other thoughts. All you do is feel his body on yours, him moving inside you, hurried and eager, his fingers dancing over your swollen clit, drawing orgasm after orgasm out of you, until he finally finds release himself.

Your legs fall limply to the side and he carries you to the bedroom, because he's far from finished.

Loki's love is bruising and raw that night. You've heard of this before in hushed conversations in the staff room, the adrenaline surge after a mission, the need to feel alive when it's gone tits up and they escaped death by the breadth of a hair. There are girls that make sure they're on standby in case agents come back and need release. Maybe it's that for Loki, working through the mission stress, with you under him.

The first feeling when you wake up is satisfaction, then soreness and with it seeps a feeling into your bones that you choose very hard to ignore. The space next to you is, unsurprisingly, empty and cold again.

It repeats that night. And the next.

You try, so very hard, to smother that little spark of hope that raged through you all of last night. It's still there though. And it's annoying and irrational and illogical, but it's there.

When he's not around you think about how you'll talk to him next time you see him. Ask him what is going on, what this is, why he doesn't interact with you during the day, why he takes on mission after mission even if he doesn't have to – is it eavesdropping when your colleagues talk about him in the coffee break?

But when he's there in front of you, you lose your nerve, overpowered by his need for you is all consuming and you allow it to happen. It gives you comfort in a weird way, to know that he needs you. The way he touches you and looks at you as if you were the pivot table to his raw data set. It makes it easy to pretend that he loves you back, because he keeps on coming back to you.

But when he's not there, not distracting you, you know that it's not true and that you're fooling yourself. It's toxic for the both of you.

It takes a few more weeks of this weird dance you're doing for you to reach the point that the next time he comes knocking at your door at night, you put on your big girl knickers and you don't open. Instead, you sit with your back against the wall in your bedroom, fingers fisted in your hair.

You want to open the door, badly, want to let him in, chase away the loneliness together. The only thing that keeps you from doing it is the fact that you know you're using each other. It's eating away at you. So you save the both of you.

His knocking stops after a few moments and then his footsteps retreat. This repeats for two more nights. He doesn't try to talk to you. Just knocks, waits. Then walks away. You don't explain. He doesn't seek clarification. Then it stops altogether.

You're heartbroken when it does.

*****

It's hard, seeing him at work. You try to make sure no one notices what's going on, because you're embarrassed. You're an adult and supposed to be able to deal with situations like that. But you're not. You feel out of your depth and insecure.

You have found yourself calling your mum's phone more these days. Leaving long messages. Even though you know she won't hear. But for that moment when her voice comes on the voicemail, it's as if she's here, listening to you like she used to. And somehow, this makes it all so much harder.

And yet you take those showers, wash your hair, do laundry, eat, go to work and do a good job. The only giveaway is how pale you are. Perhaps also the rings under your eyes. You've tried makeup but it looks worse. Then again, you doubt people look closely enough to care to notice anyways.

But Loki does.

You slip up at a staff briefing, one of those that could have been an email. You just can't help it and look at him. His eyes are on you already. And then you do it again. Both times he clenches his jaw, a muscle ticks, his brows are furrowed. You avert your gaze before you can read what's in his eyes.

Things change that very evening.

You're still at your desk, mining your way through mountains of data, running regression models, checking scatterplots, so you can update the latest risk model. It's late and your eyes are burning from all the screen time, so the reading glasses come off and you shield your face as you release a long sigh.

"Have you had dinner yet?"

Your hands fall away from your face.

Loki stands at your desk, a bag in his hands. He looks nervous. "I... didn't know what you like, so I got us a sandwich and some soup. So you have some sustenance at least."

You blink once, then twice. "You got... you got food? For... us?"

"Yes, we're going to have dinner now." He puts the paper bag on top of the printouts that cover your desk and pulls up a chair from the desk next to you. "Seeing as you've been avoiding me, I couldn't ask you to share a meal with me. What's that saying you have... something about a mountain and a prophet, so I am the mountain, bringing dinner to you."

He places a lidded pot in front of you and leans in as you take hold of the spoon he holds out to you. His eyes are just like you remember them.

"Careful," he says, face inches from yours, gaze flickering down to your lips and back up to your eyes, "it's hot."

His fingers brush yours as he lets go of the spoon.

Your heart is doing acrobatics, as do your thoughts. It's the most Loki's talked to you outside of the bedroom since, well, since you started frequenting the bedroom together.

"Thank you," you mutter and gingerly lift the lid. The smell of hot soup fills your nose and your mouth waters.

You chance a look at Loki, who sits next to you, gauging your reaction carefully.

"God appetitt," he says and tucks into his soup.

"Takk for maten," you respond on autopilot.

You're quiet as you eat, occasionally stealing glances at Loki, only to be caught out by him already staring at you. The soup is not what is warming you up.

Loki reaches into the bag to retrieve two sandwiches. "Kylling eller skinke?"

"Ham, please," you respond.

As he hands you the sandwich, he makes sure his fingers brush yours. You have an immediate flashback of watching his fingers trace the tattoo on your breast. Your breath falters.

"You speak Norwegian," he comments around a bite of his sandwich, bringing you back to reality.

You nod, clearing your throat. "I lived in Tromsø for a few years."

"Doing what?"

"I was a research fellow at the university. Stochastic modelling for climate change."

"What brought you back here?"

You stop chewing and stare at the sandwich. "Commitments. Mum got Alzheimer's. Couldn't remember dates, how to tie her shoelaces, or fold clothes, or cook, or shower, or talk. Couldn't remember me. She passed away two years ago."

His eyes are soft, his face full of a pain that isn't yours. After a long moment he says: "I miss my mother too. We may not have shared the same blood, but she is in every atom of my body."

Your hand touches his. He turns his palm up and threads his fingers through yours, his thumb drawing circles on the back of your hand. Somehow, that gesture feels more intimate than sex.

*****

Loki brings lunch to your desk every day. It's awkward at first, with your co-workers looking on and not really knowing how to behave around the god, so mostly they scram in a panic.

But he persists.

When you get off work and walk past the common area, more often than not he's in the kitchen, waiting for you. He tricks you into cooking together. It's a dance. He'll insist he has to show you how to slice something, how to fry up something, he's behind you, his hands over yours, his body moulding into yours. It's his way of seeking physical touch without asking for sex.

He tries and you see it. Not just with you, but with everyone.

You come across Banner and Loki, heads stuck together over the coffee table in the common area one afternoon. Banner teaches him how to text and it warms your heart. And Loki does – text – to let you know when he's away on missions on short-notice. When he knows he's going away, he lets you know beforehand. He keeps in touch whenever he can. He's present even when he's not.

He brings you books almost every day – he's delighted to learn that you're a fast reader – and you install your music app on his mobile and get him headphones, to show him your kind of poetry.

The day he finds memes he spams your phone. When you introduce him to Fighting Fantasy, he's furious when he can't defeat Balthus Dire 'simply because the dice say so'. He could magick them, but he doesn't.

He takes you to the theatre and you fall more for him as you watch him well up when the lights go down and the stage lights up. His lips mouth out the dialogue that's played out on stage, word by word. His hand never leaves yours during the whole play.

Loki agrees to come to the work Christmas do. It's too much mulled wine and finger food, people losing their inhibitions after the third or fourth drink. Loki stays by your side, smiling at his completely sober brother offering an enthusiastic albeit off-key version of "Baby it's cold outside" with one very tipsy Happy.

It's as if Loki's taken a step back and noticed the cracks in the wall and is now carefully fixing them with plaster.

Today, the noise of the usual busy afternoon traffic below is drowned out by a blizzard, when Loki turns up at your door for the first time in months. He's brought a book. It's leather-bound and looks old.

He doesn't say a word as he tugs you to the sofa behind him, pulling you to sit between his legs, his chest against your back as he starts to read you Old Norse poetry. You don't understand what is said, but the way Loki enunciates the words, they curl around your limbs like caressing touches.

You watch his slender fingers carefully place the bookmark between the pages he's been reading from and close it.

"What was this one about?" you ask, drawing lazy circles on his arm.

"About a man who got hexed and lost his words... and hurt the one he loved." His voice is low now, breath puffing against the shell of your ear. His hand covers yours to stop your movements. "Just like me."

You turn to look at him, best as you can in this position.

"What do you mean?"

"You." He whisks a tendril of your hair around his fingers. "I hurt you when I really didn't mean to."

You want to say something, but his index finger on your lips stops you.

"Please, let me say this. I'm sorry that I made you feel like I was using you when I felt lonely. I wasn't. That wasn't it at all."

The silence that follows nurtures the hope that blossoms in your heart.

Your voice breaks a little. "Then what was it?"

"I was a coward." Regret was etched on his face. "Something happened during our first night together. And... I didn't want to acknowledge it. It would have made it real. I was scared."

A moment of silence passes. You want to fully understand his words in your mind. "Of what?"

"I'm not sure," he admits. "Falling for you? I was an idiot. I couldn't think clearly when I was with you. I just... wanted to forget. With you. Obviously not the right approach to tackling my mental health issues. I just...," his eyebrows knit together. "I need you to know that I am in therapy. Have been for nearly two months. There's... a lot to 'unpack' as my therapist calls it. It's actually not as ridiculous as I initially thought. It's helping me. And something I need to ask is for your forgiveness. Can you? Forgive me?"

You let him wait for a few beats. You have forgiven him. You did the moment he turned up with the soup and sandwich. Just like you've forgiven yourself. After all, you let him into your bed every night.

"Of course."

He's relieved, but something is still tense in his face. "I... Why are you so ready to do that?"

You've known for a while. Truly known from the moment he sent you a cat video. Surely he knows, too. Maybe he doesn't. Or maybe he does, but needs to hear it to make it real. Or perhaps he is now ready to really hear it.

"Because I love you," you say gently.

The words sink in and you see emotions flit across his face – hope, perhaps. His gaze is filled with something akin to wonder. "You say it like it's the easiest thing in the world."

Your hand comes up to caress his cheek. "It's not. It's the scariest thing."

He closes his eyes, breath stuttering at your words. "You're more courageous than me."

"What makes you think that?"

"I have fought battles against many a foe. And yet, no battle has scared me as much as love used to."

Hope sparks. "Used to? Past tense?"

He hums and helps you turn around in his lap, his hands run from your hips up the sides, where they rest, thumbs stroking the underside of your breasts through the top you're wearing.

You can see it in his eyes, the need to say something, the struggle for words. That in itself is a sight to behold. Loki is never one to be at a loss for words. He's the most eloquent and quick-witted being you've ever met, enjoying intellectual duelling with a vocabulary as razor sharp as his daggers defeating opponents easily.

"Ditto," he finally says, and the word is tinted with nerves. His vulnerability, the weight and meaning this one word carries makes your heart constrict.

"Really?" you whisper in awe.

He nods, voice stronger and dead certain now, eyes warm. "Ditto."

~ fin ~

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