"Heimdall."

"Loki."

It's tense, tenser than he remembers their interactions being, but then, it is the day before Thor's coronation and Loki is the God of Mischief. This must seem to be a strange – and potentially problematic – time for him to leave, but he has to. He can't wait another minute longer.

"Shouldn't you be at the palace?" Heimdall asks, though it's not so much a question as it is a reminder; a threat, almost.

"I was never told that I could not leave," Loki replies evenly. "It is not my coronation; it is my brother's." If he remembers correctly the first time he went through this, he did nothing but get in the way. They'd claimed they wanted him there, but it became apparent soon enough that they didn't. He's already greeted his parents today, as casually as he could after all that's transpired since he last saw them, but they were rather dismissive, distracted by preparations. He sees no reason to get in their way any more than that. He'll leave that role to Sylvie, who seemed more than happy today to just follow their parents around like an eager little puppy dog.

Heimdall just looks at him, and behind his stoic expression, Loki feels he can see some skepticism in his eyes. But finally, Heimdall steps back, allowing Loki inside.

"Where may I send you, my Prince?" Heimdall asks. He's being courteous now, non-confrontational. It certainly makes this easier.

"This is going to sound... strange," Loki begins, "but I am going to Midgard."

Heimdall pauses.

"Midgard?" he repeats.

"Yes," Loki says. "I am looking for a woman named Jane Foster – an astrophysicist; a brilliant woman."

Heimdall raises his chin. "Why?"

Loki raises his chin, too. "What difference does it make?" he asks, an icy chill to his voice. "I asked you to send me to Midgard."

"The Allfather will not be happy if you miss the coronation."

"Then I will not miss the coronation," Loki says, teeth gritted, growing more irritated by the minute. He's already had to deal with Sylvie today. He's had to deal with his parents shooing him away in favor of their elder son. He is not in the mood to deal with Heimdall, too. "I am your prince, and I asked you to send me to Midgard. Unless I have been strictly forbidden from leaving this realm, you have no reason to refuse me."

Heimdall just looks at him for a few moments, then nods once. "Very well," he says. "But be warned, if you do not return by sundown, I suspect the Allfather will not be pleased."

Loki rolls his eyes. "He wouldn't notice my absence until the coronation begins." All of Asgard is far too distracted by Thor's glory and importance to think of him right now. For once, it will work out in his favor.

So, after one more warning about missing the coronation, which he most certainly will not do, Heimdall sends Loki to Midgard.

And then...

He's there.

He's on Midgard.

And he's not sure what to do.

He looks around, taking in the world around him. It's just so... uniquely Midgardian. It's far from the first time he's been to this realm, but it always feels so foreign to him – and it changes so quickly as the humans grow and learn, and so much from location to location with the different cultures. It's a rather boring realm of boring people, but, in a strange way, it's also truly a sight to behold.

Now the question becomes, where is Jane? She must be around here somewhere. Heimdall wouldn't have sent him here if she wasn't. Is he supposed to go to every single building until he finds which one she's in? That's absurd.

"Loki?"

Loki turns around, and there she is, standing in a doorway with a look of hope in her eyes.

He smiles at the sight. "Hello, Jane."

Jane grins and runs up to him, throwing her arms around him and hugging him tight. He wastes no time in hugging her back, basking in the joy she radiates.

"I can't believe this worked," Jane murmurs against his chest. "I can't believe we did it."

"One could argue that we saved nearly all of existence," Loki says, "and we lived to tell the tale." It's certainly not what he'd expected when the TVA snatched him from his timeline, but he certainly won't complain about a good thing.

Jane looks up at him, resting her chin against his chest. "And it's all thanks to you."

"It was a team effort," Loki says. "I would have gotten myself pruned much sooner if you hadn't been there to stop me from doing anything stupid."

Jane huffs a laugh. "It's not an easy job, but someone has to do it."

Jane pulls away, and, rather reluctantly, Loki lets her go. It's hard to mourn the loss of contact when she's still smiling up at him with all the warmth in the world. It's so strange – yet so comforting – to think that this is going to be his life now. No more scheming or plotting or making mischief in a desperate ploy for attention. He has attention now. He has Jane. And really, he's not sure he could ask for anything better.

He cups her head in his hand, thumb gently brushing over her cheek. "Your head looks better."

"It feels better, too," she says. "Like it never even happened."

Loki had suspected as much. His knee feels much the same, even after what Sylvie did to it. It's the magic of time – and the benefit of knowing the man who controls it, surely. But it's good to hear that she's doing better, good to see that she's doing better. Her head is no longer bandaged; her neck is no longer bruised. She looks good. She looks...

Well, she looks beautiful, but that's nothing new.

Jane glances down at Loki's hand, still cupping her face, and her cheeks begin to turn a faint shade of red. For a moment, he wonders if he should stop, if he should let her go, but then she puts her own hand on top of his, and she smiles up at him.

He wishes he could kiss her.

He doesn't, of course. He can't. He has no reason to think she would even let him. But to have her standing so close to him, smiling at him, touching so intimately, he can hardly think of anything else.

And then...

"Jane?" It's another man's voice who speaks, and Loki looks up, puzzled.

It makes perfect sense once he sees him.

Erik Selvig.

The man Loki enslaved only days ago.

And he has absolutely no idea.

Selvig looks between the two of them, confused, almost wary, and from behind him, another woman's head pops up – one of Jane's friends, he remembers, though he knows nothing more about her than that. It hadn't occurred to him that her friends would be here, too, though he supposes it should have. This will be an interesting conversation, he's sure. He'll let Jane take the lead on it, to choose what she wants them to know.

Jane gestures for them to come closer. "Guys, there's someone I want you to meet."

Darcy and Selvig share a look, both looking somewhat uncertain, but they approach anyway. Loki offers them a friendly smile, though he's sure it doesn't hide the discomfort he feels. He very much preferred it when it was just himself and Jane.

"This is Loki," she tells them. "And this is going to sound really weird – like, really, really weird – but he's a god."

Loki raises his brows. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but he certainly was not expecting her to lead with that.

Selvig gives Jane a weird look – almost a concerned look, as though he fears she's lost her mind, and Loki can't fault him for that.

Darcy just snickers. "I can see that," she says, eyeing Loki with a smirk.

Jane looks up at Loki. "Can you do something magic so they don't think I'm crazy?"

Loki chuckles. "What, the markings of the Bifrost don't count?" he asks, gesturing to the scorched earth behind himself.

Selvig cocks his head to the side, and he begins to walk around them, to see what Loki refers to, and then he stops in his tracks. His eyes go wide; his jaw drops. He doesn't even know what he's looking at, and still, he's amazed. Humans really are the easiest people to impress.

"I don't get it," Darcy says. "What's the Bifrost?"

It's Loki who answers that. "The Bifrost allows me to travel from my home in Asgard to other realms like your own."

"It's basically a wormhole," Jane adds. "An Einstein-Rosen bridge – pretty much exactly what we've been studying, and we didn't even know it."

Selvig looks between the two of them, a frown on his face. "I'm sorry, how do you two...?"

"It's complicated," Jane says. "And I'm going to tell you everything, but it's going to sound crazy."

As a joke, because he's always loved a good joke, Loki adds, "And it was terrifying, truly. Some of the beings we encountered..."

Jane, who almost certainly misunderstands whom he's referring to, nods in agreement.

"Beings," he continues, "like this." He holds out a hand, and a facsimile of the horrid Miss Minutes appears, smiling and waving and looking to be the epitome of joy and happiness.

Jane bursts out laughing, at the surprise more than the punchline most likely, and Loki smiles to himself. This is exactly the reaction he wanted. He doesn't care all too much about explaining the TVA to her friends, or proving to them that he can do magic, but to see her smile, to hear her laugh, is the best thing he could ever ask for.

Darcy furrows her brows. "It's a clock."

"She was much more than a clock," Loki replies, and he lets the illusion disappear. "She was a horror beyond all comprehension. I don't know how we made it out alive."

Jane rolls her eyes goodnaturedly, a fond smile on her face.

Selvig seems less thrilled about all of this. He puts a hand on Jane's shoulder, looking down at her with a frown. "Jane, what's going on?"

"I'm going to tell you everything," she assures him. "Let's go inside. It's going to be a long story; you're going to want to sit down."

~~~

Darcy and Selvig stare at the two in disbelief.

It's a valid reaction; Loki wouldn't have believed it himself if he hadn't lived it. The whole story sounds so absurd. The TVA? The Void? The Citadel at the end of time? It sounds like a fairytale.

Jane claps her hands together awkwardly. "And that's it. That's how I know Loki."

The other two mortals are so confused, neither of them can even formulate a question.

To shift the subject away a bit from the improbability of their lives, Loki tells them, "I understand that you are here to learn about the Bifrost. Given that it originates from my homeland, I would be glad to assist in your research."

"Uh..." Selvig presses his lips into a straight line; then, "Thank you?"

"So, where's this Thor guy?" Darcy asks. She puts her elbows on the table and props her head up. "Is he hot, too?"

Loki chuckles. "He's in Asgard," he says. "His coronation is tomorrow. He has much to prepare for."

"Will we get to meet him, too?" Darcy asks.

Loki looks to Jane. That would be up to her, he feels. Whether she wants to see Thor again or leave the past in the past, that's her choice to make. At least for Loki, he can take comfort in knowing that everything Thor's forgotten about their relationship has only made them closer once more. For Jane, she would have to rebuild it all, and live with the knowledge that the man she loved – loves? – doesn't even remember she exists.

Jane hesitates, and he suspects she's thinking the same thing, until finally, she says, "I don't know. Maybe someday. I'm sure he's busy."

"Will we get to see Asgard?" Darcy asks eagerly.

This one, Jane shuts down right away. "No, we will not," she says. "They don't like humans in Asgard."

Darcy raises an eyebrow skeptically. "Even the human that's dating their prince?"

Jane sputters at that, and Loki clasps his hands together, dropping his gaze to the table in front of that. He's not sure he wants to answer that. He's not sure he wants to hear Jane answer that, either.

"We're not – aren't – I mean..." Jane stammers near-incomprehensibly.

Darcy rolls her eyes dramatically. "You are so together; don't even lie."

"Darcy, we're not–"

"And if you're not together now," she adds, "you'll be together by the end of the week, anyway."

"Darcy!" Jane reaches across the table to smack her, but Darcy leans away just in time, only inches out of her reach.

Selvig sighs and stands up. "Darcy, can I have a minute?"

Darcy scoffs. "Jane just told you that she's been hanging out at an organization that controls the flow of time and now she's not-dating-but-totally-dating a god, and you want to talk to me?"

"Yes, I want to talk to you," Selvig says. He reaches down and grabs her arm, pulling her gently but insistently away.

Darcy groans and makes a show of rolling her eyes once more, but she stands up and lets Selvig drag her outside. It doesn't really provide them any privacy when they're quite literally just standing on the other side of a giant glass wall, but it was a nice thought, assuming that's why Selvig took her out of here.

Loki and Jane just sit there in silence for a few minutes – or maybe it's not a few minutes; maybe it only feels that way because the awkwardness and the discomfort is dragging it out. Should he say something? He feels like he should, but what should he say? Should he acknowledge Darcy's words? Should he affirm them, or lie and claim he has no such feelings? Should he start a conversation about something else?

Heimdall must be up there laughing at him. Once known for his silver tongue, and now he can't even bring himself to have a conversation with a mere mortal. To say this is embarrassing would be a vast understatement.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jane look at him, and he looks back at her, a sheepish smile on his face.

"I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?" Jane asks. "With Thor's coronation coming up...?"

"You are keeping me from being ignored and talked over," Loki replies. "I would say you're doing me a favor."

Though he means it lightheartedly, Jane frowns at his words. "That's awful."

Loki shrugs halfheartedly. "Perhaps," he admits. "It's driven me to do some... bad things, in the past – the future, now, I suppose." He's not sure he'll ever get used to the curious ways of time. "But I'm not too bothered by it now. I would rather be here with you than in Asgard with my family." It's still strange, in a way, to think of them as his family. They are, of course. Odin and Frigga raised him; Thor grew up beside him. But he'd become so convinced, in the year that followed his fall from Asgard, that they weren't family, that they meant nothing to him. But that's not true, and that's something it might take some time to process.

Jane gives him a sad smile. "Well, you're always welcome here."

"Thank you," Loki says. "I appreciate that." After what they've been through together, it means a lot to know that he'll always have her to go to when he needs a break.

"When do you have to go back?" she asks him.

"As far as I'm concerned," Loki says, disregarding Heimdall's words entirely, "I do not need to be back in Asgard until just before the coronation begins tomorrow."

"Oh, so you've got plenty of time 'til you have to go," she says.

"I do, fortunately," Loki says. "I don't particularly want to go back home any time soon."

"Then don't." She props her head up on her hand and looks up at him with a smile. "Stay here – as long as you want. I could always use the company."

"It looks to me like you already have company," Loki says, a lightly teasing remark.

"They're coworkers," Jane says. "And friends, obviously, but they're coworkers. You're..." She gestures to him with her free hand. "You're you."

Loki raises an eyebrow, a playful smirk on his face. "And is that a good thing, or...?"

"Oh, definitely a good thing," she says, the same playful look on her face.

It's a fun atmosphere, a teasing atmosphere, but after a few moments, he feels himself deflate a little. He loves this. He loves it. He loves being around her, in a way he's not sure he's ever felt with anyone else. There's nowhere else he'd rather be than right here with her.

But he's never going to have what he wants with her.

He doesn't even want to think it. He doesn't even want to entertain the idea of this relationship he'll never get to have. But it's so hard not to. It's so hard to sit here with her, to bask in her presence, and not think of having something more.

Jane cocks her head to the side. "What're you thinking about?"

Loki lets out a long breath and forces a small smile onto his face. "How lucky we are to have this second chance."

"It definitely beats the alternative," she agrees, and Loki is inclined to agree.

It grows quiet, but comfortably so, and they share a smile across the table. It really is just nice to be here with her like this. It's calm; it's quiet; there's no threat to their lives for the first time since they've met. He could get used to this. He really, really could.

"You know," Jane says, "and you're totally welcome to stop me at any time, but the first time I went through this week, before the TVA and this second chance, was when I met Thor."

Loki nods slowly. He's very much aware of that. He chose this date for a reason. It was right before everything went wrong – right before Thor's banishment; right before the Allfather fell into the Odinsleep; right before Loki's breakdown that cost him any semblance of a normal life. And that, obviously, means it was right before Jane and Thor met; right before they fell in love, and right before Loki ruined their relationship out of spite and jealousy.

"It looks like I'm going to be hanging out with the other Odinson now," Jane continues, then quickly adds, "Which is awesome. Don't get me wrong; I'm really looking forward to it."

Loki's not sure what to say to that. He's not really sure how to feel about it. Is he supposed to feel like he's just the second choice? Is he just supposed to be glad he's here with her at all? He has no idea.

"What I'm trying to say is," Jane says, "obviously, Thor and I were... you know... And now I'm here with you, and I was thinking maybe we could...try to..."

Loki cocks his head to the side, an eyebrow raised.

Jane sighs, dropping her head. "That's a horrible way to say this," she admits. "That went so much better in my head."

Loki chuckles. "Take your time."

Jane takes a deep breath, a bit dramatically, and tries again. "I'm just gonna come out and say it," she says. "Mobius told me before, you know, the whole..." She gestures vaguely. "'Killing He Who Remains and starting over' thing, that you might, you know, maybe..." She looks away, eyes skirting around the room to keep from meeting his own, and she hugs her arms around herself. "He said that you might, you know... like me?"

Loki pauses.

He's fairly certain he knows what she's trying to say – and he silently curses Mobius for it – but he's almost afraid to answer. What does she want him to say? That Mobius was right? That he's fallen in love with her? Does she expect him to just say it, right now? To start their new life by risking their relationship with his feelings, his fantasies?

When he doesn't answer, she rushes to add, "You can tell me if I'm totally off-base. I know Mobius thinks he's kind of like a 'you expert' but I know that doesn't mean he's right about everything."

Still, he pauses, weighing his options, until finally, he says, "I suppose my answer would depend on why you're asking."

Jane frowns. "But why I'm asking depends on your answer."

"Then it seems we're at an impasse," Loki says, a lighthearted remark to disguise the uncertainty he feels.

"Well, that's gonna be a problem," Jane says.

"It is, isn't it?" Loki agrees.

There's a pause, and Loki begins to weigh his options. He could admit the truth, he supposes. Surely she's not asking with the intent to leave him if he does confirm his feelings for her. Perhaps his answer makes their dynamic uncomfortable for a short while, but then they can both move past it.

And, though he's almost afraid to even entertain the idea, afraid to hope for something he knows is so improbable, perhaps she's asking because she feels the same way. That's not the case, he's sure. But then, what if it is? And what if, by staying quiet, he's losing the only chance he has at having the one thing he can hardly admit he wants?

So finally, Loki says, "Mobius is right. But please do not think I am asking anything of you. Just to be your friend and to be in your presence is enough for me, and I will not ask for anything more."

Jane smiles softly. "You're cute," she tells him.

Loki chuckles. "Not the answer I was expecting, but thank you."

Jane reaches over and takes his hand. "If you're not going to ask for anything more, can I ask?"

Loki furrows his brows, head cocked slightly to the side. "I beg your pardon?" Is she saying what he thinks she's saying? Is this simply his wishful thinking getting the best of him, or does she mean...?

"If this is going to be our second chance," she says, "I want to spend it with you. You know, as my boyfriend. If that's something you want to do."

Loki gives her hand a gentle squeeze. "That certainly is something I would like to do," he tells her. "Though I do feel, to make this official, that I should take you someplace – a formal attempt at courting, if you will."

Jane huffs a laugh – at the premise or the word 'courting,' he's not sure. "Well, you took me to a citadel at the end of time. That has to count for something, right?" she says playfully.

"I was thinking perhaps something calmer, quieter, and that doesn't feel like we're mere seconds away from accidentally destroying the universe," Loki replies, just as playfully.

"What about coffee?" Jane asks. "There's a nice little diner down the road."

Loki smiles. "That sounds wonderful," he says. "Lead the way?"

"Gladly."