Tabula Rasa

A gift fic for goldensillydragon

He would recognize those footsteps anywhere, though previously he had never heard them sound here, buried in the rancid guts of Asgard's grand palace. This was a place the great and noble did not care to tread, yet here they were. Stentorian, authoritative, conscious of their grandeur and weight. Raucous prisoners' cries stilled at their approach. Foul curses died on suddenly dry lips. Odin All-Father was not to be trifled with. Not at any time, not by any one.

But Loki never held himself bound by such rules.

"An honor, All-Father," he stood, bowing, his polite smile oiled to a gentleman's shine. "May I offer you a chair? Forgive these accommodations, but you see, I am permitted none finer. Perhaps you might intercede for better on my behalf, should you be so unfortunate as to meet the man who keeps me in such poor state? If you know him, that is."

"Be silent," Odin hissed, "I am in no mood for your trifling."

Loki affected a wounded air, brow puckered and lips frowning, "Forgive me for offending you. I had only thought, having been so honored as to save the life of your oldest son and his paramour from Dark Elves, that my captor might have a more generous disposition towards me. I see now I was mistaken."

Frustration sat heavy on Odin's brow, and anyone with half Loki's perception could perceive it. There was a storm behind his eyes, one that only looked for a crack to burst forth and rage. Mention of Thor, rather than soothing him, seemed only to enrage.

Then Loki understood. It was not Thor, ever-favored, that raised Odin's ire. It was Jane Foster. Alive, Aether-freed, returned to Asgard under Thor's increasing love and protection. And all this by Loki's hand.

He congratulated himself on having irritated his erstwhile father so successfully and so unconsciously. Though he had saved Jane for reasons unclear still to himself, he would have done it a thousand times over to cause Odin even a fraction of his current distress.

"Why did you do it?"

"I have performed many acts of heroism of late," Loki remarked, feigned hurt masking real pain. Of course Odin wouldn't thank him for saving Thor. Nothing Loki did, or would ever do, would be enough for him. "Do specify."

"You saved her life. A mortal's. Why?"

"Just because you imagine I have no family feeling does not make it true," was he lying? Did he know? Regardless, the comment seemed to puzzle Odin, so he pursued it. "The mortal interfered in things she did not understand, but she did not deserve to die for that. Besides which, Thor loves her. I acted to spare him the pain of her loss."

"You killed enough of her kind in your bid to conquer Midgard. What made that one so special?"

Loki shrugged, his playacting at an end. He didn't even know how to lie convincingly on the subject of Jane Foster, nor did he see why his lies should benefit Odin without some mutual benefit to himself.

When it became clear he didn't intend to answer, Odin snarled, "I could have the truth beaten out of you."

"You could. Would that gain you anything? Surely my reasons—whatever they are—for saving one mortal are inconsequential beside the fact that she was saved. Tell me, has Thor asked your blessing yet? To take her as his wife?"

Odin's disgruntled silence spoke volumes.

"What do you want from me? Don't—" he waved a hand, cutting off Odin's instinctive reply, "waste my time or yours denying it. No one comes to me except for what they need. So. I saved the girl. Would you have me kill her now? It would be clever to have me be the assassin. If Thor harbored any softness in his heart for me after what I did for him, that would certainly drive it out."

"I am not you," the All-Father's one eye looked down on him. "I do not kill those who stand in my way."

Don't you?

"Then what?"

"I will," he paused, weighing every word, "release you. Restore you to some of your former privileges. In honor of what you did for my son. You will be free on the Palace grounds. You may be with your friends, if you have any friends left to you."

"And in return?"

"You will see to it that Jane Foster no longer troubles Thor."

Loki cocked his head, eyes narrowing. "Yet you would not have me kill her?"

"There are other ways to turn a woman's head. You are familiar with some of them, I believe. She is only a human woman, she has only known Thor for so long. She is no more willful or true than the rest of her kind. Whatever their attachment, it cannot last."

His laugh grated—tore at him—shredded his ribs, his heart, his throat. "This, to you, is kinder than death? This is the strategy you have landed on, to spare yourself a threat? And I thought myself an equal to your powers of cold, calculated strategy. Forgive me. It is clear I still have much to learn."

"You dare—" this time Odin cut himself off, mastering his rage. Loki didn't dare hope any feeling of shame motivated this; at least, no shame for manipulating an innocent woman's heart or destroying his son's first sign of fidelity. No. Likely he was only humiliated that Loki had caught him out. If the All-Father hated anything, it was knowledge of his own weaknesses.

At length, he spoke again. "Do you accept my offer?"

Loki had never made the mistake of thinking too hard when grasping an opportunity. He didn't make that mistake then, either.

"Of course, All-Father. I would be pleased to offer you whatever assistance I can in this most delicate matter."

It was almost too easy. Surely it was that fact that made Loki's early success so unsatisfactory; he liked to play with his food, and Jane Foster, though charming, made for a bland meal.

Her isolation and loneliness wasn't her fault, nor even Thor's. She was simply too alien for the Aesir to appreciate. Small, slight, what beauty she had was eclipsed by the bright glamour of the least of Asgard's women. Her intelligence, thought it had gained her some grudging renown with the librarians, archivists, and sorcerers, bought her nothing at Odin's table.

Then there was the hostility. The daily gauntlet of whispers, stares, laughs veiled by slow hands.

She bore it well. Her back was straight, her eyes bold, her chin regal. She learned Aesir ways quickly, learned to hide her enthusiasm over her day's research at dinner, learned to sing and laugh and shower glowing admiration on any tale of death and glory, no matter how outrageous they grew. Even Loki admired her act; he was perhaps the only one who knew what it cost her.

He was—he believed—the only one to read her exhaustion in the strain around her artificially bright eyes.

Every day he drew closer to her, in various unobtrusive ways. Every day, she let him nearer. He was the only one, besides Thor, who paid her any mind for the reasons she wished. And even her cautious guard was hard-pressed to stand against the one who saved her life.

It took him a month to crack through her walls.

It was a day like any other, spent side-by-side in silence, Loki nominally occupied in a book while really watching Jane's progress through equations of tachyon density. He found it absorbing to read her confusion fading as she progressed through research, the wrinkles smoothing from her forehead as she mastered each subject in turn. She had a habit of murmuring to herself, wrapping her lips around thoughts that drifted through her mind, stilling them sometimes with a pencil or her own finger.

Something about that gentle, constant whisper acted on Loki's often fragmented thoughts like a soothing hand.

She only rarely questioned him, and when she did, it was at a level of complexity that stunned him to hear. This was the woman who'd captivated Thor? Who had fled from his teachers at any mention of advanced mathematics?

What did he see in her?

What did she see in him?

The first question had become, through some mysterious alchemy, less important than the second.

"Hey," her voice roused him, "Are you listening? You're a hundred miles away."

"Forgive me," he said, shaking his head, "You know I had no intention of ignoring you."

"Yeah, right," Jane laughed, "What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing important," he lied, "Did you have a question?"

"It's..." she sighed, shaking her head until her hair fell before her eyes. Honey and gold in the library's diffused light. Her teeth worried at her lip until a spot appeared, bright red as a summer berry. Loki found himself fixated on that spot, as though by thinking of it he could feel its living warmth.

"It's just...I shouldn't be talking to you about this."

"Probably not," he agreed, sliding a subtle knife between her ribs, "Can you not tell Thor?"

She flinched.

"Forgive me," he said, reaching out for her hand. He should have pressed it with his, should have sealed the act with action. She was teetering, ready to fall, a china figurine balanced precariously on the edge of a shelf. All that was needed was one sure push, and the All-Father's wish would be granted. He'd see her shatter and smile in his beard.

Yet Loki couldn't bring himself to do it. Not to gain Odin's favor, not to spite Thor. He would not hurt her to achieve either of those points. She didn't deserve it.

He drew his hand back.

"They will not appreciate you here," he confessed instead, "They are not capable of it. Do not let them sway you. Not any of them."

Not even me.

"I'm not," she snapped, tossing her head, staring at him with those burning, pained eyes. "Why would I? They're nothing worse than anything I've had to deal with before. And besides...I love Thor."

Strain roughened her voice. A connoisseur of lies, Loki could not identify this one. All he knew was that this was not quite a truth, but it was by no means a falsehood. Conflict had split her down the middle, an occlusion in a previously flawless gem, and if she weren't careful, the crack would grow until it split her in two. Passion and profession. Love and logic. Heart and home.

Thor wasn't worthy of this. Of her.

He wasn't either. But Loki had never stopped himself from grasping at what he wanted.

"What are you—" but then he had her.

Her lips were fragile and feverish beneath his, and he could feel her heartbeat fluttering through the delicate skin. Her tiny fists were useless once he shackled her wrists in his hands, holding them gently but firmly as he pulled her against him. He closed his eyes so he would not have to see the fear in hers. For a moment, Loki permitted his lies to deceive him.

For a moment, he allowed himself to believe this was real.

Only for a moment.

She reeled back. "What the hell, you bastard! Get away from me!" she staggered up and away from him, backing away like a rabbit from a fox. The tears in her eyes made something inside his chest warp and ache.

Jane sobbed, a breathless, terrified thing, and turned to run.

His spell caught her before she'd made it ten feet.

Calm, controlled, her feet turned her back to the table. She took her seat, opening her book to precisely the page she'd slammed it shut. A tear slid off her cheek and splattered between her splayed fingers. She didn't notice.

Her splotchy, red, tear-stained face smiled at him. Friendly. Open. Unguarded.

Again.

"What were we talking about?" she chuckled at her own forgetfulness, "I swear, I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached!"

"It doesn't matter," Loki said, licking his lips as though stain of his sin had tainted them. "Nothing that need worry you."