A/N: Trigger warnings for basically everything, guys. This one's dark.

The Fiercest Fables

"Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."
-Oscar Wilde

The eighth time there are one, two, three tears that catch the moonlight (it peeks stubbornly around the edge of blackout curtains) before continuing to their end as dark stains on a threadbare pillowcase.

She tastes salt at the corner of his eye.

He sighs.

Then he grabs her by the hair, flips her to her knees, and fucks her raw.

Jane Foster first met Loki Laufeyson when he strolled into her research facility's break room and (after a courteous introduction and the slaughter of her colleagues) announced the end of the world.

He told her - with a smile - of a new wormhole that brought forth an alien fleet under his command; he told her of the fall of Phil Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. as a whole; he told her of Erik Selvig's death in the battle of Manhattan; he told her Thor, returned to Earth, would not be coming; he told her she was alone, utterly alone, with no one to notice nor care.

Oh, and he would like something to drink. Preferably ale.

Jane got a can of beer out of the mini-fridge and handed it to him, then took it back and popped the top once it became clear he didn't know how. He tasted, spat, and declared it to be an act of indescribable mercy that he didn't annihilate the entire population of the planet if this was the best she could do.

She answered tonelessly that the dead statistician by the door was the one who liked Miller Lite, not her, so if he wanted to register a complaint it was too late now. Then she gave him a cup of burnt coffee from the Cuisinart by the microwave and asked him to please not throw his mug on the carpet.

Loki said he had better manners than that. She watched brain matter ooze down the wall.

When he explained that she would be coming with him, Jane could only nod.

The fifth time is in a bank vestibule, against a wall, brick chafing welts into her back. He asks her to whisper soft words. Compliments. Encouragements. Praise. His name.

She refuses.

His bite draws blood. Later she rubs sticky crimson smears from her clavicle until he throws the washcloth in the sink and licks her clean.

New York was not the decisive victory Loki had desired, but, given the surprising efficacy of his not-brother's band of brawny idiots, he could accept a draw. His army had lost great numbers, but that didn't matter; there were always more Chituari. The fall of the Iron Man's tower with all its equipment proved a notable blow to the opposition. Both sides retreated into a sort of unofficial ceasefire, licked their wounds, considered their next moves.

And Midgard descended into delightful panic.

It was more powerful than open war itself. Let them collapse. Let them tear themselves apart with anticipatory terror. Within a few weeks the stampeding, leaderless animals would submit so quickly their knees would crack the pavement.

Loki knew well the value of a psychological campaign.

Which, incidentally, gave him an opportunity to spare some time for that woman.

The sixth time might not count. It is only him languidly lapping between her thighs, no rush, no force, no marks from fingernails scored along skin.

He tells her to say his name.

She refuses.

He spreads her wider. Hitches her legs over his shoulders. Nips, strokes, nuzzles.

He orders her to say his name.

She refuses.

Fingers and tongue and teeth.

He begs her to say his name.

She refuses.

The magic that holds her wrists behind her back binds tight as any cuffs, and she is abandoned for the rest of the night, unable to reach herself to finish and shouting abuse all the while.

By the time Jane recovered from her apathy a new routine had already been set in place. One to which she had no input.

They traveled. Loki was doing... something, with his war, with the end of the world. (At the strangest times she caught herself humming R.E.M., and then burst into hysterical giggles that lasted an hour or more. She'd wonder if she was cracking up; she'd wonder if it mattered.) She spent her days in whatever reasonably intact building was nearest: hotels, conference halls, one time an art museum that echoed in its emptiness. Men and women with milky-blue eyes and vacant expressions would provide her with reading material or a sandwich upon request, but companionship came only in the form of a psychotic interdimensional would-be tyrant - if 'companionship' could mean being stared at like a dead frog pinned to a dissection board.

Every now and then Loki would ask her some random question, which she answered with little beyond sarcastic, nearly suicidal taunts. Anything to get a reaction.

It never worked. He only stared.

What did he want?

The second time she tells him she won't. He raises an eyebrow, and she elaborates that if she has her way he'll never touch her again. If he wants her she will not come willingly.

He only laughs at these haughty words and says not to fret, he won't lay a finger on her if she doesn't wish it. He's never coerced a woman in his very long life; he doesn't intend to start now.

She expresses skepticism about this sudden influx of morality.

More laughter. No, no, not ethics, only pride. A man who rapes lacks talent for seduction. If he cannot persuade a simple human female, no matter how hostile... well, then, perhaps his silver tongue truly has turned to lead.

Now she laughs at him.

Then he locks the door, settles himself in the nearest chair, crosses his legs, conjures himself a glass of wine, and begins to plainly describe every last thing he is going to do to her the moment she gives the word. For all the passion in his voice he may as well be presenting the weather forecast.

Thirty-three minutes pass before she consents. The next day she cannot walk.

She was not beautiful, not by Asgardian standards. She was not graceful, nor charismatic, nor eye-catching. She was clever, perhaps - for a human - but not in a way Thor would have understood or appreciated. She possessed no power of any sort, mortal or magic. And after she recovered from shock-induced despondency, she wasn't even brave; defiance born of hopelessness did not count.

The woman who had transformed the God of Thunder seemed nothing special. At all.

But that could not be.

He had a planet to conquer, a tesseract to return, armies to lead and enemies to smite, and if he did not figure out the secrets of this short, pointless little creature, Loki was going to go mad.

An embarrassingly long period of time passed before the obvious explanation struck. Thor had coupled with her. His not-brother could claim a legendary string of conquests, but something about this one in particular must have turned his head. A cliché answer, but an answer nevertheless. Whatever was unique about Jane Foster could be found in her bed.

Loki would just have to confirm it for himself.

He asks if Thor told her how many women he's fucked. When she doesn't reply, he gives her the number - plus or minus a few dozen.

It is the oldest trick in the book and it is devastatingly effective. Her tears are silent but plentiful; he lifts her chin, croons that it's hardly her fault for being born a plain, ordinary, tiresome mortal who couldn't hold his not-brother's interest for more than a few hours. Who did not matter enough for him to seek out upon his return to this realm. Who is forgotten rather than rescued.

She calls him a bastard. He says he's heard that before.

His mouth touches her neck, just this side of uncomfortably cold, and he reassures her that she won't be the first of Thor's discarded females he's comforted. None have regretted it.

She tells him she hates him. He's heard that too.

Whatever the original intent, they are as savage to each other in deed as they are in word, all pain and power and bruising. The height difference is a problem, so she is on top, but his grip immobilizes her and were she splayed out on her back it could not be more brutal.

Between grunts and groans he asks her if Thor knows what a faithless cunt she really is. He tells her to say his name.

She refuses.

He comes anyway.

That is the first time.

Knowing that Loki was playing her didn't make his manipulation any less successful. Jane tried to remind herself that he'd been pushing people's buttons for a thousand years before her birth, but that didn't help much; she settled for the cold comfort of self-awareness and some very spiteful orgasms.

But it didn't take long for her to sense her first take on the situation might not have been the most accurate one.

He stopped leaving her in locked rooms. He brought her with him everywhere he went, which was fewer and fewer places. He boasted, he threatened, but he rarely left her side, and she didn't get two advanced scientific degrees before the age of thirty without learning how to extrapolate observable evidence into conclusive theory.

Legends of humanity fought Loki, but Jane, odd Jane, awkward Jane, Jane the laughingstock of the astrophysical community and Jane the consistent loser on the field of romance, Jane Foster led the would-be conqueror of the Earth by his collar.

She ought to have been appalled. But the world was over and Jane had nothing left other than vague pride that, as it turned out, she might help win a war through nothing but a vicious cocktail of sex and contempt.

And Cal Tech thought she'd never amount to anything.

The tenth time she kneels.

He shudders, he sighs, and as she takes him in her mouth he tells her how pleased he is that she's finally learned her place.

She pulls back and explains she will not continue if he does not remove his pants properly.

He smirks. His legs are bared with a wave and a thought.

Lips brushing against him, a saliva-slicked hand steadily stroking. She will not continue if he is wearing his coat.

It vanishes.

Nails scraping down his pelvis. The armor must come off as well. Everything.

Then he is nude, she is clothed, he is braced against the wall, she is swallowing deep, he is stroking her hair and murmuring gentle words of approval. He asks her to say his name.

She refuses.

He slaps her hard enough to split her lip. It does not wipe the fluids or the triumph from her face.

Had Loki known stealing his one of brother's consorts would be so much fun, he would have tried it long ago.

Just to prove the point, the next time he took his prize in public he brought her to climax twice. The Iron Man's little electric surveillance tricks were everywhere; if Thor had been enraged thinking his favorite had been forced, let him contemplate a Jane Foster who moaned for the God of Lies like a common whore.

And she was common. Still. She possessed no exceptional carnal talents to speak of - and he'd searched thoroughly. Pleasing enough, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing to distinguish her quim from that of any other female.

So what right did Jane Foster have to defy him, worthless, meaningless, unimpressive mortal that she was?

He could entice her - and did - he could pleasure her - and did - he could strike her - and did - but still she resisted in the only way that mattered. And even that wasn't unique among the creatures of this planet; they were forever fighting what they knew in their hearts they needed, forever refusing to acknowledge obvious superiority even when it stared them in the face. She truly was no different than the rest of them.

Well. Loki would win her in the end, just as he would win Midgard. In the end she and they would thank him. In the end she and they would worship him.

In the end she would kneel to him and mean it.

There was all the time in the world.

The twelfth time is on the balcony of a bank tower. She is bent over the railing, jeans bunched halfway down her thighs, hair catching in her mouth as it tangles loose in the wind. Anyone who cares to look up can see them.

Several do. They watch the fallen God taking a human woman like a bitch in heat.

She arches backwards. He quickens his thrusts to meet her movements. He makes a noise that manages to be both a whimper and a shout.

He says her name.

The world watches the human woman taking a fallen God.