A/N: I had to write this. I had to write this. I had to write this. Repeat until no longer guilty. This is AU, so it's also OOC. Maybe. I wanted to write something lighter than the last one but it might not have come out that way… I'm so sorry. Since the last oneshot was more in Jane's perspective, I tried doing this from Loki's. Please do leave a review! :)

Now Playing: Modern Dance by Lou Reed (the main inspiration of this work), For You by Angus and Julia Stone (for the Lokane parts; cannot recommend this song enough for this story), Graceless by The National (for Loki's feels)

"There should be stars for great wars like ours."
Sandra Cisneros

It's all downhill after the first kiss.

Her lips are soft and sweet and everything he's dreamed to be, and for once in his life Loki thinks that he's finally done something right.

But that's the problem—he never gets anything right. It is his curse, as though the gods looked down upon him at his birth and said no, not him in their pursuit of a child to bless. And he knows—he knows so fucking well—that soon enough it will only go downhill. It always goes downhill. There is an end to everything beautiful; nothing is truly eternal. Even the stars she loves so damn much have to go out eventually.

He knows this.

And the painful truth is that she knows this better than him.

It's all downhill after the first kiss.

No, that's not right; that's not when things started to go awry. How does he go back to the beginning? To the exact moment she came in his life—brown eyes up at the night sky, nose stuck in her research papers, hands gesticulating wildly with the explanation of her ideas? To before the curiosity, the greed, the need to have her all to himself? To the time he didn't think it possible to hate himself any more than he already does?

It's all downhill after—

If he were to ask her, she'd say it all started with a singularity. When all that is now matter and energy were so close together, an infinite universe in finite space, when time stopped; when an unknown force caused it to shift, to expand faster than the speed of light. She will go on and on with her technicalities and her own theories, using words that do not sound so English, but words that he loves hearing out of her mouth, nonetheless.

"I hate you," she says, and he absolutely loves how she says it, "You're the worst human being I've ever met and if I could send you to space right now just to watch your skin freeze over and your lungs collapse from the pressure differential, I would!"

Jane Foster has a way of intimidation that is reserved exclusively for him. Some days she is even more graphic in her descriptions of what she will do to him—which, in another context, he would enjoy very much, but not when she's crying murder. Still, he wouldn't be too surprised if one day he wakes up and discovers that she has followed through with one of her many threats.

"Your frustration is misplaced, Doctor Foster," he replies effortlessly, now used to her being angry with him all the time. Anger is easier to channel and express, after all. "Fury made the call, not me."

She slams her hands on his desk and he flinches not at the sound, but for the poor mahogany which had to endure her brute force.

"I am so close, Loki, so close!" For a second, he thinks she means that she is close to strangling him with her small hands—which she could also be thinking of trying right now—but she continues, "I can prove this theory! My theory! I am so close, I just need a little more time—"

"You don't have it anymore!"

She recoils from his words as though she has been slapped.

"Loki," she tries again, more softly and pleading, "This is as much your theory as it is mine. The both of us, we—we spent countless nights drafting, going through equations, collecting data—and you know as bloody well as I do that this works!"

He wants to tell her that they spent countless nights doing more than that. That there was a greater science which unfolded between the two of them. That if they had instead worked on discovering what it was that made him—them—feel the way they did, maybe then they would have found some semblance of content despite how miniscule and insignificant their lives are in the endless expanse of the universe?

But instead he reminds her that it was not his call to make, and so she walks away.

"I'll take you to Amsterdam."

"What's in Amsterdam?"

"I don't know," he answers, masking how nervous he is through the ease of which he speaks. It isn't that he hasn't been with a girl before—no, far from it—but somehow Jane Foster is managing to make him feel awkward. It is a feeling he is not used to. "What about Edinburgh?"

She is not beautiful. He tells himself as much to convince himself to stop whatever it is he's trying to accomplish with the American scientist. She does not have the figure of a supermodel; isn't dull, does not have blonde hair or endless legs—the common denominator of most of his previous conquests. When he looks at her, he sees nothing extraordinary—not when her eyes and hair are the color of dirt.

And yet. When she speaks, when she thinks out loud to herself in her meager attempt to find answers to her insatiable interest of the universe, he thinks she is the most beautiful creature he's ever laid his eyes on.

"You don't have to take me anywhere, Loki," she says, snuggling into his chest, "I'm perfectly fine right here."

He can think of a thousand places she'd rather be if she were being honest to herself.

"Then," he breathes out as she falls asleep beside him. "Til stjernene."

Being the supervising officer has its perks. Mainly, it gives him his own office, grants him privacy in his own little space where he was completely in control of every aspect—from the arrangement of paperwork that demands his attention to the spacing of each stationery atop his desk. While he extends the courtesy of having his doors unlocked to the scientists in their laboratories below, they all know not to abuse this when they have to see him. They will leave whatever it is which has to be left in its proper place. If he is out and a message has to reach him, they know where the notes are and where they should put it for him to see when he returns.

Loki likes order and makes the most of his quite limited authority. That's just how he is. After growing up without any control of the events of his life—most especially of his own parenthood—he now relishes whatever power he has.

But then Jane Foster comes along and just has to make a mess of everything.

As if she hasn't ruined his life enough.

He walks in and sees something on his desk, and even before he knows what it is, he seethes.

When he finally does, he fumes.

He steps out to the metal railings of the makeshift platform he stands on to oversee the handful of scientists working in the laboratory and sees them all huddled around Jane, the foreign wonder-girl who's captured everyone's hearts with her pretty little mind. It irks him how they are not working when they're all clocked in, but there's something else entirely that's gnawing at him.

She looks up once—catches his gaze, seeming every bit a deer caught in the headlights with her big eyes and flushed cheeks—and it's like they have a hive mind; all of them follow suit and, at the sight of his stern scrutiny, quieten; ashamed to be caught dallying around in their place of work. The scientists shuffle to their feet and take small steps back to their respective stations, but he raises a hand to catch their attention—truthfully, it is only hers he wants.

"Doctor Foster." The rose of her name has been plucked out, leaving nothing but thorns, drawing blood on his tongue. Despite the pain, he forces a smile on his face. "Congratulations."

They all cheer and applause. More hugs are directed in Jane's path and she braces them all, smiling and laughing along with her colleagues. The small festivities in their laboratory continue as Loki steps back inside his office. He drops the window blinds and for the first time—locks the door.

No one has to see the chaos he's made of his office.

How does he go back to the beginning?

This is how it starts: Nick Fury comes in his office with the same impassive, unimpressed air about him. Loki thinks he has some stick lodged far up his ass, what with the way he stands and walks, but he has enough respect for the aged veteran to never bring it up—at least, not in his presence. In any case, Fury is there, and neither of them is pleased with the company they're in.

"Loki," the one-eyed director addresses him. "I have a gift for you."

There are unsaid words to Fury's last statement, Loki knows. What the director means to say was 'I have a gift for you, you little piece of shit.' He's sure that Fury's yet to trust him again after he purposely burned down one of the laboratories—but Fury needs him and his brilliance more than he doesn't, and that is the only reason Loki is still under his employment.

"Why, Director, you rarely come around," he larks, testing the limits of how much he can irritate a man with just words. "And with a gift, no less! Must be rather important for you to oversee the transfer personally."

He considers what it could be: a new alien toy to probe, a cube of unlimited energy, perhaps? The possibilities excite Loki; he's been feeling bored lately with the small developments his team was making. He wants something bigger to work on, something more stimulating to his mind. The last interesting thing to happen in the laboratory was Tony Stark causing a reactor to build up so much energy that it imploded on itself and brought down half of the laboratory.

Fury rolls his eyes and signals to one of the agents at the door.

And then the disaster that is Jane Foster walks in.

This special assignment calls for all of them to stay overnight in the laboratory to collect data readings from a storm in the area. The random weather patterns suggest it to be an anomaly, but they need the data to form a proper conclusion.

Jane—who has been with them for two weeks now—has been chattering the whole afternoon about how it could be an Einstein-Rosen bridge manifesting itself because of the patterns on the readings, but no one has been paying much attention to her fantastical notions; wormholes are the thing of science fiction, after all.

That is how she ends up slumped over a couch in a corner of the small lounge area; knees to her chest, half-full coffee mug resting between her hands. Her lips form a thin line and her brows are scrunched together. Her caramel locks are set down and loose, frizzy from not seeing a brush for hours, and yet they frame her face in a flattering way. She is obviously frustrated and Loki thinks she is frustratingly beautiful.

So he walks up to her and when she takes notice of his form standing in front of her, she is frightened into dropping her mug and spilling the contents of the cup on the linoleum.

"I'm sorry," she yelps, eyes darting from his gaze to the light-brown liquid. "Sir Laufeyson—"

He sighs, interrupting her.

"Again, Miss Foster?"

"I said I'm sorry!" she cries, running to the table and gathering napkins to clean the floor with. "And I apologized for the last incident already!"

This is how it really starts: Loki wakes up early and he is pissed off. He is the kind of person to sleep in when he can; but for some reason his circadian rhythm decides to mess with him today to wake him up at an ungodly hour, before the sun's even risen. This throws him off balance and he becomes unnecessarily grumpy—which, like many problems, can be solved with a calming dose of caffeine.

His coffeemaker fails him and, after a full minute of creative cursing in his mother tongue, Loki chooses to just head to work and stop by a café to get his fix. After paying and receiving his to-go cup, he takes a sniff of his special order—cortado with soy milk and an added shot of vanilla, extra foam—and feels that his morning is so close to being redeemed. He takes a sip and lets the bittersweet liquid coat his tongue with its warmth and he releases a sigh of content.

This is how it really—really—starts: Loki takes a step out of the café when a klutz in heels stumbles into him and makes him throw his cup on the sidewalk in his chivalrous attempt to break her fall.

"I'm sorry!" she apologizes immediately in English as she pushes herself off of him and regains her bearings on the glass wall of the café. "I'm so sorry, sir, I swear I didn't see you—oh, god, Jane, get yourself together!—do you speak English?"

He stares at her hard enough until she squeaks under his intimidating gaze.

"I'm sorry," she repeats, flustered. She is expecting a form of acknowledgement of any sort, but instead he elects to ignore her and shakes his head, muttering kjerring under his breath over and over again as he walks away from the god-awful tourist.

This is what happens next: Loki arrives at work and prepares a cup of coffee for himself. Nick Fury walks in his office and claims he has a gift. Loki assumes it is a new toy for his team to research on, but is sorely disappointed when it turns out to be a female scientist with a doctorate degree shipped all the way from America, whose mind is a valuable asset as her research and work in the field of astrophysics is unprecedented.

"You!" Jane Foster shrieks at the sight of him. Nick Fury raises the dark brow over his one good eye as he watches the spectacle unfold before him.

Loki just laughs.

"Me."

How does he go back to the beginning?

How does he stop one bad morning from becoming a lifetime of bad mornings?

He doesn't.

"Have you ever loved anyone?"

She asks this on the third night she spends under his sheets, right after he makes a galaxy inside her explode. Her breathing is labored as she speaks and there are still stars flashing across her eyes as she glances up at him. He finds it endearing, her interest of everything; how she tries so hard to pry out answers from him like he's some sort of machine that can churn out data at her command.

Love is a horrible thing, he wants to tell her. Love fools you into casting your armor aside. Love is the monster that turns you soft, vulnerable and prone to the damages—the heartbreak—and makes you carry scars of the battle for the rest of your life. Love gives you illusions of grandeur, only to have the tower of dreams collapse at your feet.

But he doesn't want to scare her away. Not yet.

So he shakes his head to say no.

"Why not?"

Because of a childhood full of crushed expectations, he is compelled to admit this to her, to confide in someone for the very first time. Because his own father never loved him. Because after his father's death, even his foster parents couldn't love him—not when all their love was reserved for their actual son. Because no one's ever loved him and so he doesn't know how it is to love himself.

But of course he doesn't say any of those.

Later when she's fallen asleep and he's watching her breathe and he's had enough time to think, he finally speaks.

"Because I've only met you just now."

When everyone else has left, she walks up to his office and knocks—unnecessarily, at that—before she enters the room. He is sitting on his desk, reviewing the documentation of the test results of the day on a screen. When she closes the door behind her, he scowls, though he doesn't meet her gaze.

"Doctor Foster," he greets formally, his eyes not moving away from the screen. "What can I help you with?"

"Loki." She hesitates when she says his name. Good. That's what he wants: for her to fall beneath the rubble of the tower of dreams she built for him—of the love she insisted he should feel. "I…would it make a difference if I apologized?"

He lets her think that he considers her offer when really he would have said no in a heartbeat. It sickens him how he's granting her some form of leniency when she hasn't been in any way considerate of his feelings.

"What are you talking about, Doctor Foster?" Even without looking, he can tell that it kills her; how he addresses her not by her name, or without the exclusive softness reserved for her. "If this isn't of any relevance to our work here, I'd rather finish reviewing these so that I may go home."

Her fists are clenched on both of her sides. Still, he maintains the cool façade he has mastered over the years. He'd learned from the best, after all; and is just imitating the expression of his father as Loki knew his father in his youth.

She is the only person who knows about this—this and so much more about him—but it simply doesn't matter.

Jane turns around and takes a step forward. Then, she faces him again.

"Loki."

He finally looks up.

"It is Sir Laufeyson to you, Miss Foster." He remembers the times she lay in his bed mewing his name, the times he wondered how it didn't sound like a curse in her mouth. Now, it just sounds like a big fucking joke. "It will do you well to know your place."

Minutes after she's gone, he thinks that it is his own fault for thinking that there could be a place for her when it comes to him. No one's ever loved him—and Loki should have known better than to think that Jane could.

"Ad astra."

"Til stjernene," he repeats in his own native tongue.

They are out on the balcony of his apartment; Jane sits on the ledge while he stands behind her, holding her to keep her from falling. She's wearing one of his long sleeved shirts to protect herself from the cold winds of Norway, but he knows that once they step back inside neither of them would have no need for coverings as flimsy as fabric.

She leans into his chest and he is keenly aware of her entire being so close to him—and not just in the physical sense. Loki's never let anyone this close. Hell, he's never slept with the same person more than twice; but Jane Foster is persistent, keeps making exceptions out of herself. He knows what she wants; she wants to ruin him. She wants him to open up, to destroy the walls he's built around himself all these years; to let her in. She wants so much from him and he is unsure if he can give her what she's searching for, but for some reason, he wants to fucking try.

He doesn't know how she's done what no one else has—or what no one else has even dared to try—but she has. She's managed to get under his skin, in his veins, and there is no way for him to get her out.

Loki imagines how Frigga would react when—not if—he comes home and brings Jane with him. He can imagine how the matron, the one person who ever truly cared for him, will immediately take to the girl. Jane may not be as attractive as the women his brother brought home to appease their father, and neither is she the easiest person to have a conversation with; but her mind is beautiful in her endless passion for knowledge. Frigga would love Jane, would accept the foreign scientist just as her foster son does.

"I will take you there, Jane Foster," he says quietly, but surely, as though it is a promise—not just to her, but to himself. "To the stars."

"Have you ever loved anyone?" she asks him again on the nth night spent under his sheets. They've lost track of how many times they've gotten together after a tiring day at the facility. They've fallen into a comfortable routine of giving and taking, and despite the demanding nature of their jobs, it works. For once in his life, something works.

He doesn't answer. He only thinks: til stjernene.

"Have you?"

Her exhale is deep and with it echoes a sentiment that makes him apprehensive with jealousy. The thought of Jane being anyone but his—in the past, present, or future—terrifies him.

"There was this one guy," she starts, voice soft as she reminisces. He wants her to stop but at the same time he doesn't—maybe he can learn something, find out where Jane and the other guy had gone wrong and promise to himself not to make the same mistake with her. "I was doing research in New Mexico. There's this small town, Puente Antiguo, it's in the desert and it's perfect—no light pollution of any sort to stop you from seeing the stars. Where was I? Right, this guy…"

He was military but not military, she explains vaguely, and he was only in town for a few days as he and his group assessed a potential threat in the town—and they had requested her help because her research was apparently useful to their cause. It wasn't so much that she loved him, but she felt as though she knew him, that there was a possibility of a lasting connection between them.

"Do you believe in fate, Loki?" she asks him, her eyes filled with sentiment. "Back then, I had thought that we were really meant to meet in the desert."

He looks at her pointedly. How can you say so?

"Because I ran him over." Jane gives a sheepish laugh. "Twice."

Loki has an unspoken ongoing competition with Agent Natasha Romanoff: who can sneak up on the other without being detected? Based on his last tally, he is winning. This puts a smug grin on his face as she saunters her way into his division.

"Agent Romanoff," he says in a lazy drawl, stepping out of his office to accompany one of their agency's top assassins. "Do you need something?"

"Fury sent me to check up on you," is all she says as she eyes the research compound, trained senses sharp as she scouts for anything out of the ordinary. When she is done surveying the area, she turns to him. "How are you holding up?"

"Me?" he scoffs, making a display of his offended countenance. "What reason is there for me to be anything but fine?"

"I don't know; because your little girlfriend ran away with your brother?"

"You do have a way with words, Agent Romanoff." Then, he mutters under his breath as he shakes his head, "Kjerring."

"Jeg hørte at," she fires back, grinning.

She's supposed to be Russian, damn it.

He walks away and tells himself to give her a point for catching him off guard.

There are stories written in the stars, she tells him, pointing to the location of Orion in the sky. She has this tendency to become poetic and awfully sentimental when it comes to her beloved nightscape. But then she has to go and babble about how Rigel, the bright star on the corner of the said constellation, is thousands of times more powerful than the sun and is hundreds—seven hundred and seventy-three, to be precise—of light years away.

She doesn't stop talking and he is entranced by her. She doesn't even notice that he's not watching the stars anymore.

Where's our story, he wants to ask her, where am I in your universe?

Frigga welcomes Jane with open arms. She side-glances Loki as she brings the foreign scientist into a hug and gives her foster son a smile. It is all he can do to return Frigga's warm beam. After all, this is the first time he's ever felt a semblance of true happiness under the roof of his foster family.

"Hva en ganske liten ting!" his foster mother exclaims, ever the one for dramatics. "Loki, hun er perfekt for deg, ikke sant?"

"Jeg ønsker å tro," he answers and stifles a grin at Jane's confused expression.

"What are you saying?" she whispers to him, cheeks reddening with discomfiture. "Oh, maybe I shouldn't have come at all."

"Nonsense!" Frigga cuts in, grabbing Jane's hands and taking them in her own. "You are more than welcome in our little family."

"Trust me, Jane, there is no arguing with Mother," Loki takes the scientist hands from his mother's grasp and interweaves their fingers. Frigga does not miss the gesture of affection her son shows for the girl and she is more than pleased—she is delighted, proud; she is so, so happy for the son she thinks has always been too hard on himself.

"I feel inadequate," Jane confides to Loki through a whisper as they step away from the foyer. "I'm in jeans and your mom is wearing something out of a catalogue."

"And yet." He grins back, squeezing her hand. "Du er vakreste."

She sighs, shakes her head and mutters to herself about missing America, where everyone spoke English and weren't bilingual chauvinists. This makes him throw his head back in laughter because she is endearing in the way she has difficulty in interacting with others. She isn't antisocial, but it's just that when her head's not up in the clouds, she's still operating on a completely different frequency.

When they reach the parlor, his mother insists that they sit and make themselves—especially Jane—comfortable. Frigga is about to go upstairs to call for her husband when the bell rings once more, so she excuses herself to answer the door. His mother is all smiles and warmth and Loki thinks that perhaps the gods are finally granting him some reprieve from his tortured existence.

"Loki." He's sure that there's a veiled threat in the way Jane growls his name when he tries to pry her fingers off. "Don't leave me."

Silence fills the spaces at the penultimate moment before the door opens.

"Thor!" Frigga's voice echoes throughout the house, like thunder crashing down on the earth—and Jane's hand falls out of Loki's grasp.

Has he ever loved anyone?

Years after, her voice still echoes in the pathways of his mind.

I could have loved you.

This only ascertains what he already knows: he is simply cursed. At his birth, the gods looked down on him and said no, this child will not do. When he took his first breath on this world, his mother took her last. At her passing, his father became nothing but an empty shell of the man he used to be, drowning in sorrow until one day he realized he could not go on without his beloved.

Loki has vowed to himself to never be like his father—a pathetic excuse of a man who abandoned all of his duties and responsibilities at the loss of a woman.

And he doesn't need a woman, he convinces himself over and over again while he's pressed upon the body of some nameless and faceless blonde bimbo with endless legs; least of all Jane—fucking—Foster.

"You're marrying him."

It's not a question, but a fact.

"I'm sorry," is all she says as she stands outside his apartment. Her voice is soft and apologetic and he hates the sound of it. She is a mess, a disaster, and it looks like she's done some crying of her own, but he is too hurt and angry with himself to acknowledge any pain other than his own. "I'm so sorry."

She's been apologizing to him since the beginning. Somehow he should have taken that as a sign, but he was too tangled up in her to even notice. It is ironic, he thinks, that her first and last words to him are both smothered with regrets.

He thinks that she should be. Regretful, that is. Especially now that she's throwing away her life to be someone's—his brother's—wife. It's hardly a life fit for her.

He thinks: your mind is the universe, an infinite wonder that he cannot ever learn to appreciate.

He thinks: you are too beautiful to be crying every other night when you fall victim to his blue-eyed temper.

He thinks: I would have taken you anywhere if you had asked.

He thinks: til stjernene.

"I…I don't know what else to say." She turns away to wipe the tears forming at the corner of her eyes. This is not beautiful, he wants to tell her that she is not beautiful. Not when she's like this. Not when she's trying to apologize for the feelings she can't help. Not when there are things that are written in the stars that no human can erase or cover up with mere words.

What they had, on the other hand, well, that was beautiful. And there is an end to everything beautiful.

Even the stars she loves so fucking much have to go out eventually.

"I'll approve all of your requests, Doctor Foster," he says, green eyes twinkling with mischievous intent. "Funding, the use of equipment, time—you name it, it's yours."

She eyes him with caution. As she should, he thinks; she should be wary of him. He thinks of all the ways he can make her uncomfortable while she's under his division; and for the first time since Stark came to blow shit up, he's excited.

He will ruin her, he decides there and then.

"How about a kiss, Doctor?" he offers. "Quite a small price for my hefty offer, don't you think?"

"Where is your integrity?" she squawks, very American with how indignant she acts. "That's harassment! I can file a complaint against you."

"You spilled my coffee."

"That's hardly the same thing!" She looks ready to pull her own hair out—and she is beautiful when she's frustrated, he notes. "You are absolutely insufferable! Why, I should take my heel and stuff it down your throat—how's that for a kiss?"

Loki's smirk only spreads on his lips.

It all goes downhill.

When he stands on the balcony of his apartment, her figure looms as an apparition in his room.

There. He looks to a blank space in the night sky. That's where we were.