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Time moves more slowly on Asgard than it does in the other realms. My woman enjoys being here, and I enjoy having her near me, no longer under the supervision of Fury and his lackeys. No one listening at the door, making sure I do not kill her or escape unseen, no constant monitoring to prevent me from attempting to take over the world, no meetings with S.H.I.E.L.D. to discuss further terms and amendments to our agreement, no longer rushing to get enough of one another in the short time allowed us. These things have been replaced with long, langorous days spent roaming the palace gardens, exploring the forests, riding horses in the hills, making love when and where and for however long we please. We find it suits us, and though at times we give the outward appearance of domestication, behind closed doors we lay waste to our bedchambers - and one another's bodies - nightly.
It has become an unspoken agreement between us that she is here to stay.
I have owned up to saying that I love her, though I do not remember that particular instance...call it heat of the moment, a crime of passion, a simple slip of the tongue where ecstasy and emotion crashed headlong into one another. Throw in a man and a woman joined in carnal frenzy and you have a recipe for words spoken in haste. That does not, however, excuse me for having said it many times since - nor for finding it so easy to say now, when we are clothed and seated next to one another in the banquet hall, in the presence of the King and Queen. I hold Anna's hand and bring it to my lips to kiss it, catching a smile from my mother, who by the way approves this union. Not that it would matter to me if she, or anyone else, did not. Fury did not approve, and look where that got him.
I am Loki, and I do what I want.
But I now also do what I must. For I am also Loki, Prince of Asgard, and I am burdened with inglorious duties that no one else wants.
I allow Anna to roam the palace and the villages, exploring on her own with a servant tagging along close behind, while I tend to the dreadfully boring tasks I have been assigned as a newly restored Prince of the realm. Odin has really piled it on, making sure I am busy enough to keep out of trouble, but I long to be wandering the long corridors with my woman, dragging her into dark recesses and listening to her yelp in giggling surprise as I ravage her against one of the many massive columns that adorn literally every fifteen feet of floorspace in this wretchedly overdone castle. But no, I am in the throne room, listening to the peasants request aid or mediation or seeds or a new cow or whatever the hell it is that they have come asking for. I have a tendency to wave my hand a lot and nod, not listening to a word of their implorings but granting wishes indiscriminately. They love me here now, which I find endlessly amusing...my supposed benevolence and generosity have won them over in the time since I was released from prison and restored to my position, but what they don't realize is that I could care less what they have come seeking. I just want them gone so I can get back to having fun. And so I nod, and wave my hand to indicate approval, accepting their gratitude and declining offers of their youngest daughters as repayment for my kindness - something I learned to beware of ever since the time a farmer brought me a two-year old that he plopped unceremoniously onto my lap. My mother was not amused when I asked what was the best way to cook it, grill or open pit.
I do my job, and I suppose I do it well. Well enough, at least, to have earned the forgiveness of everyone I supposedly wronged during my so-called reign of terror. But when my presence is no longer required in the common areas, I am to be found secreted away with my woman, enjoying the endless pleasures of her.
For some time, I had wondered what could have made this woman do what she did. Entering an elevator with a murderous stranger and exiting with a lover is not standard human behavior. Fury had provided only the most limited of details, refusing to cater to my curiosity since it served him no benefit.
I know there was a man and a child, and that she lost both. But beyond that, I have nothing. I have not asked her, and she has not volunteered the information. When she chooses, I will listen, but until that time, her past is her own.
I care only about our present and future.
Until the day my own brother comes bearing ill news and betrayal.
And then, as quickly and abruptly as it all began, it all ends.
I find myself alone again, ranting and raging against the long dark nights while she is gone. They have sent Thor to retrieve her, to bring her back to Midgard, at the request of her mother, who is dying. I request to be allowed to accompany her, but Fury forbids it unless I give him the location of my entry portal. I refuse, he refuses, we are back to where we have always been, at a standoff, neither willing to give in. And so Anna goes with Thor and I remain on Asgard, to await her return.
A return that never happens.
I receive news that there has been an incident on Midgard. No survivors. I demand to be allowed to bring her body back to Asgard, but Fury says no, as I knew he would. And so I utilize my secret portal one last time, on a mission to kill him.
He knows I am coming. He knows, of course, that there is no way I would ever let this go. He is ready for me, but I care not about what preparations he has made for my arrival - I will kill him with my bare hands, and he will know, as his life flickers and fades, why.
He could not keep me away from her when she was alive, he will not keep me away from her now.
Our standoff takes place, oddly enough, in the very room where Anna and I spent so much of our time together. The offices are empty, no other agents to be seen, though I know I am watched from all sides as I enter the building and follow the familiar hallways to our saferoom. I assume the damping devices are in place and functioning as before, but I do not need my powers to defeat this eternal thorn in my side. All I need are my hands to choke the life out of him, and my tongue to tell him why. Or perhaps I'll just go with the hands. He is not worthy of my explanation.
Fury is staring out the window when I arrive. I stand in the doorway and watch him, not speaking, but he knows I am there. After a long while, he addresses me without bothering to turn around.
"She isn't dead, Loki."
My heart constricts so painfully that I nearly fall to my knees, but I brace my hands on either side of the doorway and wait for him to continue, not letting on that his words have had any effect on me. I know where this is going, but I don't care - whatever it is he's going to ask for, I will promise it to him, and he will glimpse it for but a moment before I destroy him.
"Where is she?" My voice is death itself, seeking a playmate like a cat toying with a mouse. The mouse knows its fate as the sharp clawed paws slap it about. It is a game to the cat, a death knell to the mouse. And yet both play.
"I think you know how this works." He finally turns, his one-eyed stare fearless and defiant as he appraises me. "You give me what I want, and I give you what you want."
"The difference being that I have stolen nothing from you, while you see no sin in taking from me."
His hands spread in mock supplication. "The way I see it, you did steal from me. She's a human, Loki. One of my people, she belongs here on Earth. You took her."
I smile my most humorless smile. "She came with me willingly. I took nothing that did not want to be taken."
"And your stunt in the hotel elevator? You gonna try to tell me she was willing at that point? What exactly did you do to her to brainwash her that completely, that quickly?"
I fix my most threatening glare upon him and let him wait for my answer. If he doesn't know what's coming, he hasn't been paying attention.
"I gave her the most satisfying orgasm of her young human life," I finally say - and the best part of it is that I'm not lying.
Fury looks as if he believes me for a moment. And then his face loses all expression, which, in retrospect, should have been my first warning.
When I awaken, I am back on Asgard, angry at myself for being so careless. Imprisoned, once again, this time for breaking my exile from Midgard. An exile that officially did not exist, but Odin hopes to keep peace with Fury and his organization, therefore I am to serve a slap on the wrist sentence as a show of good faith. Our uneasy truce with Midgard seems to constantly be in danger because of me.
I do many months in the dungeons, in the same cell in which I served my time for that little dust-up over New York.
And when I am released, I head straight for my secret exit portal and hunt Fury down, once again.
I fear I have grown a bit predictable of late.
I take no special precaution to avoid detection, not caring if Fury knows I am coming. I would rather take him on eye to eye than sneak up behind him; though the latter would be far less messy, it would not be near as satisfying. I do not plan to negotiate and I will not be taken off guard again. This time Fury will return the woman to me, or he will die.
I use my shapeshifting skills to get into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new headquarters. I find him waiting for me, alone again, no agents and no bodyguards. He knows one of us might not walk away from this meeting, but from the lack of visible firepower, he does not seem to think it will come to that, although I am sure there is a missile aimed at me from an Iowa cornfield somewhere.
We observe one another for a long moment, neither of us seeming to have the will to start. I want to kill him, but something in his demeanor, a weariness of life that drains the character from his face, stills my hand.
I stare at him, waiting, sensing something is not right.
And then it becomes obvious. I have spent much time in prison cells conversing with my mother via a projected image. I am angry with myself for not spotting the Midgard equivalent, a holographic projection, sooner. Fury is not even in the room with me. When did I become so easily trickable? ME, the God of Tricks??
My rage boils over and spills from me.
"Why would you take her?!?" I scream. "WHY?? Why does it matter to you if I have her or not? What difference does it make to you?!"
Fury's image stares back at me, unfazed by my outburst. His face is serene in the knowledge that he has finally stabbed me deep enough to hurt, to make me bleed.
"Because I don't want you to be happy."
I am crushed, the breath sucked out of me. This has been personal, between Fury and myself, from the start. It hasn't been about protecting humans, it has had nothing to do with Anna at all. It has been about his grudge against me, for the havoc I wreaked on his watch. He is angry that I made him look like a fool.
"Then you have succeeded in making it so."
I have admitted defeat. It is all he has sought, and he needs no more than my confession. His image flickers and begins to fade.
"Missouga Montana," is all he says as he vanishes.
It has taken time and some doing, but I have finally found her. It has been well past a year by Midgard calculations, give or take, but as I step out of the dusty vehicle and mutter my thanks to the driver, I know she is near. I am standing at the end of a long narrow lane that leads to a small house surrounded by fields of yellow wildflowers and a large garden of half grown vegetation. As I draw closer I see that someone is in the garden.
Finally, from still far down the lane, I can see that it is her. She is on her knees, tending to a row of seedlings. Her skin is browned by the sun, her hair lightened by long days of working outside. She looks up and sees me as I approach, but she does not rise to meet me. A slow smile spreads across her face and she continues pulling weeds from around the tiny plants in her care.
I reach the fence and lean against it, looking down at her with a scowl.
"Did you really think I wouldn't find you, naughty girl?" I growl threateningly as she continues to act as if my presence is not unexpected. She looks up at me, squinting in the bright sunlight.
"It took you long enough."
I enter the garden and kneel in the dirt beside her, observing her actions and letting her tell me what needs done. I am an adept gardener myself, or at least I was, back when my interests leaned toward potionmaking more than revenge and world domination. I once had an extensive herb garden back in Asgard, and I took great delight in growing things. The dirt feels soothing in my hands and I work beside her, neither of us speaking.
Eventually she stands and brushes the dirt off her knees, turning to walk toward the house. I notice she glances down at a device clipped to her belt; I assume it to be a tracking device assigned by Fury, and wonder why she has agreed to wear it. Is he listening to us? Is that why she has barely spoken to me?
She looks back at me over her shoulder and motions for me to follow. I catch up to her and she slips an arm around my waist as we walk.
"You must be hungry. Let me cook something for you."
The little house is cozy and pleasant and I wonder briefly if she lives here alone. I see no evidence of another resident - my eyes quickly scan the shoes by the door, noting that they are all small, nothing big enough to fit a man. The jacket hanging there is likewise small. I feel a rush of relief, not realizing until that moment how afraid I had been that she would have found another man during our time apart.
The device that she has now laid on the table suddenly makes a noise. She leaves the room quickly, leaving me standing alone in the front room, not sure what I should be doing. After a moment I hear her call my name, and I follow the sound of her voice to a smaller room down the hallway. She is speaking to someone, and my heart clutches briefly when I think I have been mistaken, there is indeed another person living with her. I hesitate outside the doorway, unsure if I should enter.
"Come in, Loki. It's okay."
I obey, glancing quickly around the room, taking in the unmade bed and the clothing on the floor. I instantly feel jealous, though I see no evidence of a man's presence. Anna has her back to me and she turns, holding something in her arms that my eyes at first refuse to recognize.
It is a small infant. Rage flashes up in me but I control myself, keeping my face an impassive mask as I slowly approach to look at the child. It is a tiny baby girl, fussing to be fed.
As quickly as the rage had filled me, it drains away. I know I cannot have expected her to remain faithful to me. It has been well over a year, and that is a long time for Midgardians - she no doubt felt the need for the company of a man during that time, most likely expecting to never see me again. What lies Fury told her, I have no idea...but I know his sense of vengefulness is as brutal and ruthless as my own, so the possibility that she thought I was dead cannot come as a surprise to me. I choose to accept the truth that is before me. I will not despise her for it.
"She is lovely," I tell her, my eyes trained on her face, not wanting to look at the baby. Though I have made the decision not to hate her for this indiscretion in my absence, I cannot hide the hurt anger I feel at knowing she has been with another and borne his child. My jaw feels so tightly clenched that I can barely open my mouth to speak. "Who is her father?" My question comes out more angry and accusing than I intended.
She smiles, a strange little smirk that confuses me. Is she mocking my jealousy? She shakes her head and laughs softly, suddenly pushing the child toward me. I reflexively open my arms and take it; I have been a father many times, the proper way to hold an infant is second nature to me and I do not have to think about it. The little girl is so young, her weight almost nothing, and my brain scrambles to calculate exactly how long Anna and I have been apart. Before I can reach a conclusion about the approximate time of the babe's conception, Anna touches my face and her smile becomes soft.
"You are," she says quietly.
That night I slide into her bed, not realizing till this moment how tired I really am. It is a weariness of the soul, not so much a tiredness of the body. Part of me wishes to sleep, perhaps with her curled up close to me, but another part of me wants desperately to make love to her. It has been so long, and Valhalla help me, I still love her so much. Our child is sleeping in a crib near the bed and I can hear her breathing, her sweet little face so serene and peaceful. Our child. I still cannot believe that one.
Fury knew. He knew Anna was pregnant when she returned to Midgard, and he stepped in to keep her and the child from me. I have no doubt he wanted her where he could watch her, waiting for my offspring to manifest the powers that she no doubt will have, being half Asgardian. But Fury does not know what else she is, and by the time he figures it out, I will have taken her so far from his grasp that he will never be able to reach her.
Anna comes out of the bathroom and turns off the light, replacing it with the bedside lamp's much softer glow. Before she flips the switch I catch a glimpse of her in her nightclothes - an oversized teeshirt, clinging to her still-damp body, her lovely legs bare and exposed beneath it. She climbs into the bed beside me, pushing her pillow over closer to mine as she settles in on her side, facing me.
"I'm glad you finally showed up," she whispers to me, her lips just a breath away from mine. "I missed you."
We make love, quietly, for the baby is sleeping near us. It is heated and full of longing and the desperation of our long separation - and ultimately frustrating because we cannot fuck the way we have always delighted so much in doing. Her hand is over my mouth as I come, warning me to keep quiet, and she pulls away from me as I try to stroke her to completion. This simply will not do, and I refuse to let her pull my hand away from between her legs.
"The other room," I whisper against her throat. "Please Anna...come with me there."
She glances over at the sleeping baby, then bites her lip as I press my fingers into her. She nods.
Finally able to enjoy one another in the manner to which we are accustomed, she becomes the woman I knew in Fury's saferoom - uninhibited, lusty, sensual and up for anything I can throw at her. I handle her carefully at first, not sure if her body is healed from childbirth, but she assures me she is well and I take advantage of her permission to treat her as I always have. I appreciate the changes in her body that becoming a mother has brought with it. She is every bit as lovely as I remember her, and more so.
I kiss her deeply as she spreads her legs to me, her eyes begging me for the feel of my hardened cock inside her again. I give it to her, quickly, dispelling the tension of lost time; I push into her roughly, our joining ungraceful and uncomfortable, the desperation to be together overshadowing everything else.
As I listen to her voice telling me she loves me, and hear my own voice echoing the same sentiment back to her, I realize that all we've been through to be together is going to be worth it. I am going to take my woman and my child back to Asgard with me, and the gods help anyone who dares try to separate us again. If we remain here Fury will try to take my daughter once her powers begin to manifest - and I won't just kill him, I will annihilate him. But where we are going he will have no way to reach us, and I do not intend to ever return to Midgard again.
This realm is finally safe from me.
But for now all is well, as Anna and I fuck to our hearts' content, listening to our baby breathing over the monitor on the bedside table, almost unable to hear her over the barely muzzled sounds of our wolfish howling. And as our primal yelping dies down and we settle into licking one another's fur, I detect the soft sound of a pup growling from the other room.
Daddy's little princess.