Author's Note: I would definitely say this is a bit AU or OOC but I can't help but love this. This is for the Lokane fanfic archive, Prompt: Possibilities featuring JustWantsToBeLoved!Loki and WillingToHumorHim!Jane

"I would never leave you behind, waiting anxiously for my return as if you were nothing! Where is Thor? Where is the love you save yourself for?"

"I love him, whether he is here or realms away," she responded simply.

Loki looked as though he wanted to roll his eyes.

It was a conversation over tea. A ridiculous conversation Jane would have never thought she'd be having but a conversation nonetheless. He had shown up at the local diner Jane was at, dressed in regular clothes with his dangerous smirk lingering on his lips. Loki had asked if he could join her while she looked over her work. She wished she would have said no... but Jane knew she wouldn't have been able to do that even if she tried. Loki was the closest thing she had to Thor, she told herself. It was horrible reasoning but it was enough to keep Jane's mind from overreacting about her choices.

After all it was Loki's choices, his betrayals, that took Thor away from her. Loki was suppose to be dead. But Thor had warned her that Loki still lived, that he might come to see her. It was as if Thor knew something she did not. And now Loki sat in front of her, propositioning her with something she'd never expect.

"You humans always have had a twisted sense of love. You only love him because you can't have him."

"It is a fault of man. Perhaps that's why you want me."

"I am not a man, I am a god!"

"You are lost, whether you are god or man. You have lost your footing."

"You think I've lost it and I believe I've found it," he put his hands out towards her, palms up, as if laying out his argument.

"We'll agree to disagree."

"No, no, this is not a subject we can simply shake hands on and walk away from. I want you, Jane Foster. And I shall have you. There are no other options, no easy way out of this."

"Loki, you're mad."

"We'll agree to disagree."

She tried not to smile.

"What do you see when you look upon me?"

His tone turned serious and she narrowed her eyes, studying him. Loki was not an easy read but it was very clear to Jane what he was.

A man. A wounded man whose been trying to find something to keep him going, to get him back to the place he needs to be.

She didn't respond. Instead she redirected the question to him.

"What do you see when you look at me?"

A mortal woman who has the power to save a god.

He didn't need to say the words out loud because they both knew what the answer was. Jane sighed, tapping her pen against her notebook as she thought. The continuous tapping annoyed Loki, she knew, but it didn't stop her from doing it. Loki kept his expression blank as they stared at one another.

"So you've come here to make me love you?"

"I've come here because I want to be here," Loki answered easily. "I will not leave you to care for the other realms, I will be here, with you."

"I love Thor for what he's doing-"

"And you also hate him for it."

Jane hated hearing Loki echo the thoughts that plagued her constantly.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want to."

He said it as though that was enough of a reason for him to torment her. Jane frowned. Loki had the impression that as a prince, as a god, he could get whatever he wanted simply because. It was his downfall but also his blessing. Because if he had not come to her she would just push the idea of them away, as she often did, as soon as Thor returned from his adventure. Jane hardly knew Loki, he hardly knew her, and yet...

"Ah," Loki smirked. "There it is."

Jane focused on Loki, surprised. Had she said something out loud? Or had he simply been able to read her expressions? She shivered at the thought of how open a book she was to him when they had hardly any relationship formed between them. Everything they were was unbalanced, uneasy. There was hatred and mistrust but also respect and curiosity. Loki had saved her life. Jane had saved Thor's.

It made her something he needed, whether to break and damage or just keep safe from the dangers of the world.

"And what will happen when I die?"

Loki involuntarily snarled at the idea. Jane knew Loki hated mortals, hated that they lived so passionately and died so quickly. Yet he still sat beside her, a mortal woman, asking for something she wasn't sure she was ever going to be ready to give.

"How could you ever love a mortal?"

His snarl turned into something else, something calmer.

"There are worse things that could happen to me, I suppose."

Jane couldn't help but smile. She tried to hide it by taking a sip of her tea but when she glanced up at Loki his eyebrows were perked knowingly and a tiny grin sat upon his lips as well.