Chapter 1: Layers of Ice

"We're going for full disclosure here, Miss Tate." Nick Fury, with every last ounce of his limited patience, glowers across the stainless steel table at a small woman absently braiding her wild blond hair. "Do you understand what we need from you? Time is a pretty big factor and we're running out of it."

The woman sighs heavily and gives one nod as she continues to braid. It's a nervous habit, one she thought to have conquered as a teenager but given all she's been through in the last few weeks its reemergence was inevitable.

Or maybe it's been the last few months. She can't even be sure.

She glances up briefly, gaze flickering from world's first superhero to god to billionaire playboy philanthropist before she goes back to staring at the tabletop.

"Sorry," she murmurs. "I'm not really one for words."

And it's the truth. Eleanor Tate spent half her senior year of high school in total silence. Although she moved on from this childish coping mechanism, boisterousness never quite returned.

She is just full of nervous habits at the moment. The intimidating people scrutinizing her do nothing to help her already frayed nerves.

Her penchant for silence is proving quiet cumbersome to the obviously irritated band gathered in the helicarrier's large bridge area. These people are apparently part of something called SHIELD. She only learned of their existence yesterday when they disturbed her attempted escape from the underground bunker that has passed as her home for months now.

Or maybe it's been weeks.

"Well, find them quickly, Miss Tate," snaps Fury, his good eye narrowing in frustration. "Let's start simple. How did you first meet the war criminal known as Loki?"

The woman stops her braiding abruptly, sitting up a little straighter in her hard swivel chair. She tucks one leg under her slight frame and hugs her other knee to her chest, picking absently at the seam of her standard issue SHIELD stretchy pants.

"How long has it been?" she asks. "Since he took me? How long?"

"Three months."

She winces. Her time with the God of Lies seems both longer and shorter than three months all at once.

"It was about six months ago, then. I guess," she murmurs, suppressing a shudder at the memory, an image of mad blues eyes staring down at her in the dark. "Something like that. Mid February."

It was anniversary of her fake dad's death, but she doesn't share that part.

A murmur goes up around the table. They don't believe that Loki has been here for so long, that his scheming went undetected for so many months.

Eleanor Tate stays quiet as the group argues about this new knowledge. They blame Thor, the God of freaking Thunder, Loki's brother of sorts, for being unaware. They blame Tony Stark for the failure of his many technologies to pick up anything. They blame SHIELD for their general lack of intelligence on the matter; funny, given they are a supposed intelligence agency.

Eventually Mr. Fury demands silence and the motley crew settles down. Ellie stares at the table, not appreciating the judgment she sees in their stares.

If these are the individuals to save the world from Loki, than the human race is truly and thoroughly fucked.

"You have him, then? He's here, on this helithingy?" she summons the courage to ask. No one answers but there is no need. Their faces say it all.

"Look, I know you've been through a lot," Fury says, turning once more to the uncomfortable young woman. "But in the last few months you have been in a unique position, giving you unparalleled insight to this megalomaniac. We've gotta know the whole story, Miss Tate. We have to know what he's planning. We have to know what you know. Do you know his plan?"

She snorts. "No," she replies. "I don't know anything beyond the standard bit you saw in Germany."

The memory of that ridiculous spectacle makes Ellie cringe.

"You have no details?"

"No. I have no idea what he's going to do. Something involving ultimate power and aliens and a portal and brainwashing people."

"Yeah, we got that bit, sweetheart," Tony Stark says. "What I want to know is why he kept you around at all."

"Don't frighten the poor girl," Loki's fake brother says, regarding her with pity.

"We don't need all the details," says the overly patriotic one. "Just anything you can think of that will give us a hint about what he's planning next."

Ellie stays silent for another long moment. They don't believe her. That much is obvious, but if she had any relevant information, it'd be theirs.

"We didn't talk much," she says. Not about his freaky, crazy plans, anyway.

A murmur goes through those sitting at the table and Ellie realizes just how that statement sounds to the heroes. Their assumptions aren't all wrong, unfortunately.

"Does he know I'm here?" she asks.

"Who knows what he knows," mutters the overly patriotic one. Steve Rodgers, that's his name.

"All I know is that he's been waiting for something," Ellie says, voice quiet but commanding. "And he'll move quickly now that he has it."

"How can you be so sure he has it?" asks Nick Fury.

Ellie slowly turns her head, giving him a measured look.

"If he didn't have it we wouldn't be here," she says. Another murmur goes up around the table. "Look, I'll tell you everything that's happened. I don't think it will help much, but I'll give you the few details I have, but on one condition."

"That's not really how this works," Fury starts.

"Let's hear it," say Stark.

"I want to see him."

6 Months Earlier

On roads covered in a thick, menacing layer of ice Ellie Tate reluctantly makes her way to work.

The walk takes only fifteen minutes on summer evenings, but between the horrifying weather and her current semi-inebriated state it will take her double that tonight.

All the booze really isn't helping the situation.

She doesn't drive, hasn't driven since a similarly icy night eight years ago. Plus, she can't afford a car, even if she wanted one. She can barely make rent on her shitty studio apartment.

Thus her intoxicated trek over the fucking ice on her least favorite night of the year. Her asshole boss simply refused to give her the night off when she didn't have a reason and Ellie couldn't find the words to explain.

Eight years ago Ellie killed her fake father and now the depression is so crippling that she felt the need to down a fifth of whiskey just to face the world outside her damp, dingy apartment.

Not exactly something one says to their boss.

More than anything she wants to be in that shithole of an apartment, listening to Frank Sinatra and crying until she can't breathe, getting it all out before tomorrow when she'll go back to being her typical emotionless self.

Her fake daddy really loved the Frank Sinatra.

On every other day of the year she does an excellent job forgetting all about her past life. Thoughts of the family she used to have and the person she used to be rarely flicker through her mind, but today it proves impossible to silence her ghosts without the assistance of hard alcohol.

She rounds the corner and the club comes into view. The block is buzzing with activity, despite the weather and the early hour. Extra security is being set up for the night and although she recognizes the procedure, she can't for the life of her remember why all this is necessary.

She pauses out front, gazing up at the unnecessarily flashy sign.

Closed for a private function.

Very informative. And closed is really not the proper word choice.

This is probably why her boss is making her come in tonight. Private function usually means big spenders, and big spenders want the best.

Ellie is undoubtedly the best.

She pushes through the side door, winding her way through the dark brick hallway that leads to the dressing rooms. Out front may be all glitz and glamor, but the back of the house is simple and rundown.

She's the last one here. The rest are all dressed and ready to go.

"Whoa, Ellie," calls Jason the guitar player. He lounges in his polyester tux, tuning his instrument and sipping a beer. "You look like shit."

Ellie sends him a dark look as she peels off her many layers, dumping mittens, a coat, a scarf, and a ratty beanie on the even rattier green couch that dominates the space in the small staff room.

"Fuck you very much, Jason," Ellie replies as sweetly as possible. She plucks the beer bottle out of his hand and downs it in greedy gulps as he protests weakly.

"Drinkin' on the job today?" asks Mark the drummer with a chuckle.

Ellie shrugs, moving to her locker to get her horrible work dress.

"Gold tonight," Jason supplies helpfully as she kicks off her boots.

Ellie gives him a salute, grabs the proper dress, and slips into the bathroom to change, leaving a trail of winter clothes in her wake.

She takes the stage twenty minutes later, looking more like an emaciated Marilyn Monroe than a flapper. The theme of this particular nightclub is supposedly the roaring twenties, but the owners never seem particularly occupied with historical accuracy.

Her hair is carefully pinned and her far too tight dress shines. Dresses were so not tight in the twenties.

One of the waitresses helped Ellie with the bags under her eyes, so her face is made up perfectly with smoky eyes and a red lip. Ellie knows that this is what draws the crowd, her blond hair and blue eyes and the pleasing lines of her classically beautiful face. Proper clothes give her curves, even if it is all an illusion. Smoke and mirrors. Underneath the push up bra she has the body of a twelve-year-old boy.

A skinny one at that.

They come for the face, but she likes to think the audience sticks around for what she can do.

Ellie stumbles only slightly as she steps up to the microphone, but recovers with a smile, perfect and bright and so appallingly fake.

All this shininess is fake too but no one ever seems to notice, not that she'd want them too.

The only thing she really ever wants to do is the music.

She goes through the routine, flirting with the crowd and pretending the year is really 1923. It's all very Gatsby and opulent.

An historical representation as fake as her smiles and all the padding propping up her teeny, tiny boobs.

Although she seems engaged and charming, her mind wanders. There is so much about this job to detest, along with all the ridiculous wannabe jazz numbers she is forced to sing, most from the play Chicago.

She did manage to sneak a little Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith into the set list tonight. It is a great success.

Two months at the speakeasy and each day Ellie is surprised she managed to keep from cursing out one of the drunken patrons who leer at her and try to take her home, but this job became a financial necessity after the punk rock band she was singing with split up for reasons she didn't even bother paying attention to.

And once the music gets going it isn't so bad. She gets to sing all night, and really isn't that basically what her whole life is about?

Because singing is her one redeeming quality and her life's one joy.

Ellie takes shots with Jason in the back room between sets and by the time they are done for the night she is much drunker than she can recall being in a very long time.

In the first few years of her new life in DC this was a nightly occurrence for Ellie, getting wasted, dancing, singing, laughing, fucking, but for the most part this party girl was left behind after her twenty third birthday almost three years ago.

But eight years ago tonight her fake daddy died and it is so easy not to feel anything when she is being the party girl.

Warmed by alcohol, Ellie doesn't bother to change out of her sparkling gold dress when the night wraps up, and the DJ takes over to allow the patrons to grind against each other for a few more hours. The garment leaves far too much leg exposed, but she can barely feel the frigid winter air. She does ditch the heels for her boots because the roads are icy and she isn't a total idiot.

She loathes heels like she loathes icy roads.

After dodging a handsy Jason as she exits the back room, Ellie makes her way through the masses of people gathered at the bar. There are so many people here for a private function. Ellie never did find out who or what this party is celebrating.

Jason told her but she immediately didn't bother remembering.

Ellie greets the bartender and then waits patiently for him to count out her share of the tips for the evening. She taps out a rhythm on the glossy counter top and attempts to refrain from swaying.

She decides to take a cab home.

No way she'll be walking those icy roads in this state of intoxication.

Absently twirling a lock of blond hair around her finger, Ellie works very hard on not thinking about the man who raised her and his untimely death. It's not working. If only she had something more potent than booze to serve as a distraction.

"From what realm do you hail?"

She jumps slightly at the smoothly accented voice speaking in her ear, his breath leaving a series of goose bumps on the skin of her neck. Her turn is jerky, but when she sees the man grossly invading her personal space she smirks.

This is certainly one way not to think of the dead. It's like she summoned him, her own personal sex god to distract her.

Party girl Ellie appears to be emerging.

Rarely does she have interest in bedding random strangers these days, but something about the pale, piercing gaze and intense expression makes her want him, despite the incomprehensible things coming out of his mouth.

A lovely mouth, sculpted and serious.

His dark hair is tied back, but Ellie has a hard time further scrutinizing his appearance. He is far too tall and she is far too drunk.

Shit, he's got at least a foot on her height-wise.

"Well? Answer me," he snaps, getting even closer. His deep voice sends a shiver up her spine as he looms over her in a way that should be threatening, but Ellie simply continues to stare up at him, entranced by his strangeness and elegance. "Surely you have not lost the gift of speech in the scant few moments since retiring from the stage."

She raises an eyebrow at him, trying to place his accent as she decodes the meaning of his rushed words.

"I can talk," she says, speaking in drawn out syllables to demonstrate the truth in her words. "I just prefer not to."

The corner of his mouth twitches into a slight smile at this before his eyes narrow in suspicion once more.

"A Midgardian who prefers not to speak?" he says, continuing to loom over her. "Preposterous. Thus leading me back to my original question. From what realm do you hail?"

Losing track of his strange speech somewhere in the drunken depths of her mind, she blinks at him rapidly.

"Realm?" she finally manages, feeling sloppy and distinctly not charming.

And she wants to charm him.

Charm the pants right off him, as it were.

Fuck, his eyes are really freaking blue. Bluer than hers. And hers are pretty damn blue.

The alternative to charming his pants off is returning alone to her depressing apartment to dwell in the past, and that simply isn't an option.

Drunk as she is, Ellie remembers the appeal of the party girl. The party girl doesn't feel anything bad.

It might be the drunk goggles, but he is extraordinarily attractive.

"You have holes in your persona, pretender," he hisses, as frustrated as she. "No one truly from this pathetic realm could sing as you do. What is your intention?"

Although his demands should be as alarming as they are confusing, Ellie's reactions are altered by alcohol. The little tinkling giggle that escapes her lips appears to horrify him.

This just causes her to giggle more.

"What are you playing at here, dude?" she asks when she finally manages to compose herself. She leans heavily on the bar and tilts her amused face towards his shocked one. "Realms? Pretending? What... just, what?"

She gestures uncontrollably, attempting to remember who exactly is celebrating something here tonight. If she could remember the guest of honor it might clue her in to why such a weirdo would be attending such an event.

His eyes seem to go wild, but Ellie fails to recognize the danger there.

"Dude?" he demands, absolutely seething.

"I'm from North Carolina," she tells him. "That's my home realm, I guess. What's your name, big guy?"

"Loki."

She laughs again.

"God of Mischief. How fitting," she says.

"What do you know of it, you insipid creature?" he snaps, absolutely seething.

His absurd anger does not alarm her. Ellie just shrugs.

Thinking of the Norse legends her fake daddy once told at bedtime makes her think of him tucking her in and kissing her goodnight.

The whole point is to not think. No good comes from being alone with her thoughts.

"Not much," she confesses. "Something about you birthing a horse with too many legs and some cross dressing."

Her fake father sure told some bizarre bedtime tales. She wonders if these stories are legit myth or something her odd father figure cooked up to entertain his young daughter.

Ellie shakes her head to banish that train of thought, focusing again on the stranger before her. He grumbles under his breath and she giggles again.

"And your name, mortal? If that is even what you are."

"Ellie."

"Ellie?" he asks, horrified once more. The passion behind his response makes her laugh again while the incredulity in his gaze makes Ellie want to smooth out the furrows in his brow with her thumb. "That's appalling. I refuse to refer to you as such."

Ellie raises an eyebrow, forgetting to take offense to his rude behavior. He is so beautiful, in an otherworldly, dark way. She would gladly let him refer to her as anything.

Fuck, those cheekbones.

"Better than Loki," she mutters.

"Watch your tongue."

"You watch it." When she licks the corner of her mouth, his blue eyes go wide. "It's short for Eleanor, if that's better," she tells him as he recovers.

"Eleanor."

The way his voice seems to wrap around the syllables of her name sends another shiver up her spine. His eyes bore into her once more, and she notices for the first time that his gaze is not directed at her eyes, but her forehead.

"Yes," he says. "That is a vast improvement. Quite fitting indeed for someone with your talents."

"Oh, you like the singing, then?" she asks, slurring slightly. She berates herself for letting on the extent of her intoxication.

"Well, yes," he says as if it should be obvious. "No mortal could possibly hope to sing like you, but that is not the talent to which I was referring."

She goes back to staring blankly. Once again, he's lost her. Could he be referring to the tongue thing? If he's that impressed with a little lip licking she doesn't know if he can handle what she has planned for the two of them.

"Tell me, songbird," he says, once more invading her personally space. He speaks in her ear, lips moving against her sensitive skin. Her breathing hitches in her throat and her fingers dig into the edge of the bar. "How do you manage to keep me from skimming your thoughts?"

She says nothing, having no answer to his ever-baffling questions. Instead she ignores the strange things coming from his mouth, choosing instead to tilt her face towards his, dragging her nose along his chiseled jaw.

A strange move, no doubt, but Ellie decides it's fitting because he is strange and she is drunk. She wants him, and when it comes to men and her bed, she never fails to get what she wants.

Probably not a good thing, but it usually serves to make her forget she's so lonely.

He smells divine, the way divinity would smell if it had a smell. He's crisp and clean and somehow dangerous. The way danger would smell if it had a smell.

Sober, grown-up Ellie is whispering in the back of her mind, but the party girl is winning. She wants the danger, wants the distraction, wants this strange, tall, beautiful man in a way that is certainly not rational or wise.

She glances up at him from under thick, long eyelashes, chin pointed towards her chest. This particular look has yet to fail her. For the first time he meets her blue gaze instead of staring determinedly at her forehead. She notices and smirks because this is really so easy, without even really knowing what he's blathering about.

Even if it's been awhile.

"How do you keep me out of your head?" he repeats.

"Oh don't you worry, my friend," she purrs, pressing her body into his. "You're not out of my head. Quite the opposite, actually."

He stares long and hard, a myriad of emotions appearing and disappearing in those kinda-freaky eyes of his. Ellie has little patience for his apparent hesitancy.

"Come on," she says, tugging on his elbow. He is solid and strong, but after a moment he takes a step with her towards the door. "Let me buy you a drink, somewhere I don't work."

She doesn't buy him a drink.

Instead she pours him one at her dark, damp apartment. She can afford no better and has no desire to take a roommate to share the burden of rent.

Loki surveys the hole in the wall that passes for her home, with its peeling wallpaper, threadbare carpets, and folding chair furniture with disgust, but Ellie can't find it in her to feel shame.

She can't find it in her to feel much of anything at all, except a tickling of desire for the man scrutinizing her living space, and a need to forget, just for a little while.

"This is repugnant," he declares, but Ellie isn't offended easily.

She chuckles at his candor and nods because it is really a very shitty apartment. Busying herself with the corkscrew, she watches him look around in horror.

"How is it that an elegant creature with such talent resides in a place like this?" he asks, looming over her once more as she hands him the wine. "Part of her cover, perhaps?"

For one terrible moment she thinks that he knows who she used to be, that he is connected somehow with her old life. She feels all the alcohol consumed earlier curdle in her stomach at the thought of her fake mother finding her. When she disappeared into the city she started fresh, but when he calls her pretender she feels the burn.

Isn't that what she's doing here tonight with him? Pretending that she didn't kill her fake father?

Logic wins in the end.

He doesn't know her story, nor does he care to. His questions continue to baffle her, but she ignores them, choosing instead to go about the business of forgetting for just one night.

You are a stupid, stupid, fucked up woman, whispers sober, grown up Ellie.

"No cover," she murmurs, gulping down more wine than is wise or necessary. "What you see is what you get."

She sloshes a little and Loki smiles a sinister smile, watching her with those piercing eyes. The color is so strange, a pale blue that seems to swirl in the crappy lighting of her even crappier apartment.

Surely that is a side effect of her drunk.

She wonders for a moment if it was really wise to bring such an odd man back to her home. He could murder her in her sleep.

The thought doesn't scare her nearly as much as it should.

"Come now, songbird," he says, his large hand curling around her throat. He pushes his thumb into the soft flesh under her chin, making her look him right in the eye. She's never seen anything so terrible and so beautiful. "That is the case exactly never."

"Well, you would know," she manages as his grip tightens slightly. "You are the God of Lying and all that."

She can't remember if that title is part of the actual Norse mythology or not. Her father's stories were always a little bit off from legend, not that she's thought about all this in years.

Damn, all the booze is making her chatty.

His grin falters. He drops his hand and swirls the liquid in the glass. With great trepidation he brings the wine to his lips, taking a sip. There is no grimace, so Ellie assumes her alcohol meets his expectations, even if her apartment does not.

They both slip into silence for a moment. The concentration of his gaze should be uncomfortable, but Ellie is too distracted by his cheekbones to care much.

"I will discover your intentions, pretender," he whispers. The words are deathly serious and a shiver runs up Ellie's spine; desire or fear, she can't tell.

She finishes her wine, sets the glass on a crate next to her one easy chair, and slowly approaches him. He seems to watch every part of her all at once, and with unprecedented intensity. She stops with mere inches separating their bodies, placing a hand over his heart, surprised at its rapid fluttering. She expected something more like a base drum, but is instead met with a butterfly flapping its delicate little wings. He tenses under her palm, and for the first time she sees something dangerously close to fear in his eyes.

Tilting her chin to her chest and staring up at him with large, bright eyes, she gives him that look, the one that's never failed her.

"My dear God of Mischief," she murmurs, letting her hand trail down his chest, pausing for a moment at his belt buckle before reaching her destination. She palms him, satisfied to feel him half hard and to see his eyes go wide. "I believe my intentions are perfectly clear."

His sharp little intake of breath makes her pulse quicken. The way he hunches his shoulders and leans down allows her to stretch up on her toes and kiss the corner of his mouth. It's slow and sweet and painfully chaste, but holds promises for so much more.

He is cooler than she expected. Not cold exactly, no more than a few degrees off but enough to be noticeable. Chilly. His skin is chilly. Like his eyes.

Maybe this is just another side effect of her drunk. Or maybe this is the result of keeping her thermostat as low as possible to save a few bucks on the electric every month.

He blinks down at her, apparently confused by her sudden tender demonstration. She smiles and kisses him again, this time fully on the mouth.

Despite all her showy confidence when she kisses him her cold, dead heart lurches in a way that terrifies her. His hesitance is shockingly endearing, but when he finally opens to her she wonders what she's getting herself into here.

Surely, this feels like more than a one night stand in the worst possible way.

But then Loki's hand once more wraps around the delicate column of her neck, his thumb caressing her collarbone this time. He deepens the kiss, makes it almost brutal but also so good it steals both her balance and breath.

And Ellie forgets.

All plans to control the encounter the way she usually would leave her mind. He kisses her in a way that makes her lose sense of self. Her world narrows to the one place where his lips touch hers. He caresses her and the world gets a little bigger, expanding to include the skin under his hands and the aching between her legs.

She reaches out to grab his hips for balance and sinks her teeth into his lower lip. A low moan rumbles in his throat and he pulls her a little closer, his hand on the small of her back. His fingertips dig into the shimmering gold fabric of her ridiculously unflappery dress, but he seems content to just kiss her into oblivion.

She gets impatient, pushing the black jacket from his shoulders. He doesn't seem to notice when she yanks off his dark green scarf, nor when her fingers work the buttons of his shirt and pull at his tie.

Ellie rests her palm over his heart once more, marveling at the way his cool skin seems to set her on fire, and he stops, his whole body held still. She lets out a little whimper at the loss, pouting at him as he straightens to his full, intimidating height. Her hand stays on his chest.

He has hate in his eyes now, and she cannot fathom what she could have possibly done to put it there.

An insane urge to offer comfort blooms in her and she has to stifle the soothing words on the tip of her tongue.

Studying him intently, she can almost pinpoint the exact moment he withdraws. He seems to retreat into himself, leaving something angry and suspicious in his eyes.

Pulling on the mask. Ellie would know. She basically lives in the fucking mask.

"What game are you playing here, she devil?" he asks. The low whisper makes her shiver again, but this time Ellie knows it's from fear.

She just shakes her head, not having the words to properly express her confusion or her dismay at the loss of his passionate kisses.

With a growl of absolute rage he grabs the tops of her arms, pushing her backwards into the dresser in the bedroom portion of her small studio apartment. She winces when the wood digs into her back, but says nothing. Not even a squeak of fear escapes her lips.

She's not nearly as afraid as she should be. Fear would be a welcome feeling. It's been so long since she was anything but apathetic.

Today is the one day she can't drown out the crushing depression and she can't stand it, the pain driving her once more to do something stupid crazy.

Again.

Eight years have changed nothing.

Ellie does not beg. Ellie does not plead or offer an explanation. The word "stop" is certainly never uttered, even as his hands dig into her hips hard enough to leave bruises. She doesn't even wince.

He hoists her on top of the dresser, and she does nothing but stare at him, cocking her head to the side as she tries to figure him out. She's gone silent again as her drunken mind attempts to comprehend this startling switch.

Where did his glass of wine go? Did the glass just disappear?

"You prefer not to speak, pretender?" he hisses, hate and poison spitting with every syllable. "So be it. There are ways to ensure you spill every last secret."

What secret? She has none that would concern him. He can do his worst. He'll get nothing from her that matters.

Nothing about her matters.

Her eyes go wide once more as he violently pushes up the hem of her dress and rips her black thong clear off her body.

Although her mouth pops open in shock, she manages to stay silent until his fingers are between her legs. They are talented and a degree too chilly, but Ellie cries out as she arches to get closer, needing more. He works her for a moment, movements sure and firm. Teeth sink into the junction of her neck and shoulder, making her moan and push closer.

He moves his hand slowly, fingers curling in a way that has her hips jerking.

This time when she lets out a groan it's born of frustration as much as lust.

It's absolute torture, the way he gets her so close but then backs off at the last possible moment. Time gets lost and it feels like an eternity of his teasing. Ellie is on the verge of tears in her frustration.

And it seems to go on for days.

She'd kill him for doing this to her if she didn't need him so much.

"Please," she says weakly. Her head falls forward onto his shoulder and he pulls her hips to the edge of the dresser.

"From where do you hail?" he asks, sounding perfectly unaffected, as if he is discussing the weather with acquaintances over coffee.

"Wha—"

He withdraws his hand completely, wiping his fingers on her work dress. She whimpers, wanting what he continues to deny her so badly her bones hurt.

"From what realm do you hail?" he repeats, an edge to his voice now.

"I don't…" she stutters. "I don't understand. North Carolina. I'm from Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Please."

Nothing important, whispers her last rational thought. Give him nothing that matters.

Truth spills from her lips, but unimportant truth.

The man called Loki slams her head into the wall behind the dresser with his hand on her neck, but she doesn't feel it with the rest of her body burning.

"Tell. The. Truth," he hisses.

Her eyes narrow as the first hints of real anger trickle into her frazzled, desperate consciousness.

"Born and raised," she insists, daring him to ask again with her tone. She glares at him like no one has ever glared before.

For a fraction of a second his grip on her neck tightens and she is well and truly scared. She feels extreme fear for the first time in this bizarre encounter, but doesn't have long to process it because she can breathe again and he's somehow inside her, so deep she cries out from that glorious combination of pleasure and pain.

Ellie shudders around him, throwing her head back and attempting to move closer. With strong hands he pins her hips to the smooth surface of her dresser, coaxing a desperate mewling from her throat.

He stays so still inside her, causing Ellie's desperation to get that much stronger.

"Who are you?"

"Move," she answers with a slight growl, nails digging into his arms and legs locking around his waist. It's no good. She's too tiny and he's too strong.

One hard thrust and he withdraws completely. She whimpers and curses him under her breath. The sheen of sweat on her body does nothing to cool her down. The overwhelming need she feels in this moment hurts. It's like nothing she's ever experienced, and before tonight she thought she'd done it all.

She tries to shut down, to pull on a mask of her own, to keep her body from wanting, but it's no use. He's stoked such a need in her. Later the strength of her reaction to his cruel touch will scare her, but for now she can't do anything but want and need and burn.

Oh, how she hates him.

"Again and for the last time," he says, voice low and deadly now. Loki grabs her face with more force than necessary, waiting for her to open her eyes and look at him. "Who are you?"

"Ellie!" she says with an anguished cry, not understanding anything. Tears dampen her cheeks. "I'm Eleanor Marie Tate. Please!"

She is totally broken and distraught. Everything hurts, she wants so much.

Her honesty and earnestness is rewarded with another ruthless thrust. She hovers on the edge, hating him for denying her this.

"What are you?"

"What?" she screams. Her body is so tightly wound it is painful and still he keeps her hips pinned, motionless as he hovers against her entrance. She can feel him there, so close, taunting her, tormenting her.

"What are you!" he booms. Ellie sees something in his eyes again, something almost like fear. For a moment they appear green. It was how he looked when she kissed the corner of his mouth. "What do you want?"

"I'm Ellie!" she says, her voice a strangled whimper. Her fingernails dig into his forearms. "I'm just some girl."

A long, painful pause.

"And what do you want?" he hisses.

"You."

The simple word is spoken with such conviction, and the strange man before her seems to crumble. He hauls her once more into his arms, staggering the few feet to her twin bed in the corner. All four of her limbs squeeze him as he falls forward, laying her down in a way that would have been gentle if it weren't for his behavior moments before.

He doesn't look at her and he doesn't kiss her, even as he starts to move inside her, steady and deep. She hitches her legs higher on his hips and he groans. She lets out a relieved sob as he finally lets her push back.

When he moves, she moves, setting a rhythm that is punishing and perfect.

An arm comes around her lower back, pulling her closer and tilting her hips at an angle that has her crying out again.

She wants to see his face, but instead she closes her eyes and surrenders her body to the infuriating, baffling, and terrifying stranger inside her.

The noises and feelings he coaxes from her are foreign, despite her plethora of experience, but really she has nothing to compare it too. Nothing has been like this.

She doesn't like it, but in this moment she needs it.

She doesn't last long, nor did she expect to, given how he tormented her. He follows soon after, letting out an unearthly cry that Ellie finds almost as beautiful as his unearthly face.

For a moment her mind is blissfully blank. Her body continues to shudder and shake with lingering pleasure, his full weight cocooning her small frame.

But far too soon she comes back to herself and panic claws at her throat.

What the fuck was that?

The man who claims to be the God of Mischief seems perfectly content to just lie there suffocating her all night, and Ellie shoves at his shoulders with as much force as her weak, exhausted, somewhat traumatized body can muster.

He is so much stronger than her. He might be so much stronger than anyone. That much is apparent from their little encounter.

He stirs and seems to just notice her presence trapped under him. Taking far more time than Ellie would like, he pushes his long body off and away from hers. He ends up kneeling at the end of her bed, his expression unfathomable.

She sits up too, not even bothering to tug her dress down. From the waist up she looks perfectly normal, as if she just stepped off the stage, but all the exposed flesh below the waist tells a very different story.

She stares at him for a long moment, waiting for anything that could possibly clarify his actions, but gets nothing. He looks at his hands.

Everything that just happened – the way he grabbed her neck and controlled her mobility and manipulated her traitorous body and made her say things, made her need him – it all freaks her out.

An instrument and her voice. That's all Ellie has needed in a long time. She won't let that change now.

Without really thinking about the wisdom of provoking the obviously disturbed man in her bed, Ellie wheels back and slaps him across the face with enough force to send his head snapping to the side.

Her palm burns, but she hides her wince behind a death glare.

For a moment the whole world stops as fury blazes in his eyes, but then his features shift into a cocky, mischievous smirk, as if it was all one big game.

He gets up and turns on his heel, bending to pick up his jacket in the middle of the room without even stopping his forward motion towards the exit as he fixes his pants.

She jumps when he slams the door behind him and slowly slides down off the bed and onto the floor, pulling her legs to her chin. She sits in dismayed silence for a long time. The shakes come and Ellie finds it impossible to get warm.

It's the same. Exactly the same. Eight years later and nothing has changed. She got sad and low and made a terrible decision, but there was no fake daddy to call this time. He's gone and Ellie is disturbingly the same with the exception of a self-loathing that's done nothing but multiply tenfold since his death.

She stares at the door and can't get warm.

He forgot his scarf. It sits just where she left it in the middle of her depressing room on her grey, thin, suspiciously stained carpet.

When Ellie regains enough feeling in her legs she approaches the remaining evidence of their encounter with great caution. She circles the item, but leaves it there, not wanting to touch it.

I have no idea what I am doing. What is even happening here? A non E/B fanfic? The horror.

So you can blame my dear friend bryan33 for this. When I first starting writing this last December I'd seen the Avengers once and that's it. Little Miss Bryan badgered me into enabling her Loki obsession (inadvertently starting my own Loki obsession) and here we are.

I have no knowledge of the comics or the mythology or any of that so please don't be cranky when this is all wrong. We are firmly in movie land here and I've taken quite a few liberties.

Writing an original character has been pretty fun.

I own absolutely nothing.

And I really hope you like this.

Big thanks to my lovely betas!

1st beta: Heather

Final beta: Erica