The apartment is dim, lit only by a few amber lamps and the soft flicker of candles she’d lit without ceremony—just a quiet ritual of hers, like all the others. Her silhouette moved across the room, long hair now let down from whatever elegant trap had held it all day, rings clicking lightly on the ceramic dish where she dropped them, one by one. Every action slow. Unbothered. Comfortable in her own skin in a way that Loki had never been.

She always changed into something soft and pretty before bed—not lingerie, never baiting—but intentional. There was thought in the way she existed, from the ribbons she tied in her hair to the bracelets she layered on, to the books left dog-eared on the nightstand in case she couldn’t sleep. She moved like someone who knew herself—and that alone made him ache.

Loki sat curled on her bed, legs drawn up, still in his black shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbow. He’d been watching her for minutes now, unmoving. Something in his chest clawed at the sight of her—how calmly she peeled herself out of the day like it hadn’t left bruises. How she never snapped, never shattered, not even when he did.

He should be used to her quiet grace by now. He wasn’t.

His past had left him shredded—raised on golden lies, fed on the scraps of borrowed love. Odin’s second son but never truly his, a Jötunn in disguise, hidden beneath Asgard’s crown like a shameful jewel. Even Frigga’s gentleness hadn’t been enough to quiet the storm in him once he learned what he was. Then came the war. The fall. The cell. The mockery. New York. The blood. The void of space. The silence.

Midgard had not been his refuge. She had.

She, with her endless patience. With her rings she slipped onto his fingers when he couldn’t stop shaking. With her way of dancing with him in the kitchen just to distract him from a spiral. With the way she kissed the inside of his wrist and never asked for anything in return—not even the truth. She never lied. Never promised him more than what she gave. And still, she made him feel so seen it was suffocating.

She kissed his hands like he was made of something precious, something sacred. She smiled at him like she knew him, even when he couldn’t find his own reflection in the mirror. But she never faltered. Never flustered. Never let him crack her open the way he wanted.

And gods—he wanted.

He wanted her to bleed emotion. To snap. To need. Not just tend to him, not just withstand him, but fall, visibly, vulnerably, as he had fallen for her.

But she didn’t. She laid out her feelings like velvet over stone—gentle, beautiful, but immovable. And he? He was unraveling slowly in the wake of her constancy.

As she sat at her vanity and unfastened a final bracelet, he spoke—his voice low, careful, like something sharp that might break the stillness of the room.

His eyes shimmered in the candlelight. Not from magic, but from emotion he could no longer contain.

"Do I even touch you, or am I just the thing you dress in gold to keep warm when you're lonely?"

And there it was—the awful truth beneath his voice: He wanted her so badly it hurt. Not just her body, but her, the real her, the one behind the careful eyes and endless grace. The her who never crumbled, never asked anything of him, never let him feel needed. And oh, how he needed to feel needed.

He was hers. Utterly. But the fortress she lived behind made him feel like a prince kept outside the gates—adored, but never allowed in.

He blinked back the tears before they could fall, and when she turned to him, he was already looking away. Still pretending not to be breaking.