Chapter Text
Winter in Oslo is just about as far from New Mexico as you can get. Jane’s been here for 10 days now and every one of them has been a subzero mess despite what feels like almost constant sunlight. It’s disconcerting and the cognitive dissonance is fucking with Jane’s sleep schedule and the translator provided by the Odinson Foundation is not being cooperative. Which is why Jane’s being so testy.
The translator grits her teeth in the loosest approximation of a smile. “If Dr. Foster will permit me, once again I fear there is no direct translation for that particular phrase. Perhaps there is another way to express that?”
Jane deserves a medal for courage under fire for refusing to bang her head on the table. “No, I don’t think so. If the Oslo Observatory wants to flagrantly disregard standard reporting practices in favor of slapping together a half-researched report, then the only expression that fits ‘I’ve got an army of taser-wielding interns that say otherwise.’”
The translator sighs, considers, and begins speaking in a tone that’s far too polite to actually be relating Jane’s words. The army of suits on the other side of the conference table nod sagely. There is not a single outraged face among them. Dammit.
Jane’s exaggerating, but not by that much. These days she does have an army of interns, assistants, and grant-funding partners dodging in and around her lab. The new lab, she should say, a converted building in the heart of town where the Piggly Wiggly used to be. Surely some of them must own tasers.
She wonders what the lab crew is up to right now. She wonders what time it is in Puente Antiguo. She tries to count backwards to find out, but realizes she has no idea what time it is here and gives up. One of the army of suits speaks rapidly and the translator winces. Jane sits up.
“It would appear,” the translator relays, “that there has been a miscommunication about the preferred documentation style for this branch’s results. Apparently, the lab crew has been using national reporting standards—“
“But the foundation clearly stated that EU measures would ensure wider publishing possibilities—“ Jane’s rant gets cut off by the whoosh of doors being flung open.
“Oh dear,” says a too-familiar voice, “still talking to the Observatoriets Venner crew? You’re behind schedule, Miss Foster.” Jane keeps her eyes trained on the now truly flustered translator.
“It’s Dr. Foster, actually,” she replies, shuffling her notes. “And we’re booked for general review for another 45 minutes.” She has no idea if that’s true. She hopes so.
Jane feels him brush behind her, a perfectly careless hand lighting briefly on the back of her chair, skating her neck. Jane twitches and hates herself for it.
Loki Odinson slides into the seat next to, oh come on, the blushing translator. He asks her something in Norwegian and she responds, tucking her hair behind one ear. Jane consciously does not roll her eyes. She shoots a grim smile at the row of suits, now shifting uneasily and murmuring to each other. The only thing Jane wants at this exact moment is to go back to her hotel room, pull the black-out shades, and try to grab an hour or two of sleep.
Next to her, Loki says something that makes the translator giggle, a soft breathy sound.
Okay, maybe not the only thing.
To Jane’s amazement, the translator picks up her bag, says something Jane is incredibly glad she doesn’t understand, and leaves the conference room, a spring in her step. Jane glares at Loki. “I simply told her,” he says, sly and arrogant and in the same room as Jane for the first time in months, “that as I am fluent in both languages necessary for this meeting, she was much better off heading home early.” He shoots his damn cuffs, utterly detatched. “Although I will say she was rather explicit about what she intended to do once she returned to her apartment.”
Jane thinks back to the pep talk she gave herself this morning. She stared straight into the mirror and promised herself that she was a professional, fully capable of maintaining a cordial working relationship with the head of a charitable foundation supporting her work. She closes her eyes against the memory of his fingers between her legs. “How nice for her,” she says before smiling at the suits. “Would you please inform these gentlemen that as per the foundation by-laws, all reporting standards must be EU compliant, which in this case involves several additional metrics to track?” After a moment of silence, she glances at Loki.
He’s considering her carefully. “You look awful," he states, blunt and unconcerned. “When was the last time you slept?”
Jane wants to snap none of your business, but instead says, “I’m not sure. What’s today?”
Loki narrows his eyes. One of the suits says something and Jane sighs, ready to do battle over data management once again. But before she can say anything, Loki begins addressing the suits.
His tone is kind and colloquial. It’s full of warm and humor and a little wry amusement. To Jane’s ear, he might as well be narrating a children’s book full of good fairies and happy woodcutters. The effect on the suits, however, disproves that theory. To a man, the blood drains out of their face. One on the far right looks about thirty seconds from fainting. Jane is just about to tell Loki to knock it off when the suit who speaks the most, the Alpha Suit to Jane’s mind, leaps out of his chair, shouting and gesturing madly at Loki, at Jane, at the city displayed outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. After finishing, he stalks from the room, followed at intervals by the remainder of the army.
When Loki and Jane are alone in the cavernous room, the only sound Jane can hear is the distant echo of the street far below. “I’m sure that wasn’t called for,” she says, avoiding his gaze.
Loki shrugs. “Perhaps. In any event, I believe you’ll find you have no further difficulties in communication your desires to those, as you said, gentlemen.”
Jane huffs out a sigh. “They’re not my desires. They’re internationally recognized templates for data—“
“Besides,” he continues, rising to pace toward the windows. “You have more important agenda items for this afternoon.”
Jane rocks back in her chair. “’Hello Jane, how are you,’” she mimics. “Fine, thanks, and yourself?’”
Loki spins around from his place in front of the window. “Are you genuinely upset over the lack of small talk? Very well.” He paints on a honeyed smile. “Are you well, Dr. Foster? My brother and his wife send their regards. Two nights ago, I woke from a dream about your mouth on my prick and soiled my sheets like a schoolboy.” Wretched, desperate heat floods Jane, making her shoulders tense and her hands clench. Loki lifts an eyebrow. “Surely we are beyond pleasantries.”
Jane cannot stop looking at Loki, although she’s coming to the realization that that’s counterproductive to her entire be professional ethos. “Loki,” she breathes, then clears her throat. “I’m really trying here,” she attempts, then breaks off. “I mean, I want us to be able to work well together.” Jane can hear her voice going high and earnest. “I mean, with the foundation and all, you’re kind of my boss and—“
Jane recognizes her mistake almost before Loki does. Everything in him zeros in on her, all attention directed square at what she’s just said. “Obviously, that’s not true, of course,” she blurts, far too late. “You’re not actually—“
“Your boss.” Loki hisses the final syllable a touch too long. “Naturally.” He plucks a quartered piece of paper from an inner pocket of his jacket. “And as I’m only your primary and, indeed, only funding party, I have absolutely no control over your media relations." He flicks his fingers and the paper disappears, reappears. With a sudden sick realization, Jane feels herself get wet. Over slight of hand parlor tricks. "Then naturally, this press release statement is merely a guideline for your remarks this afternoon.”
Jane willfully ignores the tension radiating through Loki and says, “I’m not scheduled to make any statements.”
“How odd,” Loki all but purrs. “My itinerary says you have an interview scheduled with the Oslo Times in—,” he checks his watch, “ten minutes.”
Jane bolts to her feet. “What!?” She glances down at her rumpled shirt and pencil skirt. “I’m not dressed for the press, I can’t—“
Loki waves a hand. “To be conducted entirely over the phone. Really, that assistant of yours should have informed you.”
Jane glowers. “My assistant resigned three weeks ago.” She doesn’t like admitting that. It’s her fourth in as many months.
Loki flicks the square at Jane, who catches it in both hands. “Shameful.” He shrugs off his suit jacket. “These young men have no stamina.”
Jane unfolds the paper and scans the first paragraph. “’Without the Odinson Foundation and the boundless generosity of Loki Odins’—I’m not saying this.” She looks up from the page, but Loki has been too quick for her. He’s already behind her, one hand coasting over her shoulder. Jane arches into his palm and wishes she hadn’t. “This is overwrought, to say the least. And I haven’t been briefed on any of the other branches talking to the press.”
Loki’s hand drifts from her shoulder down her back. It toys with the waistband of her skirt. “I assure you that they will all be releasing similar statements in short order.” Jane feels his mouth at the base of her neck. “Although none with such delightful incentive.”
God, she’d forgotten how hot his mouth felt. “What does that mean?”
Gripping one arm, Loki spins her around and pushes her down, back flat on the conference table. “I’ve given the reporter your mobile number,” he says, one hand unbuttoning her blouse, the other rucking up her skirt. “She’s been instructed to record the conversation for the Times’ new podcast segment on women in the sciences.” Jane reaches for Loki’s belt, but he pushes her hands away. “With that in mind, you’ll want to read what I’ve given you loudly and clearly, so everyone who listens will understand what you’re saying.”
“Fuck what you’ve given me.” Jane struggles against him and Loki bends at the waist, drops his forehead to her shoulder, shuddering. “I’m not reading your manifesto on how great you are.”
Loki slips two clever fingers under the lace band of her underwear.
(Did she pack only her nice underwear for the trip to Oslo? Maybe, maybe not, maybe not consciously, maybe it’s the only thing she thought about. Maybe multiverses exist and complicate the hell out of everything.)
“If you can still speak in ten minutes, hespetreet, I will be very disappointed in myself.”
Loki proceeds to spend the next ten minutes of his life thoroughly, methodically taking Jane to pieces, with his hands between her legs and his teeth at her throat. At least Jane assumes it’s ten minutes. The way he’s teasing her, stringing it out it feels like hours.
When she’s finally close, so close she can feel her back arching, her phone begins to ring. “You’ll want to get that,” Loki gasps and thank fuck he sounds as wrecked as she feels. “It’s the future of my foundation on the line.”
Jane curses him out as colorfully as she can, but she answers her phone.
Marta Aadland with the Oslo Times is clipped and cool on the phone. “I understand,” she says in perfect, bell-like English, “that you have a statement prepared?”
Jane can barely remember her own name. “I—I, umm, I guess—“ Without warning, something small and crumpled in pushed into her open palm. Jane grits her teeth as she fumbles it open. “There is a prepared statement, if you’ll just give me a moment.”
“Dr. Foster, are you all right?” Marta Aadland from the Oslo Times sounds concerned.
“Jet lag,” Jane gasps as Loki twists his fingers. “It’s a killer, let me tell you.”
"I-ah- sorry, I just. Um--"
"Se på deg," Loki says, full volume, totally audible by anyone in a 50 foot radius. "Du desperat ting. Du bør alltid være dette, ødelagt og vakker."
Ms. Aadland asks, "Is there someone else on the line?"
"No," Jane grunts, fisting her hand in Loki's hair, too tight. He hisses sharply, his back arching in one smooth curve. She shoves once, hard, and Loki jerks down her body, his breath hitching oddly.
From somewhere around her hips, Loki noses at her skirt. "Tell her, Dr. Foster," he says, pushing the hem up her thighs. "Tell her whose words are in your mouth, whose mouth is--"
Jane jerks the end of the phone away from her. "You're bluffing." He won't. He doesn't--
There’s a pause before Ms. Aadland clears her throat. “The statement?”
Jane brings the paper in front of her face, the page trembling slightly. “’Without the Odinson Foundation and the boundless generosity of Loki Odinson, I wouldn’t be speaking to you today.” From somewhere around her bellybutton, Loki hisses roughly and bites down, teeth sharp on her skin. “In fact, without Loki Odinson, none of my work would have been possible.” Another louder hiss, and Jane feels Loki’s teeth on the lace of her underwear, tugging down before sliding up and up and oh God, up. Jane yelps.
“Dr. Foster?” Ms. Aandland sounds a touch irritated this time. “Are you certain you’re able to continue?”
With hands cupping her things, Loki stares up at Jane. She clutches the phone tighter. “Yes,” she says, “yes, I’m perfectly able to continue.”
It's--oh God, Jane can't think straight. Softly, so softly, and then. And then. Loki apparently decides that a thing worth doing, no matter how new, is a thing worth doing well and that's the last of Jane's cognitive reasoning skills for a while.
In the end, Jane has no idea what she actually says. Things like “visionary” and “revolutionary” and “Renaissance patron.” At one point, she thinks she hears the phrase “genuinely selfless individual” escape her, but that’s the same moment Loki latches his mouth over her clit and begins to suck in earnest. If the representative of one of the most influential English-language periodicals in the region notices Jane’s propensity to gasp and stumble over sentences, she’s too professional to remark on it. Finally, after what feels like ages, Ms. Aandland thanks Jane for her time and Jane has exactly enough wherewithal to thank her in return before pitching the phone across the room.
Loki lifts his head from between Jane’s thighs. “Look at you,” he murmurs, fingers replacing lips against her. Jane keens with the changed sensation. “Spread out for me, singing my praises for the world to hear.” Jane isn’t sure Loki knows he’s speaking out loud. “Anyone could look through those windows and see you like this, hjelpeløs og perfekt.”
The thought of someone seeing them making her hips buck, shame and lust coursing through her. She rallys enough to say, “Tomorrow I am retracting that entire statement.” Her back arches as Loki drives his hand into her faster, surer.
“Liar,” he says, plucking at her breast. “Wanton. Elsking.” He puts his lips next to Jane’s, licks at her panting mouth. “Mine.”
“Never.” So close, she’s so fucking close.
Loki rips at his trousers and is inside her in a moment. “Tell me you missed me.” He sets a punishing rhythm. “Tell me you longed for me.”
Jane grinds herself up and up against him. “No,” she hisses, writhing with feeling.
“Tell me you are lost without my hands on you.” Loki’s thrusts are stuttering, becoming less measured, less confident. “That you think of me whenever you reference Heisenberg in your tedious papers.”
To Jane’s dismay, she snaps at the mention of Heisenberg, her body bowing under Loki, her pleasure condensing the known universe down to a single point before exploding outwards. Above her Loki groans, rides out her climax, his hands gripping painfully on her hips. “Loki.” Jane all but sighs his name, too sated for embarrassment.
“Tell me,” Loki grits out, “tell me that you dream of me as well.”
Jane presses her mouth to his ear, her nails digging deep into his back. “Never once,” she lies and Loki moans aloud as he comes, his face pushed hard into her neck.
Jane drags in one deep breath, then another. Eventually, Loki rolls to one side, banding his arms around her waist so that she follows, nesting against his chest. Jane fingers his tie. “How long have you had that press statement ready?”
Loki snorts. “Months. I had the bones of it down before the foundation was approved for non-profit status.”
Jane hums. “That’s what I thought,” she says. Six inches away, a letter opener gleams, steel and shining in the midday sun. Jane rolls hard, seizes the blade, and straddles Loki. He looks up at her, sex-blurred and curious. Jane hefts the blade. “That was the last time,” she says, “that you ever tell me what I can or cannot say about my work.”
With one smooth motion, Jane stabs the letter opener down. She doesn’t miss, not by an inch. When Loki opens his eyes, he finds his expensive silk tie has been pined to the polished oak tabletop, a hands-breath away from his throat. “You cannot be serious,” he says, trying to sit up and gagging himself. Jane sighs to herself, content and satisfied.
“I really, really am,” she remarks, sliding off the table and smoothing down her skirt. Once she has rearranged her hair and blouse, and listened to Loki quietly choke attempting to free himself, she gathers her notes, neatening them with several brisk strikes against the table. “If you ever try to pull a stunt like that again,” she whispers, leaning over a struggling Loki, “I’ll leak the lab’s outlying data to Erik, who’ll have no trouble finding a publisher.” Loki snarls at her, but can’t quite form words. “And just so you know, after my last two publications, academia would take me in with open arms. You’re the only one with something to lose here.” She pats his cheek. “Try to remember that.”
Loki lets loose a string of Norwegian, none of which sounds particularly flattering to Jane. She tskes. “Manners,” she says, grinning. “I’ll see you at the next board meeting?” She nearly skips out of the conference room.
On her way out, she tells a janitor Mr. Odinson has requested he be undisturbed for another half an hour. “After all, he’s an important man,” she confides, guileless and sweet. “He’s done so much for us already, surely we can spare him this.” At the reception desk, Jane plucks a single freshly sharpened pencil from a cluster and scribbles a note, the only phrase in Norwegian she's learned by heart.
Heisenberg kan kysse meg i ræva
"For Mr. Odinson, when he's finished in the conference room," she says, tying it around the pencil in a rough bow.
She takes the rest of the pencils with her when she leaves.
-fin-