Prompt from @Divine_Pandora(ao3 user): Now that Loki isaware of the fact that he treated her badly, I now want to see him try to winher back over by showing that he would be a better boyfriend than Henry. If youdecide to use this prompt then bonus points if it completely backfires.

A/N: I had a lot of similar prompts to this one, so here it is! thank you all so much for still sending in prompts, i'm always checking for more so keep sending them in! i hope you enjoy this chapter<3

...

The next morning when you arrive at work there's a coffee waiting for you on your desk next to the huge bouquet of flowers. An apology.

It makes you smile. A real smile: more real than the one you'd given Henry when he'd presented you with the bouquet.

You don't see Loki for the next few days, but the coffees continue to find their way on to your desk every morning, so you know that he's alright. And apologetic.

By the fourth day you're planning on knocking on his door in the evening if you don't see him around. You want to talk to him; it's all you can think about. This, Henry has noticed.

"What's the deal with you and Lokus?" he had asked you two nights ago.

"You mean Loki?" you reply, holding back a smile.

"Yeah. Greasy dude who tried to blow up New York."

You roll your eyes.

"He didn't – and anyway, there's no 'deal'." you say firmly.

"Uh, he did. And there clearly is. You keep defending him, and he's always making eyes at you."

"He does not make eyes at me." you protest, rolling your eyes.

"Does." Henry mumbles under his breath. You look up at him and smile, poking him.

"You jealous?"

"Is there reason for me to be?" he asks you seriously.

"I'm joking." you sigh, looking away again.

Henry is nice, and smart, and funny, but he can be quite uptight when it comes to your relationship. You're not a fan of it.

It's about ten past one before you finally spot Loki. He walks past your office without so much as a sideways glance through the door, and it immediately occurs to you that something's happened.

You give it about a minute before poking your head around the side of the door to look down the empty corridor, before then walking in the direction he had been heading. You don't have to search long before finding him.

He's sat behind a desk in a fairly empty, unoccupied office two doors down from yours, and looks up as you appear in the doorway.

"Hi." you say, a smile fighting its way on to your face just at the sight of him. You've missed him, you realise.

"Hello." he replies.

"Thanks for the coffee."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Your smile turns into a full blown grin, and he smiles too as he looks up.

"So...?" you prompt, moving into the office and sitting down in the chair opposite him. It's the first time you've sat this way around, with him behind the desk.

"So... what?" he replies.

"You can't just disappear for four days and then rock up and say, 'so what?' to me." you tell him sternly. He smiles briefly again.

"It looks to me as though I just have."

You just look at him, your gaze half humorous, half serious. He sets his jaw, as though he's bracing himself for something unpleasant. Your suspicion that something is wrong grows.

"Fury got wind of Amber and I breaking up from Amber's father, who is a retired SHIELD agent. Quite influential. Apparently she, Amber, was quite upset. Fury said that I should have shown more respect and that he would have to 'discipline' me. So..." he finishes, mimicking your tone from earlier.

"So... what?" you reply, mimicking his previous tone; trying to cover your anxiety. He looks at you, and then looks at the door, which you had left half open.

"What?" you repeat, this time slightly more urgently.

"He put me back in the restraints from Asgard."

"What?"

"Don't get angry. There's no point; it's done and Amber's father is pacified now I've got a nice new job." Loki tells you.

"Don't tell me you were in there for four days Loki." you exclaim loudly.

"Keep your voice down." he says quietly, looking at the door again, which this time closes under his gaze.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Because I knew you'd overreact."

You fight for words, your whole body awash with indignation as you stare at him. He smiles at you in such a sincere way that within the indignation something else sparks in your chest.

Then something else he had said clicks in your brain.

"Wait. A new job?"

"Fury agreed to hire me. On the low down of course; I'll have to cast an illusion if I go out in the field. But when I willingly agreed to go back in the restraints he said it obviously meant that I had 'matured' enough to be trusted." Loki tells you.

You fight to comprehend all of the new information which is being dumped on you.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't want you to worry."

Loki's POV

As he utters these words, you give him such a look that he thinks his heart might fall out of his chest. Loki hasn't felt with such intensity for a long time.

"I could've got you out." you say desperately, your eyes filled with sympathy. Once he had despised that look (coming from anyone other than you he still would), whereas now it fills him with something entirely different than hatred.

"You could not have, we both know that. It's done. And you're not to go to Fury about this." he cuts across you as you open your mouth to retaliate. You give him a furiously indignant look, and he has to fight back yet another smile.

"Does Thor know?" you ask him.

Thor does know. Thor knows everything, even the fact that Loki had in fact allowed himself to be locked up for four days in order to impress you after you'd seemed upset with him. He had also correctly interpreted has false feelings towards Amber as feelings towards you.

"No. And I'll thank you not to tell him." Loki says. He watches you as you glare at him, clearly harbouring a raging internal battle.

"Fine. Fine." you finally say, your disgust at the situation clearly evident in your tone.

"There's something else that I wanted to talk to you about." Loki says. You look up almost too quickly. Is that hope in your eyes? No, he's being stupid.

"What?" you say.

"When I was in Fury's office after they let me out, he had a file on Henry out on his desk. After he dismissed me I snuck back in to take a look at it, and they have him under investigation. They suspect him of something."

You frown at him, shaking your head.

"That can't be right. He's just been recruited." you say in confusion.

"Exactly." Loki replies.

"What do you mean 'exactly'?" you retort, your tone now laced with annoyance. Loki had only expected as much.

"There's something not right about him." he says, correctly guessing what's about to happen next.

You stand up, irritation etched on your features.

"I don't know why you don't like him, but you won't turn me against him. He's a good person." you say heatedly; the emphasis on the word good suggesting a contrast between Henry and himself.

As you storm out Loki is remembering more and more why he doesn't let himself get attached.

But he knows something isn't right about Henry. He's determined to prove it.