Author's note: The reactions to last chapter were amazing, I spent so long on that chapter so I'm glad I seem to have got it right! And now, may I present to you: lots of fluff <3

...

Finally.

You don't know how long you stood there like that, just holding each other next to the window, but you never wanted to move. Ever. Apart from after about five minutes your arms started to cramp, so you moved to the sofa instead.

As you sat down, Loki took your hands in his and you smiled at him, only to become instantly concerned when you saw he was looking at you seriously.

"That was..." here he nodded towards where you'd been stood at the window and fought to find the words, which you couldn't help but feel quite smug about.

"Amazing." he finally concluded, looking back at you. You smiled nervously. There was a but coming.

"But I just... I need you to be sure. I need you to be certain that this is what you want, because..."

"I am." you interrupted, and he swallowed, still looking unsure.

"Are you? You've been drinking, and I don't know whether..." he was rambling; you never heard him do that before, he was usually so literate and composed. While he talked you were suddenly struck with an idea. You only hesitated for a moment before letting your mind open fully, completely, for what was perhaps the first time since you found out that Loki could hear your thoughts. You'd opened it before to communicate with him, but you'd always left some part obscured, hidden out of the way so that he didn't find out how you felt. There was hardly any need for that now. As you let go, you experienced a blissful sort of relaxation descending upon you; it was as if you'd had a headache which you hadn't realised was there, but now it was gone you felt a million times lighter.

Loki faltered in his explanation as he realised what you were doing.

"You want to know how sure I am?" you asked, feeling oddly calm about letting someone into your mind with no filter. You trusted him.

Are you sure?

You'd never heard his voice so clearly in your mind before. It made you smile. You nodded, closing your eyes, your hands still encased in his. It felt weird when he entered your mind. Not unpleasant exactly, just odd, but you soon got used to it. After a few minutes the feeling disappeared, and you opened your eyes to see Loki looking so totally shell shocked you burst out laughing.

"I... you – since...?" he stuttered, staring at you in disbelief, and you just nodded, unable to stop smiling. After a few more seconds of this he abruptly pulled you towards him and kissed you again, and ten minutes ago you wouldn't have thought it possible but this time might have even been better than the first. Time became extraordinarily irrelevant while you were kissing him, so again you weren't sure how long it lasted for, only when he pulled away this time you would have much rather he hadn't have.

You made a noise of protest and opened your eyes; he was frowning in concentration, listening?

What is it?

Someone's coming.

"Shit."

This you said aloud in a sort of shout-whisper, and made to get up from the sofa, but Loki pulled you back down swiftly and you felt an illusion descend over the two of you as the sound of footsteps reached your ears. You were half lying down, practically on top of Loki on the sofa, now invisible, and you had to bite your lip to stop yourself from laughing when you thought of what Tony would think if he knew what was going on. Oh no. What was Tony going to say? Actually, you knew exactly what he was going to say.

Loki met your gaze, having heard what you'd thought and cocked an eyebrow.

Who cares what Stark thinks?

Me!

The footsteps had now entered the room, and someone was now padding barefoot around the kitchen. You tried to work out who it was from the sound of their movements.

It's Barton.

How can you tell?

I can hear him hating me.

You rolled your eyes at the joke.

He doesn't hate you.

He does, and with good reason.

You didn't have an answer for that one. After another minute or two Clint left the kitchen, and Loki waited until it was silent again before lifting the illusion and you both sat up.

"How are we gonna tell the others?" you asked nervously.

"We won't." Loki replied simply.

"...how can we not?" you frowned.

"Why do we have to? Surely they'll work it out for themselves sooner or later." he countered.

"Well... okay." you conceded, deciding to let it drop for the moment.

"Isn't it your turn now anyway?" you grinned, nodding at his head, referring to him opening his mind to you. He hesitated.

"I don't... sorry – you don't have to." you backtracked quickly.

"I want to. I'm not trying to hide anything from you, I promise. It might just... take some time." Loki said to you, looking at you in concern as if that wasn't perfectly fine.

"You don't have some secret lover back on Asgard that you're not telling me about do you?" you joked, and his face split into a relieved smile.

"No. It would appear that you do though." he added with a pointed smile, thinking of Fandral as he spoke. You whacked him on the arm playfully.

"Fandral's not my type." you told him.

"Oh?" he smiled and you nodded matter of factly.

"I hated watching you dance with him." he continued, suddenly serious, shifting so that you were sat closer together.

"I hated watching you dancing with those Asgardian girls." you scowled.

"You weren't watching me, you were too caught up with Fandral. I was only dancing with them because I couldn't stand watching you dancing with anyone else." Loki insisted.

"What's this? Could it be... jealously? Surely not." you teased, smirking.

"I wasn't jealous. Slightly... envious, perhaps." he corrected you.

"That means the same thing!" you laughed.

"Well then, maybe I was jealous." Loki admitted. You couldn't believe your ears.

"Why? You had your pick of the girls in that room." you grinned, only half joking.

"Why was I jealous that he was dancing with you?" Loki asked, suddenly looking at you rather intensely. You suddenly couldn't do anything other than nod.

Why me?

"Why you? Where to begin? When I first got here, to Midgard, you were the only interesting one here, not to mention the only one besides Thor who wouldn't rather I was dead."

Here you made a noise of protest, but he ignored your remonstrations and carried on.

"The fact that I couldn't read your mind drew me to you, and then two days later you were asking me to throw a knife at you. You knew what I'd done, who I was, and you handed me that knife and told me to throw it at you."

"And you did throw it." you reminded him.

"You asked me too." he countered, smiling when you laughed.

"I'm trying to prove a point here. I couldn't read your mind. You asked me to throw a knife at you. You threw yourself down nine flights of stairs in training behind Thor's back and broke both your legs. You watched a bomb go off in a building and your first thought was to run towards it and try and hold the building up on your own."

"You had to save me from that one." you said.

"Yes, but that's not the point. You're amazing. Not to mention you are the most stunningly gorgeous creature I have ever laid my eyes on." he told you, and your face flamed red under his gaze.

"You're going to have to up your game I'm afraid, Fandral told me I was -"

"Exquisite, yes, I am aware." he smiled.

"Well, point proven I guess." you muttered, still unbelievably bright red from the barrage of compliments you had just received.

"Good." he said, leaning back in satisfaction.

"So... mistletoe huh? How long had you been planning that one for hm?" you asked. Now it was his turn to go slightly red.

"For about five minutes before it happened." he admitted.

"So you do know the tradition." you smirked.

"Of course, the story comes from Norse mythology on Midgard. I'm part of it." Loki informed you, which a slight bitterness in his tone.

"I'm guessing you don't come off well in the story?" you asked, and received a stoic smile in return.

He may not have opened his mind completely to you, but you could hear the worried, guilty thoughts which followed this exchange, crystal clear. He thought of the New York attack, of the Midgardians who had been killed by the Chitauri, and of Jotunheim, and...

You reached out to take his hands on yours and stop the stream of thoughts, but he withdrew his hands before you could touch them.

"How can you absolve me of everything I've done so readily?" he asked you; the guilt he felt now clear for you to see in his eyes. You wished the others could see this side of him, maybe they'd finally forgive him, if only partially. But he would never show vulnerability in front of any of them, not like this. That triggered the memory of seeing his scars, and you only now realised that he was covering them with an illusion still.

"Your scars, you're covering them." you said, momentarily forgetting the question he'd asked you.

If he was thrown by the sudden change of topic he didn't show it. He just shrugged.

"Habit."

"You don't have to hide them. In front of me, or the others." you told him sincerely.

"It's just easier like this." he replied, in a tone which suggested it might be wise for you to change the subject. Fine, back to what he'd said earlier.

"I'm not absolving you of anything. I don't know how you can blame yourself wholly for what happened here when it wasn't -"

"It was me. It was." he insisted.

"Physically, yes. But... back on Asgard you told me that he, Thanos, altered your memories. And you were being controlled by the stone in that staff thing."

He smiled, even if it looked painful.

"The mind stone, in the scepter." he corrected you.

"That one. So how can you say that it was you, truly?"

He blamed himself entirely. Even after all that he'd had to endure. He couldn't reply to what you asked of him, just shaking his head mutely. You hated listening to him loathing himself, so you decided to put a stop to it, scooting across the sofa to lean against him and take his hands in yours. He pulled them away from you again, but this time it was to shift into a position where he could wrap his arms around you, tight.

"You're not a bad person Loki." you whispered, pressing your face against his arm. He just shook his head, resting his chin against the top of your head.

"You jumped in front of a bullet for me. That doesn't make you a bad person."

You felt his head jerk up at that.

"You know about that?"

"Yeah, Bucky saw you." you twisted around to look up at him. He was frowning lightly.

"I don't think I ever said thank you for that." you said, making him look at you, your faces inches apart.

"It was nothing." he told you, the corner of his mouth quirking up as you scowled good naturedly.

"And listen, I almost killed a man when I was six years old, so if you're going to insist upon being a bad person for something that wasn't entirely your fault then we can start a club." you told him, making him laugh involuntarily, his chest vibrating with the noise next to your head. Was it possible to hear him laugh like that and not smile? You doubted it.

You were silent for a while, you curled against him with his arms around you and your head on his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat in utter contentment.

"Did Thor say anything to you about us being... soulmates?" Loki asked you after a while, putting emphasis on the word as if it made him nervous.

"Yeah, he did. Did you know about the superstition?" you replied.

"Yes. But I never even thought about it until he mentioned it. I don't know if I believe in it or not." he said.

"I don't know. When you got shot back at the party... I didn't see you, but I knew something had happened. It was in my chest, I couldn't breathe properly." you told him, thinking back to how awful the feeling had been.

"I haven't had anything like that. Except... when you were kidnapped on that mission. I thought something was wrong before the others got back, and I was right. I don't know if that has anything to do with it though." Loki said, his arms tightening around you an infinitesimal amount. You smiled at the thought of him worrying about you all those weeks ago. If only you'd known.

"I looked in the library when we were on Asgard; mother said there might be some books with information about the myth. I only found one, it was quite vague, but it said that the connection isn't noticeable until the two people meet, when it starts to get stronger. That would explain why you didn't feel anything when I've been in danger before." he continued, and you nodded, intrigued.

"Maybe Thor wasn't just saying it to try and set us up." you grinned and practically heard Loki roll his eyes.

"My brother is a nightmare."

"He loves you. And I know you love him too." you said, smiling when he huffed in indignation. But there was no counter argument.

"What if we are actually soulmates? If we are 'meant to be'? What happens?" you asked.

"I don't know. Nothing, I suppose. Apart from the fact that we'll always know when the other is in danger or feeling a particularly strong emotion, and according to that book if the connection is really strong when one of the pair dies the other will feel like a part of them is dead or missing too." Loki said.

"That's a bit morbid. Did you have to tell me that?"

"It doesn't matter, neither of us are going to die anytime soon."

"Don't jinx it!" you exclaimed in horror.

"Saying it won't 'jinx' it."

"It might."

"You're ridiculous." Loki told you fondly.

"Well, you're stuck with me now." you informed him happily.

"I can live with that." he replied, squeezing you.

You lapsed into silence again, and after a while you began to feel your eyelids drooping. Soon you were fighting to stay awake, and then Loki started lightly running his fingers through your hair. That did it. You'd never fallen asleep quicker in your life. Or happier.