batmansphoenix | IC Contact

[ Having to stem the urge to leave, the moment Jason opens the door, is probably childish. He does it anyway. ]

I can pick up the food, bring it here, and ... grant you a plus-one unworn suit.

[ Which he hands over, for want of anything else progressive to do. Uncertain whether he wants to sit in a stifling restaurant around idiotic patrons comprised of the small-minded rich foam topping a dimensional dumping ground for the broken, Loki doesn't hide his eagerness to avoid the whole point of showing up.

Fighting against his own efforts but where would be the fun if he didn't? He's his own worst enemy. ]

It's only food.

[ Hands slide behind his back as he plays nice. ]

It's only food. [He repeats to himself as takes the suit, looking at it and wondering if it'd even fit. And if it does, wondering how did Loki even get his size right anyway.]

I'm never going to say no to free food, but you're supposed to have fun with the present buddy. I know I'm going to enjoy the hell out of my bacon.

So, whatever you want to do?

[ Green eyes flicker down at the mention of Loki's gift to Jason. ]

Let me in and I'll tear through the beta-dimensional space to go get our dinner fresh from the chef. Yes?

[He takes a step back and motions him in with his head.]

Well, that's handy.

I did it for Magneto, once. [ Loosening the tie around his neck as he heads in, Loki pauses in the middle of Jason's apartment to glance over a shoulder. His fingers glow green and the air begins to smell like ozone. ] He only ate kosher, I had to find a Jewish establishment that met his requirements. They condemned me as a false god when I turned up, of course, but they also let me take some extra breadsticks. Nice guys.

[ Talking helps ease the tension, as does the glittering fracture between Loki's fingers as he shreds the space before him and reality crinkles like a used page in a notepad. He kicks the edges by his feet and shoves them a bit higher, stepping through into the kitchen of the restaurant they were supposed to be arriving at in and hour and spreading his hands to calm down the startled, screaming staff. ]

Ah, evening. I don't suppose you do take-out?

[ If they didn't before, they do at the request of the godling straddling the divide between Jason's apartment and the busy kitchen as Loki offers them his gift card and requests two menus; one for him, another to hand back to Jason (on whom he's keeping a leery eye). ]

Edited 2016-02-10 02:43 (UTC)

[Jason just waves at them, trying to look like this is the most normal thing he's ever seen. He keeps an eye out on the edges, trying to figure out exactly where the magic begins. Bruce told him that magic was simply science that hadn't been explained yet.

Told him... repeatedly. Jason had never been that close-minded, but he still wishes he could explain what Loki is doing right now in a logical way. He recognizes the smell of ozone. He wonders if that's important.

He can't help a chuckle as he watches everyone flutter around to get their order ready. Doesn't ease all of the awkwardness, but it does help.]

Part of the fun of doing this is watching them freak out, isn't it?

Not really. [ As their orders are whipped up ahead of them in the kitchen by the frantic staff, he slides his hands into the pockets of his expensive suit-jacket and lets his gaze drift inevitably back to Jason. More obviously this time. ] ... Maybe.

The Eudites only nullified my hypnosis-slash-telepathy upon entering their realm, which I don't even use nowadays. They're well aware I could do their home some harm anyway, you see, but I gave them my word as a fellow reality-warper that I wouldn't.

[ Tidbit for Jason. ]

Just because I could, doesn't mean I will.

['You see', Loki says, and Jason nods even if he only partially gets it. Just because he could kill most people doesn't mean he will, but Loki plays at another level and Jason can't fully wrap his mind around it. He used to love that.

If he's honest, he still does.]

Cool. [Because, well. It is.]

I never realize how much power you have until you actually use it.

I'm sure I'd have no idea what I was seeing if you dismantled a gun in front of me. It's all relative.

[ He thinks he might have destroyed a planet, once. The memories are hazy but where in the name of Munin would that one have come from if not experience? Lots of things are like that.

He doesn't care about his power right now, Jason looks terribly ravishing even in his housewear. ]

You weren't expecting anyone today?

[ Just wondering, implies his shrug. ]

[He looks down at his clothes. Trousers that could probably walk away if you step away from them they are so old, and an equally old but comfortable sweater. Very obviously ready to call it a night after he'd been patrolling.

So yeah, no.]

Why would I? [Oh, right. Valentine's?] No, not really.

You? [He regrets the question as soon as he's said it. Not because he doesn't want to know (he does), but because it might seem like he's taunting him.]

[ Oh, good. ]

I was going to check in on Billy, now that Teddy's gone home, but he's got his legions of admirers from his recent network broadcast. He won't miss me.

[ And if he does, Billy knows he can call. Hopefully he won't let his depression bring him down tonight for his own good.

Loki accepts two trays of stacked plates off the chefs (meals served in racks to save on space), steps back inside Jason's apartment and closes the rift with a complicated-looking gesture. Reality uncrinkles, sealing them up in their privacy as he turns around. ]

Where shall we eat?

[Billy and Teddy. Loki had called Billy one of the most important people in his life, and Jason had gathered enough to know Billy and Teddy were a couple. It must be harsh, to have your SO just disappear like that. He figures he'd fulfilled his incentive and they will meet back home, but still. Especially today. Not that Jason ever got the meaning of waiting for a single day to tell your loved one you do love them but. You know. Normal people probably do.

He motions at the only table. There's two chairs, at least, so that should do it. This house is clearly not meant for hosting any dinner, ever.]

I don't... have visitors. ['Ever' is left unsaid, but still hangs at the end of that sentence. But that's his excuse. And here' Loki, wearing a fucking suit. He always looks good, he's probably the god of looking good somewhere but that's just fucking unfair. He hadn't been lying when he said he wouldn't be able to stop himself from thinking about having Loki.]

And thanks. For the dinner, I mean. [Even when his friend is going through that, he's here with Jason. It might be out of spite, but Jason can still appreciate it.]

You wouldn't be thanking me for anything else.

[ He says it wryly with a tinge of self-deprecating humour. Sleeping with Dick ruined something special that he had with Jason or whatever was developing there and Loki is the sorrier for it, even if he can't bring himself to regret the events of that night; it's impossible to regret anything about Dick, in actual fact. He must have felt so guilty that he spilled the beans to Jason and outed them as if what they did was an illicit tryst, although the main focal point of wounding Jason came from Loki's deception more so than actually choosing his brother.

As he sets out the plates, Loki loosens his tie and shrugs off his jacket to seat himself. ]

For what it's worth, I regret keeping things from you. You are surprisingly easy to miss.

Surprisingly. [Jason’s reaching for some cutlery as Loki speaks. He might be low on everything else but knives and forks? The drawer is full as it can get. They make good, quick-to-grab weapons and he doesn’t have to explain to others why he has them. So he’s giving his back to Loki when he says the last part, and he allows himself a quiet, private wince.]

You know I miss you, too.

[It’s not fair. Nothing about this is fair and he wants to scream at the injustice of it all but screaming would feel a lot like losing. Losing what, exactly? To whom? He isn’t sure, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. The worst part of this is that he can get everything he cares about taken away over and over by things outside his control and yet he’s still surprised every time it happens.]

You didn’t know he was the personification of my inferiority complex, you freaked out. [He finally turns around to place the cutlery on the table.] I don’t understand, but I guess I get how you thought you were sparing me.

[He takes a seat, glancing at the suit he left on the armrest of the sofa. He feels weirdly under-dressed in his own apartment.]

Thing is, you didn't need to spare me. I'd have understood. You said it yourself: he's adorable. [And Jason is many things, but adorable he is not.]

[ A small curl of a smile agrees with Jason and his own phraseology: surprisingly, yes. Loki isn't in the habit of willingly letting himself grow attached to people, especially not in a dimension that curdles intimacy out of necessity and turns it into something twisted, something needy. He knows far better ... and yet.

So he understands where Jason is coming from, hearing beyond the words. That would be the reason he wants to reach for him (and doesn't). With gentle, sincere insistence, he tells Jason, ]

You are many good things that he is not.

[ And then it's time to sit down and eat and pretend he hasn't been so recklessly fond of Jason since the moment they met, so. He sits and eats, branching out a new topic so that Jason can skip the last if he feels uncomfortable because in many ways Loki knows him all too well as similarities collide. ]

Besides, it's become almost routine to have someone breaking into my house now and then.

Edited 2016-02-14 20:19 (UTC)

[This time Jason isn't giving Loki his back, he's face to face with him. So can't allow himself a wince. But his lips do twitch down in pain like the words had been a physical blade slashing at him. Praise hurts, it always does. It's probably not a normal reaction and he's aware of that, but being praised has always made something ache in his chest.]

I liked having my own entrance. [He admits between bites, because Loki's right: that first topic isn't safe. He'll never believe it, for starters.]

Who's using it?

[ Having caused Jason a significant enough degree of pain to force the other man to put space between them, literally and otherwise, that look of distaste still makes him feel worse and his attention drops to his meal, pushed around the plate with a fork. ]

You do ask stupid questions at times, though.

[ Who else? He wonders how little Jason thinks of him, trying not to be surprised or let his disappointment show. ]

Edited 2016-02-14 22:43 (UTC)

[Jason sighs, and stops pretending he gives a shit about the food to actually look at Loki.]

It shouldn't be like this. You should be happy.

[ Loki sets down his cutlery and rests his elbows on the table, rubbing his eyes. At times he feels every inch the incompetent, floundering twenty-something that he can be, and at others ...

He feels very, very old. ]

Can you take me through your thought process there? Because I can't even begin to understand anything about that statement beyond some vaguely self-deprecating nonsense on your part which I know you're better than.

I'm not. I'm not better than that.

[Jason's the opposite. Jason's a little kid who died far too young, was brought back to life in the body of an adult and has the emotional intelligence of a teenager sometimes. His maturity is as much of a mess as everything else in his life, especially where it comes to his family.]

You're a literal god, Loki. I'm not mad that you slept with Grayson because you deserve him. He's sweet and gentle and fucking adorable. He tries to please everyone like a goddamn golden retriever. He blames himself for every little thing that goes wrong around him and you can't even be mad at him when he's not around for you because when he is he's like the fucking sun, he's so bright it blinds you. He's skilled, elastic as fuck, I could go on. You've met him, you know I could.

And you're so fucking good, so fucking gentle and you try so hard, people judge you for something you didn't even do and you just take it like it's your fucking job. I fucked up in my life but at least it was me, at least I'm being judged by my own mistakes but you're having to explain himself for what somebody else did and you just keep on doing it, keep on fucking trying to do good this time. [He all but stabs his food. Fuck you, food, this is somehow your fault too.]

And I thought you deserved someone like him.

I don't deserve anyone.

[ Snapping that out is instinctive, genuinely heated in a way he keeps from ordinarily rising to the fore. Is that how Jason sees him, a sweet would-be hero rising from the ashes of a bad reputation? That isn't me. That never was. Trying is not to be confused with actually being better.

Having to rub his forehead feels less like kneading out the tension than stirring it. ]

I murdered an innocent young boy in cold blood, I didn't even send him to the afterlife. I obliterated his very existence. I'm the echo of his last scream, Jason. He never hurt anyone and I took his form because I was a body-thief, I stole it like a magpie steals cheap metal.

[ Vying for control over his turbulent emotions, he sits back to stare across the table. ]

Believe me, you have only seen my gentler side because I want you to.

[ Because he wants to be better but even that much truth feels like manipulation, even if the flipside of being kind is not wanting to harm anyone. Same difference. ]

[Jason actually feels a pang of guilt at that. He gets so pissed of when people project the little boy soldier that died on him, the kid that he isn't anymore and maybe never was. People try to see gentleness and kindness when all he does is redirect his anger to people that actually deserve it. And yet he's doing the exact same thing to Loki. That's the side of Loki he saw. Everything he said is true to Jason.

Still.]

That wasn't fair to you.

[He can't say 'sorry', but he can say this much.]

I know who you are. What you are. But I do think you deserve to be happy.

You don't know a thing about what I've done, what lies in my past. [ This will benefit Jason in the end, Loki tells himself. If they can go places they haven't before then maybe he will make his point and have it stick. ] You're sleeping with a direct copy of the soul who tricked men into corners where they were dissected alive. I brought down Asgard through driving a man insane. I play people like chess because it's fun and I get bored, what else? I've mutilated men, turned their hands to glass for daring to touch me. A girl was cast back to the beginning of time just to spare her my influence.

[ His fists are taut, balled on his lap where he sits and glares across the table of a cold half-eaten Valentine's meal, never having felt so close to vomiting since before he arrived in this Odin-forsaken dimension. Jason wants honesty, or at least he thinks he does, and Loki wants to take no responsibility for his past life's crimes but in the same breath he can't not. He is his own worst enemy, always.

Sweat forms at his temple, slowly soaking into his hair as he keeps a rigid posture. ]

I very nearly drove Billy Kaplan to a premeditated suicide while in full control of my faculties. [ A small sigh of despair weakens his resolve, fracturing his hard tone. ] I don't need you to be fair with me, Jason.

[Jason doesn't even react. He listens, he takes mental note of what Loki can actually do, but he doesn't allow himself much of a reaction. The fact that he uses present (Sleeping, not slept) doesn't escape Jason.

Eventually:]

I've stabbed a 10 year old. Left one member of my family to bleed out and nearly killed them, more than once. Tortured men, left them to starve and let their corpse to rot. Kidnapped many, many people. I've seriously lost count. I was the main drug lord in Gotham, controlling the underground and all their sales. I got hold of a girl who'd just seen her father get murdered and had been disfigured herself and convinced her I was her only friend simply so I could have my own particular Robin. And so on and so forth.

And I'd do most of it again, because I still think that someone needed to grab Gotham's villains by the balls and the job fell on my shoulders.

[He shrugs. The food is already slashed into incredibly small pieces but he keeps on going.]

So no, I don't know your past. Hard to know, since it'd involve literal centuries. You don't know my past either because I clam up like it's my job. But you made me happy. So why don't you tell me what you need?

[ Similarly, Loki takes mental notes on default as Jason reels off his crimes. He can't help it. Slotting people into boxes and cataloging useful abilities, noteworthy actions, it's all rote habit to the point of being ingrained from birth (is he scared of Jason? No). It's in his nature to stir things up once in a while with information. In a disjointed, distant way, he feels sorry for him. The pity party currently being thrown is subdued and tired on all accounts, however, and not something he wishes to turn into a Best Of Fuck Ups edition at length, so he considers what he does crave and discovers it makes him feel no better.

With his gaze fixed on the middle-distance, his palate sours. ]

I need you to trust me.

[ Not throw me away. ]

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