A Love For Eternity (LokixReader)

Chapter Fourteen

(Your Pov)

"I don't think this is what they had in mind." You complain to Loki, as you attempted to cook dinner for the team. You were rusty on your skills after so many years on the run, and Loki was absolutely useless in the kitchen.

That didn't stop him from trying to help. Move ingredients when you aren't looking, ask many obvious questions, and generally distract you to cause chaos, but still 'helping'. Most of his tricks fell into the innocent but fun category, so you allowed it. But it did feel like you were truly babysitting.

"Well they would complain if only we had dinner," Loki reasoned, reading the back of a box of cereal you gave him. You just needed him to be distracted long enough so you could manage to actually cook something. "And it will be much too late to cook anything after their return."

"True." You laugh as you finally managed to put the meat in the oven, laughing more at his surprised face. You managed to complete half the meal in the time it took for him to read the ingredients list. That and all the kids' games, though you wouldn't put it past him if Loki had played them all as well. "What?"

"If I was bothering you, you could have just said so." He waved the box as his point, looking impressed that you had thought of such a distraction.

You put your hands on your hips. "Would you have listened?"

Loki hesitated, pouting as he set the box back in the cupboards. You took his reaction as a no, and shook your head. He was nicer now than when you first met, but still such a trickster. And no stubborn prince would listen to a lowly midgardian.

You washed your hands, getting to work on cleaning up the kitchen. Your To Be Read list grew longer by the day, and you were looking forward to a quiet afternoon to finish them off. Loki followed you around like a lost puppy, apparently having decided that you were his entertainment just as much as it was your job to watch him.

Which led to him reading over your shoulder as you tried to teach yourself magic. He sat beside you on the couch, reading over the lesson displayed on the table. "That's ridiculous."

"Well it's what I have to do."

"But fruit?" You sigh at his words, agreeing yourself that there were better things to practice with. Unfortunately when teaching yourself such a dangerous craft as magic, following the instructions to the letter was the smartest thing to do. Meaning that you had to just... make fruit float.

Over, and over, and over again.

You turn to Loki with the face of one whose patience has worn thin. "Do you have a better suggestion, oh high and mighty asgardian magician?"

"It's simply not the way I learned." Loki scoffed, "My mother made me practice by braiding her hair. Then Thor's, since he would never sit still, before my own."

"You can braid your hair with magic?" You piped up at this new bit of knowledge, already excited that such a thing is possible. Braids were pretty, but by God they were hard to do on oneself. At least neatly.

"Not now, obviously." Loki held up his wrist, the manacle still tight around it. "This damned thing has refused every spell I throw at it."

A plan started taking form. Loki has been just so bothersome, you decided he needed a taste of his own medicine. "Would it refuse my magic?"

"Well it's not on your wrist, so..." Loki glanced your way with a how-could-you-be-so-stupid look, before stopping when he found your I-have-an-idea-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-to-stop-me fire behind your eyes.

"And why exactly would I want to use braiding as practice instead of making fruit levitate?" You ask oh so innocently, drawing a suspicious tone from the trickster.

"It helps one develop habits to be precise and build greater stamina. Versus with fruit... I mean, what? You just lift it up and down?"

You tilt your head thoughtfully at his words. As Loki responded with a know it all smile. That is, before you shove him off the couch. "Hey!"

"You know what? You've convinced me. I'll do braiding instead." You grabbed the sides of his head, making him look forward. Before using your legs to pin his body to the bottom of the couch.

"No, no! I'm not going to sit here while you experiment-" Didn't Loki realise that all this chaos was his idea?

You laugh, starting to play with his hair. The dark strands threaded through your fingers, as you lightly tossed it about. If Loki really didn't want to do this, then he could get up and leave. Just because he didn't have magic doesn't mean that he had lost his strength as well.

"You said that braiding was better practice. Trust me! I'm not going to make you bald or anything."

"You caught your books on fire." He grumbled, and you winced at the memory. It's been a few days since that event, and you could successfully teleport things now. Well, you could successfully teleport anything under the size of a chair across about three rooms or so. You weren't nearly experienced enough to dream about teleporting yourself.

You laugh. "If I do any damage... I'll have Tony remove your restraint so you can fix it. How about that?"

"And endure his teasing all the while?"

"He'll be busy teasing me for being so horrible at braiding." You try to convince the prince, "Besides, it's my turn to have some fun."

Loki grumbled, groaned, and muttered some more, but remained still as you started making a braid. For all that his hair looked greasy, it was actually quite like silk. It threaded through your hands as you started the project, strangely calming. You waited until you had a nice trail to use magic, starting slow when moving the strands of hair.

Your victim sat as still as possible, pretending to study the magic textbook. But as you near finished the first braid, you caught him closing his eyes and hiding a small smile.

Time inched by, and soon you had a multitude of braids laying against his neck. Finishing off the last one just as your timer beeped from the kitchen, alerting you to a finished dinner.

Loki barely noticed you standing, only doing so when your hands left his scalp. Yet even so, he didn't move from his spot on the floor for quite a few minutes, when he inevitably followed the delicious smell into the kitchen.

"You made Pinnekjøtt?"