The Best-Laid Plans (Loki/Reader Lullabies #242)

Fandom:Marvel/Avengers

Pairing: Loki/Reader

Category: Fluff. Fluff without plot.

Rating: G.

Summary: You’ve got big plans for today, but… so does Loki.

Warnings/Notes: Yesterday, I slept until 5pm and woke up achy and feeling like shit. Given that I had not yet written this week’s lullaby, this is what I came up with. I only have one more weekend before summer break, which means you’re looking at probably at least one more short lullaby before I’ve got more time to dedicate to writing again!

New but Retroactive Reminder for this and all of my fics: I do not, have not, and will not give anyone permission to copy/paste, translate, or otherwise take or modify this story to post it anywhere else. You can find my stories here on Tumblr or under kaeorin on AO3, but nowhere else. This does not apply only to fics which hold this disclaimer–NONE of my works are to be stolen or modified. Additionally, please remember that Liking a post on Tumblr does not increase the author’s exposure. I don’t run your life, but readers should be reblogging the works they like.

The Best-Laid Plans

It was supposed to be your first real day off in weeks. You had absolutely no obligations—not work, not family, not social—and you were actually feeling pretty excited about having the entire day to futz around in your apartment. There were plenty of little domestic chores you’d been letting slide these past few months, and you were feeling ready to tackle them. Last night in bed, you’d curled in close around Loki and rattled off your to-do list as visions of hyper-productivity danced through your head.

So, naturally, the next time you opened your eyes, it was to that stale, grim sort of sunlight that always seemed to fill your place in the late afternoons.

You shot upright in bed and grabbed for your phone. Sure enough, it was late. Frustration threatened to choke you as you all but hurled yourself out of bed and went into the washroom. A dull ache throbbed in your temples as you brushed your teeth. You always got headaches when you slept too long. Not only had your laziness absolutely tanked the amount of work you could get done today, but it’d also set you up for mild discomfort while you did it. Stupid. You avoided eye contact with yourself in the mirror as you finished with your teeth and then reached for a painkiller.

When you were finished with all of your morning routine, you braced yourself and headed out to the living room. Loki was there, looking as perfect as ever as he sat with a book in his lap. As soon as he heard you in the doorway, he looked up at you with a smile you could only describe as beatific. He was so beautiful it made your stomach do a flip even now. Even after all this time.

“Good morning,” he said in a low voice. He didn’t seem upset with you, which was nice. When you just stood there, he lifted one arm in invitation, and, though the temptation to join him and hide your face against his shoulder was strong, you resisted.

“I slept too late,” you said rather pointlessly. “I’m sorry.”

His brow creased. He didn’t say a word as he went on looking at you, as he closed his book, as he leaned forward in his seat. “Why are you sorry?” He seemed a little disturbed by the idea, but your sleep-swollen brain couldn’t figure out why. You tilted your head in response.

“Because I had so much work I needed to do. Because I left you here all alone while I slept the day away. Because… I shouldn’t have slept so late.” Wasn’t it obvious? “I didn’t hear my alarms, or—or I heard them but only woke up enough to turn them off before I fell asleep again.”

He rose to his feet and approached you. You were feeling just weird enough right now that you sort of wanted to back away from him, but you didn’t. He wasn’t a threat. You refused to ever make him feel like you were afraid of him. This wasn’t fear, really; it was more like shame. He took you in his arms and pressed your face to his chest with a gentle hand on the back of your head. You were too weak to refuse the comfort he was offering. You breathed in the warm, comforting scent of him and allowed the peaceful darkness to soothe some of the ache.

“I turned off your alarms, darling. I pulled the curtains in your room and I cast a sound-dampening charm on the door to keep from disturbing you. I wanted you to sleep.”

You couldn’t even bring yourself to pull away from him. “What? Why?” Should you be upset with him for that? Could you be? He still felt so good…

He laughed quietly and kissed the top of your head. “For the last few weeks, I’ve watched you run yourself absolutely ragged, love. I’ve watched you go to work day after day and come home looking run-down and miserable and I’ve worried about you. I know you were so excited for today, but last night, when you just told me about all the things you planned to work on, I… couldn’t bear the thought of not letting you rest.”

Something inside of you wobbled a bit. He was right. Of course he was right. You’d been feeling pretty shitty all this time, and that was probably a big part of the reason you’d let all these chores slide for so long. But if you told him that it was hard to feel truly rested when you knew you had so much to do here at home, would that just come across as ungrateful?

But you didn’t need to speak. He laughed again, a bit louder this time, and rubbed soft circles on your back. “It’s alright, the work still got done. See for yourself.”

He moved his hand so you could lift your head from his chest and then gestured towards the room around you. It did look neater than it did before. All the clutter had been cleared away, and it was hard to tell from a distance, but you got the sense that he’d also dusted—something you hadn’t done in ages. And had he vacuumed? You’d missed it before, but the room felt light and clean.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled again. As you continued taking in the sight of the room, you recognized that more or less every single task you’d rambled about last night had been completed. And Loki had been the one to do it. He’d had to do all this work cleaning up after you by himself while you went on snoring in bed. Guilt made you feel heavy.

He tilted your head up and cupped your cheeks in his palms, gazing down at you with nothing but affection. “Don’t be sorry. You gave me exactly what I wanted. You allowed me to take care of you. Since the day I arrived here, you have done nothing but look after me and my entertainment and my hunger and my needs, and you stubborn, selfless thing, you won’t breathe a word of any of your own needs. But when you went on sleeping, you allowed me to take on these responsibilities for you while you got some much-needed rest. You have nothing to be sorry for. In fact, Ishould be thanking you.”

With that, he stroked your cheek with his thumb and kissed your forehead. The tip of your nose. Your lips. He pressed his forehead against yours for a moment, and then pulled back just far enough to kiss you again. This one was a little longer. He held you so tenderly while he kissed you, and his lips were so soft against yours, that it was all you could do to keep standing in his arms. When his lips parted, you followed suit immediately, allowing him to deepen the kiss. He held you even more tightly, which suited you just fine, as your knees actually wobbled. You felt the way his mouth curled into a smile, but he did not stop kissing you.

When he had stolen away your breath—and all of your guilt and shame at having slept so late—he pulled away to press his forehead against yours once again. “Thank you,” he murmured. He was still close enough that his lips brushed against yours as he spoke. “Thank you, love.” Again he caressed your cheekbones with his thumbs and gazed down at you with such soft affection in his gaze that it made your cheeks grow warm.

“Thank you for sleeping the day away and making me do all your household chores, you mean?” Maybe you didn’t fully believe what you were saying—Loki had more than made sure of that—but your stubborn mind still wouldn’t quite allow you to let it go completely. Still, you offered him a tiny smile, in hopes of communicating what you couldn’t speak aloud.

Sure enough, he rolled his eyes and squeezed your cheeks a little bit tighter for only a moment, but then leaned in to kiss each of your eyelids. He growled low in his throat: a warning.

“Thank you for allowing me to do what I wanted to do in order to look after my love. Thank you for allowing me to feel useful in your home—in our home—in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. Thank you for sleeping so peacefully in the same bed as the one your people call a monster. And thank you for coming to me and allowing me to kiss you over and over again when you woke up instead of being angry with me for how I went about doing what I did.”

He flashed you a brilliant smile: the one he often offered when you caught him in the middle of one of his shenanigans. It was, in many ways, the last straw. That smile, and the way he felt against your body, did away with any last remnants of embarrassment. They made it easy for you to relent and hide your face in his chest again. He laughed one more time—warm, pleased, fond—and worked the fingers of one hand through your hair to massage your scalp.

You were well-rested, your home was cleaner than it’d been in months, and the love of your life was holding you like you were his greatest treasure. How could you care what time it was?

The afternoon sunlight gave way to the golden light of sunset, and Loki just went on holding you.