Just Go Along With It ✔️

A Cheater Can Never Change It's Spots

Perhaps a half a month later, with lots to distractions from your loving boyfriend and friends who, around their study and work schedules, include you in their plans and lives. Your course takes most of your time, all the medical terminology and the practical studies keep your attention focused not on the hate mail you've been getting, but on gaining better marks than ever, keeping on top to try and be a valedictorian come the end of the year. Loki does this too, gaining stead above his classmates in the political science end of the campus.

You invest in a camera for the dashboard of your car, and invest time and effort in egging the campus to amp the security around the dorm rooms via the multitudes of chatrooms and platforms where you can nag in their ear until they cave. It's no fun being at the receiving end of invisible abuse, and even worse when you can't tell a soul outside of the social ring. But you get by, and so does life, and it all goes well until exactly almost a half month later, when you find yourself at a party in one of the shared houses down the street, face to face with something you wish can be erased from your memory.

But you're getting ahead of yourself.

It was a Saturday evening and all your assignments were submitted, done, and dusted for the week, the end of term exams not too far away, but far enough not to be worried about cramming for. It had been weeks since any contact from the automated computerised voice and any rocks through panes of glass, and for perhaps the longest time ever, you felt relaxed. Relaxed enough to follow Pepper and Tony to a house party, and drag along Loki.

It isn't until you've gotten yourself a cup of punch and are nodding along to the beat of the ever-thrumming bass that fills your ears all up when the relaxation leaves you, running away into the depths of the night to the next person to comfort. Because, that's when you see them.

Thor, and the girl you met not too long ago, Jane, are standing close together by the fireplace, dancing (if you can call swaying hips onto each other's dancing), touching, smiling. The blood in your body lights afire, running to your head, dizzying you like you've taken eight shots of the pungent raspberry vodka.

"Are you okay, _______?" Pepper asks, placing a hand on your arm.

But it's then you can't take it anymore, because at that moment the two of them kiss, their faces close, their lips on one another, and the room spins. You turn on your foot, and race away, pushing through the thrumming crowd, run toward the stairs that lead up and away from it all. But as you get up, you see that there is only a corridor of bedrooms, filled with people in various stages of making out or more. But it's only from the corner of your eye you see a screen door out to a little balcony overlooking the backyard, and making your way to it, you sink into a deck chair and let out a shaky breath.

"______?" A familiar voice attached to long legs and dark hair steps out into the moonlight, and joins you on the deck chair. "Darling, what's wrong? Pepper said she saw you dash away like a mad person possessed."

It isn't until he's placed his hand in yours that you realise that you're crying, and they're not pretty tears like a seasoned movie star who looks like there's starlight falling from their eyes, no, you look damn ugly, like Pete Parkley or whoever when his boyfriend Wade broke up with him last week. But despite this, Loki cradles you in his arms, and together, you're above the clamour and noise of the house party, watching the people in the pool down below sip on their piña coladas and alcoholic fire engines. Away from the disaster you just watched.

"Want to talk about it?" He asks you.

You consider denying, and saying you're all right, and the stress of everything has caught up to you, but instead, you admit it. "Your brother is here, and uh, he's with someone. I know her, Jane Foster." You take a deep breath, and remember you've left your phone back in the dorm room. "Can I borrow your phone?"

He nods, and before you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, you're dialling Vision and Wanda's number, and talking to the expert hacker in seconds. "What are you doing?" Loki wonders.

You shake your head, frowning. "Call it curiosity..." Vision picks up, and before he can protest, you start rattling off data, and call in a favour. "I know it's probably date night for you two now, but I need a favour – can you do some research into Thor Odinson, and Jane Foster? As a couple?"

On his end, Vision sounds sceptical. "Just because they're dating now doesn't give the ex-partner leeway to just snoop around in their business, bad break-up or no," he reminds you, but with a sharp reminder that Thor is a dickweed at the best of times and that it's a vague emergency, he concedes, "Sure, sure. I'll do it, ________, I get where you're at. Wanda was like this when we went on a break, with a strange doctor."

The call ends, and once again, you're sitting with Loki, feeling the sting of the night air. You curl into his side, laying your head upon his shoulder, trying to shut out the image of your ex getting close and personal with someone else. You know you like Loki, and like him a lot, but by the laws of dating, one should wait an amount of time before getting, well, that personal with another person after a break up. You know you aren't an exception to the rule, but it just happened that you found Loki and he you at the tail end of what happened with Thor, and well...it hurts.

His phone buzzes not five minutes later with a reply via text.

Loki clears his throat. "I don't think you'll like what Viz found, ________," he prefaces, gathering you closer toward his chest.

You shake your head. "Just tell me."

"There was a lapse...between your breakup, and Jane and Thor," he reads, and from what you can see, his face darkens, "You didn't cheat on Thor, ______," he clarifies, a fist tightening around his phone. "My brother cheated on you."