His Idea of Me

No Light

No light no light

In your bright blue eyes

I never knew daylight could be so violent

A revelation in the light of day

You can't choose what stays and what fades away

…

— Florence and the Machine —

—

Jane cursed under her breath over the manual pump up, her biceps burning, and wished for the hundredth time she'd thought to buy an automatic inflator. The cheap rubber mattress she'd managed to find at Marshall's swelled under her tired hands. Finally, the little inflating device became so hard to pump Jane tossed it aside and unclipped the hose. A gust of air rushed out before she smashed on the cap.

Sighing, she ran a forearm across her brow and gave the mattress an experimental poke.  It felt firm enough under her finger. No telling whether or not it would deflate by the early hours of morning. Still, it was better than Loki trying to fold his lean frame onto the couch.

And she really wanted her own room back.

Standing up, Jane rolled out her sore shoulders and scooped up the inflator and hose. She turned to the hallway to stash it away in one of the cupboards, when she stopped dead in her tracks.

Loki emerged from the bathroom, rubbing a towel over the still-damp ends of his long hair. If it was possible for this situation to be any more complicated, it now was.

Because Loki—supervillain, megalomaniacal, supercilious Loki—looked like an Adonis in Levi's.

She'd had to take her best guess at his size, so she'd gone with looser just to be safe. A few sweaters and button-down long sleeves; a couple pairs of jeans, socks and the like. But now she felt a rush of self-satisfaction at her success.

The dark green button-up fit snugly around his lean frame, the first several buttons on the top left undone, exposing an ivory throat and hint of collarbone beneath. He'd let the shirt fall untucked over dark blue jeans that sat low on his hips. Finally, a dark gray leather jacket capped it all—the only thing of Donald's that had fit him. Fit him a little too perfectly, judging by the sudden heat that crawled up the back of Jane's neck.

He halted at the end of the hallway, rolled up the towel in his hands, and slapped it over his shoulder. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and for one horrible second, she thought he was going to say something snide and mortifying about her gawking.

"What infernal contraption is that? Some sort of weapon?"

Jane blinked. She looked down at her hands.

"Oh—"

Goodness, was she actually blushing?

"—that's just a pump."

"A pump? To draw water?"

A laugh chuffed its way up her throat. "Um, no. To inflate a bed."

"Inflate? As in… with air?"

"Yeah. See for yourself."

Jane turned and glanced over her shoulder into the living room. The air mattress sat pushed up against the far wall, behind the couch, to give as much semblance of privacy as possible. Jane had decked it out in all the spare sheets and blankets she had, with two flattened pillows at the head. Everything was old and probably thin, and the pillows needed fluffing, but at least it was all clean. It was more than she could say for most of the hotels on this side of the street.