To Love A God

Let's Get This Party Started

Loki took Rika’s hand and watched as the landscape grew closer, twining their fingers together.

Suddenly a blue stream of light shot up from Stark Tower into the sky and a hole began to rip open, showing a star sprinkled, black abyss beyond.

Rika gasped and her grip tightened on Loki’s and she looked at him. He met her gaze and held it. She saw something passing in their emerald green depths; thoughts, fear, apprehension. All these plagued those beautiful orbs. Then Rika saw the movement out the corner of her eyes.

Millions of specks began to descend on the populace of New York City.

“Rika,” Loki said as he watched the aliens pour from the rip in the sky and turned to look at her, his eyes holding nothing now but steely determination, “I do not think I will have any other time to ask you this. I wanted to weeks ago, but we never had time alone aside from when we slept. I do not believe we may make it out of this alive, and in that case, I must ask this of you now.”

Loki dropped to a knee and took Rika’s left hand between his two hands, “Rika Hawthorne, will you do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife?”

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Rika’s mind was filled with wave after wave of thoughts that rolled her emotions in a torrent of unstoppable force.

His wife, she thought, at a time like this, he’s going to propose to me?

Everything stopped. 

The invasion froze, the others looking at them and the outside, the sirens blaring in the background, the wind of the height they were at blasting around them, the sound of Hill shouting for them to jump, everything was froze as Loki stared up at her from his knee, his hands wrapped around her left one.

She felt a weight suddenly on her ring finger and Loki pulled his hand back to hold the tips of her fingers, allowing her to see the ring he hoped she would wear for the rest of their lives.

It was an antique silver ring with hearts carved into the holder that held the most stunning diamond she had ever seen. Along most of the band were engravings of vines twisting around each other with what looked like tear drops water in the middle and droplets of water around them.

It was the singularly most beautiful thing she had seen in her whole life.

Her eyes were huge as she looked at the rings, her chest heaving as her breath became rapid. 

What would she say, Loki wondered realizing now that he was afraid, would she reject him?

He saw so many things pass through her eyes: shock, surprise, fear, apprehension, and then finally, resolve. 

Loki’s heart was pounding in his chest, he could never remember a time in his life when he felt this afraid.

Rika slowly raised her eyes from the ring and meet his with an emotion he had never before beheld, toward himself, in a person’s eyes.

 Love.

“Let’s do this,” she smiled and pulled him up into her arms, kissing him harder than she ever had before, “I don’t want anyone but you.”

Loki picked her up and spun her in circles, all the way over to the others, and sat her down, “Nice of you two to join us,” Romanoff said looking back at them as she adjusted her weapons, “Are you ready now, or should we wait till you’re both done sucking face?”

Rika playfully stuck her tongue out at her, too happy to get angry at anything Romanoff said, “Let’s go save New York,” Rika smiled and, with everyone going at her running leap out the docking bay, began to plummet to the Earth, Rika screaming a shriek of joy and exhilaration.