#belsize park is just a nice place for a walk when you’re already at Camden market…

[self-made-cages]

And hats, and scarfs, and ankle boots…

[k-knightt-blog]

The Beginning of Something - Tom Hiddleston One-Shot

Request: One where the reader meets Tom in a bar, and she’s had a rough day and they get to talking!!! You can decide the details and stuff.

Word count: 2,781

Warnings: None

A/N: I’d really appreciate feedback!!!

It’s pouring down rain as you leave the shop that you were forced to close yet again. You had pretty much been working 7 until 10 four days in a row now and it was starting to wear you down. Why did a book shop need to be open so early until so late, it’s not like customers flocked at the doors at 7 in the morning. Most importantly why the hell did your boss decide to leave for vacation in Spain during one of the busiest weeks of the whole year? It was beyond you.

You’re practically dripping of rain when you push open the pub door. It’s dimly lit and there’s not a lot of people inside. There’s a couple of people eating a roast and having a beer in the booths and only two people at the bar, not unusual for a Tuesday. What made you annoyed was that one of the men situated at the bar was sitting in your seat, or not actually yours but in your favourite chair. He’s nearly slumped over – either deadly tired or inebriated, you guessed the latter. The other man is sitting on the short side, the chair he has chosen makes it possible to see the entire pub. He looks slightly familiar but you gaze quickly turns away from him, although his features interest you. You stride towards the bar and throw your jacket and bag, rather angrily, over the chair next to you. The bartender, Tony sees you and shakes his head out of pity, he smiles at you though. He sees how frustrated you are, and he also knows it because you were there on Saturday and you were ranting about it then as well. He thought he was in for a 15-minute monologue from you, but that wouldn’t happen.

Tony’s pub ‘The Haunted Monkey’ was just over the street from your work, so the two of you had become quite good friends after discovering the brother-sister dynamic you two had. You sit down in the chair and let out a big sigh, “No monologue tonight Tony, I’ll save it for dear Zachery when he’s back from Marbella. I hear is wonderful this time of year.” Sarcasm dripping from your words and Tony let out a laugh. “I was actually hoping for one, I love hearing statistics about book shops and why they should stop selling 50 shades of grey.” He’s sarcastic too, and you scoff at him rolling your eyes skywards. ”He could at least hired someone to help me out.” You sigh. Tony nods, agreeing with you but he has something more to say, “You should have refused to work this crazy workload, y/n.” He winks, knowing that it was something you could have easily done. You’re quite the badass, but not when it came to your work and the money you made off it.

Now you notice the handsome gentleman to your right, sitting on the side is listening in on your conversation. Most people do, you’re not a quiet human and nor is Tony. “And lose my job? God knows I adore London but the rent is steep, crazy steep, and I love my flat, I really do.” You sign, “Took me forever to afford it.” Tony notices some defeat in your voice and offers a hand on yours, “I know darling, you hang in there.” You give him a quick smile, squeezing his hand on top of yours ever so lightly. Tony lets go and reaches for a glass, “The unusual?” He smirks and you smirk right back at him, “A double please.”

While Tony mixes your drink, you look over to the man sitting on the side, he’s looking down at his phone. He’s probably waiting for a date, a man like that couldn’t be single. You notice a scar on his forehead, similar to yours, you touch the scar ever so fast on your own forehead, wondering how he got his. Before your thoughts about the man could spiral more he looks up, meeting your eyes. Quickly you look away, embarrassed at being caught staring. From the corner of your eye, you can tell he’s smirking. Not a douche-like smirk, no, a charmed one. A drink arrived before you, “Thank you.” You say to Tony who says it’s no problem at all.

Tony stands in the middle of the two of you, the seemingly passed out guy no longer in the picture. “You want a refill, Tom?” He asked the man, Tom? That felt oddly familiar like you already knew that was his name. Wait a second. You reach inside your bag beside you and find your phone and type in “Loki Tom actor” and the result that came up took you by surprise. On the screen, before you, photos of the actor who played Loki showed up, and it was the man sitting at the same bar as you. It had to be, it's uncanny. Before your tongue and mouth had time to process what your brain was about to say you blurted out, “You’re Loki aren’t you?” You nearly yell it and, now confirmed, Tom smiles. He held your gaze, your eyes probably slightly crazy looking. “You caught me.” Tom laughed and looked down at the counter as if he was the one embarrassed. ”I’ll have the same as the lady, y/n right?” You’re mortified, you should say sorry, right? Go with an apology, always works in a crisis. “I’m sorry, I have a problem with just yelling out things before thinking beforehand. I bet you aren’t extremely fond of people telling you who you are.” You’d stumble a little over your words but there’s still confidence coming from you.

Tom doesn’t answer, he just stands up and proceeds to walk over to you, “Do you mind if I join? Closer is better, so we don’t need to yell to each other from across the bar. I bet Tony isn’t terribly fond of it.” He emphasises the word fond which indicates that he’s got a sense of humour over this embarrassing slip on your part. He sits down after you give him a welcoming nod. “Oh, Tony isn’t very fond of any noise I make, I tell you. He wishes he could ban me, and definitely, after this, can’t have someone scaring away his famous costumes.” You’re not looking at Tony, but you can hear him laugh and says that he agrees. “Nonsense, I’m sure you’re a delight,” Tom says and he sips on the drink before him, now the same as yours. The liquid he ingested makes him make a grimace. You laugh, “A bit strong?” Tom turns a little pink as he nods, “A tad.” Now Tony has heard what Tom has said, “A delight? Try knowing her for a year and get back to me.” And for that, you reached over the bar and gave Tony a quick punch to the arm. “This man is trying to flirt with me, let him.” You say and look over at Tom who’s blushing, he nearly seems flustered, are you making him nervous?

”I’ll leave the two of you alone then.” Laughs Tony and Tom opens his mouth to say to thing to the silly man behind the bar but he doesn’t. His eyes find you instead and there’s devilry to them, which you find immensely attractive. “You’re quite the spitfire aren’t you.” It isn’t a question, and you could see that he might be having second thoughts about saying it. He thought maybe you’d take offence. “Proud of it too,” You say and smirk at him, taking a sip of your drink. His eyes show signs of relief when you take it as a compliment, which is the way he meant it. The neon light above the bar is illuminating the both of you, the hue of red is enchanting.

”How long have you lived in London? I’m under the impression you didn’t grow up here.” Tom asks as he cradles his drink in his elegant hands. There are butterflies in your stomach now, and that’s not because you are sitting face to face with a celebrity and arguably one of the best actors of his generation. It’s because you’re actually attracted to this man and you feel calm all the same, that never happens. What you didn’t know was that he felt the same. You had caught his eye as soon as you entered through the door, dripping wet from the English weather. He liked the way you move your hands while you talked, the way you said what you thought and felt outright, the way your eyes were intense but soft at the same time.

”I moved here after university, always loved London, and I always dreamt of living here. Camden Town really is the place.” You say with a delighted smile on your face, happy that you succeeded with your dream of ending up where you did. You hear that there are people behind you sitting down at the bar but Tom’s eyes are still on you. It’s either out respect because you're still talking to him, or he’s actually interested in you. It felt odd, having someone really listen to every word. It doesn’t happen that often, not in London at least, where everything and everyone is slightly rushed. Most people kept eye contact but their gaze becomes glazed, simply waiting for you to stop taking so they could. Tom’s stare, however, was unrelenting and it made you slightly nervous, but happy.

After you had told him a little bit more about your flat and what you studied at uni he was quite pleased with the information from you, and as the gentleman, he happened to be he started to talk. You’re eyes just as focused on him as his eyes were on yours, “I adore Camden Town, I myself live in Belsize Park at the moment, it’s charming, quiet.” He pauses to clear his throat. “Which I like of course, after months of filming it’s awfully nice to come home to a calm environment.” You let out a scoff that took him by surprise, “I’m sorry sir but I can’t believe you called the London borough of Camden calm just now.” He laughs, “Calmer the other places.”And you agree with him by nodding, “I’m sure.” Still not really believing him.

“Stop me if I’m going off course.” You warn him as you take a long drink from your glass, he nods almost excited to what you’re going to say next. ”It’s it not hard, annoying even, to be recognised all the time? Like just now when I sort of ambushed you and again I’m sorry for that.” He looks at you with a curious grin, “Sometimes. Especially when you’re just looking for a place to have a quiet drink and someone calls you by a character you played.” He grins, even more, waiting for your reaction. As he finished you quickly hide behind your hands, “Oh my god.” You say and continue to hunch over to hide your redding face. Tom laughs, “I’m joking, darling.” He removes your hands from around your face, “I was going to ambush you too. I planned on talking to you as soon as I saw you walk inside. Honest.” His one hand is still touching your own, relief washes over you. ”You had me scared there Hiddleston and I do not scare easily.” You say as he smiles and looks down on the bar table, he looks up after a second, “I bet it takes a great deal more to scare you.” He’s smirking now, and you nod deciding to change the subject. “I was actually in Talacre Gardens just the other day, and it was actually quite calm.” He smiles, “That’s just a few minutes from my flat, and told you so!” He says and a toothy grin follows.

The conversation flows between you, you got on like a house on fire. It’s almost 2 and the bar will soon be closing. By this time you two were openly flirting with each other. Naturally, it progressed to you sitting close, both of your hands nearly touching as you cradled your drinks. The bubble the two of you were in was interrupted by Tony yelling, “Last call!” Tom looked down at his watch, “My god it’s nearly 2 in the morning!” He looks up at you and you can see guilt in his eyes, “I’m sorry if I kept you.” He says in a soft voice as he strokes his thumb over your hand. You want to tell him that he’s being ridiculous and that you would stay with him for as long as he would let you, but it was too soon. ”You didn’t, I had a lovely time. But I should head home.” He nods, “Does that bookshop really need to be opened at 7?” He says, saddened by the fact that he wasn’t going to be in your presence much longer. “I’m afraid so.”

You look at him with sad eyes as you stand up and reach for your jacket. Quickly Tom is on his feet helping you on with your denim jacket, “Always the gentlemen huh?” You wink at him as you stand side by side, ready to walk out of the bar. “As it should be.” He responds as he opens the door for you, the rain had stopped and you were thankful for it. The two of you leave but not before yelling goodbye to Tony. He had a smug look on his face like he was Cupid and hat shot tow arrows in both of your chests. Tom and you stop outside the pub, he was heading north and you south, so this was goodbye. Tom let’s out a chuckle and shuffles his feet, “I was going to ask for your number earlier but you kept doing your Marilyn Monroe impression and I forgot. It’s quite impressive.” He standing close now and a blush creep up on your cheeks. Only a foolish person would do an impression of an actor to another actor. “I’m glad you liked it, but you don’t have to lie, it’s rather terrible.” You laugh and so does he, “I wrote it down for you when you were ordering a set of drinks for us, and then you started to talk about Taika Waititi and I forgot to give you it.” You reach toward and give him a piece of paper, your number scribbled down on it. “Thank you, I’ll protect it with my life.” He says and brings it up to his chest, showing you how much it meant.

“I guess I’ll be waiting for your call.” You say, waiting for him to do or say something. He grins and leans forward and kisses you on the cheek, “I won’t keep you waiting. It was lovely meeting you y/n.” You’re feeling a bit dizzy from his touch so you snake your arms around his waist and squeeze. Tom is fast to guide his arms around your waist as well. Both of you breathe in each other’s scent as you part from each other. “Goodbye, darling.” He says and you say a quiet goodbye.

That’s when he begins to walk away, he looks back at you after a few meters and throws you a kiss which you catch, the grin on your face so wide it hurts. You begin walking home, in the exact opposite way from Tom, you had only a couple of hundred meters back to your flat, Tom had about 10 minutes. After a minute or two of walking in the cold night, your phone begins to ring. You take it out of your jacket and your heart does a flip, it’s Tom. You answer, “Who calls this time of night? Explain yourself, Tom.” He laughs on the other side of the signal. “Sorry, but I wanted to ask you something.” He clears his throat, “You said you were free Saturday, and I was wondering if you wanted to explore Primrose Hill with me and maybe let me cook you dinner after that.” Your heart is nearly beating out of your chest. “I’d be crazy to say no, I’d love to,” He lets out a breath that he had been holding, “I’ll see you there then, around noon?” You’re nearly home now and Tom can probably hear you rattle with your keys, “I can’t wait.” Tom sounds delighted, “Well, that was all I wanted y/n. I’ll let you go to bed, sleep well darling.” Seriously your heart is going to explode. “You too, Tom, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”