In the Eye
A gift fic for evendia
The winds above Stark Tower are icy and buffeting, sweeping over her like being caught in the endless tumbling rollers of arctic surf. Jane's hair whips wildly about her head, short strands whipping at her temples, lashing the delicate skin until it chafes. Her lips are cracked and dry; her eyes scarcely any better. She hasn't slept in fully three days.
It doesn't matter. She can't feel her inconsequential physical discomfort, the gnawing hunger in her gut, the arrhythmic jitter of her heart. None of it matters behind the brilliant blanketing blue in which the Tesseract winds her.
Even if she felt every bit of her agony, Jane doesn't know that she'd object in the face of what she's gained. The Tesseract has shown her so many things; so many beautiful, glorious things. Formulae that will crack the heavens, devices that can enable humans to reach beyond galaxies without stirring a step. Somewhere, Jane knows that this knowledge is the fulfillment of her life's ambitions, but that means nothing, anymore. All that truly counts is that the Tesseract's ambitions are fulfilled.
And that fulfillment is only minutes away, now. Her portal generator is up and running, spinning and humming and twisting like some kind of interstellar drill. The skies above it are darkening, the clouds gathering together in a cyclone's funnel.
Jane staggers backwards, arms outflung. The desiccated skin of her upper lip gives way and starts to bleed as she grins.
"It's beautiful!" she cries. The portal has opened a midnight eye in the glare of midday, and she can see the stars. Not, by any means, the stars that should be there. This is an alien galaxy—an alien dimension.
And aliens are coming through.
"Well done, my Jane," an arm slid around her waist, a touch Jane sees no need to repulse. "It is beautiful indeed."
Her blood smears between them as Loki kisses her. She does not care. He holds the staff, the staff from which the guiding voice flows. Far more important to heed its call than any muffled scream from within.
Loki brushes one finger across her abused lips and seals the torn skin with a word. "Would that we had more time to enjoy this," he glances upwards and his jaw clenches tight, "but I fear the last act of our drama has still to play."
Jane would far rather stay near the generator—there's something about it, something she knows is important but can't quite recall—but he is leading her away, locking her hand around his elbow. She trots by his side and into the glass-framed lounge.
"A drink?" he offers.
She can barely remember the taste of alcohol, and she certainly has no stomach for it. It clouds the mind, and she never wants the voice within to abandon her.
"You'll have one," he decides, and she takes the tumbler from him without another thought. "To your great achievement," he gestures with the scepter to the pillar of shadow stretching like God's finger from the heavens to the earth. Already that unnatural darkness has sparked fire from the concrete and steel buildings of Manhattan.
Jane knows it will all burn before Loki is finished, but the thought does not affect her. It is only the whiskey landing hard on her echoing stomach that makes her so sick. She drinks as little as possible; only one sip for each of Loki's deep swallows.
"Ah," he says, gaze sharp and beyond her. His grip tightens on her arm and she winces involuntarily. If he breaks the bone, she won't be able to adjust the portal's resonance frequency when necessary. "Come along, my dear."
He tailors his pace to her this time, leading her as a courtier would lead his lady out onto the terrace and into the stinging wind. But he spares not a glance for her; all his attention is focused on the blur of crimson and gold streaking towards them.
It's Thor, she thinks. It's been one year and two days since I've seen him. Three hundred and sixty-seven days.
Why does she bother with such a useless fact?
The whiskey twists her stomach again and she feels the uncomfortable sensation of wanting to vomit without having anything to bring up. Thor is nothing but a complication to the Tesseract's plan—she knows he will try to destroy her great work, her portal to the stars—but even so, she does not want him to go away.
Jane does not know what she wants. They mean nothing, anyway. Her little wants are inconsequential to the Tesseract.
Loki's arm is fastened around her shoulders, squeezing the bones together and compressing her lungs. She wiggles a bit until he hisses, "Be still."
Thor lands with an impact that shakes the steel girders beneath them. Jane turns to look at her generator, but it hasn't moved a millimeter. Still safe...for now. She can't shake the feeling that there's something wrong with it, some crack in its design...like a diamond hiding a fatal flaw at its heart.
Jane swallows, throat lined with sore, dry grit.
"Kiss me," she hears. He is only half-turned to her; his attention is still all for Thor. She sees the nasty grin on his face as his grasping arm pulls her ever closer.
No, she thinks, knee-jerk and instinctual. Kissing him has nothing to do with their mission, nothing to do with the Tesseract, nothing to do with humans travelling to alien worlds. She won't do it.
But her body is moving regardless and as their lips meet she thinks that perhaps humiliating Thor is one of the Tesseract's objectives after all. Because she does not close her eyes as they kiss and she sees how shattered he looks.
Loki is watching too. The instant Thor's strong arm falters and Mjolnir slips towards the ground, he breaks from her and laughs. It has the metallic grate of nails on glass; harsh, grating, artificial. He laughs like a man who does not want to do it but cannot help himself.
If he feels truly victorious, he does not sound like it.
"I told you that your idle fretting over humanity was worthless, Odinson," he says at last, when his throat too is sore, "See how you cannot safeguard even your mortal beloved from me? How much less can you expect to stop the war?"
"I expect you to stop it, brother," Thor's voice is weary, dejected. Jane has never heard him speak this way before; even in the moments before his mortal death, he had been resigned...almost joyous. His own imminent end had not frightened him. So where comes the change?
After a few moments, Jane begins to wonder whether she might be in some danger. After all, Loki has what he needs from her. If he thinks the Chitauri can win the war for him, the only use she has is to further pain Thor.
What would be more painful than her murder?
Oh, she thinks. Oh.
"Why should I?" Loki replies. He slides away from her, trusting to his influence to keep her where she stands. Jane shudders in the sudden chill away from his body. "What have I to fear? The Chitauri come, in force that far outweigh yours. The mortals have naught that can match them. In weeks I shall rule this realm and be a King in truth. With a suitable Queen, of course."
They both catch his meaning at the same instant.
"Never!" Thor cries, strength flowing back to his arm as he leaps, hammer upraised. Loki throws a magical shield between them just before the moment of impact.
The shockwave between magics rings through the air and flings Jane backwards, lifted wholly off her feet. She has a moment to wonder at the amount of force generated—and worry about its affect on her internal organs—before she hits the ground, back grinding hard against the rough gravel.
Her skin leaves a long bloody streak on the stones, right to the edge of the railing, in which her skull leaves a nice, rounded dent.
Jane wakes again in agony. The freezing wind slaps her skin and stings the scrapes on her back. But it is not the momentary injuries she feels; no, all feeling is back. She's hungry, exhausted, sore, smelly, and fucking pissed.
"—can anybody read? I repeat, there's no getting through to this thing. Stark, any ideas?"
Jane rolls over, blinking away the flashing spots that cluster and swirl in the narrow groove between her eyelids and her eyes. A woman is standing by the portal, red haired, bruised, and bleeding. Jane shakes her head, willing her scattered thoughts to coalesce.
"Agent Romanoff," she manages, "You can't get through. It's pure energy."
The woman throws a weary smile her way. "Tell me something I don't know."
Jane's arms are weak, so weak they can barely lift her torso from the painful gravel. She leans on her elbows and pants, eyes focusing on a flashing dot that won't go away. It takes her a long moment to realize she's not hallucinating this one.
It's Loki's scepter.
She stares. Something about it, that energy floating in lazy blue motes in the sunlight, catches her memory.
The portal...and the scepter...
The scepter's energy had been so special, so unique. Jane hadn't been able to resist studying it right alongside the portal tech. And she had wrapped the two together, wrapped them together so that—
"It can close it," she whispers. "The scepter can close the portal."
She hauls herself upright. "Agent Romanoff," she said, "there's a failsafe."
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean, that if you get that scepter, I can close the portal," her hand shakes on the railing, but she manages a few steps in the right direction. "I built a failsafe."
Her eyebrow quirks. "A failsafe? A little convenient for a person under mind-control, don't you think?"
"It wasn't mind control, per se," she counters, "But you can trust me or not. I'll go get the scepter myself if you don't." Her knees wobble until she locks them back; Jane refuses to let her body's exhaustion get the better of her now, when it's so, so important that she succeed.
"Stay here, Doctor Foster," Romanoff has slipped right past her, "And sit down. Thor would never forgive me if I let you fall off the building."
She jumps over the side. The sight is enough to make Jane's head spin.
In the meantime, she minces forwards until collapsing against the generator's control panel. She has to—it's so hard to concentrate, there are dwarves in her skull swinging pickaxes against her gray matter—she has to rewire a few things so that the portal doesn't react against the scepter's energy. It's programmed to repel anything external, but she remembers building a backdoor into the machine's programming.
It takes her stiff hands a few minutes to remember what to do, but by the time Agent Romanoff returns, she's ready.
But things aren't to be that easy.
Romanoff drops into a crouched fighting stance, scepter held crosswise before her. Loki shows no signs of combativeness, merely an arch superiority at his opponent's pretension to fight him. He looks beyond her; looks at Jane.
She feels herself pale and can't stop it. Among the other sensations she now remembers from her time under the Tesseract's influence is the feeling of Loki's lips on hers, and that fills her with a nauseating mix of embarrassment, shame, and rage.
"So you'd betray me like this?" he asks, "After everything we've done for and been to each other?"
She gulps. Her heart trips and patters and nearly fails altogether. "We aren't anything to each other," she manages, faintly. "And I'm not going to let you destroy the world."
"I fail to see how you—or the clever Agent Romanoff here," he bites the word, "intend to stop me."
"They will not have to!"
Mjolnir slams hard into Loki's side and drives the air from his lungs and the sneer from his face. Romanoff doesn't miss a beat; while Jane stands stunned, she presses one hand to her ear and cries:
"Does anyone copy? I can close the portal!"
()()()
The battle ends where it began; atop Stark Tower. Jane is mere feet away, still overseeing the portal's closure, when the Hulk takes Loki by the heels and pounds him into the floor. It's a moment both hilarious and stunning; she can't decide whether to laugh or cry.
Then it's over, and Thor is by her side, apologies that she has no strength to hear spilling from his lips. Together they walk out of the wind and into the warmth, surrounded by the other Avengers come to gloat at Loki's downfall.
He doesn't give them the satisfaction. Instead, he looks beyond them and at her, the mortal with nothing to offer in this assemblage of gods, and asks:
"Care for another drink, Jane?"