The Devil Within
By: Darkest Ember
Chapter 1: Prologue
Summary: Jane is asked to accompany Erik Selvig and a mysterious scientist on the tesseract project for SHIELD. Due to the seriousness of the subject matter, they live in tight quarters and rarely leave the lab. In a short amount of time, Jane and this scientist grow close, and she finds that he's making her wait for Thor's return more bearable. Things will take a deadly turn once Loki lets his true identity be known.
Takes place between Thor and The Avengers.
Loki x Jane
My love is your disease
I won't let it set you free till I break you
You'll never know what hit you
Won't see me closing in
I'm gonna make you suffer
This hell you put me in
I'm underneath your skin
The devil within
- "The Devil Within" Digital Daggers -
All he could hear was her screams, reverberating off the towering golden walls of the palace. Despite living there for thousands of years, Thor found himself stumbling upon countless dead ends and abandoned corridors, while he scrambled to find her.
When was the last time he felt such – fear? He'd survived countless conquests, lived to tell the tale of thousands of bloody battles. Not once had he felt a sliver of fear compared to what he felt coursing through his veins this very instant.
Everything was so perfect just hours ago. Jane, upon spending endless hours searching for a way to travel to Asgard, to link their two realms once more, materialized out of thin air before him. They cherished their unexpected, though greatly appreciated time together, but suddenly the atmosphere changed. Loki, who'd been using his magic to conceal his presence, snatched Jane away right in front of Thor.
Thor knew she was somewhere in the palace. He tried calling upon the guards for help, but found the palace to be completely abandoned. It must've been one of Loki's illusions. Illusion or not, the eerie silence, save for the screams, was starting to toy with Thor's mind, causing his movements to become sloppier.
As he turned another corner, he skidded to an abrupt halt. He saw shadows of two figures dancing along the wall. The taller one – no doubt his brother – raised his hand and brought it down upon the smaller shadow. She cried out as her body flew across the room.
He'd finally found them.
Thor growled, tightly gripping Mjolnir, and charged into the room, hammer held high. "Enough!" His booming voice shook the foundation.
Loki glanced up with a smirk, mischievous and violent intent brightening his eyes. "Ah, you've arrived just in time. I was growing tired of torturing such an insignificant, defenseless creature."
Jane struggled to get back on her feet. Her body was covered in cuts and burns from where he'd struck her with blasts of magic. The beautiful dress Frigga loaned her was tattered, the silky material torn to awful shreds. Despite her pain, Jane mustered enough strength to shoot him a hateful expression.
"Step away from her, brother," Thor replied, struggling to contain himself at the sight of Jane's battered body.
"I'm afraid I can't," Loki said, his face conveying mock sympathy. In a flash, he somehow managed to pin Thor up against the wall, keeping him in place with a quickly cast spell. "I want you to stand here and watch, helpless, as I kill your woman."
"Loki, stop this madness! She has done nothing to wrong you."
Loki rolled his eyes, gracefully turning on his heel to approach Jane. He reached down, wrapping skeletal fingers around her throat. Her hands instinctively flew up to claw at his, though her attempts did nothing to loosen his grip.
Even with his full strength, Thor could not break free from the invisible restraints. He was forced to watch as his brother slowly choked the life out of Jane. Just on the verge of death, Loki stopped suddenly, spinning around and facing Thor.
"Let it be known that on this day, the mighty Thor failed to spare his loved one from death," Loki snarled. Using his free hand, he transformed the marble floor into a pit of lava, separating Thor and himself. He held Jane's nearly lifeless body out over the pit, allowing both her and Thor to realize how her death would come about.
Before she could scream or beg for his mercy, Loki dropped her into the lava, watching with sick satisfaction as the lava ate her flesh in a matter of seconds.
The image of her melted flesh and dissolving bones burned into the back of Thor's eyes, even as he returned to reality, panting and alert in his chambers. His eyes darted madly around the room – a familiar, though confusing setting. Everything about that awful nightmare felt so real, so lifelike.
He could still feel the heat emitted from the lava inch along his flesh. He could still feel his heart fiercely beating in fear and sorrow.
Why would his mind plague him with such horrific images?
Try as he may, Thor was unable to fall back asleep. He feared that there was some sort of warning to the nightmare, perhaps of events yet to manifest. He needed some sort of reassurance.
Silently, he crept out of his chambers and took a horse from the stable. The journey to the gatekeeper was much shorter with nothing but a fragmented strip of the Bifrost remaining.
Heimdall anticipated Thor's arrival before the god of thunder ever left his bed. He did not turn to greet Thor. "What troubles you, my prince?"
"I worry about Jane," Thor answered.
"If it will put your mind at ease, I shall turn my gaze upon her."
Thor felt his skin crawl once he saw Heimdall's shoulders tense ever so slightly.
"How very strange," Heimdall mumbled. "I have looked upon Jane Foster periodically since your return to Asgard, but this is the first time that I cannot see her."
"What does that mean? Why can't you see her?" There was a foreign quiver to Thor's usually boisterous voice.
"There are only two explanations I can think of – she is either dead or being veiled, with magic."
Refusing to believe her dead, Thor racked his memory, recalling how many a time Loki would use his magic to conceal himself or others. Unfortunately, the most recent memory involved letting the Frost Giants sneak into Asgard, disrupting his coronation.
This had to be Loki's doing, Thor concluded. Unfortunately, even though he was nearly positive that Jane wasn't dead, the thought of Loki being anywhere near her did little to bring him any more comfort.
"Does this not remind you of Loki's tactics?" Thor asked.
Heimdall considered the possibility. "It may very well be Loki's doing. However, I have not been able to sense his presence since the day he fell into the abyss. I presumed him dead, as did we all."
It could hardly be coincidence that Jane would vanish from Heimdall's all-seeing eyes just as Thor dreamed of Loki murdering her. He needed to find a way to Midgard now more than ever.
From the moment Thor vanished, merging into the rainbow-colored stream of light, Jane began working on a way to rejoin him. Erik and Darcy remained by her side, though only possessing a fraction of her fierce determination.
Nothing else mattered – each day consisted of the same basic tasks: eat, breathe, sleep, and research. Although the odds seemed to continuously stack up against her, she refused to stop. After all, she was limited by her mortal lifespan. She needed to build an Einstein-Rosen bridge immediately.
How could she focus on this world when she knew that there was so much more out there for her to see?
Jane awoke with a start, forced into consciousness from the ceaseless pounding at the front door. She'd fallen asleep in a pile of her notes, yet again. Groaning, she wiped some drool off her face and tried to smooth down her hair, wanting to look at least somewhat presentable to the person who interrupted her sleep.
She made her way through the narrow hallway, if one could call it that, of her RV and reached the door. The person waiting for her on the other side was an all too familiar face – Agent Phil Coulson, of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Morning, Doctor Foster," he greeted, a curt, businesslike smile tugging at his lips.
"Do you guys always just show up spontaneously like this?" she asked, noting the collection of black vehicles surrounding her modest living arrangement.
"Pretty much," he responded, pausing to take off his sunglasses. "Would you mind if I came inside? I think you might be interested to hear what I have to say."
Knowing she really didn't have much of a choice, Jane stepped to the side and sat down on the couch. "This better be good," she mumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.
"As you may already know, your colleague, Doctor Selvig, has been working on a S.H.I.E.L.D project for the past couple weeks."
She nodded. "He was pretty cagey on the details, but I figured it must've been a big deal if S.H.I.E.L.D was involved…"
Coulson pulled a folder out of his briefcase and handed it to Jane. "This will tell you everything you need to know about the project. Doctor Selvig and another astrophysicist are working with a potentially alien artifact known as the tesseract. Given your background, Director Fury has decided to include both yourself and your assistant, Darcy Lewis, in this project."
Jane felt a twinge of excitement creep up her spine as she eagerly opened the folder and scanned the data. Apparently S.H.I.E.L.D wanted to harness the immense energy given off by the tesseract to create a sustainable source of pure energy. Tony Stark had already been working on a protocol with fairly positive results thus far.
If the tesseract was a so-called 'alien' device, it might help her figure out a way to communicate with Thor. Hell, it might even be the missing link to creating her Einstein-Rosen bridge. But even so, something seemed suspicious.
"It says here that the project was initiated over a month ago," she said, glancing up at Coulson with wary eyes. "Why wait till now to include me? You knew that Erik and I worked together, so why didn't you bring me in with him from the beginning?"
Coulson briefly avoided her gaze, not wanting to have to get into the details right off the bat. "The other astrophysicist working with Doctor Selvig – something about him doesn't sit right with Fury. He passed clearance in S.H.I.E.L.D's database, doesn't have a criminal record or anything. Doctor Selvig doesn't have a single bad thing to say about the guy…"
Jane snorted. "Is it so bad to like the person you're working with?"
"It's too good to be true," Coulson said flatly. "Selvig is already too involved. We need someone else on the team, someone who can keep an unbiased eye on him."
Deep down, Jane knew she wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. Even so, she didn't like the fact that she was being called upon simply because some pompous spy organization felt paranoid. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, trying to grasp all of this.
"So you're telling me that my scientific knowledge alone wasn't enough to allow me to work on this before, but now that you need someone to keep an eye on a person that you hired, I'm magically qualified? Why don't you get one of your spies to do the job?"
"That wouldn't work. If this guy were up to something, he'd know that an average spy isn't a scientist. By including you, we're killing two birds with one stone – an additional intelligent mind working on the project, who wouldn't raise any suspicions."
"I can't believe I'm doing this," she muttered, mostly to herself. She glanced back up at Coulson, who seemed to already know what her answer would be. "I'm in."
From what Jane could gather, the four of them – Erik, Darcy, the mysterious astrophysicist, and herself would be confined to their work space to study the tesseract. They'd have to stay in such conditions until they've finalized their research and know enough about the relic to allow for S.H.I.E.L.D to begin using it.
Of course Jane didn't mind that too much, seeing as it wouldn't really differ from her own lifestyle. Darcy, on the other hand, wasn't too thrilled.
"Can you believe we're going to be locked in some lab for months?" she gasped. "No cell phone reception…no cable TV…it's practically the apocalypse!"
"Oh, relax, Darcy. You'll be fine," Jane laughed.
After passing through various security checkpoints, Coulson led Jane and Darcy to the lab. She couldn't help but smile once she saw Erik. It'd only been a month since she saw him, but it felt so much longer.
As much as she wanted to run over and hug him or ask him to share his thoughts on the tesseract, she found herself stationary once she saw the man S.H.I.E.L.D was so suspicious of.
Darcy noticed him just as quickly. "I can see why they'd be so worried about him. He's way too hot to be a scientist," she whispered to Jane.
She had a valid point. Aside from Thor, Jane hadn't found a single other man to rival his attractiveness. But this man – with his perfectly slicked raven hair, structured cheekbones, and slender frame – seemed almost as otherworldly as Thor, despite having qualities so opposite of Thor's brawn.
This project just became much more interesting.
Everything was going according to plan. The seeds of his vengeance had been planted almost directly after he fell from Asgard. He spent a brief amount of time spiraling through crevices between the Nine Realms, interacting with all sorts of strange, repulsive creatures. During his journey, he gained unthinkable knowledge and learned entirely different means of sorcery.
He learned of the tesseract, an Asgardian relic that had somehow fallen to Midgard. He found his way to Earth, hiding in the shadows and manipulating humans to do his bidding – introducing the tesseract to S.H.I.E.L.D, involving one of Thor's dear friends, Erik Selvig.
Loki waited until the timing was right to take a human form and infiltrate his own lab experiment, posing as astrophysicist Luka Lawson, a moderately amusing modification of his regrettably truthful name – Loki Laufeyson.
He could sense Jane's presence before she entered the room. When they made initial eye contact, he was surprised and somewhat pleased to find her looking upon him with admiration and interest. He nearly laughed aloud, knowing that once she learned the truth, that'd hardly be how she would look at him. When the time was right, she would see nothing but fear when she gazed upon him.
As he made a move to greet her and introduce himself, he froze, feeling overwhelmed with emotion. This was the woman who ruined everything – Thor's whore, as he'd taken a liking to calling her. She, in a matter of days, transformed his brutish, arrogant, selfish brother into a respectable man, worthy of the crown of Asgard. Loki was meant to rule. He'd done everything to prove it, going to great lengths to justify himself.
Then Jane Foster had to ruin everything, forever driving a wedge between Loki and Thor, once loving brothers, now hateful adversaries.
Violent images flashed before his eyes as his mind wandered, picturing how he'd make her pay for her interference. A quick death would be out of the question. He'd drag it out nice and slow, forcing her to cling to that last breath of life until Thor arrived, just in time to see her die.
Her voice ripped him from his own thoughts. "I'm Jane Foster," she said with a smile, somehow standing much closer to him than he recalled her being.
He blinked a few times, forcing himself back into character. "Luka Lawson," he said. "It is such an honor to finally meet you."
A/N: After months of reading Lokane fics, I finally gave in and decided to start one of my own. There just aren't enough of them out there! And with all the other stories I have going on right now, I know the last thing I need is a new story, but I couldn't help myself. I'm officially obsessed ;)
I already started writing the next chapter, and hope that I'll have updates either once a week or every other week.
Reviews would mean the world to me :)