Hi everyone! First of all, wow. Haven't written a fanfic in ages. Definitely a combination of having no time and not enough inspiration.
Extended Summary: Post-"Avengers." Jane has been released from the remote SHIELD lab that has served largely as a prison for her. Wrung with confusion and frustration over her helplessness throughout the events in "Avengers," she impulsively asks to meet Loki, who is being held in a maximum security cell before his transport back to Asgard. What will this meeting hold for both of them?
Author's notes:
1. I own nothing.
2. Lokane eventually? Eventually. I say eventually because they're going to start out very much not in love. So review review review if you want to see me do some serious matchmaking!
3. Sorry, not too much Loki in this chapter. But that's why I've posted two chappies at once! Read on for Loki goodness.
Enjoy!
-tmp
Jane Foster, stepping off a private jet flown from one undisclosed location to another. Jane, flanked by SHIELD guards that hovered so close to her she could feel phantom handcuffs on her wrists. Jane, short and sturdy and angry.
She was incredibly, unspeakably angry.
Mere weeks after Thor had disappeared, leaving behind her now-decimated New Mexican home, Jane had received a call from SHIELD. An offer to continue her research at the nation's top facility. A chance of a lifetime. Little had she known that she would live in a bunker, fraternize only with faceless scientists and ominous guards, and never, ever be permitted to speak with Darcy or Erik. This test of will would go on for weeks, months. She would constantly crave sunlight, friendship, conversation - and she would receive none of it.
Eavesdropping on the guards one evening, Jane heard the news that Erik had been kidnapped by an Asgardian, a "hostile." Not Thor, she had thought, please not Thor. She pressed her ear to the door that separated her from the men and caught a name: Loki. Questions hatched in her brain like a swarm of maggots. Why Loki? What did he want with Erik? What, if anything, could this tell her about Thor?
She had watched the footage of the battle in New York, saw Thor grappling with his brother in a whirl of capes and sparks and explosions. She'd seen shaky and blurred camera footage of a tall man staggering and limping towards a SHIELD helicopter, arms cuffed behind his back, flanked by Iron Man and Thor himself.
In the aftermath of the battle, when the damage had already been done to the people she loved, Jane received a memo from Director Nick Fury, wondering if she'd like to speak with Thor in an undisclosed location. Jane had sat in her sterile bedroom, reading the memo over and over and over – and decided that no, she did not want to speak to Thor. Not yet.
Now, more than anything, and for reasons she couldn't quite grasp, she wanted a word with a different Asgardian prince.
Surprisingly, Jane didn't need to do much cajoling in order to see the fallen demigod. She'd sent her demands and a jet had been waiting on the tarmac the next morning. Sleepless and caffeinated, twitching in anticipation and thanking her lucky stars to be out of that miserable bunker, Jane buckled her seatbelt and watched the earth shrink beneath her.
When the jet arrived, Nick Fury hadn't bothered with introductions. He seemed on edge; Jane sensed that he wanted her out of his facility as soon as possible. He quickly gave her the terms of the visit.
"Miss Foster, I can assure your complete and total safety at all times during this interaction. He's being held in the most sophisticated anti-forcefield containment chamber in the world. You'll take an elevator down to the viewing pod, step off and say your peace, step back in and rejoin us. We've held him down with additional restraints – including a device that prevents him from speaking, so you can say all you want without fear of being–"
"So, a muzzle?" asked Jane.
"…interrupted. And yes, it's a muzzle of sorts."
"Like a dog? I'm supposed to just talk to a caged animal?" Jane could feel a nagging lump gnaw at her throat.
Fury pinched his nose bridge. "Miss Foster, we're dealing with a highly dangerous, outer space war criminal. A literal demigod who practically bested some of the world's most skilled crime fighters using only his words."
"And magic. You're forgetting about magic."
"For all we know, he accesses that magic verbally. No. It's too risky until we get the test results back. I'm sorry, Jane."
Jane felt her lungs boil in her chest.
"You're sorry? You shoved me off to a remote, cold lab. I couldn't see my family, my friends. I had to stand by and hear the news through the grapevine that my friend and colleague was in the captivity of the same brainwashing freak who flattened my entire hometown. And now you want me to gripe at him while he stares at me through a windowpane? I'm sorry sir, but no. Not good enough. I don't want to talk at him, I want to talk to him. With him."
Fury was unwavering. "Whatever your reasons for wanting to converse with him may be, you cannot think only of yourself. There are people higher up than me who wouldn't stand for it."
"You seem to defy their command often enough, Director."
For a moment Jane couldn't believe she had said that. She had actively engaged a man who looked like he could take five of the Russian mob's best goons. She decided to press her luck.
"Sir, I'm not the same little girl who threw a fit when SHIELD took her laptop. And I'm also not the naïve post-grad who let herself get fooled into being a SHIELD guinea pig for months. I know better now, thanks to you. I can handle myself."
Fury must have somehow agreed, because Jane saw his brow soften. A defeated sigh escaped his lips. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, gunmetal gray device.
"This is the remote for the mouthpiece. This button opens it. You want to keep your finger good and close to that red button. He speaks one word out of turn, you shut it down. Do we understand each other?"
Jane swallowed, the taste of her own mouth suddenly foreign. She reached out a sweaty hand and grasped the remote. The cold metal against her palm didn't make her feel any more powerful – she hadn't really suspected it would.
The elevator down, down, down to the containment cell was silver. Jane tried focusing on the details to keep her mind busy. Unfortunately there weren't many. There were only three buttons. Up. Down. Emergency. Pale light seemed to come from nowhere – Jane realized there were tiny bulbs built into ridges on the edges of the high ceiling.
How many floors down? Ten? Fifty? Was this what Thor had felt like as he'd descended to Earth? Waiting, distracted, nervous? Dreading the worst?
Oddly curious?
The doors suddenly sprang open with a hydraulic hiss. Funny, Jane mused. She hadn't even felt the elevator stop.
She stepped out and he was directly in front of her.
She started. The glass between them was so clear and so tall that she had to remind herself she couldn't walk up to his bedside.
Bedside was a loose term. If beds were made of metal and came with thick titanium restraints – then it would be a bedside.
He was sleeping, the back of the metal lounge propping up his torso like a modified hospital gurney. The lounge sat at an angle to the glass; the foot of lounge rested a yard from the very spot where Jane stood.
Details details details details, Jane reminded herself, heart pounding. He was astoundingly pale, even without the help of the harsh fluorescents; any skin visible underneath the armor he still wore seemed stark white. Tall, with strong features – prominent jawline, aquiline nose, firm cheekbones. Jet black hair swept back from the temples and landing on shoulders that were firmly squared even in slumber. Pert eyebrows drawn ever so slightly together, etching the faintest of lines on his forehead. Slender hands that twitched underneath the restraints anchoring his wrists.
His body bore evidence of injury and weakness. Angry scabs across his nose bridge, his temples. A bruise, here on his cheekbone, there on a knuckle. Were his eyes blacked, or were the dark circles products of fatigue? Chest hitching occasionally, as though his sleeping body still rebelled against deep breathing.
And the muzzle, gray and gleaming and clasping his jaw as his lungs forced breath through his mangled nose–
And Jane was crying. Thick, hot tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks and her brain reeled and reeled because she couldn't comprehend why, after all the months of anger and frustration and needing to scream at someone or hit something or stick her middle finger at everyone who was screwing up her world–
Why was she crying at the sight of the cause of all of it?
She turned her gaze to the ceiling and waited for her heart to steady itself and her breath to stop jerking in her chest. One deep inhale, exhale. Two. Three. The ceiling, she noticed, had a miniscule black dot in its silvery surface. Camera? She took one last deep breath and shook her head and let her eyes wander back to the glass–
She choked on her own breath.
Loki was staring straight at her.
Review and/or read on, folks! Thanks again!