It had been two years since Thor had given up his throne to be with Jane, and every day since he had spoken of the place. Jane didn't mind at first, relishing in the stories he would tell her. But eventually she had grown tired of hearing about Sif, and all the adventures they had had, together. This had caused various arguments between the two; Jane always accusing Thor of still being in love with the warrior and him denying it each time. Eventually, the arguments took their toll, and Jane and Thor parted ways. Thor had, of course, wanted to return to Asgard, but the new king, his brother, was less than thrilled to bring the oaf back.
Loki had taken over the throne after tricking Thor into thinking that he was dead, and he wasn't about to give it up now. His elaborate plan had worked out, and the throne, the Realm, was his. It took some very well made lies, though. He had created a clone in Odin's likeness and had the clone announce that Loki was alive, and that he would be the king. It hadn't gone over that well at first, but the Asgardians eventually got used to Loki as their new king. This is where it got complicated.
Thor still thought that his brother was dead; that made his return to Asgard a threat to Loki's rule. And Loki couldn't have that, could he? Various times Thor had tried to return to the Realm Eternal by shouting for Heimdall, but each time there was no answer. Heimdall had informed Loki of this, and Loki simply told him to keep Thor out. Having no choice but to obey, Heimdall refused to answer the former Asgardian.
Meanwhile, Jane had returned to her work in the lab in New Mexico.
"Jane? Jaaaaaaane? JANE!" Darcy, Jane's intern, repeatedly poked her boss in the arm, curious to see if she was actually awake.
Jane whined and swatted at Darcy's hand a few times, before finally sitting up with a rather annoyed expression.
"What?" She asked, her tone less than friendly.
"You looked dead, so I was just makin' sure before I split town to avoid being blamed."
Jane rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch she'd fallen asleep on, stretching and yanwing, before going to the kitchen for her fourth cup of coffee. Darcy, of course, trailed behind her like a lost puppy.
"You've been kinda quiet today, you still thinking 'bout tall, blonde, and muscly?"
"Darcy, don't you have work to do? Or a wedding to plan…" The astrophysicist asked quietly, sipping her coffee with caution. Ian, Darcy's intern, he proposed to her shortly after the events that had transpired in London. Darcy had accepted, but no further planning had been done for the interns' wedding.
"Uh, no. Not until the dweeb calls me back." This time it was Darcy who rolled her eyes, plopping into a chair by the kitchen table.
"Phones work both ways, you know…" Jane sighed and took her coffee back into the lab, sitting at her desk to pull up the most recent images from the Hubble Telescope. She had decided to continue her work with proving that mortals could make a device to transport them to other realms, but she needed the telescope's images to be able to pinpoint Asgard's location, before she would even attempt to send herself there.
While Jane and Darcy where working on their portal device, Loki had been in talks with the guard of the palace about his the usual Asgardian details. Nothing seemed out of order, other than Heimdall's silence, and the King had dismissed them from his court. He sat there for a long while after they left, staring at the wall in silence. Something was going to happen, he knew that, but he didn't know what. His first thought was that his brother would return to Asgard for the throne, but he had quickly forced the thought from his mind. But feelings, unfortunately, could not be dismissed as easily as thoughts. Even then as he sat upon his golden throne, his stomach was twisted in knots as he tried to think of anything but the odds visions he'd been getting. His visions, though rare, always came when he was asleep, and they were always of the Bifrost. Sometimes it would be perfectly fine, but other times he could see someone arriving on it. The image of the person arriving was always too blurry to make out, and Loki would always wake up in a cold sweat when he tried to figure out who it was. And so, the young King would sit for hours, like he was doing that day, and try to figure out what the dreams could possibly mean.
Meanwhile, Jane had just added her last calculation into the teleportation machine, and was finally starting to get excited. If her machine worked she would be a millionaire. And she would finally be able to ask Sif if Thor still loved her or not…
"Janey, this is nuts! You can't ACTUALLY go up to Asgard with this… this thing! What about Barney? The poor cat's gonna miss ya!"
"I'll be back in a day or so, Darcy." Jane said as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. "And Buster, not Barney, died a week ago. You knew that."
"Oh… yeah. Sorry." The young intern picked up her soda and started to sip it as she watched her friend prepare for 'teleportation'. "How do ya know this is even gonna work? And why the heck would you wanna go back to Asgard?"
"For Science, Darce." She responded quicker than she liked, removing all of her jewelry and placing it onto a nearby table. "I'm not sure it's going to work, but I have to try it. Just think of all the possibilities pf travel! Asgard is just one step out there."
"Sounds like a bunch of bull if you ask me. I'm perfectly content with Star Trek and a soda. We should just… pretend we're traveling with Captain Kirk, not actually try it."
Jane huffed in annoyance as he fingers flew over the keyboard, entering the last number code needed to turn on the machine.
"Unlike you, I actually want to be remembered for doing something extrodiary, not pig out on potatoe chips and bacon until I turn gray."
"Hey! its bacon bits, not bacon!"
"Whatever," the astrophysicist's right hand hovered over the enter key for a minute, "here we go…" She inhaled a deep breath and pressed enter. The second she did, her machine begun to make all sorts of whirring and beeping noises, lights flashing all over it. Both Darcy and Jane stared in wide-eyed-wonder as a white light shot up to the ceiling, spreading out into a cone shape, before rainbow patterns started form in the cone. Jane grinned and stepped out from behind her laptop, still staring into the now rainbow hued cone.
"Holy crape, Jane! Don't get close to that thing!"
Before Darcy could even finish her sentence, Jane had mindlessly made her way over to the machine. Her hair was in her face and her clothes where being pulled towards the rainbow cone. A pen on the nearby desk was lifted into the air and sailed across the room, directly into the cone. All of this had been carefully observed by the astrophysicist as she still stared into the cone.
"JANE! HELLO? EARTH TO JANE! GET AWAY FROM IT!"
Darcy's warning was merely a split second too late, as the machine sucked Jane's arm into it. The brunette had opened her mouth to instruct Darcy to shut down the machine, but it felt like all of the air had been sucked from her lungs. Swaying back and forth from the sudden dizzy spell, Jane Foster had gotten to close to the rainbow cone, and in the blink of an eye, she had been sucked into it, and vanished.
Loki had just been called for by Heimdall, and had made his way to the Gatekeeper's post at the Birfost, his scepter in hand.
"This had better be urgent. I was busy." He said rather coldly, shooting the other man a small death glare.
"Lady Foster has successfully built a teleportation device. She will arrive momentarily." Heimdall responded calmly.
Loki blinked a few times, staring in slight disbelief at the Gatekeeper. How had Jane, a mortal, manage to create such a device? If what Heimdall had said was true, Loki would ask her when she arrived.
The rainbow cone had connected with Asgard's Bifrost chamber, and Jane was hurtling towards it with increasing speed. The brunette had been unable to catch her breath after her machine sucked it out of her and had fallen unconscious. All of the sudden, the unconscious female landed on a solid surface with a thud, rolling on the ground until she came to rest at Loki and Heimdall's feet.
Loki stared at her for a minute, before bending down slowly to roll her onto her back and check for a pulse, seeing as she seemed lifeless. He snorted when he saw his brother's hammer, in a MUCH smaller version, on a chain around her neck. They were obviously still together. Or at least that's what he thought. After what seemed like an eternity of staring at her pale form, Loki pressed his fingers to Jane's wrist to check for her pulse. After finding one, he stood up.
"She lives, but if she is to stay alive she'll need medical attention."
Loki turned to the guards he had with him, stepping away from Jane's frail body to allow them to pick her up. "Take her to the healing room, and tell the healers to let me know when she awakes."
"Yes, my lord." They both nodded and lifted Jane into their arms, quickly rushing her to the healing room for immediate medical attention.
"Bloody idiot let his girlfriend travel up here all alone," Loki mumbled to himself as he made his way back to the castle. Big mistake, Thor… Big mistake…"