A/N: I watched the latest Mad Max movie the other day and I fell in love with the bleak dystopia that became of the world. Paired with my awakened Lokane feelings and my itch to contribute something for this pair, this story came to be. I haven't explored the entire section of Lokane fics, so if something like this has been done before, forgive me for the redundancy. Either way, I hope you enjoy. And if it's not too much, please leave me a review. :)
Now Playing: Innocence by Madeon, Harbinger by Anberlin, Together We'll Live Forever by Clint Mansell
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. The cover picture is by Jan Wellmann.
"What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart!
What jailer so inexorable as one's self."
Nathaniel Hawthorne
I.
There is a weight to her bones she has never felt before. Jane considers the possibility that she has slept through a few decades and has woken up as an aged woman, but when she opens her eyes and sees her skin still fresh and supple with youth, she shoves that theory down the drain along with hundreds of her previous farfetched notions.
When she moves to sit up from whatever surface it is she's lying on, her head pounds violently and she is forced to lay back down to stop the agonizing pain. She would have screamed, had her throat not been too parched with the lack of water and with disuse. She closes her eyes and tries to breathe in and out, but even her lungs are aching with the motions. Why did she feel so sore?
"You're awake," she hears a deep—unknown—voice beside her say, "Finally."
As she couldn't raise her body without any discomfort, she tries rolling to her side to face whoever she is with. It works; her mind is still as could be, but she doesn't see anyone else in the room. That is, until she rolls again to adjust her vision and finds a man sitting on the floor in one corner of the room.
"In all my years of living, I had never witnessed a rebirth personally; but I do believe the tales do not do the marvel of it justice."
He stands, dusting his pants—of leather?—and she notes that he would tower over her if she stood. His hair is dark as midnight and reaches past his ears, covering the base of his neck, and Jane remembers the last man who kept his hair at the same length was a god of sorts. The man with her now does not share the golden tan, however, but instead is colored a pale hue, almost deathly so. And the smirk on his lips shows that he has the upper hand somehow, radiating a form of rare confidence which bordered on narcissism. He is handsome, she could give him that, but what had he just said? Did he mention a rebirth?
And it hits her. The events of the past twenty-four hours—that is, the twenty-four hours when she was awake—rush through her mind with a surge of memories. She remembers being in Norway, an agent telling her to stay in the observatory until an evacuation notice was sent out, asking her fellow scientists if they knew the goings on while alarms and sirens rang; finally, Darcy telling—showing through a hacked network—her the truth of the situation: there had been aliens appearing from wormholes—wormholes! Her life's work!—in the sky of New York. The Avengers—which included her beloved god—had failed and a nuclear strike had levelled the city to contain the threat and left no survivors—human or otherwise.
"Thor," she croaks. He must have survived! Surely, he was able to fly away just in time to save himself! But, a grim voice in her mind tells her, he would not leave the rest of the citizens of New York unable to fend for themselves; no, he would have tried to save each and every one of them before he helped himself. That is—was—how honorable Thor was.
"Yes, yes; Brother was ever the valiant hero," the man speaks from across the room, his voice either bitter or sarcastic or even sad, she couldn't properly tell when her own senses feel like they are on hijack. "But this was his last wish, you see, and I had just enough love left for my beloved brother to grant it. Or perhaps I had done this to satiate curiosity of my own. Who ever knows what my intentions are?"
She does not see. In place of her sight are unfamiliar sensations—aside from the newfound throbbing of her heart at the loss of Thor—of something pulling her body apart. As though every cell that composed Jane herself is destroying and recomposing itself over and over again. The cycle is natural and does happen to the human body, but this—it is too much to handle all at once. The fact that she is in the room with Loki, Thor's brother who had lied to him about their father's death; who had wittingly caused the fall of New York in hopes of becoming a king of sorts, makes her feel even more nauseated.
Her stomach churns with dread and Jane heaves its contents to the floor beside her makeshift bed. Somehow, as though with magic, a bucket appears and catches all of which was in her body. She doesn't have time to wonder about it because the pain—the terrible, terrible pain—returns and seizes her senses once more.
That, and her skin is glowing gold.
"Now, is this not beautiful?" Loki mutters, watching her with critical eyes. She panics and shrieks and it becomes even more painful—and yet he is laughing. "I suppose I should tell you not to resist too much. Do not hold on to who you were, Jane Foster, and instead embrace who you are to be. Doing otherwise will only cause you to hurt."
His words do not register and instead she fights.
Her screams only become louder.
So does his laughter.
II.
When she awakens, Loki is gone.
Without fear of him and what he is capable of doing to her, she is able to stand on her own two feet. The way her body moves is familiar and unfamiliar at once. The way her body is her own is a mystery in itself. She feels something running through her veins that isn't just blood. There is a new energy within her that is thrumming with every pulse, asking for the release she doesn't know how to grant.
She is in a bunker of sorts, all cold metal and supplies. Her bed is the only thing that looks remotely comfortable. There is a table with a tray of food filled with bread and fruits, and her stomach gives her a growl of an order and demands her to eat.
As she takes the plate, she couldn't help but notice that there is no door to the bunker. Even when she had looked up, there seemed to be no escape—at least not in the physical sense. But Loki is not here and that means that there is a way out; just in a way she doesn't understand yet. Unless she had imagined his presence, but then she'd had no reason to. She hadn't even met him before, so she could not have conjured an image of him.
Soon the plate is empty and she replaces it on the table and now takes the glass of water. She finishes it in one gulp and replaces the vessel on the counter, too.
The bunker has one wall made entirely of a mirror. Jane's new hypothesis is that the mirror is two-way and acts as some dimensional barrier which one could cross over—that is, if magic is real and it could account for the discrepancies science could not explain. When she walks over to that side of the room and touches the reflective ceramic, it glows and vibrates, but doesn't grant her the passage she seeks.
Rather than frustrating herself more in pursuit of answers, she lays back on her bed and waits for Loki to come back. Despite her apprehension to ask anything of him, he is still the one with answers, with knowledge of the situation.
She does get tired of waiting, however, and eventually her body gives in to exhaustion or fatigue or whatever it is that has caused her to feel so heavy and worn out. The food must have been drugged, she thinks to herself, because now she hallucinates and sees a half-finished apple on the table which was not there before.
III.
His return is signaled by the faint green light coming from the other side of the mirror. She knows that it isn't how it's supposed to work; it is basic optics operations and as someone who had to look through devices to get glimpses of light on the far end of the galaxy, she knows that it isn't how it's supposed to work. But there is the light that gets brighter until it passes through the mirror and Loki materializes in front of her.
"How did you do that?" she hears her voice—strangely lower and sounds so unlike her—ask.
He raises a brow in response.
"You are confined in this chamber with no idea of where you are or what is of the world outside or what had happened to your friends, and you ask how I did that?" She can't tell if he's amused or if he finds her stupid, but either way she blushes in embarrassment. "This is our first decent conversation since your rebirth, so I shall grant you another chance, Jane Foster. What is it you truly want to know?"
She doesn't skip a beat. "Everything."
"Everything?" he mutters, the mischief he is known for reflecting in the deep green pools of his eyes. "Have care what you wish, Jane Foster. If you knew all the secrets of the universe, it would drive you mad. I would know."
Perhaps that explains the manic grin which paints his expression, Jane thinks idly to herself. Still, there is so much she wonders about, so many questions she needs the answers to.
"Where am I?"
"I believe this is a region called Norway. Or is this a country? You Midgardians divide lands unnecessarily."
She nods and opens her mouth to ask another question, but her uncertainty stops her from speaking. She doesn't know what it is she wants to know. She is afraid.
"What happened to me?"
"You ask only of yourself?" There is no change in his expression, the dangerous glint in his eyes is constant on his face. "You have been spared by the last wishes of the god you are so fond of. That is all there is to know. The rest of humanity, on the other hand, do not quite share his affections and so is, well, dead."
Dead. The word makes a pool of her stomach and once more she heaves its contents into a magically-appearing bucket. The thought of the entire human race—over seven billion people—dying as though they were nothing more but ants is frightful enough to have her retching. The thought of Darcy and Erik gone… That could not be right. Loki is the god of mischief and lies; it is entirely possible that he is lying to her.
But the events she knew to be before she found herself in this metal room tells her otherwise. They tell her that an alien army—which Loki himself led to the Earth—conquered cities which were then targeted with weapons by humans in an effort to contain these foreign creatures with no regard to the civilian population. They tell her a story of destruction, of chaos and ruin, of a truth which she could not ignore.
"You believe me?"
Her voice is weak. "Could I believe otherwise?"
"You could, Jane Foster, but you and I both know that would be for naught." His fists are balled on his sides and he shakes with anger as he speaks. He slams one hand on the wall, denting the metal and not injuring him one bit. "My cause was noble and just! You humans bring about your own destruction. You were meant to be subjugated and I would have been the benevolent god who saved you from yourselves! This was not supposed to be. Now the realm of Midgard is nothing more but a wasteland of ash and dust, another Muspelheim; and all because of your petty desire for freedom above everything else!"
For the second time, his words do not register. She still thinks of how everyone she knows—knew—is dead.
When he realizes that she isn't listening, he conjures a gun in her hand and the metal of it is so cold that it numbs her to stillness. She doesn't know what to do with the weapon, doesn't know what she wants to do with it—especially after being given the knowledge that she is the only remaining human in this realm.
"I believe you push down the—what did that man say?—safety lever, pull the top back, and then aim and shoot," he instructs. "Quite simple. I'm sure even you can follow that."
She nods dumbly and does as he says. With her aim directly pointed at his chest, she puts pressure on the trigger and—bang.
But of course it wouldn't hurt him. He was, after all, a god.
She, on the other hand…
Jane raises the gun to her head and closes her eyes as she presses on the trigger once more. Bang, the sound reverberates in her ear even after she shoots—which she knows should not be. She opens her eyes too quickly and sees two bullets and their casings on the floor. She brings the barrel to her chest and shoots again and the small metal, instead of piercing her as it should, simply bounces off as though it was nothing more but a rubber ball. She keeps at it until the cartridge is empty and Loki himself vanishes the weapon into thin air with a wave of his hand.
She is shaking and weeping and it is all she could do to raise her head to meet his eyes with her own hateful gaze.
"What have you done?"
"No, Jane." His hands reach out to cup her face; his touch deceptively gentle, his countenance full of spite matching—outweighing—her own. "What have you done?"
IV.
Despite everything, Jane knows that she could not be rid of him. If he were to leave her in the bunker, she would have to spend the rest of her days—an eternity —by herself. It takes a few days for her to even acknowledge him again and when she finally does, he looks just as smug as ever. It isn't that she wants to have anything to do with him, but his last words to her made her question the whole situation.
Indeed, what has she done? Is she at fault for the collapse of the earth? If she hadn't so desperately tried to prove the existence of worlds beyond her own, would they have come to destroy everything? If she hadn't done any scientific work on her wild theories, the bridge between worlds would never have opened and all this, all of Loki's devastation, would never have occurred. If she had never met the golden god—and changed him, as Loki claimed—then would Loki have tried to conquer this planet?
If he is a monster, what does that make her?
They may have had different intents, but for what it was worth, they were still the same, she realizes with bitterness and self-resentment. They had only done things to prove themselves because they had believed that there were greater things, things they had both thought they deserved.
Jane accepts these facts with defeated resignation and allows him to lead her through the mirror and into the world.
V.
There are only two occurrences she knows of which could cause the sky to be this bleak shade of gray: a large volcanic eruption which prompted ash to remain in the atmosphere or a nuclear fallout which left everything as nothing more but dust. If there is a third possibility, Jane would most likely point to the direction of aliens because they seem to be the reason why the world is as it is.
But she cannot bring herself to loathe Loki with her entire being—which now, apparently, is Aesir and no longer human—or blame him for this chaos and ruin. She could not say that this is all on Loki. Now that she sees the barren land which once was the rich green fields of Norway, she shoulders the blame, carries the guilt, fully knowing that it was her pursuit for knowledge that acted as a catalyst for all this desolation.
Jane tries not to think that what she is breathing in is most likely what remains of burnt human flesh, among other things.
They walk on and on for hours on end and she follows him blindly, almost like a lost puppy hanging on to the nearest semblance of direction. Had Loki not been with her, she would have used the stars to guide her—but even that skill is useless in this new world. She does not know where they are headed, and to her it simply doesn't matter where he leads her. There is nothing left for either of them on this planet and he must have the key to travelling to the other dimensions or realms where they had better chances of surviving. Even now, she clings to knowledge—when there is nothing left, there is Loki and his mind.
She is not so surprised at the extent of the endurance her new body has. They have been walking for what she assumes was twenty miles now—and neither of them are anywhere near tired. They aren't anywhere near anything either because the landscape of ruin had not changed, only darkened with the setting of the sun, the one constant in this end of the universe.
Finally, he stops at the edge of the sea and they look on to the vast expanse of dark water, probably gray and polluted; the moon full and bright enough to reflect on the surface. Jane frowns as she does not have a grasp of the stars, what with the many layers of dirt covering the air.
"It's not here."
She is unsure whether he wants her to say something or not, but there is a certain courage which comes with her new state of being that pushes her to form words on her tongue.
"What isn't?"
"The tesseract," he answers with a click of his tongue. "There is a failsafe that redirected its physical manifestation after the fall of New York."
"This tesseract," the word is foreign on her new tongue and she tries to say it again, "This tesseract is a form of energy, is it not?" She knows this much from messages from Erik. At his curt nod, she starts speaking to herself, "Amazing. It has a mechanism which allows it to transfer itself completely, breaking such high quantum energy barriers—"
"Silence," he snarls, curling his fists. For once, it seems that he is just as desperate for answers as she. "You and your words. You don't know anything, Jane Foster."
"Then what is the use of me?" she argues because her mantra is that knowledge gives not only power, but purpose. "Why are you still with me? Why am I even alive? What place do I have in this world?"
Loki stops and his hands uncurl and fall limply to his sides. There is not much light to see with, but Jane finds a spark in his eyes she can tell will haunt her for days—weeks, months, years, lifetimes—to come.
"My witless oaf of a brother, who most likely now resides in Valhalla, wishes you alive," he says with a deep sigh after a long while. Her heart is filled with longing at the mention of the god of thunder, but there is no changing the fact that he is gone and forever out of her reach. "Or perhaps I am selfish with intents as I always am and do not wish to be any more lonely in this new world than you do in your second life."
He leaves her with that thought and conjures space for them both to lay comfortably to rest.
VI.
Jane holds on to Loki like the lifeline that he is to her as he transports them over to the next continent across the ocean. To say that this teleportation he can command with his magic astounds her is already putting it lightly. There are many questions that she wants to ask him about his capabilities; like how this magic is able to account for so many variables at once, how it could cross such barriers of space—where did quantum tunneling factor into this?—and so much more.
But she does not ask him anything because he is too busy searching for something else to acknowledge her presence. He is in mad pursuit for the only power source he claims can give him enough energy to travel back to Asgard—that is, if Asgard hasn't yet fallen to ruins at the hands of Thanos, whoever he is.
There are few words spoken between the two of them, and honestly Jane does not mind. She is comfortable with his brooding silence and prefers it over his rage-filled roars. He had lashed out, though not directly at her, more than once. Every time they ended up in front of a pile of rubble in another part of what used to be America, he would show his green-eyed temper. Loki would have a mean tantrum and he would start using his magic to bring to pieces whatever has been left partially whole.
Then, he would start reciting this phrase: there will be no realm, no barren moon; no crevice where he cannot find you.
It does not make any sense to her the first time he says it, but after a few more days of hopeless searching, the alarm and urgency finally shows in his eyes. At first glance, it reassures her—at least she now knows that even the mighty god is at the mercy of something—or someone—greater. Then, after thinking about it more thoroughly, she realizes that if Loki is afraid than she should be as well.
But still, to know that there is something that could grant her the mercy of death in place of the torture of guilt from all the lives lost, remains a small comfort in the harsh planes of dark red and black of this new world.
"Where are we headed to now?" she asks as they walk on.
He procures a map and points to the familiar state of New Mexico. She can't quite explain how she feels at the thought of Puente Antiguo, the small town she used to consider as her home, now in ruins. The diner, the grocery, the small main street that led to a highway on the desert to her private observatory—all of those, like the people who used to inhabit the quiet town, gone. There is a manic laughter bubbling at her throat that becomes hard to contain and then she just lets go.
"What is it which amuses you?" Loki stares at her with incredulity, as though she is the one known for mayhem and discord. "You've not laughed once since we started our journey. I had begun to think that I'd chosen such a dull and ill-suited companion for this quest."
You didn't choose me, she wants to correct him—but then the thought strikes her. What if he had?
Instead of dwelling at the thought, she continues to cackle. The world is already a lost cause; what use is there to ponder on such things now?
VII.
"What if the tesseract's not manifesting anywhere we go because of your presence?" she asks him after he explains to her how exactly he was tracing the location of the Tesseract with his own magic. "You're scaring it away."
It is supposed to come off as a joke, but he takes it differently than she had intended.
"That," he starts, his brows furrowing with thought, "Is a possibility."
The older Aesir pauses mid-step and vanishes into nothingness, as though he was never there to begin with; leaving Jane alone in the landscape of nightmares.
"Loki!" she cries out. It is only after a minute of silence from his lack of a response does she realizes it is the first time she's ever spoken his name out loud. What is it with gods and their habit of flying off or disappearing without a word? She shakes her head and proceeds to tread through the bare land on her own.
Jane does not know how long it has been since she and Loki left Norway, but the skies have finally cleared. It still holds a dark gray tint during day, but it is better than the never-ending cloud of dust which covered the earth and blocked her vision of the stars. Now that she could see the constellations, the human-imagined shapes formed by clusters of hot gases, she could estimate where she stands.
She should not be far from Puente Antiguo.
VIII.
If she is being honest with herself, Jane does not believe Loki completely. Surely there is still someone—human—left on this world. It is their resilience as a species, their natural tendency to fight and survive despite the multitude of odds which pile against them. There has to be someone, somewhere—anyone, anywhere.
Her prayers are granted when she steps foot in her old desert town, the same town which was able to survive the attack of a giant fire-breathing alien robot. Puente Antiguo has always been so cut off from the rest of civilization; it doesn't surprise her that it is one of the few cities untouched by the aliens and only minimally damaged from the nuclear strike on the nearest targeted city.
"Hello?" she calls out as she walks the main road. Her clothes are now in tatters because Loki hasn't been present to clean her with his magic. She is tired—while being an Aesir grants her longer stamina and doesn't require her to eat as often as she used to, she still hasn't consumed anything in a week. "Is anyone here?"
The glass displays in front of every store which lined the street are all broken and shattered, spilling the transparent ceramic on the road. The taller buildings are collapsed—save for a few handful which are more structurally sound. Every surface is covered with dust—but that is not anything new in this city; the wind always blew sand in their faces. Jane knows this is not as bad as it could be, after passing through cities that have been totally leveled where nothing withstood, survived.
She walks on until she reaches the end of the road. Then she slaps her forehead. Of course no one is going to be here, not on the main street. There is no building here which provides shelter from the sandstorms which pass, not with all the broken glass. Jane turns to one of the side-streets leading to housing complexes and after a few meters, is forced to a wall by a man she must have known in her previous life.
"I got her, boys!" he calls out to his companions, wherever they are hiding. Jane scrunches her nose because this man reeks of blood; it is almost she can smell his impure intent as well. She is too stunned to fight back, giving the man ample time to push her down and tie her hands behind her back. "Ah, you're pretty!" His laugh, oddly—or not?—reminds her of Loki's. Then, he grins maniacally as he pulls her up to her feet. "You won't just be dinner; there's more use to pretty."
The implications of his words terrify Jane. This is not what she had prayed for when she wished that there be other survivors. She had genuinely believed that whoever is left would be kind and merciful in spite of the times of difficulty. Unbidden tears spill from her eyes at the thought of what these men could do to her. Jane begins to miss Loki's presence; with his magic, she is—was—safe. What use is being a god when has neither the strength nor magic to fight back?
As she is pulled into a dark warehouse that these men have repurposed as their base, Jane imagines Loki's voice in her ear: ever naïve, Jane Foster, to believe humans are anything more than animals, rabid dogs fighting over meat.
Simply put, she does not know what to do. She has tried to struggle against the rope binding her limbs together—but all her attempts are in vain. When the first man straddles her, she squirms on her back, which is not how he likes his women, so he tries to punch her into unconsciousness—naturally, it backfires on him because no ordinary human can pierce through the armor that is Aesir skin. The man's knuckles crack open, more blood mixing with the grime already present, and he recoils in shock when he sees that there is no damage to her pretty face. At the moment, Jane thinks it's a good idea to spit defiantly in his face—but afterwards, when they place a dirty sack over her head and a sweat-stained cloth over her mouth, she wishes she hadn't.
Her tears do not stop falling as she feels her clothes being ripped off of her. The afternoon air in Puente Antiguo is hot and arid, but it becomes so, so cold that her skin numbs.
Jane awaits her fate, for the pain to arrive, but it never comes.
She hears something fall to the floor beside where she lay. She hears panicked screams. She hears gunshots being fired and more shouts which add to the din. She hears more bodies crumpling to the ground.
The rope over her wrists and ankles vanishes, and so do the layers of fabric covering her face. She takes a deep breath of air as she sits up, as though no more panic in her lungs weighs her down, and her once-bound hands instinctively move to her torso to cover her body; but she finds her clothes are on her once more, no longer worn and threadbare, but unsoiled and superficially new.
Loki is there, grinning at her, but it is more grim than it is consoling. He stands, dusts off his pants—not leather, but of a material not found on this realm—and shakes his head. The scepter in his hands dematerializes from her view as he hides his object of power in a pocket of the universe that only he can access, and his armor bursts into tiny specters of green light until it no longer covers his tall frame.
"Ever naïve, Jane Foster," he starts, his eyes shining with tasteless delight, "To believe humans are anything more than animals." He kicks a corpse to the side and walks toward her, offers her a hand to aid her in standing up. With a smirk, and another kick to the dead man right beside her, he continues, "Rabid dogs fighting over meat."
IX.
Loki is her savior. The irony is not lost on her, but at least he does not see a need to rub it in her face every second. After he reappeared in Puente Antiguo to save her, he could no longer sense the tesseract in the area. If there is one thing they gained from her traumatizing experience, it's that her theory is correct: the tesseract would not appear in his presence.
They walk to her old laboratory, which she is surprised to find still standing, and decide to take refuge there for the next few days because Jane is exhausted. She is thankful that her laboratory is far into the desert that no one's tried to venture through the harsh sands. There are supplies remaining in her cabinet—and she is more than grateful of the canned food she kept in the pantry.
After consuming enough to assuage her appetite, she discovers that she still has a water supply running. She does not know how much is left in her reserve, but she takes the opportunity to take a shower. Loki's magic makes her appear clean enough, but Jane still feels every speck of dust from all the fallen cities burrowed in every crevice of her body; she feels the blood of those men—all men—on her hands. It is only in her head, she knows, but it does not stop her from rubbing her skin raw.
When she steps out of the shower and chooses another outfit from her limited closet, she finds him asleep on her couch.
"I hate you," she snarls at his slumbering figure, but she does not know if she is talking to him or herself. "I hate you so much."
At the sound of her voice, his eyes flutter open.
"Why, I hate myself too."
X.
She will not be rid of him. There is a weight to her bones she has never felt before and she will never be rid of him. Even if they do locate the tesseract and even if they do find a way to harness its powers, she will not be rid of him.
He tells her as much and she doesn't argue. She cannot because he is right; she has no one left in this world and Loki is the only one she knows—or at least, thinks that she knows. And what little she truly knows of him, one fact remains irresolute: he cares for her in his own sick and deranged way. Even when he leaves, he returns to her. He would not dare to abandon her to spend the rest of her days on this desolate realm alone. He is not so cruel as to do that. Whether it is his selfishness or benevolence that led her to mattering is of no importance. And if given the opportunity, as tempting as it will be, she knows she would not leave him as well.
And if they are not able to find a way to another realm, well, she at least knows that the earth will eventually heal from its wounds. The now barren lands will one day be fertile again, be filled with grass and shrubberies. Animals will repopulate and continue to evolve. The waters will eventually clear as the cycles of the earth regulates once more. If there is one thing more resilient than the spirit of humans, it is the planet they inhabit itself. Jane knows this and it is the thought she holds on to. She has years, lifetimes for her to live out and she knows she will be able to witness this one day.
There is a way. There is hope.
They will be able to forgive themselves someday. For what has their quest been if not for absolution?
And with a glance at Loki, the god of mischief and lies, the god with a corrupted heart as dark as the burned lands they trudge through; Jane knows there is hope for him too.