I'm glad that you guys enjoyed the last chapter! I know that it's kind of hard just reading a sort of...plot advancing chapter, but I really enjoyed writing it. Something about dealing with the realities of a post-apocalyptic/survival/prison scenario is a really fun mental puzzle. Anyway, you should find some very worthwhile things in this chapter.
()()()()()()()()
The sky outside the windows turned blue by inches, running the spectrum from navy, to royal, to pale, to robin's egg blue over a span of at least two hours. Jane's eyes were gritty and puffed from lack of sleep, but she refused to close them. Her whole body was tense and alert, adrenaline flowing at a low level, readying her for any necessary, sudden movements.
She sat up. Dawn. In another half-hour, it would be breakfast time.
For what was probably the two-hundred and sixty-seventh time that night, she wondered how the others were preparing for the upcoming day. Knowing Clint and Natasha—not that she really knew them, but still…—they were probably doing one-armed pushups and endless sit ups. She envied them their fitness and energy, but knew that she could never do the many things they had done to get to that level.
Pepper was probably sitting and watching the sky grow slowly brighter, like Jane. It had been nice, seeing Pepper again. She and Jane had always gotten along well together; their pragmatism and desire to get things done—plus their fond/frustrated opinion of Tony—had made them quick friends when Jane had first arrived at Stark Tower. Pepper had been one of the strongest advocates on Jane's behalf when SHIELD insisted that she leave the city ahead of Thor's arrival, and Jane would always be thankful for that.
And Tony? Jane chuckled and stretched. He had probably built himself another suit and was ready and raring to test it. It wouldn't be the first short-notice engineering miracle he'd pulled off.
That left her. "How are you feeling, Jane?" she murmured, trying to take objective stock of her state of mind. But what was there to say? She was nervous—and scared—but couldn't wait for things to get started.
She wandered into the living room and stood in front of the window, shifting from one leg to the other. Unbidden, the thought arose: what was Loki doing this morning? How was he preparing for the ordeal of defending the territory his opponents were so desperate to take back?
Jane snorted, angry at herself for even wondering. Why should she care about his state of mind? He certainly had no thought for his opponents; scared, bullied humans and mutants standing up against the unbearable thought of losing their homes and heritage, and facing forces that were superior to them in both numbers and weaponry. Theirs was the truly honorable stand. Loki should be ashamed of himself for fighting them.
Somehow, Jane doubted that he was. Call it intuition; she smiled wearily. This was all so pointless. He would have to fight them, for to admit defeat would be to call his entire invasion into question. They would have to fight; she had said it herself. They would fight because they had to. Because human beings had a compulsion to be free.
Whatever Loki might say or think…humans wanted to be free.
She shook her head and turned away from the window. As excited as she was for their escape today, she felt sick at the thought that many people would very likely lose their lives before the day was done.
Would the Avengers go to Italy to help in the fight? Did they even know it was going on? Could they do anything to help, or were their talents needed in other places around the US?
"Stop asking questions you can't answer," she said, tapping the side of her head, "you're making me crazy."
The lock rattled in the door, and Jane turned, cursing under her breath as her heartbeat skyrocketed. No matter how she tried, she just couldn't be nonchalant in the face of the Skrull. They were terrifying.
But her heart stuttered, then stalled entirely, when it wasn't the reptiles that walked into the room.
It was Loki.
She stumbled backwards a few steps, retreating further into the living room but stopping short of putting her back against the window. She didn't want to be trapped the same way she had been last time. Jane bit her lip and wished that she'd taken her weapon with her from the bedroom; there was no way to get it now.
Her brain whirred furiously, thinking about what she should do. Should she be polite? Cold? Silent, as he was?
Her mouth, meanwhile, had made its decision. "Good morning," she said, softly.
She saw his shoulders jerk and had to smother her smile at managing to surprise him yet again. Rather than flying into a rage, he merely returned her greeting in a similarly neutral tone of voice.
Jane knew it couldn't last, and after another moment, she saw the familiar wide, unhinged grin bloom across his face.
"'Once more unto the breach, dear friend'," he said, making Jane jump this time with his surprising knowledge of Shakespearean quotes. "I really do wish," he went on, shaking his head, "that being ruler of so much of the world would entitle me to a few mornings of sleeping in."
"I'm sorry that world domination is such a taxing ordeal," Jane replied, crossing her arms, "maybe you should choose a goal that's less strenuous?"
He scoffed, "I place the blame with you and people of your ilk, who refuse to know when they have been beaten. If humans were sensible creatures, I would not have to work nearly as hard as I do."
Oh, poor baby, Jane thought, her mental voice dripping with acid. Outwardly, she was silent; but Loki caught her eyes and she knew that her sarcastic thoughts were visible on her face.
"Oh, Miss Foster," he said, "you have never been skilled in the art of hiding your emotions. You should be grateful that I have battles to fight today and do not wish to expend any energy on you."
"Even if I hid my emotions," she said, shaking her head, "you would know what I was feeling. No one who knows that hundreds, maybe thousands, of her fellow creatures are going to be killed could help feeling what I'm feeling."
"Well, I'm flattered," he smirked, "the deaths of so many…that presupposes I will win. Thank you for your confidence."
"You have more men and more power than your opponents," she shot back, digging her nails into her upper arms, "Sometimes it's impossible to be both optimistic and realistic. That doesn't mean I'm not hoping you won't come back from this," she finished, bracing herself for his retaliation, "I'm not that generous."
"After all I have done for you," he tsked, shaking his head and stepping closer, while Jane retreated, "Took you out of that miserable situation in Stockholm, sheltered you, fed you, and clothed you," no matter how fast she stepped backwards, he was always there, "not to mention," he finished, "relinquishing my long-cherished plans of your lingering torture and painful death."
She had run out of room; with her back to the wall, he had her cornered again. Her skin crawled as he reached out and ran his hand down her cheek.
"And now," he murmured, "to be the one to whom I unburden my thoughts, before setting off for battle. You have been truly honored, Jane," even she could hear the mockery in his voice, despite his so-called compliments, "why this hostility?"
"You are going to kill people," she said, "do you think I'll thank you for any mercy you show me? What guarantee do I have that you won't do the same to me tomorrow?"
"I already told you I would not. That is the word of a King, Miss Foster…why should you doubt it?"
She shook her head in staggered disbelief. "The first two days I was here, you hit me, took away my voice and dragged me around. Three days ago we sat down together and had what I'm sure you'd call a civil dinner. But the next day, you…" damn, it was still hard to say, "kissed me against my will and told me how you should torture me. You've kidnapped me, taken me halfway across the world, separated me from my friends, killed people I care about;" she was starting to hyperventilate, "why should I trust anything you say?"
She saw his eyelids flutter, and his mouth turned down at the corners. Her brow furrowed; had she actually hurt him with this recital of grievances? She thought quickly; he had told her he wanted to save humans from themselves, implying that he wanted to make their world a better place. Could she make him see just how much damage his twisted desire to help was doing?
At that thought, she felt a sickening moment of vertigo as she recalled his words from the day before last:
Oh, your drive to help and to save and to make things better…so adorable, and so misguided.
Oh, my God. That's what he meant…when he'd said they were the same.
Jane slumped back against the wall and shut her eyes, feeling like she was going to faint. She breathed deeply and locked her knees, hoping that she wouldn't just collapse like a marionette with its strings cut.
This time, his fingers on her neck and jaw were not there in violence. He lifted her head until she opened her eyes and met his. They were expressionless…almost expressionless. When he spoke again, she could hear his sadness for both of them in his voice:
"Do you see, now? Do you understand?"
With more strength than she had ever thought it possible to muster, she whispered, "That still means what you're doing is wrong. You know that."
"Even if I did," he did not let her go, "even if you did…would you stop?"
Jane stopped the retort that sprang immediately to her mind, and forced herself to think honestly. To abandon the possible good that could come with an interchange of trade and ideas with other worlds…could she do that, knowing what she did? To have never met Thor, never dreamed of other worlds…or to abandon those dreams, after having spent so many months with them…
Even knowing there was a possibility that bad could come with the good, would she still continue to try to reach those distant stars?
And because she loved the truth, and had to speak it, Jane looked up into the eyes of the mad, world-conquering demigod and said, "No. I wouldn't."
His hands dropped to her shoulders, and he squeezed gently, his hands almost warm. "So you understand why I cannot stop."
She took a quick breath that was more of a sob, "You have to," she replied, "You know that you will have to kill hundreds of thousands of people—maybe millions—before we stop fighting. I dreamed about helping people…finding advances in medicine and technology that could make our lives better," she had to make him see the difference, "But you…you must have known from the beginning that your plan would lead to nothing but death."
He shook his head, and stepped back, hands falling loosely to his sides. "At first, yes, there will be death; it is inevitable," he seemed to be speaking to himself; he was no longer looking at her, "But then, between the technology of the Skrull and my magic, we can rejuvenate this world! Midgard could be a power among the realms; even your paltry advances," he turned on her, but still wasn't seeing her, "have created things that surprise us."
Suddenly, he was staring at her and his hands bore down on her shoulders; Jane controlled her panic and waited for him to be done.
"If you would only submit," he snarled the word, "I could make this world into a paradise! I could prove…" but he checked himself, and ground his teeth, looking down and away from her.
"We won't," Jane said, wishing she could get away from the cage of his hands, but knowing it was futile. "We can't."
"So you say," he replied, looking up, resolution set in his eyes. "But throughout your history, there have been examples for me to follow—successful dictators who imposed their visions on the populace—and those who are naïve enough to think I will not employ the same methods will find themselves sorely mistaken. I have come too far to fail now."
Jane had nothing to say. How do you stop a madman? The successful dictators he spoke of…if someone had been able to talk to Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot without fear of reprisals, could they have changed the course of history?
She sincerely doubted it. She only hoped—similarities between the two of them be damned—that some lucky revolutionary would manage to lodge a bullet in his brain.
Loki was chuckling again. "How is it that I always manage to entangle myself in pointless philosophical discussions with you? You are such a distraction."
"So I suppose," she snapped, frustrated by his cavalier attitude and her helplessness, "that being such a worthless distraction, you've decided to kill me anyway?"
"No," he corrected gently, "no, I came here for one purpose."
He was too close. Jane felt smothered by the solid bulk of him, trapped as she was between his arms and the wall. She started to panic, and her hands balled into fists, pressed between their bodies.
"Stop, Jane," one of his hands managed to envelop both of hers, "you know there is no point."
She knew he was right, "It might be pointless, but we never stop fighting," she said, tears pooling in her eyes.
"You will always lose," he said, and though she had sworn it would never happen again, his lips were on hers.
This time, Jane was fully present, with no numbness of mind or body to shield her from the reality of what was happening. She whimpered into his mouth and put her hands on his chest, pushing as hard as she could, but there was no moving him. His hands were around her neck, cupping the back of her head; Jane went for those next, sinking her nails into the skin. She could not pierce it.
Loki leaned back, nowhere near far enough for comfort. His eyes opened, heavy, half-lidded.
"Relax, Jane."
"Stop this, please," she asked, a tear falling from the corner of her eye, "Why are you doing this?"
He smiled, but it was not his usual crazed grin. He only seemed amused at her inability to understand. "Why do you keep asking questions that require logical answers? Because I can. No," he corrected himself, and whispered the words against her mouth, "Because I want to."
It was a secret he sealed up inside her as he pressed against hers once more.
His hands were still cold, but his mouth was warm. He had learned something from last time; she must have hurt him when she bit his tongue, for it was only his lips that touched her, and the touch was soft and considerate.
Jane was lost. Her mind was present, but she could make no sense of the situation. She could not think, she could only feel; and the sensations her brain registered were enough to overwhelm her completely.
She felt his tongue trace the seam of her lips. Her hands flattened against the leather and metal armor, the soft and sharp edges a fascinating contrast to her fingertips. When she made no move to open her mouth, he moved away, kissing the line of her jaw until he reached the juncture where her pulse beat.
Jane's eyes opened wide and she gasped. He suckled harder, and she felt the cool nick of teeth against her flesh.
"Stop," she begged, "stop, stop, stop." She should have been screaming the words, but shame kept her voice to a whisper—no one who cared could possibly hear her, but the idea of Tony or Pepper seeing her like this made her want to sink through the floor.
He actually did. He pulled back and pressed his forehead against hers. She was shocked to hear how ragged his breathing sounded…how sincere he seemed in the emotions behind his kiss. Against her will—and against her mind's screaming rational voice—she found herself wondering if he could possibly…care about her.
The thought was…she didn't know what it was. Her own emotions were a tangled mess, like strings of Christmas tree lights. It would take hours of patience and care to make sense of what she was feeling.
"Have you ever been to Rome?"
Her voice trembled. "No."
His eyes were still closed as he said, "Shame. It is a lovely city…a rarity in this realm. When the present situation is settled," he opened his eyes and smiled at her, hand once again cupping her cheek, "I will take you there."
When he turned away from her, it was though a weight had been lifted off her body. Jane breathed a silent sigh of relief and thanked whoever was looking out for her that he was not planning on taking his pet human—and what else could she be to him?—along with him this time around.
"So, Jane?" He said, looking back at her over his shoulder, "Will you not wish me well?"
She looked at him. Her shame, embarrassment, anger, and helplessness hit her in the chest like a freight train. She didn't think; she said the most violent, hateful words she could imagine:
"I hope someone puts a bullet in your brain."
The last thing she saw of his face was his damnable smirk; his voice echoed back to her as he left the room:
"Trust me, my dear…it will not happen."
The door shut, locked, and Jane slid down the wall, putting her head down against her upturned knees. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably, and her skin felt tight, dry, and hot. She was so angry, so angry…she wanted to scream at him and hit him again and again for what he had done, for what he was doing to her…
She still felt his teeth on her neck. She could still smell him around her—leather, iron, smoke, and ice. Even from behind her closed eyes, she could see his face, and the wondering tenderness in his eyes as he had put his hands on her. He was invading her, colonizing her…Jane wasn't certain that if she remained in this place that anything of her own, individual self would be left.
This was possession, all right. It was just possession of a different nature. Isolated and alone, she had been completely dependent on him for both the basic necessities of life and the higher pleasures—intellectual stimulation, for instance—and Jane was only now realizing just how quickly she could become dependent on one person's influence on her life.
And she had only been in captivity for a week!
Was he doing this to her on purpose? And if so, why? Jane shivered as she remembered his words: Why do you keep asking questions that require logical answers? Because I can. Because I want to.
It didn't matter. Whether sincere or not, Jane wanted nothing to do with him. If he wanted to mess with her mind…she just wouldn't let him. So it was with a visceral rush of relief that she heard the intercom crackle to life as Tony's voice—in his best Elvis style—said:
"Ladies and gentleman…Loki has left the building."
()()()()()()()()
Jane was the last one to make it down to the lab, smiling at Hawkeye as she slid through the door that he was guarding. Her face still felt flushed; she had to fight the urge to check in the mirror to see if the words "Loki just kissed me and bit my neck" were tattooed on her forehead.
It felt as though they were. She had a hard time looking the archer in the eye, and she just knew that he had noticed the strange skittishness in her behavior. He noticed details that many people would just brush off or ignore. It was what made him a great fighter, but Jane wished that he could just let it pass.
Her smile faltered as she entered the lab. She knew he wouldn't. Sometime in the future, this would all come out…and it would look bad for her when it did. How many people would give her the benefit of the doubt when it came out that Loki had kept her separate from the others? That he had told her things no one else had known? That he had, on two separate occasions, been physically close to her?
Would people understand that she had not been in any sort of position to fight back? Would—and her mind shied away from considering this—Thor understand?
"Hey, you made it," Tony greeted her, standing in front of the two large whiteboards where he had all the equations for the portal scrawled out in different colors of ink.
"Wouldn't miss it," Jane said, her smile a little more genuine. She thought that, at the very least, Tony would understand the sort of pressure that Loki was able to exert. He would probably be on her side.
She looked at the whiteboards, her experienced eyes taking in the process of mathematics from beginning to end. The certainty of the numbers and the difficulty of the equations settled her mind and gave her a focus.
"This looks good," she said, looking next at the crumpled map of the city that showed their landing point; in the middle of a broad avenue close to a subway entrance.
"Yeah, it should do," Tony said, "the more we can stay underground, the better. We can follow the subway tunnels until we get out of the city."
"Where do we go from there?"
"SHIELD has a field office in White Plains," Natasha answered, walking over to join them, "so once we get out of the city, we can find a vehicle and siphon gas until we get there."
"What if the office is abandoned?" Jane asked. White Plains was not too far from the city, but on foot, or even in a series of short hops in a stolen car, it seemed an almost impossible distance. "And why White Plains? It seems like such a…tame place for a super-secret government office."
"That's exactly why it was chosen," Natasha replied, "nothing ever happens in White Plains, but a lot of things happen around it. Makes deployment for assignments easier and extraction safer. And even if the office is abandoned, there will always be supplies we can use: vehicles, food, clean water…"
Jane nodded, feeling a shiver up her spine. That was very true. Once they left Stark Tower, they could not be guaranteed any of those things. None of them knew what the state of the rest of the country was, but if it was anything like New York…they could be in serious trouble.
Pepper looked troubled. "Do you think we'll be able to contact anyone once we get there?"
"Should be," Natasha said, shrugging, "all SHIELD offices have access to a secure intranet. As long as we can get a generator up and running, we'll be able to contact anyone who's still out there." From the flat tone in her voice, it almost seemed as though she didn't care one way or the other if they did find anyone still alive.
"Okay, well," Tony said, clapping his hands, "first step is to get out of here. Jane, can you align the particle array while I set the arc reactor into the power converter?"
"You got it," she said, thankful for the distraction, "have you already done the calculations on the particle frequencies?"
He produced a legal pad covered in columns of numbers. "Of course, madame," he drawled in a horrendous French accent, "we are 'appy to pleeze."
Jane swatted him on the shoulder with the pad and got to work.
The portal was a rough circle of swirling blue energy; it swept papers off the tables, threw Jane's and Pepper's hair into messy disarray, and sucked everything not nailed to the floor slowly towards its center.
"All right!" Tony yelled, "Natasha, you're up!"
The assassin, nonchalant as though she were going for a walk in the park, took a firm grasp on the steel bar stolen from the sofa and vanished through the portal.
"Hawkeye, go!"
Similarly armed, Clint stepped forward and disappeared.
"Jane!"
It took more courage than she'd thought, stepping up to a turbulent storm of agitated quantum particles powered by a tiny little arc reactor. She knew the science was sound, she knew this had been done before, and over much greater distances…and she still had to grit her teeth, dig her nails into her hands, and shut her eyes before she walked through.
She shouldn't have shut her eyes. Whipping through the non-space the portal generated, her feet slammed hard against the asphalt and Jane was knocked off-balance, falling hard on her knees and hands, ripping her jeans and skinning the flesh off her palms. Thank goodness Loki had not brought her breakfast; the meager contents of her stomach sloshed around and Jane gagged, stopping just short of retching.
"Stand up and walk around, if you can," she heard Clint's voice somewhere above her to the right. She blinked up at him, ears a little slow at processing speech. He spared a quick glance down at her, and clarified, "It helps with the nausea, trust me."
She felt like a newborn fawn; her legs wobbled underneath her and she only managed after a fashion to stand on her own two legs.
The portal flashed behind her, and Pepper stumbled out, breaking her fall on an abandoned car. She coughed violently and put her back to the car, sinking to her knees, steadying her head with both hands.
Natasha looked at the two of them, unfazed. Jane felt a stab of irritation; how was it possible that the woman could always be so capable and clear-headed?
Tony emerged last in a flash of light. He managed to stay on his feet, but even he looked slightly green. He stood still for a moment or two and took several deep breaths.
"Uh, guys? Tactical error; we can't exactly…turn the portal off, now that we've got it on."
"Oh, crap," Jane groaned, "of course. We didn't rig a timed shut off. That means that when the Skrull come down…"
"They'll just come right through and find us," Natasha finished. She went over to Pepper and hauled the woman to her feet. "Everyone, move!"
"We still have some time," Hawkeye said, scanning each alleyway and intersection as they ran past, "They won't notice we're missing until lunch, right?"
"Not unless they've got some kind of scanner that detects energy fields," Tony said, "Which, knowing them, they probably do. I'm betting we've got time to make it to the subway entrance before they notice we're—"
A scream filled the air, shattering the silence into ear-piercing fragments. Jane stopped and pressed her hands to her ears, trying to blot out some of the sound; her eardrums felt ruptured and there was a trickle of blood between her fingers.
Pepper had her face pressed against Tony's chest, but he didn't look capable of comforting her; his face was gray and there was a trickle of blood running down from his ears as well. Even Natasha and Clint looked shaken, but they were still professionals; Clint looped one arm around Jane's arm and pulled her along, and Natasha gestured to Tony, who scooped Pepper up and kept walking.
The scream lasted for perhaps another minute, but it seemed to Jane as though she would never clear the sound from her head. It cut off just as they neared the entrance to the subway tunnel, but nothing changed. She could see Natasha's mouth moving, telling them something; her ears were clogged with a shrill sound—like a dial tone—and she couldn't hear a thing.
She turned once and looked back before descending the stairs into the subway tunnel. From the top of Stark Tower, she saw a stream of Skrull jumping off the rooftops on their individual hovercraft. Some, already close to street level, were strafing the roads with their weapons, blasting cars out of the way and blowing potholes straight down to the electric and water lines.
Clint pulled her down the stairs and she lost sight of the devastation. Natasha was still yelling, but she couldn't hear; she only followed them beyond the station platform and down onto the tracks. Jane couldn't hear it, but she still felt the explosion behind them that destroyed the entrance to the subway tunnels and knocked them all flat on their faces along the tracks.
Jane lay flat, feeling her heart beat and knowing she was still alive. The pain and the blood in her ears now mirrored the blood on her hands, her knees, and what felt like her face. Her ribs, nose, and chest felt tight and bruised; she had not been able to break her fall. She blinked, but the darkness did not clear. The tunnel was pitch dark…there was no light from the surface.
No sight, no sound; Jane fought her natural instinct to panic, and forced her bruised body up on its knees. A hand brushed against her knee, and she grasped it with her own. The human contact brought tears to her eyes, but she did not cry.
When her eyes adjusted slightly to the darkness, she saw the gentle blue light of Tony's arc reactor on her left. It was on the floor, unmoving; she crawled over to it and touched her friend on his chest, then his shoulder. He did not move. Jane breathed once, twice, and reached for his neck. Thank God, his pulse was strong and steady; he was just knocked out.
There was a scuffle of gravel on her right, and Jane jumped at the noise—and smiled—because she had heard the noise. The damage done by the alarm they'd tripped was not permanent.
Natasha's voice came at her through what sounded like four layers of cotton padding.
"Everyone okay?"
"Yeah," Jane replied, speaking loudly, since she could barely hear her own voice, "Tony's out, but he's alive."
"I'm okay," Pepper's voice was in front of them to the left.
"Me too," Clint was somewhere behind Jane on the right.
Slowly, moving so as not to damage their already hurt bodies, they assembled around the light of Tony's heart.
"All right," Natasha said, her voice getting clearer every minute, "Plan hasn't changed. As soon as Stark's capable of walking, we follow the tracks until we get out of the city. If we stay underground, the Skrull can't find us. Barton, are you still armed?"
"Yes."
"Foster, what about you?"
Jane couldn't remember the last time anyone had called her "Foster", but she thought it had been her high school soccer coach. "I dropped mine," she said, feeling around her, "but some of these track ties are loose. I should be able to pry one free."
"Good. Get yourself and Potts armed. I want to be ready to move as soon as Stark comes to. Potts, you stay with him and monitor his condition." There was a crunch of gravel as Pepper crawled over to take up Jane's post.
Natasha continued, "Now, I've got one flashlight from the lab, but we're not gonna use it unless we absolutely have to; there are no spare batteries. Just keep your ears and eyes open, and we'll get through this. We will."
()()()()()()()()
The last line is cribbed shamelessly from Firefly. And yes, in case anyone is interested…Loki and Jane will eventually be going to Rome. Just not soon. Also, for those who have asked; this chapter was originally intended to have the Avengers reuniting, but that's coming up. The Loki and Jane interaction was unplanned, but just seemed right.
So what do you think? Is Loki messing with Jane's mind, or does he actually care what she thinks or feels? Was he starting to depend on her in the same way that she was? Let me know in the comments!
