A/N: Hellooo, how fareth thou? So we finally get to meet the person that Doom's been looking for and she's someone who's been introduced in earlier chapters, albeit only peripherally. I wonder if any of you have guessed who she might me, to me it is fairly obvious but then I did write her so maybe it's just obvious to me? There is a miniscule fight scene in here which is pretty bad in my opinion and I would love for suggestions on how to improve it. This chapter is to be the bridge for the transition out of the college arc.
Anywho, thank you for the reviews Inuhime1, ImperfectIsPerfect and SailingFXforGold. You guys are the nicest!
Chapter 9
Jane stomped her way to the dorm, every foot landing with such force and anger it jarred and hurt her heel but she continued anyway. The pain distracted her from her anger.
"Someone's in a bad mood." Loki sang as he fell into step with her. Her annoyance skyrocketed when she saw that he was practically dancing with glee. Supervillains who had tried to take over the world should not be allowed to be happy, she decided. Even if they'd help save her life.
"What do you want?" She growled. Well attempted to growl. By the amused smile he threw her way she knew it had come off more like a disgruntled kitten than the roar of a lion she was going for.
She'd met Thor's friends on various occasions in the last year or so. They'd come down to Midgard to meet their friend, sometimes they'd even come to help Thor and the Avengers, a particularly memorable occasions was when Amora, an enchantress had come down to Earth to steal Thor. Each and every time they had come she had been left feeling a little bit low on self esteem because among Thor's friends was one Sif who was like Xena, only hotter. She was pretty, she could fight and she could fight while still looking pretty. And then there was the fact that Thor's daddy dearest actually approved of Sif, had made plenty of comments on how Thor should leave the 'Little Midgardian and seek the treasure that was right in front of him'.
Right now she was feeling jealous of Sif for another reason. The woman was intimidating and Jane really, really wanted to intimidate people right now.
"Just wondering what's got your panties in a bunch."
Supervillains who had tried to take over the world should also not be allowed to say things like 'panties in a bunch'. That was just plain wrong.
Still she was taking out her anger on him unnecessarily and she knew it.
"Stupid Smith with his stupid face making stupid judgements." She complained.
"What did he do?"
Jane was reluctant to share this with him but she was angry and annoyed and seriously, how the hell could Smith give her a 'C' on her paper!
"Smith wouldn't reconsider my grade. I'm stuck with the 'C'. I've never gotten a 'C' in my entire life!"
"It's just a psychology paper, I thought you hated the, what was it you called them? Oh yes 'soft sciences'?"
"Yeah well, it's still an insult."
"Relax Smith doesn't ever give good grades. He gives 'B's to people at the most. A 'C' isn't that bad."
"He gave you an A!" Jane said, exasperated. "And he said your paper was the best paper he had ever read in his whole career as a college professor!"
She could have sworn Smith had tears in his eyes when he'd said that.
"So? I'm trained to be a spy of course I'm great at psychology." He scoffed.
Supervillains who had tried to take over the world should not be allowed to ace papers!
Soemhow during the conversation they'd reached their floor and gone their separate ways, Loki with a stupid grin while she continued stomping. It took her a good while to calm herself down but she managed. It didn't stop her from pulling the books out of her bag roughly though and even Rachel was starting to notice her bad mood.
"You all right?" She asked.
"Fine just...Smith won't reconsider my grade."
"What did you write the paper on?"
"The Oedipus complex. Couldn't really think of anything else."
"Oh well that explains it."
"It does? How?"
Rachel leaned in conspiratorially. "Well Karen says she saw Smith get a visitor once. A hot blonde with quite a rack. She thought it might have been his girlfriend but turns out it was his mother."
"Oh? Ohhh!" Jane saw where she was going with that.
"Yeah and no one ever seems to get a good grade if they write about the Oedipus complex, just ask Srinivas. He got chewed out for his paper and we both know that he isn't stupid by any means. It's the curse of the Oedipus complex."
"Seriously?"
"That's what they say."
In a much better mood Jane opened her astrophysics assignment. Before she could get stuck into it though, a knock on the door came and Loki stood on the other side.
"Is Theo here?" He asked.
"No, why?"
"He isn't in our room."
"So?"
"So he never leaves me alone, remember. And I called Tony he's not there either. I tried calling him but he's not picking up the phone."
"Oh. Well I'm sure he'll be fine I mean, what are the chances that he's been...taken?"
To her surprise it was a paling Rachel that answered.
"High actually. Quite high. I have to go, I'll talk to college security and ask around at information of any students have seen him. I'd suggest you two file a report with the Police, ask to be directed to Detective Macintosh of the 43rd Precinct, she's the one investigating Josh's disappearance."
She rushed out but Loki simply came into the room sauntering in easily and sat down on one of the chairs grabbing a bottle of water Jane had been keeping for herself.
"So what do we do?"
"Nothing. We wait for Thor to contact me."
"You just said he wasn't answering his calls."
"Yes well we set up a temporary telepathic connection between us in case either one got taken. That was the plan after all."
"But, shouldn't we be tracking him or something?"
Loki looked at her like she was an idiot. Combined with her low grades and the fact that her boyfriend had just been kidnapped, it was making her homicidal.
"Why would we do that? We know where he'll be taken, to Doomstadt. The point was to infiltrate the castle secretly and see if Doom has an antiserum on hand."
"But it's Thor."
Jane loved Thor, as odd as it was to say that about a thousands of years old God of Thunder whom she had run over twice and slapped twice and there was the time she'd accidentally given him food poisoning the time she tried to cook something for their first year anniversary but besides all that was the fact that while she loved him, Thor was not subtle. He was not quiet. He was not anything that was conducive to stealthily creeping around a heavily guarded castle.
Loki sighed. "Yeah I know. I was banking on me being the one who was caught but it was Thor. He can't be furtive and quiet worth shit."
"So it's kind of pointless."
"Not pointless. If he sends us a distress signal we have a reason to storm the castle and engage Doom in a fight. That's always fun. Until then, we wait. I have to go to the Tower and tell Fury of this development. "
"I'm coming with you." Jane said and gathered her things, picking her favourite brown jacket out of her closet and tugging it close. They made it all the way to the subway station when he spoke again
"Oh and by the way, you have ink on your face."
Supervillains that had tried to take over the world should not be allowed to mess with poor little astrophysicists.
Thor 'woke up' to a room that looked quite like the med bay in the Avengers tower. He was alone and strapped to a bed with metallic clamps. He could have snapped out of them easily but ti would have ruined the whole 'discreet' bit of his job. A sudden rush of activity outside the room caught him while he was vetting the room and he dropped his head back down again, pretending to be knocked out.
Footsteps accompanied by a very faint whirring sound alerted him to the fact that a Doombot had entered. More than one in all probability. If his senses were right there were three, one near his foot, attaching a tag to his toe, another looming over his head and a third one near the door watching.
"This one is weak. He is not awake yet." The one near the door said.
"I hit him harder than the others, he is a big one." A voice came from near his head, They were all the same, the voices. But then, he supposed, not everyone had the creativity to give their robots different voices and personality like Tony did. Loki even created a person from his pinkie finger and ended up with Hela who at her best and worst was always a truly wonderful, independent character, albeit a literal freak of nature that was not supposed to exist.
"He needs to wake soon, Sir wants to see the subject being turned."
The sound of distant sirens took their attention away from him. Thor clenched his jaw to keep from shouting at the interference. He had only just been taken, there had not been enough time to gain any information yet.
"That's coming from the east side." One of them said.
"The sensors there are faulty." The Doombot at his head continued to prod at his neck, checking for the pulse. Thor had learnt early on how to fool a captor into thinking him unconscious and kept a control on his pulse keeping it low, sluggish.
"We have orders." The one at the door said. It was clear that he was the one in charge when the rest followed his lead and went out after him to check on the east side but Thor kept his eyes shut just in case they came back again.
His ears prickled at the slight sound of the door opening again. This time there were no accompanying footsteps, no whirring sound. There was not even a breath and yet Thor could tell there was someone there and that whoever this person was, they had magic.
IT might have been Doom, the real one for all he knew and so he kept quiet and still.
The pressure on his chest, torso and legs lifted. It hadn't been much to begin with but it was gone, if he wanted to he could have stood. Instead he waited.
Oddly enough, though he couldn't hear the person he could smell them. He caught the barest whiff of talcum powder, one that would have been missed by someone who was not of Asgardian descent, certainly lost to the humans.
A small hand laid itself upon his neck.
"Shit, too slow." A voice said and his eyes flew open. He knew that voice.
"You're awake?!" Rachel whispered before looking around carefully. "Come on let's get you out of here, can you stand?"
"Yes, yes I, but you?! How did you find-You?!" He was struck.
"No time for questions now, we need to go before they find us."
Thor stumbled to a stand, mind still reeling.
Rachel? But she was so normal and uninteresting and barely there, how could she possibly? And how had the facial recognition system not catch her, how did they not recognise that she was the one Doom was looking for?
"Come on, follow me, I know a way out." She said and he did so. They made it through a good few hallways, stopping on occasion for seemingly no reason and hiding but then the sound of rushing steps would be heard and Thor realised that she knew the workings of this castle well, very well.
What was her relation to Doom? Why did he want her?
How had they never realised it was her?
"Just a few more feet, hang in there." She said softly. "I'll get you out."
"Will you now, darling one?"
They turned as one to find themselves staring at one Doctor Doom. Unlike the tense military way in which the Doombots carried themselves, he leaned against the wall casually, hands crossed with ease. His gaze stayed focused on her and Thor was once again forgotten, relegated to the background.
"Doom." She said conversationally, relaxing herself and walking towards him putting herself between him and Thor.
She still thought he needed to be protected, Thor realised and balked.
He was to keep his identity a secret but he couldn't very well allow the young lady who had come to rescue him be taken captive instead. He was Thor, protector of Midgard, no he could not allow it to come to that and firmly moved ahead and pushed her behind him.
"Tch tch tch, you find yourself a new protector?"
"Protector, protectee, it's all the same to you isn't it." She said playfully but there was a saccharine edge to her voice that was entirely fake. "By the way, love the new mask. Remind me to congratulate whoever it was that left you with that gash on your cheek."
How she knew Doom was hiding another scar under his mask Thor did not know but from Doom's snarl it was obvious that she was right.
Sounds of a struggle sounded and Thro turned to find that Doombots had crept up on them while they were talking and she was valiantly fighting them off. She knew just where to hit, just where to stab to take them down and one by one their numbers reduced. He joined the fray taking them out along with her, following her lead and finding the seams in their metal facades and digging into them. She moved easily and fast, stabbing a bot in the joint with a plastic knife and twisting hard before using the momentum of it falling to throw it onto another. The numbers reduced soon, annoying Doctor Doom and with a growl he pulled away from the wall stalking closer to her but was stopped when Thor laid his hand across his chest the other outstretched to keep him form Rachel.
"You think you can stop me? Puny little boy!" Doom backhanded him but Thor did not budge, not in the slightest and finally Dooms turned his attention to him. "Not so puny then?"
"No." Thor stretched out his hand and Mjolnir came flying through the air settling herself firmly in his hand. "Not puny and not a boy."
"Son of a bitch." Rachel said behind him but before she could say anything else he wrapped his hand around her waist.
"Hold on to me tight."
Loki expected to hear something from Thor, he expected a distress call,, a voice speaking in his head, something. But instead, four hours into his disappearance, Mjolnir flew out of the armoury and zoomed past them breaking through the bulletproof glass in Stark's tower and then another minute or so later Thor landed on the helipad outside, their floor supervisor held in his arms.
"Rachel?" Loki was unsure of what was going on. It was not a natural state for him to be in.
"Thor." She said sharply, disengaging herself from his brother quickly. "I risked my life and freedom to rescue Thor." She turned to him. "And if he's Thor then you must be Loki. Great. Juuuust great."
"Thor what did you do?"
Why had his brother gone to get their floor supervisor before coming to Avengers Tower? And why was she looking at him with such a carefully blank look on her face?
"I believe I have found the one who Doom was looking for." Thor said gravely and swept his arm to indicate Rachel who didn't move a muscle.
"What the hell?!" Jane said from behind him, summarising what they were all feeling perfectly.
What the hell, indeed.
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