Inspired by the life-ruining filming photos of Crimson Peak that are floating around. It's Tom Hiddleston in Victorian garb, people. What else was I supposed to do?

Wherein Mr. Thor Odinson, the handsome and dashing titled heir, is marrying the lovely and very, very proper Jane Foster. Miss Foster, who has always obeyed convention and certainly never done anything the least bit scandalous… like hiding copies of Views of the architecture of the heavens and Vestiges of the natural history of creation and, worst of all, On the origins of species beneath the petticoats in her steamertrunk. It is the perfect match of wealth and status — or would be, if Miss Foster were not developing a curiosity about her affianced's younger brother, who always turns up for supper with a smile and vanishes again into the east wing of the estate, where explosions can be heard long through the night.

"You ought to be in bed, Miss Foster," Mr. Loki Odinson — the name a gift from his foreign but respectably bloodlined mother — says, not looking up from his microscope. "Your uncle Selvig would have much to say about his ward wandering the halls at half-past two in the morning."

"I would not wander the halls if I could sleep," replies Jane, though she hitches her dressing gown tighter, and rather wishes she'd thought to bind her hair. (Though if she'd stopped to make herself presentable, she'd have thought better of such a venture entirely and never left her chambers.) "How the rest of the house sleeps through your 'experiments' is beyond my understanding."

"Oh, they've grown quite accustomed to the occasional loud bang."

Jane gestures to the long table that dominates the room — secured to the floor with steel bolts the size of her fist — and the smoke which still rises from the broken glass of a dozen shattered beakers. "I would call that more than a 'loud bang', sir."

"Would you."

"I would."

"Well, Miss Foster, I fear you will have no choice but to grow accustomed to them as well, once you wed my dear brother." Mr. Odinson makes two small adjustments to his instrument, long fingers flitting across the knobs and dials with the ease of long practice, then scribbles a note on the sheaf of paper at his side. "Thor will not be master of this house for some time yet, and Father has never objected to my… work."

"A mystery in and of itself."

"Hardly. It keeps me out of sight. Now run along, little Miss Foster, before an enterprising maid discovers you unchaperoned in a man's presence." He grins. "In your nightclothes."

Jane is rather surprised he noticed her attire, given that he's not spared her so much as a glance since she entered. And his advisement, though impertinently delivered, isn't wrong. She ought return to bed. At once.

She steps closer. "What are you doing?"

"Making magic, of course."

"There is no such thing."

"Of course not," he says, mockingly, dismissively. "There is only God."

"No," she retorts without thinking. "There is only science."

Mr. Odinson's notations pause.

He sets aside his pen, turns about full in his chair, and fixes her with a penetrating stare.

It is the first time Jane has seen him without his dark, omnipresent spectacles. His eyes are green.

"Could you repeat that?" he says quietly.

Jane, horrified, claps her hand over her mouth.

"Now, now, Miss Foster. I've yet to see an idea contained by closing one's lips — even lips my family so often sees mouthing platitudes at chapel."

She lowers her hand at once, unable to bear his ridicule. "It was a mistake," she says. "I am very tired, sir. And— and you made me angry. I misspoke."

"Oh, no doubt." He leans forward, resting his elbows upon his knees. Jane is reminded of the arachnid anatomy illustrations in her books. Indifferently, as though they are discussing no more than the temperature of tea, he remarks: "Perhaps you are less insipid than I've found you thus far, Miss Foster."

"Excuse me?"

"Insipid. It means spiritless. Commonplace. Dull."

"I know what it means," she snaps, stung.

"So it would seem. And yet, can you blame me for my misconception? Until a few moments ago I would not have guessed you knew more than the words printed within the Book of Common Prayer." His smile widens. "I begin to suspect my dear brother isn't quite aware of what he's acquired in his lady love."

Jane wishes very much to wipe the smirk from her future brother's face with a well-placed slap, announcing to him and the world that she is no one's acquisition — but such words have sat upon the edge of her tongue for a lifetime. This idle scorn will not be what coaxes them to be spoken at last. "I should be returning to my chambers," she says, bobbing a small, perfectly executed curtsey, dressing gown and all."I bid you good night, Mr. Odinson."

"You are quite welcome to bid me good night if you wish," he replies, "though I thought I heard you request an explanation of my doings."

"Indeed, but I've no interest in magic, sir," she says haughtily.

"No, only in science." Mr. Odinson pushes his chair another foot backwards, leaving enough room for a reasonably slender person to stand between him and his microscope, and gestures to the device with an elegant wave. "If you believe it is not magic I create through my labors, Miss Foster, then by all means… prove me wrong."

Jane swallows, glancing at the door, which opens to the corridor which comes to the stairs which take her to her chambers which contain her soft bed and her petticoats and her corsets to be worn for tomorrow's luncheon.

That is, of course, where she belongs.

Mr. Odinson — the Mr. Odinson to whom she is not betrothed — extends his hand.

Jane steps forward to look through the microscope.