You guys are incredible, as always. I've recently discovered Tumblr (don't have an account because I know I'd spend way too much time on it), and was following some of your blogs. Anyway, I found that some of you are actually blogging about my story! Guys, you have no idea what this means to me. I almost started to cry, it was that moving. To someone who really wants to be an author one day, it means the world that you care enough to spread the word about my efforts. And some of you have also done fanart for this story? I'd love to see it…please PM me with info on where to find it!
This summer has been a great one for writing. Besides this story, I just started to write a Prometheus fic. If you saw that movie and enjoyed it, please check it out!
Meanwhile, I hope you like the newest chapter.
()()()()()()()
Once, during the relatively halcyon days of her sophomore year, Jane had gone out with friends and gotten stupid, staggering drunk. The next morning, she had thought she was going to die. Her head was splitting open from the inside, her mouth was chalky and dry, and every time she opened her eyes the light was like an arrow to the back of her skull. For hours, she had been motionless; lying on her side with her knees in a half-fetal position, her toes curled tight, eyes firmly closed, and arms around her shoulders, nails digging into the skin.
That strict control of her body had been what stopped her hangover from getting any worse. At the time, though, she was convinced that her control had kept her from dying.
Now, lying on the bed in her room onboard the alien ship, Jane lay still, her muscles clenched and controlled. Her arms encircled the (now clean) pillow, one end of which was between her knees and the other end clamped tightly between her teeth.
If she bit down as hard as she could, she would not be tempted to scream. If she kept her knees pressed tightly together, she would not be tempted to run. And if she kept her eyes closed, she could imagine she was somewhere—anywhere—else.
She still smelled blood. The room had been magically cleaned and her pillow had been replaced, but it didn't matter. She still smelled it, like a greasy penny warmed in the sun. It made her feel unclean; it made her want to vomit. Erik's blood had been spilled in this room, and it was all her fault.
Jane bit down harder. It was not her fault; she needed to keep reminding herself of that. She was not to blame for the fact that her mentor had been used as a pawn to ensure her obedience. After all, Erik was under Loki's control…and had been for months. Loki would have used Erik against her eventually. There would have been a breaking point, even if she hadn't kissed Thor right in front of Loki's nose.
At the time, it hadn't occurred to Jane that such a thing—such a little thing—could push him to such depths of depravity. But she should have remembered. She should have remembered a day spent in silence, should have remembered being a rat in a maze, should have remembered the slaps and the fingers digging into her shoulders and scalp, should have remembered his cold, cold lips on hers…
Her jaw ached from clenching so hard. Even behind her closed eyes, Jane could feel the tears that wanted to spill forth.
She didn't cry. She just groaned quietly, whimpering to herself like a wounded animal. Didn't autistic children do this, when the world got to be too much for them? Didn't they press their hands to their ears and rock back and forth and moan and wait for things to slow down and make sense again?
Make sense. She had to make sense of things. She had to think about how she would behave from now on. She couldn't afford to make another mistake like the one she'd just made. There was no way that he would really adhere to his promise to keep Erik out of the endless struggle between them; Erik was the ultimate chess piece, and Jane would do anything—she admitted it freely—to keep him away from harm.
Okay. She had to think. And if she was going to think, she was going to have to relax.
The idea of moving sent shudders of dread up her spine. Lying motionless and sightless felt safe; as when she was a child, staring at a shadow on the wall and imagining it to be a monster. If she didn't move, the monster would not see her and it would leave her alone.
But Loki was not a shadow on the wall. And she was not a child…she knew that this monster would never go away.
Why? She was a scientist, and she believed in the laws of nature. Even if she could not see a force that caused an action, she had to believe that the force existed. Neptune did not stray from its orbit because it felt like it; it was dragged out by something that exerted a tremendous gravitational pull.
Loki was not a planet. But she could not—just could not—believe that he was acting out of impulse in regards to her. Jane just had to think; somewhere, there was a strategy. Somewhere, she had missed something.
She started with her toes. They cracked a little as she unbent them, and she slowly flexed her feet, feeling the muscles give as she rocked them back and forth. Then she stretched her legs out until they were straight from the hip, until her toes touched the cold metal of the bed frame.
Nothing came to eat her. Nothing reached up from under the bed—no slimy tentacle or furry claw—to grab her by the ankles and drag her under. There are no monsters here, Jane. You're all right.
She opened her eyes, slowly. The cloudy gray light of thirty thousand feet washed in through the windows and stung; she blinked until her vision was strong enough to handle it. She looked around.
The moment she could see the room, she felt safer. The door was still shut and locked; the sound of the bolt sliding open would give her the few seconds necessary to steel herself in the event of Loki's return. Jane felt disgusted for acting like such a child; the sense of shame was heavy and sour in her gut. She tossed the pillow aside and sat up, resting her head in her hands as the sudden motion gave her vertigo.
Deep breaths. In…and out. In…and again. Her heartbeat slowed as the extra oxygen flushed her system of excess adrenaline.
Okay.
What she wouldn't give for a cup of coffee! Or something warm and solid to hold between her hands to steady her as she sorted through her disorganized thoughts. It had always been nice, especially at night on the rooftop of the New Mexican lab, to hold a white ceramic coffee mug as insulation against the cold and try to puzzle out the mixed results her storm analyses had presented—
You're getting distracted. You'll never figure this out if you don't put in the work. Focus. Think. What are you missing?
"Bossy pants," Jane muttered at herself, rising slowly to her feet and feeling her muscles burn with the strain.
All right, what did she know? She knew that Loki had taken her, even when it didn't necessarily make tactical sense. Why didn't it make sense?
"Scientifically, he knows everything I know," she murmured, starting to pace. "He could have thought that I'd been told where the tesseract is…no. He said he knew where it was. That can't be it."
Why else didn't it make sense? There was something—something that had struck her at the time as stupid—something just after Loki had demanded she be his hostage…
The Captain. Noble, self-sacrificing, and a little too gallant to be a real tactician. What had he said? She pressed her hands over her ears, and focused.
She's a civilian; if you need a hostage, take one of us!
There: "take one of us". When offered the chance to take one of the Avengers, he had declined. Why? Loki had had a chance to cripple the team…with Tony, or Dr. Banner, or the Captain in his custody, it would have been a major blow to the rest of the Avengers. After all, with Natasha, Clint, and Tony under his control, he had managed to overthrow quite a bit of the United States. And when the team was united, they'd driven him back.
Why not take an Avenger?
Then again: she was much easier to hold on to. And Thor had said it himself; he would not let harm come to her. Her. If the opportunity presented itself, would he have been all right with attacking Loki if the Captain were his hostage? The Captain, after all, had accepted all the risks that came with being a soldier. So had all the others. Thor would understand that.
So, tactically, she might be a better choice of hostage than an Avenger. Okay. Logic won out.
But then, why would Loki—practically the minute he had her under his power—decide to force her into kissing him? Injuring Erik in the process, a man that Thor had also fought to protect from the Destroyer in New Mexico? Especially after allowing Thor to speak to her every two days?
And also—her brain was working well now, presenting her with fact after fact with a childlike eagerness—immediately after promising Nick Fury that he would not mistreat her?
Loki's decisions in that regard had made logical, tactical sense. Keeping her in good health and letting Thor be the one to see her—and see her often—was a clever move. Thor, after all, was going to be the force behind stopping the Avengers from risking Jane's life in any risky maneuver to break the truce.
Nick Fury would not be so scrupulous. The man had told her himself that he would break the truce if the opportunity arose, whether she was being treated well or ill. But Thor…Thor would not. As long as he could see that Loki wasn't hurting her, he would not let anyone attempt an attack that would lead to her death.
So then…why had Loki hurt her? She would be speaking to Thor in less than—she checked her watch—thirty-eight hours. She could show him the bruises on her wrist, could tell him that Erik had stripped the skin from his arm, could tell him that Loki had made her kiss him…and Thor would be shooting across the Atlantic with enough lightning to destroy a fleet of Skrull.
It made no sense.
Jane stopped pacing, her thoughts stuttering to a halt along with her feet. No sense. Except that she didn't believe that. Something had made him do it. She just wasn't seeing it.
She turned to the window, but the gray clouds through which they soared gave her no inspiration. Her head hurt—the stress and the constant low hum of the ship wearing away at her nerves like water on a stone—and she wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. But she couldn't. There was a solution to be found; the data was there, right in front of her…Jane was sure of it.
She just had to put it together.
Okay, Jane, start again.
Loki had made a good tactical decision by choosing her as his hostage. He had made further good decisions by allowing Thor to speak with her, so that he could see that Loki was keeping his promise to refrain from hurting her. After making those good decisions, something caused him to potentially undo all his careful scheming. He had hurt her, and Erik…two things that he must know would upset Thor.
Thor, who would be calling her in another day and a half. Thor, who would believe her if she answered the phone, sobbing, telling him that she was hurt and would he please come and save her…
It was a huge misstep for such a careful tactician. And for all Loki said that logic and "why" did not apply to him, he was clearly a brilliant tactician. One does not conquer the world without knowing exactly when and where to strike.
What had done it?
Her brain was as blank and gray as the view. Then, like a leaf landing on the surface of a still pond:
If you think such an infantile tactic can make me jealous—
What makes you think it was for your benefit? You're the only one talking about jealousy.
Oh, my God. Oh, no. She had known. She had known but hadn't realized that she'd known…
Jane's knees gave out and she plopped down on the edge of the bed. Her heart didn't know how to react; it lurched in her chest, pattering ahead for a few beats, then stalled out like a rusty car. She swallowed and tried to breathe deep to fight the incipient panic, but couldn't get a steady rhythm going. The breath kept catching in her throat; she was a beached fish taking deep panicked gasps, desperate just to stay alive.
What would make a brilliant tactician act as though he'd abandoned all his logic?
"Please, God…whoever's out there, I don't care," she whispered, "please…no."
()()()()()()()
When was the last time she had known anything like safety? The last time she had rested in peace, untroubled as to what the next day would bring?
Hell…not since she'd been sent out of the country. Months.
The bed was hard underneath her, the rails of the cot like a ladder against her back. The bars dug into her shoulders, her ribs, lower back, and hips. Her eyes drifted open and shut; each time it was a greater effort to pry them open again.
Jane's body craved sleep. But as before—sleepless nights on the rooftop in New Mexico, or the lab in New York, or her bedroom in Uppsala—her brain whirred and clicked, sorting through data and trying to find a path to the future, and it would not let her rest until it had arrived at some sort of conclusion.
She had all the information to hand; she could lay the facts out as neatly as shells on a beach.
She felt strongly for Thor, Thor felt strongly for her. Loki felt…something for her, and was jealous because of her feelings for Thor. She could speak to Thor, but she was under Loki's control. And any affectionate feelings she expressed for Thor might result in reprisals against herself or the people she loved.
So…how should she act? How should she behave?
Jane tossed and turned, considering many options, each one playing out in her mind as though she had already lived it:
Playing the fool—Loki would react as he already had, swinging between kindness and violence, with her never certain which would come next.
Making him confront it—a violent outburst, followed by mistreatment for having forced his hand and making him admit what he probably wasn't aware of himself.
Playing along—too horrible for words.
And over all these options hung a sword of Damocles; the shadow of rape swinging ever nearer if she spoke or acted wrongly. Jane did not doubt for a minute that he was capable of it…she just prayed that however she ended up acting—once she made up her mind about how to act—she would not end up bringing that end upon herself.
Despite her pounding head and racing thoughts, Jane fell asleep. It was the natural consequence of her panic, stress, and exhaustion. Her last rest—troubled and brief, curled up on the stairs in a filthy subway station—had been just before the assault on New York. She was so tired that she could not even count the number of hours it had been since then. Over a day, certainly. It seemed like years ago.
And it wasn't just time, either. She felt older—drawn around the eyes, pinched and withered—and jaded, as though nothing would make her happy, ever again.
So even though the last thing Jane consciously wanted to do was close her eyes under the threat of Loki's uncontrolled emotions, her body overwhelmed her mind and dragged her into the dark oblivion of sleep.
()()()()()()()
An explosion rocked the ship, jarring Jane not just out of her fitful sleep but out of her bed entirely. She landed hard on her right arm, bruising her shoulder and banging the side of her head. The first hard impact was followed by two more, each as severe as the first. They threw her end over end across the floor, helpless as a rag doll.
The ship wailed, a long, agonized moan that made Jane's skin burst into goose bumps. It sounded like an animal with a mortal wound, curled up into itself, dying slowly in pain.
She scrambled to her feet, clutching her right shoulder and trying to get her bearings. She saw two gray flashes outside the window as fighter jets streaked past, breaking the sound barrier as they accelerated. Just as quickly, Skrull fighters on open hovercraft followed in pursuit. Both groups were gone almost as quickly as she could register them.
The ship dropped suddenly, losing at least fifty feet in less than a second, and Jane screamed as gravity disappeared for that sickening second. She managed to land on her feet—barely—but she had to hang onto the bed frame while her little breakfast settled back in her stomach.
A plane burst into flame just outside, the ruined, burning metal falling like a spent firework from the sky. The flames illuminated the room with orange shadows, dancing like imps on the walls.
This was serious. The ship gave another sickening lurch towards the sea; and Jane was decided. She needed to know what was going on. They could be going down. She ran to her duffel and yanked out her cell phone—there was no way she was going to lose her connection to Thor—and shoved it in the pocket of her cargo pants, buttoning the pocket securely.
The explosions had shaken the strong door out of its frame; it banged back and forth as the pilot fought for balance against the fighters and the turbulence. It took Jane a moment to find her sea-legs and make it across the room. But finding anything was almost impossible—there were constant dips and dives as the ship maneuvered around to avoid the constant barrage of missiles.
She made it to the corridor and promptly slammed her other shoulder into the wall, almost sliding head over heels as they banked. Her nails scrabbled uselessly for purchase on the metal walls and her fingertips bled, shredded from the rough surface. They righted, and she landed on her knees. Nausea made her gag, but thankfully there was nothing left to come up.
Jane was so dizzy that she could barely remember which way the bridge was, but she staggered to her feet and kept moving.
At the end of the corridor, she heard hissing, radio chatter (voices with British accents coordinating the attack in military code), and her heart leapt with gratitude as she also heard a familiar voice—the only familiar voice on board:
"Alien craft, you are violating sovereign European airspace. Turn back now or our attack will continue."
Loki—and everyone else—ignored them. "Get that shielding back up, now! Are you completely incompetent?"
Something big hit the side of the ship and threw Jane flat on her stomach; it wasn't a missile, she was sure. She heard crumpling metal and she gasped. A pilot—perhaps out of control or perhaps with a fatally damaged plane—had run his jet into them. She pushed herself to her feet and started to run.
They were going to go down.
The bridge was open to the air and the swirling winds whipped Jane's hair in front of her face until she couldn't see. It was breathtakingly cold as well, but she was the only one who seemed to notice. A few Skrull stood by the open hatch, firing their rifles at the passing planes while others jumped from the same hatch, catching rides on hovercraft with their fellow fighters.
Loki—and her heart leaped again because she was perversely glad to see him—was seething.
He worked some controls on the main console and touched the tip of his staff to it. The entire circular panel glowed blue, veins of light radiating from the center. Even over the whipping wind, Jane still heard his voice, syllables low and sibilant. He hissed three or four phrases in a language Jane couldn't even begin to pronounce—she might not understand it, but even she could feel the power building in the air, as the atmosphere thickens in the advance of a lightning strike.
A burst of power spread from the crystal on his staff and passed through the walls of the ship—stopping the breath in Jane's lungs as it passed through her—and she turned to the closest window to see what it had done.
The Skrull hovercraft were unaffected; they continued to harass the jets, peppering them with fire. But those same jets…the ones that had been flying circles around the Skrull just a moment ago…
They were motionless in the air. Jane could see the pilots frantically working their controls, trying to get the engines started before the inevitable happened…
But it was useless. They were all falling towards the ground.
She turned back towards Loki, horror turning her blood to solid ice in her veins. The smile on his face was unrepentant; he looked towards her—not even surprised to see her on the bridge—and then stared out the window.
He saw the falling planes, and gestured at the Skrull.
"Destroy them."
"No!" Jane yelled, her voice drowned out by the pulses of the firing rifles. One after the other, the planes exploded. She was too far away to hear anything, but she could have sworn that she heard every scream of every terrified man, burning alive. She raced forward.
"Loki!" She hadn't spoken his name since the last time she'd pleaded for a man's life, but at least it got his attention. He turned towards her, the flames outside throwing his face into harsh contrast; he was all high cheekbones and shadowed eyes. Fear would have stopped the words in her throat, but she had no time to be afraid.
"Please," she said, holding her hands out, pleading, "they're no harm to you now. Let the pilots live; the planes will go down anyway. You've won."
He did not answer for a long moment, and Jane couldn't help it—she ran to the open hatch, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Skrull warriors, fighting her fear and her vertigo as she watched the planes tumble ever downward, pursued by hovercraft.
She turned back, the violent wind flinging her hair forward and lifting the hem of her tee-shirt up over her ribcage. Jane shoved the brown strands back from her face and decided that she had nothing left to lose. Her knees hit the deck, and she bowed her head. She did not look up, but she heard the shifting of the Skrull behind her as they turned to look down at her.
"Please," she begged, yelling to be heard over the wind, "Please. Let them live."
There were two more explosions, punctuated by the slow rhythm of Loki's booted feet as he crossed the bridge to stand in front of her. She felt his eyes weighing heavily on the back of her neck, but she still didn't look up. Fear and anger made her shoulders shake, and even though she didn't speak again, her thoughts were loud enough that she felt Loki could hear her all the same:
Please. Please, please, please, you goddamned bastard, please.
She saw his boots—black, gold, and green, probably worth more than she made in a month—move past her. He was looking past her, out the hatch. His staff dropped into view, the light in the crystal swirling lazily with dark blue menace.
Jane raised her head, and he was looking at her. She mouthed the word once more—"please"—but had no breath to give it voice. The wind stung her eyes and shivered one tear lose. It felt as though it would freeze on her cheek, blistering as it was.
He knelt down, level with her eyes, staff still angled down and out of the ship. His hand reached towards her—Jane fought all her instincts—and she did not flinch when he touched her cheek and wiped away her tear.
"My brave, sweet martyr," how could she always manage to hear him, however softly he spoke? "how hard you try. But you must realize—"
There was a flash of blue. Jane screamed. Far below them, the last plane vanished—vaporized by the force of his magic.
He continued without a pause, without even seeming to realize what he'd done, "you cannot save everyone."
She lunged for him, throwing her hands out and wrestling with all her strength. If she could just unbalance him, if she could just throw him out the window…even if she fell with him…
But Loki didn't even need to try and repel her. He caught her left arm in his hand and jerked her away from the hatch, the bone in her forearm straining almost to the breaking point. All her screams were gone; she only gritted her teeth and scrabbled at his hand with her nails, trying to break his hold.
It was no good.
He spoke to the assembled soldiers. "This vessel is damaged beyond repair. Take the weapons and the hovercraft and move to either of the accompanying ships."
Without any further orders, Loki stepped directly out into the open air, dragging Jane along behind him. Her stomach flipped and she closed her eyes tightly—if she didn't look down, it was like being on a roller-coaster ride…safe, controlled, with laughter and smiles at the end.
It seemed like they fell together, hand in hand, for hours. But it wasn't longer than five seconds. His hand tightened on her wrist, she saw an emerald glow—even behind her lids—and their descent slowed. Jane opened her eyes.
Above them hovered the three Skrull ships; one of them, their own, lurching in the sky like a drunkard, momentum and gravity bringing it slowly downward, hemorrhaging bursts of purple sparks. Below them, the wreckage of over twenty jets littered the landscape, wings and fuselages carving flaming furrows into the lush farmland.
Thank God they weren't over a city, was her first thought. Jane wasn't certain why she was thanking God, since he seemed to be managing just about fifty-fifty right now, but she was glad that there had been no more unnecessary loss of life. That gratitude was drowned out by an immediate and overwhelming malaise:
So what if no one else had died this time? There would be other battles, bigger battles, and more people would die. So what if lives were spared here? They would most certainly be lost elsewhere.
But she would be safe. That was the most galling thought of all. She would be safe. Because she was hiding behind the murderer.
"It was a ridiculous assault," he spoke mildly, as though commenting on the weather, "They had not nearly enough planes to be a threat to three of my carriers. It was stupid of them to try."
Of course he would think that. Floating above the scene, looking down on those ruined lives and fields like a god—a God, in truth…immortal and untouchable—why should he think any differently? He didn't know what it was like, to be in pain. If she could make him bleed, if she could tear him to pieces—as he'd torn her up, time and time again—she would die happily.
Loki had answered the question that had tormented her since discovering his jealousy. How should she behave towards him? Had there ever been any option for her? How could she even have thought about acting politely towards him?
She spoke, looking down towards the burning earth. "I hate you."
"I know."