Chapter 27
"Day one, twelfth attempt of teleportation," Tony said as he halfheartedly pointed a camera at Jane.
At first, he'd been full of enthusiasm at her sending Loki across the room. Now, he was distracted, looking more at his phone than at her. Not that she minded. Having his, Thor's, and Loki's eyes trained on her was a bit distracting. That and the reinforced section of the rear fuselage they were in constantly creaked and groaned.
She exhaled. Slipping into the altered state was easy. Enforcing her will on the Tesseract was not. Granted, she was getting better at sensing Loki's magic.
The God of Mischief stared at her. His gaze burned through her with an unexpected intensity. She didn't know why he was so adamant for her to learn this, but she did know that he had the most captivating green eyes that were all too easy to get lost in.
There were a couple of times she'd gotten so distracted, her hold on the altered state had slipped from her already tenuous grasp.
"If you're having trouble," Loki said, "might I suggest physical contact?"
"With you?" she nearly squeaked. Images of the contact they'd shared in the dream world filled her mind and caused her to turn a tad red.
"No, with Stark," he deadpanned.
"I'm choosing to not take offense at that," Tony replied while still focused on his phone. The camera now pointed at his feet instead of at her.
Thor stepped forward from his sentinel position next to the door. "What purpose does this serve?"
"A purpose you wouldn't understand," Loki said with an ambiguous smile that was either harmless or dripping with malice.
Jane shot him a look, then told Thor, "He thinks because I touched him when I made him teleport, that it might be the key."
The God of Thunder's brows lowered, but he nodded his understanding.
The soft thud of Loki's boots snared her attention and caused her heart to thud faster. She held her breath as he drew closer with a gaze that wanted to devour her. Part of her wanted him to stop far away and part of her wanted him to quickly close the distance between them. Neither happened.
By the time he was within inches of her, a discordant duet of anticipation and nervousness reverberated throughout her body, leaving her nearly vibrating and weak. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.
"Do I make you nervous?" he asked, then leaned in and whispered, "Or does the thought of my touch excite you?"
She ignored the blooming heat deep in her core and snatched his arm to teleport him to the designated spot in the helicarrier. Except, the magic consumed them both and sent them to Puente Antiguo.
The moment they landed, he stumbled and blinked as if disoriented from the travel. "What are we doing in your lab?" Loki chided her. "You know they're going to think I abducted you."
Her concern for him sizzled away like water thrown on a hot pan. "So you admit to spying on me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You shouldn't have known this was my lab. Your magic is too familiar. I know you've been watching me."
He turned away from her. "Believe me, it wasn't for my amusement. Your life was quite dull."
She narrowed her eyes at the insult even though he couldn't see her. "Then why bother at all?"
"Because anyone capable of building a Bifrost is a threat."
She couldn't hold back a snicker. "You thought I was a threat to a kingdom of immortal beings?"
"I had to make sure."
"Since I'm alive, I take it you deemed me inconsequential."
He flinched at her words, but said nothing.
Dragging her gaze off him, she looked around the room. "Does it seem a little bare in here to you?"
Tony had shipped off her equipment and binders of data, but some of her furniture was missing.
"It looks the same to me," Loki said a little too innocently.
Turning to face him, she asked, "What did you do?"
He clasped his hands behind his back. "Shall we return to SHIELD?"
"Loki."
"I'm sure Thor is quite beside himself with you missing."
That was probably true. There was a time and place for everything. Getting answers from Loki could wait. She stepped to him and held out her hand. When he took it, she did her best not to focus on how right it felt.
After a moment of nothing happening, she looked up at him. "Are you not going to take us back?"
"I'm not the one who brought us here."
She tilted her head to the side. "Is that how magic works? The person who opens the path can only travel it?"
A rare, genuine smile brightened his face as he held back a laugh. "Not at all."
"You're making fun of me?" She tried to move back a step, but he wouldn't let her. In fact, he pulled her a little closer to him.
He chuckled. "You make it all too easy to do so."
"Okay, Oh Wise One, how do I get us back?" She tried not to smile, but his joviality was infectious.
"The same way you brought us here."
"Now you're just being difficult."
He didn't say anything, but she could see he wanted to tease her further. His eyes shone brighter than she'd ever seen. The green was more luminous than leaves highlighted by a midday sun. Maybe it was a trick of the light or maybe she'd just never seen him this relaxed. Either way, it was nice.
When she realized they were staring at each other, she glanced around the room and shifted the Tesseract in her arm.
He cleared his throat and lightly squeezed her hand. "Close your eyes."
She lifted a brow at him.
"I'm helping you," he said with a haughty look of his own. "It might work differently with the Tesseract, but try visualizing the helicarrier. What you're looking for is the connecting pathway, but first you have to know your destination."
She breathed out and recalled the image of the aircraft, her lab, and all the rooms she'd seen, but found no paths to them. "I can't."
"You can, but maybe we should work on it some other less pressing time."
She nodded and in the next moment, they were standing back in the empty reinforced room of the helicarrier. It happened so fast she wasn't even able to observe how he had teleported them.
Loki turned to the door and walked to it, pulling her behind them.
"Where are you going?" she asked as she rushed to keep up with him.
He didn't slow down as he threw open the door and sped out into the cavernous equipment room filled with pipes and various levels of stairs and catwalks. "To find the fools before they think the worst."
"But they saw me—"
"They won't know what they saw."
"Still." She paused to shift her hold on the Tesseract as they hurried up a section of metal stairs to a grated walkway. "They wouldn't think that. Not Thor, at least."
He half-laughed. "Everyone jumps to the worst conclusion when it comes to me."
"Not Thor," she insisted because Thor hadn't once given up on his brother.
"Yes, not your precious Thor."
The venom in his words surprised her enough to pull him to a stop. "He might've been an ass in the beginning, but he's changed. And he cares for you. Greatly."
"You speak of things you don't understand."
"He defended you when you brought the Frost Giants, he never once believed you wanted the Tesseract for personal gain, and he missed you while you were pretending to be Dr. Collins."
His hand clenched hers as he stepped into her personal space. "That does not erase centuries of being belittled."
Raising her chin, she met his stare and said, "No, but it's a good start."
The muscle in his jaw worked and his nostrils flared with each inhale. They were so close his cool breath fanned across her face and teased her hair.
She glanced at his lips just inches away and instinctively licked her own. His eyes followed the movement and the tension, already palpable and heavy between them, set her on fire.
They leaned closer together. The shorter distance created a heavier pull, making her want nothing more than to vanquish the last bit of space separating them.
"Jane!" Thor's anxious voice surprised her enough to make her jerk away from Loki. "Are you well?"
"Of course." She made sure not to look at Loki next to her, still holding her hand. She cursed under her breath at the realization and stepped slightly in front of him because if his grip was anything to go on, he wasn't going to let her go easily.
Her efforts were too late though. Thor's gaze was trained on where their joined hands had been visible, then suddenly flicked up to Loki. "Brother?"
He said nothing, though it looked like he was holding back a deluge of words.
The click of boots took her attention off the pair on the verge of a long-coming confrontation. She leaned as far as she could over the railing to see around the broad-shouldered God of Thunder.
SHIELD soldiers charged into the room toward them from every direction with rifles at the ready. Her eyes widened.
"Thor?" she called, trying to get his attention, but the two gods were locked in some kind of staring match.
Men. She pried her hand out of Loki's and went to maneuver herself around Thor on the narrow catwalk to intercept the soldiers. Before she could, though, he wrapped an arm around her as if that was why she had disentangled herself from Loki in the first place. If he thought that, then Loki probably did so as well. Sure enough, he had a rigid posture, a ticking jaw, and green eyes that were hard and angry.
Loki had clasped his hands behind his back and opened his mouth to speak when a blur dropped from the catwalk overhead and landed directly behind him. The God of Mischief stumbled forward, hissing in pain.
Jane stepped toward him, but Thor held her back. "They won't hurt him."
Loki jerked, trying to free his hands now bound behind his back by a thick pair of handcuffs unlike anything she'd seen. A familiar blue radiated out of the silver casing. She looked down at the Tesseract tucked in her arm, wondering just how many things they had invented from studying the artifact. And just how many of those inventions were lethal.
Natasha straightened from behind Loki and spoke into her earpiece, "Threat secured."
Unable to stay quiet any longer, Jane said, "He did nothing wrong."
"Where have you been?" Agent Barton asked from overhead.
She found him standing on a platform off to the side with an arrow pointed at Loki. "At my lab in Puente Antiguo. I'd—"
"Did he try to take the Tesseract?" he cut her off.
A surge of anger prickled her skin. "No. And I'm the one who teleported him. He was the one who brought us back."
"I told you it wasn't him," Tony said somewhere behind her and Thor.
She craned her neck to find him weaving his way through the soldiers on the walkway. His white tee stuck out in the sea of black military fatigues. The fact he wasn't in his Iron Man suit was further proof of his lack of concern on the matter.
Stark nodded to her. "No one listens to me either, kid."
She turned back around and demanded that they release him, but Natasha shook her head. "He's to go to his cell." Her tone softened. "And you're needed in the briefing room."
A jolt of fear clenched her throat. "What for?"
Thor whispered in her ear that it would be best if she came with him.
"Is it Erik?" she asked, refusing to budge despite him nudging her to the exit. "Just tell me if he's alright."
When no one spoke a word, the Tesseract flared as fear liquified her internal organs.
"Jane, breathe," Loki said. "Check for yourself."
She nodded and let the room fall away. This time it took her seconds to find her mentor's thread. It was even more frayed than the day before, unraveling in her hands the longer she stared at it.
She needed to find Erik.
When she opened her eyes, she took a step back in surprise and nearly tripped over the thick snow surrounding her ankles. The wind howled as it battered her with icy flurries and whipped her hair around her face. She brushed back the brown mass and peered through the haze.
A smattering of black rocky crags broke up the white landscape. Far off in the distance, a jagged mountain stuck out like talons reaching for help. Heavy clouds coiled in the sky and cast a sinister dusky blue over the stark land.
With the Tesseract warm in her hands and buzzing in her head, she knew exactly where she was. Jotunheim.
Author's Note: I'm back! Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait. And thanks for sticking with me! And a big thanks to everyone who has favorited Natural Selection. I reached 100! I never thought that many people would ever enjoy something I've written.
This ending was brought to you by my sister (I wrote something else, but then she gave me a better idea). Which changed the direction of this part of the third quarter slightly, and made it ten times better. Love you, sis! And I love my beta too! She continues to teach me new things all the time. It's crazy how much I've learned from her. Seriously, she's awesome! And a sweetie pie too. :)
Up Next: Loki POV - I don't want to give anything away, so I'm going to stay mum. However, I can tell you that we finally get to reintroduce a certain superhero!
