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Playground
Chapter 17: Life Journey
Loki's heart seized up, followed immediately by one of the sets of footsteps on the stairs falling silent. Morgan came into view in almost the same instant, and then another set of hidden footsteps stilled.
"He did? Wow, that's neat, kiddo," Tony said, rising from the sofa and meeting Morgan as she ran into the living room.
Loki dragged himself up, too.
"He broke one of my teacups. But Mama said it was okay because we still have enough."
"Sure we do, Pumpkin. Sometimes cups break, it happens." Tony picked her up as Loki passed them.
"I know. I wasn't mad."
"Good for you. Getting mad about that would be silly, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah," Morgan said before dissolving into shrieks and giggles. Perhaps Tony was tickling her.
Quiet voices came from the stairs; Loki couldn't make them out over the noise from Morgan and Tony. The footfalls resumed just before Loki reached the stairs, after what seemed an excruciatingly long journey to reach something objectively near.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, meeting Pepper and Ollie, hand in hand, as they stepped into the landing. Ollie appeared his normal self but was hanging back, not quite but almost hiding behind Pepper. Morgan was clearly unharmed as well as unconcerned; she had seen this before and had taken it in stride. He saw no sign of injury on Pepper. But Ollie was clearly still expecting to be in trouble.
"Everything's fine, isn't it Ollie?"
Ollie peered up at Pepper and then Loki but said nothing and quickly ducked his head and looked away.
Loki took a quick breath and pulled himself together. Whatever expression he'd worn, it had done nothing to reassure his son.
"He and Morgan had fun playing together. And we got to see Ollie turn blue, and we looked at everyone's toes."
"That does sound like fun," Loki said, scooping up Ollie from where he still stood half-hidden behind Pepper. "Toes are funny, aren't they?" He smiled, hugged Ollie, rubbed his back, kissed his cheek.
Ollie gave a small nod.
"I apologize if you were startled," he said to Pepper.
"Please don't worry about it. He and Morgan started whispering up a storm over in a corner, and I guessed they might be up to something. And honestly, even if Tony hadn't told me about this last night…I'm not sure I would've been all that surprised. Being around Tony all these years, not that much surprises me anymore. Besides, it was fun getting to see Ollie in two different ways. Didn't we have fun, Ollie?"
Ollie nodded again, a little less reticent.
Pepper gave them both a smile meant to reassure, then hurried over to Tony and Morgan, presumably to say her goodbyes before leaving for work.
"Are you worried you're in trouble?" Loki quietly asked, carrying Ollie away from the stairs and off to the side of the large entryway area.
Ollie nodded. "Are you mad?"
"No, I'm not mad. Remember, I made a mistake when I got so angry before. I won't do that again."
"But you said you got mad because I surprised you."
"Well…yes. That's true. But getting mad was still a mistake. We do need to talk about when it's all right to change forms and when it isn't. We can't surprise people with things like that. Other people can't change forms the way you can."
"And you can."
"And…and I can, yes. But your mother cannot, can she?"
Ollie's eyes shot open wide, the first animation he'd shown since cowering on the stairs at Morgan's announcement. "Maybe she can! Maybe I can make her turn blue, too!"
"No, Ollie, you cannot. Remember what we discussed? You can only cause that change in me, because of where I was born."
"Oh," he said, drooping with disappointment. "I couldn't make Morgan turn blue, either."
Loki sucked in a swift breath, but immediately calmed himself. Morgan was fine. But she could have been seriously hurt. He and Jane were going to have to establish clear rules and make sure Ollie understood them and would obey them before they could allow him around anyone else unsupervised by them, or at least Tony, who knew about the problem, or Pepper, who Tony would need to explain it to. The risk of injury was too great otherwise, not to mention the risk to the secret Loki still had to maintain.
"No. Only you and I can do it. Other people don't even know that it's possible. On Midgard no one knows any blue people exist. And on—"
"Cookie Monster! They know about Cookie Monster here."
"That's true," Loki said, grateful he'd been interrupted. As soon as he'd started to mention Asgard he realized that he couldn't; he had no idea how he and Jane were going to handle that. "But Cookie Monster isn't a real person. I mean real people, like Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts and—"
"They know about blue people."
"Yes, they do. But only them. Others don't know about it."
"I think Mama knows about blue people."
"Yes, your mother knows."
"Uncle Thor?"
"Yes," Loki said, clamping down on another surge of panic. "He knows." It was one thing to look him in the same eyes Thor had always known and say you're my brother, it doesn't matter where you were born. To keep him in the line of succession. To swear that Ollie would also be officially in the line of succession when he turned twenty. To swear to raise Ollie as Thor's own should something happen to him and Jane. Quite another to look at the face of the enemy and make the same declarations.
But yes, his brother knew, and about Ollie, too. Jane had told Thor, not long after the first incident, when Loki had been busy convincing himself it was an aberration that would never be repeated and had refused to speak of it. She'd asked Thor to talk to him, he'd learned only last night. Thor, the coward, had also refused, too afraid of jeopardizing their relationship after overcoming the terrible rift between them. Or so he'd told Jane. Loki suspected other issues were at play, such as hoping just as much as Loki that this would all simply go away. Talking about it, exposing it to the light of day, made it more real.
It was very real now. Ollie seemed to have only one thing on his mind.
If Thor rejected him it would hurt, but he could handle that. If Thor rejected Ollie…. He couldn't even complete the thought.
"Papa," Ollie said, tugging on his hair and interrupting the heavy thudding of his heart.
"Stop that," Loki said reflexively. He and Jane had told Ollie many times not to pull hair. The normality of it helped clear his head further.
"But what about Grandpa? Does he know about blue people?"
"He—. Not—. I think he might know. Your mother might have told him." Erik knew about Jotunheim. Jane had told him when they were expecting Ollie. She'd needed someone else to talk to, and Loki had reluctantly agreed to it. But he had avoided Erik entirely during that visit on Asgard and the subject had never come up since.
"Can I show him? Can I try to turn him blue?"
"It's, ah, it's probably all right if you show him, if you ask us about it first." Loki tried to get control of the renewed tightening in his chest. More unbelievable words falling from his mouth. "You mustn't surprise him, though. We must take care not to surprise anyone, especially people who aren't expecting to see a blue person. And you can't turn him blue. It isn't possible. You can't go around trying to turn people blue."
"Why not?"
"Because it won't work. I know you know that, so why do you keep asking?"
"I just want to," Ollie said, face and voice full of dejection. "I want everybody to be blue. But especially Grandpa. And Mama. Oh, and Uncle Thor."
The Aesir did not have heart attacks, not in the sense the mortals did. But Loki knew what they were, and was certain that had he been Midgardian, he would have had one just now. He hardly dared imagine Thor's reaction to Ollie announcing he wanted Uncle Thor to look like a Frost Giant.
He said goodbye to Pepper as she passed by and watched Ollie wave and do the same, all through a haze. There was a place where everybody was blue, of course. Ollie didn't know what he was saying – he was certainly not wistfully yearning to live on Jotunheim – but Loki's overworked heart thudded ever harder all the same. Ollie, meanwhile, was pouting, with big sad eyes that Tony had said must be impossible to resist. Loki did tend accede to Ollie's wishes. In this, though, there was no question but to stand firm.
"They cannot, though. And I need you to not try to make them."
"Why?"
"Because it could hurt them."
"Why?"
"I've told you magic can be dangerous, when it isn't done properly."
Excitement pushed aside the disappointment. "It's magic? I can use magic?"
Loki cringed, just for an instant. Everything he said to try to address one problem introduced another. "It's something like magic. Magic comes in many forms."
"I can use magic! Just like you, Papa! Can I make the flowers dance? Oh! I want to make the books talk!"
"That's a different kind of magic," Loki said, relief tingeing his laughter, lending it almost an edge of hysteria to his ears. Talking books he was more than happy to discuss with Ollie. His child had not actually seen him using much magic. His strongest abilities were along the lines of illusion, disguise, and concealment. Jane had worried that Ollie might feel confused or even insecure if exposed to his father abruptly looking like someone else, duplicating himself, or disappearing in front of Ollie. Upon consideration, Loki had agreed. Once they were confident in Ollie's grasp of the nature of reality – once Cookie Monster was no longer cited as an example of a person – Loki would introduce his son to all that he could do.
"But maybe I can do it if I try."
"You may certainly try if you wish, to make books talk I mean, but it's not the same thing and you won't be able to do it now."
"When I get big I can do it?"
"When you're older, you might be able to do it. I'll help you learn, if that's what you want."
"I want to make it thunder."
"You hate the thunder," Loki said with a laugh, some of the tension beginning to bleed away.
"But I want to make it thunder, because then I'll know that it's going to thunder and I won't get scared."
"We'll have to talk to Uncle Thor about that." The broad smile was for Ollie; the sadness in it, Loki hoped, was hidden too deeply to be detected. Thor's abilities were irrelevant to whatever Ollie might someday be capable of. Ollie shared no blood with Thor. It wouldn't have hurt, probably, if he'd known from the start. As it was, despite a great deal of true healing it still felt like something had been lost, that although he and Thor were unquestionably brothers, they were still less brothers than they were before. Had he always known he was "adopted," there would no sense of loss.
"Can we go see him now?"
"Not right now, no," he said over the doorbell. "Uncle Thor is busy on Asgard right now, and we're busy on Midgard." And Loki knew the first thing Ollie would want to do if they saw Thor right now. It wouldn't be about thunder.
"We're not very busy."
"Not at this exact moment, no, I suppose we're not," Loki said with a laugh and another glance to the door. The smile froze in place amid a spike of fear. Fury? Someone Fury had sent? He could not safely fight his way out of a conflict here. Racing through his options, he started for the stairs – with four or five floors above him he could not safely call for the bifrost, either. If he could reach the roof, though, the bifrost would be a good backup option. His first option would be concealment; Ollie would get his first true taste of what his father's magic could do after all.
He was six stairs up when Tony reached the entry corridor.
"Where're you going? I checked the camera feed. Pretty sure that doorbell's for you."
The decision took no more than a couple of seconds. If Fury or one of his underlings had shown up, Tony wouldn't have spoken so casually, wouldn't have told him to go to the door. Especially not with Ollie in his arms.
That left only one person it could possibly be.
"Mama!" Ollie cried when Loki opened the door.
Jane had no choice but to take their son; he had already half-wriggled out of Loki's arms, twisting around and throwing his arms out for Jane.
"Hey, Bugbear, how are you? I've been missing you all day!" Jane said, coming inside.
"Mama, guess what? Uncle Thor's going to show me how to make thunder!"
"Oh, he is?"
Loki shook his head when Ollie couldn't see.
"Lightning, too?"
"Maybe lightning, too. But maybe just thunder."
"They usually go together, you know."
"Well…maybe I'll learn how to make books talk instead." Ollie knew that when Thor caused lightning, it often struck nearby, and he knew that unlike Thor, he was not safe from it.
"That would be fun. Where's all this coming from?" Jane asked, looking to Loki.
"Ollie's curious about different forms of magic." Loki struggled with how to react to these ideas Ollie got. A child should imagine and dream, and should not peer into the future and see barriers. But he also didn't want Ollie to fixate on something impossible or unlikely or even uncertain, lest his innocent, high-spirited child's spirit be crushed. Disappointments would come, but Loki would protect Ollie from them as much as he could, for as long as he could. Whether Ollie had even the tiniest capacity for magic, as all full-blooded Aesir did, was still unknown. He would have similar durability and a similar lifespan, to be able to live among the Aesir. Beyond that, in accordance with Asgardian law, they could not interfere with his genetic design.
"Me, too, Ollie. If you figure it out, you tell me all about it, okay?"
"Okay."
"Jane, ah, can we talk? I'm sure Ollie can play with Morgan a while longer."
"I want you to play with me, too."
"Yeah, um, I guess we should. I'm free for the rest of the day. Are you sure it's okay with Tony?"
Loki nodded and led Jane back into the living room, after she paused for Ollie to slither out of her arms and take off running without them.
"No running, Ollie," Jane called. Ollie slowed, but didn't precisely stop running.
While Jane exchanged pleasantries with Tony, Loki hung back, irritation toward Jane warring with his pride that this woman, so highly regarded here in scientific circles, including by Tony, was his wife.
"Not a problem. I think I can manage both these little munchkins for a while," Tony was saying.
"But I want you to play with us, too."
"We'll play with you later," Jane said. "Maybe we'll even watch The Jungle Book this afternoon, and we can dance."
"Yay, Jungle Book! Can we watch it now? I want to watch it with Morgan. Morgan can dance with us!"
The negotiations continued. Loki was certain there had been no such negotiations when he was a child. He'd been told what to do, he'd answered, Yes, Mother, or No, Father, and he'd done as he was told. He wished they were still here to ask if he was remembering it correctly or not.
"We've got some games set up, a mini-playground. We can—"
"Wait, what? No," Loki said once he realized Tony had been talking about taking the children to play on the roof.
"Don't worry. It's surrounded by a sturdy parapet for safety."
"Yes, I saw. A transparent parapet."
"Ah. Okay. Uhhh, hey, I've got it. We could go down to the basement lab instead, if you, Munchkin Stark, are willing to sacrifice your shoes to scientific investigation."
"Yeah, let's do it, Daddy. I can cut one open and Ollie can cut one open."
"Or, even better, I can cut both of them open, because only the grown-ups handle the sharp knives, isn't that right, children?" Tony capped off the question with an exaggerated wink at Loki that made Morgan laugh. Ollie seemed to laugh mainly because Morgan did.
"Come on, Ollie, I'll show you the lab. It's where we do our experiments."
Ollie looked up for permission, and at Loki's nod he took Morgan's outstretched hand and the two of them ran for the stairs.
Jane started to call out to Ollie, no doubt to tell him not to run, but Loki caught her eye and shook his head, cutting her off before she could get more than an initial sound out. They were in Tony Stark's home and Tony Stark wasn't reprimanding Morgan Stark for running. She told Ollie to have fun instead.
"Jane," Loki began once Tony had excused himself to follow the children down the stairs. He managed nothing more.
"I know what you're going to say."
"Do you?"
"Director Fury called after I left his office. I know he called you. That man and his power plays. I wanted to tell you myself."
"Is that where you perceive the problem?"
"I—. No. I know I should have told you. It was just so late last night and we were both so tired, and—"
"This meeting wasn't arranged prior to last night?"
"No, it was. I just—. You didn't seem interested in—"
"Jane. Stop making excuses. You know I would have been interested in this. And I should have taken an interest in the rest. For that I apologize, and I will do better. But this is my life, too. I feel as though you're…maneuvering around me. Maneuvering me."
"I'm sorry, okay? Can we talk about it now?"
"I thought that's what we were doing."
"No, I mean about how the meeting with Fury went."
"No," Loki said, angrier and louder than he meant to. He took a moment to collect himself. The outburst had startled him and Jane both. She stared up at him, looking worried. Hair pinned up in a loose bun, wearing a navy blue suit jacket with dark gray pants and a navy-and-gray striped blouse, and perched on navy blue high heels, she was almost unrecognizable as his Jane.
He dismissed his earlier conclusion that he would simply tell her about what happened between Thor and Fury and let that speak for itself. That detail wasn't even relevant. Had Fury never said a word to Thor, or to him for that matter, what happened today still should never have happened. There was more to it. More even than today's events. This was a pattern, and one Loki could not abide.
"You deliberately kept this meeting from me. Why?"
Jane hung her head, wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, shifted on her feet. "Honestly?" she finally said.
Loki's face hardened. "I think that would be best."
"I didn't want to argue again."
Confirmation of what he'd suspected, what he'd feared. He turned around so she wouldn't see whatever played across his features and pressed his face into his hands, then straightened again and interlocked his fingers, squeezing them with all his might.
"Loki?" he heard from behind him, her voice soft, tentative.
"Are you Fury's spy now?"
"What? Are you—. No, Loki. I'm nobody's spy."
"Would you tell me if you were?"
"What are you talking about? How could you even ask me that?"
"I don't know, Jane," he said, turning just as slowly and deliberately as he'd spoken. "But it seems I don't know much of what you're up to these days, or why. For some of that, I admit, I have only myself to blame. You've taken full rein of our decisions lately, and I've kept my hands behind my back, because I didn't really want to move here in the first place. That has to stop. It will stop. This is my life, too. It's our life, together, and I need to be involved in these decisions."
"Okay," Jane said, still tentative, but then her slow nod turned more resolute. "Okay. Yes. I want that, too. I haven't meant to shut you out. I want you to be involved, and not just…I don't know…a bystander."
"A bystander…yes. That's exactly what I've been. A bystander to my own life. We can change that starting now. I've been talking with Tony, and he's offered me certain…opportunities. Consulting," he said after a brief hesitation. It sounded ridiculous, but it wasn't. It was important for him, for Ollie, and thus for Jane, too. "We don't know anything about Ollie's physiology in his other form, and we need to, both for his health and to be able to help him learn how to control it. He can make ice, Jane. And his touch can freeze. We—"
"Hold on. He can make ice? How do you know? You called me in the middle of a meeting. You've never done that before. What happened today?"
He summarized all that had taken place this morning when he told Ollie about Jotunheim. Jane, clearly, had no more anticipated that their son had the freezing abilities of the Frost Giants than he had.
"And Tony said he would help us figure out how that works?" she asked, a new form of worry on her face now.
"Yes. But we'll need to be nearby for it to be practical. Within about two hundred miles of here, or of his other home, which is south of the Watertown airport in New York."
"Okay. Oh," she said a second later. "Well…that complicates things. I never got a chance to tell you, I got a call from Caltech last night. They're still working out the details of the endowment, but they think they can offer me a position."
"That's…that's wonderful. Congratulations." It was distracting, this happiness for Jane's success, this pride it filled him with.
"Thanks," she said with a small smile.
He took a steadying breath, uncomfortable asserting himself this way with Jane and uncomfortable with whether he should be feeling uncomfortable. "But we need to be within two hundred miles of here."
"Well…I'm still looking. I had a good meeting at Columbia yesterday, but my sense is they aren't going to have anything. We got here too late. Any open positions for the upcoming academic year have already been filled, so it comes down to whether they're willing and able to fund an extra position. Which isn't impossible – I've been out of academia for a while now, but I'm the only astrophysicist around who's actually lived and worked on another realm. But it's not an easy ask, either."
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize." He was sorry. It was his fault, in a sense, that they'd arrived too late for Jane to apply for any existing positions.
"I'm taking the train to Poughkeepsie tomorrow. Vassar. The professor I talked to there was excited to have me come up. They've been on a big drive to diversify their faculty and student body in the hard sciences. Just depends if they're able to establish a position. I'm not sure how many miles it is, but the train ride's an hour and a half, so it can't be too far. Then there's a research institute in Paterson, New Jersey, that I'm meeting with after that. I'm not sure it's the best fit for me, even if they decide they want to bring me on, but…but we can talk about it, okay?"
"Yes. We can. I want us to. And not because…Jane, I don't want to control you, or dictate to you. That hasn't changed."
"No, I get it. You just want to be on the journey beside me, instead of me dragging you along. I want that, too, Loki, I really do. I thought you…you weren't interested. Or…"
"Or what?"
"Or you didn't care."
"That was never true. I was…perhaps I was trying to control you, before. I wanted you to change your mind. My attitude, my behavior…it was…improper."
Jane choked out a hitching laugh, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Mine was pretty improper, too. I should have involved you in all this all along. And I knew you didn't really want to come here, even after you said you changed your mind. I just didn't want to fight anymore. I thought if I ignored it, it would go away. You'd change your mind for real."
Loki nodded. That much he understood. "I know a little something about ignoring things in hopes they'll go away."
"Yeah, I guess so. We've really screwed up at being married lately, haven't we?"
"Yes, we have."
"We're getting back on track now, though, right? We'll get this figured out. Two hundred miles from New York…. Where exactly is Watertown?"
"To the northwest. Near Lake Ontario," Loki said distractedly, watching as Jane shrugged out of her jacket. He took it from her as a matter of habit, folding it and laying it carefully over the back of Tony's sofa so it wouldn't wrinkle.
"I don't think that narrows it down much. Lake Ontario's huge. Let's sit, my feet are killing me."
"I don't know exactly where it is. I didn't look it up on a map."
"Um…okay," Jane said, standing up again.
"I didn't mean to snap. I'm sorry."
"You're still upset."
"I…yes. Jane, what happened today…that was different. You didn't think I was uninterested or that I didn't care. You thought I wouldn't want you to go to them, and you were right. So you went to them anyway, behind my back. And we just talked about this last night. How you lied to me about why you wanted to move here. I understand your reasons. I know I contributed to the circumstances. But we were talking about me, about how I have to change. I'm not the only one. What you did today…it hurt. You can't just…."
Putting words to thoughts was difficult. Bringing coherence to the jumble of thoughts and feelings in the first place was difficult.
"I betrayed your trust."
Loki's eyes snapped to Jane's. Instantaneous coherence in four words. That was it exactly. He blinked rapidly against a swell of emotion.
"I wasn't thinking of it that way, Loki, I swear to you. I…I wasn't thinking about you at all, really, not about how you'd feel about it. It's like I said, I just didn't want to argue again. And I thought since I couldn't work with you, I'd work without you. Go around you. I didn't think it through from your perspective. Loki, I'm sorry," she said, taking both his hands in hers.
"You know how important trust is to me. The list of those I trust in this universe is short. And if I remove all qualifications from it, yours is the only name that remains. If I can't trust you, if I have to add qualifications…. You're my anchor. My needs are few, but this, this I need. What is to keep me from becoming unmoored without my anchor? If that's a burden to you, I'm sorry, but I—"
"It's not. It's not a burden. You're not a burden. Don't ever think that. You're my anchor, too, you know. Nobody understands what we've been through, to be together, to have Ollie, nobody except us. Nobody understands me like you do. And I don't think anybody understands you like I do. I know trust is critical for you, and I understand why. And I still screwed up. It was thoughtless and I'm so, so sorry," she said, dropping her head and pressing her forehead into his chest while her phone gave a muffled ring from inside her purse on the couch.
He disentangled one hand to wrap an arm around her back.
"I don't expect or require self-flagellation. I simply must be able to trust you. I need to be able to trust you."
He felt her nodding against his chest.
"I know," she said, looking back up. "Nothing like this will ever happen again. I won't go around you, or behind you. I won't leave you in the dark. I won't mislead you. I promise. You're right, it's not just you who has to change or do better. It's me, too, and I will. Okay? I mean it, Loki, I will."
"You should get that," he said, pulling away.
"I'll call back later."
The phone had just fallen silent.
"It could be about a job. You should call back now."
"But we—. All right. Maybe you're right," she said, though Loki could tell it was only because he was insisting.
He watched as she picked up the small gray leather purse she'd had made on Asgard and withdrew her phone. It went right back into her purse with only a glance.
"It was Erik. I'll call him back later. We weren't done."
"Perhaps we were."
"Loki…I don't think we were. Are you…is this…this is fixable, isn't it? Do you forgive me? Do you still trust me?"
Yes was the easy answer. Probably even the correct one. But giving it too quickly, too easily, would be insincere. His insides were still churning.
"Sit," he said after a lingering silence. Her feet were killing her, after all, and there was no reason they needed to remain standing. "Take your shoes off. Tony won't care. If he does, I don't care." If they were at home, he would have her lie down on the couch so he could massage her feet.
"That feels good," she said once they were seated and her shoes were next to her feet. She rolled her ankles and flexed her feet and toes.
"Ollie is very taken with toes at the moment."
Jane gave a subdued smile. "Blue toes? He was pretty into his toes when he was little, too."
"I remember." As an infant Ollie had delighted in pulling on and, impressively, they'd both thought, sucking on his toes. Socks he'd seemed to view as a form of cruelty.
"Perhaps you could tell me what happened at today's meeting now. I overheard Fury speaking to you, and his tone irritated me."
Jane had been nodding, but scowled when he mentioned Fury's tone. "He's one of those people who's always playing games. Says things just to see what he can learn from how you react. It's annoying sometimes, but I know how to deal with people like him."
Loki grimaced to think she might have learned how from him. It was certainly a tactic he was familiar with.
He attempted not to grimace his way through the entire telling of her meeting with Nick Fury and his associates.
"I know you don't like the idea of it. But it all comes down to this. He was going to find out we were here, anyway. It's not like we're going to be living in secret, under assumed identities or something. And he can either make our lives here all but impossible, or he can help smooth over the rough spots. I'd rather have his help. I don't think we should let pride get in the way."
"Pride?" Loki echoed, incredulity mushrooming. "This isn't about pride. Pride is…when I'm uncomfortable with Erik paying for our dinner. Or Tony Stark paying for lunch, for that matter. This isn't pride. It's a man I don't like, much less trust, the head of an organization I also neither like nor trust, insinuating himself into my life. Learning far more about me and about my family than he has any business knowing."
"He's not insinuating himself into anything."
"No, you invited him in," he snapped.
Jane closed her eyes.
"The end result is the same," Loki added, softening his tone.
"We could use his help," Jane said after a short silence. "For all of our sake's but especially for Ollie."
Loki sighed and looked away for a moment, eyes wandering over Tony Stark's living room. For Ollie. Those words were usually sufficient to win Jane any argument. Not this one, though. "I don't want his help. You would understand why, I think, if you'd informed me of your intent to go to him." He didn't want to speak of the incident again. Not because of any reticence to tell Jane, but because it wasn't all that germane to why what she had done bothered him so much. Nevertheless, she needed to know, and she was showing remarkable restraint waiting for him to explain, when she was not a particularly patient person. "When I came to Earth for the Tesseract, and Fury had me caged and believed I was under his control, he wanted to know my plans, which I was of course not divulging. He decided that pain might encourage me to cooperate."
"What did he do to you?" Jane asked, reaching for his hand, patience gone.
"Nothing. He knew from the encounter in Stuttgart that there was little he could do. So he went to the person he knew was physically as strong as me. Stronger." He didn't enjoy tacking that on, but it was true, and pretending otherwise would be foolish.
"Thor?" Jane asked, mouth hanging open.
"Thor," Loki confirmed.
"He didn't. He wouldn't have. I can't imagine—"
"He didn't. But Fury asked. And it isn't what he wanted to do to me. I understand that. I expected it. It's that he wanted Thor to do it. It's what he tried to make Thor complicit in. Do you see now? His first thought was to use my family against me."
Jane curled in on herself for a moment, elbows on knees and head in hands. "I'm sorry," she said as she straightened. "You must have been so worried when you realized where I was."
"I was terrified. I enlisted Tony's aid, once I determined he was uninvolved. He was trying to track your location. I thought Fury had deceived you, lured you into a trap. Then he called Tony, and I found out from him what you were doing there. He knew where I was. He knew Ollie was here, too, because I told you when we were on the phone."
"Loki, I'm sorry. I don't know how else to say it, to tell you how much I mean it. I'll never keep anything from you again. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry I broke your trust. And in case you're still worried, he never asked me to do anything. Well…he asked me to stay in touch. And to tell him if I had any concerns. I think he meant—"
"In case I woke up one morning and decided I thought starting a war might be a diverting way to spend the day?"
"Something like that, I guess. I just…." Jane shook her head before continuing. "I just want us to be safe here. I want Ollie to be safe. I want him to go to school and make friends. I want him to learn about himself, and us to learn right along with him. Fury…I thought he could help make that possible. It wasn't him trying to use me. It was me trying to use him. He owes you."
Loki barked out a laugh. "I suspect he doesn't see it that way." Still, the idea of Jane using Fury appealed, enough to bring a small smile to his lips.
"I don't know. He's hard to read. He does owe you, though."
"Regardless, I meant what I said. I don't want his help. However…what if we had someone else's help?"
"Whose?" Jane said, going for her phone again when it started ringing. She glanced at it and put it aside.
"Tony Stark's."
"Oh, right. He said he wants you to do some consulting for him, and he can help us figure out what's going on with Ollie?"
"Yes. His curiosity is wide-ranging. Admirable, really. It could be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Perhaps he would be able to assist with the documentation I need in order to legally establish residence here. And get me a credit card. This consulting would come with payment. High payment, according to Tony, because of my unique qualifications. And perhaps associating with him would even help with…my image," he said before filling in her in on all that he and Tony had discussed.
"That sounds incredible. It's perfect. We have to figure out how to make that work. Even if I have to start out as an independent researcher. Then maybe next year, something—"
"No. No, Jane, you'll find something this year. You must. It's what you wanted."
"I'll try. Two-hundred-mile radius, right? But this is important, and not just for Ollie, but for you, too. We're in this together. I don't have many options but you've only got this one, and you have to be able to take it, for so many reasons. You sacrificed a lot to come here with me. And I know being a househusband isn't in your DNA."
"I can't dispute that last."
"You can't dispute any of it."
"I dispute this: My sacrifice was for you to pursue your career. We have to find a way to make it work for both of us."
"This is my fault for not explaining all this before, but I don't think you understand how much of a challenge it's going to be for me to find any position for the coming academic year. And research institutes usually have a project underway or at least planned that they want you to work on – from what I've seen so far, none of them are quite aligned with my research. I was starting to think about looking for more possibilities in Europe. Sticking to within two hundred miles of here just shrinks a tiny pool that much further. But if I can't, um…" – Jane's phone beeped with an incoming message and she paused for another glance – "if I can't get anything right away, that'll be fine. It'll give me more time to make connections and—."
"Is that Erik?" Loki asked when Jane went to her phone again.
"Yeah."
"What did he say?"
"He said to call him, he has news. Then he clarified that it's good news."
"Call him back."
"I will."
"No, I mean now." He knew what she was doing, trying to prioritize him and this conversation, but as an elder, as Jane's elder, Erik also deserved to be prioritized and not ignored.
She hesitated only another second.
"Hi, Erik, it's me. Is—. Okay, but hold on a sec. Loki's with me. Can I put you on speaker? Okay."
Jane had the phone on speaker, held out between them, before Loki could tell her there was no need. She didn't normally put her calls with Erik or anyone else on speaker for him; if this was her means of showing he could trust her, he would need to correct a misperception. Eavesdropping on her conversations was not an appropriate means of ensuring trust.
"Okay, go ahead," she prompted.
"Good morning, Loki. I think it's still morning there. Have you and Ollie been getting up to any more adventures today?"
"Ah, you could say that, yes. We're all over at Tony Stark's house in Manhattan. Ollie and Morgan are downstairs with him. I believe they're cutting open a pair of Morgan's shoes that light up, in the name of scientific discovery."
"Oh, I wish I was there! I wouldn't mind seeing what's in those shoes myself. And I'd love to watch Ollie's reactions."
"For what it's worth, Morgan's already informed us that they contain a vibration sensor, batteries, and LEDs. But I have a feeling Ollie's going to be asking for a pair of his own – perhaps we can cut open that pair when you come to visit us."
"I'll hold you to that."
"Enough with the small talk, Erik, you've got us on tenterhooks here. What's your news?"
"Asking about my grandson isn't small talk. Small talk is asking about the weather, and don't worry, I'm not asking. Do you remember Karl Lazar, Jane, did you ever meet him?"
"Karl Lazar…the Karl Lazar who did those moon dust simulations decades ago? I know the name but nothing else. I never met him."
"You might have, when you were a child. Your father and I were friends of his, a long time ago. I haven't heard from him in…oh, close to a decade now, probably. He's officially retired, but he's still connected, still involved in research. Out of the blue I got a phone call from him today, right before I called you. He tracked me down through the university. You're never going to believe this, Jane. His department just received a major endowment, one that stipulates support for research into traversable Einstein-Rosen bridges, both the theoretical and applied physics. A chunk of the money's already earmarked for this year, so they're scrambling to figure out how to obligate it. The dean called Karl, and Karl thought of you and called me. He'd heard you were back here on Earth and looking for a position."
With nothing to watch on the phone, Loki watched Jane, as her expression morphed from confused curiosity to shocked realization to a burst of excitement to sudden deflation and resignation.
The transparency of her emotions, her passions – the openness and honesty in them – was one of the many things he found attractive in her, and something he hadn't seen as much of in the last several months. Seeing it again pleased him, despite Jane's own displeasure. She had realized, by the end of Erik's story, that the odds of Karl Lazar's university being within 200 miles of New York were low, and if offered a position there she would likely have to decline it or else go back on everything she had just said. And despite recent incidents, Jane was a woman of integrity; she would not go back on her words.
"That's amazing, Erik. What an incredible…"
Jane went on, asking more about the research emphasis but clearly avoiding asking about the location. Erik was excited to be able to give her this news; Loki could hear the false enthusiasm in Jane's voice as she tried to preserve the excitement, for Erik's sake, he assumed.
Loki's gaze meanwhile shifted to the abandoned bottle and glass on the coffee table, and his thoughts to Tony sitting on this sofa, phone in hand, fingers flying. Unlike Jane, he suspected the odds of this university being within 200 miles of New York were extremely high.
A new complication, to be sure. Figuring out how he felt about it would have to come later, and would need to take into account how Jane felt about it.
"Erik? Pardon me for interrupting. I'm curious about a particular detail you've left out. Which university is in question? Where is it located?"
"Does it matter?" Erik asked with a burst of joyous laughter. "From Alaska to Florida, there's no more perfect opportunity, not in the United States or anywhere else in the world for that matter."
"Just out of curiosity, then, is it in either Alaska or Florida?"
"No. It's Syracuse."
"Syracuse?" Jane said, eyes widening as she looked over at him. Loki thought she looked almost afraid, as though she didn't want to trust her ears. That was sufficient confirmation for him, and yet…
"Excuse me for one moment. FRIDAY?" he asked, looking up toward the ceiling, where the voice seemed to come from. "Are you permitted to answer my questions?"
"Ask away, Mr. Odinson."
"How many miles is it from here to Syracuse?"
"Syracuse is two hundred and fifty-five miles away."
Loki was speechless, the anticipatory grin falling from his mouth. He'd been so certain.
"However, if you don't mind my adding, it's seventy miles from Watertown, and fifty-five miles from Tony's house in that area."
His eyes locked back on Jane's. She was the one wearing the grin, now. He was still recovering from the whiplash.
"Syracuse is in upstate New York," Jane said, wonder in her voice.
"What a stunning coincidence," he said, keeping his own tone light. Jane's reaction mattered more than his, he decided. She had her own form of pride. If she had no problem with this, then he would make sure he didn't, either. They were getting what they wanted, after all. What they wanted, first and foremost, for Ollie. He had no doubt that a position would be offered at Syracuse and it would be Jane's for the taking.
"What coincidence?" Erik asked.
Jane, too, seemed confused by his reaction, at first. Her mind had probably already been spinning with possibilities, what she could do with a brand-new endowment, a brand-new project that she might be the lead researcher on and determine the precise direction of story. His beloved did not, and likely never would, think first of the machinations taking place in the shadows. Luckily for her, she had him for that.
"You don't think…?"
"Oh, my love, I certainly do."
"What? What's going on?"
Loki filled Erik in with a brief version of developments, heavy on Morgan's and Ollie's budding friendship, light on Loki's opportunity to consult, and very light – entirely absent – on Ollie's sudden desire to turn all of his favorite people, including himself, blue. Some details would have to wait until they met again in person.
"Shall I give him your contact information then?" Erik asked once he was caught up.
Jane looked to Loki; Loki held up his hands to indicate it was her choice.
She assented.
"Are you okay with this?" she asked when the call was over. "You were just telling me that Tony paying for your lunch hurt your pride. This is Tony paying for…for everything. My job, your job, our—"
"Not a job. Consulting."
"Consulting is a job, Loki. Ultimately, his money would be paying for our groceries, our electricity bill…literally everything."
"We'd be earning it, wouldn't we?"
"Is that how you really feel? This doesn't seem like you."
"Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I'm still not quite sure why I trust him as I do, especially so quickly. We do share certain experiences in common, things I didn't expect. Not least of which, fatherhood, the love of our children." There was more, of course, but a heightened awareness of FRIDAY's "presence" stilled his tongue from further speculation.
"We'll need to find out more. Think it over. I don't know anything about Syracuse. I think it gets a lot of snow."
"I'm not sure to what extent precipitation needs to factor into the decision."
"I know. I'm just overwhelmed. This is so sudden."
"Quite sudden." Not even 24 hours had passed since he'd found himself at the same playground as Tony Stark.
"We have so much to talk about."
"Yes."
"Why are you just agreeing with everything I say?"
"Would you rather I disagreed?"
"I would rather…"
"What?"
Jane fidgeted for a brief moment, chewing on her lip. "What's that?" she asked, casting a pointed glance toward the glass.
"Whiskey. You won't like it."
"You don't know that."
He reached for his glass, still about a quarter full, and handed it to her. He'd have to return Tony's. Eventually.
Jane took a confident swallow, then coughed, hand over her chest.
"I hate to say I told you so."
"I can tell how much you hate it."
Loki laughed and took the glass from her, setting it back on the coffee table.
She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye – hers were watering, whether from the alcohol or emotion, Loki wasn't certain. "I'm really sorry I hid this meeting from you. I haven't been honest with you, and that was wrong. I…I got off track. I was on my own tracks, and I left you behind at the station. I don't want to drive the…or be the conductor…." She squinted her eyes, then opened them again, blinking heavily. "That stuff is really strong and I didn't have much sleep last night. I let you down, and in the worst possible way. The worst possible way for you. If there's anything else I can say, or do, will you tell me? Because I don't know how to repair this damage and I don't want to lose your trust. I love you. And I don't want you to walk away."
"Jane. I'm not walking away." He was disturbed, even angry, about what she'd done. Walking away, though, was the last thing on his mind.
"No, I know. I mean…I don't want you to walk away emotionally. Maybe I haven't been acting like it, but I do need you. I need you in this with me. Really with me. I…I miss you."
Jane's concern was not unfounded. This was the risk. He would never walk away physically. Might he pull back, to protect himself? To ensure no lies or half-truths could harm him? Yes. He could picture it, easily. In time, bitterness would grow where love had withered on the vine. A wretched, miserable existence. All because he held onto grudges. Because he could not forgive.
He had already pulled away, a little. Jane may have left him at the station, but he hadn't objected and hadn't tried to catch up. They had both been in the wrong. He missed Jane, too. And he did not want to walk away.
"FRIDAY…how much snow falls on Syracuse in a typical year?"
"One hundred twenty-four inches on average."
Loki sniffed and let his gaze grow distant, as though contemplating it. "One hundred and twenty-four inches. That's excessive, isn't it?" he said, eyes refocusing on Jane. "Why couldn't Tony's other house be in Florida?"
"Florida's hot and humid. Your hair would curl and you'd be grumpy."
"You're right. What about Alaska?"
"Cold, probably a lot of snow, too, and half the year it's dark almost all day, the other half it's all sun."
"That sounds dreadful. And no need to discuss California at all."
"Wait, why not? You liked it there."
"I did. Until you told me that at some point half of it will fall into the ocean and the other half will be swept away by tsunamis. I'm not moving my child to such a place."
"Okay, that's not exactly what I said."
"Close enough," Loki said with a shrug. "If you're happy with what Syracuse offers you, and if how it came about is acceptable to you, then it'll be acceptable to me, as well. I think…it could be good for us. For all of us."
"Okay."
"Ollie could make a proper snowman this winter."
Jane gave a surprised laugh. "That one we tried last year was such a disaster."
There hadn't been enough snow for what she wanted to accomplish. Thor decided to help in the form of calling down additional snow, but the other changes his brother's efforts caused in the atmosphere resulted not in more snow, but in sleet. A frustrating morning, but also one filled with laughter.
"Jane…I understand what you were trying to do, and I understand why you did it. You wanted to protect us, in the only way you knew how. I…I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. We've both made mistakes, we've both acknowledged them, and I don't want to keep dwelling on it. Just promise me this. If you think it will be hard for me to hear, if you think I'll disagree, if you think I'll be angry…if you think I'll be hurt…tell me. I don't need to listen to your phone calls, or follow you around, or examine your calendar. I simply need to know that you won't keep things from me, even if you think doing so would be easier for me. Especially then. Tell me anyway. No exceptions."
"No exceptions," she said, nodding. "Even if it hurts."
"That's all I ask. All I really need."
"I can do that." Her eyes were fixed on him, her expression earnest. She wasn't just trying to appease him or to make the problem go away. He believed her.
"Then everything will be fine," Loki said as Jane's phone rang again. Syracuse moved fast, apparently. "I'll let you take that. Fill me in later. I'm going to go check on Ollie. Tonight, we dance." He turned and gave his rear a little shake, Jane's laughter following him from the room.
Notes
Woops, this chapter is about the length of two average chapters of this story! But there was nowhere to break it, so, oh well! One more to go. When Tony was tap-tap-tapping away at his phone earlier, did you suspect he might be up to something?
For that rare soul who might be interested, this is how I "write" when I know what I want to say more or less but I'm so exhausted my brain's barely functioning and "pretty words" just aren't there. "curious to excited to resigned…realizing what are the odds re location…Loki's gaze shifted to the abandoned glasses on the coffee table….recalled Tony….and suspected the odds were rather good" :-) (What I hastily wrote before closing up the laptop one night. I kept it because it made me laugh. Also, clearly this is before I remembered that Loki had swiped Tony's glass and not returned it!)
