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Day 141

Mojave Desert: Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility

Brown, as far as the eye could see. Dark brown, light brown, darker brown...oh, there was a smudge of darkest green. If she tilted her head just so, Jane could see the desert landscape through the windshield of the jet. It looked pretty much like the area around Puente Antiguo, though in New Mexico they at least had some red clay to relieve the monotony of brown, brown, brown.

Sighing, Jane closed her eyes and let her head fall back, absorbing the heavy vibration from the engines.

"I miss seeing a more colorful land, too."

Jane smiled, but kept her eyes shut. "How did you know that's what my sigh meant?"

"I remember how it felt to be banished to the barren desert, how I longed for the gardens and forests of Asgard. Your sigh sounded like mine did then."

She hadn't expected Thor to be so insightful, and she raised her head to look at him. "I do miss the green and the trees from home. But the best places for astronomy are the least populated areas, which are usually like Puente Antiguo."

"You would love Asgard, then. Even though my exile was for a very short time, I have a much greater appreciation for the beauty of my home."

"Yeah? What's your favorite part?" Jane was happy to talk about lighter topics.

"Hmm. I think it's the forest to the north and the west of the royal city. It's wonderful land for hunting and adventuring: giant trees, luxurious flowers, and all sorts of plants. The branches and leaves of the trees are so abundant that it keeps the forest floor cool even on the hottest days."

Thor's eyes shone with pride, and Jane couldn't help but smile in return. She was glad now that they could converse.

"That sounds amazing, though if the forest canopy is that dense, I wouldn't be able to see the stars at night."

"No, you're right. For stargazing, you'd want to travel farther north, out of the forest, to the Gullfjellet."

"The what?"

"Gullfjellet. Gold Mountains. There is a wide plateau—no trees—with a small lake. It's ideal for studying the skies, even without special glasses and tools. The lake is so still and the sky so clear that you can see the stars reflected perfectly in it every night."

"I would absolutely love that place! You surprise me. I didn't think you had much interest in astronomy."

Thor's brow creased and his eyes clouded. "I don't, to be honest. Loki took me there once. It was one of his favorite places."

Their light-hearted interlude was effectively shattered. Jane quietly said, "I see," and turned her attention to picking at her bandage.

Thor cleared his throat, and Jane glanced up at him. "Perhaps you don't remember, but I once told you that you and my brother had much in common."

Jane shook her head no, but Thor continued, "Please, Jane. I'm afraid that Loki has—had—become dangerous. But we had centuries together before I ever saw that side of him. He was always mischievous, always a trickster, but not truly malicious. There was so much more to him than what happened at the end. He loved learning, loved studying the stars. It seemed to calm him. That's all I meant when I said you were alike. I never—"

Jane waved him off. "I get it, Thor. It's okay. Thanks."

"...I feel peace when I'm with you…"

"Pardon me?"

Thor shrugged. "I didn't say anything."

The pilot called over her shoulder, "Ten minutes to touchdown. Secure yourselves and all cargo."

Thor checked his harness, though Jane doubted that he needed to. Would a plane crash really hurt him? He met her eyes again.

"Erik Selvig will not be able to meet you when you arrive. He wanted to take you to the Tesseract immediately, but the son of Coul—"

"It's Coulson, Thor."

He nodded. "Coulson insists that you must first be briefly examined by their guards."

oooOOOooo

"Where is Erik—Dr. Selvig? When can I see him?" Jane trailed behind an agent, but the dark-suited clone gave no indication that he'd heard her question. He strode down the artificially-lit corridor. Jane jogged to catch up, then poked him in the arm.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!"

The agent—what was his name?—halted and turned his impassive gaze on her. (Did SHIELD teach them how to do that at the Thug Academy? "How to Stare at Someone with Soulless Eyes 101.")

"Yes, Dr. Foster?"

"I want to see Dr. Selvig."

The man consulted his phone, then shook his head. "You don't have a meeting scheduled with Dr. Selvig. Please follow me. Your quarters are just ahead."

He continued about ten more feet down the hall, then stopped in front of a door just like all the other military-issue doors in the facility, differentiated only by the numbers posted beside them.

Malone. That was his name. Jane mentally set her jaw and tried again. She'd already had enough of being ordered around in just the few hours she had been at the SHIELD facility.

"Look, Agent Malone. I didn't come here because I thought it would be fun to be treated like a prisoner. Dr. Selvig begged me to come. He needs my help ASAP."

Agent Malone faced her, again with that carefully composed face. "Dr. Foster. My orders were to show you to your quarters. I will convey your request to Agent Coulson. You do not have security clearance for anything else." He swiped a card, then opened the door to her room.

"You'll find a packet of information on your desk. Someone will come get you in a couple of hours for your medical evaluation."

Jane stubbornly stayed in the corridor. "I want—"

Malone turned on his heel and walked away. "Goodbye for now, Dr. Foster," he called over his shoulder.

She bit off a curse and stormed into the room, slamming the door behind her. So far, SHIELD had been every bit as accommodating as she had imagined. That was to say, not at all.

Agents had escorted her off the jet and subjected her to a thorough security check behind menacing steel doors. Her laptop was scanned and returned to her; her phone was confiscated and a receipt issued. A two-hour orientation followed, in which she was force-fed the basic security protocols of the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility—JDEF for short.

She had repeatedly asked for Erik, but was simply told that Dr. Selvig wasn't available. At no point did anyone give her choices or ask her opinion. It was plain that she was expected to meekly obey. Jane wasn't stupid. She understood that the stakes were high at JDEF. The future of the human race might be in danger, and security needed to be tight. But these faceless, emotionless agents with their unyielding procedures made her uneasy.

She looked around her home away from home. It was basically an efficiency apartment: kitchenette, closet, table, desk, phone, dresser, bed, bathroom. Plain, but adequate for her needs.

Her suitcases waited on the far side of the bed, and, as promised, a large manila envelope sat on the desk. Jane dumped the contents and found a map, some other forms, a photo ID/key card, and a schedule for the rest of the day. Medical evaluation, debriefing, dinner, free time… "Briefly examined"—yeah, right.

Jane flopped on the bed, then wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of herself. If she had a medical check-up coming up, she'd better shower. She was just reaching for the handle of the shower faucet when a knock at her door stopped her. She groaned. That hadn't been fifteen minutes, let alone two hours. She checked the peephole. Erik!

Jane threw open the door and pulled her older colleague inside the room. He had bags under his eyes and wrinkled clothing.

"Jane. I'm so glad to see you."

She was unhappy with Erik for dragging her into this whole SHIELD thing. But he was also the closest thing to a parent she had left, so she hugged him tightly.

Jane stepped back. "You look like death warmed over. What was going on? You wrote that there was 'a situation.' Why haven't they let me see you?"

Erik threw up his hands in mock surrender. "Slow down, Jane! It's the Tesseract. Early this morning, around dawn, it suddenly threw off several spikes of radiation. Alarms went off, everyone ran around like crazy. I found no explanation for the spikes. Then about an hour later, boom! Thor appeared outside the compound."

"Thor told me Heimdall saw some kind of threat."

"Yes. You can imagine the uproar his entrance created. After SHIELD finished huffing and puffing, I was allowed to see him. His story confirmed our theory that the Tesseract's behavior isn't random. It's behaving, responding to something."

"Responding to what? What did Heimdall see?"

"That's...unclear." Erik's attention was distracted. "What's this?" he asked, and pointed to her left hand.

"Eh. I cut myself."

"Looks serious."

"Don't worry about it."

Erik shrugged. "Anyway, I came to get you. Grab your stuff and come with me."

"To the Tesseract? Now?" Jane's heart pounded. "I'm supposed to see the doctor in a while."

"I'd say if that cut isn't serious, then screw seeing the doctor. Let's go."

She followed Erik through a maze of fluorescent hallways. Her unease grew with every step. Finally, Erik swiped his card through the last security point, and Jane stepped into a vast concrete and metal arena.

An impressive bank of flashing, beeping equipment stood at one end, complete with data techs and lab assistants monitoring screens and printing readouts. In the middle of the room was a spidery silver contraption, a blue cube nestled in the middle.

She quickly scanned the rest of the space, noting the intricate system of catwalks overhead. Movement and a flash of color caught her eye. "Who's up there?"

"Ah, that's Agent Barton. He's...watching us."

"Oh. I thought I saw Thor's armor."

"You did. He's watching Agent Barton."

Unnerved, Jane glanced up again. Erik took her elbow and led her further into the room.

"Meet the Tesseract."

Her feet were rooted to the floor. "I'm not sure—should I really—?"

Erik laughed. "Jane? Is that you? Are you nervous?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I am, actually."

"Aren't you Jane Foster? The girl who was expelled after breaking into her school at night to use the telescope? The woman who risked life and limb to get readings inside a vortex? That Jane Foster?"

"Well, this is a huge deal," Jane defended herself. She slowly walked around the cradle, marveling at being so close to such an ancient, powerful artifact. Oddly, she felt herself relax, and she grinned. "It's gorgeous."

And it was. Shades of blue—cerulean, sky, cobalt, sapphire—swirled and glided around the cube. The intense, shifting colors reminded her of a nebula...and something else she couldn't quite grasp to recall.

Jane stepped closer, reaching her bandaged hand toward the cube.

"Don't touch it with bare hands, Jane. Remember Johann Schmidt?"

"Oh, sorry, I should have said something. I wasn't going to touch it. I wanted to gauge the strength of the force field around it."

"There's no measurable force field around it."

Jane frowned. "Then what do I feel?" She slowly reached out again and felt a distinct pulling sensation. Jane kept her hand where it was and looked at Erik.

"There. It feels like a magnet."

But Erik was staring at the cube.

"Erik?"

"I've never seen it do that before."

Jane turned back to the Tesseract. It had grown incandescent, the tendrils of energy churning rapidly, wisps of blue light escaping beyond the rigid bounds of the cube. She could swear it radiated—delight? Mesmerized, Jane leaned closer. She thought she heard a whisper.

"You are a vibrant, tenacious, brilliant woman."

A second later, a painfully loud alarm dumped a lifetime's worth of adrenaline in Jane's bloodstream. Before she could blink, two figures hit the ground in front of her. One, dressed in black, had an arrow drawn at her head. The other, in silver and red, shielded her.

Agents dressed in combat gear stormed into the lab. Erik, already on the telephone, waved his free hand frantically. "Stand down! Stand down! It was a false alarm."

The archer didn't blink, didn't break eye contact with Jane. But he spoke to Thor.

"Step aside, Thor. I have to take her into custody."

"Do you wish to challenge me?"

"No, I don't. But I will. Look, I'm not gonna hurt her, and picking a fight with me won't win you any diplomatic points."

Thor begrudgingly allowed the man, whom Jane assumed was Agent Barton, to herd her out of the lab. Both Erik and Thor followed right behind. With the two of them adamantly vouching for her, she was only "lightly" interrogated by Agent Coulson himself. Coulson released her when SHIELD's own scientists eventually confirmed that no dangerous radiation had been emitted.

"How are we going to handle this, Dr. Selvig?" Coulson asked the senior scientist. "Should we send Dr. Foster home?"

"Oh, no, that would be a mistake," Erik said. "The Tesseract is a semi-sentient artifact. It feels, perhaps thinks. We've encountered some difficulties the last week. I believe that Dr. Foster can help us."

"How so, Dr. Selvig?"

"I think the Tesseract likes Jane."

oooOOOooo

Jane sat at the small table in her room, picking at her food. After Agent Coulson had concluded his questioning, he commented on her haggard appearance (thanks, Phil!) and offered to have dinner brought to her quarters. Jane knew he was probably buttering her up, but she still accepted gratefully. After this absolutely crazy day, she was exhausted, and she couldn't go back to the lab this evening, anyway. Erik was recalibrating the sensors monitoring the Tesseract so that her presence wouldn't cause a national security alert each day.

She was supposed to see the doctor first thing in the morning, then she could join Erik in the lab. Coulson had explained that since working with the Tesseract carried a significant risk of exposure to radiation, SHIELD's doctors would periodically evaluate her health while she was at JDEF. They needed baseline readings for comparison.

She stretched and groaned. Stargazing all night had taken a heavier toll than she had anticipated. Jane knew she wasn't eighteen anymore, but she wasn't eighty, either, and she hadn't expected the tender skin and sore muscles all over her body. That bed was looking very attractive, but first she really needed a hot shower.

In the bathroom, Jane cranked on the water then unwrapped her dressing. It wouldn't hurt to let the cut breathe overnight. She carefully unwrapped the last loop of gauze so she didn't pull open any scabs, but the bandage fell away easily. Jane stared at her injured hand, scrambling to make sense of what she was seeing.

Her hand was healed.

The cut was closed up and a scar had formed, as though the accident had happened a long time ago and not just yesterday. It had been yesterday, hadn't it? It seemed so long ago and yet…

Jane's heart pounded. The scar looked odd, too. It was vaguely triangular and in the middle of her wrist, not at the base of her thumb, where the actual cut had been. At least that's what she remembered. Had the PTSD affected her memory?

She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and stared at her arm, her head swimming. There had to be a rational explanation. She knew the Asgardians had some kind of healing stones. Maybe Thor had used one when she fainted, and it had healed her hand. Maybe this was something the Tesseract had done.

"You will be mine…"

What would the doctor think? She wasn't going to become SHIELD's test subject.

oooOOOooo

Day 152

Mojave Desert: Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility

"Did I hear you right? Or did my roommate put something funny in those Halloween brownies last night?"

For all Darcy's effervescent ridiculousness, Jane felt grounded talking to her. Darcy was good old, predictably unpredictable Darcy. A week and a half of begging, and finally SHIELD had allowed her to make one phone call from the secure line.

"I don't know about the brownies. But Thor is back. And hey—you can't say anything to anyone, get it?"

Jane glanced at Agent Malone, standing grim sentry next to her. He nodded his approval of her warning to Darcy.

"Yeah. Wow. I'm just—okay. This is big. Where has he been all this time?"

"Um, things got complicated when he returned to Asgard. He couldn't get back here for a while."

The bad news is that their Einstein-Rosen Bridge was destroyed. The good news is that Loki fell into the pit of outer space. We shouldn't be hearing from him again.

"That super sucks. But yay! that Thor's back. Happy for you, Jane. I get to be your maid of honor, right?"

"Whoa! Um, no. Thor and I, we're not—not anything right now."

"What are you talking about? What happened? What's wrong with him?"

Nothing is wrong with him. He's gorgeous, strong, kind, sincere, brave...

"Nothing. I don't know. It's complicated, okay?"

...and I feel like I've had a shot of Novocaine in the heart. I desperately wanted Thor to come back and now that he's here, I feel...sisterly toward him.

"Complicated? He's a freaking hot specimen of man flesh, Jane. You are a straight woman with a pulse. What's complicated about that?"

He keeps gazing at me like a lovesick puppy. It's getting harder to avoid him. Last night I'm pretty sure he was going to kiss me, but I just said, "Good night," and patted him on the arm.

"Um. We're different species, for one thing, Darcy!"

"Ehh. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

Then, in a typical lightning-fast change of subject, Darcy asked, "What are all those clicks I hear?"

"This is a secured phone line. You're hearing...I don't know...the security stuff they do to the phone line to make it secure."

"Wow. Security stuff? You really are a genius, huh? So what's it like being in the fortress of SHIELD?"

Jane shot another glance at Agent Malone. He looked like he was auditioning to guard Buckingham Palace.

"I can't really talk about that, Darcy."

"Come on! Just gimme something."

Jane rolled her eyes. "I'm serious. If I say anything I'm not supposed to say, I won't be able to call you again and you might be in trouble, too. I had to get special permission to tell you Thor was back."

"Oh, all right. Well, you go save the world, boss-lady. I've got a class soon. Are you going to be back in Puente Antiguo before Thanksgiving?"

"I'd better be."

"Sweet! Say hi to the hot god for me!"

"I will. Bye."

Jane handed the phone to the stone-faced agent assigned to eavesdrop on their conversation. "I hope that was fun for you."

Malone simply took the phone from her.

oooOOOooo

Heading back to the main lab, Jane thought about Darcy's questions. What was it like at JDEF? The first couple of days had been stressful with all the security screenings and orientations. The medical evaluation had been no big deal, however. The doctor drew her blood and performed a radiation scan. Distinguishing marks were cataloged, including the scar on Jane's left wrist. Jane said she cut herself on a broken mug about four weeks ago. The doctor was satisfied with the explanation.

Jane had explained her solar cell idea to Erik the second day she was at JDEF, and he agreed that it was the best shot they had at using the energy from the Tesseract. She had spent the next few days in a different lab, modifying a photodiode to receive gamma radiation instead of solar rays. It had been surprisingly easy.

Testing the gamma diode, as they called it, was more difficult. Jane hypothesized that an electrical charge would stimulate the Tesseract into producing gamma rays. Erik and Thor—who was the natural choice for working with electricity—labored for several hours to test this idea, with no success. Finally, Erik asked Jane to try.

Feeling foolish, Jane cautiously approached the cube. It responded to her as it had the first time, writhing and agitating. She held her breath for a few seconds, but no alarm sounded.

"Hello, um, I'm Jane. Maybe you already know that." I can't believe I'm having an awkward social interaction with an ancient artifact. "Uh, anyway, we're trying to do an experiment on you. Nothing bad, okay? We can help lots of people if we can figure out how to use all that energy you like to give off."

She turned back to Erik, eyebrows raised. He nodded encouragingly, so she continued.

"Thor is going to send a little electricity your way. Could you, you know, give us some gamma rays?"

The experiment worked beautifully on the very next try. Jane was thrilled when Erik confirmed that the gamma diode produced usable power, but she thought it was a fluke. The next week proved her wrong. Over and over, the Tesseract responded easily to Jane, as though it wanted to please her. She found, in turn, that she was developing an affection for it, too.

Jane felt like she belonged near the Tesseract. It reminded her of something, or someone. She occasionally remembered fragments of old conversations, or maybe they were dreams. Like the bizarre healing of her hand, this feeling of familiarity was too strange to risk mentioning to anyone.

SHIELD modified her security permissions to allow her greater access to the lab, but only 18 hours a day. That was their way of trying to make sure she slept and ate. Work-wise, JDEF was a great place to be. She had about all the scientific equipment she could ever want at her disposal. Someone cooked for her, cleaned for her, and even did her laundry.

The downside was the loss of freedom and the constant observation. The facility was full of corridors with locked doors. She could unlock only a few of those doors, and only during certain hours of the day. Cameras recorded everything she said and did outside her private quarters. It wasn't an environment in which she felt comfortable.

Tension between herself and Thor added to her discomfort. He was always a gentleman, allowing her to define the boundaries of their relationship. She treated him as a friend, though it was obvious that he wished for more. She often caught him gazing at her. Two or three times he'd asked if she would eat dinner in his quarters, but she always used the excuse of needing to work. Last night he'd walked her back to her room. He'd gently held her arm and leaned toward her, but she just couldn't let him kiss her.

Jane reached the laboratory. She swiped her key card and opened the door. Erik looked up from the terminal over which he was hunched.

"You're back. Good. How's Darcy?"

"Pissed at me for not telling her I'd be away, relieved that I'm alive. Probably a bit under the influence from some funny brownies last night."

Erik chuckled. "Sounds like Darcy. Are you ready?"

"Yes. Let's go."

Director Fury had requested that they focus on the defensive and offensive capabilities of the Tesseract. As part of that, Jane and Erik were testing whether solar energy could stimulate gamma ray production. Jane secretly evaluated every experiment through the lens of using the Tesseract to open wormholes for travel.

Jane approached the cube and waited for Erik's nod. "Hey, sweetie," Jane began. "It's me again." The Tesseract responded as always, with what Jane thought of as its "happy dance."

"I see the stars in your eyes…"

Suddenly, she was enveloped in the clean scent of a pine forest. Jane blinked and shook her head, and it was gone. Impossible. There wasn't a pine tree for miles and miles.

"Jane?" Erik's voice snapped her back to reality.

"Yeah, just, uh, thinking through what I need to say." Rubbing her left hand with her right, Jane addressed the Tesseract again. "We're going to uncover the windows in here and see what sunlight does for you. Thanks for your cooperation."

oooOOOooo

What is happening to me?

Jane hurried through the hallways as fast as she could without attracting unwanted attention. She needed to get to her room.

Once again, the Tesseract had responded well to her. She and Erik were able to confirm that solar energy could be used to produce gamma rays. Those could then be used to produce exponentially more watts of electricity than the solar rays alone could have. Erik was happy, Coulson was happy, and rumor had it that even Fury didn't look so sour.

But her left hand burned. It had begun when she smelled that weird pine scent, and had steadily worsened until she could barely pay attention to the experiment. Jane wracked her brain. Had she inadvertently touched the Tesseract? Perhaps she had developed some sort of infection at the site of her cut.

Jane threw her door open, ripped off her jacket, and yanked her sleeve up.

The skin of her wrist and forearm was bright pink and hot to the touch. But what Jane stared at was the scar. No longer formless, it was now a clearly defined triangle with a series of knots and whorls.

Her knees gave way and she fell back against the door, then slid to the floor. She should report this. This had to be from the Tesseract. What other explanation was there?

A moment later, though, a wave of some fiercely protective emotion crashed over her. She couldn't tell anyone. She couldn't betray...what? whom?

"You will be mine and mine alone…"

What is happening to me?

oooOOOooo

Day 160

Mojave Desert: Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility

The sound of an argument carried out of the lab. Jane recognized the tones of Thor and Erik's voices. She hesitated before swiping her key card. The lab should be empty this hour—she was supposed to be at her weekly debriefing with Agent Malone, but had forgotten an important page of notes.

Jane's brow furrowed in puzzlement. They had been working together for nearly three weeks, and she thought everything was going well. She still chafed at the constant monitoring, but she was pleased with their progress. They now focused on creating a more secure housing for the Tesseract to guard against extreme spikes of radiation.

The Tesseract no longer exhibited the erratic behavior that had concerned them all. Whatever the threat had been, it appeared to be dormant. What could the men be arguing about?

She quietly swiped her key card and very slowly opened the door a couple of inches, just wide enough to listen.

Erik was talking. "You promised me you would not share that information."

"I promised I would wait, and I have, out of courtesy to your relationship to Jane and out of a desire to strengthen diplomatic relations between this realm and Asgard." Thor's voice rumbled, sounding like he was tightly leashing his temper.

What had they not told her? Something about the Tesseract? Did they know something about her mark?

"What good will it do to tell Jane? You weren't here, Thor. You didn't see for yourself what a bad condition she was on after the attack of the Destroyer. It took months for her to recovery." Erik's English degraded and his accent strengthened when he was stressed.

"You are correct, Erik Selvig. But we have been here together for nineteen days. I have learned that Jane Foster is troubled when she is given no choice over matters that affect her. I cannot continue to conceal the truth from her."

Jane's heart raced and her hands shook. Was it something from her medical evaluation? Something showed up in her blood test?

"And how will you do that? You've already concealed the truth for nearly three weeks. You won't get any credit for telling her now."

"I don't know how I will tell her. But Jane is extremely intelligent. She will eventually realize the truth. It will be obvious why I am here on Earth. And it will be worse that we never told her."

Something about why Thor is here...Erik said I was in bad shape after the Destroyer…What haven't they told me?!

Erik spoke: "Thor, be reasonable. She's happy to think he's dead. If he never shows up here again, we've done her no harm."

No.

Now Thor, sounding tired: "Loki stood in this place and commanded Heimdall to inform Odin that he had found the Tesseract."

Jane's throat abruptly closed off and she gasped for air, trying to stay quiet enough to hear the rest of what Thor had to say.

"He declared that he would wear a crown, and then disappeared. There is very little chance that Loki doesn't intend to seize the Space Stone."

No.

Please no.


A/N: Thanks, dristi5683, for having my back! :)