They had dropped the blond, handsome and unconscious stranger at the Emergency of the County Hospital.
"Name?" The Admission Nurse asked languidly.
"He said it was Thor." Jane felt embarrassed, having to say it, since it was the strange name of a Norse God.
"T-H-O-R." The receptionist said the letters indifferently, while typing them into the computer. "And your relationship to him?"
"I've never met him before." Jane answered quickly. Relationship? With such a lunatic, hell no!
"Until she hit him with a car." Darcy added.
"I graced him." She looked at her friend slightly irritated about the fact that she could not keep her mouth shut. "But she tasered him." she countered.
"Yes I did." Darcy said proudly.
"We should never have let him go." Volstagg said conscience-stricken with a mug of wine in his hand, when the Warriors Three, Sif and Loki were staying in one of the halls of the castle.
"There was no stopping him." Sif replied sorrowful.
"At least he's only banished not dead, Which is what we'd all be if that guard hadn't told Odin where we'd gone." Fandral turned to them. His wound, caused by the Frost Giants had been treated and he was feeling better again.
Volstagg grunted from pain, while Hogun put something on his arm to linger the stinging from the ice-wound. "How did the guard even know?" The bearded warrior asked puzzled.
"I told him." Loki said, looking at his arm, which had of course not been affected by the touch of the Jotuns.
"What?" Fandral asked shocked.
"I told him to go to Odin after we'd left. Though he should be flogged for taking so long."
"YOU told the guard?" Volstagg asked loudly.
"I saved our lives! And Thor's." The Demigod replied, rubbing his hands. The images of Thor getting sucked unwillingly into the Bifrost came into his mind. "I had no idea Father would banish him for what he did."
Sif rose from the bench, where she was sitting on with an anxious frown, walking up to him determined. "Loki! You must go to the Allfather and convince him to change his mind!"
"I already tried." He said. "And moreover, if I do then what?" He looked directly into her eyes. Yes, it is not easy to know that the person you love is on another planet and you're not able to see him. I know what that ache feels like. He thought tauntingly seeing her sad eyes. She was being pitiful, since she hadn't even showed her love to Thor yet, her pain was not even remotely comparable to what he had felt, she would get over it. "I love Thor more dearly than any of you, but you know what he is. He's arrogant. He's reckless. He's dangerous. You saw how he was today. Is that what Asgard needs from its King?" He added disgruntled before he turned away and marched out of the room with big steps. Of course it wasn't what Thor deserved, being banished from Asgard, but perhaps it was better for their Realm and any other Realm if his brother wasn't going to be king. Perhaps he could show his father now that he was a better option than the God of Thunder.
'Loki." He heard Frigga sighing from a corner, while he walked past her.
"Mother."
She appeared from the shadow of the wall and walked up to him, the Demigod could see that she had been crying. He took her in his arms and embraced her softly. "I'm so sorry, I tried to stop him." He breathed into her hair, he couldn't tell her that he had been manipulating him, it would break her heart. The Queen released her son and looked up to him. "It's not your fault." She smiled sadly.
"What will happen to him?" The God of Mischief asked worried.
"I don't know." Frigga admitted. "Your father says that Thor's fate is now in his own hands, I tried to convince him to get him back from Midgard. But he won't-"
"Midgard?" Loki interrupted her with widened eyes. Odin had sent him to earth?
"Yes. He is exiled in a world of mortals, stripped of his powers. It is cruel."
Cruel? He would do anything to be in his shoes. If he would be able to have a life with Jane, he wouldn't care about any of his powers anymore, but no, he had been doomed by his father to stay here to help his brother at being a good king. And now his father - the same man, who had asked Loki to stay away from Midgard, because it would only hurt him too much to see the mortals he loved die - had now sent Thor to earth and Loki himself was trapped in Asgard without the purpose his father had asked of him - which was to help his brother - because Thor hadn't become king and moreover wasn't even here, no Thor was on Midgard. What kind of a horribly ironical logic was that? He felt his fists clenching again and the anger growing with every minute.
"So who will be king then?" He asked hissing through his teeth. Perhaps Odin had been planning on making Loki king if Thor would fail, maybe that is why he was being locked up in here. Odin had been very wary with Loki's intentions, his guards followed him day and night, it wasn't obvious, nobody else noticed it, but the God of Mischief did, since he had wanted to visit earth - whenever he had missed Jane so much that he couldn't bear it - and was stopped by either the guards or Heimdall. Why wasn't he allowed to see his love, even if it was only from far away?
Frigga looked at him worried, she shrugged her shoulders. "Let us hope your brother decides to take the right path of fate so that he can become king one day."
Of course they wouldn't let him on the throne, why would they? Him being what he was. It would be too easy to crown him king, no Odin always chose the more complicated way.
"Excuse me." Loki said to his mother, while he walked away from her, so she wouldn't see his fury. He targeted the vault, not knowing why exactly. When he entered the room, where they had seen the frozen bodies a few hours before, he walked up to the Casket of Ancient Winters slowly. So this was the powerful weapon the Frost Giants had tried to steal twice. He reached to the relic and touched it with both of his hands on both sides, taking it from the panel. His skin immediately turned blue at the touch, showing him what he really was.
"Stop!" Odin turned up behind him.
Loki put the Casket back slowly and turned around to the Allfather with a blue skin and red eyes. "Is this what I am to you?" He asked angrily with a shaky voice. He wanted to know why his father kept him away from earth.
"You are my son." Odin answered calmly.
"What more than that?" He hissed, while walking up to his father. "You had a purpose in taking me. You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me?"
Odin exhaled slowly. "You were an innocent child."
"No. You took me for a purpose, what was it?" He looked at his father, who was strangely quiet now. He felt the tears coming up and his muscles clenched. "Why wouldn't you let me leave Asgard without Thor?"
"I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, bring about a permanent peace, through you."
"What?" He whispered, so he was right all along. His father did have a reason why he took him in. He never did it out of love, it was just the thought of peace that strove him in every decision. It was the same reason why he couldn't stay with Jane; Odin's plan of reuniting Jotunheim and Asgard. How lovely!
"But those plans no longer matter." Odin added, when seeing Loki being aghast and his tears-drenched face.
The Demigod breathed heavily, feeling the madness spreading in his body. "So I-I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me." He cried.
"Why do you twist my words?" His father asked vulnerable. "Why do you see yourself less valuable as you are?"
"Because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night!" The tears didn't stop running down his face. The pain of the last months was now revealing itself in a few seconds.
"No, listen-" Odin tried to say something but Loki didn't let him.
"You know, it all makes sense now! Why you favored Thor all these years!" Loki screamed in fury and sorrow, not caring about Odin, who let himself sink on the steps of the stairs with a pained and exhausted face. "Because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!" The God of Mischief continued, as Odin sank back on the stairs and closed his eyes with a sigh.
Loki's rage vanished the moment he saw his father had collapsed on the steps. He bowed down to Odin and looked at him shocked. What had happened? He reached for his father's hand slowly and held it in his hand for a moment, before he noticed the Allfather wasn't reacting to anything. "GUARDS!" He screamed helplessly. "Guards, please help!"
When the scientists were back at their lab in Puente Antiguo, Jane was printing the pictures of the investigations of the night before from her laptop, while Darcy hung the printed footage on the board. She had moved there a few months ago, when she had decided to leave New York, since it wasn't doing her any good, mourning John's disappearance. Moreover the anomalies were appearing around this area quite often. With the money she gained from selling his apartment, she bought more equipment and rented the space in New Mexico, where she had created a new lab. Luckily John had, as the lawyer he was, had made it official, that if he would ever leave New York, she would get his belongings. He must have known that he would leave her one day.
They hadn't been sleeping the whole night, due to the excitement and caffeine they had absorbed. This was sensational! She had not thought of finding another marking on the ground, created by a tornado. This had to be what she thought it was.
"You don't think it was just a magnetic storm do you?" Erik anticipated.
"Look, I think the lensing around the edges is characteristic of an Einstein-Rosen-Bridge."
"I've heard you talking like this before, isn't this just a way in your mind to get near John somehow again?" Erik asked worried.
She sighed, maybe he had a point with John, it reminded her of the days when she had met him, but it was something else that fascinated her about this thing. She walked up to another picture, the printer had spit out, when she saw the man's skeptical expression. "Erik, look what do you see?" She asked giving him the image that showed the opening in the clouds, where the rays of light had shined through.
"Stars." He answered.
"Yeah, but not our stars." She explained enthusiastically. "This is the star alignment for our quadrant, this time of year." She showed another pictures with stars from their universe. "So unless Ursa Minor decided to take the day off..." She had to pause to inhale between the words, "those are someone else's constellations." she looked at Erik expectantly, waiting for a reaction, as he was only staring at the picture. Darcy took another picture out of the printer and hung it up, when she suddenly froze, as she saw something in the photograph that wasn't normal. "Hey!" She yelled back at them. "Check this out!"
The three of them examined the photo thoroughly. "Is that...?" Jane dared not say it out loud, since it was so unbelievable. In the picture one could see the storm-cloud and inside of it there was unmistakably a figure, it was a vague silhouette of a man. "I think I left something at the hospital." She breathed in disbelief, running out of the door with her colleagues following her.
A/n: Slowly Loki's hatred towards his brother and father begins to make sense! Muahaha! :')