Chapter 2

Present

The building's security alarms suddenly turned on with a piercing shriek. Jane grimaced at the pain in her ears and looked around at the flashing lights in her empty lab. Her pulse jumped with each blaring sound. No one had ever successfully invaded Stark Tower before.

She went to lock the doors as protocol dictated, but stumbled to an abrupt stop at the sight of Loki standing before her. The hair on her arms lifted straight up.

"Jane Foster," he said with a slight bow.

He was tall, but not quite the height of a tree as she'd once thought. His penetrating gaze, however, was no less formidable.

"It is time for you to take your place at my side," he announced.

Her brain refused to process his words, not when it commanded her to flee.

She eased one foot back, then another. When his eyes flicked down at her movement, she threw what she held in her hand at him and turned to run, but stopped at the sight of her notebook hovering mid-air. She stared at it in wonder and nostalgia.

"Come with me," he said, sounding very much like he used to. The smooth timber of his voice calmed her jumbled nerves.

Bruce ran to her lab's glass door and pulled the handle. It didn't budge. Worry was written on his face as he took in the sight of their intruder. His short frame morphed into twice its size, all green with more muscle than a gorilla on steroids, and he burst into the room.

Loki positioned himself between them, now in full armor with a horned helmet. "Stand down, Beast, or I will be forced to kill you."

The Hulk huffed a doubtful breath and charged.

Jane backed away and bumped into the Einstein-Rosen bridge machine. As she wheeled it out of harm's way, she kept an eye on the two men battling.

Loki threw daggers that flashed into existence with a flick of his hand, and teleported around the room to attack from all angles. His movements were nearly a blur of green and gold.

Bruce swiped at the flying blades, but too many were finding purchase on his bare arms and chest. Each one struck with enough force to give him pause. He picked up a table to block the deluge, then used it as a bat against the God of Mischief.

The slender man hit the wall hard enough to crack it. White plaster rained down on him, coating his gold helmet and green jacket. He stepped out of the hole he'd created and brushed himself off, as if he'd merely walked through cobwebs.

Jane pulled the machine backwards until she could go no further. Since her only exit was blocked, she tried to make herself as small as possible.

The two fought with a ferocity that left her stunned. Anything in their path was destroyed. The alarm was no match to their racket of roars and sneers, clomping and thudding, and the sounds of glass and wood breaking. She covered her ears against the onslaught.

The Hulk looked like a pin cushion and Loki's hair was wild, his outfit was rumpled and torn, but neither of them seemed tired or truly injured.

Just as she thought there would be no end to their battle, two rockets streaked in through the windows. Jane spun away and curled into a ball as glass sprayed everywhere. Some of the fragments should have at least nicked her, but she was completely unharmed. She looked over her shoulder to find a shimmering bubble surrounding her. Loki had one around him too.

The deafening alarms stopped their piercing shriek and she realized one of her machines had been beeping, but when the protective magic disappeared, it went silent.

Loki turned to Iron Man and War Machine with a death glare. "You will pay for your carelessness."

Tony looked at Jane and she nodded that she wasn't injured. He gestured to the room. "Doesn't seem like you've been very careful."

The Hulk harrumphed and shook off the silver daggers and shards of glass.

"By the way," Tony asked, "who are you?"

He stood with the regalness of a king. "I am Loki of Asgard and I have come for what is mine."

"Here." Rhodey picked up a stapler and tossed it to him.

Loki barely shifted and the office accessory sailed right past him.

"Interesting," Tony responded. "The suspense is killing me. What do you believe is yours?"

He pointed to her.

The Hulk stomped the floor hard enough to vibrate her feet. "Jane stays."

"She isn't exactly running into your arms," Rhodey said.

Moving was beyond her. She still had a hard time believing he was real, let alone that he thought she was his.

Loki stepped to her and the three blocked his path. "Out of respect for her, I will allow you all to live. If you move. Now."

Tony's hand repulsors emitted a whine as they charged. "You must think you're something special."

"I am a god." A long staff appeared in Loki's hands, and he slid into a fighting stance.

The beeping started up again and her gaze landed on the noisy instrument. Except, it had never made so much as a peep before this day. It was her exotic matter detector. She picked it off the side of the Bridge with trembling fingers and pointed it at Loki as he fought the three men with magic and limbs. The readings were off the chart.

She stared at it, trying to process the momentous discovery while only slightly registering the boom of explosions and the clang of metal.

This is what she'd been waiting ten years for. They had the detectors around the world and never picked up a single blip, and now there was more in this room than she'd ever thought possible.

Jane dropped the device and rushed to turn on the Bridge and its power source. A spark erupted in its core and actually transformed into a translucent sphere. The area around it was distorted, like heat waves rippling upward from a desert road.

A sudden flurry of eruptions had her gaze darting to the fight. The Hulk and Tony were shooting at and smashing through the multitude of Lokis filling the space while Rhodey was on his back, all dented up with his suit's leg twitching. Each God of Mischief snickered at their attacker before disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. It was complete chaos and the two Avengers weren't accomplishing anything except thoroughly destroying her lab.

Out of nowhere, Tony was knocked through the broken window by an unseen force. Jane's heart dropped even though she knew he would be fine.

All of the Lokis turned on Bruce and moved in confusing, random patterns that left him spinning and swinging his arms wildly about. He grunted and huffed in frustration.

One second, the room was full of the copies. The next, there were none.

Searching for Loki, her gaze darted to every exposed nook and cranny. He was gone, though. With the way the Hulk's frame softened, he'd clearly thought so too. He took a step in her direction and was knocked backwards. By nothing. Or at least, by nothing visible. More unseen strikes came, pushing the green man even further away.

Tony flew back in and watched the disconcerting scene of the Hulk being beaten back by apparently nothing. "You're not playing fair."

Laughter rang through the air.

Jane turned to the Bridge. It was designed to open a portal around it with enough room for three people to teleport. She looked back at her friends fighting a losing battle, and then rushed to rearrange the stabilizing panels. If her theory was correct, a portal should now shoot straight out and teleport whomever was in its path.

She took a deep breath to ease the knot in her stomach. Hiding her hand on the activation switch, she leaned her hip against the trolley, ready to move it to point at wherever Loki was.

"Everyone stand down," she called above the din.

To her surprise they actually listened. Rhodey dismantled his suit and got to his feet. Tony walked to his side with the Hulk trailing behind.

Loki materialized several feet in front of her. "It is time for us to go home."

She pulled her brows together. "This is my home."

Jane flipped the switch, and a bright light filled her vision. When it cleared, she was no longer in her destroyed lab. Instead, she stood in the middle of some kind of open-air market.

She spun around, staring wide-eyed at the foreign surroundings. She, Jane Foster, had just teleported. Not only was she the first human to do so, but she'd just built a functioning Einstein-Rosen Bridge.

She would have whooped in delight if not for the people crowding in to look at her. They were all so tall, each at least six feet, including the women, and clothed in flowing dresses and long robes. If it hadn't been for their height, cleanliness, and downright glow, she would've thought she'd traveled back in time.

Just as she was about to ask if they spoke English, her portal's remnant energy ricocheted her back through space and into her lab. She landed in another ball of light that left the room's occupants stunned. The giddiness of her achievement vanished at the sight of Loki.

Before he could recover, she flung herself at the machine and repositioned the panels.

He looked at her and opened his mouth to speak, but she flipped the switch and, in a burst of light, he was gone.


Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was a lot of fun to write. I love action scenes!

Thanks for reading and commenting! And thanks to my lovely sister!

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