April 1
No.
On the TV right now.
NO.
Just no.
No fucking way this is happening.
I'm the one who told him.
I blink. I swallow. Repeat as needed.
"Jane?"
No response.
"Um…Jane?"
Still nothing. I risk pulling my eyes away from the screen for split-second glance at my friend. Mouth open, eyes a-gogging at the TV, standing paralyzed by utter disbelief; pretty much how I feel. Bruce was wrong; "apocalypse" was not a bit extreme. Though, it's weird that a Norse god would pick this version. And, how sad that we Earthlings have multiple versions of apocalypses. Apocalypsoes? Apocalypseses? Whatever.
But still…
No fucking way…
In my peripheral vision I see Jane literally shake herself. She swallows. She probably blinks. She possibly repeats as needed.
Wow, this is how we react to a crisis. It's suddenly depressingly clear why they won't let me on the Heroes Team.
I'm the one who told him.
Jane points at the screen. "Are…are those…?"
Huh. So even Jane Foster, the call-it-like-it-is-even-if-it-gets-me-laughed-out-of-respected-acadamia proponent of weird-but-true stuff, cannot quite force out the words to describe what we're seeing. Looks like it's up to me. Again. As usual.
I take a bracing deep breath (pretend to be like Black Widow), plant my hands on hips (pretend I'm dramatically wearing a bad-ass long black coat and studied theater), and glare at the screen showing LIVE FROM TEL MEGIDDO, ISRAEL.
"You mean," I begin, as, on screen, a levitating, red-furred horse with a sword-wielding rider punts a red-caped god into a red-run river. Jane and I wince and hold our breath until Thor re-emerges from what I hope isn't actually a river of actual blood. Because eeww.
"You mean," I have to gulp again, "'Are those the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?'"
On screen, Pestilence (riding a white horse, wearing a crown, and wielding a bow) and Hawkeye are taking shots at each other. Famine, on a huge black horse that can fly, and who can apparently turn a pair of scales into a whip/lasso/rope-dart weapon, is trying to ensnare Iron Man. War is now facing off against the Hulk; Thor, now completely red (please don't be real blood) is now aiding Black Widow and Captain America (Steve!) in fighting things that look an awful lot like what I imagine as demons. All while the ground beneath them is trembling and occasionally cracking open in chasms that are, yes, spewing what is probably hellfire. I cross my fingers and hope that it won't start raining frogs or something, because, really, poor froggies.
"Wait…," Jane says, in her something-profound-just-occurred-to-me voice.
I give her my patent-pending you-are-the-dumbest-smart-person-I-have-ever-met look, because really? Wait for what? The end of the world?
I'm the one who told him.
"Jane, we are, right now, watching Armageddon on CNN, so whatev–"
"Biblical Armageddon. Loki is Norse. Why–"
She's wondering this now? How can geniuses be so geniusy about super-complicated stuff but not catch on to stuff that I thought of two hours ago. Okay, two minutes ago. Same diff.
"He's a trickster, Jane. He's the Trickster. And it's April Fools' Day." I'm the one who told him. "So the god of mischief, fuck-all whatever pantheon he's from, can do whatever the fuck he wants. And I just kinda shouted at you and I'm sorry but holy shit I'm the one who told him about today and please tell me this is just a joke or illusion or something and he didn't really…this isn't really…" the end of the world.
I really hate it when things get this serious.
On the screen, Famine has managed to lasso Iron Man, but they're both still airborne and caught for a moment in some kind of flying, spiraling, centrifugal tug-of-war. That seems to be just what Famine wants, though, because he releases Iron Man at the perfect time to send him careening into Thor, and the impact dunks them both back into the bloody river.
Loki's probably laughing his ass off.