CHAPTER SEVEN

"JANE! JANE! JANE! JANE!"

Jane knocked her chair over in her mad dash to get across the room. She began to run intently—until she barreled straight into a small, dark-haired mass of breathless screaming.

"Jane! There you are! Thank goodness…"

She sighed, slumping her shoulders in relief. "That's not fair, Darcy," Jane said wearily. "I thought Loki was attacking you or doing something horrible." She shook her head, sitting down to resume her work. "If you're done crying 'wolf,' I have a fair bit of number crunching to do."

"I wasn't trying to scare you…but this is serious, Jane, you have to come back to Loki's room."

"If this is about the morphine again—"

"Forget the morphine! Jesus, just come on!"

Darcy tugged on Jane's arm as if trying to dislocate her shoulder.

Jane rolled her eyes and gave Darcy the sort of look she might give a particularly persistent four-year-old. "What is so important back there that you can't explain it to me here and now?" she asked skeptically.

"It's way too complicated. Loki's explanation will make more sense to you. He talks all fancy like you do when you're in government-official mode."

"I'm not wasting my time until you tell me what's so important that I should even bother talking to him."

Darcy threw her hands up in desperation. "Fine," she groaned. "Long story short, he knows a way to travel without the Bifrost."

"Yeah…It's called a car."

"I mean," she said, exasperated, "across dimensions or space-time-fabric or whatever the hell it is. He knows how to get to Asgard."

Jane's head swiveled so fast that Darcy worried she would get whiplash. "Asgard?" she repeated. "As in, his home…where Thor is?"

Darcy bobbed her head.

Jane's eyes were wide as saucers. "Move," she said, brushing past Darcy brusquely. "I need to speak to him."

Loki was surprised by how long it took the Jane woman to arrive in his room. He had half-expected her to come breaking through the walls in a frenzy, but when she entered, she seemed no worse for the wear—merely determined, with an almost maniacal look in her eyes.

"You," she said without preamble. "You have a way back to Asgard."

Loki paused, considering whether to play all his cards at once. But then, he realized, Darcy already knew the whole truth, and despite her tendency to beat around the bush before getting to her point, it would be a very short matter of time before the truth came spilling out.

He nodded. "I do." He met Darcy's eyes questioningly as the girl came to a stop in the doorway behind Jane. "Has she explained the circumstances to you?"

Darcy answered first. "I'm kind of fuzzy on the details. I thought it would be better for you to explain it, you know, correctly."

He sat up with some difficulty, propping himself up against the wall for support. "Alright," he said, with a brief nod to the space at the foot of his bed and the folding chair. "You may wish to take a seat. The explanation may be a bit long for you mortals to remain still and standing."

Darcy promptly sat with a muffled 'thump' an inch from his feet. She folded her hands neatly in her lap, glancing expectantly between Jane and the folding chair.

She paused for a moment before sinking into the chair tepidly, as if expecting some trickery or enchantment on his part. Not unheard of, he thought, suppressing a smile.

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Now," he said, "how much has Darcy explained?"

Jane crossed her arms. "I didn't realize there was so much to explain," she said sharply, shooting a disapproving look at Darcy. Her skeptical gaze turned to Loki. "If you're just going to weasel out of this and tell me that you can't really travel to Asgard, please, tell me now before I waste any more of my time."

"I have no intention of weaseling out of anything," he replied smoothly. "There are merely some…niceties that need to be explained."

Jane pursed her lips, but didn't get up and storm from the room. Loki took this as his signal to continue.

"The first is my injury, which sparked this whole dilemma. Upon examination, Darcy told me enough information to deduce what the nature of my wound was: a shard of the Bifrost, falling from the sky as I did, cut into me and remained there until earlier today when it was removed." He sat forward slightly. "Are you familiar with the nature of the Bifrost?"

Jane nodded. "Three worlds, three sources of magic," she said briskly. "Allowed your kind to travel between worlds like a highway or a bridge."

"Exactly, and herein lies my quandary: the Bifrost is one of the few magical objects powerful enough to do a god long-lasting, permanent damage." He paused. "That is, terminal injury."

"Terminal? But you didn't die."

"Not yet." He leaned back against the pillows. "But the magic is slowly poisoning me. If it had remained in the wound much longer, I expect it would have killed me. Instead, it is slowly draining my immortality and most of my magic. Over time, I will become mortal and, eventually, I will die."

Jane shrugged. "Great. So, you're mortal now. How does that get us to Asgard?"

Loki smiled dryly. The impatience of mortals. "I'm coming to that. At any rate," he continued, "it was obvious to me that only very powerful magic would restore my immortality, magic that would be beyond my abilities even without my weakened state. With Darcy's assistance—" he gave her a slight nod, causing a pink hue to spread across her cheeks, "—I discovered a spell that could heal my injuries. It is surprisingly simple, however it will not be easy to achieve."

"I don't understand…"

"It requires artifacts from each of the three worlds that the Bifrost once bound together," he said simply. "In this instance, it must be blood because the injury is to myself, a being, rather than an object. The Bifrost had magic from three worlds, so I shall need the same degree of power to combat it. A drop of human blood, a drop of jotun blood, and a drop of blood from an Asgardian other than myself."

"There's still something I don't understand," Jane interrupted after a brief pause. "How does any of this explain how we get from here to Asgard, or to Jotunheim, or anywhere? It's not as if this spell is telling us any way to get between worlds that we didn't already…" Her eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth wordlessly for a minute before finding her voice. "You son of a bitch!"

"Pardon?"

"You knew all along!" she said thickly, her voice wavering between icy rage and furious tears that threatened to spill over. "Since the moment you got here, you knew that there was a way back, and you said NOTHING?"

Darcy flinched.

Loki's face remained impassive. "I thought it irrelevant," he said coolly. "I didn't realize that I would have to travel between worlds. I thought my magic was fading simply because I was on Earth, that it would be a permanent, but harmless, state of being. Until I realized that my immortality was in danger, I had planned to remain here."

"But you watched Thor suffer! You watched me suffer! You just sat there and looked on as my heart broke because I thought that I would never be able to see the man I love again!" she screamed at him, almost shaking with fury. Her voice dropped to a low whisper as she struggled to keep a lid on her rage. "If I didn't need you to get to Asgard," she said coldly, "I would kill you right now with my bare hands and not feel the slightest twinge of guilt."

"Well, those feelings are regrettable, but I'm afraid that we each need the other right now," he said without emotion. "You need transport to Asgard to be with Thor. I need blood from a human and basic assistance in my travels in my injured state." He shrugged slightly. "If we do not agree to help each other, I'm afraid we are at an impasse."

"Never go in against an Asgardian when death is on the line!"

Loki and Jane turned in unison to stare at Darcy, Loki merely puzzled and Jane angered by her flippant remarks.

She remained motionless for a moment, looking back and forth between their reactions. She smiled awkwardly with a meek duck of her head. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Ignore me. Argue to your hearts' content." She waved a hand. "Pretend I'm not here."

Jane's glare lingered upon Darcy's face for a moment before returning to her staring match with Loki. She pursed her lips.

"Well, it doesn't seem that I have a choice but to help you." She sighed sharply. "We have a deal. You will accompany me to Asgard, and I will give you the blood you require upon my safe arrival there."

Loki ran through the words a couple times, searching for potential trickery on the mortals' part. No loopholes, no routes of escape for either party…He nodded. "An acceptable arrangement. Deal."

He held out a hand to Jane. She hesitated briefly, then grasped his hand and gave it a firm shake.

Done, he thought triumphantly. And with no bloodshed.

Jane rose to her feet. "Well, if we're working together," she said, "then there are some arrangements to be made."

"Agreed." He tapped his lower lip thoughtfully. "We should depart soon to maximize the magic I have available to myself. I will need to perform a simple pain-elimination spell upon myself to make travel feasible, and create garments more fitting to the environment of Jotunheim…Apart from that, I don't believe there is anything else that I can be held accountable for."

"Create garments?" Darcy asked. "You mean, for all of us? If you can do that, then why not leave right now? You can just make food and warm clothes as we go."

"I'm afraid it doesn't work quite like that," he replied. "Magic upon oneself is quite simple…not very draining at all. I can change my clothes like you mortals blink, and the only reason I haven't been lessening my pain magically this whole time is because I wished to store up my magic in case I had an emergency while remaining on Earth. Magic upon other people, or their possessions…that's far more difficult." He shook his head. "No, I can make my own clothes, I can relieve the pain, and I can transport about four people to Jotunheim and Asgard. To do more magic than that would be cutting it very close, and possibly put my immortality in more danger than it is already."

"You only need to transport three people," Jane interrupted. Loki gave her a questioning look. "One of us needs to stay to work for SHIELD. I'm leaving for sure, so it has to be either Erik or Darcy."

"Erik," Darcy said quickly. "In case we can't travel back. I'm just an intern. I couldn't possibly take over, much less forever if something went wrong."

"That seems prudent," Loki conceded. "In fact, quite apart from your research, if I had to choose only two of you, I would definitely choose to leave him behind. You're both women. The jotun will not perceive you as a threat."

"Gotta love sexism," Darcy said sarcastically.

Loki smiled slightly. "Antiquated notions of women do have their uses." He turned to Jane. "I assume you mortals have a means of obtaining warm clothing and food?"

She nodded. "There's a camping supply store in the next town. I don't think we'll be able to carry everything we want, but we should be able to manage food and some blankets in addition to our clothing."

"Good," Loki said. "In that case, I will rest while you and Darcy purchase the necessities."

Darcy tossed the keys up in the air. They landed in her palm with a slight jingling noise. "I'll get the car. You can tell Erik the news."

"Oh goody," Jane said flatly.

Loki followed the snowflakes with his eyes as they fell to the ground, feeling them melt upon his face as they met warm skin.

Odd, he thought. My skin is cold.

He pondered this problem as he walked through the thick blanket of snow…until he came to stop by a large block of scarlet-streaked stone in the middle of a large pavilion.

He frowned, shivering slightly, as he approached the block. What is it?

Something dry brushed his face. He flinched, blinking it away. It tickled his skin. He watched it fall to the ground slowly, dancing in the wind: a single strand of long, dark hair.

Now he was truly bewildered. His hair wasn't nearly so long…only brushing his shoulders when it was smoothed back.

HE GASPED. A sudden stab of pain, cold and then burning hot deep in his stomach. He looked down and saw the scarlet spreading through his coat, darkening it…tainting the snow in tiny droplets of shock and agony.

Yet somehow, as he felt himself falling to the ground distantly, all he cared to look at was the lock of hair, dancing in the wind.

"I am not wearing that."

Jane groaned as she held out yet another jacket for Darcy's inspection. "Do you have an alternative suggestion?" she snapped.

"Yep," Darcy said cheerily. She produced a slim-cut black coat of wool from a neighboring rack.

Jane rolled her eyes. "A real suggestion."

"What? I think it's cute."

"Darcy, we're going to be heading to a frozen wasteland, and all you care about is cute?"

"It's not all I care about! But come on! Look at that monstrosity you're holding! I'll look like a big, blue marshmallow wearing that thing!"

"You'll be warm."

"I'LL BE A MARSHMALLOW."

"Fine," Jane said flatly. "You want to wear that thing, be my guest. I'll make sure to draw everyone's attention to how cute your jacket is at the funeral after you die of frostbite."

Darcy rolled her eyes, but didn't reply as she tossed her black jacket into the cart with Jane's pink marshmallow monstrosity.

"Let's get some food to pack too," she said. "I don't care what dimension we're in, I'm not repeating Finals Week, Freshman Year."

"What happened during Finals Week of Freshman Year?" Jane asked, smiling.

"The microwave died." She shuddered. "I spent five days drinking water and eating little bags of peanuts from the vending machine."

"Water won't be an issue, at least. According to Loki, the snow on Jotunheim is just like Earth-snow…it's just frozen water. Assuming we can make fire, we should have no problem making normal dorm-type food."

"Hooray for ramen."