Disclaimer: The characters and original story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe do not belong to me; this story is not for sale or profit.
A/N: Thanks to all who have read and reviewed so far! You are my sunshine! Now to let the other shoe fall! Please enjoy!
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"I want to hide the truth, I want to shelter you,
But with the beast inside, there's nowhere we can hide;
Your eyes, they shine so bright, I want to save that light;
I can't escape this now, unless you show me how."
- Imagine Dragons
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Loki's expression was unreadable, but his eyes burned with triumph, ardor and a fierce adoration. Jane's mouth fell open in surprise, unable to tear her eyes from the sight of him standing so still and sure before her, utterly unfazed by the black wind and blue fire.
How long had she waited for him? How often had she wished he'd come? Now here he stood, and in the sudden ringing clarity inside her head, she didn't know what to say to him or what to do.
Her attackers took no notice of the newcomer that had materialized in their midst, either unable to see him, or frightened beyond caring. One of them reached up to shield his eyes from the fire, staring at her now with more amazement than fear, and Jane noticed his arm pass right through the hem of the forest green tunic Loki wore. A twist of relief seeded with something perilously like disappointment threaded through her chest. It wasn't Loki. It was another sending. Here to watch her final battle against herself.
Inside the beast was straining against the chain, tearing deep, ragged gouges in the floor of the tunnel as it struggled to free its horns. Pain spiked as it bucked and screamed, blue flashing and dancing up the tunnel walls in response, and though the silhouette of the aurochs did not reappear, the shadows in the alley writhed through the blue radiance like black tentacles of liquid night. The ringing in her ears distorted unnervingly, reverberating through the balance centers of her brain to make the world tilt and sway like the deck of a ship at sea, and the smell of rain clogged her nostrils almost sickeningly. Jane reeled, her mind in a firestorm, her senses in an uproar. She stumbled drunkenly, her hands came up to grip her head as the beast struggled inside her. The cowering men groaned and cried out and wept, inching away from her.
"Go!" she shouted hoarsely at them. "Go… go to the police or… Just get away from me!"
As though waking suddenly from the clutches of some surreal dream, the men startled and came back to themselves. One by one they scrambled to their feet. Staring, crying, some cursing, some crossing themselves as though to ward off evil, as they abandoned the bloody remains of their leader and ran. Leaving her alone in the alley with the image of Loki.
The beast kicked again, chains rattling ominously. Jane knew she couldn't afford to give it time to recover. If it did, that would be the end. Heart racing, she reached for more of the rain, letting it rope and cling over over her arm and through her fingers like ropes of nothingness, and threw them at the raging beast inside her. They flew and clung as she cast them, bowing the beast's back, wrapping around its head, buckling its legs.
The beast bucked and bellowed, jerking its head in a sudden arc that pulled at the net of rain she held, its scream jarring Jane down to her bones. She was flung against the fleshy inner wall of her mind, hard, and almost lost her grip on the bouquet of slender links growing in her hand. She dug her fingers into the mass of chains as she bounced off the wall, crying out through clenched teeth as she held on, and pulled with the momentum of her own weight being flung sideways. It was too much for the straining creature to compensate, and the whole of her mind shook as, with a panicked shriek, the beast lost its balance and fell.
It lay there, twisting, kicking against the far wall, throwing its body sideways in a desperate attempt to reach her, its horns slashing at the air inches from her ankles and abdomen. She reached out over the lip of the chasm beyond the tunnel and gathered more rain in her hand. Shouting wordlessly between clenched teeth, she hurled it in the creatures face; blue links, half-formed from the spray, wrapped over the beast's snout, pushing painfully at its eyes, so that it thrashed its head wildly, jangling deafeningly with the chains that now draped it like Christmas tinsel.
Another chain, another roar, another defiant thrust, but with each one, the beast's strength grew less, the chains rustling and hissing in a cacophonous parody of the rain they were formed from, until at last, Jane stood over it, panting, holding a wealth of chains like some great, braided leash. And one final length of chain.
Panting hard she tore her eyes away from her enemy to stare down at the final chain. Blue light that seemed to flow and refract like liquid through the solid metal links. This one felt different. Something told her that if she chose to slip this last fetter around the beast's neck, she could tie it off inside her mind; bind the beast permanently inside her.
She reached out to lay the final shackle in place. Then she hesitated.
Shivering with hot and cold she stared down at the monster, defeated on the floor of its lair. Here lay the enemy that had pursued her through so many nightmares, the creature that screamed in her mind every time she tried to focus or think, or even feel anything other than anger or misery. The sum of all her rage given form, and the power to destroy her, and others. She should hate it. She did hate it. It lay there, panting, glaring. Subdued. Enraged. Ready, if ever the chains slipped, to run her through on its wicked horns and trample her into a bloody paste under the sharp blades of its hooves. A deadly force tied down and dominated by a killing numbness that flowed through her hands and held the creature like any weapon…
Like a weapon. Not a cage. A weapon. She looked into the beasts eyes, and saw pain.
"This is who I am…" she murmured.
She felt a tear fall down her cheek and she blinked.
Why? She'd beaten it, hadn't she? Her head was clearing, the ringing and the pain and the stench of rain dwindling to manageable levels. She should be overjoyed. And she was glad it was under control, that it couldn't hurt her or anyone else like this. She was… but…
But it was part of her.
When she looked down at the beast cowering under the chains, she could see a part of herself – a dark, ugly, dangerous part, but even so - a part of herself tied down, suffering. Enslaved.
"You are my rain…"
The rain… the chains…
Both in her mind, and in the alley, Jane stumbled backward, sickened. In the alley, she looked up sharply at the image of Loki.
This was what she was to him? A deadening weight of chains holding him back from ripping everything apart?
"That's not love… that's not healing…" she whispered, tears trailing down her cheeks. She gasped, swallowing hard. "God, Loki, that's… awful…"
"You don't know what awful is, Jane," the sending of Loki said quietly, breaking his silence. He smiled apologetically. "I told you. The universe is unkind. You saved me from…" His face fell, and he swallowed and shook his head. "Well... this is bearable. It is peace. Safety. Or as near as I will ever have. You gave it to me – and to all those I might have harmed…"
"I don't want to be your rain!" Jane cried, appalled. "I don't want to be... this!"
"Even so... you were my inspiration. It was for you I sought a way to stop myself. You saved me." He offered her a wry smirk and a hint of a shrug. "It only seemed fair that I should return the favor."
Jane sniffed hard and made herself stop crying, though she didn't dare reach up to wipe the tears away; she had no desire to see the blood she could feel cooling on her face staining her fingertips. She stared hard at Loki, and saw him again in her memory, as she saw him standing in front of her - as she saw in her vision, the beast lying pinned and helpless under the chains - the man who was more than just a faceless monster. The man worthy of salvation that Thor had described to her. The man who had burned worlds to reach her, who had stopped at nothing to protect her, who had puzzled her, and who had understood her. Now the man who thanked her for imprisoning him within his own mind.
Inside, the beast grunted and heaved weakly. Trapped. Straining at its wet, clinging chains. She stood over it, jailing it in its own lair, safe from its rage, and sheltered from the killing rain outside. She tried to understand and failed. Compared to a moment before, it was indeed safe and peaceful… but… it wasn't peace. It wasn't healing.
"This… is what you wanted me to choose?" she asked. For reasons beyond her empirical understanding, she was sure that Loki could see what she saw inside her mind. That he could see the beast in chains. After all, this sending came from inside as well.
"Yes," he said. There was a kind of knowing sadness in his eyes underneath the pride and approval. "You found it, just as I knew you would. The real balance isn't between rage and the numbness, Jane. It is between chaos and control."
"Why…?"
She stopped and shook her head, trying to organize her thoughts. And found, with a spike of elation, that for the first time in a long time, she could. She really, really could! She could think! It was almost enough to make her start crying again. If he believes I gave this back to him, no wonder… She had to reign in an overwhelming surge of gratitude that bordered on ecstatic, forcing herself to focus finding answers.
Because despite her joy and relief, she was still missing something. She had to be.
"If this was what you wanted me to choose, why leave it to chance?" she tried again. "Why go to all this trouble on a gamble that I would come to the right conclusion? You've clearly got power to influence this... this... magic," she said the word only grudgingly. "And… you've been through this yourself. This is what happened to you when you let that alien inside your head, isn't it?" Loki said nothing, but his silence was confirmation enough. Jane pressed on, latching on to a little seed of indignation growing amongst the fading euphoria. "You understood what was happening! You beat it before! You could have fought it yourself, instead of leaving me to…"
"I showed you the way," he interrupted her, shaking his head. "But it's you the Tesseract wants now, Jane. You are closest to it."
"Closest? That makes no sense. It's on Asgard, I'm on Earth."
"Physical distance means nothing to the Tesseract. It has drawn near you on a..." he pursed his lips thoughtfully, "...on a metaphysical level." At Jane's openly skeptical expression, he smirked and shrugged. "The Tesseract is barely understood. I can offer no better words to describe it. What I can tell you is that it wants you. So it is your choice that it will reflect in its planes and edges. Right now, you alone can bend it to your will."
"My choice?" she murmured. The words stirred something inside her, something she felt certain was important, but that kept slipping through her mental fingers. "My will…"
He nodded. A painful little half smile curving his lips. "I'm sure you heard it again and again. This is who you are."
Jane looked up at him sharply, as the words, spoken out loud, seemed to move through her like a kinetic wave, jarring her down to her bones. Their eyes met and a knowing look passed between them. She was the first to break the contact. Her mind, working for the first time in what seemed like forever, whirled feverishly.
"When we are honest we only see the worst in ourselves…" Jane murmured, recalling Thor's words, and it was Loki's turn to cast a sharp glance her way. She ignored it. "The Tesseract reveals you…" she looked back up at him, remembering the self-loathing, fear, guilt and shame that had kept her preoccupied and prevented her from making any significant decisions or any attempt to move forward with her life. "So that's it… that's why…" she said slowly. Despite the disturbing nature of her conclusion, she couldn't help the grim smile that formed on her mouth. "It makes its victims vulnerable by revealing their own ugliness to them… Makes them doubt themselves, hate themselves, weakens their will, then preys upon them in their weakened state..."
"It has no power on its own," Loki confirmed, a pained curve to his mouth in response to her own. "It can only reflect what others show it."
Her eyes narrowed.
"If that's true, why all the cloak and dagger? Why the riddles? Why didn't you just tell me what I had to do?"
And why won't you tell me what I have to do now…?
His smile faded slowly and he looked at her for a long moment without speaking.
"You had to find it. To choose it," he answered finally. "Just as I had to choose it. Nothing given by another is as strong as what we achieve for ourselves. It had to be your doing, your choice and your conviction."
He took a deep breath, casting his gaze off to one side, away from hers. The words rang with sincerity, but Jane sensed a hesitation, as though what he said wasn't quite what he meant. As though his words were true, but there was something deeper and more true that he wasn't saying… Nothing is ever quite what it seems when the Trickster is nearby. He shook his head and looked back at her, and whatever he might have wanted to say remained unspoken.
"I shaped the magic to give it a form you could manipulate. But only you could find the balance inside yourself," he continued instead. "If I had told you where to look or what to do, you would never have had the strength to do what you must. And you would have been dependent on me to help you maintain your grip on the curse inside you forever."
"Isn't that what you want?" Jane asked him, her indignation souring to bitterness, suddenly ready to be angry with him. "To trap me into an alliance? Keep me under your thumb? Use me for whatever your next scheme might be?"
"No," he said, frowning with every appearance of affront.
Jane ignored him. She was getting angry now, her voice rising slowly with accusation; anger was better than being afraid.
"Maybe you feel some responsibility to help me overcome this, but I'm not dumb enough to believe that's your only angle. Why are you really doing all of this, Loki?"
"I want you safe," he said, his voice earnest, but with an edge, as though he were feeling indignation of his own. He looked away, apparently unable to bear her blame and skepticism. "I only want what any man would want for the woman he loves..."
"I told you not to bother with that line about love." Her voice turned dry and she gave him a cool, level look. "Whatever role you've decided to assign me in your fight against the Tesseract, you don't care about me that way, Loki. I'm not stupid. And I've heard enough about your 'goldfly' reputation to know better." Her anger deepened with an embarrassment she didn't quite understand. "I don't know what you're really after, but whatever it is, this isn't the right approach. You could just try asking, you know. You don't have to insult my intelligence with those kinds of lies."
Loki said nothing, though she could see his jaw clenching in frustration. He wouldn't look at her. For some reason, that needled her. Her skin prickled with irritation and something she refused to look at too closely, for fear it would turn out to be more disappointment.
"Look," she snapped when his silence persisted, "that kind of empty talk might have let you get what you want out of other women in the past. But I have zero interest in becoming another notch in your bedpost, and I know you don't really want me; you just want to manipulate me, and I'm not going to let you. So either level with me, or leave me out of it, because if you think you're going to sweet talk me into…"
Jane didn't know exactly which part of her angry diatribe did it, but it was like stepping on a landmine. Loki exploded forward, and suddenly he was simply there, inches away, looming above her, reaching for her, his eyes sparking with a heat that was part anger and part something else entirely.
I promised myself I wouldn't let this happen again… Jane thought, stunned, a bare instant before his fingers threaded into the hair at the nape of her neck, and his mouth found hers in a crushing kiss.
As with each previous occasion when he'd touched her, Jane felt herself become water, and his touch created ripples that moved through her, leaving no part of her body or mind unmoved. She wondered distantly if it was some kind of psychokinetic ability Loki had. Or if it was just Loki himself. There was no green lightning, despite the pendant still hanging cold and heavy around her neck, because he wasn't really there. He was nothing but a projection, a part of the magic inside her… but the touch felt so real, his hand in her hair, cradling her head, holding her still, and his lips on hers so warm, so hot, when she had been so cold for so long... She felt like a moth circling a flame.
It's chemical, she told herself, knowing it for an excuse even as she gave in to it. Just… chemical…
She swayed into him, dizzied, letting her hands slide up the strong plane of his chest to steady herself, and heard the breath rush out of him as though she'd body-slammed him instead of brushing against him. His fingers tightened in her hair, sharpening the angle of her head so that he could dominate her mouth, deepening the kiss as his other arm came around her back, pulling her hard against him. Jane felt herself in peril of going weak in the knees, and experienced an inexplicable temptation to slide her hands just a few more inches up to drag the pads of her fingers along the pale skin of his neck. She resisted, though only just. Every little thing she did, every little movement or reaction, seemed to affect him so acutely. What would he do, she wondered, if she touched him? Curiosity thrummed through her, an urge to experiment…
But the way he held her hair was reminiscent enough of that night in Manhattan to break into the fugue of hunger and sensation and need that had so badly distracted her.
This shouldn't… I shouldn't… His lips stole her thoughts as they had stolen her voice, hungry, demanding, telling her impatiently without words to stop denying him, stop saying those things, stop speaking, just shut up and… I can't let him rule me like this. I can't let him think that he can…
It took far more effort than she was comfortable with, but she braced her hands on his chest and shoved him away. He let her – she didn't have any doubt that, illusion or not, he could have held her against her will if he so chose - and took three deliberate steps back, breathing hard, his eyes still hot with anger and need.
"Do not tell me what I do or do not want. I know what I want. I want you, Jane," he insisted in a harsh, hushed tone, frustration and determination rising in his eyes, piercing her, demanding that she accept that truth. He pressed his lips together, his eyes falling closed for a heartbeat, as though helpless to keep from savoring the lingering feel of her lips on his.
"Not for a mere moment. Not for a night…" He swallowed hard, curling and uncurling his fists in an agitated manner, then whirled and paced away from her. His head bowed, though his shoulders remained rigid. Jane wished she could see his face, and was simultaneously glad she couldn't. "And not as a servant. Not as a subject. Not as some timid, servile wench that I can twist into knots and do with what I please. I've had all of that before. There are whorehouses and slave markets aplenty all over the Nine Realms, if that were what I desired."
He turned back to her, his voice hard, his expression unyielding. "I told you already, you are not meant to be ruled. And I don't want to rule you. I want to stand beside you. I want to be with you."
The declaration hung in the air between them, undeniable.
Jane could only blink at him, bewildered. Her own lips still tingled with the memory of his touch, though she didn't let herself indulge in it as he had, but the recollection of the passion in his kiss compounded the veracity of his words. Whatever else he was after, he meant what he said.
And still it made no sense.
"Why me?" she asked, her voice slightly rough. The shadows and magic still howled around them like a nightmare come to life, yet somehow this was suddenly the most important question she could think of. She cleared her throat quietly and made herself meet and hold his eyes. "You don't even know me… so why…?"
He stared back at her for an instant, as though mesmerized, his eyes softening thoughtfully.
"Can anyone choose who they love?" he replied waspishly. He sighed and looked away. "It is true we know so little about one another. I…" he faltered, embarrassed, Jane would have thought if she didn't know better, "I want to know more… I want to know you... I..." He paused, blowing out a deep breath through pursed lips. "I don't know what I'm doing, Jane," he admitted in a low, thoughtful voice. "I have never felt this way before. Never. And for my kind, 'never' is far longer than one so young as you can imagine."
His eyes grew distant, then fell closed, as though searching back through all the ages of his life and finding nothing, and as had happened with Thor, Jane was once again struck by the sheer weight of the years - centuries - that had made the man she was speaking to. When he opened them again and refocused on her, the longing in them stole her breath. She was abruptly reminded of Alexa's words... Love may drive a man to extreme lengths. Who knows how far it might drive a god?
"What I do know is that it is you that I will always want," he said quietly. "You who are my light in the dark. You whose face and voice live in my mind like my own thoughts. You who challenges me at every turn. You who never do what I expect." He glanced up at her. "You, the only woman I have ever met who is like me. Who might be able to understand…"
"Loki," she choked out around the lump forming in her throat, regretting her question even as heat rose in her cheeks. Her skin felt too hot and too tight, and her gut twisted with a knee-jerk regret… "I… I'm with Thor, and I can't… I won't ever..."
Loki winced as though she'd slapped him. His face darkened dangerously. Jane had to force herself not to take a step backwards.
"Thor…" he sneered in a low tone that was more frightening than if he'd shouted it, his fingers tightening into trembling fists. "Thor, who abandoned you, who left you alone without hope, to wait and wonder, Thor who is…" He pressed his lips together in a hard line, as though to physically restrain the words that were trying to burst forth. The effort seemed to deflate him, a measure of his fury easing out of his frame. "He deserves none of your loyalty, Jane. None of it. If you knew…"
Again his pressed his lips together and looked away, his expression smoothing. He unclenched his fists and drew in a deep breath, as though opening himself up to hide the wild outburst of his heart back into its cage.
"It doesn't matter," he said quietly. "What I feel for you will never diminish. It can only grow. But I will never desire your servitude or false affection. If you cannot choose me, then I will not have you." He looked at her again, and there was pain in his eyes, but resignation as well. Whatever other games he might be playing, he meant what he was saying. "When will you hear me? Everything depends on you."
Jane had no idea how to respond. Her heart was beating too fast. How did one react to such a statement, to such gestures, from a virtual stranger?
Thor was a virtual stranger when I first fell for him... her mind whispered treacherously. I kissed him when I barely knew him. I spent two years waiting based on three days of whirlwind excitement and a single kiss. Is what Loki is saying any stranger than that…?
Loki did a lot more than kiss me. Loki let an alien hijack his mind and tried to conquer a planet.
And Loki is not Thor!
…but still…
Deep inside, she felt the beast squirm in its chains and gasped as the world tilted. The course of the conversation had unsettled her enough to distract her. She'd let her grip slip. She tightened it, frightened out of her confusion.
Focus, idiot. Sort out the love life later!
"Okay… for now, let's say your motives were pure," she said, waving her hands in a decisive and dismissive gesture, pushing aside the embarrassing honesty of his words and focusing on the relevant portion of what he'd said to lead her down this tangent. "You gave me what I need to tie down the Tesseract's intrusion. And I've done it. So… what's next?"
Loki's jaw clenched, and he backed further away, as though putting physical distance between them could give him some mental and emotional objectivity.
"That," Loki said unhelpfully, allowing the subject to drop, though his eyes remained intense, "is entirely up to you."
"What does that mean, Loki?" she asked, exasperated. Inside her mind, the beast twitched fitfully, and she yanked hard on the chains of rain to quiet it. Then winced at her own cruelty. "What am I supposed to do with this thing?"
"Make the choice," Loki said. His face had become a passive mask once more, hiding his thoughts. But she could swear he could see into her mind, and was staring intently at the chain she held in her hand. The final chain that would lock the beast forever in captivity. "Bind it."
"Bind it… and what?" Jane asked, the first icy tendrils of cold dread slithering up out of the pit of her stomach at the finality in his voice. "What… for it to sit like a rock inside me for the rest of my life?"
"Or to use as you see fit," he suggested, offering her a shadow of a sly smile. "You saw how effective it can be when unleashed..." When she said nothing, only stared at him in disbelief, he let it fall away. "This is… the only way to keep the blue flame at bay," he replied slowly, with something worryingly like regret.
"You can't be serious..."
"Every day will be a struggle," he pressed on. "But you will be free."
This was… it? Jane shook her head. She couldn't believe it. This was where the trail of clues was meant to lead? To this… this standoff between herself and these two opposing forces inside?
"This isn't freedom," she insisted. This couldn't be the solution. She refused to believe… "I don't… I don't want this… I don't…" She blinked rapidly, fighting not to cry again; she refused with ever fiber of her being to allow herself to be that weak. Not now.
"I've…" Loki looked away as she battled back the tears. "I've searched for another answer. Something… anything…" He caught her eye again and held it, his face an unreadable mask. "This is as close to freedom as either of us will ever be."
"It can't…"
Loki's posture didn't change, exactly, but he seemed to draw into himself, as though her quiet despair were more devastating than if she were screaming at him. He cast a bitter, resigned look her in her direction. As though there were a million miles between them, and with his words he was shoving her farther and farther away.
"You should never have had to endure this. I am… so sorry."
A coldness invaded Jane to the core. She barely knew Loki, true, but from what she did know, she had a feeling he wasn't the sort that apologized. The fact that he had… Her hand shook, reaching up to finger the fiery mark on her forehead once again as her eyes slid closed.
This couldn't be the answer; it couldn't be the end… but what if it was?
Inside, the beast huffed painfully, jerking and heaving as though it were in agony under the weight of the rain, but too exhausted to do more than suck in shallow, panting breaths. But its eyes were full of fury, dull and glassy as they had become, and she knew that if the chains were lifted, it would waste not an instant before it ran at her, ripped her open, trampled her flesh and painted its horns with her blood.
Even so… that was her, lying there in pain. It was better than letting the monster consume her, and far better than subjecting herself to the rain. But it would be with her all her life – a festering wound inside her that would never heal…
Her eyelids fluttered open once more to meet Loki's eyes with a kind of begging wretchedness. She was taken aback to see his eyes reflected her misery as he watched her realize that she was trapped; they were almost equally wretched before he looked away.
There was an instant temptation to get angry, to make him her scapegoat, let him take the blame and rail against him, was powerful. It was always so much easier to have someone to punish. So much less frightening than accepting. But irrationally, unbelievably, something in her chest constricted with sudden empathy. He'd faced this too; but he'd had no one to help him or guide him. Despite the… questionable nature of his methods, he'd tried to help her, hadn't he?
"You didn't do this to me," she breathed dejectedly; her voice wouldn't rise above a whisper. "The Tesseract did it. It tried to take me over, and you stopped it. You didn't cause this…"
It wasn't meant to be comfort, or any kind of absolution. It was barely compassion. She was speaking more to herself than to him, trying to come to grips with it. It was a statement of fact. Loki seemed to take it like it was condemnation.
"Yes I did," he hissed, his eyes flashing as he took a hasty step towards her before arresting his advance and mastering his temper. "It was my weakness, my failure. The Tesseract knew you through knowing me. It only reached you through me, through my vulnerability. My pathetic need to touch you..." He huffed out a disgusted little sigh. "I told you, there was never any good in taking what you weren't aware I had stolen. I learned that the hard way, Jane. You must not even remember it. But… in that moment of confusion on the Dark World, when the Aether was burning… we were so close, you were in my arms… and I gave in to temptation, just for an instant and pressed a kiss to your brow." His jaw clenched hard, as though he was forcing the confession past his lips with all his might. "The weakness weakened my control… and… the Tesseract…"
Jane's eyes widened. She was willing to bet anything the location of the mark was the exact same spot his lips had touched.
"Do not spare the whip, Jane. I failed you." Something like crushing shame broke over his features for an instant, but they hardened swiftly. "I was always going to fail you," he murmured, almost to himself, casting suddenly glassy eyes down to stare at his left hand like he hated it. "I was always going to fall short…"
"Why?" Jane asked, her mind working as she watched him. A thought occurred to her, and her eyes narrowed with another rush of righteous anger. "Because you're a Frost Giant?" She sucked in a deep, angry breath, unaccountably annoyed. "That must make a convenient excuse," she continued, shaking her head slowly and taking an angry step towards him, seething with resentment. "No mistake or misdeed would ever really be your fault, or your responsibility to correct, because you have your blood to blame it on. You could rationalize anything." Her jaw clenched as she tried to reign in her temper. "Even wrapping your hand around the throat of someone you claim to love and squeezing until they lose consciousness..."
Loki's eyes had jerked up at the phrase 'frost giant', and as she continued, his whole frame stiffened, as though he were in pain – as though she'd stabbed him in the chest, and he was trying to bear up under the agony as she slowly twisted the blade. His eyes were like chips of green ice by the time she'd finished, and he tilted his chin up as met her unyielding gaze.
"My carelessness pushed you into the spider's web," he said after an interminable pause during which the words hung in the lengthening silence between them like a pall. His voice was slightly hoarse, cold and forbidding as the dead of winter, but a pale shade of defiant vindication projected in the set of his jaw and the piercing shine of his eyes. "But then I gave you the means to protect yourself."
Jane stared him down, equally defiant, but in the end she was the first to look away. She bit her lip, hard, searching for some other avenue, some new trick he might be playing, and finding none. He really meant it. This was the answer he'd been teasing her into seeking. The way out. The answer to uruz: To live forever with a violent, shrieking rage monster bound up with anesthetic chains inside her mind. To live with fear, always fighting her anger.
She couldn't seem to stop shaking.
The old crone's warning and her pale, haunted eyes rose in her memory.
"You are cursed…"
Jane backed up, shivering, until she could feel the brick of the alley against her back, and stared at Loki with a sense of hopelessness. The black wind buffeted her, drawing her hair across her face, and she swiped at it struggling to see him through the flickering blue light in this inexplicable darkness…
She blinked several times, her brow tightening with a sudden curious thought.
If she'd solved the puzzle and subdued the Tesseract's influence… why hadn't the light returned? Why was she still caught up in this whirlwind of energy? Why was the magic still raging around her? Was it just because she hadn't secured the final binding on the beast yet?
Or…
Her eyes narrowed as realization struck. The last time the sending of Loki had appeared…
"Why are you here?" she demanded abruptly, though an idea of the answer was already coalescing inside her head.
The sending of Loki shrugged.
"I told you before," he said evenly, his eyes locking with hers. "If you can see me, it is because someone is trying to unwork my magic."
.
In the depths of the mortal's mind, seven green stars swarmed, struggling against lashing strands of blue magic whipping violently from the furiously rocking figure of a balance scale. The scale stood before the silvery wall of water that defended the power in the deep. As each frond of magic shot out to penetrate the mirror, one of the stars would soar in and block it, dashing it aside, teasing the frond of blue fire into chasing it.
The battle had been raging for a relative eternity, and the green lights grew dimmer with each pass. Fading. This was not a fight they could win. But the seven stars weren't fighting for themselves, or even for victory. They had known it going in, and despite the lies they'd told the ones waiting at home: none of them really expected to survive it.
They were not fighting for their lives. They were fighting for the future. And playing for time.
Abruptly, the blue fire drew in. The figure of the balance scale seemed to bulge from the fulcrom, bowing the crossbar as it surged and pulsed like an inflamed pustule. The stars aligned themselves in a defensive formation as the knotted mass of blue fire erupted in long licking tongues of blue fire, and a massive wave of blue strands out sang from the center of the balance scale in numbers too numerous to counter. The stars gleamed brighter with inner light as they braced for what could only be the fall of the final blow...
Without warning, the heart of the blue fire burst like an egg crushed in a careless fist, hemorrhaging blue fire in pulsing spurts like the gushing of arterial blood from a mortal wound. The wave of blue strands faltered, shaking and writhing as though in agony as they squirmed and tangled and fell into disarray just short of their target. From the shattered core of the fire, green rays radiated like shining swords, and an eighth star, bigger and brighter than the rest, shot through the blue fire, burning a trail like a comet through the deep. It knocked the streamers of blue fire asunder, and the strands flailed in frustration and pain, their attack failed and their energy spent.
The eighth star took its place amongst the rest. The seven circled the eighth in fascinated joy, basking in the magnitude of its brilliance and seeming to draw strength from its fire.
The cracked figure of the blue balance scale shuddered and convulsed. Several more strands, thicker and blunted, wriggled through the devastating wound left by the eighth star's attack, pushing it apart to the wet crackling pops of breaking ligaments. Not strands - legs. Slowly, as though being birthed from the inferno some abyssal womb, the hideous mandibles and numberless beady black eyes of of a massive blue spider strained through the opening, struggling to squeeze through the fissure. It had waited long enough. It had learned to covet, and it coveted now. It had struggled too hard to allow these firefly creatures to thwart its desires. It would emerge within the mortal's mind, tear the wall of water asunder, and build a new web upon this seat of power so deep within the mortal that she didn't even know it was there.
If she would not choose a form for it to take, it would devour her and take her form. It would not be left behind! Never, ever again!
The eight green stars refused to allow it. They swirled outward in a shimmering green spiral, all eight in unison, to station themselves in a ring around the mirror formed by the wall of water, which reflected the horrific spectacle of the spider's thorax sliding through the jagged crack to dangle ponderously, scrabbling for purchase along the scale's sheer side. Slowly but with gaining speed they began to circle it, spinning with ever increasing velocity until the water began to churn and flow with their movement. Soon the water had formed a whirlpool in the depths, obscuring the sight of the scale's fissure straining to stretch around the emergence of the spider's bulbous abdomen. Faster, deeper, around and around, the eight glowing green stars sped, ignoring the nightmare of fangs oozing with venom and wickedly clattering legs emerging before them. With a final heave, the monster burst forth from the wreck of the scale, raising itself on long, jointed legs like a hairy scaffolding, blue fire racing infernally along its exoskeleton as it hissed in triumph - just as the stars jerked abruptly to a jarring halt.
The force of the water's movement colliding with the stars' inertia caused a violent retrograde counter motion in the flow; wrenching the water in two opposite directions, and forcing it in the only direction left for its kinetic energy to escape: up.
Like a boiling geyser, the water erupted. The spider screamed in the deep as the flood struck it like a steamroller, drowning the blue fire in a raging torrent as it sped towards the surface of the mortal's mind.
.
Jane's eyes widened as a gasp tore between her lips. The world flashed green and blue like a strobe for a painful instant, and she had to shake her head to clear it. Her mouth fell open, questions crowding on the tip of her tongue, but her words fled as Alexa's mark flared painfully against her skin.
Laguz, the waters with hidden depths, that mirrored unseen truths. The mark of the magician that had tried once before to undo Loki's spell – the only other time his sending had appeared.
Loki's eyes narrowed on it.
"I told that insipid mortal not to interfere… poking and prodding and whispering in your mind, trying to distract you from your choice…" A derisive smirk pulled at his lips. "Yet too weak by far to undermine me. Or to weaken you. Yet still she continues to try…" His face fell, a dark look sharpening his features. "If you had lost the mark before you found the right choice… if the Tesseract were free to have its way unchallenged… " His jaw clenched tight, and she could see machinations bubbling behind them as he stared malevolently at the green mark. "I should flay the flesh from her bones inch by inch for…"
"You won't touch her!" Jane bit out. For some reason, the high, sweet voice of the little girl, Kelda, echoed in Jane's mind, and her own voice gained a vein of pure steel. "You won't lay a finger on her, or I will never… ah!"
Loki's eyes snapped up to watch her face, glinting with challenge and caution, observing her closely as pain spiked through her head. Inside, she felt the rain shift with an ominous rumble, and the beast stir fitfully with something like fear. Something was coming.
She sucked in a deep breath, tightening her grip on the chains. The temptation to loop the final chain around its neck and contain it - cement her into a constant struggle against the darkness inside forever – was nearly overwhelming. Even so, she resisted. To chain up that beast would be to chain up herself, and the moment she did it, she would never be free of her battle against this monster, fighting horn and hoof, struggling day and night to loose itself and overwhelm her.
Just as it had done to Loki. Just as it was doing to him even now.
This can't be all there is… I can't believe this is all there is… I don't want this to be all there is!
Laguz burned, breaking into her hopeless, fearful thoughts with the words out of her memories.
"There is more than one way up the mountain," Alexa's voice whispered.
Choose, the Tesseract's wordless command vibrated through her bones.
Jane looked back down at her arm. Laguz was a deep, lightless abyss, a bottomless sea, guarding its secrets. But Alexa had done this… she had marked Jane with her magic, even though a man she worshiped as a god had threatened to destroy her if she did. That was not something anyone did lightly.
So why?
"Baldur was far-seeing"
It meant something. Something more than she was seeing. Think, she ordered herself.
"All my intention was to give you this choice..." the memory of Alexa whispered through the storm, both inside and out. "He may be more… And so might you…"
She stared at the green mark. It was coming; something rising from deep inside her… She refocused on the vision of the tunnel in her mind just in time to discover what it was.
Water.
A surging, silvery wall of water, swelling up from the depths of the pit, from the very bottom of the hole that had been bored into her mind by the Tesseract's magic.
"…decide for yourself..."
The water rushed towards her, thundering and echoing like a waterfall inside a cave. In its current, flickering green lights bobbed and darted, though whether they were drawing the water on, or being swept up by it, she couldn't tell. Jane sucked in a breath, tensing with alarm and bracing herself as the deluge raced towards her.
A heavy gasp gusted out of her a moment later as, to her surprise, the wave crashed abruptly to a halt just beyond the struggling beast, as though it had run up against some invisible wall. It pooled and rose, seething and choppy as the surface of the sea to form a silvery liquid barrier swirling with the black of depth she could not even begin to imagine. Deep enough to fill an ocean.
The green lights – eight of them, she counted – swarmed against the invisible barrier, bobbing on the calming current of the waters, and formed themselves into a shape. The shape of Alexa's mark, laguz. The lights, small and bright as stars against the night black deep, held the shape for a timeless instant, flaring brightly. Then, one by one, they let go, sank back into the flood and faded, as though exhausted, the last of their strength spent...
As the last vanished, the sea stilled inside her. and became a mirror. Jane peered into it, transfixed. She gasped at what she saw there.
Just as the rune laguz promised, the mirror showed her to herself.
All this time she had, on some level, felt herself to be a pawn in someone else's game. SHIELD. Loki. Malekith. Thor. Alexa. The Tesseract. She'd felt it so often that she only now realized she'd come to believe it.
But the mirror didn't show her a pawn.
It showed her a white queen.
"You are not meant to be ruled."
"The trick is to be honest while seeking the best…"
"There is more than one way up the mountain."
Choose.
A pawn could only move forward or diagonally, it was a choice between the two… but a queen…
"I… can move in any direction…" she whispered.
"…it's you the Tesseract wants… it is your choice that it will reflect in its planes and edges…you alone can bend it to your will..."
Choose.
Jane looked up at Loki, standing alone in the dark of the alley, proud and sad and resigned and hopeful. But above all, certain. Certain that he was right, that this was right, that this was the only way, the best way...
Something sparked inside her, stealing her breath for a beat of her heart.
He was certain. But he was wrong.
Her eyes dropped to search the ground and found his gift lying in the dirt across the alley. The Asgardian medicine, in the beautiful golden jar. The rune sowulo so prominent on it surface.
"My choice."
That deep place inside her sparked again, and she knew the feeling for what it was: Hope. She'd held the answer in her hands all along. He'd given it to her. And he didn't even know it.
Jane raised her head, and their eyes met once more. She saw the triumph and resignation in them falter at whatever he saw in her face.
My choice.
Then she saw fear.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, his voice urgent.
He took a step towards her, and the unnatural winds howling around them in the unnatural lightlessness picked up. The image of him flickered for an instant, and he stumbled, the colors of his hair and clothing running, as though he were a painting and a great brush had swooped down and smeared him.
"Stop," he ordered her, gasping as though the wind had been knocked out of him, his breathlessness giving it the sound of a plea. "Jane, whatever you're doing, stop."
"No," she said, meeting his eyes as a warmth like sunlight welled up within her. The light of another choice. Her choice. "You want me to choose between chaos and control..."
"Yes!" Loki interrupted, suddenly desperate and clearly frustrated. He sucked in a deep breath, marshaling his self-control. Despite his struggle against the wind, he managed to gather a passable facsimile of calm, only to raise an annoyed eyebrow at her, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Is it truly such a difficult choice?" he asked her reasonably. "Banish the mortal magician. Bind the beast and control it. Make the choice."
Something wild, defiant and bright stirred in Jane's chest and rose to sparkle in her eyes, and she stared at him, wide eyed with dawning amazement. She absolutely couldn't resist the mischievious little half smile that quirked the corner of her mouth. The tables had turned - she knew something he didn't know. She shook her head slowly.
"No."
Loki's eyes narrowed. She thought she saw a bright edge of hurt in them, gilding the irritation on his face.
"Truly?" he sneered. "You would give yourself over to destruction, and allow yourself to become a tool to destroy others, just to spite me?" he shook his head, and cast a pointed look down at the dead man, going cold and rigid in a black pool of blood before capturing her gaze once more. "Is that what you want to do? To become? No… no, you may hate me, my Jane, but that isn't in you. If you desire to heal this wound, you don't have any choice."
Jane cocked her own eyebrow at him, any guilt she felt at his fear and distress evaporating in the blink of an eye. She was getting heartily sick of that phrase.
"There is always a choice," she countered. "I don't have to choose one or the other. And I don't have to choose both."
"What are you…?"
"I can choose neither."
Loki blinked, his face smoothing with surprise.
"What?"
Despite the blood and fire and fear that swarmed all around her, Jane very nearly laughed at the unaffected confusion in his voice. Instead she met his eyes with ferocious challenge, her gaze shining with the dazzling green reflection of laguz.
"There is more than one way up the mountain," she told him, wondering if she sounded as obnoxiously cryptic as Alexa Solberg, and not caring in the slightest.
Green light glinted at her from across the alley. Glancing down again, her eyes found the golden disc. The green glimmer of laguz beamed from its edges, battling the shine of the blue flame of uruz on her brow. But at the center, sowulo, sparkled gold and green unchallenged by blue, reminding her mysteriously of sunlight dancing down through the leaves of the trees, as it had on the day she'd spent with Thor in the park.
The healing sun.
This was what he had promised. This was what she wanted. It was the reason she had lied. The reason she had waited. The reason she had suffered. The reason she had endured it all: For a chance to heal.
This stalemate wasn't healing. Loki's choice wouldn't give that to her. Maybe for him, who claimed to have seen such suffering, uruz seemed like healing. Maybe it was more than he ever thought he would have. Maybe that was why he could live with it.
Jane couldn't. And she wouldn't.
It's just like he said, she thought, though it was clear he didn't know the half of it, I had to figure it out for myself.
She didn't know how one man could be so right and so wrong at the same time. All conflicting truths, Thor had called him. There was no one like him in all the realms. Maybe there was more of the old Loki in him than she'd thought possible.
Gingerly, she pushed off the wall and walked carefully around the bloody ruin of the man she had destroyed. The wind didn't touch her now, though it moved with her, cut deep whorls in the ground as she moved across to where the disc lay in the dirt. She bent and picked it up, running a thumb over the polished golden surface as she rose, wiping away the grime and filth to fully exposing the golden rune.
In her hands, she held the sun. And inside, she felt it.
In the vision of the tunnel inside her mind, the rain still stung at her back, but a sudden burst of tingling heat washed across her skin, so that the rain sizzled and evaporated from her flesh. She turned in the tunnel and peered out into the abyss beyond, a smile growing on her face.
"You said it yourself, Loki," she told the sending still struggling against the tempest in the alley. "The Tesseract's magic will reflect me. My choice… my will…"
The sky was growing lighter. Here and there, shafts of golden light began to pierce the storm, reflecting and refracting from the wall of water to fill the dark lair of the beast with brilliant sunlight. The beast bellowed and heaved against the intrusion. The clouds thinned and the rain faltered, fleeing before the coming of the sun.
"No!" Loki cursed, struggling towards her, but to no avail. "You don't understand, Jane!" shouted, over the screaming gale. It had picked up to near the speed of a tornado, as though the storm, forced from her vision, was seeking expression in the physical world instead. She stood in the eye of it, untouched, as the sun rose inside her mind, while he battled the wind. "The Tesseract with reflect you! You can't… you can't run from yourself! I tried, gods know I did! It nearly destroyed me, along with countless others!" He tried to take another step forward, leaning into the wind, reaching for her. "Please Jane... You have to face yourself. This…" his voice faltered. He lowered his eyes, and Jane thought she saw an edge of shame in them. "This… is who you are…"
"You're the one who doesn't get it, Loki," she said to him, unsure where her certainty in her voice came from, but absolutely certain that she was right for the first time in longer than she could remember. In her vision, she glanced down at the beast, studying it closely. "Yes, this is who I am. There is ugliness inside me." She shook her head. "Everybody has beauty and ugliness inside. But… that's not what matters." She looked away from the beast, and focused on Loki. "You're the one who made me see it. Don't you understand?"
She took a step towards him, and he was blown back by the violence of the storm, but he looked up at her, and their eyes locked.
"What makes us who we are," she told him, "is our choices."
.
In the depths the mortal's mind, at the bottom of the night-black sea, the blue spider struggled in its unsuitable form to swim deeper, straining with covetous intent.
The hidden treasure, the sleeping power, so close, so close.
The power to take a form, and make it last forever.
The power at last to have its own power...
A pulse rocked the waters, and the spider flailed, spinning anchorless in the void. From the depths of the hidden vault echoed a long-lost song, and as the echoes bounced up the walls of the deep well, they sparked and sparkled and shone with their own brilliance. Spears of light, a golden green like leaves kissed by sunlight, shafted through the lightlessness of the ocean floor and the spider's shroud of shadows. It recoiled, shrilling soundlessly in agony, as it beheld the prize rising out of the darkness.
Thrust away back up towards the surface by the force of its emergence, the blue spider learned a new lesson. As it groped fruitlessly towards the radiant beauty of the life force it could never hope to reach, locked in awe and sorrow, it learned how to weep.
.
Loki stared at her, eyes wide and forbidding, as her words sank into him, piercing and painful as arrows. For an instant, the howling wind banked and seemed to still, and something ineffable moved between them, a slender ray of epiphany cutting across the distance and the confusion and the secrets and the distrust to connect them in a brief moment of understanding.
Before her eyes, his expression changed, until he looked as stricken as she had when she believed his way had been the only way. His lips parted, as though he wanted to speak, but no words would come. Her lips tingled as she remembered their touch, not from a moment ago, but from that night in Manhattan, with the reverent whisper echoing in her ears – you are my rain – and for once, the memory and fear of his hand at her throat didn't roll in like a storm cloud to overshadow it. Right now, he was the one who was afraid.
The connection must have moved both ways, because for some reason Jane felt tears prick her eyes again; but this time, it wasn't sorrow or fear. She cocked her head and smiled sadly at him as the wind picked up once more, fiercer than ever, ripping at the image of him, smearing him sideways, the whirlwind swirling with the green of his clothes, the green of his eyes. Even so, she thought she could make out the pain her smile caused him; he gasped to see it directed at him, as though she'd given a final twist to the blade she stuck in his chest.
"Thank you for trying, Loki…"
"Jane…"
"…but you don't get to tell me what my choices are anymore," she said, her voice still and sure from the eye of the storm. "I choose who I am."
Inside her mind, she watched the chains of rain that held the beast evaporate. It shook them off kicking wildly, and regained its legs. She forced herself to peer directly into its rolling, hateful gaze. Facing herself. Its rage rumbled deep in its throat as it scuffed its hooves, digging violent gouges into the floor of the tunnel, its sides heaving like a bellows as it panted with fury.
The warmth of the sun was a solid weight at her back.
It charged. Jane didn't run. She didn't try to dodge. Holding tight to the golden sun in the alley, she stretched her hands out in the vision and faced the monster inside her with open arms, embracing it as it ran her down.
It took her right in the middle of her body, and as she had stood on the edge of the precipice, both Jane and the beast were flung free of the dark hole in her mind, out into the endless chasm beyond, out into the failing rain, out into the bright new day inside her, and were swallowed into the all consuming brilliance of the sunrise.
Just before the sunlight blinded her, she caught a glimpse down into the hole over the back of the beast, of a rocking balance scale shattering into a million shards, and beyond, flailing in the wall of water, a hideously massive blue spider, its legs writhing and thrashing, its mandibles clacking wildly, its beady eyes hungry, covetous and enraged, thwarted as it watched its prey slip its bonds…
Jane gasped, panicked for an instant, then lost sight of it as she began to fall. The last chain - her last chance to bind the beast, and trade her soul for the power of the aurochs - flew free of her fingers. She let it go. Time slowed to a crawl and she watched it fall away above her, a slithering silhouette against the white light of the heavens. It hung their for an instant, weightless, light lancing through its links. Then, like brittle ice, it shattered into a million glittering splinters.
In the alley, she threw her head back, a cry of release tearing its way out of her throat. Gazing up through the funnel of the whirlwind, she peered into the midnight sky at midday. The stars twinkled mysteriously at her, and she felt the rush of the calm they always brought swelling through her as the sun rose in her eyes.
"Uruz is fear…" she whispered.
"Jane!"
Through the unnatural darkness, she saw the sun with her naked eyes. Fascinated, she stared directly into it, knowing she would never get this chance again… and made her choice.
"I'm not afraid."
There was a blinding flash of blue. Jane cried out again, this time in pain, as her skin split. Blue fire erupted from her forehead like a fountain, and kept going, streaming up into the sky like a comet. The wind rushed after it, trailing blood and death and the pall of darkness in its wake. And one last, breathless whisper.
"Jane…"
The tail of the blue fire disappeared, and the blue of the sky rushed back in, the light of the sun flowing out to hide the stars from her once more.
.
In the second-story living space in the ruin of Manhattan, Jana Solberg lay beside her mother, pale and still. Cold as death. A long, silent heartbeat passed. Then another. And another.
The girl gasped and jerked awake, sucking air greedily into her lungs as though she'd been drowning under an ocean tide. As on some level, she had.
Her hand ached mercilessly, and when she tried to flex it, it pulled and stung as the crust of dried blood on the cut broke, spilling a sprinkling of fresh crimson. Her eyes fluttered open and she was staring up into the drawn face and knowing eyes of her Aunt Alexa. Beside her, her mother stirred, and the others began to wake as well, her Uncle Leif lumbering up to check her great grandmother with a deep furrow in the single, thick brow across his face, the rest shivering and curling in on themselves in pain and exhaustion.
It would take time to recover. But they would live. They would live…
Jana blinked against the sudden sting in her eyes and bolted upright, falling into her aunt's open arms before bursting into tears.
Alexa Solberg closed her eyes and smoothed a comforting hand over her niece's hair.
"Well done, child," she said softly. "Well done."
"Is it…" Jana sniffed. "Is it over?"
"No," Alexa replied. "But we have done our part. The rest is up to her."
.
The pressure in Jane's head was gone. There was no ringing in her ears. There was no phantom scent of rain.
Jane took in a deep, slow breath, and it felt like the first breath she'd taken in weeks. She felt empty, but not in a dead way; rather, in a clean way. For the first time in a long time her mind was quiet, and her thoughts came in clear. She took a cautious step, and discovered her legs wouldn't hold her any longer. She sank to her knees, lowering her eyes from the blinding glare in the sky to take in her surroundings.
Loki was gone. So, somehow, was the body of her attacker; Jane could only suppose it had been torn apart and carried it away by the whirlwind. There were a few loose bricks lying around, and the dumpster at the far end of the alley stood askew, but the only appreciable evidence of all that had transpired was a dark smear soaking rapidly into the gravel, and the deep circles that the storm had cut into the dirt and pavement. And the blood dripping from Jane's face to stain her shirt.
She swallowed against the taste of bile at the thought of the man; his sadism; his terror; his mutilated corpse. But she categorically refused to feel guilt over it; she was through with feeling guilty for things beyond her control. Manhattan was not my fault, and neither was this.
The magic of the Tesseract was gone, too. It was disturbing to realize, now that it was absent, just how much space it had been taking up inside her head, and without her ever realizing it. She still didn't quite understand the mechanics of how she had banished it. Maybe she never would, now that she had rejected both the magic's influence and Loki's plan. All she was certain of was that it had been her choice.
A choice that she never would have realized she had without the help of Alexa's mark. She glanced down at her arm, and was mildly surprised to see the mark, laguz, burned into her arm. Not glowing or glittering green. It was angry red and swollen, like a brand. The magic appeared to have burned itself out.
Pursing her lips, Jane glanced down at the golden disc in her hand. The golden sun winked at her in the true sunlight, and she closed her eyes as they burned again with tears. She let them fall unchecked to wash clean trails through the blood drying on her face, but she didn't cry. Instead, she turned carefully to sit cross-legged against the brick wall, unscrewed the jar, and dabbed a tiny smear of medicine over the burn. Scientific integrity aside, she was finding it very hard to care that it was some unknown alien compound that bent the laws of nature. All she cared about was that it would ease a measure of her pain.
The ointment worked on her skin as always. Laguz sizzled, bubbled, and vanished without a trace. Gone from her skin, but it lingered in her mind. It seemed ungrateful to wonder, but she couldn't help it, and now that she could think clearly, she wondered more than ever: why had it been there in the first place? Alexa was an enigma, but it strained credulity to think that she would defy a god to help an almost perfect stranger. No, the more Jane mused over it, the more convinced she became that she would never have risked Loki's wrath without a real reason. A personal one, something she stood to gain. What that reason might be, however, continued to elude her.
She sighed as she replaced the lid of the jar, tracing the runes with her eyes, letting them distract her from conjecture that was ultimately pointless without more information. The gold gleamed, bright and beautiful as ever, the faceted shapes and delicate filigree catching the light in an enchanting sparkle.
Loki's gift.
He'd been so wrong about so many things. But even so, his gift had saved her; just not in the way he had expected. She pressed her lips together, examining her thoughts, recalling all she had learned.
Remembering the night of the storm - always the terrifying strength of his hand, the soft, enticing firmness of his lips - the terror, the wonder and the mystery.
Remembering the news reports, the survivor accounts, the tears and fire he'd left in his wake.
Remembering Thor's story of his beloved brother, the riddle of contradictions, the reserved, mischievous playboy who loved his mother and idolized his father, the Frost Giant with a grudging streak of kindness.
Remembering the burnt out skyline of Manhattan, dark windows watching her like the hollow sockets of dead skulls - accusing her, she now realized, not of causing the destruction, but of forgiving it.
Remembering the flash of his eyes, the set of his jaw, the haunted horror in his eyes when he hinted at what he'd faced after falling from Asgard, the adoring, determined expression he showed her as when he told her he loved her and demanded that she believe it.
Remembering the fury and fear on his face as she defied his plan, and the expression of pain and shame when he understood why...
And the look of disbelieving wonder in his eyes as he'd vanished with her name on his lips.
Each piece she of the puzzle she had collected while the Tesseract played havoc inside her head she now began to assemble, fitting them together to see what picture they would show her. And when she was done, and discovered that she'd assembled nothing but the outer borders, she couldn't help the foolish little twist of regret that she might never have the chance to fill in the rest of the picture.
He wasn't a friend. But he wasn't an enemy either. She knew she should still fear him. And she did. But despite the fact that she had no idea what his other motives might be - or if she would ever see him again now that the magic was gone - she was certain, down to her very bones, that Loki was on her side.
Whether that was a good, safe, sane thing remained to be seen.
Even so, she pressed the disc to her lips for an instant, closing her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered.
.
A concussive blast rocked the throne room, blue flame flaring from the high windows. Moments later, the bar on the door cracked and the doors burst open, guards rushing in, their gold helms and spears flashing. They discovered the king slumped over on his throne, broad shoulders heaving as he struggled to catch his breath, clutching his face in his hands. Blood seeped from between his gnarled fingers.
"My king! What…!"
"All is well," the king interrupted brusquely.
"My king?"
"Leave me." When the warriors hesitated, one of the king's hands shot out, snatching up Gungnir and bringing it down hard on the dais, sending an ear-shattering BOOM reverberating through the room. "Leave me!"
The guard bowed hastily and retreated, closing the doors behind them, leaving the king alone upon his golden throne. The king lowered his hand from his face. Blood dripped from his forehead, though no wound was visible to the naked eye.
"Impossible…" he whispered.
It was gone.
Gone.
For a panicked instant, a horrible thought gripped him, and he cast his gaze directly downward, through marble and gold and steel and the unnatural, light killing dark, to the heart of the weapons vault. But no, the blue spider writhed there still on its marble pillar. The shadows around it seemed to seethe and scream, enraged with hunger and loss, but impotent.
And even so: it was gone.
The king all but vaulted off of his golden throne, rushing with a running stride that was very nearly undignified towards a small wooden door set in the shadow of one of the massive pillars behind the throne. The room beyond was used for storage, little more than a large closet, but it was private. The king barred the door with magic anyway.
With a thought and a flare of green light, the king's illusion fell…
Loki stood, panting in the dimness of the store room, pressing the heel of his hand against his pounding heart. Fear and wonder chased through his veins.
The Tesseract was still there. Still watching, waiting, hungering. But even so, even so, even so…
There was no blue flame flickering at the edge of his thoughts.
There was no struggle, no chains, no battle against his own darkness, no flare of blue light seeking his to seep through the chinks in his defenses.
All was still, quiet, calm.
For the first time in years, he was alone inside his own mind.
Twin tears welled in his wide emerald eyes and spilled sparkling down his pale cheeks unchecked. He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, and it felt like the first breath he'd taken in years.
It was impossible… but… somehow…
"Jane…"
He was free.
.
TBC...
.
A/N: Loki said it himself, Jane never does what he expects - and yet no matter how often she turns the tables, he always seems surprised. When will he learn? Hopefully not yet, that would be boring! ;)
I hope this chapter was not too much of a let down, what with Jane giving up potential superpowers, but I felt like that was the choice she had to make. Jane isn't one to settle for compromise - it's what makes her fit to be Loki's equal in his own estimation (again, when will he learn?). In the end, she had to be true to herself and reach for her own happy ending - and unknowingly give Loki a much happier ending than he ever thought possible.
So Jane has changed the rules again. Now the question becomes: what will Loki do about it?