Chapter 10: Science in Progress
Warning: my science-speak
Otherwise, enjoy :)
Steve takes his bike for a ride along the Hudson. It's a quarter past seven, and the rush hour traffic has long dissipated since. The night is clear and brisk—the sun just touching the jagged edges of the skyline, painting the heavens above and the waters below in brilliant bands of pink and orange. Steve doesn't think about S.H.I.E.L.D, doesn't think about Loki, or the war threatening to break out whether Earth is involved or not. He keeps his mind blank, takes in the sunset hues against the buildings and trees, and feels the late-spring breeze like delicate fingers through his hair.
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He returns to the tower by nine and finds the place quiet and still. He wonders whether the scientists had all gone to sleep, their late night exertions in the lab finally catching up to them. Or perhaps they simply managed to murder themselves—considering Tony, being Tony, can serves as reasonable impetus to do so—and Steve hopes it's not the latter. He eventually finds Jane hunched beneath a pile of papers the breakfast table, exactly where she had been when he had left the tower in the morning. The soldier laughs slightly out of disbelief.
"Have you been here all day?"
The astrophysicist jolts. She must have dozed off, and Steve immediately whispers a quick apology for startling her.
"I—Wow," Jane looks more astonished than he is, shaking her head and running a hand through her unruly hair, "I guess I have. I don't know how I managed to do this all the time in college."
"Come on," the soldier walks over to the fortress of data and lose papers and takes the scientist by her arm, "You can't go on like this. You're going to bed."
"Steve, wait," Jane wriggles free his grasp, pushing her work aside.
"It's fine. Just leave it. I'll make sure Tony won't mess it up."
"No, that's not it," she says hastily, eyes wide and unblinking, "I figured it out."
"What?" Steve furrows his brows just as the scientist smiles, open and brilliant.
"The portal. We can close it as early as a week, if my calculations are correct."
"Oh." The soldier gapes wordlessly at her. "Oh, wow. That's great! That's fantastic!"
"Isn't it?" Jane starts to laugh, and Steve laughs too, and they stay like that for a long time, just smiling and laughing out of pure relief. Jane looks as if she wants to hug him, but is shying away because, they've only known each other for a couple of days after all. Steve doesn't mind, though, realizing that this is incredible news and is worthy of celebration, so he extends his arms, and Jane practically bounces into him.
"So how did you do it?" Steve says as they part, and the astrophysicist—in her excitement—promptly begins to talk a mile a minute, using words Steve didn't even know existed. The soldier winces as he puts up a hand. "A version I can understand, if you don't mind."
Jane excuses herself and laughs, before sitting down and gesturing for Steve to follow.
"From the gamma signature, actually," she explains, "Bruce thought there was something weird about the fluctuating levels, and he was right. These fluxes show the same topographical properties as the ones we detected a year ago, when Thor returned to Earth while the Bifrost was still in repair. The fluctuations we're getting now are much more unstable, though."
"But you can still close it right?" Steve asks, still not fully grasping everything, but as long as Jane knows what to do, and what she needs from the rest of the team, then they're all going to be fine.
"With the correct calculations and the proper energy source, we can do it, but you see, Steve," Jane takes a deep breath, fingers tapping against her lower lip as if she's nervous, "The gamma fluctuations from the portal are the same—or at least very similar to the Bifrost traces."
"That's because Loki fell through the abyss left by the Bifrost, right?"
"Not exactly." Jane winces, "He told you that Thanos created a portal out of the abyss—which wasn't very reliable—and that's how he ended up here on Earth, am I correct?"
"Yes." Steve says slowly, realizing that he probably won't like where this conversation is headed.
"Even if Thanos used the abyss as one end of the doorway," Jane looks at him with searching eyes, voice delicate and careful, "The portal he created should still have it's own energy signature. I think our portal was left by the Bifrost. A very damaged Bifrost."
Steve closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, all the while ignoring the feeling of his stomach plummeting to the ground. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"It might not have been an accident after all." Jane bites the corner of her lip. "Loki could've been sent here deliberately, with the Bifrost."
Steve sighs as he runs a hand through his hair, feeling woefully naïve. "He lied, then."
"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but—"
"That's what your data suggests."
Jane looks at him sympathetically. "I could be wrong."
"No." Steve shakes his head. "Don't doubt yourself."
"If you can talk to Loki, and get him to admit to that, then I'll have no doubts."
Steve appreciates the astrophysicist for being sensitive, at least—maybe because she wasn't in New York at the time during the Chitauri attack, or that Loki is Thor's younger brother, and the thunder god still seems absurdly hopeful for his sibling's turnabout. At least, Jane doesn't throw Loki under the bus right away, or reprimand Steve for believing the god so easily, to what minimal degree it might've been. His and Loki's conversations had been strictly professional, but that doesn't mean Steve feels any less betrayed.
"If I'm being perfectly honest," Steve says finally, "I'm a little afraid to—If he actually did lie about this, how can we believe any of the things he had said—Thanos, the war—We're back to square one, pretty much."
"I don't know about that." Jane folds and unfolds the corner of a piece of paper, obviously a nervous tick. "I've never seen the gamma fluctuations this bad, and the portal is so high up above ground—he must have plummeted fifty, sixty feet before crashing through your skylight. He might not even have made it, for all we know. The last time Thor visited, the Bifrost was near repair. Something, or someone, must have broken it again."
"You think it was the Chitauri?" Steve asks, perhaps a little too hopefully, "And not—well—Loki and Thor, again."
"Maybe, I don't know," Jane says, not really meeting his eyes, "But regardless of how Loki got here, he was injured, and chained—He hasn't tried to escape, and he wants to return to Asgard. That should mean at least…something?"
Steve nods and leans back into his chair, trying to take this all in, trying to be rational. "Damn, he's just so fucking hard to—" he mutters under his breath before realizing what he had just said. "God, I'm sorry. Please excuse my language—"
"No, it's fine. I've heard much worse," Jane makes a face, vaguely amused, "Almost anywhere else, actually."
"I just—I really believed he was honest with me." Steve laughs a little, depreciatingly.
"So did I." Jane says, and that was not the response the soldier had anticipated.
"What?"
"I've seen the surveillance footages." Jane blushes, looking away as she smooths her hair, as if she hadn't meant to say it out loud. "We all have, actually. I'm sorry."
"No, no." Steve grimaces, putting up a hand, "That's what they're there for. For everyone to see." He sighs, opting to adopt a glass-half-full kind of attitude. At any rate, he can ask for a second opinion, despite feeling terribly deprived of his privacy. "You think he was just—I don't know—putting on a show?"
"I'm no expert on—trickery—" Jane offers, "But he seems to trust you."
"Doesn't mean he'd tell me the truth."
"He'd trust you with the truth—or at least, trust that you'd understand—out of anyone."
"How many of those surveillance footages have you seen?" Steve couldn't resist asking.
"I saw the ones where you drew pictures for him." She smiles, and Steve feels a blush creeping to his cheeks. "Of his mother."
"Did you see when the Director lead the interrogation?"
"No, but I could imagine." She looks at him sadly. "I saw the aftermath when you returned. It must've been terrible."
"Yeah, it was." Steve agrees but decides against elaborating further, too tired to relive the details. As much as Steve disapproves of the Director's approach, he nonetheless accepts that the team doesn't need any more distractions right now. They need to work together, hope for the best, anticipate for the worst, and above all else, trust each other, as difficult as it may be. Steve will just have to make do with what he has, even if neither Fury nor Loki appears to be perfectly honest with him.
"Have you told the others yet?" He eventually says, and Jane shakes her head.
"No, I wanted to talk to you about this first."
"You should tell them first thing in the morning." Steve smiles and tries elevare the mood, because Jane's findings are still a fantastic breakthrough, regardless of what complications they may have revealed. "I think right about now, we could all use a bit of good news."
Jane buries her face in her hands and makes a frustrated sound. "I'm going to need Tony's help on this one, though. The equipment from my lab won't do."
"He'll be happy to help." Steve reassures her, somewhat amused at her uncharacteristically childish behavior.
"Will he?" The scientist raises a skeptical eyebrow.
"He'll help."
Jane gets up to make tea, but Steve offers to do it instead. He fills the kettle with water and sets the stove on high, rummaging through the tea cabinet and picking up one of the flowery, fruity ones Pepper is always recommending. Decaf, he reads, which is good. Jane deserves a good night's rest.
"How does Chamomile Mango sound to you?" Steve winces, feeling emasculated from just reading the names. "Or French Vervain."
Jane doesn't laugh at him though, because during this briefest of moments, she had fallen soundly asleep on top of her work. The soldier shakes his head before turning the stove off.
"What's going on?" The astrophysicist slurs as Steve gently pulls her up by the arm, positions her so that most of her weight is against him as he leads her towards the elevators.
"You're going to bed," he says as her head falls on his shoulder, "And you're sleeping in tomorrow. I'll let Jarvis know."
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"I figured it out." Tony is sitting at the kitchen island by the time Steve returns, elbows against the counter with his hands intertwined centimeters before his lips, his expression thoughtful, but pained. The soldier had forgotten his jacket by the breakfast table after assisting Jane to her room, and had returned to retrieve it. He did not expect to find Tony here, brooding again, as it seems.
"What?" Steve stares blankly at the inventor.
"I figured out what was interfering with my signals." Tony flattens a hand against the counter surface, pushing himself up. "I know why I couldn't get through to Asgard before."
Steve blinks at him for a brief moment before breaking into a tired smile once again. "Tony, that's great. Congrats! Have you told the others yet?"
The scientist shakes his head. He doesn't appear to be nearly as pleased though, frowning as he pinches his brows together. "It was so simple. I can't believe it took me this long."
"As long as you got it in the end, right?" Steve shrugs, walking to the other side of the counter where he had previously been preparing tea.
"The Doppler Effect." Tony states, and as per usual, Steve has no idea what he's talking about.
"The what?"
"The Doppler Effect," the scientist continues, frowning deeper and eyeing Steve critically, "The shift in observed frequency of waves, which results from the source moving with respect to the observer. You know that physics phenomenon you learned in high school?"
"That was 70 years ago, Tony." Steve sighs as he turns the stove back on.
"I thought of it before," Tony begins to prattle with his usual animated haughtiness, "But it's hard, you know, figuring out the relative velocity between two galaxies. We're actually moving closer to Asgard—contrary to popular belief—so maybe in 10 million years, we'd be next-door neighbors, assuming that the galactic collision doesn't pulverize us into space dust—"
"Tony, you're ranting. What's the matter?"
"Five months." The scientist strikes the counter surface with the flat of his hand, just to demonstrate how upset he is. "It took me five months of delicate calculations to account for The Doppler Effect, so the signals from the transmitter I gave to Thor can properly be detected on our end. At first I thought I forgot a minus sign somewhere because of all this noise, but I finally figured it out."
"What is it?" Steve asks, and Tony actually huffs, like a stubborn child.
"The portal. That fucking portal isn't just spewing out gamma radiation. It's distorting the entire spatial dimensions for wave travel!"
"And that's bad." Steve says vaguely, just to push the conversation along without revealing too much of his cluelessness.
"That's the noise!" The scientist cries out. "Somehow, that portal is picking up my waves and sending them right back. And those waves aren't subjected to the same frequency shifts because—God knows how physics even applies when a fucking wormhole is sitting there in downtown Manhattan. Doppler is probably rolling in his grave right now."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Steve offers a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as Tony sinks back into his seat.
"Right now, I have no idea what I'm picking up." Tony rubs at his forehead exhaustedly, "It'll take months sort that out, and we don't have months. We need to close the portal first before we can reach Asgard."
"And you're going to need Jane's help." Steve deduces and wills himself to hide his amusement.
"No," Tony drawls derisively, "I'm going to have to solve her problems first before I can solve mine."
Steve rolls his eyes. "This isn't a race. These problems, they're all of ours."
"But not all of us have the ability to do anything about it." The scientist snaps—obviously aimed at Steve—to which the soldier returns a cool look of disapproval.
"I didn't mean it like that." Tony grimaces and puts up a hand in apology. "Fuck, I just don't want deal with Banner's shit-eating grin."
"I'm sure it won't be that bad, as long as you ask nicely." Steve assures him, although trying hard not to give away that Jane is pretty much in the same boat. It's not his news to tell after all, and he'd rather have the scientists work this out among themselves.
A brief moment of silence passes. "Why does Bruce like her more than me?" Tony eventually says and immediately blanches at how ridiculous it sounded. "No, don't answer that."
"You need sleep." Steve helpfully concludes, to which the scientist waves a dismissive hand.
"Can't. Too wired up from my coffee."
"I was going to make tea. Do you want some?" Steve turns the stove off just as the kettle was beginning to whistle.
Tony scrunches his nose and makes a face. "Pepper can't even make me drink that crap, and you think you can?"
"It could help you sleep better." Steve shrugs.
"No" Tony says derisively, before picking up a box that Steve had previously left on the counter. "French Vervain? What the hell's wrong with you?"
Steve's got a lot to deal with next chap. Stay tuned :)