There is more than darkness in the beginning. There is also fire, a long forgotten blaze that is stronger than the Odin-force that he aims to unleash.
Midgard trembles as the Svartalfar army marches onto its grounds. Still, Malekith gives the order to destroy, until what is beneath is finally unleashed. A cloud of dust and smoke rises from the north and for a long moment, he mentally traverses the length of the Svartalfar army sent to do battle with this realm and assesses their progress.
He expects some resistance but he also expects to crush them easily. Thus far, they do not prove him wrong.
Amidst the screams and the laughable way these mortals fall, a towering voice suddenly speaks, issued from the heart of this realm.
There is yet another whom you would do well to consider as an ally.
The caged power that emanates from these whispered words brings Malekith to his knees.
Who, master? He calls out, trembling.
The greatest sorcerer who yet lives, Loki Laufeyson of Asgard.
The last order that is issued from the flames is final.
Find him.
oOo
A few paces away from her, the god of mischief broods over the small fire in yet another cave, although, thankfully, it's slightly below ground level with relatively easy access to the surface.
It is not the hardest thing sharing the same, isolated space with Loki, Jane thinks, as she picks apart an unusually large mushroom and pops it into her mouth. The uneasy truce after the trying time in the river had morphed into a forced dependency between the two of them over the past few – days? – cycles in Svartalfheim and it's as dysfunctional as it can get. There is little spoken between them, as little as there is to do until the injuries heal.
With Loki, it is impossible not to vacillate between pity, hate, fear and uncertainty – and a thousand other emotions in between. It keeps her on her toes around him, even though she knows as well as he does that his restraints give him only slightly better abilities than a mortal man. She spends half the time being worried silly about Thor while the rest of it is spent wondering about the bundle of contradictions that is Loki.
There is enough food for consumption – he has seen to this somehow – yet eyes her like he wants to flay her alive; on the other hand, he allows her to look over his own injuries to the best of her ability under the cover of many cutting insults, then accepts the water that she draws for them both from an underground stream. As unpredictable as his behaviour is, it unsettles her deeply that her mental construction of a one-dimensional villain who razed New York is breaking apart before her very eyes.
They hate each other, yet – dare she say – need each other in a grotesque parody of a relationship that even Odin All-father couldn't possibly have foreseen. It is enough to keep her off-balance and desperate for this game to end. Duplicitous games and double-crossing belong squarely in Loki's domain, not hers and the longer they're here, the more quickly she thinks she might go mad with a volatile spectre that hangs over her.
Momentarily pushing Loki out of her thoughts, Jane turns her attention to Svartalfheim and revisits the questions that have been going through her head as soon as they'd settled in this cave. The environment is the harshest, darkest and the bleakest she's ever seen, a diametric opposite to Asgard that always seems to be bathed in the light of the brightest stars. Were there no poles, no seasons in this realm? Did an orbital plane even exist, well, assuming Svartalfheim was even a planet? And if it wasn't, then-
"Impossible," she breathes softly, already thinking about the number of rules governing astrophysics that needed to be rewritten. The implications are nothing less than staggering, from a scientific point of view.
"What?"
She's startled into wary silence for a second, not having expected an answer to her musings. Waving a hand around them in a vague reference to their surroundings, Jane hesitantly offers, "It's always so dark and forbidding here. There's no day or night."
"Oh, but there is."
She looks up to see Loki's calculating gaze on her, made all the more diabolical as the flames flicker on his alabaster skin. But the science behind it is thrilling enough for her to be able to ignore the tendril of unease that sneaks up her spine.
"How? I don't see any change in the daylight hours."
"That doesn't mean that it isn't there, just because your eyes do not see it."
A breath hitches in her throat. Jane has a million questions to ask, though she doubts Loki would appreciate the scientific lingo behind them, not the barrage of ignorant-sounding inquiries that he would clearly deem beneath him to answer.
To her unending surprise, Loki continues, almost with a note of disinterest in his voice. "Much of Svartalfheim has changed since the last time I visited. Heavily-wooded, with green, rolling hills that hide underground caverns."
It's hard to reconcile what she sees with what he's saying about this ruined place. "What happened?"
Her wide-eyed astonishment must have shown on her face as Loki gives her a dark smirk. Turning back to face the dancing flames, he pauses, then says deliberately, "Malekith."
The sombre reality of Svartalfheim's plight crashes down on her. For a brief second, she feels guilty of being more concerned about the science of the realm than in the wake of destruction that Malekith has left.
Would Earth be in this very state when he's done with them? Would there even be a home for her to return to, assuming that she actually comes out alive at the very end?
The memory of the quiet, arid peace of the New Mexican desert floats into her mind and with a sudden pang, Jane wonders if she'll ever see it again. But as tangential as that thought is, the very image of Puente Antiguo brings her musings straight back to Thor; it is, after all, the place where he fell, where she found him, where he finally came to himself.
Had he been a match for Algrim the Strong? Did he fight Malekith as well? Or had he…failed?
Even the thought of it pains her.
Thor had been nothing but wonderful, but that fledgling relationship – if it could even be constituted as a relationship after a few stolen but passionate kisses – seems destined to stay as it is. As much as she wants to love him, wants the uncomplicated fairytale ending that somehow overcomes the towering obstacles that stand in their way, the gulf between them has always been too large to bridge from the very start. And after her short and difficult time in Asgard, she knows that the gap has never been wider, despite the reassuring comfort of his embrace and the gentle warmth of his touch.
It's just easier to yearn for that when she's currently stuck in this particular situation with his volatile, younger brother who could roll off into the deep end at any moment.
The admission doesn't come easy, but Jane has always been a lousy liar, even to herself. Whatever's between them, she'll think as a romantic tragedy in a teacup that she'll never regret. At the very least, however, she can say that she's more than concerned about him.
"What do you think happened to Thor?"
It is only after the words come out that she realises the magnitude of her error.
Loki stiffens, then stands from his crouch near the fire. As though he's contemplating her answer, he pauses deliberately and with malice glittering in his eyes, echoes her question, "What do you think happened to Odinson, Miss Foster?"
"I don't know," she tells him honestly. "But I hope that he's alive."
"I assure you, it will take more than an underling of Malekith's to destroy him," he replies curtly. "More's the pity."
Hope blooms in her chest, then constricts around her heart, her relieved smile faltering as he stalks slowly forward.
"Tell me, Miss Foster," he begins silkily, levelling her with a cool stare, "what is it about Thor Odinson that inspires such devoted loyalty in you? I must say, that even the wenches who once pined for him were never showed such dedication."
If she had learned something in the last few days, it is that Loki always picks his words carefully and purposefully, much like with everything else he does. This is no different from his other stinging barbs, delivered with such skilful panache meant only to denigrate and antagonise.
Jane thinks she's actually learning to get used to it, even as the words tear her insides open just a little. So she shoots him a brittle grin, and gives back as good as she gets.
"You wouldn't understand, no matter how much I try to explain."
"No?" He asks mockingly as he begins to walk in ever-constricting circles around her in the small space of the cave, each round accentuating just a little bit more the difference in their statures.
But when normally this well-known tactic meant to intimidate would have worked, Jane has only barely gotten started, buoyed purely by the conviction that Loki's physical limitation is her advantage.
"No, you wouldn't. Not when you can't see beyond your ass just how much you've really got but think that the whole damn world owes you something and-"
His third circle around her ends abruptly as she finds herself pinned effortlessly to the hard wall by an invisible band that's his so-called diminished magic.
"You know nothing!"
"I know jealousy when I see it."
Her heart races as breath escapes her lips just a little quicker. There's something else apart from fear that's making her blood sing as she tussles with him, throwing the plain truth at him, suddenly lost in long-forgotten memories of dismissed academic theories amidst the accolades her own peers have received as she sits forgotten in the New Mexican dust. With these images unwittingly superimposed upon the bitter rage in his emerald eyes, Jane recognises jealousy in every shade of green.
"The last time I held someone's neck in my hands, I threw him out of a building," he muses thoughtfully, ignoring her pointed jab, "and there's much I can do to you. Even without magic."
That line, she thinks, is getting old, even if it leaves her recoiling in fear. "I'm not afraid of you."
He grins with all of his teeth showing. "Liar," he shakes his head as he rakes his eyes deliberately down her form before bringing them up to meet her wide eyes, "Even your body betrays you, Jane Foster."
"So why not do it?" She retorts, shaking even as she speaks, "Rid yourself of whatever damn issues you have with me and just kill me now."
The past few days spent in his sullen company must be making her recklessly bold, never mind that fear is still a silently trickling river beneath that façade of bravado. It is a reminder just how little she knows him, despite the days she's spent in his company, lulled as she had been into a false complacency that he would have flayed her alive already had he wanted to. But this is Loki, dangerous, unstable and entirely capable of turning worlds over, both literally and figuratively, stopped not by choice, but only by a thin pair of metal restraints.
How could she forget?
His incredulous chuckle rings out once more in the cavernous space. "Kill? No, my dear Miss Foster. There is much I can do with you yet. Why then, should I deny myself the pleasure of breaking Thor's mortal if I simply tossed you into the halls of Valhalla?"
A million responses flit through her head. But his grip on her neck and shoulders tightens, turning the words that rise up in her throat into ashes.
What drives this unyielding hate? For all the vitriol that they've exchanged, she doesn't think she actually knows the answer to this question.
Jane hates the naïveté that emerges out of her mouth, but she asks anyway. "Why do you hate him?"
The pressure suddenly lifts. But it is no sooner she finds she can breathe again that he replaces that strangling, invisible hold with the heavy weight of his body that now pushes her harder into the wall.
"Hate him?" Her words are repeated as his eyes lock onto hers, demanding an answer when she had been the one to have asked the question. For an excruciating moment, all she feels is the rise and fall of his breath in his chest tumbling into a strange, synchronous rhythm with her own heavy pants.
Only unthinking bluster makes her meet the barely-contained rage that swirls in his green gaze. In the end, the simplest sentence issues from her lips. "He's your brother."
Loki's unpleasant laugh is a short burst of cool breath on her cheek. "My brother?"
The brother with whom you've spent an eternity together, with whom you've always had something together.
But it seems unwise to say more. So she simply nods once.
Loki moves away as suddenly as he had pressed her into the wall, a slight, humourless smile on his face. "Oh, how little you understand, Miss Foster. How little you know what called Asgard into being, or how we came to be," he tells her venomously, "and how little you know the true face of Thor Odinson."
His words make no sense. But with no backstory, no history, there's little she can work with and all she has are theories that fall too easily to the ground.
Make me understand, Jane wants to say, all too aware that she's treating him like a sample of stardust to analyse, pull apart and force under a microscope.
It hits her then, that she somehow also plays these games without meaning to.
A/N: Thank you for reading! There are some issues hinted here that will definitely be revisited later. But I just wanted more Loki x Jane goodness, so there you have it.