A/N: Just 2 more chapters to go...and we're done! Thanks for reading. You make my day.
The familiar spirals of Asgard materialises the moment the dizzying feeling of teleportation fades.
By the time Jane opens her eyes, she finds herself disoriented and standing alone on the Bifrost. Immediately she trips over her own feet, thrown off balance by the translucent, shimmering hues constituting this horizontal plane that's seemingly suspended over the roiling sea.
"Welcome to Asgard once more, Lady Jane."
A deep voice greets her just as a steadying hand falls on her shoulder. She looks up to see the guardian of the Asbru bridge with a slight smile on his stern face. But her thoughts aren't lingering on the splendour of the Observatory or on Asgard's incredible skyline as they had when she'd found herself here for the very first time.
"Where is-" She bursts out, barely registering the surprise that fills the towering man's face. "Where's Loki?"
"Did you not arrive alone, Lady Foster?"
"No, we-…uh, I-" she stutters her confusion and tries again for a modicum of calm without giving into the need to fidget. Not being entirely successful in that endeavour, Jane settles for clasping her hands in front of her and twisting her fingers until they knot tightly. "No, I didn't. Loki teleported us back. He's…he's not here?"
Why had he brought her back to Asgard, when he's explicitly crowed about her inability to belong in here?
But that was before they'd-
Heimdall pulls her from her panicked thoughts as he speaks, his eyes glowing a deeper shade of gold as his piercing gaze turns inward.
"I cannot see him, even if he is here. But the second prince has always been adept at shielding himself from my sight."
Instinctively, Jane casts her eyes about, searching the odd angles and the edges of the shining buildings, hoping for a glimpse of him, or even a shadow of him. But if Loki is invisible even to the all-seeing guardian of the Bifrost, what chance is there for her to find him when he doesn't want to be seen?
All she knows is the deeply unsettled feeling and overwhelming confusion that he'd left her with after-
Any further rumination on that upsetting incident is disrupted by a jubilant shout of her name that comes from the other end of the bridge. Even from this distance, Jane recognises the tall, golden form of Thor, majestic in his flowing grey cloak with Mjolnir hanging at his belt.
He reaches her with the help of Mjolnir before her smaller strides can eat up the distance between them.
Jane finds herself being pulled into a hug that squeezes the breath from her lungs. Against her better judgement, she feels the unexpected heat of tears pool in the corner of her eyes as the true weight of her emotions slams into her.
There's overwhelming relief that Thor lives, flickering gratitude for the possibility of going back to a pretence that is them and above all, unspoken hope that he could, somehow make things right, as unfair as those thoughts are.
Guilt follows in the wake of that deceitful hope.
What then, can she really do? Would Thor bring her back to Earth – where life would continue as it did, purposeful, but dull and boring? The last few weeks have shown her that it would have been better to stay a forgotten academic who simply dreamed of bigger things in the stars.
When Thor finally pulls back from the embrace, she sees his searching gaze linger on her face.
"I feared the worst when Malekith took you," he tells her and lifts a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "How did you manage to get back on your own? Svartalfheim is a treacherous place even for the Aesir and few find its pathways back unscathed."
Jane opens her mouth to find that words do not come as easily as she hopes. Why is it so difficult to tell him what had really happened?
"I was in a cave," she begins, "and then Loki found me."
A worried frown pulls Thor's eyebrows tight together after the surprise fades from his face. "I see. Were you harmed in any way?" He asks her abruptly.
"What? No, no," she rushes to reassure him, still at a loss for words. "I…it's actually a long story. We-, no, I-"
Her hesitation only seems to upset him further. "Jane, if Loki had dared to touch-"
"It wasn't like that, Thor," she tells him quietly. "He didn't hurt me." At least not quite, she adds to herself mentally. Loki hadn't just dared to touch her. He'd simply taken what he wanted from her.
But Thor merely gives her an unconvinced nod. His next question is brief and predictable. "You will tell me more of your adventures?"
Adventures?
Jane barely stifles a hysterical laugh at that word. If nearly getting killed time and again in enemy territory constitutes an adventure for Thor, she hates to think about what he might actually deem 'dangerous'.
"I was thrown out of the way when Algrim engaged you in battle," she starts again as she feels his arm curl reassuringly over her shoulders.
The story that she ends up telling Thor is a heavy edit of the past few weeks.
Jane talks about Malekith, the Svartalfar scouts and how Loki had – possibly unwittingly – saved her from them. But she's barely shaking off that blinding encounter with Loki before she's asked to explain everything she herself doesn't really understand.
Thor sits strangely spellbound throughout it all, punctuating her narrative with grunts and earnest glances each time she glosses over a particularly bad episode.
Does he suspect anything more than what she's telling him? Maybe he does.
Then he only goes on to say that she has been very brave. There isn't anything but praise and admiration behind those words.
When Jane searches for subtext where there is none, then realises that even the time spent in a Trickster's company is life-altering: it makes her doubt and question more than she should, scrutinising goodness when it should be accepted wholeheartedly, assigning blame where it shouldn't belong.
This mighty son of Asgard – she even uses Loki's own name for Thor unconsciously – is entirely undeserving of a woman who has been changed because of his brother's devious ways.
She expects that revelation to punch her deep.
Except that there's nothing. No regret for what could have been, no towering emotion of guilt or shame or anger. She can however, be honest enough in her explanation, such that by the end of it, both of them aren't under any illusions that Asgard is and will always be his home, much as it isn't and will never be hers.
oOo
Cloaked in invisibility, Loki inhales deeply as he watches the awkward reunion between Odinson and Jane Foster from afar. The Asgardian night enfolds him like the warm embrace of a familiar friend, whispering her cool wind upon his skin that most shudder away from.
But not him.
Loki wields the heaviness of that particular magic well ever since that day he'd learned to conquer it. Now, he wraps it more securely around his shoulders, drawing in its tendrils like a comforting coat of protection that had been lost for far too long.
Still, he watches as Jane Foster hesitates briefly, turning her head around as though searching for something, then ducking her head almost in defeat as she follows Odinson down the length of the Asbru bridge. Yet his fists clench at the easy way she accepts Thor's affections. Along with his unexplained annoyance, the hidden magic of his shameful heritage sparks and snaps a warning burst of cold before it simmers and disappears beneath the surface of Odin's illusion spells.
He'd taken his rage out on her, violating her mouth as he fought to reconcile his own turmoil over his unthinking behaviour as they battled Malekith's soldiers. That much he will concede. Wasn't it a natural consequence after all, of his loathing for her and the weakness she so readily displays – that mortal who'd changed Thor beyond recognition?
Or perhaps he loathes himself more for giving into the need to subjugate her by means of that kiss, only to surrender shamefully when she'd responded, an insidious voice in his head whispers.
Loki gives himself a good shake, taking the time to centre his thoughts and to cast them in a direction that's actually productive.
Jane Foster means nothing to him, which is why he can finally put her back in Asgard as soon as he'd taken what he wanted from her, in a game that he relished then tired of quickly. Thor's concern for her is so obvious, so overt…and will probably be an unnecessary sentiment that will do nothing but hinder the oaf's blundering judgement. If this marked infantilism is the result, then there's no part of which that he desires to partake.
Loki stays where he is a moment longer, then pulls away, taking a last look at Asgard's sprawling vistas that remain magnificent despite the destruction that had been wrought on them. Then he quashes down the unwanted feeling of homesickness and uncertainty as he strides down the long, familiar corridors. He takes a deliberate turn to avoid his personal chambers and slinks into an isolated, forgotten corner of the city where he can actually look upon Yggdrasil's tumultuous pathways.
The realms are open to him, yet there isn't anywhere he will ever call home as he did Asgard. The time spent incarcerated without the exertion of Thanos's conditioning had at least, stripped him of the delusion that as ruler of Midgard, he would have had something that not only belonged to him, but also some place where he belonged.
The bald truth remains that he needs no physical anchor, no location where he can work his trickery and mischief.
Place therefore, as Loki determines, matters little.
All that matters is…himself – his own obligations to fulfil, his own resourcefulness to rely on and his own pleasures to see to. There will be no more home and its fancy, misguided connotations of love and warmth but nomadic wanderings as he pleases.
Pleased with having resolved that minor conundrum, he braces himself mentally and summons his magic, feeling the pull of teleportation crunch at the core fibres of the world tree's branches.
Yet Yggdrasil's pathway ends mid-stream, much like a broken branch that tears apart from its parent's nurturing trunk because of great strain, chucking him in a corner of Midgard that he knows he had never visited.
The world finally rights itself as Loki waits for the sudden disorientation to fade.
His practiced eye scans the barren rock and the molten rivers of fire that roll slowly through the landscape, the uncomfortable temperature of the place already causing the heavy leather of his garments to cling uncomfortably to his skin. He tries to ignore the discomfort, even though the heat and the stinging, sulphurous odour are wreaking havoc on his beleaguered senses.
Reality is shifting, distorting before his eyes, as the power imbued in the rocks seems to expand outward, encompassing him in a red halo that warps the air. As though responding to the primeval call of fire, his Jotunn form surfaces, a diametric opposition to the caged wall of the inferno that longs to be unleashed.
You heard my call, son of Laufey. Or should I say, son of Ymir, father of the Jotnar?
An extraordinary voice rumbles its approval in his head and Loki sways palpably with its sheer magnitude. Even imprisoned in the core of Midgard, the fire demon's hold over the elements is strong.
Focus.
He needs focus.
"I merely heeded my own instincts, Surtur," Loki replies steadily, not bothering to shield himself under Odin's illusion. "And I know what it is you wish for."
Then you know that my lock can only be broken with Asgardian magic.
So it was what he'd suspected all along. Malekith's effort at burrowing through Midgard to free his master has come to a standstill.
"Tell me your plans," he deflects the fire demon's command with a demand of his own.
Free me, son of Laufey and you will rule the realms with me.
It is an echo of a promise made to him by another, the consequences of which he hadn't liked at all. In fact, the memory of being a pawn of Thanos still manages to elicit a measure of burning shame in his gut. But Surtur's power far surpasses the pitiable strength of Thanos and the Chitauri and Loki immediately recognises the benefits of such an alliance.
Negotiations, however, should never be passed up.
"When are alliances ever that simple?" He asks and smiles, running his tongue lightly over his sharpened teeth.
They are not. They are made so that the blackest treachery will taint them.
Loki gets the feeling that muted laughter is issuing from the cracks deep below. "Indeed," he murmurs.
Watch, Laufeyson!
Abruptly, the red halo that surrounds him swirls in a circular pattern, fire meeting ice in perfectly balanced opposition.
In the beginning, life came from the clash of fire and ice. The life of a Jotunn named Ymir. Out of his loins came Bestla and Bor who begat Odin Borson.
A flashback falls into his mind like a spear to the heart – of a time when Yggdrasil's branches were still young – and he's suddenly filled with blinding images of an ancient battle in the outer reaches of the realms as treachery lifted her hand and wove her intricate net around the founders of the Aesir.
The son of Bor pined for the day he would rule over all gods. With my help, he took the life essences of his brothers Vili and Ve and forsook his father's spirit that lay in eternal winter. When Borson crowned himself the All-father of Asgard, he showed his gratitude by imprisoning me on this rock.
Through this red-tinged haze, Loki watches the violent events of a time long gone with a fascination and hunger that he'd always saved for his intellectual pursuits. Surtur's memories simply affirm his cynical observations of the All-father being far from the blameless deity many Asgardians deem him to be.
As soon as the story is told, a softer, more welcoming illusion takes its place, a vision of a realm bound by a fire demon's all-powerful rule.
The stranglehold of Surtur's own narrative is released as abruptly as it had dropped into his head, leaving him panting yet wanting more for a story that really, isn't his to meddle with. Surtur's bone of contention had always lain with Odin and the convenient timing of the Odinsleep will work to his advantage.
With a devilish smirk, Loki thinks that it is probably best not to get in the way of that pending confrontation.
Now that you have seen and understood, Loki Laufeyson, what will be your decision?
There is more than a touch of impatience in Surtur's rumbling voice that warns of the consequences of not consenting.
Lightly prodding at Surtur's chains with his own magic, Loki ignores the subtle change in emotion that causes the halo to tremble and sifts through the intricate spellwork that Odin had cast to keep the fire spirit out of all dimensions.
He frowns and tries again.
As impressively robust as these chains are, the remnants of the All-father's magic feels unusually sloppy here, almost as though he had cobbled the last of his strength together for the final banishment of an equally exhausted fire being.
So Odin had truly found his match in this one, Loki thinks with some satisfaction.
A snarl curls his lips as he recognises – with no small amount of irony – the similarities in their situations. Surtur knows his restraints can only be broken by those whose magic have been forged in Asgard. But Loki will not revisit the dubious reasons that had torn his own chains asunder.
Keeping his own counsel for now, Loki bows his head slightly, taking a moment to consider every outcome and its potential ramifications. He will answer to no one but himself and despite what Surtur might think, today isn't going to mark the day where he's held to ransom by an imprisoned spirit's demands.
Mischief and trickery have always been his poison as well as his antidote, or more appropriately, his salvation.
No matter its consequences and the tidal wave of destruction that they leave in their wake.
Even at this pressing hour, he sees no need to forsake the secrets of his trade.
There is some personal pride after all, that he takes in being an entity whose motives cannot be picked out with a fine-tooth comb. To subject himself to a fool's insistence that the cosmos can be easily divided into comprehensible parts is no better than to subscribe to foolishness.
Loki grins. The cold that's inherent in his Jotunn form intensifies in response to that feral emotion, extinguishing parts of the red mist that touch his skin.
"I might be convinced to do so if a certain number of…conditions are fulfilled."
You think yourself in a position to negotiate?
The voice is taunting, with the power of a thousand suns blazing behind it.
The veiled threat behind that posturing hardly bothers him. "Perhaps you would like to ask yourself that very question."
With a smirk, he waits in the dour silence.
Name them.
And so he does, beginning a session that takes a longer time than he expects and ends only when all of his demands are met.
Now that we are done, Laufeyson, there is no recourse.
"You have my word," he says with false sincerity.
Then free me.
The corners of his lips turn up as Loki murmurs an incantation that shatters the fire demon's chains.