In this chapter, Loki, Jane, and Thor each have at least a moment of rebellion. But you may have guessed that already. Two of these stand a good chance of having serious consequences.
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Beneath
Chapter Nineteen – Rebellion
"Father, they want-"
"I know," Odin said. He stood with Frigga by his side, waiting by the shimmering golden door near the end of the statue-lined colonnade that led to the palace.
Of course he knew. His first visit upon waking would have been to Heimdall, and Hugin and Munin would have filled him in on the rest.
"What will you do?" The words rushed out in anger, a challenge. He wasn't angry at Odin, he was just angry. And now he was finally free to express it…within limits.
"Nothing, yet. We need more information."
"But you will not-"
"Thor."
Just a name. But a clear command nonetheless. Thor ignored it. "I promised him I would not let him be sent to Jotunheim."
"You should not have made a promise which is beyond your power to keep."
"They don't know where Loki is," Frigga interjected before Thor could erupt. "Do they?"
Thor forcibly dragged his eyes from his father to his mother. "Gullveig knew he's on Midgard," he said after a moment's thought. "He seemed to know everything."
"Almost as if he were here," Odin said with a sharp nod.
His gaze drifted back to his father, but his eyes were unfocused as he thought back to what the Vanir king had said. "You're right. He knew what I did on Jotunheim. And he knew it was Loki who turned the bifrost against them. I…I didn't tell him. He already knew."
"How many here know the truth?"
Thor put names to a timeline, starting with the immediate aftermath of Loki's attempt to demolish Jotunheim, when it was only the three of them and Heimdall. By the time Thor had returned with his silenced, defeated brother in hand, news of Loki's intentions toward Midgard had spread, and as soon as he'd been imprisoned all of Odin's advisors had been given the full story – Jotunheim, Asgard, Midgard. When the dark elves went to Jotunheim, Thor relented and told the Warriors Three and Sif, whom he'd not wanted to think worse of Loki than they already did. Finally, Tyr had been brought in. The fact that Loki was himself Jotun remained only among the original four, as it would forever – unless Loki himself decided differently, they'd all agreed.
"Several of them have grudges against Loki for one thing or another, but I could not question the loyalty of any one of them," Thor said.
"One need not be disloyal to Asgard to believe that Loki should face justice on Jotunheim. Remember, Thor, nearly two-thirds of my advisors agreed on just that when you brought him back from Midgard."
"Yes, but you made your decision and it was final. I've heard no grumbling. And they have seen that Loki has posed no danger to Asgard. Nor has Heimdall seen any sign of danger from him on Midgard."
"I am glad to hear that. Loki is clever, and I'm certain he's put much thought into ways of bypassing the enchantments I placed on him. But while he may not directly be a danger himself right now, he may become an indirect source of danger to our realm yet."
"Vanaheim would never support any aggressive act against Asgard," Frigga interjected confidently.
"Perhaps. But we cannot ignore this risk. Thor, you did well to go to Vanaheim and to keep your calm. Tomorrow I will go to Svartalfheim. We need yet more answers. I fear there will be difficult decisions ahead."
"If there are decisions, they will not be difficult," Thor said darkly. When he'd thought he'd lost his father forever he would've given anything to take back his arrogant defiance toward him, and when he'd learned he hadn't lost him after all, he'd sworn he'd never defy him again. But he would toss that rash unspoken oath straight over the shattered Rainbow Bridge to stand by the far more deliberate one he'd made to Loki.
Odin sighed. "The universe is not so simple as you prefer to see it, Son. Now, to the council chambers."
Thor exchanged glances with his troubled mother and somber father, and the three of them set off from the portal to Vanaheim. He couldn't disagree with his father. But while he knew the universe was inordinately complex, he also knew there was nothing simpler than a promise to a brother.
/
/
Jane slept fitfully that night. It wasn't the altitude; she had no trouble breathing when she laid down. It wasn't even the sunlight that leaked through the heavy shade over her window all night long. It was her mind that simply refused to shut down and surrender to sleep, that rebelled when sleep was victorious and created senseless dreams full of anxiety that she struggled to pull herself out of.
She replayed in her mind every snippet of conversation with Selby she could recall. She remembered that he'd gotten here about two weeks ahead of her and Lucas, well after the other scientists. And right before that he'd gotten married, and right before that his "friend" would have told him all about the tesseract. The timeline was tight…maybe too tight to have happened that way. His bachelor party would have had to have taken place right after the attack on Manhattan.
At a little after 4 AM she slid from the bed down to her new footstool and over to her desk where she powered up her laptop. The satellite link would be up by now. Selby's name turned up on Caltech's website in all the logical places and he certainly spoke about it like he knew it, so either SHIELD had done a very elaborate job setting him up as a Caltech PhD or they'd gone looking for a Caltech grad in the first place.
She found his and Holly's wedding announcement, then searched on Holly. Holly's Facebook page was unrestricted, and there she found wedding photos with dates that indicated they did get married in the short window of time between the Chitauri attack and when Selby must have left for the South Pole. But that didn't mean Selby was telling the truth about the friend at the bachelor party. It didn't even mean this Facebook page was genuine. Jane had seen the news reports following the attack in New Mexico that used fake footage to counter the real images caught on cameras and cell phones.
Jane sat back in her chair and let her eyes drift upward. She swallowed with difficulty over a dry throat. What a nightmare, she thought. I can't trust anything anymore. She got up and pulled up the shade over the window. I can still trust the data. She looked out in the direction of the dark sector. She couldn't see it from the limited view out her window, but her eyes were unfocused anyway.
Lucas had known all along that SHIELD wanted someone here to spy on her. But he didn't seem bothered by it, even though given his refusal and the fact that he was working with her he must have become a target of their interest as well. His attitude was…different. I'm here for myself, he'd told her twice now. She thought about how he'd kept his interactions with everyone else here to a minimum, how in a group he grew silent but alone with her he would sometimes actually talk to her about something other than work, more so as the days had passed. He must have been keeping silent around the others deliberately from the start; it would explain why he seemed so uptight most of the time. He must have suspected that someone else would have been tasked with the assignment he refused.
Someone…or someones? Lucas had said "others," plural. Maybe others had said yes. Her thoughts jumped to Rodrigo. Also a last-minute winterover. He was replacing someone who he'd said had a family emergency of some sort, as best she recalled. She clenched her jaw. She liked Rodrigo. Easy-going but direct. She always felt relaxed and comfortable with him. What about Gillian Waters? Jane had only seen her once or twice since the briefings on her first and second day there – a "room-eater," Rodrigo had called her, meaning she kept to herself so much she took her meals to her room. Why did she get there so late, and what was she doing all that time she was out of sight? What about Su-Ji Lee? She made her own hours and they didn't line up with anyone else's – why? What about Cyrus Wright? She'd spent almost as much time with him as with Selby, and he would have as much opportunity as Selby to be around her and observe what she was doing.
Jane's head dropped down almost to her chest and she rubbed the back of her neck. She had to stop. She knew it. She knew she would drive herself right out of her mind if she kept this up.
Maybe Lucas was the only one here she could trust, she thought with an ironic laugh muffled by her pajamas. Those days when she'd been 100% certain he was a SHIELD plant seemed so far away, distant not only in space but time, though it hadn't been that long ago at all. Her gaze slid over to her laptop; she followed her eyes. Lucas Cane, she typed into the search engine. She'd meant to do this much earlier and never remembered. She found plenty of Lucas Canes, but none that seemed to be her assistant. When she added Toronto to the search terms the results didn't improve. She stared at the uncooperative computer and tried to come up with more search terms. "University of Toronto" didn't help. "Melfort" didn't help. "Physics" and "astrophysics" didn't help. And she realized she didn't know much else about him. He'd mentioned a family business, but not what kind of business. She went directly to the University of Toronto's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. There was a "People" link; she clicked on it. Then "Graduate Students." She scrolled down.
She stared at the screen, her mouth hanging slightly open. There was no Lucas Cane. Feeling a weight pressing down on her, growing heavier by the second, she clicked the back button, and selected "Post-docs & Research Associates," although she was certain she remembered him telling her he was a graduate student. No Lucas Cane. For good measure she clicked through "Faculty" and "Staff." No Lucas Cane.
Another couple of minutes passed while she stared at the screen and did nothing. Anger quickly overwhelmed everything else she was feeling, and with anger came an idea. She trolled through the university's website a while longer, then slammed the laptop closed harder than she really should have. She threw on some clothes, brushed her hair, then hurried to the bathroom to finish getting ready. It was about 6:30 when she knocked on Lucas's door. No answer. She tried again, then frowned and headed over to the galley.
Her stomach was in knots, but she'd skipped dinner and knew she should try to eat something anyway. She got a bowl of cereal with milk made from the powdered stuff, a couple of pieces of toast, and a double espresso. Now that she'd acclimated she wasn't going to worry about the caffeine warnings anymore. Especially not today.
At the espresso machine she saw Austin and made a little small talk, including mentioning that she needed to talk with Lucas that morning. A little privacy, it turned out, was easier to find in the galley anyway now that only the precisely 50 winterovers were left in the entire station. She sat down at a round four-seater table on the far side of the dining area and waited.
/
/
"Hey, how'd you sleep?" Jane asked, in what apparently substituted for Good morning, how are you? at the South Pole.
"Well," Loki lied, dropping into the seat across from Jane. Not joining your friends this morning, hm? "And you?" He was rapidly tiring of the local version of this ritualized question. His answer was almost always a lie, for one reason or another, and an uninteresting lie at that.
"Okay. I woke up a few times. Maybe a little bit of periodic breathing going on again," she said before taking her last bit of toast.
Loki regarded her intently behind an expression of minimal interest as he breathed out his usual noncommittal "mmm." He slid one hand under the table and stretched his fingers, checking the integrity of the bubble he'd built around her. As he suspected, it held, the air pressure slightly less that when he'd first created it, exactly as it should be. Lying to me now, are you, Jane?
"No other symptoms?"
"I don't think so," she said, shaking her head.
Loki nodded and went back to his breakfast of sausage and hash browns. The sausage in particular was vile – he had lived his whole life eating fresh foods, and the tendency on Midgard was to freeze everything before thawing it and serving it, much of it not starting out as something fresh to begin with. Here he supposed it couldn't be helped; no beasts roamed the land and nothing grew in the frigid temperatures and layers of snow and ice outside. Knowing it was unavoidable didn't mean he had to like it.
"So I was thinking last night…" Jane began. "Actually, I was just trying to think about anything other than what we talked about yesterday afternoon." She gave a nervous laugh.
He looked up at her with a raised eyebrow, then again turned his attention to his food. A very good match for Thor. Just as bad a liar as he is. The lie hasn't even come yet and you've given it away. He suspected he even knew what kind of lie would follow.
"I met one of UT's professors at a conference a couple of years ago. Really friendly. One of the few people willing to listen to my theories. Benjamin Keller? Have you had classes with him yet?"
Loki swallowed and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "No, actually I've never heard of him. Are you sure you have the right university?" He glanced up at her only for a moment, long enough to see he had her full attention.
"You didn't have him for Extragalactic Astronomy?"
"No. I had Dr. Westin. I think he always teaches that course." He looked up at Jane, regarded her curiously for just the right amount of time. "Oh, I see. That was a test. You're making sure I am who I say I am. That I'm not here to report on you after all. Back to that, are we?" He took a quick sip of previously-frozen orange juice. "I knew I shouldn't have told you the truth. Well, did I pass?"
Jane shot him a look of annoyance. "Yes."
"So did you just make up this Benjamin Keller or does he exist somewhere?"
"He teaches at Duke."
Loki pursed his lips, thought for a moment. "I still haven't heard of him. Was that a test, too? I hope I haven't failed that one."
"No, he really teaches at Duke. But he's more of a geophysicist than an astrophysicist. An old friend of my dad's. No particular reason you would have heard of him."
"Mmm. Well, congratulations on the research. You knew about Extragalactic Astronomy."
"I looked at your department's website. And you know what? You aren't on it."
Loki sighed, then sat up straighter, showing just a hint of anger in the tightness of his jaw. It was difficult. He was having the most fun he'd had since coming here – Jane trying to lie to him was even better than him lying to her. "How many times must I prove myself to you, Jane? I'm not surprised I'm not on the website anymore. I did mention to you that I'd taken the semester off, didn't I? And since I agreed to come here – and I do wish you'd stop trying to make me regret that – I'm going to be gone an entire year. I'm sure some of them are hoping I make their lives easier by not returning. But I don't give up that easily." He paused to take a breath. And for dramatic effect. "Do you?"
He waited as she blinked rapidly, confusion quickly followed by a burst of anger. "Nobody's giving up here, Lucas. As…as…frustrating as this is, it's not going to stop me from doing what I came here to do. Not being able to trust anybody here doesn't change that." She broke into a sad little laugh. "I couldn't quit even if I wanted to." She angled her head to her right, as though pointing out the window.
Loki glanced outside toward the red- and white-striped ceremonial pole marker and the unbroken frozen plain beyond that met the horizon in the distance, a pure white symbol of their isolation. "I suppose not. But you can trust me, Jane. I know you may not believe that now…and it's my own fault for telling you what I told you. That was a mistake."
"No," she immediately responded, shaking her head fervently. "No, you did the right thing. I'd rather walk around here with my eyes wide open than being blind to whatever…whatever they're up to. So, now I know. And…and I can deal with it. It's so ridiculous anyway. It's not like I keep things from them. I mean, I don't tell them every little thought that goes through my head, and some things are private, so I don't report every single conversation I ever have. But my work…they get everything. And you said" – she paused to glance around her and over her shoulder – "he was asking if I was working on anything secret? That I wasn't telling SHIELD about? Anything they wanted to know about, all they'd have to do is ask."
"Obviously they think you might choose to work on something without telling them."
She put her head in her hands. "But that's just…just…" she stammered. "Just uhhh!" she exclaimed. Or something like that. She glanced around again, having obviously been louder than she'd intended.
Loki clenched his jaw tightly to keep his expression in check, on the edge of losing control and laughing. So clever at times. So like Thor at others, he thought with a certain reflexive fondness. "It is what it is," Loki said once he was sure he could keep his voice steady. An inane little phrase he'd heard during his last visit to Midgard. Inane but oddly useful here, where people seemed to take it as the epitome of wisdom and sagacity.
Jane, too, apparently, for she nodded thoughtfully and told him he was right. "It doesn't have to affect anything, right? I mean…I can't do anything about it. I could complain to SHIELD – and I have a lot of their e-mail addresses, even at the top. But it wouldn't do any good. Maybe it's just Selby, and who knows what his role really is, but maybe it's others, too. I just…I don't know, maybe…"
"Jane."
"What?"
"Did you come here to make friends?"
She sighed deeply and looked away for a moment. "No."
"Then don't worry about it. Let them do what they must, and you do what you must."
She nodded, but she wasn't happy about it. Lucas's stoic expression was now easy to wear; watching Jane grow gloomy wasn't nearly as much fun as sparring with her.
"Well. Right now we all have to do the same thing. We have to meet Selby and Wright for house mouse day." She glanced up at the overhead screen.
"House mouse day?"
"Yeah. What, did you forget?"
"No, I just thought…" What would Lucas say? For the first time Loki couldn't find his way beyond his own reaction.
"You thought what?" she asked, a hint of a smile in her lips.
"We have work to do."
"So does everyone else. I know what you were going to say. You thought it didn't apply to you. Is that it?"
Loki narrowed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
"Well, it does. It applies to everyone. And they posted the new schedule on Sunday. This week because of station closing it's Tuesday and Thursday. Starting next week, Monday and Thursday. And if you're done, we may as well get going and get a jump on things. The sooner we're done the sooner we can get to work."
All fun had now ceased. And the fact that she found this even the slightest bit funny made him sorely regret Curse Number One.
/
/
Lucas stood awkwardly with the mop in his right hand when Jane looked up from the sink she was scrubbing.
Her estimation of the size of his trust fund was growing by the second. No wonder he didn't care if he antagonized all his professors and shady but powerful government organizations to boot. She thought she might believe him if he said he'd never even seen a mop in his life.
He was so tense she imagined she could flick a finger against his middle and he would snap in two.
"I told you, you should start on the showers or the toilets anyway. The floors should be last." Jane went back to work on the sink. This was funny, in a weird kind of way, but her ability to find humor in it was going to start fading fast if he didn't start doing something useful and she got stuck with all the work. It wasn't like her greatest joy in life was cleaning bathrooms, either. But 50 people didn't mean "plus a dozen for cleaning up behind everyone else." She was about to tell him to get over himself when suddenly he put the mop back in the bucket and leaned it against the wall.
"You're right." He came to her side, where she had all the cleaning supplies set out. "I'll clean the toilets."
She shot him a skeptical look, then handed him the brush, a scrubber, two of the cleaners, and a pair of gloves. He took them with obvious distaste and went into one of the toilet stalls, shutting the door behind him. "Do you, uh, want me to show you how to do it?" she called.
"I think I can figure it out, thank you," he said.
Jane just shook her head and moved on to the next sink. She'd never met anyone quite that spoiled before. Then she paused, thought about what she knew of Tony Stark. Wondered if he'd know what to do if someone stuck a mop in his hands. It made her snicker a bit and she went back to work. She paused again as her mouth fell open and she almost slapped her palm against her forehead before remembering the yellow rubber gloves she had on. Because then there was Thor. But he'd changed his attitude awfully fast. Her face relaxed into a smile as she pictured him in the little kitchen area back in Puente Antiguo with a dish towel thrown so casually and yet so perfectly over his shoulder. He'd looked almost as good like that as he had when he hadn't had his shirt-
A toilet flushed. Jane jumped to attention, then frowned and shook off the memory.
After she finished she walked over to help with the toilets, but she had lost track of what he was doing and found him emerging from the last stall as the water flushed. She looked inside; everything sparkled like new. "Wow. I'm impressed," she said, the first words to come to mind tumbling out as her eyebrows shot up. She turned back toward him and was taken aback by his expression, but before she could really process it, it was gone. Whatever it had been, it wasn't pleasant. And it wasn't friendly. She ducked her head and went back to rummage through the cleaning supplies again, giving him as wide a berth as she could in the small bathroom.
"Showers next?"
"Fine," he said.
She filled his hands, then hers, and she took the shower on the right while he took the one on the left. He pulled the curtain behind him; she didn't see the point and left hers open. He emerged shortly after her, and this time she didn't try to check up on him. Apparently he didn't appreciate that. "I'll do the mopping," she said as a peace offering, even if she didn't see any reason for him to be quite that offended, or whatever he was.
"All right," he said, but then surprised her by continuing. "I'll do it next time."
She narrowed her eyes at him for a second, then grinned. "Don't think I don't know how hard it was for you to say that." She took the mop where he'd left it and started at the far end of the bathroom, by the toilets and showers.
He just stood there watching her, which felt kind of strange, so she broke the silence. "So…I'm guessing you grew up-"
"With servants to do this kind of thing for me?" he interrupted.
"I was going to say 'rich,' but okay," Jane said without missing a beat.
"In either case, the answer is yes."
"And you said you were estranged from your family?"
He backed up toward the sinks as she mopped in his direction. "I don't want to talk about my family."
"You've asked me about mine."
"So tell me about them."
She took a deep breath, letting the mop fall still for a moment. She knew exactly where this was going. "I don't want to talk about my family."
"Well, then."
Jane ignored him and kept mopping. But then she couldn't stop herself. She let the mop handle fall against a sink. Lucas was standing by the door now. "All right, fine. My-"
He quickly put out a hand and interrupted. "It's all right. I didn't mean to push. I already know, anyway."
"Will you stop doing that?!" she yelled, startling herself with the outburst.
He took another step back, his eyes widening. "Doing what?"
"Do you work for SHIELD or not? Tell me the truth right now."
"I- I promise you, Dr. Foster, from the depths of my soul, I do not work for SHIELD. I would sooner destroy them."
"Then what did you mean when you said you 'already know' about my family? I've never-"
"You've only ever spoken of your parents in the past tense. I'm observant, Dr. Foster. No one showed me some file with all your secrets, such as they are. Now, please understand, that is the last time I'm going to answer that question politely."
"I'm sorry," she said, barely catching his last few words. Suddenly whatever rational thoughts she'd had, whatever intellectual process she'd tried to put this whole thing through all began to fall apart. Friends who weren't friends. Friends who might be friends but might not be. Strangers who might know more about her than she about them. Employers who treated you like a prisoner and gave you the equivalent of an ankle bracelet and told you it was freedom. "This just isn't how I thought…how I expected…" She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stave off the tears she felt coming. She felt a hand on her arm, pressing lightly. Lucas had closed the distance and stood there a little awkwardly, frowning down at her with something that looked almost like concern. It didn't sit well on him, and she turned her head away and gave a little laugh, embarrassed.
"Why don't you take a few minutes? I'll finish this."
Jane took a deep breath, let it out, hoped the moisture in the corners of her eyes would stay where it was and not decide to actually stake out a path down her cheeks. "Okay, yeah. Thanks. I'm sorry for getting all…I'll be fine. Just, uh…yeah." She opened the door, then turned back, deciding to make an effort at reclaiming some dignity. "But you're still mopping next time."
/
/
"Ready?"
Jane nodded and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her. Big Red was slung over her arm, and Loki had relented and put on his actual gear as well. It was simpler that way.
They left the station in silence; Loki wanted to let her speak first and she was clearly in more of a thinking mood than a speaking one.
Loki gave himself over to his own thoughts while he waited for Jane to share hers. Only half seriously, he wondered if the Chitauri's master's "encouragement" might not have been just as effective had he been threatened with cleaning toilets for the rest of his very, very long life. Perhaps not…but it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. Even cleaning the bathroom with magic was a humiliation he would not be able to endure indefinitely. "House mouse" duties rotated, and he didn't know what he'd be expected to do next, but he couldn't think of anything more debasing. He would just have to make sure that by the next time that particular duty arose again, his circumstances would have changed dramatically. As in he would no longer be here. In the meantime, there was no reason he couldn't use everything that had happened in that bathroom to his advantage; it was why he hadn't gone to the considerable effort it would have required to mask how repugnant he found the situation. And Jane getting emotional and him comforting her – he couldn't have asked for anything better to have come from that whole degrading experience. He might have even taken a certain pleasure in it if it hadn't happened in the bathroom.
He was closer with every day that passed. He slept little, put the internet to work, and last night he'd finished the textbook he bought in Christchurch. The mortals used murky terms for concepts about which they merely made guesses, though, and he was finding it particularly difficult to match up facts perceived one way on Asgard with theoretical notions about facts perceived another way on Midgard. Dark energy and dark matter, initially so intriguing, remained of interest, but he understood now that the scientists here had no actual idea what these things were, despite the amount of ink they used up writing about them. They existed because they needed to exist, to make the scientists' mathematical equations work – a rather backwards way of looking at things, Loki thought. Einstein, however, had shown him that even if those concepts were still merely theoretical, they may in fact actually exist, in which case they did have analogs in Asgardian understanding.
Jane, in her own way, was also closer with every day that passed.
"We need a game plan," she was saying.
Perhaps with every minute. Loki waited while she fell silent again, anxious to hear this game plan. She stopped, so Loki did as well; they were about two-thirds of the way to the DSL.
"Selby and Wright might be out there. They probably finished with the other bathroom before we finished ours. So let's talk here. The thing is, you're right. I came here to work. And that's really it. So…I say we just work. Forget about the rest."
"Your game plan is…to ignore it?"
"Yes. I don't see any other reasonable option. Confronting Selby, confronting SHIELD, what's the point?"
Loki looked to his left and right; several people were clearing snow around one of the staircases at the station. "Let's go someplace where we can talk in private."
"In private? No one's around to hear us. Do you know how many people there are on this entire continent? It doesn't get much more private."
"Are there more than two?"
She made some unidentifiable sound in the back of her throat and turned back toward the station leaving him to follow. "Fine."
She led him into one of the abandoned rustic-looking arched-roof Summer Camp jamesways on the side closest to the dark sector. There was a small open vestibule area just inside the door, and beyond that a narrow corridor lined by heavy green curtains. The building wasn't heated, but with the door closed behind them there was no breeze and it felt a little warmer. Loki pulled off his hat, goggles, balaclava, and gloves while Jane did the same except for the gloves, which she left on.
"All right, privacy. What is it, then? You don't like my game plan?"
"Why are you here, Jane?" he asked. He'd been planning to ask, and as the words came out, he realized he wanted to ask. He wanted to hear her answer.
"I told you why I'm here." She dropped her gear on a small table. "I'm here to work."
"And who decided what you're going to work on?"
"I did."
"Not SHIELD?"
"No, not SHIELD," Jane answered, her voice growing louder, clearly annoyed.
"SHIELD didn't have to approve it?"
"Of course SHIELD had to approve it! They're paying for it. That gives them the right to approve it."
So reasonable. So rational. Where is your passion, Jane? "You still think they have the right to do anything? Why are you here?"
"I already-" Jane shook her head and laughed. She pulled out a chair from the table and sank into it. "Lucas, I'm not going to survive the winter with you here, am I?"
Loki couldn't help a little ironic laughter over that himself. Let Jane make of it what she liked. "You haven't given me a good answer. 'To work' isn't sufficient. What are your goals? What do you want out of this?"
"The same thing as anyone else. To learn, to better understand the universe, to publish the findings. What do you want out of this?"
"I want to prove all my theories and quell all my detractors. I want everyone to know my name and stand in awe of what I've accomplished. And I refuse to back down before anyone who would stand in my way. I've listened to the way you speak about your work, Jane. I know you feel the same. I know your ambition is not so little. And I know you don't relish wearing SHIELD's leash and staying in the shadows. So why accept that? Why let them have so much power over you?" He paused; his chest had tightened and his hands were clenched into fists. Something inside him felt raw, and his control was faltering. Focus, he hissed at himself.
She overcame whatever reaction she'd had – he'd barely noticed it – and popped out of her chair to argue, but he cut her off. "Yesterday you told me I was selfish. I'm not selfish. I'm focused. But I'm focused on what I want. And…again, I'm sorry. I know I keep pushing. I really don't mean to. I know I'm here to focus on what you want, and I'll do that. I'll play along with whatever game plan you decide on. Only…don't waste your opportunities, Jane."
She stared up at him, lips slightly parted but making no effort to respond. She liked to talk, and he'd made her speechless. In the right way, he hoped, more than hoped, he believed. "I'll be in the DSL," he said, pulling on his hat. He opened the door and stepped out into the snow.
Closer every minute.
/
/
Jane paced the length of the corridor through the jamesway. Lucas's words had washed over her in a torrent rather than registering individually; she could hardly recall any of the actual phrases he'd used. He'd pushed some buttons, though. He seemed to have a knack for that, and for all his apologies she still wasn't convinced he wasn't doing it on purpose. She was angry at him and his apparently well-developed ego, but at the same time…he was right. Again.
She'd gotten along just fine on her own for several years, made advances in scientific understanding that she couldn't get anyone else to listen to but that had been proven correct. She resented that. She'd never before admitted it, even to herself.
And now she couldn't even talk about any of it without first weighing whether she'd be violating one of SHIELD's rules.
The data she collected here would be free and clear of any restrictions; she could analyze and publish to her heart's content. But she did want more. Knowing what she knew, having seen what she'd seen…the data wasn't just data. It could be acted upon. Put to practical use. Maybe…
She hadn't needed SHIELD before, and she didn't need them now. Only their funding, and she already had that. She didn't really need their approval…not if she wanted to do more than what her proposal had laid out. There was no harm in exceeding expectations.
Jane started getting the rest of her gear back in place. She wasn't certain she could pull it off. Not by a long shot. But if she focused on what she wanted to accomplish and nothing else…it was possible. She would prove she could do it without Nick Fury and his minions. In spite of them and their spies.
And what Selby, and SHIELD, and anyone else they'd talked into keeping an eye on her didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
/
OK, so Jane trying to lie to Loki - there've been some things in this story I've had as much fun writing, but I don't think anything I've had more fun writing. I do hope you enjoyed it. Jane is being pretty clever, it's just she's way out of her league trying to put something past Loki who's had about 1,000 years more experience with it than her, and it's not really even her nature; I think of her as a pretty straightforward "what you see is what you get" kind of person, for the most part, not a game-player.
House mouse duties, BTW, totally real. There's no janitorial staff cleaning up behind you there. Little does Loki know, he's also going to have to do dishpit duty. (I mention it because I probably won't write the scene, it'd be a very similar scene to the above and thus not really add anything.) I suspect he'll claim sensitive skin and try to weasel out of it. Jane will hand him some Palmolive and some gloves and tell him to suck it up.
OK, teasers for Chapter 20 (which I may title "Mythology," haven't decided yet: Jane shares a little mythology with Lucas (see below), who's remarkably nonplussed about the whole thing; a little too much mythology is shared with Jane; Odin & Frigga discuss their sons; Loki gets hungry after hours and isn't happy with the leftovers the galley's provided. Amidst all this, yes, is page 38.
[Interlude for a second shout-out to the 2012 South Pole winterovers. Winter season ended on October 27, when the first flight arrived since station closing in February. The first fresh faces, the first fresh foods ("freshies"). Although I'm sure they were all super excited it's kind of sad for me. Corresponding with them has been a real privilege, and I'm so very grateful. I think at most one of them is reading this story, but I'll say it anyway - fondest wishes to you all as you scatter and seek some warmth and greenery and liquid water. The Loki-gets-hungry scene in the next chapter is in honor of the Polies and is based on some real South Pole shenanigans.]
And the excerpt:
"I- Look, it's not just about SHIELD, you know? Not everything's about them. But...I'll tell you, if you'll promise not to tell anyone else. It's not necessary for the research."
"I promise," Loki answered with utmost sincerity. No matter how many millennia he lived, he would never understand why those two little words – words just as capable of deceiving as any others – convinced so many people to trust. But he didn't have to understand it to use it.
"Good. This is…well, you know. Going to sound crazy. For real this time. Do you know anything about Norse mythology?"
Thank you as always for the reviews, I really value them. BTW...perhaps as an incentive to get you to share your reactions, I should mention I have been known to respond with additional upcoming scene excerpts (if you have a particular question or interest that can be best addressed that way) and occasionally give away a few upcoming plot points after confirming you're ok with spoilers. And I'm always happy to answer questions.