This chapter picks up precisely where the previous left off. If you read it a week ago, you might want to take a quick look back at the second half of the previous chapter to jog your memory.
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Beneath
Chapter Fifty-Seven –Weight
"I heard that," Frigga said from around the corner, her back against the wall separating her from Odin and Thor, still in the library. She let her head hang low as she waited for the tears to dry, for her breathing to get back under control. "Your secrets will tear this family apart. That's where this started. Not with Loki."
Thor looked to his father. It wasn't actually possible, but he appeared to have shrunk a few inches, his shoulders sagging, his single eye drifting closed. He was torn between desire to defend his father who'd only done what he thought best to protect Loki, and to support his mother, who had always been especially close to Loki and had been devastated by his loss. And he was so very tired of this tension over Loki, both within himself and among his family, tension which had never really been dealt with, much less resolved.
"Loki isn't innocent, Frigg," Odin said softly, tiredly, as he walked out of the library, followed by Thor. "You know that. Learning difficult news doesn't excuse all the things he's done since then."
"Difficult," she repeated, laughing drily and brushing at her eyes with the pads of her thumbs. "I tried, you know. I tried, but it was impossible. To shelter him from the Aesir hatred of the Jotuns. You, too," she added, nodding toward Thor. "But it is rampant. It's everywhere. It was in your lessons, it is in our sagas, in picture books and works of literature, in tavern songs, in the games children play, in stories told late at night… He grew up with that, he lived with it for a thousand years. Yes, it was difficult for him to learn he was that which all of Asgard – including Loki himself – most hated. He is hurting. He needs us. Can't you see that?"
"Hurting isn't an excuse either. You know the things he did, the things that aren't in question."
She looked away. Yes, she knew. Odin had told her, had forced her to listen when she'd refused to hear what Thor tried to explain after he returned with Loki and took him to his cell. A tiny part of her hated him for making her listen to it. She'd been convinced, in the beginning, that Loki had been forced to do what he did on Midgard, despite what Heimdall said, despite what Thor said, despite Loki's smug silence upon his return. Sometimes she still liked to imagine that he had not acted of his own free will.
Odin sighed. "I myself am persuaded by Jolgeir's case. I do not believe Loki to be a part of the alliance against us. But in the end this changes nothing, except that now we have no idea at all where he may be. He should never have left Midgard. He was safe there."
Thor felt some of the tension fade away with Odin's words; he had not expected that his father had come down on Jolgeir's side. And he disagreed that it changed nothing. Huskol's case meant his brother had committed treason against Asgard, and Jolgeir's case meant he had not. "I sent word through Geirmund to my friend on Midgard that he could cease his efforts to find Loki."
"Why were you trying to find him?" Frigga asked immediately.
"So that we would have an advantage over the other realms," Odin answered just as quickly.
Thor focused on a painting of his grandfather in the corridor and tried not to betray any hint that this was not the only reason his father had wanted to know where Loki was. He could feel his mother's eyes on him. She knows. She knows Father will put the realm first.
"And? You learned nothing?"
"Tell her," Odin said. "Let there be no more secrets, even when the truth wounds."
Thor grit his teeth and exchanged a look with his father. She was better off not knowing; it wasn't as though it mattered now. But both his parents were now staring at him, waiting. "He was seen at a sporting match the day he arrived in Midgard, and at a sweets shop the next day. Not since."
"A sweets shop?" Frigga asked, a tentative smile breaking out.
"Everything," Odin prompted.
He drew in a breath, then fixed his eyes on his mother. "I met a man who sheltered him on his first night there. He said Loki wanted to go see his brother's family in Tromso. That is where Jane was sent when I went after Loki, to keep her safe from him. His intent was clear; he meant to find Jane, just as I'd feared in the beginning."
"But…he didn't?" Frigga said, the smile gone.
"No. There was no time. She left Tromso before he could get there, thankfully. And she's now in a place that cannot be accessed through any Midgardian transportation, where the sun never rises and where it's colder than Jotunheim. When he realized he couldn't find her, he must have begun looking for a means to leave Midgard. I side with Jolgeir as well, Mother, but…Father is right. Loki is not innocent."
Frigga averted her eyes, looking blankly down the corridor that led to her and Odin's sitting room and the bedchamber beyond it. Images of herself, her husband, her sons at different stages in their lives swam before her eyes. "Which of us is?" She licked her lips, squared her shoulders, and gave her eyes another quick dab. "I also side with Jolgeir. We will not brand Loki a traitor on such flimsy evidence. He will come home to us, and he will tell us himself what has happened. Until then…your enchantments still stand, do they not, Odin?"
"They do. He cannot remove them."
"Good. Then-"
"Though he may have sought to have them removed," Odin said, his voice drifting off along with his thoughts.
"Have them removed? How?" Thor asked.
"I'm not sure it's possible at all. But if Loki wanted them off badly enough" – and I'm sure he does – "he might try. Perhaps that's why he went to Svartalfheim."
Thor thought it through: Svartalfheim, the incident at the tavern and the killing of a Svartalf warrior, Brokk. Brokk. "If Brokk has become the master of magic that Vigdis makes him out to be, Loki may have gone to him to try to have the enchantments removed, despite their falling out."
Odin nodded. "And Brokk would have attempted to subdue him. Whomever he went to, if it was someone skilled in magic, it may have been this person who injured him with an enchanted blade."
"Where would he go next?" Frigga asked after a moment passed in silence. "If he attempted this and failed."
Thor shook his head slowly, trying to imagine where his brother might go, to whom he might turn, and could think of nothing. He didn't understand Loki anymore, couldn't anticipate his actions. "He could be anywhere in the Nine Realms."
Taking a few steps down the wide corridor lined with artwork collected over millennia, Odin settled on a simple bench and again thought back through both Huskol's and Jolgeir's cases. Frigga and Thor exchanged a glance; Frigga gave her son a tired smile and finally allowed him to rest an arm about her shoulders.
"That stone in the servant girl's chambers…," Odin began.
"Yes?" Frigga prompted, putting an arm around Thor's waist and stepping forward in tandem with him.
"The similar stone Loki had on Midgard…it is unlikely to have come from Brokk. Whatever this place was that Loki emerged from, it was not Svartalfheim, nor any of the Nine. Loki's stone then must not have come from any of the Nine."
Thor and Frigga exchanged another look. It made sense, what his father said, Thor thought. He had never assumed that the scepter Loki wielded on Midgard had come from the Nine Realms. But the blue gem in Vigdis's room was from the Nine Realms, from Svartalfheim, from Brokk – at least this seemed the most likely explanation. He wondered if he had overestimated their similarity; he was largely ignorant of this practice of imbuing gems and other objects with power, and had little talent for discerning amongst such things. If he were to be honest with himself, one glowing blue gem with magical properties looked and felt much like the next to him.
"What more did you learn of this army of Loki's when you were both on Midgard?" Odin asked another minute later.
"No more than what Heimdall saw, when the rift opened that brought Loki to Midgard. That an army known as the Chitauri stood behind him, waiting to follow. We spoke little, Father," Thor said. "He said…" He paused, thinking back. "When first I found him, he told me he had seen other worlds, outside the Nine. He said he had seen the tesseract's power. I asked him…I asked him who showed him that power. But he never answered. We…we argued," Thor said, shame creeping in at the last as he remembered how the blood had roared in his veins at Loki's contrarian, uncooperative behavior, and he'd instinctively called Mjolnir to threaten him with it. It certainly hadn't lessened Loki's resistance.
"And he would not speak when he returned."
That was my fault as well, Thor knew, though he still could not figure out why, other than that he had left Loki alone in his cell on Midgard for a while after he'd fallen asleep.
"I should not have let him stew in his silence. I should have gone to him and insisted he answer," Odin said.
"And how would you have insisted?" Frigga asked. "Loki would not have responded to your anger and your demands. It is I who should have asked. I never asked him anything. I was afraid to. I just wanted to hold him and pretend none of it ever happened. Just like…just like always. I should have asked. I should have asked…" Her hands went up to her face to hide it as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed them not to release tears again.
Thor stepped aside as his father stood and embraced his mother, and she clung to him with all her faltering strength. They held each other in silence so long Thor was wondering if he should also slip away in silence, when his father spoke in that soft tone of voice that he so rarely heard, reserved as it was for his mother when no one else was around.
"When was the last time you slept, my dear?"
"I don't know…days ago."
Thor backed further away as they whispered to each other things he was never meant to hear, and then his mother was heading toward their bedchambers and his father was turning back toward him.
"You could not have convinced Loki to discuss something he was unwilling to. Neither of you," Thor said, bothered that his parents should take blame for Loki's obstinance.
"And you have never been able to avoid arguing with your brother. Frigga is right, none of us is innocent. But none of us can shoulder this burden alone, either."
"Even Loki?" He did not presume to know the answer. Was Loki's own guilt lessened by the guilt of a brother who'd been unknowingly caught up in his own sense of superiority, who'd taunted him with jibes he'd thought stung no worse than those turned back on himself?
Odin averted his eye and did not answer. He could not answer. They each had their own mistakes to take responsibility for, but they had each done as they thought best…each except for Loki. Loki had sought to do what he knew was wrong. He had neither time nor strength for philosophical discussion, though. "I'm going to turn in with your mother. You should do the same. We don't know how many peaceful nights remain."
"I will sleep out with the warriors tonight in one of the camps," Thor said, accepting that his question would not be answered.
Odin nodded his approval. "Take care, my son. I fear Jolgeir is correct. There may be still more going on here than we have seen."
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/
In the middle of the night, around 3:00, Loki stood in the deserted weight room overlooking the gym that took up an entire wing on the first floor. He hadn't been here in a while. He used to come at similar times, on occasion, and had eventually tried all the types of equipment. He found he did not enjoy the stationary bikes, as he'd learned they were called – they felt unnatural and pointless, for no one but small children rode around in such a fashion on Asgard – but he did enjoy the treadmill with its adjustable speed despite the odd handles one was apparently supposed to hold on to, the machine that mimicked climbing, and the weightlifting machine with the adjustable black weights, especially the ones that let him exercise his arms and chest. Though he regularly had to make his own adjustments to the equipment, designed as it was for a much weaker physique, he had thought many times how much he would have loved to have such machines as a youth, when he was forever chasing Thor in age and strength, and never quite catching up. Of course, he had not known then that he was chasing an impossible standard, that no one on Asgard, in the end, would be as physically strong as Thor.
He looked around at the equipment on the bright blue square floor tiles. He wasn't sure why he'd come here, other than that he needed to get away from his own room for a while. He used to come here in Asgardian attire – leather pants and a plain tunic, items packed for him in his satchel when he'd left. Now, since he had no more tunics, he wore black silk slacks and a button-down green shirt. He'd occasionally seen others coming or going from this room; he knew this was not how they dressed for it. He wished now he would have purchased more casual clothing in Sydney. He'd compromised too much on what was appropriate to wear in light of what he preferred to wear.
He frowned and reached into his pocket, from which he withdrew the elasticized band Dr. Ellison had given him. Her idea of "PT," since he was unwilling to undertake personal sessions with her or the Physician's Assistant, was for him to do small sets of simple, isolated movements which she showed him and provided him with instructions on. He was quite certain he could have done them by two years of age.
"Are these exercises not too…simple?" he'd asked, hoping Midgardians didn't truly find pulling a loop of elastic cord out to the side ten times a taxing endeavor. She'd explained that he should go slow, that damaged rotator cuff muscles should not be strained, to avoid delaying recovery. "Time is the best healer for injuries like this," she'd said as he'd set his jaw and allowed her to maneuver his arm, testing his range of motion. He wondered how many years of training Midgardian healers were required to receive to learn how to make such inane statements. "Is there not some other treatment you can provide?" She'd offered to do an X-ray, but Loki had only the vaguest idea of what that was, from the preparation for the MCI drill; he simply knew it didn't sound good – or particularly helpful – and he'd declined. He'd also wondered what kind of injuries she'd seen in her sheltered Midgardian experience, since she hadn't raised an eyebrow at the freak archery accident he told her he'd endured shortly before coming here.
He did his assigned three repetitions with the elastic band, then stepped over to the tall white column of one of the weightlifting machines and pressed his right shoulder against it three times, ten seconds each. Then he stopped and looked at the machine itself. This is absurd. My shoulder is not a human's shoulder. He did not belong here, he reminded himself, as he used to do regularly. Whatever he truly was, he was not Midgardian, and he should be lifting hundreds of pounds to strengthen his muscles, not stretching a piece of elastic. He'd been a fool to go to the healer here. The doctor. A fool to take even half seriously anything that woman said.
Loki set the weights to maximum on the machine he still stood next to, the one on which he had to push upward with his arms to lift the weights. He sat down, got settled, pushed upward, squinted his eyes shut and grit his teeth against the pain that shouldn't have been there. Slowly, carefully, he lowered his arms again; he hadn't even managed to get them all the way up. A moment passed in which he simply sat there, staring straight ahead at the wall, then he got up and adjusted the weights down to 100 pounds. He told himself it didn't matter, he'd known the shoulder was weak and sore, he had time to strengthen it and allow it to heal.
Time to plan. To train. To prepare. To decide.
He suddenly recalled the quote Jane had taped to her desk and e-mailed to a few people when they'd first arrived at the Pole, the one Jane had been so enamored of and he had admired as well: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Words that could have been written specifically for him. He never had looked up that poet, Tennyson he recalled, to read more of his or her work. Perhaps he even had time for that as well.
/
/
Two and a half hours later, Jane pushed open the door to the weight room in stretchy black capris and her old orange Caltech T-shirt, hair up in a high ponytail, water bottle and towel in hand. She hadn't come here for a few weeks, but earlier had used the room's equipment two or three times a week, whenever she could make herself get up extra early.
Another early riser was there, she saw, a back to her on the treadmill, a head of black hair bent slightly forward. Something was strange about him, but it took a couple of seconds for it to click – she wasn't exactly up to full brain capacity yet. A green dress shirt. Those silk pants. Her eyes kept going down – tall black leather boots, repaired, she presumed. Either he hadn't heard her come in over the pounding of his Asgardian boots on the tread, or he was ignoring her. "Loki?"
Busy again sifting through over a thousand years of memories for suitable candidates who might stand a chance at removing Odin's shackles, Loki had indeed not heard Jane come in, and when she called his name, he was startled, tried to stop and turn, and nearly tripped and fell before catching his footing and grabbing onto the bars. So that's what they're for, he thought acerbically, self-conscious for a moment that Jane had seen him do that. He replaced it easily with anger, because grabbing the bars had caused a sharp burst of pain to explode in his shoulder and radiate outward.
He pressed the button that brought the running mat to a halt and turned. "You really need to remember to address me as Lucas," he said with a heavy frown, holding himself straight and refusing to massage his shoulder. His gaze swept down over her frame before he could stop himself; he had seen her in those clingy short pants a few times before, but had paid no attention. "And what are you doing here in the middle of the night?" he asked, bringing his eyes back up to hers.
"It's almost six, it's not exactly the middle of the night."
Loki glanced at the clock affixed to the wall. She was right. He wondered how long he'd been on the treadmill. He could tell his heart rate was slightly elevated, his legs finally felt like he'd actually put them to use, and now that he thought about it, his right foot felt like it might fall right off his leg, and if it didn't, he decided he might wish that it had. "I should go," he said, stepping off the treadmill.
"You don't want anyone else to see you here? Or is it just me?" Jane asked, wondering how offended he would be if she said something about his choice in gym clothes and wishing she didn't feel like she had to walk on eggshells around him.
"I don't particularly want to have to pretend I'm capable only of what your kind are capable of. So I come in the middle of the night, when I can lift more weight than the machine itself makes possible."
Are you trying to say you're stronger than me? Jane thought. But it would be a stupid taunt, so she didn't say it. A stupid question to counter his stupid statement that could almost have come from a playground bully. "So…I guess if you only ever come here in the middle of the night you maybe haven't noticed that people here usually dress…a little more casually when they go to the gym?"
"I know, Jane. I usually come here dressed as I would be at- on Asgard. But all my tunics have been ruined. I'm left with this attire," he said with a small motion on his hand at his side.
"Oh, okay." Beggars can't be choosers, she supposed. Then she remembered Loki was no beggar. "How- where did you get this stuff, anyway, the clothes you wear here?" He clearly only had a few outfits; he wore the same things over and over. She hadn't brought an enormous wardrobe with her either – she didn't own an enormous wardrobe to bring – but she had more than he did.
"Sydney. As soon as I arrived."
Jane nodded, then thought back again. "Why not Melfort? Or whatever the nearest city is to there. How long were you there? Were you ever even really in Melfort?"
"Yes, I was really in Melfort, but I didn't have time to go to any markets there. I left Canada the day after I arrived and started making my way here. Now if you'll excuse me-"
"No, wait, Lo- Lucas, you left Canada the very next day? You knew I was coming here?"
"The internet is a wonderful tool," he said, nodding, starting to step past her to leave.
"Why? Why did you-" She stopped, knowing she was getting scared and getting scared might make her say the types of things she'd vowed she would no longer say.
"I knew you were an intelligent scientist, Jane. As I told you before, I knew you would be able to help me."
"But how did you even know that I was working on something like this? Did…did Thor tell you?" There had to be more to it. He'd told her about how he knew she would be such a great help to him when he was also claiming that his big task to redeem himself in Asgard was to use Earth's technology to return. And she'd told Thor a little about her work, but not that much, not in great detail. So what else-
"Not Thor," Loki answered with a tight smile, then finally got around her and left. He'd hesitated to tell her this. There was pushing, and then there was pushing over a cliff and to the satellite phones she'd sworn off.
Jane stood rooted in place, staring at the spot where Loki had just stood, eyes unfocused. She was fully awake now, and as soon as he'd said those two words, she knew exactly what he meant. Erik. He'd asked Erik about her. And completely under his control, Erik would have answered every question he asked, from the professional to the very personal. He'd meant to use her all along. The question was only in what way. For her scientific expertise? Maybe. Her work was pretty unique, and she was the only astrophysicist in the world who'd been able to use an arc reactor to power a piece of precision scientific equipment. But Erik was long before Loki had been sent back to Earth and needed to find a way off it. Erik was when the world must have seemed to be his oyster. Erik was when he still controlled the tesseract, and she wasn't needed for that; Erik's brand of physics was more relevant. So why would he care about her?
She knew the answer, of course, and it made her shiver: because Thor cared about her. And if he found himself having to fight Thor again, he wanted to have her there under his thumb, the ace in his pocket. Thor's weak link, because there wasn't much she could do physically to protect herself. Like some hostage on a cop show.
Jane took a few steps over to her left and sat down at one of the weight machines. Her hands were shaking. She'd really thought she was done with the whole shaky-hands thing after everything she'd experienced. But she hadn't thought about being nothing more to Loki than a weapon to use against Thor. Was that what he had to do so much thinking about now? How best to use her?
He hasn't done that, though, has he? she asked herself. She hadn't seen him giving her funny looks, "I'm sizing you up for how to best use you to my advantage"-type looks. He seemed to be mostly avoiding her, and hadn't looked happy at first when she'd joined him for breakfast yesterday. And if he'd wanted to use her, he'd had the opportunity. They'd both been on Asgard. Thor was out there somewhere, fighting for his realm, and Loki could have dragged her along and demanded whatever he wanted in exchange for her life. But he didn't.
Had something changed? Jane wondered if she was just grasping at the wrong straws and him using her that way had never been his plan at all. So what was his plan now? That was what he had to think about now, she realized. Whatever his plan had been before, it hadn't worked, probably because of the war. Now he needed a new one.
For the first time since Loki had returned on Monday, three days ago, walking toward her while brandishing a sword, she felt a spike of fear for her safety. If his initial plan had failed…had he become more desperate? What if he did something rash? Something dangerous?
She had once tried to be his friend – when she thought he was Lucas Cane – because she thought he needed one. She remembered how she'd wanted to get in touch with his mother for him, to let her know he was all right, and thought now how he must have been laughing at her on the inside. She couldn't be Loki's friend; that would be asking too much after what he'd done. But she could be…not his enemy. Her vision blurred and suddenly she was not sitting in a weight room at the South Pole, but on an old lumpy brown couch in Palo Alto, California, in a room she'd last been in when she was fourteen. Next to the arched wooden front door with its glass panel and wrought iron detailing was a wooden sign, painted by her mother's hand with roses intertwined in letters: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
That was what she could do for Loki. Treat him the way she'd want to be treated. It was what she was already doing now, really, or what she was trying to do, at least, even if she hadn't thought about it in quite those terms before. It would be hard. It was already hard. It was hard because he was Loki, and it was hard because he went out of his way to make it hard. She had no real power over him; she was in control of no one but herself. She didn't know what went through his mind, and she figured at times she probably didn't want to know. Maybe he would somehow learn something from the way she chose to treat him, perhaps at least learn to see humanity with some modicum of respect, but even if he didn't, she would at least have a clear conscience. She hoped. There was still the matter of his current plans…
"Hey, Jane, good to see you back here."
Jane stood quickly, bumping her shoulder on the pec fly arm pad and dragging herself out of Palo Alto and back to the South Pole. "Morning Macy, good to be back," she greeted in return, and the smile on her face felt genuine.
/
/
The next challenge came only about an hour later, in the form of an e-mail from a woman named Charlotte. Jane had met her only twice – first in New York when SHIELD had flown her up for consultations, and later in New Mexico. A cellist for the New York Philharmonic, she was Phil Coulson's significant other, and the two women had hit it off, although ostensibly they had nothing in common. An artist and a scientist, an East Coaster and a West Coaster, one tall and lithe and refined, the other short and…occasionally kind of a klutz. Jane had enjoyed stepping out into Charlotte's world for a short while as much as Charlotte seemed to have enjoyed stepping out into hers, and both of them lived on the fringes of the shadowy world that was SHIELD.
"Hi, Jane, I hope you don't mind me writing to you, I know it's kind of out of the blue. I got your e-mail address from Phil's office. I couldn't believe it when they told me you were at the South Pole…" She read over the rest of the e-mail, smiling and even laughing a little, for Charlotte had a quirky sense of humor and always had some anecdote to tell from life in the Big Apple, but her smile faded at the end. "I hope you're doing well, after everything that happened. It's been hard for me, but it helps to know that Phil gave his life for something he believed in."
She sighed and sat back. "Something he believed in." Jane didn't know the exact details of how Phil had died; she hadn't wanted to know, hadn't wanted those images in her head. She knew that Loki had killed him personally, and that he'd died a hero, standing up to Loki and trying to stop him from hurting Thor; Nick Fury had told her that himself. Son of Coul. Norse God of Bureaucracy. Murdered by Loki, two doors down.
She wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling sick. Part of her hated Loki. Really, really hated him. But she couldn't give in to that. She was better than that. She could only hope that Charlotte would understand, that Phil would understand, why she had to do what she was doing, because it felt a little like being a traitor to his memory. And to Jocelyn's memory. And to Erik.
Jane typed out a response, then got changed. She needed to talk to Loki again, and she was afraid he wouldn't like what she had to say.
/
/
What now? Loki thought in response to the knock at his door. She's probably been working up the courage to confront me about her beloved Erik. He considered ignoring the knock, but the last time he'd done that – because he'd had the sound blanket up and he'd been asleep – she'd just walked right in.
"Yes, Jane? What can I do for you?"
Jane kept the friendly smile on her face, but again he wasn't making it easy. Despite his words, his expression said Go away, you are disturbing me.
"Well, I was wondering if you were going to breakfast."
"Not today. Story time is over."
"Yeah? That's too bad. It was interesting. But in that case…you may have forgotten, but today's Thursday. House mouse day."
"Thank you for informing me. Enjoy yourself."
"It's not the bathroom this time, Lo- Lucas. We're cleaning some of the common rooms on the first floor, with Selby and Wright. Our deal only covers bathrooms and dishpit," she added extra softly, for there were a few others coming and going in the corridor. "And I can't make excuses for you multiple times every week."
Loki frowned. He'd known this to be the case, of course; it was the bathroom and dish duty that was most repugnant to him, and having gotten out of those with someone there to make an excuse if anyone asked was sufficient. "Fine. Though you'll forgive me if I take a few shortcuts."
"Meet me in the B3 lounge, the room we went to when we first got here. Eight o'clock?"
"Fine. Eight o'clock," Loki responded, glancing at his watch. A little less than an hour from now.
"So I was meaning to ask you, what's your favorite piece of equipment in the weight room?"
Loki's brow wrinkled in confusion for a moment. Why do you want to know? "The treadmill, I suppose. Or any of the machines for lifting weights." He appreciated the weightlifting the most, but he enjoyed the treadmill the most. "And you?" he asked out of convention, still uncertain what the point of this was.
"Definitely the bike. And I use the stairstepper every time I go, but I can't say I like it, really. But the bike is fun. You've seen those pictures taped to that wire mesh safety barrier overlooking the gym? Mine is the one of the path through a forest. I like to look at it and let my imagination wander. Pretend I can smell trees and earth and hear birds chirping. I miss hearing birds chirping."
"Mmm," Loki said. Jane wouldn't like hearing what he thought about while he was on the treadmill. It wasn't chirping birds.
"So…do you have things like that where you're from? Gyms, weight rooms?"
Loki gave a short surprised laugh. "No. Not precisely. Though I would have loved something like it when I was a youth, if it were actually in line with my abilities."
"You're not just naturally super-strong then? You have to work at it like anyone else?"
"We- They-" He quickly gave up on trying to decide which pronoun he should use with Jane. He was not part of that particular collective, but Jane didn't know that and he had no intention of enlightening her. "Thor is naturally that strong. I had to work to stand against him at all."
Jane's mouth opened and closed again, her mind uncomfortably not supplying a response to that. She recalled the story Thor told her, when he and Loki were fighting but Thor was holding back and Loki insisted he stop, so Thor eventually pretty much beat Loki to a pulp, which Loki was apparently okay with. It was a strange feeling, to stand before the man who'd ordered Stuttgart to kneel and see instead a frustrated kid with an older brother who could shove his face in the dirt anytime he wanted. "Must've taken a lot of courage," she finally said.
Loki stared, himself at a loss for words, his thoughts turning inward. What does she know of it? he asked himself. Courage, yes. Foolish courage. Chasing something impossible to catch, a standard that could never be met. A rejected Frost Giant whelp could never compete physically with Odin's true son. "The Mighty Thor" indeed. Easier to look mighty when you're forever compared to someone who does not share a drop of Odin's blood. Anger sufficiently back in place, Loki's eyes focused again on Jane, certain he would see mockery or condescension. It wasn't there. And she had little skill at hiding her feelings. It left him confused.
"Um, I guess I'll see you at eight, then, okay?"
He nodded. "At eight." She turned away, toward her room and the galley, then turned back and gave him a little wave at which he grimaced with distaste. Odd, Loki thought. The entire conversation was odd. No attempts to berate me about Erik Selvig. Only strange, idle conversation. He enjoyed telling me about you, by the way, Jane. He didn't hold anything back. He didn't want to. His whole face lit up just as when he spoke about the tesseract. He was proud of you, like any father would be…
Like any father should be.
Loki closed the door and went back to work.
/
Thanks so much as always for reading, reviewing, following, and so on. When I am tired you keep me going. In the good-news-for-me, kinda-not-so-good-news-for-you department, a friend is coming to visit from out of state the next couple weeks, and I will not have nearly as much time for writing as normal. I plan to stick to my "must write every day" rule, but as I've mentioned to some of you, that guarantees a sentence gets written - not two pages. If you want to track what progress I've made, check my profile page. I usually update it every day, sometimes more than once a day. Sometimes I stick in some random additional teaser there, too. (7/15)
Teasers for Ch. 58, which I might like to call "Shopping"...because it would best remind me what's in that chapter...but I almost certainly will not ;-) - Someone gets some bad news, and Loki doesn't do comfort...or does he?; on the other hand Loki does suspicion and causing guilt trips fairly well; Loki plans-plans-plans while Jane dives back into her data and tries to include a reluctant Asgardian; there is...well, some shopping!
And excerpt:
"Either this is a jest – not a funny one, I might add – or you are delusional. Even my dead body would rise up to prevent you from putting that on me," Loki said, refusing to even look down at the thing [Jane] was holding up on him.