Beneath
Chapter Seventy-Nine – Damage
Jane sat back in her desk chair, a thoughtful yet contented smile on her face. She'd spent most of the morning on VOIP calls, reaching out to several friends, and Erik – whose more upbeat attitude Jane hoped was the beginning of a trend – and, in the end, Uncle Van. She'd thought the call might be awkward, and it was, a little, in the beginning, but before long it felt natural and familiar and warm and Jane was telling him about living at the South Pole and Uncle Van was telling her about the part-time retirement summer job he'd taken at Rocky Mountain National Park and that her cousin Celia had just been made a junior partner in her law firm and her cousin Shane's youngest found out he needed glasses after a vision check at school. The glasses thing had actually happened about six months ago, and Jane could kick herself for having grown so disconnected from them that she was only hearing about it now. If she hadn't stopped using Facebook, she supposed she would have learned about it that way, or it could have come up in the couple of brief e-mails they'd exchanged since she'd come here, but it had been great, far better than expected, to actually talk to Uncle Van, and he'd sounded like he was glad to talk with her as well.
The smile faltered when she remembered why she'd called him. Loki. A conversation with Loki of all people, hardly a role model for family ties – or anything, really, she thought, then immediately felt bad about the cheap shot – had spurred her on to strengthen her relationships with her only remaining blood relatives.
Blood relatives… Jane wondered if Loki knew who his blood relatives were. He hadn't ever mentioned them, though she supposed she hadn't said much about hers either; Erik had been granted legal guardianship of her and was her closest family now, regardless of blood. If he resented being adopted by Odin so much, maybe he did know something about his birth parents, maybe he thought he would have been better off with them. Or maybe he just idealized them. They weren't there, so they were free to be perfect in his mind. Perfection was hard to compete with. Erik had been pretty lenient with her – mostly, she presumed, because other than that one short period of grief- and anger-fueled rebellion she'd been a pretty good kid – but she could imagine resenting the rules that adoptive parents laid down and convincing yourself that your "real parents" wouldn't have been so strict. But just as sibling rivalry didn't seem to be enough to explain the depth of his ill will toward Thor, being given a curfew didn't seem to be enough to explain his resentment of his parents, or specifically of his father.
Jane wondered then what had actually happened to his biological parents – he'd never mentioned that, either, and she realized she had no idea how adoption worked on Asgard, and maybe she was making false assumptions to think it worked the same as on Earth. But how different could it be, really? Maybe his mother couldn't take care of him, or wasn't ready for a baby…though surely two thousand years was enough time to be ready. Then she thought about what else Loki had said about that. Maybe his mother had been a thirty-year-old – or three-hundred-year-old – and her pregnancy was "frowned on," so she decided to give him up. His parents could have been killed in some accident, like hers. It could have been anything.
She furrowed her brow and looked off to the side, toward her closed door. Loki was born at the end of the Ice War. War left orphans. Maybe his parents were killed in the war against Jotunheim. Her eyebrows went up. That would certainly explain why he hated the Frost Giants so much, if they'd killed his birth family and he resented his adopted family. She frowned, wondering if she could risk asking him about it. She thought maybe she would have to get a sense of his mood before doing so; it was definitely one of the things he was touchy about.
Jane looked at the time on her computer. It was still only 10:30. Loki had never said what his other plans were this afternoon, and she decided that if she didn't see him at lunch she'd try to find him and encourage him to join in on the miniature harvest. She thought he might like it, given his preference for fresh foods, even if, as a prince or king – another thing she'd like to ask him about – he'd never picked a vegetable in his life. It wasn't like expertise was needed, which was good, considering her own experience in that department didn't go much beyond the occasional U-Pick farm and a bit of planting her mother had tried once.
In the meantime, phone calls done for the day, she decided to go check out the station's main hang-outs, find a friend – because, yes, she had them here now – and get her mind off Loki for at least a little while.
/
/
Loki stood in place for a moment, dropping his head back and slowly rotating his neck around to work out any kinks, then carefully flexing each of his muscles in turn. Then he reached into his satchel and flipped the RF switch. He would be here for a while.
He was invisible now, after finding it frustratingly difficult to achieve, and planned to remain so throughout his time in this particular location. If he were lucky, he would never be detected. If he were not lucky – and he'd certainly had his share of not lucky over the past many months – he needed to be prepared. And prepared he was, with fourteen knives including the one made from half an Einherjar's sword, most of them attached by his old trick of loosened threads, since mortal clothing did not provide the right sort of layers to hide so many blades. In most situations, one blade would have sufficed. Tony Stark was not "most situations." Not if he wore that metal suit.
He'd arrived in a familiar spot on a day specifically chosen, in late afternoon, the sun still shining brightly, albeit filtered through countless towers; if the flash had been seen, well, this city was so busy and crowded no one would think much of it, he figured. Loki allowed himself to bask in it a moment longer. The sunshine, he thought, really was one of the best parts of his journeys through Yggdrasil now. He was in Manhattan, in the city called New York, in the state called the same, in the country called the United States of America, in the realm's northern hemisphere. He was much further away from the South Pole than he had been while in Christchurch, New Zealand. This third test already told him that Pathfinder and Yggdrasil would send him anywhere, anytime on Midgard that he programmed into Pathfinder. His next test would need to involve Asgard.
Of course, he'd hardly begun this test; it was no time to be thinking of Asgard. The previous tests were foolishness, really, little more than a confirmation that yes, it can be done. Now he was ready to begin stretching himself, so to speak. He moved carefully forward and up the stairs, steadfastly avoiding the place to his left where he'd fought Thor, where Thor had held back and, in truth, so had he. Where Thor had pled with him that this could all be undone, changed, fixed. He was wrong, then. Naively, stupendously, idiotically wrong. But now there was a new truth. Yes, it could all be undone, changed, fixed. But Loki was the only one who knew how to do it, and he wasn't going to be fixing things the way Thor wanted them fixed, him returning to Asgard surrendered, defeated, ashamed, brimming with tears, apologies spilling from his lips, only to find himself too far fallen even for Thor's shadow. He would fix them his own way, a way in which neither surrender nor defeat played a part.
Tony Stark, he knew, used an advanced security system that in some ways rivaled what Asgard had. But not in all ways. It relied on forms of electrical energy for power, and these Loki understood. He'd reached the door at the top of the stairs, and saw a thin line of this energy, not visible to the mortal eye, encircling the door. When the door opened, the energy would be disrupted, and an alarm would sound. Of course, he would be invisible, so an alarm wouldn't overly concern him. Still, no alarm would be preferable, and this was child's play. At the core of magic was the ability to see, manipulate, and control energy. He reached out and easily felt it, then held it in place – with more effort than it should have required – while he opened the door, walked through, and closed it behind him. Just a friendly visit, dear Father, he thought as he dealt with the door, though he knew it was hopeless, and the pain shooting into his hips confirmed it. This was no friendly visit, and it definitely counted as mischief. Some things were worth the punishment, though.
Once he was steady on his feet again, Loki took two tentative steps forward. The alarm, he supposed, could be silent, but thus far Loki observed no changes around him. No one was here, though that didn't necessarily mean anything; Loki had no idea what all was in this building, for it hadn't concerned him. He knew from Barton that it was Tony Stark's building, that he lived and worked here when in New York, but that his primary residence was, or had been, in California, overlooking the beach he'd helped Jane hang up a picture of in her room months ago. Loki supposed his attack on New York might have changed that balance.
Loki had vivid memories of this room. Stark and his juvenile taunts, his flying suit that had almost knocked Loki to the ground as it raced out after Stark to prevent him from having a swift personal introduction to the pavement below, the beast… His jaw clenched and he continued forward to where it had happened. There were the three stairs he'd tried to hoist his heavily injured body up as growls and weapons were aimed at him. And there was…
Loki drew himself up straighter. A fish pond? Yes, he confirmed with a cold stare. A fish pond. A concrete, indoor fishpond, stocked with bright red fish, in the exact same place where the Hulk had smashed him relentlessly into the floor again and again and Loki had been so caught off guard he'd been no more than a child's cloth doll in the beast's giant green hands. And in the shape of it…yes, the edges had been smoothed from the rubble pit it had been when Loki lay wheezing in it, but the shape was unmistakable to his eyes. This was the hole his body had made in the hard floor. Holes, to be more precise, for he'd been flung back and forth and actually made two holes, and they were both there, connected by a wide channel.
Loki's jaw worked as he stared down at it. One of the most humiliating moments of his life, and here it had been commemorated as one grand jest. Loki wasn't sure if he'd ever endured quite this level of blatant mockery. Well, no one had said he couldn't have a little fun here, even if the man himself didn't deign to show up to greet his visitor. But first things first.
A power and computer interface was located on the wall to his right; he knew because Clint Barton and Erik Selvig had tied the device Erik had built to focus the Tesseract into it before the Tesseract began to power the device on its own. Thor may bring large-scale natural elements of lightning, thunder, and rain into submission – but he had no fine control over it, he could not direct an individual drop of rain or a slender fork of an enormous bolt of lightning. Loki's forte was fine control. Electrifying an entire building was unnecessary when only the slimmest tendril of energy was needed.
Loki opened up the silver panel – designed to complement the new décor, no doubt – and held out both hands against it, feeling for the locations of the wires and channels that thrummed with energy, and tracing it to its sources and destinations. He searched first of all for the power leading to the "artificial intelligence" voice or AI, as Barton had called it, but he couldn't identify it. Hmmm. Well, if it is truly intelligent, then it would not be centralized in one location where it could be easily destroyed. In that case, Loki decided to go first for the primary source of power, the one interwoven through everything else. He found it easily, because a very similar version of it resided in Pathfinder, and its energy profile was familiar. Gathering some of the energy coming in, Loki reversed its direction and sent it back out along conduits not meant to handle energy flowing in that direction. The punishment came and he barely stayed upright, asserting every bit of his will into maintaining his concentration on the task before him. He forced power backward along its pathway, destroying circuitry and cables, and just when he thought he wouldn't be able to force it all the way back after all, he heard popping and saw sparking and felt an unpleasant jolt to his arms that shot through his body, aggravating the still tingling pain of Odin's curse and reminding him why he was quite happy to leave the lightning to Thor.
As he swayed on his feet he kept up his work, gathering and sending energy down random pathways not designed for it, and soon finding more of those arc reactors, ones even more similar to Pathfinder's power source. The ones that powered the metal suits. Loki grinned. He pooled as much lingering power as he could – it was dwindling fast with the destruction of the main source – and sent it in that direction. This time he anticipated the rebound of energy a half-second before it hit him, and jerked his hands away. Loki laughed, his sound also masked, at the wisps of dark smoke that drifted upward from the open panel. He replaced the cover. A small black smudge was visible just above it, but other than that, everything looked just as it had before.
He turned and looked around him; the handful of small lights that had been on before had disappeared. He stared at the elevator doors, and longed for Tony Stark to walk out of them. After a moment he chuckled. The elevators probably didn't work anymore. Besides it was not the right time, literally, to confront that man, if he chose to even bother to do so at all. For now, this was enough. It was eight days earlier, several hours after Stark sent that video to Jane. Just a bit of ultimately inconsequential revenge. Inconsequential except that if Stark should find himself needing one of those suits, such as for an impromptu visit to Antarctica, well, he'd be out of luck, at least for a while.
With another look, he changed his mind. No. Not enough. He walked over to the bar on the left, behind which Stark had tried to engage in a verbal sparring match. He shook his head at the memory, and wondered why he'd ever bothered to engage the man, who, in retrospect, was clearly just trying to distract him. Behind the bar himself now, he rummaged around and quickly found two gold bands, and they too sparked a memory. Stark had not been wearing them before, but he had been wearing them after. They called the suit, he thought. Little different from what I do myself, or Thor does with Mjolnir. Ever curious, Loki maneuvered the Pathfinder-related devices already on his wrists and snapped the gold bands on his wrists also. Ah. Not like magic, not quite, he thought as the rest came back to him. Stark had called out to his AI voice, and the AI had sent the suit to hone in on the wristbands as he fell.
Loki's eyes glazed over, another fall at another place and time filling his mind.
With a huff a moment later he removed the gold bands and put them into his satchel. They were no more than useless ornamentation for now, but for him they would be a fond reminder of what he'd done here today. He then began rummaging around the bar for something else, and soon found himself crouching down, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label right in front of him. He tipped it forward, and found another one behind it, and that was all. Perfect, Loki thought, since his satchel could only hold two bottles, and even that would be a squeeze. He removed the RF switch device to his pocket – no sense risking it being accidentally turned back on by jostling against the bottles. Or worse yet, being broken. That gave Loki pause. If the switch were destroyed while in the on mode, blocking the transmission of his location to Pathfinder, and he was in another time, he supposed he would be stuck in that time. And what would that mean? he wondered. Right now, there was another him, the him that belonged in this time, at the South Pole, perhaps in Jane's chambers, being questioned by her about his actions that day in Stuttgart, finding out that the man with the eye he needed had died because of his actions, sending him down a path of thoughts he'd rather not have ever had.
And that he was starting down now again. He nipped that in the bud, and refocused his attention on the risk he hadn't thought of before. He gave a short laugh, then, realizing the concern was unnecessary. If the RF switch were destroyed, then it would no longer be sending a signal to the transmitter to block the signal to Pathfinder, and he'd simply be pulled back to the South Pole within the next five minutes. And besides, he and Jane had worked together on all of these devices in the first place, and if a problem arose, he had learned enough from her that he could probably re-engineer them as needed.
It was time to go. He stepped back from around the bar and his eyes were again drawn downward. No. Still not enough. He would pay for this. He knew it. He didn't care. It was worth it. He gathered a tendril of energy from his own body, excited it, and directed it straight at the sight of his humiliation. The water bubbled where the energy struck it, but the impact wasn't as great as he'd hoped. He siphoned more and more energy until the water heated and the bubbles spread and he finally stopped and staggered toward the stairs on unsteady, throbbing legs. He'd memorized the floorplan of this building months ago.
/
/
The stairs were torture, and his confidence that his last little act of revenge was "worth it" had flagged. Reducing the whole building to rubble, along with its neverending staircase, that would have been worth it. But this petty, juvenile act, resulting in nothing more than a few dead fish? The tower's height was not so different from the palace, but had his legs been hurting this badly there, had he been this tired, he would have cheated and used the lift intended for moving bulky objects or the rare person in a real hurry.
But there was no time to rest or recover. He could have let Pathfinder call him back, but he didn't want to go back yet. He wanted the sunshine, the buildings, the anonymity of the crowd below, just for a while. Meanwhile, though, he had to dodge the occasional guard huffing and puffing up the stairs, a couple of them swearing colorfully and creatively as they went, and, as he reached the lower floors, an increasing flow of people entering the stairwell to head down. He needed to reach bottom before it became impossible to avoid the people who couldn't see him.
When he finally emerged into the lobby – carefully darting between two groups of women, he was momentarily struck by the chaos that greeted him. It was crowded – dangerously crowded – with people milling about, talking loudly to be heard over the crowd, some of them angry and shouting. Firefighters carrying axes were talking to a uniformed man at the reception desk. "Pandemonium," he'd told Jane. Oh, yes, he liked it. Spontaneous chaos, chaos caused by someone else, those moments meant nothing to him, sometimes even disturbed him. But this, this was the best kind of chaos of all. He was the puppetmaster, and he was pulling their strings from the future and they didn't even know he was here. It was a scene of beauty.
He could make himself visible right here, create the illusion of his full armor, and then there would really be chaos. Screaming and running and pointing and- Loki's smirk immediately faded. Not pointing, he snarled at himself, suddenly angry at Jane for making him see things he would rather not have seen, both in waking and in dreaming. Not screaming and running, either. And it's Tony Stark's fault, not Jane's. You've done what you've come here to do. It's time to go. He began to pay closer attention to the flow of people and the conversations going on around him, for it was crowded and all of the entrances up at the front of the building were clogged.
"I was working on that contract for the last hour," one woman nearby complained to another. "And then, just, poof, all the lights went out, and the computer died."
"You should have saved it. Hopefully the autosave…"
"Nigel's stuck on the elevator between thirty-eight and thirty-nine. He'd just got on when the power went out. We tried to get the doors open but…"
"Mr. Stark's going to bust a gasket when he finds out about this."
Loki turned to see who'd said that, the words he really wanted to hear of all the commotion around him, but the man who'd spoken them was already hurrying past, and more people were entering from the stairs, even as security guards and firefighters began urging people to leave the building.
"Is that office clear?" he heard one guard say to another, a woman.
"I'm not sure, better check it," she said, then hurried off in another direction.
On instinct, Loki followed the man going to check the office at the end of the bank of non-functioning elevators he stood by. Its glass doors were propped open, and the crowd was much thinner there. He slipped inside, and down a row of glass-and-metal framed offices, entering one midway down the corridor. Here he made himself visible again, still in the seersucker suit and green tie, this time with the matching hat atop his head. Next to the computer monitor, among a few random useless items, was a pair of sunglasses. Perfect, he thought, picking them up and putting them in his pocket. He'd found the whole concept of glasses strange and off-putting before, but he's seen them enough in his time on Midgard before the South Pole sunset to become used to them…and they would help hide his face without the use of magic.
"Hey!" the security guard called, noticing his presence. "You need to get out of here. We're evacuating the building, didn't you hear? Some kind of power surge, we don't even have backup power. Could be a fire hazard. The workday's over early, buddy."
"Of course. Just trying to arrange a few last things," Loki said, keeping his head down toward his desk, then hurrying toward the door. The guard fell into step behind him once he moved out of "his" office and toward the exit; Loki glanced back and saw that the man was entirely uninterested in him, head bobbing left and right to look into the last few offices down this corridor. He re-emerged into the lobby, and the late afternoon sunlight filtering in through all the glass of the multi-story space gave him enough of an excuse to don the black sunglasses before he even reached the street, where he paused and allowed his grin to show.
A van screeched to a halt in front of the tower, electronic devices that reminded Loki of some of Jane's equipment dotting its roof, and a symbol composed of letters and a number on its side. A man with a large camera hopped out of it as soon as the door opened; Loki ducked his head, turned to his right, and set off at a determined but not overly-hurried pace. What would happen if he were spotted here, when he was supposed to be – when he was – at the South Pole? Loki didn't know, didn't want to find out, and definitely didn't want to get drawn into a strategically pointless conflict.
Once he was several blocks away, he slowed his pace and found himself jostled by other pedestrians who were uninterested in slowing their pace. It was strange, and unexpectedly oppressive, to be surrounded by so many people, so many tall buildings, after his months isolated at the South Pole with just 49 others, each of whom he now knew by name. He supposed it was just a matter of habituation. He'd never minded crowds before. Then again, he'd never been just one among a few million before, either, other than during the brief time he'd spent in Sydney. He vividly remembered being bumped into there, and how brightly his anger had burned against the man who had dared do it. Now each shoulder and elbow merely brought him to a simmering annoyance, and no real desire to lash out. He wondered why. Do I no longer care about their disrespect? Their lack of recognition of who walks among them? No, he answered himself after a moment's thought. They are petty, insignificant creatures, and I was wrong to settle for this realm as recompense. They do not matter; their disrespect does not matter. I'm going to accomplish much greater things than could ever be done here. Here, among this throng, it was easier to remember that they were still just ants, scurrying about their nest through the narrow passages between the towers.
Loki turned at the next intersection and the crowd thinned a bit. A woman with long chestnut brown hair stopped not far in front of him, speaking in a raised voice on her cell phone. Loki found himself staring, for were the woman a bit shorter, her waist a bit smaller, she could have been Jane. And also if she were not swearing at the top of her lungs in phrases best left to drunken warriors.
He tried to recall if Jane had ever been to this city. She'd mentioned California and Colorado and Guatemala; Illinois he remembered coming up once, specifically the city of Chicago, and of course there was New Mexico. Maybe she'd never been here. If he saw her on the street, without knowing her, would he even give her a second glance? Behind him now, he heard the brunette woman shout into her phone again, her voice quickly melting into the other sounds of the city.
Deciding he didn't wish to look at the people anymore, Loki slowed his pace and looked above their heads, inspecting his surroundings for more than just undue attention and the ever-present cameras. He was quickly reminded of what he'd somehow managed to forget thus far on his visit here – this city had suffered severe damage in the short-lived war he'd brought to it. The streets had been cleared, but the damage higher up was still visible. So many windows were boarded over that it reminded him of the South Pole in winter, despite the fundamentally different settings. Facades were marred by horizontal and vertical gashes like a beast's claws through flesh where Chitauri had scaled them or their living transports had slid through the air gouging out a path. Or else the facades were missing entirely, putting the buildings' skeletal remains on display. Loki glanced down a blocked-off side street and saw a mostly empty corner lot where one of these tall buildings had stood.
"We can stop this together," Thor had said, right arm bent and elbow pressing into his chest, Mjolnir in his hand, bright blue eyes boring holes into Loki's skull. Thor always thought he could make things true just by saying them aloud. Loki had learned long ago not to be so naïve.
He crossed another street, and passed a heavily damaged building encircled with a yellow ribbon of some sort, apparently marking it as off limits, for no one came or went from it. Why do they not repair all this? he wondered. It was months ago. On Asgard there would hardly be a sign of this left by now. He laughed darkly then, watching a large vehicle pushing some remaining debris around. At least they're making an effort. Unlike Jotunheim, where a thousand years have passed and it doesn't appear they've lifted a finger.
Loki kept walking, no particular goal in mind, though he thought it might be preferable to reach some part of this enormous city that did not bear such visceral reminders of his own past here. The streets were growing more crowded by the minute as the typical workday drew to a close. He was approaching the entrance to one of those underground transportation tunnels and had to pause for a moment when he found himself walking against the heavy flow of a fresh wave of people disgorged from its depths. A street musician playing a guitar caught his eye – he found nothing unusual about street musicians, for they had them in Asgard too, most often near taverns – but the skinny red-headed young man wore on his shirt a familiar image. It was far from a perfect likeness, but the blond hair, silver armor, red cape, and, oh yes, the giant hammer in the figure's hand left little doubt as to who it was supposed to be. Above Thor's stupidly grinning face were the words "Let's get hammered!" and below his boots was the name "Clery's Pub."
Taken aback and vacillating between being angry that he should have to see even this poor rendition of his false brother here, that that false brother should be admired and adored even here in modern Midgard, and amused, that Thor's likeness should be used to sell what was probably poor quality Midgardian alcohol, Loki stared for a moment, then darted through a break in the crowd of pedestrians into the nearest shop.
If such idiotic clothing were worn in Asgard and if Odin permitted it, Thor's face would probably adorn every tunic in the realm, he thought, bitterness winning out in the end.
He'd wound up in a florists' shop, where he could hardly be bothered to even pretend to be interested, and the scent was rather overpowering. But he'd walked in, so he couldn't just turn around and walk out. He pressed forward, his gaze resting perfunctorily on each container of flowers as he went down the short aisle; the shop itself was small, and he could make a quick loop and leave. The perfunctory glances became longer, though, and he found himself lingering over the most vividly-colored flowers. Other than a short stint in his childhood, it was never something he'd had much of an interest in, either flowers or horticulture in general, and it surprised him how much his eye was drawn to them now.
"Are you looking for something in particular?"
Loki turned to find a woman with short dark graying hair next to him, wearing a green full apron over her jeans and white shirt. "No, thank you," he said. "I'm just browsing your selection." His stolen sunglasses were still on along with his hat, and he wasn't taking them off now. These people may be more likely to recognize him than the South Pole's residents.
"Those are particularly lovely, aren't they?" the woman asked, extending a finger out toward the lilies in front of him.
He nodded. "They're beautiful." And they were. The leaves were a vibrant green and the petals were lemony yellow near the center, and elsewhere a dusty rose reminiscent of the most stunning of sunsets. How long has it been since I've seen flowers? He couldn't remember. There weren't any at the South Pole, of course, save a few edible ones grown in the Greenhouse, but before that, there had to have been flowers somewhere, but he couldn't recall the last time he'd actually noticed any.
"It's a trumpet hybrid lily. Maybe there's someone special you'd like to get some for? Or just to brighten up your home? Everything's on sale, bouquets at twenty percent off. It's a going-out-of-business sale."
Someone special. Loki held back a laugh as he realized that Jane Foster, mortal scientist and Thor's love, no less, was the closest he had to that. Or perhaps Selby might like them, he thought, and this time didn't quite manage to hold back the laugh. He considered it. He seriously considered it. If Jane had appreciated an orange, how much would she love to have fresh flowers in her chambers? Then he grimaced, remembering how she'd chastised him for tracking Asgardian dirt into the South Pole. Foreign plants, except for food, were strictly prohibited, and Jane would probably just lecture him if he brought back flowers. And besides, there was probably a limit to which he should arouse her curiosity over how he was providing such things. "Thank you, but I can't. My wife has allergies."
"All right. Look around, though, and if you change your mind, let me know. I can make you up a nice bouquet."
Loki nodded and the woman approached another shopper; Loki continued his loop around the aisles, passing a large selection of roses, reminding him of what Jane had said about her mother keeping a rose garden. The purple ones caught his eye; he wasn't sure, being no expert, but he didn't think he'd ever seen purple roses before. He rounded the corner, and against the far wall was a table with stacks of books, or what had once been stacks of books and now was a bit disorderly after customers' perusal. He glanced over them and was about to continue past when one of the titles registered and turned him back: Roses by Many Names. On the cover was a picture of a peach-colored rose. He picked it up and flipped through it; it was a compendium of rose varieties, full of color photography which, while not quite comparable to the Asgardian equivalent, was nonetheless impressive.
Jane told him, he remembered, that she'd been uninterested in her mother's gardening as a girl, but now wished she'd taken the time to learn about the roses her mother nurtured. The decision was easy. Roses he could not bring to the South Pole. A book about roses he could bring.
A sign posted above the table said the books were 50% off. He looked for a price, found one on a sticker on the back, and realized he could pay for it out of his meager poker winnings. A good bargain, then, he thought, with a trace of amusement.
Book in hand, he made his way back over to the other side of the shop to pay, and got in line behind a young woman who was stacking flower pots on the counter.
"I can take you over here," the woman he'd spoken to earlier, stepping behind another of the payment stands and beckoning him to step over.
"Thank you," he said, handing her the book.
"Ah, no allergies here, hm? Good choice."
Loki merely smiled politely as she totaled up his purchase. Another man had gotten behind the woman with the pots, a bouquet of red roses wrapped in thin green paper in his hand. "Why are you going out of business, if I may ask? Your store seems to be doing rather well."
"It is. The sale helps, of course. It's the building, though. A lot of the upper floors were destroyed. Don't worry, it's structurally sound, but the owners decided if they're going to have to do that much rebuilding they may as well bring in a developer and start from scratch. So basically they're buying out our lease."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Loki said automatically.
"Thanks," the woman said with a relaxed smile. "Sixteen forty-three."
He reached into his satchel for his money, carefully pulling out the American dollars and leaving the counterfeit New Zealand ones aside. "Will you move to a new location?" he asked, not actually overly interested.
"My husband and I have been looking ever since we found out this was coming, but, you know, it's Manhattan, and there's such a shortage of available space now that it's really put the prices out of our range. So I don't really know what we'll do. Right now we're just trying to reduce the non-living inventory and taking it one day at a time," she said, handing Loki his change, and the book inside a white plastic bag. "But we can't complain. Other people lost so much more than us – their homes, their lives… We'll figure something out."
"Good luck," he said with a stiff nod. He'd just been making small talk, really, as he'd always done when travelling, before his life had so utterly fallen to pieces. Frigga had overtly taught him these social graces as part of his duties as a prince, and he knew that his expressions of interest and mild concern would help make the shopkeeper at ease and well-disposed toward him. It was also true, he'd found over the centuries, that one could learn a lot about a place and its people through seemingly idle small talk. This was more than he'd bargained for, though.
"Thanks. Have a great evening."
Loki nodded again and beat a hasty retreat. "Good luck." Such hollow, empty words, given who they came from. Outside, he crossed the street and looked up at the building. The damage was evident, particularly above the fifth floor. At around the eighth, black scorch marks were visible around a gaping hole. Loki stood transfixed, barely aware of the jostling of others hurrying past him. Could I have done that? It was an unnecessary question, and he knew it. Of course he could have done it. He had taken control of one of those fliers, and he had fired its weapons. Mostly he'd fired at those he knew to be working for SHIELD, but he'd also fired at the ground, sending vehicles tumbling through streets, and into buildings, sending glass and steel and brick and mortar crumbling to the ground. He hadn't given much thought to what or who might be in those buildings and vehicles and streets. The Chitauri had done far, far more damage than he ever had…but yes, he knew he could have caused this particular damage. And he knew what Jane would say even if he hadn't done it himself; he'd heard it more than once. "You let them in. Did you think you were inviting them for cocktails?" "How can you not see that you're responsible for what they did?"
Think what you like, Jane. It was never supposed to be like that. Some damage was necessary, yes. Some destruction, the deaths of those who defied me. Just enough chaos and devastation to convince them to submit. Perhaps if Thor hadn't been there to distract me, perhaps if…
Loki shook his head. It wouldn't do to start that up again. Not at the moment.
He took a right at the next intersection and put the building with the florist shop at his back.
But he couldn't quite put it out of his mind. It was the faces he saw now. Had that gray-haired woman with her head down lost her home? Had that man in a worn suit lost his job? Had that woman with the vacant stare lost her husband? Did that man in the blue uniform wonder how he would pay his bills? Did that young girl in the ridiculously high heels worry over a dormant disease no one could see and no one had cured?
Loki swallowed heavily, picked up his pace, kept his eyes cast downward. This was a bad idea, he told himself. He'd wanted to lose himself in the anonymity that could be found in a city this large, to revel in the modest strike he'd made against Tony Stark in the course of further testing what Yggdrasil would permit, just for a little while, just because he could. But he'd hardly thought about Stark at all. Now he wanted nothing more than to get out of here and back to the South Pole as quickly as possible.
/
/
Jane opened the door to the jamesway and stepped inside. The light was off, but she could still see inside from the red lamp strapped atop her forehead. Her work laptop was open, which told her Loki might not be here now, but he had been here.
She turned on the lights, turned off her lamp, and stepped over behind the laptop. Enough time had passed that it had powered itself down. Jane hesitated, but then powered it up, curious to see what Loki had been working on. It took a moment, but she soon recognized what she was looking at. Loki's still looking at Pathfinder's data? She wondered why he wouldn't want to talk to her about it. She enjoyed talking about her work and her theories, especially with someone who could actually understand it all, and found that simply having to speak it all aloud made her think more clearly about it.
Loki keeping secrets was really not a good thing. But at the same time, he'd said he needed time to himself, and she understood that. He had a lot of things to think through. Loki thinking…well, that could go either way, she thought with a wry smile. I really should ask. She frowned. She'd asked before. I'm going to have to push. He expected her to get pushy at times, so she could only hope he would keep his cook and finally tell her what he was working on.
She stood from where she'd been leaning over the laptop and looked around the empty open area at the front of the jamesway. She'd been certain he would be here. He must have come out for a while after the morning's skiing, then left again. She powered down the laptop again and closed it. Loki would miss harvesting some fresh vegetables, but she wasn't going to. Of course, he could just make magic ones if he wanted, she supposed.
/
/
When Loki returned to the jamesway, no longer concerned about whether he had returned to the correct time, he was surprised to find the laptop closed. That meant Jane had been here. The fact that she was no longer here told him that she hadn't looked closely enough at what he'd left on the screen to realize he'd overwritten key portions of Pathfinder's code. He was relieved. Part of him still wanted to tell her about this, but even that part had no desire to see her right now. He looked down at the white plastic bag in his right hand. He'd assumed he would just give it to her, tell her he found it in the little library.
But he didn't want to see her.
Now that the options were endless, though, that was no longer a problem, he realized. He could give it to her without seeing her. He knew just the day to do it.
He turned the laptop on, entered new code, replicated it through the system, checked that Jane hadn't disturbed any of the cables. The devices he'd taken off his wrists he put back on, and soon he was back in front of Pathfinder.
/
/
Loki loitered in the A-1 berthing wing until no one was in sight, then stepped into Jane's chambers, Fandral's face visible in place of his own. It was February 9th, and he and Jane were at this very moment on an LC-130 Hercules headed for their grand adventure that would turn out to be even more of an adventure than either of them had thought.
This smell he remembered, sharp and pungent, cleaning chemicals that burned the nose. He wondered if Jane had smelled it, too, or if he was the only one here who could. The room was completely empty except for the same furniture in all of them on this wing; Jane's two-step footstool that she'd been so happy about, the humidifier Erik had sent her, and the low-seated chair she'd covered with her original sheets were missing. The sheets were there, though, stacked atop the bed just as his had been when he'd arrived. He turned his attention to her desk. No poems or pictures taped to it, no poster above it, no notebooks or papers or food wrappers or articles of clothing strewn atop it. He gave a small huff of amusement. It hadn't been this tidy in here since the day Jane set foot in it. It didn't even feel like Jane's room at all. It was impersonal and cold.
He opened up the bottom drawer of her desk, took the book from the bag, and placed it aside, then closed the drawer. "Welcome home, Jane," he said quietly. Then he shook his head at himself. It was time to go. He'd done enough traveling for one day.
/
/
Back at his own South Pole, Loki scrounged a plate of food from the leftovers refrigerator in the galley; he'd meant to get a nice meal while in New York but he'd completely forgotten about it. While he was heating it up in the microwave, Ronny came in with some of those bags of popcorn.
"Hey, Lucas, how goes it?"
"Well, thanks. And you?" he said, simply to be polite. He had no desire for conversation.
"Hey, it's Sunday, man. It's all good. You doing anything? Some of us are about to watch Indiana Jones in a few. The first one. Actually it's a marathon. We're doing the second one, too, then the next two next Sunday. You want to come?"
"I don't…Yes, all right. Thank you, I will." He didn't want to be around these people right now, so his first instinct had been to decline, but then he'd realized that he didn't want to interact or converse or even look at them, and he didn't want to think, and staring at a television screen for a couple of hours of Midgardian entertainment would fit the bill quite nicely.
The movie was all right, not as good as the other two he'd seen, for his taste. He laughed out loud when Indiana Jones faced the swordsman and simply pulled out a gun and shot him, then he tried to imagine the deathly silence that would have greeted that moment were this film shown on Asgard. But was this Indiana not wiser? His woman was being kidnapped. Why waste time? His lips curled in distaste when Indiana was surrounded with snakes; he wasn't fond of them either, to put it rather mildly. The magic of the ark was interesting, but he remained too distracted to think too much about anything in this movie.
Afterward, the crowd scattered to bring back food and drinks for the second movie, now that it was evening, but since Loki had already eaten he remained behind. A couple of the others had returned already when Jane walked in. Present-day Jane. Jane who was paler from lack of sunlight, Jane who knew who he was and what he'd done.
"There you are. I was looking for you," she said, exchanging quick greetings with Olivia and Paul as well.
"Then you've succeeded in your task," he said quietly.
"We're doing an Indy marathon," Olivia said. "Temple of Doom's up next. You should join us."
"Oh, I haven't seen those movies in ages. Okay, sure. I'll go grab some supper. Don't wait for me, though."
"You've got time. That's where everybody else is, too."
"Lucas?" Jane asked. Olivia and Paul both had plates on their laps, but Loki didn't.
"I already ate."
With that, Jane nodded and hurried off; Loki slouched down in his chair and waited for the next movie to start.
/
/
The Temple of Doom, Loki thought, he might have enjoyed when he was ten. Indiana Jones's biggest problem in this movie was that he'd allowed that obnoxious woman with the dyed blond hair to join him. None of it was terribly logical, he thought, though he knew he had missed parts of it. It was even harder to concentrate this time, because they'd run out of seats and Jane was sitting on the floor next to his legs, resting her back against the cushioned front leg of his armchair.
He'd excused himself as soon as it was over and gone back to his chambers, where he now lay on his back in bed, one foot flat on the mattress. It was too early for bed, really, and though he did feel a bit tired he didn't sleep. As the hour grew later, nothing changed. He lay there, staring up blankly at the ceiling, trying very hard not to think.
/
Suggested re-reading: Ch. 11 "Unpacking." Oh! And Ch. 74 "Regrets." And another thing I forgot! A third gold star was earned by a reviewer.
Happy New Year!
Teasers for Ch. 80: Well, Loki told you in this chapter what his next test would involve. He finds it a little more difficult than expected, though.
Excerpt:
Dressed and groomed, he stood in his bedchamber facing the door. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't avoiding. He was without a plan. He'd been so busy not thinking about anything all night long that he'd also neglected to think about what he actually should have been: where and when on Asgard. It should be something familiar to him, so that he could confirm that Yggdrasil had sent him where he'd meant to go. But there was nothing there that he wished to see again. Asgard's past was his past, and his past had already been erased by lies and mutual rejection. Asgard's future would be considerably more interesting.