Beneath

Chapter One Hundred Thirty – Integrity

"Overnight, Gary, Zeke, Drew, and Ken carried out an inspection of this building. Unfortunately, they found signs of structural damage."

Jane blinked heavily, trying to clear her mind, trying to make sense of what Olivia had just said. Because she couldn't have just said that. We're fine…aren't we? We have to be. There's no other choice.

"We have a team of structural engineers working urgently on this, and consulting with the designers and builders. A couple of the B-pod columns are damaged. If the engineers determine that the damage has destabilized the building, then we'll have to relocate as much equipment and materiel as we can from the B-pod to the A-pod, or possibly to another safe location, and if it's necessary, and I stress the if there, then as a last alternative we'll have to drop the walkway between the pods to stabilize this side of the building."

Loki looked around the room as Olivia continued, watching the reactions of fear and shock and disbelief. He wished he'd paid more attention to the station's workings when it was explained upon his arrival. But he knew that the short middle section of the corridor, the walkway between the two metal fire doors that connected the building's two halves – he'd rarely heard them called "pods" – could be detached and allowed to crash to the ice below, an emergency feature built in to isolate a fire to one half of the station and prevent its catastrophic spread to the whole building. He also knew that much – perhaps most – of their food supply for the winter was stored in what was in the summer season a berthing wing in the B-pod, left unheated over the much longer winter to serve as frozen food storage. Though he wouldn't exactly find it pleasant, he could survive the winter with little or even no food; the rest of these people would need much more than the meager amounts of fresh items the greenhouse produced. The Science Lab, the gym, some sort of backup power generator he knew nothing more about, and perhaps most importantly Comms were all also in the other half of the building.

Olivia was explaining that they'd started working on contingency plans in case they had to drop the connecter, such as moving as much food as possible outdoors or into the ice tunnels – Loki had heard of them but had never been there – and transferring whatever Comms equipment they could to the Computer Room.

This was serious. The police and firefighters and National Guard that had all eventually made it to Manhattan were unable to come here. Jane was one of the firefighters here, and while she'd proven herself more capable than he'd expected…she wasn't going to stop a building from collapsing. He glanced her way; her face had paled, her gaze alternately focusing on Olivia and drifting away.

He didn't need to use the ability he'd once so eagerly learned as Thanos's guest to prod at Jane's foremost thoughts. She was afraid, and she felt guilty. She'd cast herself as to blame for these earthquakes right along with him. "We didn't smell the smoke," she'd said. "We."

Loki knew where the real guilt lay. Using Pathfinder for time travel had never even occurred to Jane. And once he'd told her about it, when it was clear she was beginning to figure it out herself, she'd been vehemently opposed to it. He'd talked her into going to Asgard with his assurances of no interference in history, and she'd felt compelled to go with him to Alfheim, to prevent him from doing anything foolish.

A cut-off laugh escaped through his nose; Gary, sitting to Loki's right, turned his way and said, "Bless you," and went back to paying attention to Olivia, who was moving on from safety guidelines to more contingency plans. It was admirable, this urge of Jane's to prevent him from doing anything foolish. But it was a wasted effort.

Just yesterday afternoon, Jane had described Pathfinder as the only real anomaly here. She was entirely incorrect. There was only one anomaly here, but it was him. He'd followed Jane here, and this was the result. Destruction. Chaos. Fear. Every life here in danger. Gary, who'd lost his father while stuck here. Tristan, whose aurora photography was impressive and sure to make the fine book he hoped it would. Rodrigo, who seemed to have a larger family than Asgard's entire population. Austin, who was quite good at darts, for a mortal, whose father was "emotionally closed off." Macy, who never stopped asking if he wanted to play the X-Box, even though he'd never said yes. Zeke, who had as much hair on his chest as he did on his head, and who'd come to know his father better after getting drunk with him. Nora, who owned horses and still occasionally asked about his shoulder. Carlo, whose clarinet was Loki's favorite of the band's instruments, and who had invited him to visit his family's home in Italy. His gaze continued around the room, person after person. He'd once truly thought of them as ants, nothing to distinguish them beyond the basics of their physical features, nothing of interest or value in any of them, not even Jane. He remembered how completely he'd ignored them in the beginning, how he'd tolerated them and responded to their queries merely for the sake of avoiding suspicion. He felt it now as he never had before: he could not let these people suffer because of him.

And what are you supposed to do about it? he asked himself. Building repair was not among the skills he'd ever cultivated with his magic, even were his abilities not so severely impaired. He would try, though, still…he would try. He owed it to the people here.

/

/

Frigga looked down at her cloak to straighten it, but found it perfectly in place. Heimdall had warned her that even though he gained better control of the Tesseract each time he used it, a Tesseract-powered journey was still not as smooth as a bifrost-powered one. He was right, but one would not know it from her clothing, which was completely undisturbed. She'd taken special care with it, the items she wore, in the end settling on a neutral palette, a fitted cream gown, just short of floor-length, overlaid with intricately-patterned golden lace and a high-backed neck open at the throat. The cloak was made from a heavier version of the same soft material and rested just atop her shoulders, pinned across her collarbone with a round gold brooch onto which was etched an abstract depiction of a hammer. Her hair she wore swept up neatly but not as elaborately as usual, and on her ears hung simple gold balls. It was formal, but not too pretentious, she hoped. She had not been here for ages, and then less than a handful of times.

The tops of other buildings, some with peaks well below her but others as tall as this one – on those her eyes lingered – were visible all around her. The realm looked rather more like Asgard than it had on her earlier visits. A glass door to the building on whose balcony she stood, meanwhile, was opening. Frigga turned that way and stepped effortlessly, from many centuries of experience, into her role as queen. These were her son's friends, and she would be glad to meet them, but this was not a social call.

A man and a woman approached, the woman with straight reddish-blond hair and wearing a slim dark blue skirt that stopped just below her knees, with a matching jacket over a white shirt; the man with dark hair and an oddly-trimmed beard and wearing a black jacket and pants, both with thin white vertical stripes. The man was a few steps behind the woman and hurrying to catch up.

Frigga walked toward them, meeting them around halfway.

"Your Majesty," the woman said in greeting, as the man and woman both dropped their heads in a bow so perfect in execution she knew they – or at least the man, who had visited Asgard just the day before yesterday – had been instructed.

"I thank you, but it's unnecessary. What is the usual method of greeting one another on your realm? I would prefer to use that."

"Ah, well," the woman said, "we have a lot of different cultures on our…realm, and different customs have different cultures. I mean-" She stopped herself, eyes flaring briefly. She inhaled deeply, let it out, then began again. "Different cultures have different customs. In this country, we usually shake hands," she said, holding her right hand out with confidence.

Frigga reached out with her right hand and grasped Pepper's wrist.

"Actually, like this," she said, pulling gently free of Frigga's loose grasp and clasping her palm instead, then moving it steadily up and down.

"I see," Frigga said with a smile, following Pepper's lead until she felt the other woman's grip slacken and they both let go. The woman had been nervous, but had recovered quickly, and had an unmistakable air of poise, self-assurance, and intelligence about her. Frigga recognized in her an experienced and competent leader.

"I'm Pepper Potts. Welcome to Earth."

"Thank you, Miss Potts," Frigga answered. She, too, had been instructed, and knew the appropriate titles to use. "Allow me to express gratitude, personally and on behalf of Asgard, for your close work with Geirmund, Krusa, and Jolgeir on a matter of great importance to us."

"Of course. We're glad to be able to assist. Please call me Pepper."

"Tony Stark," the man put in then. "Tony. And, uh, ditto. I mean, welcome to Earth, Your Majesty."

Frigga shook the extended hand. "Thank you, Tony. I'm so pleased to meet friends of my son's, who have also been such good friends to Asgard. You must work for Pepper?"

"I must? Well…actually, we were just having a little argument about that, what, last week? Who won, Pepper? I don't remember."

"I don't recall anyone winning, but I do clearly recall that yes, Your Majesty, he works for me," Pepper said with a warm smile.

Tony's face scrunched up as though he'd eaten something bitter. "Ehhhh…okay, I guess I do. Technically speaking. Not really. I let her be the boss."

"I think I understand," Frigga said. Not the details of their working relationship, that she didn't understand. But it didn't matter. What she understood was that these two were both dear friends and deeply in love. It was rather achingly obvious. "I apologize for my early arrival. Our diplomatic advisor has shared with me everything you told him, Mr. Stark, Tony, but I had hoped to meet with you in person and learn a little more about what I can expect."

"Of course. My PR team is already here. I have plenty of experience in front of the camera, but they'd tell you I'm not exactly a press conference role model. Actually, I'm probably their least favorite client. But then, hey, I'm their only client, so-"

"Tony," Pepper interrupted with a tight smile.

"-you should come on inside and meet them."

Frigga nodded and went with the other two to the glass door, stepping into and quickly surveying the large airy chamber, one entire wall of which was glass. She came to an immediate stop just inside the door, the other two stopping beside her. "Are you aware we are being watched from two of those other buildings?"

"Sir, something is interfering with the sound system," a voice said from out of nowhere.

Frigga tensed instantly and cast her gaze around the space again. "Who is that?" she asked. Obviously, she had not surveyed the room carefully enough.

"Don't worry, that's just Jarvis. Artificial intelligence. He keeps the building up and running. Among other things. Jarvis, what kind of interference?"

"Jarvis, do not be concerned," Frigga said to the disembodied voice. "I am causing the interference, to ensure that we are not also being listened to."

"Really? As in…hocus pocus?"

"Magic," Pepper clarified.

"Yes. And I apologize that I didn't warn you in advance. I was concerned about the men watching us."

"Right. That. Yeah, we know about it. It's SHIELD's men in black. Uhhh…long story. They aren't an enemy force, they just have an insatiable need to know everything, and they really don't like it when somebody knows something they don't. They know Asgardians have been dropping by here but they don't know why, and now with Gullveig showing up unannounced and going on about Loki and announcing he's on Earth…they basically had a conniption fit. For SHIELD that means they show up with a lot of questions and throw their weight around, annnnd they set up 24-7 surveillance on you when you don't answer. Probably even if you do answer, but I can't say for certain because I never answer. At least not-"

"SHIELD isn't a problem. And Jarvis regularly sweeps the portions of the tower that we occupy for listening devices now, but you're welcome to continue blocking sound through your own means, as well."

Frigga nodded. Tony, she thought, had a certain charm, but she certainly understood the assessment the others had come away with, that working with Pepper was more efficient. "I understand. Thank you." Her eyes fell now on the odd sofa in the middle of the room that she'd paid little heed to before. Its placement was not so odd, if one wished to use it to appreciate the view from the windows, but the angle… She lowered her head down toward one shoulder. The floor had a large hole in it, and one of the sofa legs was in the hole which the rest of the sofa covered.

"We, uh, were just doing a little renovation. Before you got here. The workers never showed up," Tony said, casting a reproving glance at Pepper.

"I told you, they're running late," she said, her smile suddenly nervous.

Frigga looked again at the tilting sofa and the hole underneath it. "And I'm early. Please don't concern yourselves. I'm not here to critique your home."

"So, Thor's mom, huh?" Tony said, stepping in front of the sofa and blocking her full view of it. "He definitely doesn't get his fashion sense from you. You look spectacular, if I may be so bold."

"Thank you, Tony. I'm a little underdressed for a public appearance on Asgard, but my impression from our advisors who've been to Midgard recently told me the attire here tends to be a little less…complex. Will this be appropriate? I have time to retrieve something even simpler if not."

"I think it will be very appropriate, Your Majesty," Pepper said. "I think you should look like you. We want people to feel they're hearing the truth from you."

"That won't be a problem. They're going to hear the truth from me."

"Speaking of truth…"

"Yes?" Frigga prompted, noting the pointed glance Pepper was giving Tony that Tony was just as pointedly ignoring.

"I heard…sort of through the grapevine, you know how these things are…that Loki wasn't the guy in charge of the Chitauri, those aliens that he let…uh, that attacked Earth. That someone else was. Do you by any chance know who that was? Do you know if their leader died when I destroyed the rest of the Chitauri?"

Frigga listened with increasingly rapt attention as Tony spoke. "Where did you hear this from? What do you mean, the 'grapevine'?"

"Well, I heard it from SHIELD, and they…I'm sure they could have heard it from any number of places. They talk to a lot of people all over the world, and-"

"Did they tell you anything else? About the Chitauri? Or some other leader? Or what happened to Loki when he was lost to us? Anything?"

"No. I'm sorry. Nothing else. I was hoping you would know more about it."

"I don't. Until recently we thought Loki had led the Chitauri, just as you did. But we now have a theory…we began to suspect that someone else was involved, that someone else orchestrated the play for the Tesseract, and that that same person may have also orchestrated the war against Asgard. But we have no idea who he is, or where we might find him. You know the conditions the other realms have demanded, along with our surrender?"

"We do," Tony answered.

"They say that the demand for Loki comes from Jotunheim. But Jotunheim is embroiled in a civil war; they have hardly participated at all in the attacks on Asgard. And we have captured the king of another of the realms; Thor tells me he was quick to offer to soften that demand, as though it were not that important. For these and related additional reasons, we now believe that that demand may not have originated with Jotunheim, but rather from this unknown other person whom Loki must have met at some point after he fell from the bifrost."

"And that other person wants revenge against Loki, for failing on Earth? By having him thrown into prison on another realm?" Pepper asked.

"Or having him executed there. Or tortured. We don't know what they would do to him. We know next to nothing of their customs or laws. Thor, I'm proud to say, wishes to change that in his reign." She paused for a moment to swallow down a wave of bitterness and shame. "But that doesn't help us now."

"I'm sorry," Pepper said, and Frigga thought her sympathy genuine. "I wish we could be of more help."

"No, don't be. You have been of help. The fact that you, and this SHIELD group, believe that someone other than Loki led the attack on Earth…that bolsters our theory of the same. And…provides a certain comfort." She looked down briefly to quickly compose herself. "We also suspect that ultimately, this other person's primary goal remains obtaining the Tesseract, by first having it removed from Asgard to less secure hands. Revenge against Loki, we believe, is merely a fringe benefit."

"I'm guessing he's not a fan of being a fringe benefit instead of the main attraction."

"I wouldn't know, Tony. I haven't seen him in months, and I haven't seen him when he could talk sensibly to me in nearly two years," Frigga said, polite expression unchanging. Pepper, she saw, was uncomfortable, and Tony she thought looked at least a little chagrined.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just…we didn't exactly get along all that well when he was here."

"I understand," Frigga said, and she did. She didn't begrudge these people their feelings toward her younger son. That didn't make it easier to hear him be belittled by people who barely knew him.

"Your Majesty, we should get you to the PR team. They're in the conference room three floors down, and the elevator is just over there. Before we go, can Tony get you something to drink? Water? Juice? Tea? Coffee?"

"Thor has told me about coffee. He likes it a great deal. But no, thank you. Perhaps some other time." She hesitated a moment, and saw that Pepper noticed and waited, while Tony had started toward the elevator. Very perceptive, that woman. "I do have one question."

"Of course," she said with a nod, while Tony paused where he was and then turned back to join them.

"Did Loki do anything to harm either of you?"

The couple glanced at each other and Frigga saw in their eyes that he had. Her smile faded.

"I never met him, Your Majesty," Pepper said.

That left Tony. "What did he do to you, Mr. Stark?"

"Uh, he…just a little defenestration, you know. He kind of threw me out of a window." Frigga waited; there was more. She, too, was perceptive. Tony's gaze refocused beyond her, and Frigga turned to follow it, out to the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows. "That one," he said.

Frigga drew in a slow breath and looked back at Tony, who was giving a little half shrug. She wondered how he'd survived. Even an Aesir's body would be badly, possibly even fatally damaged by that fall, depending on the point of impact. "I apologize for him. It is my hope…that one day he will apologize to you himself."

Tony gave a short laugh born largely, she could tell, of discomfort. "No offense, but I'm not holding my breath on that one."

"Tony-" Pepper began, softly.

"It's all right. I really do understand. My son is so full of anger. He…" She paused to swallow, and to let the feelings welling up in her ebb away into the background. "When matters on Asgard have calmed, I would like to return, if I may. I would enjoy visiting your home and speaking further with you both. Thor holds his Midgardian friends in high regard, and I would very much like to make your acquaintance beyond these times of necessity."

"You're welcome to return any time, Your Majesty, and we'll be praying that those calmer times come soon," Pepper said with a polite yet warm smile.

/

/

The meeting was a long one, full of questions Olivia could not fully answer and fears she could not fully assuage. On top of it all, today was house mouse day, she reminded them. Loki had completely lost track, not that it really mattered; he'd done housekeeping chores to "fit in" here, and he was no longer particularly concerned about that. Until they had a report from the team back in the United States studying the damage, and based on that, some other plan of action, they were to do their best to continue their work as normal, although they were not to go to any of the outbuildings until those too had been thoroughly inspected for damage, and they were to remain in the A-pod to the extent possible – an ironic statement given that they were having this meeting in the B-pod.

When Olivia called the meeting to a close, some people began moving immediately, while others remained where they were as though stuck in place, and conversation was slow to begin. As he stood, Loki took note of it without any interest, except for in Jane, who was hurrying toward the door after Olivia. He'd hoped to speak with her, but was unwilling to wait while she discussed whatever she wished with the station's manager, even less so if said discussion involved Jane overcome with misplaced guilt, confessing Pathfinder and time travel and him. He was nearly certain that she wouldn't intentionally reveal his true identity, but if she started down a path of spewing forth truth, she might give away more than intended.

Unfortunately, he was for the moment essentially trapped, on the far side of the conference room, as people paused and lingered and began talking, instead of making their way efficiently toward the door. He caught sight of Selby, then, similarly trapped, but trying to forge a path through the loiterers. Without a conscious thought Loki pushed his way toward the door more aggressively, circling the table in the opposite direction.

"Oh, hey, Lucas," Tristan said when Loki's shoulder knocked into his. "You want to help me out with those animated gifs tonight? Wright said you've got the song list. Better to keep-"

"Yes, of course," Loki said, looking back just long enough to get the expected words out. He made it to the door just before Selby and positioned himself outside it, capturing the scientist by the arm carefully, but firmly enough to rock him back on his feet.

"What's-"

"I need a word with you."

"Okay, but I really need to-"

"Right now."

Selby looked down the hallway; in his peripheral vision Loki saw Jane and Olivia disappear into Comms together, closely followed by Rodrigo. Everyone else who'd made it out was turning the opposite direction, where most of the rest of the station lay, including the half that was not held up by damaged columns.

"Okay," Selby said with an obviously frustrated sigh. "What's going on?"

Loki motioned toward one of the empty offices nearby, and kept close to Selby, shoulders squared, instinctive attempts to intimidate that were working, judging by how Selby tried to edge away and cast nervous glances his way.

"Is something wrong? What's this about?" Selby asked as soon as they were in the office.

Positioning himself between Selby and the open door, Loki leaned down and spoke in a smooth low voice. "As I said, I need a word with you. Eight, to be precise. Touch Jane again, and I will end you."

Selby looked confused, but only for a second before his eyes went wide and Loki knew that Selby knew exactly what he was talking about. He started to say something, the beginnings of a sound coming forth, but before it could turn into anything intelligible Loki cut him off. "You don't need to comment. An 'I understand' will suffice. Even a nod will do."

Selby swallowed, his throat bobbing noticeably, and a slight tremble in his jaw appeared. He was afraid; Loki was glad. "I understand," he said a second later.

"Good," he answered, holding Selby's gaze a moment longer than was strictly necessary, before turning on his heel to leave. There was a muted echo of a thrill in exerting so much control over Selby with so little effort, but at the same time it sickened him that Selby could be so utterly spineless. Jane, he thought with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, would not have stood for such treatment. As annoying, even maddening, as it could be in the moment, he liked that about her, that she stood up to him when he tried to intimidate or frighten her, that she rolled her eyes at him, or even made fun of him.

I'm going to miss her, he thought suddenly as he turned into the A-1 berthing wing. He could not predict the future, but he knew that all this, his life here at the bottom of Midgard, was coming to a fast end, and that wherever he ended up when he left – or wherever he was sent – Jane would not be there. And this short phase of his life…there had never been anything like it before, and there would never be anything like it again.

/

/

"Is he a structural engineer?"

Jane's shoulders sagged. "No. Mechanical engineer. And electrical. And physicist. But not structural. He's built some amazing things, but-"

"That goes without saying. But he's never built a building, right? Much less a building in extreme cold weather conditions?" Olivia asked, glancing up from the computer in Comms where she was checking her e-mail.

She shook her head. Tony was a genius, without question, but Olivia was right – that didn't mean he had any expertise or experience in structural engineering. "There's one thing he can definitely do that nobody else can."

"Yeah?" Olivia said, this time not even looking up.

"He can come here."

This time she gave Jane her full attention. "Really? You're sure?"

"Pretty sure. He seemed pretty sure. He said he'd made some modifications to the Iron Man suit for the weather conditions here. Just…you know, in case it was necessary."

"So he already knows about the earthquakes?"

"Uh-huh," Jane said with a brisk nod. Tony had of course made those modifications not because of the earthquakes, but long before, when he'd thought he'd be racing down here to apprehend Loki.

"Okay, well…let's keep it in mind, just in case. As far as any mechanical work goes, we've got Gary, who's a master mechanic, and several others with mechanic experience. But we don't know how deep the cracking goes, how secure the bolts are, how fundamental to the pillar's structural integrity the damage is in general. This might be way more than a welding job can fix. If we have to sever the middle section…Iron Man can left extremely heavy things, right?"

"Yeah, um, I think so. I don't know how much, but yeah."

"Well, maybe he can somehow hold up the middle section and lower it slowly to the ground so it's salvageable later." Her eyes drifted closed. "Without getting crushed underneath it when he finally sets it down. I'm not sure what he could really do for us, Jane. I guess he could help us move stuff out of the B-pod. But one extra pair of hands, even Iron Man hands, probably wouldn't make that much difference there. It's another potential resource, though, so really, thanks for letting me know." Olivia shook her head slowly, a wry smile on her lips. "Iron Man here at the South Pole. That'd be pretty cool, huh? Old hat for you, though, I guess."

"I've never met him in person, actually. Just talked to him on the phone," she said, but Olivia had already shifted focus back to her e-mail, where Jane supposed she had important messages coming in from the engineering teams and the National Science Foundation and who knew who else. Jane was, essentially, dismissed, so she waved to Rodrigo, who was lost in thought and didn't notice it, then left.

This side of the corridor was deserted, but once she passed through the swinging double doors first on the B-pod side and then, across the walkway, on the A-pod side, she saw over a dozen people standing around and talking. Loki wasn't among them, so she continued on toward their berthing wing.

"Hey, Jane!" Ronny called from a little further down, near the entrance to the galley. "Come have a drink with us. Zeke's our volunteer barkeep and Austin's opening up the Pole-Mart so everybody can buy extra donations. Music and dancing!"

"Nobody's working?"

"No way, man, not today," he said, having already run up and thrown an arm around her shoulder. "What's that saying? Let them eat cake? Or…eat, drink, party, for…"

For tomorrow we may die? "Geez, Ronny, that's morbid. We don't even know how bad it is yet."

"It's not morbid. It's practical. We're being very practical," he said with a broad grin.

"You're being very practical when it's not even noon yet," Jane said, her light laughter coming out a little awkwardly. Half the station sitting around all day getting wasted wasn't going to do any good. But then, she supposed, most people probably felt helpless and figured they could douse their fear with alcohol. Jane's expression settled into a frown when she had to admit to herself that she, too, was basically helpless in all this…but that wouldn't stop her from trying to find some way to help. Even if that just meant making sure Loki kept it together, then filling Tony in on what was going on, so he could be ready to come down in case of emergency.

"Time is totally arbitrary here," Ronny was saying. "You're a beaker, you know all about that. It's whatever time we say it is, right? So I say…there's no time like the present!"

"Hey, bro, we got the last Coronas!" Brody called from behind Jane, two cases of beer in his arms and Sue at his side, poking his shoulder for some reason.

"You guys rock," Ronny said as several others commented and patted Ronny on the back; Paul took one of the cases. "Jaaaane," he said in a sing-songy voice, "I'm pretty sure one of those Coronas has your name on it." Paul echoed the invitation.

"Save it for me for later, then, okay?" Jane asked, smiling a little more easily now. "I've got to take care of a few things."

"I'll try, but you know the most popular alcohol is whatever we're running out of. I'll hide one for you," he said, the last over his shoulder as he headed away toward the galley.

"Thanks!" Jane called, continuing on her way into the berthing wing. No time like the present, she thought with a wry smile. Good advice. If only we'd followed it…

/

/

Loki stepped into the overalls and yanked them up. He hated wearing them, but it had grown noticeably colder over the last week or so and he was tired of feeling it – and he knew he might be standing around outside for a while. He didn't need all the layers that the others did, though, and in no time he was leaving his room again with the bright red jacket under his arm and gloves, hat, and balaclava in his hand.

"Going out?" Nora said, heading toward him; her chambers were further down the corridor.

"I thought I'd take a look at the damage," Loki answered without stopping.

"Well, there's a party in the galley, when you get back, if you're interested."

"A party?" he asked, stopping and turning, for he'd already passed her.

"Yep," she answered, stopping as well. "Time-honored tradition of drinking instead of worrying. I'm heading back down in a few minutes. I figure I should be there in case things get out of hand. Sorry, though, I don't judge. I just treat the foolish. Go on down and get sloshed if you want," Nora said with a goofy smile, miming tipping a drink back.

Loki nodded and gave a half-hearted smile, then set off again. When he emerged from the berthing wing, Jane was not far away, her back to him, talking to Ronny, as Brody, Sue, and Paul approached them. Much of the crowd that had been here earlier when he'd left Selby had apparently gone to the galley to drink away their troubles and "get sloshed" – maybe including Selby. Loki understood that impulse.

Before Jane could spot him, or anyone else took particular note of him, he made two quick lefts and trotted down the stairs to the quiet first level, where he pushed aside the thick plastic, opened up the heavy refrigerator doors, and stepped outside. It was painfully cold, and there on the Destination Zulu landing he quickly got into the ECW gear he'd been carrying. He let out a heavy breath, certain the moisture from it was already freezing on his exposed eyelashes, and hurried down the remaining flight of stairs to the ice with its patches of red from the lights on the outside of the building.

The sky was striking – dark and clear with excellent visibility. The stars shone crisply, bright pinpoints set against the blackest of canvases, the moon no more than a sliver. Even the aurora was muted today, just a hint of green trailing down near the horizon. He tore his eyes away from it. He wasn't here for stargazing, though on a day like today it was eminently clear why others were.

Loki had never paid any attention to the underside of the elevated station before. The closest he'd come to it was standing with Jane next to one of these support columns as she packed snow in a plastic bag to try to prevent her throat from swelling closed. The same Jane who had insisted on spending the night in his chambers last night, whose concern for him was genuine. Unfathomable.

The station was held up by considerably more than a handful of pillars. The one where he'd spent an uncomfortable few minutes with Jane was now to his right. Pod B was to his left, so he turned that way, but now that he was confronted with the building itself, he realized even finding the damaged pillars might not be that easy down here in the dark. He stepped carefully over partially-buried metal stabilization beams connecting each pair of pillars across the width of the station, slowing further when he stood underneath Pod B so that he could take a look at the nearest pillar. The cracking and the loosened bolts had to be visible, otherwise he wasn't sure how anyone could have known it was there. Perhaps Midgard had the ability to somehow scan for sub-surface damage, but he doubted they had the necessary equipment at the South Pole.

He was examining a second column when his head whipped around and his hand reached for a knife he realized too late wouldn't be there, a habit he couldn't seem to break, but he just as quickly realized he had nothing to worry about. It was a fellow Polie who'd called his name – not even his real one – and Jane would tell him if the Iron Man was on his way. No one else knew he was here. Yet. He hurried over as quickly as he could, given the ice and the horizontal metal beams and then the incline of the accumulated snowdrift that had built up on the side of the building facing Grid North, to find Gary standing there with a handheld red flashlight and some electronic device he was unfamiliar with.

"Didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't."

Gary let loose a guffaw. "You almost jumped out of your skin."

"You startled me. I didn't realize you were there." Loki shook his head then and relaxed. There was no need to take offense; Gary was making a jest, not an accusation. "And I suspect you did it on purpose. You were hiding behind that pillar and waiting for the perfect moment to jump out at me."

"And you were an easy mark." The laughter faded. "The managers don't really want everybody coming down here, you know."

"And everybody hasn't."

"Good point. Want to see it?"

Loki nodded, and followed Gary around. The cracking in the column was immediately obvious, and bolts at their base were not just loosened, but partially pulled out, the metal around them twisted and warped.

"All the doors close properly. That's the first test I learned to do after an earthquake, if you don't see any visible damage, so that's a good sign. The building's still plumb. But," he began, followed by deep inhale and exhale, "the buckling and fractures around the weld areas, the uplift here, and the way the cracking has spread…that's concerning. They welded those bolts in, you know. They weren't able to get them in the normal way, problems with the temperatures. Metal does funny things in extreme cold. But the heat from the welding can create a weak spot. Steel is ductile. It bends before it breaks. But look at that. There, and there," he said, pointing. "We've got bending and we've also got breaking."

Loki listened with intense concentration as Gary continued, asking the occasional question, less concerned about whether his questions were odd for a Midgardian than he used to be. He figured most Midgardians knew little about the technical side of building construction on their world, anyway.

"Sad to think they only finished the construction a few years ago. A lot of hard work went into it, twenty-four hours a day for a decade of summers. And that last earthquake… They built this thing to last. Forty-five years, actually."

"Only forty-five years?" They call that 'building to last'?"

Gary chuckled and placed a gloved hand on the column, rubbing it up and down in a manner that could almost be called loving, and perhaps it was. "The building could have lasted longer. It's the snow drift. Builds up, never melts, not a thing on God's green Earth you can do about it. You know they can jack up the building, right? They can jack it up twice, as the level of the ice rises. Then…I guess we start getting buried like the old dome station did."

"But you don't think it will last that long. The building could have lasted longer, you said."

"I don't know. I don't know what kind of damage there is inside those columns. I don't know how weakened this steel is. The level of fatigue…there's a lot I don't know. I don't know if we'll be able to come up with some kind of jacket we can manufacture here that might reinforce the columns. I don't know if we'll have another earthquake. I do know this damage is structural, it's not just cosmetic. And I know that nothing lasts forever."

Loki nodded slowly, letting those words sink in. On Asgard, it was easy to sit back, let the days pass one after the other, each largely the same as the next, and live as though things did last forever. The Midgardians, perhaps, were more keenly aware that they didn't. Or perhaps, for Gary, his more advanced relative age made him more conscious of his mortality. He'd been about to head over to one of the other columns, but stopped. Perhaps it wasn't just his own mortality Gary was thinking of. "How are you doing?" he asked. "I mean…since the loss of your father?"

Gary made a vague motion with his hands, in lieu of the facial expressions neither of them could see. "I'm okay. There's just this weird disconnect that never really goes away, being out here. And I'm not there to help the rest of the family." He gave a sigh, then a chuckle. "You wouldn't believe how much work dying causes. All kinds of legal rigamarole. And we practically had to get a court order to get his gym to stop charging him for membership, can you believe that?"

Loki breathed out something which wasn't quite a laugh, for though Gary seemed to have the personality to find humor or a bright spot in anything, Loki couldn't quite join him in the sentiment. "It sounds unpleasant. I've never had to deal with it." He'd lost uncles and aunts – false uncles and aunts – but had borne no responsibility in handling it other than his own sense of loss, and with Baldur's death…he supposed he was the legal "rigamarole." He didn't really know what other complications there may have been; he hadn't been a part of that.

"Well, there's really nothing more I can do here. I'm going to head in and see what we've heard from the suits. You coming in?"

"In a few more minutes."

"All right. See you inside."

"See you," Loki said with a nod.

Now alone, Loki focused on the same column Gary had been inspecting. And the more he stared at it, and the more he thought about it, the more impossible it seemed. He could reshape a piece of metal. But if he wanted that metal to hold up an enormous building and withstand possible further earthquakes, he had to do more than just reshape it. In concept, if not in size and material, it wasn't so different from the boots he now wore. The damaged one was no longer cut open, but the mark of the damage was visible to anyone with a keen enough eye for it – in other words not to any of the Midgardians – and it would was weakened, more susceptible to further damage. And Asgardian leather he understood well. Midgardian steel, considerably less so. And when he'd repaired his boot, his ability to use magic had been minimally impaired. Now it was minimally retained.

None of that meant he wasn't going to try. He took off his gloves – he was going to need every bit of help he could get, and direct contact, not something he normally bothered with, might better channel energy.

Of course what he was making direct contact with – otherwise known as touching – was metal, and the temperature was nearly 90 degrees below zero, he'd heard someone say before the meeting started this morning. His hands burned as though he'd stuck them into a fire but he resisted the instinct to pull them away and the pain began to fade. He felt for the structure of the column, for cracking or warping or other weaknesses in it. This part shouldn't be that difficult – it wasn't so dissimilar from feeling out the shape of the lock on Jane's door in McMurdo. But it was. With a great deal of concentration he could tell there was a disturbance of some sort on the inside, underneath the outer layer of steel, but try as he might, he couldn't get further than that vague sense that something was in there was an aberration of the rest of the column. With such lack of clarity, any attempt to correct the disturbance was out of the question. And fixing the cracking in the outer layer wouldn't resolve the problems underneath it.

He'd known, though, that it was unlikely he'd be able to do anything about the interior of the columns. He turned his attention next to the bolts and connecting plates down near his feet where the snowdrift had already been shoveled away. He moved to crouch down and found himself instead staring at his hands. They had frozen to the column. He'd known it would happen but given it little thought, and he was now paying for it. When Jane's hands froze to the railing at the Dark Sector Lab, he'd simply warmed the air around them until she could safely remove them. Now… He nearly laughed at himself but he was so angry at his own stupidity that the laughter never quite made it out. Minutes passed, at least ten of them, perhaps as many as twenty, before finally he was able to pull his hands free without leaving flesh behind. The skin was white, and the fingertips, when he prodded at them, were hard. Frostbite. How incredibly ironic.

There was little he could do about it, other than get his hands back into his gloves.

He crouched down then, balaclava frozen to his face from the sweat he'd worked up in his efforts to free his hands. He may as well have been a millennium younger for how maddeningly difficult it was, but eventually, here, as his vision began to swim and his head to pound, the metal of the connecting plate, where the column was bolted into the horizontal beam underneath it, loosened and flexed. With great care, and a resistance that seemed almost intentional, it finally reshaped itself to match the undamaged ones he'd seen on his way here. Gently he released his tenuous hold over it, trying to get control of his winded breathing to begin work on the two bolts that were fractured and partially pulled out. His breath was just returning to normal when it was stolen away. Before his eyes tiny cracks appeared simultaneously all over the plate. Within seconds it shattered completely.

Loki stared in horror down at the metal plating that now lay in darkened broken pieces on the snow.

He'd made it worse.

/

I tried to make it clear in this chapter that, as separate events become more interconnected, the scenes, which can only be presented separately here, are to some extent overlapping in timing. Please bear that in mind in particular for the next I think two chapters. Hopefully it will be clear, but I don't think I've written something quite so...I guess crucially overlapping before, and if it leaves you confused, let me know so for the future I can perhaps figure out a way to do it better.

Now is also a good time to mention again another author's story picking up on that hole in Tony's floor..."What to do with the hole in the floor" - it's in my favorites. I hope it was more or less clear what happened in this chapter, despite the lack of Tony's POV: when Frigga was early and the "sweaty workmen" were very late, Tony scrambled to cover the hole the quickest way he knew how, dragging the couch over to mostly cover it...but one leg of the couch wound up stuck in the hole and he couldn't get it out in time. Frigga didn't notice water because it had already been drained.

Previews from Ch. 131: Loki is (big surprise) something of a mess; Midgard gains two more visitors; yeah, hard to say more...especially when I don't yet know where I'm breaking that chapter!

Excerpt:

She had two more e-mails she'd put off opening until the end, both from Maria Hill. Focused so heavily on New York, Maria apparently hadn't heard about the South Pole earthquakes; these were not messages of concern for Jane's welfare. The first, it turned out, was a general inquiry asking if Jane had learned anything new and if so to please call no matter what time, an apology for her impatience during their call yesterday, and an explanation of sorts, that Maria's "boss" was really "concerned" about the "visitor" who had come to New York two days ago. The second, sent about an hour ago, said that Tony had had a "special visitor" today, a woman, whom SHIELD hadn't observed there before, and that Tony wasn't even taking their calls now, and if Jane could please help them out Maria's boss would be eternally grateful and see that Jane's research was fully funded, fully-resourced, and strings-free, all for the rest of her life.