Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five – Desperation
Odin fought astride Sleipnir, leading a contingent of mounted warriors against a large group of Fire Giants, with a sprinkling of Ljosalf. Thor bringing rain down upon them had proven a reliable tactic – although it didn't harm them, the lowered temperature on top of already cooler temperatures on Asgard compared to Muspelheim reduced their fighting effectiveness .Thor, however, had had to leave this battle before the first raindrop could fall in order to seal up a third portal that had managed to penetrate the shield over the city. Were they able to fight together, just as Thor had always wanted, he knew, despite his earlier momentary descent into pointless nostalgia, they would in fact be incredibly effective against the portals. Thor, using Mjolnir, was able to close them, though it wasn't instantaneous, and Gungnir was at its most effective when given a clean target full of enemies and free of his own people, exactly the scenario at the opening of a portal. But Thor could get there much more quickly – by the time Odin arrived the Asgardians would have engaged those emerging – so Odin had left a battle against an enormous onslaught of myriad intermingled attackers to take the lead from Thor in this battle, which threatened Asgard's largest dairy, its only dairy that remained open.
He had never fought against such overwhelming numbers. Still, the fighting was at close quarters and he could not send out a sweeping strike from Gungnir without cutting down at least a handful of his own people. He picked them off as he could, but too often found himself dodging swords or blasts of fire to get a good shot. The fire suppression systems at the dairy were being overwhelmed; a few small blazes had taken hold and threatened to spread.
Two giants were approaching him, swords swinging for his neck, a fist drawing back to expel liquid fire. He felled one with a quick burst from Gungnir; the second was then too close and he drove the staff up and into the giant's chest, aiming directly for the heart. The giant tried to rear back and to the side, twisting around to avoid Odin's blade but strike home with his own, but Odin had expected that and turned Sleipnir with him, still driving Gungnir's point toward its target. His weapon fell short of its mark, though, as a wave of light-headedness hit him, as sometimes happened when the Sleep approached, but this was followed by a wave of pain and a sensation of burning around his left wrist. The giant hadn't singed him; Odin had missed his mark but not by much. A second strike felled the tottering giant and Odin immediately spun around to slash open the gut of the one who'd been approaching from behind, whose flame had singed him but his armor had absorbed the brunt of it.
"Tyr!" he called as soon as an opening around him appeared. Tyr was occupied, but turned his way as soon as he was able. Like Thor, his best warrior from the old days like Thor now split his time between here and the palace. All hands were needed, and while Tyr was no longer as fast as many of the younger warriors, no one wielded a sword like him. "Send for reinforcements!"
Tyr held his gaze for a moment, then shook his head. Odin understood, and his heart sank. There were no more reinforcements. There were no idle warriors.
"How many towers are under attack?" he called, spurring Sleipnir on closer to Tyr, fighting as he went.
"At last report, three!" Tyr shouted back.
The decision took only a second, though in that second, Odin weighed it carefully. "Fall back to the towers! We defend the towers!"
The order went out over the rams' horns, and the Asgardians began to pull back. The dairy would be left to burn. Odin, too, began extricating himself from the battle.
/
/
Jane dashed back out across the ice, slowing only after she tripped over the sastrugi and fell hard, her right knee taking the painful brunt of the contact with the hard-packed snow. The thought drifted through her mind that she was fast becoming a bundle of bruises on top of the tender spot that was still there on her head, but it drifted right out again when she thought about Selby in the main station being prepped for emergency surgery, and Loki outside in the biting cold with what she assumed was the exact same injury. If she'd understood correctly, Loki wasn't going to get better unless Selby's surgery was successful, and even then, she had no idea what his internal anatomy was like. She suspected Loki wasn't going to be able to do much if any magic-healing on himself like he had for the earlier stab wound in his back, so Nora would have to perform the same surgery on him after performing it on Selby, all with the help of a couple of people who weren't medical professionals. What if she opened him up and found that his organs were not in the "right" place, or that he was missing some or had extras? What if she wasn't even able to open him up with scalpels from Earth?
She tried hard not to think about that, and to focus instead on the one thing that was in her power – getting to Loki, and getting him back to the station. She should have gotten Ronny and Tristan to help her. They'd been drinking, and weren't going to be of much use to Nora in a surgery. It had been instinctive, fleeing on her own, and now that she'd come this far she wasn't going to waste time by going back to get them. She'd dragged Selby in, and while Loki was heavier, she could drag him in, too, or maybe let him lean on her if he could still walk at all.
She thought back to the other time she'd dragged Loki, or Lucas as she'd known him at that time, and how it had struck her that he was heavier than he looked. It was during the MCI drill. She remembered learning that at the Pole, just two casualties made it a Mass Casualty Incident.
Jane reached the first row of jamesways and drew to a sudden halt, looking around in confusion. They had made it past the first row, going the other direction, toward the station. Where is he? She began to search more frantically, wishing she had her red headlamp. But she wasn't in the wrong place, she realized, when she found just ten or twelve feet away from her the area of slightly disturbed snow where Loki had collapsed and she'd started dragging Selby on her own. Loki wasn't there.
"Loki!" she called out. As far as she knew no one else was outside, so hopefully no one heard her saying this name, but maybe it wasn't such a secret anymore anyway. Selby obviously hadn't stayed in his room – like I told him to! Jane thought with a flash of anger, followed immediately by guilt, because whatever exactly had happened right before Pathfinder brought her back, she was pretty sure he hadn't been trying to kill her, and she was equally sure he didn't deserve to be blamed for his own stabbing. Wright had thought he was joking or something, but maybe afterward Selby had told more people. And maybe they'd believed him. Though Selby had been alone, so maybe not… "Loki!" she called again. "Where are you?!"
A new fear gripped her heart when there was again no response. Loki had told her before that he was afraid – of course he hadn't exactly used that word – that someone would be coming for him. That he had enemies. What if Selby contacted SHIELD somehow? Maybe through his friend who works for them? But SHIELD doesn't have any way to get here safely any more than anyone else, not in winter. What if Selby called Gullveig's hotline? Do his goons have some way to get here? They must, if they got to Norway and to New York, something like their own Pathfinder or bifrost? At the thought of the bifrost her eyes flared. The spy birds from Asgard. I forgot to tell him. She hadn't forgotten, of course, she realized; she'd just been incredibly distracted by other things, like Loki time-traveling to kill his infant self, like staring down the tip of his mother's sword, like stumbling into the middle of a fight between Selby and Loki and both men getting stabbed. She didn't know what the birds' presence on Earth meant, but "avian Mata Haris" didn't exactly have a friendly ring to it. And then there's Thanos… Loki had told her very little about him, but he'd told her enough to know for certain that Thanos now fell into the "enemy" category. Loki said he didn't have any way to get here. But no one thinks we have any way to travel to other worlds either. And they're wrong.
"Loki! Please, if you can hear me, just yell!" She turned in a slow, jerky 360, hoping she would see something, or hear something. But there was nothing. She turned her attention to the ground. Loki, she knew, was good at tracking. She had no experience at it, but following a set – or multiple sets – of footprints would be easy enough. Unfortunately, while frequently-trod pathways were identifiable, the ice wasn't conducive to following individual footprints, and on top of that, it was windy this afternoon and snowdrift and ice crystals were swirling about. There was a broad area of disturbed ice, and a couple of dark spots that Jane assumed were blood, but she couldn't locate any fresh footprints and despite straining her eyes hard in the darkness she couldn't find a blood trail. Loki and Selby both had on thick layers of clothes that were probably absorbing most of the blood.
Think, Jane, think! If somebody came here and took him, then he's gone and there's nothing you can do about it. So assume nobody took him. Assume he's here. Where would he go? Back to the station? She couldn't picture it. Not to mention he would've had a really narrow window of time in which to get back there without Ronny or Tristan seeing him when they went out for Selby, or her seeing him when she ran back outside. So, outside somewhere still. Pathfinder, she immediately thought with a sinking heart and a wave of exhaustion. Not again. Surely, surely, surely not again. He'd gone back to kill himself before; now would he go back to save himself, and Selby? Or to kill himself again, thus preventing Selby's stabbing and the litany of other tragedies he was certain he could avert that way?
She knew how to find out, though. If she got there in time, before the laptop locked up. She gave a laugh that sounded a little like muffled madness to her own ears at the thought that she still hadn't demanded the password from him. "Let's talk about what you came to the past to do, Loki, because I really really really don't want you to do it, but first, you have to give me the password on my laptop."
She reached their jamesway, and once inside immediately darted toward the laptop. She stumbled a little, making it only halfway to the table where it rested, when her eye was drawn to the bed to her right and she pivoted abruptly toward it.
She sucked in a breath and took a few quick steps back, nearly losing her balance again.
After a moment, she overcame her initial shock and her eyes darted around the room. No one else was there. No one else other than her, and someone, or something, lying on the bed. Something that definitely didn't look human. The eyes were closed, but the head… When she took a cautious step forward and listened, she heard raspy breathing. With another step forward, her field of vision widened from the head to the rest of the body. This person was dressed almost exactly like her. Exactly like Loki.
Five more steps and she was almost at his side. A dark stain marred the black overalls. Big Red was unzipped and pushed away from his chest, hanging open over his arms, which dangled partly over the edge of the bed. Her gaze traced his left arm down to his hand – it looked a lot like his head, an indigo blue with darker, almost black lines forming a series of obtuse angles over the back of the hand.
A few more steps. Something crunched under her boots but she barely registered the sound. Her chest felt tight. She pulled off the gear from her head and from her right hand, letting it fall to the floor. She reached across him with a trembling hand. Gingerly grasping the edge of his jacket, she pulled the material up and out, over his chest, letting her eyes drift closed for a few seconds. When she opened them again the name was plainly visible, the name she knew by now she would see, looking no different than it ever had.
Lucas Cane.
/
/
Loki felt heat building up again – from the jacket but also from a body draped partially over his. It was oppressive, unbearable. Something's wrong with the heat in here, he thought dazedly as his eyes slowly opened and he remembered where he was. So much clothing. Too much clothing. With a groan he tried to push himself up, but his wrist hurt terribly and his chest hurt worse and he had not an ounce of energy with which to push past the pain and get the layers off.
"Thank God you're awake."
His head snapped to the left. Jane was there, coming quickly to his side. He sighed in relief. He hadn't wanted to be alone, and now he wasn't. And if he could stand anyone seeing him like this, rendered so completely weak and helpless, it was her. "Jane," he breathed. She looked pale and tired, and he felt bad about it. What a horrible day she must be having, and all because of him, again. Of course, he wasn't having such a wonderful day either, he thought, mustering a smile. He lifted his head just enough to look down at himself – no wonder he felt like he was sitting in the 200-degree sauna inside the station. Jane had covered him with a blanket, on top of all his other gear, and it looked like she'd zipped up his jacket, too.
Jane took a few unconscious steps away when his eyes turned toward her. They were red. The pupil was small and black, but the iris, the whole rest of the eye, was red. It was scary and disturbing and Jane didn't know what was going on and that was even scarier and more disturbing. She recovered and came back to his side again when he started making weak efforts to push the blanket down. "Leave it. It's a thermal blanket. We need to keep you warm." At least "keep the patient warm" seemed like a reasonable basic measure. While he was unconscious, she'd gone to get the first aid kit, stepping over the weird inexplicable clutter all over the floor. She'd unfastened his overalls and pulled down the front panel, then carefully pulled up the soaked green henley, the only thing he'd worn underneath, unlike the three layers she had on over her chest under the Carhartts. His bare chest was covered in smeared blood, and around the open wound instead of red, there was a thick blue fluid, lighter than his current skin tone, slightly luminescent. The flesh at the open wound was purple and looked like carved fresh meat, if fresh meat were that color. Jane had swallowed hard, again and again, while taking out sterile gauze and bandages to cover the wound, then taping the large bandage into place over his incredibly cold skin, which she avoided touching. Then she'd run outside and thrown up.
Once back inside, she got his clothes back on with shaky hands, then found the thermal blanket and put that over him, and hoped frantically that he would wake up, because she had no idea what else to do for him now.
"Too hot," Loki said. "Burning up."
The voice was a little lower than normal, and softer from his weakened state, barely recognizable as his. But somehow, this was Loki. With time to stare at his face, she'd recognized some of his features – the shape of his nose, his lips. But so much else was different. "Okay. I'll take the blanket off." Maybe it was overkill, despite the cold emanating from him. He was still in a couple of layers of ECW gear which should be more than enough to keep him warm in the jamesway, with its just-below-freezing temperature.
Loki nodded lethargically, and then his red eyes drifted and she was certain he was about to lose consciousness again.
"Loki? Please stay awake, okay?" she said as she took the blanket off him and tossed it over against the canvas wall. "There's something very wrong with you, and I don't know what to do."
He squinted his eyes at her. Her face seemed to glow a little. It was odd, but he didn't have the energy to contemplate it. "Yes. Something wrong. I was…magic-stabbed…I think you put it." Speaking was so difficult, and his voice was so rough-sounding. The weight on his chest seemed to keep his lungs from fully inflating, so that no matter how hard he tried to suck in air, he could never get enough before he had to exhale again.
"No, not just that. Have you seen…or…do you…look different when you're injured? Turn blue? No, that's stupid," she said, frowning. Thor had been hit by a car twice, granted not that hard, a taser, a dozen SHIELD agents, and Loki's fire-breathing robot, and he'd certainly never looked anything like this. Then she remembered she'd also seen Loki injured before, having been stabbed in the back, and having Niskit apparently pulling his very molecules apart. She remembered then, too, that he had felt cold at one point during Niskit's attempt to remove Odin's magic, around his leg, and that snow spew had appeared on his leather pants. But he hadn't turned blue. "Maybe from severe blood loss?"
Loki's sluggish brain, meanwhile, processed the word "blue" several seconds after Jane uttered it. His eyes snapped open wide; her concerned gaze met his. Slowly, slowly – blue from the cold, she means, he told himself, not noticing the contradiction that he wasn't cold but unbearably hot – he lifted his left arm, brought the hand up high enough so he could see it from his prone position. His eyes grew wide and the skin around them taut as he lurched back into full lucidity. His hands flew to his face, and hit strange-feeling flesh before he expected to. His eyebrow line was more prominent; the texture of the skin felt different, rougher, tougher, ridged in places. His hands pushed back over his forehead and he drew in a sharp, choking breath. There was no hair on his head. Trembling hands dropped back to his eyebrows – or to where they should have been. He didn't have those anymore, either.
He turned his gaze back on Jane, pressing his arms back down at his side, tucking his hands under his thighs despite the fresh pain it caused to his right wrist. "I won't hurt you," he told her. "I swear it."
"I…I know," Jane said in confusion. She already knew he wouldn't hurt her, and he wasn't in any condition to hurt her if he tried right now anyway. "But what is this? Some extra punishment because of what happened with Selby?"
"Selby?" Loki said mechanically, the name meaning nothing to him now. Frost Giant, he thought. I look like a Frost Giant. I am a Frost Giant.
"Okay, maybe it doesn't matter why. What does it mean for your wound, though? I mean…Nora's operating on-"
"Hot. Too hot," Loki said, starting to drift again. The heat had grown oppressive, inescapable, smothering.
"I have to keep you warm," Jane repeated.
"Take it off. The jacket. Too hot. I'm sorry. Sorry I left you…on the bridge. Didn't know. Didn't know how hot you'd be. Take it off. So sorry..."
"It's okay, it's okay," she found herself interrupting and assuring him. Not that it was okay, really, but she knew he regretted it, she knew his apology was sincere. He'd already apologized for it, actually, and she'd already forgiven him. In that sense it was okay, and it seemed he really needed to hear it. "I'll open up the jacket and get it off your arms, how's that?" That much she could do without moving him too much, she figured.
"Sweetest relief. Please. Take it off."
It took a few minutes – she had to get the satchel off him first, and he had the mangled remains of one of the Pathfinder devices still strapped to his left wrist and his right wrist was swollen, at least sprained and maybe broken, which made her think Selby's must be too – but eventually she'd worked him free of the jacket, leaving it underneath him. She watched him struggling to breathe and felt an ache in her own chest for him, then grabbed the blanket from the floor, folded it, and asked Loki if he could lift himself up a bit. He struggled to do it and she tried to help brace him, then slid the blanket under his head and upper back. She thought maybe his breathing was a little easier after that, but maybe it was just wishful thinking.
"Boots," he said. "Please. The boots."
"Okay," Jane said. She could only hope she was doing the right thing as she unsnapped the legs of the Carhartts and hiked them up. The boots were on tight, though, and she was afraid to tug too hard for fear of hurting him.
"Tab. Inside. Squeeze it."
"Inside?" At the top was a small amount of give, and when she slid a thumb between the leather and his leg, she found a small rough spot. Sure enough, when she squeezed it, the boot somehow expanded a little, enough to let her easily pull it off. He immediately demanded the socks follow, so she pulled them down, too. Where her fingers brushed his dark blue legs it was like touching a block of ice, and the socks were crusted with ice, especially at the feet, and stuck to him a bit as she pulled them down – steam came off his dark blue feet. She avoided looking at the sole of his right foot; there was no need to, and her stomach was already unsettled.
He was unconscious again by the time his socks were stuffed inside his boots on the floor. "What is all this stuff?" Jane murmured, stepping over pieces of paper, broken glass, what looked like half a metal bracer, a pair of sunglasses, a bundle of black cloth, pens…lots of pens… Jane threw a suspicious look back at Loki. The pens he stole? So the rest of this stuff…? She toed at the black material. It looked kind of like thin shorts. Like silky knee-length boxer shorts.
Jane kicked what she assumed must be Loki's underwear under the bed to avoid tripping on it and reached out a tentative hand toward Loki's forehead. She was wasting time he probably didn't have. She felt the cold before she made contact. "Loki? Come on, wake up." By the time she'd gotten the words out, she felt the now-familiar pins-and-needles sensation of early frostbite. Loki's eyes opened just as she jerked her hand away. It was red and throbbing.
"Don't. Don't touch me," he said, averting his eyes from Jane as she stared at the new injury he'd apparently caused her.
"I don't understand. I don't understand what's wrong with you. This isn't like a fever. Loki? Stay with me, okay? Look at me. Don't pass out," she said as she gingerly unhooked the overalls again and pulled up his shirt. The bandages she'd applied had soaked through with blue liquid she had to assume was blood. "You're still bleeding. You have to see a doctor. But I'm not sure you can be treated here. Is your anatomy the same as ours?"
"I…don't know. Think so."
His voice was faint; his eyes were red slits.
They had one doctor. One. And she was operating on another chest wound, a lung puncture, Jane assumed. Even if Nora could perform the same surgery on Loki…how long would it be before she could get to him? "It would be really awesome if you had one of those healing stones right about now," Jane said in frustration as her mind ran in fruitless circles.
"Stone…yes…I do. Took one."
"Took one? A healing stone? Are you serious?" Loki's response was no more than a soft grunt amidst the raspy breathing, but it didn't sound like he was joking around. "Where? Where is it? In your room?"
"You…you took…satchel…"
"It's in your satchel?" Jane asked, dumbfounded. As in, that brown leather bag that I just took off of you and is now right next to your head on the bed? Can it be that simple? Jane laughed in giddy surprise at their good luck. The cure was there the whole time, and Loki hadn't even thought of it! The moment passed and she grabbed the bag, unfastened it, and shoved her hand in, feeling around for a rock. There wasn't much in there, and she found it easily, wrapped in its own pocket of leather.
"Use it…use it on…"
"Yeah. I'm going to. Just hold on a sec, okay? I've never used a healing stone before. Simple enough though, right? No medical degree needed? Just…smash it up, right?" she babbled, pulling up the tape on three sides of the bandage to better expose the wound that she tried not to linger on, then squeezing the stone over it with first one hand, then both, until finally it crumbled into a fine dust that drifted down over Loki's chest.
"No. Use it on Selby."
As Jane watched the wound remained unchanged. Just wait. Wait for it… It didn't change. It didn't heal. "Use it on Selby." Her expression transformed from one of eagerness and hope to one of foreboding and horror. The cure was there. It had been in her hand. And in her haste she'd used it on the wrong person. Loki couldn't heal until Selby did. If she'd raced it back to the station, it would have healed Selby in a heartbeat, and then Nora could have given her attention to Loki. Now… "I'm sorry. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I…I wasted it. I had it…and I wasted it. I'm so so sorry."
Loki drew in another painful and insufficient breath – every tiny movement of his chest hurt now – and tried hard to focus his eyes on Jane. "It's all right," he said, hoping she saw that he meant it. What she was upset about drifted about on wispy tendrils of thought that faded in and out, but she was upset, and he didn't want her to be. None of this was her fault.
Jane started to cry for the first time. She'd thrown away their best chance at saving both Selby and Loki, and Loki…the way he was looking up at her… No, she thought, angrily wiping away at the tears. No giving up. "Okay. You don't have any more of those stashed away by any chance, do you?"
"More?"
"Stones. Healing stones."
"Satchel," he said, then remembered she'd already used that one. "No…no more."
"Right," she said with a firm nod, reaffixing the tape so that at least hopefully the bandage would keep the wound clean. "No more. But…on Asgard they have more, right? Lots more. Pathfinder! Of course, Pathfinder! We go in the present. No earthquake danger. At least I don't think so. We go in the present, they'll give us healing stones, I'll come back and make sure Selby's healed, and then they'll be able to heal you on Asgard." As she spoke, thinking aloud, she left Loki's side and hurried over to the laptop, random items crunching under her boots. She ran her finger over the mouse control – Loki was right there now and he was going to give her that blasted password! – but she got no response. She blinked dazedly at it and tried twice more with the same result. Then she realized the power wasn't on, and she pressed the power button, but still there was no response. "I don't understand," she said, jabbing at the power button again, checking that the cord was securely plugged in, switching the cord to a different plug, all for nothing.
"No...trap on the bridge…they'll kill me…"
Jane hurried back to Loki. "Yes, we can. Don't start that with me. They'll help us. I know they will. What choice do we have? Thor will come. He'll help us."
"No…not Thor. You don't…"
"Yes, Thor. Whoever it takes. You can worry about it after you're all better," Jane said, finding her gloves and putting them back on, then giving Loki's arm a gentle squeeze. "I'll be right back. You hold on."
The balaclava she pulled on as she was running along the long side of the jamesway, outside, toward Pathfinder. She stopped short when she rounded the corner at the back, then took a deep breath of frigid air and pushed forward again.
Pathfinder was toppled over, and once she reached it she saw that a portion of the front had been crushed, most of the rest of it bent and distorted. Loki and Selby must have fallen on it at some point; she hadn't even noticed before. She pulled at a piece of metal plating that had come loose but she already knew what she would find from the faint but familiar smell of burnt wire. All the internal components visible to her appeared damaged; the arc reactor had shorted out; the laptop had been fried. Tears threatened again, but she fought it, jaw trembling with the effort. This wasn't a bent toggle switch accessed by removing four screws. This was an electrical meltdown with mechanical damage and no power supply.
Jane got up from her knees and ran back inside, ripping the balaclava off again. "Pathfinder's out. Loki? Wake up. Can you hear me? There's no more Pathfinder. So we need another way. We need to get you to Asgard. You have your own ways, right? You got to Svartalfheim somehow. Do you have any other way to get to Asgard? Your mother might still be here if she…Tony! I can call Tony. I'll-"
"No," Loki said.
It was the loudest and strongest he'd sounded since she found him here.
"But even if your mother's left, Tony must have some kind of communication with Asgard, and-"
"No! You will not" – he paused for a couple of breaths before he could continue – "call him. I forbid it."
"Then give me a better way! Another idea. Because if you don't give me another way to get you to Asgard then I'm calling him, and you can forbid it all you want."
"Asgard…another way…yes," Loki said, remembering that there was indeed another way to Asgard, one he hadn't thought about much lately. Asgard, where rolling hills of grass and wildflowers and gentle breezes and blue skies were. Warm hugs and grand adventures and decadent feasts and fine clothing and musty books and guileless laughter. Where Mother was. "Loki, my son, listen carefully to me." "Mother."
"Loki…it's me. It's Jane. Concentrate. How do we get you to Asgard?"
"Satchel," he forced out on a wheeze.
"The healing stone? I used it already, Loki. I'm sorry."
"No…bottle…in satchel. Pocket." Every word was a struggle; every word cost energy and air, both of which were in dwindling supply.
"A bottle…in a pocket in your satchel? Okay," Jane said, taking the bag again and peering inside. She hoped this wasn't some hallucination, and that there was something in there. Then, in a side pocket, she found a little oblong glass bottle, like some kind of perfume sample size, its contents dark red like drying blood. "What is this?" she asked, still focused on the bottle. Loki never went anywhere without this satchel, and rarely had she ever seen it anywhere other than hanging from his neck, at his side.
"Strongest magic. Safety." "Seek understanding and compassion for others and you may find it for yourself."
"Magic. Okay. Do you have to…drink it or something?" she asked. She didn't bat an eye at the question, when not that long ago idea of drinking a magic potion from a sample-size bottle to be magically transported to another world would have seemed the height of insanity.
"Link," he said as he fumbled with his left hand underneath the shirt Jane had pulled back down.
When his hand emerged again, a spherical red gem was in his hand, trailing a barely-visible chain around his neck, the one she'd seen after he'd come back from Asgard with a broken sword embedded in his back. At the time he hadn't been willing to talk about it, only correcting her that it wasn't a ruby. "It's not your concern," he'd said. He let the stone fall to his neck and his hand fall back to his side. "So you just…you have that necklace on, and you drink the stuff in the bottle, and you go to Asgard?"
"Yes. But I can't go. Not like this." He started to laugh. "Not like-" The laugh turned to a cough and the edges of his vision darkened.
"Why not? You're too weak?" Jane asked, then immediately bit down hard on her lower lip to stop it from trembling. She pulled out one of the last pieces of gauze from the first aid kit and gently wiped Loki's mouth, where he'd again coughed up blood, though this time it was blue.
"Too weak," he remembered, grasping at what Jane had last said, grasping at consciousness. He nodded. He was so weak he thought gravity alone might simply crush him.
"Okay, then…can I go? If I wear the necklace and drink the red stuff? I'll get them to send doctors for you. And for Selby. Healing stones. Whatever we need. Loki? Hey, stay awake!" She cupped his chin and gave it a little shake; even through the gloves she could feel the cold emanating off him. "Can I go to Asgard with this?"
"Yes. Yes, you can go. See Asgard. You liked it…didn't you?" "Please, can we stay a little longer?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I liked it a lot. We had a lot of fun, didn't we?" Jane said, rambling reminiscences as she lifted Loki's head a little, grasped the chain lightly, and pulled it free. "You were so good in the parade. You looked so cute. Did I tell you that? How cute you looked? And the sweet logs, that was just amazing. What was that one…vindula? And that sky…I could study that for the rest of my life."
"Jane…what're you doing?" Loki asked, words slightly slurred. She had the necklace. She had the necklace. He wasn't ever supposed to take it off. He'd promised his mother. He'd be in trouble.
Her eye caught on the corner of Loki's mouth, where another droplet of blue had appeared at the corner. "I'm going to Asgard," she said, dipping her head and dropping the necklace over it.
"With that?" he said, moving his right arm to try to push himself up, and failing.
"Yep," Jane said, watching as Loki's eyes went wide, but he wasn't looking at her face anymore, more in the vicinity of her chest, which was a little weird, until she looked down herself and saw he was staring at the red gem, and saw why. It was glowing. That was a lot weird, but she took in stride. Magic, she thought. This wasn't any weirder than what she was about to do. The little bottle came out of her pocket.
The glowing stopped and Loki's eyes slowly rose back up to Jane's face. It had glowed. It hadn't for him, not in all this time, not in…weeks, months, years? It was so hard to hold onto what was real, what was not. But he wasn't imagining it, what Mother had said. He remembered it. Remembered it because he'd ached over it, wondered why it didn't glow, feared that it meant she no longer loved him, that she'd become convinced he was a traitor, that she had no more second chances for him. "It glows with the love that the one who gives feels for the one who receives." It had glowed. When Jane received it from him. As he watched, dumbfounded, Jane started to tug at the stopper on the vial. "Jane…" "…musn't do this lightly…journey not easy…consequences…" He couldn't remember it all, the message she'd left for him. He'd heard it only once and dismissed much of it, caring only for his mother's voice and for the escape she'd offered, and considerably less for her admonitions about compassion and family love. "Jane, you can't."
Jane struggled with the stopper, trying to twist and pull it off, but it seemed to have been made for an Aesir's strength rather than a human's. "Yeah I can. Anyway, I know Asgard like the back of my hand now. I've been there lots of times. Lots of times and lots of times," she added with a short laugh, still working on the bottle. "And I know lots of people. Thor knows me. Jolgeir might remember me, and anyway I talked to him on the phone, too. And Geirmund. Oh, and I sort of met your mom, by the way. We're good," she said as confidently as she could, meeting Loki's eyes and mustering a smile. He was probably too out of it to notice that "we're good" wasn't exactly the most truthful thing she could have said. Running into Loki's mom unexpected might actually be seriously hazardous to her health. For Frigga it had been over a thousand years, but you probably never forgot the crazy lady who'd been in your bedroom right next to your kids with a big knife.
"No, Jane-"
Jane jumped, startled, as the stopper finally popped loose and the muscles she'd been using to pry it off reversed course to make sure she didn't send the red liquid flying everywhere and screw this up like she had the healing stone. She let out a sigh when everything steadied, not a drop spilt. "Is this how I do it, then? I just drink it?"
"No."
"No? What else then?" Jane asked, trying to keep frustration at bay. "A pair of red heels? Click them together three times and say the magic words? Sorry. Just tell me, what else?"
"No, you can't do this. It wasn't meant for you. My mother said…the journey…not easy."
"Yeah, well, 'not easy' has never stopped me before. I'll be okay. But is there anything else? Wear the necklace, drink the magic potion…?"
"No, nothing else, but-"
"Then I'll be back soon with help."
Why? he wanted to ask. But he saved himself the precious air. He already knew why. The exact words she'd said faded away, words of friendship and caring and laughter and warmth, but he remembered her arm slipping around his back on his favorite hillside, throwing herself into his arms in Niskit's basement, pleading with him not to end his own life...his life. She was holding the bottle to her lips. She was risking her life for his. He understood why, because he understood Jane, but that didn't make it right. If anything happened to her, especially if anything happened to her because of him, he wouldn't be able to live with himself. "Stop," he ordered, the most pathetic order he'd ever given. Jane was ignoring him, tipping the bottle. He lifted his head, braced his hands on the bed, and started pushing himself up, groaning as he went. The pain was sharp and hot, like being stuck with a poker from a fire, but he accepted it, embraced it, told himself it made him stronger. He had to get to Jane.
Jane hesitated, watching as Loki actually managed to get himself into a reclining position. For the first time she wondered what exactly would happen when she drank this stuff. Would it hurt? Would it make her sick? Whatever it was, Loki had endured and was enduring worse. It was worth the risk. Loki was worth the risk. "Bottom's up," she whispered, then put the tiny neck of the bottle just past her lips, tipped it up further, and the let the small amount of liquid – bitter, warm – drain out before swallowing it all, figuring she should get it down all at once.
"Lie back down," she told Loki, breathlessly, a little shaky from nerves. "You need to save your strength. Hopefully this kicks in fast." She looked at the empty bottle in her hand, her feet still planted firmly on Antarctic ground. She hadn't thought of this. Maybe the liquid had to be fully absorbed into the body before it could work. Maybe it would be ten minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe it wouldn't work at all on her. Loki had tried to tell her it wasn't meant for her…but he hadn't said it wouldn't work on her. On the other hand, Loki wasn't entirely in his right mind, drifting in and out of lucidity; he'd also called her "Mother." Again. Did I screw this up again? Waste another opportunity? Maybe I should have made Loki drink it. Even if it's dangerous for him when he's so weak, that would be better than wasting it on me!
Loki, she saw, had just managed to push himself all the way upright on the bed, and now he was moving his legs toward the edge. "I'll go back to the station. I'll get some people to help me carry you in, and as soon as Nora's done operating on Selby she'll work on you. And while I'm there, in the meantime, I'm going to call Tony, and he'll…he'll…" Jane looked down at her feet again. They weren't moving, and she'd meant them to. To get Loki to lie down, then to leave. When she tried to lift her head, her eyes went wide, because that wouldn't move either. Her gloved right thumb was twitching, and the sight gave her an incredible sense of relief, until she realized that the twitch was not voluntary, but part of a tremble that was now spreading up both arms. She watched, head fixed downward, as the shaking reached her chest, and there it grew worse and rolled over into pain that seemed to come from everywhere all at once, even though inexplicably she couldn't otherwise feel or move her body at all. She couldn't feel the floor underneath her, she didn't hear the shattering of the glass vial when it fell from her uncontrolled, unfeeling hand. Her vision was still working, but was dark and hazy. She could see Loki's legs come down from the bed, just a few feet away from her. She wanted to say something to him – "get back on that bed before you hurt yourself worse" warred with "what is happening to me help me" – but she had no more control of her vocal cords than the rest of her.
And then it was over. Jane sagged and bent over at the waist, not in pain – that had ended with the trembling – but simply drained from the experience. Loki was saying her name; she looked up and saw him gripping the side of the bed hard, partly bent over himself, looking like he was about to collapse. "I'm okay," she said. "I felt something weird…but then nothing. I guess it didn't work. Get back in bed. I'm going in." She started toward Loki, and reached him just as the trembling started again. She took a deep breath, afraid of what she'd done to herself with that potion, all for nothing. But then she looked around and realized it wasn't so much her trembling, as the ground. Earthquake. She pushed Loki backwards and easily forced him back to the bed. She was bending down to lift his legs when the shaking grew more severe and she lost her balance, straightening up and stumbling backward. There was all kinds of junk on the floor, but this time Jane bumped something big with her foot. She swung her head around, then her whole body, eyes wide with shock.
Another Jane Foster was lying on the floor, eyes closed, unmoving, on her back. She had literally tripped over her own foot. That wasn't there before, she thought, dazed. From another time? Loki said something behind her but she couldn't quite make it out. The trembling began again, the trembling from inside her, the inability to move, and this time something else, a pulling or stretching or sucking or something that had to be a bad sign and why dear God did I drink that stuff without even actually knowing what was in it and why didn't I listen to Loki because he said it-
"Jane," Loki said, for what felt like the millionth time. He lurched forward from the bed but didn't get far before he was overcome by the shaking ground. He tried to break his fall and in doing so he heard a bone in his right wrist snap. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes; he told himself it was out of frustration rather than the flare of pain. He dragged himself a little further on the ground, close enough to position himself even with the Jane who was lying on her back. She was breathing, but she didn't respond to his voice or to any of his pushing and prodding of her legs or arms; he avoided touching her face because it was bare.
Finally, simply out of a lack of air, he collapsed beside her, partially on top of her, his right shoulder on hers. He tried to figure out what had happened but his brain wasn't cooperating any more than the rest of his body. "Jane," he murmured again, softly, on a shallow exhale. He wasn't even entirely sure who he was talking to anymore. The other Jane, the one who'd remained standing, had disappeared.
The ground was still trembling, and for some reason it made him think of a cradle with two small boys in it, a cradle set to rocking. He let it carry him into darkness.
/
Pre-emptive answer to a question: Yes, Loki went "full Jotun" here, and no, Loki didn't go "full Jotun" in "Thor." It made no sense to me that all he would do was turn blue; why didn't they make him look "ugly" and "monstrous" like the FGs? Well, because Loki's supposed to still look sympathetic to us, I figured. And like it or not, we all know that Hollywood frequently equates "unattractive" with "unsympathetic." So we still get Hiddleston's lovely face...just with blue skin. Which some fans find rather hot, ha. But since I insist on finding a story-reason for this stuff, I decided that the magic making Loki look Aesir is so thoroughly intertwined in his body that contact with a FG or the Casket only partially "rolls it back." This also ties into my desire to deal with the "reality" of Loki - he's not just some misunderstood kid, he really did do some terrible things; and he's not just a gorgeous guy with a unique skin pigment, to be a FG is to look *just like* those guys on Jotunheim, and pretty darn unattractive in Asgardian (and Midgardian) culture. Now, as it turns out, in at least some runs of the comics, as I understand, Loki is only half-Jotun, and *that* is why he doesn't go "full-Jotun" in "Thor." I don't take the comics as canon, though, and I didn't even know about that at the time I conceived of all this. I hope the explanation makes sense!
Referenced chapters include: 11 "Unpacking" (Loki finds the vial and hears Frigga's message), 33 "Mass Casualty Incident" (Jane "rescues" Loki), 50 "Perception" (Jane finds that first aid kit), 83 "Discovery" and 84 "Revisiting" (Loki gets two healing stones, and uses one of them), and of course many many more...BONUS POINTS to you if you know where those sunglasses come from... ;-)
I'm rather behind responding to reviews from the last chapter - travel + a cold that's still giving me some grief. If you haven't heard from me you will! "GuestLokiLover," sigh, I could discuss that stuff all day! I would say, Loki has a lot of anger toward those he feels betrayed him, but the hatred he directs toward others is just being redirected from himself; he hates himself the most by far. Who did he think hurt him the most, Thor or Odin, what a great, tough question. Still thinking...the thing is, at this point (in this story) he's let go of a lot of at least the more irrational anger at Thor. Odin is the one who lied, not Thor. But I think I would need several pages to properly answer and it would still be rambly with changes of mind along the way! At the point of Avengers, I think Loki was "riding a wave" and letting out centuries of feeling inadequate next to Thor into all that anger and cruelty and hatred toward him. I did do a character study of Loki's motivations before starting this story, and found it very helpful! I'll try to get around to putting it on my Wordpress blog soon. And as for what does Loki truly want, I posted my own transcript of an interview with Hiddleston there in which he addresses this question! And he says he's not sure. Is it winning the game...or the game itself? "Superfan," I started writing your dream. ;-) But it was unusual circumstances and I'm not sure when/if I'll be able to write more. I think earlier you were logged in, so at some point I'll get it typed up and send at least what I have to you. I'd love to write the whole thing at some point. Oh, and, sorry, nope, not JK Rowling. ;-) "EvilLurker," Odin (and everyone else) eventually dismissed Frigga's story because it seemed so improbable and other than the knife there was no evidence of it. (It'll be discussed further later.) Re Selby, thanks, that's actually the way I see it, Selby was kind of being an idiot, but a brave and noble idiot who was worried about Jane and in *way* over his head. Re stabbing Selby, a moment of blind rage and hatred - you could say, all the self-hatred he took with him to Asgard to kill himself, he let out on Selby in that moment. There's still a step forward in that he admitted to himself pretty soon afterward what he'd done, and knew it was wrong. Ha, thanks, yes, I was hoping for a moment of that "oh no what happened" with "he stopped struggling" and the "wide eyes." "Alphabetizingsin" and "Lena," screams, yay! ;-) Everyone, let the speculations continue!
No previews, sorry! Too spoilery. ;-)