Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Forty-Seven – Cooperation
As soon as Jane saw the streak in the sky, her heart sank because she knew what it was, even though she'd only seen it on a TV or computer screen before now. Mostly that was because she knew why it was. Rodrigo had told her hours ago that Tony had called. And she'd never called back. She'd completely forgotten. It was pretty amazing, seeing Iron Man in flight, seeing how smoothly he transitioned from flying to landing on the ice just some fifteen or so feet away…but Tony showing up after he'd become more worried about Loki, with Loki now looking a lot more like the Loki who'd attacked Earth and thrown Tony out a window, that just couldn't be a Good Thing.
She hurried forward and stepped in front of Loki, into the red beam of light emitted from the suit where the Polies usually wore red headlamps when outdoors, between Tony and him. "I'm sorry I didn't call you back, Tony," she said, ignoring the strangeness of talking to what looked like an expressionless robot with a red light on his forehead. Strangeness had become an everyday part of her life. "I got distracted and I just forgot. But everything's okay."
Jane watched as Tony, in the suit, looked left and right, from the crowd of people standing outside all bundled up, to the clearly off-kilter station.
"Uh-huh. Everything here appears to be perfectly in order." His arm came up, palm out and pointed at Loki, which was the same thing as pointed at her. She felt hands on her shoulders, then Loki stepping in close to her.
"Not necessary," Loki said, breathing the words directly into her covered ear as he stepped around her, at the same time as Thor also started forward. "And not wise." He now stood directly in front of Jane, essentially swapping places with her, and raised his hands up near his shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak to Stark, but before he could get anything out, Thor had stepped in front of him, on his left, partially blocking him. Taking charge. Leaving him in shadow. It was a familiar position, and Loki subconsciously balled his hands into fists as he lowered them back to his sides. Fighting Thor right now would be no better than fighting the mortal who hid himself inside a metal shell.
"Be calm, my friend. The circumstances aren't what you think," Thor said. He knew Tony wouldn't hurt Jane, not intentionally, but the situation was volatile, and he didn't want to risk anything unintentional happening.
"With all due respect," Tony said, "I don't think you know what I'm thinking right now." He looked left and right again. "Though to be fair, I'm not really sure myself, either."
Odin, meanwhile, had positioned himself to Loki's right. He thought he knew who this new arrival was, from Thor's earlier descriptions, but he was suspicious of the man's intentions. Loki, as he understood, had tried to kill this mortal when he was unarmed and not encased in metal, and had nearly succeeded in doing so. But the Midgardian was also part of the group that had surrendered Loki to Asgard's custody, and there would be no renegotiations of that agreement. He was, however, satisfied to let Thor deal with his Midgardian friend, at least for the moment. It was Loki, though, who spoke next.
"If you wish to take me captive," he said, stepping forward again, past Thor, this time with hands down but palms still out and fingers spread, "I'm afraid you'll have to get in line." If he had to be taken captive, he thought Midgardian custody might actually be preferable at this point. Midgard might be less interested in sending him to Jotunheim – Barton had told him that once captured, SHIELD would want to interrogate him extensively, and then probably to run tests on him just as extensively – and their prisons would surely be easier to escape from. But more importantly, he'd told Jane he wouldn't fight Stark, and he had to honor that. Every single one of the Polies was out here and their shelter was already nearing collapse. If he did fight the Man of Iron, the collateral damage Jane had always feared would be unavoidable, and Thor and Odin and quite possibly even his mother would get involved…and they would without question defeat him and have him back in chains.
"Jane?" Tony asked, as though Loki hadn't spoken, stance unchanged. "You still back there behind the Asgardian offensive line?"
Jane glanced at Frigga, who'd taken a position beside her, and made her way around the three figures in red and green and lots of metal and leather.
"Jane, stay back," Thor said as she moved to pass him.
Loki caught the look of annoyance she shot him and was glad he'd resisted the urge to say the same.
"I don't need an offensive line. And I'm pretty sure the football metaphors are lost on the linemen, Tony."
"I'm actually pretty sure just about all metaphors are lost on them, but I've never let that stop me."
"You can lower the…whatever it is you call what you have in your palm."
"Repulsor. And I think I'll hold off on that. You know, Polyanna, I thought you said he was just like all the other Polies. And I can't help looking around and playing my own private game of 'one of these things is not like the other.' Want to join in? Two heads are better than one."
"I am not 'just like' anyone else in the entire universe…Tony," Loki put in before Jane could respond, following it up with the smile he liked to use to curdle mortals' blood, a version of the one Jane had once insisted he stop using on her. It came back to him easily – Jane couldn't see him doing it – but it made his face muscles ache because it was brutally cold out here and his face was uncovered.
"You know, when you smile like that you make it really hard to resist the urge to blast you all the way back to New Zealand. Or is it…Jarvis, which direction am I facing right now? He says Chile," Tony added after a two-second pause. "Either way. I'm flexible like that."
"At the risk of stepping in the middle of an intergalactic showdown…how about nobody takes anybody into custody right now, or blasts anybody anywhere?"
Loki turned to see Gary approaching, just off to the side, from where he'd obviously remained part of the group close to the station instead of backing off to join the rest of the Polies.
"Loki was actually helping us evacuate right before you got here," Gary continued, "and we've got bigger fish to fry at the moment, as I'm sure you can see."
"And you are…?" Tony asked.
"Gary Shoals. Station machinist."
"Machinist, huh?"
"Yes, machinist. You can talk shop later," Loki said impatiently, using the local slang without thought. As soon as Gary had spoken up, the direction of his thoughts had changed entirely. "Can you control the melting of steel with those…repulsors, metal man?"
"Why, yes, young grasshopper, as a matter of fact I can. Welding, I assume you're getting at?" Tony asked, this time with a lingering glance at the station, though his arm remained outstretched toward Loki. "Easy peasy. Stregthening weakened steel that starts acting funky in temperatures this low, unbreaking broken steel anchor bolts and connecting plates so they're good as new and ready for the next rumble despite all the new weld zones…that's a tad beyond my abilities."
"Luckily, it's not beyond mine," Loki said, hoping it was correct. It sounded rather more dramatic than "I hope it's not beyond mine," and there was something to be said for the dramatic. And for appearances, of which he was acutely conscious. Therefore he would simply have to ensure it was correct. "Also luckily, he can lift up the building."
"Ah…Loki…," Thor began, looking back and forth between Tony and his brother who'd briefly pointed a finger in his direction, "I'm not sure I-"
"Not up to the task? Fine. He'll help," Loki said, inclining his head toward Stark with an overly polite smile.
"Yeah, you know I can't use the repulsors for welding and for holding up buildings at the same time."
"Do you not have one on each hand?"
Tony didn't say anything, but Loki enjoyed imagining his expression.
"If I may?" Gary said, coming up next to Loki.
"Of course."
"Welding the metal and keeping the steel from weakening too much, even moving the building itself, that's not going to cut it. The columns themselves would have to be straightened and repositioned."
Thor's eyes briefly met his father's. "I can do that."
Loki turned around to his left to face Thor. "Since when?" he challenged. Loki was the one dealing out the dramatic here, and he wasn't about to cede that to Thor.
He took Mjolnir from where it hung at his waist, then tossed it modestly into the air, not far above his head, before catching it with practiced ease. "A tool to build," he said with a grin. "And I had some practice not too long ago."
"I can also help lift the building."
"Odin," Frigga said quietly. As much as she wanted to help the Midgardians – as much as the scene unfolding before her was cause for joy – Asgard's fate, and possibly Loki's along with it, still hung in the balance, if Odin overexerted himself he could be pushed right back into the Sleep.
Odin inclined Gungnir in her direction; the power, he thought, could be drawn from the staff, a carefully modulated steady pulse of energy that would create upward pressure without causing damage.
"Let's get to work, then!" Thor exclaimed with an eager grin. For all the questions and frustrations he still had, for all its earlier difficulties, this was quickly turning into the best day he'd had in months, at least this part of it. A tool to build. With Loki. For Jane and her friends.
"We should probably discuss it in more detail than that, actually," Gary said.
"Yeah. Probably," Tony agreed.
"And we have to talk to Olivia."
"Who's that?" Tony asked.
"She's in charge of the station," Loki answered.
"Oh," Tony said.
"Everybody's moving to the heavy shop," Gary said. "The VMF, the Vehicle Maintenance Facility. It's heated, and there's a lot of open space. The management will decide what to do from there. We should go join them. Team meeting."
"Okay," Tony said.
Loki looked at Tony and curled his lip in the best snarl he could manage with his aching face, but this he did purely for appearances. The phrase "it's heated" now dominated his thoughts.
"That sounds like a good idea, Gary," Frigga said, growing a little nervous now that the initial flurry of ideas had dwindled and the tension seemed to be rising again. "Let's go, hm?"
Jane nodded, eyes still a little widened with surprise. Frigga started toward the VMF – Asgard's queen of course didn't know where it was, but just as Gary had said, the others were headed in that direction now. She made out a stretcher that had to be holding a tightly bundled Selby at the lead and, in the loose line that followed, someone hopping on one foot, arm thrown around another's shoulders.
Gary, Odin, and Thor – with a final long look at Tony, Loki, and then Jane – joined Frigga.
Loki swallowed, then very deliberately looked beyond Tony to the heavy shop and walked right past him as though the man had all the importance of an ant. He no longer thought of the human race as ants, but that didn't mean he couldn't think of individual members of it as such, or at least choose to treat them as though he did.
Tony watched him go, then finally lowered his arm. "That was weird."
"Yeah," Jane said with another nod. "Weird."
"I think I just agreed to go to a team meeting with Loki."
"I think you did. And I think he just agreed to go to one with you."
"Basic symmetric property of equality," Tony agreed.
"More or less," Jane said, though she thought his mathematical metaphor was actually a little off. He was kind of flustered, though, and she figured she should cut him some slack. Loki sometimes had that effect on people. "Tony…the temperature here plays a big role in how any kind of construction work is done. Do you know anything about welding in extreme cold weather conditions?"
"Sure. Plenty."
"Really?" Jane asked, skeptical.
"It's a very long flight down here, Jane. And I don't really do boredom well. You know what they say about idle hands. Or idle minds. Also…Jarvis was hooked into your SPRESSO data and warned me you were having another quake. So I did a little homework on the way."
"The suit held up okay I guess?" Jane asked. Tony was starting to sound a little more normal. Normal for Tony, anyway.
"Eh, I did some tinkering. You know, the second after I got off the phone with you, after I'd figured out Rudolph was down here trying to sneak his way into the reindeer games. Actually, while I was still on the phone with you. I was multi-tasking. Changed the mix in the alloy, added a thin non-conductive coating, extra insulation for all the electronics, a few other bells and whistles…meet the Mark Two-Dash-ECW. The Mark One-Dash-ECW had a few kinks. Shattered into a couple hundred thousand pieces, you know, minor details. This one though…works like a cozy little charm."
Jane watched as the suit folded in on itself and receded downward; when it reached his feet he stepped away and the rest of it continued folding in and bending until one final piece popped out from the newly formed rectangle, bent once then twice, and she realized she was now looking at the equivalent of a briefcase. Tony was left in a thigh-length black coat over a thick black bodysuit that covered everything but his face, which he quickly took care of with a balaclava he pulled off of a small clip at his waist. She hadn't thought about it much before, but the little demonstration she'd just seen sparked a new curiosity in her; she was going to have questions for him, lots of them, later. "Brisk," Tony said, followed by an obviously exaggerated brrrr.
"Welcome to the South Pole, Tony," Jane said with a smile.
"Thanks. It's nice. Scenic, if you like ice. If you like ice a lot. I usually prefer my water melted. Great place to visit if you're a vampire, too, this time of year. Nice to meet you in person, Jane."
"You, too," Jane said, hesitating just a moment before wrapping her arms around him for a hug.
It took Tony a moment, too, but he did hug her back, one hand patting her back, awkwardly it seemed to Jane. "Uh, Jane? I know it must get really lonely down here. Really lonely. But I'm kind of seeing someone, and she has a temper. And she wears really high skinny heels."
Jane laughed, gave Tony a squeeze, then let him go. "Thanks for being there for me."
Even through the facemask Jane could tell Tony was scrunching up his face. "To be honest, I thought you saw me more as a thorn in Gandhi's side than a shelter in Mussolini's storm."
"Sometimes. But you made me feel like I wasn't alone in this."
"From an average of nine thousand miles away?"
"Will you shut up and just let me thank you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good."
"Jane…I know I've asked you this a hundred times before so I apologize in advance, but are you sure you're okay? Loki looks more like he's about to launch into The Merits of Being Free from Freedom, The Sequel, than like a mild-mannered physicist getting his South Pole groove on."
"Well…he's not a mild-mannered physicist. But yes. Yes, I am," Jane answered, putting all the warmth and conviction she couldn't show on her face into her voice. "Except for that," she added, looking at the damaged station to her left.
When she looked back at Tony, he was nodding. "Okay, then. Team meeting. I promise not to try to kill any of my teammates if none of them try to kill me. And by 'them' I mean Thor's deranged brother, just in case there was any confusion there."
They started walking toward the VMF. "Just a wild guess but things might go a little more smoothly if you call him by his actual name instead of 'Thor's deranged brother.'"
"You might have a point. I'll think about it. The guy with the eyepatch and the shiny gold stick, was that Odin?"
"Uh-huh."
"What's Daddy Dearest's game plan?"
"I don't actually know. He and Loki have been talking a lot. They came here earlier today because Loki was hurt, and he was in really bad shape."
"Yeah? He looked pretty good to me."
"Yeah. He did, didn't he?" Jane answered with a smile.
/
/
"Loki…can we-"
"Do you mean to say you can simply tap one of those columns and it will just slide right into place of its own accord?" Loki interrupted in a slightly-louder-than-necessary voice, drowning out Thor's quieter one.
"Not exactly," Thor said, keeping his voice steady though Loki was clearly trying to provoke him. "The Fire Giants managed to force one of the towers entirely off its base, but it was still in one piece. Fjolvar told me where to strike with Mjolnir."
"So you will have to be told precisely where to strike?" Loki said, letting his disdain manifest in his tone and filtering out details of the war that he didn't want to know, at least not at this moment. Thor had sidled up to him just before they entered the heavy shop, apparently in hopes of pulling him aside for more talking. More talking. He couldn't bear it right now and least of all from Thor. He already knew what Thor really thought. He'd seen it on his face, out in the jamesway, when Thor had gotten a look at his undisguised form for the first time. The first time since a brief initial acquaintance with it in his cradle.
"That's a problem," Gary said, joining Thor and Loki just inside the heavy shop. "If we had a full engineering team out here we could do some really precise 3-D imaging and those guys could work their magic, but-"
"Not actually a problem," Tony said, coming in with Jane and closing the door behind him, with everyone now inside. "Jarvis – my AI – can do 3-D imaging and every other kind of imaging, and you and me will be the engineering team."
"But how will we be able to tell…uh…Thor, how much force to use with the mallet?"
"It's a hammer," Thor corrected, with a glance toward Loki. It wasn't quite a normal hammer, of course, so it didn't look quite like a normal hammer. And he'd been teased for a short time over it, his friends – including Loki – calling it a mallet, before Thor had put a stop to it. "And it was crafted with magical properties. It will know the amount of force."
"'It will know the amount of force?'" Tony asked. "You do know physics doesn't work like that, right?"
"Are you so sure we know everything about how physics works?" Jane asked, slipping in between Thor and Loki. Just in case.
Gary turned to Loki with a questioning look; Loki gave him a brief uncomfortable nod. Everyone seemed to accept then that Thor would only need to know where, and discussion moved on. Gary signaled Olivia over in excitement. She was staring at him. Not only him, Loki thought, watching her in his peripheral vision a bit longer, but mostly him. The others were spread out around the VMF, where a couple of their poker games had been held, where he'd played horseshoes, where he'd lingered over a snowmobile and Zeke had said he'd get him the training on how to operate one at the end of the season. They were all staring at him. Whispering, and staring. He caught sight of Selby, then, lying down on the floor. Selby, too, was staring at him. He drew in an unsettled breath and started following the conversation again.
They were discussing the effect of severe cold on steel, and Tony now held his helmet under his left arm, bringing the disembodied Jarvis into the conversation, the rest of his metal suit in pieces at his feet except for a gauntlet on his right hand. Thor was obviously bored with it – nothing surprising there – because he was paying more attention to Loki than to Gary and Tony, who seemed to be quite comfortable speaking their own language, and trying to hide it. Thor had never been particularly good at hiding things. Loki, unfortunately, didn't understand much more of Gary and Tony's shared language than did Thor. "BCC crystal structure" and "tensile toughness" were terms he could only guess at. Tony asked about the chemical composition of the particular steel used here; Gary rattled off terms both familiar and unfamiliar, along with their percentages. When Tony asked about the "DBTT" Loki had had enough.
Loki pursed his lips, judged positions and distances, looked deliberately away, wondered if that was the PistenBully Jane and the others had taken out to SPRESSO despite the risk of the fuel turning to useless jelly in the cold and a myriad of other things going wrong, and snatched the helmet away from Tony Stark. It went on his head at the same moment that Stark took a step back and pointed his repulsor at Loki again.
Loki smiled behind the mask. He hadn't liked getting blasted with those things, but the mortal couldn't actually do that much real damage to him, and, much more importantly, Loki thought the man had enough self-control not to start blasting in this room full of innocent men and women, not to mention Jane standing right next to him. Just in case he didn't, though, Loki made sure his posture was relaxed and he made no aggressive movements, or any further movements at all. No one else was moving either, and the room had fallen completely silent.
"Jarvis," Loki said in a smooth, clear voice, loud enough for everyone to hear, "show me the atomic structure of steel. Specifically, the formulation of the steel used in the elevated station's support structure."
"I guess Big Bro never filled you in, what with you two being on opposite sides of Earth's first Space Invaders attack and all, but I really don't like it when people take my stuff."
"Then perhaps you should do a better job of protecting it."
"I'll keep that in mind. Now hand it over."
"I need to see the structure of the steel, if I am to repair it properly, Man of Iron." Loki could see through the mask perfectly well, but he could not see the display he was certain must appear there at Stark's command. Jarvis, unsurprisingly, wasn't answering to Loki's.
"There's no harm in it…is there?" Thor asked quietly, hoping for a quick and peaceful end to the standoff that Jane, yet again, was caught in the middle of.
"Gold-titanium alloy," Tony said after a moment, slowly lowering his arm.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Not iron. Gold-titanium alloy, with a few minor additional inclusions. If you can't figure out that much then you've got a lot of studying to do."
Loki rolled his eyes, unseen by any of the others. Pompous egotistical imbecile, he thought.
"Jarvis," Tony continued, "let John Dillinger here see anything he wants to about steel. Nothing else without my approval. Remember which team you're playing for."
"I haven't forgotten, sir," came Jarvis's clipped, formal response. Thor found it disorienting, as the voice seemed to have come from Loki.
"We're all on the same team here, Mr. Stark," Gary said.
"Do you really think you can do this?" Olivia asked, having said little thus far. "Make the station stable enough that we can actually live in it again, safely?"
"If the Boy Wonders can do what they say they can…"
"If they say they can, then they can," Frigga said. She looked to Odin, who hesitated but showed his agreement with a nod.
"Then I think there's a good chance we can," Tony said, never taking his eyes off of Loki for more than half a second at a time.
"I'll call it in on the sat phone then."
"Wait," Jane said. "What will you say? We can't let anybody know Loki's here."
"That is not my priority at the moment, Jane," Olivia bit back.
"Uhhh, actually, Jane's right," Tony put in. "If you don't want Space Invaders Two: South Pole Edition, you're going to need to keep Loki out of it. The rest of the space Vikings, too."
Olivia nodded slowly. "Gullveig. Right. I'd forgotten. So…what about you? Should I just say you're going to fix it all by yourself?"
Jane watched as Tony put on a show of serious consideration, all while still keeping an eye on Loki, who hadn't done anything further except to quietly ask questions of Jarvis, who wasn't broadcasting the answers to the group. "I can take all the credit, if you insist. Me and Gary."
Gary snorted out a laugh; Olivia stepped away to make her phone call.
Tony was staring at Loki and shaking his head. "I think I may be scarred for life," he muttered.
"I'm sure you'll be fine, Tony," Jane said. "I guarantee you, Loki doesn't want to see any harm come to the Polies."
"Except for the one on the pallet," Thor said, eyeing the man lying on the floor, the man he assumed was the one Loki had stabbed.
"Jane?" Tony said testily, turning to her with a raised eyebrow.
"Long story. And he's fine now. Let's not get sidetracked, okay?" she said, shooting a look at Thor, who nodded his assent. "Just…try to stay focused on the goal."
"I'm going to need some help with that. Jarvis…you think you could…I don't know…zap him unconscious in there if necessary?"
"I could attempt it, sir," Jarvis answered, broadcasting again. "I'm uncertain how much current would be required for a non-human."
"I can still hear you, you know, Gold-Titanium Alloy Man," Loki said distractedly, studying the graphs Jarvis was still showing him illustrating in various ways the structure of the steel used here. He had no intention of giving Jarvis or his creator any reason to "zap" him, of course.
"Kinda the point there, Ru- Loki."
"So you're going to be able to work together, then?" Jane asked. "All of you?" she said, looking at each member of their gathered group – even Loki who wasn't really facing any of them but who, as he'd just demonstrated, was still listening to them. She collected nods and words of agreement from all but Loki, who was probably pretending he suddenly couldn't hear them anymore, and Tony. "Tony?"
"That's not what I meant, actually. The permanent scarring," Tony said, staring openly at Loki with an expression that reminded Jane of nausea.
"What then?"
"Look at him."
Jane looked. Loki stood there, in some light version of his green-and-gold-and-black Asgardian garb, seemingly staring vacantly into space behind the expressionless red-and-gold Iron Man mask.
"That just looks so wrong."
/
/
"Loki, can I talk to you for a minute?" Jane asked.
"Of course," Loki said, not missing Thor's frown. "In private?"
Jane nodded. "Let's go outside. We can see if your mother's made it out with gear for you yet."
Loki agreed and followed Jane out. He wasn't thrilled with the idea of his mother wandering about the decidedly unstable station, much less rummaging through his belongings. But she was sturdier than the Midgardians, and he was cold and was going to need to be outdoors for quite some time and proper ECW gear – especially layered gloves and a heavy-duty balaclava – would make that eminently more tolerable. The fact that he was going to be forced to share his extra gloves and balaclavas with Thor and Odin, should they even deign to wear them in the end, rankled, but being forced to work together with them was going to be worse, he was certain of it. It had been his own idea, of course, that together they could accomplish what the winterover Polies could not, and make the station safe again. Even if it wasn't his own fault they were in such a precarious situation, for the people he'd lived with here for the past four months he would endure working with those he'd fought against and defied. And if he got the opportunity to order them around and make them squirm from time to time…well, there was no reason he couldn't try to find some enjoyment in all this, he told himself.
Jane would be watching, too, though, he thought with a sidelong glance her way. He didn't want to draw her ire, so he would have to temper himself. The thought made him narrow his eyes. He should not care so much what she thought. What anyone thought. He'd told himself that for a long time though, and it had gotten him nowhere. There was nothing wrong with taking what a friend thought into consideration. Jane thought well of him – he still could not quite understand why but he no longer doubted the truth of it – and he wanted her to continue to do so. And he valued her opinion. Even when he didn't share it. It was an odd feeling, but not a bad one, and he relaxed into it and found it surprisingly comfortable.
"Why did we just- Wait, can you make your sound shield again?" Jane asked when they were far enough away, or what she at first thought was far enough away before realizing she wasn't certain how far was far enough to ensure no Aesir were eavesdropping.
"I'm usually indoors for that," Loki said; the barrier was bound around solid objects – usually walls, but he'd used trees and other things on a few occasions. There was nothing to bind it to here. But Jane looked disappointed and that simply wouldn't do. "Let me try something." Energy could bind to other energy, if carefully done, and Loki would be very careful. He drew a bubble around them both, then tentatively started a sound blanket to bind to it. There was a minor electrical discharge, like static electricity, but nothing more, and it didn't increase as he built out the blanket. "Done," he said, keeping his smile modest.
"He gave it back, huh?"
"He did." It wasn't quite that simple – Loki was still beholden to his oath to stay as long as Odin wanted, and his future beyond that was a giant question mark – but it was accurate.
"And you look yourself again. I mean…the 'yourself' I know best."
"I know what you mean. Yes, I look myself."
"Oh, and Loki, I'm sorry about what I said before. About looking normal. I didn't know. I thought it was probably random, how you looked. Just some other weird Asgardian punishment that-"
"Jane, stop. It's all right. This is 'myself,' and this is 'normal.'"
"Well…okay. I'm still sorry I put it that way. So, is everything okay then? You worked things out?"
Loki attempted a smirk that never made it much past a frown. "I wouldn't go that far. I don't know what his intentions are, and he seems rather desperate to know mine."
"Did you tell him?"
"I would have to know them myself first. It would be easier to say what my intentions are not than what they are."
"And did you tell him what they are not?"
"I suppose you could say I gave him a few hints. But this can't be what you wanted to talk to me about. If I may guess, you're wondering how it is that we just had another earthquake, when there's obviously been no more time travel. I was wondering the same thing myself."
"Okay, yes," Jane said, glancing over at the others who were coming out and catching Thor's gaze on them. She grimaced under the balaclava; she was going to have to hide this from Thor, too, at least for now, and that left a bitter taste. "I never got a chance to check the correlations of time travel and earthquakes. I needed to get that data from you. Or from the backup files on the laptop. Do you think it's possible this earthquake was caused by my time travel to Asgard?"
"I have no idea. But there were no earthquakes immediately following the first time travel tests I conducted."
"Right. So…maybe there's a much longer delay between time travel and earthquake than I was assuming. But if so, that means…"
"It means there will be more earthquakes," Loki filled in grimly.
Jane nodded, not quite able to speak yet as she contemplated that. "And don't forget they've been getting stronger. Loki…what if this earthquake resulted from…I don't know, four time travel events ago? Or what if what we did set off a chain reaction that's just continuing to build, regardless of whether there's any more time travel or not? And we keep having quakes, and they keep getting stronger?" she asked, words spilling out as her voice went up in pitch.
"I don't know," Loki said, moving his hand to put it on Jane's arm, but lowering it before it got there to avoid the strong possibility of being interrupted by Thor, who he knew was watching them even though Loki's back was to him and the others. He had thus far avoided nearly all interaction with Thor, and he preferred to keep it that way. "This one was not stronger, though."
"Yes, it was. Seven-point-two, and the last one was seven-point-one."
"That was the initial reading. I asked Jarvis for the updated one. It was the same as the quake this afternoon. Seven-point-one."
"Seven-point-one," Jane repeated. "So…maybe they're not getting worse? But still, multiple quakes in the same day…"
"It could be an aftershock," Loki said, having picked up some of the earthquake terminology over the last few days.
"I thought aftershocks are supposed to be less powerful than the main quake. And what we've been having isn't foreshock and aftershock, it can't be. There's definitely a causal relationship between time travel and the quakes." Jane let out a frustrated sigh. "This isn't my specialization. We need a different type of physicist."
"Since we don't have one, not one that we can discuss time travel with, why don't we simply wait and see what happens? I don't believe we have a choice at the moment anyway. For right now, let's assume that if we have any more quakes, they'll be weaker. And one quake didn't destabilize the building; it took several."
Jane nodded; Loki was right in that at this moment they didn't really have a choice but to wait. "As soon as I can, though, I want to get to work on correlating the time travel and the earthquakes. If there's a pattern – and surely there has to be, but it could be a really complex one – then that should tell us too if we're going to get more and worse quakes."
"Then let's get this plan underway." At another nod from Jane, Loki dropped the sound blanket and the bubble. "Oh, Jane, one more thing," he said as she turned to rejoin the others who'd come outside. "Who fell?"
"Fell? Oh, when the building shifted further from the stairs? It was Zeke and Jeff. Zeke's the one who fell from the second floor. He's banged up but nothing life-threatening. Would've been a lot worse if Thor hadn't caught them. And if you both hadn't gotten everybody else down safely afterward."
"Yes, well…I'm no healer, but depending on exactly how Zeke's injured, perhaps I can do something for him to speed his healing."
"I'm sure he'd appreciate that," Jane said. Loki looked guilty; Jane recognized the look because it was the same way she felt. At least Loki could do something to help. "I'm sure they all appreciate what you've done."
Loki let out a short bitter laugh. "If they only knew all that I've done. Even not knowing, I can think of at least a couple of them who I'm rather certain are feeling something other than appreciation toward me."
"What exactly happened between you and Selby?"
"He did something foolish," Loki said sharply, before adding just a second later, "And so did I."
Jane watched for a moment as Loki walked away, toward the station, and she wondered if she'd ever find out the whole story. She still thought her earlier conclusion was probably correct, that he'd been trying to protect her, but she also thought there was more to it. If Loki and Thor and Tony did manage to make the station safe again and if subsequent earthquakes didn't undo their repairs, then she assumed she was going to be finishing out the winter here, and would go on living with the rest of the Polies, including Selby. Knowing the truth of what happened – especially knowing for certain that Loki wasn't the bad guy of the story that he appeared to be from the outside – would make that a little easier. That, of course, was assuming that the other Polies didn't try to kick her out, send her packing with the Asgardians.
There were too many ifs, too many unknowns. And despite the adrenaline that was still keeping her going, as the Asgardians, Tony, and Gary all made their way back over to the elevated station, Jane was exhausted. The day had, in a sense, spanned over a thousand years, and it felt like it. Inside the VMF, per earlier plan, the others were setting up makeshift sleep areas and arranging a late simple dinner over portable cookers, hopeful that tomorrow they'd be moving back into their austral winter home. Jane decided that since there was nothing she could do to assist those working on the repairs – except perhaps remind them not to kill each other, and Frigga, she thought, could handle that – she was better off putting her time and effort into helping the rest of the Polies. And then maybe catching some shuteye, if she could manage to fall asleep.
/
/
It was going well, Thor thought. They'd barely begun, really, but Loki seemed to know what he was doing, as did Tony, and while Thor had little understanding of it all, he had no problem striking Mjolnir precisely where he was instructed to against the first column, not far from its top.
Jane had disappeared. He'd been disappointed to see her go, but it wasn't as though he was going to be able to talk with her in these circumstances. His father was able to help Tony and him lift the building using Gungnir, just as he'd said. His mother was mostly keeping an eye on things, in particular the tension between Loki and Tony. Thor knew that he was a part of that, too. He'd been annoyed to find out that Tony had known Loki was here and not told him, despite the Man of Iron's excuses that he hadn't known when Thor had asked him, and that he simply hadn't told him once Thor had stopped asking. Jane had spoken up in Tony's defense, saying she'd insisted he not divulge Loki's location unless directly asked. "We'll talk later," she'd said. We'll talk later. At least Jane – unlike Loki – had suggested that they would at some point talk.
Loki, of course, no longer looked Jotun. It was as though he never had, Thor thought bitterly. He'd worked on it. He'd examined himself, his feelings and attitudes; he'd been prepared to embrace a Jotun Loki, figuratively if not quite literally given the likelihood of frostburn, and he'd lost his chance. And now here he was, working with Loki, at a task that could almost feel like any number of adventures they'd undertaken together over the centuries, but for the fact that Loki was ignoring him, and when forced to deal with him, treated him like a stranger. It was endlessly frustrating. So Thor tried not to think about it and instead focus on the task at hand, the good that he was hopefully doing here, that Loki also was doing.
"I call tea break!"
Thor looked up from where he stood next to the column he'd just knocked into place. Tony in his metal suit was backing up from where he'd been watching Loki do whatever it was exactly that Loki was doing to the metal before Tony could start welding it.
"We've barely started and you already require a break?" Loki said. "No."
"'No?' I don't remember asking for a vote."
Loki watched as Tony Stark took off without explanation, threading his way through the pillars and up to the second floor DZ entrance, the one that still lacked stairs. Tony, of course, didn't need stairs.
"Tea break," Loki said after Tony had disappeared inside and several seconds had passed in silence. He understood the reference, even if no one else did, not even the other Midgardians at the Pole. Mohsin had told him all about cricket in the drive down to Melfort. Loki had wanted to throttle him – he hadn't been in the best frame of mind at the time – but he couldn't help picking up a few things, too, including the custom of a "tea break" in the middle of a match.
"Loki-"
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say," Thor protested. They couldn't do much, or anything really, without Tony – each of them was essential in accomplishing their task – so Tony's absence meant a good opportunity for a few minutes alone with Loki.
"That hardly matters. The answer is the same."
"Loki," Frigga said, coming forward from where she'd been watching the work – watching her family and Tony cooperate in the work – to put an arm around him, to encourage him to talk to Thor.
"Not now, Mother," he said, shrugging away from her and heading further under the building toward the other side, where the open expanse of ice held no other buildings. The side where there was less risk of collateral damage. "Don't follow," he threw over his shoulder.
They had been, for a short time, tentatively, tenuously, on the same team. But Loki was certain he knew why Tony was suddenly entering the station, and where he had gone once inside. And they would be on opposing teams again before the tea could grow cold.
/
It will feel like a minor miracle if I actually manage to get this released tonight, on two bars (occasionally one, rarely three) sitting in my car outside a closed restaurant. Well, it's been ages since I released the last chapter (many of you know why, a week with no time at the computer, two weeks on a ship with 50-cent-a-minute internet, and no internet when I got home - and I may not get it back over the weekend either) so it's worth the extra effort. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. By coincidence I went to see Cap: Civil War today, and I think I giggled out loud at Tony's use of the word "tensile," since I also had him use it in this chapter and I'm not sure I would've known what it means without all that research I did on steel etc. for this story.
The story is full of callbacks - time travel makes that a given - but one of my faves is here in this chapter. In case you were wondering, in Ch. 106 "Oaths" when Thor has his Learning Moment about the hammer being a tool to build and about everyone fighting in his or own best way, that was absolutely intentional foreshadowing for what happens in this chapter. So, as I know many of you have wondered how much of this story is planned versus made up as I go, here is part of the planning. :-)
Drop me a comment if you are so inclined - my lack of response to any reviews of late is due to lack of access to internet, not lack of interest. :-) I will be getting back to you once I'm wired up again.
Teasers for Ch. 148: Well, I've thought about titling it "Confrontation" except that there's another confrontation in Ch. 149 that is fairly important really...Confrontation Part One and Confrontation Part Two? When you throw these characters together, there's going to be some confrontation...
Excerpt (Jane and Odin speaking):
Jane looked around; there wasn't a lot of privacy to be had here in the VMF, which wasn't meant to house 50 people. But there was a corner that had been cleared for a sleeping area that was now empty.
"Tell me," he said when they were as alone as they were going to get. "How did you go from being Loki's target to being his friend?"