.-.
Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Fifty – Heroes
The weather made for decent small talk only if you actually lived here, Jane realized as she stood alone outside with Odin, after the others had all left – Tony and Gary to the Dark Sector, the station's managers to the heavy shop, and Thor and Loki to Summer Camp. There were degrees of cold, changes in the wind, blowing ice crystals, and, very rarely, some actual snow. If you didn't live here, "cold" pretty much covered it. She didn't want to talk about Loki with him again, for her sense of protectiveness toward him was in overdrive at the moment, Loki's horrific sentence for Baldur's accidental death still in the forefront of her thoughts.
"What did you think of the coffee?" she blurted out as soon as it came to her, the first "safe" thing to say she'd thought of.
"It was fine. Not bad for warming an old man's bones."
"Good," Jane said before she'd even taken in all of his response. "It comes in different versions, darker roast or lighter roast, and you can add milk or sugar or different flavors…" Jane said, continuing to babble away, unable to stop herself for a couple of minutes, until Odin interrupted.
"He has done well here, hasn't he?" He'd been thinking about what she'd said before, that Loki had been doing well but deteriorated as the reactions to his misuse of magic accumulated, while he'd watched Loki and his presumed enemy work calmly together. He didn't know exactly what she'd meant by "doing better," but if he'd somehow truly been doing better, somehow stopped his willfully inexorable downward spiral before bringing himself to the brink, why had he continued to accumulate punishment?
"Yes," Jane said, then sighed. She should have known it; Odin was here for only one reason, after all. Talking about Loki was unavoidable. And if she could say anything that would help, and in general enough terms that Loki would probably be all right with it, she would. "He really has. He's made friends here. He cares about these people. Even if he won't admit it to you. There's a lot of good in him."
Odin turned to the woman beside him. "Look me in the eye, Jane Foster."
Jane's eyes flared. Oh, boy, she thought, wondering if it had been thirty minutes yet. Confronting Odin was a lot easier with Thor at her side. She turned, and looked up into his one eye.
"Did you know that your travels in the past would cause this?"
Jane sucked in a breath, then coughed over the sudden cold dry influx. She shoved the hands that began to shake into her pockets. He knows. He'd already at least strongly suspected time travel, but it seemed pretty clear now that he realized the time travel had caused the earthquakes. Confident words to Loki about laws and citizenship aside, that scared her, especially for Loki, who was an Asgardian citizen regardless of his biology, if citizenship on Asgard worked anything like what Jane was familiar with. "Neither I nor Loki would ever do anything to intentionally endanger the people here," she finally answered, still careful not to explicitly confirm that time travel had actually taken place.
Odin considered that and decided he believed her. He didn't know what they'd attempted in the past, but it was unlikely they'd known about the consequences to the present for attempts to change the past.
And he couldn't have known that Loki would ally himself with Jane Foster and that they would somehow stumble across the forbidden. He hadn't taken it into account…and neither had the enchantment that judged and responded to Loki's use of magic.
The thought sat uncomfortably with him.
"You should go back inside with the others, get warm," he told the mortal, who hesitated before nodding and walking away. He wasn't concerned about her warmth; on her world at her young age she was a fully grown independent woman who could decide for herself when she needed to go inside. He wanted to do some thinking, and he wanted to do it alone.
/
/
"Who sent you to Midgard?"
Loki stared, then blinked heavily. This is how you intend to use your limited time? During their walk in silence to the jamesway, he'd imagined a dozen different things Thor might want to say or ask, anything from those beloved childhood memories of Thor's to interrogating him about his behavior toward Jane. "Odin," he answered a moment later, voice stiff and even, standing across from Thor and looking him squarely in the eye for the first time since Puente Antiguo. This was uncomfortable. It would have been better to leave it there. Loki had meant to leave it there.
Thor looked at him with confusion, but for less than a second. "Not this time. The first time."
The first time? "I suppose that would also be Odin. Or were you thinking of Heimdall? Or Dusi?"
"Dusi?" Thor echoed, the name distant yet familiar. Then it hit him. "Our old cosmology tutor? Not the literal first time, Loki. The next-to-last time, if you insist. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't deliberately waste my thirty minutes."
"I'm not deliberately wasting your precious thirty minutes. You are. You have been hit by one or perhaps a dozen too many lightning bolts; they've addled your brain. Why do you care how I arrived on Midgard then? Why do you assume anyone sent me? What difference does it make now? Are you seeking a new witness? I've already been judged guilty."
"No," Thor said with a rapid shake of his head, remembering what Jane had said about separating himself from a position of judgement over Loki. "This has nothing to do with that. And no, Loki, this isn't how I wish to spend the time. There are other things I…I need to talk with you about, but thirty minutes won't be enough for that. And this is important. Father went to Jotunheim, while you were…wherever you were. To try to make peace, to offer assistance. They refused, but they weren't looking for your head on a pike, either. And suddenly all the other realms attack and make you one of the conditions of peace? I think there's more to it. I do think someone sent you here, and you were to obtain the Tesseract. And you left here empty-handed. Did the Chitauri king give you that scepter?"
"As pleasant as it is to be grilled over something else for a change, I'm not going to discuss this with you."
"But why not? Loki…who did you make a deal with? I fear that this person may have gone to the Dark Elves and instigated this entire war in order to force the Tesseract into a more vulnerable location, and to punish you for reneging on a deal. If you know who's behind all this, Loki, please, I'm begging you. You asked me, when you were still imprisoned, you asked me for one thing, you said if I still considered you a brother to do just one thing for you, to promise that you wouldn't be sent to Jotunheim. Now I'm asking you. If you care anything about me, anything at all, if you care at all for Asgard, your home, please, I ask you this one thing, please tell me who is behind this," Thor said, stepping in close to Loki, speaking quietly, wrapping a hand around Loki's upper arm, imploring with words, voice, eyes, posture, everything he could possibly put into his entreaty. He was desperate, and he didn't mind if Loki saw that, too.
Loki stood his ground, fighting the nearly overwhelming urge to withdraw from the intensity of Thor's grasp. Even looking him in the eye was difficult, something he'd been avoiding since Thor's return. The last time he'd peered so closely into the eyes he knew as well as his own, he'd been contemplating killing him, then ultimately backing away from that decision. Thor knew nothing about it, thought he'd dreamed the whole thing. Thor didn't know that Loki had saved his life on Asgard, when an invisible Dark Elf had nearly sliced his arm off, and that Loki had later regretted having done so. Thor didn't know that they'd stood face-to-face on the bifrost, Loki invisible, Thor slashing a sword through the area where Loki stood. Thor didn't know anything, not about Loki, and Loki suddenly felt as though he knew nothing about Thor, either.
Thor had a goal for the short time Loki had granted him. But Loki couldn't decide how best to play his response. He decided, instead, to pursue his own goal, which might in turn help him decide how to respond to Thor. "You speak of promises. You swore an oath, in fact. I wish to know whether you still stand behind it."
"Of course I do," Thor said, squeezing Loki's shoulder, then letting his hand drop. He wished to embrace Loki, but he was certain his brother wouldn't allow it.
"Even though you believe me to be a part of this war against Asgard?"
"Loki…no. I don't believe you to be a part of it, not in the sense of being responsible for it."
"I was on Asgard. I know what I heard."
"When you warned Jolgeir? Yes, I know. There was suspicion then, when you knew about Brokk using the servant girl Vigdis, when you knew that the Einherjar camp in the Felingard Forest would be attacked. But we discussed it, and we dismissed the idea that you were behind the alliance against us. I know there remain some murmurings against you…there are those who believe we should surrender now, those who've believed that for some time. Along with the Assembly, I'm now forced to consider options for surrender myself. But come what may, my oath to you remains. My oath to you as my brother."
Loki's eyes remained sharp, no relief showing in them at all. That Thor stood by his oath was welcome news, but it was not sufficient. "You made a point of saying that you are Asgard's king. But we both know it isn't that simple. What will you do if Odin orders that I be surrendered to Jotunheim?"
"I already told you what I would do, before I became king. Whether I am king or not, whatever power Father still exercises, you will not be given over to Jotunheim. I have already told them that if we must accept terms and can find no way around Jotunheim's demand, if they will not move from their demand that you must be imprisoned there, then I will go in your place. They may not desire my head as much as they desire yours, but I do not think they would reject having Asgard's king as their prisoner."
Loki stared, not quite believing what he was hearing. Yes, Thor had said this before, that he would fight or even go in Loki's place to prevent him being sent to Jotunheim. But circumstances were different then. There was no war, there was no demand from Jotunheim or any other realm, only a few advisors who saw it as a fitting punishment and a means of conveniently getting him out of their beards. Thor's assurances of what he would do to prevent that had seemed superlative, melodramatic. Typical Thor. "And you think your father will allow this? You think anyone on Asgard would allow this?"
"I am king. Their opinions, ultimately, are merely that."
"You are king until Odin says you are not. You are not All-Father."
"It was official, Loki. I was formally given Gungnir. Father still wields it, so that we both still wield our best weapon, but it is mine."
"Hmph. That sounds familiar. I seem to recall also being formally given Gungnir, and I didn't even allow anyone else to wield it. Do you see it in my hands now?"
"That was different."
"Was it?"
"Yes," Thor said with a sigh. "We thought you dead. Gungnir passed back to Father."
"I see. And when you found out I wasn't and came after me on Midgard, I assume you simply forgot to return it to me."
"Loki…" Thor shook his head. Loki would ensnare him in this argument and the half hour would be gone with nothing gained. "I've no doubt you could talk me in circles on this all day. But in light of everything that happened, on the bifrost and then on Midgard, can you honestly say you believe you should still have Asgard's throne?"
Loki finally gave in to the urge to put distance between himself and Thor, looking away and walking over to Jane's laptop, running a finger lightly over the touchpad. The computer was "fried," as she'd put it, now a relic of their time together here, of a strange, brief interlude in his life. The table it sat on was now between him and Thor. No, "in light of everything that happened," he didn't think he should still have the throne, or, more accurately, he didn't actually blame anyone for thinking he shouldn't. It would still be nice if it were simply acknowledged that he did have it, truly, honestly, legitimately. He could have been a good king, given the chance. He had, perhaps, overestimated what he could have accomplished in that particular moment in time, though. He thought he saw things a little more clearly now, even though they'd seemed perfectly clear at the time.
"The Chitauri do not have a king. Not in the sense that we're familiar with. They are clones, tightly controlled…barely sentient." The last might have been a slight exaggeration, but it reflected how Loki felt about them – simpering brainless automatons who would slice their own heads off if their "king" ordered it. "They have what might be more accurately called a master."
Thor nodded, relieved – and somewhat surprised, given all the delays – that Loki was actually answering. And eager for him to continue before he changed his mind and resumed his stalling tactics. "Who is their master?"
"What good will his name do you? You cannot reach him."
"Can you?" Thor responded immediately.
"No." It wasn't precisely true; there was one possible way, but it would require the Tesseract and Erik Selvig and other sensitive energy materials and a great deal of trust in him, thus highly unpalatable to both Asgard and Midgard, not to mention Jane. And "reaching" Thanos was not the same thing as attacking him, much less defeating him.
Thor nodded again, hopes dashed as quickly as Loki had raised them. "Then let us start with the name."
"Fine. His name is Thanos," Loki said with a frown. He remembered first telling Jane about him, when they were preparing to go to Alfheim. Doing so had felt good, as though he were taking back some power he hadn't even realized Thanos still had over him. Now it was anticlimactic. From the wrinkle of Thor's brow and his unfocused eyes, Loki could tell the name was just as unfamiliar to Thor as it had been to him, when he'd finally learned it from the lackey.
"He is not Chitauri? Who are his people, then?"
Loki's eyes widened a bit at the question. He'd never before imagined that Thanos had "people," though of course he surely must; he had to have come from somewhere. A chill raced through him, along with a phantom pain in his spine. Valhalla help the cosmos if there were more like Thanos out there. "I don't know. I never saw anyone else who looked anything like him."
"Did he give you the scepter?"
"An earlier form of it, yes."
"And the gem that it contains?"
Loki hesitated. It was beginning to feel like an interrogation again. "Yes."
"We think your old friend Brokk acquired something similar. Much less powerful, more limited, but the same ability to disrupt thoughts, to put minds on edge. It was secretly placed underneath Vigdis's bed. It drove her to the brink of madness and in her weakened state Brokk manipulated her into spying on us."
Loki drew in a slow breath, as a missing piece of the puzzle fell into place for him. He'd despised Vigdis for her weakness; he still despised her, but now he understood how she'd become so weak and pliable.
"Do you see what that means, Loki? It can't be a coincidence. Brokk has been in contact with this Thanos. How do they know each other? How do they contact each other? Perhaps we can reach Thanos that way, too."
Loki remembered sitting in a dank underground chamber on Midgard and being yanked out of his body and back to Thanos's lackey and reminded that he was not in control, sitting in Brokk's library one second and being yanked back again with his helpless body still back on Svartalfheim. Clinging to the tatters of pride in the face of humiliation.
"Brother?"
"Your time is up," Loki said, closing the useless laptop and heading for the door.
"No. It hasn't been thirty minutes."
"It has. And if it hasn't, your time is still up."
Thor turned to catch him before he could slip away. "Loki…Brother…there is so much more I-"
Loki batted away the hand that had been coming for his neck. "Yes. I know. So much more. Always so much more. For you. Not for me." He stood in place, staring at Thor who stared back, his oldest and dearest friend, his oldest and fiercest enemy. Finally he turned and left in frustration, and this time Thor didn't try to stop him.
/
/
Outside, the Polies were still trickling back into the station. An underground tunnel connected the elevated building to the cluster of buildings that included the Vehicle Maintenance Facility via the Beer Can stairs, but it, too, would need to be inspected, so for now everyone stayed above ground, just as when they'd evacuated. They moved slowly, some stopping to aim their own red handlamps, those who'd made it out with them, at the repaired columns and connecting plates, or at the stairs newly reattached at Destination Zulu. Some hesitated before stepping onto the stairs. There wasn't much talking, and they seemed on the whole subdued, when Loki had thought they might be more excited, like the station's managers had been.
They're frightened to go back inside, he thought. Or overwhelmed. Or tired. Or suffering from too much drink yesterday. Or perhaps they're just afraid of me, he thought when yet another gaze turned his way.
Zeke was making his way to the station particularly slowly – Loki knew it was him because he was alternating between limping and hopping on one leg, arm over someone else's shoulders. Loki steeled himself and headed over to him, leaving behind Thor, who had already tried twice more to start up a conversation before Loki cut him off each time. It was Tristan he was leaning on, Loki saw once he drew closer.
"Zeke…I'm sorry about your leg," he said, with great awkwardness that he tried not to show.
"Uh, yeah. Well…could've been my skull, you know. Nora took a look at it, she doesn't think anything's broken. But flying and all that…geez, man. Why didn't you tell us?"
Loki opened his mouth, but no words came out. I wanted to was the answer that came instinctively to mind, the answer that might be most beneficial to his image here, but the truth was he'd never particularly wanted to. Certainly not when he'd first arrived, but even later, when he'd come to enjoy their company. He hadn't wanted to tell them he was Loki, the man who'd come just a short time ago to rule their world, and watch as all their reactions to him changed; most of the time he hadn't even wanted to be Loki when he was with them.
"I guess you couldn't," Zeke finally answered for him. Loki thought he seemed nervous, and Tristan was definitely eyeing him warily.
"No," Loki agreed. "If you would permit me…and I understand if you refuse…I have some minor healing abilities. I may be able to improve the condition of your leg."
"Healing abilities? Like…like the flying? And how you fixed the columns? You just…"
"It's a form of magic," Loki said, when Zeke was clearly at a loss. "It doesn't hurt. It may tingle a little."
Zeke glanced at Tristan. "Okay. I'll take some magic morphine, too, if you've got it."
"Morphine?"
"You don't know what morphine is, do you? How did I miss this stuff before? All of us."
"Because 'perhaps this person is from another planet' is not a normal thing to wonder on Earth. And because before, I would have simply said 'no,' even though I had no idea what you were asking me about."
Zeke nodded. "Morphine's a painkiller. A heavy-duty one. I was exaggerating, but not by much. My knee's killing me."
"Ah. Sorry, I have no morphine, magic or otherwise." Loki bent down, then dropped to one knee and placed his hands around Zeke's knee and the layers covering it. There was some damage, though he wasn't entirely sure of its nature; that had been a little easier when there was a reciprocal injury, something he could feel in himself and thus understand what was wrong with Jane's hip. Mostly, though, there was swelling and deep bruising, and that he knew how to reduce.
Two minutes later, Loki was standing and Zeke was carefully shifting his weight, testing his knee. "Wow. Still hurts, but I can stand on it now. How'd you do that?"
"Ahhhh…it's difficult to explain," Loki said, reminded that Jane's curiosity was no exception here, and that this group of people as a whole, merely by having chosen to come to this far-flung isolated land, had shown themselves a curious lot. "One must have a certain feel for it," he added.
"You think you could explain it to Nora?"
"No. But Nora can do many things that I cannot. Perhaps she even has morphine," he said with a smile that remained more awkward than he wished.
"I bet she does," Zeke said with a chuckle. "But I don't think I need it anymore. And it'll probably be a lot easier to get all the electrical testing done if I'm not nodding off with Mr. Morpheus."
"Hey, I'm, uh, really sorry about the costumes," Tristan said. "Paul, too. He's sorry about the cape and the crack about the… We didn't mean anything by it. We were drunk," he said, nodding sharply.
"Mm," Loki murmured noncommittally. "Just a bit of fun?" He had found it offensive, what they'd done, but he wasn't about to maim or kill anyone over it, as Tristan seemed to fear.
"Yeah. I guess. It was stupid. So, you, uh…should we call you Loki? It feels weird."
"It is my given name. But you can call me whichever you prefer, I suppose."
"Okay. Well…are you leaving soon?"
Loki glanced behind him. Odin and Thor stood watching him, and Jane was approaching the other two. "I believe so, yes."
Tristan nodded, kept nodding, and Loki shifted uncomfortably. "We were supposed to work on those GIFs tonight. You haven't even given me the list yet."
"Oh," Loki said in utter surprise, eyebrows arching. The animated GIFs-not-gifts. The Mid-Winter celebration. His life here had been interrupted, but theirs would now go on. He was glad of it, for their sake. He hadn't expected to still be here for Mid-Winter anyway. "Jane was going to help, too. And the song list is in my room, in a notebook in the top drawer. Feel free to go in and get it."
"Okay. Though now I kind of wish I could see what you can do with an animated GIF."
Loki smiled in the way he supposed was expected, but didn't know what to say.
"We better get back in. We've still got a lot of work to do to get this place back into shape and make sure everything's working right," Zeke said.
"Yes," Loki said, giving them a nod.
"And thanks, man. Even for the catching me like a little girl thing. It wasn't you that did it, but if it wasn't for you being here first your brother wouldn't have been here, either. I really…," Zeke began, pausing, laughing, rubbing the back of his neck, "I really thought I was going to die. That or be paralyzed for life. I'm probably going to have nightmares about slamming into the ice. So just…thanks. And good luck."
Loki couldn't quite bring himself to accept Zeke's thanks and he had no idea what to do with a wish for good luck, so he merely nodded again, and Zeke and Tristan continued on their way to the station. He watched them go, the austere silver-gray building lit with red floodlamps again looking solid and steady in the darkened day. It was abuzz with life again, and should the earthquakes subside and the repairs hold, its normal rhythms would soon resume, as though nothing had ever happened, as though he had never even been there.
He heard voices approaching from the left and knew Gary and Tony Stark were returning; another figure in red was coming out of the elevated station as Zeke and Tristan were going in, stopping to talk with them for a moment before continuing. Olivia, he saw once she reached the bottom of the stairs and came closer. They met in a loose jumble of Midgardian and Asgardian, Big Red and leather and gold-titanium alloy.
"Not exactly a backyard telescope you've got out there. Everything looks good though. You'll still want to get another inspection when austral summer comes, but there's no real structural damage. You're back in science business, at least as far as the buildings go," Tony said.
"All the equipment will have to be tested for calibration, but that's what we've got the grantees here for," Gary added.
"I don't really know what to say," Olivia said. "Thank you. On behalf of everyone here, thank you. Mr. Stark. Mr…Thor. And Loki. Listen, whatever you did before, to be honest, at this particular moment I don't really care. What you did here today, and overnight…today you're a hero. You're all heroes. Your Majesty, Gary, you, too. We'd be trying to figure out how to survive in the heavy shop for the rest of the winter if it weren't for you. Thank you."
"You're very welcome," Thor said in the silence that followed, pulling his gaze away from Loki.
Loki then nodded over Tony Stark's blathering, something about being delighted to visit but disappointed there were no penguins. Loki wished, uncharacteristically, that the ice would open up and suck his body down into its depths. He'd wanted to look good in front of Jane, heroic even. He'd enjoyed putting on something of a show for the others, or so he'd told himself, but he'd tried not to think about what they might be thinking of him. Now, with Olivia speaking as she had…I do not know who I am, Loki realized. Not for the first time, really, but he'd never grasped how deep the fracture went and just how many fractures there were, and he'd never before felt it so keenly. He had lived as Lucas for months with Gary and Olivia and the others and had become largely comfortable with the ruse; with Jane he had been both Lucas and Loki and something altogether different than perhaps he'd ever been before; with Tony he was Loki who'd brought war upon this world in order to rule it, Loki who'd quickly come to loathe the mortal and that had not abated; with his former family…he'd been a Loki who no longer existed.
He knew he should say something. He had lived in these people's home, shared their food, joined them in their movies and games. He owed them something, perhaps. He owed them at the least a response. Something he could tell Olivia in hopes she would tell the rest of the Polies. Something he could tell Gary to show that his friendship had meant something. But the awareness that he didn't even know who he was anymore had paralyzed him, left him locked in his own thoughts, as other words were exchanged and Gary and Olivia returned to the station. He realized after the fact that Gary had said something to him as well, but try as he might he could not retrieve whatever it was he'd said.
/
/
"You should have told me."
"Maybe so. It was a tough call. Have I mentioned that Jane asked me not to, and she can be really convincing when she tries? Not a shrinking violet, that woman."
Thor frowned further, but then decided that "not a shrinking violet" was probably a compliment and the frown turned a bit upwards. "She's very strong."
"She had to be, to put up with your brother all this time. Look, I am sorry. I felt bad about it. Kind of dances around the edge of violating the bro-code, you know? I was tempted to spill the beans a few times, but…Jane had things under control, and you told me you didn't want me to look for him anymore."
You should have told me, Thor thought again. "Don't look for Loki" is not the same thing as "Don't tell me if you've already found him." But rehashing this now was pointless, as was holding a grudge. He knew Tony had kept in close contact with Jane and looked out for her once he knew Loki was here. "You asked if I had a phone, when you were on Asgard. When I was talking to you about Loki. You would have called Jane?"
"Just now catching on to that one, huh?"
Thor smiled lightly, the grin he might have normally given failing to materialize. Too much weighed upon him for that. "Thank you for caring for Jane. Thank you for coming here and helping these people."
"Did I hear my name?" Jane said, approaching the two men, eager to step away from the tense and silent loose gathering that was Loki and Odin.
"Indeed," Thor said, slipping an arm around her back. "I was just thanking Tony for his assistance here."
"Anytime. Though it'd be swell if you could plan the next South Pole crisis for summer."
"There's not going to be another South Pole crisis. I hope," Jane added with a grimace, recalling what she and Loki had talked about right before they started their repairs. "Thor, can I have a minute with Tony before he goes?"
"Of course," Thor said, bidding Tony farewell before going over to stand next to Loki, who ignored him and started moving slowly toward Jane and Tony.
"So," Tony said.
"So," Jane said with a wry smile.
"How did the rest of the fam wind up here, anyway?"
Jane glanced over her shoulder at the family that looked anything but. "Well…I sort of wound up going to Asgard. Some secret means Loki's mother gave him for returning there in an emergency."
"Secret means, huh? I think I heard something about that."
"Loki was bleeding out, barely conscious, so I used it instead. To make a long story short, the trip didn't go so well and I was…let's call it 'knocked out' the whole time, but they all brought me back here with them, with their head doctor, too, but she went back to Asgard as soon as Loki was getting better."
"Eir? No-nonsense magic-healing doc?"
"You know Eir?"
"Yeah. Didn't I tell you I went to Asgard? I guess I didn't. So much else was going on, but I can't believe I forgot to mention that. After Gullveig showed up, to fill them in on the UN and how his little press conference was playing. Asgard's shiny, huh? They don't do understated there. I was actually the first Midgardian to ever set foot in the realm. That's what Bragi told me. You know who Bragi is? Asgardian Secretary of State more or less. Or maybe the old title suits him better, Secretary of War."
Jane smiled behind her facemask. Tony's voice was teasingly smug, but teasing aside, she was certain he was pleased with himself to have been the "first Midgardian" in Asgard, particularly when Jane had the closer connection there. Crunching ice announced someone's approach; she turned enough to see it was Loki. "When exactly were you on Asgard?"
"Exactly? Hard to do 'exactly' with the time difference here, call it three days ago. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get another chance," Tony said to Jane with a wink.
"Dr. Foster beat you there by over a thousand years, Metal Man."
Jane's head whipped around to shoot Loki a warning glare. She turned back to see Tony angling his head to the side, about to say something. "I did beat you there. I went in April, and in May…actually I was there three times before you went. And then the one time after. I never met Bragi. Loki told me about him, though. Did you know he's also a famous poet on Asgard?"
Tony was speechless; Jane grinned.
"Ha, 'Metal Man,'" Tony finally said. "Yeah, that's funny. You know who else calls me that? Thor. That's funny, too. He thought of it first, though."
"Okay, joke time is over," Jane said quickly before their squabbling could escalate. "Loki, did you come over to say goodbye to Tony?"
"No," Loki said drily.
"Then could you give me just a minute for me to say goodbye?"
"I will look forward to the end of that minute," Loki said, backing off, but not quite far enough that he wouldn't be able to hear.
"What's next then? I assume the Asgardian Days of Our Lives are going back to the mother ship. You planning to go with, Sally Ride?"
Jane's eyebrows went up; the thought hadn't even occurred to her, not at this stage. "I don't think so. Asgard's in bad shape, from what I understand. The other realms have managed to get past the shield protecting the city, and hardly anywhere is safe anymore, especially not for humans."
"But they're taking Loki, right?"
"Yeah, I think so. I don't really know…exactly what's going to happen."
Tony nodded and pursed his lips, as silence lingered for a moment. "I'll come back at the end of the winter season, run some more diagnostics and maybe meet with the engineering team that'll be coming. But if things don't go like you expect, and if things get…spicy here," he said, eyes momentarily focusing beyond Jane, "you know how to reach me."
"Spicy? Oh! Right," Jane said, remembering the code word for trouble with Loki they'd agreed on months ago and danced around a few times but never used. "Um, yeah, sure, Tony. But there's not going to be any spice," she said, looking back at Loki and realizing that while she or Tony probably wouldn't be able to hear anything from that distance, Loki probably could. "I did want to ask you for something, though. A little favor." She motioned with her hand for Tony to back further away, and waited until a good distance separated them from Loki before she continued.
/
/
"Have you seen anything further?"
"Nothing new. They are still meeting on Vanaheim, and the Dark Elves are still obscuring it."
"All right. Thank you, Heimdall."
"Your Majesty…"
"Yes?" They stood this time under a canopy of withered grape vines a ten-minute ride from the palace, six Einherjar ringing them at a distance, just in case Gullveig cut short his reprieve and penetrated the shield nearby.
"You may want to know, when you were already hurrying to Loki's location, and he did not know it, he called out to me, with a request."
"After all that time concealing himself? I suppose he was unable to do so anymore, but to deliberately draw your attention… What was his request?" Frigga asked, thought she thought she knew the answer; Loki had been dying then, and he had apparently been willing to call for Eir, even though it meant revealing his location to Heimdall.
"He asked for help. For Jane Foster."
Frigga's eyebrows went up in surprise. She nodded slowly, mulling it over. It wasn't so surprising, really. Not if you believed Jane, not if you believed that it wasn't just Jane who'd come to care for Loki, but that Loki had truly come to care for Jane. That he had come to care for her enough that he'd revealed himself not for his own sake, but for hers. "Thank you, Heimdall," she said a moment later. "I'm ready now."
/
/
When the light faded and Frigga's feet were solidly on the ice, she traced the now-familiar path through the two rows of jamesway tents and found Odin, her sons, and Jane with their backs to her, heads craned upward, watching another streak of light shrinking and disappearing. She was disappointed, for she'd hoped to speak with Tony before he left, but reprieve or no, Heimdall was taking no chances with the Tesseract, positioning it and calling for her only once it was clear the work at the station was complete.
"The building looks much more as I would expect it to now," she said, noting the symmetry that had been lacking before. The repairs went well?"
"Very well," Thor said. "The residents have already returned to their shelter to clean it and make further repairs." He paused, acutely aware now of Loki's silence and his own instinctively quick response. Loki had shown no inclination to speak up, but still, Thor wondered if he should have allowed him more of a chance to; after all, Loki's role had been key, the idea even coming from him in the first place.
"I'm glad to hear it," Frigga was saying with a smile. She was back in most of the Extreme Cold Weather gear she'd left in, though her face was still uncovered.
Thor barely heard her. He was recalling how quickly he'd praised Maeva for her part in protecting Vigdis when they'd had her meet with Brokk, and the comprehension he'd gained that in the past he'd often spoken for his and Loki's successes as his, or glossed over Loki's contributions. That would change now, even though he still didn't know where he stood with Loki, or whether Loki would become again an enemy as soon as he was able to leave what was essentially, if you wanted to leave it, a large icen prison. "We could not have successfully made the repairs without Loki," he said. "The pillars I hammered into place would not have held without Tony's welds, and Tony's welds would not have held without Loki's strengthening of the weakened metal. Their leader called him a hero for what he did here."
Loki forced his clenched jaw open before anyone could say anything, and barely made it. "They throw the term around loosely here," Loki said, speaking over his mother. "Can we stop pretending this is some kind of normal conversation and get on with it? All-Father, I assume you wish to continue our agreed-upon chat?"
"Yes," Odin answered. "We're fortunate to have this reprieve, but time is slipping away. Now that the people here are safe again, we must use it wisely."
"Back to the jamesway, then?" Loki said, and without waiting for an answer, turned to Jane, who'd been standing outside for longer than she should. She was dressed properly for it, but even ECW gear wasn't enough to keep a mortal wearer sufficiently warm out here indefinitely. "You should join the others inside."
Startled, Jane's eyes widened. She did want to be with the rest of the Polies, to help get the station back into shape, to show that she was working with them and not against them, but more than that she didn't want to leave Loki alone in this situation, even if she couldn't be technically with him she could wait in another nearby jamesway, out of the breeze. And she definitely didn't want this to be some hasty goodbye, in front of his parents and Thor, not after all they'd been through together. But before she could put together a response, Odin was speaking.
"Actually, she should join us, as this concerns her as well. Frigga, you should be there, too. And Thor…I suppose the time has come that you should hear it also. The tent is too cramped. We'll use the heavy shop, as they call it."
Loki bristled but held his tongue. This was – had been – his home, and Odin had been here less than twenty-four hours and was speaking as though he ran the place. He glanced around at the others. Frigga wore a smile that looked tight, and that did not reach her eyes. Thor looked eager despite the set of his jaw, probably excited to finally be included in one of these talks. Jane…Jane looked nervous. Her face was covered, but Loki could see it in her body language, and then in the way her gaze held his when she finally looked his way. With a sinking feeling he realized why she was nervous, why Odin wanted to include her in this conversation.
It wouldn't be a "conversation," Loki feared. It would be an inquisition. And he and Jane would both be under scrutiny.
It wouldn't be about Midgard or Asgard or Jotunheim or Svartalfheim or any other realm. It wouldn't be about any place at all. Odin had probably learned all he needed to, all he was going to, in their earlier encounters and in observing him play the "hero." What he still knew nothing of…was time.
/
And there you have it, *150* chapters. Please consider dropping in a comment. I genuinely do not expect this to hit 200. Though I genuinely did not expect it to hit 150. Or 100. Or frankly even 50. Ha. It has been a pleasure to share this ride with you...even though the ride has proved to be much longer than originally expected!
Ch. 151 is...about time. And for Loki, it may also become about something else.
Excerpt:
"Thor, as king, you will need to know this. You must protect Asgard from all manner of war and destruction; this is simply one more. What I tell you, what I tell each of you, I say in the strictest confidence, for it is meant to be passed only from king to king, part of a sealed book presented after the new king succeeds the old."