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Beneath
Chapter Two Hundred Seventeen – Resumption
"It's salvageable, don't you think? There's hope?"
Odin wasn't certain. He would have rather seen an argument out of Loki than that tepid non-response and its air of finality. It was late, though, and they were all tired from a difficult day. Had Loki been willing to engage with him, it probably wouldn't have gone well. It probably wouldn't have gone well even were they not all tired from a difficult day. "There's hope," he said. There was always hope.
Frigga nodded, though her attention was drifting. Her question was as much to herself as to Odin, and Odin had no more insight than she did. Loki's question plagued her. "How did Geirmund know I didn't want to kill Baldur when my own family didn't?" That Odin's answer was true – Geirmund had critical facts about the incident that no one else did – wasn't helping. "He said he would accept visits."
"A sign of hope indeed."
She nodded again. She believed in hope. "You should go. Get some sleep."
Odin glanced toward the building where the others were. "You'll wait here?"
"I don't know how long he'll be, but the night is pleasant. I think I'll wait on that bench over there."
"I'll have some cushions sent to you. Get a little rest yourself while you wait."
"Thank you. Odin…what did you want to talk to Jane about?"
Odin sighed. He knew she would ask, but he'd hoped it might wait until tomorrow. "I thanked her." It was tempting to leave it at that. Frigga was as weary as he was; her eyes were dull, her tone only minimally curious. But he knew it was best not to keep it from her, even if he suspected she wouldn't like. "I told her it was my wish that she continue to be a positive influence on both Loki and Thor, as their friend. And I suggested she consider that it may be wiser to remain upon the path of friendship, given the fundamental differences between our people."
"You said what?" Frigga asked, too tired to put much energy behind the words despite her dismay. "Odin…what were you thinking?"
"I remind you that you said I should take an interest."
"Don't quote my words at me that way. You well know that…interfering like that wasn't what I meant. I wanted you to take an interest in your sons' lives beyond preparation for the throne and political performance."
"I am. And that is exactly why I spoke with Jane Foster. She's more sensible than either of them. Impertinent at times, but sensible. Don't you agree?"
"I— Yes, she's a sensible woman. But you—. Odin. It simply wasn't your place."
"I disagree. I wasn't attempting to order her to stay away from Thor, or from Loki. In fact, I encouraged her to remain a part of their lives. I even gave her permission to call on Heimdall for assistance in journeying to Alfheim to visit Loki. Frigga…if Thor wanted to have a mere dalliance with her, I would give it precisely the attention it deserved: none. You're the one who suggested he might view this more seriously. She will die of old age before Thor looks more than a day or two older, assuming one of any number of her realm's illnesses doesn't kill her first. I'm not certain of their exact current lifespans, but she may even die of old age before my death, and she certainly will do so long before yours. If he grew to truly love her…it would bring him only grief. Thor's attention is needed here. And she has the ability to contribute to Midgard's advancement. Better that she invest her time and energy in that than on something she can never have. Their lives are fleeting. She would want more than he could ever give, and faster than he could ever give it. Don't you agree that it's best for both of them that it end now?"
Frigga slowly shook her head, eyes closed. She, too, worried for Thor, and for Loki, and now knowing Jane, for Jane as well, but not for the same reasons. She wasn't sure, and she certainly hadn't asked, but she'd observed little looks, little reactions, and she suspected Loki might care for Jane more than Jane knew. More than Thor knew. She didn't want any of them to be hurt. And she didn't want her sons drawn into deeper conflict. "He's a grown man. She's a grown woman. I stand by what I said. Unless she asked you for relationship advice, it wasn't your place to give any. You were trying to scare her off."
"I was not. And if I was, I failed utterly. She thanked me, and told me she could make her own decisions. If she was trembling in fear as she said so, I didn't notice it. It was a perfectly civil conversation, and a necessary one. You know Thor won't raise it."
"I don't know anything right now. I'm tired and I don't want to talk about this anymore. Not tonight."
"All right." Odin tried to think of something to ask Frigga to pass along to Loki when she saw him again, but nothing came to mind – nothing that he thought would mean anything to Loki. He bade her good night, sent a servant to deliver pillows to her, and worked to empty his mind of all that troubled him, so that much-needed sleep would come. A rug had been ripped out from under him in these last several days, leaving him with much to consider. But the troubles would still be there waiting for him tomorrow morning, ready to claim his attention anew.
/
/
"Are they safely arrived?" Frigga asked as Thor drew near.
"They are. Heimdall confirmed it. May I join you?"
"Your brother would not be pleased to find you waiting here, too."
"I know. I think I've said all I can to him for the moment. I won't stay long."
"All right then. Please, have a seat." Odin had only just left, the cushions weren't here yet. "Did you forget to give those to Jane?"
Thor shook his head and gave a rueful smile as he sat beside his mother. "She couldn't take them. South Pole rules. No plants unless they're edible."
"Ah, I see. What's on your mind, then?"
"Heimdall says Farbauti's building something large. Loki said it was probably just a better place to live."
"Loki didn't want to be delayed by the news."
Thor's eyebrows went up. "You're probably right."
"Heimdall will watch her and keep us informed. I imagine there's much to build on Jotunheim."
Thor nodded, and they sat in companionable silence for a minute or two.
"As happy as I always am for your company, dear boy, you don't have to stay. I know you must be as exhausted as the rest of us. Your father is sending some cushions down for me so I can turn this bench into something more comfortable for a quick nap. Or…," she said, closely watching Thor's expression, "was there something more you wanted to talk to me about?" The change was instantaneous, gaze darting away, a flurry of small movements as he shifted on the bench. "Go ahead. Speak. I'm not so tired I can't listen, though if it's advice you seek, I'd caution you to confirm it with me tomorrow, or better yet, simply wait until tomorrow for the response in the first place."
"Not advice. Though if you have any to dispense, I shall not refuse it. It's…there's something Loki said to me. He didn't swear me to secrecy on it, but…I still don't know if it's proper to tell you, to tell anyone. But Father asked me to tell him, or you, if Loki said or did anything that made me worry for him."
"And he has? You're certainly telling me now." Frayed nerves tugged at her but didn't prevent her from sitting up straighter, exhaustion receding into the background yet again.
"It may be nothing. It may be nothing now. It's something he said…something that made me think he's been filling his mind with dark ideas."
"Tell me," she said, now at full alertness.
"Has he said anything to you about believing he was fated to destroy our family?"
"No," Frigga said, drawing back. As soon as the answer emerged, though, she realized that while he may never have used those words, the things he had told her, about his fears of how much of him was shaped by his Jotun origins, about intending to end his own life as an infant because the cosmos was better off without him in it, about fate forcing him toward a cliff at whose age lay Baldur's death…these things made such a statement less shocking than it should have been. Odin, though…Odin had said those words. They had angered her at the time. In retrospect, they were devastating. How much of them had been shaped by the "fact," no longer part of active consideration but never truly forgotten, that Loki had murdered Baldur?
"He said he saw himself as a parasite. Taking and destroying. I told him it wasn't true…but you know how Loki is."
"Mm. Stubborn?" Frigga asked with a wan smile. It was a horrible portrait, a horrible mantle for Loki to take on himself, and her stomach churned with it, but she would not let Thor see that distress.
Thor gave a bashful smile back and let some of the tension fade from his muscles. He wasn't inordinately alarmed by what Loki had told him, but seeing that his mother wasn't either was reassuring. It had unsettled him, though, so he'd thought it best to heed his father's request. "He said he doesn't believe that anymore. Well…he said he believes he has a choice, as he put it. Because he found out he wasn't guilty of Baldur's death."
"I see," she said, nodding as deeper understanding dawned. It was distressing, in a sense, for each of them, having to reevaluate everything they thought they knew about how and why Baldur died, about what Loki had said and done and why, about what Loki was recovering from all those years and how it affected him and each of the rest of them in the years since. Loki himself was hardly immune from that, and for Loki, it followed close on the heels of another massive reevaluation of his life, of who he was. Why, oh why was he going to Alfheim in isolation?
Footsteps approached; Frigga watched as Thor stood to acknowledge the servant and take from him the stack of cushions and blankets. One wouldn't know it to look at him, his demeanor with the servant confident and untroubled, but for Thor, too, this latest shock was the second.
"How are you doing?" she asked when the servant left and Thor sat back down between her and the cushions, holding the blankets on his lap braced with one arm, while in the other hand he clutched the bouquet. "None of this has been easy for you, either. Don't think I've forgotten that. I worry for both of my boys."
"Don't, Mother. I'm fine. It's all still sinking in, but I'm fine. I'm not sure how to handle the Assembly. All this has shaken my trust in them. And my friends…I don't know what to do about that now, either. Loki's punishment was light, yet for them I know it's a heavy yoke. I value their friendship, every one of them. I value their counsel. But I cannot take their part in the mistake they made, and I don't know how to deal with the unease between them and Loki – more than unease now – or how to overcome the rift I fear is now between them and me as well. And Jane is…she's having some concerns about the complications between us, and I want to reassure her but I fear she needs answers I don't have, and—"
"Did she mention this just now?"
"Ah…no. Earlier tonight, before we came out here."
She shouldn't have needed to ask – that she had was a further sign of her exhaustion – for of course Jane would not have raised these concerns in the presence of Loki and Heimdall. With Jane bringing it up beforehand, Frigga wasn't sure whether she should be relieved or not, that perhaps Odin had at least not raised something with Jane that Jane herself – indeed the sensible one – had not already been thinking about. It would keep until tomorrow and the days to come. "Go on, then. And?"
"And I have no idea what to do about Jotunheim. I know what I want to happen, but I know best how to fight them, not how to convince them of anything, how to forge a relationship with any of them. I had some time alone with one of them, while we were waiting for Loki to speak with Byleister's side, and I didn't have the first idea how to have a simple conversation with him. I don't even know where to begin, and I don't know how many among my own Assembly will support me in trying to reestablish relations. And the rest of the realms…I know Father cultivated good relations with each of their leaders, but there's bloodshed and animosity between us now. Nadrith in particular, I counted him a friend. How am I supposed to ignore his betrayal? I would rather call down lightning on him than join him at a feast. And Loki. I've grown to be in constant fear of what I say to him. I know I need to take more care in it than I did in the past, and doing so has made a difference, but I cannot tiptoe around him forever, either. That isn't brotherhood. And what difference does my tiptoeing or my stomping about make if he isn't even here? I think things are a little better between us, but I can't be certain with him. He told me about this…this parasite idea he had, I couldn't believe it. Either that he believed that, or that he was speaking of it to me. When I look back…I don't think he's spoken to me like that in years. Decades, perhaps. How could I not have noticed when he stopped? I don't want to jeopardize that. And I don't…I don't want him to be angry at me for telling you what I did."
With Thor wearing a guilty face, Frigga gave his knee a pat and a squeeze. "But other than that…you're fine?"
He was confused for an instant, then remembered how he'd begun and gave a tired laugh. "Other than that, yes. As long as I don't stop and think about it all, I'm fine."
"The quietest moments can be the most difficult, can't they?"
"I've never much cared for quiet moments."
"Well, luckily you won't often need to think about it all at the same time, even if much of it is interconnected. Focus on one thing at a time, and tonight on nothing but rest. A king is the loneliest person in his realm. But you aren't alone in any of this. You have your father; his knowledge and experience is an incomparable wealth. Incomparable to any but mine, that is, and I will always be ready to assist. Your advisors…they were chosen for their expertise as well as for their ability to think independently. You would not be well served by a body that's no more than an echo of your own thoughts. They were also chosen for their ability to speak their mind to anyone, including the king. Speak with them. Ask them what you feel you must. They may be reticent to offend on more personal matters, but if you impress upon them that you want a frank answer, they'll give it. They aren't hiding secret pasts, or agendas they'll refuse to share with you. Geirmund was an aberration, and one highly unlikely to recur."
Thor thought back on his experience working with his advisors during the war, and observing them before. What his mother said rang true. Those who had advocated for Loki's death had clearly not been eager to state their opinion, but they had still done so openly when his father asked. When Bosi and Oblaudur spoke up to question Geirmund's confession, they had again seemed less than eager, but they'd stood and done so before the full Assembly, even at the risk of impugning their king's good sense. His mother was surely correct; he'd seen that with his own eyes. And yet his mind retreated from the idea that he could fully trust them.
His eyes then jolted back up to Frigga's. "This is what Loki feels like, isn't it? Geirmund deceived me with every breath he took that was not a confession. Some of the advisors have long harbored more mistrust of Loki than I had realized. It makes me feel as though I can't trust any of them. Even when I know that…that Finnulfur, for example, I cannot imagine him seeking to deceive me or conceal things from me. Or Eir, certainly Eir…and yet, Eir did keep a secret from me, an enormous one."
"As did your father and I. And Heimdall."
"Heimdall…Loki has long believed Heimdall didn't trust him."
"Loki has long placed exceptionally high value on privacy. And, not unrelated, engaged in mischief."
"But is it true?"
Frigga drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The reflexive answer – "of course it isn't" – was too simple. "If you were charged with watching over all of Asgard and beyond for signs of danger, and one person from time to time exercised an ability to obscure his activities from your sight…would you not find that cause for concern, or at the least, cause for a little more attention?"
"And if that one person was Jotun?" Thor asked, careful to keep his voice at a whisper.
"And if that one person had killed his younger brother?" Frigga countered.
Thor looked away and balled his fist into the blankets in frustration.
"Simple answers are few and far between for kings, my boy. For each of us. But if you are questioning things you never did before…then yes, it's probably something like the way Loki feels. Thank you for bringing this to me. You were right to do so. If I mention it to Loki, I promise you I'll do my best to ensure he doesn't hold it against you."
"Thank you, Mother."
"What else would you like to talk about tonight?"
"Nothing more tonight. That was all."
Frigga hesitated over whether there was more she should raise. But Thor, too, was tired – he was finishing up a yawn, free hand over his mouth and then smoothing down his beard – and she was herself not prepared to speak about what Odin had said to Jane, not without further consideration. "Then go on. I don't need you to keep me company. Go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day."
/
/
"Jane! Are you all right?" Loki asked in alarm. The blindingly bright blue light was fading, but Jane stood beside him, hands clenched into fists, face twisted in a pained grimace.
Jane's eyes popped open and with a quick glance around her, the tension flooded out so fast her legs felt wobbly for a couple of seconds. "I didn't realize we were already here. I got used to coming back to the Pole out behind our jamesway. To minus 80 Fahrenheit. I kept waiting to get slammed by the cold." She looked around again, this time down at the floor, their feet, the furniture. "Wow. Heimdall has really good aim. Thanks, Heimdall."
Loki's concern vanished, replaced with a grimace of his own. "Don't do that, not when I'm around. If you address him, he'll turn his sight this way. I'd rather he expend his efforts elsewhere."
"Okay," Jane said over the instinct to argue. Loki had legitimate reasons for his conflict with Heimdall – she understood that better now.
When the argument he expected didn't come, Loki drew a step closer to Jane's desk, the familiar sight of it oddly pleasing. He reached out for the piece of paper taped so that it hung from the shelf on Jane's desk: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. "You don't know how many times I thought about these words." He hadn't for a while now. "What does it mean to you?"
Jane came back to Loki's side, resting her hands on the back of her chair. "Me personally? Having a constant spirit of inquiry and exploration. Standing up for yourself, especially when you run into gatekeepers who don't want to let you in the door, who don't want to listen to you. Not—. Not you-know-who gatekeepers. Having courage. Not giving up. What does it mean to you?"
Loki let go of the paper and straightened up. No reason to stop being honest now. "Doing whatever was necessary to bend the cosmos to my will."
Jane's eyebrows went up. "Oh," she said, the word coming out high-pitched and contemplative, as though she was weighing the artistic interpretive merit of his literary analysis, or evaluating a work of art in a famous gallery…or pretending to. It was absurd, and Loki looked absurd saying it so nonchalantly, in his black Asgardian-wear with yellow cape, standing in her tiny South Pole room. And suddenly the whole thing was absurd. Absolutely all of it. Loki at the South Pole. Her at the South Pole. Asgard and space travel and time travel and Alfheim and Niskit and Nadrith…. She started laughing, covering her mouth to keep the sound down, with Loki soon following. A lot of what had happened wasn't funny, and her laughter tapered off as those memories floated to the surface, too. Enough of it was, though, that the smile remained. "I'm not laughing about you trying to conquer Earth, just so you know."
"I know." I've missed it here. He hadn't realized how much. Here at the isolated outpost at the bottom of Midgard, Asgard with all its problems and complications – with so many of his own problems and complications – felt almost infinitely far away.
"I looked up the whole poem online once. It reminded me that I was a Physics major, not an English Lit major. Oh, we should ask Macy what it really means. She'd know."
"You'll ask. You'll tell me later."
With that, the last vestige of the good humor of moments before was sucked out of the room. Jane looked up at Loki. "In twenty years?"
Loki stood there, looking back at Jane without any movement, careful to mask his increasing awkwardness. He was certain – almost certain – Jane didn't want that. But words were failing him, choked off by unwanted emotion.
"Because that's not acceptable," Jane said. "You have to remember we think about the passage of time differently here. You can't just casually say you'll be gone for twenty years. And there's not even an internet connection on Alfheim. Not one to Earth, anyway. And not that that would be okay as a substitute. So twenty years is just…it's not acceptable. Much less 750, that one doesn't even bear mentioning. You should know…Odin said Heimdall can use the Tesseract to send me to Alfheim."
"Did he," Loki said, the surprise of the last cutting through the relief and juvenile happiness over the rest of what Jane had said. "Was that what he wanted to talk to you about?" He hadn't given it much thought, having been distracted with Thor at the time, but he wouldn't have predicted an offer of interrealm transportation to Jane, to see him.
"That was part of it."
Jane looked uncomfortable as she spoke. Loki considered Odin's offer in a new light. "Did he ask you to spy on me? Report back to him?"
"What? No. No, of course not."
He dismissed the idea, for the sincerity in Jane's response was evident, and the discomfort had vanished. "Well, then…I don't want to further complicate things here for you, but after you leave, I shall find you, and we'll work out some kind of arrangement. Probably on Alfheim. You're, ah…you're still planning to go to Tony Stark's home in California after you leave here?"
"Yeah. And, well, I'm hoping Erik can come down and stay for a little while, too, so if you go there…maybe don't just show up, okay? Give me a little warning, or make sure I'm alone when you come. I don't want to hide this from him forever, but…"
"Suddenly appearing right in front of him might be too much. Yes, I understand. Better he not see me at all. I don't want my presence to add to his difficulties."
"Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure how he'll react. But anyway…not twenty years, right?"
"Not twenty years. Less than one. I don't think I could bear to wait twenty years to hear Macy's answer. The curiosity would ruin me."
"You need cell phone service on Alfheim," Jane said, relaxing back into a smile.
"I have never once spoken to you on a cell phone."
"Huh. That's true. We've seen each other almost every day for…for months now. In person. I missed you when you left. It's going to be hard, you not being here the rest of the winter."
"I shall miss you as well," Loki said quietly. Saying it wasn't hard, not here, alone, with Jane. But he didn't want to dwell on it, or make of it more than it was. More than it could be. He took a deep breath and made a show of surveying her room – untidy, as usual. "I will not miss sleeping on one of those," he said, gaze falling on her unmade bed with its dark blue comforter.
"Or two-minute showers."
"I didn't take two-minute showers. But I will not miss showers in the first place."
"The two-minute shower rule isn't frivolous, you know. Water is hard to come by here, and melting all that ice burns a lot of fuel."
"You're lecturing me on the showers here? Jane, I'm leaving. I'm never going to step foot in one of those wretched things again."
"I'm just saying."
"And look at your hair. Do you really mean to tell me you were able to bathe and wash your hair, at that length, in one hundred and twenty seconds?"
"I…." Jane made a noise of frustration and shimmied out of the straps of her backpack. "I might've gone a little over once or twice."
"Why, Dr. Foster! That two-minute shower rule isn't frivolous, you know. Water is hard to come by here, and melting all that ice burns a lot of fuel."
"Ha, ha, ha," Jane said, wondering if she was literally blushing. She took the Asgardian shawl out and draped it over the back of her chair, the deep burgundy a nice additional pop of color to the room she'd already brought a lot of color into. Next came the Roses by Many Names book, which went on top of her desk, next to her laptop. The rest was smaller items, things that would be easier to deal with later, when she wasn't simply looking for something to distract from Loki's smug victorious face.
"I was respectful of the rule," Loki said, gaze drawn to the book. "Less so in the beginning. But I was never inclined to stay in there longer than necessary, regardless."
"How many times did you have to use a shared bathroom in your life before this?"
"Never. Not in that sense, communal bathrooms. Oh, I suppose it's not entirely true…but it's mostly true, and that, I think, is close enough, and all I care to discuss about bathrooms for one day. We should get started. Or rather, I should. You don't have to go with me."
"Are you crazy? Of course I'm going with you. We can start here," Jane said, shooing Loki back from where he blocked her desk drawers. Opening up the top one, she pulled out a cardigan she'd stuffed into it, then scooped up a stack of papers and held them out to Loki.
Loki's gaze went from the papers to Jane's face.
"Oh! No, it's not that," Jane said, reflexively tucking her hair behind her ear. "These are your Alfheim drawings. I thought it was safer to keep them in here than to leave them in your old room. I was hoping, um, can I keep one? Nothing that would let anybody figure out where we went, or when."
"Of course," Loki said, watching absently as Jane set the papers on top of her laptop and started paging through them. He had all but frozen up at the thought of that other stack of papers being handed to him. Name after name after name. Brief life stories for a few of them. GabrielWashington, he remembered. Chief Financial Officer of a software company.
No one Loki had ever heard of, a meaningless collection of letters on a piece of paper. A two-month-old infant, Jane had told him. He had flown into an uncontrolled rage.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment – Jane was quietly muttering to herself, not paying any attention to him – to tamp down on the memory. It was easy to blame Odin for it. He wouldn't have kept squeezing, wouldn't have clamped down harder, without the curse-induced reciprocal feel of hands on his own throat, without the deranged belief that tiny mortal Jane Foster was trying – successfully! – to strangle him. Neither Odin nor Odin's magic had compelled him to put his hands around her neck in the first place, though; he had done that all on his own. He hadn't meant to kill her. Not even to harm her. He could defend himself by claiming he'd misjudged his own strength when applied against an average Midgardian, and that was true – it was easy to forget that Jane and the rest of her kind were not Aesir or Vanir or Ljosalf, nor were they Steve Rogers – but such an excuse wasn't entirely relevant. Even in the most spectacular fights he'd ever had with a woman – with Maeva, no competition – he'd never placed his hands around her neck in anger, never struck her or physically abused her in any way at all, not even when, once, she struck him.
He'd been that desperate to silence Jane. To make her stop accusing, stop saying things he didn't want to hear. Because you knew it was all true. The thought made him shudder even now. But maybe that wasn't true. He didn't remember everything that had gone through his mind then. It had probably included a fair amount of anger-fueled nonsense. After all, what else was likely to spew forth from a man who thought himself cursed by fate to be a monster, but who was so unable to bear being accused of monstrous acts that he instead put his hands around a woman's neck and squeezed?
"Oh! Maybe—. No," Jane said, and kept going through the stack.
Loki's wide, startled eyes slowly relaxed back to normal. Whatever had been running through his mind during that nightmare of an argument, he thought he had a better grip on himself now, and he still wasn't certain what he thought about those accusations. Certainly, if he had never set foot on Midgard, none of those people would have died, not then. But he couldn't help recalling Thor's ridiculous argument about causation and blame, which had somehow seemed less ridiculous when his mother spoke of bearing the blame for Baldur's death. He heard Jane herself insisting to him that even though his actions had given Geirmund the opening to intervene and kill Baldur…"it wasn't your fault."
That wasn't the argument Jane had made that day in these chambers months ago. "You're a murderer who refuses to take responsibility for what he's done," she'd said. "You killed over 1,200 people. Who do you think we should blame those deaths on?" she'd demanded. Her answer to that question was clear.
It wasn't quite true, not to the letter. For the vast majority of names on that list, he'd played a key role in establishing the circumstances that led to their deaths, but he hadn't killed them directly, hadn't ordered them to be killed, hadn't actively desired their deaths or seen them as his enemy – he'd seen them as too weak to be worthy of the designation of "enemy." Of course, he hadn't actively tried to prevent their deaths, either. He had never been in control of the Chitauri the way he'd been assured. "I have an army," he remembered telling Tony Stark in smug confidence – what a farce. He had never had an army. Thanos had an army, and the lackey commanded it. He hadn't chosen the strategy, either. Loki preferred a certain amount of finesse to blunt brutal force, but Thanos was convinced, perhaps by the lackey, that Midgard would quickly collapse and concede defeat under heavy attack from the Chitauri. Loki's only real contribution came after he was sent to Midgard, once Clint Barton told him about the Avengers Initiative. Driving Earth's nascent little band of "heroes" apart to eliminate the only serious obstacle to conquering this realm was closer to the overall strategy Loki might have devised had anyone asked his opinion on the matter. No one had, of course.
His rebuttal to Jane's accusation wasn't quite the truth, though, either. Yes, he'd known he wasn't inviting the Chitauri over for cocktails, as Jane had put it. He'd known he was opening that portal right over a densely populated city, not a battlefield or an army camp. He'd known that, and had no qualms about it, looking down on the little humans from high above as they scurried about. Even the tiniest of qualms had formed only once things were clearly spiraling out of control. When it was too late.
Perhaps the truth lay in some gray area in between. If Jane could live with it, though – with the knowledge of what he'd done, with the contradictions in it, with him – then he could, too. He didn't have much choice in the matter.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, moving closer to Jane to look over her shoulder. She wasn't turning pages anymore.
"This one," she said, lifting the page. "The welcome area where we arrived on Alfheim. It doesn't give anything away, does it?"
Loki thought it over, shook his head. It had no connection with Niskit, and ninety years ago or today, it looked the same. And in fact as it turned out, it didn't look that way ninety years ago, which Loki hadn't known. That made it a strange choice. "You don't mind that it didn't look quite like that when we got there?"
"No. I remember what it looked like when we were there. It's not that different. It's also a reminder of when we were practicing. This is exactly what you made it look like. And the fact that the drawing is a little different from what we saw…that just makes it all the more perfect, in case anyone saw this and tried to piece together where we went. Like a false clue."
"Why Dr. Foster…you have a positively devious mind. I like it," Loki said with his best rakish smile. Jane's laughter was gratifying. "A good choice, then. Keep it. The rest of these," he said, picking them up, "I would burn right here if it wouldn't set off the smoke alarm and bring the entire station running." He twisted his hand and sent them into storage instead.
"Olivia would lose it."
"The entire station would lose it when they arrived with their fire extinguishers and axes and found me standing here."
"Not necessarily. Well…they'd probably lose it because most of them are already in bed asleep. What time is it, anyway?" Jane asked, mostly to herself. She put down the drawing and picked up her watch, which she hadn't worn to Asgard. "Past ten. How are we going to do this? We need to go to your room, and out to the jamesway. Not everybody's going to be in bed. Are you okay with running into people, if it happens?"
"Are you? They may blame you for permitting me back here when they were assured I was leaving and not returning."
"Let me worry about me. I think you have the wrong idea, though. There was a lot of anger when they first found out the truth, but that settled down pretty fast. They know what you did in New York, but they also know what you did right here. If we do run into someone, if we explain why you're here I think it'll be fine. You want to know what would make Olivia lose it? Having to deal with getting all that stuff you left in the jamesway out of Antarctica. I realize that's hard for you to appreciate, when you can just" – Jane mimicked the hand twist Loki had just done – "but here we have to haul everything to McMurdo, then pay a ship to—"
"I had to endure the same lectures you did, Jane. I know."
"Okay. Sometimes it just seems like you weren't paying very much attention."
"I wasn't."
"Has anyone ever told you you're really frustrating?"
"I do get that a lot," Loki said with a sage nod before breaking into a grin. "All right, I would prefer to avoid meeting any others. Even if they aren't interested in burning me alive, it's simply less complicated. You stick your head out the door to see if anyone's in the corridor. If so, we'll wait a couple of minutes and then check again. And if not, I'll go to my chambers, gather up my things, and gear up. While I'm there, you get geared up, too. When I'm done, I'll come back here, and we'll try to slip out without being seen. Destination Alpha? We exit here on the second floor?" He could simply make them invisible, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to him; it seemed wrong, somehow. Rude. Disrespectful, perhaps. These people lived here in common trust, in rooms without locks on the doors. He had already betrayed that trust enough. He wouldn't go sneaking about their spaces – not through the use of magic, anyway.
"Not much different than going out through the Beer Can maybe…but I guess it gets us outside quicker."
"Sue might be outside. No one else would be at this time."
"Right. Okay, Loki…a lot happened today. And everything was so rushed. I know it's late. I know you're tired. I'm tired. But when we get to the jamesway, can we talk for a little while? I don't want to keep you too long, it just…it seems so sudden, you know?"
Loki hesitated, but only because he knew the longer he stayed here, the harder it would be to leave. If Jane wanted to talk, they would talk. "You should bring your sleeping bag. We could make it a slumber party."
Jane laughed a little, but quickly grew serious again. "What if we made it a slumber party for real? You could stay the night. One more night in a South Pole bed wouldn't kill you. Then you could get some sleep and pack everything up tomorrow."
Loki gave a drawn smile. "It's tempting." He looked over at Jane's bed, with the same insufficient length as his. "Sort of. Better not to delay, though, I think."
"So you're just going to show up on Alfheim in the middle of the night?"
"It's not the middle of the night there, not in the capital. You know that."
"So when are you supposed to get any sleep?"
"I appreciate your concern, Jane, but recall that while I'd rather sleep every night, and my mind is certainly sharper if I do, I can function reasonably well without for a few days if I have to. I'll be fine."
"Okay," Jane said, not trying to hide her disappointment. She thought it was a good idea. She stepped past Loki over to the door. "The coast is clear," she whispered after a quick check of the hallway.
"The coast, hm? That's an odd one. Be back in a few minutes."
/
/
As soon as Loki entered his own chambers, he was reminded that Tony Stark had ransacked the place. It was in order – Jane's version of order at least – but nothing was precisely as he had left it. Irksome, to be sure, but hardly worth expending energy over. Despite Jane's attempts to keep him here one more night – gratifying, now that he thought about it – this was no longer his room.
This space was the complete opposite of his chambers on Asgard. Tiny. Few personal items. The one narrow window was covered with cardboard. Nothing he would miss. When he left here for good, what he would miss would be the people, not the place.
Packing, such as it was, was easy. The shoes and most of the clothes he'd bought in Sydney went back into the suitcase he'd also bought in Sydney. Understanding the Physics of the Universe…he didn't foresee the need or desire to reread it and thus he really shouldn't keep it, but it wasn't like he had any other Midgardian textbooks. It went in the suitcase, too. The two library books were gone; he assumed Jane had returned them. The recorder, laying out on his desk, went in and he closed up the suitcase and sent it away. What little else there was – bedding, a few items of clothing, paper and pens, a few electronic and plastic bits from when he'd worked on the devices he and Jane had used for time travel – those Jane could handle. He next sent away most of the clothes he was wearing, and donned black Carhartts and bunny boots for the last time. With Big Red in hand – the other one, the one without blood in it – Loki returned to Jane's chambers. His damaged jacket he assumed was still out in the jamesway.
"All set?" Jane asked once Loki was in and the door was closed.
"Yes. I've left a few things behind – items you can take to Skua later, or to the Science Lab. Nothing that Paul has to worry about getting off Antarctica. They might blame me for attacking their realm or nearly knocking down their dwelling…but I'll not have them assail me with allegations of creating excess waste materials," he said with a smirk.
"Very responsible of you." Jane grabbed her other red jacket from where she'd hung it on her bedpost. "Here, give this to your mother so she can get it fixed."
Loki took it and sent it into storage. "And the things I left behind here that were damaged? My other Big Red, and also that green shirt I was wearing, the one you call a henley?"
"I left them in the jamesway, on the mattress you were on. They've both got a lot of blood in them. Including…you know, the blue blood."
"I brought the powder for the mattress I mentioned. I'll take the clothes with me, and leave that jacket with Mother, too."
"Okay." Jane smiled and reached out toward Loki, running a finger across the name on the pocket flap of his jacket. "It's nice to see you back in South Pole uniform, Lucas Cane. Shall we head outside?"
"One other stop first. I need to drop something off in the galley."
"What's that?"
"You'll see."
"Okay, well, there's probably nobody there now. But then I think we should head out through the Beer Can."
Loki agreed; the "Beer Can" exit was closest to the galley. "Is the coast clear?"
Jane peeked out, saw no one, and signaled Loki to follow. They made their way out of their berthing wing, down the short jog of central hallway to the closest galley entrance, until they were standing in the narrow corridor that ran alongside the drop-off area for dirty dishes, the rest of the galley blocked from view. Jane and Loki exchanged a look. The lights were on, but she couldn't hear anything, so someone may have simply forgotten to turn them off. It was past eleven by now. The galley should be empty. Loki signaled with a jerk of his head, and she started forward again, coming around the corner to the right just as a burst of laughter erupted from the small group clustered around one of the tables.
She swung her head around to see if Loki had already made it around the corner, too, and he had, just barely. His throat bobbed, his eyes darted to the right; she was certain he was trying to decide whether he could simply take a quick silent step or two backward before anyone noticed them, or maybe just make himself invisible.
"Lucas?"
/
I am up way past bedtime because I said I'd get this chapter out today ("today" is over 3 hours past now!)...and then I got caught up in writing a hypothetical Loki-Sif romantic entanglement for several hours. It was the first time I had a more-or-less complete idea for that which would also work with the characters in the "Beneath" elaboration of things. Not that I at all consider that canon for this story. I know it's something that some of you have asked about. I've always liked to leave my options on it so to speak, and you can imagine it however you like. I'm probably only even writing this right now because I'm half-delirious.
But hey, this part's important! I meant to note on the last chapter and forgot (probably also in exhaustion ha) that "ildragodoro" deserves credit for the idea of Thor giving Loki the talisman. She mentioned it, and I thought "Hm...I really like that idea!" And there you have it, in it goes. I really thought it was the perfect gift Thor could give him, on multiple levels.
Okay, on to previews of Ch. 218! Actually I'll just clarify that ending there if you were left uncertain: Loki has already been noticed.
Which brings us swiftly to an excerpt, early on since otherwise it would be a bit too spoilery:
"Yeah, um…." With everything that happened after the party came to a screeching halt, the idea that she had gone there "for a party" was surreal. But it was also true. "It was good. Good food. Lots of people. Lots of drinking. Good mead cake. That—"
"Honey cake," Loki put in with a tight smile, taking a few steps forward to Jane's side. It was too late for escape. And he wasn't afraid of these people.
"Honey cake, right. I keep forgetting. But they should really call it mead cake. When they cook it, somehow the alcohol…um…." Jane paused, swallowed, told herself to calm down. To slow down. "It doesn't cook out."
"She got drunk from the cake."
"I did not get drunk," Jane said to Loki before turning back to the others. "Maybe a little tipsy."
"We can trade recipes later. Let's talk about your guest first."
