Fosterson fam!!! Do you all want to see Thor moping about his lack of confidence concerning his feelings for Jane, and Valkyrie come in clutch by giving him the push he needs? Boy do I have the fic for you! How Deep is Your Love? is a small one shot I just posted and I am literally so proud of it and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it! I love this ship so much and I’m so glad I got into it 🥺
Happy reading!! Please let me know what you think if you’d like <3
I don’t know if there are AU fics there about Thor meeting Jane in Asgard instead of his mom in Endgame but... could you write if there are none? Love your writing style btw
I started this in quarantine last April, and here I am a year later finishing it. ANGST AHOY. (and thank youuuuuuuu!)
She’s more beautiful than he remembered. He sees her from behind at first, her small frame swathed in a simple, blue wrap gown. She’s folding her clothes from Midgard, hands deft. She misses Rocket darting behind the small lounge, syringe in hand.
Thor steps fully into the room, and she must hear him. She calls out, “No, I don’t need any help with my clothing, but thank you for the offer.”
He can’t immediately speak. He means to say something, he... he must’ve had a plan before Rocket shoved him through this doorway? Surely, he’d thought of something clever and suave and charming, something that he would’ve said to her when they’d been together and he could make her laugh. Something he would’ve said before--
Before.
Then she turns and--Norns, she is beautiful.
“Oh, Thor,” she says, and then she smiles. “Hi. Sorry, I didn’t realize it was you.”
His tongue feels thick in his mouth. “Y-you-you, uh--” He swallows and tries again. “You don’t have to apologize. For anything. Ever.”
Her brow furrows. “Hey, are you okay?” She’d always known him so well, hadn’t she? And he’d just--allowed her to slip away. Over two years of living together, years of loving and being loved, and he’d just--
“Thor, what’s wrong?” The sheer concern in her voice as she sets her folded clothing down makes his knees feel weak. Then she’s walking towards him and he doesn’t feel prepared for this moment at all.
Norns, he’d made such a mess of everything, and then he’d never gotten a chance to fix it.
She seems to realize at that moment that he’s not the Thor she knows, and she freezes halfway to him. There’s a small, needy part of him that wants to reach out to her, just feel her touch one more time to remind him of a time before his failure so catastrophically rocked the universe.
The other part, that knows he is on a mission and needs to do this in order to succeed, tries to come up with an excuse or a plan. He had one before he walked in, certainly.
“You--” Jane draws back, adopting a tentative, novice defensive stance, “--are not Thor.”
That’s an easy enough answer. “Well, yes, yes I am.”
Her eyes narrow. “Mm, no. Last I saw him, Thor’s beard was shorter. His hair wasn’t, uh--” She glances at the top of his head, “--that. One of your eyes is brown.” She looks down at him. “If you’re Thor, then where’s your armor?”
“Um. Not. On?”
“Yeah, consider me unconvinced. If you’re Thor,” a clever smile dawns on her face, like she’s just solved a long series of complex equations, “then call Mjolnir.”
“Oh.” He’d somehow forgotten that at this time, he still had Mjolnir. He still had his honor, his courage, his--
He’d been worthy, at this time.
“Jane, that’s--I just--” Thor sees Rocket moving behind her, his arm cocked back and ready to take the infinity stone that flows through her veins. “Rocket, wait!”
Jane’s eyes widen, and she whirls around and screams, “What the fuck is that?”
“Thor, come on!” Rocket exclaims.
“Jane,” he says again, “Please just trust me. We need your help.”
She backs away slowly, trying to keep both Thor and Rocket, with his arm still poised to stab, in her sights.
“That’s a talking raccoon,” she breathes. “I’m talking to a raccoon on an alien planet.”
Rocket protests, but Thor cuts him off. “Jane, please.”
“We need to borrow the Aether for like two seconds,” Rocket says. “The fate of the universe kind of depends on it.”
“Someone better explain to me what the hell is going on and fast,” she says, voice raising to nearly a shout, “or you will not like what happens!”
Thor notices the molecular red and black swirling at her fingertips and in her eyes. If she stays this stressed, she’s liable to explode on them. That might knock her unconscious, and while that might make their task in stealing the Aether from her easier, but he can’t stomach the thought of doing that to her.
“Jane, listen to me,” he says, voice soft, falling back into a familiar pattern of calming her down when she’s upset. “I am Thor, but... not the one you know.” He desperately wants to reach out to her, as was his way when they were together, but he holds himself back. “I promise I am not deceiving you. I know that you cannot carry a tune when you sing in the shower, but you do it anyway. You graduated summa cum laude from Culver and got your first doctorate before you were twenty-two, and you always wondered if you should’ve slowed down to enjoy university life more. You always chew the end of your pen or pencil when you’re working. We had dinner with your mother every other weekend--” He winces a little at that mention. "That--um. I guess that hasn’t... happened yet.”
He sees wheels turning behind her eyes, and there’s something easy here between them, a familiar thread of trust that feels all too good for Thor to pick up again. Her brow furrows slightly as her incredible mind works, and her bottom lip ends up between her teeth.
“You’re saying this is time travel,” she says, matter-of-fact. Like she’s positing a hypothesis with Tony or Darcy in the lab.
He’s missed this. He’s missed her. Norns, has he missed her.
“Oh my god,” Jane breathes, “Time travel.” A massive grin spreads across her face. “It’s possible; I knew it!” Her eyes are alight and Thor is struck with another stab of longing. She’s standing right in front of her and yet he misses her so fiercely. “Tell me everything. How did I do it? I’ve only got some rough schematics drawn up of a wormhole generator, but I bet that’s how it was done. Ha!” She pumps a fist in a small victory motion.
“We’re wasting time, here, loverboy,” Rocket interrupts, his small claws wrapped a little too eagerly around the syringe meant to transport the stone.
“Rocket, shut up,” Thor growls.
She steps closer to him, her eagerness for knowledge shining from her face like a light. “How’d we compensate for the energy? Ooh, and how are you planning on returning to your timeline? Do you have some sort of recall device? How is that powered? Or is it like a yo-yo type of device which sends you for a certain amount of time and then calls you back automatically? That would make sense for why your raccoon friend is in such a hurry.” Her eyes widen a little. “That seems like something I’d do. It would probably be beyond the scope of our capabilities to make a power cell small enough to carry on your person, depending on when you guys came from--”
It comes out of him like pus from lancing an infected wound: “You didn’t do it.”
It breaks his heart a little bit to see her imagination come to a grinding halt, to see the shock and disappointment flood across her features. “I... I didn’t?”
Tears prickle at the back of his eyes. “No. You... no.”
“Oh,” she breathes. He can see her visibly shrink, shoulders caving in and her previous exuberance extinguishing like a snuffed candle.
His chest hurts. He wants to hold her.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks.
“Oh,” she says again, a different note to it this time. “Am I, um... you know. Dead?”
It feels like a punch to the stomach to hear her say it. He can’t voice it out loud. He’d seen her name on the list of known Avengers asset casualties. Her name was chiseled into stone on the Lost Monument in London. He’d only visited in a fit of drunken self-flagellation one time, and once had been more than enough.
Apparently he doesn’t need to say it. Even without years together under her belt, he’s never been particularly subtle nor she particularly obtuse.
“I see,” is all she says, her arms crossing over her chest, one hand coming up to her chin. Her thumb taps her lower lip once. Twice. “How did I die? Old age?” She winces a little. “Something sooner than that?”
Thor’s tongue sits thick in his mouth.
“A bad guy snapped his fingers and killed half the universe,” Rocket says, impatient with Thor’s inability to communicate. “You were part of the unlucky half.”
Jane’s eyes widen. “Snapped... his fingers.”
“Yes,” Rocket grits, “and if we don’t borrow the Aether we won’t be able to bring any of those people back, so if you don’t mind--”
She’s already offering her arm before he finishes his sentence. “Take it. It’s killing me anyway, although--” Jane lets out a harsh chuckle, “--if you’re from a future where I’m killed by a finger-snapping psycho-killer, then I guess I won’t die from this, at least.”
Rocket smiles at Jane and then sends a seething look Thor’s way. “See, Thor, how efficient a little cooperation can make things?”
For how much they struggled with fixing Jane’s Aether affliction in this timeline, it’s almost trivially easy for Rocket to jab the needle into Jane and take the stone. The syringe is specially crafted to draw in and store this particularly finicky stone, but it goes off without a hitch, and when Rocket withdraws the needle, Jane simply covers her now bleeding arm with a hand.
Rocket thanks her, the caustic raccoon strangely polite now that he’s realized what kind of person Jane is, and turns to Thor.
“Time to jet, big boy,” he says.
“Wait,” Thor says, impulse overriding any other judgements, “give me a moment.”
Rocket sighs, and glancing between Jane and Thor, he seems to understand. Given the chance, Thor knows Rocket would want to talk to his family that he lost. Thankfully, it looks like he will afford Thor the same courtesy.
“A moment,” Rocket echoes, a not-so-subtle reminder that they cannot stay here in the safety of the past when they have a job to do. A universe to save. People to bring back.
Rocket exits the room, leaving Thor and Jane alone.
“Do you, um.” Jane’s hands scrunch up the skirt of her dress before she gestures at the couch. “Want to sit?”
As he sits down, Jane follows next to him, so close and warm, he realizes belatedly that he has been dying to talk to someone who loves him. Desperate to talk to someone who knows him on a deeper level than his friends on Earth and New Asgard. (At this time, they’re all alive. His mother, here and hale. Volstagg, Fandral, Hogun, Sif, likely somewhere nearby and plotting with him on how they’re going to solve the latest challenge. And Jane.)
She asks him a simple, “How long has it been?” and it all spills out of him, a dam overdue to be broken after five years of holding his pain and guilt at bay. He tells her of Ragnarok, the broad strokes of it anyway, losing his friends and his home and Mjolnir, that they’d broken up, Thanos, the stones, the battle they’d lost, the five years of wounded peace, and the chance they now have to fix it.
“It doesn’t feel like enough,” he whispers. “All that suffering and pain because I failed. We found him, and I killed him... but what was the point? We were too late, and I was just an idiot with an axe.”
“I might not know you as well as your Jane does,” she says slowly, “but I know enough to know that you’re no idiot.” She leans into him, looping her elbow around his and reaching for his hand. Their fingers twine, something familiar to Thor but new for her. “Everyone fails at something. That doesn’t make you a failure, it just makes you like everyone else.”
“But I’m supposed to be better.”
She shrugs. “Then prove it. When I first met you, and you failed to get Mjolnir back from the crater site, you didn’t shut down or stop trying. You just...” She sighs. “I don’t really know, but you just decided that you were still going to be better, even if you didn’t have your hammer. You taught me about the realms, you went to Izzy and apologized for smashing her mug,” she chuckles a little at that, “and it probably wasn’t what you wanted, but what I saw then wasn’t a failure. I didn’t fully get it then, but you had literally lost everything--your home, your way of life, your family, Mjolnir and your powers--but you still smiled at us, still kept moving forward when everything was trying to crush you. That’s a hero, if you ask me.”
He swallows, his emotion for this woman threatening to overwhelm him for a few heartbeats. “Thank you,” he whispers, leaning his forehead against hers. She leans back, relaxed and easy.
“You should try to call Mjolnir,” she suggests, so casual and offhand that it nearly knocks him off the couch.
He could, he realizes. Mjolnir is not gone in this timeline, and if they will return the Aether to it’s proper place, Mjolnir can make the trip back just as easily.
He’s spent the last five years proving himself to be a worthless lump of a man, being the exact opposite of what Jane thought him to be, but it isn’t too late for him. It had never felt right, being in the skin of a depressed, lazy drunk who sometimes couldn’t summon the energy to leave his bed or talk to his friends. It hadn’t been him. In fact, he’s felt more like himself since he’d come back to the Avengers for this wild, last-ditch effort to fix what Thanos did than he’s felt in a long time.
The last five years have changed him, certainly, but if Jane can still see the man who’d unflinchingly faced down death as a human man in New Mexico, then he can try to see him to.
Thor stands and reaches out, calling for a presence that had been his constant companion since he was a boy.
Thanks @jackabelle73 for declaring this masterlist day!
Rumbelle
California Soulmates - Pop princess Belle wants to write her own music and get out from under her father’s thumb. Single father Gold wants to put his failed music career behind him and get the hell out of L.A. When inspiration strikes, there’s only one problem…the songs they’re writing aren’t their own. They’re each other’s. “Telepathic soulmates” RCIJ for @beastlycheese
Picture of Beauty - Fashion house Jefferson-Mills needs inspiration. Photographer Gold believes a librarian he photographed by accident has what it takes. Now it’s up to Gold to turn Belle into a model worthy of Paris Fashion Week. Based on the movie Funny Face.
Teacup Redux - Rumpelstiltskin trains half-sisters Regina and Zelena in order to cast the curse that will reunite him with his son. In the meantime, he gains a young maid. When he and Belle fall in love and have a son, Rumple calls off the curse. But the two sisters, feeling betrayed, cast the curse anyway, separating true love and raising Gideon themselves. In Storybrooke, a ten-year-old Gideon gets a book from a pretty librarian and he begins to suspect there’s something magical about his town.
Alias Series:
*WInner of the 2018 Rumbelle Prompt Showdown* Written under the pen name Deshelved. Story entries for Rounds 1-5, plus sequels.
His Favorite Criminal - Weaver is killing time at the station on a rainy night when his favorite criminal saunters in.
His Favorite Woman - Weaver juggles the many women in his life.
Minor Charges - Weaver takes a young punk into custody.
Community Stakeholders - Lacey knew that most people thought she was a screw up. Despite people’s doubts, she could give every single one of them the finger with confidence.
We Could Be Heroes - Weaver breaks up a fight.
Love on Ice series:
Belle is an up and coming pairs figure skater. Gold is a disgraced ex-pairs Olympic medalist coerced out of hiding to coach her and her partner, Gaston, to Olympic gold. They go roughly in chronological order from Not Right For Anybody Else on.
Love on Ice - Figure skater Belle and coach Gold. At the Olympics. Over Valentine’s Day. For the February @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: Love Letter, Candy Hearts, Chocolate, Roses, Blind Date
Not Right For Anybody Else - How Gold became Belle’s skating coach.
First Positions - The first few months of Gold being Belle’s skating coach.
What Was the Last Book You Read? - Written in the final hours of March for A Monthly Rumbelleing’s March Smut Prompt: Having a wet dream and calling the other’s name during it.
Silver Buttons All Down Her Back - Belle had secured Gold’s attendance her 21st birthday party. She’d made the request under the guise of improving their skater-coach relationship. But what she really wants to do is test the boundaries. Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “You’re the most annoying person I know but I think I’m in love with you anyway.”
A Little Flip - Gold tries to transfer Belle's feelings for him to Gaston. Let's all take a guess on how that's going to go.
Naked Male Insecurity - Belle and Gaston grow closer. Gold has a reasonable and mature reaction. Ha! Not.
Foreplay - Gold puts his skates back on for the first time in over a decade. Will Belle be there to help him get his groove back?
Fosterson (Thor/Jane Foster)
Thrown - Mafia AU. The story of two sisters who chose each other ... and two brothers that didn't. Jane Foster is a doctor on the straight and narrow. Thor Odinson doesn't know right from wrong. Darcy Lewis has always lived her life on the fringe. Expelled from his own family, Loki Odinson has never needed an ally more. *Based on philyra-dreamhouse's gifset and prompt: http://philyra-dreamhouse.tumblr.com/post/79058549231
About Time - “Heimdall witnessed a disturbance, beings appearing from seemingly nowhere, altered in some way.”
“An Einstein-Rosen Bridge?”
Thor shook his head, “He’s unsure.”
“But it could be an Einstein-Rosen Bridge,” Jane suggested brightly.
“Jane, I thought we agreed,” Thor began, glancing over to where Leika played on the floor.
She threw up her hands, “I know, I know, whoever’s race discovers it gets to go check it out first.” She continued throwing items into her bag, now with a little more force than necessary. “But Asgardians seems to find all the good stuff,” she lamented.
The North Star - Jane and Thor’s first Christmas/Hanukkah together. Holiday fluff. Post-TDW
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Take Me Anywhere - Alexandra Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified with as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead.
A Woman Scorned - Best read after a viewing of Untethered.
Out of It - Begins with Eames and Ross busting Bobby out of the Psych Ward. Post-Untethered
Moments - Various Moments in the lives of Bobby, Alex, Emma, and co.
Telling the Fam' - “Isn’t he the crazy guy that throws himself off of buildings and slices his hand open in interrogation rooms?”
A Labor Story or Hard Labor
Emma Jane Goren-Eames enters the world. Alex gets annoyed. Bobby panics.
Overprotected - Future Fic. Emma Jane Goren-Eames recounts how everyone found out about her, with a little help from her parents’ favorite psychopath
Bullpen or Playpen? - Circumstances out of her control force Alex to bring her and Bobby’s daughter, Emma, to the precinct. “Let’s go play ‘terr’gation!”
zoion logia - Future Fic. A series of shorts I have planned – snippets of Emma Jane GorenEames’ life so far.
Spuffy
Back Together- At sixteen they got pregnant and hitched. They regretted it two years later and split, separating their twin babies. Now, thirteen years later the siblings are bringing their parents back together. *Based on The Parent Trap*
Before Today - AU Buffy and Spike are assassins hired by their bosses, Angel and Cordelia, to kill each other. What happens when their passion for killing turns into a passion for each other? (Think rebel Buffy in “The Wish”)
Comedown -AU Buffy Summers has been asked to move in with her boyfriend Angel Giles, heir to the law firm of Wolfram and Hart. But when Angel’s rebel younger brother, Spike, returns to claim what is rightfully his, Buffy sees Angel in a new light as sparks fly between Spike and herself. Angel continues to plow ahead in the relationship, and Spike brings her to question her choices in life. Will she follow her current path or follow her heart?
Dark City - The future of Sunnydale is dark. Buffy Summers is one of the few left to fight the good fight. When she has to make a deal with one of the darkest there is, will she be able to keep to the calling she was assigned so long ago, or will she submerge herself in his Dark City?
Game of Love - Buffy, Xander, Willow, Anya, and Spike are friends from college. After the graduation The Gang, except Spike, opens a now famous wedding boutique Fairytale. While Spike is happy and getting great projects working for a very popular bridal magazine as a photographer. Now, Spike's boss Liliah wants the famous Buffy in her magazine. Who'll take the great, big project? Spike of course. But Buffy refuses to do the spread, so Spike makes a proposition: he'll find her a guy in exchange for the project. What happens when Spike realizes he is The Guy and falls for her big time? Buffy's already found a man -- a guy that Spike set her up with! Much Spuffiness ensues.
Havilon - S6 Glory is still out in search of the key. A gold poison arrow now in her possession. It hits someone. But who? How is the poison cured? This is a story I started back in 2002 on fanfiction.net under the penname bondgirl0018. I’m revising and continuing the entire thing. This is my first go at a long non-AU Spuffy. Spuffy eventually, Spike/Dawn friendship.
It's the Great Slayer, Buffy Summers - Spike and Buffy are together celebrating Halloween. No angst, just happy Halloween-ing with a little homage It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
Out of the Rubble - Buffy Summers is living out every parent’s worst nightmare and it’s up to Special Agent William “Spike” Giles to find the person who kidnapped her daughter and bring her back (hopefully) alive. But as these two will learn, the closer they get to the truth, the closer tragedy will bring them together.
Return To You - Years after leaving Sunnydale, he comes back to claim his childhood love. But she’s not so easily convinced. Can he come to terms with the boy he once was and get back the girl he left behind?
Someday, Much More - Spike Giles’s brother, Angel, skips town, leaving him with a little girl and a big responsibility. Forced to give up his big-city L.A. life, he meets a small-town girl who could be his saving grace.
What You're Waiting For - Buffy Summers is a jaded writer. Spike Giles is her editor. When Buffy is summoned home for a family affair in the midst of her latest novel, she drags New York back home with her to little ol’ Sunnydale. Her two worlds are going to collide. And nothing will ever be the same.
This is a series of short, unrelated vignettes/oneshots that was supposed to be posted for Fosterson Week a year or two ago and I finally got around to finishing it. Enjoy!
5 Universes In Which Jane Is Worthy and 1 Where She Isn’t
Read on AO3
1.
On the top ten list of bad ideas she’s ever had, this is so, so, so bad the number one spot doesn’t even seem adequate. The guy who thought he was Thor clearly got caught trying to get her stuff back, and so she is so screwed unless she goes in herself. God, why did she go along with this again? He’d claimed he’d fly out once he got what he was looking for (which, god , again, why had she kind of believed him?)
Her feet crunch quietly against the hard-packed sand leading to the hole in the plastic tarping making up the walls of the facility that Thor had kicked a guy through, and she, without nearly as much hesitation as she should probably feel, hops in.
The place isn’t huge, and it doesn’t take long for Jane to find the main room.
Thor had helpfully drawn nearly everyone in security away from where her equipment is stowed, next to a… hammer in the dirt. Literally, they built this entire site around a hammer? What the hell , archaeologists never get this much funding and government attention. And what does her equipment have to do with it?
Jane shakes herself. She has a lot more important things to do instead of trying to puzzle out the weird and wild workings of shady government agencies. Things like capitalizing on their inattentiveness and getting her gear back.
She grabs her notebook first, stuffing it into her back pocket, and then trying to figure out how she’s going to cart out at least two hundred or so pounds of equipment.
“Hey!”
Jane nearly leaps out of her skin and turns, seeing a pair of security guards sprinting towards her from one of the halls.
“Shit,” she spits, and frantically looks around at her equipment. Lightest and hardest to replace… Radio spectrometer retrofitted for wormholes. Yep, that one. She scoops it up in her arms and takes off.
Even running as quickly as she can, the guards are still within arm’s length of her before she’s taken five steps.
Oh, they are not taking her work. Absolutely not. Erik isn’t here to hold her back this time.
She reaches an arm out, barely managing to hold onto her spectrometer as she grasps the handle of the hammer. Old or valuable, the thing is still a hammer, she can still swing at them with it.
A crack of thunder. A blinding flash of light. The feeling of grabbing a live-wire running through her body for a handful of terrifying seconds until the euphoria comes.
If she be worthy , she hears.
May she possess the power of Thor.
Oh, Jane thinks.
Oh, fuck .
2.
“No, I don’t know what… That’s why I’m coming out here to… Look, all the issues with our readings at the site are originating from this one spot, so yeah, I’m going to go take a look,” Jane says into the phone.
“Who is it?” Darcy whispers. Their truck rumbles along a remote road in Norway leading to the coast, and the interference from their mystery site makes it so they don’t get any radio stations, so Darcy is starved for entertainment.
Jane covers the mouthpiece and whispers back, “Caplan. He’s--” she uncovers the mouthpiece. “No, there’s not any danger. You--no… No… Wait, but that time wasn’t actually my fault, so…”
“Being a dick again?”
Jane’s eyeroll is all the answer required. “Look, we’ll be ba-- in--” Jane makes an almost comical crackling noise in the back of her throat. “Wha-- interference from the-- thr-- breaking up--bye.” She hangs up without any further discussion.
Darcy contains a laugh. “You’re gonna pay for that later, you know.”
Jane rolls her eyes again. “Well, it’s my being at his facility that’s even getting him funding in the first place, so, you know.” She shrugs. “If he wants to fight me, I’m the one with more published papers and theories that changed the laws of physics.”
Darcy pumps a fist. “Fuck yeah.”
She waves a hand. “He’ll be fine. He’s pissed we took the Mule without asking.” Where they plan on going, there’s no vehicle access, so the ATV was their only recourse. “If he thinks I’ll be satisfied with this one spot fucking up my results over and over again, he’s got another thing coming. Speaking of which,” the device that rests in Jane’s lap begins to ping, “pull over here.”
“Woo, off-road time,” Darcy cheers, and follows Jane’s instructions.
Another hour of driving in the Mule later, they reach the geographic nexus that’s been screwing with their readings.
It’s a pretty spot, bright green grass running all the way to the edge of the cliff, where a sheer drop would land them in the ocean. Norway’s fjords are always breathtaking, and Darcy counts herself lucky yet again that she gets to visit places like this and get paid for it. All in all, a pretty rad job.
“Can you set up--”
“Magnetic perimeter and radiation scanners?” Darcy finishes. “Yeah.”
Darcy unloads the equipment from the back of the ATV as Jane approaches the nexus.
It looks like a storm is beginning to swirl overhead, and Darcy eyes it nervously. Without any cover, they are pretty much sitting ducks if any rain starts to fall, god forbid if lightning starts. Where the hell did all these thunderheads come from? This blew in awfully fast.
Jane crouches down and reaches for something on the ground. “Darcy, you should come look at this,” she calls out.
Quite suddenly, the hair on the back of Darcy’s neck stands straight up. The sensation is so strong and sudden that it literally causes her to gasp in shock.
“Jane--” she starts but she doesn’t get the chance to finish.
Faster than the blink of an eye, a massive bolt of lightning tears from the sky, slicing straight down to where Jane kneels.
Darcy barely has time to scream.
She is thrown backwards by the force of the lightning strike, and she thinks she hears a voice whisper before she hits the ground behind her.
If she be worthy.
When she looks up again, she knows she hears it.
A strange woman stands where Jane once was--massive, tall, blonde, with impressive armor and Mjolnir in her fist.
May she possess the power of Thor.
3.
Fragile isn’t a word that could ever have been used to describe Jane Foster, but with her cheekbones hollowed out by weight loss, neck and wrists gone skinny and tendons standing out against her skin in sharp relief, fragile almost seems generous. A plastic band wraps around her wrist, stamped with her name, attending physician, allergies, and a barcode encoded with all her patient information.
She is tired, often, but with Darcy’s help still manages to go through her research and rough out an outline for her next paper she plans to publish.
Jane likes to plan, likes to say things like there’s a conference next September that this paper will do really well at, and Jane knows that Darcy is trying to hide her heartbreak at these statements. Darcy used to not hide anything from her, used to barely have the capacity, let alone the desire, but it’s strange the effect dying can have.
Her hospital room is outfitted with several whiteboards scribbled over with notes and formulae, the answers Jane constantly seeks waiting to be pried out of the clutches of the equations she can spend hours puzzling over. It’s a good use of her time, when she’s not--
Elsewhere.
Jane is careful to hide the hammer. It’s her secret legacy, her last hurrah, her hidden responsibility and duty--
Mjolnir is many things to her, but burdensome is certainly not one of them.
She swings her legs over the side of her bed, gripping her IV pole to help her stand. She walks over to the window, where the sunlight of the early afternoon has been shrouded over by storm clouds. She slides open her window, the cool wind of the storm washing over her face.
In the distance, she hears the rumble of thunder.
Jane Foster smiles.
4.
His axe is buried in Thanos’s chest, and there’s a blinding moment of what feels like sour vengeance--so many have died already, and now the Mad Titan will perish for his crimes.
He presses the blade of Stormbreaker in further, for Loki, for Heimdall, for every one of his slaughtered people.
Then Thanos whispers, “You should’ve gone for the head.”
And he feels his heart drop.
And then, and suddenly as Thor himself had dropped from the sky, another streak of lightning blazes in from the east, and Thor can feel it-- Mjolnir .
But how?
He can’t even tell who is wielding it until the hammer smashes Thanos’s skull in, and the Mad Titan is finally felled. The Infinity Gauntlet drops, the stones unused, the universe saved.
The woman holding Mjolnir is tall, with shining armor that looks well-crafted, including a helmet that hides the upper half of her face. In spite of that, he can see her eyes.
Eyes he would know anywhere in the galaxy.
She looks almost as stunned as he is.
“Jane?”
5.
The cell phone footage is grainy and difficult to make out. Shot by a civilian in Garching, Germany, the shaky video peeks at the action from behind a brick wall. A voice out of frame whispers, “Dude, I think it’s Thor!” and is quickly hushed by the one holding the camera. So at least two more witnesses to track down, Natasha thinks tiredly.
The observation, though, is rather striking in its accuracy. The figure has a red cape and flowing blonde hair, and displays a command of lightning that Natasha hasn’t seen since Thor more-or-less retired after their last showdown with Thanos.
The opponents are a small gaggle of aliens, impossible to fully make out but probably more scavengers who’d come to pick the bones of Thanos’s last battlefield. In the two years since the Snap, they’d been getting a steadier stream of extraterrestrial threats looking to take advantage of Earth’s vulnerability.
“How is it that we have holographic video technology widely available, but every civilian who has useful intel has a Nokia from 2004?” Natasha grumbles, squinting and trying again in vain to enhance the footage.
From her place next to her, Okoye chuckles. “I think we’ve demonstrated that we have the worst luck imaginable,” she jokes darkly.
The figure is still hard to make out aside from the gaudy cape and lightning. The electricity in the air made the audio on the video spotty at best, mostly static and a few loud bursts of accurate recordings of a fight, but mostly useless. Then a few video frames give them a clear view of the front of the figure.
“Pause,” Natasha says, sitting forward in her chair. “Go back three frames?” The computer obeys her voice command, ticking back to the moment when they had the best view.
Both Okoye and Natasha freeze as they take in the image.
There’s a shard of disappointment that goes through Natasha when she realizes, once and for all, that it definitely isn’t Thor. That disappointment turns swiftly into suspicion because she does not know this person, and they certainly have powers that would’ve landed them at the top of a SHIELD watchlist back in the day.
It’s a woman. She’s massive, arms and legs thick with muscle, and extensive armor that could be Asgardian make, but with the graininess of the video, it’s hard to tell. Her helmet covers almost her entire face, only exposing her mouth and jaw. Some sort of chainmail on her legs, perhaps, and a sleeve on her left arm. Her right arm is bare, and clutched in that hand--
“Mjolnir,” Natasha breathes.
“I thought it was destroyed,” Okoye says.
Natasha nods. “We all did.”
Despite the video quality, there’s no mistaking that hammer. Especially when Natasha resumes the video and the mysterious woman throws the hammer, and it returns to her hand moments later.
“We haven’t seen any new powered people since the Snap,” Okoye says, breaking the silence. “With our… situation being what it is,” she continues, tactfully calling the mess they’d made of the world a situation , “we should either ascertain if this woman is on our side, get her on our side, or terminate her as soon as possible.”
Natasha nods in quiet contemplation. They cannot afford to have a powered person running around the world unchecked, not with the way things are. They’re barely managing to hold it together as it is, and the Avengers are spread extremely thin. Not to mention their help is often rejected in an official capacity, a lionshare of the blame for what happened falling to the World’s Greatest Heroes who failed to save the world. It’s a PR nightmare, and there are many nights when Natasha wishes that she’d just been dusted along with the half of the world who didn’t make it.
But she didn’t. She’s still here, and someone needs to lead.
“Want me to track down Thor and ask him about her?” Okoye says. “Based on her strength from that video, she’s probably Asgardian.”
Natasha’s kneejerk reaction is to say no, that Thor can’t handle this, that he’s been in an almost constant state of inebriation and/or depression for the last two years and she won’t expose her friend to something that might be painful for him. Then her rational mind kicks in and she nods at Okoye. Thor is their best lead. “I’ll come with you.” (Then her vicious mind raises its hackles and says if she’s got to wade into the shit that is the post-Snap world, then Thor should have to get right into it with her.)
That night, the evening news features a story with the grainy footage Natasha could’ve sworn she’d managed to scrub from everywhere (but alas, she is no Vision.) The ticker at the bottom of the screen reads The New Thor: Who is she, and can we trust her?
***
They find him at a hightop table in a hole-in-the-wall bar in New Asgard, and if Natasha had been serving him, she probably would’ve cut him off at least four drinks ago, but the bartender doesn’t seem concerned with denying their monarch his alcoholic solace.
“Do I need to go get Brunnhilde?” Okoye whispers to Natasha.
Thor sways in his barstool, hands clasped around a large stein of beer, but seems coherent enough to answer their questions.
“Not yet.”
“Wha--?” Thor mumbles, eyes half-lidded. “What’re you saying?” His words are disturbingly slurred. Maybe getting Brunnhilde wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Natasha refocuses. “Have you watched the news recently?”
Thor snorts and takes a drink of beer. And doesn’t stop taking a drink of beer until the stein is half-empty. Natasha’s eyes widen when he lets out a loud belch.
“Apologies,” he says, not sounding apologetic, “but you’ll have to excuse me for not keeping up with current events.”
Okoye cuts in, “How about this current event?
She slides a set of photos out of a manila envelope, laying them down on the bar table. The paper sticks to the surface of the table.
Thor shakes his head once, as if trying to rein in the spinning the room is likely doing around him. He leans down and squints at the photos. “That--” He cocks his head. “That isn’t me.”
“No,” Okoye confirms. “It isn’t.”
“These photos were taken two days ago in Garching, Germany. Know of any Asgardians who settled there?”
Thor swallows, and doesn’t immediately answer. He raises his free hand not on his beer to the photos, and the tip of his middle finger drags over where Mjolnir is inked onto the paper. “I thought it was gone,” he mumbles.
“So did we,” Natasha says, tempted to reach out to him at the abject sadness in his voice.
Okoye slants a glance at Natasha. Focus , she seems to say with her eyes, before redirecting Thor, “Are there any Asgardians in Germany?”
“A few,” he says. “None that look like this woman.” He looks up at them. “Do you know how she found Mjolnir?”
It’s his most coherent question yet. Natasha shakes her head. “We just found out about her. She looks pretty confident with it, so maybe she’s been training somewhere.”
“I don’t underst--” Thor loses his battle with his balance and gravity and falls off his barstool. Natasha and Okoye both reach out to steady him, but he manages to catch himself before he hits the floor.
Natasha goes to Thor’s side, her heart falling quickly as she puts an arm around him. It’s hard to see Thor like this, especially knowing the kind of man he used to be. (Of all the people she thought would stick with her, after Clint and Steve left, she thought that Thor would be the one to stay. He’d fought through so much heartache, sided with them in New York against his own brother, protected the Earth from the Dark Elves after his mother’s murder, faced down Thanos even after his planet had been destroyed, and yet he’d always been ready to fight. It’s downright unnatural, utterly tragic to see him laid so low.)
Turning to Okoye, Natasha says, “Go get Brunnhilde.” Okoye doesn’t need to be told twice.
“Thor,” Natasha prompts, getting the man to look at her. His eyes look pained. She’s sure hers must reflect his. “You’ve gotta stop this.”
“Stop what?” he mumbles.
“You know what.” She hesitates before offering, “You could come back, you know. Join the Avengers again. I really could use the help, and you’ve got more experience leading than everyone else on the team combined.”
He’s already shaking his head. “No.” Clear, concise, and completely at odds with his drunkenness. “No, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
His answering smile is sad. “I have nothing left to offer you.”
“Yes, you do,” Natasha answers softly, but based on his tone, this isn’t an argument she’s going to win. Not today, at least.
A beat passes. “You really didn’t know about Mjolnir?” she asks, one more time.
“I’m not worthy anymore,” he whispers. “Why would it call to me?”
Natasha doesn’t answer that. There’s a lot of layers there that she doesn’t think she’ll ever fully understand.
Okoye returns with Brunnhilde at her side. She says to Okoye, “You know, sometime you’re going to have to visit me when it’s not for the purposes of picking his sorry ass up off the floor.”
Okoye chuckles. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Brunnhilde proceeds to pick Thor up in a bridal carry, making Natasha stumble a bit when his weight is no longer against her. “Come on, your majesty,” she says, tone almost bored. “Let’s get you home.”
Natasha bites her tongue against all the questions she wants to ask.
How often do you do this for him?
How is everyone around here blind to what’s happening to him?
Where on earth is he getting enough alcohol to regularly get drunk?
Before she can even think of pursuing another line of questioning, she gets a call from Carol--she is needed urgently back at headquarters.
She sighs. The hunt for the new Thor will have to wait for now.
***
It’s only once Natasha and Okoye are on a quinjet and flying back to their base that Brunnhilde unceremoniously drops Thor on the ground.
He huffs, but quickly stands up and brushes himself off, perfectly sober. “Unnecessary.”
She glares at him. “How long are you going to keep this act up?” she demands. “Those are your friends .”
“Natasha is a friend,” Thor corrects, “Okoye thinks I’m a worthless drunk.”
Brunnhilde rolls her eyes. “Because she’s never known you as anything else.”
He grits his teeth. “It’s for the best.”
“That’s what you keep telling yourself, but they know about her. What’s your act doing to keep her safe now?”
The muscle in Thor’s jaw works furiously, but he calmly answers, “They don’t know her identity. They think she’s a rogue Asgardian.”
Brunnhilde bristles and brusquely pulls a folded manila envelope out of her back pocket. “Okoye gave these to me, said to ask you about them again when you sobered up.” She quickly opens the envelope and tears its contents out and holds them right in his face. The edges of the photo paper crease under the force of her fingers clenching down on them. “You see this? The better she gets, the more this is going to happen. And you know what’s eventually going to happen?” She jerks her head backwards. “Your friends are going to find her. She’s on a crash course, and then she will be a part of this. You can’t stop that. It was a fantasy to think you ever could.”
“I didn’t think I could keep her from it forever,” Thor replies evenly, and he wraps his fingers around Brunnhilde’s wrist and lowers the photos from his face so he can look her in the eye.
“Then why ?” she asks.
“Because she needs to be better than me,” he says, like a release of steam from a pot. “She needs to be better, and she’s not yet.”
Brunnhilde shakes her head. “I don’t know if you’re going to get a choice for much longer.
and the one time…
“Jane.”
His shoulder jumps under her head.
“Hm?”
“We’re almost there.”
“Oh,” she says groggily, and pushes herself off Thor’s shoulder. “Oops,” she says when she notices the spot of drool on his shirt. “Sorry.” The weird half-sleep that comes along with car rides is slow to depart, clawing at her eyelids until she reaches to her right, where a bottle of water sits.
After she downs half the bottle and truly wakes up, he gives her a soft smile, one that says he probably wasn’t far behind her in terms of falling asleep. “It’s no matter. I thought you’d want to be awake before we arrived.”
She stretches her hands over her head as much as the towncar’s roof allows, and a series of satisfying pops go down her spine. She grunts in satisfaction before saying, “I need to go over my speech one more time.”
“I’m fairly certain I could give it at this point with how many times I’ve heard it.”
“You’re a good person to practice with!”
“I’m only teasing,” he says. “And besides, this is hardly your first time doing this.”
“This still feels bigger, somehow.”
He makes a soft sound of agreement. Jane offers the water to him, which he accepts and drinks his fill before capping it and setting it aside.
Jane continues, “It’s one thing to get, you know, a big science award. Like, the last time I got the Nobel I felt almost old hat at it, you know?”
Thor gives her a look. “I recall you saying that you felt like you were going to throw up before you went onstage to give your speech.”
Jane flaps her hand at him. “Okay, sure I was nervous, but I was….used to the shape of it? This is a completely different type of thing.”
“Yes, excelling at heroics is something you usually leave to me.”
“Hey, I have plenty of behind the scenes heroics!”
“Of course, dear,” he says with a laugh, “but none of those behind the scenes heroics resulted in a singlehanded defeat of the Infinity Stones, handicapping Thanos’s plan, and saving untold lives.”
Jane tilts her head back onto the headrest, a smile spreading across her face. That day, that last fight that Strange predicted would end in only one way, would be permanently emblazoned in her memory as long as she lived. Thor had asked her to stay away from the battlefield, and initially, she’d agreed. She and Tony had been theorizing about the nature of the stones, and they hadn’t had time to parse out the quantum entanglement theories together before her thinking buddy had to jet off to try and save the universe.
It came to her like a lightning strike only minutes after the team had left for the last battle. She’d built a frequency jammer that would disrupt the quantum entanglement of the stones in thirty minutes flat, and then raced out of the Avengers compound like a bat out of hell. She’d just have to get within range of the stones, and they’d be rendered inert, their effects immediately reversed, and they’d just be ordinary stones, and then they could be destroyed.
And, incredibly, even though the science of it was shaky at best, and she’d had to improvise on the fly when some of the wiring on the jammer had shorted out, it worked.
The army from the past was gone, snapped back to their original chronological configuration; Natasha and Gamora were spat out of whatever pocket universe they’d been trapped in; and Tony hadn’t had to use his gauntlet, hadn’t had to sacrifice himself for the universe as she’d known he’d planned on.
(Dr. Strange had sputtered, shocked, saying that of the fourteen million six hundred and five futures he’d seen, he’d only seen one possible outcome where they won, and it wasn’t this.
Jane shrugged, breathless, dirty, bloody, and grinned. “I found number fourteen million six hundred and six .”)
“And all without a single power to her name aside from her intellect,” he finishes.
“I am pretty cool.”
“Both pretty and cool, much agreed.”
She lets her head fall to the side so she can look at him. His beard is long enough to be braided, and he’d done so this morning, and he’d taken care to braid some of his hair as well before pulling it back with a tie. He looked good. Great. Amazing, even.
She reached out her hand closest to him, trailing a finger along one of the braids in his beard. A streetlight from outside catches on her wedding ring just so.
After the Snap, she and Thor had drifted back together, partially out of shared grief and guilt, but had ultimately rediscovered why they’d worked together for years before the distance had become too much strain. They’d officially tied the knot a few years after Tony and Pepper had. (Steve had been Thor’s best man, and Darcy Jane’s maid of honor. Tony walked Jane down the aisle in Jane’s mother’s absence. Morgan had been their flower girl.)
She wonders if any of this would’ve happened if they hadn’t found each other again. If they hadn’t rekindled their love for each other in the horrible aftermath of the Snap, would she have been around to help? Would Tony have reached out to her with the time travel issue? Would he have invited her to collaborate on the quantum entanglement of the stones if she hadn’t re-integrated herself into the Avengers circle? She likes to think so--they were friends, at least somewhat, before the Snap (but their closeness now was only formed in those last five years of wounded peace.)
“What are you thinking about?” Thor asks, and mirrors her position so he can look at her.
“Just that I’m really glad I married you.” She nudges forward so she can kiss him. “Really, really glad.”
“I’m glad you married me, too,” he answers. “Not many women would have had the fortitude to put up with me for as long as you have.”
She grabs his hand and pulls it over to her lap. “How many people did Pepper say were going to be here?”
Thor shrugs. “Less than two thousand, but there is the webcast as well.”
“ God .”
He squeezes her hand. “Go through your speech once more. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I’d feel better if we could skip past the ceremony and go right to the drinking and partying portion of the evening.”
Thor laughed. “If only I were planning the evening, Jane Foster. Now start from the top.”
Jane laughs, and closes her eyes. With her husband’s hand in hers, his warmth a steady reassurance at her side, she recalls the words she’s memorized and feels her nervousness retreat as she begins to speak.
If you have any of your own recs that you don’t see included in this list, PLEASE let me know. I almost never have time to peruse the archives any more, so any help with expanding this list is much...
Hey friends! The April 2020 update is here! Hopefully this provides some new, yet-unread fic for everyone out there who might be grounded due to the coronavirus. Be sure to leave some appreciation for all the amazing content creators on this list. Now more than ever we need to let fic authors know how much their work means.
if you're taking requests... may i humbly request a post infinity war fic??
more quarantine flash fics babey
It’s only hours after it happens that Thor finds her.
She doesn’t live in the same apartment–she’d moved out a month after they’d broken up–so there’s an almost manic, stray thought that crosses her mind and comes out of her mouth when he lands on her balcony, “How did you find where I live?”
But he ignores her question, his eyes (eye? One looks very fake, strangely, and Jane can’t stop staring at it, fixating on it like it’s the only thing in the world for a second that stretches for hours.) find her, and he breathes, “Jane.”
Frankly, she doesn’t care how he found her. Her world just fell apart around her and the only thing she can feel right now, with him standing before her, is sharp, aggressive relief. (When did he cut his hair?)
She stumbles over to him, and they meet messily halfway, arms clutching and fingers grasping for any shred of comfort they can manage. He feels like the first real thing she’s touched since–
“You’re alive,” Thor whispers against her hair. “You’re alive.” He repeats it like it’s a tortured benediction, an undeserved boon from a cruel god. His arms are tight around her, and he smells like ozone and blood.
She was with him long enough to know the smell of him after a hard battle, and he looks like he’s just seen the worst one yet, his face haunted, guilt and relief conflicting in his expression. She wants to run a finger over his brow, relax the tension at the corners of his eyes.
They haven’t spoken since the day he left–the day they’d both agreed they hurt each other more together than they would apart–but it’s so easy to fall back into the physical comfort they offer each other. Neither of them move to let each other go, just move back far enough to see each others’ faces. Neither bring up the elephant of their breakup, stuffed deeply into a corner so they can have this moment they so desperately need.
“The Stones?” Jane asks.
Thor nods, a tear gathering at the corner of his eye. “We– I– I couldn’t–” he can’t finish. A sob hiccups from him, unwilling, torn from him, and Jane’s heart falls. She pulls him close again, the eye contact too much.
“We lost,” he finally admits.
“I know,” she replies. She doesn’t say it’s okay, or it will be okay, because those would be lies. She can’t lie to him anymore, not when she lied and said it’s okay in the months leading up to their breakup.
“I failed,” he continues, voice like the torn edge of a sheet of paper. He adds, barely a whisper, “If I’d only gone for his head.”
Jane doesn’t know what that means. She still won’t give him platitudes or pretty lies, but she loves him too much to hear him suffer like this.
He pulls away, runs a thumb over her forehead, just at her hairline, and she winces when he finds the wound there. “What happened?” he asks, voice still thick with tears but a note of concerned clarity that makes Jane herself want to cry with how much she’s missed it.
“I was driving when– when it happened,” she says. “I–Darcy was in the passenger seat. She–” dissolved before Jane’s eyes. Was in the middle of singing along to a song on the radio. Jolene. I’m begging of you please don’t take my– and then she was gone. “Cars started swerving. There were accidents everywhere. I was lucky. I think– I tried to– The hospitals are full, and my mom and Erik are missing, so I just came–I just came back here. I walked home. I–” Her own sob works its way out of her throat. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asks her softly, the gentleness of it making her tears come harder. When had she started crying?
She shakes her head, but says, “I don’t know.” And she doesn’t. She can barely tell where her own body is, let alone if any part of it is hurt.
“Jane,” he says, “If you were in an accident, you might be injured.”
She laughs then, a harsh, grating laughter that cuts through the space like a blade. “I don’t think that really matters right now, does it?”
He swallows, and then focuses on her. It’s almost like flipping a switch– from brokenness and guilt and uncertainty, to steadiness, focus, motivation. “It matters to me.” He smiles a little then, a small thing, wistful. “It never stopped mattering to me.” A soft admission, vulnerable and tender.
A lump rises in Jane’s throat. “You matter too,” she says. “You–” are all I have left. “You matter to me, too.”
They make no movements yet, take no action to fix, heal, save as is their wont. They instead stand together, steeping in loss and regret and pain, buoyed by the last person in the universe who can say you are known to me and you are loved by me.
So with the recent picture of the black hole, how do you think Jane would respond to it?
some microfics, in honor of quarantine time and the fact that I don’t have work tomorrow.
“Hey, look at this!”
“What is it, my love?”
“A picture of a black hole! An honest-to-god photograph!”
“Oh?”
“I need to--I need to send some emails. I have so many questions that these articles cannot answer.”
“I could have Heimdall send us to one if you want to see one up close? I must warn you, it’s not particularly pleasant--”
“Shh, yeah, maybe sometime but I need to find Katie Bouman’s email address. Also I want that algorithm. God, think about all the applications. Oh my god this is incredible, Thor. Absolutely amazing.”
One of the mods shows up 15 minutes late with Starbucks. This week has been insane, BUT never fear! The stuff WILL get posed. This is for Fosterson Week Day 5: Throwback Thorsday. We’re fudging the timeline a little bit--imagine that the Thor movie took place around the same time/a bit after the first Iron Man movie in 2008. More of a sketch, a collection of moments than a true fic. (but there is something resembling plot here)
Loki never sends the Destroyer to Midgard.
Read on AO3.
destiny, disrupted
Here is a truth: Loki loves Thor.
Here is another truth: Loki also hates Thor.
Here is the most relevant truth: Loki loves his mother and respects her counsel above all others.
At the end of the day, this is what matters most. Odin sleeps on, Frigga advises her son how to rule, and Loki (mostly) listens.
Thor remains on Midgard. Mjolnir lays dormant in the desert, the magic patient and steadfast. The Destroyer remains in the Vault where it belongs, and the Warriors Three grudgingly accept Thor’s banishment; after all, Loki seems to be (mostly) listening to Frigga, and they are loyal to the throne. Heimdall watches carefully.
The realms continue to turn, Yggdrasil’s branches trembling in the galactic ballet.
Something is drawing near--but not yet.
Years later, he marries Jane in the desert where they met. The marks of the Bifrost have long since blown away by the sharp winds, but it still feels as close to his first home as he can get. It’s a small wedding, made up of the few friends they have plus Jane’s mom and officiated by a local Native American minister.
She throws her arms around his neck when they are proclaimed man and wife, she kisses him like he is her anchor, and he wonders how he ever thought he’d been in love before. He dips her dramatically, and she giggles against his lips. Their small audience applauds, Darcy wolf whistles, and Thor would never have thought he could ever be satisfied, could be happy, with something so small and humble, but it’s perfect, it’s wonderful, and he gets to call Jane Foster his wife.
He takes her last name--she never asked him to, but it seems apt, to Thor, to do it. He is no longer Thor Odinson. The name no longer fits him. His father is gone; his last action had been to cast his son out. It seemed almost appropriate, honorable even, to respect that last ruling by giving up his name. On Midgard, he is someone new. He isn’t the crown prince, he is simply a man. (A man who loves a woman more than life itself.) A new identity, a new life, a new beginning.
And so they begin life as Mr. and Dr. Thor and Jane Foster.
(Distantly, Thor hopes Heimdall has told his mother that her son has happily wed.)
(Distantly, Thor hopes his father would’ve been proud of the small life he is building.)
(And a small life--)
(It doesn’t seem so bad now.)
THEN
SHIELD had left several months after Thor’s arrival. Packed up the facility after it became clear nothing was going to move Mjolnir, and no new data would be gathered from it. Coulson left them a business card, which Thor talked Jane out of throwing away outright. (He knows that having SHIELD on their side might prove useful in the future, even if Jane continues to grumble about jack-booted stormtroopers stealing her life’s work.)
After almost a year, the agent following them finally left too.
Jane rebuilt, Thor helping where he was able, happy to simply be around her. Her energy was unlike anyone he’s ever known, vibrant and frenetic and with an unbridled intelligence that he thought his brother would’ve liked.
Their first kiss was on the roof, late at night with a fire in front of them, Thor pointing out where his planet would be.
“The light from my sun hasn’t reached us yet,” he had said.
“It might in about two thousand more years, if my estimates were right about distance,” Jane had replied.
She’d been looking up, using her hand like a galactic wayfinder of old to measure the stars. The fire glowed orange on her skin, illuminating her eyes like coals. She’s a supernova of her own making, and he’d always known there was something special about her, but in that moment, he’d been struck not just by her beauty in the gentle slope of her nose and cheekbones, but the effortless way she’d folded him into her life, the way she accepted his story--she’d run an estimate on distance because he’d asked her to in a fierce bout of homesickness. (And even if the answer wasn’t great, it was an answer, and then she’d reached out and held his hand and asked him to tell her about Asgard.)
When he kissed her on the rooftop, she didn’t seem surprised--she just leaned into him and let the embers between them spark into flames.
NOW
“It’s a letter from SHIELD.”
“Oh?”
“They want you to advise on a quote ‘top secret project of high scientific importance’ unquote.”
Jane snorts. “They can eat my shorts. It set my research back months to rebuild all my equipment they stole.”
“Maybe you should read the letter,” Thor offers.
Jane waves him off, returning to the small piece of equipment she’s slowly soldering together. “Don’t need to.”
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a mask?” he asks, concerned. “Those fumes can’t be good for the baby.”
She sits up a bit. “It’s only a bit of copper. But I’ll wear one if it makes you feel better.”
“It will.”
Jane gives him a small smirk and a wink as she stands from her station. She’s not showing much yet--she’s just barely out of the first trimester, but Thor can’t help but glance at her belly, at their little miracle.
He looks back to the letter. When Jane returns, mask in place, he says, “How much did you say the university was paying you for your research position?”
Her snort is even more incredulous than before. “Not enough.”
Thor glances down at the letter in his hand, and counts out the zeros after SHIELD’s base salary for the offered ‘long term advisory and research position.’
“I do think you should read this.”
She sighs, and holds out her free hand without looking up.
He can tell exactly when she reaches the “we hope this to be fair and adequate compensation for the services you will provide” portion of the letter based on her eyebrows jumping straight up and the soft “Holy shit,” falling out of her mouth.
“We did need to get out of the one bedroom before the little one makes an appearance,” Thor offers.
“Shit,” Jane says again. “We could forget that shitty two bedroom place we were looking at in Santa Fe.” It’s a soft comment, more of an idle observation than a commitment.
“So you’ll call them?”
“I’ll think about it.”
(She calls them that night, and is on a plane for an interview within 36 hours.)
THEN
In the early days of their courtship, he’d tried every job available to him. He’d worked construction, waited tables at Izzy’s, bartended, answered phones at the sheriff’s office, and sold secondhand furniture. In truth, he did not particularly hate any of these jobs--they just hardly seemed worthwhile to do for the rest of his life.
He’d been used to being significant in a way that being a human man couldn’t quite match. Going from galactically known prince and military leader of a planetary superpower to a small town bartender was a jarring transition, to say the least.
The only place he’d found where that feeling of insignificance faded was at Jane’s side. He’d never had an eye for the technicalities of magic, but he remembered enough from his schooling to be able to help her interpret some of what she was looking at; she was certainly clever enough to fill any gaps in his own knowledge.
“I could use another intern,” Jane had mused one day. Darcy had gone back to Culver after her semester with Jane had finished with six college credits under her belt and a promise to stay in touch.
(“How do you feel about student-teacher relationships?” he’d asked cheekily later on.)
(She’d slapped his shoulder, but given her lips on his not a moment later, he supposed that was his answer.)
NOW
Their new home is lovely. Jane had been added to SHIELD’s payroll two months ago, and they’d collected enough savings to put down a sizable down payment on a nice three bedroom house about a twenty minute drive from SHIELD’s base.
She still hasn’t managed to talk SHIELD into letting her bring him with her.
“They’re fishing for information about you, I know they are. They keep saying shit like ‘oh, your research assistant hasn’t cleared our background checks, but if you help us fill in the gaps, we can do something for you.’ Pffft. Like I’m going to fall for that.”
“And I’m only the research assistant?” he asks from his place by the stove, tossing his chopped bell peppers into the frying pan with the onions.
Jane rolls her eyes and plops down at the kitchen table. “Right? It’s not like they don’t know we’re married.”
“They literally helped me get my driver’s license that lists my name.”
She gives him a helpless shrug. “They have a lot of questions about where you come from.”
“Perhaps we tell them everything. Phil Coulson isn’t so bad, despite what you think.”
Jane growls. “Why you insist on being friends with him I’ll never understand.”
Thor shrugs and bends to check his roast in the oven. “He is a nice fellow.”
“A nice fellow who stole all my research.”
Their doorbell rings. Thor moves to answer it, but Jane flaps a hand at him. “No, no, I’ve got it. You’ve got dinner going.” She slides up behind him and hugs him around the waist, kissing his shoulder blade before stepping away. “Love you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he answers as she leaves the kitchen. He takes two plates from the cupboard and wonders who could be at their door. He has invited Coulson for dinner in the past (hoping that his wife would bury the hatchet once she got to know him), but he hardly seems like the type to show up if he hasn’t informed the hosts of his arrival.
He’s in the midst of carrying the plates to the table when Fandral, Sif, Hogun and Volstagg walk into his kitchen.
The plates slip right out of his fingers and smash against the tile floor.
(Once the fragments are cleaned up, his friends tell him what has transpired on Asgard in his years of absence. Loki lied, his father was never dead, and a few months ago emerged from the Odinsleep. Loki disappeared soon after, and they’ve heard disturbing rumblings about Loki partnering with the Mad Titan.)
(“We have reliable sources saying he’s hunting for something called the Tesseract,” Sif says.)
(“This Tesseract,” Jane says, “wouldn’t happen to be like… a small-ish, blue, glowing cube would it?”)
(“Yes, that exactly,” Sif says, surprised.)
(Jane winces. “I think I know where you can find it.”)
THEN
Jane liked to cuddle. Especially when she was sated and sleepy, her limbs would tangle around him like an affectionate octopus. It was one of those nights when she asked him, “Would you go back?”
“Hm?” he asked, mind addled by sex and the late hour.
“If you got the chance to go back to Asgard, be who you used to be. Would you take it?”
“I doubt I’ll ever get that chance.”
“Humor me,” she said, insistent in a way that tells him this is far more important to her than she’s willing to explicitly vocalize.
He stared at the ceiling in silence for a long moment, considering his answer, because she deserves a fully honest one.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t think I could ever be who I used to be. I haven’t used magic in so many years, I feel like I can’t properly imagine it anymore.” He shifted to look at her. Her head was on his chest, and she steadily met his gaze, brown eyes wide and accepting. “The only way I can imagine going back is if I go back with you,” he said.
(Not long after that, they said I love you for the first time.)
(A half a year after that, Thor asked her to become his wife.)
(Inscribed on the inside of their wedding bands is the phrase Home is wherever you are.)
BREAK
When Jane shows up to the SHIELD base with her husband plus four honest-to-goodness Viking warriors at her back and requests to speak with Agent Coulson the agent on gate duty scrambles to fulfill her request.
While Jane handles the particulars of getting several guests in past security, his friends encircle him, staring at him like he’s a headless banshee. “What?” he asks.
“You’re married,” Hogan states, as though it’s obvious.
“I am.”
“And you’re expecting a child,” Sif says.
“Is there a point to stating the obvious?”
They all look at each other, and then back at him as though he is missing the obvious.
“The only one who was less likely to settle down was me,” Fandral says, an emphatic hand placed over his chest.
Thor shrugs. “I’ve changed.” He looks past them, to where Jane is emphatically gesturing at the agent who is clearly not moving fast enough in getting her what she wants and smiles. “She is everything I never knew I needed in a package I never expected.”
“I think it’s a good change,” Volstagg says proudly. “Becoming a father does tend to mature someone quite rapidly.” He steps forward to give Thor a hearty slap on the shoulder. Forgetting that his friend is no longer Aesir, the gesture nearly dislocates the joint and Thor struggles to stay on his feet.
“This new Thor, I like him!” Volstagg crows.
(The other three don’t look entirely convinced yet, but seem more or less willing to accept him as he is now.)
(Thor loves his friends--he knows them as well as anyone, and thinks that they will come to understand his new life.)
(He knows they want to ask if he will come home.)
(He knows what he will answer.)
THEN
“You don’t have any strong feeling about flower arrangements for the wedding, do you?” Thor asked.
Jane looked up from the book she was reading with a quizzical look on her face. “Uh, no? We’re getting married out in the middle of the desert.” She pauses. “Why? Do you?”
Thor had been idly browsing online and-- “This flower,” he had turned the screen to Jane and she leaned forward. “What is it called?”
“I think it’s a calla lily?” She squinted a little. “Definitely calla lily. They’re a pretty popular wedding flower.”
Thor hummed softly in contemplation. “Do you like them?” he asked.
“They’re pretty and they smell nice, so I guess.”
Thor went quiet for a moment, his eyes unseeing, and Jane bookmarked her book and set it aside. She scooted into his side on the couch and seemed to wake him from whatever spell he’d been under.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“Just remembering,” he answered. “My mother liked to raise flowers. The palace gardens were almost entirely her handiwork. She was a talented sorceress, so she could’ve easily used her magic to make her garden as beautiful as it was, but she never did. She told me that sometimes the easiest thing isn’t the right thing.” He chuckled a bit at that. “She had lots of gardening life wisdom for us.
“Anyway, her favorite flower was the Queth Blossom. They look almost just like these,” he said.
“Then let’s get them for the wedding--I changed my mind, I have a very strong opinion about flower arrangements and I think they should be calla lilies.” Jane had said; he still remembers the way his heart leapt, and then melted, at her simple declaration. The way she simply said of course to something to remember his mother by. The way she could make him happy by just existing, by just being who she is.
(Jane would eventually tell everyone at the wedding who would listen that the flower arrangements were done in memory of his mother.)
(He loves her.)
NOW
The Tesseract is underwhelming at first, a shiny bauble like millions of others across the universe. Then it opens a portal and Loki emerges from the other side.
Underwhelmed is suddenly the least of Thor’s emotions.
Before Loki can stand and take in the room, Thor shoves Jane under a desk, praying to any deity that will listen that he doesn’t notice her. He can’t bring himself to hide with her. He has to speak to his brother, he has to know what--
“Loki!” Sif shouts.
Loki looks surprised, his attention pulled towards where the Warriors stand in formation with the SHIELD agents who approached the portal.
“Sir, please put down the spear,” calls out Fury.
A blast from the weapon takes down three agents before Thor can say anything.
“Loki! Stop!” Thor shouts, running from his meager cover behind the desk.
Loki knocks back the last of his opponents, downing even Sif and the Warriors with a power that is absolutely beyond anything he knew Loki possessed.
Loki’s eyes find Thor, and Thor barely recognizes the unhinged look in his eye.
“What happened to you?” Thor asks, a soft and genuine query because his brother looks unwell; gaunt, tired, and plain rabid.
Loki doesn’t answer immediately, just stalks forward like a predator.
“I started to see clearly for the first time in my life.”
There are other words, calmly spoken about a world made free from freedom, then Loki drops the visage Thor knows, his skin goes blue and his eyes go red and oh.
(Oh, Loki.)
Thor refuses to falter under the weight of this new truth that he can feel in his bones. He is not mine in blood, but he is my brother. “We were raised together, we played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?” Thor asks.
“I remember a shadow,” Loki says softly, stepping closer, skin still blue. “Living in the shade of your greatness.” He laughs. “And who could blame anyone for treating the Frost Giant like an invader who does not belong in his own home?
“And now you are but a man.” He snorts. “A pathetic, human man who can be killed just as easily as everyone else in this room.”
“Spare them,” Thor says. “If you want to take my life as recompense, then--”
(Just his small life. Just his small life with his wife, who he loves, and his unborn child, who he would do anything for. Just his one small life as Thor Foster seems--it seems too big to give up. His heart screams at the unfairness of it all.)
(It is too much to give, it is too much to lose.)
(But if he doesn’t offer to lose it, then everyone will die. He knows that.)
(There’s no such thing as just a small life, Thor knows in that moment. No life in this room is any smaller or bigger than his.)
(He feels like he wants to cry, but he will do it.)
Loki says, “Oh, but I could do that anyway. Besides,” a poisonous grin seeps over his face as he glances over Thor’s shoulder. “It looks like your wife is trying to make trouble for me.”
The floor drops out from under Thor as he looks back to see Jane typing furiously on the control unit that directly affects the Tesseract’s behavior. It’s sparking, just like it did when it opened to bring Loki here, and his brilliant wife is this close to being able to send him away--
Loki sends Thor into a wall with a flick of his fingers. Dazed, possibly concussed, but otherwise unhurt, Thor tries to stand, feels a scream inching out of his throat as he watches Loki magically drag Jane from behind the station.
Thor has never understood what made him worthy of Mjolnir in the first place.
He’d first picked it up in his youth, when he’d been emotional and his magic had been out of control-- Mjolnir had been a focusing point, something to channel himself through, something that felt like an extension of his connection to a storm. He’d been so busy trying to be the best warrior Asgard had ever seen, he’d never stopped to really think about what being worthy meant.
He learns what worthiness means in the space of a heartbeat.
He learns what it means the instant Loki turns his sight on Jane.
He reaches out, instinct, need, his magic reawakening, he does not know.
Mjolnir answers.
The hammer rips through the domed ceiling above them, and flies straight to his hand. The storm fills him once more and it’s only now that he has it back that he can feel the ache of its absence.
Loki, for the first time since he stepped into the room, looks scared.
Jane just grins.
(Later, when she gets the chance to examine the armor up close, she asks, “Is this how you normally looked?”)
(He answers, “More or less.”)
(She smiles like a woman who is absolutely going to ask him to wear his armor in bed later.)
