A/N: Oh boy have I been looking forward to this so much for the last month and a half. :D I can’t believe the time has finally come, but here we are.
This first ficlet is a continuation to a drabble I wrote several years ago. It can be read here. The idea was that Jane accidentally sent herself to Jotunheim, where Loki has taken over and become king. This is what happens after he finds Jane and takes her back with him.
Hope you enjoy!
.01 Space
Jane woke up on a plushy mattress an indeterminable amount of time after blasting herself to an alien planet and being captured by the king. She was almost convinced it had been a dream when she heard the crackling fire (her lab did not have a fireplace) and remembered her bed was a secondhand cot in a dingy trailer. She opened her eyes and took in deep green sheets on a bed the size of a football field.
The room was even bigger and filled with ancient Norwegian artifacts, from the wall carvings to the decorative wooden shields. It was like one of those historical recreations they kept in museums. Except Jane doubted those phony beds stuffed with straw would ever be so comfortable as this.
The color scheme was decidedly green, with a little black and gold thrown in for good measure. Jane glanced down at herself and sighed with relief that she was still dressed. There had been no ‘bathe her and bring her to me’ nonsense. At least, not yet.
She was alone as far as she could tell. In a room this big, there was no way to be sure. The fire brightened as if aware she was awake and needed more light. It provided more than any fire should be capable of. She’d have to ask someone about that, she thought dimly, assuming this apparent hospitality wasn’t a ploy to bring her guard down. Devouring your prey was easy if they didn’t struggle.
Jane scooted to the edge of the bed. Her shoes were placed neatly next to an ornate armchair. Her jacket was folded and draped over the top. She left them for now, the floor carpeted and the room a pleasant temperature. Her first steps were uneven but quickly improved. Two chairs were positioned directly in front of the fireplace for maximum warmth, an oval-shaped table between them. She studied a dish sitting precariously on the latter, covered by a silver dome with dragon-shaped carvings around the rim. Jane was a scientific mind who prided herself in her critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, but it was at least a full minute before she realized the plate was meant for her.
She lifted the dome, fully expecting breakfast to be a bowl of mush or something not completely dead. The buttermilk biscuits with cream cheese and side fruit bowl, therefore, gave her pause. Jane picked nervously at what appeared to be an ordinary blueberry. It tasted like one too, once she mustered up the courage to eat it.
The door opened, apparently unlocked from the start. In walked the man from yesterday, the one the bigger monsters seemed to defer to. He did have a regal air about him, partial nudity notwithstanding. His red eyes followed her as she sank into a chair. A berry fell between her fingers and rolled under the bed.
“Good morning,” he said. He had a British sounding accent though Jane was pretty sure he’d never set foot in that country.
“Good morning,” Jane answered. “Um… I was just…”
“You may eat,” he said, assuming that was the reason behind her discomfort. He took the chair opposite her, steepling his fingers as she hesitantly took a biscuit and brought it to her lips. A mouth-watering aroma wafted straight into her nostrils, turning Jane’s fear to desire. She polished off the whole thing in two bites and immediately reached for another. “I take it you are satisfied with your accommodations?”
“What?” Jane asked with her mouth full. She swallowed and brushed some crumbs off her lip. “Oh yeah. It’s great. Um… I wasn’t expecting to have my own room.”
“Yes, unfortunately, the dungeons are currently full. You’ll have to make due until the mid-afternoon executions.”
Jane’s heart stopped.
He grinned. “That was a joke.”
If she wasn’t so sure he could kill her just by thinking about it, she’d slap him. “Oh, okay. Um… may I ask a question?”
“You just did,” he said, which was annoying and pedantic, but it wasn’t a no.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Jane played with a rip in her shirt that wasn’t there before. She must have snagged it on something during the transport. “I’m technically an intruder, even though I didn’t mean to be. You could’ve locked me up for real or…”
He gave a thoughtful hum, then leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. He had ridiculously long legs and kind of amazing abs. “That is the question.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“It is true, in most situations, I would assume you a spy and have you killed on sight. And that is not a joke.” He added that last part when Jane nearly laughed out loud. “However, given the length of time since any of the nine realms have visited Midgard, I doubt you are more than a displaced traveller. That you arrived on Jotunheim of all places is an extraordinary case of bad luck, is it not?”
“I don’t know,” Jane answered honestly. She was sitting in a room more gorgeous than anything she ever thought she’d see in her lifetime with an alien king. “Is it?”
He pursed his lips, then got to his feet. With a wave of his hand, the flames died down. New artificial light took its place. It came from every direction, shining a golden hue on the walls. Jane stared at the multiple orbs in awe. None of them resembled light bulbs or flames. There was no point of origin. They’d just sprung into existence like magic.
“Your people call it electricity, I believe,” he said. “The method of lighting a room without fire… quite primitive if you don’t mind me saying.”
Jane would’ve been affronted and happy to defend her races innovations over the course of a few thousand years, but then again, there was a scientific impossibility happening before her eyes. The wheels in her head turned hard enough to break. “It’s amazing.”
His mouth twitched. “I have a proposition for you, little one.”
Jane blinked. “What kind of proposition?”
“That depends,” he paced before the fire, his long hair swaying behind him. “Do you wish to return to your homeworld at once or would you like to stay a while?”
“Wait, are you saying you could send me home?” Jane shot to her feet. “Like right now?”
“If you wish,” he said almost bitterly. “There are few corners of the galaxy I cannot find. Though before you make a decision, consider this: there is a vast universe out there your people have barely touched, is there not?”
“We’ve been to the moon,” Jane said lamely. “And there are probes as far as Pluto.”
He smiled the way a person usually reserved for a child’s macaroni art. “But my dear, you’ve been given a unique opportunity to see more. All you have to do is say the word.”
The curtains took on a life of their own, sliding aside in perfect synchronicity. They’d blended so well into the rest of the wall, Jane had assumed there were no windows. She was wrong. Without covers, there was almost nothing but windows. Jane beheld the skyline of an ice blue city, teeming with skyscrapers reaching for the stars. Speaking of stars, there were hundreds, if not thousands, twinkling like tiny jewels in the sky. Within seconds, Jane had mapped out five different constellations she had never seen before, and every which way she looked there were more. So many it made her head hurt and her heart soar.
“This… this is…”
She pressed her hands on the glass. When had she moved? She was by the fire a second ago. Now the heat of the flames barely touched her, but she had never felt warmer.
“This is merely a taste of what I can show you, little one,” he said, his lips a hair’s breath from her ear. “Say the word and I will give you the universe.”
Jane swallowed and nodded, her trance broken by the weight of one pressing matter. “But why me? You don’t even know me.”
He took her hand in his. He was wearing gloves for some reason. “I know you’ve accomplished something no one on your planet should be capable of. Not even Jotunheim has managed to create a bridge between worlds. You have achieved on your own what took the Aesir centuries.”
“I wasn’t completely alone,” Jane said hoarsely. The intensity of his gaze silenced any further attempts at modesty.
“The fact remains, little one, you are the most fascinating creature I have come across in all my years.”
How many years was that she wondered. He appeared close to her age, but his eyes were ancient. He could be well over a thousand years old for all she knew and if that were the case… either he was an excellent liar or Jane had just been given one hell of a compliment.
“Okay,” she said, breathing deeply. “First of all, if I’m going to stay a while, you have to stop calling me ‘little one’. My name is Jane Foster.”
Never did she think she’d see such honest to God joy in his eyes, though he covered it up nicely with a smirk. “As you wish, Jane Foster.”
The way he said her name was almost sinful. It shook Jane at her core and she was forced to acknowledge that in spite of (or perhaps because of) his alien features, he was incredibly handsome. “A-and, I need to let my friends know I’m okay. I can’t let them think I’m dead.”
“Very well,” he said. “We can send word to them whenever you wish. Now then, shall I escort you to the observatory?”
“You have an observatory?”
He chuckled. “Jotunheim has come a long way since I took over. Soon our cities and innovations will rival Asgard itself.”
They left the room, the door shutting and locking on its own behind them. Jane would have to ask her new friend about that later. They passed dozens of Jotunn servants and soldiers on their way to the top floor. All of them bowed before their king. None of them frightened Jane anymore as long as she kept close to him.
“Oh, where are my manners,” he said as they reached a glass elevator (they had elevators here). He took her hand and kissed the air over it. “You may call me Loki, son of Frigga, King of Jotunheim.”
“I think I’ll go with just Loki if that’s okay,” Jane said. The elevator arrived and he stepped back to allow her first entry. They were halfway to the top and looking out at the snowy fields beyond the city when it hit her. “I’m sorry, Loki? Like Loki Loki? Like… that… are you-”
“Save your questions, Jane Foster,” he smiled serenely, his red eyes no longer like blood to her. More like rubies. “We have all the time in the world.”
It’s been a rough couple of years for Doctor Jane Foster and her fans, so I think it’s about time we get a chance to show our love for her collectively again!
The Jane Foster 2017 appreciation week will be held from October 23th to October 29th. Starting today, there’s gonna be one week for you to send to this blog as many different prompts as you’d like. Then I’ll set up a poll so that you can vote for your seven favourites, and once we have our winners, you’ll have a month to work your magic (or, in this case, your science!)
You can participate with anything: vids, gifsets, graphics, fic, art, meta, and any other kind of post. All your creations will be reblogged to this blog, just remember to tag them as #janefosterweek in the first five tags! The only rules are: no reposting and no hate.
Summary: An archive that tells the stories of Jane Foster and her adventures discovering the universe beyond Yggdrasil.
Lokane! Lokane alert!
--
"You're—?"
"Loki. You may have heard of me."
"That was for New York!"
Every morning, Jane drinks her first cup of coffee in the cockpit, curled in the pilot's chair, manually verifying Amy's flawless course, speed, and system calibrations. It's a routine she's fallen into, comforting as the milk and sugar she measures into her latte every morning, courtesy of NASA's zero-g espresso maker. It assures her that things are fine, that she's alone. That everything is going according to what threadbare plan she has.
When she steps into the cockpit that morning and sees his long legs stretched across the navigational panel, she isn't surprised, not really. She squeals as boiling coffee slops over the back of her hand at her involuntary start. It hurts. The heat, that is.
He grins. She grins too, with a somewhat sharper edge, and wipes her dripping hand on his quilted tunic, enjoying how his smile wilts into disgust.
Jane was doing her best. And, seeing as she wasn’t dead yet, she thought that was pretty good. There was an Infinity Stone raging inside her. Every second she could feel it thrashing about in her body. It wanted her to use it. She refused. It got more insistent. She refused.
It was slowly killing her. She knew this because the Aether was telling her it was killing her. Either she used its power and destroyed worlds, or it used its power to destroy her.
She refused.
Malekith wanted it and wanted to use it. She could give up the Aether to Malekith instead. She knew the vile stuff would even leave her alive if she agreed to that.
She continued to refuse. She did so through the storm that was growing behind her eyes. Through the murder of the Queen of Asgard in front of her. Through the pain in Thor’s eyes, and the Aether’s insistent whispering that, had she only accepted its offer, Frigga would still be alive.
With the Aether’s power, so it whispered, Jane could destroy Malekith and his forces and save Asgard and Earth.
She refused.
<i>Without</i> the Aether’s power, so it whispered, Darcy would die. Darcy’s new intern would die. Erik would die. Thor would die. Everyone would die, falling before her just like Frigga had, while Jane stands by and refuses to save them. And Jane would die last of all. The Infinity Stone within her giving her just enough time to mourn the loss of everyone she ever loved before it finally sucked the life from her.
And, yet still, she refused.
“What I could do with the power that flows through those veins,” Loki said, when he thought he couldn’t hear her. It sent a chill through her spine. She knew exactly what could be done with the Aether’s power. It’s why she was curled up, unable to move at the moment. Almost all her energy was focused on keeping it inert.
“It would consume you,” Thor said, and Jane felt grateful that at least one of the brothers understood.
She huddled under the blanket Thor gave her and refused, refused, refused.
Written for Jane Foster week, day 6: free day. Fosterson, but the foccus being Jane.
Thor sees a Lichtenberg scar on Jane.
Jane had almost forgotten about the scars until Thor traced them with his fingers, like he was following a map. And when he did she felt a strange pulse, or a spark, her skin buzzing against his. She jumped, but didn't pull away.
"What's this?" He sounded like he did on Asgard, when she was sick and he didn't knonw how to fix it. Of course he regonised his own mark.
"I like to chase storms," she offered, turning to look at him, trying for a smile, but he was far from it. "At least I did. I don't go in for it much anymore." Not since she got the scar that felt like it was crackling beneath her skin.
Thor drew his hand away from her leg, tucking it into a fist as if he was scared the scars might open up and bleed. They were so pale now, barely noticeable. Two years ago they had been a vivid red, and she'd woken up in the night with them burning against her skin like they might really be on fire.
That storm had been a big one, the biggest she had seen since her father died and because he would have done it, she drove out to cracked, barren ground to watch it rage. Erik had told her not to go. Begged her, even. But she'd probably never see another one like it.
So she'd gone anyway, left her cell in the car with the rest of her things- everything but her camera. Cameras, like cells, were made up of very little metal and as low powered devices, they weren't as dangerous to take out in storms as many people seemed to believe.
Jane had started off crouched down low, her feet together and the camera angled at the sky. Then the world had exploded. Bright, brilliant light scorched through her eyeballs, searing the back of her skull. A crack like the Earth snapping in two. She didn't remember getting up, just suddenly being on her feet, then not again.
The second bolt hadn't hit her, not directly. But close enough. A metre away three hundred kv of energy surged through the ground. The shock came through her feet, holding her there for milliseconds before she was thrown away.
She could remember that. Seeing the first bolt, the second, the strange feeling of numbness in her legs. Then there was a blank and she was opening her eye blearily a long way from where she started off. And thoughts had come to her in hazy bursts.
Get to the car.
No, get up first.
Don't crawl.
Walk.
She had imagined tiny volts in her veins and forced herself to her feet, staggered to the car, pulled open the door and all but collapsed on the back seat, her cell clutched in her hand. There was another blank after that until the door had been yanked open again. Her own voice had said "regular cardiac rhythm," and tried to say other things too, because Erik kept talking to her. Once, she'd thought she heard him mutter something about how damn hard she made it sometimes, but she hadn't heard enough to know what he meant.
They had told her she was lucky at the hospital. Stupid, but lucky. Because she had been standing up instead of lying down, so the voltage had gone in one leg and out of the other. Her legs might feel a little numb, she had some burns on the soles of her feet, and a Lichtenburg figure blooming across her calf, but it hadn't touched her heart.
Mostly they'd kept her in because they were worried about concussion and her elbow that turned out not to be broken. It had hurt for a long time, though.
It'd left her with a scar that looked like vines growing beneath her skin and a year long, paralysing terror of storms.
Thor didn't look reassured when she finished telling the story, though. Apparently much slower to blame her that Erik and the hospital staff had been. He hesitated before he touched the scar again, tracing each part of it so gently that Jane wondered how the same hand could wield a hammer strong enough to shatter mountains.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he said, finally.
Jane shrugged. "I hit you with my car a couple of times, we can call it even."
Jane Foster’s head has always been up. When she was a baby, it was the ceiling, where her mother had pasted glow-in-the-dark stars and a moon. (All positioned entirely wrong, and she fixed it in sixth grade.)
She would look up at a teacher who was talking about the solar system in third grade. It sounded vaguely interesting. Something that others weren’t interested in, so maybe she shouldn’t be either. They were giant planets far far away where they couldn’t visit because it was dangerous.
She looks up as a guest scientist comes and talks about stars. Jane gets them in her eyes when she thinks about her new job: astrophysicist. The title gives her shivers.
Jane Foster looks up an application for Culver and applies.
Full ride and a grant.
She looks up to see one college student smacking her gum with earbuds hanging out of her pocket. “So, I can cook basic foods and not set anything on fire,” she says. “My name is Darcy Lewis, and I’m about to be your best friend.” (Jane didn’t know how right that was: she’s never had a best friend before.)
Jane looks up at the sky for months, hoping for any anomaly to prove her theories that everyone besides Selvig has renounced. But she knows that she’s right. In her heart, she knows that there’s something else out there that everyone is forgetting about, some random equation.
She looks up to see a flash of something drop.
Jane looks down once. To see Thor.
Suddenly, space just got a whole lot more interesting. A human (well, not a human--a powerful man who isn’t exactly of human origins) is from space, talks like someone she’s never known before, and talks about Norse myths as if they ring true. Darcy believes him.
She looks up as Thor fights the Destroyer, risks his life to save earth from his brother. (Actual brother? Adopted? She doesn’t know.) Jane smiles in relief when his armor is returned and he’s back. Jane has never liked anyone like him before. He’s genuine, not a science guy who thinks that he knows everything and she doesn’t. Thor is a nice guy, a genuinely nice guy. (She loves him a little bit.)
Jane looks up as Thor takes her up to Asgard. Space just got way cooler.
