lorentzian | 01 ✴ written / action

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01 ✴ written / action

My name is Jane Foster. And if I'm remembering everything correctly, which I can hardly believe, then I've been here before. That being the case, there are a few people I need to talk to. You'll know who you are.

For those who don't know me, you might remember a spectacularly failed attempt at escaping the enclosure some time ago. (Sorry for the vague time frame. I haven't figured out yet how long I've been gone.) For anyone who arrived after that time, I'm an astrophysicist who specializes in wormholes. Well, it's more complex than that, I also study quantum energy fluctuations and related terrestrial phenomena pretty much all over the world - Earth, I mean. Earth. Earth in 2013, for anyone curious. Sorry, this is getting off topic.

In a nice turn of events, I didn't wake up outside, so no search and rescue needed this time.

I guess, um.

Hi, everyone. Old and new. It's - weird to be back.

[ Once she's done writing that plain, unembellished message, Jane shuts her journal and sighs, staring at the blank wall opposite her. Thank the powers at be for small blessings, like waking up warm and comfortable for once instead of half-frozen on a forest floor.

Since the apartment in which she awoke is one of the unclaimed ones, there's nothing really here for her to make use of - or, alternatively, disturb. So a short while later she is slipping out the door, walking on tip-toe down the halls and stairways, though she'll pause at the entrance of the building. She doesn't relish the idea of going out in the cold barefoot and in only a sundress. So she'll skulk about there, deliberating while checking her journal periodically for responses. Anyone who doesn't immediately strike her as Overtly And Comically Evil will probably get a hello. ]

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[Such a kindness should not sound so much like grief. It is a strange thing to feel envy for himself, for a part of him that was here when she had need of him. To blame a man that he was not nor could not be simply for a lack of memory for putting that tone into her voice. Had he the power he would do anything in the nine realms to keep her from ever sounding so soft and sad ever again.

All he can do, all that he does, is find the required clothing and make his way to the building where she has woken.]

I am on my way, Jane.

[It does not take long and he is not so much a coward that he would dawdle for not having words enough to express how glad he is to know she is here, how sorry he is for having forgotten this place and her with it, nor his shame at being unable to fulfill his word as given. He has no words, only clothing and a brightening smile when he finds her.

There was something important he was to say, he's certain. He cannot remember.]

Your clothing.

[ She doesn't leave the building -- still too cold -- but her smile is a mile wide and dazzling when he steps in the main entrance to greet her.

God. There he is. Tall and broad, built like a mountain and roughly as physically imposing. The way he looks at her. God, how he looks at her. All she wants to do...

... for some reason, is slap him really hard. The impulse is sudden and she just barely manages to bury it. Instantly she goes from warmth and fond reunion to intense awkwardness. Why did she-- how could she-- in what world would she really want to slap him-- but the half of her mind that's fresh off two years apart from him and still quietly angry over his broken promise is difficult to ignore.

Thankfully, she has another half of her mind, a Luceti-influenced half, and Thor is spared a slap. He is not, however, spared her sudden stiff posture or strange sheepishness. She reaches out to take her clothing. ]

Thank you. [ She hugs the bundle to her chest, regarding him with mixed fondness, like she's not sure how to feel. ] ... so, um.

[Here she is. Small and slight and sharper than any dagger in all the armories of Asgard, more clever than any of their scholars and crackling brighter than any nova or star he has ever seen. How was it that he could ever have mistaken Padme for her save out of acute longing? They both had grace, and the resemblance was strong, true, but Jane was ever more brilliant to him. And he'd left her. Been forced to leave her, made a choice that had been for the best of the Nine Realms but it is so very difficult to recall why that was important when she is here and real and looking at him like he'd found her book of notes on her research and returned it to her rather than bearing clothing.

He looks to her and sees all he cares for above all else in all the realms. More than family, more than duty, more than any shade of princely obligation.

She speaks, and he should likely say something in turn.]

You are welcome.

[A beat, and he extends a hand, tentative, uncertain if it is welcome to brush a lock of hair out of her face.]

I have missed you greatly.

[ It's a strange feeling, to spend years chasing down a dream, building it up in your mind into something that may have never even existed, only to find it right before you, physical and warm and able to be grasped. She'd tried everything - and with SHIELD's not-at-all-inconsiderable funding, "everything" had encompassed quite a bit more than she'd been capable of when living out of a trailer in New Mexico - and yet still been unable to find him. She'd started developing new tools just before getting unceremoniously shipped off to Tromsø, where there'd been nothing for her to do and every passing moment had been more and more suspicious, and everything had felt stranger and more futile -

Until Darcy showed her footage of the one thing she'd been seeking all along destroying buildings and beating up aliens in New York City. The one thing that had made her spine go stiff every single time she heard thunder for two years. The one thing that made her, in a moment of ice cream-fueled unhappy desperation, consider switching to storm chasing as a career path.

He's here. He's here, before her, reaching out and seemingly not quite trusting himself to bridge the distance.

Jane ducks her chin, swallowing and sighing out through her nose before taking half a step forward, so she can sort of -- tip her cheek into his outstretched hand. ]

It's, um. Mutual. Very, very ... mutual. God, I--

[ She backs away again all at once, her smile more like an apologetic wince as she jerks a thumb over her shoulder, pointing at a random apartment. ]

Can I just, I really -- I'd really like to just go get changed, I can't -- I seriously can't do this in a nightie. Hold that thought? I'll be back in like. Two minutes. Stay right there.

[ Without another moment to spare she whirls and trots off, darting into the first apartment she sees that hasn't got any names on the door and vanishing within. Sorry, Thor. Cue elevator music. ]

[There is more he ought to say. An apology is owed, certainly, and perhaps a bit of dignified groveling to earn her favor. He had his reasons for being gone for so long and as unfortunate as it might have been it made sense while he was away. It was easy to focus on battle and hardship and the betterment of the Nine realms, on rebuilding the Bifrost with all due haste when she was not before him.

Now he can only think himself the worst sort of fool for not trying harder to reach her. To send word. A letter, a sign, something that showed he remembered. That he intended to make good on his promise. As long as the time might have been for him she was of Midgard, their lives were shorter, sweeter, and such time stretches infinity longer when there is less of it to spare.

He is unaccustomed to such uncertainty, and yet the weight in his chest lessens when she leans into his hand. Just as soft and warm and real as he recalled.]

I- yes? I shall. Yes.

[Words. There are words he should be saying but it is difficult to recall them. Fandral would have such words for Jane. Poems, a dashing tale, adulations to her beauty. He has his hands and a smile that is soft and faintly adoring and just. Waits as she goes to change. Two minuets. After over a year, it is not so large a thing. He leans against the wall opposite, arms crossed, and waits.]

[ She is like a whirlwind of clothing and teenage emotions once she shuts - and locks - that apartment door behind her. Getting changed in an empty living room with her Norse God of a boyfriend like maybe 20 feet away outside should be -- actually, no, it's just about as goddamn weird as it should be. The nervous giggling that escapes her about halfway through putting on one sock threatens to dissolve her into a heap of frayed nerves, and it takes her a few extra moments to regain a center of calm.

You know. Relative calm.

When she steps out of the apartment again she looks far more like her normal self. Thor, despite not having seen her for two years, did a pretty good job of picking out clothing that would fit her, though the shoes and shirt are a bit oversize. They'll do the job, though, and they stay on her body, at least. Much warmer - and now more self-assured with far less awkward skin showing - Jane approaches him again, and her smile says so much. Nervousness, excitement, gratitude, relief, uncertainty... ]

Okay. Let's -- try that again?

[ She takes another small half-step towards him, putting them rather ... close. It's nostalgic and a little thrilling, how much she has to tilt her head back to look up at him. ]

So. Hi.

[Two minutes.

Two....minutes.

It is not so long a span of time but it seems to drag on far more than two minutes ever should. Patience has never been Thor's greatest virtue but it is for Jane, and she asked him to wait, and it would be unseemly to enter or knock while she was changing and it would have such implications that he would rather not bring to the fore when they've only just found one another no matter his eagerness to see and speak to her again and he is simply going to. Wait. He is not some youth untried by the throes of love. He can, and will, be patient.

Simply whilst drumming his fingers along his bicep for want of movement. It would not do well to pace while awaiting her return. Perhaps she lingers, uncertain. Perhaps she slipped out a side door to make him wait longer ad reparations for him leaving her for so long, perhaps-

No.

She is not so much like Loki that it would be in her to spite him.

He jumps a little when the door opens, smile cracking wide and bright as he steps closer, hands instinctively falling to her shoulder and smoothing back her hair.]

Hello.

[Things he wanted to say. But for the life of him he cannot recall.]

I have missed you. [He already said that. Something else.] You are lovlier than I remember.

[Better.]

[ Oh jeez, he's touching her.

What is it about him that can make her feel like she's 16 and got braces and horrible social skills and all of the hormones every time she sees him? It's horrible. Really horrible. She feels her face warm at the compliment, and she huffs a quiet laugh through her nose, reaching up to tangle one of her hands with his. ]

And you're, um. Taller? [ She laughs, awkward but very honest. ] I should have -- that was where I should have said handsomer, right?

[His smile softens into something far less exuberant but infinitely more fond. Over his lifetime he had courted and been courted by women of grace, of old blood and good breeding, of political relevance he cared not to learn of at the time and they had their tricks,their batted lashes and coy smiles to gain his favor. Jane...did none of these things. And she never had to. This shy sweetness was more entrancing than any coy smile or forced laugh.

Perhaps that is why he is so far gone and gladly so. His fingers curl around hers for a tentative squeeze.]

If you feel that to be true.

[Tugging her hand up, he dips his head and presses his lips to the back of her hand, much as he had when he'd seen her last.]

[ Two years. Any sane woman would have moved on. And despite her tendency towards social reclusiveness, towards hyper-focusing on her work, towards awkwardness and rambling, it's not as if men haven't still found ways to notice her. To flirt. Sometimes she picked up on it, sometimes she didn't (to Darcy's constant amusement). The times she did ... she thought about it. She'd known him for all of three days, and then he had disappeared. This phenomenally powerful -- alien, that was what he was, really, who'd made and to all appearances broken a promise to her whilst gallivanting across the universe (saving it, not a bad reason but still) and doing everything but returning to her side like he'd sworn he would do...

... this man is bowing his head to press a warm, heartfelt, scratchy kiss to her knuckles.

And she is just so gone.

The courtly formality was what had initially won her fondness, her curiosity. But it was the sharpness of his mind, the trueness of his heart, that had won her, all of her, all that she was and is and will be. Her expression is one of wonder as she watches him.

Can there be any response to that but raising the hand she's still got free to cup his face, and surging up into a fierce and long-awaited kiss? ]

[It had been but one kiss prior to returning to Asgard. One kiss after three days of learning of the modern Midgard, of listening to her brilliant mind explain that which he knew to be true through the lens of science rather than that of lore or magic. Most Midgardians he had met in the past were quiet and awed easily, not curious. Contemplative. Quick and clever and latching onto what he said and twisting it into something they knew with such vitality and glee. That mind of hers beyond her kindness held his heart.

And she had waited. She had remained true despite his not asking it of her. He would have understood after the days stretched into months or years and yet- she stood here, holding his hand. Holding him.

Her lips are just as sweet as he recalled, if not sweeter still.

Hand for hand he cradles her cheek, tucking her hair close as he smiles against her mouth. Such passion and that is part of why he cares for her so. It takes everything in him not to sweep her off her feet and make to the nearest bed but- it had been so long and there was much to discuss.

Later. For now? This.]

[ Someone save her from herself. Someone save her from how much she cares about him. He rouses a fire in her chest that she'd never knew she had until, well. Until the day she ran him over with her van. How can he so quickly, so easily, make two years of waiting worth it?

When she finally breaks the kiss, the first thing she does is smile and laugh against his mouth, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. ]

... did I mention I missed you too?

[ With some teasing, but mostly delight and intense fondness. ]

[Suffused with warmth that banishes every ill thought and petty frustration that might have been levied upon him by this place and his brother, he pulls back to breathe. To rest his forehead against hers and simply bask in the joy that is being with his beloved.]

I think you may have. But it bears repeating. I missed you greatly while I was gone and I cannot express enough sorrow for having been away as long as I had. I gave my word and meant to keep it.

[ That pulls a sigh from her, and the hand on his face shifts so that she can cup his jaw instead. ]

... I know. I know. I don't -- I guess I really wanted to believe all that time you wouldn't break a promise to me. It just ... you have to know how it must have seemed, I felt like an idiot just--

[ She pauses then, cutting herself off. ]

... look, it's not important. You're here now. And I know the -- last time you were here, you told me the Bifrost was destroyed. So.

[ She pulls back just enough for him to be able to see the way her mouth quirks, though she doesn't change the position of her hands. ]

The -- nice thing about this place? All the crazy, awful things that happen notwithstanding? It gives you time. Time you ... wouldn't have had, otherwise. So ... we can start making up for lost time. [ Her voice and her smile are gentle, almost tentative. It isn't a coy or crass suggestion, which it might seem coming from anyone else. But despite their continued closeness, the light in Jane's eyes is not one of simple physical passion. It's care. Time-worn and long-challenged, but there, real, and only for him. Making up for lost time means more than just kisses, to her. (Though she won't precisely complain if those are a part of it.) ]

I do, I hated every moment that I had to be apart for you and I tried- I truly did, to find some way to give you word. To explain. I never intended to make you feel a fool, Jane. That is the last thing I would ever wish for you.

[He hates himself more than a little for not managing to find something. He'd scoured libraries and spoke with Heimdall, spoke with his mother even as she grieved the loss of his brother. Made vague requests of his father but no. There was nothing that he could work. He had not the power to return and it lodged a stone in his throat. To be here with her now is more than a dream breathed life.

But he cannot help but wonder how much longer it would be before he could visit her once more. The thought is too much to bear with her here, smiling, speaking with him, her hands in his. He puts it from his mind.]

Perhaps you may tell me what you have been researching in my absence?

[If there was nothing he loved more than simply holding Jane, it was listening to her speak of her research. It was the means through which they first began to bond in truth.]

[ ... more gently, this time: ]

I know.

[ His question twists her smile up into something a little embarrassed, and she laughs, rocking back on her heels and ducking her head. ]

I. You? [ She looks up at him with a smile that is half a wince. ] You. Thor, I ... I've been looking. I mean, in the past couple of weeks my research hasn't exactly been careening along thanks to SHIELD moving me to Norway where there was nothing for me to do and-- well--

... the first year was pretty exciting. All the new funding, the gadgets I got to use - not to mention build, do you have any idea how much easier it is to monitor atmospheric phenomena when you have a quantum scanner, you can pick up the tiniest fluctuations with that much computing power, it was incredible, and I started working on a theory! It, um. It all got pretty far. But about a year and a half in, I just ... I wasn't finding anything anymore.

[ She moves through emotions as she talks, from irritation to excitement to wistful wonder to a sort of resigned frustration. ]

That was for your protection, Jane.

[Something the Son of Coul did for him as a favor. Kept Jane as far from harm as possible after Eric had been taken by Loki. It was for the best, truly, even if it interrupted her research so. He did not think it would be so disruptive to her research, however, and lifts their hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles by way of apology.

Much of the nuances of what she said, so quick, so passionate, fly right over his head but he is certain that with time and a mug of tea that she enjoys, perhaps she might slow enough to explain in such a way that he would be able to follow. All the same he smiles with her, frowns at her resignation.]

What theory were you chasing?

Yeah. I figured that out not long after I showed up here the first two times. Especially after I realized there'd been an attack on Manhattan, and .... you and Loki were both there. [ The set of her mouth is wry. She figured out long ago why she'd been moved so suddenly.

His question gets her to sigh, and she disentangles one of her hands from him to reach back ... before realizing there's no journal in her pocket, of course. She groans, and shakes her head. ]

Just firming up a theory of wormhole travel. You know how much Einstein-Rosen bridge activity I detected in the two years you were gone? Zero. Without any data I couldn't even form a hypothesis to test. I just had the theory of how it worked. So I started shifting my research elsewhere. Erik was around to help at first, but theeeen he got security clearance from SHIELD and I started seeing him less and less. [ She rolls her eyes. ]

...With the Bifrost shattered there was no real means to travel between the nine realms. Not easily. Not in that manner, at least.

[And again, something he had done to interrupt her work. He had thwarted Loki's plan and prevented Genocide and that he tried to keep close to mind. Guilt could wait, though, he was distracted by her habitual reach and he pulls away enough to pull a worn leather journal from his pocket. Not hers, no, it is blank and ready for anything she might have to write, but somewhere for her to start.]

I thought, perhaps, you might want something like this for your thoughts.

[Something more private and personal than the journals provided for communication.]

Erik- was taken by Loki during his assault. I think, perhaps, had he been with you and less with Shield he may not have been thusly affected.

[ Her eyebrows lift. ] .... wow. That-- wow. The implications of that are pretty staggering. We can come back to that later.

[ Then he pulls out the journal and for a second her heart stops, thinking -- no, but, she tried to leave that with Tony, had they spoken, had Tony given it to Thor for some reason -- no. No, it just looks like her old journal. She reaches for it without thinking, turning it over in both hands and brushing her fingertips over the soft leather. Tears prick at her eyes, but she grins, broad and grateful. ]

I -- yeah. Yeah, of course I would. God, it's perfect. Thank you, Thor.

[ She's holding it to her chest as he goes on, and her expression turns grim all over again. ] I know what happened to Erik. He told me about it himself when I went to see him in New York. You have no idea how much I wish he'd never gotten involved with SHIELD at all.

I will answer whatever you may ask, and do so gladly.

[Anything he might tell so long as it was safe to tell, he would. For the most part he had never seen any harm in telling her what she wished to know. And while her joy at the journal does gladen his heart it is nowhere near enough to make up for his absence or what trouble his actions have caused her and Erik. But it is a start.]

They are not so dishonorable as we may have thought- they wish for much the same as I. The protection of earth. Their means and methods are far different than those I would use and that they see fit to take what they perceive may threaten the safety without warning but I understand their intent, even if I do not agree with their means.

No, I know. [ She heaves a sigh. ] I don't like SHIELD, but I get that they have a point. That -- they're the good guys, you know? But. I still don't like their methods. [ Her mouth twists. ] Besides, when it comes to Erik, it's more about....

[ She pauses abruptly, an odd expression on her face.

Then she looks at him with something approaching trepidation. ]

.... as much as I really hate to say this, we need to have the Loki conversation. Like... probably sooner rather than later. [ Wincing. Yes. Actually wincing. ]

...what of my brother?

[Because this feels like it has a great deal of importance and requires far more addressing than SHIELD. SHIELD can wait. This? Most likely cannot.]

Has he hurt you?

No! No. Not-- no.

[ She's almost laughing, because this is horrifying. How does she even begin to explain? ]

Oh, my god. Can you. Have you. Spoken to him? Since you got here? How badly did it go?

[Oh. Right.

How to explain this.]

I met him first when I arrived. He stole my trousers.

...

And forced me to enter the village naked.

...

And stole my armor from the armory and dumped it into the western lake.

...

And stole all the trousers that might fit me from the clothing stores.

...

And made me swear to not perpetuate what he sees to be the lie of being my brother.

...he was shockingly nonviolent and I would go so far as to say well humored over my return. He seems well, and loos much improved. There was no attempt to stab me- in fact when I made to strike him in a fit of lost temper he shushed me like a misbehaving hound.

01 ✴ written / action

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