Rowing in Eden (Thor, Avengers) 1/10
Fandom(s): Thor (2011), Avengers (2012), Marvel Movies
Pairing(s): Jane/Thor, implied Loki/Sif
Word Count: 33500 (10 chapters)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Beta: pathstotread
Summary: The Bifrost is no longer broken but is becoming unpredictable: delivering its travellers far afield of the landing site where Thor had first appeared. With the link between Midgard and Asgard at risk, Jane and Thor have to find a way to restore stability to the wormhole or risk being separated forever. All of the Avengers lend a hand, but in the end, will it be enough?
Author's notes: I have taken some liberties with the histories of aurora observations, Norse myths and even elements from the Marvel universe which, of course, does not belong to me. Thanks to red_b_rackham for the fabulous art and my beta for doing her best to help fix my story's gaping holes as I madly wrote up until the last few hours! Also available on Archive of Our Own.
Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile--the Winds--
To a Heart in port--
Done with the Compass--
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor--Tonight--
In Thee! (Emily Dickinson)
The cold, dark depths of the North Atlantic hide a wealth of mysteries. Nearing the treacherous waters off of Sable Island, a host of shipwrecks have scattered debris across the ocean bottom. Lengths of wood and brittle bits of iron mingle with the sand and ground-down shells, rolling against the rocks.
As the tides shifted the sands, they revealed treasures. Heavier storms scoured much of the sea bottom close to the island, turning up driftwood to fill the beach and smooth pieces of beachglass to charm collectors.
Much more lay hidden by the furious winds and tides. Still trapped under the water, an artifact nestled in the sand flickered green and unearthly flashes of light. A rainbow flare across the sky shimmered and wavered in response, warped by forces invisible to the mortal eye.
"It's not good," Jane admitted to her former assistant over the flickering Skype connection. Darcy, hundreds of miles away in her studio apartment for her final semester at Culver, grimaced in sympathy.
"Do you have any ideas?" the younger woman asked, leaning forward so that her face nearly filled the pixelated screen.
Jane laughed with a slightly bitter edge. "If I did, it would be good. This is not good."
"I get it," Darcy replied. "Does Erik have any ideas?"
Jane shook her head in sharp negation at the mention of her old mentor. "No, although he's promised to go back through some of his old research notes from the 80s. He says there was something about wandering stellar phenomena that might be useful but I'm not so sure. Anyway, since they resolved that whole Loki-possession, he’s a bit careful about getting too involved in my crazy stuff.”
She looked down at Erik Selvig’s shakily scrawled notes on the margins of one of her worksheets, tracing the faltering letters with a regretful touch of her own fingers. Her friend had been badly shaken by that supernatural event. Even though the newly-formed Avengers team had blocked Loki’s bid to steal the Cosmic Cube, Erik had been collateral damage. The aging physicist now sought to steer clear of SHIELD, even if it meant withdrawing from the research he’d so eagerly supported Jane in pursuing just months before.
When Jane lifted her head to meet Darcy’s gaze via the webcam, she suspected her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Smiling brightly to counter that betrayal, Jane shoved the papers to one side. “Anyway, there’s a whole team of SHIELD scientists working on this, too. I’m hardly alone in wanting to figure out why the Asgard landing site has started shifting again. After all, with all that work that went into building the SHIELD security annex, there, it’s more than a little embarrassing to have visiting Asgardians show up fifty or more miles away from where Director Fury and his team are waiting to greet them!”
Darcy barked out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re kidding me! That far, really?”
Jane nodded. “It wasn’t so funny at the time but the Warriors Three took it as a bit of a joke. Fandral was telling Volstagg it was because his ‘massive center of gravity’ warped the Bifrost or something. But we were all a little bit shocked and worried. What's worse is that these deviations are growing and what if they drop someone into a mountain range, all of a sudden? It could be bad.”
Darcy’s laughed faded off. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“So there’s talk that unless we can figure out what’s causing the problem in bringing people in from the wormhole, we might have to end travel for at least a little while. And you know what that means: Thor would be called back to Asgard, at least for the foreseeable future.”
Darcy boggled and reached forward instinctively, her fingers coming close to the webcam on her side. “Oh, no! Jane. . . . Could you go with him?”
Jane shook her head again, fiercely. “No, my work’s here. Thor has said that he could petition Odin to permit me to visit Asgard, but that's unprecedented. And, anyway, who do you think is going to solve this problem if I’m on the other side of the galaxy?”
“Not me,” Darcy admitted. “And probably not anyone else, despite all those fancy-pants SHIELD scientists.”
Jane grinned, pleased that her former intern still had a clear sense of loyalty. “You’re right. So, if you’ll excuse me? I need to get back to running some calculations. Thor and the others are off on another mission-”
“Again?” Darcy asked incredulously. “They never stop!”
“And a good thing, too,” the older woman insisted. “You don’t want to know what they saved us from last week.”
Darcy’s eyes widened then suddenly closed as she leaned precariously back in her chair. “Whoa. Stop right there: I’m pretty sure that this secure channel isn’t secure enough for that information.”
Jane looked around the quiet lab that Nick Fury's staff had provided her when the Avengers had established their New York City headquarters. She was pretty sure that every bit of electronics was routed through something the taciturn Phil Coulson and his team monitored. “You’re right, of course,” Jane admitted.
“Always am,” Darcy cheerfully replied, “and so I’m especially right when I say that I won’t be graduating in May if I don’t finish preparing for my seminar presentation tomorrow morning and I don't line up another research internship!”
Jane winced. “I’d hardly be a good academic if I kept you from your work. Talk to you soon!”
The computer window faded out and Jane leaned back contemplatively in her own chair. The lab that SHIELD had provided her gave her so many resources and tools she’d only dreamed of as a poor post-doc. Heck, she even had a Manhattan parking space for her disreputable wreck of a van, not that she got to use it very much.
That was especially the case in the last few months as the wormhole had revealed a new instability. No one had much cared about the minor shifts from the landing site that Jane had originally discovered when a handsome, half-dressed Thor had dazedly landed in front of their careening research vehicle. A few yards here, a hundred metres there, these were all well within a margin of error, or so Jane and the others had assured themselves, until one trip by Sif had ended up with her three miles from the prepared site. Further landings had only gone further and further astray.
What was most alarming was that none of their other-worldly visitors could supply any suggestions for why the Bifrost they so routinely travelled had suddenly become unreliable. Thor returned from Asgard no wiser for seeking interviews with soothsayers and the archivists who kept records. Consultation with Heimdall, he reported, was equally disappointing. The other seven worlds of Yggdrasil showed no similar problems. This was a crisis affecting Midgard and Midgard alone, he concluded.
Implicit in his explanation was Odin's disinterest in the problem. Thor's ongoing absense from Asgard strained the king's patience and anything that interfered with free transit between the realms only concerned the Asgardian ruler insofar as he could convince Thor to give up his connections to Earth. The only way a solution would be found was through the ingenuity of the Avengers Initiative and their friends.
Five meetings had been held among the SHIELD scientists and administrators, the last chaired by Director Fury himself who’d stood up after half an hour of fruitless speculation to loom over the assembled scientists. “Look, I don’t care if it’s the Loch Ness Monster at work, but you all need to get working on a solution to this problem. We don’t want our next distinguished visitor from Asgard to end up at the bottom of the Marinas Trench or in an active volcano. Figure out what’s the problem and fix it - NOW!”
Jane and the others had nodded their understanding but Jane, alone, heard the rest of Nick Fury’s unspoken warning as he levelled a worried look in her direction. They both knew that Thor wouldn't be able to stay on Earth if this problem went unresolved.
That worry kept her working almost nonstop in her lab, commandeering hours on a number of wildly expensive telescopic arrays, searching deep into the heavens in hopes of finding a solution. Thor and the other Avengers were kept busy travelling the globe, battling menaces that Jane didn’t even want to know about, especially after seeing Captain America come back bloodied and supported by two of his comrades after a fight that the others refused to discuss.
Whatever she did back in her lab, whatever the Avengers did out in the world, none of it seemed to offer the faintest hope that it would solve the problem that threatened the fragile link that the Bifrost bridge made between Asgard and Earth, allowing Jane and Thor to be together. And whether or not the feeling was selfish, it was that fear, in particular, that kept Jane pushing relentlessly to solve this mystery.
Late one night in the Avengers' midtown headquarters, Jane’s lab door opened with a bang. It was a testament to how focused or possibly, how weary, the young physicist was, that she didn’t even turn to look at who’d entered. Of course, if it were Thor, he’d have already called out her name as he loped across the crowded research space. Given the high level of security, it wouldn’t be anyone who wasn’t cleared six ways from Sunday by Phil Coulson and the other SHIELD agents who maintained a constant watch on the site. That left only the other Avengers or people like Jane, who’d somehow attached themselves to one individual or the other.
Jane thought about looking up from her calculations but decided against it. Her search continued to come up against one dead end after another. If it was some sort of ninja infiltrator, at least it’d be a change from hours spent trying to discover a solution to the wandering wormhole egress, or so she said to herself.
But the very silence after the door clattered open was a sign in and of itself. Only one person in the Avengers Initiative was capable of such stealth: Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow. The superlative spy could have entered without a sound, just as she crossed the room without a whisper. Tony Stark might bluster in or even zoom into the room with whistling jets powering his armor as he’d done one slightly crazy Friday evening after a big ‘do at Stark Industries. Captain America and Hawkeye were quiet but never silent, both stopping to knock at the closed door in studied courtesy, and Bruce Banner, when he was himself, was given away by his eagerness to discuss whatever scientific thoughts he’d wanted to share with Jane. Thor could never enter without calling out to her. Banging the door open, then silently entering, was Natasha’s way of letting Jane know it was her and only her.
Jane's thought processes were confirmed when Natasha dropped wearily into the leather lounger parked next to Jane's radio telescope control center. The seat made it possible for Jane to grab a few hours of shut-eye during a long set of remote observations. A staggering array of images and data points scrolled across the multiple screens while Jane’s fingers flew across the keyboard, programming in a new series of inquiries for far-flung observatories to run. "Ugh," was all the intruder said as her auburn curls splayed out against the soft headrest of the chair.
Jane looked up from sheets of printouts she’d consulted in order to set up the latest set of observations, a smile dancing on her lips. "That bad?" the physicist asked.
"Worse," the Black Widow replied, rolling her eyes. "I came ahead of the boys since I finished my part of the mission early: my job was to get the coordinates out of some megalomaniac's secure facility. They're off to scout out whatever his goons are guarding there."
Jane glanced at the monitor and saw that it was well past eleven, New York time. "They've been gone awhile. Where are they?"
Natasha waved one hand airily. "It's off in the Caribbean. Steve reported in that they'd landed a couple of hours ago so hopefully they'll be done soon."
She bit her lip and Jane resisted the urge to simply turn back to her work. Whatever it was that had brought Natasha in here wasn't just friendship, however slowly that had grown between the physicist and the super-spy.
Jane's patience was rewarded when Natasha exhaled gustily. "I wanted to tell you, Jane, that Thor's not himself. I don't know if you've seen the same things. He seems almost desperate these days to do good, somewhere. Anywhere! He never stops bugging us, all of us! It's like he has a doomsday clock, ticking somewhere, driving him on and, well, let's face it: there's no keeping up with a Norse god on a normal day. When he's driven? It's impossible. I'm good, but not that good!"
Jane rolled her chair obliquely away from the desk full of papers, monitors and controls. With her hands on her knees, the petite brunette regarded the other woman with something approaching compassion. "You know I don't have any standing with the team, Natasha. And I'm sure that the Captain or Colonel Fury would have me 'confined to quarters' if I tried something to slow Thor down or distract him."
Natasha snorted with depressing elegance. "I'd like to see them try. Now Phil Coulson? He'd be more likely to set up a few roadblocks if you were deemed a problem, but I don't think they'd be able to keep you down for long, especially if Thor got wind. But they might try and cut back on your research funding, that's true. Not that that'd go anywhere: you'd show 'em!"
She settled her shoulders into the soft lounger as if to say that was that. Natasha, like Pepper, possessed boundless self-confidence. A little setback like losing a research stipend wouldn't slow those women down but Jane had been working for years to pursue her research into wormholes. Now that it was deemed "vital to national security", the funds were flowing, but she knew it was utterly dependent on the Avengers Initiative's backing. It wasn't easy for her to dismiss a possible threat to her studies as Natasha seemed to suggest.
Jane paused to regard her cluttered observatory with a mix of fierce possessiveness and weariness. "I think I'd die if I had to stop my research, even for a little while, although I am a bit stir-crazy staying here. There's only so much I can do in a lab, to be honest. I want to be here so that I can make the most of the time that Thor's here between missions, but I really need to get back to field work and my own observations-"
Natasha's eyes, which had drifted shut during Jane's rambling, snapped open and the lone female Avenger shot upright with a speed that was positively inhuman. "That's it," she breathed.
"What's it?" a startled Jane asked, clearly unnerved by Natasha's sudden shift from utter relaxation to perfect alert.
"You're going to take Thor on a road trip."
"Jane!" Thor exclaimed joyfully as he strode across the hanger, having leaped out of the Avengers' Quinjet with a jaunty ease that even Tony didn't try to emulate in his power-driven suit. Helmet removed, the billionaire inventor simply clattered down the steps at lightning speed while the rest of the team followed more sedately. They were all exhausted: their mission in the Caribbean having dragged on almost twenty hours longer than Natasha's blithe prediction.
Thor paid his weary teammates no heed. He was already level with Jane and picked her up in an exuberant hug, letting Mjolnir drop beside him on the metallic floor of the enclosed flight deck without a thought for the muted thunder that resulted.
"Hey, big guy, careful," Clint advised, as he walked past them toward the stairs, wending down to the living quarters that all of the Avengers enjoyed at the base. "The suits will crawl all over us if you make another hole in the flight deck."
Thor frowned thoughtfully, glancing down to ensure that his hammer had done no harm and then lifting it easily. The deck appeared slightly dented, but otherwise intact, so his brow quickly unfurrowed. "Thank you for the reminder, friend Clint, and goodnight!"
"No debriefing?" Jane asked as Thor cupped her elbow with one hand and led her toward the same staircase that had already swallowed Hawkeye.
"No, Colonel Fury was on the flight with us. I believe he has only Natasha to speak with tonight since she came back on her own, but the rest of us are clear for the evening," Thor advised with a relaxed smile. "I battled some strange beasts today - what did the Captain call them? - I can’t remember the word, but Tony said it meant ‘Thunder Lizards’?"
Jane stopped in her tracks. Thor considerately stopped as well so he didn’t pull her off her feet as she stared, gape-mouthed at him. "You mean dinosaurs?"
Thor nodded proudly. "They were mighty foes, worthy of the skalds. Bruce stayed behind with some of the SHIELD agents. He said he wanted to know more of how they made these mighty creatures!"
Jane regained her balance and her forward momentum with a bemused shake of her head. Dinosaurs! Superhero scientists. All in a day's work for the Avengers.
"Are you heading back to Asgard anytime soon?" Jane essayed carefully as they made their way around another been in the staircase.
Thor shook his head as he clattered down a few steps ahead of her and waited on the landing. "No, I have no need to visit any time soon. Why do you ask?"
Jane made her way down the steps to join him on the quiet, dimly-lit landing. "Because I'm afraid if you return to Asgard, you might never return to earth. The wormhole, it's destabilizing and becoming unpredictable. You could be hurt or die, torn apart by the forces of the Einstein-Rosen bridge if it collapses."
Thor laughed, utterly relaxed. He put his free hand on her cheek in fond indulgence. "Do not waste your time in worry! I tell you, Jane, I am in no danger."
She tilted her head doubtfully at this claim "That's not what Sif said when we picked her up in Mexico. She said that Bifrost had never been this unstable in all the annals of Asgard. She said that even with Loki's magic or your strength, there was no saying that the passage would be safe."
Thor's brow darkened as he shoved the door labeled '90'. "She said that, did she?" He seemed less intimidated by the pronouncement than irked that his friend would doubt his fortitude, Jane noted with some amusement but also with a tinge of fear. Her beloved might be a god, but she'd seen him die once and she never wanted to see anything half as terrifying again.
They were in the lower corridor now where several apartments were set aside for the team members. The suite that Thor and Jane shared opened as they came within the range of the ever-present sensors. Thor placed his hammer on a specially reinforced stand near the entrance after the doors closed smoothly behind them.
As Thor pulled her close for a passionate kiss, she thanked the heavens and Pepper Potts that Tony had helped all the Avengers find a modicum of privacy in their personal apartments. All of the monitoring and listening devices stopped at the door, so Jane could return her lover’s embrace without fear that some SHIELD agent was watching in a fit of voyeurism.
Before she gave herself over entirely to his eager attentions and made a few demands herself, Jane made a mental note to ask Pepper if Tony had a mobile version of the device. If she was going to be taking Thor on the road, she doubted he’d forego any personal ‘fun and games’ for however long it took to solve the Bifrost problem and give the rest of his teammates a break. He certainly wasn’t above giving any of the SHIELD bigwigs a piece of his mind about the whole invasion of privacy that such oversight occasioned.
But further thought of technology or the other Avengers went out of her head as Thor lifted her into his arms, cradling her easily against his chest. "Missed you," she whispered huskily as she laid her hands on either side of his face, staring searchingly into his eyes that regarded her with a seriousness she rarely saw.
"I would go to Hel and back for you, Jane Foster," Thor vowed with an intensity that shook her to the core, not just because of the emotions it stirred, but because of the fear it suggested.
He's as afraid as I am of the Bifrost becoming unusable, of having to return to Asgard forever,, Jane realized.
"I hope you never have to," she breathed, before kissing him fiercely, seeking to drive all their fears far away as they focused on each other.
Manhattan's night sky was never dark but as a heavy storm broke over the city, the driving rain dimmed even the brightest of neon signs. It was some point in the middle of the night when thunder began to rumble an ominous counterpoint to the staccato beat of the rain.
Thor lazily blinked his eyes open as a flash of electricity shot out of the heavens to the streets below. A car alarm beeped a distant and plaintive lament as the god of thunder levered himself off the bed and strode to the broad plates of glass at the balcony window.
Again, lightning shot out of the sky in a dazzling display of raw power and linked the street far below to the lowering clouds. The crack of thunder that followed immediately after was enough to disturb Jane, who rolled over, mumbling in her sleep. Thor, seeing her slip back into deeper sleep, sighed to himself.
As the clouds roiled high above the city, Thor placed one hand against the glass. The lightning flared once more only this time it seemed to be pulled into his open hand as he absorbed the powerful forces of nature. In that moment, the storm suddenly slackened.
As a gentle rain rushed against the window, he dropped his forehead until it touched the cool glass. "I understand," Thor whispered. With a heavy heart, Thor turned away from the window and the grey night sky.
Chapter Two
X-posted from Dreamwidth. (
comments there.)
Pairing(s): Jane/Thor, implied Loki/Sif
Word Count: 33500 (10 chapters)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Beta: pathstotread
Summary: The Bifrost is no longer broken but is becoming unpredictable: delivering its travellers far afield of the landing site where Thor had first appeared. With the link between Midgard and Asgard at risk, Jane and Thor have to find a way to restore stability to the wormhole or risk being separated forever. All of the Avengers lend a hand, but in the end, will it be enough?
Author's notes: I have taken some liberties with the histories of aurora observations, Norse myths and even elements from the Marvel universe which, of course, does not belong to me. Thanks to red_b_rackham for the fabulous art and my beta for doing her best to help fix my story's gaping holes as I madly wrote up until the last few hours! Also available on Archive of Our Own.
Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile--the Winds--
To a Heart in port--
Done with the Compass--
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor--Tonight--
In Thee! (Emily Dickinson)
The cold, dark depths of the North Atlantic hide a wealth of mysteries. Nearing the treacherous waters off of Sable Island, a host of shipwrecks have scattered debris across the ocean bottom. Lengths of wood and brittle bits of iron mingle with the sand and ground-down shells, rolling against the rocks.
As the tides shifted the sands, they revealed treasures. Heavier storms scoured much of the sea bottom close to the island, turning up driftwood to fill the beach and smooth pieces of beachglass to charm collectors.
Much more lay hidden by the furious winds and tides. Still trapped under the water, an artifact nestled in the sand flickered green and unearthly flashes of light. A rainbow flare across the sky shimmered and wavered in response, warped by forces invisible to the mortal eye.
"It's not good," Jane admitted to her former assistant over the flickering Skype connection. Darcy, hundreds of miles away in her studio apartment for her final semester at Culver, grimaced in sympathy.
"Do you have any ideas?" the younger woman asked, leaning forward so that her face nearly filled the pixelated screen.
Jane laughed with a slightly bitter edge. "If I did, it would be good. This is not good."
"I get it," Darcy replied. "Does Erik have any ideas?"
Jane shook her head in sharp negation at the mention of her old mentor. "No, although he's promised to go back through some of his old research notes from the 80s. He says there was something about wandering stellar phenomena that might be useful but I'm not so sure. Anyway, since they resolved that whole Loki-possession, he’s a bit careful about getting too involved in my crazy stuff.”
She looked down at Erik Selvig’s shakily scrawled notes on the margins of one of her worksheets, tracing the faltering letters with a regretful touch of her own fingers. Her friend had been badly shaken by that supernatural event. Even though the newly-formed Avengers team had blocked Loki’s bid to steal the Cosmic Cube, Erik had been collateral damage. The aging physicist now sought to steer clear of SHIELD, even if it meant withdrawing from the research he’d so eagerly supported Jane in pursuing just months before.
When Jane lifted her head to meet Darcy’s gaze via the webcam, she suspected her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Smiling brightly to counter that betrayal, Jane shoved the papers to one side. “Anyway, there’s a whole team of SHIELD scientists working on this, too. I’m hardly alone in wanting to figure out why the Asgard landing site has started shifting again. After all, with all that work that went into building the SHIELD security annex, there, it’s more than a little embarrassing to have visiting Asgardians show up fifty or more miles away from where Director Fury and his team are waiting to greet them!”
Darcy barked out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re kidding me! That far, really?”
Jane nodded. “It wasn’t so funny at the time but the Warriors Three took it as a bit of a joke. Fandral was telling Volstagg it was because his ‘massive center of gravity’ warped the Bifrost or something. But we were all a little bit shocked and worried. What's worse is that these deviations are growing and what if they drop someone into a mountain range, all of a sudden? It could be bad.”
Darcy’s laughed faded off. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“So there’s talk that unless we can figure out what’s causing the problem in bringing people in from the wormhole, we might have to end travel for at least a little while. And you know what that means: Thor would be called back to Asgard, at least for the foreseeable future.”
Darcy boggled and reached forward instinctively, her fingers coming close to the webcam on her side. “Oh, no! Jane. . . . Could you go with him?”
Jane shook her head again, fiercely. “No, my work’s here. Thor has said that he could petition Odin to permit me to visit Asgard, but that's unprecedented. And, anyway, who do you think is going to solve this problem if I’m on the other side of the galaxy?”
“Not me,” Darcy admitted. “And probably not anyone else, despite all those fancy-pants SHIELD scientists.”
Jane grinned, pleased that her former intern still had a clear sense of loyalty. “You’re right. So, if you’ll excuse me? I need to get back to running some calculations. Thor and the others are off on another mission-”
“Again?” Darcy asked incredulously. “They never stop!”
“And a good thing, too,” the older woman insisted. “You don’t want to know what they saved us from last week.”
Darcy’s eyes widened then suddenly closed as she leaned precariously back in her chair. “Whoa. Stop right there: I’m pretty sure that this secure channel isn’t secure enough for that information.”
Jane looked around the quiet lab that Nick Fury's staff had provided her when the Avengers had established their New York City headquarters. She was pretty sure that every bit of electronics was routed through something the taciturn Phil Coulson and his team monitored. “You’re right, of course,” Jane admitted.
“Always am,” Darcy cheerfully replied, “and so I’m especially right when I say that I won’t be graduating in May if I don’t finish preparing for my seminar presentation tomorrow morning and I don't line up another research internship!”
Jane winced. “I’d hardly be a good academic if I kept you from your work. Talk to you soon!”
The computer window faded out and Jane leaned back contemplatively in her own chair. The lab that SHIELD had provided her gave her so many resources and tools she’d only dreamed of as a poor post-doc. Heck, she even had a Manhattan parking space for her disreputable wreck of a van, not that she got to use it very much.
That was especially the case in the last few months as the wormhole had revealed a new instability. No one had much cared about the minor shifts from the landing site that Jane had originally discovered when a handsome, half-dressed Thor had dazedly landed in front of their careening research vehicle. A few yards here, a hundred metres there, these were all well within a margin of error, or so Jane and the others had assured themselves, until one trip by Sif had ended up with her three miles from the prepared site. Further landings had only gone further and further astray.
What was most alarming was that none of their other-worldly visitors could supply any suggestions for why the Bifrost they so routinely travelled had suddenly become unreliable. Thor returned from Asgard no wiser for seeking interviews with soothsayers and the archivists who kept records. Consultation with Heimdall, he reported, was equally disappointing. The other seven worlds of Yggdrasil showed no similar problems. This was a crisis affecting Midgard and Midgard alone, he concluded.
Implicit in his explanation was Odin's disinterest in the problem. Thor's ongoing absense from Asgard strained the king's patience and anything that interfered with free transit between the realms only concerned the Asgardian ruler insofar as he could convince Thor to give up his connections to Earth. The only way a solution would be found was through the ingenuity of the Avengers Initiative and their friends.
Five meetings had been held among the SHIELD scientists and administrators, the last chaired by Director Fury himself who’d stood up after half an hour of fruitless speculation to loom over the assembled scientists. “Look, I don’t care if it’s the Loch Ness Monster at work, but you all need to get working on a solution to this problem. We don’t want our next distinguished visitor from Asgard to end up at the bottom of the Marinas Trench or in an active volcano. Figure out what’s the problem and fix it - NOW!”
Jane and the others had nodded their understanding but Jane, alone, heard the rest of Nick Fury’s unspoken warning as he levelled a worried look in her direction. They both knew that Thor wouldn't be able to stay on Earth if this problem went unresolved.
That worry kept her working almost nonstop in her lab, commandeering hours on a number of wildly expensive telescopic arrays, searching deep into the heavens in hopes of finding a solution. Thor and the other Avengers were kept busy travelling the globe, battling menaces that Jane didn’t even want to know about, especially after seeing Captain America come back bloodied and supported by two of his comrades after a fight that the others refused to discuss.
Whatever she did back in her lab, whatever the Avengers did out in the world, none of it seemed to offer the faintest hope that it would solve the problem that threatened the fragile link that the Bifrost bridge made between Asgard and Earth, allowing Jane and Thor to be together. And whether or not the feeling was selfish, it was that fear, in particular, that kept Jane pushing relentlessly to solve this mystery.
Late one night in the Avengers' midtown headquarters, Jane’s lab door opened with a bang. It was a testament to how focused or possibly, how weary, the young physicist was, that she didn’t even turn to look at who’d entered. Of course, if it were Thor, he’d have already called out her name as he loped across the crowded research space. Given the high level of security, it wouldn’t be anyone who wasn’t cleared six ways from Sunday by Phil Coulson and the other SHIELD agents who maintained a constant watch on the site. That left only the other Avengers or people like Jane, who’d somehow attached themselves to one individual or the other.
Jane thought about looking up from her calculations but decided against it. Her search continued to come up against one dead end after another. If it was some sort of ninja infiltrator, at least it’d be a change from hours spent trying to discover a solution to the wandering wormhole egress, or so she said to herself.
But the very silence after the door clattered open was a sign in and of itself. Only one person in the Avengers Initiative was capable of such stealth: Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow. The superlative spy could have entered without a sound, just as she crossed the room without a whisper. Tony Stark might bluster in or even zoom into the room with whistling jets powering his armor as he’d done one slightly crazy Friday evening after a big ‘do at Stark Industries. Captain America and Hawkeye were quiet but never silent, both stopping to knock at the closed door in studied courtesy, and Bruce Banner, when he was himself, was given away by his eagerness to discuss whatever scientific thoughts he’d wanted to share with Jane. Thor could never enter without calling out to her. Banging the door open, then silently entering, was Natasha’s way of letting Jane know it was her and only her.
Jane's thought processes were confirmed when Natasha dropped wearily into the leather lounger parked next to Jane's radio telescope control center. The seat made it possible for Jane to grab a few hours of shut-eye during a long set of remote observations. A staggering array of images and data points scrolled across the multiple screens while Jane’s fingers flew across the keyboard, programming in a new series of inquiries for far-flung observatories to run. "Ugh," was all the intruder said as her auburn curls splayed out against the soft headrest of the chair.
Jane looked up from sheets of printouts she’d consulted in order to set up the latest set of observations, a smile dancing on her lips. "That bad?" the physicist asked.
"Worse," the Black Widow replied, rolling her eyes. "I came ahead of the boys since I finished my part of the mission early: my job was to get the coordinates out of some megalomaniac's secure facility. They're off to scout out whatever his goons are guarding there."
Jane glanced at the monitor and saw that it was well past eleven, New York time. "They've been gone awhile. Where are they?"
Natasha waved one hand airily. "It's off in the Caribbean. Steve reported in that they'd landed a couple of hours ago so hopefully they'll be done soon."
She bit her lip and Jane resisted the urge to simply turn back to her work. Whatever it was that had brought Natasha in here wasn't just friendship, however slowly that had grown between the physicist and the super-spy.
Jane's patience was rewarded when Natasha exhaled gustily. "I wanted to tell you, Jane, that Thor's not himself. I don't know if you've seen the same things. He seems almost desperate these days to do good, somewhere. Anywhere! He never stops bugging us, all of us! It's like he has a doomsday clock, ticking somewhere, driving him on and, well, let's face it: there's no keeping up with a Norse god on a normal day. When he's driven? It's impossible. I'm good, but not that good!"
Jane rolled her chair obliquely away from the desk full of papers, monitors and controls. With her hands on her knees, the petite brunette regarded the other woman with something approaching compassion. "You know I don't have any standing with the team, Natasha. And I'm sure that the Captain or Colonel Fury would have me 'confined to quarters' if I tried something to slow Thor down or distract him."
Natasha snorted with depressing elegance. "I'd like to see them try. Now Phil Coulson? He'd be more likely to set up a few roadblocks if you were deemed a problem, but I don't think they'd be able to keep you down for long, especially if Thor got wind. But they might try and cut back on your research funding, that's true. Not that that'd go anywhere: you'd show 'em!"
She settled her shoulders into the soft lounger as if to say that was that. Natasha, like Pepper, possessed boundless self-confidence. A little setback like losing a research stipend wouldn't slow those women down but Jane had been working for years to pursue her research into wormholes. Now that it was deemed "vital to national security", the funds were flowing, but she knew it was utterly dependent on the Avengers Initiative's backing. It wasn't easy for her to dismiss a possible threat to her studies as Natasha seemed to suggest.
Jane paused to regard her cluttered observatory with a mix of fierce possessiveness and weariness. "I think I'd die if I had to stop my research, even for a little while, although I am a bit stir-crazy staying here. There's only so much I can do in a lab, to be honest. I want to be here so that I can make the most of the time that Thor's here between missions, but I really need to get back to field work and my own observations-"
Natasha's eyes, which had drifted shut during Jane's rambling, snapped open and the lone female Avenger shot upright with a speed that was positively inhuman. "That's it," she breathed.
"What's it?" a startled Jane asked, clearly unnerved by Natasha's sudden shift from utter relaxation to perfect alert.
"You're going to take Thor on a road trip."
"Jane!" Thor exclaimed joyfully as he strode across the hanger, having leaped out of the Avengers' Quinjet with a jaunty ease that even Tony didn't try to emulate in his power-driven suit. Helmet removed, the billionaire inventor simply clattered down the steps at lightning speed while the rest of the team followed more sedately. They were all exhausted: their mission in the Caribbean having dragged on almost twenty hours longer than Natasha's blithe prediction.
Thor paid his weary teammates no heed. He was already level with Jane and picked her up in an exuberant hug, letting Mjolnir drop beside him on the metallic floor of the enclosed flight deck without a thought for the muted thunder that resulted.
"Hey, big guy, careful," Clint advised, as he walked past them toward the stairs, wending down to the living quarters that all of the Avengers enjoyed at the base. "The suits will crawl all over us if you make another hole in the flight deck."
Thor frowned thoughtfully, glancing down to ensure that his hammer had done no harm and then lifting it easily. The deck appeared slightly dented, but otherwise intact, so his brow quickly unfurrowed. "Thank you for the reminder, friend Clint, and goodnight!"
"No debriefing?" Jane asked as Thor cupped her elbow with one hand and led her toward the same staircase that had already swallowed Hawkeye.
"No, Colonel Fury was on the flight with us. I believe he has only Natasha to speak with tonight since she came back on her own, but the rest of us are clear for the evening," Thor advised with a relaxed smile. "I battled some strange beasts today - what did the Captain call them? - I can’t remember the word, but Tony said it meant ‘Thunder Lizards’?"
Jane stopped in her tracks. Thor considerately stopped as well so he didn’t pull her off her feet as she stared, gape-mouthed at him. "You mean dinosaurs?"
Thor nodded proudly. "They were mighty foes, worthy of the skalds. Bruce stayed behind with some of the SHIELD agents. He said he wanted to know more of how they made these mighty creatures!"
Jane regained her balance and her forward momentum with a bemused shake of her head. Dinosaurs! Superhero scientists. All in a day's work for the Avengers.
"Are you heading back to Asgard anytime soon?" Jane essayed carefully as they made their way around another been in the staircase.
Thor shook his head as he clattered down a few steps ahead of her and waited on the landing. "No, I have no need to visit any time soon. Why do you ask?"
Jane made her way down the steps to join him on the quiet, dimly-lit landing. "Because I'm afraid if you return to Asgard, you might never return to earth. The wormhole, it's destabilizing and becoming unpredictable. You could be hurt or die, torn apart by the forces of the Einstein-Rosen bridge if it collapses."
Thor laughed, utterly relaxed. He put his free hand on her cheek in fond indulgence. "Do not waste your time in worry! I tell you, Jane, I am in no danger."
She tilted her head doubtfully at this claim "That's not what Sif said when we picked her up in Mexico. She said that Bifrost had never been this unstable in all the annals of Asgard. She said that even with Loki's magic or your strength, there was no saying that the passage would be safe."
Thor's brow darkened as he shoved the door labeled '90'. "She said that, did she?" He seemed less intimidated by the pronouncement than irked that his friend would doubt his fortitude, Jane noted with some amusement but also with a tinge of fear. Her beloved might be a god, but she'd seen him die once and she never wanted to see anything half as terrifying again.
They were in the lower corridor now where several apartments were set aside for the team members. The suite that Thor and Jane shared opened as they came within the range of the ever-present sensors. Thor placed his hammer on a specially reinforced stand near the entrance after the doors closed smoothly behind them.
As Thor pulled her close for a passionate kiss, she thanked the heavens and Pepper Potts that Tony had helped all the Avengers find a modicum of privacy in their personal apartments. All of the monitoring and listening devices stopped at the door, so Jane could return her lover’s embrace without fear that some SHIELD agent was watching in a fit of voyeurism.
Before she gave herself over entirely to his eager attentions and made a few demands herself, Jane made a mental note to ask Pepper if Tony had a mobile version of the device. If she was going to be taking Thor on the road, she doubted he’d forego any personal ‘fun and games’ for however long it took to solve the Bifrost problem and give the rest of his teammates a break. He certainly wasn’t above giving any of the SHIELD bigwigs a piece of his mind about the whole invasion of privacy that such oversight occasioned.
But further thought of technology or the other Avengers went out of her head as Thor lifted her into his arms, cradling her easily against his chest. "Missed you," she whispered huskily as she laid her hands on either side of his face, staring searchingly into his eyes that regarded her with a seriousness she rarely saw.
"I would go to Hel and back for you, Jane Foster," Thor vowed with an intensity that shook her to the core, not just because of the emotions it stirred, but because of the fear it suggested.
He's as afraid as I am of the Bifrost becoming unusable, of having to return to Asgard forever,, Jane realized.
"I hope you never have to," she breathed, before kissing him fiercely, seeking to drive all their fears far away as they focused on each other.
Manhattan's night sky was never dark but as a heavy storm broke over the city, the driving rain dimmed even the brightest of neon signs. It was some point in the middle of the night when thunder began to rumble an ominous counterpoint to the staccato beat of the rain.
Thor lazily blinked his eyes open as a flash of electricity shot out of the heavens to the streets below. A car alarm beeped a distant and plaintive lament as the god of thunder levered himself off the bed and strode to the broad plates of glass at the balcony window.
Again, lightning shot out of the sky in a dazzling display of raw power and linked the street far below to the lowering clouds. The crack of thunder that followed immediately after was enough to disturb Jane, who rolled over, mumbling in her sleep. Thor, seeing her slip back into deeper sleep, sighed to himself.
As the clouds roiled high above the city, Thor placed one hand against the glass. The lightning flared once more only this time it seemed to be pulled into his open hand as he absorbed the powerful forces of nature. In that moment, the storm suddenly slackened.
As a gentle rain rushed against the window, he dropped his forehead until it touched the cool glass. "I understand," Thor whispered. With a heavy heart, Thor turned away from the window and the grey night sky.
Chapter Two
X-posted from Dreamwidth. (
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