Chapter Text
When Jane was a child, she wanted to be an astronaut. Though the call of academia seduced her away from Space Camp, she never quite let go of that goal, even throughout all of high school, undergrad, and grad school. After she finally received her doctorate, she let herself indulge in that fantasy again - maybe, maybe if she works hard enough, if she makes herself stand out, she'll get the funding to go into space…
Well, she's worked her fingers to the bone, she sure as hell has stood out, but Jane still never expected anything as amazing as this. Having her research funded by billionaires, being swept up by a super-secret organization that bears the pulp sci-fi name of the Sentient World Observation and Response Department - not only that, having another super-secret organization squabbling with that one over who gets first dibs on her research - and being sat down and told, literally, to find gateways into alternate worlds other than the one she's already found? Jane's pretty sure she's playing the plucky protagonist in a science fiction novel, but she isn't going to argue. She's happier than a cat with the proverbial cream right now.
Sinking back into a cozy chair on the observation deck of the Peak VII research facility, Jane sighs happily and stares into space. Space stares back, stretching vast and black, pricked with stars. She's been here for months, ever since S.W.O.R.D. plucked her from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s clutches, but sometimes she still has a hard time wrapping her head around how near she's come to her childhood goal. She's not an astronaut, but she's damn close.
Putting her hand up to the viewing window, as if she could just jump up and sprint the light-years to the nearest star, Jane feels a smile tugging at her lips. Here, even though she knows it's misleading, she can almost see the brightly burning colors of each spectral type star, and the old mnemonic falls from her lips as if she hasn't been out of school for more than a day.
"Oh be a fine girl kiss me," she whispers, and the person who's crept up behind her says dryly, "Excuse me?"
"Oh!" Jane jumps, and turns, fire flooding her face as she grins at the woman standing there. "Sorry, hi, I was just reminiscing. Would you like to sit down?"
"I'm fine, thanks," Agent Brand says, the corner of her mouth quirked just a little in amusement. "But you might want to stand up; we've got something we think you should see."
If there's any surer way to catch Jane's attention, she can't think of any. Following Brand as the agent strides from the observation deck to the main promenade, Jane nibbles at her lip and reminds herself that there's no reason to be intimidated by the woman. Just because she's a certified genius half-alien, and has the green hair and sage-tinted skin to prove it, doesn't mean that Jane can't hold her own with her. After all, Jane is dating, or had once dated - okay, is in a long-distance quasi-relationship with, that sounds about right - a Norse god; she's gotten used to this stuff by now. More or less.
Speeding her pace to catch up with Brand's long strides, Jane tucks her hair out of her face and eyes Brand in silence. The two of them haven't had much cause to speak to each other since Jane's arrival, as Jane is just one of many half-crazy scientists living the dream on board the station and Brand is the head of the place, but Jane has been wanting to gush about the place to her since about her third day.
Finally, deciding that being overly appreciative is better than looking ungrateful, Jane says, "Agent, I just wanted to say thank you again for inviting me on board the station. If S.W.O.R.D. hadn't taken an interest in my research, I have no idea where I'd be - so much of it needed to be done in orbit, and I wouldn't have - "
"Hey, when Nick Fury has a toy, we always try to take it," Brand says, cheerfully antagonistic as she always seems to be whenever Fury is brought up. She guides Jane into one of the pods that serves as a multi-directional elevator, hits the button for the astronomy deck, and adds, "And trust me, Dr. Foster, we are very interested in your research."
Especially after what happened four years ago, Jane tacks on mentally. Closing bridges is just as important as opening them to you.
She's smart enough not to say anything, though, and even if she had been inclined to comment, she's immediately distracted by the herd of scientists milling around the corridor right outside the pod tube. One hails her, waving in greeting, and Jane tries to put a name to the face as she makes her way through the crowd, leaving Agent Brand behind.
"Hi," she says to the woman, tentatively placing her as Dr. Something Orizaga, an astronomer with an interest in xenobiology. "What's up?"
"We've spotted something," Orizaga says excitedly. "An object. Our equipment can't read it - the electromagnetic interference is off the charts, I've never seen anything like it - but from what we can see, it's been demonstrating behaviors that are…well, weird, frankly."
"Weird?" Jane asks, glancing over Orizaga's shoulder to the astrometry lab. Orizaga gestures her in. "My kind of weird?"
"Definitely your kind of weird," Orizaga confirms, indicating the sleek panels of instruments lining the walls and tables. "Check it out."
Jane bends to examine the output readings, taking a moment to run her fingers across the smooth, ergonomic lines of the machines. The stuff she builds herself is great, but this equipment is just gorgeous.
"Huh," she says in surprise, peering at the screens. "These gamma signatures are congruent with the ones Einstein-Rosen bridges emit, but the rest of it doesn't seem to match up." She frowns at the display, and pokes it with her index finger. "See, it's much stronger, and this additional radiation doesn't fit. And what even is this part, anyway?"
"We don't know," Orizaga says with a sigh, speaking the words every scientist both loves and hates to hear. "Like I said, weird. It's in a visual spectrum, so we've been peeking at it under all sorts of filters, but there's nothing out of the ordinary."
"Let's bring it up anyway," Jane decides, and steps aside to let Orizaga attune the instruments, making minute adjustments.
"Okay," Orizaga says after a moment. "Here it is."
She brings the visual onscreen, and Jane tilts her head in curiosity. Ordinary indeed; it's just a star, an O-type, incredibly bright and a pale blue bordering on white. No, not blue, violet, and not just bright, but utterly incandescent, far beyond what this equipment should be able to pick up. It's so beautiful, just like how her childhood self had imagined stars to be…
Something beeps, and Jane jolts out of her reverie, blinking away the lingering afterimages of the star. The thing is bright; she can't quite shake it off.
"Are you sure this is working?" she asks after she gets a good look at the readouts, her voice skeptical. "Because this is saying that the object's mass is lighter than the station!"
"That - this can't be," Orizaga says, cutting her off. She sounds strange, almost frightened. "This just isn't possible."
"Hey, it's not your fault, instruments fail all the time - oh my god!" Jane looks up, and gasps audibly, actually covering her mouth with her hands.
The object on the screen is moving.
It hurtles toward them at an incomprehensible speed, fast enough for its motion to be tracked on camera. Jane is gaping, and she's pretty sure Orizaga is, too. Behind them, she can hear a few other people talking in loud, excitable voices, but she can't take her eyes off the star. All the noise in the lab fades to the background, then drops away completely as the star grows closer, growing brighter, growing bigger, until its ultraviolet glare swamps Jane's vision and all she can hear is the soft hum of energy shooting through space more quickly than should be physically possible. This isn't normal, Jane knows, this shouldn't be happening, but her ears are ringing, she's clutching the display for support, and she can't close her eyes no matter how hard she tries, and the light is burning, burning -
"I don't understand," Orizaga is saying in frustration, her voice wobbling in and out of auditory range. Jane hears her, very faintly, but doesn't react. "It's actually losing mass as it comes closer! This just should not be possible!"
"Should we begin an evacuation of the station?" Agent Brand's cool voice. Jane doesn't catch the response. She finds herself leaning forward, pressing her palm to the viewscreen as if welcoming the light inside.
"Dr. Foster? What the hell do you think you're doing?" Brand yells, but Jane doesn't hear or care.
The star comes for her, speeding through the dark, passing through the walls of the station as if matter is nothing to it. Like a comet, it comes for her, and Jane knows she couldn't escape even if she wanted to.
The star aims straight for Jane's heart, and strikes home.
It's like an explosion, rattling her bones, shrieking through her spine and nervous system, and Jane throws back her head and screams. Every muscle and tendon in her body pulls to extremes, and she flings her arms wide, her back arching violently, her toes pointing like a ballerina's. Unearthly lights flow through her veins and arteries, her capillaries glittering with tiny stars, children of the one inside her, and Jane thinks dazedly that it looks like she has lightning in her blood. She screams, not because it hurts, but because it's too much, it's burning her up inside, it is so beautiful -
Everything contracts to a tiny point inside her chest, pulsing to the rhythm of her heart, and she thinks of black holes, of the ways matter and mass accrete until suddenly there is nowhere for them to go but through space, birthing a wormhole, creating a bridge -
And then her body quakes; a universe is born inside her heart, blooming under her skin. Jane closes her eyes, sees galaxies dancing upon her lids, and blacks out.
. . .
Half-asleep and scheming in a dimensional pocket far across the slopes, dunes, and swirls of space-time, Loki feels a thread of the universe slip out of place, then smooth back down. He sits bolt upright, instantly wide awake, and strains all his senses listening for more. When nothing else comes, he relaxes minutely. Breathing in careful patterns to slow his speeding heart, he spreads his long fingers before him, and sweeps them in a slow circle to summon a map of the realms. Nudging around its nooks and crannies with his magic, he searches for the source of such immense power, and finds it in the absolute last place he expects.
"Midgard?" he whispers, amazed.
Then again, he reminds himself, the realm has proven so rich with magicians, mutants, superheroes, and other witless mortals in the past few years that this should not, perhaps, come as a surprise. Shaking the map from his fingers, he folds his hands in his lap and sits in the dark silence for a long time, thinking.
There are few powers known to Loki in the Nine Realms that match his in intensity, and he has become intimately acquainted with all of them in his time. This one is not familiar, and thus cannot be any sorcerer's native magic; Loki refuses to believe that he has so blatantly overlooked a mage of such strength. No, some foolish mortal or idle godling gone slumming has stumbled upon a source of power beyond their reckoning, power they have no hope of controlling. In untrained hands, it could tear its wielder apart, and the realm along with it.
But if a wise sorcerer just so happened to take it from them, he could save lives; it would be an act of charity, really.
How nice for Midgard that Loki plans to do just that.
. . .
Jane is unconscious, but entirely awake.
She stands within her memory palace, crafted when she was in college to help her remember all the formulae and random bits of information the average physics major needs to know, but it isn't the familiar, basic route she remembers. The simple cobblestone hallway she created those years ago does indeed stretch off to her right, but this one takes a jagged turn where the old one usually ended. To her left, as well as behind her and in front of her, additional pathways with waist-high walls break away from the round plinth she stands upon, and twist in complicated, knotted paths, forming a perfect circle with Jane in the very center. She steps down from her pedestal and drifts toward the left-hand path. She has the idea that she should be more alarmed, but a calm, peaceful feeling has permeated her dream-self, and instead of panicking or questioning her surroundings like she normally would, she's content to just investigate.
There's a series of small doors embedded in the stone wall, and Jane kneels before them. None of them have handles or keyholes, but when Jane lays the tips of her fingers against one - not a random door, no, this one just feels right - it swings open.
"Curiouser and curiouser," she says, and laughs. Certain of her safety, for whatever strange reason, she crawls through the door into a room filled with violet-white light.
This is clearly the source of her tranquil state; as the light fills her vision, she closes her eyes and basks in it. It doesn't feel dangerous at all. In fact, it feels…curious. Yes, curious; it's definitely sapient, if at the most basic level, and Jane feels it nosing around her incorporeal body, curved beams of light cradling her gently. Jane holds still, and allows it to explore.
Whatever it finds delights it, and she thinks she can feel it humming like a purring cat. Without really leaving, it swirls through and around her, and out the little door she left open; when she follows it, she looks around with awe. It's taken up residence in every crevice of her memory palace, strands of violet sinking deep into the stone. Beautiful. Jane grins helplessly, overcome, and opens her hands to it; the light strokes her palms, a gentle, protective touch, and vibrates in pleasure.
And then she hears her name.
"Dr. Foster? Can you hear me?"
A voice she recognizes, a voice she can't ignore. Regretfully, she looks around at the memory palace and its new inhabitant, and says, "I have to go."
The light - sighs, that's the only term she can think of, but accepts her words, and suddenly the stones beneath her feet melt away, plunging her into an eerie darkness blacker than the depths of space. Fear rushes through her, but then a comforting force takes hold of her. She's pulled down - or is that up? - like a rock sinking, or a diver surfacing. Up (down), up (down), up she goes -
. . .
She comes to in what looks like a hospital room, but something about it pings her the wrong way. Groggy, she tries to sit up, but is brought up short by something: restraints on her wrists and upper arms, and wrapped around her thighs, too. They look like fabric, but have no give and grip as tight as metal cuffs.
"What," she croaks, and then, "Can I have some water?"
"Sure you can." It's Agent Brand by her bedside, bringing her a cup of water with a plastic straw. Jane drinks it greedily, and makes a sad noise when Brand pulls it away.
"Can't give you too much too soon, you're pretty dehydrated." Brand drags a chair over and sits beside the bed. "Nice to have you with us again."
"It's nice to be back," Jane says. She twitches within her restraints, plagued by a sudden itch on her cheek. "Can I please take these off?"
"In a minute. First I need to ask you some questions." Brand's tone is brisk, but strangely wary. "What are you working on, on board the Peak VII, Dr. Foster?"
"What?" Jane says again. She blinks, trying to clear her head, and continues slowly, "I'm searching for naturally-occurring, stable Einstein-Rosen bridges in deep space. For ways to travel to distant parts of the universe. You know that, it's why you brought me here."
"And what else are you searching for?"
"What?" Jane really needs to stop saying that. She frowns. "Nothing - what else would I be looking for?"
"Something thought you'd make a nice home for it," Brand says, gesturing to Jane's body. "Maybe that's what you were after."
Images of violet light in a stone-paved garden trickle through her mind, but they're unclear, and Jane doesn't know where they came from or why she's thinking of them.
"I don't know," she says, frustrated. "It just happened! I didn't plan it or anything." A thought strikes, and she tries to sit up again, defeated once more by her restraints. "I need those readouts. Did Orizaga make any progress trying to figure them out?"
Agent Brand ducks her head, looking uncomfortable, and clears her throat.
"Jane, Dr. Orizaga is dead."
Jane's jaw drops, and dizziness sweeps over her. Dead? Her mouth works, but she can't find anything to say. The woman who just a few hours ago was standing next to her, working with her, is dead?
"Whatever entered you caused a big enough electrical surge to fry all our equipment, as well as all the personnel in the room. Except you, of course," Brand says, going for soothing and missing by a mile. "I'm sorry, Jane. She was a valuable asset."
"She was more than an asset!" Jane cries out, and shuts her eyes tight, tears leaking from underneath her lashes. Dead. Orizaga is dead, she thinks. And it's my fault.
Brand is silent, but Jane can feel her eyes boring into her skull.
"I think we can take these off now," she says finally, and to Jane's surprise, the restraints detach themselves and slide into the bed like little snakes. Peak VII's technology was impressive, but she didn't remember anything like that on board.
"Where am I, anyway?" she asks, as much to get her mind off Orizaga as to satisfy her curiosity.
"You're in Pandora's Box," Brand says, and at Jane's expression, she adds, "It's essentially S.W.O.R.D.'s biohazard station, reinforced with the most advanced technology currently known to us, and sturdier than Earth itself. Nothing gets in or out without us knowing."
"You took me here because you thought I'd be a threat," Jane says in dawning realization. As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realizes their foolishness, and winces.
"You already were," Brand says, echoing Jane's thoughts. "Since you didn't ask, you didn't get badly hurt, though you're going to have a hell of a scar at the exit point. We're going to run tests, and if you're cleared for release, we'll let you out and see what this thing did to you."
Jane nods, unable to speak through the lump in her throat. She wants nothing more than to go to sleep, and to wake up to find this whole thing was a nightmare.
. . .
Loki stands on the observation platform of the bigger mortal craft, watching space with narrowed eyes. Somewhere close and cloaked from sight, the other facility revolves around the planet below in synchronized orbit with this one, and somewhere on that, the most potent power Loki has seen in centuries resides. Only their unexpectedly advanced technology prevents him from going there now and taking what rightfully belongs to him; unfortunately, a most complicated spell is necessary for the task, and Loki has had to wait for the thing to be completed for the past two weeks.
With nothing else to do, Loki has found himself growing bored and his temper growing ever sharper. This doesn't bode well for the mortals aboard, nor, frankly, for his disguise; Loki loves tricks of any kind, but not when he goes unacknowledged for his cleverness, and he can hardly take out his annoyance on the mortals while keeping his presence a secret. Of course, if he left, even to a place as close as Midgard, he would have a whole world with which to play.
Since that went so well the last time, he says to himself, and quashes the thought at once.
With an irritated snort, Loki turns from the viewing window and strides from the room, earning a few sideways glances from the mortals around him, though nothing else. He wears the shape and clothing of one of their own (the man he chose to imitate lovingly disposed of through an airlock), and none have guessed his true nature. On the whole, they are easy to deceive; most of them are scholars, not soldiers, and like most scholars they have no sense of danger unless it directly threatens their research. Loki was much the same when he was young, before Asgard demanded he give up his books for the sword, and he had to learn the one to defend his interest in the other. It gives him a certain level of sympathy with the sad creatures, though not enough to make him regret it if he has to destroy them in his bid to acquire the magic.
His thoughts drift back to Midgard. It has been nearly four years since last he set foot there, having developed an aversion to being caught in the middle of alien wars that he has, in essence, unwillingly brought down upon the place, and being subsequently imprisoned for it, but other than that, there are few disadvantages to staying there. Tracking the magic from the planet's surface would be a relatively easy feat, a bit more effort that this, but nothing he can't handle, and the amount of deluded do-gooders there offer him a vast pool of entertainment from which to pick and choose. Loki has no desire for a throne anymore; no, he craves something else entirely.
Somehow, however, he finds himself disinclined to leave. Something is keeping him here; something about the magic contained so close by is drawing him nearer, a magnetic force refusing to let him go. Loki does not like to be trapped, least of all by unidentifiable magic. And yet, here he remains.
His pacing takes him to his living quarters, originally owned by the mortal he evicted into outer space. They are small and spartan, but all Loki really requires to live is a bed, a bath, and a place to work, and the place serves his purpose well enough. Entering the room, he makes his way to the closet and pulls aside the magic draped like a veil over the doorway, hiding it from prying eyes. Inside, his shadow-cloak slowly revolves, coalescing into shape. It will be finished within hours, Loki estimates, and a thrill of anticipation runs through his stomach. When he slips it on, he will be utterly indistinguishable to both man and machine; the mortals will see whomever they expect to see, and none of their technology will detect a thing. Hopefully. Almost certainly. Loki hasn't actually had the opportunity to test it, but he's sure of his skills.
Settling on the floor in front of his closet, legs crossed, Loki rests his hands on his knees and shuts his eyes. Tilting his head back, he looks deep inside himself. His magic rises around him, enveloping him in a deep green mist, and Loki sighs, relaxing into it.
All sorcerers see the core of their magic differently. Loki has known dwarven mages whose gifts with metal and stone were housed in giant caves crafted in the depths of their minds, and priests of Álfheim with their magic laced through the trees of their mind-bowers. An acquaintance of his keeps hers sequestered in a lusciously appointed bedroom, woven into the plush carpets and soft sheets. Once, Loki's core was centered in a stone circle in the heart of a forest rimed with winter's frost (Loki has spent four years avoiding the implications of that), and he used to spend days at a time wandering its paths, constantly discovering new powers, new uses for his magic. Now…
Now Loki hangs in perfect emptiness, somewhere darker than any lack of light could be and stiller than the Void, but his magic comes for him even in that lonely place. Wrapped in its embrace, Loki allows himself a measure of relaxation, feeling safer here than he can remember feeling since - well. It matters not.
In the waking world, Loki might have flinched at those memories, but here in his core, he can neither see nor hear unless he wishes it, and he emphatically does not wish it. Thus he is spared any recollections his restless mind may have dredged up. Here, he can have peace.
Loki rests.
He rests.
And then he is brought sharply and unpleasantly back to the physical world, as two things scream for his attention.
Stumbling to his feet, Loki drags his hands through his hair and tries to shake himself alert. His shadow-cloak has finished forming, he sees, and it hangs shimmering in the closet, ready for use. As for the second alarm…Loki pauses, concentrating hard, but whatever it was is fading rapidly - no! There it is again, a flare of energy that bites at his senses in a way both pleasurable and painful. On the other vessel, the bearer of the magic is fooling around with it again. What perfect timing.
Loki smirks, and sweeps the cloak around his shoulders, feeling it sink into his skin with a tingle. His meditation did him good; he feels better than he has in days, sharper, swifter.
Sneaking on board the other vessel is deplorably simple, and Loki spares a moment to congratulate himself on a spell skillfully cast. He has time - his quarry seldom spends less than an hour playing with their gifts - so he allows himself to indulge in mischief, meandering the halls, purposefully getting in people's way. It's a little thing, but Loki finds petty amusement in gaining no reaction from any of them; their gazes slide off him, looking through him, and any who do pause dismiss him immediately as inconsequential. Evidently his spell was successful, as he expected. Skirting a mortal man in the corridor, Loki snaps his fingers and the man trips, a victim of unstable airflow. He notices nothing. A sardonic smile curls Loki's lips; still oblivious, even on a ship with a reputation for paranoia. Ah, mortals. He's half-tempted to give them a real show, just to prove he can, but Loki likes to think he has a bit more sense than that.
He's forced to pause several times in front of complicated locking mechanisms, taking a few seconds to decipher their coding and break them. The lock directly outside his destination is the trickiest; whoever designed it was clever, and Loki doubts he could create a stronger ward himself if deprived of magic and Asgardian materials. But they cannot outsmart Loki, and after just a minute or two the door swings open. Loki enters, an incantation on his lips and a spell at his fingertips.
" - you've got this under control, maybe we can send you planetside," a woman says to another; Loki only catches the end of her sentence. She is clearly not from Midgard, though she wears the dress of one of their warriors, while the other woman is just as clearly Midgardian by birth, most likely one of the many scholars on this vessel.
"Maybe back to Puente Antiguo," the warrior's companion suggests in a terribly familiar voice. Loki struggles to place it as she continues. "I still have my old research station there, and it's only a half-hour drive until you're out of sight of civilization completely, so no one would get hurt. It's ideal!"
From her comes the overwhelming presence of magic, and Loki closes his eyes, reveling in it.
"Who are you?"
The sharp voice cuts into his thoughts, and Loki's eyes snap open. The alien woman is glaring at him, displeased, and Loki experiences a moment of panic - his spell doesn't work especially well on non-humans, it seems - but his easy smile comes quickly, and he slathers on the charm.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, Agent," he says smoothly. "Director Fury is on the line. He says it's urgent."
Her eyes narrow. "I spoke to Nick just a few hours ago. What's got him in such a hurry?"
Damn. It was such a good excuse, too.
"I have no idea," he apologizes. "I imagine it's confidential."
His eyes flick to the other woman, who's turned to face him, an inquiring expression on her face and magic sparking in her eyes. At the sight of her, Loki's world tilts. Her eyes. Her face. Loki does know this woman. Loki spent days staring down at her from the Bifröst, wondering what about her could possible intrigue Asgard's golden prince so much that he would change from the brutish man Loki had known all his life simply to be by her side.
"Jane Foster?" he asks, his voice rising to a near shout. He controls himself quickly, and adds, "I believe it's about Jane Foster."
"Really?" Jane asks, her tone lilting upward. Behind her, the alien agent is speaking furtively into her wrists, undoubtedly summoning reinforcements. Loki needs to work quickly. He steps forward and holds out his hand.
"I'm Agent Golmen," he says, plucking a name at random from the air. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Jane Foster, but I guess you already knew that." She doesn't take his hand. Something flickers in her doe-like eyes; suspicion, he thinks. He forgets that she is a scholar of note; she may not be as easy to mislead as the others.
Loki is rapidly growing annoyed with the whole situation. Tired of playing polite, he steps forward and grabs her hand. She yelps indignantly and tries to pull away, but he holds her fast, twining tendrils of magic inside her, searching for her core, and then -
Something surges within him, an uncontrollable outpouring of magic from deep within him, taking him by surprise. It's not natural, he isn't doing it - she's summoning his magic somehow. How dare she?
"What are you doing?" he shouts, his voice cracking.
"I don't know!" Jane cries out, panicked. His magic floods through his body, sizzling down his arms with all the violence of a death spell, and connects with Jane's magic at their clasped palms, bursting into brilliant, blinding light. Loki bites down hard on his tongue to keep silent, and Jane shrieks; and suddenly, terrifyingly, Loki feels Jane's magic in him, coursing along the routes his native powers always take. It's indescribable, intolerable, invasive, she is in his veins and beneath his tongue and inside his mind (not again, he chants in his head, possibly out loud, not again, I can't take this again), and for a brief moment, when Loki shuts his eyes, he can see a stone pavilion that echoes the one he once had in his core, violet light entwined with vines around knee-high walls. He finds himself leaning heavily into her, his body unable to support itself, and then, just as quickly as the sorcery overtook him, it ceases.
Loki flings Jane's hand away from his and staggers back, breathing heavily. Jane falls to the ground and stays there, sprawled on her back and staring at him with wide eyes; the agent has her gun out, aiming at his forehead. She's speaking, but Loki can't take his eyes off Jane.
"What was that?" she asks incredulously, and Loki swallows hard.
"I - " His mind whirls. All lies and smooth falsehoods have dropped from his tongue; he's drunk from the flood of magic through his system. He can't think. He has to get out of here. "I don't know, I don't."
Loki turns tail and flees, shouting an incantation as he goes - a blunt-force memory spell, roughly equivalent to smashing a nail with Mjölnir, but effective. As he runs, he teleports, the world dissolving behind him.
And as the world reinstates itself around him, Loki keeps moving, and runs headlong into a brick wall.
This is really not his day.
. . .
Jane stares down at her hands, her brow creased in confusion. As her mind clears, she tries to sort out events: she was in Pandora's Box, she had something inside her…magic? Yes, she analyzed the energy signatures, and she can envision the results now: they matched almost exactly to the signatures of the one other Asgardian sorcerer in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database. She was practicing with it, learning to control it, sort of, and then…
She wasn't alone. Jane whips around, and sees Agent Brand in a crumpled heap on the floor.
"Abigail!" she cries out, dropping to her knees beside her.
"We on a first name basis, now?" Brand groans, rolling over. She shields her eyes from the light of the gym with one hand.
"We have been for weeks," Jane says, still decidedly confused. "Haven't we?"
Brand props herself up on her elbows.
"Yeah," she says slowly. "Yeah, we have. I remember now. What the hell happened?"
Jane looks around, scolding herself for forgetting to do so earlier. There's a scorch mark on the floor about fifteen feet away from them, and the ozone scent of what she's learned is magic hangs in the air. That's it.
"I think I exploded," she says doubtfully. The explanation just feels wrong, but she can't think of anything else. "My magic just went haywire or something."
"We'll have to check the cameras," Brand says, and Jane winces. Technology and magic don't go well together, she's figured out. Brand catches her meaning, and sighs heavily, pushing herself to her feet.
"Sorry," Jane says meekly, feeling stupid.
"It's not your fault," Brand says resignedly, the same words she's been saying since Jane was struck by the star in the first place. She holds her wrist to her mouth and speaks into her receiver, and when no reply comes, she mutters something in her native language that sounds extremely nasty.
"When Thor gets here, he can help me figure this out," Jane reassures her, planting her hands firmly on her hips. Her voice is firm, mostly because she genuinely thinks he'll be able to help her, but also because she needs to boost her confidence a little. She and Brand sent word to S.H.I.E.L.D. ages ago, and they presumably contacted Asgard. What's taking Thor so long?