42Disclaimer: Nothing from this Marvelous universe is mine.
Summary: Written for a prompt on Norsekink.
Either light or dark, a fic where Loki saves Jane from some kind of danger (may or may not be his doing), because he hates his brother, but not that much.
+10 if Thor realizes this.
+100 if Frigga's the one who tells him.
+1000 if it ends with Thor bear-hugging Loki.
It was you
"Darcy I need you to look up the radial distribution of helium," Jane said, one hand on the wheel, the other on her mobile phone.
Usually she wouldn't be doing this. But the roads were empty and she needed to get the data because that storm wasn't natural. Besides, who travelled at 11:00pm outside the city anyway?
"Dude, I'm political science. I'm not a real number-crunching geek scientist!"
"Then get someone on hand that is! I need that number. Now."
"... I'll call you back," Darcy groaned, disconnecting the call.
Jane looked down at the dead phone and glared at the little box.
"I needed those numbers yesterday," she muttered, tossing it onto the passenger seat.
She had one moment to register the truck turning in from a side road before her world descended into screaming, burning white.
OoOoOoOoO
She was floating. Half aware. Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe this was it. An eternity of this until forever. She didn't want this to be it. She had research. Planning. She had Thor.
And besides, wasn't the after-life supposed to be pain-free?
She could feel the pain building in her arms. Her back. Her stomach. Not unbearable. Not yet. But heavy with the promise of worse to come. She tried to rise, and whimpered involuntarily. Maybe she should have opened her eyes first...
There was a voice speaking, somewhere distant.
"No I... very much so... fragile... Yes, but hardly that much, and..." it said.
It was smooth and clipped and vaguely familiar. She decided to focus on what sounded like one half of a phone call and allowed herself to be lulled gently into the painless black.
OoOoOoOoO
She awoke to a piercing peep-beep and the scent of hospital disinfectant.
Someone was sitting next to the bed, dozing. Thor. Thor was here. He stirred as she shifted and his tired blue eyes were filled with a mix of fierce protectiveness and joy that made her blush like a schoolgirl.
"Jane," he said, "Jane."
And then he reached for her and wrapped his arms about her and she wondered if she should tell him to watch out for the drip but decided she was enjoying this too much to care.
"I thought... when I beheld the burnt wreckage of your metal carriage and you were nowhere, I feared the worst," he said into her hair.
A lump in her throat obstructed words, so she settled for holding him tighter.
"But you had been taken here. I do not know who called the device, the 'ambuelance' which brought you here, but to them I owe a debt I can never repay."
She clutches him. Close. So close to losing everything. Vague remembrance formed. But it was a dream. Of course it was, because she was taken to hospital so she can't have been resting in someone's home on someone's couch.
So she said nothing.
OoOoOoOoO
That week, when she had gone home, Thor asked her to marry him.
"I love you, Lady Jane. I know you are mortal, and I am not, but I would not waste our time together. Not now. I would have you by my side and stand by yours for as long as you will have me, if it pleases you."
He was so sincere, so loving, she felt her heart constrict with tenderness.
"Yes. Yes."
OoOoOoOoO
They were married in Asgard.
Odin performed the ceremony with a couple of pointed clauses like "you realise you will grow old and die and my son will not" but afterwards Thor's mother, Frigga, told her she would make a fine mother and an excellent daughter-in-law.
And then there was feasting and more feasting; fruits, breads, cakes. And the ever-flowing honey-mead wine.
At first she didn't register that she'd been addressed. In her defence, Thor was talking to her about customs, the bifrost and the stars. Until, suddenly, he wasn't. He wasn't even looking at her. No, his eyes were fixed on someone else. She followed his eyeline and found herself growing cold.
Tall, dark and gaunt, Loki was every inch as villainous as he had been on earth. The armor was a little more ornate; the clever eyes a little less insane. But still. The hall went suddenly quiet.
Why couldn't you give us one day, this day, without spoiling it?
Frigga's eyes were a little teary. A vein was throbbing in Odin's temple. But nobody moved.
"I said, congratulations my not-sister. He's an oaf, but a loyal one. You will, I think, be happy."
That voice. She paled. That voice.
And then he made a strange gesture. A shallow bow, one hand splayed ceremonially across his chest. Whatever it meant, it was clearly not a bad thing because suddenly Thor was saying brother in a choked voice and Frigga knocked the feasting bench flying as she shrieked "Loki" and enveloped him in a crushing hug.
He flushed, groaned, and wrapped his arms about her.
"This is highly undignified, mother. Not to mention bad policy."
"This is my son's wedding, darling. Politics will be set aside on this day. And as for undignified, I seem to recall another wedding with goats-,"
Thor let out a snort before he could stop himself.
"Yes, mother, quite," Loki interrupted hastily, "You know, I really didn't intend to stay long," he added when Frigga showed no sign of letting go, "I wanted to mark the occasion rather than spoil things."
Odin looked gruff as he made his dignified way down the steps, picking his way between the scattered platters and empty glasses which now littered the floor. He stopped in front of his adopted son.
"I think it's fair to say you stand in dire need of punishment, my boy," he remarked, "But since this is, as you say, an Occasion, I suppose I too will refrain from spoiling things with your arrest. I expect you to make yourself scarce after the wedding though. No hanging about stirring up trouble and stealing things. Is that understood?"
Thor sent his father a fondly exasperated look.
"You must stay, brother. Let this day be one in which we set aside our bitterness. For mother, if not for me."
"I..."
Jane was still staring at her husband's little brother, listening to that voice. But it was a dream. Wasn't it?
"It was you," she heard herself say, as if from a great distance, "It was you who saved me when I crashed. Wasn't it? I thought it was a dream."
Green eyes snapped up to hers, startled.
"Surely you don't think I would save the life of someone so close to my enemy?" he objected.
Frigga clucked disapprovingly.
"Brother? Is this true?"
"Yes."
But it wasn't Loki who answered. It was Odin.
Loki bit his lip, looking absurdly like a child caught in the act of a misdeed.
"Brother," Thor said.
"Don't get all sentimental Thor. I still hate you. I just don't hate you as much as—oof."
Thor had barrelled his way between the tables and, with the tacit consent of his mother who'd stepped backwards, scooped his little brother into a crushing bear-hug.
Jane felt the oddest urge to giggle at the sight of the flushed and flustered supervillain.
"You and I, my dear," Odin said, having worked his way back up the dias, "will uphold the dignity of these proceedings."
Below them Loki was saying 'get off you great oaf'. After another two minutes Thor did.
He didn't say anything for a moment. She couldn't see his face—just the long, golden hair.
And then Loki was smiling a strange, lopsided grin.
"One day," he said, "For mother."
Odin just sighed and took a deep swig of mead.