Rowing in Eden (Thor, Avengers) 6/10
Jane wound herself tightly against Thor. She felt more than saw the smile that creased his face as he tightened his arm wrapped around her shoulders. It was so good, so unbelievably good, to have him back with her in their bed.
With her free hand, Jane skimmed her fingers over Thor's shoulder and over his chest, reassuring herself that this wasn't a dream by the warm skin that she lightly touched.
He chuckled, vibrations coursing through his chest strong enough that Jane could feel them.
"Are you ticklish?" she asked in astonishment.
"Would the god of thunder be ticklish?" Thor responded, rolling over in the bed so that he loomed over Jane. She stretched on the tangled sheets with a smug smile and wiggled her fingers warningly.
Thor moved, ever so slightly.
"You are!" Jane triumphantly declared.
In a moment, her wrists were pinned to the bed on either side of her and Thor loomed above her with one eyebrow arched in warning. "Do not challenge a warrior," he intoned fiercely. His threat was belied by a cautious shifting of grip as her fingers flexed repeatedly.
"Or you'll what?" Jane replied sassily, twitching her hips beneath him as her wrists rolled against his hold.
"I'll do this," Thor said, lowering his lips to hers for a lingering kiss. He ducked one shoulder to the bed and rolled so that Jane suddenly loomed over him, drawing her wrists over their heads so that she had no choice but to relax against him.
"I could get to like the way you think," Jane whispered. She tried not to dwell on how limited their time together might be if no solution could be found in time to stabilize the bridge and chose instead to lose herself in the moment.
Director Fury turned away from his desk. His tall, dark form was especially intimidating, lit as it was by the early light pouring in from the wall of windows, looking eastward from high above Times Square. With his hands clasped behind him, the man who had brought the Avengers into existence considered Jane’s request.
"You believe you can solve the problem that’s currently occupying the minds of dozens of the brightest scientists in the world by going on a road trip?" The ironic inflection of the last two words made Jane wince and wish that she’d been able to bring Natasha or Darcy or even Thor into this meeting she’d privately requested with Director Fury. But Thor was still sprawled on his stomach, contentedly sleeping in the king-sized bed she’d quietly slipped out of mere hours before, punching in a silent request for a meeting on the terminal in their living room that was answered with frightening speed for four in the morning.
Jane dressed hastily and dashed off to her lab, printing out files for her own consultation and forwarding all of them via the encrypted servers to the director’s attention. By the time she was ushered into his quarters, his own screens were filled with copies of her observations and data.
Turning from the window, Nick Fury regarded the information from her studies displayed on a wall of monitors with an implacable glare. "Normally, I wouldn’t even consider it but the variations in the Asgard link are. . . troubling to all of us. If we can’t resolve the problem all contact is in jeopardy and, more than that, Thor’s stay on Earth will come to an end. That concerns all of us very much."
The last was said with a searching look directed at Jane, who returned the director’s gaze with equal conviction. "I have as much at stake as you, if not more. Furthermore, I’m the one who discovered the wormhole and also reconnected it after Thor had to destroy the first Bifrost. There’s no one better placed and more concerned with solving this problem, sir."
She paused to refocus her thoughts. "And I need to ask for Thor to accompany me. He understands the bridge phenomenon from a different perspective but, again, he's motivated to solve the problem. Plus, if there are different types of signs we uncover, he might be able to interpret what they mean. So I'm hoping you'll be okay with both of us heading off to figure this problem out."
The last words came out in a rush and Jane found herself perched awkwardly on her seat with her fingers pulling nervously at the hem of her shirt. She blushed at the evidence of her nerves and settled herself more deeply in the chair, all the while searching the colonel's expression that gave nothing away.
He sat down in his chair and quietly contemplated her for what seemed like an eternity. "Captain Rogers spoke to me earlier. He told me about your visit to the old Ebbets Field site and what you'd detected. He says that you believe this problem's happened before and that if you track the historic variations-"
Jane interrupted, "I can map the past variance and get an idea of what's happening today. What we are seeing could be related to sunspots, for instance. If so, we'll restrict use of the bridge when sunspot activity is high. Or it could be something else: dark matter interference or even a third party factor we don't know of yet. . . ."
Jane's voice trailed off as she realized she was rambling. Across the table, Director Fury had his fingers steepled against each other, patiently waiting for her storm of words to subside.
With one raised eyebrow, the SHIELD director made Jane feel like she was seven again but she sat perfectly still in her chair, upright, strong and serious. Finally, he turned away from her, returning his gaze to the pale morning light wakening Manhattan.
"We agree on that, Dr. Foster. Agent Coulson’s team has spent the evening preparing your van for travels as well as preparing an expense account in the names of Jane Fielding and Tom Thorson. A cover is necessary or I’m sure that every super-villain on the east coast will try to target you two, so don't be stupid." Fury sighed, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows as if the thought of such stupidity was paining him.
With a forbearing sigh, he turned to face Jane, who sat especially straight and attempted to convey an air of responsibility that would ensure no stupid risks would ever be taken on her watch.
Director Fury regarded her doubtfully. "Documentation’s been dropped off at your quarters along with a few other necessities so that you can carry this out quickly and safely. All I ask is that Thor return for any emergency missions and that you both report in daily on the progress of your work. Oh," he added, rotating his chair to regard Jane directly, while a small smile dancing on his lips, "don’t disable the monitors inside the van. Agent Coulson’s only willing to stretch so far."
Jane’s mouth stretched into an ear-splitting grin. It was clear that SHIELD and the entire Avengers team was at least one step ahead of her in this scheme. She restrained herself from breaking into a victory dance as she rose from her chair. "We’ll be good with that, sir, but, please, I just have to ask, how did you know I was going to ask for permission to bring Thor along on at least some of the trip?"
His smile was suddenly as broad as hers. "You think Natasha’s the only one who finds Thor a bit too much, especially when he’s worried he’s going to have to leave Earth forever? Frankly, everyone here is happy he has you to occupy at least some of his time or who knows what’d have happened by now. But enough’s enough. Go! Fix the problem and give me a way to keep Thor part of the Avengers. That’s an order, doctor!"
Jane blushed and ducked her head as she left his office, rushing headlong to their apartment, two floors above. She couldn’t wait to tell Thor about the giddy sense of hope that filled her with the prospect of doing something to resolve the crisis. Jane didn’t stop to think that an equally impetuous prince of Asgard might not agree with the path she’d planned for the two of them.
Her first hint of trouble was to see Thor awaiting her, not in the kitchen, but formally waiting in the living room. He hadn’t donned the armor he wore with the team but his controlled stance and grim expression was warning enough to Jane that something was wrong.
She slowed her pace, closing the door, feeling the smile of excitement slip from her lips. "Thor? What’s the matter?"
Thor raised one eyebrow as he crossed the floor to close the distance between the two of them. "“We had pledged to be honest and open with each other, Jane Foster. Yet I awakened this morning to hear that you were in conference with Director Fury and that all of the Avengers were preparing matters for the two of us to head out on an expedition I knew nothing of."
He finished his mildly-voiced comment with a sweeping gesture that brought Jane’s attention to passports, licenses, credit cards and phones neatly arranged on their kitchen counter. "Oh,”"she managed.
"The son of Coul brought them by this morning," Thor explained.
Jane leafed through the papers, then looked up at Thor, shamefacedly. "I didn’t mean to shut you out of the loop," she began.
At his confused reaction to her phrasing, Jane shook her head, then tried again. "I mean that I didn’t intend for you to not know. The idea just started coming together a while back when Natasha stopped by the lab and really only came clear while you were away in Asgard. There’s a question I’ve been working on, ever since the wormhole became unstable-"
"You mean because the Bifrost no longer brought us to the site where we first met?" Thor asked, the furrow on his brow clearing as Jane continued.
"Yes. I’ve been worried sick about it, especially since Sif showed up all the way out in Hermosillo, instead of a ways west of Puente Antiguo," Jane said. She extended one of her hands towards Thor, interlacing their fingers together. "And then you ended up in Malibu or near enough. What if it had been farther? What if it had been somewhere inside the earth, under the ocean or even out in space? You came so close to not making it back at all."
Thor snorted but didn’t resist her gentle touch. "Asgardians are tough. It would take more than that to stop one of us."
"Maybe," Jane allowed doubtfully. "You might be right. But what if your landing endangered people of earth? Midgardians are not as tough as your people and the storms that accompany the landings can do damage to us, even if we aren't the ones travelling. The last one was pretty violent. They're going to be talking about this in Malibu for decades to come."
"Ah," Thor breathed. He lifted their intertwined fingers to his lips and gently kissed Jane’s knuckles. "I would never allow such a dangerous event to occur. The prophecy from the Norns was clear: there is a solution to the problem and it lies here in Midgard. With what I've learned from Heimdall and Loki, I'm sure it won't be hard to find. And all the Avengers will aid me in this quest!"
Jane pulled her hand out of his light grasp, feeling more than a little annoyed. "Isn't that just as bad as what you said I did? Making some plan without consulting me? Without thinking that maybe we need to figure out what's wrong, together? The bridge wasn't restored just by Asgard's efforts. Our research, here in earth, was the key to restoring the link. Am I right or not?"
Thor nodded his head, conceding Jane's case with obvious reluctance. She arched her eyebrows pointedly and he sighed deeply. "You tell the truth."
Biting her cheek to keep from smiling, Jane nodded firmly. "I don't need you to be a lone gunman any more than you need me to run off on my own. We need to figure this out, together."
Thor deftly reclaimed her hand, lifting it for a kiss that was half affection, half salute. "You are as wise as you are fair, Jane Foster. I should not have attempted to address the issue on my own if I would not accept that from you."
She let her own smile blaze forth, stepping forward and raising herself on her toes to press a kiss against Thor's lightly bearded cheek. "Apology accepted! I owe you the same for leaving you in the dark this morning so please accept my apologies, too."
Thor put his hands to Jane's waist and lifted her off her feet. Pressed against his torso with her head level with his, their gazes met before his lips met hers in a leisurely kiss that left them both gasping. "I could grow to like these apologies," Thor confessed as he put Jane back on her feet.
"Me, too," Jane said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and grateful that no one else from the Avengers was able to see her all out of breath and starry-eyed from his embrace, not that they fooled anyone, she knew. Still, as Pepper had said over coffee, one day, it was nice to preserve appearances.
With an effort, Jane yanked her shirt back into place over the waistband of her jeans and strode to the terminal in their living room. "You need to see this. I want to show you what I want us to do and know that I wouldn't have thought of doing this without consulting you. You know the wormhole better than anyone else on earth excepting me, of course."
Jane smiled impishly over her shoulder at the last. Thor laughed heartily as he pulled up another chair beside her while her fingers nimbly typed out commands, accessing a series of image files from her research databank.
Jane tapped one finger against the screen as a black and white image of a starry night sky marked by a wavering mass appeared on the screen. "I think we can figure out what's been going on by getting back out into the field. I want to look at some old sites I've uncovered in my research: aurora reports that sound a lot like earlier versions of the Bifrost."
Thor bit his lip as he leaned forward in his chair to see the several images she called up. "The Bifrost is very old. Older than Steve, even," he said with a broad grin, inviting Jane to join in on the joke. "The stories you have shared with me from the Norse, of Asgardians as gods, those tell of a time a thousand years ago in your history, do they not?"
"Probably a few centuries more than that," Jane agreed. "But our records for that far past aren't reliable. However, aurora effects have been thoroughly documented for more than a hundred years and some of them, very localized, might be earlier sites of the wormhole making brief contact, just as I saw in the weeks before you arrived. Thanks to Darcy and Erik, I have "
"So you hope to travel to these other locations and find some more signs of long past linkages?" Thor asked.
"There are characteristic elements left behind when the bridge makes first contact: high energy plasma doesn't leave a calling card, but it's still pretty easy to see the results in low-level radioactivity in rare elements as well as an enduring magnetic resonance. Ferrous metals react to the energies and lose their normal magnetic alignment. If we map enough of these sites, we might be able to see what's linking them all together," Jane said.
"It's a starting place," Thor agreed, rising from his chair and heading into their bedroom. After a few moments, he popped his head around the doorway, one hand brandishing an empty duffel bag. "Aren't you going to pack?"
Jane smiled as she turned off the computer and pushed back her own chair. "Well," she allowed, "I was figuring we didn't have to rush getting on the road. Manhattan traffic is a bitch during rush hour so maybe we could leave a little bit later?"
As Jane sashayed across the room, her hands went to the hem of her t-shirt and, with a twist, she pulled it over her head and tossed it to one side. Thor obligingly dropped the duffel and pulled her close.
"Wise and exceedingly fair," he said as his hands dropped to the small of her back, holding her closely against him. Jane stretched up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his mouth, then gently urged him back into the bedroom.
They shamefacedly made it out of the city when the sun was high in the sky.
Chapter Seve
X-posted from Dreamwidth. (
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