Work Text:
“That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet;”
– Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II, William Shakespeare
As two men maneuver a long table across the main courtyard, Jane turns to Valkyrie who’s inspecting unlabeled bottles of booze she nicked from a nearby crate. “What should I be doing?”
“Whatever you want,” the warrior says distractedly. She sniffs the one in her right hand. “You could help me with these.”
Jane shakes her head, subtly lifting the collar of her flannel to cover her nose.
“Those are for tonight, your majesty.” Jane twists around at the new voice. Thor comes lumbering over, carrying a barrel of what clearly smells like fish gripped in both hands.
Valkyrie glares at him and sets the bottles back. The glass clinks loudly as she heaves up the crate. “I know that,” she utters, leaving the two behind. Her tone suggests that she has no intention of waiting until the feast.
Thor smirks at her retreating back, and Jane tries to hide her smile at their strange rapport.
Ever since she first visited New Asgard a few months back, she found herself falling in love with the place and its people, despite feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed by it all. Getting to know more about Asgard, its people, and the distant realms is a second chance she’s sure as hell not passing up.
She feels Thor nudge her, and she cranes her neck up to see his cheerful face. “Would you like to help Gilsi and the others in the kitchen. I’m heading there now.”
“Actually, I brought something. A tupperware of snickerdoodles, nothing fancy.”
“Snicker doodles?”
“Cookies,” she says, laughing. “Although I did see someone snatch a couple already, so they might be gone.”
Thor throws his head back. “A travesty.”
“They’re the only things I can really make, so I might be better off not in the kitchen. I feel like I’d end up blowing up the stove or something. There’s a reason why we only had poptarts and goldfish in the pantry in Puente Antiguo.” She shares a grin with him and looks around at the bustle of preparation and daily living, feeling like the foreigner she is.
“Uh, let’s see...you can find something to garnish the table?” He shakes his head. “Actually, that sounds really boring.”
“Actually, that sounds less dangerous. I hope. And, I don’t mind, really. I just want to help. I can pick some flowers for the table; I saw some pretty ones on my way in.”
Thor nods and continues on his way, paying no attention to the water in the barrel sloshing over onto his arms. “Well, fair maiden, I’m off to save what is left of your precious snickerdoodles.”
She covers her heart. “My hero.”
Over his shoulder, he yells, “Don’t get lost!”
Jane smiles and resists the impulse to stick her tongue at him. Turning around to head toward the small forest she passed this morning on her trek to the town’s center, she almost shrieks when she rams into Loki.
“I’ll join you.”
She steps back and runs a hand over her hair. A rush of deja vu sweeps across her body, and she’s transported back to their first meeting.
They’ve come across each other a couple times in the past year since Thanos’s defeat, but she’s nonetheless startled each time she’s faced with the former god.
“Were you standing there the entire time?”
His arms are crossed; he looks incredibly bored. “Just happened to walk by.”
Jane makes sure he can see her unimpressed look in the bright sunlight. He only offers her a quirk of his mouth. “You want to pick flowers. With me.”
“I really do loathe repeating myself,” he warns. He drops his arms, and that somehow makes him seem taller. Damn all these giant Asgardians.
“It’s a little hard to grasp, is all.”
Loki sighs, and it’s so dramatic, she feels herself beginning to smile. “Yes, Jane, I’d like to join in your endeavor to rip up my new home.”
She snorts. “Nice.”
His eyes flash with something she can only discern as mockery and he slightly bows, sweeping a hand toward the town’s outskirts. “Shall we?”
The first few minutes of their walk are spent in a comfortable quiet as they make their way toward the small forest; the shouts and laughs and clatterings of the town drown out like the final notes of a song until all they can hear are Oslofjord’s rolling waves and the calls of nearby albatrosses. A slight breeze accompanies the pair, and Jane takes a moment to enjoy the briny scent of the air.
She can’t help but think of how different her New Mexican haven is compared to all this; she wonders if she can see the stars as clearly here as she could under the desert sky. On all her trips to Tønsberg, she never thought to look up when the sun went down, too caught up in the reunions and new people. Maybe she’ll try tonight.
Jane almost forgets where she is, so when she brushes against Loki as they pass a wooden sign marking the entrance to the forest trail, she jumps. He doesn’t seem to notice.
Clearing her throat, she asks, “Do you know any Norwegian?”
Loki turns to her. “Some.”
She points behind her. “That sign back there, do you know what it said?”
He backtracks the three or four steps and leans toward the post. “Hel lays before you. Danger surrounds and follows as would shadows in the harsh daylight.”
The disbelief shows plainly on her face. She wonders if she should have kept her mouth shut but quickly figures that it wouldn’t have mattered given who she’s talking to.
“That, or Vehicles are prohibited. Contrary to what you might believe, I don’t have a penchant for Midgardian translation.”
“Moving on,” she says, walking ahead so he can’t see the laugh pulling at her cheeks. Shit. “How about we just go with the latter.”
“As the lady wishes.” He’s back at her side, and like she predicted, she locates the amusement written across his face.
When she can no longer hold his gaze, her eyes settle on the red petals clustered around a nearby tree stump. Walking over and crouching down, she’s about to do exactly as he had suggested and rip up the flower, then pauses and withdraws her hands.
Turning around, she asks,“Do you have anything we can use to cut these?”
A flash of green, and Loki is suddenly holding a dagger where there was none. Her brain goes into overdrive, scraps of fragments of words racing about, trying to formulate coherent speech — questions about displacement, particle-size distribution, and mass transfer. She barely reigns in a very jumbled interrogation about the properties of the dagger’s vacuum state and saves it for another time.
She’ll never get used to magic.
Loki walks over and copies her position. One slice later, and he’s handing her the flower.
She doesn’t know what makes her ask it, but the question flies out of her mouth before she can catch it. “Do you want to play a game?”
Apparently not all of my questions were reigned in properly, she thinks drolly.
He’s standing, and she follows, not wanting him to have even more of a height advantage. “That is a dangerous question, Jane Foster.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. It’s harmless, Loki Odinson.” Ignoring the strange look he gives her at the sound of his full name, she continues, “Erik and I used to play it when he taught me Swedish. It’s a renaming game.”
“Wordplay?” He leans in and points to himself — with the dagger, no less. “I excel at these sorts of things.”
“Well, it’s not really a contest and it’s probably not as exciting as you’re making it out to be, but I’m glad you still have your pride. I was worried there for a second,” she mutters drily, knowing very well that he can hear her, if his half-smile is anything to go by. “So, what would you call this one?”
“Why, Jane, it’s a flo—”
“In Norwegian, I mean.”
It’s too late to fight the grin on her face, so in retribution, Jane all but shoves the flower in his nose.
The petals flare out from the amber center like the coronal clouds she studied intensely for three straight months in grad school, the curved stem jagged where it was crudely cut with the sharp edge of Loki’s dagger.
He ponders her question for a moment with genuine deliberation. “Solmerke — or, sun mark.”
She tears her eyes from the plant to see him dust the weapon, the game momentarily forgotten; she likes the way it glints from the midday sun, both blade and hilt, the light that catches in his hand. She idly wonders what it’s made of. With a wave of his fingers, he vanishes it.
Blinking at the sleight of hand, if she can even call it that, her focus falls to the forest floor where one less flower now is. She feels doubt creep in.
“Should we be cutting these? I don’t want to ruin any of it.”
Loki narrows his eyes. “I seem to recall that you were the one who wanted a centerpiece for the feast. They’re wildflowers, Foster. We’re in the middle of a forest, not the treasure room.”
“Oh, really. I hadn’t noticed.”
His brow raises at her sarcasm and gestures with one hand to the endless green they can still see through gaps between the trees; the color surrounds the town, hills, and wharfs carving the Norwegian coast.
“What?” She asks, returning her gaze to him when he takes his other hand out from behind his back.
Oh. He’s conjured a vase.
“Please don’t tell me that’s from the treasure room,” she jokes.
He tilts his head, his voice tinged with a secret. “Would it be more impressive if it were?”
She panics and stares at the delicate gold and silver patterns snaking across the blue ceramic. “What — yes. We’re not using that. It’s priceless!”
“Price has nothing to do with it. Is it not suitable to place flowers in this?”
He’s being entirely too nonchalant, she decides. Then again, it is Loki, and she’s learning that the man can never be too nonchalant. However, he is — was — royalty, and he probably used a golden toothbrush, if gods even did that sort of thing. She can’t remember, but there were probably thousands of beautiful vases that had decorated the palace, now burnt debris floating through space where Asgard used to be.
Which makes this one of the last Asgardian artifacts. And it’s from the treasure room.
“It’s not from the treasure room.”
Her heartbeat slows down, and she almost hits him for scaring her.
“It was my mother’s.”
“Loki!”
He laughs, the sound soft and terribly free, “What?”
Frigga’s kind eyes sharpen as she tells Jane to hide behind the column. She watches the queen’s swift and fierce swordplay as she quickly delivers a blow to Malekith. Jane’s relieved, but it’s all too fast — too damn fast, slow down, where’s Thor?! — and she panics when she sees a lumbering shadow take hold of Frigga.
Jane can barely make out the grin on the queen’s face before a sword runs through her.
Her heart stutters at the memory as she looks at the vase. “That’s almost worse! No, actually, it is worse. Put it back...wherever.”
He hums, pretending to think real hard. “Seems I’ve forgotten how. Looks like you’ll have to acquiesce.”
After counting to three in her head and giving him her best glare, she gently takes the vase, muttering about where he can shove his acquiescence.
She places the solmerke in the mouth and looks back to Loki, almost missing the fond way he’s eyeing the vase. Her annoyance instantly melts.
Running her hand over a small, silver bird mid-flight near the neck of the vase, she says softly, “It is incredible.”
“You might even say, quite suitable, yeah?” Huffing a laugh at the exasperated look that returns to her face, he begins walking in the direction they were heading, his boots kicking up dust on the rocky path. His new haircut curls at his ears, and she wonders how much trouble he’d lay into her if she were to stick a flower in his hair.
She catches up to him, cradling the vase in one arm. He's already picked some yellow poppies and another plant she’s unfamiliar with from the ground: its shape and colors remind her of the many photographs taken of the Pinwheel Galaxy.
“Meek will love these,” she says offhandedly, pointing at the poppies he’s busy sticking in the vase, remembering the little creature who ate her yellow key fob when her head was turned last time she was here.
Loki‘s nose turns up. “I’m assuming you mean as food because I doubt that thing would be able to visually appreciate nature’s beauty.”
She watches again as the dagger flashes at her before disappearing.
“Can I see that?”
“See what?”
“The dagger.”
He smirks. “Jane Foster wants to see my dagger? Thought the day would never come.”
She bites her tongue. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Ooh, and there’s the denial.”
“Jackass.”
He winks. Before she can do something stupid that Darcy would never let her live down if word got wind, like giggle in front of another god, Loki relieves her of the vase and conjures the weapon, already offering it to her, blade first. She tries not to pay too much attention when their hands brush.
He says something under his breath, pointing to the spiral-like shape of the new plant.
At the sound of her name, she pulls back, as if distance will make it any clearer. “What?”
“Jane-galasken. Jane’s galaxy.”
She gives him a flat look, but she can feel her quick heartbeat betray her. “You just made that up.”
“Good deduction. I think that’s the point of this little game.”
“My name is so boring, though.”
“Jane? Jane, Jane. Oh, Jane,” he suggests, dramatizes, and sings. The pauses between her name tilt it back and forth as if he were balancing the syllable in his mouth.
“Okay,” she laughs. “Not when you say it like that.”
“I digress.”
Shaking her head, she returns to the dagger in her hand — the curved crossguard runs perpendicular to the black grip and pommel, all of it inlaid with gold filigree. The blade catches her reflection as she twists the weapon.
Unapologetic in its function, all sharp edges narrowing to a perfect point ready to meet its wielder’s foe, the dagger makes no effort to disguise the words it evokes: this will cut you. Still, it’s beautiful. Her mind inevitably thinks of the stars, how different supernovae can produce cosmic rays or form new stars. There’s something more than just death to be found at the hands of destruction.
“What are you thinking up there, Foster?”
Turning her attention to the amused look Loki finds way too much fun sending her way, she immediately regrets it. She kicks the morbid thoughts from her mind for making her eyes linger too long on the sharpness of his features and makes a show of lifting up the dagger in her hands.
“It’s some sort of alloy steel, right?” She peers closely at the blade as if inspecting it for the slightest sign that’s been used, for gardening or otherwise — it’s flawless. What she would give to have her magnifier right now. “Probably iron and copper. And tungsten, maybe.”
He points to the weapon, his brow furrowing. “This one was forged on Alfheim, so I’m not sure. It is reinforced with magic — that much I do know.”
“Well, what kind of magic?”
“The strong kind.”
Jane’s interest only grows. “That means there’s a weak kind?”
Loki frowns and considers it. “I suppose it depends on the one who wields it. Proficiency is all the more important when the magic is sustained in an artifact or weapon.”
She nods and thinks of the time she and Erik rushed to fix Darcy’s iPod in under the ten minutes it took for the intern to return from Isabella’s with dinner after they dropped the device from the service station roof. Proficiency wasn’t exactly high on the list as they scrambled to Jane’s tools. Needless to say, Darcy complained for weeks after about the scratchy volume quality that had nothing to do with Tom Waits’s smoky vocals and everything to do with their shoddy repair job.
Looking around at the flora lining the pathway they’ve been walking along, her eyes catch on a patch of blue forget-me-nots; she walks over and scans for the nicest-looking ones. The dagger cuts through three stems easily. Cleaning the blade against her shirt, she returns to Loki, whose face looks softer than she’s ever seen it.
She smirks and holds up the blue petals next to his face, barely containing her laughter when he tenses and glares at the offending plants. “Look at that — they match your eyes.”
He huffs and swats her hand away. “Sentiment.”
Plucking the flowers from her and setting them in the vase, he moves to grab his dagger, but she holds it out of reach, never taking her eyes from his.
“They remind me of Rigel.”
He reaches for the dagger again, and she steps back toward the line of trees grouped near the patch she picked the forget-me-nots from. He only quirks a eyebrow and follows her.
“Who or what is Rigel?”
“A blue supergiant found in Orion. The constellation’s brightest star, in fact.”
He cants his head. “Are you comparing me to a gaseous ball of light floating through space?”
She grimaces. “Just your eyes.”
He barks a laugh she’s never heard. She’s not looking for any sort of praise, mind you, but she’s secretly pleased she’s able to amuse the god of mischief. “You do know how to flatter a man, Foster.”
She shrugs, then realizes with a jolt as her back hits a tree that she hadn’t stopped her backpedaling.
Loki’s trademark smirk and approaching form should instill some measure of fear in her, but she’s learned a long time ago that underneath the tall, foreboding exterior of Thor Odinson, lies a big softie. Having glimpsed Loki’s humanity in the past, she knows, perhaps instinctively, that she has nothing to fear.
Right?
As she takes in the modest Norwegian outfit he dons and the grip he has on his mother’s vase — where before it housed only empty space, it now spills with the multi-colored wildflowers they’ve collected — she wonders when in the past year he traded in his armor and horns for a dark fleece and a pair of slacks.
Distracted by an image of him showing up to the feast tonight in the bright colors of Norway’s flag, she realizes too late how close he is.
She can smell the sea on him and see that there might be a bit of green in his Rigel eyes.
How can he be much too close and impossibly far away at the same time?
Lifting the dagger in the six inches between them, she hopes to god she looks threatening. “I’m not afraid to use this.”
He reaches out and adjusts her hold.
“You should be afraid you’ll break your wrist if you use it.”
Her eyes widen as an idea comes to her, her fear abandoned. “Can you teach me?”
Stepping back at her question, he asks blandly, “You want to learn how to knife somebody?”
“Well —”
“I know what you mean,” he grins and steps back, vanishing the vase. “You’re sure?”
Another flash of Frigga’s smirk cuts through her mind. The familiar, overwhelming vice of helplessness that threatens to choke her returns. In a Thanos-free world, she’s not so naive to think there will never be danger again.
“I’m sure.”
He must see something in the set of her shoulders and the resolute way she clutches the hilt of the weapon because he only nods and summons another dagger. This one is familiar, and she immediately knows where it’s from.
“That’s the one you used on Svartalfheim.”
Loki looks shocked, and she would otherwise revel in her ability to surprise him, but her mind is too focused on the weapon in his hand and the images it conjures — swirling, bright red power hanging over the outstretched arms of the Dark Elf leader, lightning obediently answering Thor’s call, and Loki’s protective stance covering her body, the gold hilt of his dagger clutched in his left hand.
“One of them, yes.” The realm drained of color and life disappears, and she’s back in the present: a very green forest and a very undead Loki occupy her vision. He’s frowning at his weapon, and she has a sudden urge to reach up and smooth the line between his brows. “You remember this?”
She points to herself. “Scientist, remember? Observation’s in my blood.”
“Is that what you call it?” The joke is muttered and half-hearted.
“Ha, ha.” Reflecting on that catastrophic trip to Svartalfheim, Jane feels the humor dissipate as she recalls the devastation on Thor’s face as he bent over his brother’s body like a man at prayer, amidst the wind and mountains. “Plus...it’s kind of hard to forget everything about that day.”
A slight movement in his jaw; he’s biting back words, she thinks. Looking lost in thought, he only says, “Agreed.”
Jane swallows the impulse to ask him about it — his mother, their escape, Malekith and Kurse, his subterfuge — any of it, all of it. She never got the chance in all the time she’s known him. Maybe she never really wanted to ask, until now. Years and years later, distance reduced to a few continents instead of a few realms and the world still recovering from a mad titan with too much power, here she is, full of questions.
“Would you like to start with throwing or striking techniques? Or, perhaps defensive strategies?”
Jane looks at the dagger in her hands, then up at the surprisingly patient look he’s giving her. “Well, given that I can’t even hold the thing correctly, you should probably show me how.”
Loki flips his weapon effortlessly. “Like a knife.”
“Show off.”
“Like cutlery,” he clarifies, flexing his wrist and tapping his thumb on the hilt. “Not with every slash and block, but for the purpose of right now, hold it like this.”
Jane adjusts her hold. “Wouldn’t that make it easier to lose your grip?”
“If you’re not careful,” he says, nodding. “But, when you hold it like this, your range of motion increases and your precision sharpens. Much like with a sword, the dagger must become an extension of you.”
“You use swords, too?”
“Yes, but these,” he twists his dagger, “are my weapon of choice.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say. And,” he adds, reaching over and straightening her thumb, “you need to keep this relaxed if you don’t want your hand cramping.”
“Got it.” Jane switches the dagger to her other hand and shakes out her other one, failing to rid her hand of his phantom touch. “What about the other times?”
“Other times?”
“When you don’t want to hold it like this,” she says, returning the hilt to her dominant hand.
He adjusts his hold on his own dagger, now gripping the hilt like a microphone — how she gripped it the first time. “Hold it this way for blocking and stabbing.” The dagger flips, and instead of catching it blade up like before, he swipes the hilt from the air with the blade down. “A grip like this allows you to use more of your physical strength.” Loki looks her up and down, a teasing glint in his eye. “Which might not be much, in your case.”
She shoves his shoulder with her own. “Hey, I’m stronger than I look.”
He chuckles and rubs the left side of his face. “Yes, you are.”
The insinuation is not lost on her, and she feels her face heat. Poking his chest, privately marveling at how soft his sweater is, she quips, “And don’t you forget it.”
Loki raises both hands in surrender, his smile matching hers. “Now, the grips will become easier with time, so keep this on you at all times and practice when you can.”
It takes her a moment to realize he’s referring to the dagger in her hand. “This — wait, you’re letting me keep it?”
The shrug he gives her is so normal and nearing something close to domestic, she feels her heart warm. “Consider it an indefinite loan,” he offers.
Feeling brave, Jane flips the dagger and just barely catches it by the hilt. Smiling widely at her success, she says, “I’ll consider it.”
Loki clinks her dagger — her dagger — with his own, rolling his eyes at her answer. “C’mon, Foster. No need to get reckless. We have flowers to pick and astrophysicists to train.”
He returns to the trail, walking backwards. Waiting for her.
Jane, already thinking of the materials she’s going to need to make her own sheath, follows him. The sun glances off both blades like flashes of lightning.