All Hail The King // Loki - Book 2 ✓

Chapter 32

"JANE!" Darcy leaps to her feet as they enter Jane's office-slash-apartment.

Jane shrugs off her jacket, "Hey."

"You can't just leave like that," Darcy chides. "The whole world is going crazy. All the stuff we saw is spreading."

Thor carefully hangs Mjölnir on the coat hook behind the door, and Anna wraps her arms around herself as she follows him into the room. The three of them aren't exactly dressed normally for a social visit, and with a mix of blood and dirt covering her tear-stained face, Anna stands out even more. Ian, the other intern, stands when Thor and Anna enter the room.

"Did you go to a party?" Darcy asks, taking in their outfits.

Jane rounds the corner and discovers another man working by the bookshelves, "Erik?"

"Jane! How wonderful." Erik Selvig exclaims, standing up from his desk and moving to embrace his colleague, "Ahh...have you been to Asgard?"

Jane looks down, awkwardly patting the older man as she notices his bizarre clothing choices, "Where are your pants?"

"Oh," Ian pipes up, "He...uh...he says it helps him think."

"Okay, well I'm going to need everything you've got on this," she instructs them. "All the work you've been doing on gravimetric anomalies, everything."

Erik nods, "Okay!"

"Are you well, Erik?" Thor asks, not having seen the other man since the Chitauri's attack on New York.

Erik laughs nervously, "Your brother's not coming, is he?"

"Loki is...dead," Thor replies.

Anna looks at her feet at the mention of his name, ignoring the fresh wave of pain stabbing through her chest, until Selvig's voice causes her to snap back up.

"Oh thank god," the scientist exclaims without thinking, earning a questioning look from Thor and a glare from Anna. "I...uhhh....I am so sorry."

"Thank you," Thor replies.

Selvig greets Thor with an enthusiastic hug, hiding his grin at the news of Loki's demise over his shoulder, before stepping back and attempting to stifle his joy. Anna's heard of the scientist. He was under Loki's control during the attack, and he helped create the device that held open the portal for the Chitauri to attack New York City. She wants to be angry with him, angry that he could be so....pleased....by Loki's death, but part of her understands his relief. No doubt he's been suffering after what happened, plagued by the deaths that he is inadvertently responsible for at Loki's hands. If only he knew that Loki was often haunted by the same guilt.

"Who is this?" Selvig asks, nodding toward Anna.

Thor moves beside her, resting his hand on her back reassuringly. No doubt he can sense her tension, and he gives her a warm smile. However hard he tries to be positive, she can see through it. While his lips turn upward, his eyes are empty and sad. The piercing blue of his eyes meets hers with a similar pang of anguish at the death of someone they both loved.

"This is Lady Anna," Thor tells him. "She is Loki's...was Loki's...."

His voice falters, and his face falls. He knows that it is nearly impossible to explain loving Loki, especially to someone so predisposed to hate him. However, Anna is in a worse situation than even he. Loki was his brother. Regardless of his birth, Thor's loyalty and affection toward him is rooted in a lifelong bond. Anna, however, chose him. With all of his flaws, she chose to love the man that so many would label a monster. She recognized the goodness in him, the chance for redemption, and her belief in him might have allowed Loki the opportunity to atone for his past. How can he even begin to put that in words for Selvig to understand?

"So, you're Asgardian?" Selvig asks, alarm etched over his features. "You-you're...Loki...he, uh..."

Anna shakes her head, "No. I'm Midgardian. I mean, I'm human."

"Anna was with us in the factory," the intern, Ian, interjects. "She went with Thor and Jane when the whole...space light explosion thing happened."

"The Bifrost opened," Thor explains.

Ian nods, "Yes. That."

"I, um..." Selvig begins, unsure of what to say.

"Why don't you assist Jane," Thor interrupts, hoping to save Anna from any awkward questions. "Anna and I will help young..." he looks at Ian.

"Ian," the intern replies. "I'm Ian."

Thor smiles, "Ian. We will help Ian prepare sustenance for all. I would greatly appreciate a flagon of coffee."

*****

"Malekith is going to fire the Aether at a spot where all the nine worlds are connecting," Jane explains.

They're all gathered around her desk, listening as the two scientists discuss the situation. Selvig is sitting next to Jane, the two of them going through calculations on the screen, while Darcy is sitting on a stool behind them. Anna and Thor stand next to her, both of them listening silently to the discussion. Thor insisted that Anna help him prepare coffee, even though she knows he learned to use the machine on his own with Bruce Banner's assistance, and she allowed him to push a mug of the hot liquid into her hands while he downed several in a span of a few short minutes. He knew better than to try to make her eat something as well, so he contented himself with watching the woman his brother loved carefully. Without Loki here, it is his duty to keep Anna safe as well. It's the least he can do for his brother.

"Amplifying the weapon's impact," Selvig finishes Jane's train of thought. "For each additional world, the power will increase exponentially. The effect would be universal."

Thor nods, "Yes, but the alignment is only temporary. He must be in exactly the right place at the right time."

"Well," Darcy interrupts. "How do we know where that is?"

No one speaks for a moment, none of them sure of what to do next, until Selvig's face brightens.

"We follow the directions," he says, standing. He grabs a map, clearing off a table and spreading it wide for all to see. "This has happened before, thousands of years ago, and the ancients were there to see it. All the great constructions: the Mayans, the Chinese, the Egyptians. They made use of the gravitational effects of the Convergence. And they left us a map."

He uncaps a marker, using a ruler to draw on the map in front of them, as he continues, "Stonehenge. Snowdon. The Great Orme. These are all coordinates taking us...here."

His finger lands on the map where the red lines intersect.

"Greenwich?" Ian asks.

"The walls between worlds will be almost non-existent," Jane says. "Physics is going to go ballistic. Increases and decreases in gravity, spacial extrusions. The very fabric of reality is going to be torn apart."

Thor calls Mjölnir to him, the hammer ripping the hook from the wall as it flies into his hand, and the group looks around. Now that they know where Malekith is headed with the Aether, they can finally do something about it. Anna twists the knotted silver ring on her right hand nervously, tracing the familiar smooth metal at the thought. If Selvig is correct, they might still have a chance to stop Malekith.

And to kill him.

Selvig frowns, "I better get my pants."

Now playing: "27" by Fall Out Boy.

*****
AUTHOR'S NOTE

Double update, anyone?

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