Mystique (ravendarkholme) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-08-24 22:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: marvel comics, jane foster, loki |
WHO Jane & Loki
WHAT Talking, poisoning...the usual
WHEN After this
WHERE Loki's hiding place
WARNING Jane might have a death wish.
The basement room was dim, and very sparsely furnished. There were only small, dingy windows to let light in, and the wide expanse seemed to stretch the whole floor plan of the house, where ever it was. The pillars of the foundation broke up the space, along with cobwebs and old furniture, some covered in drapes, some stacked atop itself. In the corner, flickering eyes could occasionally be seen - rats that had made the abandoned place their home. Loki had come to like places like this, the abandoned and the forgotten. They suited him. He’d already set up his very few props for this second act of his plan, two bottles and a syringe. Simple. He liked simple plans as much as terribly complex ones, and at the moment, he didn’t have the option to get as creative as usual. If he’d had his druthers, this whole thing would involve something much more elaborate - a hanging knife with a few conjured guards, for instance. Something with a little more...flash. But he liked this as well, simple, clean, grit under the teeth planning. There was flash in that, too. He stood close to the basement stairs, made of wood, their supports partially rotted. He was reviewing the phone in his palm, looking at the contacts, inspecting its design. Jane’s phone. They weren’t quite like anything he’d seen on Asgard, and they intrigued him for that reason. The things they invented to circumvent magic always fascinated. Behind him, he heard the girl tied to the chair begin to stir, and he looked up from the phone to watch. “Good,” he said, with a tight smile. “You are awake. I was worried you might not become conscious in time to feel terror.” He was dressed in castoff jeans and a shirt pinned around the collar to keep it on. The manacles, still clanking every time he moved, prevented any sort of normal method for pulling on a shirt, but he hadn’t taken that as an excuse not to be clothed, a line of silver pins along the top of both sleeves and around the back of his neck keeping it on. It wasn’t exactly his usual taste in clothing, even Midgardian clothing, but there was that saying about beggars and choosing. “Did you sleep well?” he asked, clasping his hands, too-bright emerald eyes staring her down. He was pale even in the dark, the shadows under his eyes even deeper than usual, every bone in his body standing out in bird-like relief as even his flesh seemed to shrink away from him. Her drug-induced sleep had been peaceful and that should have been indication enough that something was wrong. Jane hadn’t been able to sleep well since traveling to Asgard with Thor, too obsessed with trying to rebuild the Bifrost Bridge. Even her dreams had been filled with ideas of how to make it happen and then the places she could visit with access to the bridge. Jane never dreamed about the bad things that could happen as a result of creating the bridge. In fact, she’d never even thought about it, even after getting access to the Tesseract. She was too focused on the new and exciting instead of the negatives and maybe that was why she’d never seriously considered that Loki would go after her. Even as she began to stir, she didn’t immediately put two and two together. The ties were the first thing she noticed as she tried to turn onto her side, which cause her to tug harder and finally she opened her eyes, annoyed that she couldn’t move. As soon as she realized that she was tied down to a chair, Jane looked around, wide-eyed with barely concealed panic. She’d been kidnapped. The how filtered in, a groggy, half-remembered memory of someone sneaking up on her and a cloth being pressed against her mouth. The who came into focus, though she had no idea who he was. She knew enough to be cautious of him, but then she caught sight of the phone in his hand and frowned. “If you’re looking for someone to ask for a ransom, I’d suggest not asking Darcy. She doesn’t have any money.” Her mouth felt dry and her voice was a bit raspy, but she tried not to let her discomfort show. Jane didn’t want to comment on anything else, not willing to get a taste of his brand of terror just yet, but she thought everything about him was a little...strange. “I slept quite well, actually. What’d you use? Chloroform?” Okay, so maybe she was just trying to get a feel for how this was supposed to go. Considering she hadn’t spoken to Thor in weeks now at the very least, she didn’t think for a second that he’d be coming to get her. Darcy could probably try to convince SHIELD to send a few agents for her, but that was a 50/50 as far as she was concerned. She supposed she at least deserved to know who was behind this brilliant idea. “Who are you exactly?” "I'm hurt," Loki said, stepping closer to her. There were only two dim bulbs to alleviate the gloom in the basement, and under their harsh light, his eyes were almost invisible in the shadows. They were there, though, green and glittering. "For all his protestations of brotherhood, has Thor truly never mentioned me?" Loki stopped a few feet from her, looking down. She was securely tied at wrists, ankles, and chest, the knots intricate and offering no give whatsoever. "Then again, I'm not surprised in the least. When the black sheep isn't on a leash, they tend not to be table conversation." He studied her. "Or maybe he just didn't care to tell you," he offered, dispassionately. "Perhaps he thought you too simple, too delicate to be troubled with his hardships. And I am a hardship." He bit his lip for a moment. "Chloroform it was," he told her. He'd lost the edge of sarcasm, now, simply staring at her, watching for any sign of weakness, any at all, any reaction he might exploit to cause her pain. After all, she was the woman supposedly responsible for ‘reforming’ his brother, for making him ‘worthy’ of his hammer, for softening his weak heart. Without her, Thor would not have returned to Asgard with his facade of sanctimonious compassion, a new leaf turned over by love. For a dull, human girl, of all things. He might have been convinced to see sense, and stood aside, allowing Loki to slaughter the Jotun in one fell stroke. The edge of his mouth canted up at the thought. "Can you guess why I've brought you here?" As soon as he mentioned ‘brother’ and ‘Thor’, Jane knew who he was. Loki, the one who sent the Destroyer to Earth and nearly killed Thor and the rest of them, the one she was supposed to be afraid of. He’d kidnapped her, but she still didn’t understand why. Did he know about the Tesseract? Or was this to just get at Thor? “He told me to stay away from you, but that was when I first arrived. I haven’t spoken to him in a while so if you kidnapped me to get to him...” she trailed off, shrugging as best she could given the way she was tied down. He was really thorough, which would make escape next to impossible, but it wouldn’t stop her from trying. Counting on someone to come save her wasn’t quite her style and Jane didn’t think he’d actually kill her. She figured she had maybe fourteen hours before she’d automatically get kicked out but lasting those hours might prove to be a challenge. “Unless you didn’t kidnap me for that, considering you took me from my lab. I take it you took a look around while you were there?” For someone in her position, Jane was eerily calm. The fear she’d had when she first woke up was still there, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing it. Not if she could help it. “Want to tell me if I was close? Thor didn’t seem all that interested in my work.” Jane was fishing for information and maybe something to help with her research on the Tesseract. She was beginning to regret not asking to include Doctor Banner or Tony Stark, but that would be remedied as soon as she got free. As long as Thor didn’t find out, at least, and if SHIELD was willing. Loki listened to her fight to try to find a reason why she would have been taken, and even smiled a little when she asked about her project. "Close indeed," he said. "Hopefully, you will have an opportunity to continue your work, if Thor decides your life is worth saving. If I were you, I would pray that I was wrong about how much he cares for you, because if he chooses not to break this binding," and there he lifted the chains, dark iron winking in the faint light, "You will be dead before sunset, I think. Eight hours, or so? Such short days," he mused, like that was equally as important as his promise to see her dead if Thor chose not to help him. Loki turned toward the table with the bottles on it, and pressed the syringe into the first, carefully drawing out a small amount of liquid. "There is a flower that grows in the fields of a far off world. It is a small, red bloom, highly fragrant, and if you crush and dissolve it in cool water, it makes for an odorless, tasteless poison." He pressed the needle into the second bottle. "First, it takes the mind. The victim slowly goes insane, seeing phantoms that are not there. Then, it takes freedom of movement. The victim's legs will not work, then their arms. Finally their very brain boils in their skull, as their body is wracked by fever." He flicked the syringe. The liquid inside was clear. "This is not that poison," he said, turning back to her, with a small smile. He didn't approach her, not right away. Instead, he leaned back against the table. "This is a slow-acting poison I created from a few Midgardian chemicals. I've been studying chemistry, actually. Interesting discipline. Not all that far from alchemy, but with different names for the various elements that make up all the realms." His head tilted to the side. "This particular compound is, I think, yet to be discovered on this planet. Only two solutions needed, mixed together. I could have had you swallow them, but then I found this." He pressed the plunger lightly, squirting a short burst of clear droplets out onto the floor. There was no scent at all, not even of chemicals. "Much more efficient. It should give you...perhaps eight hours? Of course, if Thor comes and removes my bindings, I will tell him where you are and how to counteract the poison. If not, you die. Slowly. You will pass smoothly into unconsciousness, and you will stop breathing." Loki straightened. His tone was cool, his eyes hard. "There will be some pain," he said. "But only enough so that you know the poison is working in you, and that it is killing you, inch by inch. I want you to know that." His mouth ticked up. "If you die, I want you to die knowing you are dying, and knowing that Thor could have saved you, but chose not to. Because you did not matter enough to risk thousands of other lives for.” Jane couldn’t stop the elation from showing in her eyes when he said she was close to discovering the magic of the Bifrost Bridge. That elation turned into a smirk when she realized he had manacles and that it was what had been making that odd clanking noise. As soon as he began telling her about a poisonous flower from some world, Jane felt the fear start to creep up on her. She tried her best to keep it at bay but it wasn’t until he said the liquid in the vial wasn’t that particular poison, did she realize she’d been holding her breath. Of course, the vial was still poison and that was a problem. Jane wasn’t going to mention that she was afraid of needles, though he could probably see that just from the way she was looking between him and the syringe. “There’s no guarantee,” she finally said, finding her voice minutes after he finished speaking. The fear was there, but determination was as well. “There’s no guarantee that you’ll tell him or that even if you did, he’d get here in time. Hell, for all I know that’s saline you have there. I do remember something about you being a talented liar. Sometimes.” Jane had found some strength to draw on, or maybe it was just stupidity that had her talking back to him. “Or maybe you are telling the truth and it is poison. I hope he doesn’t come save me. If I die, I’ll die knowing that he made the right choice to keep you in chains.” Jane did her best to relax in the chair, willing at least some of the tension and stress away. Being kidnapped, she decided, was something she didn’t want to repeat, provided she survived this one. She had been honest though, when she told him she didn’t want to be saved. Jane even straightened her arm out, a very obvious challenge for the Norse god, and waited to see what he would do. Strangely, she found herself wanting to talk to Darcy. If she was to die, Tiffani deserved to say goodbye to her boyfriend, even if it was through the younger brunette. Loki probably knew that killing her would mean killing whoever she was on the other side and he probably didn’t care about that. Par for the course, from what she could tell. "How noble," he said, one eye narrowing as he looked down at her, a smile playing across his lips again. "How very brave you are. But in the end, you are only a human girl, and a woman besides. At the end, you will scream, and you will curse his name." Loki certainly hoped so. He was recording their conversation, after all, he would be sending it along to SHIELD as his siren song to come and get him, once he was far from here. After that, though, the small device would continue to record. If they did not find her before she died, it would record her last breaths. And what sort of look would Thor wear then? Of course, that assumed that the compound was as real as he said, and there was no way to know. Not for six more hours, anyway. He had thought through the possibility of killing the individual she inhabited on the other side, but how that might have affected his decision was hard to say. Had he relished the idea, or shrank back from it as a potential risk, something that might lead the heroic types to imprison Louis in revenge? Or would that merely play into his hand as well. There was none of the answer in his startling, hard, bright eyes. He slid around to her side and pushed up the fabric of her shirt. "I've never done this before," he confessed. "So let us both hope that I won't simply puncture one of your more important veins, and end all of this right now." He flicked the needle again, then slid it smoothly into the flesh of her arm, finding the vein immediately. He pressed the plunger down with delicious satisfaction, lips drawing away from his teeth, then removed it, tossing it toward the table where the jars sat, turning from her. There. It was done. One way or another, he had secured his freedom. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was going to poison her, Jane probably would’ve commented on his attitude. Thor had managed to realize that he wasn’t necessarily better than a human being simply because he was stronger or more powerful, but it seemed Loki had missed that lesson. “You know this isn’t going to end well for you, right? Even if he does free you to save me, he’ll get you again. It’s only a matter of time.” Jane sounded a hell of a lot more confident than she felt as he pushed her sleeve up. If she was going to scream and curse Thor’s name, she was going to be damn sure that she was actually dying. As he slid the needle into her vein, Jane flinched just briefly and frowned, mad at herself for reacting. “What happens now?” she asked to his back. She didn’t feel any different, but from the way he described the supposed poison, Jane didn’t think she was supposed to. “Going to stick around and talk magic with me? Or are you going to get as far away from me as possible? I wouldn’t blame you if you went with the latter. If Thor does come, he’s going to be pissed.” Now that the solution was in her system, death was a very real possibility, more so than it had been a minute ago. Even if she hadn’t been able to create the bridge, at least she’d gotten to visit Thor’s home and she’d made a fair bit of headway in her research. She wondered if Loki knew what this would mean for his relationship with Thor as well. If the god did care about her, she didn’t think he would be able to forgive his brother for threatening her and certainly not if she died. Freedom came at a pretty steep price, if that was the case. Loki was apparently unconcerned about the idea of being recaptured. "He will try," he said, eyes darting toward the small recorder on the table. A smile curled across his face, and he looked back at her, over his shoulder. "He will try oh so very hard. But I will not envy his position should he succeed." Loki was going to make things messy if Thor managed to recapture him, there was no doubt about that. If he was to go down, it would not be quietly. "No doubt he will be...angry." Loki stared back at her. "But look at you," he said, almost fond. "Defiant, and so sure that he will save you. I envy that confidence. Even I cannot say if my brother will be willing to trade your life for my freedom." His smile faded. "If you die, it will be in despair, knowing he has betrayed you, left you as a sacrificial lamb to save the others who would have come after. You will be nothing more to him than a pawn in a larger game, a game he has never really understand how to play. If he does not save you, it will be because he bowed to counsel - because the others, his ‘friends’, were able to convince him to sway from the demands of his heart and do what is best for the common good. If you die, it will be because he did not have the strength of character to make the difficult decision, instead of the right one.” Loki bent forward, leaning in toward her, close enough to look her eye to eye, but not close enough for her to try and get a bite at him. “And if he lets you die, I will keep this place from him, so you may not be buried, or burned. Here you will sit, consort of a king, eaten by maggots, putrefying down to bones. You will be his heart, torn out, thrown to the ground, and devoured, until there is nothing left of him but a tool for them to command." Every word was like the snap of a whip, the crack of ice in the thaw. "I may be a cruel man, but even I do not wish to see that. To let them make him into more than just a warrior, but a beast. No affections, no hate or love, just an animal, who kills what he is pointed at and dully follows orders because that is what the...common good demands of him." Loki straightened. "He will see,” he said, chin lifting, eyes still on her. “He will understand that the only way to keep that heart he so prizes is to suffer the guilt and disobey. You see, I want him to learn what it's like. To disobey. To be despised. I will see him know it, and stay whole." Loki stepped back from her, took another look, that same intensity carrying through. "I only want what is best for him, you see.” “I think you’re not used to people not wanting to be saved,” Jane said. “Wherever you got your information from, you’re wrong. Your brother doesn’t love me and he’s already chosen once to stop you over me. He told me about breaking the bridge, about how it was to stop you from destroying that planet. What makes you think this time will be different?” There was a slight pause, before she added with conviction, “What makes you think he’ll save a woman he doesn’t love, particularly when he knows she doesn’t love him?” Jane hadn’t noticed the tape recorder, so focused as she was on him, particularly when he got right in her face. He really did believe that Thor loved her, but Jane honestly didn’t understand why. One kiss didn’t mean love, particularly when it was after he’d just risked his life to stop the metal monster and became the god he’d been saying he was. She glared at him, her lips pressed together in a thin line to stop herself from interrupting him. He had a way of talking about her that she found incredibly insulting and demeaning, but then he started talking about Thor and Jane wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, her or him. “You don’t know anything, do you?” she asked, angry on Thor’s behalf. “You’re pushing him away, trying so desperately to force him to hate you. How is that even remotely what’s best for him? What makes you think you know better than him? Than the rest of us?” Jane shook her head. “Thank god I’m an only child. If I had a brother like you, I would’ve been done with your petty bullshit a long time ago.” Jesus, it was like talking a child, or a brick wall. He just didn’t get it and she didn’t think he ever would. Loki's eyes narrowed. There was no point in striking her, since it would make no difference in the end, and he had always disliked unnecessary violence against the weak. He liked seeing the strong toppled from their perches, not the disadvantaged kicked further to the floor. This stayed his hand, despite the fact that his nostrils flared and his fingers curled, slightly. "You know nothing," he said. What did she know of what lay between him and Thor? What did she know of how he wished Thor would simply hate end this ruse of affection for him and hate him as the rest did, so he might finally climb out from under his shadow and be treated as an equal? The words stalled in his throat. No, he would be sending this on to SHIELD - he would not give them the satisfaction, not Thor or the rest of them. "I would still that wretched tongue of yours before I cut it out, and deliver you to him a much quieter companion," he snapped, turning on heel and walking toward the basement stairs, picking up the recorder as he went and mounting the steps. "Pray to whatever god you believe protects you that the one who has claimed you for his own will save your life," he said. "For if not, in a few hours, you will wish you had never met him, and curse his name as you convulse your way to unconsciousness and death. Now, if you will permit me to go, I have a fool to summon to my aid." With that, he reached the top of the stairs, and slammed the door shut loud enough to rain dust from the foundations overhead. |