Jane Foster (science_fact) wrote in avengers_logs, @ 2019-05-27 13:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | -backdated, -complete, -rating: red, jane foster, thor odinson |
Who: Jane and Thor
What: Discussing the future and reconnecting
When: Wednesday last week
Where: Jane's Puente Antigua home
Rating/Warnings: Red for some very mild discussion of adult themes before FTB and medical issues
It was good to be busy. That had always been Thor's motto over the years, and he continued to follow it. Even though he felt like he needed more hours in a day to complete everything he wanted, having access to the Bifrost was invaluable to his needs. Because of it, he could go from one place to another quickly an-d effortlessly, which had made many things useful.
Like bringing things to Norway...even though that hadn't worked out well.
Regardless, there was no worry of items sinking beneath the desert in New Mexico. For the last while, if he had a few moments, he would fly out there, to Jane's lab and home, and just ...tinker. At first he started fixing a window that was jammed, which then evolved to tidying up, creating a rooftop patio (furniture included), building a new storage shed and just making the place more comfortable. There was actual food in the place, although still nothing perishable.
It was a nice place to go, and with Jane feeling better, it seemed like a good place to go to be themselves. Being at the warehouse was nice, but it didn't allow for them to be just ...them. Jane and Thor. Not King or consort or Lady or Doctor or whatever title the Asgardians were bestowing on Jane these days.
Jane and Thor.
Landing softly in front of the house, he grinned down at Jane. "Open your eyes, we're here now."
Jane had felt that same need to be herself. Not a name on medical chart, or not someone who had to identify herself with her date of birth Most of the time lately, she felt like a walking diagnosis instead of a person. Even on the rare occasions Jane could leave her bed, people approached when they saw her headscarf. Everyone had a thought to share. An aunt with breast cancer, or an anecdote about reading Fault In Our Stars in book Club. And wasn't Jane just so brave? Jane didn't want to be brave because her bone marrow was slowly trying to kill her. What she wanted was to get into her lab and get back to work. She wanted to spend time with Thor without him worrying about whether she was eating enough, or feeling sick, or if it was time to take her medication. And fair or not, she wanted to get out from under the prying eyes of so many Asgardians and away from the claustrophobia of Thor's room.
Thor must have felt the same. With the Asgardian potions stopping the rate Jane was wasting away, she had a little more energy to be awake a little longer every day, and her breathing was slightly more even. Thor suggested an excursion. Jane thought he might mean somewhere in the city until he wrapped her in his arms and called for Stormbreaker. Jane didn't know where they were headed though when she heard the crunch of gravel beneath her feet her heart soared.
Jane opened her eyed. There was the service station she converted into a lab and residence. Home.
"Thor," she sighed. "Thank you."
The smile on her face was all he needed. "I thought we could use some time to re centre ourselves." He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the forehead, giving her a slight nudge. "Come, let me show you what I've done. I hope you like it."
Taking her hand, he gently tugged her to follow him. "You're looking well these days," he started, looking slightly hopeful. He knew there were several things happening, but the details he was clueless about. It felt like all he talked about lately was her illness, and he cursed himself for bringing it up right away. "And I don't mean physically. Emotionally. You don't look as pressured anymore.". Was that good? He didn't know.
Jane missed conversations when her disease wasn't the first topic of discussion. When Thor didn't have to worry about her next dose of medication, whether she was eating enough, or what her symptoms were.But there'd been little else to talk about the past few months. Now her conversation with Loki had been sitting with her, waiting for the right time to be discussed with Thor. Still, her heart was lighter being here and she was curious to see what Thor had been up to.
"Not dying will have that effect on a person." The potion had put her into a kind of stasis. She was no longer actively dying but was still very very ill. Jane still had hard days and bad nights but she was able to eat a little more and sleep just a little less. There were still hollows under Jane's cheekbones and circles beneath her eyes but her eyes had more sparkle than they had in weeks.
"Have you been coming here? I was wondering what you did while I was sleeping?"
Thor nodded. He kept walking into the house, and motioned around the kitchen. "Yes. I have always needed less sleep than you, and now I find myself itching to do something. At first, I thought I would only do a few things but I had not realized how sorely neglected the home was." The cupboards were freshly painted, and there was a backsplash now installed behind the sink. "I have always enjoyed coming here, and I thought maybe by adding some ...comfort, we could perhaps come here more often." His eyes flickered to the stairs for a moment. "Come to the roof with me. I want you to see this."
He felt as giddy, eager to show her the best part, or at least what he thought was the best part.
Leading her upstairs, he stopped and let her walk onto the roof first. "Since we spend some much time up here, I thought it best to really complete this room.:"
"Everybody needs less sleep than me. And it's not neglected, we just don't live here," Jane protested. The complaint was hardly full hearted though. Thor was nearly vibrating with excitement, barely giving her time to admire the cabinets painted a cheery shade of blue and the new matching tile. How on earth did he find the time?
Jane stopped at the top of the stairs to catch her breath, leaning back against Thor's sturdy chest behind her until she could breathe and move again. It was gave her time to look at what he'd done.
Jane's rickety old vinyl patio furniture was gone, replaced with comfortable new outdoor furniture that had thick cushions and bright pillows. One lounger was extra wide, clearly designed for two people to share. No more nights with her elbows crammed into Thor's ribs and her legs painfully scrunched up if they fell asleep on the same chair. Side tables were scattered throughout so she'd finally have a place to put snacks or her journal. Even the old fire pit was upgraded into something new and clean, with more seating around. A waterproof storage trunk was off to one side. Jane didn't know what it held but blankets so they didn't have to troop downstairs would be nice. Strings of lights had been run from the edge of the old service station sign in the center of the roof. And eve that looked like it had a good clean lately.
"Thor," Jane gasped, turning to face him. She wrapped her arms behind his neck, leaning in to him.
Thor wrapped his arms around her tightly and pulled her close before lifting her up and easily carrying her. She weight almost nothing, less than usual, but he wasn't going to think of that. Instead, he leaned in and gave her a kiss, gently at first (everything was gentle with Jane these days), until he found it hard to hold back. The kisses grew a bit more insistent when he finally realized he had to stop. "Sorry," he apologized. "You probably need your rest."
"Don't be sorry." Thor had done exactly what Jane had hoped he would and the last thing she wanted now was an apology. "There hasn't been a lot of that recently." So many nights Jane was too sick to do anything besides lay with Thor's arm around her. Sometimes even that was too painful and she couldn't even bear to be touched. All while her body changed into something that didn't feel hers to use anymore.
"No...." Was he breathless? Maybe a little. It was hard to really address this . Somehow it'd become, as the Midgardians liked to say, an elephant in the room.
By the Norns, how he missed her though. Their relationship had always had a healthy physical part and her being so sick...
Trying to calm his self, he carried her to the lounger where they could lay down together, something that he definitely needed. There was a quiet, a peacefulness to the desert, an almost stillness that he'd always enjoyed. "Do you know... when I thought I was unworthy...I truly did feel I could have made a life here. Once I'd realized it wasn't so bad..."
Jane wrapped herself across Thor's chest and stared out at their view of the little town. A slight breeze ruffled the edge of her headscarf as she lay beside him. She wasn't stupid or unobservervant. Jane knew Thor's moods. That they often matched her own was a mark of their compatibility. But no she had no idea how to break the glass wall that had come up between them. What was more, she was nervous of what would happen when she did.
Yet Jane missed Thor as well. She reached for his hand, running her fingertips across his palm. "It'd only been two days," she said with a laugh.
"I learned more in those two days by your side than I had in centuries," he replied honestly. He looked down at his hand, watched her fingers at play. When he'd first arrived, he'd been pompous, entitled and overall, an ass. Being humbled, told that he was unworthy, and then experiencing it so when Mjolnir had not responded...
Thor shook his head. "You have always been the best part of me. Without you by my side, through all of this..." He cleared his throat. What he hadn't told her was that he'd experienced some dreams again. Disturbing ones. One where he completely let himself be taken over by his sadness, slipped into what Midgardians called depression.
And he knew how all to real that was for him. When he'd had his memories erased, and essentially started fresh with Jane again... she was the one thing that had brought him back to reality, to seeking the positive again.
"My life is yours. It always has been. I've been thinking..of what we've discussed. The future. Our future. What it could be.."
Jane threaded their fingers together and settled in closer, resting her head on his shoulder. "I have too. A couple months ago I didn't think I'd have one and now..." She tilted her head, lifting her chin a little to look into Thor's face. "It feels like I have so much of it. More than I had before. All this possibility and now I have to figure out what to do with it."
It seemed a perfect moment to mention a discussion she'd had along these same lines, "I talked to Loki while I was in the hospital. I wanted some information about what it means for me to be you."
Thor wasn't surprised to hear that Jane had reached out to Loki. Truthfully, Loki knew Thor's mind better than anyone and yet was still able to keep the objectivity needed to assist with running a realm. It was always interesting to him, to see how much better his brother was at politics than Thor was.
Glancing at the intertwined fingers, Thor brushed his lips on the top of her head. "And what did he say to you?"
"That there is a difference between a queen and consort. Besides consort sounding like something out of one of the romance novels I read in college." She smiled, ducking her head a little. "There's probably a lot about that I still don't understand but was a start. And it helped clarify not everything, but some of the things I want and what I don't... I know we haven't been very good at talking about the future." Different planets and lifespans would do that.
"I want my future to be with you. We've spent too much time apart, I almost died. I don't want anything else. I know that means we have to figure some things out. I haven't go everything worked out yet. Talking to Loki made me realize that no matter what, we work because we're equal partners. I don't want to have to pretend like I'm less than because I'm from Earth. I won't do it.
And," she continued voice tight now, "I know we're not there yet, but if we ever have a family, I want our kid to know their Earth side as well as their Asgard side. I want my kid to know they're Jewish and to understand what that means. And if they grow up and decide they want to follow something else, that's fine but there has to be room for both the Torah and the Norns. So just... just be prepared for that, okay?"
How is it that they always skirted around this issue, when neither of them had any desire to end things? Of course, they hadn't wanted to before either but circumstances being as they were ...
Thor pondered what she said, stroking the small of her back while he tried to figure out what to say. Some days, he cursed the fact that words did not come easily to him. It was in his nature to keep everything inside, not to let anyone in, whether that be wrong or not.
And with his recent dreams ... well, he knew all to well how that could go.
"I have been dreaming of late," he said quietly. "Of the future. Of another future that I strongly believe could have been ours. It is like when I dreamt of killing Thanos...and not succeeding. In my dreams, I become despondent, battle-weary. I ...eat everything. I do not exercise. I have no one, no family, no love ...and it poisons me. When everything is said and done ..." The words were hard to get out. He was not this dream self, but he could see the value in this step, this next stage of life ...
"I appointed Val as King. Or Queen. Whatever. I abdicated and I joined the Guardians, I gave it all up because I realized that I didn't need it....and I don't know if I'm there now. I do need it. I need to have this connection with my people, especially now at such a crucial juncture of our lives but ....I don't mind the thought of having Val take over now ...for a while. Loki and Val would be committed to keeping our people safe and I ...I could be me. Just ..me. We could do what we wanted." His lips quirked slightly. "Marriage. Children. Whatever you want, I want it too. I love you, Jane Foster. More than I have words for......"
"With the Guardians? You and Quill would kill each other in a week," she scoffed. His idea was immediately tempting. They could live here. This could be their home. But it didn't sound like he would quit because he was unhappy but something he did for her. Jane's talk with Sif came to mind and of the other woman's insistence that Thor wouldn't have to be both a King and an Avenger.
"Hey, Thor..." Jane let go of his hand to cup his face. Her hands were flat against his cheeks, the bristles from Thor's beard tickling her palms. "You know I would never ask you to walk away? You don't need anyone to tell you what you can or can't be, whether that' a king or an Avenger or anything else. For me, I believe you have a mitzvah," she trusted the Allspeak to translate the word, which roughly meant 'responsibility from God,' "to your people and to the world. How you handle that is up to you. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. But don't walk away for me. I don't know if I want to be a queen but if this is what you want, we'll figure it out. You'll just have a weird job."
Thor fully agreed with Jane -- he had no idea how he would manage working FOR Quill. As equals, fine, but having him as a leader? It seemed far-fetched to him, but so did abdicating. He had to remind himself that he wasn't that Thor ....even if he was. All this alternate universe stuff was exhausting.
Reaching for her hand, he pressed the palm to his lips, kissing the inside. This was the most they'd touched in ..weeks..months. Having her so close was playing havoc on his body and his mind and he found himself moving from her hand to her face, kissing her more and more insistently. "I know," he said softly. "I know. And I love you all the more for it....but now that the idea is in my mind, it is ...intoxicating. Like you. I want to be with you, Jane and I want to be King and yet ... I want to be Thor most of all. I want to finally know who I am, who I am outside of my role, my title, my responsibility."
It was like the gates had opened and he found himself pouring out with no way to stop. "I do want to get married. I do want children. I want it all with you, and I feel selfish and horrible that my people are not the first thing on my mind and that's it -- they're not. Not right now. I want to be me, and I think having Val and Loki ...they'd find a way to handle this. We could live wherever we wanted...I mean, we'd have to have a home on Tonsberg, I need to be there often, but I don't NEED to be the one in charge. Not right now..."
Jane made a low noise against Thor's mouth. He was being very distracting. She'd missed this too. "You have to decide what's right for you. You've always been a protector, you still have the Avengers. Whatever it is you want, I'm with you."
Jane tilted her head, pressing kisses against Thor's jaw and neck. She was at that eagerly until the movement unsettled her headscarf. Jane jerked back, reaching up to try and resettle the scarf, flushing with embarrassment. It shouldn't matter. She knew it didn't matter. But when her body wasn't making her too sick to move over the last few months, it had also become something foreign Jane didn't recognize, to be feared instead of enjoyed. Jane was starting to forget the things she could do with her body besides grow cancer. Thor had been so upset when she'd lost her hair, how could he want the reminder?
Thor actually felt bad for how he had reacted. He knew now it was not an appropriate reaction but he'd been so upset by everything ... her illness, her fraility...the hair was the last thing he could handle at the time. Maybe he was not so different than his other self... able to sink into darkness so quickly. "Leave it." He reached up and tugged at her headscarf. "You're beautiful."
He dropped his head to her neck now, trailing gentle nips and kisses while his hands grew bolder. "All of you.... you're the most beautiful thing in all the realms, and I thank the Norns daily to have this time with you. For now and for as long as you'll have me by your side."
The breeze was unusual but not entirely unpleasant against the top of Jane's head as she tilted her her neck to give Thor easier access. The only thing to worry about now was... "Careful," she cautioned as his hands and mouth drifted lower. "Watch my stent." The little capped piece of plastic tubing had been installed just below Jane's collar bone and helped her receive her chemotherapy. Another reminder of how foreign her body had become.
She moved, shifting her weight to throw a leg over Thor's hip and straddling his waist. Her hands pulled at his clothes. "Missed you. Missed this. I'm sorry, I've felt like a gremlin. Haven't been feeling like any of my body belongs to me."
Thor didn't actually know what to say back, so he proceeded to continue with what he was doing. When she got on top of him, he knew that was the right choice. Nothing else really mattered at the moment. He'd gotten what he'd hoped out of the trip: reconnecting. It was important that she knew how he was feeling, and he was glad to know he always had her support. He hoped she felt the same way too.
"Don't apologize," he said, tugging on her own clothes. He didn't tell her how much he'd missed her, even though that was painfully obvious at this point. He'd just find other ways to say it. They might only have a few hours there, but he would use that time in the best way possible.