Marvel, page 12
A woman in the corner dressed in a scrunchy frock wept into her phone, black tears smeared across her cheek. Someone had passed out drunk in a stained, cushioned chair near the front windows. It was good enough. Loki didn’t have the money for anything grander. In truth, he didn’t have the money for this, either.
“Let me handle this,” he whispered to Rūna.
“How will you trade payment for our lodging?” she asked in an undertone.
“With this,” he replied, extracting a card from his back jeans pocket. Rūna squinted at the tiny white writing on it.
“You are not Donna M Gorzynski.”
“No, but you could be.” Loki winked and leaned casually on the greeting desk.
The young fellow resting there snapped to attention, shaking his head briefly before appraising them and turning to his computer. “No pets,” he said.
“Oh, this?” Loki rattled Brian’s house. “It’s dead.”
“That’s fine, I guess.” The boy typed furiously on his keyboard and yawned. “I mean, sorry for your loss? Checking in?”
“We are. My wife and I could use a room for a few nights,” Loki said, his voice trailing off as he clucked his tongue thoughtfully. “What do you think, sweetheart, two? Three?”
Rūna crossed her arms across her breastplate and glowered.
“Two it is,” Loki chirped, slapping the card on the desk. He had seen the nightly rates when he found the hotel on his phone, and he felt relatively certain Donna could afford it. She had always given him everything he asked for, never said no, so why would she complain now? He didn’t feel the slightest stab of guilt as he scooted the card forward.
“ID,” said the boy, yawning noisily again.
“Afraid I forgot mine.” Loki sighed, patting himself down with one hand.
“Not yours, hers.” He glanced at Rūna. “You’re Donna. If you’re paying, I need your ID.”
“Listen to me, child, and listen well—”
She was reaching for her axe. Loki smoothly slid in front of her, nudging her out of the way and chuckling. “Forgive her, she’s got an audition in the morning. You know the type, Method acting.” Loki pulled a face, bringing the kid in on the joke. His name tag read: Brian. “Brian, is it? My lizard was called Brian.”
Audible shifting noises came from inside the terrarium.
“Your dead lizard?” Brian clarified.
“That’s the one.” Loki made a complex crossing motion over his chest, trying to remember how the earthlings did it on his shows. It meant you were sad or contrite or something, so he gave it a go. “Rest in peace, Brian.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You couldn’t have mercy on two very tired, very bereft souls, could you?” Loki leaned on the desk again, just far enough to see Brian had been looking at some racy images on the other half of the hotel’s computer screen. “We’ve been on a bus all night, Donna here is going to pieces about this audition tomorrow and forgot her wallet back in Buffalo, I’ve tragically lost my best little pal, and I just feel like you could forget about the small issue of her ID the way I’m going to forget about you downloading peculiar material at work, Brian.”
Brian blanched. Only his watery blue eyes moved, scanning from Loki’s face slowly, inexorably to the screen. He gulped, then typed. “You’re in two twelve. Enjoy your stay, Mr. Gorzynski.”
Loki nodded, beamed, and swiped up the keycards. “Cheers.”
They found their way to the elevators, waiting under a glow of lamps whose shade color could only be described as boiled ham. Rūna swiveled to stare at him, intentionally putting distance between them as soft electronic music droned. Loki rocked impatiently on his heels.
“Do not look so pleased with yourself. A child could have outwitted him. These mortals are soft of body and spirit. Gods, stealing and lying without so much as a hitch in your breath.” Rūna grunted. “Feral. Do you ever feel remorse? Regret?”
Loki ignored her, running his thumb along the edge of the keycard as the doors of the elevator opened, beckoning them inside. “No. I am what I am.”
They arrived at their room in cold silence. Inside, he flicked on the lights and claimed a double bed with his duffel bag and Brian’s cage. Yellow light flooded the beige walls, beige floor, and beige duvet covers. One had the sense it had been different colors at one time, perhaps shades of pink and taupe, but time and neglect had given the accommodations a sepia wash. The beds were arranged side by side along the right wall, just after the smallish separate room for the toilet and shower. A boxy television faced the beds, a remote set beside it. Rūna strode to the window beyond the beds, tearing open the curtains and revealing their stunning view of a brick wall. Loki fished out a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt, changed in the bathroom, and turned on the television, sitting up against his pillows and letting Brian out to stretch his legs on the bed.
Most of the channels had swapped over to infomercials, but he found reruns of some man screaming about diners and settled in to let it wash over him until his eyes drooped shut. Rūna moved around the room with the agitated energy of a trapped fly. He didn’t have the will to cook up a meaner comparison; there was a hole inside him, a void, where cunning and ambition once dwelled. Now there was just…nothing. What was a fish without fins, a bird without wings, a Loki without magic?
He couldn’t even muster the urge to seek revenge against Kvisa and her puppeteer, nor a spiteful longing to raise himself up among humans and thrive. No, he would see through this meaningless riddle of Thor’s and then return to Buffalo and let the aimless streams of human life push him along like a paper boat floating down a river.
He knew Odin. Even if the others were to share blame for Thor’s death, he would never forgive Loki.
“Your silence makes for uneasy company, Prince of Mischief.” Rūna stopped and sat on the edge of the other bed. “Dare I ask for your thoughts?”
Loki dredged up a grim smile. “You’ll enjoy this: I was just marveling at my own stupidity. I can’t believe I allowed you to drag me on this wild goose chase.”
“I didn’t allow you anything,” said Rūna, stern. “You had no choice but to accompany me.”
He shrugged and let Brian wander over his legs. “That’s almost comforting.”
Rūna stiffened. “I hope not. I hope none of this comforts you, and that you never know ease again. Though I wonder, how does it feel to inhabit a mortal body? I always imagined hunger, thirst, and exhaustion as terrible impediments.”
Loki stared back at her in the half darkness. “They are, how kind of you to ask.”
She huffed and looked away. “Do not mistake my questions for concern or care. They are mere curiosity. You deserve every moment of this punishment set down by Odin.”
“And how is dear Father?”
Rūna stood again and went to the window, surveying nothing. “He is deeply afflicted. The realm mourns with him, a king without an heir.”
Loki smiled in earnest, sensing an opportunity. “Why couldn’t you do it?”
“Do what?” Her head turned to the side.
“Take over. Be queen. Why not you? Have you not served loyally for millennia? Do you not deserve recognition?”
“That is not my place.”
“Really? I see. Well. How can any of us know what our place is now?” He sighed and stretched his arms behind his head. “The prince is dead, yet Ragnarok has not begun. What use have we for prophecy and cycles and fate when it unravels before our eyes? No, Valkyrie, we must decide our own futures now.”
Rūna pivoted toward him fully. “Careful. You sound dangerously like your collaborator.”
“Excellent, then maybe I will evade you as handily.”
She snorted and crossed the room, rummaging through his duffel bag without asking. Finding a clean T-shirt, she inspected it before starting for the bathroom. “Your words are blades, but they only scratch. You are nothing without your powers, Prince of Lies, you’ve proved that already.”
12
STARK SENT A CAR for Jane bright and early, so early the headlights were dazzling emeralds in the semi-darkness. Cold brew roared through her system. She hated leaving Quinn before the kid was even awake, but the sitter was there, had slept over, in fact, and they got on like a pair of forces. It was a bad physics joke, Jane grumbled to herself, even at five in the morning.
Had she slept? She couldn’t remember. The condo always felt subzero. Matt had set the thermostat before Jane and Quinn took over the place for the summer, and neither of them could figure out how to change it, so they lived in fleeces and sweatshirts in August in New York. The luxury! Jane hated that, too, being cold all the time. And the luxury. It wasn’t them. They were shrimp and birria at Tacos La Mordida, spending all day at the Balloon Festival until they were crimson with sunburn; it was chasing dragonflies at the BioPark and getting up early to snag the best chilis at the Growers’ Market. God, she missed New Mexico. She missed the colors, the dry air, the hand-painted sunsets, and Thor’s sweaty hand in hers. His hands were always, always sweating, sopping wet until he wiped them on his jeans; he ran about a thousand degrees hotter than she did.
He’d probably love the arctic AC in the condo.
Jane laughed to herself in the back of the chauffeured black car.
“Everything all right back there, miss? Cold enough for you in here?” the driver asked, watching her in the rearview mirror.
Everything is a shambles, thank you very much, breaking under the strain. Barely surviving, actually. Hanging on by a thread.
“It’s perfect,” she said out of reflex.
Stark Tower was exactly what she expected. A spare silver spike drilling into the skyline, announcing itself with its creator’s audacious confidence. There was a roiling dread in her stomach unexplained by the cold brew breakfast. Jane scarfed whatever was haunting her purse—almonds, half a protein bar, and some of Quinn’s loose Skittles—clawing it up like a raccoon hunched over a bin. The chauffeur watched her again, transfixed. He probably didn’t drive sleep-deprived single mothers around much, though she doubted her scavenging was the most scandalous thing he’d witnessed with Stark as his boss.
“There’s green juice in the cold case,” said the driver.
So there was. Jane fished one out and took a swig. It looked like swamp water but tasted decent, heavy on the apple. She screwed the white cap back on and stowed it in her bag for later. There was a book event at noon, and there was no telling if Stark would feed her after their scheduled meeting. She had tried to get out of it, but he insisted, and offered to pay the sitter again. This project of his was moving fast, only lending greater urgency to her wish to see it fail.
Tony Stark didn’t fail. She could just imagine him saying it.
Pepper Potts was waiting for her in the lobby, cheerful and fresh as a daisy at five thirty in the morning. Her pencil-skirted suit was a pleasant periwinkle blue, completely without wrinkle, not a cat hair in sight, her strawberry-blond hair slicked back into a tail any dominatrix would admire. Jane used to secretly envy women who could be effortless no matter the time or circumstance, but experience had shown her that it was phony. There was a crack in Pepper’s smile. Jane didn’t have to see it to know it was there.
“Green juice?” Pepper asked, ushering a tray-laden intern forward.
“Got some in the car, thanks,” said Jane. “I would kill for a bagel.”
“Emery? You heard the woman,” Pepper replied immediately, turning her fixed grin to the intern. Ah, there was the crack.
“Everything? Whole grain? Poppyseed? Blueberry? Asiago? Gluten-free?” asked Emery. She was petite and intricately tattooed, with electric-pink hair that stood out against her cool, oversized black suit. Beautiful, Jane thought. But there was already nothing behind her eyes. This place, these people, had already sucked the life out of the poor kid.
“I’m fine,” Jane hurried to say. “It was a joke.”
“Emery can do anything, she can handle a bagel run,” said Pepper. “Can’t you, Emery?”
Emery nodded. “It would be no trouble, Dr. Foster.”
“Really, I was being silly.” Jane began staring off toward a bank of elevators at the far edge of the airy, modern-art-filled lobby. “We can get started.”
Emery was silently dismissed to refrigerate her green juices. Pepper took over, tablet propped on left palm, jetting across the real marble as if there were rockets strapped to her heels. Stark Tower was empty except for security posted at doors and elevators, a concierge waiting at the long, silver front desk. A flat screen hanging between two artfully disassembled missiles played the story of the Stark family on repeat.
Jane gazed up at it curiously as she followed Pepper toward the elevators.
“You don’t have to do that,” Pepper said with a sigh.
“Do what?”
“Make yourself easy,” she replied. “Go along to get along. Be anything but a nuisance. Heaven forbid, right? We don’t have to do that now. We can have everything.”
Everything. She chewed that word over. By “we” Jane realized Pepper meant women in general. Jane held several degrees from the most prominent institutions in the nation. She had been published and awarded for it at the age of twenty-six. She was a sought-after lecturer, guest, and professor. Up until a few weeks ago, she was the doted-upon beloved of Thor, God of Thunder. For a decade, she had deftly navigated the three-ring circus of physics, academia, and publishing without burning out, committing murder, or being involved in a scandal. Quinn, her daughter, could already speak Spanish quasi-fluently.
Jane nodded. “Mm.”
“Get the damn bagel, honey, is all I’m saying.”
“You’re so right,” said Jane. “What do you like for breakfast?”
The elevator chimed at them pleasantly, and Pepper vocally instructed it where to take them. She then tapped a glossy talon against her lower lip. “Poached egg, rocket, squeeze of lemon.”
“Coffee?”
“Lord, no.”
“Mm.”
They arrived at the subterranean level of Stark’s private workshop. Pepper stepped in front of the elevator door, keeping it from closing. Her eyes swept Jane up and down. “You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you?”
“No,” Jane said lightly. “No, I don’t think that. I think we lead very different lives.”
“Yours has been pretty adventurous.”
Jane’s nape prickled. “Meaning what, exactly?”
“Oh, I just had a glance over your bio this morning. Fascinating. Going from the medical field to physics, and then prestige in your field; that’s quite a leap. What inspired the change?”
“I…met someone. He sparked my interest in space-time phenomena.” Jane gave her a withering smile. “It wasn’t all that difficult. I studied hard, worked hard, and made the life I wanted, you know, because we can have everything.”
“After you.” Pepper seemed to tighten, to don an armor that wasn’t there before. She gestured toward the landing.
It was more of a lair than a workshop. The lighting, moody and shadowy, was nothing like the breezy, lofted lobby or the screen that flashed words like Innovation and Transparency. This was the home of secrets, thought Jane, this was one man’s private, dark enclosure. She moved through it slowly, carefully, as if expecting an ambush. There was no security here, but there didn’t need to be; she could sense and feel the cameras detecting and recording her every move. Plinthed glass cases protected early prototypes, creating a pillared walkway toward a set of shallow stairs. Those stairs led to a crescent-shaped area, jammed with enough machinery, tables, keyboards, and screens to make it look like a surgery.
Her eyes slid between the display cases as she walked. Most of the gadgets shown were meaningless to her, the esoteric inner guts that helped weapons kill better and faster. Oval pools of light fell precisely over the displays, and the grim souvenirs within gleamed, the shiny, coveted eggs in this hatchery of secrets.
Something was playing on a monitor suspended over the machinery at the raised end of the workshop. Tony Stark sat under it, not paying attention, dressed in a slack red Henley and black joggers, his hands full with a plastic board threaded with varicolored wires. He was spinning tiny screws into it. The playback on the monitor froze. Another screen beside it pulsed with blue and white lines, like an EKG, a voice emanating from it, smoothly accented, the voice of a pishposh British man filling the workshop. A plastic label across the bottom of that monitor read J.A.R.V.I.S.
“Data point zero,” it said.
“Again,” Tony muttered, still fixated on what he was building. “From the beginning.”
A three-dimensional, holographic schematic rotated on the other side of Tony’s desk. On a loop, it assembled itself piece by piece, lines of text popping up as each bit connected with the other.
It was a sensory overload—the robotic British voice, the machinery, the repeat footage, the blazing blue-and-white schematic, the hum of unseen 3-D printers at work. One monitor showed a freeze-frame of footage from a phone camera, but she had never seen it before; it was in a gymnasium, a man drenched in something holding an inert lighter over his head. Jane stopped just short of the shallow stairs. Tony didn’t seem to notice her. She watched the news clip on the screen, an uncensored version of the now infamous recording of the carnage in Manhattan. There was Thor, weaving in and out of frame, Mjolnir little more than a gray-and-brown blur as it ricocheted around the intersection. The Destroyer’s footfalls shook the camera. The person recording it all, hidden, likely huddling underneath a car, blubbered, whimpered, and prayed not to be seen.
“J.A.R.V.I.S., clean up the audio. I can’t listen to this moron cry one more time.”
