Part 2 - Chp 5
There’s a flurry of activity--activity Tony can’t avoid, since he’s also stuck in the middle of it no matter how much he wishes he wasn’t. Being Loki’s soulmate doesn’t seem to come with many advantages when it looks like Loki is helping an hostile scout force get to Earth.
(A quiet part of Tony points out that if Loki really wanted the force on Earth, he’d have just brought them. Tony doesn’t know if that’s true--if Loki could take that many through his not space, but he doesn’t push the thought down either.)
Steve is, predictably, not thrilled that Tony talked Thor into going without talking to any of the rest of them, but other than a guilt trip level seven stare, he focuses more on what Tony and Thor brought back and a bevy of questions as they go over all the footage again and again and again.
Which is why Tony is hiding out in Bruce’s lab. Usually Bruce visits him, not the other way around, and so far no one has seemed to realize where he’s gone to hide. They probably think he’s outside the tower which is fine as far as Tony’s concerned.
“I just don’t get it,” Tony tells Bruce, bouncing a test tube in hands.
“Mmm,” Bruce hums. He has been listening to this for nearly thirty minutes, but so far he’s just let Tony rant. This is why Bruce is his favourite. “What does Thor think?”
“That something’s up, but he has no idea what.”
“You could see about finding out,” Bruce suggests mildly.
“How? You want me to just go up and ask Loki? That’s a bad idea. Have you even been listening?” Tony asks. Maybe Bruce shouldn’t be his favourite.
Bruce just smiles his small little smile, eyes crinkling at the edges.
“You’ve finally lost it, haven’t you?”
“No,” Bruce chuckles. “Though I don’t know if you can do lucid dreaming. Or meditation.” Bruce’s brow furrows. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sit still.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“It’s a long shot,” Bruce says, “but between what Thor’s told me about soulmates, what you’ve griped about gods, and my research, I have a feeling that you might actually be able to at least pick up some of what’s going through Loki’s head right now.”
“This sounds really New Agey. You know how I feel about New Agey, Bruce.”
“I do. But think about it--gods are supposedly just a thought made real by their soulmate, right? They’re thoughtforms who happen to be physical. The soulmate bond with them is—”
“--mostly one way,” Tony says, beginning to catch on.
“Exactly.” Bruce grins.
“And they exist in physical and metaphorical space at the same time—”
“--like dreamspaces—”
“--so a person—”
“their soulmate,” Bruce says, grinning wide, eyes twinkling.
“Their soulmate has a unique backdoor into their consciousness, because the gods are basically just an external thought-idea given form by the soulmate.” Tony frowns. “It still sounds pretty New Agey.”
Bruce shrugs and turns back to his workstation.
“That’s because it is. Humans have been having religious encounters for centuries through altered perception--vision quests, dreaming, trance states, mind-altering drugs. We know gods exist. Either everyone is mass hallucinating the same things, or there’s a metaphorical space that gods live in and humans can access from time to time. A god-human soul mate connection means you’re predisposed to Loki’s metaphorical spaces already--after all, you created them when your soul first came into being if what Thor says is accurate.”
“This is going to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Provided you can even do it,” Bruce says.
Tony rolls his eyes. He can do anything he wants--he’s Tony Stark.
***
In all the rush, he’s entirely forgotten about Jane. As much as he doesn’t feel like repeating everything again, what he saw is gold for Jane’s research. Jane is one of the science bro triumvirate; it’s inviolate law to share findings that help the others with their pet projects.
Technically, he’s not supposed to share the footage he brought back with non-Avengers; highly classified stuff, this could cause a panic, yada yada. All the normal stuff that Tony’s used to hearing and totally ignoring.
Jane’s a science bro; she’s not going to leak anything to the public.
“Tony, this is incredible.” Jane starts flipping through the readings he gave her--a wide spectrum of readings starting from Thor’s teleport all the way through thirty minutes post return.
“I thought you’d say that.” Tony grins.
“And there’s video?”
“Yup. Not an alien planet, but there are aliens if that’s your thing. If you can take a look, see if you notice anything I haven’t—”
“Sure, not a problem.” Jane’s still flipping through all the readings from the teleport. “Tony, if I’m reading this right, I might have the missing pieces for the Einstein-Rosen bridge I’ve been trying to build.”
“That’s good, right?”
“That’s great.” Jane looks up to beam at him. “I’ll start looking over that video and the readings here soon, let you know if I find anything.”
“Awesome. Say, you have a minute to talk over this off-the-wall idea Bruce suggested?”
***
“It’s a little untraditional,” Jane starts.
Tony snorts.
“It’s a little untraditional, but I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work. If you think quantum physics is a thing, it makes perfect sense; it’s just an issue of figuring out how to cross streams. Sort of.” Jane shrugs. “It’s worth a shot, at the least.”
“I forget that you live and breathe untraditional,” Tony mutters.
“Let me know how it goes,” Jane says with a smile.