My picture clear
An empty pit formed in Jane Foster’s stomach. At first, the panic. Then the horrified eyes staring that surrounded her. Those of her coworkers in the lab. Of Selvig’s, who’s quickly began to fill with heavy tears. At last, the fatigue took over. She dropped to her knees, her vision blurring as her surroundings morphed and changed around her. She felt as if she were going to vomit, but it would all have been stomach acid. She looked down to where she was clutching her stomach only to find that her hand was turning to ash. As the world around her spun, she gave off large flakes of ash and smoke, until its almost abrupt stop.
As she steadied, she noticed the lab was empty now, all but for the desks and a few machines covered with sheets. The lights now turned off, everything aged. As she attempted to stand, she was overcome with jet lag. She grabbed a nearby stool and used it to steady herself, slowly rising to her feet as she examined the “new” lab. Her bag was not where she had left it next to the machine she had been working on, which was also missing. Her heart began racing. The only similar experience she could compare the feeling to was fusing with the Aether, which had nearly killed her in more ways than one.
She found her way outside to chaos. People haphazardly running in every direction, screaming and sobbing. Human beings appear out of thin air. She slowly pushed herself through the crowd, searching for any context of what had happened when she heard a woman’s voice yelling her name.
The following weeks consisted of Jane staying at Darcy and Ian’s apartment. Erik had been too emotional to say much of anything after her return, so Darcy had been left with the responsibility of telling her. About the blip, the Avengers loss, and the long lasting depression that came from trying to rebuild society after half of the population just.. disappeared.
She had lost nearly every asset she had, including her apartment, so she slept on Darcy’s couch and endlessly researched everything that’s happened. Five years. It had been five years. She drowned in Google and Facebook for nearly a week itself. Darcy had to restrict her internet access just to get her to eat and take care of herself. Darcy periodically drove her to the storage unit Erik had saved all of her personal items in, in hopes she would come back some day, to retrieve clothes and notebooks for her new research.
“All I’m asking is that you focus on something else, just like- a little. Ya feel?” Darcy prompted. Jane stared out of the passenger door window at the people. Wondering which ones had been left behind, like she was. Which ones had to struggle for half a decade thinking their loved ones would never return. Those who are still in a state of shock. “We’ve had to deal with this for years, the last thing me /or/ Erik want is you obsessing over it like we did.” Her voice faltered a little. Jane straightened and turned her head towards Darcy. The silence was beginning to be unnerving. “You uh- you never said what you were getting from the unit. What’s up?” Jane shrugged her shoulders. “My pajamas are still in there. Leggings and t-shirts aren't cutting it anymore.” Her voice was still groggy from not talking much. Her body still felt like it was wobbling and spinning, the day she came back. Darcy pulled into the storage facility and typed in the gate code. “Gotcha.” She livened a little.
Jane dug through the box of clothes until she found the pajamas she had been looking for. A long pair of men’s pajama pants and some girly, long sleeved, mint green pajama top with beakers and a science pun on the front. Thor had gotten them for her when he moved in with her in New York. She had been missing him lately, and she really hadn’t missed him since she left. The only information she could find on him online after what everyone had been calling The Blip was that a new community had come out of nowhere in Norway that he had apparently built. No photos. No mention of Loki. And the woman that kept popping up in photos about the town, New Asgard, she didn't recognize. The only photo she could find of Thor online after The Blip was a singular shot, screencapped from a news report. He was carrying an unconscious and weak looking Tony Stark over his shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot, hair nearly cut to his scalp. He looked so angry. She had never seen him like that. And she did not like the buzz cut. They would get in their own little tussles and arguments, sure, but he looked exhausted.
She tried not to think of how Thor might or might not be doing as she climbed back into Darcy’s van with her small moving box of pajamas. She tried even harder on the drive home. And as she was taking her shower when they got home. And when they ate dinner that night.
Nearly a month had passed, and the only thing Jane had accomplished was getting her job back, which she supposed would have been a given, however they had begun refilling positions of those blipped around the 2nd anniversary. Most everyone had lost hope of anyone coming back, of any reversal.
She sat at Darcy and Ian’s kitchen table, working on her laptop when her phone started buzzing. It was usually turned off while she was working, but she supposed she forgot to shut it down. Erik doesnt text and Darcy knows she doesn't answer her phone when she’s working. She began to bounce her leg, now unable to focus on her work. She didn't realize until she noticed she had spent the last 4 minutes re-reading the same two sentences in an article she had been sourcing. She grabbed her phone up from the far edge of her stationary and searched through her notifications.
1 new text message from Thor
The whole message was maybe 3 sentences long. Just his address and saying they needed to catch up. Maybe an implication that he missed her. Three years- they’d been broken up for three, no, eight years. Eight years with no contact, at least for him, and now suddenly he wants to catch up? She felt as if her chest were completely vacant. A heavy emptiness, weighing on her. Every nerve and vein in her body was sinched.
Through the night she thought it over. The pros and cons of reigniting her contact with Thor. She’d probably be confronted. The confrontation was what she feared the most. He probably texted because he wants an explanation. And she has no idea if she can really.. provide one. She was tired of the fighting. Of the distance. What more could she tell him that wouldn’t lead to fights like the ones she was escaping by leaving?
She felt like a worm. Why was she so scared of him? He was just another ex boyfriend. All of this mental turmoil over what’s probably a late night drunk text that he never would have sent without a little ale in his system. She was a grown woman, and this was not the biggest problem in her life right now. She felt like a failure to womanhood and feminism. All this fuss over a man, she’s a doctor for god’s sake. A woman of high society and science. She was going to bring him muffins.
It took maybe a few hours to find New Asgard and book a plane ticket, another hour to make blueberry muffins as a courtesy for the visit. Nearly ten hours in coach, thinking about what she was even going to say to him. Christ, she could’ve just texted him back. Called him at most. Why was she so ready to jump on a plane to the other half of the planet to see a man she hadn’t spoken to in years. She had expected a little.. more. A castle, at least some formal decoration. This place felt so empty. Her heart sunk in her chest as she looked around at the demi-goddesses and warriors reduced to fishermen, struggling to accommodate to the bitter Norwegian cold. It now rang on her that she had no idea where he would even live. There was no castle, palace, slightly nicer cottage-
Nothing.
She looked like an idiot with nothing but a single suitcase and Tupperware clinged to her chest.
She wandered around the town’s square for 20 minutes before a tan skinned woman in what appeared to be multiple layers of fitted winter clothing and a stern resting face walked up to her and asked if she knew where she was.
“Oh- yes, thank you. I’m just looking for someone, and I don’t seem to have his address.” She must have looked like a complete moron. “Can you not call them? We just had the cell tower repaired, so it shouldn’t be slow.” The woman appeared to be frustrated. As if there had been more so a technical problem. “Ah, no, it was going to be a surprise for him. I haven’t seen him since before the,, the Blip? A few years before, actually. I’m just tying up some loose ends.” She felt her face flushing. Not like the bitter warmth that crept across her cheeks when she arrived. The longer she stayed the more ridiculous she felt. And the other woman studying her face surely wasn’t easing her mind on the matter. “Brunnhilde.” She bluntly started as she reached her hand out. Jane hesitantly shook her hand. “Dr. Jane Foster.” A quiet smirk flashed on Brunnhilde’s face. “I can take you where you need to go.”
Brunnhilde led her down, slightly out of the hustle of town, to a cottage that at first appeared as if no one lived there. No car, no bike, and there was some scattered trash in the lawn that made it seem no one was there to maintain garbage blown in by the breeze. The lights weren’t on, the curtains closed, and Christ it was nearly 4pm. Brunnhilde stayed back as Jane hesitantly walked down the broken up, stony path to the door. She set the tub of muffins on top of her luggage and knocked on the door. When no answer came, she nervously looked back at Brunnhilde, who still stood at the top of the path, arms crossed in front of her chest. Like she was entertained.
She knocked harder and longer until she heard some yelling and racket from far behind the other side of the door. And then the door flew open. Jesus.