CHAPTER EIGHT

JANE FOSTER was nearer to discovering the truth than either she or Heimdall could have ever thought. As she followed her pinging phase meter, she found herself at a doorway. Curious, Jane looked inside to see a shimmering rift in time and space. “Amazing…” she muttered to herself. And then things went really crazy.

Jane’s shoes squeaked on the floor, and she found herself being dragged toward the rift as if by some all-powerful, invisible force. Jane reached out to grab hold of something—anything—but it was no use. Everything in the room was being pulled toward its center, toward a swirling gravitational darkness. She tried to yell for Darcy, but it was no use. By the time she opened her mouth to scream, she was consumed by the dark, swirling energy. The only sound was the wind whipping by her and the crackling of energy. The force lifted Jane high into the air and she hung, weightless, suspended above the ground. Then she started to spin with the rest of the debris. As with the soccer ball, the shoes, and the keys, strange, otherworldly forces were at work, causing gravity to reverse itself and objects to move independently and at varying speeds. And in the center of it all was a shocked Jane Foster. The energy crackled louder and louder and Jane spun faster and faster until everything went black.

Jane hit the ground with a hard THUMP, as if she had fallen several stories. She groaned as she slowly pulled herself up. She was bruised and her body ached, but she was alive, and nothing was broken.

“Darcy? Intern guy?” she called out, but there was no response. In a few seconds, her eyes became acclimated to the surrounding darkness.

Jane was lying on her side, in the dreary abandoned industrial complex on the south side of London. Confused, she tried to focus her eyes on what was directly above her on the ceiling—a large pile of bricks. As she slowly got to her feet, one of the bricks fell. Then Jane’s eyes went wide as the entire pile fell. Jane jumped out of the way, just in time to miss being crushed by the mound of bricks. That was when it all came back to her: the odd occurrences at the complex, the strange phase readings, the dark room with the strange energy. She needed to find answers—and fast. But first she needed to find Darcy.

Meanwhile, Maddie and Navid continued to play with their magical soccer ball until, without warning, their soccer ball just bounced harmlessly off the side of the wall, its magic gone. The kids saw Jane enter the room, and thought that she had taken the magic away. “Now the police are going to kick us out,” Navid said. “Thanks for nothing.”

Jane looked out the window to see Darcy talking to a police officer, with several more behind her. Jane ran out of the complex as fast as she could.

“You called the police?” Jane yelled at Darcy, worried that they were going to make her evacuate the complex. “Next thing you know, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be crawling all over, ‘Area Fifty-one-ing’ the whole place!” Jane was frantic. “We had a stable gravitational anomaly. We had unprecedented success. Our only competition was kids!” she yelled.

“What was I supposed to do?” Darcy replied. “You were gone for five hours!” she yelled back.

This stopped Jane cold. How could that be? How did she disappear for five hours? She had only been in that strange room for a minute. Nothing was making sense, but before Jane could get any answers, storm clouds rolled in and the sky turned black. Darcy knew at once what this meant, but didn’t want to believe it. “Really?” she said, as if to some higher power. And as if in response, the rain started.

Torrential rain poured down from the sky as everyone ran for cover, leaving Jane standing alone in the courtyard. She looked around, but somehow, she wasn’t getting wet. She was staying dry. And that’s when Jane realized what was happening. She heard a thunderclap and then, from behind, a large shadow engulfed her tiny one. She slowly turned and looked up to see Thor standing in all his glory, Mjolnir at his side, his red cape flowing in the wind. He was here. And he was real. He walked up to her, the two now in their own small, dry oasis.

“Are you all right?” Thor asked with concern. “I thought something had—”

SLAP! Jane hit Thor across the face.

“I just wanted to make sure you were real,” she said in reference to the slap. Thor just blinked, surprised and slightly annoyed at the reaction to his arrival. “Where were you?” Jane asked.

“Where were you?” Thor replied.

“Right where you left me,” Jane said, referring to New Mexico.

“No,” Thor interrupted. “Heimdall could not see you. You were gone.”

Jane looked down and realized what Thor meant. “I don’t know what—Wait, Heimdall was watching me?” she asked.

“He was always watching you. I asked him to,” Thor said.

“I need a moment to figure out if that’s moving or creepy,” Jane replied, though deep down she knew what Thor meant. “I waited for you,” she confessed.

“I know you did,” Thor began.

“You said you’d come back for me,” Jane said with sadness, wondering why Thor never did.

“The Bifrost was destroyed. The Nine Realms fell into chaos. Entire planets and people were at risk,” Thor explained. “Risk of destruction. It was my obligation to help them.”

“But I saw you on TV,” Jane said. “In New York.”

“My duty had to take precedence over my heart,” Thor said, referring to his battle with the Avengers against Loki.

Jane smiled at Thor, but was interrupted by Darcy, who stood outside their oasis, soaking wet. “Do you wanna, maybe…?” Seeing her, Thor stopped the rain. Jane looked over at the police, who were arresting Ian, and ran over to try to explain, leaving Darcy alone with Thor. “Look at you,” Darcy said as she inspected Thor in his battle armor. “Still all muscle-y and stuff and everything. How’s space?”

“Space is fine,” Thor said, his eyes on Jane and the police. They had moved toward her now, as if to arrest her as well.

“This is private property,” one officer began. “You’re trespassing. The lot of you. You’ll have to come down to the station.” But as the bobby reached out to her, Thor took a step forward. As he did, the police reflexively drew their guns. The situation had gone from bad to worse in a matter of seconds.

“Place your hands on your head and take five steps back!” one of the officers yelled.

Thor protested that Jane was sick. He could tell that something was wrong, but the police did not back down.

Jane tried to calm him down, but was suddenly too weak to even stand. Thor contemplated for a moment, then kneeled down beside Jane. “Close your eyes,” he instructed as he lifted her into his arms. Everything went silent. Then everything and anything that wasn’t nailed down to the ground began to shake, and with a deafening BOOM! the Bifrost shot down to Earth and whisked Thor and Jane up into the sky.

Darcy and the police looked at each other as the giant beam of light disappeared. They were all speechless.

With a mighty flash of light, cinder blocks, parking meters, and car hoods emerged from the Bifrost, causing a nonplussed Heimdall to move out of the way to avoid being hit from the debris that was accidentally sucked into the wormhole. With another flash, Thor and Jane landed in the observatory. Upon seeing them, Heimdall removed his sword from the controls, causing the observatory to stop spinning and the Bifrost to close.

Jane staggered to her feet as Thor reached out to steady her and make sure that she was all right. Jane looked up at him and grinned like a giddy schoolgirl. “We have to do that again!” she said with a smile.

Across the cosmos, Malekith strode through Svartalfheim, seething with rage. He could not wait to make the Asgardians pay for their injustice to him, his world, and his people. As the Dark Elf leader neared the Ark spaceship Algrim approached, struggling to keep up. When the two were out of earshot of the rest of the elves, Malekith began to speak. He instructed Algrim to take on a top secret plan that only he could accomplish. The second in command slowly nodded his acceptance. Malekith placed a reassuring, thankful hand on Algrim’s shoulder, then turned and looked out upon his awaiting army. They were falling into formation outside the large Ark. The war with Asgard was about to begin anew.