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mcsquared789 · 26 days

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I'll just leave this here, in case you missed it 😉

This is a prologue of sorts for the upcoming Thor fic. I felt confident enough to post it as I am about a fifth of the way through the fic — and that's GREAT, because when I start uploading, I hope I will be able to keep a consistent schedule.

That being said, I am super excited for you all to see the rest of it! But to release it earlier would mean having to wait longer for future updates, and then more pressure on me to get it to you as soon as possible... so unless you say otherwise, I think I will have to keep holding it off until I've done more chapters and/or I finish Widowmaker. Let me know if that's okay! 🤗

They were still in the desert. In an endless expanse, miles long and miles wide.

It was a late, cloudy night. The stars, for how much Jane tried to see them, remained unseen as they were trapped underneath a vast cloud blanket of darkness. The only source of light was from the headlights of their van, the additional searchlights they had installed on top, the dim screens of their monitoring equipment… and the frost gathering on the van's windows.

Jane zipped up her coat, feeling herself become more restless. She needed to be — for one, it was fucking freezing.

For two, her forecast had predicted another atmospheric disturbance in the air tonight. She was already seeing a visual appearing on her laptop, and it was only getting stronger. More clear. Coming closer. They would only have a few minutes to capture it before it passed them.

Or maybe… she realized, her breath catching. It's already here. Was it too subtle to notice? Is the auroral above us?

We have to take precautions. She whipped her head to the window, and lowered her head down below the handle — pulling back her long hair, trying to see above as vertically as she could. She gained a peek of the featureless sky beyond their van roof.

Nothing yet. It was still too hard to make out anything — they needed to dig deeper.

"Erik," she breathed. "Get the barometer. Darcy, turn off the headlights."

A grumble came from the front seat. But the lights switched off, and Jane quickly blinked the rest of it out of her vision. If it was dark before, it was black now.

In the seat next to her, Erik Selvig groped for the ring-shaped barometer. It took a few attempts, but he plugged it into the equipment. He glanced listlessly at Jane, the shadows outlining his weathered wrinkles. The skeptic in their midst.

"Open the sunroof," he muttered, his jaw clenching. His thick accent truly exemplified his current exasperation with her. But ignoring him, Jane pulled it open.

A faint breeze swept into the van, and Erik clenched his teeth from the cold — but he handed the barometer to her. She wriggled herself up through the sunroof, taking extra care not to hit her head. Not to let her jacket slip. She placed the meter down on the car roof, switched it on from underneath, yelped as her fingers brushed over a cold jagged piece of metal, and ducked back into the van quickly.

She stared at her laptop, watching the pressure indicator as it slowly started to rise. "Something's happening."

"Jane," Erik told her quietly. "Something has been happening for the previous several nights. The last seventeen occurrences have been predictable to the second —"

"If they were, we would have left a long time ago," Jane whispered. "But look. They're getting stronger each night. This is the most drastic it's been."

"This is the coldest it's ever been."

Jane ignored him. You can't deny this, Selvig. There's a connection between these events and the research. She found herself becoming somewhat excited. I might just be on the verge of a breakthrough here.

First, the hammer… now, this. This is just the beginning, as far as I'm concerned.

"Can I turn on the radio?"

"No," Jane snapped.

"Ugh, whatever," Darcy responded unenthusiastically from the front seat, and rolled her eyes. From where Jane could see her out the corner of her eye, she reclined in her seat with her beanie firmly pulled over her head, her medium length black hair trailing into her waistcoat. She reminded Jane of a gremlin. She shared the same attitude of one.

But Jane focused on the barometer in front of her. The pressure was building steadily.

Erik watched her, shaking his head slowly. "We can't keep doing this, Jane."

"Not right now."

"We're astrophysicists, not storm chasers. Everything we've stayed out here for, it's — it's a complete fluke. There has been very little worth picking up on a video camera."

I'm not having it, Jane thought, determined. There's something here that I need to get to the bottom of.

"How do you explain this then?!" Jane demanded, nodding at the monitor. "I wouldn't have asked you to fly us out here if I hadn't been absolutely sure. Now, look outside the window for me. The auroral should be on us at any moment."

The same pattern. A drop in temperature, an increasing pressure, a flash of green light in the same spot. The subtle signs of something slowly manifesting into existence. As if coming out from a point in space and time.

A possible wormhole?

"Oh — oh my god," Darcy blurted out from the front seat. She leaned forward. "Jane? I think I see it."

"What?!"

"Look —"

Jane leaped out of her seat, squeezing in between the monitors. She rolled herself up to Darcy, staring out through the windshield. She gaped too.

Up ahead, faint green rays of light were shimmering through the clouds. A vaguely visible area of light in the approximate shape of a circle — ones with criss crossing lines and patterns.

"That's it!" she cried. "Oh, shit —" She almost hit her head against the car mirror, but settled in the passenger seat and called back to Erik. "You see it from there?"

"Sort of? I thought you said it would be a more subtle auroral."

"Well, thank goodness it's not! Pass me the camera."

Erik reached out to her, and Jane took the old video recorder. Now long since outdated by mobile phones and newer devices… but it had something that none of them had yet. Flipping it open, she switched it on to the infrared mode and started recording, trying to keep it steady. She was able to get a good view of the lights in the sky.

"Okay, we need to get closer," she panted. "Get ready to drive."

"Um, okay…" Darcy straightened up and turned on the ignition.

The headlights turned on again. The engine rumbled underneath them loudly, causing the camera to jitter.Jane silently swore, wishing they had gotten a better van.

RUUUMBLLLE…

Thunder. Jane frowned. I didn't recall there being a storm.

Jane looked through the camera again, and balked at what she was seeing. The light in the sky was now starting to fade. That was not good.

"Damn, we're losing it," she hissed. She started rolling down the car window next to her, and looked to Darcy. "GO! NOW NOW NOW!"

SKKRT. The van lurched, traipsing over the sandy plains, past the outlines of bushes, sticks and stones, at several miles per hour. The spectacle was awaiting them on the other side.

Ignoring the cry of protest coming from the back, Jane stuck her head out the window — the wind blowing in her face, her hair flapped behind her as she aimed the camera up at the clouds, straight at the auroral. She whooped, and her voice was drowned out by the motor of the van.

She peered through her camera, as they came closer and closer. The heat signatures she was picking up were different, far more different from what she could see. Something warm — no — hotter — was rapidly descending from above. From the area in the clouds with no name, which seemed to be far colder than anything else surrounding it.

She kept an eye on it, as it formed into a comet. dropping down to the dunes. And as it made impact —

CRACK. BANG!

Jane was jolted by the sudden crack of lightning, a sudden BURST OF LIGHT and heat that had appeared in front of them. She almost lost the grip on the recorder.

An enormous cloud of dust and sand arose from the point of impact, and dissipated into the darkness just as quickly. As Jane stared at it, she felt specks of dust brush over her, vaporizing into the central atmosphere. They were racing towards a sudden sandstorm, sparking with something she couldn't make out.

Jane lowered the recorder, bewildered. What had just happened?

SKKRT. The van started to decelerate, pinning Jane against the side of the window. She cried out in pain, and retreated from the window, back into the passenger seat. She held up the recorder again at the windshield, but glanced at Darcy. "What are you doing?!"

Darcy looked absolutely terrified. "I'm not dying for six college credits!" She shouted. "I'm slowing us down!"

Jane leaned forward, watching as they skidded into the sandstorm. With her quick thinking, she remembered to roll up the window to stop the outside elements from creeping in.

SSSSHHHHH. The headlights were their only source of visibility. They were trapped in the storm, the center point of impact, racing past grain after grain of infinitesimal sand. Jane held on for dear life, seeing Darcy trying to control the stick, trying to halt them. She stared into the darkness, watching out for obstacles.

I don't understand, she thought wildly. What was that??

She looked down at the recorder… but every color signature was the same. The moment had passed. She snapped it shut.

Her eyes rose up to the windshield — and widened as they saw a silhouette.

WHAM.

The van went spinning. Darcy's hands gripped on to the wheel, stark terror plastered on her face. Jane, for a brief second, felt like she was the one who had just gotten hit.

SCRREEEECCCH. The van dwindled, slowed down as it spun and spun in circles… before finally, slowly stopping — throwing them all back in their seats.

There was an oppressive silence.

Then — Jane clapped a hand to her mouth, her brain catching up with her. "Oh, Christ."

"What? What happened?!" called Erik from the back.

"Okay, look," Darcy started shaking. "I think that was legally your fault —"

"DARCY!" Jane shrieked. "Where are the torches?"

"Here. In the glove compartment."

She grabbed two, and tossed one to Jane. Throwing caution to the wind, Jane threw open her door. "Come on!"

She was a few steps away from the van, casting light over the ground when the rolling door opened. Erik came out, stumbling, and followed her too. Darcy came around the side of the van.

"I don't understand," Erik said, groaning. "What —"

"We ran over someone," Jane hissed. "Get the first aid kit!"

"Oh… God." Erik paled. He turned back.

Do me a favor and don't be dead. Please please please.

Jane swept her torch over the land. She honed in on something that resembled flesh, not far from where they were. She raced towards it, too terrified now to even care about the creeping weather.

No no no! She thought desperately. Don't be dead.

She came to a stop, and bent down to look closer at the poor man — and she almost fell over in shock. The man was completely naked.

And as it seemed… this man was huge and muscular as well. Her torch shone over his perfectly-sculpted abs, his stretched bare shoulders, and up to his chiseled face with a trimmed beard and long, dirtied blond hair that swept down to his neck. Jane gaped at him. And as she shone the light down past her torso, she made out the subtle definitions of his thighs and calves… and beyond that, if she angled her light closer…

No, that was all Jane was willing to see. Focus. She starkly remembered, noticing the man's eyes rolled up in his head, completely vacant, that he had just been hit by a van. Already, she could see the cuts and bruises that had resulted from what had just happened to him.

She put down the torch, checking his pulse. She exhaled, seeing that he was still alive. Oh, thank God.

Someone walked up behind her. "Jane?"

"Erik! Give it to me!" She rose a hand up at him, who was staring at the body on the ground with utter confusion.

He gave the kit to Jane. She tore it open. "Okay, come on, come on."

"I don't understand," Erik said, looking around. "Wh — what was all that just now? Who is this? Where did he come from?"

Jane froze.

She stared down at the unconscious man. She found herself wondering the same thing.

"Erik. I… I don't know."

Where DID he come from?

#mcu fanfiction #ao3 #fanfic #fanfiction #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #thor #jane foster #erik selvig #darcy lewis

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