The Girl Who Held the Universe in her Hands | marvel [1] ✔

NINE

CHAPTER NINE
' OKAY, JUST ME . '

Ash pushed her hair off her shoulders, a scowl forming on her face as she slid into the back seat of a car. Jane and Thor sat in the front, and since their entrance onto Earth, silence had swallowed the group with a domineering arrogance. Ash continued to stare through the window with a blank exterior, blood boiling under her skin. She watched the lights stream past the car window, cheek resting against her fist.

This fight was her last escapade with Thor. She'd officially had enough of playing an obedient soldier, and quite honestly, she'd had enough of everything full stop. Part of her began to feel apathetic towards stopping Malekith, and the other part was surprised where this sudden abandonment stemmed.

Maybe because Loki did it with such ease, or rather, Thor fell for it so easily. Clearly, this god was much less than she expected.

And if Ash was good at anything, she was good at exploiting weakness.

Thor?

Well, Thor had lost his mother and brother to the same person. Surely Malekith could be responsible for another.

Jane pulling the car to a stop broke Ash from her thoughts, and she straightened as the duo exited. They entered the apartment building and ascended the stairs. As soon as they entered the flat, Darcy ran towards them.

"Jane!"

"Hey," she replied, returning the hug in an exhausted manner.

"You can't just leave like that. The whole world is going crazy! All the stuff we saw is spreading." Darcy suddenly acknowledged Jane's Asgardian clothes and her dishevelled state. "Did you go to a party?"

Jane noticed another person for the first time. "Erik?"

Ash turned with the rest, eyes widening as the older man embraced Jane. "That's the real Erik Selvig?" she asked Thor quietly, leaning into him slightly.

Thor looked down at her. "Yes," he replied in the same tone.

She moved her eyes back to him. "Cool." Her awe disappeared when she took in the fact he wasn't wearing any trousers.

"Where are your pants?" Jane asked.

"Oh, uh...he uh...he says it helps him think," the intern replied awkwardly.

Ash moved away from Thor, circling the table and inspecting the work. "You've already been recording the gravimetric anomalies?"

Erik looked at her. "Yes?"

Ash hummed before leaning over the table. She zoned out Erik and Thor's conversation until she slammed her hand onto the table as her brainwave grew. "Okay, okay, okay, okay. The Aether gathers power as it destroys things, right? So for it to reach maximum effect, Malekith has to fire it at the exact point where the Nine Realms are connected."

"Yes, well, the alignment is only temporary," Thor replied. "He must be in exactly the right place at the right time."

"Well, how do we know where that is?" Darcy asked.

The room was silent for a moment. "No one?" Ash looked around expectantly. "Okay, just me. Look, the Realms have orbits similar to planets, right? Like a solar eclipse happens every so often, the Convergence has occurred before. A long time ago, but Ancient humans were there to see it." Ash wrenched a map from a table, slamming it down onto the table, above the papers, with a pen and ruler flying into her grip. "All the great constructions of humanity: the Mayas, the Chinese, the Egyptians, they made use of the gravitational effects of the Convergence. And they left us a map. Stonehenge. Snowdon, the Great Orme. These are all coordinates taking us... here." She circled Greenwich on the map.

"Greenwich?"

"The walls between worlds will be almost non-existent," Jane began, moving towards the paper. "Physics is going to go ballistic. Increase and decrease in gravity, spatial extrusions. The very fabric of reality is going to be torn apart."

Thor summoned Mjolnir, and it shot over to his hand from where it hung on the coat hanger.

Erik looked around. "I better get my pants."