Epilogue

— 8 years later —

Bruce Banner can't sleep.

He's been trying for hours. The sheets on his bed are heavily mussed, half-on, half-off the mattress, damp with his sweat. The heat is merciless and has been for days. Not for the first time he finds himself wondering with more than a little bitterness if this awful heat is why Fury had called them all here, to an obscure base of operations once owned by the long defunct S.H.I.E.L.D., located in what appears to be the exact middle of a desert. It wouldn't surprise Bruce if Fury had done it out of vindictiveness. He wasn't happy with most of the Avengers and hasn't been for quite some time given their tendency to do things their own way, particularly in times of strife.

Bruce sighs, staring up at the ceiling of his room. To the right of the bed is a door, to the left a large window. To say the room is spartan would be an understatement. The only piece of furniture is the bed. If he wants a shower — and to be honest, he's been considering a cold one for a couple of hours now — he has to exit his room and head down the hall to the large communal bathroom located four doors down. Gone are the days of operating out of state of the art facilities; the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ultron's rise and fall, and the civil war between Earth's "heroes" has done some serious damage to both Nick Fury's influence and access to resources.

Bruce sighs again, rubbing at his eyes — aching, gritty — with the heel of one hand. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He runs his fingers through the thick, upright swaths of his hair that are wet with sweat. He's staring at the floor now instead of the ceiling, feeling a faint but persistent throbbing come to life behind his left eye. He's not surprised. He hasn't been sleeping well since he arrived here 6 days ago. Bringing what's left of the Avengers together seems to him like a very bad idea considering the animosity that is still present between some of the group's members. But Fury is right—they've been too scattered for too long. They have to rediscover their cohesion. Earth needs them even if they can't stand each other. Still, Bruce has some very serious concerns about his "teammates" and their ability to play nice, and he suspects that concern is what's now keeping him from sleep and gifting him with frequent headaches.

He slowly lifts his head and gets to his feet, locking his arms together behind his head and standing on tip toe in a stretch. He holds it for a long span of seconds and then relaxes before turning and padding with bare feet to the door. It opens with a gentle push—the latch is broken, like a lot of other stuff in this joint — and then he's in the hall, walking quietly past other rooms housing other people, past the bathroom and the promise of a cold shower. He turns left with the corridor, passing other doors before reaching the end of the hall. There's another door there, a door marked with a red "Emergency" sign, and without hesitation he pushes it open.

He steps out onto sand-dusted concrete, closing his eyes as a warm breeze rolls over him. He's only wearing boxers and even though the temperature has dropped considerably since the sun went down, it's still uncomfortably warm. He moves forward a few steps, craning back his head to get a look at the sky. There's no light pollution here, and what greets his gaze is the gorgeous canvas of night, stars strewn everywhere, a universal road map that he never tires of looking at. He takes a deep breath and then another, eyes fixed on the sky and finally, finally, he feels the weight of tension drain from his body.

For a few sublime, fleeting minutes he's just existing: his mind is quiet and he's the only person here in this exact space in this exact time. Another breeze whispers across his skin, warm and gentle, and for the first time in a long time Bruce Banner is at peace.

He hears a footstep behind him and lowers his head. This compound is small and privacy is hard to come by, so he's not surprised that someone's managed to interrupt his little zen moment. He half-turns, looking over his shoulder, to see a small, thin familiar form silhouetted by the compound's watch lights.

He says, "Hey, Nat."

There was a time when this would have been awkward — after all, he'd passed up a relationship with Natasha and left without explanation after the fall of Ultron. It'd been a couple years since they saw each other after that, and when they finally had met up again reconciliation hadn't been on her agenda. He'd understood her anger, understood too that he deserved it, and when the shouting was done they'd gone their separate ways once more. But circumstance had thrown them back together time and time again after that, and somehow they've made their way back to being if not friends, than something very close to it.

Standing before him now, Nat hasn't said anything, which isn't all that surprising. Given recent events, she's not much for small talk anymore. But she hasn't moved either, and suddenly he wonders if there's something wrong. "Hey," he says, turning fully around and taking two steps forward.

That's when he realizes it's not Natasha. He stops, tensing. It's not Maria Hill either, who's taller. And those are the only two women in the compound that he's aware of. So he narrows his eyes, tilts his head, and asks, "Who —?"

The silhouette moves, taking three quick steps toward him, into the pool of illumination from the overhead watch light. Recognition is immediate, unavoidable, painful —

"Jane."

And it is Jane. It's Jane Foster, standing straight before him, corporeal. Real. Breathing. And to Bruce seeing her now is like a fist in the gut, a knife in the heart, and he's surprised that he's not physically staggering away given the turmoil in his mind right now.

"Bruce," she says, and her voice is like another blow, a verbal axe falling to strike him in the core of his soul where his emotions are housed.

He can't speak. He wants to, but there are a million words flooding his mouth from his brain and he is simply incapable of filtering them all. His tongue has clove to the roof of his mouth. His lungs feel constricted. His heart is racing. He is very, very aware that if he doesn't calm himself down right now the Other Guy is going make a surprise guest appearance.

And so he closes his eyes and wills this apparition (because what else could it be?) to fade away. He counts slowly backward from twenty, taking deep, measured breaths in order to slow his heartbeat. When he opens his eyes and sees she's still there, he can't help it. He backs away, first one step, then another, then another. He's not aware that one hand has fisted, is not aware that he's holding it now directly over his heart.

"Hello," she says and her voice is low, soft. He can't reply because he's still too busy trying to remember how to think clearly. Finally he manages to choke out something out in a voice that's barely more than a rasp, "Jane, I …"

But it stops there. They stare at each other in silence. He's fighting to regain some semblance of coherence, but when he finally speaks all he can say is, "You look good."

It makes her smile a little. He means it. It's the truth. His eyes are fixated on her, drinking her in. Her face is the same as it ever was, beautiful with its classic lines, absent of wrinkles and wear. He sees that she has aged, though, because at her temples there are traces of silver in her hair, threading down throughout the long dark strands worn loose over both shoulders. Her clothing is unusual enough for him to take notice, long and flowing, and he's surprised to see he recognizes the style: it's Asgardian.

Bruce has in recent years spent some time in that realm, finding himself unwillingly embroiled in yet another titanic struggle between Thor's people and an evil force hellbent on destruction. Jane's clothing now reminds him of that unpleasant time, and he forces his eyes upward again to focus on her face. She's still watching him with a faint trace of a smile, and he can't help but remember the last time she smiled at him, so very long ago. That memory hurts more than most do.

It hurts to remember just how much he'd loved her.

When he speaks, his voice is soft like hers but ragged, carrying within it all of his emotions dragged over the knife-edge of recollection. "Where did you go? Thor wouldn't tell me. He'd only say you were safe."

"And I was," she replies. The smile has faded from her face and her expression now has become a little wistful, a little sad. "I have been."

"But … where?"

"Everywhere, Bruce." She tilts her head back so that she can see the sky, mirroring what he'd been doing just a short time ago. "Anywhere I wanted to go, I went."

"Alone?"

She shakes her head, but doesn't answer. She looks back to him and it strikes him suddenly: she is different somehow. This is Jane but not Jane. It confounds him. It saddens him.

It frightens him.

"Why are you here now, Jane? What happened to you? Are you okay? For you to disappear like that, after all you'd gone through … "

She's still watching him through dark eyes that are calm and familiar, but there's something else lingering in their depths that worries him. It's a new element, one he doesn't remember. He's thrown a lot of questions at her and she wades through them carefully, with purpose. "After Surtr … well. I never thought I'd be whole again. I thought ... well, you know what I thought. I was ..." here she pauses, her eyes on the ground at her feet, a faint frown marring the skin between her brows. "I was sundered. But I found ways to piece it all back together. It took so long, Bruce, so long, but I did it. I'm me again."

He's shaking his head but isn't aware of that fact. He knows now what it is that's so different about her. She's still beautiful, yes, achingly so, but it's a cold beauty, a distant beauty, the same unobtainable beauty the stars share. There are harder edges to her now, to the set of her jaw and the slow blink of her eyes, in the line of her closed mouth.

He asks, "What about Loki?"

She looks away, briefly, lowering her eyes. "I don't know."

He frowns, confused by her answer. He is almost certain she is lying. She looks up at him again, so he takes the opportunity to give voice to some of the hundreds of other questions he has. "How did you get here? Why are you here now?"

She moves then, walking slowly up to him. They are close, so close right now and if he wanted he could wrap his arms around her. If he wanted, he could bend just a little and press his lips to hers, slide his cheek against hers. And he wants to do all of those things so badly that there's a fine tremor coursing throughout his limbs. He's riveted by her presence, by her scent — faint, otherworldly, entrancing — and by her eyes, those dark eyes that are staring into his own and are layered with shadows that weren't there before, once upon a time.

"I've … learned some things," she tells him in that same soft voice. "And those things are how I'm here right now with you."

He absorbs what she's saying and instantly understands that the reason she seems so different and so alien is because she has somehow been able to absorb some of the mystery of the cosmos. She has been affected by it. Perhaps she's even been remade?

"Why," he whispers, feeling suddenly and strangely alarmed, "are you here?"

Her smile is slow and sad and he feels a knot of emotion form in his throat at the sight of it. "I've come to say goodbye."

"I don't — you just got here! What do you mean? Just answer me, Jane, explain it all to me! Please!"

Her smile has faded and her expression has altered and he sees this new exterior of hers, so cool and foreign, crack a little. He sees the sudden welling of tears in her eyes and it's all he can do not to grab her and crush her to him.

"I wanted to see you one last time, as a friend," she says. And before he can even try to think of a reply she moves closer, tilting her head back. Her lips are on his and they are cold, so cold and when she pulls away he sees that the tears have spilled over, sliding rapidly down her face.

"Jane," he whispers and then he's reaching for her because it's all he can think of doing. But she's gone between one fraction of a second and the next. She's gone and it's just him standing out here beneath the desert sky, shuddering under the enormity of what has just transpired.

"Jane," he says, louder, calling out to her, that one word a desperate plea.

His only answer is the breeze.

.x.

Sleep for Bruce after that was a laughably remote possibility and so he didn't even try. Instead he roamed the fenced compound, searching every exterior and interior inch for a sign that Jane had been real, that Jane had been here. He finds nothing, no indication, but as he looks he can still feel the press of her cold lips against his. He thinks that that particular recollection has the potential to drive him mad.

What he should have done is immediately find Fury and notify him. What he should have done was wake the other Avengers and fill them in. What he should have done was confront Thor and demand to know what exactly had happened with Jane that the Odinson had been so unwilling to share. He should have done so many things. He's done none of them.

Dawn is here now and he's sitting in the large room that passes as the mess. He's hunched over in his chair, still in his boxers, uncaring that people are filtering in to grab breakfast and are casting bewildered glances his way. His elbows are propped on the table, his head lowered between them with his hands clasped behind his head. He is exhausted. He is confounded. He is afraid.

"Dr. Banner!"

The sound of his name makes him raise his head, twist around in his chair to look toward the entrance of the mess. It's Steve Rogers that's calling him, waving him over with one hand. Bruce stands, shoving his chair away, and makes his way over to the captain.

"What is it?"

Rogers looks him over once, clearly noting the lack of clothing. He says nothing about it, however, instead saying, "Fury wants us upstairs. Now. There's some kind of emergency."

And so Bruce follows Rogers down the hall to a stairwell. They head up to the third floor of the compound, each taking the stairs two at a time. They enter another corridor and when Rogers enters a room on the right, Bruce follows right on his heels.

They're all here, those that have arrived thus far: Stark, Hill, Natasha, Barton, Fury. Bruce spies Thor next to the window and all he can think of doing is charging up to the Asgardian, shoving him against the window and demanding to know what exactly has happened to Jane, why she is now the way she is. He's about to do it, too, until Fury's sharp directive whips his attention around.

"Look."

He does, turning to face the large screen embedded in the wall. It's showing some kind of live feed from a news station, but Bruce isn't reading the scrolling text at the bottom. He's staring at the person that's center frame in what is clearly footage shot from a helicopter, staring at the man clad in green and gold who's standing so imperiously on the roof of a skyscraper somewhere on Earth. His heart stutters in his chest.

It's Loki.

Behind Loki there are holes forming in the sky, dark chasms that coruscate in shades of black and gold. Spilling forth from those holes are ships, all sizes and shapes, so very obviously alien in design.

It's an army.

The view from the live feed is swinging around as the helicopter circles. And then the pieces fall together for Bruce and he stumbles back, pierced by an agony from within unlike anything he's ever felt before because it's Jane standing next to Loki. Jane, clad in a gown of flowing blue and gray, bearing a circlet of silver on her brow, looking imperious and cold and untouchable.

It's Jane.

And she is the queen to Loki's king.

.x.

Sol's Notes: As a writer who has a very bad habit of leaving works unfinished, the fact that I managed to complete this one makes it a special kind of accomplishment. I started this in 2013 and to be quite honest, there were times where I was certain that I'd never be able to get it done.

I couldn't (and wouldn't) have done this without all the support, kudos, comments, reviews, and private messages I received from all of you. So: thank you. Thank you for your patience, your criticisms, your questions, and your insight. It's been a long ride but it's over now and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!