Archive of Our Own ^beta

"We take a case out in the..." Garcia said, trailing off. "No cell service, not even an internet connection. And when we get back?"

Reid nodded, understanding her point: "Someone's invaded New York with cyborg whales."

JJ just said, "No, it doesn't sound any more plausible when you say it."

"Aliens," Garcia said.

"Speaking of, someone wants to talk to us," JJ said, tapping the plane's phone which had rung as soon as they had come into range.

"Aliens?"

"Yes and no."

**

Reid stepped into the ring surrounding the entirely-clear prison cell which held the captive Loki, the door closing behind Reid.

"Try not to be alarmed so," Loki advised him. "They think it steels mens' resolve to lock them so close to something so powerful."

"A god?" Reid asked.

"Your people have called me that."

"Gods can die."

"They can at that. I have witnessed it, myself."

"Is that so?"

"Several times. Their names may not be familiar to you." Horus. Matar. "But you did not come here to hear tell of my exploits. Rather, not my distant exploits."

How do you talk to something from legend? What do you assume it knows, what points of commonality and conversational reference points do you have? "Its my job to talk to those who have done things."

"Then you must be eternally busy," Loki said, completely serious.

"It feels that way," Reid said.

"Then best begin, so you might continue on to another, once you have spoken with me."

"Very well. You stand accused of -"

"Accused?" Loki repeated. "So easy to see why Thor held the same view as I, and for so long. Human, I stand confirmed in my guilt, judged and sentenced to the punishment which awaits me."

"I didn't know that," Reid said.

"Of that, I am not at fault," said Loki, amused.

"True. And what are you at fault for?"

"You already know."

"I know only what you've done. I don't know why you did what you did," Reid said.

Loki looked at him. "Is this your duty, your task? To stand before me and see if I will plead, if I will sob and claim one motivation or another?"

"That's usually what happens."

"Is that so?" Loki asked, amused.

"It is."

"Then tell me, o learned man of Midgard, what your wisdom says in regards to those who are in thrall."

"It says -"

"No no," Loki interrupted. "I speak not of obeying orders willingly or under threat, nor did I mean tricked or misled into committing a murder."

"You mean if someone's operating you by remote control or like you're a puppet on a string?" Reid asked.

Loki smiled. "They really haven't told you, have they?"

"Told me what?"

"I've no doubt they laid out the full array of charges against me, spoken of all the actions I committed during the attack on your hamlet...city."

"Then what haven't they told us?" Reid asked Loki.

"How some of their own worked against them. Rather embarrassing to admit to, I suspect. Used each one's expertise toward the goal of the controller."

"And you're saying the same thing was used on you, to have you do the bidding of whomever wanted New York attacked?"

Such short attention spans, seeing so little a ways into the future. Their kind used to be much better at it. Loki said, "It does not matter."

"Some would argue -"

"To their death," Loki interrupted Reid again. "I know the ways of those who have decided already, much as I know the wheels have turned, the wheels are turning, and the wheels shall continue turning as they have been."

"The plot's afoot?" Reid asked, quoting Doyle, only turning into a question.

Such uncertainty. Does he think it a simplicity to breed an army, to drill them in combat and riding and all other required skills? "Was that your question?"

"Say it affects the decision - who commanded you in the invasion?"

It will do you no good. "More anger than Surtur. Older than Bifrost. Cleverer than Skuld."

"Should those names mean something to me?" Reid asked.

"Don't lie, boy. I could see you recognized those names the instant you heard me say them. You may be accomplished at hiding your reactions from your kind's unawares, but I am neither."

"The names were from mythology. Myth -"

"Do not presume to speak to me of myth," Loki said, and Reid had a feeling he was a hair away from ice forming on Loki's breath.

"Is that because you're a myth yourself?" Reid asked.

Loki smiled cheerfully and with a much warmer voice than the frostiness of a moment ago, "I've no doubt I became myth, as did Thor and the others. Though as to the shape of those myths, I can only imagine what shapes the tellings have passed on."

"Well, all the ones I'm familiar with, end with you entombed alive with your wife as your protector."

"My wife?" Loki asked.

"Which makes me wonder why Sigyn isn't here now. Surely she's want to -"

"Do please inform Thor that I am ready to depart," Loki said. "In your syntax, this interview is terminated," and he dropped the temperature in his cell to the point where all the walls frosted over, masking him from human eyes.

**

"Sign??" Thor asked when Reid rejoined everyone in the control room.

"They don't get along?" Garcia asked.

"The Chitari have more fondness for Earth, than does Sigyn for Loki."

Prentice raised an eyebrow.

"Odin imprisoned Sigyn at the end of our war with the Frost Giants. She has sworn to slay Loki the instant she is freed," Thor said. "I believe she would do the same were he placed into her confinement."

"I guess that's another myth biting the dust," Spencer said.

"Which makes me more curious," Thor said. "If your legends place Loki at Sigyn's side, who do you think is at mine?"

"Sif," Reid said.

Thor just stared at him.

"I'm going to interpret that as a 'no' then."

"I will take Loki with me back to Asgard," Thor said.

And Reid had a feeling there was an unspoken 'and not return to company such as this' in there. And when SHIELD refused to confirm or deny the existence of such devices, he had something which was more than a feeling: a hope: that they wouldn't see again the work of mind-control devices like Loki had alluded to.