Special Agent Loki Laufeyson

Chapter 12

"I thought they were brothers," Fornell remarked, looking at Gibbs from behind his hand of cards. Loki had gone to bed already, and Thor had followed suit. Gibbs and Fornell were planning on taking turns sleeping, so that one of them would always be on watch.

"They are," Gibbs replied. "Loki was adopted by Odin. Originally, he was the son of Laufey, the king of the frost giants, enemies of the Asgardians. According to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s file on him, which was apparently taken from information given to them by Thor, Odin found him, abandoned, after the Asgard/Jotunheim war. He took Loki home and raised him as his own son, never telling him otherwise. Even Thor didn't know."

"Ah," Fornell said, taking a swig of his beer. "That explains the Laufeyson versus Odinson."

Gibbs nodded. "Loki found out his heritage after a spur of the moment trip to Jotunheim led by his brother. During a duel with the giants, Loki discovered that the ice touch of the giants did not burn him. And when he confronted Odin, his father affirmed it to be true.

"After that, Odin passed out and, due to some kind of banishment imposed on Thor, Loki received the throne of Asgard. He sent a Destroyer down to kill Thor, to insure Loki's claim to the throne."

"Hmm," Fornell mused. "Deciding to kill his brother. Well, his brother's kind of a jerk, so I can see the reasoning there."

Gibbs laughed. "Thor defeated the Destroyer, returned to Asgard, and fought Loki, who was implementing some evil plan to destroy the frost giants and their planet. He had lured Laufey there to kill Odin and then had killed Laufey. Loki then proceeded to...." He trailed off as he thought through what had been written in the file. "...'send the Bifrost down to Jotunheim to allow the energy to destroy the planet.'"

"Whatever in heck that means," Fornell muttered.

"That's Thor's wording of it," Gibbs shrugged. "Anyway, Thor and Loki fought – Thor won, destroyed the Bifrost – I think it's a bridge of some kind. Loki and Thor both fell off the bridge, Odin somehow woke up in the nick of time and saved them, and then, when Loki tried to explain his line of reasoning to the king, Odin rebuked him, and Loki let go."

Fornell wrinkled his brow. "Let me get this straight. He's hanging off a bridge – with I don't know what below him – and he lets go? All for being rebuked?"

Gibbs placed down his hand of cards, realizing their game was going to go nowhere. "The Asgardians thought he died, and Thor's name was cleared. About a year later, Loki shows up in a classified S.H.I.E.L.D. location, steals the Tesseract, and starts his invasion of Earth, or 'Midgard' as Thor calls it. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. called in a team of superheroes labeled the Avengers to fight him, first capturing him in Germany – he then escaped – and eventually defeating him in New York. Thor took Loki back to Asgard, where he served a prison sentence before Odin got the genius idea to send him back to Midgard to pay for what he did."

Fornell snorted. "Yeah. Like he didn't cause enough trouble the first time."

"Exactly," Gibbs agreed. "So now I'm stuck with him until Asgard decides he's reformed enough to rejoin them as a free man."

"It sounds like you don't have the full story here," Fornell observed.

Gibbs shook his head. "What I gave you is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s summary, taken from Thor, parts of which probably came from Odin. I don't think any of that is Loki's side of things."

Fornell caught the drift. "And you want to figure out Loki's story?"

Gibbs nodded. "The confrontation between Odin and Loki was only witnessed by those two, and so I bet what Thor's told me is Odin's side of things. And since Odin was the one being confronted, I really don't think he told Thor everything."

"Maintaining appearances," Fornell said with a nod. "Makes sense. He already lost his younger son; doesn't want to lose his prizewinner son, too."

"Thor wasn't even in Asgard during the confrontation," Gibbs added. "He had been banished after attacking the frost giants against Odin's will."

Fornell rolled his eyes. "Asgardian politics seem even more confusing than American ones."

"Anyway, Thor's been restored to his position now." Gibbs shook his head. "But I still can't believe I'm stuck with the brother."

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," Fornell mused. "I can't stand them. You know when that supposed meteorite struck New Mexico? Well, the FBI received intel about it from one of our agents – they described the meteor as a hammer. An immovable hammer. Not unlike the hammer Thor was wielding earlier. Well, I was sent out with a select few agents, including a forensic scientist – I was actually thinking of calling in your Miss Abby Scioto to run some analysis tests – but as soon as we show up at that crater, darn S.H.I.E.L.D. has set up a darn protective unit around that hammer. And when I tried displaying my credentials proving I was taking over this case, Agent Phil Coulson just snorted with derision and told me that S.H.I.E.L.D. would handle it." Fornell shook his head and drained his beer.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. likes to keep secretive until they can march in and claim credit for saving the world, with all their superheroes," Fornell continued. "When I was a kid, we had Captain America. Now, on top of him, we got Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor. They go about their business until the world needs saving from some menace that they created, claiming all the credit. And yet, the 'normal' law enforcement gets nothing for saving little parts of the world, every day. Without them, the Avengers would have nothing left to save." After this philosophical debate, Fornell slapped down his cards, finally giving up the pretense of the game. "You don't trust this Loki."

"No, I don't," Gibbs answered. "Not after everything S.H.I.E.L.D. told me, not after everything I've read, not after what he did today."

"What did he do?" Fornell asked.

"He and DiNozzo had an argument. DiNozzo insulted him, and he just snapped. Took out DiNozzo, and took out McGhee. I honestly don't know what would have happened next if Bishop hadn't stopped him."

"How'd she do that?"

"Drew her gun on him."

Fornell laughed. "Good girl. And yet, here he is. Why?"

Gibbs shook his head. "Something's wrong here. As I said, I don't have his side of the story yet, and he's been pretty close-mouthed about it, except for snippets here and there. And that's why Thor's here. To ensure that he behaves."

"Why is he still on the team?" Fornell pushed. "How did he explain what he did?"

Gibbs filled him in on the results of the interrogation and Ducky's analysis. Fornell frowned. "So, he just felt like punching DiNozzo, and you allowed that?"

Gibbs sat back in his chair. "No. Ducky said if Loki does indeed have PTSD, then it could be a trigger. He went through an evaluation of him after the interrogation and determined that he suffers from flashbacks and does display some symptoms of PTSD, yet it's not too serious. Ducky thought that if Loki was reliving a particularly painful memory, it could prompt him to act out."

Fornell nodded. "All righty then. How's your team liking him?"

"So-so," Gibbs replied. "Abby's taken to him, Ducky, Jimmy, and DiNozzo are warming up to him, at least they were, up until the outburst, but McGhee and Bishop are still harboring their reservations."

"And you?"

"I don't trust him, but I feel like there's a good person hiding behind what he's done in the past," Gibbs answered. "Fury classified him as a threat, but I see something else. My gut tells me so."

"What?" Fornell asked curiously.

Gibbs looked up at him. "I haven't been able to figure that out yet."