Loki: The Burden of the Throne

Chapter 13

"Erik....take a look at this!" Jane Foster called to Selvig as he entered their base from the RV, his hair still slightly damp from the shower.

Selvig crossed to the desk where Jane sat in front of a computer, on the monitor a series of graphs.

"I entered the data from all three events. They didn't originate in the atmosphere."

"I know," Selvig replied.

"What do you mean you know?" asked Jane, perplexed.

Jane and Selvig looked away from the monitor to the entrance as multiple black cars, SUVs, and a van pulled up outside. Men and women in dark clothing and suits along with a brunette woman, her hair pulled back sporting a military style jumpsuit, exited the vehicles, swarming like locusts.

"What's going on?" Darcy asked as she exited the RV, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

Jane stood as the brunette woman approached, giving directives to the others who began to spread out around the interior.

"Erik Selvig?" the woman asked as she neared them.

"Yes..." Selvig said nervously as the woman displayed what looked like a government ID.

"Maria Hill. I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. You're being detained for questioning in the abduction of agent Phil Coulson," Hill said, two agents accompanying her taking hold of Selvig's arms, cuffing him.

"What?! That's insane! Erik hasn't abducted anyone! We're scientists! Wait! Where are you taking him? Hey! Those are ours! We need that! " Jane cried out, aghast, watching as Selvig was led away as other agents gathered up computers and scientific equipment.

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"Randolph...he's an expert in the stories told of us long ago? They're fiction," Loki asked, puzzled, after dropping the illusion, returning to his own form, unable to comprehend why any mortal would dedicate their life to learning and teaching about the ridiculous tales he had read in Puente Antiguo's library as they seemed to him a complete waste of one's time.

"That's why it's called mythology," Coulson replied.

"Why would one wish to study what they know to be untrue? What could be gained by it?" Loki asked.

"Some read them for entertainment like any other story, others to learn about the people who created them," Coulson answered Loki's query.

"They were backwards and ignorant, simple minded and foolish as are the majority of Midgardians. It seems little has changed, though you now possess phones," Loki mused.

As Loki finished his critique of the people of Midgard, he experienced another episode of sharp, crippling pain shoot through his brain like a lightning bolt as another vision flashed before his mind's eye, he holding a scepter in his hand as he stood behind the man he now knew to be Coulson, thrusting it into Coulson's back, leaving the man mortally wounded, sitting propped against a wall, blood staining his previously neat dress shirt, trickling from his mouth.

Coulson noticed Loki wince as if he had just been struck with a serious migraine, holding his head with one hand as he slightly swayed on his feet. Though his abductor and jailer, Coulson's natural instinct to be concerned for others' wellbeing kicked in, evident in his expression.

"You all right?"

"You said I lacked conviction. You were right," Loki said, continuing to hold his head as the pain began to recede, Coulson confused as Loki stepped to the panel that controlled the force field surrounding the cell, deactivating it, "I find you innocent. You will help me to discover who is guilty."