Chapter 3, in which Bruce makes a seemingly unimportant purchase, abandons Kolkata for the second time and forms an alliance while Midgard is somewhat inhospitable for Loki.

On one particularly hot and humid day, Bruce Banner found himself buying a laptop.

He didn't plan to get one - he was just walking past a thrift shop, one of many in this not so wealthy district of Kolkata, when he realized how quiet his world was.

For the first time in many years, he found this thought unpleasant. The quiet in his life didn't indicate his safe and cozy personal space anymore; suddenly, it became the lack of something.

'...and I need one with wireless internet access,' Bruce added. The seller gave him a look that made an apology form on Bruce's tongue. He swallowed it quickly. 'And a two-core processor,' he said in a slightly louder voice.

The other man turned his back on Bruce and started rummaging heaps of boxes, tossing some of them carelessly.

'With a cracked casing?', he suggested, showing one of them to the doctor.

Bruce nodded, to his own surprise, and took out his wallet, aware that the price was too high for an used laptop. Bargaining never was his thing.

And so he ended up clutching a cardboard box to his chest in spite of doubting whether even the urchins of Kolkata would be tempted to relieve him from the burden of its content. The laptop inside rattled quietly against its walls, promising one thing Bruce wouldn't expect himself to need: contact with the world. With the U.S., to be precise. With a certain citizen of New York. Or was it Malibu?

If he wanted simply to contact the world, he didn't have to buy a laptop. Even the streets of Kolkata reminded him of the past few months, the things he'd done, the fame he'd unwillingly earned for himself. Among elaborate graffitis and wall paintings, he could catch sight of portraits of the so-called Avengers - their images in bright colors, surrounded by swirling Sanskrit. Natasha as Durga, with eight arms like a spider, each of them holding another deadly weapon. Tony as himself, apparently godly enough, sometimes bearing surprising resemblance to certain Bollywood stars. Thor defeating his brother, disguised as a naga.

As for himself, Bruce didn't feel godly to the smallest extent. He wouldn't be able to save this city even if the planet's safety depended on it. He wasn't able to save its inhabitants - cholera, protozoa and AIDS were much more lethal than an entire alien army. What kind of hero or god he was if he couldn't defeat those first?

At home, he unpacked the laptop and connected it to the strongest wireless. He had an e-mail account once, and old, or even ancient by the standards of Internet, mailbox on his university server. Reluctantly, he tapped the address of Culver University and anxiously waited for the website to load.

They didn't delete his account - that was the good news. The bad news was that it was flooded with spam, student assignments almost a decade old, calls for papers and a few messages that made him more than slightly suspicious and paranoid. On the top of that there was an official S.H.I.E.L.D. e-mail. He checked it twice, ran a thorough antivirus scan, made sure his IP wasn't tracked and opened the letter, breathing deeply. It was sent just yesterday and contained a ciphered recording, with a short comment attached. "This might interest you."

'Bastards,' he muttered as his lips curled into an involuntary smile.

A few hours later, after listening to the recording a dozen times and pulling out every single thread of meaning that could have been in it, he decided to answer the e-mail. If they wanted his help, they had to provide a means of transport first. Preferably not an unreliable flying fortress. Those were stressful as all hells.

Even though New York should have been familiar to Jane - more familiar than vast and snowy fjords of Tromsø, at least - it evoked mostly twitches of nervousness. She missed her messy trailer or any of the small rented flats she'd lived in. Big, glossy halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters brought images of cutting edge technology and scientific breakthroughs as well as funding and grants she usually lacked, but were also somehow... intimidating.

Thankfully, Darcy seemed to catch up this professional atmosphere naturally, as if she was born to deal with important people, shiny spaces and big audiences. She walked between Jane and Erik with an almost victorious, professional smile on her face, successfully building the impression that she was perfectly in control of anything related to the two scientists, from their research and lectures, through rents, bills and taxes, to their favourite type of coffee. Jane sighed quietly. She hoped she could believe this.

She was plainly scared instead. Just as much as she was on the day when S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived at her door and told her to move to Tromsø without much further explanation. All she knew was that it was somehow connected with Thor and that they didn't let her anywhere near him then. Even though he was there, on Earth - on Midgard, she corrected herself - during the siege. Of course, she wouldn't join him in the battle, but apart from battling, there were things that even warrior gods weren't capable of doing. He needed her. In some inexplicable, intricate way, he needed her.

And if she couldn't see him before - how was now different?

In the elevator, she ransacked her bag nervously, looking for painkillers. The assistant squeezed her arm gently in what was meant as an encouraging, comforting gesture.

'Hey, what's going on?'

Jane glanced at the ceiling.

'Is it safe to talk here?'

Darcy gave the electronic devices a genuinely crossed look.

'In my opinion? No. But they'd better know what state did they put you in, because it's their fault.'

'If you say so.' She shrugged. 'I'm just expecting a lot of... mess.'

'Well, that's for sure, but you won't be in this mess alone. There's a certain Doctor Banner who will be your research supervisor.' Lewis took out her tablet and spread a schedule across the screen.

'How do you know this?'

'Well, I'm your assistant, am I not? I'm supposed to know such stuff!'

Jane blinked and, by Darcy's judgment, went slightly pale.

'Doctor Banner? Are you sure you got his name correctly?'

'I am. Is he important?'

'Important?' Foster rolled her eyes. 'He's world's greatest specialist on radiation far below the visible spectrum! I've applied his theories to half of my experiments, roughly speaking!' She looked at her assistant with barely concealed disbelief, as if she expected her to recognize every single quotation and scientific reference she'd ever made. 'Or rather was that famous specialist before he... disappeared,' she finished, somewhat grimly.

'Well, you'll have the chance to discuss it with him.' Darcy smiled.

Before Jane had the time to reply, the door opened.

They walked through another corridor to a conference room. There was already someone waiting for them - a dark-haired, tanned man wearing a loose, purple shirt. Its brim was now serving as a wipe for the glasses.

'You must be Jane Foster,' he said, placing the glasses carefully over his nose.

Jane nodded.

'Bruce Banner. Pleased to meet you.'

Darcy's eyes became wider as she recognized him. Compared to the excerpts in the news, he looked... more ordinary. Like there was no raging monster hiding inside of him. She blinked. Monsters or not, he was a great scientist, according to Jane. And Thor's friend. Darcy's mind began picking up all the details that could be potentially helpful.

Jane had completely disregarded the raging monster part and moved swiftly to jargon and theories. There was a quality both she and Banner possessed, which made them lighten the moment science appeared in the conversation and turned their shyness and lack of confidence into childlike fascination and surprisingly passionate devotion. It was vivid and enticing, even if sometimes obscure. Darcy couldn't help smiling.

'...I've had this idea for a telescope working in that low spectrum for years, but no one wanted to fund it...' Jane gesticulated as if she tried to sketch the device in the air between her and Banner.

'Now it might be invaluable,' he replied.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean that S.H.I.E.L.D. might be interested in developing it.'

Jane blushed.

'I don't think I'm... suited for this kind of job. For S.H.I.E.L.D., I mean. I'm not courageous. I'm mostly a theoretician.'

Bruce smiled to her.

'Science requires a different kind of courage.' Darcy could swear he would blush, too, if not the tan. 'The courage to question and to support theories, even if everybody else disregards them.' Jane raised her eyebrows in surprise. 'And you do have this trait, if I'm not mistaken.'

'I'm doing my best,' she said.

Banner gave her a serious look.

'We'll need it. Badly.' He sighed. 'They want us to find a god. Two gods, actually.'

Darcy chuckled.

'That gives us just nine realms to search through, right? Piece of cake.'

'Hopefully, just Earth, handful of theories and a few risky assumptions.'

Jane furrowed her brows.

'And some bait,' she added sharply.

For a second, the doctor looked like he wanted to escape the room.

'It wasn't my idea,' he said finally. 'Good to know you don't support it, either. Spares me a good deal of explaining why we will begin with playing against the rules and outlines.'

Nick Fury didn't expect Forseti - not now, not when the building was almost deserted, save for night watchmen and a few hopeless cases of workaholism, not when teenagers should be asleep. The godling stood underneath a glow-tube lamp, his hair shining like an aureole, his eyes wide and pale. He clasped and unclasped his hands together, as if he didn't know what to do with his limbs. Signs of anxiety difficult to omit. And yet he was strikingly alien, unnatural, ghastly. A god, after all.

'Is there any progress, Director?'

Fury took a few steps towards the kid.

'A team of scientists is working on it. Signatures, radiation and presence of untypical isotopes or even whole elements.' He smiled to himself at untypical elements. There was quite a source of those in the building. 'Do you even know what isotopes are?'

Forseti shook his head.

'Well then, this won't help you much. But the main point is, we're working.'

'Three days.' The godling fixed his eyes on him. 'It's been three days already. The warriors of Asgard are not known for their patience.'

'Are you threatening me?' Director said curtly.

'Just informing.'

'Thanks.' He turned away from Forseti. 'Much appreciated. Now stop bothering with us and go to sleep. Or do whatever you gods do.'

The kid gave a slight nod and walked back to his room, clutching his fingers to hide their tremble.

By Norns, it hurt. Not that the sensation itself was any special - yet another kind of pain, and a rather dull one - but it was enough to blur the senses for an unpleasant while. Loki lay on his back, waiting for his breath to change from agonized gasps to its usual rhythm, and squinted his eyes at the dimmed stars. He could see Ratatosk, which had gained the irrelevantly noble name of Cassiopeia, and Hellewagen rolling along the sky in no hurry. Thiassi's eyes blinked at him, reminding him of what he'd done. The Trickster allowed himself a smile. At least old, greedy Thiassi would be useful for him again, guiding his way in Vinland.

He got up and began walking through the cold, quiet night - after all, night was the time of rites and magic. His time.