Twenty minutes in Dr. Erik Selvig's company was more than enough for Taryn to reach two conclusions.
One–this man was truly, deeply, terrifyingly brilliant. If he was able to actually do half the things he told her about, he would make Stephen Hawking look like a preschooler.
And two–between Loki and that blue cube, the Tesseract, he had been driven completely and utterly insane.
Selvig spoke of the cube as though it was alive–alive, and sentient. "She has shown me so much," he told Taryn, his blue-filmed eyes glowing with near religious mania. "Things I could only dream of in my wildest imaginings. She can give us so much, you have no idea. Once Lord Loki completes this project, I hope I'll be able to continue working with her. She wants to do so much more. She wants to revolutionize every aspect of life on his planet–on all planets. She has so much to give!"
Taryn nodded in all the right places, smiled and tried to look impressed, all the while wondering just what the hell Selvig was talking about now. "And are you close to completing Loki's project?" she asked, blurting the question when Selvig finally stopped to take a breath.
"Oh, yes! We're very, very close," he answered, smiling as proudly as any new father. "I'm just waiting for one more thing, a material that's very difficult to find. It will stabilize the fluctuations in space and allow the Einstein-Rosen Bridge to remain open indefinitely. Lord Loki will be able to keep the portal open as long as he likes! It's such a breakthrough!" he gushed, grasping her hand earnestly.
"That's–wow, that's great," Taryn replied, smiling and wondering what an Einstein-Rosen Bridge was. Somehow she didn't think it was used to cross a river. She gently retrieved her hand, still smiling interestedly. "How long do you think it'll need to stay open? Do you know how many he's bringing across?" She wasn't sure how many what, but hopefully Selvig would give her some clues if she kept him talking.
Keeping him talking was not hard to do. "Oh, it could take hours, days even," Selvig said, now going serious. "It's quite a large force–well, it would have to be, wouldn't it? The Earth is a big place!"
Quite a large force? The words echoed in her head. They didn't sound any better the second time at all. "And the force," Taryn said, trying to keep her alarm from her tone, "what can you tell me about them?"
"Ahh, Dr. Selvig, you're not giving away all my secrets, are you?"
Loki's deep voice interrupted whatever Selvig was about to say and he looked past Taryn with a sudden, radiant smile. "Just giving your lovely lady an overview of what we're accomplishing here!" he said happily. "She's such a good audience and you know how a craftsman loves to talk about his work. I do hope I haven't been boring you, my dear," he added, a slight frown of concern now on his face.
Taryn shook her head immediately. "No, of course not," she lied with a gracious smile. Then she turned to face Loki, smile sharpening. "I've loved hearing all about the invasion force. It's really been quite fascinating."
Loki didn't seem a bit put-out by either her discovery or her sarcasm. If anything, his charming smile broadened. "But of course, my lady," he replied smoothly as he caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. "I did promise you would reign at my side, did I not? Surely you didn't expect to rule the Kingdom of the Underground Bunker."
She tried to pull her hand away as she had from Selvig but this time was unable to do so. Her eyes narrowed. "And if I don't want to see the Earth taken over and ruled?"
Loki sighed, but his smile remained. "I am afraid that, although I would hate to displease you, this is not open for debate. The Earth will fall and I shall be there to pick up the shattered pieces and give your fellows what they crave–a master to serve. Look at the good doctor here," he said, gesturing to the smiling man. "Is he not happy in my service? Does he not find all his needs met and his gifts appreciated? In liberating him from free will, he has become more content than he ever could have otherwise."
Looking into the older scientist's happy face, it was a difficult thing to argue. "His happiness is not real," she replied, feeling awkward to be discussing Selvig while he stood right before them, even though it didn't seem to bother him at all. "It's a mind trick."
"But what is reality but a trick of the mind?" Loki countered, his face lit with real pleasure as though he was enjoying her dissent. "You are thinking right now–where does that occur but in the mind? Your disquiet with his servitude, where does that exist but in your mind? Humans speak of the heart, but that is merely an organ to pump blood–there is no consciousness there. There is no soul, no other thing which defines each individual. The so-called divine spark, that which experiences everything you call life, that is the mind." He lifted his free hand, gestured to the diligently working people around them. "All these people work and strive for me because I have told them that it makes them happy to do so. Their minds experience pleasure in pleasing me. In no part of their psyche exist dismay, anxiety, worry, fear. They serve me and I care for them, and they are content. How is this not real?"
His logic was insidious. Taryn couldn't argue that every man and woman she saw certainly seemed happy in their work. Selvig definitely was. She understood Loki's point exactly and it was a difficult one to argue. If a person believed, truly, deeply believed down to the depths of their being that they were happy, how could someone else tell them they weren't? Who was she to say that this was wrong? She struggled to articulate her gut-deep certainty that it just was. "Why haven't you made me into a happy zombie, then?" she asked, looking away from the busy workers and watching his eyes carefully.
Loki's frown lasted less than the space of a blink before his confident smile was back. If she hadn't been watching so closely, she would've missed it. "You are not like them," Loki said, kissing her hand again–a lingering kiss to her palm this time, far more intimate than just a brush of lips over her knuckles, and she couldn't suppress a shiver.
"How am I different?" Taryn said, once again trying to free her hand and once again failing. He seemed amused by her discomfort and kissed her palm again, this time flicking his tongue lightly against her skin, and she tried desperately to ignore the leap of her heartbeat in response. She pressed on, determined to make this point. "I am as human as they are. My mind is just as fragile. Why bother with the whole seduction routine when you can simply tap me with your scepter and convince me that I'm madly in love with you in a second?"
Loki's green eyes narrowed, suddenly sharp and cold as emeralds. "Selvig, go," he said, and Taryn heard him walk away without question, but she didn't quite dare look away from Loki. His fingers tightened around hers. "I do not need to hypnotize you to make you love me," he said softly, his voice very gentle, very controlled, but his eyes glittered with something that might have been anger or might have been something else.
"What's the difference?" she asked, pressing, wondering if that something was the same disquiet she felt when she thought of the mindless slaves he planned to create. "As you said, the heart is just a pump, and there is no soul except a spark in the mind. If you use magic to convince me that I'm in love with you, how is it not real?"
He stepped forward, crowding her, and Taryn backed up instinctively, stepping between two columns into an alcove. Two more steps and her back was to the wall, cutting off further retreat. His fingers were still locked tight around hers, not quite painful, but definitely inescapable. "Do you wish for me to command you?" Loki whispered, too close, his broad shoulders cutting off her view of the room, narrowing her world to his sharp, beautiful eyes and the anger on his face–yes, it truly was anger now. "Are you asking me to make you like them?"
"I want to know why that's not enough for you," Taryn replied with far more calm than she felt. She knew from the memories they'd shared that he didn't want to have her that way, but this was still a huge gamble. She might end up a mindless slave if she failed to make her point.
"Because you chose me then," Loki hissed, his free hand slamming into the wall beside her head, and now the madness was back in his eyes–oh yes, it was definitely back, and Taryn had been afraid since the instant he'd walked into her classroom but now he was close, too close, his body barely a breath from hers, trapping her against the cold brick wall at her back. "You knew me, understood me, loved me, chose me, and I will not accept less now!"
Then suddenly his mouth was on hers, stealing her gasp of surprise and replacing her breath with his own, and Taryn knew she'd made a mistake in provoking him. And oh, God, she'd never been kissed like this–like nothing existed for him but her, like he needed her more than oxygen, like he wanted to climb into the soul he claimed didn't exist and live there forever, and she had no defenses against it, but of course she didn't, she was exactly what she'd told him–just a regular woman.
Loki was a god, the Seducer of Asgard, and Taryn was in way, way over her head.
