Author's Note: Ha. Let's not…talk about how long the interval has been, okay? I feel a little less bad given that a) I am coming rapidly to the end of what has been a very busy semester and b) the next chapter after this one (which I like to get written before I send the one I intend to post to my beta, keeps me honest) is almost 8000 words and pretty chunky in terms of plot.

Not that that means I know where this is ending, hell no.

I'm still ridiculously pleased that people are enjoying this! Thank you to all of you for your kind comments. If you wonder why I don't reply - it is honestly because I am the worst at responding to compliments. But I treasure everything you people say, I really do.

Yet again: this wouldn't be possible without zaataronpita, because I would be second-guessing myself until I deleted the whole thing.

It was with his temper still simmering that Loki returned to SHIELD's base, calculating his appearance just in front of Coulson's desk. "I would like," he said, voice low and tight, "an explanation."

Coulson looked up at him, as untroubled as ever. "If you would clarify…"

Loki felt his lips peel back from his teeth and slammed his hands on the desk. "Don't toy with me." He could feel every muscle in his body almost vibrating, and if some of it was simply nervous energy leftover from the fight (from the feeling of someone else in his mind, overpowering his own will), he was nonetheless powerfully furious. With all of them. But this man in particular. "You've developed a means to track me. Were you planning to inform me of this?"

"It's a perfectly reasonable action to take," Coulson said, still calm. Loki felt a sudden flash of desire, almost need to see fear or something like it on that face, to-

He pushed it down. "If you believed that you would have told me before now. Don't think I don't realize – this isn't a measure for my safety. It's for yours." Coulson said nothing, not even an attempt at a denial. Loki felt his heart sink. "Which leads me to question – what else have you been seeking?" Loki heard his voice rise, and tried to moderate it with little success. "What other little means of control are you constructing, just in case I turn on you?"

"You're not wrong," said Coulson, after a long moment. Loki felt a wave of mingled rage and despair roar up within, but it did not quite drown out the added, "but hear me out." Loki said nothing, simply leveled his gaze on Coulson and waited. "Do you want to sit down?" The man proposed, politely.

"No." Loki took a step back from the desk, resisting the urge to pace. "Talk."

"Firstly, we take appropriate precautions for every one of our agents," Coulson said. "In case of any number of undesirable outcomes. Ours isn't a low risk field, and there's always a chance that something could go wrong. So we need to be able to track our assets. We thought you would object to being tagged like most of our agents, so we took a different route."

Not unreasonable, came the murmur at the back of his mind. Loki crushed it.

"Secondly," Coulson said, "You're wrong about one thing. This is in part a way for us to look out for you. The…factions that troubled you before will continue to ask questions. Some of them are sufficiently powerful to potentially be a threat. This ensures that we can protect you, if necessary."

Loki coughed a short bark of a laugh. "Protect me. I highly doubt that you could protect me from anything I could not manage myself."

"Be that as it may. Thirdly," Coulson said, and his eyes met Loki's levelly. "Yes. The fact of the matter is that we have to consider the possibility that your goals may not ultimately align with ours. And in that situation, we would need to know where to send the strike force. We're not unaware of the magnitude of the power you've got behind you, Silver. That kind of power from anyone tends to make us nervous. We have the same measures for agents who've been with us for years. Paranoia is our policy because it has to be. This isn't a threat." The man's posture was calm, relaxed, his eyes not stuttering even slightly from Loki's.

His right hand was angled slightly toward the middle drawer of his desk, where Loki knew he kept his weapons.

The rage oozed away, leaving behind a conspicuously empty void that sucked at him like a swamp. He regarded Coulson silently for a few moments. "How long have you known," Loki said finally, and let no emotion enter his voice.

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific," was the bland reply. Loki's jaw tightened and he just looked at him.

"About me," he said finally, harshly. His voice seemed to grate over his own throat.

"Some time," Coulson said, after a moment's pause. "Or, at least – the probability was too high to ignore."

Loki felt his lips curve in a brutal, humorless smile. "And you recruited me."

Coulson's eyes remained level. The hand near his drawer of weapons did not twitch. "SHIELD has no interest in creating new enemies. Our analysts judged that your antagonism was not directed at Earth and unlikely to recur. It seemed…advisable to allow you your subterfuge and not initiate hostilities."

Reasonable, Loki thought, dully. You are not theirs. You are not human. They have not forgotten that you are a threat no matter how friendly they pretend to be-

"I see," he said tonelessly. Coulson didn't move – like he expected movement to provoke attack, perhaps. "But of course you require securities." He thought of Chandra, Roslyn, the other technicians he'd spoken with and conversed with and come to know, and likely all the while they worked to find ways of hobbling him-

Had they already? The sick, foolish feeling of betrayal (as though he could have expected anything else) churned in his gut, and disappointment. Romanov and Barton, were they, too, there to watch, to ensure my good behavior and…

Coulson, he realized, was watching him carefully. Awaiting his response. Brave, Loki thought, vaguely, to face me, knowing what I am, how easily I could obliterate him, and tell me to my face that they seek methods by which to control me.

"I am, if I have calculated correctly, a week away from my allotted time that I must remain here," Loki said, voice flat.

"I believe that's correct, yes."

"I would like to request," he said tonelessly, "that I be allowed to leave this place for a location of my own choosing. A home of my own, if you will. You may feel free to…monitor me in what way you see fit for the remaining time of my probation. Afterwards, call me for the purpose of missions and nothing else."

Loki waited, half expecting a condition, or an argument, a challenge. Coulson simply eyed him for a few moments, and then nodded. "I can negotiate that. Start putting the paperwork through."

"Good," said Loki. "I would appreciate it." He turned on his heel. "That is all."

"Silver," said Coulson. For a moment, Loki felt the powerful urge to insist my name, my real name- He paused, said nothing. "You do good work," he said, after a moment. "To me – to most of us – that's what matters."

Loki didn't turn. Kept moving, and tried not to let that touch him.

~.~

He kept his distance from most of SHIELD for the next few days. They seemed inclined not to press him, for which Loki was grateful. He spent the majority of time in his room, which felt more cramped and claustrophobic by the day. He'd begun, he'd thought, to grow comfortable. Of course now, of course-

Well, the wry and faintly bitter thought occurred to him, I needn't worry about Jane Foster, I suppose. The thought was no comfort. His thoughts spiraled in circles, wondering how many of the technicians had been playacting with him, how many knew he was as much enemy as ally. He slept more poorly than he had for some time, dreams plagued by chains and cages where Odin looked down at him with disgust and hatred, and falling, always falling.

Foster's timing, then, was impeccable.

He opened the door to her brisk knock. She stood in the hallway, head tilted back, arms crossed, and her expression one of obstinate defiance. Loki felt the absurd urge to laugh.

"Well," she said, after a moment in which they stared at each other, "It doesn't look like you're busy. Let's talk."

If they already know, a voice murmured at the back of his head, there's no reason you need to. Send her away. Make her leave. Why bother?

"I am not," he said, evenly, "as it happens. Had you a destination in mind?"

"I didn't." Her eyes were fierce, like bores, and Loki found that he appreciated the lack of pretense. Her mistrust and dislike were obvious, and whatever strange quirk might be in his personal feelings on the matter, it was one thing that was not complicated.

"I can think of a conference room or two that might be suitable, if not the most homely," Loki said smoothly.

"I wasn't exactly looking for comfortable." She rubbed one eye, gaze breaking away from him, and he took the chance to force his shoulders down from where they'd been creeping upwards. He couldn't look tense – nervous – in front of her. "Fine, sure. After you."

He led, still half unsure why he was bothering to humor her, brushing that question aside. Boredom, whim – what did it matter? She couldn't make his situation worse.

Probably.

"Could you slow down just a little?" Foster said, her voice breaking into his thoughts, and Loki checked his stride, realizing that his pace had picked up. He slowed it again.

"My apologies."

"Wow," she didn't quite mutter. "If I'd thought you couldn't get grumpier."

"Were you expecting me to be pleased to see you?" He stepped into the elevator and designated his choice of floor. Foster hopped the last two steps to get in before the doors closed and stood on the opposite side of the small chamber. "I am terribly sorry to disappoint." His temper twanged a warning and he took a tighter hold on it.

"You did get snippier," Foster said, her eyes narrowing. "Is that just me or did something-"

"I daresay it is no business of yours. Or was part of the agreement that I answer all of your overly personal queries?"

Foster crossed her arms and almost seemed…stung. Loki couldn't quite fathom why and decided it wasn't worth pondering as the elevator dinged to a halt and the doors opened. He gestured to her, and if she hesitated for a moment she did exit before him. Loki wondered if she was confident in SHIELD's surveillance or confident that he wouldn't hurt her, and wasn't sure which option he disliked more.

(He could, of course. But Loki already knew that he wouldn't, even if he had no wish to examine why.)

He chose a conference room midway down the hall and held the door for her, slipped in after, and closed it quietly. He set the cameras to show an empty room, first – a trick he'd worked out early on – and then sat down, hands folded on the table. After a few seconds standing, Foster sat across from him.

Loki watched her, expression blank, and waited.

She didn't wait long. "What happened?" she asked, bluntly. Loki raised his eyebrows at her, keeping his expression cool.

"That question could cover a great deal of time, and I very much doubt you want a complete history."

The look she gave him was flat and irritated. "The Einstein-Rosen bridge – Bifrost, whatever – broke. How?"

He almost heard the awful sound of the hammer stroke falling. Of course that was her interest. He let a smile twist his lips. "Thor never met anything he didn't want to break."

Jane's eyes narrowed. "Don't give me that. That's not an answer."

Loki shrugged, made the motion loose and careless. "Is it not? Thor shattered it using Mjolnir."

Something flickered across her face, but if she was hurt it didn't show. Jane frowned. "How does that work?"

He could feel something winding tight inside him and distanced himself from it. "I couldn't say. Prior to his doing it I think most would have said it was impossible." But then, of course, set an impossible task before Thor and he found a way to force it to his will, or maybe that was just how the world worked, it bent itself around Thor to please him because the universe itself loved Thor so well-

Loki cut that thought off and forced his right hand, which had been clenching, to relax. Jane was scrutinizing him, expression opaque. He checked his own, ensured that his face was smooth of feeling as well.

"So this hasn't happened before," she said, after a moment.

"No."

She frowned, made a sort of "hm" noise. She chewed her lip, without, Loki thought, thinking about it, her gaze wandering off. It returned to him quickly, though. "Can it be fixed?"

Ah. Of course. "I have no idea," he said blandly. The look Jane gave him was flatly annoyed.

"You don't have a guess?"

"Hoping for the return of your dashing hero?"

"Don't even start," Jane said, her voice suddenly sharp. "I'm not going to put up with that." Loki gave her a thin, faintly acidic smile. She shook her head, then, and pushed back from the table. "What is your problem?"

What, Loki thought bitterly, Thor didn't tell you of his degenerate, worthless, weakling younger brother? "Is that a rhetorical question?" He asked, widening his eyes a hair. Jane's lips thinned and she looked for a moment as though she wanted to yell. She took a deep breath, though, and collected herself.

"I can't figure it," she said, after a moment. "When Thor talked about you – I mean, not by name, but I figure it must've been you - it was like you were the best damn guy he knew. He'd just say sometimes – stuff about how smart you were, how clever and curious and I don't…get it. How do you go from that to…"

His first reaction was, even now, Thor spoke of me? with surprised near-pleasure. He squashed that with all the savagery he could summon. "If it helps you," he said with deliberate coolness, "any destruction not Thor's was not my goal."

"Cause that makes it better," Jane said with a loudly derisive snort. "And anyway – that's what I mean. Why go after Thor? What'd he do that'd make you…" she trailed off. Loki felt his expression twist.

"What could he do?" He said, and heard his own voice bristle with too much naked feeling. "Perfect creature that he is, what could Thor possibly do to warrant my anger? Unthinkable."

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Don't put words in my mouth. I'm trying to understand."

Loki's smile stretched. "Trying to understand or trying to pass judgment?"

"Would you just-" the noise she made in her throat was thoroughly disgusted, and the baleful stare she cast him was full of frustration. "—knock it off. I just want to know what the hell happened. Like I said, you made it personal to me. So talk."

No. He didn't want to. Didn't want to go back, to consider, didn't want to think of any of this-

"You want to know?" His voice sounded strange, not his own. "It is not sufficient to know that Thor is your dashing hero and I his usurping brother?" Ah, that word. Slipped past his lips in a moment of inattentiveness and twisted like a knife in his breast.

"No," said Jane, her voice taut. "It isn't."

"Why not? Do you fear I will reveal some indiscretion of his, tarnish his image in your eyes, reveal some secret weakness – but then why believe what I would say? I could lie to you, every word, and you would never-"

"Can't I just want to know?" Jane interrupted, voice rising. "Can't I be curious about what the hell I got caught up in? Can't I want to know-"

It bubbled up in him like vomit. "Know what?" he said, and almost spat the words. "The sordid details of your lover's life? Or mine? You wish to know what brought me hurtling, fallen, to your world? You ask without knowing what you ask for, you want answers you have no way of understanding-"

"And you won't give me a chance to try?"

"Why should I?"

Foster threw up her hands. "I don't know! God forbid you maybe – I don't know, want to talk to someone who at least knows a little bit about your home-"

"Asgard is not my home."

The words came out in a rush of air, an expulsion like they'd been punched out of his chest, and his voice trembled with the force of them. Jane jerked back, her expression one of startled alarm, but he couldn't stop, couldn't-

"It never was. They lied to me, every breath, every word, and thought to expect me to accept my place with docile complacence and play the foil to golden, perfect Thor? But oh, if I should think to step out of that role, to seek some place beyond his shadow – well. What use is a puppet that will not dance on his master's strings?" It was rage, but not quite; something closer to despair and now that he'd loosed it he couldn't call it back. Could feel his hands shaking where his nails dug into his palms. "Do not think-"

The words strangled in his throat, too many things catching on each other and lodging so he almost choked on them. Look at you, murmured a voice at the back of his mind, look, look at you, look how pathetic you are-

Foster was staring at him as though he were mad. (Perhaps.) "What do you want from me?" he hissed.

"I told you," she said, after a brief silence. "I'm just trying to make sense of what happened."

Loki forced his hands to uncurl and took a long, slow breath through his nose. His insides felt like they were roiling, turning over and over within him. It wasn't fair, he thought viciously. It wasn't right that she could come here, to where he'd begun to carve out a life for himself no matter how small (a life that was hardly less a lie, and he cajoled into a cage by promises and bribes) and upset things so thoroughly, upset him, stir up everything he'd done so well at keeping back and away and always, always at a distance-

Jane Foster, small, mortal, powerless, helpless. And here he was, undone by a few simple questions. Satisfy her curiosity and she'll go away.

What do you expect to gain from this?

"You wish to know what happened?" His voice did not sound like his own, flat and expressionless. "Simple enough. I arranged for Thor to make an error that would prevent him from ascending fully as crown prince. I saw to it he was exiled-" (that wasn't what you meant to have happen) "-and subsequently usurped the throne when the All-Father became – indisposed. I informed Thor that Odin was dead to keep him away, attacked him using the Destroyer to keep him away, and attempted to destroy another realm using your Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Thor prevented it. I fell." And that was all.

Everything that had changed, summed up in essence, devoid of excuse or embellishment or feeling. Naked and awful, he let it hang there, let himself look at it and remember again what a fool he'd been, what a magnificent dupe.

Foster looked like she wanted to fidget. Her eyes were narrowed, and Loki met them evenly, feeling suddenly drained. Too much, he thought. Doom and Foster and SHIELD and all of it-

"The Einstein-Rosen Bridge can be used as a weapon?" she said, finally, and Loki resisted the urge to stare at her, incredulous. That's what you-

"Yes," he said. "Quite effectively, it turns out, though I suppose not before I thought to use it as such." Destruction from beauty. Turning the artery that bound Asgard to the other realms to poison. The thought now made him want to laugh.

"It wasn't Earth, though," she said, after another moment. Loki coughed a laugh, startled.

"Hardly." She nodded, but her wary expression had shifted slightly, and she looked thoughtful, troubled. Loki supposed he could not be surprised by that. "Are you satisfied?" he asked, a sharp note sliding into his voice.

"Huh," Foster said, and then stood up. "No. I'm not. The – Bifrost. Whatever you call it. If you had to guess, can it be fixed?"

He hadn't considered it. Perhaps deliberately. "Yes," he said finally. And then Thor would come. Sooner or later, Thor would find his way back to Earth, and Loki would have to leave it, because he could not… "But I could not say how long it may take."

Foster nodded. "That doesn't matter. I just needed to know it was possible." She turned as Loki sat up a little straighter, eyebrows pulling together.

"Why?"

She glanced back over her shoulder, eyes fierce. "So I can work on fixing it from this end," she said, and there was a fierce determination to her jaw that half made him want to smile.

"You don't have the means," Loki said, though he felt his eyes widen a hair. Hers narrowed.

"Watch me." She pressed her lips together, a moment, and then added, "You're not fooling anyone, you know. Or at least not me. You're a mess. Whatever you were trying to pull, it fell apart on you, and you still don't have your life together. I mean – you could've killed me, or made me forget knowing anything, or – any number of things, couldn't you? And you didn't." Her eyes narrowed.

Her words hit like a lance through his chest. He jerked back, felt his lips pull back from his teeth. Was it so obvious, was he such an open wound that anyone at all could look at him and see the wreckage of him strewn like grotesque petals-

"You would dare-"

"If you felt like coming around," she interrupted, "I've got a few projects you might find interesting." Her eyes were wary, but considering. She turned away. "If you felt like coming around. And you thought you could behave yourself."

Loki bristled. "I have no notion why I would wish to."

"I don't know, maybe-" Foster cut off, shook her head in a short and sharp jerk. "Never mind. I've got some new calculations to run." She started toward the door. Loki narrowed his eyes at her back, trying to puzzle out-

"Why," he said, suddenly. She turned around as she opened the door and looked at him.

"Because I'm a scientist," she said. "And I'm curious. And you know more about what I want to know than anyone else I'm ever going to meet. I don't like you. I don't trust you. But I don't think you're going to kill me and if you try – well, I'm armed with a taser." She paused. "And Roslyn likes you," Foster added, then turned back away. "I might even be able to say I've worked with people I've liked less."

Loki stared at her back, not sure what the feeling twisting under his breastbone was.

"Anyway," she went on. "Good afternoon, I guess."

She stepped out. Loki looked at the door that closed behind her, felt unsteady and strange and unquiet. And here he'd thought he'd known what to expect. Here he'd thought…

~.~

If he could say one thing for SHIELD, they were prompt.

Within a week of his conversation with Coulson, Loki had been loosed from his glorified confinement and furnished with the means to find his own living arrangements.

For his new home (for the moment, the cynical part of his mind supplied), Loki chose a relatively modest apartment in a city he had not lived in before, chosen relatively at random. San Francisco had sounded pleasant, and it was near the sea. Something of that appealed to him.

Looking out the window of his new lodging, Loki breathed out a quiet sigh and let his shoulders fall.

And if nothing else did, if everything suddenly seemed profoundly quiet and there was a part of him that was bitterly disappointed at what seemed like loss (though what had he had there, really) – well. Now he had a home of his own. That was better, was it not?

Better than being watched constantly, than knowing that he had been observed and played and manipulated as surely as he had ever done with anyone else, that he was to them little more than better a tool used than an enemy at large-

Stop it. Don't become maudlin. It's not only unbecoming, it's-

Someone knocked on his door.

Loki jerked, and turned sharply to stare at it. Curious neighbors? He hoped not. SHIELD agents come to try to take him back, having reconsidered the wisdom of letting him go? Or perhaps worse, perhaps Asgard had finally…

"It's me, Luke."

Hearing Romanov's voice took him by surprise. He stared at the door, for a moment the wild thought taking him that perhaps someone was imitating her – but he dismissed that with all the scorn such a notion deserved, and after a moment's pause, he padded over and opened the door, summoned a smile. (Did she know? He must assume…)

"I was not expecting visitors."

Romanov shrugged. "I was curious about your new quarters. May I come in?"

"I don't believe I gave you my address," Loki said, with the faintest of emphases.

"You didn't?"

"Not to mention it's a fair detour from your usual field."

Romanov smiled at him, almost brightly and anything but innocent. "I was on the coast."

Loki couldn't quite keep a smile from tugging at his lips. He evaluated the probability that she was there to spy on him, estimated it at fairly high, and decided to let her in anyway. He stepped back. "By all means." Natasha stepped in, her gaze sweeping across the largely empty interior of his apartment. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Looking a little…spare. And here I was going to offer to help move in."

"I travel light," Loki said. His voice sounded cool to his own ears, if cordial, but apparently it was enough for her to notice, judging by the swift sidelong look she gave him. She did not, however, comment.

"Fair enough."

"I see I haven't been invited to your home," Loki said, somewhat pointedly. Natasha cocked her head.

"You invited me?" she said, not holding back a slight smile, and Loki bit back the desire to laugh, and made a note to work out where Agent Romanov made her home.

"Fair enough," he echoed. Her smile flickered a little closer to a grin, and then she sprawled on one of the chairs he had procured. "Am I to offer you refreshment?"

"I'd appreciate it. Water's fine, though, before you get too fancy."

"I did not plan to offer anything else." Loki filled two glasses from the tap, sent the one floating over to Natasha suspended delicately by magic, and kept the other for himself. Natasha eyed the glass floating in front of her with something like discomfort or distaste.

"Was that really necessary?"

He gave her a sharp smile, aware of the strange humming tension under his skin but not certain how to dispel it. "I should not want you to forget anything important."

"Uh huh." Romanov took the glass and he released it. "Or else you're just showing off."

"I am not so averse to that, either."

Natasha stretched out, to all appearances perfectly relaxed in his chair. Loki was not about to take that for granted, but he crossed the room nonetheless to sit on another.

"Nice place, though," she said, after a moment of surveillance. "I guess decorating's something you can do with your downtime – though it's coming on summer, so I don't guess we'll have much of that." She grimaced. "Something about the season seems to bring out the worst in all the usual suspects."

"Much excitement to look forward to, I take it," Loki said, perhaps somewhat distractedly, and tensed at the scrutinizing look Romanov leveled at him.

"All right," Natasha said suddenly, setting her glass down. "What is it?" Loki smoothed his expression at once.

"Beg pardon?"

"You practically stormed out of Latveria without a word. You moved out of headquarters ahead of schedule. And everything about your body language right now is practically screaming 'not happy' – at least to me." Her gaze on him was even and sure. Loki wanted to twitch under it. Again, he thought viciously, again, are you so desperate to be seen that you would disregard any sense of shame-

For a moment, the urge rose in him to speak to her, to tell her what had happened (as though she doesn't know already) and seek some kind of – what, reassurance? Comfort? Don't be a fool. Whatever she was, Romanov was not his confidant.

Loki swallowed back the urge, found a thin smile. "It has been a…trying few days."

"Uh huh." Natasha looked at him for a long moment, and then exhaled quietly and shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"I usually do," Loki said, his voice deliberately casual, even knowing it would make no difference. He'd already given himself away. So try harder. Now, more than ever, he could not afford to be weak.

"There was – actually - another reason I came over," she said, after a few moments of silence. He glanced at her through half closed eyes and found her regarding him in much the same way.

"You did not simply yearn for my company?"

The look she gave him in response to that was distinctly cool. "Stark's been pestering me for your number."

"He's been – what?"

Natasha made a face. "Well, he was there for the incident with the senator, and I know for a fact that he can hack into SHIELD's database if he wants to. Apparently you got his attention, somehow or other. He wants to meet, talk, something – Coulson's been ignoring him. Apparently he thought he might have more luck with me."

"Will he?" Loki asked, perhaps a little too mildly. Natasha looked almost affronted.

"No. It was fair warning – Stark usually finds a way of getting what he wants. Unfortunately." Her slight smile was rueful. Loki stretched.

"I think I can manage myself."

"I don't doubt it," Natasha said, and stretched her legs out straight before folding them up under her. "Just don't kill him, we'd have a hell of a time covering that up. Do you have a chess set here yet?"

It took him a bare moment to realize that she was probably jesting, and not actually thinking that he intended to kill Stark. "Not just yet," Loki said.

"Good thing I brought my portable one. I guess you haven't been practicing, then?" Natasha started fishing through the small black bag she'd brought with her.

"I've been using an electronic one," Loki said. "I've started winning a fair margin of my games."

Natasha narrowed her eyes. "On easy?"

"Don't be insulting."

She produced a small black case and slapped it on the table. "All right then," she said, "let's see how you do against a real opponent." She caught his eye for just a moment, and Loki could see the understanding there. She might know all was not well, but she would let it go.

He felt a wash of warm gratefulness that caught him by surprise. A small thing, perhaps. But for all that…perhaps so much the more valuable.

"Done," he said, leaning forward with a grin that was, if not entirely genuine, perhaps more than usual. "I shall repay you for my prior humiliation yet."

"Uh huh," she said, planting her hands on her knees. "Sure you will. White or black?"

Interlude (XIV)

He fled across one of the oceans, choosing a location mostly at random and hoping it was far enough.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth that he tried to ignore, his thoughts flickering continuously back to Megan, to the bookstore, to the companionable feeling he'd almost been able to enjoy. Is this how it's always going to be? he wondered, settling into a new hotel room in a new city. Running from place to place, just ahead of those who would catch you and use you and…

Loki pushed the question brutally away. This time, he told himself, he would do better. Refrain from dangerous attachment. Work harder to stay out of notice of those who might think he could be a tool for their purposes. A simple enough prescription to manage.

(Sooner or later, they'll find you again.)

His first night in his new room, he dreamed of Thor. The two of them were walking together in a snowstorm, ice crunching under their feet. Jotunheim, Loki thought, and the hair on the back of his neck seemed to prickle.

We'll be attacked, he thought suddenly, wildly, and knew in the next moment that they wouldn't be. The jotnar were dead. He'd killed them all. It hadn't been so hard.

"Why won't you come home?" Thor asked, tone plaintive. "You don't belong here."

"And I do there?" Loki heard himself ask.

"Of course you do." He sounded like he believed it. So very convincing, as only Thor could be.

"Look at me," Loki said, and Thor turned. He could see himself in sky-blue eyes, in that hateful skin, baleful red eyes gleaming. "Look at me, and say the same."

"You cannot frighten me with illusion," Thor said, and reached out, grasped Loki's arm. His touch burned like fire, searing, and Thor pulled back sharply, staring at his hand, fingers turning black, flesh rotting just from that touch. He looked from his hand to Loki and back again.

"You shouldn't have touched me," Loki said, strangely toneless.

"I don't understand," he said, eyes widening as the black crept up his arm and Loki stared at it dumbly, rooted to the ground, his arm throbbing from the heat of that touch. "What have you done with my brother?"

"I never was," Loki heard himself say, and the voice didn't sound like his own, sounded like Laufey's with that strange and hideous resonance and there was a spear of ice in his right hand, and only the slightest resistance as he thrust it into Thor's gut, never letting his gaze stray from Thor's.

He woke up shivering, his arm still seeming to ache where Thor had touched it in his dream, and did not go back to sleep.