Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or any of the characters.

Tony's New Assistant (Part 36: Fury's POV)

"You once told me not to disrespect you." Fury glared at Loki, over the glowing light of the fucking Tesseract.

Loki had somehow managed to acquire it from the depths of the laboratory and bring it back to Fury directly, in the middle of a fucking firefight.

The battle was still ongoing, but it was mostly a clean-up job at this point, since no more invaders were arriving. The people who were arriving were either their to fight the aliens or to report the news. Figuring out how to mediate these new alliances between SHIELD, the Asgard, the army, von Doom, and Hammer was going to be a whole lot worse than the actual battle had been. And there was Loki, looking as innocent as a newborn kitten. Fury glared some more.

Loki's look of innocence melted away into smug pleasure. But the look was also tinged with surprise, like he honestly thought Fury wouldn't believe Loki capable of arranging this shit storm.

"Since you brought Hammer and von Doom into dealing with this little invasion of yours, I will be drafting you to help deal with them."

At this, Loki looked both surprised and somewhat delighted. It made Fury feel fucking old. He wished he could take Loki and Maria Hill, mash them together, mix well, and split them apart again. Loki was a troublemaker, through and through, but also had the kind of brilliant, subtle, and crazy planning skills that could make him great, if it could be kept pointed in the right direction. Maria had all the direction and drive to be great, if she could just be shaken up to be a bit more tricky in her thinking. Maybe he'd assign them to one another.

Fury could already see the plans and plots form in Loki's thoughts as they both looked over the battle scene where Hammer and Stark had somehow managed to find each other and had started to take pot shots at each other, in between shooting down alien invaders.

"And what do you suggest I do with that." Fury drew Loki's attention back to the Tesseract. He was interested in seeing what Loki's suggestion would be.

While SHIELD held it in secret, the chances for scientific experimentation were highly valuable. Now that it had been seen on live, national TV, Fury didn't want his organization to be anywhere near it, but he also didn't want any of the other potential organizations to get their hands on it.

If Loki had arranged for a fucking alien invasion to coincide with his brother's appearance, then Fury was willing to bet he had a fucking plan about what to do with it.

The smug look on Loki's face intensified. "It is a great source of power. If we are to host the Asgard's crown prince in our realm, then it is only polite to offer the Asgard some token of our esteem."

Fury found his eyebrows raising. "You want Thor to stay here?"

"Hah. " The laugh was short and bitter, "No. But it's not like he's going to leave now, not without Jane. And I assume you're not going to just hand her over?"

"No. I am not." Fury answered seriously, both the question asked and the question unasked. He would not be handing Loki over either.

Something seemed to settle in Loki, but Fury thought that perhaps certain questions could never be spoken outright and thus could never truly be answered outright. He would keep a careful eye on Loki and try to provide periodic reassurances, if only to keep Loki from orchestrating anything quite like this again.

Loki continued as if nothing of import had been said. "Plus, keeping him here, provides the excuse needed to hand over the Tesseract. A temporary and token exchange only, you understand."

Loki was back to smirking. And Fury definitely understood. He just wondered how much the Asgard would understand in this exchange where Earth managed to acquire a warrior protector and in exchange hand off a live grenade for the Asgard to deal with.