Ego Operor Quis Volo
Warnings: none.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
MI6 Headquarters, Thames House, London.
0900 hrs.
Loki tried not to fidget as he sat in the waiting area just outside H's office, director of the Special agents' branch of MI6. He'd served in the Paratroopers for 5 years before being seconded to MI6, eventually rising through the ranks to become a Station Chief, then a Section Chief and now Director General of the entire organisation. He had built up a reputation for always being able to precisely predict, and thus counter, his opponents' moves, whether it be in a military, political, or martial scenario, prompting some bright sparks in the organisation to joke that he could see and hear everything that everyone ever did.
Sometimes, Loki could almost believe it.
Which was why, despite not being the fidgeting type, he was struggling to repress all of his tension, and avoid pacing around like some inexperienced, jumpy new boy.
After parting from Natasha at the airport, the slight relaxation he'd experienced after their night together had quickly dissipated, as his mind once more turned to the failed assignment and Laufey's escape. So close, once more. He'd been so close to dragging him back to Britain in custody!
Once, during his training, one of his instructors had warned him that while passion for the job was important, he should never make any assignment personal. Making things personal clouded one's judgement, left one vulnerable to mistakes, and Loki was good at staying impersonal. But not where Laufey was concerned; he just couldn't. Every failure, every close call grated on his pride and his dedication, as the statistics on his file racked up and the number of deaths attributed to Laufey's hand, either directly or indirectly, only made him more determined to bring the terrorist to justice for his crimes.
H would have his balls on a plate this time, metaphorically of course. To be so close and then to fall for a trap a schoolboy could have spotted…Loki mentally shook his head.
He closed his eyes and let his head drop back, before a soft, amused voice punctured his bubble of self-recrimination. "Rough day at the office, Loki?"
"Sigyn," he smiled, baring his teeth, as he opened his eyes to see the winsomely pretty, blonde secretary just walking back to her desk, clothed in a very fetchingly tailored pencil skirt and blouse, blonde curls restrained into a chignon. "As always, darling, you light it right back up again."
"Oh, Loki," Sigyn sighed, taking her seat behind the desk again, leaning on her forearms with a smirk. "If that's the best you can do, it must have gone badly."
He and Sigyn had been something akin to friends ever since he was assigned to Special Branch. At first, he had wanted her but after a drunken pass at her in a bar after work; she'd made it very clear she was both unattached and uninterested with a mean right hook. Despite her model looks and dress sense, Sigyn Freeson was a deadly shot and expert in several forms of combat. So while they flirted and spoke mostly in innuendoes, Loki knew not to go there again, if he wanted his body parts to remain in the right places.
"No need to remind me," he murmured silkily, getting up from his chair to stalk towards her desk, while she just rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. He perched on the corner of the desk, with a charming smile, and a mischievous glint in his eye. "Although there's plenty else I need reminding about…"
"Do you ever get tired of this sexual harassment?" Sigyn countered lightly.
"Just say the word, darling," Loki spread his hands, mock-innocently. "I am at your command."
"I've got a word for you: tribunal," she retorted, as he sighed.
"Always killing the mood," he murmured regretfully, as Sigyn laughed.
"No, dear, you do that all by yourself," she replied lightly, just as the intercom buzzed into life.
"If you two have quite finished flirting for the day, please send Agent Odinson in," H's dulcet tones echoed around the room, as Sigyn grinned wickedly and Loki chuckled under his breath.
"Yes sir, right away," Sigyn replied into the intercom, before looking up archly at Loki, now stood tall and handsome in his usual dark suit. "Well, go on then, Agent Odinson. Or do you need a moment to gird your loins?"
"Only from you, sweetheart," Loki replied as he turned away and slipped through the nondescript mahogany panelled door in front of him.
H's office, despite the old-fashioned anteroom where Sigyn worked, was far colder and more austere than the warm panelled walls and bookshelves. Painted in shades of red and grey, the furniture all black, it was staunchly modern and unpretentious. As dark as the man who sat in the large chair behind the wide rectangular desk, an ugly remnant from some archive, 18th century and cumbersome, as much a product of its time as H's predecessor, who'd been renowned as a dinosaur of the intelligence community.
In contrast, H was exquisitely dressed in a sharp, well-tailored suit, his sharp, vivid eyes watching Loki's every move as he crossed the room towards him with a cool "Good morning, Sir."
"We've had better," H replied brusquely.
Loki sighed as he put his hands behind his back. "Indeed, sir."
"Can you think of any reason why and how Laufey managed to escape one of my best agents and one of the most infamous American agents in the history of the FBI?" H continued, his eyes fixed almost unblinkingly on Loki as he bristled slightly.
"Vassilov was compromised, how we do not know. If I could guess, I would suspect a leak, someone who knew who and where he would be meeting that night," he replied calmly, as H stood, unbuttoning his suit jacket and reaching for a folder.
"He left you a note, I understand," he remarked. "Another one. This is getting dangerous, Loki. It's becoming personal."
"Only to him, Sir," Loki replied earnestly. "I will find him again and I will take him down."
H suddenly smirked, and clapped him on the shoulder as he handed him the file. "No doubt you probably will," he replied grimly. "With that kind of stubbornness and ruthlessness, very few could hide from you for long. In any case, the trail has gone cold for now. If you're right, and Laufey has decided to make it personal between you, he'll come out to play soon enough. In the meantime, I want you to focus your energies elsewhere."
Loki flicked open the file, reading its contents quickly, as H reached for a remote as a projector screen extended from the ceiling.
"Doctor Erik Selvig, astrophysicist specialising in dark matter and thermonuclear astrophysics. For the past eighteen months, he's been working for the Americans on a top secret energy programme. Two days ago, he went missing," H began to explain. Loki's eyes narrowed.
"What kind of energy programme was he working on?" he asked coolly. A new voice, strong and cold, rang out across the room as Loki spun to face two familiar people.
"They called it the Pegasus Programme, Agent Odinson, and it involved harnessing energy from space. That's all you need to know," Director Fury of SHIELD, the highly covert arm of the CIA, told him as he walked steadily across the room to the two British agents, his serious and silent second-in-command, Agent Maria Hill, at his side.
Loki knew of her by reputation as a dangerous, taciturn agent who was often rigidly by-the-book and rule-abiding, a good foil to Fury's infamous bold decisions and risk-taking.
"Director Fury, Agent Hill," he inclined his head to both of them cordially, as he snapped the file shut. "I'm going to need more than that if you want me to find him."
"We don't want you to find him, Agent Odinson," Fury replied. "We've already found him. He turned up dead, just this morning, floating face down in the Caspian Sea off of Baku, Azerbaijan."
"Laufey's territory," H added, as Loki nodded.
"So what exactly is my assignment?" he asked, slightly acerbically. The name Selvig rang a bell, but he couldn't remember exactly how. It niggled, as Hill stepped forward with a nod from her superior, handing Loki another file.
"The project Dr Selvig was working on was top secret, but his behaviour and routine during the last few days of his life, prior to his kidnapping, indicate that he knew he was being watched, maybe even threatened. It is possible that Laufey kidnapped Selvig in order to torture information from him about Pegasus to sell to the highest bidder. Without going too in depth, Pegasus had the potential to solve the global energy demand permanently."
"And that kind of technology in the wrong hands could be used to extort and exploit," Loki finished for her. "I'm guessing Laufey did not get what he wanted from the Doctor. Where is it?"
Fury and H both smiled as Hill turned to the projector screen, taking the remote from H to flick past the image of Selvig, to another which was achingly familiar, and Loki remembered the connection with Selvig in a flash.
"With Doctor Jane Foster, astrophysicist and your brother's ex-wife, I believe. Selvig was her mentor during her doctorate, and since, and he has emailed her multiple times in the last few months. Selvig was notorious for not trusting computers or other people with his work, he would often print off his notes and equations on paper, then destroy all other traces of it, except the copy retained in his head. We've been able to trace some of Selvig's last movements before his kidnap through his credit card transactions, and he recently paid transatlantic post and packaging for a small parcel to Tromsø, Norway, where Doctor Foster is currently working as a consultant for a local observatory, charting several comets or something like that."
Loki stared at Jane's face on the screen, Hill's words fading into the background, as his mind raced. He remembered now; Jane had been upset because Selvig had refused to come to her and Thor's wedding. He hadn't approved of their relationship, for good reason as it had turned out, and Jane had been distraught for weeks over it. Unease filled him as her image filled his head, short, petite Jane with her caramel hair and flashing brown eyes that looked like amber in a certain light. Fiery, no-nonsense Jane that had done her best with his idiot brother when he came back home from duty, with PTSD and in denial about it, until he divorced and announced he was with Sif.
Something twinged in his chest as he tore his eyes away and asked, "You think Selvig sent Ja-Doctor Foster his notes on Pegasus?"
"They were close, and Foster was his only contact during Selvig's time on Pegasus. It may even be that she is involved somehow. Regardless, we need you and another agent to go to Tromsø and question her. If she has Selvig's notes, retrieve them and bring them back here. Bring Foster also," H explained with a look at Fury, who just nodded. A knowing smile suddenly dawned on both their faces as they looked at Loki, who hid his unease and his sudden impatience behind a cold, calculating façade.
"I'm sending Agents Hawkeye and Black Widow for backup. If you can get along…." Fury trailed off, as Loki hid a smirk. His friendship and long partnership with the duo was well-known, even infamous, in intelligence circles.
"It'll be my pleasure, Sir," he inclined his head, as Hill and Fury departed after a few more words, leaving him alone with H.
"You'll rendezvous with them at the Clarion Hotel Bryggen. Freeson will have your alias and cover story along with your plane tickets. Q Branch is waiting with your equipment. Probably won't need much beyond a firearm but better safe than sorry," H told him briskly, already turning away to his desk and settling back in his chair. His dark eyes eyed Loki piercingly as he tapped his fingers across the mahogany surface of his desk. "I don't need to tell you to keep this strictly business, Odinson."
"Of course, sir," Loki frowned, wondering if he was referring to his occasional on-off relationship with Natasha Romanoff. If so, he needn't have worried; he and Natasha were the equivalent of friends with benefits, no chance of it developing further. He suspected she was secretly in love with her operational partner, but he still hadn't managed to get her drunk enough to admit it. Yet.
"I wasn't talking about Agent Romanoff, I was talking about Doctor Foster," H interrupted him swiftly, still watching him unblinkingly. "You're good, Loki, one of our best. Almost no one can read you when you don't want them to, but you have a weakness. Make sure she doesn't become too big a weakness."
Loki stiffened but couldn't deny it. A denial would be useless. "I will fulfil this assignment to the best of my abilities, H. Have no fear of that."
"Good. And you'll need to dress more warmly where you're going," H nodded with a slight smile, and Loki realised he was dismissed. With a nod, he turned on his heel and left the office, his face growing grimmer by the second. Sigyn seemed to sense his mood and just handed him his plane tickets, alias and travel documents with a smile and wishing him good luck.
As he took the lift down to the quartermaster's department, he sighed and leaned his head back against the lift wall. Why did it have to be her? Why Jane?
He could barely stomach the thought of her somehow being involved with Laufey, even unknowingly, even as his head insisted he had to cover all avenues, cold and logical. His heart, however, maintained that there was no way Jane would ever betray someone she loved like that. Ever.
Even though it had been three years since he'd seen her last, he knew her well enough to know that. She would be devastated to hear of Selvig's death.
And he had no idea how she would react to him, to her re-emergence into her life. He'd have to tell her something of the truth of his profession, she was too clever not to see through any lie he'd tell her. She always had been able to see straight through him. Too easily for his liking.
At least he'd have Barton and Romanoff for backup. He suspected he would need it.
As the lift doors opened, a familiar voice called across the busy R&D lab to him, as his eyes snapped open. "Hey Rock of Ages, wakey wakey! Isn't sleeping on the job a court martial offence!?"
With a weary grin, Loki stepped out of the lift. "Hello to you too, Tony."
To be continued...