Title: A Villain State of Mind
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, brief references to suicide.
Timeframe: Set post-Avengers.

Author's Notes: Sorry that this is a shorter chapter than usual; on the other hand, Thor makes his return this chapter!

The next day was one that Fury referred sarcastically to as 'a day of rest;' the first day since he'd called Charles Xavier that the mutant hadn't made the visit to the Helicarrier. It was also, incidentally, exactly twenty-eight days after the battle of New York, and there was a parallel in there to a certain post-apocalyptic zombie movie that kept running through Fury's mind.

Naturally, that meant it was the day they finally got a call from Thor.

Well, technically it was a call from Jane Foster, but it was the one they'd been waiting for. For the past month Jane had been running modulations on their home-built Einstein-Rosen generator from her SHIELD-funded lab out in Appalachia. The location represented a compromise between being far enough out in the middle of nowhere to satisfy the needs of both safety and security, and also close enough to the Eastern Seaboard that both SHIELD and the Avengers' mansion could get there in short order.

Now, it seemed, they'd finally made a connection. That was the good news.

Until Foster had insisted that she needed to be in Loki's presence to finalize the signal.

That was the bad news.

Foster hadn't been brought up to date on all the details of the Loki incident, particularly the part where he'd made personal threats against her. Without that, it was difficult to convey exactly what a bad idea it would be to put them in the same room. But Foster insisted, going on about something something calibration something energetic resonance; she was adamant that this audience couldn't be done without their resident alien sorcerer present. And unlike Stark, who Fury could almost always be counting on to be bullshitting him to some extent, Foster seemed painfully straightforward - honest, trustworthy, and incapable of imagining that anyone else in the world could be less so.

And so, begrudgingly, Fury agreed, and arranged transport for himself, his prisoner, and a platoon of guards to Appalachia. Didn't it just figure that the one day he could really, really have used Xavier present to ride herd on Loki, he was absent and incommunicado. They couldn't wait for him; Foster had insisted that they had only a short window to punch this signal through, measured in a scale of hours.

Loki was cooperative, though, almost suspiciously so; so much to the point that Fury suspected this was all a trick to get into Foster's presence before grabbing her and using her as a hostage, or possibly a chew toy. It was with this hair-raising vision in mind that Fury brought along the titanium-adamantium alloy chains they'd used to restrain him during the first half of his captivity. Fury personally oversaw the manacles being put on Loki's wrist, the chains secured to a restraining bolt giving him less than a meter of turning room, before he let any other preparation take place.

And assured himself firmly that he was only doing this for Jane Foster's safety, and not for any personal satisfaction of his own.

Even in chains, the supervillain had a way of projecting the attitude that this was all his idea; he lounged in the chair projecting an air of insouciant boredom while SHIELD personnel scurried around him arranging a multitude of equipment. Jane Foster directed them here and there, while shooting apprehensive and curious glances at their captive. Fury wondered what she knew, and from what sources; he knew she didn't have access to any of the classified debriefs, but that left a multitude of other avenues of research she could divine information from, starting with Thor Odinson himself and continuing right on through the same materials on Norse mythology that Fury himself had a team of analysts dissecting line by line.

For his own part, Loki sat there leveling a glare of such withering disdain at her that she didn't try to open up any kind of conversation with him, and Fury was just as grateful for that.

"All right, all systems are online," Foster announced at last. They had set up what looked to Fury's untrained eye like a bulky home A/V theater, with a wall-sized bank of machines surrounding a comparatively modest glass screen in front of a set of chairs. A couple of deep-dished black 'speakers' were aimed at Loki, off to the side, out of range of the cameras trained forward. Not exactly the setup Fury would have preferred, but he'd take an interdimensional Skype session if it was all he could get. "Signal's steady. Spinning up the microportal in three... two... one... now."

Aside from a minute tone shift in the background humming, nothing seemed to be happening, but a wide relieved smile broke out on Foster's face and even Loki jerked his head back, startled.

"That's it, we're connected," Foster chirped, and waved towards one of the tall and well-muscled lab assistants. "Dave, plug in the converter, let's bring our guy on-screen."

A burst of surprisingly colorful static on the screen resolved itself into a familiar face; Thor Odinson, looking far more at home against a background of grand golden arches and torchlight than he ever had on the Helicarrier. "Thor!" Foster exclaimed, and Fury only thought she'd been smiling before; the grin that split her face now completely transformed her from a rather plain, dark-haired woman into a stunning beauty. "Good to see you again!"

"And I you, Jane Foster," Thor said. His voice was warm, but Fury detected an unmistakable note of strain in it.

"We've got a lot to catch up on," Foster told him. "I've got so much to tell you -"

"Indeed we do, but I fear that it must wait for the time being," Thor said. "Is the shield-master, Nicholas Fury, there? I must have words with him."

There was a distinct lag to Thor's responses, Fury noticed, that was unlike the sort of network-induced delay one usually encountered in video conferences; not that he was speaking any more slowly than they were, but that several seconds of delay passed before their transmissions reached him and elicited a response. Only a few sentences into their conversation, and Fury could already tell it was going to be aggravating.

"Director Fury? Sure, he's here," Foster said, glancing across at him in surprise. "After what you said last time, I made sure he'd be on hand."

"That is very good. I beg your leave, Jane, but I must speak with him in confidence. It is of a matter most urgent, and my time here is short."

Foster's expression fell, and Fury couldn't really blame her, but there was work to be done. He stepped into the camera's line of sight, hands clasped casually behind his back. "Odinson," he said, giving the man (god?) a respectful nod. Doctor Foster slipped away, disappointment writ large on her face, but Fury had little attention to spare for her now. She could catch up with her alien boyfriend later; Fury had a prisoner to offload.

Thor looked like crap, to Fury's eye; tired and haggard, with his hair unkempt and his skin grayish. His blue eyes were no less electric, though, even through the monitor. "Is my brother there?"

This was enough to stir Loki, who'd been sitting in a sullen silence up till then. He couldn't move nearly far enough to be caught by the cameras, so he settled instead for shouting towards the pickup: "I am not your brother!"

Several moments went by, and then Thor's face lit up in relief. "Oh, he is," he said happily. "That is immeasurably good. Loki must return to Asgard at once."

"There's nothing that would make me happier," Fury said dryly, "but before anyone goes anywhere, I want to know what the hell you were thinking when you took off, left us in charge of restraining your crazy brother, and didn't make contact when you were supposed to, damn it!"

The Prince of Asgard looked purely taken aback; probably nobody had ever called him out on his careless behavior before. "I do not understand what you mean, my friend," he said. "I swore that I would speak with you again before three days had passed, and it is only now the evening of the third day."

"Three Midgardian days, Thor!" Loki burst in again from offsides. Fury didn't even bother to try to glare him into silence, left momentarily speechless by Thor's statement. "Three days on Midgard, not Asgard!"

Thor looked completely flummoxed for a moment, before the light seemed to dawn. "The - oh," he said, and reached up one hand to rub at his eyes. "Of course. I had forgotten that time passes differently in the mortal realm."

So that much was true after all; up until this moment, Fury still hadn't been completely sure that Loki hadn't been making that all up to fuck with their heads. Still, it had never occurred to him to put two and two together and connect Thor's extended absence with what Loki had said about the relative passage of time between realms; and clearly, neither had Thor. Over in his corner Loki looked like he quietly having a conniption fit, a response with which - for the first time in their history - Fury found himself in full sympathy.

"Forgive me; I have been much distracted," Thor said, and the exhaustion was plain in his voice. Fury supposed that if it had really been only three days since New York, that might explain the demigod's ragged appearance; it looked like Thor hadn't even gotten a chance to clean up after that last battle.

Not that he intended to let Thor off the hook that easily. "Distracted," he said flatly. "You'll have to enlighten me; what could possibly have kept you so distracted from your duties as an Avenger, keeping tabs on the supervillain who flattened New York?"

"Let me guess; you've spent the days since your return engaged in hunting expeditions," Loki scathed. He wasn't yelling this time; Fury wouldn't have thought he was loud enough to be heard on Thor's end at all, until he recalled how unnaturally sensitive Loki's own hearing was. "Or perhaps tied up with balls and celebrations. Oh! Let me take a long shot of a guess - was there perhaps a feast held in honor of your return, one with a prodigious amount of drinking?"

"Asgard has come under attack," Thor said.

That simple statement had the effect of flipping a switch, plunging the atmosphere of the room into somber shock. "By who?" Fury demanded. "More Chitauri again?"

"Would it were any foe so simple," Thor groaned, after the interminable lag. "Malekith the Exile, pariah of the dokkalfar, leads an assault on Asgard's walls, using black sorcery to bridge the gap between realms and bring his foul army up under our very foundations two nights hence. Heimdall - the Gatekeeper has fallen, and with him the outer defenses. The Accursed One himself tangled Odin is a spell, sending him unnaturally into slumber. We have withdrawn into the inner keep, and yet hold the doors here, but even now his foul sorcery chews at the foundations and saps our strength.

"With the All-Father laid low, there is none in Asgard who has mastery over such sorceries save Loki. His knowledge of magic is unparalleled, both in the attack and defense. Loki must return to Asgard and break Malekith's siege, or Asgard will fall before him ere this day is done. And after Asgard, all the Nine Realms will be dashed beneath his heel!"

Fury opened his mouth, then paused for a moment while he rapidly reshuffled his priorities. This was some Lord of the Rings shit right here, but that didn't mean it wasn't a legitimate threat. Between this Malekith guy and Thanos - if Loki's account of the guy was at all reliable - Fury was going to spend so much of his time chasing after extraterrestrial threats as to be all but helpless against domestic ones.

As for Loki himself - Fury cleared his throat. "So I'm guessing there's no chance of you coming down to Earth to pick him up, then." So much for his imagined scenario of making this easy.

Lag. "Would but I could," Thor grimaced. His hand closed into a tight fist before his chest, and the part of Fury's mind that always kept a watch for details noticed that Mjolnir was nowhere to be found. "The Tesseract was stolen from us in the first assault. Malekith planned his assault well - he must have had a spy within the walls, giving him detailed knowledge of what was where and when. We stood no chance against him. The traitor will pay for his crimes!"

"Right," Fury said, and shook his head. "I appreciate your position, Odinson, but here's the bad news: we don't have any way of getting your brother back up to you in Asgard. Or else you bet we'd have done it long ago. A full-sized portal is still years beyond our capability."

"We have not years to spare," Thor said. "But that matters little. My brother knows the ways of the secret paths between realms; he needs neither artifact nor bridge to traverse them. Only remove his restraints, and he can find his own way."

Fury took a deep, searing breath, and held it just on the top of his tongue. He counted to ten, then counted again. At least Loki did not take the opportunity to make his thoughts on the matter known; he'd fallen into a frozen silence the moment Thor had announced the attack on Asgard.

"So what you're saying to me," Fury said carefully, "is that after all the trouble we went to catch and hold your crazy supervillain brother in the first place - after all the havoc he caused getting loose, after all the blood and mess we spent getting him down the second time, after we held him for you for four fucking weeks without a peep from anyone up in Asgard - you're telling me now that you want me to just let him go?"

The pause that followed that one was longer than the time delay could account for.

"...yes?" Thor responded at last, looking unusually hesitant.

Fury saw red. "You gotta be shitting me."

"I assure you, my comrade, there is no shit," Thor said in a steely voice. "Save perhaps for the very deep shit indeed that we find ourselves in without his skills at magic. Loki's acts upon Midgard cannot be ignored, nor do I say they should be, but right now the fate of our kingdom - and all those under our protection - hangs by a thread.

"I know you have little reason to love my brother," Thor told him somberly, because apparently he was competing for understatement of the fucking year. "But right now he is our only hope. There will be time to address recompense for the wrongs done to your world afterwards, a suitable bounty repaid - if there is still an Asgard here to pay it."

Fury's breath hissed out through his teeth. "As soon as we let him go, we lose all control over him!" he pointed out, frustrated as all hell at Thor's inability to see. "We take these chains off, he could fuck off to Barbados for all we can do about it. Oh - yeah, and with a side trip to wreak some more vengeance on our planet! What makes you think he'd even go back to Asgard and not off into hiding somewhere?"

The pause this time dragged out excruciatingly long; it wasn't just Fury's imagination, it was actually getting worse. "I know not," Thor said at last. His image was beginning to futz and fritz ominously, and somehow Fury didn't think it was just a passing aircraft disrupting the signal. "I know only that we need you now, Loki. You alone have the skills that will save Asgard from this ruin. If you do not come, all will be lo -."

The image blipped, and then the screen went dead. Fury stared at it for a long moment, the same white noise playing in his own mind as he tried desperately to come up with some response.

Somewhere behind him a noise started up, a buzzing rasp that grew quickly to a hysterical coughing. Loki - still chained to the floor, surrounded by a legion of SHIELD guards and the might of all Earth's most modern technology - began to laugh.

~tbc...