Kurukami: Soooooo hmmm. OK. Barriers between Jane and Loki, in the SHIELD sense. Picture Loki in the Hulk-cage, and Jane called in to consult on the possibilities of the Einstein-Rosen bridge research by Agent Coulson. Loki drops some tantalizing hints, and Jane wants to pick over his knowledge, but Jane's not exactly a trained interrogator. Loki starts out trying to subtly manipulate her, while being carefully watched (indirectly) by maybe Natasha, but grows intrigued by her knowledge and dimensional intuition. Infatuation results?

Wherein Thor is late to the party and Nick Fury never saw The Silence of the Lambs. (Humor. AU. PG-13.)

"I don't like this," says Romanov, for the fourth time.

"Your objection is duly noted." Fury adjusts the video stream from what was intended to be the Hulk's cell. The feed's been jumping into pixels at random moments. "Someone want to tell me again why we can't hear what they're saying?"

Coulson's shoulders raise and lower with what might be considered a sigh on someone actually given to sighing. "The guy in charge of audio was playing Galaga."

"Tens of millions of dollars went into building the surveillance on this aircraft, and you're telling me that one gamer screwed it up?"

"It only takes one," says Coulson.

On screen, Jane Foster, all plaid shirt and three-day-unwashed hair, says something to the Asgardian prisoner. A broad smile is all she gets in response.

"I don't like this," says Romanov, for the fifth time. "It should be me in there. I can handle him."

"No one doubts your abilities, Agent Romanov, but unless you've added three degrees in astrophysics to your personel file in the last twelve hours, then we're going to stick with the only person in the world who might have a chance of figuring out what Loki wants Selvig to do with the tesseract."

Coulson raises an eyebrow. He hasn't been protesting the way Romanov has, but it's perfectly obvious that he doesn't approve of bringing in Jane Foster either. "The only person?"

"I am not putting an interdimensional psychopath in the same room with Bruce Banner. And no," Fury cuts Romanov off before she can interrupt, "Stark isn't an option either. The weight of the combined megalomania would sink this ship. This is what we're doing. Live with it."

Foster has started pacing and gesturing with her hands. Wildly. Furiously. So far Loki hasn't been observed saying much of anything, but he hasn't ignored her, either. That's something.

On a day with more rolls of the dice than he can count, bringing in Foster is one of the biggest. If she can't get Selvig's plan out of Loki, she might get something else. She has a history with his brother. Therefore she has to be an object of some interest to him — and when a prisoner is faced with an object of interest, he can reveal more than he intends.

Nick Fury has been at this for a long time.

Romanov leans in closer to the screen. She and Coulson are the only ones Fury trusts to observe along with him; they're the only ones with the right kind of experience to understand what an interrogation should and shouldn't look like. "What's she doing?"

Having produced a sharpie from nowhere — a trick that seems to come with any post-graduate degree in hard science — Foster has started scribbling numbers across the glass wall of Loki's cell. Every now and then she circles a particular number, or underlines a trigonometric equation with dark slashes.

Loki's grin keeps widening.

"That," says Coulson, "is never going to come off."

Fury just shakes his head. "She can deface whatever property she wants as long as she gets us what we need."

Foster spreads her arms wide in the universal gesture of I can't make it any clearer than I already have, idiot. Loki just shrugs elegantly, as though her frustration couldn't possibly make the slightest bit of difference to him, and says something.

Foster throws her sharpie on the floor.

"I don't like this," says Romanov for the sixth time.

To tell the truth, Fury's starting to have doubts as well. But when one is in charge of a super-secret initiative involving the most powerfully unstable individuals on earth, one does not reveal doubt. "Five more minutes. Then we'll send her to Stark and Banner."

Coulson's phone buzzes. He glances at the message, then taps the side of the screen where a human woman is yelling at a god for not instantly understanding all the nuances of advanced theoretical astrophysics.

The display goes blank.

"Apparently," says Coulson, "we have to turn it off and on again."

Fucking Galaga.

When the screen comes back on thirty seconds later, the audio comes with it. "It's mass-energy equivalence!" Jane Foster is yelling. She jabs her finger at the E = mc2 in the center of the glass. "I don't care where you're from or how you travel, it's a constant!"

"Is it."

"Yes! It is!"

Loki hums, and waves his hand casually at Foster's writing.

As if made of nothing more than wisps of paper, the numbers lift, swirl, float across the glass… and rearrange themselves into a new set of equations.

Foster's jaw drops.

"Okay," says Romanov, "I don't like that he can do that."

"Neither do I," says Coulson.

"Oh, my God." Foster steps close to the cell, eyes riveted to whatever's so important about the new math. "That doesn't… you can't…"

"I believe I just did."

"You said you didn't know about differential equations!"

"I don't. I simply know the Bifrost, same as anyone else who isn't bound to this primitive realm. Also, I lied."

Foster drops to her knees and scrambles for her sharpie. "I need some paper," she says frantically. "I have to write this down—"

The numbers vanish from the glass.

"Oh, my apologies." Loki folds his hands behind his back. "Was that interesting to you?"

"Uh-oh," says Coulson.

Romanov's out of her seat and striding for the door before Fury can say a word to stop her. A moment later Fury sees her on the screen, pulling Foster away from the cage. "No no no, you can't do that, you can't just disprove the theory of relativity and wipe it out, you bring it back or I'll—"

Loki bows, just a little, and with great mockery. "I do hope we'll meet again, Jane Foster. I have so much more to show you."

Then the audio screeches, crackles, and goes dead again.

Motherfucking Galaga.

"I can hear you thinking," Fury tells Coulson as they watch Romanov forcibly remove Foster from the scene. "So just say whatever you're going to say."

"I met Jane Foster in New Mexico," says Coulson.

"And?"

"And her work is her life."

"So?"

"So Stark needs to hire her. He needs to give her free reign of his research and development labs. And funding. And whatever else she wants. Right away." A pause. "Before she gets a better offer."

Fury watches the screen for another moment.

Loki looks up at the camera. And smirks.

"Make it happen," says Fury.

By general measurement, his gamble has been a waste at best. No secrets of the tesseract had been extracted. Agents Romanov and Coulson were questioning his judgment. They were no closer to averting war.

But Fury hadn't missed how Loki's eyes had gleamed when Foster was on her knees.

He suspects this gamble won't turn out to be a loss.