Chapter 3.
The SHIELD encampment sat surrounding the arrival area. The site of the landing had been covered with a gigantic white tent and, though security was tight, he could spy people coming in and out of that tent, dressed in insulating suits, and all around were armed soldiers with their weapons at the ready. Coulson assigned one such soldier to guard Loki: a tall, hard-eyed woman who spoke no words and showed exceptional commitment to his job, not leaving the visitor's side one second.
They held him for questioning for a long time. Agent Coulson would come into the room and ask some questions, then go away for several hours at a time and then return to ask the same questions but with different words and in different order. Loki didn't mind them following him around, or spying on his records. He took pleasure on following Coulson's games, as one adult might do with a child trying to teach him a well-known game.
Finally, Coulson's patience ran thin, and the man openly confronted Loki about his supposed heritage and his past.
"You know," he said, opening a folder with a printed file of Tyler Ellis, Loki's fake identity until he assumed that of Robert C. Norwood. "One would think that a wealthy man like your great-grandfather would have left his fortune to his offspring, not to some descendant in the distant future."
"The old man was very strange," Loki shrugged. "Even so, he didn't leave his family unprepared. We never wanted for anything."
"Y'know? Something that surprises me is your accent. The registry says you were born in New York, but you sound pretty British to me."
Loki shrugged.
"My family was peculiar."
"You must have had a lot of trouble at school for that."
"You don't want to know."
"Returning to our questions, wouldn't your grandfather want to reclaim the inheritance? Why skip to the fourth generation?"
"I asked myself the same. I confronted my father while he lay on his dead bed, but he gave no reply and he took the secret to his tomb. I'm afraid I cannot answer you this time, only that I need to contact the notary at London and prove that I'm Norwood's descendant."
Coulson seemed to ponder his words for a moment.
"It seems like it's dangerous for you to be out there," he wanted to call Loki's bluff. "What would you say if we could bring someone from that notary over here to question you?" his smile vanished before Loki's enthusiastic response.
"Could you do that?" Loki sprung off his chair. "Oh, this is wonderful! At last my luck changes! Thank you so much, Mr. Coulson!" he exclaimed, shaking the agent's hand earnestly.
"Ok, ok," the other extricated himself from Loki's handshake. "But I can't promise you anything."
"But it would take some time, wouldn't it?" Loki continued, not letting the other say a word. "Will you retain me here until then?"
"You said that someone attacked you."
"That's what I supposed," he shrugged. He had told Coulson a very different version of his back story, leaving forgeries and identity thefts out of it. "I already told you that I have no other justification to what happened to me. I don't know, maybe they got what they thought they needed and left me alone, that's the only explanation as to why they didn't kill me already."
"So, your fortune is gone, then?"
"No," he laughed. "No one except me can reclaim it. My great-grandfather was very thorough, I assure you."
Coulson didn't seem too pleased with how things had transpired and, despite his professional façade, Loki noticed the man's frustration. Those agents and soldiers were probably seeking any anomaly left by the Bifrost, but they would find none, except that the soil had been burnt.
Probably wishing to get rid of their visitor, now that they had found out that he had nothing to do with any anomaly, Coulson phoned Selvig so he could pick him up and take him away. Judging by the agent's words, Selvig didn't seem too happy either.
They escorted him out of the interrogation room, and inside another tent near the encampment's site. There, other agents were busy working of their computers, and the atmosphere was tenser than he would have expected. So much for a wild-goose chase.
His escort didn't leave his side, however. The silent woman stood at an arm's reach while Loki waited patiently for Selvig to arrive in the only corner they allowed him to stay, well away from the computer's screens. He leant against a table with several items sprawled over its surface and two cardboard boxes full of files and other miscellanea. A quick glance while he feigned a bored sigh let him see that such items had been taken from Jane's laboratory, and that her diary sat close by.
After a while they were told that Selvig had finally arrived. Not wishing to be rude, Loki offered his hand to his guardian, with his thanks and congratulating her on a job well done. The steely eyed soldier answered almost mechanically to his handshake, but she was so befuddled by that strange man that even her stoic demeanor faltered for a second. She nodded stiffly then and walked away from him.
Loki waved her goodbye, Jane's notebook securely tucked inside his jacket.
xxxxXX-0-XXxxxx
Instead of driving straight to the dismantled laboratory, Selvig insisted on stopping for a drink at a nearby bar. Aside from that suggestion, he was mostly silent until they were inside the place and with a beer jar on their hands. Then he broke the silence with a grunt after the first sip from his beverage.
"Thank you for taking me out of there," Loki said.
"Don't thank me," Selvig answered curtly. "I did this for Jane."
"Did she investigate what I told her?"
Selvig threw him an unfriendly glance.
"Look, boy, I don't know if you are really a soon-to-be rich guy, someone who arrived via that Wormhole, a madman, or just a conman who takes advantage of everyone that crossed his path, but I don't care one bit. Only Jane concerns me."
"I don't mean to harm her," Loki said, knowing the path the conversation was taking. Many father figures had said similar words to him before. "I promise you."
"Good," Selvig said, finishing his beer in one gulp and signaling the barkeeper to serve him another. "Drink yours, and then you go out from this city, got it?"
Loki sighed, a wry smile on his lips. That was why he had brought him there.
"So," he said, playing with his half-emptied glass. "After growing up with stories about the Rainbow Bridge you don't seem to believe it when you get to behold them."
"See, Robert? That was what I was talking about! You told Jane about some old legends from my homeland and now she's all worked up about having discovered another dimension."
Loki's answer was cut by a heavy hand on his shoulder. A tall, bulky and very drunken patron stood behind him.
"I know ye," he reeked of alcohol and stale sweat. "Ye're that guy who was with those lab girls. T'say you're an alien."
Loki smiled and raised his hands.
"I assure you I'm not-"
"We dun like aliens ove' 'ere."
"I'm not looking for a fight."
"No fights at my bar! You hear that, John?" yelled the barkeeper behind Loki and Erik.
The big man stood blinking, as if he didn't understand it. Then Loki had an idea.
"What if this alien challenged you to a contest?" the patron's tiny eyes squinted for a few seconds more, then he smiled. That seemed to make him react.
"Contest?"
"I don't know," Loki mused aloud, one slender finger tapping on his chin. Then he snapped his finger. "What about a speed eating contest? I'm sure a man of your size can beat someone as scrawny as myself."
Judging by the attitude of that patron and that of those accompanying him, it was clear that he not only was a regular, but that he had caused trouble more than once. John's companions had been listening to the conversation, surely expecting his friend to offer a bloody spectacle that night. However, a speed eating contest seemed a good enough substitute, because they roared in joy after their friend accepted. among the confusion, Loki took Selvig aside.
"How much money can you spare?"
"What!?"
"Do you wish me to leave or not?" Loki asked, nearly losing his patience. "I'll earn enough to repay you and pay my passage to London. Would that be far enough for you?"
Selvig sighed loudly, putting fifty dollars in Loki's hand.
"You won't regret this," Loki promised.
"I'm doing it already," the scientist replied. "Sure you can do it?"
"I did it already at Skymir's home."
"Sky-" Selvig sputtered. "Utgard-Loki?"
"Yes, long story," Loki said nonchalantly and he smoothed out the dollar bills on his hands. "You heard of the story by mouth of Volstagg, so obviously he got all the places and names wrong," he tested the elasticity of his trousers' waist. Fortunately for him they were somewhat big for him. "Long story short, I won a bet and a handsome sum of gold that night."
With a flash of a smile he disappeared into the roaring crowd. Of course, he omitted that, aside from the gold, that night he went home with severe heartburn and had to spend a whole week reclined in bed, only able to drink apple cider vinegar in very small sips and being very careful not to move too much. But Loki wasn't a man who let small details as those getting in the way of a good story.
"Very well, gentlemen!" he announced over the patrons' voices as if he was the host of a competition. "It's a speed eating contest! Each round the bet doubles and the loser gets to pay for all the food!"