Chapter 5.
The next day brought nothing new. Selvig had a monumental hangover and didn't seem to remember anything from the previous evening, Darcy was thrilled that they really bumped into an alien and Jane kept listening to Loki's stories about Asgard, asking a myriad of questions about the technology they used and how everything worked. Loki, from his part, also spent the day trying to get more familiar with what passed as "modern technology" in Midgard.
The second day, however, brought a surprise.
Some men from SHIELD came to the laboratory. Apparently they had arranged that a notary came all the way from England with the necessary documents. Loki greeted them warmly, knowing that Coulson was calling his bluff.
As Loki was brought into the same tent they had used for interrogation, where Coulson was waiting for him. As they shook hands, Loki noticed a glint on the Midgardian's eye.
They sat around the same table and spend some time with polite small talk until the notary, a tall, thin man, was escorted inside the room. They shook hands politely and the newcomer took a seat besides Coulson.
"Mr. Norwood," the man, opening his briefcase and putting an envelope on the table. "I have to say it's a pleasure to finally meet you, We have been wondering for year when-"
"This is not the will."
"Excuse me?"
"This is not the will," Loki insisted, pushing back the envelope. "I don't know if this is some king of practical joke," he said to Coulson. "But I'm quite tired of these spy games of yours. Either let me go back to England or help me solve my problem but, please, do not play with me any further."
"But you barely took a glance," said the agent. His smile had turned cold.
There were so many inconsistencies and errors Loki pondered if it was worth the time to tell them. He took the envelope without breaking eye contact with the agent and held it in his hand.
"Let us start with the seal. It's supposed to be a century old one, yet the wax is not the same quality as the one my great-grandfather used. Plus the crest is but a poor imitation of the one used by my family. You did well observing that the seal had a small indentation which deformed it, but you botched the forgery, as my great-grandfather intended and got the defect all wrong. The paper is new but artificially aged: It still reeks of whatever product you used. I will not talk about the scribble you tried to pass as my great-grandfather's handwriting. And you," he spoke, throwing a piercing glance towards the notary. "I admire your effort at speaking with a Welsh accent, but it still slips and, among other things, I noticed the callosities on your hands that only develop when wielding a weapon, a custom I wouldn't expect a notary to develop," he turned back to Coulson. "When they told me SHIELD was a secret government agency, the last thing I expected was to face such substandard, poor excuse of a job, hastily put together and much worse delivered. Next time, Mr. Coulson, please don't choose a field agent to play the part of a sedentary office worker, and do tell your specialists to have more care with their unsteady hands.
"What was your intention?" he threw the envelope across the table. "If you wanted my fingerprints you could have asked!"
Despite his words and the displeasure he didn't have to feign, part of him felt at ease. That they had put some effort demonstrated that they had believed him to some extent. They thought him a Midgardian citizen; of uncertain identity, yes, but Midgardian nonetheless. To be fair, the forgery was nearly perfect and no one would have told otherwise with just a glance, as he had done, but Loki could recognize what little clues he had left and they had failed to reproduce, along with the absence of the subtle enchantment he had cast on the envelope. Though that last part still worried him. If Odin had sealed his magic, wouldn't that mean that he would be incapable of sensing any magic power?
Coulson's tone was appeasing, although he could barely hide his disappointment.
"You win, Mr. Norwood," he said, signaling to his agent to stand up and leave them alone. "It seems you have a keen eye, but if it had been our men the ones to forge it I guarantee you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. We agreed to perform this little test on you at our guest's request; they were the ones who provided everything and we just played along because your story didn't add up. You can't deny that there are too many coincidences in this affair."
The door opened and another person was escorted into the room. It was a woman in her forties that Coulson presented as Mrs. Baxter, and who didn't seem to enjoy having been taken away from her comfortable office for a transatlantic trip. However, her eyes lit up with a sparkle of recognition when seeing Loki's face.
"My, but he does look like old Arthur!" she exclaimed, her features lightning up. "You will have to pardon us, Mr. Norwood, but we have grown so weary of false heirs that we devised a little trick to stall them while we checked their background and called the police. I really shouldn't be here but these… gentlemen were quite persuasive."
"Meaning that they abducted you?"
"We just made a call to the Notaries Society," Coulson pointed out. "And I personally wanted to see what you would do when we gave you the fake one."
Mrs. Baxter pursed her lips and sat down at the table, motioning Loki to do the same and politely ignoring Coulson from that moment on. Then she took an envelope from her briefcase and slid it towards Loki.
His hand hovered for a split second over it, and he sighed with relief: He could feel the magic.
Odin had sealed away his powers and longevity, but he could still feel it. It was like being a devoted swimmer and suddenly being barred from stepping into the water. If one approached a lake then, even with their eyes closed, they could feel its presence. That was the closest simile he could find, for magic wasn't something one couldn't detect with the five senses.
Feeling at long last at ease, he opened the envelope and took out two smaller ones, one marked for the heir and the other for he notary. Mrs. Baxter took both and acknowledged that everything was in order.
"Now turn around, please, as per your great-grandfather's instructions," she commanded, although she couldn't stop smiling. One could say she was almost giddy with anticipation.
Loki opened the envelope and took out the piece of parchment, full of what would look like gibberish to any human eye. The symbols he had used were the arcane language used to encoding spells, so only a sorcerer might read them.
He turned around and started reading aloud in English. What Mrs. Baxter held on her hands was a translation, which the notary followed eagerly, almost hanging on each word.
Coulson witnessed the scene and, as "Robert" kept reading and listing all the possessions he would inherit and the exact amount of pounds, shilling and pennies Mr. Arthur had left him, the agent's mind made the numbers with the interest rate and the conversion to the decimal system and he felt a faint vertigo.
"Your great-grandfather was a bit eccentric," he commented once both notary and heir had finished. "I had never seen that language before. He even had your name foretold."
"Planned ahead," Loki corrected him. "He was a precise man. Every piece on its place."
"There are still some procedures and paperwork we have to go over," Baxter said, still smiling. "You will have to accompany me to London. I hope that doesn't inconvenience you too much, Mr. Norwood."
And so they agreed on that Robert Conrad Norwood was to accompany Mrs. Baxter to London as soon as possible to finish the procedures. Once the arrangements were made, however, Loki requested to speak in private with Coulson about Jane.
"You can't expect to order me around about how to run this investigation, can you?" Coulson told him. "I have my orders."
"I know but, you must speak to your superiors about it. Tell me, to your knowledge, how close was Miss Foster to discovering that something she keeps talking about?"
"That information is classified."
"Think of the time your scientists will spend trying to decipher her theories, her calculations, everything. Wouldn't it be better if you had her working for you?"
Coulson raised an eyebrow, all his fake affability vanished.
"Our scientists are more than capable, Mr. Norwood."
"You suggested to her that she could build her instruments a second time," Loki continued. "Are you going to have her under surveillance until she is again on the brink of discovery, to then steal everything from her? I assure you, she will do it a second, a third and even a fourth time, as if she were the next Sisyphus. I ask you: Is it worth the hassle?"
The agent held his gaze during some seconds, then he smiled.
"Smitten by the young scientists? Didn't take you for that kind of man."
"Call it whatever you want. I have a debt towards her that I intend to repay. It's either you returning her equipment or me financing her research. She did all that with barely any money and from scraps pieces. Imagine if some fortune happened to back her up."
"Not another rich nerd…" the agent murmured, massaging his temples.
"But in all seriousness," Loki continued as if Coulson had said nothing. He would investigate later what nerd meant. "Your organization's name means that you foresee a threat looming in the future. While I can't imagine Miss Foster a mercenary, it still would be dangerous to have her running free. God knows what kind of people might take notice."
"You seem to know an awful lot about her," Coulson eyed him suspiciously. "Are you sure she found you in the desert two days ago?"
"I'm just good at reading people," Loki laughed. "As if you didn't gauge her character when you seized her property."
Coulson was silent for a moment, enough for Loki to know that his words were sinking in.
"The decision is not mine, Mr. Norwood," Coulson said, but Loki could see in his eyes that things were going according to plan. However, if it also worked with his superiors he couldn't know. "I can't promise anything."