Chapter 9
Nick Fury was sitting alone in his office, mulling over his last “consultation” with the WSC when Coulson rapped on his doorframe.
“Come in,” said Fury, motioning Coulson in. “What’s the word on the Sceptered Army?”
Coulson smirked briefly at the term, then grew serious. “They’re still mostly mind-whammied and fully cooperative. We’re getting a lot of good intel from our interviewers.”
“Speaking of interviewers, how’s Thor’s debriefing going?”
“I’ve listened in on some of it. Asgard is looking like a strange medley of Dark Age social conventions, super-advanced science, and Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle’. Of course, some of that may be due to being filtered through Thor’s perspective; Queen Frigga seemed to be more… nuanced. Of course, there is that thing about disabled soldiers not being given job retraining until recently…”
Fury grimaced and rubbed his face. “In the movies, space aliens are always either all Zen and shit or insectlike monsters with a taste for human flesh. Or maybe weirdly colored humanoids who want to conquer the planet and kidnap white coeds for their harems. That’s at least… simple. No moral ambiguity involved: You know exactly what you need to do about the situation. You may be shit-scared that you won’t be able to accomplish it, but at least you know what you need to do.”
“To the best of my knowledge, Loki didn’t target college students of either gender during his fake conquest. Or eat anything but energy bars.”
“Doesn’t matter to the World Security Council. They want a villain to blame for the assault in Stuttgart and the loss of the Pegasus Project facility. And so they can pimp their own reputations higher for having ‘defeated’ him. Capturing an abused child-soldier just doesn’t make for good PR.”
“Not to mention that none of us actually beat him. It was he who defeated the real villains— Thanos and what’s-his-name.”
“But we don’t have either of them in custody. We do have their catspaw, and they don’t want to ‘complicate’ the situation by revealing the mind control to the public. Or, for that matter, his current age.”
Coulson made a moue of distaste. It sometimes amazed Fury how much moral fiber had survived in Coulson through all these years of working for Shield.
“The ethical issue aside, that’s not going to work out for the Council. Loki is the child of the rulers of one of the few alien races we know to be somewhat-favorably disposed towards Earth. I don’t think Queen Frigga is going to be happy with anyone who tries to use her baby boy as a scapegoat.”
Fury snorted. “Some of them have apparently Googled some Norse mythology, and have concluded that Odin would go for it. After all, ‘He’s adopted’ as Thor tells us.”
“That reminds me. We learned something else interesting during Thor’s debriefing-- Frost Giants are the boogeymen of the Aesir. Most of the disabled warriors Loki was advocating for were Jotunheim War veterans. Jotnar apparently have the ability to induce frostbite in their opponents through a ‘freezing touch’, and if this isn’t treated soon enough, can cause the loss of the affected limb. From the way Thor related this, many warriors consider this a fate far worse than dying in battle. Think of ableism cranked up to eleven with a secondary dose of body horror.” Coulson looked thoughtful. “You know, that may have made discovering that he himself was Jotnar even more traumatic for Loki. He seems to have a lot of interaction with a group with even greater prejudice against Frost Giants than most Aesir. It must have been like a child raised by Nazis discovering that his birth parents were Jewish.”
“Or a boy raised by White Supremacists learning that he’s part African American.” Fury interjected wryly.
Coulson gave him a penetrating look. “Yes, that would also be a good analogy.”
Fury stood and began to pace. “My father was a great man. Very great. He loved me, and gave me everything he thought I needed to succeed.” He paused, staring at nothing. "He loved me, but he didn’t understand what it was like to be a black boy at majority-white elite schools. Still less did he understand what it’s like to be a black man in our culture.
“I was always told ‘If you want to rise high enough in the military to change things, you can’t always be playing the race card’. In practice, that seemed to mean never calling out racism… ever. I learned to keep silent while swallowing down all kinds of shit, always telling myself to wait until I had enough clout to speak up.” Fury rubbed his remaining eye. “Now I’m the fucking director of Shield… and I find that I still always have the taste of shit in my mouth.”
Coulson opened his mouth, then shut it again, looking thoughtful. “You know, I was going to say ‘I understand’, but it occurs to me that I don’t. So let me just say ‘I’m sorry’ instead.”
Nicholas spontaneously smiled at Phil, cheered. “Centuries of institutional racism is hardly your fault… but thanks anyway.”
As Coulson returned the smile, Fury reflected again on how very much he didn’t want to do this job without Coulson by his side.
To restore professionalism, he asked “So what do you suggest we do about the Council’s plan?”
“Well, I think…”
At that moment, Maria Hill appeared at the door, a harried look on her face. “Sir, we just had another alien materialize on our bridge… and this one’s really there. I mean physically present. She says she’s here to treat Loki… and she’s not too happy at being asked to wait before seeing her patient.”
Fury gave a grunt as he heaved himself to his feet. “Well, here we go again. I wonder if Captain Sisko ever has days like this?”
The corner of Hill’s mouth quirked up. “I prefer to ask myself ‘What would Aeryn Sun do?’ To each their own fictional role model.”
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When they arrived at the bridge, Coulson saw that this alien woman was very different than Frigga. She looked younger, and far less poised than the queen had been. Her stance was practically thrumming with tension, and she clutched a large grayish shoulder bag tightly to her chest, as if afraid someone was going to wrest it from her.
Her expression showed no trace of this, head tilted back in a haughty pose that reminded him of Loki. She was even fairer than Thor, with very light strawberry blonde hair. It shouldn’t have looked as good as it did against her pink-and-white complexion. Coulson had to repress a smile as he remembered Fury’s wry crack about “weirdly-colored” aliens.
Fury himself seemed to have his game face on. “Welcome, ma’am. I’m Commander Nick Fury of Shield.”
She nodded stiffly at this. “Greetings, Commander. I am Gerd, a healer. Queen Frigga has sent me to heal… the one you know as Loki of Asgard.” With a touch of tartness, she asked “May I please go to my patient now? I have been given to understand that his condition is dire.”
Coulson stepped in to reduce tensions; he figured it was better him than Fury or Hill. “Of course, ma’am. We have our customs and protocols to follow, especially in times like these. Would you follow me?”
He kept up a light line of patter as he escorted her to the infirmary. Romanov had fallen in silently behind him, and interestingly Hill joined her, making a hand sign for the armed guards not to follow. Well, it wasn’t like they could add much more containment than the Black Widow backed up by Maria Hill, should Gerd prove to be a hostile.
The healer said little as they walked, though her level of tension ebbed discernibly. Given the fact that all Norse myth had to say about Gerd was that she’d been the object of one of the most rapey courtships in recorded history, she probably wasn’t a threat. Well, not extremely likely to be, anyway. He noted that despite the claim in the Prose Edda that she was Freyr’s queen, she hadn’t claimed any honorific title for herself, not even the “lady” that Thor bestowed so freely. It was probably best not to ask questions about the subject right now.
Not that there was much chance to do so: They’d now reached Loki’s ICU pod. Clint was sitting in the chair by Loki’s bed, apparently half-asleep. He started awake at their arrival, dropping his Starkphone on the floor. “Aww, phone, no,” he groaned groggily as he bent over and fumbled to retrieve it.
Giving him a suspicious glance, Gerd darted around to the other side of the bed. She immediately focused her attention on her patient, ignoring everyone else.
Coulson frowned at Barton, concerned. The man should really be a patient himself, not watching over another patient. The fact that Hawkeye of all people had been startled by their entry showed how off his game he was. The fast-acting anesthetic in the trank gun was preferable to a grade III concussion, but that didn’t mean it could be simply shrugged off. Plus, there were the unknown effects of the scepter to consider…
Natasha went over to Clint as Dr. Noha arrived to introduce herself to Gerd. She touched his shoulder as she knelt beside him and picked up his phone herself. “Clint, why don’t you go get some sleep?” she murmured softly.
Clint rubbed his eyes. “I’m waiting for Steve; Dr. Noha sent him off to feed his super soldier metabolism. Or Thor, if Rose is finished with him. Nobody should wake up alone in the hospital. Nobody.”
Coulson stepped closer, so he could talk under the urgent medicalese going on on the other side of the bed. “He won’t be alone: His mother’s healer is here to take over, see? You can stand down, Agent; mission complete.”
He said the last words in a mildly humorous tone, hoping to strike a light-hearted note. But Clint let out a tortured sob before pressing his fisted hand to his mouth, clenching his eyes closed while his body was racked with shudders. Coulson and Romanov exchanged worried glances. Over the other side of the bed, Dr. Noha and Gerd had broken off their consultation were watching with concern.
Natasha moved first. She put an arm around her exhausted partner and lifted him onto his feet. “C’mon, Clint, let’s go to my quarters. We’ll eat gourmet chocolate and watch movies until we fall asleep.”
Clint looked torn. “I… I should debrief first.”
Coulson took his cue. “No, you need to rest and recover first. You’ve already shared all the critical intel, remember?” Clint flinched at this unwelcome reminder to his time under mind control, so Coulson continued smoothly. “Have Tasha make you some of that Russian hot chocolate and make her bingewatch ‘Dog Cops’ with you, okay?” Whoops, he really should have said Romanov in public… but the hell with it; Clint needed to relax, so proper Shield protocol could take a hike.
Natasha made a face. “You had to remind him of that,” she mock-grumbled. “But yes, we can do that. The first three episodes of the new season are out, and we can see whether the Teuscher makes makes better hot chocolate than the Scharffen Berger. It’ll be fun.”
Clint scrubbed his face with his hand. “That… does sound good.” He managed a faint smile.
She smiled back, then drew him out of the room, bantering playfully about demanding a viewing of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ in recompense for being subjected to ‘Dog Cops’. Clint’s exact response was too faint to make out, but the tone sounded humorous. Good.
Gerd watched the two agents retreat, wide-eyed. “He is… soul-injured, is he not?” she asked, sounding concerned.
Coulson sighed. “That’s a a very good term for the condition we call PTSD… Post-traumatic stress disorder. He hasn’t been officially diagnosed yet; things have been very fraught around here lately.” He smiled dryly. “It’s our first alien invasion, you see. We’re not at our best.”
Gerd looked perplexed for a moment, then nodded. “Ah, yes. Frigga mentioned that Loki had been forced to try to conquer you.”
“Oh, he wasn’t so bad, really. We were a lot more worried about the ‘army’ he kept going on about.”
She frowned, then shook her head firmly. “All of this can be discussed later; first I must attend to my patient.” She turned to Dr. Noha. “I think it best to leave your arrangements for nourishment in place, barbaric as they are, until I have a better idea of Loki’s condition. I need to set up a Soul Forge around him to gather that data.” Then she pinkened. “I mean no offense, truly, we deeply appreciate your efforts to help Loki, but…”
“None taken,” replied Dr. Noha politely. With a mischievous smile, she added, “It is not like we do not wish for better alternatives ourselves. Now, how may I assist you in setting up this… ‘Soul Forge’? That is a curious name. How does it function?”
Gerd rolled her eyes. “It is a useful device with an excessively pretentious name. The inventor styled it after a line of poetry about how the Norns ‘forge all our souls/ on the anvil of our experiences’. She bent down to her bag, and and pulled a set of large, curved poles that logically should have never fitted in the size of bag she’d been carrying. She proferred them to Dr. Noha, who took them with a look of amazement on her face. Gerd ducked toward her bag again, muttering “I need to get the base set up and the power source connected.”
Coulson sidled over to Maria Hill and murmured “She’s obviously got an Undetectable Extension Charm on that bag.”
Hill raised an eyebrow. “I was going to say ‘It’s dimensionally transcendent.’ You never forget your first Doctor.”
They shared a grin, then turned their attention back to business.
“So, this can show you everything your patient has experienced over their lifetime?” Dr. Noha was asking in wonder.
“No, not as such. What it does is show…” Gerd frowned. “Certain experiences, especially traumatic ones, leave what you might call ‘scars’ in the way one’s mind works. To use a metaphor, if a sapling tree looses a branch, it will change the way the rest of the branches grow. From this, an experienced forester can determine decades later that a branch was removed, and deduce something of how the branch was lost. For example, whether it was deliberately pruned off or forcibly ripped away.
“This is a great oversimplification, of course, because souls are vastly more intricate than trees, and there are far more numerous types of damage possible.” Gerd’s expression turned darkly reminiscent for a second before she visibly pulled herself together. “Does that answer your question, Healer Noha?”
Dr. Noha nodded. “Yes, I think so. One of our planet’s psychologists— Dr. Bruce Perry-- has been studying the effects of child abuse on neurological organization. I would like to discuss this with you later, after Loki has been treated, of course.”
Gerd looked surprised. “Yes. I would like that. If it is possible; I have a responsibility to discharge, once Loki is stable. And I will have to gain permission from my liege for additional time. But, after that…” She drew a deep breath, looking as if unexpected new possibilities were opening up before her. “I would enjoy such conversation.” She gave Noha a radiant smile. “Thank you.”
“But first, I must see to my patient.” She set her jaw and began going over the contraption she’d assembled around Loki’s hospital bed. It looked something like a canopy bed without a canopy, with slender curving posts at each end. The head and foot were connected by pipes carefully threaded under the armrests supporting Loki’s poor, burned arms. Gerd touched several points of the assembly, nodding in approval.
“Healer Noha, is it possible to make this room less… bright? It will be difficult to read the Soul Forge’s results in this lighting.”
“Yes. I can put in in night time mode.” The human woman went to a control panel, and fiddled with it. The room dimmed. “Is this acceptable, Healer Gerd?”
“That will be fine. Thank you.” Gerd took a deep breath. “Now let us see what has been done to this child.” She made a gesture with one hand…
A holographic image of a stylized humanoid body formed a couple feet above Loki’s own body, surrounded and in some cases intersected by three dimensional symbols of varying colors. Coulson didn’t know what the usual results were for a Soul Forge scan, but based on Gerd’s horrified gasp, he felt that these findings must be very bad. Even to his untutored eye, the jagged and barbed appearance of many of the shapes looked ominous. The multiple black hooks embedded in the image’s head seemed to confirm the mind control, and the fact that so many of the scariest glyphs were located in sensitive areas suggested some of his darkest suspicions about Loki’s treatment by his “allies” were true.
A movement from Gerd broke Coulson’s sickened fixation on the scan results. She stepped forward, almost staggering at first, then with more control and purpose. Tears were running down her face.
“This… this will not be covered up, denied, and forgotten! This outrage will not be overlooked in the name of political expediency, or the greater good, or whatever other fine-sounding term the Aesir contrive! This truth will be spoken and acknowledged, and may the Norns take the vigor and prosperity of any who try to deny it!”
Moving swiftly, she went back to her magic bag. After rummaging for a moment, she stood up holding a bag of clear crystals in her hands. “I will record this, so that all can see with their own eyes what was done to Farbauti’s child!” She selected a crystal, and proclaimed, “For Odin War-Merry, so that he can see what came of his bloodspilling and child theft!” The crystal turned red in her hand as she jammed it into an aperture on the Soul Forge’s frame. The next crystal she pulled out took on a blue hue as she placed it into the next opening. “For King Helblindi and Prince Byleistr, so they can know what befell their little brother, and why… why he committed such crimes against his homeland.” Her voice took on a somber tone one the last few words.
More calmly, she inserted a crystal which flushed amber as she held it. “For my liege Queen Freya; this is not technically an affair of Vanaheim, but as Loki is in some sense her sister’s son, it is only fair that she should know. Also, this is a matter which affects multiple realms, so as a ruler, it is meet that she should know.
The final crystal chosen turned forest green. It trembled a little in her hands as she intoned, “For Farbauti, though I dread her heartbreak when she sees it, for no mother should have to learn of such atrocities being visited on her child. But she has dwelled in ignorance of her child’s fate for far too long already, and the bitterest knowledge will be sweeter than than the poisonous taste of not knowing.” She placed this crystal in the final socket almost tenderly.
Coulson tried to resume breathing as quietly as possible. An irreverent part of him couldn’t help but observe that a penchant for high drama seemed to be common to all “Norse gods” yet encountered. The more serious part of his brain was grappling with the implications of Gerd’s speech. So Loki was not adopted, but rather kidnapped from his true family? Odin was not actually the ruler of all the “Nine Realms”, but just one head of state among many… and vulnerable to inter-realm politics? And in contrast to Thor’s claim that Odin “protected the peace”, Odin’s reputation outside Asgard seemed to be more Atilla the Hun than Once and Future King. Or at least according to Gerd, who might not be an unbiased source.
“Might we have a copy of that? Only with notations explaining what all those symbols mean, compatible with our technology…” Coulson’s voice trailed off as he realized how complicated his request was. If they had solid proof of coercion and abuse, the World Security Council would find it harder to shovel the blame solely on Loki. But getting that proof in legible form might be difficult… maybe he could put Stark on it? The man thrived on doing the impossible, after all.
Dr. Noha asked, “Would not it be simpler to simply make a recording of you explaining the meaning of what we see here?” She waved at the light show above Loki’s unconscious body. “We have the technology to make visual and auditory recordings, which we could play back on our own equipment. It would indeed be very convenient for his care to be able to access the scan results through our system, but our ancestors did somehow manage to practice medicine before computers were invented.”
Gerd nodded slowly. “Yes, I see your point.” She winced. “It is just that I dread having to say in words what was done to this child. It is… a painful issue for me.” She set her jaw. “But I will do it. And I will provide you with a copy as well; I need to make a separate one for Frigga as well, since her husband does not always share information with her.”
“First, however…” She turned back to her patient. “There is healing that I must do, while Loki is still in too deep a coma to feel my ministrations. Otherwise, he might wake in a panic, and do serious injury to himself or those around him. In fact, perhaps it would be best if all of you withdrew from this alcove.”
Hill and Coulson exchanged a look, then obediently retreated to the hall outside Loki’s cubicle. Dr. Noha followed their example with obvious reluctance after Gerd waved her after them, softened by an understanding smile.
After the frail mortals had withdrawn from the immediate line of fire, Gerd positioned her hand six inches six inches above Loki’s pelvis, and closed her eyes. A pinkish-gold light streamed from her hand into Loki’s body. Glancing up again at the Soul Forge’s projection and estimating the number of glyphs, Coulson resigned himself to a long wait.