The man spoke as if, in some strange way, he was mocking Thor. He spoke of places Thor had never heard of, asking questions Thor knew not to answer. He knew not to answer not because Loki had been right, but because there was no way to back up any of his claims. Mjolnir lay so close, mocking him as well, knowing Thor could never lift her. They had been cast to this realm to be abandoned and forgotten, and Thor did not understand why.
The frost giants had invaded Asgard, and no matter what Odin had said, Thor knew he was right to march on their realm and demand answers. That a battle ensued was not his fault. The frost giants had shown a severe lack of respect, and Thor had only sought to teach them a lesson, both in his own name, and in his father's. But Odin hadn't appreciated it, and Thor would never know why.
When the man called Coulson left the room, Thor thought for a brief moment that he should take Loki and escape this place, but he knew not where they would go. He realised, sitting there alone in a mirrored room, that Loki was likely just as powerless as he. He remembered laying Loki out with a single punch, and the hurt, confused look on his brother's face when it had happened. A single punch like that should not have thrown Loki to the ground so easily. It should not have left a mark that only grew worse as the hours passed. Thor had struck Loki like that a thousand times before, when his brother grew too irritating to listen to, and Loki would always bite back with stinging magic. But he hadn't. Nor had he used his magic to help get to Mjolnir. He fought with his fists, kicking and punching his way through just as Thor had.
They were stuck, and they were powerless, with no way home. The realisation hit Thor all at once, and when the man called Coulson returned, Thor only sighed and did as he thought Loki would want him to do. He stayed quiet and said nothing. Eventually, it worked, and Coulson got bored.
"We will find out what we want to know," he said, as if he thought himself threatening.
When Thor still did not respond, Coulson turned to leave the room once more.
"What have you done with my brother?" Thor asked, just before Coulson closed the door between them.
Coulson turned around, seeming almost surprised that Thor had spoken at all.
"So, he's your brother," Coulson said, and Thor realised that he might have shared information that Loki had not. "Interesting. He's fine, by the way. Just next door."
He pointed at one of the solid walls before sliding the door shut.
Thor wondered if that was meant to be some sort of test. He had got a good look at their camp as he tried to find Mjolnir, and nothing about it seemed truly solid or build to last. It hadn't even been set up to hold prisoners. He could probably tear his way out of it, and punch his way through their guards to escape.
But he knew the humans would be expecting that. Coulson had told him where to find his brother, and then left him alone. It was possible, Thor knew, that Coulson had been lying. That Loki wouldn't be just on the other side of the flimsy wall, and that tearing it down would only reveal humans with their weapons. Thor had already been shot by one of their weapons, and found it surprisingly powerful. And despite that, he did not think it was meant to be lethal. Thor was human now, he knew. Or at least, occupying the body of a human. Their weapons would affect him as they did any human, and weapons made to kill would surely kill him.
Unsure what else to do, Thor remained where he was, looking at the ground in front of him. Perhaps, he thought, if he was patient enough, Odin might see and let him come home. Perhaps Loki had been right. Perhaps that would have been the best thing to do; to find somewhere to wait quietly until Odin changed his mind. So that was what he would do. He would wait patiently where he was, and hope that Loki was doing the same.
hr
Coulson stood beside Sitwell, looking through the two-way mirrors into both rooms. The behaviour they saw now in their two prisoners wasn't exactly unexpected. They had failed whatever mission they were on, and completely clammed up as a result. For the first few minutes, Coulson had half expected one of them to bite down on a cyanide pill, but neither did.
But this wasn't what clamming up had typically looked like, either. They weren't just being defiantly silent. It was as if they had both taken their failure personally. That was what sat strangely with Coulson.
"Which one do we think will crack first?" Sitwell asked, standing with his arms crossed and looking back and forth between the two.
Coulson looked at them both. He didn't know when the second suspect had moved from his seat to sit in the far corner of the room, but the first – the one Coulson had personally questioned – hadn't moved an inch.
"Tough call," he said. After a moment, he let his attention drift back to the second suspect. "Let's keep an eye on this one. He looks hungry. See if you can bribe him with something to eat. The other one says they're brothers. Use that."
"He looks like he's gonna cry," Sitwell said. Coulson wasn't sure if it was meant as a joke or not. It really could have gone either way.
Still, Sitwell turned and left, presumably to find a sandwich tucked away somewhere. Coulson stayed, watching both suspects carefully. When they'd set up base, they hadn't set up with the intention or expectation of having to take prisoners. They had no holding facilities at all. They were set up to be mobile, able to move in and out quickly. After getting rid of the crowd of locals, scaring them off with warnings of radiation, and even making some of them shower for effect, they hadn't expected to see anyone else around until they had already carted the 084 away.
They hadn't expected the 084 to be impossible to lift, and they hadn't come with equipment capable of cutting through solid stone.
Coulson had watched as the two men tore through the base, taking out more than half of his men before reaching the 084. He still didn't know what he had expected to happen, but he knew they had both expected it as well. He had seen the moment they both realised that whatever it was they had expected, nothing was going to happen. He'd seen mission failures before, and usually the suspects fought until they were completely overpowered. They at least tried to get away. He'd never seen anybody just give up before.
That was what worried him.
He needed to know what they knew. And he knew they knew something he didn't. Something about the object in the ground. They knew where it came from and what it was for.
"There's a town nearby, isn't there?" he asked anyone who cared to listen.
"Yes, sir. About fifty miles to the east," one of the computer techs said.
Coulson looked over at the computer bank and tried to think. That was another thing that bothered him. The 084 wasn't giving off any kind of detectable radiation, and yet nothing seemed to work around it. And everything had got even worse just before the two strange men broke into the facility. None of their electronics worked properly, all behaving as trying to work with a giant magnet attached.
"Check around for any unusual reports going back 24 hours before we registered impact," Coulson ordered. "Police, hospital, word on the street. I want to know everything."
"Yes, sir," the tech said, already trying to fight through the interference to start trawling through recent records.
"I don't think that object's the only 084 we're dealing with," Coulson said quietly.
Sitwell returned a moment later, holding a heated microwave dinner in his hands. Coulson looked at it and sighed. He hated these remote missions. There were so few resources to barter and bribe with.
"Still want me to try that one?" Sitwell asked, nodding to the second suspect.
Coulson looked at him, sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest. Sitwell had been right. He hadn't just clammed up because his mission had failed. He was deep in despair.
"Yeah," Coulson said.
He stayed where he was, watching Sitwell take the meal into the room. The suspect didn't even acknowledge Sitwell's presence, but that didn't exactly seem surprising anymore.
"Hey," Sitwell said, dragging the chair over to the suspect. "Brought something for you."
He put the meal down on the chair, and sat a plastic fork down next to it. The suspect still didn't even look up. He just stared at his boots, like he'd been doing ever since Coulson came out to watch him.
"You know, my boss sent me in here to bribe you," Sitwell said.
Coulson shook his head and tried not to laugh.
"But something tells me that's not gonna work, is it?" Sitwell asked.
Still he got nothing.
"So, I'll tell you what," Sitwell went on, undaunted. "I'm gonna leave this here for you anyway. And if you decide you want it, maybe you'll also decide you want to at least tell me your name? Maybe tell me your brother's name? I'll take either one."
He waited, and still got nothing.
"Nice talk," Sitwell said, before turning to leave again.
"That guy needs to be on suicide watch," he said after making sure the door was shut.
Coulson sighed. They didn't have those resources. They didn't even have locking doors for their holding rooms. There really wasn't a point, when their holding rooms were plastic sheets and PVC pipe, originally designed to be observation rooms for the 084.
"This sucks," Coulson said, hating the entire situation. He'd rather been in Malibu, dealing with Stark than out in the desert dealing with this crap.
"Should we arrange for transport back to DC?" Sitwell asked.
"I don't know yet," Coulson said, shaking his head. "I kind of wish they'd try to escape, so we could follow them and see what they're up to. They're never going to talk."
He was usually right about these things. He knew he was right this time.
After twenty minutes of watching neither suspect do anything, Coulson shook his head and admitted defeat. "I'll be in my bunk. Come get me if anything happens."
"You got it, Phil," Sitwell said.
Coulson's "bunk" wasn't even enough to be called that. They had a single bus parked outside, with enough bunks for twenty people to sleep in. It was just enough for the personnel to sleep in shifts. There were still a few bunks open near the back, and as Coulson took off his jacket and hung it up on the metal frame, he didn't even think he'd be able to get any sleep. The entire mission had got under his skin, and had really started to go wrong at the convenience store the night before he even located the object.
Standing in the narrow aisle, Coulson looked down at the empty bunk with its scratchy grey wool blanket, and for the second time in an hour, wished he was back in Malibu.
"You think they fell out of the sky with it?" Barton asked suddenly, making Coulson actually jump.
He looked up, surprised to see Barton in the bunk above the one he'd chosen for himself. Coulson had called Barton out on this assignment himself, though he still wasn't sure why. All he knew is that he'd had a feeling that Barton would be useful.
"I don't know," Coulson answered tiredly as he finally lay down on top of the blankets. "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised about anything."
He could hear Barton rolling over on the bunk above. "I mean. I was watching those guys from up in the picker, and it was like they were laser guided. They knew exactly where to go."
Coulson had noticed that too.
"And there was also the rain," Barton said.
"What about it?" asked Coulson.
"I look at the forecasts. There was no rain in them today," Barton said.
"Weather men have been known to be wrong before, Barton," Coulson reminded him, feeling like he was at a slumber party. He just wanted to get some sleep, but Barton apparently had other plans.
"There was no rain in them because today's high was twenty eight degrees," Barton said with a certainty that Coulson couldn't ignore.
Because Barton had been right. It had been cold all day, because the skies were mostly clear. The little bit of precipitation they'd seen early in the day had just been minor snow flurries that didn't even stick to the ground. And even as Coulson walked out to the bus, his shoes squelching in the mud, Coulson could see the stars above. But it was warmer than it had been all day. At least twenty degrees warmer, and in Coulson's experience, the air didn't tend to get warmer after nightfall.
"What time did it start raining?" Coulson asked, feeling like he might have been remembering wrong.
"About twenty seconds before Pinky and Perky stormed the castle," Barton said.
Coulson remembered it that way too. "We're dealing with more than one 084," he said, wishing he hadn't been right about that too.
"Bag and tag, or catch and release?" Barton asked.
Coulson sighed. "I don't even know anymore," he said tiredly. "But Barton."
"Yeah, boss?" Barton asked curiously.
"Shut the hell up. I'm trying to sleep."
Barton laughed, but said nothing further.
hr
Loki looked at his hands. He'd been looking at his hands for longer than he could remember.
His hands were as they'd always been; his nails trimmed and clean. Scars and callouses from years of training in the ring. Nothing about him had outwardly changed at all.
But his thoughts kept drifting back to what had happened on Jotunheim. Not just going there when they shouldn't have. Not just starting a fight they shouldn't have. He still saw the look on the frost giant's face, just as confused and thrown off guard as Loki had been when instead of black frostbite crawling up his arm, his arm turned blue and rough. It was skin like a frost giant. Loki had killed the one who grabbed him out of terror, worrying the curse might consume his entire body if the creature had held onto him much longer. But as soon as the frost giant fell, the blue faded, slowly and evenly as if it had never been there.
Even now, he expected to see it come back.
And then there was Mjolnir's presence in the desert with them. Odin had obviously cast it down after Thor, but he had cast no such token after Loki. The hammer was Thor's, and Thor's alone. And now, it had been a beloved prize to be reclaimed, once Thor had proven his worth. But what of Loki? What prize had he to claim?
Nothing. He had no prize, because he knew Odin had sent none after him. He wondered if Odin cast him out because he knew of the curse. Surely, Heimdall had seen it, and would have passed it on even if Odin had not been looking.
Had he been cast out for good? Exiled from the Realm Eternal, as all frost giants had been? Did it truly make such little difference to Odin that Loki had been cursed, and wasn't actually one of the savage monsters Odin had once sought to destroy?
Sitting there, in his plastic prison, Loki knew he had been cast away and forgotten. Thor might find his worth, but Loki never would. He had lost that worth the moment he let the frost giant touch him.
Loki ignored the food brought to him by his jailer, knowing he didn't even deserve that much. If he was truly a monster now, perhaps he deserved to starve, just like the rest of them on their own realm. Frost giants had no place in Yggdrasil. And neither did he. If he were any less of a coward, he would do what was right for the realms, and throw himself onto a blade.
Instead, he sat in the corner against the walls, picking at his thumbnail until his skin turned red and raw, while the light slowly rose outside. He could hear the camp waking around him, but he ignored their noises. Sooner or later, someone would come for him, and maybe then Loki would steal one of their weapons and end his curse. But nobody came. Instead, the camp erupted with a sudden excitement that died down just as quickly, leaving the air even quieter than it had been before. Loki realised, after a moment, the excitement had died down because the soldiers must have left. He wondered what might have drawn them away, but didn't have the willpower to get up and try to see.
hr
The realm Heimdall had taken them to was not the realm Sif had heard of in stories. They had been told that Thor had been banished to Midgard, but Midgard was a greener realm than this. If not for the chill in the air, Sif might have thought Heimdall had made a mistake, and sent them to Muspelheim. But this was not that realm either.
She looked at her companions, able to see them thinking the same thing as she. But they had come to find Thor, and demand answers from Loki if he had not already fled elsewhere, so they began their journey. Heimdall had told them little of where to go or what they might find. Twice in as many days, they had committed an act of treason in Thor's name, and while Heimdall had been willing to help in his backwards way, he had not helped as much as he could have done.
"There is a town to the east," Hogun announced, peering off across the washed-out landscape.
"Then we head east," Sif declared, already making tracks in that direction.
The other three followed her lead. They walked across the desert with swift purpose, watching for anything that might have stood out either as a threat, or as a sign of where to find Thor. But it was just a desert. Nothing attacked them as they made their way across it, eventually coming to the small town made of strange buildings. The roads within the town were all a smooth, solid stone, while the buildings were squat and square, and made of a variety of materials.
The people of the realm were also dressed strangely, wearing no armour or furs to protect them. But they kept their distance from the Asgardian warriors, moving to the other side of the street and pulling their children near.
Much had changed on Midgard, it seemed, but at least they still knew to fear their gods. That much pleased Sif, even if nothing else about this morning had.
Together, the four of them walked through the streets, but there was nothing anywhere that suggested Thor or Loki were in the town. Sif had expected to be able to follow a trail of destruction and spilled ale, but there was nothing of the sort. The town was quiet, even though the day was was drawing on.
Stopping in the road, Sif looked behind them. When they had arrived in the town, they had seen the townsfolk out on their business. But now the streets around them were empty.
"Something's wrong," Sif said, tightening her grip on her glaive.
Volstagg and Fandral looked behind them as well, seeing for themselves what Sif had seen.
"Does this feel like a trap to you?" Sif asked, almost eager to show the mortals what their gods were capable of.
As the four of them stepped closer together, a large black horseless cart turned one of the corners ahead of them and stopped, keeping a distance between it and them. The side of the cart then opened, and a man in black clothing stepped outside.
"Lower your weapons, please," he said through a device that made his voice louder.
Rather than lower her glaive, Sif raised it, ready to strike. The others did as well, all turning to face the man who spoke to them.
"We've evacuated the area, and we'd like to avoid any damage. We don't want to fight you," the man called toward them. "But we will defend ourselves if you force us to. We don't want that."
He lowered his device and began walking forward without showing any fear or hesitation. Sif braced herself for a fight, ready to strike him down if he attacked first, but he stopped several feet away from them.
"We just want to talk," he said. He held up his device, showing it to them. "It's not a weapon. I promise. Here. Take it."
He held it out patiently, until Fandral finally stepped forward and snatched it away. Sif watched from the edge of her sight as Fandral inspected the device. Suddenly, it let out a screeching wail, and Fandral threw it to the ground, where it lay silent once again.
"It's a siren," the human explained. "I should have warned you about that. Sorry."
He didn't seem sorry. He seemed almost smug. Sif glared at him, still holding her weapon ready.
"We're looking for our friend," she said. "He came here last night."
To her surprise, the human nodded. "Thought you might be. Why don't you come with us? Maybe help us figure a few things out?"
"You will take us to Thor?" Sif asked, looking back at her companions warily. They seemed even less willing to follow this human than she was, but if they knew where Thor was, they might find it easier to take him home if they didn't have to slay an entire town to do it.
"Yeah," the human said easily, nodding again. He seemed to be listening to something they couldn't hear. "Tall? Blond? Works out a lot?"
Sif didn't know what the third descriptor meant, but she nodded at the first two. "Yes, that's him," she said.
The human took a step back toward his cart. "Come on. We'll give you a lift."
He didn't wait for them after that. He turned his back and returned to his cart, stepping back inside. Rather than follow him, Sif looked to her companions, hoping they might have something intelligent to add.
"He seemed nice," Fandral said instead.
"We should go. He says he'll take us to Thor," Volstagg agreed.
"It could be a trap," Hogun said.
"And they could have food," Volstagg argued.
Sighing and shaking her head, Sif followed after the human and left the other three to bicker their decision out for themselves. She reached the cart, watching as one of the men in front twisted to reach behind him and open a door. Cautiously, Sif inspected the machine before she stepped inside. The seats were made of smooth leather, and the ceiling and floor covered in a fine grey wool. There were straps on the seats, which Sif ignored, assuming they were there to detain prisoners.
"You will take me to Thor?" she asked, looking at a small yellow light in the middle of the cart's ceiling.
"Just you, or are your friends coming too?" the human asked her.
Sif looked out the front window, surprised to see the other three had already made up their mind and were walking toward the cart.
"All of us, I believe," she said.
She looked around the cart again, realising that though it was big, there were not enough seats for the four of them. Behind her seat, there was an open cargo hold, so Sif swiftly climbed over the back of the seat to make room for the men. As the three of them climbed in, causing the entire cart to rock back and forth and squeak ominously, the two humans in front watched each other nervously. One of them said something Sif couldn't hear over everything else, but the other shook his head. Sif wished the others would shut up for three seconds so she could hear what was being said, but they were too busy arguing about Volstagg taking up too much space, and Fandral's sword being in everyone's way.
They would never find Thor, Sif feared. Not if this was how they planned to search for him. They had come to this realm just as unprepared as they had been when they went to Jotunheim the day before, and it was clearly a mistake they would never learn from.
Before everyone was even settled properly, the driver of the cart began taking it down the smooth stone road, through the town and beyond it once more. Sif watched suspiciously as they left the town behind, travelling back toward where Heimdall had taken them.
"Are we your prisoners?" Sif demanded.
The man on the right – the one who had first spoken to them – looked at her through a looking glass attached to the front window. "That depends. Have you broken any laws?" he asked.
Sif didn't know how to answer that. She didn't know the laws of the realm. "No," she said, not wanting to admit to anything she may not have even been aware she had done. "What of Thor? Is he your prisoner?"
"We have him in detainment. His brother as well," the human said. "If you're here to bail them out, we'd be willing to work with you on that."
"You have Loki as well?" Sif asked, somehow surprised to hear that. She had expected Loki to have left Thor behind. Loki had his magic, and could have travelled anywhere he liked. That he was still on this realm with Thor began to make Sif wonder what she hadn't yet been told.
"Loki? Is that what he's called?" the man asked.
Sif snorted, surprised. In front of her, the other three laughed openly.
"If you didn't know that already, then perhaps not," Fandral said.
Watching the man in front change his demeanour as subtly as he did made Sif realise that she was not the only one to be missing information. The humans had not been informed of certain things either.
"What do you mean?" the human asked.
"If you've had no demands from their royal highnesses, then perhaps Heimdall dropped us in the wrong place," Volstagg said.
"Surely it's some jest. Loki has them in on it, do doubt," Fandral suggested. "You know how he is."
The man in the front seat shook his head. "I don't understand," he said.
Neither did Sif.
hr
He could hear their laughter from across the camp, recognising Volstagg's booming voice in an instant, though he couldn't hear what they were saying. Not that it mattered. Loki knew they were there for Thor, and Thor alone. Wishing he could just disappear into the shadows, and knowing he'd never be able to again, Loki turned his back toward the door and tried to ignore the sounds of his friends approaching the plastic building.
"So, this is Midgard?" he heard Volstagg say.
Loki could hear a rising confusion from the soldiers at the camp, but he stayed where he was. Nobody was there for him, so he would simply stay well out of their way. Unless they weren't there for Thor at all. The images from Jotunheim still burned in Loki's mind, and a treacherous thought crossed him that maybe his friends were there to kill one more monster before returning to Asgard.
If that were the case, who was Loki to stand in their way? Perhaps, once they told Thor, he would even help them. Thor, who had once vowed to hunt every last monster down and slay them all. Surely, he wouldn't mind one more monster added to his list.
He could hear the man called Sitwell, and his companion, explain the situation to Sif and the Warriors Three. They claimed that neither Loki nor Thor were actually being held prisoner, but Loki suspected that was only because had they wanted to, they could have both broken out and fled at any time. Loki probably should have wanted to, he knew.
Why Thor hadn't fled, Loki wasn't sure. Loki didn't even know what he was still doing there, besides waiting for someone to come in and slay him. He looked at his hands again, tracing his thumbs over every scar, expecting to find hard ridges under his skin, but finding none. When Thor's voice joined the conversation, Loki brought his knees up to his chest and waited. Finally, when the door to his own cell opened, he listened to the approaching footsteps, but did not turn around.
"Loki, we're going," Thor announced.
It wasn't what Loki had expected, but he supposed he should have. "Fine," he said.
It was a few moments before Thor responded. "Get up. We're going," he said.
"So go already," Loki grumbled.
He was surprised when Thor hauled him up by his arm. He was more surprised by how much he felt it; how much it strained his shoulder in a way it never had. If this was how all mortal bodies behaved and reacted to even the slightest abuse, it was truly no wonder they were mortal. Loki rolled his shoulder to try to ease out the ache from being wrenched to his feet, and turned to see Sif glaring at him from the door. He expected her to say something, to spit vitriol and venom at him, but it never came. It occurred to him, standing with both of them looking at him as they were, that if Odin did know about whatever had cursed Loki, he had not shared it with them.
"So that's it, then? He's changed his mind and allowed us to go back home, has he?" Loki asked bitterly.
The sudden uncomfortable look on Sif's face said it all. Odin had not sent them to this realm. They had defied him to fetch Thor, and it was written plainly across Sif's face as if in black ink.
"Of course," Loki said, sitting back down on the floor. "Let me know how it goes, then. I'll be waiting here with bated breath."
"Loki," Thor scolded, pulling him back up by the same arm. Loki pulled away, swinging his arm wildly to get Thor to let go of him.
"Go. Who's stopping you?" Loki asked.
"I will not leave you here, Loki. Our friends have come to take us home," Thor insisted.
Loki looked at Sif again, and the way she still glared at him. They had never been overly close, but the look on her face was anything but friendly toward him.
"Do you truly believe that?" Loki asked Thor. "You saw the runes and the stave just as plainly as I, did you not? Worth is having to be rescued now, is it?"
"I have waited. I have been patient. It's what father wanted. He will have seen that," Thor insisted.
Loki looked past Thor and Sif to the larger room beyond his cell. He could see the Midgardian soldiers growing tense, their hands gravitating toward their small weapons at their waists. Knowing what would happen if the humans drew their weapons, Loki threw his hands into the air and shook his head. "Fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore."
He waited for Thor to accept his victory, which he seemed oddly reluctant to do at first. Finally, he nodded and turned, walking out of the cell and into the room filled with ancient machines. "How far from here is the Bifrost site?" Thor asked commandingly.
"About fifteen miles," Sitwell responded, giving Thor an obviously fake smile as he clapped him on the arm. "Come on. We'll give you a lift."
Loki could see it in his, and every other human's face. They expected nothing to happen, just as Loki did, though perhaps for different reasons. Loki had said nothing to Sitwell, of who they were or where they had come from. Sif and the Warriors Three appearing as they had would have surely made the humans curious, but Loki could feel the scepticism coming off of all of them in waves.
Not knowing what else to do, Loki shook his head and followed the others back outside, where they all were getting back into the black cars the soldiers drove. Picking his ride based off of the car Sif wasn't getting into, Loki let himself into the back of one of them and waited to be proven right.
The soldier driving this car wasn't one Loki had seen before, but he seemed wary enough to avoid trying to spark up a conversation. Eventually, Sitwell also climbed into the empty seat in the front, taking the time to secure the seat strap over himself.
"Anything we should know to expect?" Sitwell asked over his shoulder as they started moving.
Loki shook his head, looking out the window at the muddy, trodden camp. "I don't expect anything to happen at all," he said grimly.
He said nothing else as they drove through the desert toward the Bifrost site. As everyone else got out to go stand in the sand, Loki stayed where he was, watching the affair with a wilful detachment. This was a waste of their time, and he knew it. If Sif and the Warriors Three had come to Midgard without Odin's blessing, they were likely to be in just as much trouble, if not more, as Loki and Thor already were.
First, Thor called for Heimdall to open the bridge, but a predictable silence fell after. He looked up at the sky, his hopeful expression turning to an angry glare.
"Heimdall, I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost!" Thor shouted to the sky.
Still nothing. Loki watched as the soldiers shared confused looks with one another, while Sif stepped forward and took his place.
"Heimdall, let us pass. Open the Bifrost!" she shouted up.
Loki rubbed his forehead wondering how much longer they would continue to convince themselves Heimdall would let them back. For all they knew, he was facing his own treason charges for letting them pass in the first place.
It was a thought that should have raised Loki's spirits, if from spite if nothing else. But knowing that he was trapped on Midgard with Sif for all eternity did little to ease Loki's mood. If anything it was a bleak reminder of how badly they had all run afoul of Odin's laws.
Loki wondered whether Odin would wait to father another son to take Thor's place, or if the deed had already been done. Laughing in despair, Loki covered his face with his hands and ignored the sounds of Thor and Sif shouting over one another to be heard by a gate keeper that likely was not even there to listen.
The humans let the charade continue for another quarter hour, until their leader – the man who had attempted to question Thor – stepped in and tried to put an end to it. No doubt, because he was getting tired of listening to them shout.
"Heimdall is there. He can hear us; this I swear. Something is preventing him from answering," Sif insisted.
Loki snorted. "Yes. Odin," he said to himself, knowing none could hear him.
"All right," said the humans' leader. "What do you expect will happen? What are we looking for?"
Before any could answer, the sky lit up as a bright white column of light crashed against the desert floor. Loki sat up suddenly, ready to leap out of the car and join the others, but when he saw the horned Einherjar helmet instead of his father's, he slunk back down into his seat and tried to hide. The humans all jumped back in fear and astonishment at the guard that now stood before them, but Thor and their friends foolishly stepped closer.
"By royal decree, the Bifrost is closed to Midgard," the guard announced. "For crimes of treason against Odin Allfather, the Asgardians on this realm shall cross Asgard's borders under penalty of death. You are to remain on this realm in exile, never to return."
"What?" Thor demanded. He rushed at the Einherjar guard, but before he got close enough, the guard was pulled back to Asgard, leaving only the shield knot in the sand as any indication he had been there at all.
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