Please note that Marvel owns all rights to most of the characters in this story. I merely own a few OC characters and the plot. No copywrite infringement intended. Also, my knowledge of Marvel is limited to the database and movies. Not everything will be by the book. I took a few creative liberties along the way. If there's anything wrong, both grammatical or informational, please send a comment my way. All feedback is appreciated greatly. Thanks to all.

"I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong. Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time."

–Lemony Snicket

Freyja stared wearily out the window of her small ship as she grew closer to Midgard's surface. She was roughly a hundred miles from the north-eastern coast of the northern American continent and was steadily growing closer by the minute. She brushed her unruly black hair out of his eyes, the transmitter to the radio she had installed last time she had been to the Realm still in her hand. It had been so very long since she had been to the Realm of the humans that she was not quite sure how to begin. A sigh escaped her lips, the sound more weary than resigned, and she went with what had been acceptable on her last visit.

"Headquarters-actual. This is hotel-echo-India-delta at ninety-two miles off your coast, requesting permission to land and stock up on some iron rations. Over."

Silence was the only response to her transmission and she tapped the radio worriedly. It had survived a decent amount of time, she thought to herself, it wouldn't be too surprising if it broke down now. Making sure she had done everything correctly, she repeated her request and then did so in French, German, and Spanish. Worried at the silence that greeted her announcement, she wondered if her message was being received at all. She sighed and replaced the transmitter, determined to continue towards land.

One hundred and fifty-six miles away, at the Triskelion, Agent Maria Hill listened to the strange message on the radio. She had been monitoring all unauthorized aircraft approaching the U.S. when she heard the transmissions. Turning up the volume, she listened to the feminine voice on the other end. She turned to the agent next to her.

"Alert Director Fury," she said shortly.

The agent nodded and rushed off to find the Director. In his absence, Agent Hill turned to another agent in her group.

"Agent Johnson, any information on the source of that transmission?"

Johnson, a brunette man in his late thirties, looked baffled at her question, "Not at all. The radio being used hasn't been standard issue since the First World War and, from the looks of the satellite images, the ship itself is not a known model. I've never seen anything like it before."

"A new prototype?"

He shook his head, "I doubt it. From what the satellites are showing me, the technology behind the structure itself is far ahead of our times."

"Agent Hill, what is Agent Marshall going on about?" Director Fury's voice came from behind the agents, causing them all to jump to their attention.

"There's an unidentified jet not a hundred miles from our coast requesting permission to land, sir."

"What model?"

"We don't know, sir."

He stared at her with a look of sheer disbelief. They were an intelligence agency that worked over the government, after all, and jet models shouldn't have been a matter of confusion for them. Add that to the fact that it had only been a year since Earth's last visitor and repairs had only recently been finished, the idea of an 0-8-4 visitor was not particularly pleasant. They couldn't afford to have another mentally unstable alien terrorizing the cities.

"Send our three best pilots to see what it is," he instructed. "And Agent Barton. We may need him for this."

Five minutes later, Agent Clint Barton was leading the other three jets towards Freyja's ship. Not long after, Barton spotted the spacecraft in the distance. His eyes widened as he recognized the general design from the time he spent under Loki's mind control. He tuned his radio to the other jets.

"Target spotted. Fire at will," he announced. "We take no prisoners."

He narrowed his eyes, wondering where the ship had come from and who could possibly be driving it. It didn't bode well, in his eyes, for the ship to look so familiar. He would not allow another Loki to come to his planet. Unbeknownst to him, he would not find what he was expecting from the ship before him.

Almost a hundred yards away, Freyja yawned, silently wishing someone would answer her request soon. She stared out into the clouds with all the attentiveness of a child who had been awake hours after the sun went down. A small shape approaching in the distance snapped her back to reality. The shape focused until she recognized it as a jet – or at least something similar to the fighter jets she had known. She sighed in relief and settled further into her seat. But as it grew closer, she began to feel nervous, her instincts screamimg that something wasn't right.

Two more jets came into her sight and she cocked her head in confusion. Before she could realize what was wrong, missiles shot out of the oncoming jets. A string of curses fell from her lips as they headed straight towards her. She scrambled for the radio with one hand, reaching for the controls and forcing the ship upward, narrowly dodging the missiles.

"Hotel-echo-India-delta to attacking pilot. I do not want a fight. Disengage, repeat, disengage!"

She swerved to avoid the missiles as they chased after her. They turned sharply in their trail, throwing themselves off course for only a second, and returned to their path towards her. Had it been any other situation, she would have been surprised and admiring of the technological advances in weaponry.

" Hotel-echo-India-delta to attacking pilot. Requesting for you to disengage."

She abandoned her idea of trying to reason with the pilot and concentrated fully on keeping her ship in the air. She dove, ascended, swerved, and twirled in the air in desperate attempts at escaping the missiles. Nothing seemed to shake them.

In one of the attacking jets, Barton watched as the strange aircraft went through a series of complicated patterns in attempt to get in the clear. He shot off the last of the heat-seeking missiles and began to wait for the enemy to make a mistake. The messages he had received on his radio from the enemy were spoken in an accent that sounded vaguely like Scottish Highland overlaid with a faint Lancashire dialect, if his memory was reliable. He gave his radio a tap, as though unsure if it was the receiver causing the odd lilt to her voice.

"Hotel-echo-India-delta to attacking pilot. Disengage! Abort!"

Static crackled as the message came through as if received from an old radio. The longer he observed, the more he realized something was off about the entire mission. Barton picked up his radio, never once taking his eyes off the mystery plane.

"Hotel-echo-India-delta, this is hotel-alpha-whiskey-kilo," he said, using the official name of his personal jet. "I need your identification."

"Identification?"

"What nationality are you? What is your rank? For what purpose are you here?"

"I do not understand what you are asking of me," the woman replied, sounding exasperated and afraid.

"Make this easy for yourself and tell me which country you're working under, what equipment you're on, and why you're coming here."

"I work under no country! I do not know what equipment you speak of! My name is-"

Freyja, who wasn't paying as much attention to flying as she should have been, was cut off as a missile hit the rear engine. She was flung forward and her head smacked against the window painfully. Spots danced in front of her eyes as she tried to wipe away the blood running down from the new cut on her forehead.

"Hotel-echo-India-delta? Do you copy?"

She picked up the radio again, "Hotel-echo-India-delta here. My ship is severely damaged; it won't last much longer."

"I need you to give me your identification."

"I told you, I-"

She cried out, startled as another missile collided with the left wing. The main wheel jerked to the right in her hand, causing the entire ship to smash into the third missile. Her head slammed into the window again, this time knocking her unconscious.

"HEID!" Barton yelled into his radio as he watched the jet spiral down to the ocean at an alarming speed.

He raced towards the falling jet, hoping desperately the pilot inside wasn't dead. She had seemed friendly enough and, if she happened to be an ambassador sent from Asgard or one of its allies, he didn't want to be responsible for killing a delegate. It would do S.H.I.E.L.D. no good if this little endeavor ended unsuccessfully. He tuned his radio to the other pilots as he flew forward.

"Ninety-nine, change of plans: retrieve pilot and return to base."

The other two pilots started toward 'hotel-echo-India-delta' in hope to retrieve the strange jet. If he had begun to believe that this wasn't what they originally thought before, the fact was cemented in his mind now. The woman didn't seem to have any prior knowledge of what he was asking her and, surprisingly, was primarily using army jargon that hadn't been heard of since World War One.

The jet hit the surface of the water and started to float, rocking violently as the waves battered it. From his jet, Barton could just make out the outline of someone tall and thin behind what he realized was a crystal windshield. A thick, dark liquid was splattered across the inside of the tinted crystal, partially obscuring the figure within. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to get a good glimpse at the person in the ruined plane. The more he looked, the stranger the figure seemed to be.

"What are you?" he whispered to no one in particular.

The few agents and scientists who were in the crowd stared at the creature that had been revealed when a handful of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had pried the crystal off the tattered jet that Barton and his team had brought back. It was arguably female, almost completely androgynous in appearance with only her voice as proof to what she was, but the appearance was far from mundane.

She was tall and thin, roughly seven and a half in height, with skin so deep an indigo that it was almost black and shoulder-length black hair. Her face was slender and adorned with sharply angled eyebrows, slanted eyes, thick eyelashes, a slim nose, thin lips, a pointed chin, and narrow cheekbones that were so pronounced they looked like they would break through the skin. She was almost skeletal in appearance, and yet she did not quite look emaciated. But it wasn't her features alone that where out of the ordinary.

She wore a forest green tunic and pants, which were threadbare but had obviously once been luxurious, accompanied by a cloak of feathers which flowed down to her feet. Two thick armbands of gold with runic inscriptions embellished her upper arms while silver and gold rings holding various precious gems decorated her fingers and an intricate necklace of platinum, gold, and ruby beads lay across her collarbone. A silver circlet was worn on her head.

"What do you suppose it is?" asked one of the agents from the back of the crowd.

"Trouble," Nick Fury answered irritably. "Take it to the lab. I want every scientist who has any experience in extraterrestrial studies in that lab. Contact Erik Selvig and get him here immediately. He may know something of use."

With that, he left the scientists and agents to scramble to follow his orders. Barton watched from a distance as three of them carried the woman away to a lab. Something told him that this girl wasn't a threat and that he ought to know what she was. Though he wasn't certain he had never laid eyes on her before, there was a nagging thought at the back of his head that kept telling him that he knew her. He dismissed the thought and left the room. It didn't much matter, either way.

In the laboratory, the three scientists placed Freyja on an examination table, locking steel manacles in place to keep her from moving if she woke up. They proceeded to attach equipment which kept track of her heartbeat, her blood pressure, and anything else they could learn about her physiology without cutting her open.

Freyja was vaguely aware of the sensations in unconsciousness, but too far away to respond. Her mind swirled around in the memories of happier times. Memories of her brother, her friends, and her lover replayed in her head, lulling her into a sense of false calm as her body healed itself. While her mind wandered through her past, her body remained motionless and unresponsive for three days.