You could be empty
and I can be right here empty with you
or you could be hollow
and I can be right here hollow with you
If you want to say goodbye to everything,
I could say goodbye too
I can be right here empty with you.
-The Used
Back on the helicopter, even though it was more of a jet, they cuffed Loki's hands behind his back and tied him to his seat. They told me to stay sitting on the opposite side of the jet; Captain wanted to tie me to my seat too, but Tony told him that it wasn't necessary. A woman was at the controls of the jet, but I didn't ask who she was. I didn't say much of anything really. Tony and Cap argued quietly in the distance about something; I assumed it was about Loki and me, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.
Out of nowhere, lightning nearly struck the side of the jet and thunder boomed in the distance. "What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?" Cap asked Loki.
I hadn't even realized that Loki seemed concerned about the weather until Cap said something. He made eye contact with me but didn't hold it for very long.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows," Loki said.
What did he mean by that? Just as I was about to ask him, something landed on the jet and the whole thing jolted. Tony put his Iron Man helmet back on and then opened the ramp to investigate the situation. A blonde-haired man clad in silver armor landed on the ramp with a large hammer clenched in his fist. He walked towards Iron Man and before Tony even had a chance to react, he was thrown backwards by the man's hammer. I jumped out of my seat and ran over to make sure Tony was alright, the man grabbed Loki and jumped out of the jet with him in his grip.
"Now there's that guy," Tony said while getting to his feet.
The woman at the controls asked, "Another Asgardian?"
Asgardian. Oh my god. "That's Loki's brother, Thor!"
Tony started towards the ramp. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost."
"Stark, we need a plan of attack!" Cap said.
"I have a plan. Attack."
Iron Man jumped out of the jet to go after Thor. Cap grabbed a parachute and strapped it onto his back to follow them. The woman at the controls turned around and told him he'd be better off sitting this one out, but in the end, Captain America jumped out of the jet after the others too.
I was left standing in the jet with the other woman. "So, what's your name?"
"Natasha Romanoff. I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury's told me a lot about you. Seren, right?" she asked.
"Yes," I nodded. "But what's Fury told you about me?" I looked behind me out the window to see if I could tell what was happening on the ground, but all I could see were trees.
Natasha flew the jet closer to where they all landed so that they could re-capture Loki, I assumed. "I'm told that you have a similar skills set to both that of Agent Barton and me." She turned around and smiled at me. "You're definitely an asset to S.H.I.E.L.D., that's why they called you in. It's nothing to do with Loki, at least, not that I'm told."
I just smiled and nodded. What was I supposed to say? I didn't even know who Agent Barton was. I didn't even really know who Agent Romanoff was yet. All I knew was that she seemed really tough, nice obviously, but she also didn't look like the kind of person that would stand for being pushed around; kind of like me. So maybe she was right, maybe I was very similar to her.
There was no clear view of what was happening between Tony, Cap, Loki, and Thor until Natasha brought the jet much closer. By that time, the three of them had leveled out the whole forest within a mile, while Loki sat in the rocks on the mountain and watched them. I couldn't help but giggle under my breath. Loki wasn't even trying to get away, and he didn't resist being brought back onto the jet either.
When everyone was back on the jet, Cap and Tony talked to Natasha up front while Thor and Loki sat across from me in the back of the jet.
"What are you called?" Thor asked me after staring at me for the last five minutes.
I parted my lips to speak but was interrupted by Loki saying, "She goes by Seren ... Foster."
"Are you not the sister of Jane Foster?"
"Yes, I'm her adopted sister." I nodded.
Thor smiled. "Is she of good health?"
It was quite entertaining to me the way Thor and Loki spoke, like they'd been taken out of the Shakespearean time period. "We don't really talk much. She's still living in New Mexico. But I'm pretty sure she's fine, so no worries there."
I saw Loki staring at me out of the corner of my eye, so I turned my gaze towards him. He smirked for a moment until he realized that Thor was watching his every move. But, what did Loki have to hide? Smirking? He did that all the time. Was it because he was smirking at a mere human? I sighed and tried to forget about all of the craziness for a little while; I closed my eyes and pretended to drift off to sleep. Surely someone would wake me up when we got to wherever we were going if I actually did fall asleep.
"Loki, what is your involvement with this woman?" I heard Thor ask his brother while I pretended to be asleep.
I heard Loki laugh and say, "My involvement with her goes no farther than her being my decoy, my pet."
Whoa, wait a minute there. His pet? Loki considers me his pet?! What the hell was that supposed to mean? As much as I wanted to jump on him right then and there, I held my tongue and kept my eyes closed. This was a conversation I certainly didn't want to miss any part of.
"You know she is not of Midgard origin then?" Thor asked, but before I could hear Loki's response, I really did fall asleep.
"Miss Foster?"
I opened my eyes and realized I was still on the jet, but everyone else was gone except for the man speaking to me. "Hmm? Yeah that's me, but call me Seren or Ren or Rennie, whichever you prefer. Anyway, where did everyone go?"
The man said, "I'm Agent Phil Coulson. Director Fury sent me to bring you to-"
"Bring me to where? I'm tired of being brought to places. I don't even know where I am," I paused and sighed. "So, Phil, I'm assuming I can call you Phil, before you go and take me wherever Fury told you to take me, why don't you tell me what on earth is going on?"
Tony walked into the jet and stood beside Phil. "You're gonna be assisting Dr. Banner and me. We're trying to track the Tesseract's gamma signals. I'll explain it all on the way, Princess, so let's go."
Dr. Banner as in Bruce Banner? The Hulk? Well, this should be interesting, but at least I knew where I was going. I nodded and followed Tony out of the jet and onto a large ship that was holding a few other jets. I'd never seen anything like it before in my life. It was some sort of helicarrier. I followed Tony to the briefing room inside of the ship where the others were, everyone except Loki. As soon as we walked in, Tony started explaining things to the others about Iridium and the cube and even though I was certified in astrophysics, I wasn't good with technical explanations.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Cap asked.
The man who I hadn't met yet, but I assumed was Dr. Banner said, "He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."
After Tony and Banner talked more about quantum effects and ion fusion, he officially introduced me to Dr. Banner.
"She's sort of a mini version of Agent Romanoff, Agent Barton, and well me, minus the suit," he said to Banner.
Dr. Banner shook my hand and said, "Well it's nice to meet you and it's nice to know that someone else aboard this ship can help locate the cube."
I smiled and followed them into the lab where they had Loki's scepter set up so that they could scan the gamma radiation signals emitted from it. Tony glanced from the scepter to me and then moved me to the other side of the lab.
"You, stay here," he said to me, "far away from that."
I laughed. "I'm sorry about earlier, Mr. Stark."
"Don't sweat it, Princess. And call me Tony." He smiled and then went back to assisting Dr. Banner in locating the Tesseract.
I watched them work for a moment and then a major question popped into my head and started flashing like a light bulb. Where the hell was Loki? I knew that they would never tell me, obviously, so I came up with an excuse to leave and go exploring.
"I'm gonna go find the bathroom," I called behind me at whoever was listening before I walked out of the lab; neither of them answered, so I just left.
After walking for what felt like hours, and legitimately finding no sign of a bathroom anywhere, I ended up in a totally different section of the helicarrier. Before I could even make it around the corner, I heard a very familiar voice.
"I told you I'd be seeing you again."
I turned the corner and was then standing face-to-face with Loki, only this time, he was enclosed in a huge glass cell. S.H.I.E.L.D. certainly took precautionary measures in dealing with threats to humanity. Okay, well, maybe Loki actually was a threat, but he didn't scare me, not one bit.
I walked up to the cell and placed my hand on the glass. "I was looking for the bathroom, by the way. It's not like I was trying to come here and find you." I paused. "Okay fine, maybe I was looking for you. I had a question I wanted to ask you, Loki."
"You humans are so foolish to even think I'd waste my time on you," he paused; a smirk grew across his face. "However, Seren, you have the soul of an Asgardian. Why else would Fury have brought you along? You're the shadow of your sister; that's all you'll ever be. Unless of course, you decide to join me."
He walked up to the glass until it was practically the only thing separating us; I bit my lip and looked away. "I don't know why you take to me so much. That's what I wanted to ask you actually."
"I'm listening." He said, waiting for me to ask.
"When we were all on the jet together, right before I fell asleep, your broth... I mean Thor said to you that I'm not of Midgard origin? What does that mean? I'm not of Asgard origin; that wouldn't be possible."
He laughed and turned to walk the other direction towards the bench inside the cell. I thought he wasn't going to answer my question so I called his name again. Loki turned back around and stared into my eyes and it felt as if he was staring into my soul; I'd never seen someone with eyes that blue before, it didn't look natural.
He placed his hand on the glass directly against mine. "No. You are not of Asgard, nor of this realm. You are a descendant of Freyja, Queen of Vanaheim."
I could almost feel my jaw drop. "Wait, so I'm from Vanaheim? What even is that? Another realm? How is that possible?"
"You ask too many questions, but since I have nothing better to do," he gestured to the cell surrounding him, "I'll explain everything."
A/N: I had already typed up an author's note but it didn't save. Anyway, thank you to everyone who favorited/followed/reviewed this story, it really means a lot to me! :)
