Author's Note: THIS SHIT JUST GOT REAL.
OoOoOoO
When Sigrid woke up, she didn't recognize the room. For a moment, she contented herself with staring up at the sunlight slanting across the ceiling. Then a memory of fire scorched through her mind and she sat bolt upright. A red-haired woman sitting beside her jerked, dropping the book in her hand.
"Oh, you're awake," said the woman.
"Where am I? Who are you? Where's Loki?"
"Calm down. You're safe. I'm Pepper Potts."
"Tony's girlfriend."
Pepper smiled. "Yeah. You're in Stark Tower. In the medical unit."
Sigrid looked around, seeing the medical equipment and a glass wall, through which she could see people in lab coats walking down a hall. "Stark Tower."
"Yeah. And the baby is fine."
She looked back at her. "How...?"
"The doctors figured it out pretty quickly. They say you're just a month along."
"Oh." Her hands went over her stomach.
"Congratulations."
"Where's Loki?" Her voice cracked. A memory danced along the edge of her mind but she refused to acknowledge it even as she asked the question.
The smile faded from Pepper's lips. "They looked for him, Sigrid. They looked for him as long as they could. But they didn't find him. He must have... Well, there was an explosion."
The memories swarmed back. The plan, though crazy, had been blindingly simple.
After creating as lifelike an illusion as she could muster, she wrapped herself in invisibility and scaled the fence on the opposite side of the plant. She was to grab Loki, make him invisible as well, and they would escape, leaving Tony and Steve to find their own way out. But Fury had done the unthinkable and it had triggered Loki to lunge at him just as she reached for his arm. And then there was the explosion. Sigrid didn't think, only reacted. She threw up as large of a shield as she could to save everyone but she knew she had missed someone or some people. Fire was her element and she felt death in the flames.
Death.
"Honey, you need to calm down."
Pepper's voice cut through her racing thoughts. The heart monitor attached to her was going off the scale and nurses were entering the room. They were babbling about how she needed to calm down. It wasn't good for the baby.
The baby.
Tears broke the dam and she leaned against Pepper, sobbing. Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she held on to the only thing of Loki she had left.
OoOoOoO
Three days later...
"How is she?" asked Steve.
Tony looked up from the transmission he was reassembling. They were alone in the basement garage of Stark Tower.
"She won't see me," continued Steve, leaning against Tony's Corvette.
"What makes you think she'll see me?" He returned to his task.
"Nothing. I just thought... What do the doctors say?"
"Doctors say she's fine. They let her take one of the guest rooms in the penthouse. Pepper tells me she's talking about going to Florida. To live with her sister and cousin, she said."
The men fell silent, the only sound was Tony's ratchet on the bolts. Steve's mind flew back to that mission and for the thousandth time, he wondered if there was something he could have done differently.
"I sent men back there," Tony said suddenly. "They didn't find anything."
"What about in the plant? Where there, um, bodies?"
"No. There were signs that there had been bodies but not enough to scrape together to put in a box."
"Damn." Steve scrubbed his face. "I still can't believe she went on that mission pregnant."
Tony stood, wiping his hands on a blue cloth. "She wasn't going to just sit back while Loki was in danger."
"What do you think the kid will be like?"
"I don't know. Without Loki around, it might have a chance."
"That's harsh, Tony."
"The guy was crazy. You saw how he was in that power plant."
"Because he thought Sigrid was in danger."
"What, are you defending him now?"
"No. I'm just saying, he had reasons." He straightened. "Listen, what would you have done if it was Pepper? Huh?" He looked into his friend's eyes until he looked away.
"Yeah. Well. It's over." He tossed the cloth onto the bench. "What I would like to know is why Odin hasn't come by. Didn't Sigrid say that she was supposed to go back one day?"
"Maybe Odin's attention is elsewhere."
"Maybe. I don't know. Gives me a bad feeling is all."
At that moment, all the lights went red and JARVIS chirped, "Intru-"
Everything went dark for a second before the emergency lights came up.
Tony said, "What?"
"I'll go check on-"
"You're not going anywhere," said a harsh, slithery voice.
They turned. Loki stood blocking the exit and he was pointing a gun at them. His clothes looked torn, bloody, and dirty in the emergency lighting.
"Loki," began Steve.
"Silence. Come closer, with your hands up. I'm going to make you pay for what you've done."
"Listen, Loki," said Tony.
"I said SHUT UP." He shot the gun off to the side and pointed it back at them. "Now do as I say."
OoOoOoO
Sigrid frowned when the emergency lights went up. "What's happened?"
Pepper looked up from her magazine. "I don't know. JARVIS, what's happened?"
No answer came. It was late at night and all the staff had gone home. "Maybe we should check with security."
"Yeah." Pepper got up from her seat and went to the intercom. They were in the penthouse and had just finished watching a movie. Pepper pressed the button. "Can anyone tell me what's going on?"
There was no answer. Pepper tried again, but no one answered.
"What do we do now?" asked Sigrid, getting up.
"Normally, I'd call Coulson."
"He's in London. Torchwood, I heard."
"Yeah. Come on. Maybe the security cameras are still working."
They went into a small side room inside of which was a security console displaying a dozen computer screens.
"We're not seriously going to look at each floor and each room," Sigrid said.
"No. Just the basement."
"Why not call Tony on his cell?"
"Because he turns it off when he goes down there." She called up the camera. "Oh my goodness."
Tony and Steve were standing with their hands up, facing a man with a gun. A shiver went down Sigrid's back. Something about that stance looked familiar.
"Can you get a shot of his face?" Sigrid asked.
"L-let me see." She tapped away at the keyboard and pulled up the camera from the other end of the room.
"Zoom in."
When she did, she gasped. "That's-that's Loki! I thought..." She looked up at Sigrid. "He didn't die."
Sigrid didn't dare let herself feel what was happening in her heart or she would explode. "I need to get down there."
"How? The elevators cut off when the emergency power kicked in."
"Use cameras to check on security. I know how to get to the basement from here."
"Sigrid, he has a gun!"
"And he won't hurt me. Now do what I said."
Turning, she ran from the room and to the elevator that also doubled as the penthouse's front door. Taking a deep breath, she dug her fingers into the doors and slowly pried them apart, the steel making a horrible screeching sound as she pushed. Once it was open wide enough, she slipped through into the elevator. Pepper came out of the security room.
"It looks like he just tied up the security," she said. "What are you doing?"
"Making a way."
"Tony isn't going to like-"
"Go. Take the stairs and untie security. By the time you get there, this will all be over."
"That's over thirty stories."
"Then change shoes." Pointing at the floor, she concentrated, focusing on the tip of her finger outward to the floor. After a few moments, a hot circle began to melt through the bottom of the floor, burning through the carpet. The smell of scorched rug and metal stung her nose. It took only a minute. The round section of floor fell away.
"What are you doing?" asked Pepper.
Sigrid smiled up at her. "Magic." Down below, the round section clanged as it crashed at the bottom.
And then she jumped through the hole.
