Chapter VIII
From the outside, Denver's SHIELD headquarters looked very unremarkable. It stood ten floors high, made of grey concrete and tinted glass, advertising itself as the office complex of a stationary company. Sigyn strode through the lobby, the man at the front desk not looking up from his computer. Once the elevator doors had closed, she held her ID up to the hidden scanner.
"Agent ID card accepted. Retinal scan required for confirmation," announced a computerised voice.
Sigyn leaned in towards the scanner and stared straight ahead, trying not to blink as the green light swept across her eye.
"ID confirmed: Agent Nightingale," the voice continued after a moment.
"Floor ten, please," Sigyn requested, and the elevator began moving upwards. She tapped her foot impatiently, unable to keep still.
When the elevator doors opened, Sigyn wasted no time in heading for Agent Yates' office. The woman was sat at her desk, looking through some files with her brows creased, when the incensed Asgardian burst through the door. Agent Yates lifted her head slowly, regarding Sigyn with a calm and professional smile.
Although now working as an assistant director, Yates' career had begun in the field, and the rest of SHIELD treated her with nearly the same level of respect and reverence as Director Fury. No-one knew precisely which stories about her were true and which were urban myth. But even now, in her sixties and with her injured leg, the woman was undeniably strong-willed and intimidating. Very little had the ability to shake Agent Yates' resolve.
So when SHIELD's resident Asgardian barged in with her furious stare and clenched jaw, Yates didn't even blink.
"Can I help you, Agent Nightingale?" she asked politely, using the name SHIELD had given Sigyn.
"I want all the information you have on Thor and Loki," Sigyn demanded. Agent Yates rose from her chair, carefully closing the file on her desk.
"And this is because of your new… living arrangements?" Yates presumed, her tone taking a harsh edge. She had almost lost her brother in the Chitauri attack, and held nothing but contempt for Loki. Receiving the news the previous day that Loki was going to be living almost on their doorstep had left her in a very foul mood.
"It is because I very much dislike being kept in the dark" Sigyn countered. "And I shan't be leaving until I have what I came for."
"That information is none of your concern," Agent Yates replied. "Director Fury has not granted you access to it, and I trust his judgement."
"It is entirely my concern! They are my people, my friends, and you have no right to decide what I can and cannot know about them!" Sigyn objected.
Agent Yates took a long look at the irate woman, and let out a defeated sigh. She could see Sigyn's stubbornness would not falter, and was not in the mood for an extensive argument.
"Very well. I suppose you ought to know about the monster you're living with," she conceded, making no attempt to hide her disdain for Loki.
"Watch how you speak," Sigyn warned, making use of her tall stature to stare Yates down.
They took the elevator down to the second basement level where the archived information was kept, both physical and digital.
"I need copies of everything we have on the war criminal Loki," Yates ordered the red-haired agent sat at the nearest computer. "The Battle of New York, Puente Antiguo, all of it."
"Ma'am… Does she have access for those files?" the agent asked nervously, gestured to Sigyn. He was obviously intimidated by her, especially knowing what Thor and Loki were capable of.
"I'm giving her access," Yates answered sharply. She turned to Sigyn. "When you have everything, you can show yourself out," she added, and promptly made her way back to the elevator.
It didn't take too long for the agent to pull everything together. Sigyn stood and watched, catching glimpses of images and video footage on the screen – Loki's face, the Chitauri attack, a town in smouldering ruins. When he was finished, the agent handed over a USB stick, which Sigyn pocketed quickly.
Instead of leaving the building, Sigyn made her way to the fourth floor, where a handful of agents were working at computers and talking into headsets. She made her way to one of the empty stations, logged on, and plugged in the USB. She had gotten used to Midgardian technology fairly easily, despite a slow start, and had no trouble pulling up the information she had been given. She slipped on her headset and opened one of the files. Sigyn had no desire to go through them back at her apartment, with Loki around, but still felt sheepish about digging around behind his back. She needed to know what was going on, though, and braced herself for what she was about to see.
She looked into Puente Antiguo first, not recognising the name, and was surprised to see images of Thor dressed in Midgardian clothes. Loki said he had spent time on Midgard, Sigyn remembered, delving deeper into the files. She noted the photographs of a pretty brunette, and the strange sight of Mjolnir embedded in the dirt, surrounded by a strange white structure. Eventually she came to the footage of the Destroyer. She knew of the powerful guardian of Asgard's relics, but had never seen the full extent of its power. Its fiery beams had cut through the small town with horrifying ease, and with no concern for the lives that might be in danger.
Sigyn was not naïve – she realised who must have sent the Destroyer to Midgard, who had ordered its attack. But she couldn't understand why. She knew Loki could be quick to anger, and that he had always been resentful of how he was treated as second-best to Thor, but this? This wasn't Loki. If he ever acted on a grudge it was with cunning and trickery. What she was seeing was the product of pure, unbridled rage. What could have made Loki turn on his brother like that?
Trying to ignore the nauseous sensation building in her stomach, Sigyn quickly turned her attention to the records of the Chitauri invasion. She lingered on the suspiciously brief mention of the SHIELD research on the Tesseract – from what she had witnessed of SHIELD's operations, she doubted that having such a powerful relic in their grasp was a good thing. She had been relieved when she found out the Tesseract was to be kept in Asgard's vaults. Very little of the footage from Loki's arrival still existed – most of it being lost when the portal collapse destroyed almost the entire facility – but Sigyn examined the few retrieved fragments intently. Her stomach dropped as she saw Loki's unflinching attack. She knew he was skilled at fighting, she had seen him on the battlefield before, but there was something different about his assault. The cold smile that followed sent a chill through her bones.
Sigyn stared numbly at the screen as she sifted through the remainder of the files. There was no evidence within them of the Loki she knew. The man who threatened Agent Romanoff with a gleeful smile on his face, the man who demanded that people fall at his feet – he was a horrible, twisted parody of the man she had been forced to leave behind on Asgard. The proof of Loki's actions was there in front of her, plain as day, but in in her mind she couldn't accept the truth.
"You okay there, Nightingale?"
Sigyn jumped at the touch of someone's hand on her shoulder, and turned in her chair to find Agent Carrigan looking at her with concern. She gestured to the computer screen by way of reply, unable to properly vocalise what she was feeling. It was only then she noticed her hands were shaking.
"Oh… that," Carrigan commented weakly as he noticed the images of Loki. "I heard about him being back on Earth; how're you holding up?"
"I feel like I'm experiencing little bits of every emotion all at once," Sigyn blurted out truthfully. "But more than anything, I'm just completely confused."
"Sorry I couldn't tell you about this before – Fury would've had me shot."
"It's alright, I know there were orders to keep me in the dark," Sigyn replied, not entirely sure if Carrigan was joking.
"Listen, I've got to run, but let me know if you need anything, okay?" Carrigan gave her a sympathetic smile. "Catch you later, Nightingale."
Sigyn watched Agent Carrigan as he left. Initially assigned as her handler when she first moved to Denver, he had become probably her closest Midgardian friend. He knew of her friendship with Loki back on Asgard, and was kind enough to hide any resentment he might have had.
With a long sigh, Sigyn closed the files and unplugged the USB drive. She knew she couldn't hide at the SHIELD headquarters forever, and she was becoming increasingly conscious of the other agents staring at her. She made her way out of the building, trying not to think too hard about which version of Loki would be waiting back at the apartment.
