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Chapter 11

Darcy was the first to get it. Unusual, but occasionally she showed off a spark of intelligence.

"Alone? You mean that you both lose?"

"This isn't a game anymore. There aren't any winners or losers. If I don't figure this out, Jane will be banished from Asgard and Thor will be forbidden from contacting her. He will have to marry from a different realm and assume the throne here." I really needed a refill on my ale, but instead of getting up, I tested my powers. The jug flew into my hand neatly and without spilling a drop.

"Holy shit." Jane's eyes were wide.

I shrugged. If I had powers, I wasn't going to suppress them anymore. Let her stare. "That's the good news. If I fail, I'm getting sent back to Earth where S.H.I.E.L.D. will be waiting to kill me. Jane will be alone, but I'll be dead." Darcy sniffled. "Don't cry. I haven't failed… yet."

With no course of action, the three of us stayed in the warm kitchen, drinking until we were more than just toasty. We toasted everything we could think of: the weather, our men, even the cat. Hell, we even toasted to each other. Jane and I may not have been friends, but this made us allies. Neither of us wanted to lose the man we loved. There had to be a way to fix this.

We drank the day away, all but falling over ourselves. Okay, Darcy did actually trip over her own feet and land on the floor, but that just made us laugh harder. A nice palace guard helped her up and guided us back to my rooms. Jane collapsed onto the bed, instantly asleep.

"She snores," I observed, trying not to giggle.

Darcy nodded. "It's always worse after she drinks. She sounds like a train."

We took turns taking baths, Claudine drawing the water and finding clothes to fit my friend's curvy figure. The time helped me clear my head enough to think. Things were still fuzzy, but I was already planning my next move.

"Oh I forgot!" Darcy grabbed her messenger bag and pulled out a large file. "This is for you."

I took the papers and flipped through them. "Does Fury know you have this?"

She shook her head. "Ian cracked into the system and we printed copies of everything we found. Natasha got us the rest."

In front of me was my whole life in print. Darcy had stolen my complete file. I was shocked.

"I don't know what to say."

She grinned. "How about thank you?"

We sat on the floor and began to sort through the mounds of information. There were photographs from my childhood, reports cards, and written accounts from my step-mother and father about my upbringing. There were medical charts and doctor's notes filled with gibberish I couldn't decipher. I passed one of the pages to Darcy.

"Do you understand this?"

"Let me see. 'Subject shows significant resistance to electrode testing. Trial of new drugs to begin today. Should they fail, subject with be placed back into medically-induced coma.' What do they mean, placed back?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea."

The charts were extensive and painted a very dark picture of how I was treated. The things that were done to me had affected my memory, not to mention subduing the powers that I was born with. S.H.I.E.L.D. was obviously scared of me, or of what I could do.

"Um, Nora?"

Darcy handed me two pages that looked identical. "Okay, what am I looking at?"

"I think these are brainwave images from your comas." She pointed to the top corners. "But look at the dates."

If I wasn't convinced that I was being held by sadistic bastards before, this did it. "What's the earliest time line you can find in the file?"

We gave up sorting the papers and focused only on one piece of information. It was on a letter written to the director from my father, something I had passed by on earlier as I didn't want to care what he thought. The letter was simply him releasing me into the care of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the confirmation that he was my biological father. He gave them full authority to do whatever they deemed necessary for my well-being. It was dated nearly forty years prior.

I looked at Darcy who was staring at me. "Well, I guess I'm looking pretty good for my age."

We both chuckled uncomfortably. I mean, it proved I wasn't completely human, but the statistics were staggering. Once I got over my shock, I'm sure I would get angry. For the moment, however, there were no words.

I left Darcy to get some sleep, Jane still making a racket. I had the file with me and there was once place I could go where I could be alone. It was a long walk to get back to the tapestry room and it took me a while to find the door. It wasn't locked.

I wasn't surprised that he was waiting for me in the tower. It was his room after all. He was sitting in the chair, book in hand. I dropped onto the floor in front of him and used his legs as my back rest. I opened the file again and started reading each and every page in date order. I must have sat there for hours, but the fire never dimmed. The room never chilled, and I didn't even stop to consider my stomach. I could eat later.

Loki probably read everything over my shoulder but I didn't really care. I was too focused. I ignored the experiments and the tests. Those I remembered. What I was looking at was the notations of my aging. I thought at first maybe they had given me a growth hormone of some sort to slow my aging, but it appeared to be natural. I was normal until I hit puberty, then I just slowed. I never bothered me that I was smaller than my schoolmates. I guess there was a reason though.

"Why does this bother you so?"

His voice jolted me back to reality. In truth, it didn't bother me. "It's more that I didn't know. Time passed and I didn't have a clue. They kept something that is obviously a huge part of my existence from me. I knew that Fury was keeping secrets. I guess I believed somewhere deep inside that he would've told me something like this."

He stroked my hair as I relaxed backwards into him. "Perhaps this is the cosmos confirming that you were meant to be here on Asgard… that you were meant to be with me."

"How so?" My eyes were closed and I was finally calming down. I had been strung up tighter than a ball of Christmas lights since my initial meeting with Jane. It was unlike him, but he was channeling his calmness into me.

"Well, if you stop to consider the implications, you will see that you are assumed to have an unnaturally long life span, of unknown length. I have already lived many human lifetimes. It would disappoint me to only spend one with you."

I leaned my head backwards to see him smiling. It wasn't with cockiness. It was sincere and full of this emotion that I was having trouble grasping. Love. I told him about the conversation with Odin. He was silent throughout it, but I could feel his tension mounting.

"So when you grabbed me, it was kind of like the cherry on the cake. I don't like being manhandled and I was already pissed off at your father."

He touched his cheek. "You are stronger than you realize."

I laughed. "Oh, I realize it! Loki, I love you, but I'm a big girl and I am going to do things without checking in with you first."

"Even if it puts you in danger?"

"Even then. I have two months… and I will do whatever I have to do to find out who my mom was. The stakes are too high."

He tugged at my shoulder. I stood and he all but pulled me into his lap. I wasn't a small girl, but the chair was big enough for the both of us. He put his feet up on the ottoman while mine hung over the arm rest. He grabbed a nearby blanket and draped it over us both. I rested my head against his chest and stared into the fire.

"I will not lose you, Nora."

His voice was low, almost a whisper. It was a promise. It was a dedication. His mind was filled with his mother and what losing her meant. I saw him envisioning me gone. It was like watching a flower die, withering into dust. The imagined pain filled my mind. Others saw him as a monster. I was one of few who got to see him as a man.