Author's Note

Finally! It is time for me to start teasing you with the upcoming conflict. I need to lay down little more groundwork before the actual call to adventure, but we are almost there. Darn you Romance/Adventure genre... you are so frakin' difficult to balance (I say this shaking my fist towards the heavens).

So... Please be patient my dearly cherished tens of readers, and remember that this is my first story ever and that I'm trying to do it right for you. Villains and action are coming, I promise.

Dialogue in both "italics and quotations" denote telepathic conversations. Numbers in [brackets] denote footnotes, which you can find at the bottom of the chapter. Nothing from the Marvel universe is mine.

~ Refictionista, September 16, 2014

§ Chapter XIII §
keep calm and fix your hair

The next morning, Sydney found herself in the kitchen hunting down tomato juice, cayenne pepper, sugar, and a lime.[23] Then she took her concoction out to the balcony along with some soda crackers. This was her first hangover, but she had witnessed Eriko's preferred morning after routine enough times to know what to do.

Part of her, a small part, was angry for allowing herself to disappear through drinking.

That's really all she did, disappear. She wasn't one to drink and let loose. She didn't use inebriation for fun, never had. She didn't like altering her mind, period. Until Darcy had invited to her for some drinks in her room, that is. Except she didn't let loose or have much fun. Oh, she laughed at the stories and jokes, it wasn't as if she had a bad time. Sydney didn't do anything she would be embarrassed about, except maybe passing out, though she only vaguely remembered Darcy and Natasha helping her back into her own bed.

It was just that she used shot after shot of liquor to make her mind disappear.

That was pathetic, really.

Weak.

But that was just a small part of her mind saying these things. Most of her just shrugged and said fuck it.

So here she was, on the balcony of the headquarters to a group of strangers that she had been thrust upon to join, drinking Eriko's tomato juice cure without a straw and practicing her fuck-it-fu without a mat.

Well, technically it was yoga... she just hadn't reached any form of mental clarity yet.

Once she had finished all the twisting and poses, Sydney seated herself on one of the balcony's chairs to finish drinking her funky beverage and nibble on the rest of the saltines... and to watch the sunrise. The sky and the reflections on the glass of the nearby buildings was blood red. Brilliant orange light was pouring out from between the crack of two skyscrapers in the east. The rippled clouds were every shade of pink imaginable. There it was. Peace. Clarity. Hope. Sydney smiled.

"Do you find this breathtaking?"

Sydney turned to see that Loki had stepped out onto the balcony. His vacant expression at the view in the distance could have been easily dismissed, but she saw something she recognized in herself. He looks homesick. She smiled, this time at him. "Do you have sunrises like this on Asgard?" she asked.

"No." It was a curt reply, harsh, almost sounding like he had tried to bite her while saying it. "Your planet is spherical. Asgard is not. Thus, our days and nights are quite different and far more beautiful. Were you to ever see it, you would realize this 'beauty' we see now is grey and pale by comparison."

"Your planet isn't round?"

He turned away from the sunrise to her, with a look of bewilderment. "I insult your world's pathetic attempt at grandeur and instead you focus on that sentence?"

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... a non-spherical planet is, well, not round like a planet. I find that far more interesting, so of course I focus on that." She paused. "Thinking back, I've heard you and Thor refer to Asgard as a realm or a world, but never as a planet. What is it then?"

"The home of the gods," he said turning away from her.

"How enlightening," she quipped. "Whatever. Hopefully, I'll find out more from Jane and Darcy when they come back." Sydney gasped and put a hand in front of her mouth, closing her eyes and cursing herself after she realized that perhaps she wasn't meant to share that information. Darcy did say it was a secret.

Loki rolled his eyes. "My brother's supposed betrothal? Fear not, you have revealed nothing. In truth, I already knew of it."

Ouch. "Supposed?"

He huffed, "They are not suited to each other."

"Wow. You're really not much of a morning person, are you?"

Loki laughed at that. "No. I am not, as you say, a morning person. Though, I rise earlier each day than most others I know. You are?"

"No, but I try."

"To rise early or be a morning person?"

"Both, actually."

"I see." He took his gaze off the sunrise again and scrutinized her more closely. "Why have you not yet rectified the state of your hair?"

"I beg your pardon." Sydney squared her shoulders and put a hand to cover her damaged and brittle mane. It crunched where she had pressed down on it. She cringed.

"You have access here, in this building, in this city, to any number of beautifying balms the women of this realm use. Perhaps none of those worked, but that then provokes the question as to why you haven't tried using magic to fix that... wreckage."

Sydney's gaze narrowed into glaring slits. "When I said, 'I beg your pardon,' it meant that you were being exceptionally rude."

"I gathered that from your tone."

"Yet you didn't apologize."

"I am Loki of Asgard," he said with a shrug as if that explained everything. "I don't apologize. I am here to pay a debt to your world, which I am willing, however grudgingly, to do. Despite this, I am not sorry for what I did. I am a villain. The reality is that simple." He gave her an almost sympathetic look, "And I am not sorry for inquiring about your hair. If you are sensitive about it, then perhaps you should have covered it up to soothe any insecurity. Was it always so dull and colorless?"

Sydney rubbed her forehead, feeling her headache returning. It wasn't worth the effort to reason with him on this; she could just get up and leave, but her vanity needed to be squelched once and for all. Hard to believe it, but he was actually doing her a favor. "No," she sighed. "It turned white and straw-like somehow during my time in hibernation. I'm afraid it has only been getting worse ever since. I've tried every cream and serum Pepper has given me. And yes, I've tried magic. Repeatedly. Nothing has worked."

"I see. I could help you with that, if you would like."

"Seriously? You just spouted nothing but verbal diarrhea in my direction since you walked out here. Why would you?" The man had insulted both a beautiful sunrise and her hair in less than fifteen minutes, offering to help fix her stupidly injured vanity made no sense.

"This... look," he grimaced with disgust, "it does not become you."

Sydney, with her mouth hanging wide open, was trying to figure out how to respond to that when Steve popped outside.

"Hey, there! I've been looking for you," he said with a grin.

Oh, thank the goddess, she thought. "Good morning, Capt'n."

"I'm glad I found you. I ordered something for you in the mail, and it arrived first thing. Wait here." He held up a finger, motioning her to wait and popped back inside.

"Why do you encourage that man?"

Sydney gave Loki a look of pure exasperation; she had nearly reached her limit with the asshole god this morning. "Because he is very nice, and I do like him."

"Only as a child likes a playmate."

"He's my friend!" Sydney stood up to face Loki, but ending up facing Steve instead. Loki had vanished. Though... Sydney felt his presence; he was merely invisible.

"Here it is," Steve said, handing her a brown paper wrapped parcel. He had a grin with dimples, and his teeth were perfect; however, Sydney realized that nothing about the flawless smile he directed at her gave her any joy. Well, not the butterflies-in-her-stomach making her feel-more-alive-kind of joy. Shit, shit, double shit. Loki is not right. Steve is a sweet guy; anyone would love to be with him.

She smiled sweetly at Steve and opened the box. Inside were red ballet flats.

Sparkly red sequined ballet flats.

With glittery red bows.

Oh no, he didn't...

"Ruby slippers," Steve exclaimed. "Just like from the Wizard of Oz. Do you like them?"

He bought and ordered replica ruby slippers for her. She held them up, mentally flinching at how the gaudy sequins were dazzling in the morning light. The wicked witch's shoes. If anything could resolve Sydney's reservations about trying to think of Steve with affection more than that of a doting sister, then this was it. These were practically birth control shoes. She could tell that Steve was waiting eagerly for her response.

Shit, think of something, her mind raced. After two seconds passed that felt more like two years, her panic faded. She realized exactly what she needed to say. "You're so sweet, thank you," she shook Steve's hand. "You are such a good friend. I'm so glad we met; I had always wished to have a brother like you."

His face fell, but only slightly.

Screw it. Loki was right, she thought. What made that worse was that Sydney knew he had just seen everything.

"Not a word, Loki. Not. A. Word."

She could almost hear him laughing outside the edges of her mind.

The dark presence had been worried, trembling at the thought of its discovery. For only after the powerful sorcerer had come out onto the balcony, did it realize its dreadful mistake. Its hiding place, the witch's shadow, was pointed towards the rising sun. The wraith knew it could not move to correct its position. It could not even fade away without detection. It had to wait and hope to go unseen.

It sat, paralyzed, disgusted at its own terror. Patience was not a virtue it possessed, and fury burned within it. The cold rage hissed and grew stronger through its spectral form as it cowered in the shade of the woman's body. Every additional moment it was forced to hide, each second it could not flee, its anger grew stronger. It cursed its folly. They would pay for this.

The more time passed, the stronger the possibility of discovery grew. Just as it felt the dark haired sorcerer had begun to scrutinize the white haired witch more closely, its fears reaching their zenith, the soldier had joined them outside.

This broke the sorcerer's concentration. The cold specter hesitated, questioning if it should take this opportunity to go or not. It watched the sorcerer and the witch argue with unspoken words. This was possibly its only chance. Finally, it jumped from the witch's shadow to dissolve itself in the morning fog.

Too late. No, too soon.

The sorcerer instantly realized what had happened, and the specter's terror returned as it watched him instantly vanish. The dark presence knew the sorcerer had shed his corporeal form to search for the unknown presence he had felt. How foolish to presume it could have possibly outfoxed the god of mischief and lies. It could sense the cold heat as could only be felt from Frost Giant from Jötunheimr as the god's tendrils of magic probed the area, searching.

It knew that he knew it had been there.

Watching them.

Watching her.

What had the fallen son of Asgard sensed? What did he know?

Did he figure out what it was?

Did he realize who it was? Worse, who had sent it?

Would he share what he had felt with the woman? It shuddered at the thought. Even worse, would those two discover anything if they worked together? Of all of this realm's heroes, these two trained in magic were the most troublesome. It knew that the sorcerer was unwillingly forced to serve this realm, and so perhaps he would not cause a problem. Unfortunately, he also was the god of chaos, and so perhaps he could decide to protect this world on a whim. Fortunately, the specter had observed that he left this realm repeatedly and in consistent, predictable intervals.

She was the problem. It had yet to find out if she would be willing to fight and more importantly to kill. It had also not discovered any of her weakness or vulnerabilities. It hadn't watched her for enough time.

Its presence was already being pulled from this realm, yet it had not failed. It would deliver its report, as it had been ordered. Embellished and without mentioning its near discovery, the Other would reward it, as promised.

The sorcerer still searched, but now his efforts were in vain. The dark presence was positively gleeful.

§

Sydney was giving her new shoes the evil eye. She had hoped that they wouldn't fit, but they did. Of course they did. Maybe Tony would have a Halloween costumed party. She had always disliked the way everyone else in her acquaintance had celebrated that holiday, but an exception could be made. Yes, well... as long as the party wasn't actually held on Samhain, what day was Halloween this year? She picked up her iPad from her nightstand and found the calendar app. Crap, Friday night. Not a problem. Surely Tony would throw a party on Saturday, right? People would prefer getting all dressed up on a weekend day. She could dress as Dorothy, not the wicked witch, no red and white striped socks for her. She could get a blue dress, find a stuffed dog to carry in a basket, get some ribbons and pull her hair into pigtails.

Her hair...

How easy it was earlier to forget about her hair. She looked over to the mirror above her dresser, almost wishing that somehow it had all been a dream. No, it wasn't. The nightmare that was her once beloved mane was still there, and she was looking more and more like a white haired troll doll each day. She looked sickly. With her pale skin, the crinkled white strands were so transparent that they appeared almost sparse. If her conversation with Loki had shown her anything at all, it was that the time had come to let it go.

"Bessie?"

Nothing. Her reflection was her own.

She wasn't going to cover it up as Loki suggested. Better to embrace this and go from there. Never hide who you are, always stay true to yourself. She left the bedroom and rummaged around under the sink in her fully stocked en suite. There it is. She knew she had seen the hair clippers under there earlier, likely supplied for any man who might have been assigned to these rooms instead of her.

Discovering that the batteries needed to be charged, she plugged the cord in the power outlet. Sydney looked up to see her expression in the bathroom mirror. Her face looked familiar for the first time in weeks. She looked like a soldier; determined, tough, and ready. She nodded as if to further encourage herself and then turned to leave the bathroom. She shut the door firmly behind her.

Suddenly feeling worn, she went back into her bedroom to lie down. She pulled a pillow from under the comforter and curled around it in a fetal position, staring at the closed door. Sydney tried to stroke her hair, but the crackle from the contact with her hand caused stopped her. This sucks. She couldn't believe she was about to cry over this. Of all the horrible, agonizing things that had happened to her recently, why on earth was she about to complete breakdown over something as ridiculously petty as her hair? It was a good thing she had decided to shave her head; otherwise, she could possibly wallow like a stuck pig until the end of time.

Just as she was starting to doze off, the door to her bathroom opened. What the...

Loki stepped out, holding the clippers. "Well, my lady, I see that you have decided to disregard my offer."

"What are you doing here, Loki? I guarantee you that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't like your disappearing then reappearing act." She sat up, her eyes narrowing. "What offer?"

"Your hair," he gave her a bored look. "I did offer to help you restore it. Fear not, I've performed such a spell to a maid's hair before."

"Is that what you meant earlier? You were actually, honestly offering to help?"

"Of course, what else would you think I was offering to help you with?" He set down the clippers on her dresser with distaste, as if dropping a dead rodent. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned leisurely against the door frame. "Is there anything else you would want from me?" He leaned forward, "Something you sorely need, perhaps?" He wasn't smiling with his lips, but his green eyes were shining.

Sydney fought the urge to swallow. He was good, too good, and she made damn sure to clear her mind of all thoughts. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Loki squinted as if examining her and shook his head, "I suppose you don't." He walked over and lifted her chin, and she gave him a wary look. Before she could swat his hand away, he took a few strands of her hair and rubbed them slowly between his fingers. His touch somehow sent shivers over her scalp, and Sydney repressed an instinctive need to shiver.

He was trying to intimidate her, and she didn't like it. Forgetting that they had just been speaking mentally, she asked out loud, "And what precisely am I supposed to know?"

Loki leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "That perhaps there is someone else you would rather encourage than the soldier out of time."

She stared at him, understanding, and let out a laugh. "You're imagining things." She tried to push him away, but he was as solid as a brick wall and completely unmovable.

He slowly released her hair from his gentle grip, watching the strands slip through his fingers. "Am I?"

"That is... Loki, that is never going to happen."

Loki scoffed, sneering at her. "You forget, my lady. I have already had the exquisite pleasure of your kiss." With that dark haired god once again disappeared, vanishing into thin air.

What an egomaniac! You have got to be kidding me, thought Sydney. I would remember kissing... oh... wait... Heat flooded her cheeks as she recalled what happened when she awoke on the floor in the warehouse after her long sleep in the cryotube. Sydney kicked the wall, scuffing it. She grabbed the clippers and marched into the bathroom, suddenly filled with purpose... glorious, hair-shaving, bald-head-making purpose.

After she stepped inside, she dropped the clippers on the tile floor. Her arm and the hand that had held them fell limply to her side. Sydney stood there with her mouth hanging open. She meant to squeal, but all that came out was a choked-like sounding puff of air. Her eyes bulged at what she saw in the mirror. Seconds passed and she didn't move.

Less than a moment later, her reflection shimmered as her familiar came into view.

"Sorry it took me so long to get here after you called," said Bessie. "It was unavoidable. I went to... ahhhh!" Sydney watched as her reflection pulled a lock of the luxuriously silky raven-colored tresses in front of her face. "Your hair! Your hair is... black!"

"Really, Bessie? I hadn't noticed."

§

[23] The after hangover routine of my roommate from way back in college (and FYI, this is so not any form of medical advice): First, she drank 16 oz. of water with two ibuprofen. Second, her tomato juice concoction (8 oz. tomato juice, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/4 cup sugar) over which she squeezed a lime. Yes, 1/4 cup of sugar and the 200 calories that this entails, deal with it. She would drink that with either plain toast or saltine crackers. Third, yoga. Finally, she constantly drank coffee the rest of the day. That last part and ibuprofen is about all I do. Drinking water would probably be better than coffee, but not everyone is perfect. Perhaps you are... in which case I would probably dislike you when I'm hungover.