"Okay, so you know that series, the one about the criminals who are constantly stealing boats and racing with each other?"

James furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at Torunn in confusion. "No? I mean, I'm not really a huge movie person, but I think I would remember that. What's it called again?"

Torunn held up one finger. "Hang on, let me just look it up. That is the magic of the internet, you know." She pulled out her phone, and James watched as she typed in 'movie series where they drive fast boats'. "Hm, let's see. The first article that comes up is the top ten boat movies of all time… ah, here it is, The Fast and the Furious."

James' eyes widened. "I'm sorry, what? This universe has those movies but they're about… boats?"

Torunn shrugged, clearly not seeing why that was so weird. "What do they drive in your universe? Trains?"

"Cars!" James shouted with some exasperation. "Of course racing movies would be about cars!" He sighed, and slumped back against the couch. "Alright, that's out, it's official that I need to get home as soon as possible. I don't think I can survive learning anything else about what differences there are between our worlds."

Before Torunn could make some kind of witty retort to that, there was a loud booming noise, and then suddenly Lolví was standing right in the middle of the living room in all his blue-skinned glory. Torunn narrowed her eyes and immediately glanced at James. "Are you just incapable of listening to people?"

Lolví rolled his eyes. "I do what I wish, Thorsdottir, and I listen to no one, least of all a mere mortal. But I have graciously decided to extend my help in this situation, because I believe that there will be some great benefit to me."

Torunn crossed her arms over her chest. "And what benefits would those be, exactly?"

Lolví shrugged. "My business is none of yours. But let's just say that living in a universe without the Mad Titan in it would be beneficial to my long term health."

James suddenly leaned forward. "Wait, you want to actually stay in my world?" He had no idea how that would work. Loki would probably not be happy to have a constant reminder of his true heritage, and this Lolví was clearly a bit of a loose cannon, so James wasn't sure if he wanted him to be in his world.

On the other hand, it's not like there was anything James could do to actually control what Lolví did with his life, and there was the part where it seemed like Lolví was the only one who would be able to actually get James home. "I will not remain in any one place," Lolví said stiffly. "I am of a nomadic people, and I would not stop my lifestyle now. Not to mention that I have people to rule over, and no illusions about what would happen if an army of Jotun walked through some strange portal. It would be seen as an invasion. But I am more than capable of building a bridge, once I have an idea of what path I need to take. I think I have found that. I need you to be an anchor to your world. Give me your hand."

"Wait, we're doing this right now?" James squeaked out.

Lolví arched one eyebrow. "Can you think of some better time? Would you like to stay here more than you had indicated when you dared to summon me?"

James slowly shook his head. "No, no, I definitely do want to go home."

Lolví nodded, like that's what he had expected James to say. "Then give me your hand." James reluctantly held out his arm, and winced as Lolví grabbed his hand, making it feel like he'd just been dunked into a bucket of ice. Clearly Lolví did not care about being gentle with the person who was supposed to act as an anchor. James closed his eyes, not sure what to expect.

,,,

Torunn groaned and rolled over, wanting to swat at her alarm to turn it off. It was still dark in the room, which meant that it was definitely too early for her to be awake. If there was some Avengers emergency, then the tower alarm would be going off, but since it wasn't, she felt safe in wanting to stay asleep.

But the jarring noise was rather insistent, and then Torunn realized that it wasn't her alarm, but her ringtone. She let out another loud groan before wiggling around to find her phone, which had ended up edged between her hip and the bed, and held it up to her ear without bothering to open her eyes again. "Hello?"

"It's Wanda Maximoff. I think I might know how to return the Jameses both to their proper worlds."

Well that was a sufficient enough wake up call. Torunn was quick to get to her feet and scramble around to get dressed before hurrying out. It wasn't until she was knocking on Wanda's apartment door that she realized she was wearing two different shoes, and her shirt buttons were definitely not lined up properly.

The door swung open, and Wanda looked tired, but still more put together than Torunn was. She led Torunn into the living room, where there was already a cup of hot coffee waiting for her. Caffeine had almost no effect on her Asgardian body, but sometimes Torunn liked to convince herself that it had a placebo effect of sorts.

If she was Midgardian, she definitely would have badly burned her throat, but as it was, she barely noticed that the drink was still scalding, and Wanda seemed too distracted to say anything about it. "I actually feel rather foolish right now. I didn't even stop to think about why the James from another world looks identical to our James, despite being ten years older and being a very different person. But then I got a visit from someone else from that other world, some messed up version of your uncle Loki, who told me a bit about the situation. And that's when I realized what must have happened. The two Jameses never physically swapped places, because if they did, the young body would be in the other world, and the older body would be here. But instead, they've only swapped minds. Which makes a lot of sense, when you consider that a lot of my power tends to be based around minds and thoughts. Not-Loki got real pissed when he realized he wouldn't be able to take a stroll around this world whenever he feels like it, but this is good. If it's all about the brains, then I might actually be able to swap them back now. We need to go get the other James and sit down to figure this out."

Torunn nodded, eager to get her own James back. Even though the idea of it just being a mental swap made it sound like her James wasn't in as much danger, she still was worried about him. And she also missed him, against all odds. It wasn't something she had ever expected to feel, but apparently it had taken his disappearance for her to realize that she didn't want him to be gone.

She ran home to the tower, since it was much quicker than taking a cab and she had too much sudden adrenaline to burn, and then leapt up onto James' bed to wake him up suddenly. He was startled awake, and then Torunn had to practically drag him out of bed before he would actually wake up enough to listen to her and get dressed. But once he realized that there was a chance of getting back to his own home, he went into speed mode.

,,,

James jerked back as he felt like his entire body was being iced over. "Please let go of me," he got up without quite whimpering in pain. Torunn grabbed at both Lolví and James to yank them apart, and then looked at James' hand in concern. "Are you alright?"

He winced as he prodded at the blue-tinged hand, and then nodded. "I'll be fine. I heal faster than the average human, remember?" That didn't mean that it didn't hurt a lot right at the moment, though. He looked over at Lolví. "What the hell was that for?"

Lolví scowled. "You're useless, and so is the world that you've come from. Be grateful that I'm not feeling to be in a smashing mood at the moment, or you would be blood and paste on the floor. Do not presume that you have the right to call upon me again, and if you attempt it, then you shall thoroughly regret it." And then he was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

James turned to give Torunn an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry about that. I should have just listened to you about not being able to trust him in the first place, but I felt like I had to do everything in my power to at least try to get back home and-"

Torunn sighed, and held his frostbitten hand gently. "It's fine, I get it. I can't blame you for wanting to get home. This isn't exactly a friendly and welcoming environment, even to people who have grown up in it. I know that I would never want to bring kids into a world like this. And I should have known that your stubbornness would make you do what you thought was right either way, so I guess that it's partially on me too."

"It would be crazy to blame yourself for the fact that I-" he was suddenly cut off by a piercing pain. It felt like someone was driving a spike through his skull, and he had to close his eyes and reach up to clutch at his head. His injured hand felt completely numb in comparison to what his head felt like.

He was vaguely aware of Torunn calling his name, but it slowly faded away, only for him to hear someone else call out for him. "James."

He opened his eyes, but didn't see the apartment that he shared with Peter, he just saw a black emptiness, and he and the other person were the only ones in it. He squinted, but couldn't see well enough, so he slowly walked closer to the person who had called out to him. Then he gasped once his sight was clearer. It felt like looking in a funhouse mirror to see himself standing there, the way that he remembered looking, but with a smug look on his face that didn't quite belong. "You're the other James?" he guessed.

The other male nodded. "Yup. And Wanda seems to have figured out how to fix this whole mess. We only swapped minds, not physical bodies, so we don't need to open any kind of portal or entrance or anything like that. She said that we should just need to…" he trailed off before reaching up to grab James' arm.

It felt like a very intense static shock, and between one blink and the next, James was suddenly facing the older looking version of himself. Even without any landmarks in the area, he got the feeling that he was on the opposite side of the void than he'd been standing in a moment ago. It was a pretty disorienting effect after seeing himself in the older body for the past few weeks. "Ah-" and there was his voice, sounding the way that it was supposed to. It was one of the few things that he would miss. "I'm sorry about your life, man."

The older James was looking down at his hand. "Yeah, maybe that's not what you need to be apologizing to me about right now." He sighed, and then shook his head. "Don't worry about it, kid. Just go home. You've got someone waiting for you there."

James' eyes widened. "When you wake up, Torunn should be there in your apartment. Uh, you might want to ask her to help you catch up on everything that's happened, because it's been a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. And I'm pretty sure that your girlfriend wants to break up with you."

They were both silent for a moment, and then the older James started laughing. "Alright, fair enough, you tried to do your own amount of meddling, can't really blame you for that. Well, we probably won't be seeing each other again. Any last words of wisdom you think we should exchange?"

James tilted his head to the side as he thought about it. He let out a slow breath, and then shook his head. "No, I don't think that there is. Just uh, good luck with everything, yeah?"

"Yeah, same to you. And uh, try not to let go of all the good things in your life."

James nodded, and then remembered something else. "Oh! And make sure you find Lorna and tell her what happened, okay? I wouldn't want her to get too worried." After the older James agreed, they stared at each other for a few long seconds. "So should we hug or something?"

The older James thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. "Nah, it would be too weird. And besides, I don't want to mess with any of your friend's witchy business. So, uh, just turn around and keep walking, I guess, and I'll do the same in this direction, and everything should work out." He saluted once, and then held up his middle finger, and James returned both gestures.

After a few more seconds of just standing there awkwardly, James decided to be the first to move, and he turned around. It was a very bizarre thing to walk forward when he could see literally nothing, and couldn't even feel a solid surface beneath him, but he moved his legs in walking motions. There was no way to really know if it propelled him forward, though, because there was nothing to look at for reference to see if they got bigger as he got closer.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been walking, feeling a bit foolish, when he glanced back over his shoulder and found that he couldn't see anything in that direction either, including the older James. He looked down at his hands, and was glad that he could see himself just fine. Apparently it wasn't dark in this place, just empty.

And then he eventually reached a point where he felt tired, and he felt a bit panicked because the other James hadn't mentioned that this was going to happen, which made him worry that it wasn't supposed to be happening, but he couldn't fight the sudden exhaustion, and eventually his eyes drooped shut, and he felt like he was falling.

,,,

"James, please wake up, whichever one you are."

His head was pounding, like he'd had way too much to drink the night before, but then his foggy mind slowly filled with memories of everything that had happened recently, and then his eyes shot open and he bolted up. He was lying down on a familiar couch in a familiar apartment, and he almost thought that he might start crying with relief.

He looked around, and saw Wanda slumped over in the seat across from him, looking exhausted. "Oh, good, you're awake."

His limbs all felt a little shaky, but James quickly stumbled over to Wanda to pull her into a hug. "It's so good to see you again! Not that I have anything against your sister, but it's nice to actually see you again."

Wanda slowly reached up to return the hug, but then paused at his words. "My sister?"

James frowned. "Oh, I guess it's possible that she doesn't exist in this world. But if she does, then you might want to look for her. She can control anything that's made of metal, and she's also a cool person."

"I see." Wanda sounded like she didn't know what to do with the knowledge that she may have another sibling lying around somewhere that she'd never known about.

Then he heard footsteps, and turned to see Torunn walking out of the kitchen. And she looked so young compared to the Torunn he's started to get used to, and yet it still felt so much like coming home to look at her. And it didn't matter that he already knew what she would look like or be like as an adult, all that mattered was that it was Torunn, his Torunn, the one that he'd gotten to know and understand all his life.

She was giving him an uncertain look, so he quickly got to his feet and went over to her. "It's really good to see you again."

Torunn grinned, and dropped the mug she'd been holding so that she could pull James into a hug. "Welcome home!"