At Maxine's suggestion Sif went down to the restaurant, and there she was happy to see ordinary people, including family of patients in other parts of the hospital, and guards and nurses on break, getting dinner.

In a corner of the seating area near the box of plants that was the sole attempt to soften the modernist, bright space, she ate her food, only now getting relaxed enough to realize how tired she was. It was pretty late, though the sun outside was trying to tell her it was daytime. She'd have to find somewhere to sleep.

A commotion at the door attracted her attention, and she looked up in time to see Tony Stark strolling in, casually and expensively dressed, wearing sunglasses with small purple lenses so he looked like a movie star. She saw more than one person turn to stare at him and whisper to their companions, trying to figure out who he was. Tony affected not to notice the attention, looked around, and then came over with his hands in his suit jacket pockets. "Hey, Sif, there you are."

Her tired brain took a moment to catch up. "Tony? Is Pepper with you?"

"Nope, she had some company things to tend to, or she'd be here. She says hi." He plopped into the opposite chair and wriggled on the plastic surface. "Wow, this is the worst chair I've ever sat in. Who decided drunken Asgardians should design furniture?" he asked rhetorically, and she just looked at him, wondering if there was a point somewhere. "I have something for you. When we grabbed your passport, Pepper packed your suitcase, too. She was upset you'd come here with so little. So I have that. Guard's searching it right now, though I told them there was nothing sketchy in it."

She was too tired to deal with his verbiage. "Did you see him?"

The torrent of words stopped, and his face transformed and grew still. "No. Not yet. They said he was asleep, and wouldn't let me in." Then he forced a smile and said, "I'll see him later. But you, I hear," he leaned back regarding her, over the top rim of his small sunglasses, "are quite the hero."

She shook her head. "No. Not really."

"Well, thank you anyway. Here." He took something out of his jacket pocket and slid it across the table to her. She picked it up to discover it was a credit card with her name on it.

"What's this?"

"A gift. In case you need hotel rooms, or a nice dress, or whatever. Spend it however you want."

"Thank you, but no." She tried to pass it back. "I owe you so much already."

"Take it. It's just money. I spent more than that just getting here. I think. Anyway, not the point." He waved a hand dismissively and took off the sunglasses, so he could look her in the eye. "You saved one of my best friends. And I don't have a lot of those. So just think of me as your fairy godmother and take it." He pushed it back across the table.

She had to smile wryly at that. "My fairy godmother, huh? I'll share it with all my mouse friends."

"Hey, you want to spend it on mice, it's yours," he said with a shrug, and no apparent problem with it.

She gave in and took the card, inwardly shaking her head at the foibles of the super rich. Maybe she'd treat herself to one nice thing.

"Oh," Tony snapped his fingers. "I have another gift for you. Well, it was for Loki, but you need it more right now - I made better body armor. Light, flexible, and should stop just about anything."

She didn't have to think about that one. "Give it to him."

"He's not the one going into a war zone," he pointed out. "You can give it to him when you get back. I don't think they'll let him wear body armor in the hospital anyway."

That was probably true. Assuming the attack went well, she would probably be back before they let him out of bed. So reluctant though she was to accept, she nodded. "All right. You're sure it works?"

"I'm sorry, did you just ask me if my invention works?" he asked, offended.

She had to smile, glad to have needled him. "Just asking."

He harrumpfed and made a gesture as if to take back the card, but then stood up. "Let me hand over the case to you, and then I hear Thor is going to take you both back to the base."

She caught his arm in the hall. "Tony - I know I said it before, but I mean it, thank you. You've helped me so much, and I know you burned a favor with Coulson-"

Tony snorted. "Nah, he still owes me."

"But all this on Loki's behalf-"

He lifted a hand to stop her. "Nope. Not all. Most, maybe eighty percent, but at least some is just for you. You're trying to turn it around, and I respect that."

"Well, thank you. I hope one day to be as good a friend to you as Loki is. Or at least get up to fifty percent friend," she teased.

He looked surprised before he blinked it away and chuckled. "What would fifty percent even be?" he wondered. "Half a friend, the other half enemy, or is it more like eighty percent acquaintance, five enemy, and fifteen friend…."

She patted his shoulder and let his chatter pass over her.

Thor got her settled in her room in the base dormitory, and she thanked him vaguely and then flopped on the narrow bed, hoping to go to sleep instantly.

Instead her mind decided to replay the day's events, obsessively circling around finding Loki covered in blood on the floor. Only focusing deliberately on him in the hospital bed, awake and holding her hand, finally let her relax enough to sleep.

In the morning, the rush of others getting ready early woke her up, and she stayed in bed to let them all clear out before more leisurely she went to shower and change. Pepper, bless her, had figured out which were Sif's favorite jeans and packed them in the suitcase, and Sif was glad to put them on. She felt alone when she emerged into the sunlight, realizing that Loki wasn't around. She hoped he'd had a good night, and presuming he'd gotten his phone and laptop back by now, she took out her phone to text him good morning. There was no immediate answer, but she smiled as she put the phone into her pocket.

At breakfast, she was told by four different people that General Leifvettr had ordered a briefing at 0800, next by Thor himself, and then another one was coming up to her, and she clenched her jaw so she wouldn't be tempted to snap at him that she knew already. She reminded herself that they were trying to be helpful.

The young private said, "Mister Coulson requests you come, Ms Rowan."

Coulson wanted her first, before the briefing? That was curious. So she agreed, cleared her tray, and followed the private upstairs to one of the offices.

Once the door was closed behind her, Sif saw that Coulson was not alone.

She stared and her hand reached for a gun she wasn't carrying. Then she took a step back, hand going back to find the door knob, so she could get out.

Because that woman standing next to Coulson with the bright red hair and the casual black leather jacket was the Black Widow.

Her perfect lips smiled. "Hello again, Sif," she said. Politely but with a bit of a taunt in it. Because she knew what a shock this was.

"What the hell is she doing here?" Sif demanded of Coulson, who was standing behind the plain wooden desk in his suit as if nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

Romanova sauntered a few steps nearer. "Here's a funny thing you should know - what you ended up doing, I was already doing."

Sif blinked and felt slow and stupid - 'already doing'? What the hell did that mean?

Then Romanova added, perhaps taking pity on Sif's confusion since she wasn't as condescending as she could have been, "I was recruited into the Agency three years ago."

She was a spy? The notorious Black Widow assassin was really a spy for the CIA?

Sif snapped her mouth shut, realizing she must look like a goldfish, and looked to Coulson. "She's one of yours?"

He was not apologetic. "Not always, but now, yes. She was in Stuttgart as undercover protection. The idea was to put someone… notorious, to discourage any other attempts." Then he sighed. "She was supposed to get close to Loki through Stark. And then you made a hash of that plan."

Sif ran all that through her mind and tripped over one important fact, confronting Romanova again. "I could've killed him in the dance, but you didn't do anything to stop me."

Romanova smiled and shook her head. "You were so taken with him and frightened of me, I knew you weren't going to do it. When you pulled the fire alarm, I thought for a moment you might make a move, but you were fixed on me, not on him. And when you outed me to Tony, that sealed it. Phil didn't buy it; he feared you were playing some kind of long game, but you're not like that. The line always mattered to you, and the more you knew him, the less you were going to cross it."

Sif felt like she should argue, but subsided, since Romanova was actually right. She licked her lips and admitted, "Yeah, that's true. So, why tell me now? What are you doing here?" She wondered if Romanova was still tasked with protecting Loki from inside, and Sif was uneasy at the notion that she'd be here, while Sif was gone. Not that she doubted Loki, but… Romanova was very attractive, and Laufey had already mentioned how Loki was attracted to intriguing, even dangerous women.

The answer was something else, though. "Because I'm going with you on the strike team, and I didn't want you to freak out," she answered, flicking her eyes to where Sif was still clutching the doorknob. Sheepishly, Sif released it and rubbed that hand on her jeans.

"You're going? But… why?"

"You're not the only with a personal stake in this."

"Oh?" Sif questioned, glancing at both of them, wondering what either of these super spies had of a personal nature. Although Thanos did have an uncanny ability to ruin families, so she wouldn't be surprised to find out there was something else.

Romanova glanced at Coulson, and he nodded permission for her to explain. "Barton used to be ours, too. Before he went rogue. But now we know, that's not true. He was compromised by Thanos."

"The Agency is still trying to figure it out. Some kind of brain-washing," Coulson said, shaking his head. "It's very disturbing. But we wouldn't have known it, without you stopping him."

"So thank you for not killing him," Romanova said with a wry, but genuine smile.

Sif was just glad he was in custody and not dangerous to Loki anymore, though the idea that Thanos could do that to someone was new and frightening.

Romanova continued, "Also, there was a report of Winter Soldier in Gdansk, so we suspect he's headed back to Thanos.

"Oh, that's great. Did you tell the people here that he's out of the country?"

"Not yet," Coulson said. "We need confirmation. And it's no bad thing for their security to remain high level right now. Chitauri mercs are still in play, too. We know they got out of the US, but not where they went after that."

Sif thought of Loki in his hospital bed, asleep, and felt ill that she was going to leave him. What if they attacked while she was gone? she knew, logically, that she was not his sole guardian - he had hundreds of people devoted to his protection now - but her heart remembered blood all over the floor and the fear that he was slipping away from her.

"His people will watch over him," Romanova told her and Sif glanced at her, to meet eyes that now seemed kind. "If we get Thanos, he can't pay them, and they won't do it."

Sif nodded, trying to put away the anxiety and remind herself that was why she wanted to go on the mission. "I know."

Coulson looked at his phone. "Time for the briefing. But first, and this is just for you two, you are not bound by the military rules of engagement. If you have the chance to eliminate Thanos, take it. That is a presidential directive."

Both women exchanged a look of perfect understanding and nodded. Thanos was not getting out of Belarus alive.