A/N: Gotta apologize because I got lazy and stopped spelling out S.H.I.E.L.D with all the dots a looong time ago! Hope you enjoy! This next phase is going to get wild, I just have a lot I want to put it. :)

The only guilt I felt was for not feeling guilty. Even that weighed insubstantially on my moral compass. On days when the mansion was just ours—an occurrence that was becoming rarer and rarer with the threat of war looming in all directions—we would treat it like our home. It was a bubble, news of political shifts and the planet's delicate safety reaching us only from the mouths of the Avengers, when we'd eavesdrop on their sporadic conversations. Even those stories felt just like fairytales. Nothing mattered to us, not the cryptid messages found in glaciers up north, not the SHIELD jet that was shot down over Wakanda, not the gruesome protest at Stark Memorial. Maybe we were just used to our surrounding worlds being out of balance. Maybe we'd just finally found the perfect distraction in one another.

"You're mine," He'd whisper in my ear at night before we drifted off. It wasn't sinister, the way most things he said were.

"You're mine," I'd echo, pulling him as close as I possibly could, as though I could melt my body into his.

We said it because it was true. We were all we had, now. There was ownership in feeling like the last two people in the universe.

I'd become addicted to him. I became anxious when he left the room. I refused to sleep alone. Loki was a side thought to SHIELD in the scheme of much grander nuisances, which meant his cell in the Negative Zone remained empty and his permanent residence had been upgraded to the Avengers household. He was regarded as a volatile pet, with an electric collar completing the image. The only thing it inhibited him from doing was leaving or acting out, both rules that worked in my favor. I depended on him. My emotional support God.

That he was allowed to stay with me had me wondering if Hill was boasting the tale that I was only still living there as a watchman, now that I was feeling better and the quarantine cover no longer fit. I could easily be read on file as a personal guard, cuffed to the alien. And then I wondered the opposite, if perhaps he was the one policing me. I imagined it like a Chinese finger trap. If either one of us tried to escape, we'd both suffer.

No one had said it. No one had said that I was a prisoner. Except Loki, and that's why I trusted him. I knew that even if I left, there would be nowhere to hide. The fact remained that I was stuck in a nine-month sentence, at the end of which I was sure I'd lose everything. I hated that there were times when I was alone with Loki that I forgot about the baby entirely. He never did, though, and every so often as we lay in bed he would skim his long fingers over the small curve my stomach was forming and look at it like a ticking time bomb. I remembered this stage, when the child was becoming tangible. That was as far as I'd gotten with Jamie's daughter.

Dr. Simmons said it was getting stronger. I'd been getting stronger, too.

"Its gamma emission is becoming easier to measure, the more it grows," Jemma noted one day as I finished redressing after what was a particularly invasive appointment. "Which leads me to believe it's also becoming more saturated."

"Which means?"

She just shook her head while she scrolled along a tablet, trying to make as much sense of the numbers as I was of her words.

"The levels seem to exist in isolation," The young doctor looked up at me, finally. "The infant is emitting enough to be detected by my scans, but everything else seems…normal. Your symptoms of radiation sickness have subsided, despite these spikes. And, as you saw earlier, the ultrasound looked in every which way like that of a typical human baby. It's good, of course. Just puzzling."

I had so many questions I knew she couldn't answer. But that didn't stop me from trying.

"Why…do you think that is?" I was grateful that my situation was no longer touch and go, but there had to be a reason the toxic child I was carrying was no longer weakening me. Jemma pressed her lips together and tossed her long ponytail to one shoulder, which was her personal way of shrugging.

"I'd spoken to Hank about your mutation," She said, moving to the sink to wash her hands. "I was beginning to question, you see, if it was you or the baby evolving to keep the other alive."

"Evolving?"

"Adapting, I should say," Jemma amended. "You were so ill those first few weeks…well, no one was sure you were going to make it."

It was childish that I was insulted by her lack of confidence in my survival skills, as I remembered my frailty with severe embarrassment. I wasn't stupid, though. I knew no one else but Bruce had managed to withstand such a high level of infection. There was something that made me special, too, and I hung onto every word of her Doctor House detective monologue with a sick sense of pride.

"So, when suddenly you were reading as a clean bill of health again, I…it was…" she went on.

"Surprising."

"Yes," She said bluntly. "Hank suspected I was right in thinking that perhaps your shielding ability had something to do with it. You learned to internally protect yourself from the gamma production inside your body."

Huh. A theory I couldn't quite get behind, merely because I couldn't imagine my body would be smart enough to engage in protection of its own accord. Still, maybe there were some functions of my mutant self that acted as unconsciously as breathing did.

"Or, you think it could be the baby?"

Another hair toss shrug.

"There's no prenatal test for the X-Gene, and even if there were, the accuracy is shoddy. But…even though it's rare for mutated abilities to display in utero…it's not impossible."

"So, it could be a mutant and a hulk."

"I think that it's possible one couldn't exist without the other," She said quietly, zooming in on an ultrasound image. "Anyway, these presenting qualities are just different. Nothing's determined."

I knew she was wondering the same thing I was. If I had been anyone else with any other powers, would my body have been unequipped to carry the child through this first trimester? Then again, if I'd been anyone else, perhaps it wouldn't have happened in the first place. While my condition was stable, there was no better time to think about the future.

"How much does Hill know?"

"…Everything," She shifted uncomfortably. "I report to her. You know that."

"And has she indicated her plan for me and the baby?"

"It's still 'wait and see'."

I shook my head slowly, the frustration I bottled up beginning to ooze out.

"I can't stand being her side-project anymore. She never contacts me, but I can feel her eyes everywhere. I feel her waiting."

"You must believe me when I say she's not a bad person," Jemma said in earnest. "Understand her position. She inherited an agency on fire! The universe is opening up on Earth and we simply can't keep up. And Hill…she's trained to only think of the greater good. She already feels conflicted about having brought the Hulk out of hiding in the first place. Every death by his hand is blood on hers. So, while a SHIELD employee is carrying his child…it's her responsibility to monitor the threat. For your sake, and the world's."

"Small threat compared to the alien invasions she sees on a daily basis," I remarked.

"Well, you know…Those aren't the fault of man," She sighed, tucking a pen back into her labcoat pocket. I wasn't sure why she still signed papers with a pen while being surrounded with the highest grade digital databases. "It becomes much messier when it's a human-born problem.

I raised my eyebrows, hoping it would prompt her SHIELD-agent mode and spark a war story. I always got so little out of her. Instead, she suddenly turned to me with a fierce look I'd only seen her reserve for moments of peril. She put her hand on mine like she was resisting the urge to grab my wrist.

"Maggie, listen to me. Really listen," She whispered, her command propelling me to lean in. "SHIELD is doing everything in our power to protect you. It may not look it sometimes, but there are no safer hands to be in."

"I feel like I've heard this before," I murmured, sliding my hand out of her grasp.

"How much do you know about our history?"

"I—"

"We were established to protect against enemies the military was not equipped to handle. That the world was not equipped to handle. In the face of intergalactic, inhuman dangers, SHIELD made the rules because there simply was no jurisdiction over the paranormal. But things are complicated, see, when the factors are human. Captain America, the super soldier serum, are all technically considered property of the U.S. Military. The same for any bodies that underwent similar man-made transformations, including and especially the Hulk. Because when humans are involved, there is law. There is possession. There's responsibility and power, and not necessarily a well-balanced combination of the two," Simmons couldn't keep her eyes on me. They darted around the room as though she was sure she was being watched. "So why did the thousands of arrest warrants for Banner disappear over the years? Why was Iron Man allowed to keep his suit and his status after Sokovia? Director Fury stood in. We all did. SHIELD doesn't just see these people as heroes, they're victims of humanity's hubris. And the idea was, that with proper training, they could be more than that."

"Weapons."

"Hope," Simmons narrowed her eyes. "For a dynamic future that integrates the best of mankind and the best of beyond."

"You're acting very brainwashed all of a sudden." It wasn't like her to go full acolyte.

"I'm being serious. I owe everything to this team," She spoke almost sadly, and I thought maybe something had happened that she would never tell me about. "I just want you to know this—SHIELD is a buffer between you and U.S. law. Hill is the one thing standing between your baby and the military, who, if they knew, would surely argue it belongs to them. Just like they did Banner. There is a destructive history you were unfortunate enough to get mixed up in, and the DNA inside you now is a product of that history. Do what they tell you, and above all, trust. Do you understand?"

"…Yes. I do." My mouth felt dry and I felt my hands fumble with each other on my lap as the little military-grade weapon within me stirred. "What's brought all this on?"

"To be honest," She said, though she was rarely dishonest. "I don't know how much longer SHIELD can be that buffer. For any of us."

I fell silent as she stood up to leave. Before she opened the door, she was struck with one more thought and turned around.

"The bruising on your legs…" She began.

"Just a result of being the clumsiest person you'll ever meet," I said quickly. It satisfied her.

"Be mindful," She urged as she disappeared behind the lab door, and I wondered if she knew.

The dark blotches the lined my thighs were remnants of long, violent nights with Loki. He was stronger than me, but I refused to let him hold back, meeting him every time with vicious intent and allowing my desire to pulse in the same vein as my anger. It wasn't a healthy way of releasing pent up aggression, but I couldn't stop myself.

I was reaching my breaking point with each order to stay down and stay put. I wanted to fight. Someone. Anyone. And now I was being asked to patiently trust while a war was literally brewing within me, stronger each day. The way Jemma had looked at me…telling me with her eyes that there was so much I didn't understand. That I could never understand. It was the special look everyone was saving for me those days. That didn't upset me. It was knowing they were absolutely right.

A mission helped. A distraction that I could devote my energy to, even if it would certainly be with little pay off. I was headed to work after my appointment, but I ran up to my room first to make sure I was semi-presentable. It would be the first time back in the office in a long time. An agent would escort me, which would be embarrassing, but at least my face would be seen. My watch, which I used to wear like a uniform to help distract from the burn marks on my wrist, lay on my dresser where it had been collecting dust. I hadn't had the energy or the need to hide scars as of late, every inch of my body being constantly handled and documented anyway. I slapped it on, anyway, in an attempt to remember my normal dress routine.

I was to leave through the back entrance, a car waiting for me. On my journey through the halls, however, I heard voices I couldn't resist.

"I haven't come to argue, brother," a deep timber caught my focus. It was a projected tone of one who had never learned how to properly whisper.

"You haven't come for me at all," said the snake-like utterance of Loki. "If you and the Danvers girl are truly going to Nornheim, am I expected to stay put?"

"Yes," the thunderous voice was calm. "I'm glad we are in agreeance." I could almost hear Loki roll his eyes.

"You need me. Or do you not remember who first restored the Norn Stone collection, bringing an era of undisturbed peace to the nine realms? If what you say is true, if Nornheim is somehow intact…I am trusted there. Your brawn will do nothing in a province of sorcery."

"Ah, Loki." I could almost picture his brother condescendingly shaking his blonde head. "You're reaching. One good deed in your youth does not forgive all your treachery."

"Has justice not yet been served? I am useful. That's the only reason I'm still here, isn't it? Let me be of use to you," It was hard to hear him desperate.

"Earth's punishment for you is out of my hands. You, a murderer a—what was it they call it? Terrorist?—you are being shown a kindness, extended to few others of your ilk. Do not take your position here for granted."

"I've heard that one before." I almost smiled at the irony of hearing my own words out of his mouth. It was unnerving how alike we were becoming.

"Brother, please—"

"Don't 'brother' me. It's sickening to hear you repeat that word as if it means anything to you."

"It means everything to me," Thor sighed mightily. "I'll keep you informed of what we find. That's one more kindness I can give you, though I don't owe you any."

"Information is nothing if one cannot act upon it."

"Fine, then. I will tell you nothing," He spoke just like a pestering older sibling.

"There may come a time, brother, when you are caged right alongside me."

"I doubt that."

"Your bloodshed is in equal weight to mine!" Loki hissed. "The only difference is the world I attacked happens to be the world I am stranded on."

"…That's right. And it makes all the difference." I could sense the god had been shaken, just slightly. "I must take my leave. They're waiting for me. I'll make contact upon my return."

"If you return," the mischief-maker muttered.

I heard Thor's loud footsteps enter the hall I'd stopped in, and immediately resumed walking as if I had only just begun the journey. Being the only two beings in the hallway, he smiled at me as we brushed past, but it did not disguise his look of frustration that he melted in and out of when he thought I wasn't looking. Loki was close behind, leaving the room as if he had intended to chase after Thor with one more insult, but almost bumping into me instead. He was surprised to see me, like he'd forgotten I existed, then relieved to remember.

"Maggie," He said, his voice entirely different from the one he'd used with his brother. "What are you still doing here?"

"I'm on my way out, now. What was that all about?" I jerked my head in the direction Thor had just stalked.

"Family meeting," Loki said dryly. He put his hands on my arms, involuntarily trying to ground himself for a moment. I scrunched my lips to one side.

"Come on, give me more than that," I gently bumped his elbow with my fist. "He hasn't stopped by in…at least since I've been here."

"A high energy signal was traced to the ruins of Asgard, somewhere over where a place called Nornheim used to stand. He's off to investigate with his new intergalactic travel companions."

"What do they think it is?"

"A strong enough relic could, perhaps, remain in the rubble of Ragnarok," He was starting to sound more dubious. "The Captain fears it could be scavenged if left alone, so she's flying ahead to locate the source. Thor sets out tonight in a ship of precarious design, accompanied by a moody tree and an armed rabbit. They're going to scour the surrounding area for any planetary debris still intact. Without. Me."

I knew he wanted me to console him, but my slow brain was still processing the story he had just spun.

"Why is your world so much more interesting than mine?" I finally asked.

That cheered his ego. He smiled and pressed his nose against my forehead.

"It's merely bigger."

When I reached the SHEILD headquarters, my first steps inside made my skin crawl like ghosts were caressing my arms. The place was emptier than I had ever seen it. The foyer was completely devoid of the modern furniture that once accented the bleak entrance, and the only agents in sight where the two manning security, and the one behind me that had the misfortune of being my personal bodyguard for the journey. It wasn't like the place was ever crawling. The agency had a much smaller world ever since their "rebranding", and smaller still following Thanos. Still, there was an air of absence that couldn't go unnoticed.

I had my badge pulled out and ready to scan, but when we approached the desk, we were directed to a set of freight elevators. I figured their orders were to keep me unnoticed, but they seemed to be going out of their way to make me feel like cargo.

"You know what's been going on here?" I asked my guard, who hadn't even done me the service of introducing himself. "Where is everybody?" I was terrified he was going to say budget cuts.

"A few teams have already been transferred to the Triskellion," He said gruffly, not meeting my eyes. "To help with the rebuild."

"Hill's that desperate to be neighbors with the Pentagon?" It wasn't a rhetorical question, but the man kept his mouth shut. I thought back to what Jemma had said about SHEILD being the only thing that stood in the government's way of holding supers accountable. The relationship had only strengthened with the implementation of the Sokovia Accords, the precursor to hero registration, but it was still rocky. There were too many gray areas on both sides, but under Hill's command the discrete organization had become just as much a force of the United States as the CIA. I couldn't tell if that was a good thing yet. It was clear not everyone thought so. For once, I was grateful to be a mutant. With all the discrimination we continued to receive, at least we were a back burner thought to the new future they were planning for powered people. That meant my work could go unrecognized.

It wasn't to our little office that I was brought, however. We went all the way up to the commissary, the cafeteria just as barren as the lobby had been. Save for one table by a wall length window, where Sonia sat with her hair in a tight bun, bent heavily over her laptop. Our footsteps broke her concentration and when she saw me she forced a smile.

"Welcome back, nerd," She gestured to the seat across from her, which I took. She was quoting a movie, I just couldn't remember which one.

"Hey," I was relieved to see her more at ease than she had been the night of the fundraiser. "Why here?"

She nodded over to my security personnel. He was standing few yards away, hands folded in front of him and eyes surveying the desolate space. "Your end chose the arena, not me. Guess the office was too risky." I felt cheated. I missed my cubicle.

"Right. Brushing my teeth for too long is 'risky' these days. So…How's tricks?"

"Busy," Sonia admitted. "We're helping to train an entirely new staff for the X-Corps, and it's moving at an abysmal rate. That, and we've been putting out all these Morlock fires. Literally." She spun her laptop toward me which displayed a New York Times article with the headline, Serial Arsonists in Chinatown Still at Large; Local Law Enforcement Suspects Mutant Involvement.

"And are you sure…?" We'd never solved the mystery of who was blaming the Morlocks for petty crime in the first place.

"It's them, this time. They're rioting. When Callisto was framed, they got fed up. We've caught a couple of them, doing stupid shit like breaking windows and defacing public places. It's nothing too serious. But of course they're treating it like a pandemic, a mutant uprising, so we've got to quell it as quickly as we can," She sounded tired.

"I hope I can help."

"Yeah," Sonia half-smiled. "I hope so, too."

I wanted to tell her she was doing a great job being in charge. That I was sorry I'd left her with messes to clean. I wanted to hug her and thank her for being the glue that held everyone together while I was gone, but…all of that sounded so selfish and superficial. The truth was clear. The task force was getting on fine without me. And I wanted to be happy about that.

Sonia slid a manila folder across the table, detective style.

"I'm guessing Hank chose you for this because he thinks she'll trust you. She's more likely to remember you than any of the rest of us," The bitterness didn't escape her voice. "As it is, she's agreed to meet. We've given the impression that you're a student from Culver University doing a piece on mutant law."

"That worked?"

"She refused everyone else. We thought a civilian cover might peak her interest. She's headed to the Ice Box on Friday, I think she's realized this is her last chance at contact with the outside world," Sonia said, tapping the folder. "Everything about the heist is in there, including a USB with all the security footage. All you have to do is find out why she confessed to a crime she didn't commit."

"You're really sure she didn't?" I asked. I was wondering Hank, in his desperation, hadn't overlooked the clearer answer. I'd been so quick to believe she wasn't capable. That it didn't make any sense. But I'd been wrong before, and I needed to be certain. Sonia did not appreciate my questioning of everything, not that she ever had, and she frowned.

"One of the Morlocks we brought in provided her alibi. It checks out," She said simply.

I put my hand on the case file and dragged it closer to me.

"Great. I've got homework," I said.

"2pm tomorrow. Please don't fuck it up."

"Only since you said 'please'."

A pause in which we both fully breathed for the first time. I leaned back in my chair and grinned at her, which she couldn't help but return.

"How are things? Really?" I asked. "How's Nancy? Karen? Monty? Nick? The intern, whatsername?"

"Nick actually just got transferred," She was already packing her laptop, ready for our conversation to be over. "To Cyberspace intelligence. In the army."

"Are you serious?"

"Very. Everyone else is...fine. Bummed about the state of things."

I chomped my bottom lip but it didn't stop my words from coming.

"I'm sor—"

"You remember when we first joined this thing?" Sonia was slipping back into her casual self, the one I remembered, and out of boss mode. She stared out the window at a breathtaking view, the golden sun just beginning to dip over the sides of the skyscrapers and into the Hudson River. "I was referred, you know. Half way through fucking police academy when I was lucky enough to get noticed. Not because I was any better than anyone else, or even close to being top of my class. Because I was…y'know, what we are. I was ecstatic. I knew it wasn't like we'd be heroes or anything. Those first few years, it was kinda like Brooklyn 99, just a bunch of detectives low on the pay grade who did paperwork and occasionally made a genius bust. That was enough for me. But now, things are just so fucking…"

"Complicated?"

"Yeah."

"I miss our sitcom life, too."

She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and finished clipping her briefcase with a small chuckle.

"You remember when it was all so simple?" She asked. "When it was just Tony Stark and his suit and all we had to do was count on him to save the day from an evil mad scientist? No wormholes, no magic. Captain America was just a drawing in a comic."

"And aliens and gods were still fairytales. Yeah, I almost remember," I laughed. "But I'm not sure I want to. I like feeling like my problems are small in comparison to the universe."

"Well," Sonia stood up. "They're not, anymore." It felt as though she were accusing me of something, but I couldn't tell what. Of being a disrupting anomaly that added to the thousands of rifts already threatening to end peace, maybe.

I got to my feet, alerting my agent escort. She had already begun to walk away when I called after her.

"Do you remember what Stark said to us on our first day?"

Sonia stopped, but only turned her head just slightly. I could see the corner of her smile.

"'Try not to die?'"

"'Don't make the mistake of thinking your value is marked by your power. You're here because you are what we need.'" I remembered it so clearly, the last time I was in the same room as him. He'd looked right at me. I wasn't even sure if he'd remembered me. But he looked at me like he did. That's charisma for you, I guess.

"Right," Sonia said. "The classic HR-mandated boss spiel."

"It was more than that. The world would be a very different place if someone else invented Iron Man first, but it wasn't. A good guy got a hold of extreme power, and the rest of us got lucky," I swallowed, the image of Tony Stark in his red framed glasses still burning in my mind. "You said you were only chosen for this because of your mutation, but that's just not true. And I…I don't know. I didn't want you to leave without me saying that."

She was quiet for a moment. Then, she turned like she was going to respond but instead just nodded. I watched her walk off, feeling the looming presence of the guard, and clutched the case file close to my chest. And I wondered...if I deserved my power the way Sonia and Iron Man did theirs. I wished, for the first time in a long time, that I could talk to Bruce.