Sigr Edda

by fina5

In Norse Mythology, the goddess Sigyn is the wife of Loki. In the MCU, she is a peasant that inadvertently gains the attention of the God of Mischief. As she falls for him over the course of a few decades, she will be forced to choose between her loyalty to Asgard and her devotion to the Allfather's traitor son. Events span from before the first Thor movie to past Endgame.

15. Goddess

New record for a chapter's wordcount with this story-nearly 22K! Get ready for some action!

Please read, review, and enjoy!

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Part Three: Earth

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Goddess

Sigyn moves on, or she tries to, anyway.

She busies herself with work, which has certain advantages. The division functions better than ever before. It is more efficient in their work, and those at the bottom—whether structurally or institutionally—feel more comfortable than ever. The only complaint she receives is over the resulting amount of paperwork, though she is quick to discard it. At the end of the day, she is the one with the biggest pile of work on her desk.

Another advantage is the steady rebuilding of her reputation, both in the army and throughout Asgard. People are slower to dismiss her, and after a while, some even seek her counsel. Overtime, she finds herself with supporting votes on her propositions to the Lower War Counsel, which is open to majors, colonels, and low-level generals.

A far lesser, tertiary advantage is that that she hasn't any time to think of a certain someone.

Almost a full year after Loki's attempted coup, Sigyn finds herself eating breakfast with her mother. It is how she spends most of her mornings, barring the few she spends sleeping after supervising a night shift. Today, she sits at the kitchen table in her armor, braiding her hair for work as she feasts on the ham Walentyna had made for dinner the night before. Fleetingly, she feels disappointed when her hair comes only to the back of her neck after so much time spent growing it.

Taking a sip of tea, Walentyna asks her, "Anything special today, dear?"

"No," she replies, abandoning her hair in favor of drinking from her own cup. "Just boring, old—" A knock at the door interrupts her, so she stands to answer it. "—paperwork and prison duty." Pulling the door open, she is surprised to find a palace steward standing outside. The last time a steward had been at her door, Loki had been sending her a letter with the directions for their date.

Pushing such a thought from her mind, Sigyn tries to keep her voice clear as she greets the man. "Hello. Can I help you?"

"Major Sigyn," he greets, nodding sharply. "The King Odin forthwith requires your presence in his private study."

Eyes widening in surprise, Sigyn refrains from gaping in shock. She has not heard from the royal family in quite some time, and she imagines whatever they want from her now cannot be any good. Perhaps today will not be so boring, after all, she thinks.

Equally as shocked, Walentyna stands from the table to join her at the door. "May I ask what this concerns," her mother asks the steward.

The man barely spares Walentyna a glance. "I am not at liberty to say, ma'am." Returning his unaffected gaze to Sigyn, he steps aside in a gesture for her to follow him. Begrudgingly, Sigyn does, sparing a quick moment to give her mother a farewell kiss on the cheek. The two of them wind through the early-morning crowds, entering the palace not more than ten minutes later. She allows herself to be led all the way to Odin's study despite knowing the way well. When they arrive, two guards—one of whom is her former commander Colborn, who gives her a grin—open the doors to the study, permitting her to enter.

On the other side of the doors, she is greeted by three people with whom she had honestly hoped not have to interact again. Standing beside a grand desk with Gungnir in hand, Odin looks as stoic and black-hearted as ever. He is slightly tempered by his kind wife, though Sigyn knows just how uncordial she can be when the situation calls for it. Thor stands nearer to Sigyn, wearing a horribly troubled frown.

Mechanically, Sigyn bows. "Your Majesties. Your Highness." She makes a conscious effort not to make eye-contact with Odin as he has always unnerved her. This results, unfortunately, in her locking eyes with the queen.

"Sigyn, dear," she says, taking a step closer to her. "How are you?"

Fucking incredible. Thanks for firing me, Sigyn is tempted to reply, though she admirably abstains. Instead, she spares Frigga a smile that more closely resembles a grimace, responding, "Well. Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Enough fanfare," Odin declares, cutting through any residual awkwardness from their interaction with his brusqueness. She gives him her attention, and he continues, "You have been called here for a purpose."

"Yes," she concedes, ducking her head in deference. "How may I be of service?"

"Loki is alive," he divulges without any further preamble.

Eyes snapping up, Sigyn gapes in sheer disbelief as the words ring in her head. Her memories seek to deny them, forcing her to recall her learning of his death and the sight of the broken end of the Bifrӧst. She wonders how it is that Odin can say Loki is alive. It had been he and Thor who had watched him fall to his death, after all.

Thor calls her name, bringing her attention to him. All at once, she realizes she has been staring into space, unresponsive to whatever had been going on around her. Gathering her wits about her in spite of the distinct awareness she is developing of a thawing, numb sensation in her chest, she grapples for something to say. "I am not sure I understand."

"As are we," Frigga admits, clenching her hands in front of her in a fashion that reminds Sigyn of her suddenly-not late son. "All we know is that he is on Midgard with sinister plans."

"And the Tesseract," Odin adds, surprising Sigyn yet again. She knows little of the Tesseract, as is the case for most Asgardians. From what she understands, it had been used to create much of their technology in eons past, including the Bifröst. Some time ago, it had been lost on Midgard, and their forces had been unable to recover it, some believing it to have been destroyed. For Loki to have found such a powerful artifact after all this time spells only extreme worry.

Clenching her jaw, she tries in vain to organize her jumbled thoughts. They range between angry, sorrowful, heartbroken, bewildered, and furious. "If Loki is alive—"

"He is," Odin interjects, casting her a spiteful glare. "You and the Prince Thor will go to Midgard to retrieve him and the Tesseract at once."

Frigga steps in again to allay Odin's words. "We think it is you and Thor who have the best chance of bringing him back," she clarifies.

Sigyn lets out a disgruntled puff of air, reluctant to resign herself to such a fate. In her current emotional state, having so abruptly learned of Loki's not-death, she is not sure she is suited to deal with such a delicate matter on such short notice. Frankly, she worries that when she sees Loki, he finally will be made dead. Still, she is in no position to refuse the Allfather.

Oblivious to her misgivings, Thor speaks for them both. "We will not fail you, Father." With that, he gives a curt nod to each of his parents and strides from the room. She follows him out after bowing once more, unhappily tasked with bringing a dead man back to life.

Sure as Odin had demanded, she and Thor leave Asgard promptly. Briefly, she sends her astral form to inform her mother of her imminent departure. Kettil accompanies her to the Bifrӧst, and she tells him everything he needs to know in order to lead the squadron in her absence.

"How long will you be gone," he asks as they reach the end of the bridge. Thor stands ahead of them, exchanging a few hushed words with Heimdall. After Loki's destruction of the Bifröst, they had rebuilt it, but the chamber holds no purpose as of now. As she understands it, Heimdall will be using dark magic to send them forth in the Bifröst's absence.

Sigyn takes the moment to shift her attire into something more versatile. Years prior, she had learned how to shape her armor so that it would actually fit her, but it remains too bulky for the unknowns of what her mission may throw at her, so she morphs it into a simple chest plate over her usual short, blue dress. All she leaves of her uniform is her cape.

Shrugging after her new attire settles into place on her body, she answers, "No more than a few hours, I imagine." Loki may have with him the Tesseract, but unless he has an army, she doubts it will take too much of their efforts to drag him back home, kicking and screaming though he may be.

"Understood," Kettil responds, nodding. Before turning to head back across the bridge, he bids her good-bye. "Until tomorrow then, Major."

A nod from Heimdall signals that he is ready to send them off, so she steps forward until she is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Thor, Heimdall standing before them. Solemnly, he hands her a glass and metal capsule. Each side of the capsule has a grip, and with a hand on one end, Heimdall twists until it pops off like a cap. "By storing the Tesseract in here and twisting this end firmly into place, you can repower the Bifröst and return home," he tells her and Thor. Screwing the cap back on, he steps back to stand at Thor's other side, and Sigyn stores the capsule away for safekeeping.

With one hand on his sword's hilt, Heimdall closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose, readying himself for whatever ritual he need perform to send them forth. When he reopens his eyes, they seem to glow brighter, shining in the dim light of the Bifröst's dome. His voice deep and gravelly, he pronounces, "Allfathers, let the dark magic flow through me now."

Taking a quick, deep breath, Sigyn steels herself for the journey. She has travelled through the Bifröst before, but she cannot fathom as to how different this experience will be. Will there still be a bridge, or does this form of travel more closely resemble teleportation?

Before she can hypothesize any further, a thousand beams of iridescent light appear from over Heimdall's shoulder, slamming into her and Thor. With a surprising gentleness, it picks them off the ground and slides them through the open door of the Bifröst. Within the confines of bridge, which is strangely fluid and more confined than usual, Sigyn shifts so that she is actively propelling herself through space as opposed to merely floating along.

When the light fades after a few short moments, they find themselves soaring through the Midgardian night sky, wind and water whipping around them. Both of them right themselves for flight before setting off, Thor using his hammer to propel himself and Sigyn flying alongside him in the form of a sizable wyvern as they rip through clouds and dodge mountain tops.

Thor points out a small ship flying below them. It is moving quickly, but not so fast as to leave them behind in its wake. "Is Loki in there," he shouts at her over the wind.

Sucking in a deep breath, Sigyn readies herself for the moment of truth. If Loki truly is alive, she will feel his presence the moment she taps into the astral plane. On a base level, she knows she wants to feel him there. The alternative is too devasting to contemplate. She does not want to have come all this way with a small bit of hope that he lives only for it to be a dashed so quickly. That being said, with anger already brewing within her, knowing that he has been alive this whole time and let everyone in Asgard stew over his death very well may bring out an ugly, visceral reaction in her that she would rather not experience.

Thor calls out to her again, awaiting her response. Shaking herself from her thoughts, she ascends her mind to the astral plane and takes in its sensations. She feels Thor closest to her, along with five other lifeforms not far off. Zeroing in on those contained in the vessel beneath them, she is quick to discern that four of them are unfamiliar mortals and that the last is a Jotun whose presence is one her soul had before ached to feel again.

It is true, then, he is alive, she thinks as she feels his astral form twitch in his body, uneased by something of which she is sure she will soon become aware. Sigyn schools her emotions, unwilling to let relief, disappointment, or any other possibly maudlin sentiment overtake her. She lets fury build up in her though, a low growl sounding through her long throat.

Giving Thor the affirmative, she speaks, He's there, into his mind. He does not startle as others often do, likely having gotten used to the sensation after centuries with his mother and brother. There are four others with him.

As soon as she confirms Loki's presence in the airborne vessel, Thor descends to reach it, leaving Sigyn to follow closely behind him. Once they reach the ship, the two of them land on its top, Thor crouching low and Sigyn digging in with her claws to avoid being thrown off by the wind. Beneath them, a hatch opens, and Thor takes the opportunity to enter the vehicle. He emerges seconds later with Loki in his grasp, their hair and capes fluttering in the heavy breeze as Thor takes off again. Sigyn follows them, placing a glamour over herself so as to stay out of sight.

Over her scaley shoulder, she notices as two of the mortals—one clad in red, metal armor and the other in a blue suit—exit the ship a short time later. Neither notices her.

Thor lands a fair distance from the ship, dropping Loki on a cliffside. Why is it, she wonders sardonically, touching down on a nearby treetop, the two of them always face off with an edge off which to fall within reach?

She is too far away to hear anything said between them, so she waits patiently for the time being. A little while into their argument, the two of them yell about the Tesseract and kings, but that is all she is able to discern.

Much to her further chagrin, Thor backs Loki to the edge of the mountainside, holding up Mjolnir. He says something too quiet for her to hear before he is promptly torn off the mountain himself by the red-armored mortal. The two of them land in the forest below, but she is not concerned with them. Thor can take care of himself, and she was not sent all this way to babysit him. Besides, she would much rather yell at Loki, who has taken a seat to watch the fight between his brother and the metal man.

Quietly, she disembarks from the tree, setting down just behind him and reverting to her true form. "Enjoying the show," she asks, tone as cold and detached as she can make it. She cannot have him knowing his return to the land of the living has any effect on her. He would be unbearable otherwise.

His head snaps around, but it is she who feels more surprised than he looks. From up close, his disposition is simply ghastly: face gaunt, eyes tired, and skin shining with a sheen of nervous sweat. He looks horrible, and feeling mean, she cannot help but say as much.

Her words must pull him out of whatever shock he had been feeling at her sudden appearance. Feigning nonchalance, he gets to his feet. Sweeping his eyes up her form, he comments, "I see you are growing out your hair again."

Her anger flares at the same time that lightning does in the distance, irked that he would dare make such a glib, unfeeling remark. She starts forward, expecting him to back up in response. He does not, so she grits her teeth through the discomfort of being so close to such a—

"—lying bastard," she shouts, practically spitting in his face. "How could you be alive this whole time, letting us all think you dead?"

Brow raised, he drones, "I did not think anyone would care."

"Bullshit," she growls, fighting the urge to grip his collar and shake him. If she was to touch him now, she honestly could not say whether she would collapse into his arms or beat the shit out of him. Frankly, she knows not which option she would prefer.

He continues, drawling, "If anything, it appears my absence has done you well." He pauses meaningfully, his eyes drawing to the royal blue cape hanging from her shoulders. "Major."

Absolutely abhorrent at the mere implication that Loki faking his death could have been even remotely beneficial to her, Sigyn flinches at the offense. "How dare you—"

"Alright," someone says from behind her. "I'll take it from here."

She whirls around, rage still reigning over her expression, coming face-to-face with the metal man. His thin eyes shine with blue light, and his form is littered with dents, likely from his fight with Thor. "I should think not," she spits, unable to behave amiably in the face of her fury. "I do not answer to mortals."

He takes a foolish step forward. "Listen, Zenobia, you're out of your jurisdiction here. So long as he's on Earth, Loki is my prisoner."

Sigyn throws back her head, scoffing. "Try not to exert whatever immaterial authority you think you have over me. I shall not warn you again."

The metal man holds up his hands in what he must believe to be a placating manner. "Look, I get that you may trust me about as far as you can throw me—"

Interrupting, she informs him, "I could throw you into your sun if I so wished." Behind her, Loki laughs at her retort. She tries to ignore him, but she twitches at the sound of his laugh despite herself. It is so like it was—mirthful and fiendish—but it distinctly lacks any sort of joy in a way that disturbs her beyond comprehension.

Thor chooses this moment to propel himself back up the mountain, conveniently landing in between Sigyn and the nameless mortal, who addresses him, "Can you help me out here, pal?"

Thor turns to her, ordering, "Let the mortals have him. Earth has unfinished business with Loki, and we cannot leave without the Tesseract."

For a moment, she contemplates debating Thor on the issue, not at all fond of the idea of leaving Loki to the mortals. To do so would doubtlessly prolong their stay on Midgard. Besides, who is to say what the mortals plan to inflict on him? No matter how angry she may be with Loki right now, she does not want him subjected to torture. Still, she supposes, without the Tesseract, they cannot leave, and the Midgardians may have a better lead on its location.

Reluctantly, she complies, stepping to the side so that the mortal can secure Loki with a chain that ties to both of his wrists. "Should o' done this to start with," he grumbles to himself. Privately, Sigyn disagrees. She imagines Loki could snap the chain of flimsy Midgardian metal in two with a flick of his wrist.

After Loki is poorly secured, the four of them make their way down the mountain to a clearing in the forest below, where the mortal vessel has set down to collect its missing passengers.

A man dressed in an extraordinarily tight red, white, and blue suit steps up to Thor. "I take it you'll be riding with us now?"

"You assume correctly," Thor tells him, trailing off at the end in a silent request for the mortal's name. Sigyn turns her head away as she silently grumbles to herself, displeased with having to engage in social niceties during this delay in their return to Asgard.

"Captain Steve Rogers," he supplies, offering his hand for Thor to shake. Sigyn notices the metal man—who has lifted his mask to reveal a bearded, human face—rolling his eyes as he escorts Loki back onto the ship.

Before she can ponder as to why the mortals seem at odds with one another, Steve turns to Sigyn, asking, "And who might you be, ma'am?"

Not quite capable of doing away with her sour disposition, she supplies her name and rank as she grips his arm in a sullen greeting. Moving past him, she climbs up the ship's ramp and takes in her new surroundings. The ship is lined with seats and various gear on either side of its cabin, and it appears to be piloted by a mortal sitting at its front wearing a helmet and all black clothing.

A woman with pale skin and short, red hair perks up at the introduction she had given Steve. "Sigyn, did you say?" With a nod, Sigyn confirms that the woman had heard her correctly.

The metal man, in the midst of securing Loki in his seat, grumbles, "Great. The whole family's here."

Thor and Sigyn exchange a confused look. "I do not understand your meaning," Thor tells him as he drops into a seat next Loki, who shifts away from him.

The mortal ambles over to the other side of the ship before responding. "First, Loki shows up. Now, his wife and brother—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Sigyn interrupts, holding up a hand. She points at Loki but does not risk sparing him a glance. She hardly wants to imagine the smug look he must be wearing, let alone see it. "I am not his wife."

The red-haired woman asks, "So, you're, like, a different Sigyn?"

Further disgruntled, she slowly intones, "No." Sigyn, while not an odd name, is rare. Her mother had picked it out from a Vanir book older than her grandmother. She is certain no one else in Asgard has her name, and more so that Loki is not married to them.

Steve frowns at her, hands gripping his belt. "But you're sayin' you're not the Goddess of Victory?"

Utterly flabbergasted, Sigyn takes a full step back, which nearly takes her outside of the ship's entrance again. "I have never heard of such a person."

"And you're not sisters with the Goddess of Caution," the metal man adds.

Another denial dies where it had been ready on her tongue. Haldana, the Goddess of Caution, is indeed her sister. Clenching her jaw, she makes an acquiescent noise. "I may be."

Silence fills up the aircraft, growing more uncomfortable with each passing second. Naturally, it is Sigyn who feels most uncomfortable of all. She had been anticipating coming to Midgard with complete anonymity, much as has been the case whenever she has visited Vanaheim. For the humans to be familiar with her is entirely unexpected, as are any odd titles and would-be familial relations that come with such recognition.

The silence is broken by a bit of raucous laughter from Loki, prompting Sigyn to relent in her attempt at ignoring him. She swivels to regard him, vexation painting her features. The long column of his throat is exposed as he throws his head back in laughter, and while a part of her acknowledges that she once would have found such a sight so appealing, Sigyn now pictures herself placing her hand there and squeezing hard enough to shut him up. "You told them that I am your wife," she accuses, it being the only logical explanation for how the humans know of her. "And that I am some kind of goddess?"

Coming down from his fit of laughter, breath coming out in small puffs, he answers, "I swear, I knew naught of this."

"As if I believe anything you have to say," she spits, ducking down to glare at him at eye-level. Reluctantly, she takes the seat on his other side, preferring to sit by him as opposed to any of the mortals with whom she is unfamiliar. At least with him, she reasons, she knows what to expect.

From Loki's other said, Thor pipes up again. "Well, congratulations, Sigyn."

Fiddling with the belts tied to her seat, she mutters, "Congratulations for what?" She looks across the ship to where Steve is strapped into his own seat, discerning that the two metal ends of the interwoven belts are meant to fit into each other. As to how, she cannot quite fathom.

As though confused by her line of questioning, Thor answers, "For becoming a god."

"Ha-ha," she intones, for once not worried about being short with the man. In the past, she has never spoken so casually with the Prince Thor, though she supposes that is simply because they have never before been each other's only allies. "Simply because the humans believe me a goddess does not mean I am one," she tells him.

"How is it you believe we became gods, then," Loki asks her. Despite his hands being bound, he moves them over to her front as though to help her with the confusing seat straps.

Disgruntled, she smacks his hands away, unwilling to accept his help. Half-sarcastic, she wonders, "Because the Allfather said so?" It would not surprise her, Odin handing out semi-meaningless titles as he sees fit.

As the vessel's hatch closes and the pilot starts up its engine, both Thor and Loki give her a look that spells silent confirmation.

"So, what, suddenly I am a goddess," she asks, her breath coming in short. Her lungs feel as though they have taken in enough weight to inhibit her from taking a deeper breath, fueling her growing alarm.

Half-attentive, Thor shrugs a shoulder and responds, "More like you've been one the whole time, unbeknownst to you."

In numb disbelief, she finally manages to make the metal pieces in her hands fit together with a resounding click. Staring off into the curved, metal wall of the cabin across from her, she brings a hand to her agape mouth. To think all her life she has been just as much a goddess as has been Haldana, but no one so much as took notice.

"Just think," Loki says, leaning down to speak into her ear. "If any of us had known, Odin probably would have given us his permission to marry, and you really would be my wife."

Sigyn resists the urge to shiver, turning her head just enough to glare up at him. As she does so, she happens to catch sight of the two mortal men who had followed after Loki and Thor. The both of them are looking between her and Loki with very judgmental stares. Self-conscious, she feels a growing shame that this entire time, the humans have been watching their far too-personal discussion transpire. Cutting Loki a final, scathing glower, she attempts to finish the argument, remarking, "You are assuming I would have given my consent."

Unfortunately, Thor decides to come to his brother's aid, prolonging her suffering and embarrassment. With far too much certainty, he chimes in, "You would have."

Leaning across Loki to look at him, she gives him a curt, unhappy smile. "Respectfully, Your Highness, you hardly know me."

"I think I know you well enough," he asserts, glancing over at her. When she stares back at him, unmoved, he makes an attempt to prove himself, "I know your favorite color is blue."

Pointedly, she glances down at her blue dress. "Lucky guess."

Not one to be outdone, he sighs, looking terribly put upon as he continues his list. "I know your mother's name is Walentyna. I know you use lavender perfumes. I know you lost your virginity in your third century—"

"Loki," Sigyn screeches, cutting off Thor before he can rattle off any more embarrassing trivia about her. She glares at Loki, yelling, "Why have you been divulging such things about me?"

Loki holds up his bound hands as though mystified about her pique. "What, can a man not speak of his wife?"

Loudly, she groans in frustration, wishing she had refrained from giving out her name so as to not have learned about her reputation on Midgard. Scowling, she grumbles, "I hate this planet."

Loki lets out a particularly nasty laugh this time. "I told you I would take you to new realms."

Sigyn remains silent at this, too upset to say anything lest it be no more than unintelligible garbling. When he had promised to show her the other realms, she remembers, his offer had been genuine and saccharine. Now, it is purely malicious and makes her want to rake her nails across the smug smirk on his face.

Mercifully, the red-haired woman chooses this moment to send her a life line. "Hey, Sigyn. Do you wanna come up here and see how we fly this thing?"

Grateful for the distraction, Sigyn agrees, "Borr, yes. Please." As quickly as she can, she unbuckles the harness she had only just managed to secure around her and hops up from her seat. She steps carefully over to the other side of the ship, not wanting to tumble over should it lurch unexpectedly. When she makes it over to the front of the vessel, the man seated there gets up and takes one of the seats by the other mortals, allowing her to take his spot. She does so, careful not to disturb any of the levers, switches, or buttons that litter a long panel sitting before her.

After she is buckled into her new seat, the other woman shows her which switches to flip to keep the vessel level in the air, how to steer off of something she calls autopilot, and how to pull up Midgard's star map over the window that peers out into the sky. Sigyn wonders at it all quietly, finding it so unlike the small vessels they use on Asgard to skim over land and water.

"I'm Natasha, by the way," says the woman, her lips quirking up in a charitable smile. After a moment, she adds. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Yes, Sigyn thinks, she does want to talk about it. She wants to talk about why Loki thought it appropriate to betray Asgard and fake his death. She wants to talk about her horribly sudden ascendence to godliness after a lifetime of peasantry. She wants to talk about the strange look in Loki's eyes and the ominous feeling growing inside her the longer they remain on this planet, but not with someone she hardly knows.

Sighing, she settles on saying, "We are the only two women here. I would really prefer we not talk about a man."

Natasha chuckles, relaxing and looking away from Sigyn as she moves to press various buttons on the flight console before them. "I can get behind that. It'd be pretty hard for us to pass the Bechdel Test otherwise."

"Exactly," Sigyn agrees, watching the horizon as the vessel pulls over a cloud bank and levels out. However, after a moment—during which she wonders at how few stars the Midgardian sky seems to have—she comes up short at what Natasha had said about a test. "Wait, what?"

---

Once on what Natasha calls a helicarrier, Steve, Thor, and Sigyn are herded into what appears to be a control room for military exercises. The front half of the room is framed entirely by windows, revealing the dark skies surrounding the larger vessel. People mill about, engaging with odd, glowing desktop devices. She and the group with which she had arrived—save for the metal man, Tony Stark, who had ran off the moment they had landed—sit at a conference table in the back, watching a visual of Loki's prison cell. He and the Director Fury of the organization with which they're working, S.H.I.E.L.D., share taunts to which Sigyn barely listens.

Upon arriving on the new ship, she and Thor had been made aware of Loki's actions on Midgard thus far. After stealing the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D., he had brainwashed several scientists and agents with a golden scepter he'd had with him when he had appeared on Midgard, blown up one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bases, and stolen various pieces of rare Terran technology from around the globe. Altogether, he is not making a very good impression of himself or Asgard, and he seems intent on conquering the planet and depriving the humans of their freedom, or so he claims. Worst of all, it turns out he does have with him an army, one that has yet to arrive. Sigyn has to keep herself from groaning aloud when one of the humans, a son of Coul, tells them that Loki spoke of the Chitauri, dreading the thought of having to waste her time fighting such a mindless horde of aggressors.

When the moving picture of Loki's cell fades away, a bespectacled man who had introduced himself as Doctor Bruce Banner comes to stand at her right. In a faux-cheery tone, he comments, "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve says, seated on her other side. "So, Thor, Sigyn, what's his play?"

Thor, who has been anxiously standing off to the side since their arrival, gives a slow answer. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army," Steve repeats, looking to Natasha in mild disbelief. "From outer space."

Sigyn's lips twist in dismay. "They are a particularly nasty if sloppy lot," she adds, four sets of eyes shifting to regard her. "Asgard is usually left to pick up after their wreckage. That being said, I cannot say from whom Loki has been gifted the Chitauri."

Natasha's brow furrows, producing a deep groove in the skin above her nose. "Are you saying that Loki's not the mastermind here?"

Heaving a grand sigh, Sigyn carefully considers her next words. "From our limited interaction on your world thus far, I cannot imagine any other elucidation."

Steve turns toward her in his seat. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he is," she says slowly, sparing Thor a wary glance, "off."

Eagerly, Bruce agrees with her. "Yeah, that guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him."

Having held his tongue during Sigyn's characterization of Loki's current mindset, Thor objects to the human's assessment. "Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."

Glumly, Natasha chimes in. "He killed eighty people in two days."

Sigyn winces, thinking back to the time she had been in the hospital. She had just killed Norval, and Loki had tried to comfort her by happily admitting to being a murderer. Horrified with herself, she wonders at having ignored his faults for so long.

Awkwardly scrambling for an acceptable explanation of his defense of Loki simultaneous to her internal chastisement, Thor opts to say, "He's adopted."

Leaning back in her seat, Sigyn feels obligated to make her thoughts known. "I think Bruce here is right." Thor shoots her a reproachful look, but she is quick to assuage him. "Something is off about him, you must admit. He's not exactly putting his best foot forward." Steve turns to her, query written on his face, so she continues, "Loki is and has always been an egotistical, murderous lunatic, but he usually tries to mask that side of him and win people over. He's certainly not doing that now. If I had to wager a guess, I would say it has to do with whomever has him under their dominion."

"If that is indeed true," Thor counters. Not willing to wade into an open dispute with the prince, Sigyn simply shrugs, and the topic is dropped.

Tony enters the room with the son of Coul, then, speaking in hushed tones. Thereafter, he goes on to spout what Sigyn can only imagine is a series of nonsenses, including something about a Galaga. The group starts talking about portals and power sources after that. Sigyn pays attention but does not think too hard about it all, deciding to file away such information for later.

"Finally," Tony says after Bruce had commented on something he had said about a quantum tunneling effect, gesturing to the other man. "Someone who speaks English."

Steve shifts in his seat, looking again to Sigyn. "Is that what just happened?"

She leans over to him, as well, inquiring, "What is 'English?'" At her question, he gives her an odd look and turns back to face their companions. Shrugging, she does the same.

Tony and Bruce shake hands, Tony saluting, "It's good to meet'cha, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled, and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous, green rage monster."

Sigyn raises her brow, not quite sure what any of that meant.

"Thanks," Bruce says, but not as though he means it.

The man from the moving picture, Fury, enters the room. "Doctor Banner is only here to track the Cube," he firmly asserts, speaking to Tony. "I was hoping you might join 'im."

Steve jumps in, suggesting, "I'd start with that stick o' his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a H.Y.D.R.A. weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube," Fury says, though Sigyn privately disagrees. From what she understands about the Tesseract, its powers concern spatial portals and energy, not mind control. No matter, Fury goes on, stating, "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys," Thor questions, and Sigyn echoes his sentiment. "I do not understand—"

Excited, Steve points at him, informing the group, "I do." Everyone looks over at him, Tony going so far as to roll his eyes. "I-I understood that reference."

Turning back to Bruce, Tony offers, "Shall we play, Doctor," and leads him away.

Fury turns to Sigyn. "In the meantime, Major, I'd appreciate it if you had a word with your husband. Maybe you could convince him to tell you where the Tesseract is?"

Standing, she heaves an irritated yet resigned sigh. "Again, Loki is not my husband, but very well. I would not like to have come all this way for naught."

She takes her leave from the room, wandering down the ship corridors until she comes upon a chamber that looks as though it used to be some sort of passageway through which large inventory could have been received or disembarked before it housed a prison. The walls are lined with machinery and metal, all tinted a dark shade of gray. In the room's center lies the glass cell in which Loki is contained for the time being.

He rests on a bench at the far end of the cell, silently regarding her. His fingers are clasped tightly over his lap, a nervous tick that does not go unnoticed by her. "Ah, my lovely wife. I suspected they would send you first."

"As you should have," she replies, not bothering to correct him as she had Fury. She wants information from him, so it would not do to needlessly agitate him so early on. "The only reason I am here is to persuade you to stop this nonsense and return to Asgard."

Standing, he clasps his hands behind his back and meanders over to her. Once they stand roughly a foot apart, he leans forward so that their faces are at level with one another through the thick glass. "A fool's errand."

Willing to play along if it will get her the information she wants, she gives him a coy smile. "I suppose, I have been foolish where you are concerned."

With a bitter smile in turn, he gives a short, sour laugh. "Well, if that isn't the understatement of the millennium."

Sigyn watches her expression turn incredulous in the glass. "Excuse me?"

He shrugs, stepping back to pace up and down the length of his prison. "I gave you a chance before to be with me, yet you turned it down."

A laugh bubbles out of her in disbelief. The one thing she had come to be sure of in the past year was how prudent it had been for her to decline his advances in the past. If she had not, she very well could have been occupying this cell with him. "And you think me a fool for that," she asks, indignant.

Loki turns back to look at her then, hair whipping over his shoulder to reveal a vicious expression. "I think we could have avoided this entire ordeal if you had not refused me."

"Ha," she exclaims in disbelief, her brow raising in ire. Striding up to his cell, she stands what would be toe-to-toe with him if not for the thick glass between them. "Are you honestly implying that if I had ceded to your inappropriate pursuits, you would not be here, hiding behind a heedless army and trying to claim power over the most pitiful realm you could find?"

Still unused to being on the receiving side of his malevolent grins, Sigyn grimaces as he slowly replies, "I was referring not to this instance of hostile takeover on my part."

Grimace morphing into an all-out frown, her gaze moves to the floor as she considers what Loki has said. That she knows of, there is only one other instance in which he had tried to seize power for his own selfish desires. One, she recalls now, that had happened to coincide with their first and only date.

"Are you telling me," she starts, quiet and furious in a grave rasp. "The justification behind your trying to oust your brother from the line of succession and take your father's throne was to gain my hand?"

Loki clicks his tongue, appearing mock-contemplative. "You know, when you put it like that," he falsely ponders, face splitting farther, "it almost seems as though that—and this, really—is all your fault."

"Enough," she hisses, her whisper cutting through the air and silencing him. Despite his quiet, however, he appears anything but reproachful, not bothering to so much as step back from the glass. Fed up with him, she softly voices the question that brought her all this way, "Where is the Tesseract?"

The smile still does not slip from Loki's face, merely growing smaller. After a moment, that which she believes he takes not to collect his thoughts, but to torment her further, he whispers back, "Do you truly believe I am going to tell you?"

No, she thinks, she does not. It certainly had been foolish of her to ever think that she would be able to get anything out of him, just as he had said. He clearly wants to be here, and no amount of asking nicely on her part is going to deter him from whatever aim he means to attain.

"Very well," she relents, seeing no purpose in unnecessarily prolonging her suffering. Loki means only to antagonize her, and she will not give him such a victory, no matter how small.

With the final word, she turns away from the unrelenting, mad look shining in Loki's eyes and heads from the room without looking back. Driven by mindless anger and a newfound sense of guilt at the revelation Loki had shared with her, she stomps her way through the ship. Midgardian soldiers scramble to remove themselves from her path as she goes, likely troubled by the incensed mask she wears.

Finally, she stumbles into a bright, white room surrounded by windows and occupied by two familiar men. At first, she contemplates dipping back out into the hall, not in the mood to entertain the humans, but one of them spots her before she can make her exit.

"Hey there, Zenobia," Tony says, sparing her a glance as his fingers fly over a translucent screen in front of him. "What's shaking?"

Panting slightly from her light jog through the ship, she clenches her jaw and tries to address the easiest part of what he's said. "Why do you keep calling me 'Zenobia?'"

The other man, Bruce, answers for him, looking entirely uncomfortable with the situation. "Uh, Zenobia was this Arab warrior queen, so I think Tony here is just making that comment based on you looking like an, uh, Arab warrior queen."

Certainly not understanding what about her appearance makes her look like a queen—but resenting the implication that it has anything to do with the humans' belief that she and Loki are married—she elects to ignore it, grunting, "What does 'Arab' mean?"

"It's an ethnicity on Earth," Tony explains, popping something from the silver-colored bag in his hand into his mouth. He notices her gaze travel down to it, and offers, "Blueberry?"

She waves him off, turning her head away as she digests the new information the two of them have unwittingly given her. She looks like an Arab—whatever that really means, though she has to imagine it has something to do with her height as everyone else around here is so short—but more importantly, humans are an ethnic people. Ethnic species tend to be less developed and more prone to pointless wars and conflict amongst themselves and with others. In this scenario, this bodes poorly for her as it makes it even more likely that the humans will overreact to Loki's threat of the Chitauri. I am going to be here for weeks, she thinks, groaning.

"You never answered my question," Tony pipes up again, stealing back her attention. She wanders over to him and Bruce, stopping and leaning against the counter at which they are working on various pieces of Terran technology. When still she does not say anything, he makes an impatient gesture, and she sighs, relenting.

If Loki had planned to ask her on a date in the same week that he had planned to pull off a coup, she reasons, it must have had to do with his original reasoning for the coup itself. At the time, he had make a comment about Odin being more likely to approve of them once Loki had done a good job as prince regent, but surely that was not the intent behind his entire plot?

Carefully, she poses the question, "If you indulge someone who is mad, and they do something mad, who bears the responsibility? You or they?"

Both men look at her confused, manifestly having not expected such a question. Neither of them truly knows anything about her situation with Loki, but perhaps that is a good thing. If it had been Thor in whom she had chosen to confide, he might have figured out her connection to the coup and told his father, who would have surely executed her for treason.

Bruce ventures an answer first, though he is quickly censored. "Well, I think it's a little dicey to oversimplify like—"

"It depends," Tony answers succinctly, cutting him off. Bruce does not look too dismayed, shrugging and going back to what he had been doing with the set of tools in front of him.

She leans forward, curious to hear the rest of Tony's answer. She understands that he may be younger than her in years as mortals typically live far shorter lives than do her people, but he appears to be in the middle of his life. Perhaps the maturity from that alone could allow him to shed a knowledgeable light on her situation with Loki. "How so," she asks.

Quietly mumbling to himself, he steps out from behind the counter, coming around to her side. Leaning alongside her, he elaborates, "Well, did you know Loki was crazy?"

Sigyn takes a quick breath, annoyed at how easily he had gotten to the crux of her question. Then again, she supposes, there are few other people about whom she could have been speaking. Still, she denies his claim, "I did not mean—"

He waves a hand in her face and tsks at her until she stops speaking. She pinches her lips together, surprised at his gall. "Come on," he says. "Don't try to play me."

Tsking back at him, she grunts, "Fine. No, I did not think him mad at the time." Though, there were certainly signs, she privately acknowledges.

"Well, there you go," he says, shrugging and popping another blueberry into his mouth. "You're not guilty. He is." He goes back over to Bruce's side, looking over the other man's shoulders to spy what he is working on. After finding whatever he is looking at to be satisfying, he climbs onto the countertop and crosses his legs, much as a child would.

Sigyn chooses to ignore his strange choice of seating, and not quite pleased with his answer, she ventures, "But I—"

"Nope," he interrupts, cutting her off. "Whatever wacko thing Loki did isn't your fault. Let it go and eat a blueberry." Roughly, he thrusts the bag over at her, shaking it under her nose until she rolls her eyes and plucks a berry from inside it.

"Very well," she acquiesces before popping the berry into her mouth. As she tastes the sweetness of the fruit, she is not sure whether or not she should be surprised at how very much alike it is to fruits on Asgard. Many things on Earth seem akin to things on Asgard, she has noticed. The people look the same but for some aberrations. The sky appears the same, there being clouds and a similarly-sized sun. She wonders, perhaps, if Midgard had been fashioned after Asgard by one of the old gods, or if the reverse is true.

Loud footsteps suddenly call her attention, and she looks behind her to see Fury stride into the lab with urgency. "What are you doing, Mister Stark," he asks, his tone demanding and colored with thinly-veiled contempt.

Looking as unbothered as he had when she had walked into the room moments before in a similar huff, Tony nonchalantly replies, "Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

Fury stops on Sigyn's left, happy to ignore her and Bruce as he reminds Tony, "You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

Sigyn frowns, confused at Fury's implication. All this time, she had thought looking for the Tesseract had been the purpose behind Tony and Bruce's work. She looks at the strange, Terran screens again to discern the information on them. From what she can tell, they seem to be tracing various points of data, though she cannot say as to what the data concerns.

Banner responds to Fury in Tony's place, "We are. The model's locked, and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." He points at another screen that hangs across the room, at which she and Fury both look. This one has a spinning image of the Midgardian planet, and it reads that it is tracking for something with a gamma signature. Sigyn wonders at its ability to trace the Tesseract specifically. There must be nothing else on Earth that gives off so much gamma radiation.

"Yeah, then you get your Cube back. No muss, no fuss," Tony adds, squinting playfully at Fury. A beeping sound emits from the device in front of him, distracting him from the conversation at hand. He turns to the screen, reading something designated as being classified. "What is Phase Two," he asks. Sigyn furrows her brow, not understanding the turn the discussion has taken.

A loud, clanging noise behind her draws her attention to yet another newcomer. She turns to find Steve placing a large, metal weapon on the table beside him. He answers Tony, saying, "Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons."

Steve's words finally clue Sigyn in, and outraged, she interrupts his next thought to turn on Fury. "You're using the Tesseract to create weaponry," she asks, her voice conveying her outrage at the notion. "This is unacceptable, Director Fury. The Tesseract is a powerful, ancient artifact. Mortals cannot possibly understand how to responsibly wield its power."

"Save the paternalistic drabble for someone else, Major," Fury replies, holding up a hand as he dismisses her. He turns to Steve before adding, "We are not making weapons. We're only collecting information on the Tesseract to—"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony interrupts, turning around the screen in his hand to show them the weapons schematics that it displays. "What were you lying?"

Steve looks to Fury, coldly intoning, "I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

Before anyone else in the room can think to inject another angry diatribe into the conversation, Thor and Natasha enter the room. Thor appears just as confused as Sigyn feels, the same foreboding feeling from the perceived graveness of the situation etched onto his face. Natasha, on the other hand, seems less bothered by the conversation at hand and more so with Bruce, who spots her and questions, "Did you know about this?" He gestures to the screen in Tony's hand.

Coolly, she disregards his question, asking, "Do you want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"

He laughs, though he sounds unpleasantly disconsolate. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well-removed."

Only more confused now, Sigyn moves over to stand at Thor's side. She gives him a hard look, silently telling him, The humans are coming apart at the seams. There is something sinister at play they are not telling us. He crosses his arm, lowering his eyes to discreetly acknowledge her statement before the both of them turn their attention back to the mortals in the room.

Natasha slowly strides toward Bruce, calmly informing him, "Loki is manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what exactly," he asks in turn, shaking his head slightly. He, like everyone else now, seems to be aware of the deception being put forth by S.H.I.E.L.D. For the first time since arriving on the planet, Sigyn fears she and Thor had placed their trust in the wrong people. S.H.I.E.L.D. appears to be some sort of clandestine organization intent on deceiving people for their own vision of the greater good, and she is not sure such ends line up with the parameters of her mission here.

Without missing a beat, Natasha returns, "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you." She is standing right in front of him at this point, manifestly ready to forcibly remove him from the room if necessary.

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy," he informs her, sweeping his arms out as he makes his point. With a little more anger and force to his voice, he turns his attention back to Fury, gripping the device Tony had used to display S.H.I.E.L.D.'s weapons plans. "I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

Fury holds Bruce's gaze for several tense, silent seconds. He does not so much as twitch to convey his emotions, but his thoughts are written on his face nonetheless. He is considering what he should say. Clearly, the bilgesnipe is out of the pen in this case, and it is not as though he can contain the entirety of the truth. Whether he likes it or not, he is going to have to give Bruce and the rest of this motley crew he has assembled some form of an explanation.

Finally, he decides on what he wants to say. Holding up a finger, he points it at Thor and Sigyn. "Because of them."

Startled and disconcerted, she and Thor look to each other, sharing near-identical looks of confusion. The two of them had shown up on Earth not a day earlier, though these weapons have clearly been in development for some time. How could Fury have been developing them because of two peace-seeking Asgardians?

Manifestly confused, Thor turns away from Sigyn and back to Fury, asking, "Us?" She and the rest of the humans—save for Natasha—appear confused, as well, shooting Fury similar questioning stares.

Fury ignores Thor, however, keeping his focus on Bruce. "Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned."

Contemptuous, Thor rebuts his statements. "Our people want nothing but peace with your planet."

Sigyn affirms his statement with a succinct nod. While it is true that Asgard could burn Earth to its core if it so chose, Asgard has sought nothing but peace with the other realms for nearly two thousand years. The vast majority of their military operations concern defense, and the few excursions they do undertake are always in response to a request of aid from a lesser realm. She won't go so far as to say that it is insulting for S.H.I.E.L.D. to perceive Asgard as threat, but it is a little ridiculous given their interactions thus far.

Fury disregards them again, turning to further elaborate, "But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat." He turns then to Tony, and continues as though addressing him solely, "The world's filling up with people that can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

"Like you control the Cube," Steve interjects, seemingly unconvinced by Fury's spiel. He appears just as angry as he had been in the moment he had entered the room. For a soldier, Sigyn thinks, he certainly hates the threat of war. Then again, she considers, do not all good soldiers detest war?

Having reached his limit, Thor bursts out, "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war." His tone is imploring, as though enticing Fury to reconsider his and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s actions.

"'A higher form,'" Steve questions, sounding utterly disturbed with the implications of Thor's words.

"The Tesseract is a collection of ancient power rumored to be as old as the universe itself," Sigyn explains to him, trying yet again to remind the humans that they are tampering with power they cannot possibly hope to control. "Throughout the cosmos, use of such artifacts as the Tesseract has always been recognized as an act of aggression as people so rarely use such power for peaceful aims."

Natasha jumps in, turning the heat on her. "What does Asgard want with it then?"

Thor supplies her with an answer, asserting, "Asgard will safeguard the Tesseract as we did before it was lost on Earth. We have no desire to use it for any act of brutality."

"Perhaps Asgard shouldn't have forced our hand, then," Fury argues. He adds a hint of resignation into his voice, as though to suggest he would rather wash his hands of the whole matter despite being the primary instigator. "We had to come up with some—"

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony butts in, sarcastically adding, "because that always calms everything right down."

Fury turns on him, deadpanning, "Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark."

Steve steps forward, adding, "I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep—"

"Wait, wait, hold on," Tony interrupts, holding out a hand as though to physically stop him. "How is this now about me?"

Sigyn frowns as chaos breaks out around her, the humans all too happy to come for each other's throats. Their argument devolves into a flurry of uncalled-for, pointed jabs—granted, however, that it had not started out in a great place. Still, it seems odd for them to suddenly start making such flagrant personal attacks. Stranger still, she finds herself growing inexplicably angrier herself, her anxiety rising as though she is gearing up for a fight. Even Thor joins in, questioning the humans' evolutionary development.

As she contemplates the cause of the abrupt shift in mood, her eyes slowly trail through the room. She takes in all the angry faces of her companions, taking note as they grow more aggressive with each passing second. After taking in the last expression—that of Bruce, who looks practically apoplectic—her gaze lands on the glowing, blue orb of Loki's scepter. Queerly, she finds it drawing her in, enticing her to some end. Could it be controlling them, she wonders, without Loki having directly used it on any of them?

Before she can contemplate the matter any further, however, Bruce's hand comes down around the neck of the scepter, breaking her out of her daze. This seems to do the trick for everyone else, too, as they all take in the clearly distressed, panting man with the dangerous weapon in his grip.

Fury and Natasha put their hand to the weapons strapped to their sides. Meanwhile, Steve attempts to coax him, "Doctor Banner, put down the scepter."

Perplexed, Bruce looks down at his hand, markedly surprised to see the scepter resting in his own grip. All at once, the moment of malice that had come over the group seems to pass, and he sets it down as a ringing noise begins to resonate throughout the room.

"Got it," Tony says, and Sigyn realizes they have found the Tesseract. She blows out a breath of relief, excited at the prospect of having this mission over and done with.

Bruce strides over to the device tracking the Tesseract, quipping, "Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all." With that, however, the spell from before seems to fall over them again. Everyone resumes griping at one another, Tony even going so far as to bat at Steve's arm.

Sigyn is not sure about what to do in this situation, worried that if she opens her mouth, she will be sucked back into the argument and lose herself to it. In the next moment, however, her plight ceases to matter as an explosion rocks the ship. A blast of hot air from varying directions follows, and before any of them can react, fire and gas erupt from the floor beneath them. All seven of them are cast from the room, Sigyn flying through a wall of glass by herself. With no small amount of horror, she realizes she has been thrown from the ship entirely, having gone through the window on the far side of the lab.

She plummets through the air, being pushed around by strong, opposing wind currents as she falls at a steadily increasing speed. Groggy from the explosion, it takes a long moment for her to gain her bearings, but even then, she cannot find the wherewithal to execute a transformation into something that can fly. Ideally, she would turn back into a wyvern or even a bird to transport herself back to the helicarrier. However, without the mental capacity to do so, she opts for halting her descent with just enough telekinesis to allow her to levitate. With the rate at which she had been falling, it takes her a long moment to pull off the trick, but after several seconds, she manages to right herself and stop her descent.

She stands still in the air for a bit, gazing up at the burning, crumbling ship. She squints, trying to keep the gleaming light of the Terran sun out of her eyes as she observes the distance. She had fallen less than halfway to the ground below, leaving her with a manageable distance to cross. Focusing all of her mental strength below her feet, she catapults herself upward. She soars through the sky, battling the adverse winds and avoiding falling debris from the damaged ship.

Landing back in the ravaged lab, she takes in the destruction. Most of the white equipment is scorched black, and nearly all of the electronics are broken apart and non-functioning. There are glass shards littering the floor, leading in every direction to a broken window. Outside of the lab, she listens as a battle rages on, people running in every direction and firing their weapons. Loki must have summoned a team of his brainwashed goons to rescue him, she realizes.

With a renewed sense of urgency, she runs from the room and heads back down the hall to Loki's detention cell. Luckily, she remembers the way perfectly, though she is delayed a few times as people clog up the halls in their haste to get to or away from enemy fire.

Just before she makes her way into the room housing Loki's cell, she runs into one of the humans she had met earlier, the son of Coul. He holds a massive weapon in his arms, one she recognizes from the schematics Tony had revealed earlier.

He is making for Loki's cell, as well, but she stops him, outrunning him and placing a firm hand on his chest. "No," she says simply, ordering him to stay put with her steadfast gaze. He may think he can wield a weapon powered by the Tesseract, but she doubts the situation will bode well for him in the long run. "I will handle Loki."

Coulson looks as though he wants to protest, hefting the weapon a little higher in his arms. She does not give him the chance, however, leaving him behind after giving him another forceful look, imploring that he stays behind.

As she enters the room containing Loki's cell, she stumbles upon one of his human cronies. The man immediately takes up the offensive, but she deflects him easily. As gently as she can, she delivers a swift punch to the side of his head, intent on dispatching just enough force to knock him out but leave him alive. He crumbles to the floor, his hands going slack over the trigger on his weapon.

The sound of the man's body hitting the floor brings her presence to the attention of the other two occupants of the room, Loki and Thor. In a disturbing twist of events, it is Thor she sees contained in the glass cell, and Loki who stands outside of it at some sort of a control panel. The both of them look surprised to see her, though Thor looks markedly more pleased than does his brother.

Swiftly, she makes a run for Loki, throwing herself over the panel he stands before and landing a solid, two-legged kick to his chest. Lucky again, she strikes him before he has the time to manufacture a copy of himself, leaving him to fold in on himself with a pained grunt as he collapses against the wall behind him. Sigyn takes his place at the control panel, her fingers hovering over the various buttons as she takes in all the information displayed on the screens beneath them.

Unaware of her difficulty in understanding the Terran technology, Thor cheers from behind the glass, pumping his fist at her victory. "Nicely done, Sigyn," he commends, smiling in a way that makes his eyes crinkle. Tone still tinged with satisfaction, he adds, "Now, let me out."

Nodding slowly, she replies, "Yes, of course, Your Highness," though she comes no closer to doing as he has asked. There does not appear to be a label for any 'Open Cell Door' button, the only descriptors being symbols she does not recognize. From what she had seen before she had knocked Loki away, his hand had been hovering over the large button at the console's center, so she avoids that one. Still, that leaves her no closer to the one she needs. "Which button is it," she calls out, hoping Thor has the answer, however inexplicably.

Before he can respond, she feels a shadow come over her back. Loki's arm glides past her to tap one of the icons on the screen. "This one," he says as the floor around the cell slides back, allowing the rushing air from outside to funnel into the room.

Alarmed, she and Thor both give a shout as they realize just how close he is to being shot out towards the Earth's surface in a glass and metal box. Quick as she can, she the throws an arm back against Loki, hoping to knock him back again by sinking her elbow into his sternum. He grunts in pain much as he had when she had kicked him but does not allow this strike to fell him. Instead, he locks his arms around her middle, pulling her away from the control panel.

Her back against his front, Sigyn kicks out, trying to push him off or get him to drop her. Neither happens, the both of them merely striking their heads back against the metal wall behind them. Hissing in pain, Sigyn is wholly unaware of her foot sliding to the left and making contact with the large button at the center of the console until it is all too late to stop it.

With no small amount of horror, her eyes flit over to Thor, who has taken a cautious step toward the center of the cell and is looking down at his feet. He manages to look up at her just before the mechanism holding the cell lets go, and he goes plummeting down to Earth's surface in a blur.

"Fuck," she murmurs to herself, prickles of cold apprehension running up her neck and over her scalp. "I just killed the Allfather's favorite son."

Laughing bitterly, Loki finally allows his arms to go slack around her. Enlivened by the movement, she snaps back into action, shoving him back and diving to the floor to roll away from him. Once a few feet away and alarmingly close to the gaping hole in the floor, she grapples with herself on what to do next. It may be the smarter option to abandon Loki and go after Thor, hopefully being able to help him out of the falling prison before it is too late. However, it may be an uncorrectable mistake to let Loki get away.

She gazes intently at Loki, who does not move so much as an inch, as she contemplates what her next move should be. Before long, premonition strikes her, and without moving her eyes from Loki's, she materializes a spear into her hand and thrusts it towards the door through which she had entered the room. It sticks into a small panel beside the doorway, causing the door to automatically slide shut. Loki, who had been trying to make a hasty exit, stops with the weapon just a hairs breadth away from his chest.

His image disappears from in front of her, and she turns to regard his true self. Tilting her head to the side, she crosses her arms and smirks. "Surely, you did not think it would be so easy?"

He turns back to look at her, looking entirely incensed by the inconvenience she is causing him. His eyes are lit up with fury whilst his nostrils flare, his chest heaving as he strides back over to her. For an odd moment, she finds herself reminded of how alluring she used to find him, especially in moments like this. The gimmick she had used in their last fight—in which she had distracted him with a line about being aroused during their spars—had not been as far from the truth as she might like it to be. For now, though, she stamps down the thought, unwilling to be distracted.

The scepter appears in his hand, the orb of swirling magic at its end glowing and casting the space between them in a bright blue hue. She regards it warily, fully aware of how hazardous a weapon it is. Already, Loki's used it on scores of humans, bending them to his twisted will. She is in no rush to be similarly manipulated.

Taking notice of where her attention lies, he looks down to the scepter, his expression calculating. He rotates the rod in his hand, allowing the pointed end of the scepter's blade to point fully at her. With a cruel, all-too-pleased leer, he suggests an offer.

"An offer," she echoes, her voice steely with doubt and blatant disinterest. Subtly, she shifts her weight onto her toes, ready to spring away from him at a moment's notice. No matter what, she tells herself, she cannot get caught on the other end of that blade. She may not be so arrogant as to believe that having her on his side would indubitably win him the day, but it would certainly tip the scales in his favor. After all, who wouldn't want a shapeshifting, telepathic sorceress with a thousand years of military service on their side?

"Yes," he responds, voice as smooth as silk. His jaw clenches as his smile morphs into one he knows she finds more appealing. "I imagine you've thought about how this will play out?"

His question utterly disarms her. No, she had not thought about how his attempted conquest of Midgard would play out, at least not in the way she is now certain he is implying. Before, she had spared a thought only to how she and Thor would drag him back to Asgard, no matter the cost. She now realizes, however, that she had failed to consider what would happen if Loki was to win.

According to what he had told her not more than an hour ago, Loki had staged his coup so that he might have had her by his side. While she doubts that he was being entirely candid in saying so, she has no doubt that such a circumstance is that which he had truly desired. What, then, would make this situation different?

She finishes thinking aloud, assessing him with a careful eye. "You want me at your side as you rule over the Earth, but you know I would never pay so much as a thought to such a proposition. The only way for you to have your desired outcome, then, is by using the scepter on me." In the back of her mind, she wonders if this was always his plan. If she had not followed Thor to Midgard, would Loki have come for her eventually, scepter in hand?

"It will only be for a short time," he assures her, though she feels anything but comforted. "You will acclimate to your new position soon enough, I'm sure."

She regards him with scorn, trying to convey how truly ridiculous his suggestion is. The thought of serving as a thoughtless puppet, unable to stop Loki from acting as a despot horrifies her. Sternly, she orders, "You keep that thing away from me."

He shrugs and relaxes his stance, but she is not fooled for a moment. Summoning to her hands a long axe with a metal rod, she charges at him first in an attempt to gain the upper hand. He is not far behind, letting loose a battle cry as he jumps at her, the scepter extended above their heads. They meet in the middle of the walkway in which they had been posted, their weapons meeting in between them. Gritting his teeth, Loki presses down with all his might, but rather than try to return the force herself, she lets her grip slip on one side and feints out of the way as Loki's own weight causes him to crumble in that direction. As soon as his back is to her, she delivers a sharp kick to his back, and he goes flying to the other side of the walkway.

Spinning the axe in her grasp, she taunts, "That is not going to work as it did last time. I have long since recovered from the Kvilla."

Haltingly, he gets back to his feet, his face painted with far more umbrage than before. Finally, the tables have turned, and she is looking forward to kicking his ass. Loki, not similarly enthused, charges her again.

When this time they meet, their movements are quick, neither of them wanting to get caught up by the other. Sigyn holds the axe at its very end, swinging it in wide arcs to keep Loki from getting too close. Already, he has tried aiming the glowing end of the specter at her heart several times, but he has not been able to keep it there for more than a second so far. She intends to keep it that way, fully aware that he needs only a handful of seconds to take someone's mind.

At a certain point, one side of her axe gets caught on the rod of the scepter. She makes to pull it away, hoping Loki will budge enough to permit the motion, but he does no such thing. Rather, he leaves her to pivot on her own and catches her as soon as she is turned away from him, pulling her back against him as their weapons are locked together at their sides. In this position, her arms are pulled across her chest, useless, though not for long.

Loki moves the scepter before her, and the movement allows her to cross her arms and disengage their weapons. His arm still snaked around her, he holds her still as he presses the very tip of the scepter's blade to her sternum, whispering, "Relax."

Caged in, she does just that, her arms limp at her side. The orb begins to glow, filling her eyes with a blue light as a quiet whirring noise echoes around them. As soon as the light from the scepter fades back into the orb, Loki releases his grip, freeing her to take several slow steps forward.

She shields her eyes from him until she is far enough that he can no longer reclaim her without a bit of effort on his part. He stands still until she turns to regard him again, his lips drawn up in a preemptive, self-congratulatory grin. However, as soon as their eyes meet, hers as brown as ever, it slips from his face.

"Why did that not work," he barks, blunt and irate. He looks down to the head of the scepter, curiously inspecting it for any fault.

Taking another few steps farther from him for good measure, bringing her closer to where his cell used to hang, she asks, "Is it not obvious?" When he looks up at her, his own query in his eyes, she holds up her axe and lets it shimmer to reveal its true form. His gaze darts to his own weapon in terror, watching it shift to match her axe. When he looks back to behold his scepter in her grasp, she has to bite her lip to keep herself from smiling in victory.

Loki is not similarly amused. "You fail to understand the gravity of the situation. I am burdened with a glorious purpose, and I require the scepter. Give it back."

Sigyn almost laughs. Honestly, she thinks, why else did he think she would use an axe for a close-range fight if not to take off his head or trick him? Figuring making such a remark would only make her appear a sore winner, however, she vanishes the scepter and opts to kindly warn him, "Take a step closer and the only thing with which you will be burdened is my foot up your ass."

Unfortunately, he does more than take a step toward her, full-on sprinting at her with her axe lofted in his hand instead. Rather than face him head-on as she had threatened, she opts to turn tail and run in the opposite direction. As far she can tell, the best outcome of this fight is her depriving him of the scepter. Having done so, it is time she makes her exit.

She makes a beeline for the hole in the floor through which Thor had fallen minutes beforehand, trying to get there before Loki can grab her. As she approaches it, she hears him shout something at her, but it gets lost in the wind as she lifts off from the ground and takes a dive straight downward.

She plummets for a moment through the bowels of the ship, metal and hardware blurring past her. As soon as she is clear of the ship, the roaring of the wind seems to die down, and she takes a moment to glory in her success.

She has fallen a fair bit from the helicarrier when a portal opens up in the sky, glittering with some sort of orange-colored magic made of sparks. Drawing in a panicked breath, she tries to initiate levitation before she falls through it, but without enough time, her efforts are fruitless and she falls through it into darkness.

---

When Sigyn comes to, she is standing on a large piece of rock suspended in space, scepter in hand. Distantly, the fact that she holds Loki's weapon when she had only just stowed it away registers in her mind, and her presence in this reality—wherever it is—seems to flicker in response. She knows she is not really there, if there is indeed anywhere to be.

An imposing, purple figure sits atop a levitating throne before her. Having never seen any alien species akin to his likeness before, Sigyn wonders if it is possible for him, too, to be a figment of her imagination.

The figment appraises her for a number of seconds before speaking. "I am Thanos, Destroyer of Worlds," he says by way of introduction, the deep, low register of this voice causing a shiver to crawl up her spine.

"How nice for you," she acknowledges, making no move to reveal her own identity. Despite that, he speaks to her with a degree of casualness that borders on disturbing, almost as though he already knows exactly who she is.

He is quick to prove her correct. "I see you've finally made your way to Earth, little one. I figured sending Loki down there would accomplish that."

At the mention of Loki, she feels a thrill of both fear and excitement at having her earlier conclusion confirmed—that Loki truly is not acting alone. Feeling invigorated, she tries to goad Thanos into continuing, "You're the one orchestrating this attack, then." She hefts the weapon in her grasp, drawing his attention to it. "Manipulating him with whatever is contained inside the scepter."

Thanos smiles like a cat who has just caught its prey. "Indeed, I am. And you, Goddess of Victory, are the omen I've been waiting for. The assurance that my plans are inevitable."

The way he says the last word sends another chill of fear running up her spine. "What plans," she asks, voice hard to keep it from trembling. Is there something especially villainous for which he intends to use the Tesseract—something worse than the subjugation of the Earth?

"Don't worry, child," Thanos assures her, though she hardly feels comforted. "You'll be long gone before they come to fruition."

With those final words echoing throughout the false reality in which she finds herself trapped, Sigyn feels a strong rush of heat overtake her astral form, prompting her to close her eyes against the searing sensation. When she opens them, she finds herself returned to her body, sitting on a leather couch in what appears to be a library.

An old man sits across from her, loose pants and a long, red cloak enveloping his slight form. Carefully, he pours tea into two ornate, blue and white cups. "Sigyn," he greets, nodding his head respectfully. "Goddess of Victory."

Sigyn, feeling especially whiplashed and fairly displeased with how often she is being referred to as some sort of divine being, returns the greeting with as much knowledge as she has of him. "Old man. Wearer of baggy clothes."

Unfortunately, he does not seem to take offense. Though, she supposes, that may be a good thing. Clearly, he is powerful enough to summon her wherever he likes, including this place, which she assumes to be his house. It feels too homey for anything else.

Chuckling, he tells her, "I am Yao, known as the Ancient One. I serve as Earth's Sorcerer Supreme."

"I did not realize Earth had wizards," she comments whilst thinking that yes, it is good that he had not taken offense at her remark.

"Not many do," he tells her, still being perfectly agreeable. "Though, we prefer the term, Masters of the Mystic Arts."

Sigyn hums in acknowledgment, watching as he picks up one of the teacups and brings it to his lips. She makes no move to do the same, wary despite how relaxed the environment feels.

"Please, have some tea," he insists, gesturing to the remained cup on the table between them. "It's peppermint, good for energy and alertness, which you'll need when facing the Chitauri."

At this, she perks up, straightening in her seat. "How do you know of the battle to come?"

Kind, semi-infuriating smile still in place, Yao does not answer. He opts instead to take another long sip from his cup, the steam from it wafting in front of his face.

"Really? We're doing the cryptic-old-man thing," she asks, exasperated after the day she has had. First Loki, then Thanos, and now Yao wants her to play yet another pointless guessing game. Sighing, she acquiesces, figuring she may as well get ahead of him. "Oh, very well. Be there any other indecipherable nuggets of wisdoms you would like to share?"

Nodding, Yao coolly divulges, "On the first day of the nineteenth year of this millennium, you will return to this dwelling to meet its new inhabitant."

"Will I now," she returns, unmoved. She is entirely unaware of the millennium Earth is experiencing anyway, having not been apprised of their calendar system, so it hardly matters to her whatever he is claiming.

"The next time you meet Thanos," he continues, his voice turning gravely serious. "He'll try to kill you, and you'll have to let him."

Sigyn, just as quiet and serious, whispers back, "Will I now?" Whereas before she had been indifferent to his prediction as it assumed no prior knowledge of her, this one proves that Yao had somehow known of her meeting with Thanos just moments prior. That, to her, is nothing short of disturbing.

He hums in confirmation, setting down his teacup. "There is a prophecy about you. Would you like to hear it?" Too overwhelmed to verbally answer him, she merely nods.

Yao doesn't speak, but she hears him all the same.

The Goddess of Victory, in coming to Earth

Inspires the Destroyer of Worlds to begin his search

When next they meet, death he must give her

To give to half the souls of the material plane

When next they meet, time they must bend

To let Power burn him alive

Frowning, Sigyn attempts to analyze Yao's words. She is displeased with hearing such a terrible omen, especially considering how much of it fits in with the things she has learned since having come to Earth. For better or worse—worse, clearly—she is the Goddess of Victory, and this has made her a target. Thanos evidently thinks along those lines, likely having heard this prophecy himself, and fully believes he will be able to kill her and go about his plans soon.

You'll be long gone before they come to fruition, he had told her. She had not thought so at the time, but clearly, he means to kill her himself.

"I'm afraid I have an appointment with your friend on the roof, so this is the last we shall speak," Yao says as he pushes himself up from the chair in which he had been sitting, stealing back her attention.

Confused, Sigyn jumps to her feet, as well, hoping to stop Yao from leaving. He cannot leave her now, not when he has just foretold her death. "Wait just a moment—"

"I wish you and your friends the best of luck, goddess," he says in parting, and then Sigyn finds herself at the top of a short staircase outside of a large, stone building, directly in front of a sign that reads, "177A Bleecker St."

Disoriented, she wanders over to the large, wooden doors beside the sign. Splaying out her hand on the glass of one of the doors, she tries to feel around through the astral plane to see if the house in which she had been is beyond it. Before she can so much as envision the foyer, however, a horribly loud screech from behind her captures her attention.

Whipping around, she comes face-to-face with a horrifying alien creature. It shuffles around on the side of the road on which they stand, its skin gray with blotches of mottled purple. It wears armor that seems to sink into its skin, as well as a mask that covers its eyes but leaves displayed its gaping, rotting mouth.

The Chitauri are nothing but mindless, walking corpses, she has heard. Looking at one now, she cannot help but feel such to be true.

Before it can think to attack her, Sigyn strikes out, punching at the Chitauri foot soldier hard enough to send it flying backwards. As soon as it lands on the far end of the street, a bright purple arc of light streaks past her, crashing into a food cart next to her and blowing it to pieces. She turns, and a bevy of Chitauri soldiers greet her, slinking over on unsteady legs with their weapons held high.

She might have been expecting to have more time before the Chitauri came, but it seems as though hours have been stolen from her by Thanos and Yao. With no time to dwell on her bad fortune, she throws herself headlong into battle, summoning a sword into each of her hands and charging at her opponents. She makes easy work of them, slicing off heads and piercing chests without breaking a sweat. As she is not fighting sentient beings, she does not technically have to worry about killing anyone, so she can fight without restraint.

Directionless in the unfamiliar city in which she now finds herself, she runs up streets and down alleyways, slashing down Chitauri as she goes. Every once in a while, she has to tear them away from a group of humans, who cower helplessly against walls or on the ground. Upon being saved, they look up at her in fear and wonder, their eyes silently begging for direction. She does not know what to tell them beyond urging them to seek shelter, devoid of the knowledge that S.H.I.E.L.D. or any of her human companions may have.

With that in mind, she wonders if they are here, fighting off the Chitauri, as well. Curious, she strides up to a man standing beside a vehicle with glowing lights on its top. Upon seeing her with her swords in hand, he holds up his own weapon, which seems to be the same as the one Natasha and Fury carry. He points it at her chest, ordering, "You, there! Stand down!"

"Fear not, mortal," she calls in an attempt to assuage his fears. His city is being attacked by savage alien creatures, and now an Asgardian warrior stands before him—it must be horribly frightening. "I seek merely the whereabouts of my friends: the Captain America, the God Thor, and the metal man."

Strangely, the man does not lower his weapon, instead stepping nearer and moving its aim to her head. "I don't know what you're talkin' about, lady, but you need to put the swords down!"

"Is this really that which concerns you most right now," she shouts back at him, but allows her swords to fade away all the same. The less agitated he is, the more he may be willing to help her. "Now, what can you tell me of my friends?"

Stranger even, still he does not lower his weapon, his voice going up an octave as he yells, "Hey, how'd you do that?"

Throwing up her hands, she curses, "For fuck's sake," and decides to leave behind the human. He is clearly not going to be of any use to her. She will have to find her friends on her own.

With that in mind, she shifts into a wyvern once more and takes to the sky. She soars high enough to see all of the chaos around her as the Chitauri descend from a portal beneath the clouds. The city over which she flies may be a wonder to behold on another day, she imagines, with tall, shining buildings and the sea beyond it. Today, however, there is smoke and fire billowing upward from all over, the streets are strewn with overturned vehicles and crumbling buildings, and people run aimlessly in terror.

In the air, she finds just as many opponents as she did on the ground. Chitauri airmen fly around on small, airborne ships much the same color as are they. Most of them fly around in packs, shooting at civilians on the ground or through the windows of the tall buildings that make up the city. What's more, the Chitauri's foot soldiers and airmen are not their only assets. With them, they also have massive creatures that fly through the city unaided by any visible machinery. These monsters, too, are fitted with armor, which they use as battering rams as they crash into buildings and litter the streets below with large chunks of debris.

Flying around, she spits torrents of fire at the Chitauri airmen, hoping that when they crash moments later, they do not land on anyone. As she goes, she tries to find the epicenter of battle, though she locates something even better.

Upon turning a corner, she spies Natasha, Steve, Thor, and an unfamiliar man crowded around Bruce at the end of a dilapidated street. Diving down, she spreads out her wings to glide just over the ground as she approaches the group, touching down right behind Bruce.

She receives a welcoming smile from Thor even before she has transformed back into herself, but not everyone is pleased to see her. Natasha, likely disturbed by Sigyn's visage, pulls out her weapon. Thor tries to stop her, shouting, but to no avail, and Natasha shoots Sigyn with a projectile just as her wings morph back into her arms.

The projectile from Natasha's weapon strikes her square in the chest, hitting her with enough force to cause her to stagger backwards. Her feet, freshly-pedestrian, stumble under her as she regains her balance. She pulls down the neckline of her dress, finding that embedded in the skin of her chest, there is a small, crushed piece of metal. She tears it off herself and tosses to the ground.

"Oh, God, Sigyn," Natasha says, placing her weapon back in its holster and rushing over to her. "I am so sorry. Are you okay?"

With a slight frown, Sigyn rubs over the affected area. There is a slight sting as she brushes over the reddened skin, but otherwise, there is no serious damage. "Perfectly well, thank you." Brushing past Natasha, she makes her way over to the unknown man, who appears to be an archer. "And who might you be?"

The man nods to her in greeting as he answers, "Clint."

"Lovely," she says, striding over to shake his hand. Humans consider it a customary greeting, she has come to realize. "I am Sigyn, Goddess of Victory."

"Right," he says, trying to suppress a wry grin. "And I'm Apollo."

Brow furrowing as he drops her hand, she asks, "I though you said your name was Clint?"

"Stark," says Steve, distracting her from her conversation with the archer known either as Clint or Apollo. He has his hand pressed to one of his ears, and she realizes he has some sort of a tiny, Terran communication device lodged there. "We have Banner and Sigyn."

Sigyn assumes Tony to have replied to Steve as a moment later, he appears from around a corner, bringing with him one of the giant, armored Chitauri monsters. It roars as it trails after him, crashing into buildings and vehicles on its path to meet their group. From beside her, Natasha comments, "I don't see how that's a party."

Steve steps forward, addressing Bruce. He has not moved from where he had been standing when Sigyn had landed, leaving him closest to the incoming monster. "Doctor Banner," Steve says, nodding to him. "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

Bruce, oddly fearless, walks intently toward the Chitauri beast. Turning back, he tells Steve, "That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." With that, he turns with his arm cocked and morphs into a much larger and greener man. His fist connects with the giant head of the monster, stopping it in its tracks. The thing gives a fearsome howl as it flips over, silenced by Tony shooting a projectile into its flank and blowing it to pieces.

Shocked, Sigyn gestures to what used to be Bruce and asks, "What is that?"

"That," Natasha answers, "is the Hulk."

The Chitauri around them screech in outrage at the sight of their fallen comrade, and the Hulk roars right back at them. As he does, the seven of them instinctually assemble into a circle, their backs facing the center. As the Chitauri approach, gradually growing in numbers, Sigyn summons a dagger to each of her hands.

On her right, Natasha calls out, "Guys," her eyes pointed upward. The rest of them follow her gaze, dismayed to find more Chitauri emerging from the hole in the sky.

"Call it, Captain," Tony says, and Steve formulates a plan. He sends Clint to the roof of the tallest building in their vicinity and Tony to the skies within their perimeter, and the two of them take off together. Next, he orders Thor and the Hulk away to electrocute and smash the enemy, respectively.

"You and me, we stay here on the ground. We keep the fighting here," he says to Natasha, who nods in acceptance. Last but certainly not least, he turns to Sigyn. "And Major, I'm not sure what it is you do, but I want you to do it."

"As you command, Captain," she replies, fully aware of how ridiculous it is for someone of her rank to say such a thing. All the same, she braces herself for the oncoming onslaught of Chitauri, dozens of which are sprinting towards them. The three of them crowd together as the horde descends on them, and so the battle begins in earnest.

Sigyn works to keep the Chitauri from getting too close, throwing blades out as soon as she can materialize them. She is aware that there is a finite number of knives at her disposal, but she has no qualms about reaching it if it means the safety of her new human friends, both of whom are busy with the foot soldiers that manage to slip past her defenses.

Slowly but surely, she and her teammates are drawn away from one another, the Chitauri bombarding them with a flurry of relentless if unrefined attacks. She casts as many blades at them as she can, catching some in the chest and others in the head. Most of the ones she hits stay down, but some endure, continuing to rush at her.

After finishing off one horde, she gains a moment of reprieve and dashes down an alleyway to keep it. Coming out on the other side, however, she finds herself directly underneath the aftermath of a strike made by Thor. He had used Mjolnir to fry the hulking Chitauri beasts before they could actively lay waste to the city, only that left them to fall from above onto unsuspecting passersby. Over the street on which she stands, one charred body plummets to the ground, whereupon dozens of screaming civilians await it.

Darting forward, she rushes to the middle of the street and throws up her hands, hoping to slow the beast's descent to a halt. She uses all of her strength to do it, her mind consumed with a burning sensation as she tries desperately to keep the Chitauri corpse in the air. When at last it grinds to a halt, stopping just ten feet from the tips of her splayed fingers, her entire body is shaking with the effort of keeping it up. With blood dripping down from her nose, she shouts at the people still underneath the beast to get out of the way and drops it as soon as everyone is clear. When it lands, it stirs up a cloud of dust, which forces a cough out of Sigyn as it blows into her face.

Exhausted, she sags against a street lamp, resting her forehead on the cool metal of its neck. Again, however, her break from the battle is short-lived as another bout of bloodthirsty Chitauri foot soldiers rush onto the street, having descended from their low-flying air ships.

One of them jumps at her, and in a blind moment of panic, she strikes out with a form of magic she does not often employ, mystical energy blasts, it not being one she is particularly adept at using. A bright blast of pink energy surges outward from her hand as she thrusts it toward her adversary, slamming into it and tossing it a good distance from her. The other Chitauri surrounding her seem to take issue with how she handled their friend, and they let out shrill screams as they charge her. With all her might, she tries to summon enough energy to cast them away from her in the same manner, but it soon grows overwhelming. After the fifth burst of scintillating, explosive magic, the next burst comes out as more of a puff. The Chitauri at which she had aimed it does not so much as flinch, making to slash at her with a short scythe.

Abandoning this avenue of defense, she opts for an escape. Taking to physically shoving the Chitauri away and cutting them down with her broadsword, she waits until she has the opportunity to surge upward and capture one of the Chitauri's small, manned vessels. She hops onto the front of the vehicle and brandishes her weapon, ready to cut down its driver. She does not expect to come face-to-face with Natasha, who controls the vessel using the collapsed corpse of one of the Chitauri airmen. Eyes wide in shock, as well, Natasha lamely opens with, "Fancy seeing you here."

Rather than return the greeting, Sigyn asks, "Where are we going?" She maneuvers past Natasha to the back of the ship, careful so as to not throw off their course or fall from the ship. Once there, she finds one of the Chitauri's discarded weapons and quickly discerns how to fire it. "I'll cover us," she shouts up to Natasha.

"Great," she hears over the wind. They turn a corner, and it is abrupt enough to nearly cast Sigyn from the ship. Not wanting to test fate, she takes hold of a broken chain dangling off the end of the ship and wraps it around her wrist. "As for where we're going," Natasha calls back, "Stark Tower!"

Wondering if the tower to which Natasha refers has to do with Tony, Sigyn grunts in acknowledgement before taking aim at another Chitauri vessel. While they are up here, she figures, she may as well take down as many adversaries as is possible.

She has just shot down a third ship when she hears a voice in her head. Hello, Sigyn. Are you ready to return that which you have stolen from me?

"Fuck," she shouts in response, more to herself than anyone else. Looking over her shoulder, she spies Loki just as he turns a corner. He has zeroed in on them, and he opens fire with extreme prejudice. Likely, he figures he can blow up the vessel they are on without killing Sigyn, but he does not much care about what might happen to Natasha. "Natasha," she screams over the noise of the blasts coming from Loki's ship. "We have company!"

"Yeah, I noticed," Natasha replies, swerving to keep them out of Loki's direct line of fire. While she calls out for someone named Hawkeye, Sigyn moves to respond to Loki's fire. Hefting the Chitauri weapon, she fires at the front of his ship. Unfortunately, with all the swerving the both of them are doing, she misses almost every shot she takes, only one managing to clip the back of his ship, however ineffectively.

As they approach the building from which the portal is emanating, which she assumes to be Stark Tower, their ship picks up, climbing steeply upward. Sigyn struggles to hold on, having to drop the weapon so as to grip the side of the ship. Loki's ship follows after them, undeterred even as he catches a stray arrow in his grasp. As Sigyn looks to the side, expecting to see Clint nearby, his ship blows. Her head whips back around in time to see him go flying onto the balcony of Stark Tower.

She has not any time to wonder if she should jump down to check on him, Natasha calling back, "Get ready to jump!"

Their ship sails directly over the roof of the tower, and the both of them hop off as it does. Sigyn jumps from the back, landing heavily on her feet, whilst Natasha does an elaborate flip and lands in a somersault. On the other side of the roof, a device leaks energy and light as it positions the portal in the sky above it. At its center hovers the Tesseract, powering the whole attack. In coming here, Sigyn realizes, her and Natasha's mission is to extract the Tesseract from the machine in which it is contained.

As the both of them approach the device, Sigyn stretches out her hand to see if she can reach the Tesseract on her own, but Natasha stops her, pulling on her arm. Natasha shakes her head, telling her, "Stark already tried to blow the thing and found out there's a pretty strong energy field around it. You won't be able to just reach in."

Frustrated but not discouraged, Sigyn's lips twist into a frown as she looks back at the device. "What other means have we to close the portal?"

Natasha's eyes flit upward, as though she is deep in thought. Before she can answer, however, another voice chimes in.

"The scepter," grumbles the voice of a disheveled older man, who they spot off to the right of the device. He leans on the side of the roof, staring out at the battle raging around them. Distantly, Sigyn recognizes him as one of the scientists who Loki had abducted from S.H.I.E.L.D., Doctor Erik Selvig. Natasha greets him as such. He reiterates, "Loki's scepter. The energy. The Tesseract can't fight, but you can't protect against yourself."

His words, jumbled though they may be, seem to reflect his time being brainwashed by the scepter. Fleetingly, Sigyn wonders if her having the scepter with her all this time had caused its spell to wear off and free Loki's captives.

Natasha approaches Erik and gently reassures him. "It's not your fault. You didn't know what you were doing."

For a short, introspective moment, he is quiet as he stares back at her. Then, he admits, "Well actually, I think I did. I built in a safety to cut the power source."

"Loki's scepter," Natasha whispers back, thinking aloud. Sigyn cannot see her face from this angle, but she imagines her expression to mirror own: drawn up in surprise and shadowed with near-glee.

"It may be able to close the portal," Erik agrees before slowly heaving himself to his feet. He moves closer to the machine, picking up various bits of equipment that appear to have gotten knocked over in the course of the battle. Flipping open a small device perched on a platform, he adds, "But we'd have to find it first."

"Loki landed downstairs," Natasha remarks, thinking quickly as she dashes for a doorway set up on the roof. "I'll run down—"

Sigyn stops her in her tracks, stating, "There is no need. I have it." As her companions stare back at her, incredulous, she summons the scepter into her hand, and it appears with a gleam of pink light.

Erik barks out a laugh of triumph while Natasha rushes over to grab it from her. "Did you have it this whole time," she asks, still astonished.

Sigyn shrugs, still unsure of how much time has passed since she had taken it from Loki. "Ever since I left the helicarrier, whenever that might have been."

"So, four hours," Natasha grunts, heading over to where Erik directs her. He points at the heart of the device, urging her to press the head of the scepter between the two thick coils of metal wire that border it. It pierces the energy barrier surrounding the device, which sparks as shimmers of blue light rush across its surface. Natasha grits her teeth as she presses harder, the energy field trying to repel her but allowing through the scepter all the same. "I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down," she says, clearly speaking into the device in her ear.

When after a minute no one has said anything and still Natasha has not pressed the scepter any farther, Sigyn interrupts the silence between them, speaking over the din of the battle in the city. "What's happening? Why have you not closed the portal?"

"There's a bomb," Natasha explains, wincing as she struggles to keep the scepter where it is without moving it farther towards the Tesseract. "Stark is gonna put it on the other side of the portal."

Just as she says so, Sigyn sees Tony streaking across the sky, a blur of red with something white and bulky atop its back. He is coming straight towards them with increasing speed, pulling up as he draws closer and flying upward through the portal. As soon as he disappears from sight, she hears Natasha and Erik blow out twin breaths of relief, but Sigyn keeps hers in her chest, waiting for Tony to reemerge from the window into space.

Almost immediately, a terribly bright, orange spark lights from beyond the portal, and Sigyn prays to the old gods that Tony had let go of the bomb before it had exploded. In the same moment, all of the Chitauri collapse around them. The footmen on the ground drop to the floor without ceremony, and the airmen follow suit, their ships spiraling downward into paltry, explosive crashes on the sides of buildings and roads.

"Come on, Stark," she hears Natasha whisper as she squints up at the ever-expanding detonation above them. When still he does not reappear after a few seconds and the fire from the blast continues to roar towards them, she moves to close the portal.

"Wait," Sign shouts, holding up her hand. "He is still on the other side."

Huffing in exertion, Natasha tells her, "We don't have time," just as the very tip of the scepter makes contact with core of the device. Immediately, the blue light coming from the machine cuts off, and the portal begins to shrink as it collapses in on itself. When the spiraling mass of blue and black energy finally disappears from above, a single man falls from the sky.

"We had just enough time, it seems," Sigyn remarks, watching as the Hulk jumps up from the ground to catch Tony, who appears to be unconscious. The two of them land where they had met as a group earlier, disappearing from view. Sigyn turns around, satisfied that everyone on their team is safe and the battle is won.

After helping Sigyn extract the Tesseract from the powered-down device, Erik tells them he intends to stay behind and disassemble the machine. She and Natasha head downstairs, taking something called an elevator and arriving several stories beneath them in under a minute. Upon reaching the floor in which Loki had landed earlier, they are greeted by their other teammates, all of whom are gathered around Loki's supine form. Curiously, Loki appears to have been thrown around and beaten into the floor, Sigyn unable to imagine that such an occurrence resulted from the explosion that had cast him here.

As soon as they come to stand with the others, he groans and attempts to pick himself off the floor. Just as soon, he takes notice of them, bashfulness flitting over his features. He looks around at each of them, including the Tesseract floating just above Sigyn's hand. Finally, his gaze lands on Tony, and he quips, "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."

Unamused, Tony's lips turn down. "Alright, get him on his feet. We can all stand around posing up a storm later." He turns away as Thor hauls up Loki, continuing, "By the way, feel free to clean up." He gestures to the wrecked space around them, confirming Sigyn's earlier conclusion that this tower belongs to him.

Natasha, hefting the scepter, looks around at their other teammates. "Who gets the, ah, magic wand?"

With his hand to his ear, Steve answers her, "Strike team's coming to secure it."

The elevator through which she and Natasha had come moments earlier opens up, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pouring out from it. One of them walks over to Natasha, offering to take the scepter off her hands. Relieved to have it away from her, she hands it over.

Clint, who had walked over to the bar on their left, pours out two drinks from an expensive-looking chalice. He glances up at Sigyn, raising an eyebrow in question. She contemplates his silent question for a brief moment, and after being certain that she will regret it later, she nods in acceptance.

Natasha comes over to them, calling back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to whom she had handed off the scepter, "Be careful with that thing."

Clint hands her one of the glasses he had filled, giving the next one to Sigyn and keeping the last for himself. He agrees with Natasha, adding, "Yeah, unless you want your mind erased. And not in a fun way."

Another of the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives assures him that they will be careful as he opens a large case in which to store the scepter. While the other man carefully places the scepter in the case, Tony approaches Sigyn and asks for the Tesseract. Somewhat reluctantly, she hands it over, watching as he places it in a smaller, more compact case. With Thor going with him, she figures, there is no real threat of the Tesseract escaping their possession.

As Natasha, Clint, and Sigyn lean back on the bar, happy to let everyone else settle matters, Steve walks past them and the rest of the group, pressing his hand to the device in his ear once more. "On my way down to coordinate search and rescue," he tells whomever it is that is listening on the other side of the gadget.

Loki, undoubtedly feeling slighted over having lost the battle, capitalizes on the moment to pull an annoying if harmless prank. He changes his form to resemble Steve, right down to the red, white, and blue stitching of his suit. With a faux-serious impression of Steve's voice, he mimics his statement, capping it off with an eye roll as soon as he looks like himself again. He turns to Thor, adding, "I mean, honestly, how do you keep your food—"

Unimpressed, Thor cuts him off, whipping out a metal gag from Asgard and slapping it over Loki's mouth. It settles into place over his lower jaw, barring Loki from saying anything else aloud. "Shut up," Thor orders for good measure, shoving Loki on the shoulder and forcing him over to the other elevator into which most everyone is convening.

Tony takes with him the Tesseract onto the elevator with Thor, Loki, and a number of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, taking a seat atop its case after they have all filed in. He and the other occupants of the elevator grow alarmed upon seeing that the Hulk wants to join them in the chamber. Along with Thor, he deters the Hulk from joining them, mentioning something about maximum occupancy. As the doors to the chamber close with the Hulk still on the other side, Thor tells him to take the stairs whilst Loki gives him a cheeky wave. The Hulk is thoroughly displeased by Thor's suggestion, grumbling as he stomps over to the stairwell. He leaves the door open, and as he slowly makes his way downstairs, the three of them who are left hear his various complaints about the number of steps.

Blithely, Natasha takes a sip from her drink, commenting, "Well, this was quite the day."

Clint nods, and Sigyn echoes his sentiment. "I quite agree," she says, nodding as she downs her glass all at once. With a clink, she lays it onto the counter of the bar and vows not to drink another. As the alcohol settles into her stomach, she feels herself relax for the first time since arriving on Earth, satisfied that the battle is done with and the planet is saved. "It has been many years since I last enjoyed such a fearsome battle."

Amused, Clint laughs while Natasha draws her lips into a line. Cheerfully enough, she asks Sigyn, "Do you guys ever turn this off?"

"Turn off what," Sigyn asks, puzzled by her inquiry.

"You know, the whole Ye Olde English—" Natasha desists in her explanation, hand drawing up to her ear as alarm flashes across her face. Correspondingly, Clint ducks his head to the side, his expression set in concentration as he listens for something.

Concerned, Sigyn wonders, "What's wrong?"

"Stark's having a heart attack," Natasha answers succinctly, eyes flitting around as she takes in what else she is being told. "And Loki just disappeared with the Tesseract—"

Having heard enough, Sigyn turns away from her and Clint, making for the broken windows that lead out to the balcony. Shards of broken glass crunching under her boots as she goes, she curses Loki's name for the thousandth time since arriving on Earth. She was only supposed to be here for a few hours, and now, well over a day into her mission, he is making more trouble at the last possible moment.

As she jumps over the railing at the edge of the balcony, she does not bother with transforming into anything, merely sailing straight downward and slowing down right before her feet hit the ground. Anger and alcohol thrumming through her, she marches over to the entrance of Tony's building, entering the lobby to find a scene of barely-mitigated chaos. At the far end of the lobby, the Hulk rages about stairs, smashing into walls and various pieces of furniture as he roars at terrorized civilians. Thor is grappling with Loki, who has somehow managed to remove the gag from his face. Tony is sitting crouched on the floor, clutching his chest and breathing heavily. Beside him sits the case Sigyn knows to contain the Tesseract, which even in his aggrieved state, he tries to keep it from a small army of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Striding over, she shoulders past the agents and lifts the case from the floor. Before anyone can so much as blink, she stores it away in a flourish of pink light. Glaring at an older man who had been haranguing Tony, she thanks him in a manner that leaves no room for objection. A few of the men grumble, but none of them dare say anything.

"Thanks, Zenobia," Tony says, grasping her hand as she helps him to his feet. Once standing, he leans against her and looks out at the sea of dissatisfied S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives. With a final "if that'll be all, gents, we have some shawerma to chow down on," he starts for the door, pulling her along with him. Thor and Loki follow after them, Thor grumbling about how much trouble Loki is.

Once outside, Tony deems himself well enough to stand on his own, so Sigyn backs away to give him his space. He stands on shaky feet, giving her and Thor a brief, pained smile. "Right as rain," he comments, though Sigyn is not sure that it is a good assessment of his condition. Tony thumps Thor on the chest, saying, "Thanks, pal."

She looks over to Thor in question, and he is all too happy to gush in response to her unvoiced query. "You should have seen it, Sigyn. Stark was having trouble with his chest machine, so I used Mjolnir to give him a nice shock—"

"What," she hisses, interrupting him. She shakes her head in disbelief, astounded at his shortsightedness. "You electrocuted a mortal? What were you thinking? You know how fragile they are." From beside her, Tony makes a noise of protest, but she ignores him.

Cowed, Thor shifts a little on his feet as he takes in her scolding. His eyes shift away from her, and he explains, "It was just a little shock."

She shakes her head in exasperation, dismayed but confident this will not be a reoccurring issue. Satisfied, she turns her gaze onto Loki, who she finds staring intently at her. A fair bit disturbed by such attention after having been on the receiving end of a mix of apathy and sadistic glee, she barks, "What the fuck are you looking at?"

Unlike before, she notices, Loki's eyes shine with the same mixture of clarity and humor that usually becomes them. In another circumstance, this might have given her a sense of relief, but after having gone through so much strife with him, she cannot quite find it within herself to relax.

After a short moment, Loki answers, "My wife."

Groaning loudly, Sigyn rolls her eyes. Knowing him, he will never let the discovery of what the humans think of their relationship blow over. "I am not your wife," she reminds him.

"Not yet," he promises, his voice taking on a silky quality that causes her to lose her breath. Through this small interaction, she finds that they feel like themselves again. His words, when spoken like this, have the usual effect on her. The sensation is disconcerting, to say the least, but she will not let herself enjoy it.

"Not ever," she gruffly denies, straightening up as she regains her composure. She can feel Thor's and Tony's speculative eyes on her, but she ignores them. Soon enough, Clint, Natasha, and Steve join them outside, dragging along with them Bruce, who looks horribly disheveled. Attention successfully diverted from her, Sigyn exhales in relief.

The eight of them trudge along the dilapidated streets of the city, Tony leading them to their destination. The group's members bicker amongst themselves, most of them ragging on Steve, who laments the time they are wasting by getting lunch when they could be helping with clean-up. Privately, Sigyn agrees with him, though she suspects that going along with this outing will get her off of this planet the fastest, so she says nothing.

When they arrive at the restaurant, Tony asks for a table. One of the employees gestures toward the only table left intact, the rest of the restaurant covered in dust and debris. Thor shoves Loki toward a partially-broken chair in the corner, and the rest of them pile around the table. Sigyn sits across from Natasha and next to Thor toward the end of the table.

Before long, the same employee from earlier ambles over to them with a pad of paper and a writing utensil in hand. Addressing Sigyn, of all people, he asks, "Welcome. What would you all like?"

Mystified but not in the mood for anymore delays, she replies, "Seven orders of the shawerma, please." From around the table, everyone save for Thor gives her a strange look. "What," she asks, not directing her question to any particular person.

Before anyone has the chance to answer her, the man tells her, "We only have the chicken left. All of the other meat was ruined."

"That's fine," she assures him, and Tony throws up his hands in exasperation. "What," she hisses at him, growing exasperated herself.

"You know Arabic," he tells her, sounding both surprised and offended, for some unknown reason.

"I do not," she retorts, frowning at him. Whatever Arabic is—though she suspects it has to do with the Terran ethnicity of which he spoke earlier—she is entirely unfamiliar with it. Not only that, she is confused as to why he is so adamant that she be learned on the topic. It is not as though such human matters concern her.

Butting in where no one wants him, Loki decides to insert himself into the conversation. "I believe I can illuminate the situation."

"Nobody asked you," Clint calls out, but he goes ignored.

"We Asgardians have the quality of All-Speak," he begins. Sigyn shares a look with Thor, the both of them realizing they might have left out valuable information when meeting their new friends. "We hear your words in our tongue, and you hear ours in whatever primitive language you speak."

"Loki," Thor reprimands, glaring at his brother. Turning back to the group, he allows, "What he says, barring the insult, is true. We apologize if there has been any confusion."

Tony shrugs, telling him, "Don't sweat it, Point Break." He leans back in his seat as he does so, the man from earlier having come over to deliver their food. "Besides, I'm not too intimidated by Reindeer Games over there, especially with how easily we, you know, whooped his ass."

Taking issue with Tony's lackluster summarization of the battle they had just fought while Sigyn chuckles lowly, Loki argues, "If I recall correctly, you were not always so assured of your victory."

"Sure I was," Tony rebukes, grabbing the meat on his plate and stuffing into a piece of bread along with some sliced pickles. Absent-mindedly, Sigyn does the same. With a bite of food in his mouth, he continues, "After all, how do you lose when you have the Goddess of Victory on your side?"

Everyone's eyes turn to her, and she pauses in the middle of chewing to look up in surprise. Certainly, that is not how it works. She had always imagined that it was because Thor could summon thunder and Loki was such a profuse liar that they had attained their respective godships, but perhaps it was the other way around.

However, she wonders, if her title is meant to make her predisposed for victory, how is it that anyone could kill her, much less be destined to do so? With that thought, Sigyn loses sight of the world around her, quiet as she mulls over the foe she had met and the prophecy she had heard earlier. Absorbed in what it means to be the Goddess of Victory, she misses the rest of the conversation, drawn from her stupor when Thor nudges her in the side after everyone else has finished their meal.

After that, S.H.I.E.L.D. picks them up for a final debriefing, which consists mostly of Fury asking questions, Steve and Thor answering those questions, and Tony interrupting with unhelpful comments. At the meeting's close, they have Sigyn move the Tesseract from the case in which the humans had decided to store it to the container Heimdall had given her. She does so with care, using telepathy to move the Tesseract after Fury tells her not to touch it with her bare hands. After the Tesseract is in place, she makes sure not to screw on the cap of the container completely, not wanting to be transported from Earth all by herself.

Later in the afternoon, they are dropped off by a river across from the city the Chitauri had devastated just hours beforehand. At this point, all of the humans have changed out of the grimy, torn-up suits they had worn for the battle. Sigyn and Thor, however, are still covered in dust, blood, and Chitauri guts, and are more than ready to return home.

They bid each of the humans good-bye, shaking hands with some and hugging others. The last person Sigyn bids farewell is Natasha, who pulls away from their embrace with a mournful smile. "What's gonna happen to me now that you're leaving, huh? I'm gonna be the only girl on the team."

"On Asgard, we have a saying," Sigyn starts, giving her a wry, reassuring grin. "'Pests are nary bit as fearsome as they envision you to be.'"

Natasha laughs, telling her, "We have a similar phrase here on Earth."

Sigyn nods, unsurprised. Though she may have come to Earth believing the mortal planet vastly inferior to Asgard, her brief time here has shown her the error of that way of thinking. The humans may have their troubles, but they are just as advanced as are her people, if not more so in some ways.

"But, uh, did you just call all the guys pests," asks Natasha, shooting her a sly look.

Easily, Sigyn replies, "Is that not what men are?"

Sighing, Natasha laughs again. "Yeah, I'm definitely going to miss you."

"As I shall miss you, my friend," says Sigyn in turn, gently clapping her on the shoulder.

At long last, she makes her way over to where Thor stands with Loki by the river's edge. The two of them face each other, each of them holding one end of the capsule containing the Tesseract. Thor gives a final nod to the mortals before telling her to hold onto one of them. Instinctually, she winds her arms around one of Loki's, realizing what she has done only after she has done it. The both of them look at her in surprise, clearly having expected her to cling to Thor. To make up for her blunder, she reminds Loki, "I still loathe you," and tries to appear as unaffected as can be.

Loki opens his mouth to reply, but before he has the chance to say something irksome, Thor twists the handle on his side of the capsule. The blue light of the Tesseract's power crawls out from beneath the glass, shrouding their forms and pulling them up from the ground. For the first half of their trip back to Asgard, it seems as though they are suspended in space, unprotected but for a thin coating of white luminescence. The farther they go, however, more colors start to fill out the space around them, the Bifröst gradually rebuilding itself. By the time they find themselves returned to Asgard, it looks and feels as though the Bifröst had never been destroyed in the first place.

The three of them stand at the very end of the Rainbow Bridge beside the mouth of the Bifröst, looking up at the platform in the dome's center to find Odin and Heimdall awaiting them. Feeling self-conscious under Odin's gaze, she quickly extricates herself from Loki.

"Leave us," Odin says.

Moved by the command, she steps away from Loki and Thor. She and Heimdall depart from the Bifröst and start down the bridge. Sigyn can feel Loki's eyes on her back as she walks away, but she does not look back.

As soon as they are halfway down the bridge, Heimdall speaks up. "Are you glad to be home?"

"Yes," she admits haltingly. Her time on Earth had been arduous, but thankfully all had ended well. That is, all that had to do with Loki's imminent threat to the planet. Recalling her interaction with Thanos and Yao, though, she worries that her visit to Earth may spell bigger, more lethal problems for her down the line. Looking over to him, she adds, "Though, I suspect you know my relief will be short-lived."

He says nothing, but acknowledgement glints in his eyes as they seem to stare straight through her soul. He had seen her on Earth, then, she thinks. In what must be an anomalous attempt at comfort, he accompanies her to her front door, where he bids her goodnight. As he departs, she wonders just how much of her time on Earth he had seen, and if he thinks her as doomed as does Yao.

From outside, she can hear her mother bustling about, likely putting everything in its rightful place before turning in for the night. Sigyn feels almost guilty at the thought of coming in and ruining what must be a simple, peaceful moment with the news she has to share. Taking a deep breath, she braces herself and opens the door, greeting her mother with a preoccupied smile.

Walentyna beams in turn when she spots Sigyn, coming over to embrace her. "Oh, you're back! How was Midgard, darling?"

Sigyn gulps down her nerves, restlessly informing her mother, "Well, we won the day, but unfortunately, it seems I am to die."

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