"Hello, stranger."

Thor caught himself just short of wincing at the coolness in Sigyn's voice when he pushed open the door to her chambers to find her seated at the loom in her parlor. He moved past the door and let it swing closed behind him, but didn't go any further into the room. Her eyes stayed calmly on her work, both of them apparently waiting for the other to speak.

Sigyn spoke first, asking lightly, "Have you visited Loki on this trip?"

"No," Thor answered, not sure if or why she was displeased with him, but hoping that his answer wouldn't make it worse.

"Do you intend to? He knows you are here, after all."

Thor chose not to point out that he doubted that Loki cared if he was there, explaining instead, "I wanted to speak to you first."

"About what?"

"SHIELD."

"Ah. Heimdall said a few days ago that you had taken up with them once again. But why would you need to discuss the organization with me?"

"I wish for you to join SHIELD as well," Thor answered bluntly.

Sigyn's hands stopped in their occupation as she froze for a second before turning on her stool to face him, asking, "And why, pray tell, would I do that?"

"For Loki," Thor answered instantly.

"How would that benefit him?" she asked, arching a blonde eyebrow with a look in her eyes that oozed steeliness despite her petite frame.

"I have convinced Father that Loki would be a benefit to SHIELD, and Father agreed to release him from his imprisonment to go to work with us – but only if you were to accompany Loki to help keep him in check."

"I take it you haven't spoken to my husband about this possibility?"

"No; whether or not he's allowed to go hinges upon whether or not you're willing to go."

"Fine position you've put me in then, isn't it?" Sigyn smirked. The woman before him was a much harder person than the Sigyn that Thor was used to encountering, but neither one of them doubted her ultimate loyalty to her husband, and it was that loyalty that at last made her sigh and agree, "If Loki is willing to go, then I am willing to accompany him."

A nearly involuntary grin split across Thor's face as he declared, "Wonderful! Now I only have to go convince Loki… and with you on my side, I dare believe that will be easier than it might've otherwise."

"Despite what is being said by your precious quartet of warriors?" Sigyn queried with another smirk.

"I… am unsure of that which you speak."

"You're also a bad liar," Sigyn answered, rising from her seat. "Those outside of Loki and myself have no right to judge my marriage, much less are they aware of the actual state of it. I dare say that Loki might perhaps even take better to this idea of yours if it were to come from me personally. Would you mind if I were to the one to go speak to him about it? Heimdall will, I'm sure, have you informed if he believes I could use your assistance in presenting it to him."

Thor nodded and held the door to her chambers open for his sister-in-law as she went past while he said, "Very well."

"Don't thank me yet," Sigyn muttered.

Thinking back to when the same thought had run through his own head when talking to Agent Coulson, Thor flinched.


"Hello, beloved." Sigyn barely refrained from shivering at the mocking sneer in her husband's voice as she appeared around the edge of his cell. "What brings you here? Let me guess; Thor sends his regards but couldn't bear to come see me himself?"

"Thor," Sigyn responded, her defenses instantly raised by the nearly default hatred in Loki's voice. "Sends you an option outside of life in this cell."

This raised Loki's eyebrows and caught his attention, causing him to request, "Do tell."

"The Warriors Three and Sif are going with Thor to work for SHIELD on Midgard. Thor desires for you and I to join them as well."

Loki's bitter laugh made her jump, and his amused expression slipped a bit before he asked, "Has Daddy's boy run his idea by his father yet?"

"He has," Sigyn nodded.

Now Loki seemed to truly consider what he was being told, turning his back to her to pace to the opposite wall of his cell. When he turned back towards her he asked, "Is your presence a necessity?"

"Why?" she asked instantly and a bit sharply as she tried not to be hurt by the implication that her "presence" was undesirable in the eyes of the man that she had once loved – still loved, really, despite herself.

"He's talking about going into an ongoing war. That's what Coulson's SHIELD would be – an ongoing wager of war against evil."

"And?"

Loki cocked his head to the side, staring at her, and Sigyn saw when something besides hatred – perhaps confusion? – came into his eyes, if only for a moment.

"And," he admitted slowly, glancing towards his feet as if he were embarrassed and shocking her to the toes of her own feet with his words. "I do not wish for you to be harmed. Least of all in a war that has nothing to do with you."

It was her turn to laugh disbelievingly at him, and she did then, reminding him, "But you have everything to do with me. If this is your way off of Asgard and out of a prison, then it is mine as well." She stepped up to the very edge of the magic-infused pane of glass that separated him, letting him get a clear view of her suddenly blazing eyes as she said, "Do not think for half of a second Loki Laufeyson that your actions in the past have not affected my life. They have. I cannot safely emerge from my own quarters without fear for my life since you tried taking Odin's throne. I have to let one of my attendants – the very few that remain unquestionably loyal to me – eat off of my plate before I do lest I ingest poison. All of my friends have abandoned me, rumors run rampant of things for which I would be fit to lose my title, and I haven't gone anywhere unaccompanied for the past year." Realizing that her hands were fisted so tightly she was leaving imprints on her palms, Sigyn slammed her hands against the glass – mimicry of Loki's discussion with the Black Widow that none of them noticed in the moment – and was rewarded with seeing her husband start and flinch violently. "So let me inform you, husband dearest, if you think you are the only one who has been imprisoned, you are wrong. If you think you are the only one who wants away from Asgard, you are wrong, and if you think that I am not entirely capable of using tactics that you would not appreciate to get you to agree to go to Midgard, you are wrong there too. In my eyes, asking you is nothing but a formality which you will play along with. We are going. Am I understood?"

And Loki was so startled by her furious speech that even his silver tongue was without words, leaving him with no choice but to nod meekly. Sigyn nodded sharply in return and sweetly murmured "good" before leaving with a smile on her face to give Thor a report of her husband's decision.