"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood."

–Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The next morning's meditation didn't go any better. Freyja didn't visit Loki or check in on Thor, but she still couldn't concentrate. Her escapade with the youngest Asgardian prince the previous morning had dredged up old memories in the night that just made her feel worse about her situation. She had checked every strand of the future, just to be sure there was nothing she could do.

About a third of the threads were the results of her breaking down and returning to Asgard. None of those turned out well. One image was of her cradling Loki's body as blood slowly gushed from a long wound that spanned the length of his torso, the broken bodies of her friends surrounding her. Another showed her broken on the floor with Thanos in possession of the Tesseract. Then there was the one where Thor was impaled on a spear, his hammer laying useless next to him. An alternative version where everyone was in chains, waiting in line for their execution. Then, most disturbingly, a vision of herself chained to the ground, surrounded by what looked like the ruins of Asgard, as Thanos sat on a throne of gold.

The rest, excluding one she had yet to riddle out, were visions of what would happen if she continued running. She saw herself in her various forms in different worlds. In each one, she looked as though she had been pushed closer and closer to the brink of sanity. A few showed narrow escapes as Thanos tried to trap her. The majority seemed to show what would come once she had lost her mind after a few more millennia. None of them seemed to have an end.

The last one that didn't seem to fit into either of the categories was convoluted beyond recognition. A dead Jötunn who had fatal burns across her chest lay on the flagstones of Asgard's streets as Freyja kneeled over her with an enraged expression. The image was replaced by her locked in a mental battle with the Titan Thanos, tears rolling down her face for some inexplicable reason. And then the final vision, the one which shook her to her core, came into view. She lay on the cold streets of Asgard, eyes open and unseeing, in a pool of her own blood. Loki, his Æsir form stripped away to reveal his blue skin, was falling forward until he was almost draped across her, looking too close to death for her comfort. More importantly, Asgard was burning around them. Freyja had no idea what path would bring her to those realities.

None of them were acceptable in her eyes, none of them were optimistic. But, then again, time had made her a realist and so she didn't believe in a perfect scenario. Perfection, an aspect her people had strived for, was something she didn't believe in. Just as she didn't believe in the apathy her people had clung to so desperately. The more she looked back on it, the more she realized that there had been many aspects of her people that she did not agree with. But she had still been crushed when her people had been all but wiped out.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The skies were almost completely clear, obscured only by the occasional wispy cloud that drifted lazily across the blue. It was a dull color compared to the brilliance of the Vanaheim skies, much more so in comparison to Asgard's miasma of stars, though she still thought it was beautiful in its own right. If there was one thing she missed about her home, it was the stark contrast between the sable colors of the Vanir and the vivid hues that made up the world they lived in. But that no longer existed. Vanaheim had become a wasteland of browns and greys.

It hurt to think she would never see that beauty again. Never confide her doubts in her brother again. Never fix the shattered remains of her relationship with her father. All of her friends were dead, all of her family. It hurt so much that she felt as if her heart was being ripped out. The only cure to the ache, as she had recently found out, was Loki. Or the Loki she had known before, it would seem. But the man she had known was buried somewhere beneath the pain and anger.

When she had first met Loki, he had exposed her for the first time to emotions and the simple happiness in everyday life. He was the one to show her that there was more to life than doing as she was told and keeping herself empty of everything, that she was allowed to have an opinion of her own and that some rules were made to be broken. And she slowly adapted to the change, along with the other Vanir that spent most of their time in Asgard. He was an intense light that burned through the darkness of her rigid upbringing and everything that had haunted her. In only a few years, he had broken through the chains her father had placed around their lives and returned the Vanir to their original culture. He was the cure to anything that ailed her. And that man was almost gone.

Unable to continue meditating while getting nothing done, Freyja stood up and walked back into the building. Stark had left for some meeting, leaving her with a warning not to leave the building, and Thor had taken Jane out for the day. She was alone with her thoughts in a city that was so different from what she'd known. So perhaps a day out on the streets was what she needed to get her mind off matters, regardless of what Tony had said.

"Ma'am, Sir has given me strict orders not to allow you to leave," Jarvis said the second she pushed the button for the elevator.

"If you don't allow me to leave this way, I will simply jump off the balcony," she answered. "I can assure you that I will survive the fall."

She heard the glass door lock and knew what he would say even before it echoed through the room, "I cannot allow you to leave."

"Fine. Make this difficult for yourself, but I will not be held prisoner again," she muttered, placing her hand on the cool surface of the metal wall.

Wisps of her silver aura trailed from her fingers as she allowed them to follow the wires that led to Jarvis's mainframe. She wasn't particularly familiar with Earth's technology, as it was eons behind what she had used on Vanaheim, but she found it easier to manipulate than she had originally thought. She smiled, thinking how it was too easy to tweak Tony's AI system.

The door to the elevator slid open without so much as a complaint from Jarvis and she stepped in, pushing the button for the ground floor of the Avengers Tower. She was both surprised and pleased with the advances the humans had made since she had last been there. Asgard was a world trapped in time, with customs that came out of the past. Although it was quaint and refreshing, she preferred the modern and antiquated mix of Vanaheim, even if she did not agree with the customs her father had instilled in the people. But that fact that Earth kept few ties to its own past was a pleasant surprise.

She stepped out as soon as the doors opened, nodding to the blonde-haired woman behind the front desk. Freyja found Midgardian fashion strange but oddly comfortable despite most of it being relatively loose-fitting. Leather seemed to be reduced to jackets or boots and metal wasn't worn in any form besides jewelry. She had found that while Tony wore silk shirts or cotton tees, many others did not. She had been glad when he lent her some clothes he received from a woman named Pepper Potts.

Today she had picked out a button down white blouse, blue jeans, and her knee-high riding boots, which she had managed to salvage from the wreckage of her ship. As she walked out onto the sidewalk outside, she looked around at her surroundings, noticing how a few people watched her as she walked by. Large screens flashing advertisements of random Midgardian objects adorned various buildings. People bustled through the streets, talking into devices and yelling at others around them. Cars zoomed by in all colors and shapes. She could, unfortunately, smell the chemicals on the air.

Another thing she missed about Vanaheim: the lack of pollution. Humans had yet to find a clean source of anything besides Tony's arc reactor and a few other innovations that he had informed her about. She had stayed with Tony and Bruce the day before, watching how they worked through the problems they faced in their lab. It had been surprising to her that the humans took the long way to solve everything. She had given them a few postulates and theorems which she knew could be of help to them, gaining their interest, and had launched into a lecture as to how they were true afterward. It had sparked a conversation in the science of her own people, which quickly became about biology and then led to Bruce asking for a sample of her blood.

She had let him take a sample, explaining the anomaly of her ever-changing molecular structure as he did so. Both men had been startled at the instability of her genetic code but had accepted her answer with ease when she told them. She found that while Tony was skeptical and joking, Bruce was much easier to talk to because of his sincerity and acceptance. He reminded her of Animi, an old friend who had long since died, and she found she could almost forget that Bruce wasn't him. It was easier to be more open with him as he didn't judge her.

Shaking her head to clear it of the errant thoughts, she focused on weaving her way through the ever-shifting crowds. She rather enjoyed the anonymity that greeted her on Earth. No one bowed or moved away when she walked by. It was invigorating, she thought gleefully, to simply be another person rather than the Princess of Vanaheim. It was always so much easier to hide on Earth because of their lack of knowledge of her identity. No whispers of her whereabouts reached Thanos's ears when she stayed briefly on Midgard, as no one had a clue as to who she was.

What did bother her was the amount of tragedy that laced the human's world. There was so much pain, so many needless deaths, it disgusted her. Where the Vanir only fought as a last resort, and the Asgardians made sparring a game, death seemed to be a sport on Earth. The malignant thoughts that swirled in the some of the humans' minds were sickening. And although many human lives that were lost lay etched into her dwarven armbands, she couldn't count the number of humans she had saved from themselves.

"Freyja?" a voice behind her said, catching her by surprise and ending her morbid thoughts.

She turned to find Captain Steve Rogers walking towards her with a surprised expression. Though she couldn't put into words as to why, she felt a similar comfort around Steve as she had around Bruce. He reminded her of the age of chivalry, which she had found was dwindling on Earth, and she got the impression that he was the type to stand up for those he knew. She offered him a smile, waving him over.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked. "I thought you were staying in for the day."

She raised her eyebrows, "Am I not allowed to go out on my own? Can I truly not go walking when the notion pleases me?"

He shook his head, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just heard that you were supposed to stay in Avengers Tower."

She scowled, "I do not enjoy being told what to do. I will follow instruction, if I believe it necessary, but I don't believe a walk will cause any harm."

He smiled, "I understand. When I first woke up here, I didn't put up with them trying to keep me inside, either."

"Woke up here?" she asked. "I was under the impression that you were born in this city."

He shook his head, hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, "Remember when I told you that you wouldn't believe my story?"

"I do."

"I'm from the 1940's, originally," he told her. "I was frozen for almost seventy years and only woke up last year."

He was silent while he waited for her response. Looking him up and down, and taking in the almost earnest expression on his face, Freyja realized that he was being entirely serious. Though she had never heard of a human living quite so long, it was certainly not the strangest thing to behold. She was quiet for a few minutes before bursting out into laughter.

"Is something funny?" he asked, visibly taken aback by her reaction.

"Simply the idea that you thought I would not believe your story," she sighed as she stopped laughing. "I am a nearly three thousand-year-old, by your standards, shape-shifting sorceress who has seen every Realm at various points in time and you assumed that I would not believe you to be older than you look? Do I look as old as I truly am?"

He turned red, "No, ma'am."

"Please do not call me that. I may be a princess, and much older than you, but I am not above you in any sense of the word."

He blinked in surprise at that, taking a second to think about her reasoning.

"Is something strange?" she asked.

"I – well, sort of. I expected you to be more…stuck up, I guess."

"I don't believe in social hierarchies," she explained. "I see all people as equals. After all, what would make me better than you in the end?"

He shrugged, "Aren't you stronger than us?"

"I am physically stronger, faster, and more versatile than your kind, but the Asgardians are stronger still. I heal faster, use the full capacity of my mind, wield magic, change my form, and manipulate the mind. I may be more adept but I am not above you."

"I see your point," he admitted. "I guess I've been expecting someone kind of like Thor and Loki."

She smiled, choosing to change the subject, "You are a soldier, are you not?"

He nodded, "I fought in World War Two against the Nazis and a group called HYDRA."

"I haven't the slightest idea of what you are speaking of."

"I forgot you haven't been here in…How long, exactly?"

"I believe the year was 1915, give or take a year. Things are very different now than they were then."

He whistled, "That's not too long before I was frozen. Wasn't that one of the years of the Great War?"

She nodded, "It was for that reason that I chose not to stay long. I have been one for violence, particularly war."

"I thought Thor and his friends used to seek out violence."

"They did. For a long time, I did not join them," she told him. "But they came back one day and Fandral was close to death. After that, I went with them whenever I could, if only to make sure they were safe. I never wanted to lose any of them."

Steve glanced at her out the corner of his eyes, "Did you ever lose one?"

"None of the friends I shared with Thor. I have known many people, some of whom are dead now, but I try my best not to dwell upon them unless it is to remember them fondly. It is depressing, to know that those you love must die as you live on."

He looked down, "I know what you mean."

She looked at him, "Forgive me. I did not think to consider the friends you have lost in your time."

"It's alright," he told her. "I was just thinking of Bucky."

"Bucky?"

"A childhood friend of mine."

She scrutinized him, "He sounds more akin to a brother than a friend, if you don't mind my saying."

He sighed, a smile playing across his lips, "You're right. He looked after me for a long time, tried keeping me out of trouble. If he had still been alive at the time, he probably would have been there when I crashed."

"Crashed?"

"I crashed a plane into the ocean to save New York – and a lot of other cities, too. There didn't seem to be a better solution at the time."

"Sacrificing your life for the good of the majority," Freyja sighed. "That is a story I know too well."

He glanced at her, taking in her solemn expression, "You've seen it before?"

She laughed humorlessly, "I have done the same thing. I was in love, still am to be truthful, but I chose to give up such a gift to protect him. I originally left to fight with my people, but I never made it. It was only after the destruction that I found that if I wanted to keep him and his world alive, I would have to stay away. The Tesseract, I was supposed to guard it. I hid it here so that if I was ever caught, no one could take it. I have been running from Realm to Realm since."

"What is the Tesseract?"

She shook her head, "If I told you, I would put your life in danger beyond your wildest imagination. It is better to stay ignorant of its purpose. Look at me – I know all of its secrets and, in attempt to gain those, my enemies have ripped my life away from me. I have permanently lost my family and my people, I cannot go to my love without fear I shall bring death, as well, and I cannot even stay in one place for more than a fortnight at the very most. All I have left is my identity and my goal. I must continue running for eternity to protect the safety of every living creature on the Yggdrasil."

He tried desperately to find something to say, but what could he possibly say to that? He had sacrificed himself for the good of the country and she was giving up her life for the existence of the universe. She truly had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"Is there no way to change things?"

"I foresee no answers to this. I have an eternity of running before me, I can do nothing but hope the fates are kind," she said. "Do not pity me, Steve Rogers. I do not despair for my future, so I ask you do the same."

He nodded, deciding he could respect that, "Can I ask you a question? It's kind of off topic."

"Ask anything you wish to."

"You're not really a goddess, are you?"

She giggled, unable to help herself, "Of course not. I am simply of another species. We were worshipped for our strength and magic by your ancestors, but neither the Æsir nor the Vanir were gods. My people believed we were created by a single, all-knowing being we call Sophossentia, which loosely translates into the 'Wise One'."

"Like God?"

"I believe it is the same being, just named differently. But the Asgardians believe in another story."

"Huh. I never would have pegged you as a Christian."

"A what?"

"Never mind," he said with a shake his head. "So, what's your story?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, different religions here have different stories of how people were created. I was just wondering-"

"What our origin story is," she nodded understandingly. "Our story goes that Sophossentia created seven worlds of different species, all created for a purpose in the Divine Plan. Despite his creations, he found he needed another species to moderate the others. So he created the Vanir out of wind and stars, making us both beautiful and terrifying in our abilities. We had more restraint than the rest of the species, and were given a land more beautiful than anything he had created before when we proved our generosity."

"That's a beautiful belief."

"Not everyone would think so," she sighed. "It wasn't long before the Asgardians waged war against us. We nearly destroyed each other. The Asgardians prefer to think the war ended in a truce but, in reality, we broke through their defenses and offered them a chance for forgiveness. We made a treaty: we would not enter the minds of others' and they would not harm us. Though we never broke the treaty, as my kind is bound by our words, some of the choices we made in upholding it were wrong."

"Like what?"

"Hmm?" she looked at him, pulled away from her reverie.

"What did you do that you shouldn't have?"

She laughed, "Where to begin? For a race that claims to be wise, we have made many foolish mistakes. I suppose the first and largest was extracting our negative emotions and suppressing the rest."

"What?"

"After the second war, we began believing the devastation we created stemmed from our emotions. In order to prevent such disasters, my father developed a technique which extracts emotions such as anger, jealousy, vanity, and battle-lust. We then snuffed out the rest of our emotions until we were all but stone. Nothing could hurt us, but nothing could make us happy, either."

He looked her up and down, "But you feel things, don't you? You don't seem…emotionless."

"Courtesy of Asgard," she explained with a smile. "The few that lived in Asgard, and the other Realms, as ambassadors became open to emotions. It's impossible to live among people who are so driven by their emotions and remain hollow. After I myself had tasted happiness, I refused to continue driving it away."

"When was that?"

"Why the curiosity in my life?" she laughed.

He shrugged, "I guess it's because it's refreshing to be around another person who doesn't come from this time."

"I understand. Despite the advancement of Vanaheim, I do find this era very peculiar. What was it you asked?"

"When was the first time you felt happiness?"

She smiled, "Ah, yes. I was seven years of age. Loki and I had snuck out of the palace one full moon and stargazed from the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that acts as a gateway to the other worlds. I had felt contentment before, and relief, but that was the first time I felt true happiness."

"You were friends with Loki?"

"I know what you must feel towards Loki, as I have heard what he did here, but he was not the same then. You must understand, he was the smaller, the younger, and the weaker than the rest of his people. He was misunderstood by the others because he was fonder of books than swords and could barely lift a hammer. He could take quite a few hits, though. If anything, he was resilient."

"I know what it's like to be the weaker man," Steve pointed out. "I wasn't always like this. I was constantly being underestimated, told I was too small, too weak, to do much of anything. I can't even count the times I was beat up. All this," – he gestured at himself – "came from an experimental serum."

She nodded, "Then you understand where he came from, at the very least. I cannot justify his actions, but I can tell you what led him to them. On top of living in his brother's shadow, he found out that he was lied to since he was a child. Everything that he thought was real, even his identity, was false. He lost sight of himself and so fell prey to darker instincts."

"What was he like? Before finding out the truth, I mean."

"He was very quiet and secretive at first. But he opened up to me unlike anyone else. We understood each other, and became very close as a result. I was a repressed princess, a captive to my father's ways, and he was a misunderstood prince with self-regard issues. When we were together, we felt as if we actually belonged somewhere. We felt as though we had found a home at last.

"When he was around me, he was significantly happier. The Loki I knew was compassionate, analytical, curious, loyal, and free-spirited. I was drawn to his vivacity like a moth to a flame, longing for what I had never experienced. He showed me what life could be and I showed him that strength can come in many forms."

"You taught him magic," he guessed. "Do you ever regret it?"

She was silent for a second, thinking it through, "No. He found delight in magic. It gave him something that he was superior at. If he did not have that outlet, his reaction to his own doubts would have been exponentially worse. With magic, he has a way to see his own self-worth."

"I can respect that."

She smiled, "You might be the only one."

"You seem to care about him a lot."

"He means a great deal to me," Freyja said shortly. "He is practically family, just as Thor is."

A few minutes of silence passed between the two of them as Steve realized he had somehow reached an uncomfortable topic. He racked his brain for something to say, if only to ease the tension. His eyes scanned over their surroundings, which had changed drastically as they walked, before he got a halfway decent idea.

"Are you hungry?" he asked weakly.

"A little," she conceded.

"I know a great pizza joint not too far from here."

A look of confusion crossed her face as she looked at him, "What is pizza?"

He opened and closed his mouth without a sound, unable to come up with a response in his surprise. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't come up with an answer, and soon he simply gave up.

"It's easier just to show you," he finally managed.

"I should let you know that I do not eat meat," she told him. "For religious reasons, I suppose you could say."

He shrugged, "That's alright. We can just get cheese."

There were easily over a dozen independent pizzerias in New York that were simply known as Ray's Pizza. It was one of the most confusing things Steve had ever heard of, which had not existed in his time, especially since they all claimed to be the first establishment of that name. But out of all of them, he had found his favorite was neither 'Original Ray's' nor 'World Famous Original Ray's'. His favorite was Not Ray's Pizza at 694 Fulton Street. Steve opened the door for Freyja as they reached the place, seemingly surprising her with the gesture.

"What's wrong?" he laughed. "You act like you didn't know we had manners."

"I have seen an appalling lack of them since I came," she admitted.

"I'll admit, common courtesy isn't exactly common anymore."

She followed him silently, watching in silence as he ordered a medium cheese pizza and two soft drinks. The place was relatively small, but it was thankfully cool inside despite the summer heat, and Freyja found she rather liked the ambiance.

"Have you ever had soda?" Steve asked, handing her a paper cup.

"No."

"Do you feel like trying something new?"

She smiled at that, and Steve got the sense that there was a double meaning to her words, "You'll find I'm open to many things."

He gestured for her to sit down while he got the food. Taking the chair across from her, he placed the tray down on the table and took a slice from the half-opened box. He watched her quietly as she hesitantly bit into her first slice. It must have been good, he thought, as she had already eaten four slices by the time he had finished with two.

"Is there a problem?" she asked, trying not to laugh at his expression.

"I-I've just never seen a woman eat so much."

She burst into laughter, "Do women not eat here?"

"No, I mean- I meant," he desperately backtracked, trying to think of a better way to phrase what he had said.

"Don't trouble yourself. My metabolism runs faster than a human's due to the amount of energy it takes to wield magic. As a matter of fact, I cannot gain weight. My cells use up most of the energy from the food I eat. Very little is actually stored."

"Oh. I'm sorry, by the way. I didn't mean to be rude."

"You weren't. I do not believe in condemning people simply because of curiosity."

She took a sip of her soda, immediately crying out in surprise. Her hand flew to her mouth, a look of surprise on her face.

"It bit me," she exclaimed softly.

He tried not to laugh as he realized what she was talking about, "That's the carbonation."

She eyed the drink suspiciously, "Why would you want to have a drink that bites?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't even think about it, generally. I guess I'm just used to it."

He continued with his slice of pizza. Freyja didn't touch her soda again, but looked down at the last two pieces in the box. She hadn't been using magic often in the recent days but, given that she was planning to leave sometime soon, she might need the extra energy. Steve pushed it closer to her before she could ask.

"Go ahead," he said. "I'm guessing magic takes a lot out of you."

She smiled in thanks, taking a slice, "You have no idea."

He said nothing in return, and neither did she, as both were thinking of the implications of what wasn't being said. Steve had never been one to sit back quietly as someone suffered, but he also knew he was incapable of helping Freyja any more than he already was. Of course, she was very much aware of his thoughts, so open was his aura. She still appreciated the gesture. After all, it wasn't often that she made friends anymore.