Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand

by C.J.Ellison

[Non-AoU Compliant] Two years after the Battle of New York, Earth is under threat of another celestial attack- and this time its leader won't be trying to lose. With the Avengers unaware and ill-equipped to stop it, an uneasy alliance of the broken and the lost team up to save the world. Weirdly, it actually works. [Part III of Ice and Gold]

2. II: Kairos

II. Kairos

No matter the hour, it was likely that there was at least one person awake in Avengers Tower. Natasha and Steve tended to be the earliest risers, awake to see dawn unfurl over the skyline, like watercolour bleeding through raw canvas, training or sketching or lounging in the penthouse. Bruce was often up by six, but there were days when he remained abed until noon, exhausted by the constant tension he held within himself- although, such recovery days were becoming less frequent since he had moved into the Tower, usually only occurring after missions. Tony was, inevitably, up the latest and longest, at his most productive in the small hours with strong coffee within reach, working in his lab from eleven in the evening until four in the morning and emerging from his room at an obscene hour, unless Pepper intervened. Clint was unpredictable; either he could be caught grabbing a bowl of cereal at one in the morning, or found at the breakfast bar pouring one out at noon, hair mussed and voice still crackling with sleep. And then there was JARVIS, a constant, non-intrusive, benevolent presence in the Tower, corded into it like a genius loci.

Thus the Tower was neither truly nocturnal nor diurnal. In many ways, that suited Thor. Asgardians needed less sleep than mortals, a few Midgardian hours per night being sufficient, and any more than that was an indulgence. Rarely, then, was he the only soul awake, or there was no company to be found.

Still, on many evenings, Thor found himself alone and wandering through the base, venturing up and out to search Earth's skies for the glint of a handful of stars, barely strong enough to be seen through the wash of light cast up by the sleepless city. Thor was ill-accustomed to solitude; he had always been at the centre of any gathering, surrounded by peers and admirers, laughing the loudest and talking the most, recounting tales and plotting new adventures.

So much had changed. He was learning the value of seclusion, moment by quiet moment.

But night had a sheer, shimmering clarity that made Thor both uneasy and acutely aware of why his brother had favoured the hour. Where the dark prince had withdrawn into it, wrapping himself in isolation and shadow, Thor instead cast it off, and went in search of company and light.

He did not wish to be alone with his thoughts this night.

"How goes it?"

Tony's attention barely strayed from the screens as Thor entered the laboratory where he had been working since midday.

"Not bad. Good enough that Bruce was okay with getting some sleep," he answered, erasing a line of code and replacing it, banishing the window as soon as his edits were made, and drawing up another with a focused swirl of his fingertips. "Guy's been up since seven."

Thor knew. His usefulness was limited for the interim, and he had been strung with knotted tension since Natasha had briefed them, hyperaware of all that the others were engaged with. Behind the soundproofed glass walls, the electrical engineer and atomic physicist had been calibrating sensors in facilities across the globe, repurposing them to detect the few recorded radiation signatures associated with magical energy, designing a program that would constantly scour every available camera in the most efficient way possible for their target. Thor had faith in their abilities; mortals were far more ingenious than much of the galaxy gave them credit.

They create their own strength, a thought sounded within Thor's head pensively, sounding entirely too much like his brother. Fascinating, is it not?

Thor paused, noticing crescents of smudged bruise-purple under his comrade's eyes as he worked, more apparent under the artificial lighting.

"Should you not also rest, my friend? I know this is the time during which you prefer to work, but it is becoming late, and-"

"Eh, that's what caffeine's for." Tony brushed off his concern, bright brown irises sparking across the slim monitors arranged around him, dark and real as motor oil and metal shavings and fresh coffee against the blank-slate ivory and silver of the room. "And this needs all the fine-tuning it can get." He shrugged. "It's not like the big guy can just knock back a double espresso, what with risking going green if his pulse gets too high."

"Then, at least allow me to bring you sustenance," Thor insisted, moving towards the coffee machine set at the far end of the room. It had been the first appliance that he had learned to operate, having established that it was considered the most vital to general peace and sanity. He had also learned their regular orders, considering- as Tony put it- he was one of the few in the Tower who could function properly before receiving a morning sacrifice in a mug. Natasha only drank decaffeinated cappuccinos, if that; Steve took his strong and black; Tony either requested something with at least five different extra ingredients and provisos, or black coffee, strong as jet-fuel and with two sugars; Clint took his with plenty of heavy cream; and Bruce drank decaffeinated lattes- or, like Natasha, kept to decaffeinated tea.

Tony glanced over his shoulder at him, the path of his gaze piercing. "Sure, thanks," he said lightly. "So how are you doing? Not great, I expect- it's kind of a bad question- but, had to ask."

Thor busied himself with opening up the coffee machine, the natural strength of him consciously tethered. It ached, sometimes, like being chained, bound in the same position for too long.

"You need not worry, son of Howard. I am- I admit, conflicted. But not hesitant."

"You're not responsible, you know." Tony stated, misleadingly casual. "There comes a point where you have to stop blaming yourself for other people's choices. That way lies madness. I know a little bit about it."

Thor paused, his shoulders sinking and swallowing thickly.

"Should I be glad that my brother lives- even after all that he has done- or enraged that he deceived me once more without hesitation, and I was blind to it?"

"You're allowed to be both. They're not mutually exclusive."

"But had I known," he replied, voice rough with rising distress as he snapped the coffee maker on to brew, "had I realised his trickery-"

Thor straightened, pushing himself upright on the heels of his hands, vibrating with a futile, barely constrained agitation, muscles twitching restlessly. There was nothing he could do- no way in which he could help- not until he found his very much alive brother and put a stop to whatever treachery he had devised.

"What about this young woman? The girl that Romanoff and Barton are protecting?"

"Celsius," Tony answered offhandedly, skimming through something on one of the translucent monitors with a faint frown. "Or at least that's what we call her- it's her codename, I guess you could say."

"How is she? She was held captive, was she not?"

"Yeah, she's fine. Little bit too fine, actually- apparently there wasn't a scratch on her." Tony swivelled on his heels to look at Thor. "That something Loki could do?"

Thor frowned. "Yes, certainly. But why would he? In fact, why would he rescue this young woman at all, and reveal himself as alive in the process? I cannot imagine he would do so unless he had some use for her."

"Might not be too far off there."

Catching Thor's slightly perplexed look from across the room, Tony elaborated.

"Well- long story short, back then SHIELD was using her as a- I guess you could say consultant, but it wasn't exactly her idea, if you catch my drift. Saw her in action a couple of times. Can always tell when someone was lying to her, no matter how good they are. Any educated guess says that's why SHIELD wanted her. Probably also why they sent her to watch him; they must have figured she'd be the hardest to trick, so she'd be the best person to guard him."

Thor's brow furrowed again slightly.

Odd. Why did that sound- almost-

"SHIELD sent a mortal to- you say she can always tell when she is being lied to?"

"Yeah. She's basically a human polygraph, except, you know, better."

- familiar?

"And- that is how Loki-"

"Yeah. Apparently, he got attached. Now the kid's potentially got a megalomaniacal demigod as a stalker, and there's no guaranteeing her safety until we find him."

Thor straightened. "Then should I not be-"

"Too conspicuous," Tony cut him off, not unkindly, anticipating what the question would have been; it had been an earlier point of contention within the team. Both Clint and Thor had argued that if Loki came back for the girl, it may be their best chance to recapture him. Natasha had argued that discretion was the point of taking her to the Hamptons, Steve had refused a scenario which turned the girl into bait unnecessarily and without her consent, and Tony had been confident that the defences should be enough for it to act as a short-term solution until they found something better. Bruce had remained neutral, deferring to Steve as the de facto strategist of the Avengers, and thus the majority won out. "The whole point of sending her down there was to hide her. You not being at the Tower would throw up about eleven different red flags if Reindeer Games found out."

Thor reluctantly accepted that Tony's logic was unassailable. He was right in his assessment of Loki- Thor remembered, with a dull ache, how easily his brother had hunted, located and quietly collected items and individuals and information of interest, only ever smirking when asked how he had found what was supposedly the very definition of elusive, or well concealed. Thor had never pressed the point, simply eager to use whatever Loki had uncovered, vaguely aware and blithely accommodating of his brother's secretive nature. Loki enjoyed knowing things other people didn't; it was, in retrospect, what had made him an exceptional diplomat and spymaster for Asgard. If ever their band encountered an obstacle that needed to be persuaded to move rather than forced, it was the Silvertongue Prince who could convince the problem evaporate without bloodshed, and just as often swindle some gain from the inconvenience.

The click of the coffee machine tugged him out of his musings, and Thor hastily slipped a tall glass mug underneath the dispenser as it began to pour: first frothed milk, flavoured with vanilla syrup, then espresso, its deep rich brown bleeding through white, then a drizzle of thick dark-gold caramel. Thor had tried this particular variation of coffee in the past- a caramel macchiato, so it was named- and found it startlingly sweet, yet powerfully bitter underneath.

Again, that sounded a little familiar. Dark gold, warm brown, silky white, sweetness and strength.

Thor carried the brimming glass cup across the room carefully, offering to Tony, who took it with a quietly uttered thanks.

"My friend." Tony gave a muffled noise of acknowledgement, already taking a scalding draught of coffee. "This young woman, Celsius- do you happen to have a picture of her?"

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "Probably, somewhere. Why do you ask?"

"I have what you may call a gut feeling," Thor said grimly. "A suspicion- one I hope is mistaken. But it demands investigation."

Setting the cup aside, Tony gave a slight shrug. "Alright," he said briskly, drawing up a search window and entering a stream of parameters, transferring it to another larger screen behind him, pressing the other tabs to periphery. "JARVIS- got her file somewhere?"

"I do have a number of SHIELD personnel and asset files, sir," JARVIS intoned, smooth and serene yet with a hint of warmth that, Thor could not help but think, would not have existed had Anthony Stark not been his creator. "One moment, please; I believe I have identified the file in question, but it requires decrypting."

"Sure." Tony leaned back against the counter, arms folded over the distressed band t-shirt he wore, the steady blue light of the arc reactor set in the centre of his chest glowing, sharp and steady, from beneath the charcoal cotton. Thor would be lying if he claimed that he was not a little intrigued by it, both by its ingenuity- and that of the doctor who had originally designed the method of keeping the shrapnel out of Tony's heart- and the aesthetic of it, rising from flesh and bone in a perfect circle of unyielding metal.

"So. Gut feeling?"

Thor glanced his way, troubled, and said nothing. Tony, for once, did not probe further.

"The file is decrypted, sir," JARVIS announced. "SHIELD asset file: Fahrenheit, Celsius. Legal name: unknown. Is that the correct file?"

"Yup. Pull up her profile image on the central monitor, will you, buddy?"

"Of course, sir."

The digital photograph loaded, semi-translucent on the clear screen, the search window expanding to accommodate its dimensions.

The corners of his vision blackened and blurred, and Thor felt sick.

It wasn't- but it was.

The resemblance was more than striking- it was disturbing. The mortal appeared to be in early adulthood- thirteen-hundred years or so for an Asgardian, perhaps two decades for a Midgardian- not quite looking at the camera had captured her image, a tightness in her mouth and between her brows indicating that she sensed the lens upon her. Her complexion was coppery sepia, her hair flaxen and with a natural curl, a few shades paler than Thor's own, pulling loose around her features, lashes and brows strikingly dark by comparison. Irises of clear hazel seemed to just skim past Thor- as though he could have called her name and her eyes would have flicked a degree to the left and to his with surprise and a smile.

Thor swallowed, unblinking as he took the snapshot in. The colours were wrong, too soft and similar and drained of contrast, but the outline of her- her expression- aligned perfectly with memories that Thor had kept long stored away, untouched but pristine, preserved by the crisp sterility of grief.

Thor's stomach turned, and he gripped the countertop behind him unseeingly.

It was impossible. She was dead; Heimdall had lost sight of her centuries ago.

"Thor? Hey- you alright?"

But- Loki. Loki had no way of knowing that; those few who knew had been silenced by the Allfather's order. No matter that it had become quietly assumed, accepted, after so long, that she was lost to them in one manner or another- Loki would have never accepted it without proof.

It couldn't be truly her, of that Thor was all but certain. One of the Midgardian languages had a word for it- doppelgänger; double-goer, as Thor understood it through the filer of the All-Tongue. It was used to describe the phenomenon of an unnaturally perfect lookalike of another, akin to the eerie vardøger of old Asgardian tales. And like those tragic heroes of the old tales, his brother had likely deluded himself into thinking- the mortal did look so much like her, it would be very easy to pretend- or perhaps he didn't care- perhaps he knew it couldn't be, consciously or otherwise, and the likeness was enough, the semblance soothing, and he just wanted something from before-

"Thor. Hey, not an expert on Asgardian physiology, but I think you need to breathe. Okay? Take a breath. Easy. Come on, Thor."

Thor dragged himself back to the surface of his own body, retaking control of his limbs and turning stiffly towards the voice, barely able to see through the haze swarming his peripheral vision. Tony's eyes were darting between Thor's, concern rising like a tide.

"Hey. You alright? What is it?" He bent slightly, trying to catch Thor's blank stare. "Jeez. You look like you've seen a ghost."

Thor dragged in a breath, throat burning. It might have been funny, had he not been terrified that a young woman may be in immediate danger because his mentally unhinged, emotionally unstable brother was desperately grasping for something that no longer existed.

"The girl," he managed to husk out. "The girl, she- we need to-"

"She's safe, there are people with her, a couple of world-class assassins, no less-"

"No," Thor said, staring up at the screen again, wavering with a sudden rush of sadness. "You don't understand. It's- she looks like her."

Tony paused, startled. "Her?"

"He'll come for her. It is no longer a question."

"You're sure?"

Thor nodded, jaw wound tight. The old, supposedly necessary, noble lie- yet another, Thor thought bitterly, how many more, Father- was crumbling, collapsing in a great cloud of dust and rubble.

He wondered who would be crushed underneath its weight this time.

"We need to get to her," Thor said, low and ominous as thunder in the distance, "now."

---

She is dreaming, of a memory.

Between the sleepless city and the pale curve of the moon, the light filtering in through the tall belvedere windows is just enough to see by- her bedroom is at the front of the house, facing the street, the translucent silk drapes drawn across the glass like morning mist. The hallways will be opaque with darkness, but she pushes back the covers and climbs out of bed anyway, padding over to the door with long quick strides, quiet on the rug that covers smooth hardwood. The mouth of the fireplace looms, her large bed and its gossamer baldachin towering against the wall, the chests and chairs and daybed jutting obstacles to navigate. The house isn't cold, despite the weather- it has been snowing that evening, flurries made visible by the streetlamps; when she looked down onto the sidewalk earlier, from the window seat, it was like a dusting of fine icing sugar.

She turns the handle, and slips out.

She sees him almost immediately. The muted snap of boots is the sound by which she usually tracks him, but he walks almost as quietly as she does when he cares to, silhouette blunted by the heavy folds of his cloak, a striking shadow in the dark. He has his back to her, and she closes the door behind her soundlessly.

"Daddy?"

He pauses, and gives a soft sigh.

"Little one," he scolds with no real edge, "you should be asleep."

"I couldn't," she says simply, lacing her fingers together behind her back tightly until the heels of her palms press hard to each other. "Where are you going?"

He turns towards her, just slightly. "I'll be back soon," he assures her over his shoulder, frayed by a softness and a bone-deep weariness that he usually keeps firmly bound up. "Go back to bed, liebling. It's nothing for you to worry about."

She wants to tell him she's not worried, because he would be relieved. She wants to pretend that she believes him, that she thinks she has nothing to worry about, because it would comfort him to think that at least he can keep her insulated from the monstrosities, and show her only the wonders.

Sometimes she hates being able to see through lies, but it's more often that she hates being a bad liar.

"Let me come with you," she blurts out. "Please?"

He gives a quiet regretful laugh, before turning to walk towards her, cloak rippling in his wake. "I can't, sweetheart," he says gently, and kneels, taking her face between his hands. She can see him better now, a gleam of light in the sweep of his dark hair and the curvature of his mercury-silver eyes, and decides with gritted teeth to hold onto him with whatever it takes. She is as single-minded as he is, and loves him far, far, far too much to do anything less. "I need you to stay here. Tell Wong where I've gone if I'm not back in an hour."

"You've let me go with you before," she says, undeterred by the attempt to divert her.

"This is different. It's incredibly dangerous. And if something happened to you- well, where would I be then, hm?"

"I'll be careful," she insists, and feels him thumbing a stray curl back from her browbone; she lifts her hand to the back of his, fingertips slotting between his knuckles, her other hand clinging to his wrist. She can feel the ridges of the surgical scars on the back of his palm, and wishes- not for the first time- that she could scrub them away. There's strength to enduring pain, she thinks, for the sake of things that matter. Bone will often heal stronger after a break, and scar tissue is tougher than skin, but it takes time and it hurts. "You hate that place. You always come back tense and- and you don't sleep properly for a week. Maybe if I come with you, I can help. I'm not afraid," she persists, forcing the little lie through, voice rising tellingly. "I don't want you to be alone."

He lets out a sharp exhalation that sounds like an attempt at another laugh, and rises slightly to pull her into him, easily enveloping her in a firm hug. She sinks down, pressing her ear against the familiar steady heartbeat, snagging her nails into his tunic.

"Are you going to do something reckless if I say no?"

"Probably." She admits glibly. "I thought of using one of the travelling doors on the second floor to go to the Brazilian rainforest. Wong wouldn't notice until morning. Is that more dangerous than coming with you?"

He huffs, somewhere between annoyed and amused. "You know the answer to that."

"Then let me come with you. We'll protect each other, isn't that how it's supposed to be?"

He hesitates, the uneasiness humming through him like an electric current. She waits, prepared to argue, but feels his resolve waver. If she were any other child, he would remain firm. But she's not. She's already part of this hidden world. She's from it.

"You must stay close," he says, in the low tone he uses when he wants her to understand that whatever he is saying is direly important. "And you must not let go of my hand for any reason, do you understand? No matter what you hear or see."

"Okay," she said hastily, muffled against his chest.

"I want you to promise me."

"I promise."

"Good girl," he murmurs. "The rules of this dimension- they don't apply there. The laws of physics are- suggestions, at best."

"I know."

"And it's alright to be scared," he continues, wryly. "Arguably, it would be sensible. But I'll be right there with you. I won't let anything happen to you, no matter what."

"And you'll have me," she replies.

She can feel him smiling, in that almost tentative but completely tender way, as though he wonders if he deserves this, before he presses a kiss to her temple.

"Yes I do."

Then, as dreams are wont to go, they are elsewhere.

Elsewhere is a good word for it. They are walking in the space between spaces, a separate precarious dimension, a netherworld, a place of neither dark nor light; it shifts like smoke and water and fluid paint and music. There are questions and riddles here more than answers, but he knows how to seek out truth, and it comes naturally to her, when she attunes herself to it.

She is still holding his hand.

"You've never been afraid of shadows," he observes.

She looks up, and realises that she reaches his shoulder. This is no longer a memory, and only half a dream.

She feels a wash of relief- so happy to see him that she could cry, her throat closing up.

He smiles, grips her hand tightly, and she feels an echo of home that she has been starved of for three years, the numbness lifting.

"No. Never." She's too stubborn, much like him.

"Are you sure you want to make yourself at home there?"

She reaches up and grips his arm with her free hand, leaning against him for support, closing her eyes. Here, he is an opaque ivory blended with clouds of steel-metallic and midnight blues, saltwater and rainfall, limned a shade of tarnished brass-gold that feels like safety and fierce conviction and an oath kept and fulfilled. If she were to look down, she would see that her own astral form is radiant, despite feeling unusually fragile- a clear, unrelenting white in the subtlety of the scape, like sun-flame.

A light in the darkness, he had said with a faint smirk, that first time, as she had examined herself in wonder. I am- completely unsurprised.

He had good reason. She had always had an affinity for light- second only to the air.

"Haven't we always lived in the shadows?"

"That was selfish of me. Old habits," he adds ruefully.

"I wouldn't call doing everything you could to protect me selfish," she says, hugging his arm tighter, cheek pressed to his shoulder, feeling a fierce rush of affection. "And walking around in the light was what got me into this in the first place. If I had just-"

"Don't. Don't do that. You cannot mistake confinement for safety- or live your life based on hypothetical risks."

"Why not? You do," she points out, half-jesting.

"It's called being prepared."

"It's called being paranoid, Daddy," she retorts dryly. "Correctly paranoid most of the time."

He ignores that, and raises a hand to her hair- about as easily deflected as she is.

"So? What are you going to do?"

"He won't hurt me," she feels the inexplicable need to say.

"That wasn't the question."

She bites her lip.

"I think he has answers. Ones he's willing to give me. I've been searching for so long- I risked and gave up so much just to get close- and I'm so tired of running. I don't know, wouldn't it mean nothing if I didn't-?"

He gives a short humourless laugh. "It's like one of your favourite fairytales: a stranger appears in desperate times, and offers something impossible, something miraculous, for a seemingly low price."

"You know, the way you told those stories, I used to wonder if you were speculating about where I might have come from," she teases, "instead of warning me about demons crossing dimensions to eat my soul."

His laughter, this time, is warm, combing a curl behind her ear and smudging a thumb across her cheekbone affectionately.

"As if I had to warn you. You sent them scuttling back to their own realm every time."

She grins faintly, recalling that he didn't view it with such nonchalance at the time- not that she blames him.

She closes her eyes against his shoulder.

"What do you think should I do?"

He exhales soundlessly.

"You can't run from this."

"I know."

"And you're not going to. That's not the daughter I raised."

"No."

She can't. She can't let herself, not after all that she risked and lost. She has raised hell in the past- literally- to achieve her goals. She will see this through, and they both know it.

He pauses, and presses a sound kiss to her crown. "When all is said and done… we all trust our instincts."

A smile sketches across her face.

"Even us?"

When he speaks, she can hear everything she has ever needed to know from him.

"Yes, daughter mine. Even us."

Astrid opened her eyes.

The darkness was sheer; there were few lights on the isolated stretch of coast, only whatever faint glimmer was reflected off the ocean and slice of beach, and the distant jewel-bright sparkle of streetlamps from the more densely populated areas of Long Island. Hers was an eastern-facing room, the oceanfront wall all but engulfed by glass, soaking in the sunrise each morning as it opened up across the horizon, the border between sea and sky so sharp and clean that it might have been cut with a knife and a straight-rule. After sundown, the bedroom was devoid of any trickle of light that didn't come from within the house itself- it was like being blindfolded.

Rising on her elbow, Astrid felt an odd awareness running through her, leaving her tense and alert. She had woken up like this before, some fine-tuned sense tripped.

Reaching over to the bedside table, she snapped on the closest lamp.

Nothing happened.

Astrid sat up and flipped the switch several times, to no avail. Puzzled, she paused, extending her senses with a slow corkscrew-twist of pain behind her temples- nothing was wrong with the wiring, the bulb was screwed in firmly, the filament was barely corroded from use. She strained back to check the cable and socket. Everything was in place.

Pushing the covers back, she rose with a shiver, carefully navigating the room and searching for the main light switch by touch, fingers flat against the wall and rasping along the paint, until she found a brass panel and a row of dimmers. Turning them up as high as they went, she pressed down.

The room remained as black as pitch.

Astrid stilled, her breath shivering in the quiet, braced on the balls of her feet, every filament of muscle pulling taut.

Natasha had mentioned that the house ran on its own exclusive power supply, off the national grid. Stark technology was unparalleled in its calibre, no matter what Dr Reed Richard's financial backers and buyers claimed, but the Hampton house wasn't one of Tony's preferred houses- it was unlikely that he had updated its security systems recently, or added anything to prevent tampering with the power supply and auxiliary generator.

She remained motionless with steady static tension, as though there was a cord rooted at the base of her spine, running along the fuller of her back and yanking firm between her scapulae. It would take something exceptional to disable something of Stark's design, not to mention cut the power without Natasha or Clint detecting that something was amiss- she knew they took shifts on watch, as a precaution. Or- she had it backwards. Something had- incapacitated them- or else she would have woken up to one of them bursting into her room and dragging her out of bed by the arm, keeping her shielded behind them and a weapon drawn.

Astrid breathed out, lowering herself onto her heels, hand sliding from the wall.

Slowly, she moved towards the door.

The moon had risen early that evening, waxing into a perfect disc of radiant white. Its sheer luminosity cast a wash of light, pale as bare bone, through the panoramic windows facing the external wall, glancing off surfaces and altering the shadows. Astrid stepped out cautiously, glancing up and down the length of the hallway as she pulled the door shut behind her with a loud click.

The quiet resettled, embroidered by the seething hiss of the ocean beyond insulated walls.

The hallway was as still as a sealed tomb.

Astrid supressed a shudder, and summoned her voice.

"Loki?"

"Yes."

She spun sharply and almost smacked her arm off the door handle as she turned, heart hammering wildly against her breastbone, breath skittering out.

Should have been expecting that.

It would have been impossible not to recognise him. The jolt that ran through her was like the first electrifying hit of a narcotic, synapses firing off like livewires, frighteningly potent and near disorientating.

He had appeared as though from nothingness- definitely not there before- a construction of darkness, rendered faceless and featureless by the angle at which he stood. With a flick of her eyes, Astrid measured the slope of his shoulders, the slant of his head as he regarded her, the faint contour of his cheekbone and temple, the brittle tension and semi-conscious command in the way he stood- and the careful distance placed between them. It could be eradicated with nothing more than a few strides, but felt as impassable as a barrier of crystallised light.

She pressed her knuckles to her chest to calm her thundering pulse, exhaling.

"Natasha and Clint."

"Placed under a curse of slumber that will wear off once dawn light crosses their skin."

His reply was swift and smooth, sleek and supple as snakeskin. It made her think of cool hands, slipping up beneath fabric to whisper against bare skin.

"Which will be when?"

"Sunrise, at about five-thirty this morning. They should recover from any lingering side-effects within three hours- give or take."

Astrid accepted this with a nod, wrapping her arms around her midriff. "You kept your promise," she noted quietly.

She saw him incline his head slightly.

"Of course," he replied, soft and almost- unsure. "I gave you my word, did I not?"

Astrid felt her mouth curve slightly, her heart beating strong and steady at the base of her throat.

When all is said and done… we all trust our instincts.

"So you did."

It was a long, tremulous moment before either of them spoke again.

"What happens now?" Astrid asked, cleaving to the point.

"That," Loki answered, the echo of a humourless smile lifting his intonation, "depends entirely on you."

She couldn't help but scoff noiselessly.

"Me?"

"The choice is yours," he said, every syllable measured. For a flickering moment, Astrid wished that she could see his eyes, almost able to feel the dilation of her pupils, their aperture blown wide and deep to drink in as much light as possible. "I can leave now, and the assassins will never know that I was here- you need never see me again. I can give you time to decide what it is that you want. Or…"

"Or?" Astrid prompted, fingers digging into her own flesh bluntly, voice thick with anticipation.

Loki paused, and slowly raised and extended his hand.

"Or I can give you answers."

Her breath stuttered behind her sternum.

An offer of infinity. He was putting it within her grasp, the missing pieces she had been fruitlessly chasing and clawing after. She was so tired, but it was at last within her reach.

It could have been like breaking the surface for air, except she couldn't breathe, as though her bronchi were coated in tar and were trapping every word that had been waiting at the bottom of her lungs. Her body was paralysed, and terrified of the unknown.

There's a word for this, Astrid realised with a piercing moment of clarity, every nerve in her body lighting up like an electrical grid.

Kairos. Ancient Greek: the perfect delicate moment; opportune.

In the void of her silence, Loki's hand dropped a fraction.

A spike of panic drove up through the floor of her stomach. She stumbled forwards blindly- move, move, move-! Her arm whipping out, she snatched for his fingers, feeling the shift as he inhaled sharply, taken aback. Her nails dug into his skin uncomfortably, her grip awkward, but she held tight, outstretched and straining until a thread of muscle twinged in exertion, elbow locked straight.

"Please."

It made her feel almost regretful, for the sake of the Avengers- all those measures, to protect her and keep her out of his reach, and they never stood a chance.

A tremor rippled through her, shoulder joint protesting at the angle- then Loki moved, and suddenly there was cool supple leather pressing against her mouth and arms wrapped around her and the smell of fresh ice and pine and a hint of metal in her every inhalation.

Her tension sloughed away in a rush. Astrid turned as malleable as gold, slotting against him as his fingers moved against the column of her torso, soft as shredded cotton and linen. Her eyes closed and her arms snagged around him, one hand splaying against his shoulder-blade, the heel of her palm set directly behind his heart, pads of her fingertips pressing down.

Astrid gave a soft huff against Loki's shoulder.

"We've done this before."

She felt a slight nod against her temple, and exhaled shakily.

"When? Where? Why can't I remember?"

Loki's arms tightened. The crushing strength behind his grip should have been disquieting, but Astrid was no more alarmed than if his touch had been glancing- or if she had been indestructible.

"You will," he breathed, harsh and painfully tender with promise, as though desperate to soothe a deep hurt. "I promise."

Astrid pressed her face into the crook of his neck, hearing his breathing hitch.

"Thank you."

It was a lingering, shivering moment before he replied, his voice slow and coaxing.

"We have to leave, darling. Is there anything here that you need to take with you?"

After a moment of thought, Astrid made a sound of assent.

He drew back, shifting, and suddenly a spark of green light ignited before her eyes. Loki had a small stone pressed to his lips, glowing the pale ghostlike green of fluorite, fractured by the subtle facets on its surface and streaming through his fingers. The shafts of light were more than enough to illuminate them both, stripping away the darkness and rendering their proximity in startling clarity, chasing along soft curves and stark angles and bleaching out colour and shadow.

Taking one of her hands in his, Loki dropped the stone into her palm. Its light immediately shifted in colour as it came into contact with her skin, changing from pallid jade green into blinding white, like a sheet of linen thrown over a bare lightbulb. It was the approximate size, weight and texture of a large glass marble, cut roughly spherical and etched with runes as though by a needle, its surface curiously warm, as though it had been lying in the midday sun for hours.

"The power will be restored soon," Loki warned, closing her fingers around the stone; a shaft of light bisected his features, reducing him to a slice of pale skin and a flash of metal and a spark in the eyes. "I will wait downstairs."

Astrid watched him slip away from her soundlessly, and took a step back, blindly seeking the handle of her bedroom door. Once certain that he was gone, she wrenched the door open and half-threw herself inside, shaking. Falling back against the door, she pressed the heels of her hands into her closed eyes, hard, until phosphenes burst across the darkness behind her lids.

She counted out the seconds, up to twenty.

Then she moved.

Someone had bought her bag upstairs- unzipped, but the luggage inside was untouched. The duffle bag and the clothes stuffed inside was a pitiful summation of an existence, barely two lengths of fabric with any trace of sentimentality attached to them, the rest replaceable from any low-end multinational chain brand. She had left her burner phone and laptop behind, the innards carefully destroyed before SHIELD picked her up. Cheap technology was the least resilient and most easily ruined, she found, even if the only tools available were low-temperature fire and a little concentrated sulphuric acid, and she was determined to deprive them of the last dregs of her privacy.

There was nothing to pack. For a long moment, Astrid knelt next to the bag on the cold floor, numbing and motionless, glowing stone in hand.

Nothingness closed in on her. Since SHIELD, she had been erratic, unfocused, barely holding the parts of herself together with ugly hasty sutures between the exhaustion and the frustration and the doubt and the muffled keening tears soaking into her pillow and the lightheaded nausea and the sickening unease and the slow suffocation of the fear that she had ruined everything good that the universe had ever offered her in pursuit of answers that may not exist, or might just destroy her.

Now there was an abyss ahead.

Step into the unknown to get to the unknown. Astrid raked short nails over the globe of her shoulder absently, raking skin until it burned with the blood underneath. Seems oddly logical. Better an abyss than another wall.

She stood, the pain in her knees and calves and ankles turning satisfyingly sharp- good, she thought savagely, the edge taken by the gentle haze that came from rising out of meditation- gathered up the straps of the bag, and walked out. As she closed the door behind her, she glanced at the stone still clenched in her left palm.

Speculatively, she unfurled her fist from around it, and blew on its surface, quick and short.

The light snuffed out like the flame at the wick of a candle.

Astrid found him waiting for her, positioned in view of the staircase but at a consciously courteous distance, eerie against the windows, the glass lit by ambient light like blackened television screens. Loki lifted his head as she descended, straightening infinitesimally, restrained and waiting until her feet hit the hardwood floor to speak.

"Where's your light, hækkaði?"

She produced the stone. "Figured I wouldn't need it," she said as she approached with tight hasty strides, dropping it into his awaiting hand. Before she could think of anything else to say to distract herself, Loki swiftly and deftly took the duffel bag from her with one hand and picked up something heavy and folded from the arm of the nearest sofa with the other. She heard the muffled spill of fabric, felt a snap of displaced air, before the comforter was wrapped around her, smothering the shivers that she hadn't even noticed.

"Oh…" Astrid dragged the comforter more securely around her, pulling the trailing ends to rest over the crook of her arms, like a heavy cloak.

"Summer nights can be surprisingly cold," Loki commented. "Although we shouldn't be outside for long."

Astrid considered asking, before quickly deciding that she didn't actually care. Time was short enough. She wanted to leave.

"I'm ready."

Loki's shoulders dropped by an almost unremarkable degree, but Astrid could all but taste the wealth of relief tangled up within it.

She followed him as her led them through the darkened house, and down into the garage. The exterior doors were thrown open, the smell of sea salt and moonlight flooding through on a brisk breeze, the concrete floors freezing. There were several vehicles lined up before them- two were shrouded under dustcovers, the low-slung streamlined contours of luxury sports cars discernible beneath the canvas, three others left uncovered and gleaming: an aggressively bulky Jeep Wrangler, an almost painfully generic silver GM, and a scuffed Yamaha sports motorcycle.

"Which one?"

Astrid turned to find Loki gazing at her, a brow raised expectantly.

"They'll have GPS trackers installed."

"We have time enough," he assured her.

Astrid bit into the swell of her lip, and surveyed the available vehicles, calculating. She could easily ride the Yamaha, but considering her state of dress- or lack thereof- it was probably not the best idea, and a brief painful moment of focus discerned that the tank was only half-full. The GM was the most nondescript car that anyone could have hoped for, but incredibly obvious: it was better to fall somewhere between incongruous and deliberately trying to blend in, like the difference between a pink Cadillac and a black Sedan.

"Much as I want to try out that Lamborghini," she said wistfully, glancing longingly at the canvas-draped sports car, "the Jeep."

Loki inclined his head, producing a set of keys seemingly from nowhere, and pressed the black silicon button. The Jeep unlocked with a dull snap and a double flash of its headlight bulbs.

Biting back a wince as pain drove behind her brows like a blunt knife, brain contracting in protest, pulling on the delicate membrane that kept the tissue anchored to the inner dome of her skull- there was a reason she didn't push herself when the rush of adrenaline wasn't there to wash away the aftermath- Astrid carefully climbed into the front passenger seat, arranging the mass of the comforter around her. Behind her, she heard one of the passenger doors click open, and the scuff of waterproofed canvas and clink of zips as her bag was tossed into the backseat. Moments later, Loki slipped into the driver's seat, and started the car.

Astrid wondered where a young god had learned to drive a manual shift.

They pulled out of the garage smoothly, and Loki flipped on the Jeep's efficient hi-beams, casting what lay immediately before them in an uneasy yellow light; the rest of the road ahead remained impenetrably black, casting the impression of isolation in an unimaginably vast and endless plane. As an afterthought, the useful reflexive jab of guilt reminding her, Astrid strapped on her seatbelt, the slippery serrated nylon resting like a knife's dulled edge against her bared throat.

Safety that mimics danger. Ha.

Her vision was still too sharp, her hearing too acute. Astrid sank into the passenger seat, searching for something to hold onto while her senses settled back into themselves, the sensation as though her mind was laced too tight, crushing and trapping her nerves. The dashboard lights were too garish, the air full of faux leather and plastic and traces of motor oil- closing her eyes and breathing into the comforter, Astrid honed in on the constant quiet roll of vulcanised rubber on road, registering every jostle and rumble as they surged onwards.

"Are you alright?"

"I- it's fine. I just," Astrid replied tightly, "it hurts, to- it's been getting worse lately and- I don't know what would happen if I didn't control it, and I can't- I don't-" She felt something wrack through her, and halted for breath. "Sorry. Sorry, give me a moment."

"Don't apologise." Loki said abruptly, and Astrid almost startled as the backs of his fingers- gloriously cool- swept across her temple. The effect was startling, like ice drawing out a fever, calming as fresh rainfall. "It is not your fault. A mortal form was not built to contain you."

"I'm not human." Astrid corrected him, feeling herself leaning into him, measuring out her heartbeat as it slowed, almost able to taste the unmistakable magic woven, intractably, into his bones. She was used to magic that was something akin to the air after a lightning strike- ozone, arcing electricity and visceral heat, pure light made solid and sharp and scorching- but that which ran through Loki was like frost and cold nights under starry skies and ice water in veins, verdant woodland and venom and volcanic earth, the sweep of tongue on flesh and skin between teeth and the line between pain and pleasure. "I don't know what I am, but I know I'm not human."

"No," Loki agreed crisply, his hand returning to the steering wheel, "no, you are not human. But your body- at the moment- is. More or less."

She felt a deep pang, like the wrench of a sob, full and hollow. It was a relief just to feel- anything.

"Am I dangerous?" She forced herself to ask, vacant with disquiet, but unflinching- always, always unflinching.

The car slowed slightly, and Astrid turned to find Loki gazing at her.

"Yes." He replied simply, eyes flitting across her face as though searching for something. "As dangerous as truth. Dangerous as love and loyalty itself."

Astrid inhaled deeply.

"That should not be reassuring," she decided calmly.

For a long moment, Loki stared at her, brows hitched, the car coasting. Then his mouth curved, and he was laughing- uncertain at first, then bold.

It wasn't the same corrosive laugh from before, agony and acidic spite- it was uninhibited, brimming with unbridled happiness, spilling out regardless of consent, bright and refreshing as snowfall. Even under the glare cast by the dashboard lights, it scoured away a hard layer from him as turned his attention back to the road, easing back onto the accelerator.

"You made me wait, darling," he hummed out, almost reproving. "You shouldn't have hidden from me so long, I've missed you terribly."

Astrid let up a laugh that caught in the middle, a splash of heat in the cool air, feeling a snap of new energy like the sting of a whip.

"I miss me too," she admitted quietly, head dropping back against her seat. "It's been like a bad dream- waiting to wake when it's over. It made this," Astrid twisted the pendant around her neck, an anchor in all the best and worst ways possible, "feel that much heavier. I could manage it before, when I was still-"

She halted, swallowing back the words.

"Can you break it?"

Loki tensed, involuntary as a convulsion- Astrid saw his fingers flinch minutely on the steering wheel, watched the muscles in his jaw flutter, a fracture-fine pattern.

"How did you know?" He asked quietly, taut as a garrotte wire.

Astrid ignored the question. It wasn't important, and they both knew it.

"I've wanted to take it off for as long as I can remember. But every time I went to rip it off me- if the seal is keeping me- keeping others safe from whatever I am- I just need to know. That's all. It's why I left," she finished in a liberating, trembling rush, "why I risked everything- I couldn't bear to run away, so I had to run towards. It doesn't matter what I am, just as long as I can control it-"

Something flashed in Loki's eyes, and Astrid realised belatedly that there was an unmistakable plea in her words.

"It was never meant to be like this," he said, soft and low, fixed on the truncated view of the road ahead, the angular lines of him sharpening, shadows shifting around him. It was eerily entrancing. "It was never meant to imprison you this way-"

"Tell me you can break it. Tell me you can get it off me."

His lower lip thinned, drawn in between his teeth. "You hate it that much?"

"It's not the magic," she answered, skin pulling thin and taut over the bone of her knuckles, as though primed to split open. The unearthly gold cut into her palm, clogging her throat, skin crawling. "It- reminds me of something that I can't remember, something that makes me feel- sick, and- alone. And it's keeping me from- me."

Loki glanced down, blinking rapidly.

"Forgive me, I didn't know."

Astrid loosened her grip, easing into an ache, and offering a weak shrug.

"Meditation and stubbornness help- vincit qui patitur. Besides, it's hardly your fault." She cocked her head at him, resisting the compulsion to gently prod him out of his thoughts. "You should stop punishing yourself and start fixing things. Take more blame than is your due, and it will only weigh you down until you can't move- and at that point you're just wasting oxygen."

The corner of Loki's eyes and mouth thawed through. "Oh, I swear, I have no intention of wallowing in inaction, darling. There is a reckoning coming," his fingers suddenly slipped into her palm, lifting the chain out of her grasp and letting it fall away. Despite his dark tone, everything about the motion was impossibly gentle, as though he was afraid of breaking her- or, Astrid realised, with the quiet implosive force of a bridge of sand collapsing in on itself, of the exact opposite. "I fully intend to play my part."

Astrid smirked slightly, an echo of herself behind the dead, rotting thing she had inhabited for the past three years.

"Dying is too easy," she agreed, and felt more than heard him give a sound of wry amusement. "Does the enchantment have anything to do with my perception?"

"The opposite, actually," Loki replied, skimming her palm and the inside of her wrist. "You were right to call it a mystic seal: the enchantment restricts your ability. It would be counterproductive to its purpose otherwise- at a glance, you would know exactly who and what you are."

"Every time I push my perception further, I'm fighting against the seal," Astrid murmured, the realisation slotting into place and fusing smoothly, the first piece already making her greedy for more. "That's why. And it was meant to seal my memories-"

She drew up short, hissing through her teeth. The agony in her brain had dulled, but it would still hurt too much to drag the truth out herself- she would have to ask until she got an answer. Said answer could be a lie, the truth, a half-truth, it didn't matter in the least; Astrid would instinctively know which was which and deduce the rest.

"You can break it, then?"

Loki glanced at her, soft and clear as midnight, his hand stilling.

"It will hurt."

"Ignis aurum probat," she recited, an eyebrow arching confidently, feeling something surge beneath her breastbone- something bright and fierce and defiant that she had desperately missed from herself, burning away the sensation that she was clagged with wet clay, weighing her down.

Astrid settled back in her seat, determined and refocused.

"Where are we going?"

"You're asking a lot of questions."

"For once, I'm getting answers- I'm not about to stop. It's your fault for indulging me," she added shamelessly.

Loki chuckled, threading his fingers through hers; Astrid flexed her hand, opening it up to him. "Touché, darling. I have a destination in mind- if you have no preference."

Something hooked into her stomach, and tugged, an image blooming behind her eyes like a rupture and flooding the world with a spill of colour.

A residential boulevard, lined with slender apple blossoms: pale concrete sidewalks, wrought-iron lampposts, and an impressive brownstone manor- its weathered stone façade almost perfect in symmetry, a great square construction of solidity and safety. She thought of the countless wards and protective spells layered over one another, overlapping and intertwining like a mesh of white-hot wires, cast and repaired over decades by diligent wardens, and embedded deep in every inch of brick and foundation. She thought of dark mahogany and walnut, polished marble and granite, brass light fixtures and geometric stained glass, sweeping staircases and hallways, rose windows and the great circular skylight cresting its teal-slate roof. She thought of a vast chamber dominating the second floor, filled with locked display cases and wall-mounted stands, each object seething with ancient power and sentience. She thought of skipping back and forth between continents through a rotunda of three glass-paned doors, switching destinations with the turn of a brass dial, etchings lighting up with each spin to a new location- rainforest to desert, tundra to ocean, mountain to fen.

The hum of magic beneath her hands, thrumming like a living pulse; the smoothness of plastic piano keys under her fingertips, vibrating like nerves; of leather-bound books and parchment scrolls and handwritten notes, paper stiff with ink, fluttering like breaths- home.

The words came out of her mouth without thinking.

"I know a place. Can you get us into Manhattan?"

Loki half-turned his head towards her, before a wry smile twisted its way across his lips.

"Is that wise?"

"No. But we both know that it's clever," Astrid replied archly.

His smile turned wicked in agreement. Loki knew as well as she did that it was the kind of nonsensical that would make the Avengers overlook it as a possibility. "Yes it is. However- is there any chance that SHIELD- or Earth's Mightiest Heroes- know about wherever it is that you have in mind?"

"I avoided going back for two years to prevent them from ever finding out," she said, sharpening defensively. "I refused to let them have anything that belongs to Astrid Strange- I wasn't going to lead them to the door of my childhood home."

Loki's brows contracted slightly.

"You said that you grew up in England."

"For the most part," Astrid sidestepped the underlying question reflexively. "I studied all over the UK, switching schools every three months. He thought that it would be safer."

"He?"

She hesitated, staring out of her window unseeingly, burning through the knots in her vocal chords.

"My father," she said blankly.

"Your- father," Loki echoed softly, seeming almost astounded. "You have a father?"

"In everything but blood," Astrid clarified unwillingly, resenting the qualification as much as ever. Genetics was an incredible biological formula, the coding of life, and it ran through people in the same way that water was the veins of Earth- but comparing it to love was like comparing paper to steel. Love was soul-deep- or at least the love between her father and herself was- stubborn and proud, just like them. "He- I was-"

The firmly-rooted instinct snagged her backwards, fierce protectiveness over what was hers catching her neck like a noose.

"It never mattered, who- what I was. He didn't even blink. He fought for me, against everyone."

The memory roared to the surface, strong and clear, every detail unnaturally perfect: a windowless room lit by computer monitors and flickers of gold magic, a slab of steel beneath her, drenched with ice water and so cold, terrified- then eyes and a voice the colour of storm and knowledge, steadying her.

Astrid blinked herself out of the place from which the rest of her life radiated, like light searing into darkness ahead, but never behind.

Loki was still watching the road ahead, but there was something sealed up behind the immaculate façade, opaque and pressing to the surface. Astrid pushed herself upright on her free hand.

"What? What is it?"

Loki's fingers tightened within hers. Astrid found herself captivated by the carved-marble ridges of his knuckles and tendons; there was something lovely in his angles, the hollows of him chiselled out with loving precision.

"Nothing," he assured her, quiet and harsh with a lie, like the ice shards in mountain winds. She watched his expression flicker as he heard it for himself. "Realising how little I know of you."

Astrid blinked. "There's an easy remedy to that," she cajoled.

Loki's head twitched towards her.

"You shouldn't offer-"

"I told you my best kept secret already. Besides, I hate owing a debt," Astrid admitted, "and by my count, this is the second time that you've answered far more of my questions than is fair."

"I hardly minded-"

"Well, neither do I, so ask."

Loki exhaled into an exasperated smile. "Are you fluent in Latin? Or are you just fond of Latin proverbs?"

"Yes." Astrid answered guilelessly. The response shook a laugh loose from him, and Astrid decided to elaborate. "My father hates- really hates Latin. But he has a healthy appreciation for Latin maxims. Reminders, I guess."

"Vincit qui patitur. Victory to the endurant," Loki translated with a musing twist of his mouth. "And ignis aurum probat: fire tests gold. Do you truly believe in that?" Astrid glanced at him in askance, finding something sceptical and sarcastic in his glinting smile, like gold in low light. "That adversity is the mentor of greatness?"

Astrid mulled the question over, pulling apart and peeling away its casing in ribbons to expose the hidden implications within, like components of fine clockwork.

"Adversity can- draw out greatness," she said carefully, "sometimes. It's like freshly broken glass- its edge is one of sharpest things in world. But, sometimes pressure does nothing but grind down until it leaves only grit. It doesn't matter, though," Astrid continued, "because that's not the answer you were looking for, since that's not the question you were asking."

She waited for Loki to look at her, his irises and full of strained anticipation, and of her.

"Yes," Astrid said, fluid and unquestionable, "my childhood wasn't painless. Nowhere close. But it was a good pain, for the most part. The kind that drives. Forces you to adapt, makes you work and think faster and better because you want it more- like a hunger. It wasn't easy, but I wouldn't have been happy if it was."

"And you were happy?" Loki pressed, his fingers tightening where they were laced with hers.

The smile shone out of her, natural and boundless as the emergence of the sun in the east.

"Yes. I was."

Loki relented, turning his focus back to the road.

"You studied in England-"

"Mostly."

"What exactly did you study?"

Astrid sank in her seat, giving an unconvincing breathy scoff. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Of course I would, elskan min," Loki replied, his tone verging on wounded. "You're a terrible liar."

Her jaw slackened indignantly. "I- that is- true, fine, but-" She drew up short upon spying him attempting to hold back a smirk, and yanked on his hand reproachfully. "Just because I can't lie, doesn't mean that everyone always believes me."

"And what if I promised to?" Loki bargained, smooth as a mouthful of chocolate.

Astrid let her head fall back against the seat, facing the windscreen, exhaling deeply. "I would offer to show you my degree when we get there."

"Hm." Seeming to sense that he would progress no further in that line, Loki redirected his questions. "What made you become a mercenary?"

She sank into the leather, joints loosening wearily, watching the car rattle forward through her lashes.

"I knew it was the best way to get information that I wouldn't have access to otherwise. At first I offered common things- controlled arson, mostly to destroy evidence before the police got to it- and infiltration."

"Infiltration?" Loki echoed with a smirk.

"The thief kind," Astrid said exasperatedly, biting down her smile, "not the spy kind, obviously. I was always good at that- getting into places where I wasn't supposed to be and not getting caught. I made friends in low places, teamed up occasionally and was able to get digital keys for duplicating data, wiping servers, whatever. When I realised it bought more expensive information, I started authentication of documents, artefacts, testimony- a black market art dealer wanted me to torch a couple of counterfeits before a police raid, and I realised that they were originals. They had a professional in the field verify it, and I started getting requests, since I was cheaper than the experts, less likely to talk and never wrong. I asked for information and contacts, not money."

"And then SHIELD decided that you were useful to them."

She made a vague, quiet noise of confirmation.

"Why didn't you run?" Loki asked, hushed and tentative.

Astrid closed her eyes. "Time," she said simply. "I knew they were coming, but I only had enough to destroy all traces of Astrid Strange, and disconnect her from Celsius Fahrenheit. Celsius was disposable. SHIELD could have her, if they wanted."

"So you locked the rest of yourself away."

Suddenly aware of their interlinked hands, now resting in her lap, Astrid glanced at him.

"You know what that's like."

"I do," Loki agreed thinly, "but then, I am incapable of sincerity."

"Lie," Astrid stated, immediate and reflexive. "And keeping a secret is different from telling a lie. I was always myself- Celsius was me, but, she was- less of me. So I wasn't her." She dug her thumb into the throb behind her eyes socket. "It's complicated."

"She was what remained," he mused thoughtfully, "when you sank below the surface. She was you without the things that made you. She kept you alive while the rest of you couldn't live."

She stared at him for a moment, the air in her lungs seeming to still.

"Y-yes. Just so."

Loki smiled. "Silvertongue," he reminded her wryly, like the clincher to an age-old joke. "And you shouldn't worry. Years though it may have been, I can already see you, clawing your way back to your surface."

Astrid swallowed. Truth, she thought silently.

Whatever was holding her together seemed to be loosening, like screws, the pieces of her ready to be dismantled and laid out on a sterile table for cleaning and sharpening and replaced in full working order, slotting together as smooth as oil.

She had always known she couldn't do this- whatever this was- forever. Her blood felt thicker with every clench of her heart, the muscles tiring with the effort of forcing it through her arteries; every sense felt duller, like the organic wires of her nerves were corroding and degrading. Her body was breaking down, her mind was drained, and her soul was-

Actually, her soul felt as indestructible as ever, strong and sure as a thread of promise, and it was probably the only reason she was still walking forwards. If only her body and mind were a little more cooperative. She could use the help.

"You seem tired."

Astrid smiled humourlessly.

"I'm always tired lately."

He lifted their entwined hands, bringing them so close to his mouth that Astrid thought for a second-

"You can sleep, älskling."

The words brushed her skin in a plume of air. Astrid felt confusion gather around her mouth and brows, like thread pulled too tight.

"What does that word mean?"

"Which word?"

"El-skling," she repeated at him, mimicking the phonetics and audible accents with what she knew to be unusual accuracy; she knew an unusual handful of languages, but recognised nothing of the one that he insisted on sampling from when he addressed her. She suspected that it was a tongue native to Asgard- one that had fallen into disuse or reserve, given how they otherwise appeared fluent in something that emerged in the listener's native tongue. "It sounds- Nordic. Scandinavian? And the other ones- the one you called me before- hai-cah-theh- and just now- el-scahn-meen?"

She saw Loki's brow hitch, the only visible shift in his mood, his intonation cool and informative with an edge of latent secret. "They are words that come from a language no longer widely spoken on Asgard, known as Old Asgardian, or Old Æsir. It left its linguistic mark on the places where the gods were seen and worshipped."

"That's not an answer," Astrid pointed out, trying to sound more perceptive than petulant.

Given the ghost of a smirk that tugged boyishly at his features, Astrid assumed that she had achieved a strange amalgam of both. "Älskling is a word used in Swedish; elskan min and hækkaði belong to Icelandic, although there is something lost in translation with the latter."

"Still not an answer," she muttered, glaring out of the window.

He chuckled quietly, and disentangled their fingers. Astrid felt the loss keenly, as though everything that had been keeping her awake slipped away.

"Go to sleep."

"Were you keeping me awake with magic?" Astrid asked. She wasn't sure whether she should be offended or vaguely appreciative.

"Restoring a little of your energy reserves- a few hours won't be enough. Now sleep, darling. Before I'm tempted to make you."

"I'm learning Icelandic and Swedish," Astrid decided lowly, sinking down in her seat and letting the lure of sleep drag her further, glowering at the darkness behind her eyelids. "I learned Latin and Greek out of spite, I can learn Icelandic and Swedish."

Loki snickered. "Now that is a story I must hear."

Astrid hummed, focus fading with a curtain of black, and pressed her cheek into the swathes of red fabric engulfing her- wondering why possessed by odd urge to hide her face on the crook of his neck instead.