The doctors put Coulson on ice after having taken him away from the scene. They could not remove him from the helicarrier. They would have to work there in a lab to bring the agent back. Coulson's internal organs were in need of replacement. Two of the doctors worked day and night to produce live-grown organs from his DNA. For any normal procedure, the process took weeks. They had only hours. They grew a new heart, a new lung, and a new trachea. Another three doctors worked to regrow his bones. They used something strange, a recreated model of regeneration technology coming out of the company A.I.M. With a heaping pile of luck, Coulson would be able to regrow his spinal column, his breastbone, and four ribs inside his own body. After five doctors had done as much as they could do, it was time to start the surgery. Five became eight as they cut Colson open and exchanged his vitals.

Selvig and Teagan oversaw from a neighboring room. The Tesseract was not responding to her like it had before. Something was wrong. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get a reaction out of it. Even Selvig's monitoring showed no change in energy. The doctors continued to ask their status. Coulson's body wasn't ready to be jumpstarted, but it was coming soon.

On the fourth night, something happened. One would call it a miracle. Teagan got down on her knees before the cube, clasped her hands tight, and prayed. Selvig left the room on the excuse of a coffee run.

"Siv," she started. "Coulson. If anyone's listening, anyone. . . If there's any god out there in the entire universe, I'm asking for help. . ."

And help she received. Coulson woke up too soon. None of the eight doctors had thought to put the lifeless body on an anesthetic; he exploded in a scream. The heart had been replaced, and his trachea, but he was still short a lung and the A.I.M. serum had not yet taken affect. They knocked him out quickly. It gave all of them quite a shock, but they had to work faster now. If Coulson was alive, he only had so long before his muscles and other organs deteriorated from lack of oxygen.

Again and again Coulson came around. The anesthetic wasn't powerful enough to subdue him completely, but any stronger and they might end up killing him again. Each time the screams were more powerful, more heartbreaking than the last. Coulson begged to be left for dead. The procedure was too painful, his memories too sharp of his final moments. Dr. Streiten, perhaps the only doctor with moral values present, opted to carry out Coulson's wish. He was ignored by his team, the scientists, and several agents. On the seventh morning, they started surgery on Coulson's temporal lobe. The war for Coulson's return was over. Once his memory was removed, he would be free of the pain, and he could live his life again.

When Coulson awoke, he found himself in a grass shack. He was at first disoriented. He wore a red and yellow printed shirt tucked into khaki shorts, black sandals, a grass hat, and his favorite pair of sunglasses. Someone mercifully thought to slather his nose in sunblock. Maria Hill entered the shack with two fruity-looking alcoholic beverages. She wore a smile on her face. A black one-piece swimsuit hugged her torso; a printed skirt was tied around her waist.

"Dream vacation in Tahiti and you're still in bed." Maria sat beside him, offering a beverage. "Welcome back to the world of the living. Have a good nap?"

"What happened?" he asked, tasting the drink. Mango. Phil suddenly couldn't remember if he liked mango. He tasted it again. It was alright.

"The portal was closed. The aliens were defeated. Thor and Loki took the Tesseract back to their neck of the woods. You were comatose for a couple days, but we had some doctors patch you up. Fury ordered that you take a vacation to heal."

Phil rubbed his chest, nodding. It hurt at the thought of . . . of something he couldn't quite put his finger on. "Yeah, I've been needing that vacation for two damn years." Maria laughed. It sounded nice. They were quiet for a moment. "Is it just us?"

Maria shrugged. "You could say that. Unofficially, a handful of agents are around here, too. Some are keeping tabs to make sure you're okay, but most just wanted to jump ship after the incident was over." Coulson nodded, humming into his straw. Maria's smile fell. "Teagan went back home. The stress was too much for her, and she resigned. Said she didn't want to help us 'find clean energy for our rocket launchers'. Plus you gave her quite a scare. It was touch and go for a while there with you, Loki only barely missed your heart and we weren't sure if you were going to make it. She turned tail before she could see you were getting better. She probably thinks you're dead."

Phil nodded.

Maria patted his knee. "She'll keep going in your name, don't worry. You did good with her."

Phil smiled quietly.

"Speaking of 'dead', the Avengers all think you're dust in the wind. They'll keep on in your name, too."

"What, does everyone think I'm dead?" Phil grunted, standing.

"Only those who don't have Level 7 clearance." Maria stood as well. "Where are we headed, Coulson?"

"It's just Phil today. Let's go find some food, I'm starving. Tahiti is a real magical place."

When Phil returned to his post in America, he was just Coulson again, and Maria was just Hill. Only, there was no Little Hill tagging along beside them. Coulson and Hill parted ways as she was stationed to work with Level 9 clearance, and Coulson was stationed to monitor something called the Rising Tide. He had a growing hole in his heart for the lack of young women in his life to dote on and think of as his daughter. But he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and familial relationships were dissuaded. When Coulson finally accepted his Hills were gone away, he met a girl named Skye, and the hole was filled.

҉

Loki rested with the healers.

Sickness of the body was uncommon, and sickness of the heart, even more so. Sickness of the brain was nigh unheard of. So it was difficult for the Aesir maids to concoct a remedy to soothe at once his aching limbs, the tear in his core, his broken spirit. His vision was swamped in strange colors, spots, patterns. He would chase one and it disappeared behind his peripheral vision. For many days he was not himself. He spoke in tongues, laughed at the empty walls. At night, he screamed. They could think of nothing to ease his pain but sleep. So, they cast an eternal slumber on him while they did their best to flush out the strange toxins that paraded through Loki's body. Night after night, Frigga joined him in the sickroom. She brought the old chair that sat between the brothers' beds in youth. A book graced her lap, though she hardly needed it. The Queen held it open before Loki as she read, so that maybe his dreams would not be haunted by night terrors but instead lulled by her voice to dream of his adolescence.

But Loki dreamt not of such a thing. He wandered Jotunheim, whether astrally or imaginarily, he did not know. He circled the air as a black hawk, searching for any signs of life. Nothing breathed. Nothing stirred. Hundreds of thousands of dead bodies littered the ground, telling their own story. With Laufey dead, the soldiers revolted against themselves, all fighting for the title of king. They murdered each other. Every citizen was a warrior. There were no common folk, no peasants. Only military.

Loki alighted on the cracked skull of one young child. He peered down at it, wondering its life. The little body was encased in something of an ashen shell. Inside, its organs still kept fresh; the decaying process of these monsters was a strange one. He had seen this before. Loki remembered his illegitimate offspring, how he flung it from the rocks in fright as the cold, blue, dead infant began to sob. The child underneath his talons began to writhe and cry. Loki felt the ghost of its blood flowing from the reanimated corpse. The child cried for him, wanted only affection. Loki clawed the life from the child, screeching; when he was sickened by the crusty flesh he flayed from its face, he took to the air once more.

On the horizon, a deep gouge cut through to the center of Jotunheim. This was the scar left behind from the Bifrost. The planet was little more than a moon, a frozen rock on which these horrid creatures once took refuge. If they could have accepted their inferiority, they would have been a happy people. Much like the Midgardians would have been, if not for their lethal stubbornness. One ice beast, but only a pup, cried as it searched for its parents. Its call would go unanswered, its hunger unsatisfied until it finally settled to feast on the corpses around it.

He also dreamt of the Chitauri, still a race very much alive in his mind. They cut away his flesh bit by bit, burning the scars in regular intervals. They chained him upside down from the edge of the cliff, draining his blood through tiny holes in his neck. It dripped down his face, in his ears, in his eyes. It matted his hair and pooled on the rocks below. They ripped his stomach open and let his intestines cascade over his ribs. Odin's elusive ravens, Hugin and Munin, perched on his jaunty hips and pecked away at his organs. And Siv, wicked Siv, danced around his body, sang songs of his death, fed him lies of her love. The staff was gone, long gone, destroyed, but he could still feel its affects.

While Frigga monitored Loki's sleep, Odin and Thor immersed themselves in kingly duties. With Jotunheim dead, Muspelheim sent fleet after fleet to claim the land. It was harsh terrain for any other in the nine realms, but it was downright ludicrous of the Fire Giants to think they could take on the climate. They claimed they could terraform it. And try they did. They brought great vats of liquid fire to pour on the lonesome kingdom in hopes of expanding their territory. Odin did his best to stop them from Asgard. When they did not listen to reason, he and his mighty son declared war against the Muspels. Jotunheim was to be another dead realm, forgotten by all but stories. Unfortunately, despite calling to war, it would be some time before Asgard was of any real significance in the War for Jotunheim.

But it was not just Muspelheim that acted out. Nornheim and Alfheim were at war once again. The dwarves and the light elves were never allies unless they banded against greater threats. But their greatest enemy was now destroyed, and they fought with themselves over rites of claim. Not only that, but the rock trolls of old Nidavellir caused chaos on their new home, Vanaheim.

There was only so much the Aesir could do from the sidelines. The Bifrost had yet to be rebuilt. While Heimdall repaired the bridge through use of the Tesseract, Asgard's defenses prepared for war.

Blacksmiths from the mountains were summoned to mass-produce weapons, armor, personal flyers, and a great many other things Thor once thought were outdated technologies. Many towers were fitted with these "outdated technologies", these machine guns. They were archaic at best; they spat out bullets of fire in the Destroyer's likeness, but were useful if any enemies invaded through the skies. Upon testing the power of the guns, Thor paled to see a slab of steel thicker than his arm be melted through like hot butter. They looked old, yes, but there was no denying their power.

While the machine guns made a comeback, the personal flyers also made a grand return. They were redesigned to match the Aesir's cultural beauty, though the symbolism was rather gruesome. The personal flyers once took a shape similar to a cross between the Midgardian planes and helicopters. Propellers were long since out of practicality in Aesir weaponry, though not out of fashion. A line of personal flyers in the shape of longboats awaited battle. The ferries of death. The undercarriage of these flyers were fitted with guns as well, and underneath the propellers, which sat fastened in place, a set of fire-fed respulsors glowed.

Months of construction and proof of progress could not ease the tense warriors. Preparation for war made them eager to join the fray. The King could only contain them for so long. He put many to work at Heimdall's disposal. The gatekeeper had no task for them involving the Tesseract, though he did set them to rebuilding the observatory. It was heavy work, but it helped calm Odin's legion. Heimdall's old observatory was never recovered from the bottom of the sea. They started again from scratch, first building a railing on the outsides of the bridge. They then flew parts molded from the smiths in the mountains to be assembled on a raised ledge. The soldiers were given instructions and were left to themselves as Heimdall toiled day and night with the cosmic cube.

To observers, he sat at the end of the bridge, staring at the cube in his hands. What they could not see were the hundreds of souls that flowed out of the Tesseract and through his fingers, content to resign their duties as life-givers and become the stone of which the bridge was originally constructed. Little by little, the shattered edges softened and grew together. Thin stripes littered the surface of the bridge, netting where the souls laced themselves to the age-old stone.

Heimdall's great power did not go unnoticed by the cube. The Tesseract invited to share with him several secrets of the universe, and many things he could not see with his All-Sight. He was awarded visions of death and destruction, several of which another Aesir was once plagued with in terrible nightmares. He saw fire and war and chaos running rampant through the universe, not unlike the chaos the nine realms now felt. In exchange for repairs to the Bifrost, the gatekeeper told the royal family every last detail of his new knowledge.

For two strenuous years, the Aesir toiled away as the realms fought each other.

For two painful years, Frigga sat by Loki's side in hopes of his awakening.

For two lonely years, Thor searched the stars for some signal of his mortal's safety.

For two mad years, Odin came to terms with his bloodline's failures.

҉

Loki awoke on the dawn of the winter solstice. Asgard was white with snow. The raven haired prince, clad only in a simple tunic and simple trousers, wandered the halls. Was it cold? It must have been cold. He could see his breath in clouds around his face. He did not feel cold. In fact, he felt wonderful. Better than he had felt for years. Siv was finally purged from his system. The bloodthirsty scoundrel no longer demanded his attention, no longer controlled his actions, no longer fed on his conscience. He felt . . . free.

But was that not life's great lie? Did he not crave subjugation? Loki laughed at himself, remembering the events, remembering how he fought the mortal he saved some seventy-odd years ago. It was but only one dream after another. He was never even present in the place called New York. It was Siv in control, and as long as Loki lived it would always be Siv in control. He would never take the blame. It was not his to take. Did his mother not say, however many hundreds of years ago, that the proud Aesir warrior in berserker armor could not even contain the power of the staff? How could he, a weak bastard prince, have any control, then? What would Odin do, throw him in the dungeon for being forcibly possessed by an evil race of miscreants? Ah, but was that not just like the blind old man?

Loki's laughter disturbed the guards who slept at their post. They went to urge the raven haired prince to return to the healers, where they could examine him and make sure he was fit for return. Loki would have none of it. The moment they reached for his arms, Loki became a monstrous wolf. The four guards had no time to prepare themselves for battle. Loki ate them whole. The wolf padded through the halls in search of a way to escape. Even if they trapped him, he would gnaw his own leg off to be freed. This palace, with all its great and many empty rooms, felt constricting. If he stayed one minute longer, he would suffocate. As the wolf searched for freedom, he found himself down a dark corridor. This was once the place he studied as a child, with Thor as his classmate and Heimdall occasionally as their teacher. The wolf panted nervously. Loki half expected to see a Frost Giant burst through one of the doors and smile down at him, before ripping him in half.

Perhaps the Jotun who aided Loki's infiltration was still alive. Perhaps it was locked in the dungeon to rot in a little white box. The beast who saw Loki in his Aesir form before he masked himself as a Jotun.

Two hundred years felt much longer than it should have been. How much simpler was life two hundred years ago? Clarice was still alive, then. He had a son, then.

The wolf trembled in rage.

From the end of the hall came several soldiers to corner the prince. Loki bared his teeth; in his search for freedom, he had wandered into a corner. 'Typical,' Loki thought angrily. One guard ordered the wolf's cooperation. An image of the red-haired Romanoff flashed in his mind; Loki howled and ripped his way through the entire patrol. Blood flooded the polished stone floors.

"Loki."

The wolf looked down. A woman stood in the middle of the hall. She raised no sword against him, though the look in her eyes made him fear his punishment.

"Loki, what have you done?" she breathed. She stepped toward him.

Loki lowered his wolf head and tucked his tail between his legs. 'It was an immediate reaction, Mother, I could not help myself. After the Chitauri, after the staff, I find myself unable to function.'

Frigga eased through the hall, avoiding the blood. She understood his thoughts perfectly. "Your father will not let this go without severe punishment," she whispered, burying her face in his fur. Another woman once did the same. "Loki, I cannot protect you forever. You must answer for your crimes."

The wolf let out a short breath. 'When?'

Frigga patted his fur, rubbed the blood from his nose. She gave a sad smile. "Tomorrow. You've awoken. You must attend trial for what you did." The wolf closed his eyes. Frigga's throat was tight with grief. "Oh, Loki," she sighed. "I wish you would have stayed in bed."

The wolf followed his mother out of the dark hall, away from the stench of Aesir blood. He burped; a golden helmet fell and rolled into the dark pool. A trail of giant paw prints followed him all the way back to the sickroom. He slept the day away.

After familiar fire-flooded nightmares, Loki was awoken by an entire squadron of guards. Many held their weapons to him as they bound him tight in chains. The prince donned a more appropriate mask – he was suddenly dressed in ceremonial garb, a snide and playful air about him. The guards were disgusted. How could such a creature be so arrogant, after killing a handful of soldiers in cold blood? There was talk that Loki was actually a Jotun child. That he was the one who ultimately caused all current wars. They were eager to believe it. They were never quite fond of Loki, anyway.

Loki was marched up to the throne room, where Odin fumed. The prince quickly realized this was not so much as a trial as it was a one-sided accusation and sentence. This was not a bird-cage crime. This was a dungeon crime. And even Odin's nasty temperament would not exaggerate how correct he was. In a moment of dark humor, Loki realized that he was finally receiving a just punishment. It only took a few hundred murders and three known acts of treason. Frigga stood at the foot of Odin's throne.

"Loki," she whispered.

The prince turned to her, flashing a smile. "Hello, Mother. Have I made you proud?"

Frigga winced. "Please, don't make this worse."

He no doubt faced a death sentence. "Define 'worse.'"

"Enough!" Odin snapped. "I will speak to the prisoner alone."

The All-Mother cast one last glance between her husband and her son before retreating.

Loki stepped forward, clicking his shackles together. "I really don't see what all the fuss is about," he admitted, scoffing. Was this trial for Midgard or the throne?

"Do you not truly feel the gravity of your crimes? Wherever you go, there is war, ruin, and death."

Loki found himself agreeing with Odin on that. Still, he could not help his sarcastic anger. "I went down to Midgard to rule the people as a benevolent god." He grinned. "Just like you."

"We are not gods," Odin corrected. "We are born, we live, we die. Just as humans do."

Loki shrugged, nodding. "Give or take five thousand years."

The All-Father blinked slowly. He knew what became of the future of the nine realms. The longer this prince was allowed to live, the more destruction would rain down upon their heads. The Ragnarök meant the death of all. Odin was forced to choose the fate of the universe over the fate of one man. "All this because Loki desires a throne."

"It is my birthright," Loki voiced in annoyance. His playful demeanor vanished.

"Your birthright," Odin bellowed, "was to die, as a child! Cast out on a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now to hate me." 'You would not be here now to threaten the safety of every living creature. I should have let you die.'

Loki stepped forward once again. "If I'm for the ax, then for mercy's sake – just swing it. It's not that I don't love our little talks, it's just. . ." Loki paused. There were no other words. "I don't love them."

Odin was through speaking with the prisoner. "Frigga is the only reason you are still alive, and you will never see her again. You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeons."

As the guards pulled him away by his leash of chains, Loki let out a whisper of a laugh. He saw the fear in Odin's eyes. The prince now knew why Frigga was so upset the night before, to see him standing in blood. They imprisoned him on the charge of imagined war. At least he had known this day was coming.

"And what of Thor?" Loki asked as he stepped down. "You'll make that witless oaf king while I rot in chains?"

"Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done. He will bring order to the nine realms, and then, yes," Odin flashed a wry smile. "He will be king."

Loki was led away to the dungeons.

19:57

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