A/N: Hey all! If you've stuck around this far, thanks! Some... "interesting" things concerning Amrita's identity are hinted at in this chapter, but they won't actually be addressed for a little while yet. ;D So sorry, you'll have to stick around longer if you're curious! Heehehee. (I'm so evil.)

Thanks to everyone who has followed/favorited, and especially to those who have reviewed! :)

I don't own the Avengers! 'Nuff said.

Amrita shot Tony an annoyed look at his outburst.

"I am not a demon doctor," she said curtly. "You're just a terrible patient who doesn't know when to keep his vulgar, unwanted comments to himself."

Steve chuckled from his seat across from Bruce. "Yeah, Tony. Maybe you should try not acting like yourself for once."

Tony glared at Steve. "Shut your mouth, twinkle toes. This doesn't concern you." He shifted his glare to Amrita. "You! You lit a fire…on my ass!"

Bruce spluttered into his chai, quickly grabbing a napkin to wipe the drink off his chin as he laughed. Steve grinned, and even Natasha couldn't help the momentary quirk of her lips before her expression became stony once again.

Amrita fixed Tony with a haughty look.

"That should teach you to behave next time you find yourself in a doctor's office. Next time you act the pervert in my clinic, I'll aim for someplace a little more…sensitive," she threatened.

Steve cleared his throat, as both he and Bruce made a point to look everywhere but at the female doctor. Tony's eyes widened in shock and horror.

"You wouldn't," he muttered.

Amrita raised a challenging eyebrow.

"Do you really feel brave enough to test that?" She purred. It felt nice to be the one in power. She didn't usually abuse that power, but with a man whose ego was as big as Tony Stark's was, it was quite satisfying to watch him squirm. She despised people who felt they had free reign to do as they pleased, be it due to social status or what.

"Alright, the surveillance footage is up," Natasha said, as she brought it up on a holographic projection at the other end of the table. Everyone turned to look at it, forgetting what they had just been talking about as they focused on the display. Tony took out a bag of seasoned peanuts and began munching away on them. Amrita hoped it meant he would be quiet for a few minutes.

Director Fury was currently trying to intimidate Loki by displaying how the cell he had been placed in worked. Amrita was alarmed that they would place someone in such a contraption, but her brow furrowed as she sensed the same sort of other-worldliness from their prisoner as she had from the muscled blond man. She glanced at said man briefly, noticing him watching the screen intently, almost worriedly. There must be a connection between the two of them, then. She averted her attention back to the screen as well.

Loki laughed at Fury's display.

"It's an impressive cage," he said, holding his hands out to his sides. Amrita did not like the smile he gave. It made her skin crawl. "Not built, I think, for me."

Fury gave no visible reaction to Loki's words.

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," he confirmed, threatening at the same time. Amrita was vaguely aware of Bruce standing up at this. She glanced at him briefly, but his back was to the screen, his shoulders slightly hunched as he crossed his arms in front of him. Amrita frowned, but turned back to the screen, resolving to ask Bruce about it later.

Loki's smile turned absolutely sinister.

"Oh, I've heard," he said, walking slowly about his cell with a confident swagger. He turned to stare directly into the lens of the surveillance camera. "A mindless beast, who makes play he's still a man." He turned his sneer on Fury. "How desperate are you? That you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

Amrita was just about done with this conversation. She turned to Bruce, who was giving a small, tight smile as he bounced slightly on his heels, having turned back to watch the footage once more, one arm crossed tightly over his chest and the other rubbing at the muscles in his neck. She stared at him until she caught his eye, and gently patted the arm of the chair next to her. He gave a wan smile and shook his head. She huffed quietly, determinedly ignoring the fact that she drew the eyes of everyone else in the room as she stood up and strode over to stand about a foot and a half away from him, crossing her arms over her chest and turning her attention back to surveillance footage. Bruce chuckled beside her, but she refused to look over at him, or anyone else, for that matter. She especially made a note not to meet Tony's eye, as he was eyeing her and Bruce with an amused smirk on his annoying face.

Loki was just finishing mocking Fury, speaking about how he had let the Tesseract slip from his grasp.

"It burns you to have come so close," he murmured. "To have the Tesseract, to have power. Unlimited power. And for what?" He gave that chilling grin again. "A warm light for all mankind to share?" His smile dropped, and he looked menacing. "And then to be reminded what real power is."

Fury just stared him down for a moment before turning to leave, coat billowing behind him as he went.

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine, or something."

Amrita gave a snort of laughter.

Everyone looked at her.

"What?" she asked defensively. "Am I the only one with a sense of humor around here? Heavens."

Bruce just smiled and shook his head, nodding at the screen as Natasha took it down.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" He said sarcastically, causing Amrita to roll her eyes, though she still felt goosebumps on her arms from the frightening look the man had about him. She wondered briefly if he were alright in the head.

"Loki's gonna drag this out, so," Steve said. He turned his attention to the muscled blond man that Amrita was curious about. "Thor. What's his play?"

Thor. The name felt familiar to her, somehow. As though she'd heard it in a past life. Perhaps even been familiar with it. She felt a connection being drawn in her mind, like a line on paper. Thor and Loki are brothers, she thought, though she could not tell what had made her draw that conclusion. She felt overcome with confusion.

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor murmured. "They're not of Asgard, or any world known."

Asgard. A word that drew to mind beautiful architecture and strong warriors. She had been there before. Where was it? It was another realm, was it not? How had she even gotten there? She grew frustrated with the fact that she knew what this Thor spoke of, but not why she knew it. She ground her teeth together, drawing Bruce's attention. He raised an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head, silently telling him not to worry about it.

"An army," Steve said. "From outer space." He sounded dumbfounded. Amrita supposed it would sound unbelievable to the average human. Captain America wasn't necessarily average, but if he looked the same as he had during the war, he must have been removed from some sort of stasis quite recently. Even super humans aged, after all.

Bruce raised his eyebrows at the conversation.

"So he's building another portal," he stated, taking off the glasses which he'd slid back on to watch the surveillance footage. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Erik Selvig?" Thor asked, looking surprised.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce extrapolated.

Thor frowned. "He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha said, leaning her elbows on the table in front of her. She glanced off to the side and added grimly, "Along with one of ours."

"Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here," Steve said, eyebrow raised.

Bruce shook his head. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell the crazy on him."

Amrita disguised her laugh as a cough, causing Bruce to smirk at her. She hid her grin behind her hand.

Thor frowned at the two of them; mostly at Bruce, though. "Have care how you speak," he demanded. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard—and he is my brother."

"He killed over eighty people in two days," Natasha said flatly.

Thor had the decency to look ashamed of his brother's actions. "He is adopted," he mumbled, as though that made it any more alright.

Amrita felt herself withdraw into the recesses of her mind. She had a feeling that this Loki was more than just a dangerous Asgardian. She had met him before; she could feel it in her bones. Thor did not seem to recognize her, but she did not remember him in particular, either. It must have been over a dozen reincarnations ago that she had met the Asgardians, however, because she could not for the life of her remember anything past what had come to her mind unbidden. She frowned as she pulled herself back out of her mind to focus on the conversation once again, turning her head towards Bruce, who was speaking.

"…What do they need the iridium for?"

Tony waved his hand in the air like an excited elementary school kid who had the answer to the question, swallowing down his mouthful of peanuts.

"Ooh, pick me!" he said. "It's a stabilizing agent. Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." He stood up, going up to the screens at the front of the room. He started rattling on about a power source for the portal, using scientific terms that escaped Amrita's grasp. It made her head spin trying to follow what he was saying, and it just got worse when Bruce jumped into the conversation with more science jargon. She rubbed her temples, trying to fight back the impending headache as Stark grinned at Bruce.

"Finally! Someone who speaks English," he said, as they shook hands. "It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of how you lose control and turn into a giant green rage monster," he said with a straight face.

Bruce gave a tight smile, gaze flitting over to Amrita for a moment, noting her curious look; head tilted slightly to the side, eyebrows raised. He dreaded the questions she would undoubtedly have for him later on the subject. He pointedly turned his attention back to the conversation at hand, as Fury strode into the room, bitter about the damage that Loki had managed to do within the span of forty-eight hours. Once there was a lull in the conversation following Fury's Wizard of Oz reference, Tony rolled his eyes and turned to Bruce.

"Shall we play, Doctor?"

Bruce nodded, gesturing in the direction of the lab. "This way," he said, letting Tony go ahead of him. He caught Amrita's eye before he stepped out, pausing in mid-step and raising his eyebrows, pointing at the lab, wordlessly asking if she was going to join them. She gave a tired smile and shook her head, and he shrugged, smiling back before he headed off. No one could say he hadn't at least tried to get her to socialize more.

Amrita pinched the bridge of her nose. Her headache was just getting worse as time wore on. Fury had strode away from the group a bit to discuss something with a brunette female agent that she hadn't even noticed when she'd entered the room. She was a bit creeped out by that, but figured that just meant the woman was really good at her job. She sighed, figuring now was as good a time as any for her to head back to bed for the night. She glanced around for a clock and saw that it was already almost ten o'clock. She frowned. Definitely time to go back to bed. She needed to catch up on the sleep she had missed out on the night before. She was just about to leave when she thought to speak to Natasha about the possibility of getting some more clothes. The redhead nodded and assured her she would procure some work clothes for her to wear in the morning. With a quick thanks, she quickly headed for her room before she could be held up any longer.

When she got back to her room, Amrita did some stretches before bed, working out the stiff muscles that she had from working all day. She wasn't used to such long hours after not having a steady job for so long. She especially felt the tension built up in her neck as she rolled it, trying to work out the kinks. Sighing, she got a quick shower and brushed her teeth before climbing into bed. She was practically dragging her feet by the time she was ready for bed, and she flopped down on the bed, lacking the energy to even crawl underneath the covers.

Her head hit the pillow, and she was out like a light.

When Amrita opened her eyes, she was no longer in her room on the helicarrier, but instead, she was in a grassy orchard that was vaguely familiar to her. She turned in a slow circle, trying to pinpoint anything that might tell her where she was, when she saw the buildings in the distance. The architecture was the same as she had seen in her mind's eye when Thor had mentioned Asgard earlier.

So I am in Asgard, then, she thought. Or at least I'm dreaming of it.

"So it is you, then," a silken voice said, and she turned around to see the prisoner, Loki, standing on the other side of the orchard clearing. "It's been quite some time since we last met, Lady Garuda. Your master thought you lost forever."

The name struck a resonant chord within her, and she knew without a doubt it was her true name. But she felt awkward being called by it, almost as though she did not deserve the title. She could not remember why she felt that way, though.

She gave an awkward cough, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"I've not been called that name since before I can remember," she said. "I go by Amrita these days."

Loki's eyes sparked with mischief and malice, and he stalked towards her. Alarmed, she tried to step back, only to find her feet refused to obey her. She stood there, helpless, as the god circled her like a predator would its prey.

"Oh, you truly have become lost, haven't you?" he said with a manic grin. "Not only in the physical sense, but mentally, as well…as your true form grows distant with disuse, so too does your mind become so addled with Midgardian memories that you cannot remember your true reason for being here in the first place." He reached his hands towards her temples, his long fingers digging painfully into her flesh. "Oh, but I can see. And would you not give everything to know of your purpose in being here, Garuda?"

Amrita ground her teeth together as she could feel whatever was gluing her feet to the ground slowly coming undone as she continued straining at it. She growled in her throat as she pulled at it, feeling her forehead break out in a sweat from the effort.

"Not. Everything," she bit out as she finally moved a step back.

She woke up panting.

Amrita's eyes quickly glanced around the dark room, only making out the vague shapes of everything. There were no person-shaped figures, though, so she knew that whatever Loki had done to meet with her in her dream, he had done it from afar, using magic. She growled under her breath at the thought of the conniving devil. He had tried to manipulate her onto his side using her forgotten past. And while she would go great lengths to find out who she was and why she was here on earth, she would not sacrifice her own moral code to do so. Loki had killed innocent people, and she had sworn she would never do such a thing.

Rolling onto her back and staring blankly at the ceiling, Amrita felt her mind roiling with thoughts, questions that had gone unanswered for so long. She had always had this feeling in the back of her mind, throughout all the lives she could recall, of ultimate betrayal. She felt a certain bitterness that lay deep within her being that was just waiting to be sated. She hated to admit to herself that Loki's offer of giving her the answers she so desperately wanted had tempted her. Briefly; but it had, nonetheless. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands as a biting reprimand for such thoughts. She glanced over at the alarm clock sitting unassumingly on her nightstand, the bright red numbers glaring back at her: five-oh-nine. She heaved a sigh.

Might as well get ready to face another day.