There's a plot to this, I swear, and I'll get to it eventually.
Erika offered the security footage as evidence for Loki's trial—without Tony's knowledge, I might add (she didn't even know if a portable DVD player would work in Asgard, but it was worth a try). The Avengers assembled in the park, and Thor took Loki back to Asgard.
Erika toyed with the idea of telling Tony the truth about Loki, but figured she'd better wait until she had a way to prove it.
"Is your existence not proof enough?" Jormungand asked her, and she shook her head.
"Dad remembers my mom—Lorna. All our memories of Loki are gone; I don't know how, but I don't have a way to get them back."
"But you do," her half-brother insisted. "The spell simply needs to be reversed."
Erika snorted. "Gee, is that all?" she asked sarcastically.
"You can travel the Realms. What's stopping you from traveling to Asgard?"
Erika opened her mouth, then snapped it shut.
She'd never thought of that.
"You okay, Kiddo?" Tony asked her later in the week.
Erika blinked and looked up from her position on the couch. "Fine. Why?" she asked, still bleary-eyed from the nap she'd woken up from.
Tony sat down on the arm of the couch. "You've been sleeping a lot lately, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but . . . isn't too much sleep a bad thing?"
Erika shrugged. "I'm fine, Dad. Really. "I've just been a little tired, that's all."
"Damn, missed it again," Erika muttered as she sat before what could only be described as a cave with chains blocking the entrance. At the cave's center sat an impossibly huge dark brown wolf, with chains wrapped around its limbs and the hilt of a sword sticking out of its throat.
'Looking for Father again?' The wolf's glowing green eyes stared at her and its head tilted slightly. Like the first time she'd met Jormungand, she could hear the words in her head.
"It's almost like I can't go anywhere that you or the others aren't—I can only visit my family, and the one family member I want to see, I can't get to." She got up and paced angrily. "This is the fifth time I've ended up here—in Asgard, but not where I need to be, and it's starting to get really frustrated."
'You're trying your hardest?'
"Yes, Fenrir, and no matter how many times I try it's not working!"
'Try again.'
Erika tried and tried, but her visions led her back to Fenrir, or to Sleipnir's stables, and if she left where they were, she'd wake up. Several months after the battle in Manhattan, Thor returned to Earth to speak with S.H.I.E.L.D, and the Avengers were called to the meeting (Erika couldn't go, but that didn't matter—she just hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D's security cameras and listened in on the meeting.
Loki's trial had come and gone, and his judgment had been passed—guilty of destroying the Bifrost, of almost destroying a realm, and attempting to conquer another realm. He'd been stripped of his powers and sentenced to banishment—and this is where Thor paused.
"My brother must endure the same punishment as I once did—he is banished to Midgard, and he must prove to be worthy before his power returns."
Suffice it to say, nobody was happy to hear that the nutjob was back on Earth. There was talk of imprisoning him, but Thor insisted he was harmless without his magic or otherworldly strength, and he would not be able to harm anyone.
Erika didn't watch any more after that.
"He's on Midgard. Odin took his powers and banished him to Earth."
"So I've heard," Hela's voice was like a bell chiming, and she smirked. "Don't look so surprised—you'd be amazed with how much of the realms are under my watch—I am the Queen of the Dead, and death happens everywhere. I don't claim to be Lady Death, though, for she would frown upon me adopting her title."
Erika blinked. "Death is a girl . . . . ?"
Hela chuckled. "But of course."
"Okaaaay, moving on . . . . . So, what should I do? Should I try to find him? And if I do, then what?"
Hela shook her heads. "I don't have the answers you seek—only you can decide what is best."
"You're no help," Erika huffed.
"Yes, but you love me anyway," Hela replied, and they both smiled—Erika had always wanted a sister, and now she finally had one."
"Dad, Thor's here!" Erika called the next day, not mentioning that he had his little brother with him. "Mind telling me what's going on?" she asked as Tony exited the kitchen, glass of scotch in hand.
Tony gestured to the brothers, first to Thor, then to Loki. "Point Break needed a place to stash his little bro, so he and Rock of Ages are gonna crash here for a while." He sipped his drink.
Erika raised an eyebrow. "Really. And you're okay with this?"
Tony shrugged. "Not Really, but Director Dearest thought it was the best place to put them, since I was rebuilding to house everyone anyway—if they were up to it."
Erika looked from her dad to the two norse gods, then back to her dad.
Well, at least she didn't have to go looking for him.
A/N: Hey, look! Progress!