Loki and Magda return to their lives without any sign of Wanda. Loki's idea about the amount of energy needed to transport a person through time leads to an interesting pattern of energy signatures and a new layer on the map, but not to finding Wanda. Skye cannot find the location of Pietro's body in any of SHIELD's files.

Magda spends most of her time either working or sleeping. When Loki checks on her after work, she is tired and usually on her way to bed. He throws himself into the business of running the bookshop, often coming in early to do paperwork and sort new acquisitions. When he runs out of things to do, he polls customers to find out what would bring them back to the bookshop more often. He is frustrated that the answers usually involve needing more time and something called a Kindle. He jokes to himself that perhaps he should acquire the time stone and make the shop a temporal vortex where one can spend as long as they like without it effecting the time outside.

When they spend evenings together, they are tired, physically and emotionally, and they say little, cooking together in the quiet, eating while listening to Magda's records of old Sokovian folk music, and once in a while, falling asleep together on the couch or, once, on top of the covers in her bed, too hurt to care about anything other than that they desperately need one another. They rarely talk about Wanda, when they talk at all. They both worry. Magda, though, worries about Loki as well. While he seems to be holding up, she knows he feels everything deeply and that he has done dark things out of pain and grief.

Then Natasha arrives. She drives up to the row houses and checks the addresses on the paper Steve gave her. She wonders who to talk to first, and just who Magda is to Wanda. Or, for that matter, how she and Loki are close enough to warrant this visit. She doesn't know who to talk to first- she doesn't really want to talk to Loki by herself. She goes to Magda's door and knocks. It is a Saturday morning. She hopes someone is home. A voice calls out that someone is coming and she can faintly hear music through the door.

Loki greets her, "Oh. Hello. Is there news?"

"Not much. I thought this was Magda's house- I'm sorry, Steve must have mixed up the addresses."

"No, no, he is correct. Come in. Magda is just making breakfast."

"Oh, I'll come back later when I'm not interrupting."

Magda calls from the kitchen, "Come in, come in! Please, stay, eat! When we have guests, we feed them- old Sokovian tradition!"

Loki steps aside and tries to smile, his mind racing, wondering just why she has come, "So, is there news of Wanda's disappearance? Have you found her?"

Magda, wiping her hand on a towel, goes to turn down the music, "It has been so long and we have been told nothing."

"We haven't found her. But we have noticed energy surges in the area and we're trying to track them down. Skye thinks they might not be from now, but residual from the stone being used somewhen else."

"Somewhen?" Magda asks, "You have a new word for this?"

"We're dealing with time travel- a completely new phenomenon. We've had to make up some new ways to talk about it."

She slips back to the kitchen, "I can hear you from here. Keep speaking."

"We switched teams. I came home, Agent Mae, who was leading our backup team on the ground, went in. Tony went over. Thor's still on the ground. He insisted that he didn't need a break. I did. It's tough to keep looking when it seems like you're getting nowhere, even if the people back home are finding out all kinds of stuff. Steve told me you'd come to New York. Both of you. And all Wanda's told me was that she's got a Magda she visits."

Loki sits at the dining room table and gestures to a chair, "Please, make yourself comfortable." She sits, but she perches on the edge, "Why did you come today, though, if you have not come to bring us news?"

"I told Wanda I'd help her when she was spending so much time keeping you company. I'd take tea with her and make sure she had somebody to talk to. I'm not that great at being a supportive friend. Haven't had a whole lot of chances to be one, to be honest. So I thought maybe I could do right by her by coming to make sure you guys were OK, especially since you care enough about her that you came to us when she first went missing."

Magda brings a steaming plate of latkes from the kitchen, "And I am deeply grateful that you have come by. We have heard nothing of the search, not even that you were still looking. I had asked Mr Stark to do so at least once in a while, but he has not. This disappoints me. But you coming to visit, this is heartening."

"I'm sorry I can't give you more of an update. We're working hard on this, following every lead we come across, every temporal disturbance we get word of. Phil's got ears everywhere. But sometimes it doesn't feel like we're getting very far. But they can time travel. So it's not like we're at an advantage right now, even with SHIELD's team."

"But you are still trying. And that is what makes my heart happy, even if you have not found her." Magda brings out another plate, this one of sausages. She returns to the kitchen once more and comes back with fried tomatoes and a basket of biscuits, "Now, please, eat. I cook like a Sokovian grandmother."

"You cook like a Russian grandmother, too, but without the potatoes."

This makes Magda chuckle, "Ah, yes. You are Russian, no?"

"By birth. But not really anymore."

"We are what we choose to be, my dear. If you still wish to be Russian, it does not matter how long it has been since you were in that country. But likewise, if you wish not to be, then that is also fine."

"I don't think I was ever cooked for by a grandmother."

"Well then I will always be ready to cook for you. I open my doors. And you will always find plenty of food. Sokovian grandmothers cook for at least a dozen even when there are only a few."

"And a small batch means cooking for eight instead of twelve."

Magda laughs, "Exactly! We never have empty freezers and friends may always eat."

Natasha suddenly realizes she feels at ease in this house, even with Loki at her left. Magda is warm, inviting, and, she realizes as she takes a bite of the latkes piled on her plate by her hostess, a very good cook. It is the kind of household she thinks she might have had if she had been allowed a normal life.

"So what does it mean when Wanda says that you're 'her Magda'? She's never explained that."

"We are partners. Perhaps someday we will make such things official. But we have not yet. I hope she will come to live under this roof alongside me."

"I never knew Wanda was a lesbian."

"I do not know how she would define her attractions. I simply know that she loves me, and I her."

"Got it." She turns to Loki, "And how do you fit into this picture?"

"My dear friends are, in my heart, my sisters. We have chosen to build family this way. It is wonderful."

"When you opened the door, I wondered if you and Magda were together."

Loki smiles and shakes his head, "While she is beautiful and bright, a source of my light for sure, my heart lies with Alexi."

"You've got a girlfriend?"

"A young man, actually."

"Oh. OK. I know more gay people than I thought."

"Indeed, you do."

Magda passes her the biscuits and smiles, "Is it not wonderful that we have so many types of people living these lives happily? We could not do so in Sokovia yet. There are still challenges, yes, but it was a relief to move from there to here, even though I do so deeply miss my home. But we do what we can, no? We love where we are and let the memories live happily in our dreams."

"I don't have a whole lot of happy memories in my dreams."

"Then we must make them. Even if our weeks are busy, we cook together every Sunday- you should come by. We welcome all."

"Really? You hardly know me."

"You are a friend to Wanda. You have sat beside her with tea and an ear. Thusly, you are friend enough for food and to be enfolded into our lives. I do not put up barriers, Natasha. No, I open doors and arms for all. It is the way I was raised, it is the way I live here. And that means my table is always full of laughter and light, even when times are difficult or there are hard things to speak of. That is the nature of building a family."

"Thank you. I will consider stopping by."

"Lovely! There is no need to let us know before, just arrive when you can. We are so very happy to have guests."

Natasha turns to Loki, "And are you OK with this? We've been on the opposite sides of a war zone."

"A time I am very much trying to move on from. I will welcome you to our table."

She looks for any kind of trick or lie to his words and can find none, "Either you're a better liar than I am or you're really not a crazy psychopath. Which, I admit, would be nice to know. Thor seems to think you're OK now."

"He is a very good brother."

"Yeah, he seems like."

Magda raises her glass, "Then let us raise a glass to always moving forward."

Natasha takes hers in hand, "Yeah, I'll certainly drink to that."