"Alright," he said and it was like she was splintering his bones to get the answer she wanted. "Alright." His warm breath feathered across her lips and she had to bite her cheek to stop the tears from welling up. One of her hands slid around his neck, the other down to encompass his chest. She broke from the kiss and leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Among the wolves might be safest," she said after a long moment of just standing there. "Fenrir and the other Siege Wolves are strong enough to defend us should we be rendered insensible."
She felt the hesitation in every line of his body. As the armor melted away to the clothes he preferred for everyday, he tugged on a lock of her hair and she pulled back far enough to meet his gaze. "The anchors and the wards will hold against Amora, but…they will not hold against us should we become a danger to our children while inside them."
Nodding once in understanding, she reluctantly allowed him to step away from her, but caught his hand and twined her fingers through his. "Where then?"
"Among yours and Thor's humans? The Man of Iron and the others?"
She had to think about it, weigh the consequences against the possibilities, and she shook her head. "No. They are decent for their species. I would rather not bring harm to them if it can be avoided. Asgard? Thor, Heimdall, and your mother would be more than able to look after us."
He was already shaking his head before she had finished. "We have too many who would hunt us while we are incapacitated and Thor has his own concerns to attend to. I still say that your humans are the best option while I am unable to teleport between the realms. Sif and Hogun would give them a better than fair chance against us and Stark's pet seems to possess knowledge that would give them advance warning." He frowned, like he didn't like that idea, but he presented no argument against it.
"You have no other places between the realms you could take us to?" she argued. "I cannot imagine you spent the years in my absence entirely in Asgard. You are cautious enough that I know you would have established areas to your liking and warded them against intruders and threats."
Sigyn felt the snarl vibrate through him even if he never vocalized it. "From outside threats, yes, we would be safe, but this is not something I ever planned to fight. How would you ward against yourself or me?" And she had no answer for it. They really had never given thought to how they might defend themselves against themselves or prevent Ragnarok should someone try something new. It really did leave them in a bind. "Who is it that you would like to endanger less? Fenrir and Sleipnir or your humans?"
Her hand balled into a fist and she punched his collarbone, but he didn't flinch back or give her another option. "Fenrir and Sleipnir," she said after a moment, her eyes closed tight against the answer.
Dame, came her son's familiar voice and the double sensation of his approach even as she stood still. For a moment, she walked with him on four paws and with a flicking tail. Then, she was in her own body again with a floodgate opening and the familiarity of a spell settling around them. Return safe, he cast at her just as they blinked from the island into the between of realms.
The pull was sluggish, like they were treading mud. Even with the extra power that had returned to her in the short time, she could feel the way that the between sought to grab them and fling them elsewhere and how Loki fought to keep them on course. The relief when their feet touched solid ground was almost staggering, but it was only momentary before darkness crept up around her eyes and she folded in on herself.
The alarms blaring for the ninth floor was the first warning that he had of their return. Punching in the codes to disable the sounds, he growled under his breath as he took another cursory look at the formulas he and Bruce had scrapped together. "Hey, J, would you tell them to take better care of where they land?" Tony shot at his AI.
"Once they are conscious enough to understand me, I will gladly pass along the message," Jarvis responded. "Until then, sir, I have redirected the two Aseir warriors to take care of them."
That was enough to make Tony clear his screen and pull up the footage of their arrival. He drummed his fingers against the counter and sighed, running a hand through his hair. He paused the recording at the moment where Sigyn collapsed into Loki and her unexpected weight had the sorcerer staggering. "Any odd readings coming off of them?" he asked and Bruce glanced up from his share of the work.
"Nothing that we should be overly concerned with, but I have put in a request with SHIELD for Captain Rogers and the Black Widow to rejoin us as soon as they are able," Jarvis answered. "As such I have also redirected Hawkeye's attention to Ms. Foster and Ms. Lewis to assist them in their calculations."
Tony just smiled at what he knew his AI's idea of a request would be. Then, the smile slid away as he zoomed in on the pair. "What kind of readings did you pull from them?" he asked, flipping the view and catching a close up of Loki's surprised features.
There was a slight hesitation to Jarvis' answer that had him bracing for bad news. "Readings indicate that their own energy levels are very low. Vitals indicate that there has been a loss of blood recently and…there are trace elements of the Enchtress' magic in both of them. I am monitoring the situation as we speak," Jarvis said.
"Wasn't it just Reindeer Games last time they were here?" Tony asked, swiping the view from his screen and retrieving the readings Jarvis was talking about. "Is it the same signature type or is it new on Sigyn?"
Jarvis automatically supplied previous readings he had taken from the sorcerer and Healer. One was Loki's from the first time he had ever stepped foot into the tower. It showed trace elements of several kinds of energy. Sigyn's first was a very low reading that Jarvis had notated at Minimal. Hers had only one type of reading. Their current combined readings were something that looked almost…
"J, compare this to the readings we got off the Tessaract," Tony said slowly.
The view switched to another chart and overlaid itself overtop of Loki and Sigyn's. It wasn't a perfect match, but…
"Remove the Enchantress'," Tony said and the green threading itself through the blue of Loki and Sigyn's combined magic resonated with that of the Tessaract's at a lower level. "Give it some juice, like when they're not completely drained." The readings on Loki and Sigyn's chart rose as Jarvis calculated for their normal strength and it matched. Tony whistled and tilted the view on the screen. "Imagine that. J, you getting this? If we could-"
"Sir," Jarvis intoned and Tony blinked when the readings vanished. "Trace elements of the Enchantress' signature are present in both of their bodies as well as magic that were originally based in the pair of them. It would appear that they are able to share power and through it, the Enchantress' spell is spreading to Sigyn."
Bruce cleared his screen and took a look at the readings that Tony had been looking at. "Jarvis, could we get the reading just prior to this for Loki? And then I'd like to compare it against mine when I first arrived."
Jarvis complied and after analyzing them himself said, "I had not…considered that aspect."
On the ninth floor, Sif and Hogun contemplated the pile that was Loki and Sigyn. Both unconscious…of course. "Do you think they disabled their defensive wards?" Sif asked.
"No," Hogun answered.
"Right. Of course and the wards charge independently of their magic, right? No worries, then," Sif said and crouched down to reach for Sigyn's shoulder, only to hesitate. "We could leave them here. I mean, their wards are rather…touchy." They shared a glance, remembering the last time Fandral had disturbed Loki's wards and spent most of a day as a chicken. Sif sighed and looked at Sigyn again. "But they wouldn't just leave us lying somewhere we collapsed."
And she knew it was true. Whatever Loki had done, whatever atrocities he had committed, she already knew he wouldn't have left her lying somewhere unconscious. Her fingers closed on Sigyn's shoulder and rolled the smaller female towards her. With no more than a fizzle of electricity through her fingers, a released breath, and a rueful grin at Hogun, Sif got Sigyn's weight settled on her shoulders while Hogun managed to drag Loki off the floor with considerably less effort.
With Dr. Banner's contribution and Sir's confirmation, Jarvis monitored the situation with more curiosity than wariness. Repeated biological scans showed signs of receding trace elements of the Enchantress' signature. Spread between them, it was losing its grip and being washed away by their returning power. As well, he ran calculations against what their combined readings looked like when he compared it to Sir's original thought and found it to be more and more comparable to that of the Tessaract scans.
When he was done, he destroyed the files that he had made and stored the knowledge deep inside his core where only he and Sir could find it. SHIELD had hacked him once and that meant they could do it again, but there was no chance they would get this information from him without dangerously compromising his systems. They'd had access to a very powerful object once and that had brought an alien invasion down upon them. If SHIELD knew about the way Sigyn and Loki could combine magic…well, to put it simply, he wasn't sure which side he and Sir would be on if it came to a fight, because they would fight not to be used like a pair of living generators. Of that much he was absolutely certain.
Across the country, where there was a place secreted away by magic and shadows, there was an enraged shriek as carefully laid plans came unraveled. In private, Amora destroyed most of what had been her physical luxuries and then obliterated the shards into dust. When that was done and she was surrounded by the vials that represented her other plans, she scoffed lightly.
One plan thwarted because she had-again-underestimated Sigyn's ability to run interference. Prized though Loki would have been to be added to those she called hers, it wasn't a devastating blow. What it did, though, was accelerate another of her plans. Skurge's shell wasn't completely done with its modifications, but it was close enough that she wanted to send him out and see what would happen.
A/N: Thank you to my reviewer: Ynath Esrith.