So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.

You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.

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DAY THREE

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012

0653 HOURS

SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER

LOCATION UNKNOWN

NORA

I can't get the words out, but this is definitely a 'I'm sorry, say that again?' moment. We already stepped into I'm not supposed to be human territory a while ago, so it doesn't surprise me when he re-categorizes me is a 'Veneer', if anything I was sort of curious what he thought I was supposed to be if I wasn't human. The part that ties my tongue in my throat is the 'magick in my blood'.

"You think I have magick?!" That is something I was not prepared for, the concept I might have a 'super power'. I mean, sure I joked around with it before, covering the bitter heartache behind a layer of laughter that I used to have one, before head trauma took away all my S.H.I.E.L.D training but there is a huge difference between martial arts abilities and MAGICK! I'm honestly waiting for the joke to drop, but the nod he gives me tells me its not coming.

"You're serious aren't you?"

"Should I not be?" he asks with an odd combination of a frown and an amused smile.

"No you shouldn't be." And that makes the amusement leave for just the frown.

"I mean, magick, Loki, really?" I continue filling the silence; he seems content to let me. "I'm a Camdenite Maineiac, who works for an intelligence agency, that about is special as I get. Magick? If I had don't you think I would have noticed it? Felt it before this?"

"But you do feel it." He offers as a reply before he holds out his hands and soft shimmers rise from it, reminding me of sparks rising from a fire, but lacking the heat as his unenchanted hand lightly takes mine and encourages our palms to near each other. "I know you feel my energy, just as I know you've felt the Tesseract's."

At first I'd been a little startled by the way those sparks drifted THROUGH my hand, until I realized it didn't hurt, or do anything other then radiate soft dissipating warmth. But my surprise rose again when Loki said I felt the Tesseract.

"The Tesseract, who told you I touched that?" I wasn't allowed more then ten feet into the room they kept it in without an escort, and I was only let in there at all because Clint waved his authority around and made it happen.

"I did not say touched my dear, I said felt." He clarifies with a soft smile, as he releases my wrist and lets that hand press his fingers to his temple. "Did you never wonder why they relocated you to that base, where they housed an Asgardian artifact?"

In truth, I didn't. When I heard I was being sent to P.E.G.A.S.U.S I was just so happy, because I would get to see me 'brother' again, even if I was terribly sad at the idea of leaving Steve behind in New York. It wasn't the first time S.H.I.E.L.D made me uproot my life and relocate, I'd done it once twice before. The first time when I left the sandbox and was sent to the live at Triskelion, and then again when I was told I was moving from there to the base in New York. And in New York I suppose you could say I had move 2.5, when I got to live in my own apartment! Leaving New York for Wyoming was just another relocation.

If I ever questioned why they would send an untrained Level One to a top secret research facility in the desert, all I had to to was look up to the man sitting in the rafters. Clint had the authority to make that reassignment happen, and it wasn't something out of the realm of impossibility to think he would.

However all of that was before an Asgardian Prince came into my life and told me I was his long lost love, all that was before I began to consider that maybe he was right. Maybe there was a reason after all. I started getting headaches after I arrived there, but I always assumed it was because of the dry desert air.

"You're saying I'm not supposed to know?" His answer to my question as he quells the sparks and rests both his hands back crossed in his lap as he leans back a bit in the chair. "Did you notice many of the others that arrived with suffering from headaches similar to yours?"

The answer of course is the one he already knows, none. I don't recall any of the others that started their assignment with me, because as a large organization it wouldn't make sense to relocate just one employee at a time. It was another one of those things I never even considered noticing, not until it was brought to my attention.

I want to go back to considering everything Loki says to being a potential lie, because I don't want to believe the people I loved and cared about and trusted have been the ones lying to me all along. But as much as I want that, I know how S.H.I.E.L.D functions because I am part of it, and what Loki says makes a lot of sense, perhaps more sense then my 'brother' missed me.

"No, I didn't." I admit, only now remembering the twinge headache I got when I sat on that scaffolding with Clint for the last time, the glow of the Tesseract lingering in the corner of my eye. The sudden hindsight makes me realize they always seemed to start or get worse the closer I got to the chamber itself. "God, how was I that stupid, that I never saw it?"

"You lived in a sea of practiced deceivers my dear, and forgive me for saying this." He offers me a subtle smile of appeasement as he gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. "But you are not one yourself."

That doesn't offend me, as much as it amuses me. I already knew that, any time I attempted secret keeping I always failed misery. The best I could do was to stubbornly refuse to speak at all to avoid spilling the beans, and that didn't always work either, because of things like threatening me with tickles or bribing me with a new experience.

The only time I succeeded was when I found out Steve's father had been Catholic, and I was NOT going to share Clint's colorful opinion of Catholics with Steve. I didn't like to think of him as Captain America, however there are certain sentences you do not repeat in front of Captain America and that was definitely one of them.

"So you're saying..." I force the question out, because I need to focus on the situation at hand and right know thinking of my friends, my old life, isn't helping me be strong. Not like it used to. "...'normal people' can't feel that?" It may be a question, but I barely leave enough silence to take a breath before I add "I'm gonna need something stronger than tea for this."

The interesting wine bottle appears next to us on the table, as well as the transmuted wine glasses from earlier, both summoned across the room with another wave of his hand and a shimmering light. That doesn't surprise me like it did once, but what I do seems to surprise him.

"No." He already had his hands in the process of filling a wine glass for me but before the first drop could be spilled I spoke that word, and now curiously he is letting the bottle settle back on its base. "Your wine is delicious, but I'm gonna need something different, something that actually lets me get drunk."

His disapproval of that idea is obvious in the way the warmth leaves his eyes and his jaw tenses a little, then his silence ends with a frustrated sigh, and an inclining nod.

"Alright. I will see what I can find among the mortals. Are you sure?"

When I made that request, I sort of assumed he would just summon something up like he did everything else, but it turns out I was wrong. Instead he actually plans to go out of the room to find it for me. And that makes me worried.

Its not for me that I'm worried. But Clint and Erik are outside this room. They're unconscious and helpless, because that's what I asked for, that how they're getting better. Its a paranoid fear, but that doesn't make it any less of one. Loki could hurt them if he isn't in this room with me. Its a stupid fear too though, because I know Loki could hurt them even if he stayed in this room forever. All he has to do is call a guard and give the order.

It doesn't do much to quell my concerns, but I keep telling myself Loki gave me their lives, and I've been nothing but cooperative since, so he has no real reason to. Be brave Arnora, dammit. You are supposed to be braver than this.

"Yes, I'm sure. Thank you." I offer back before I watch him stand, and then hold out his hand. For a fraction of a second it confuses me, then with a moment of understanding I let my hand rest in his and feel his lips press and retreat from my knuckles.

"I will return soon, I must check on the men, I will send your guard to keep you company until then." I hadn't even been holding my breath but the second that door closed I released it anyways. He was going to send in Duncan. Thank god, because I have a lot I need to ask him.