"He's not an American, but he still has rights! All I want is to see him so that I know he's ok!" Jane Foster, clearly anxious as to Selvig's wellbeing, stood in the lobby area of the police station, arguing with the officer manning the reception desk who appeared as if he would rather have been anywhere else doing anything else up to and including busting a crack house or a den of mobsters than dealing with the irate woman.

"Like I've told you ten times already, he's not in our custody. They outrank us. There's nothing I can do."

"So they just get to waltz in here and do whatever they want?" Jane asked, frustrated.

"Yeah, pretty much." the officer replied. A door on the other side of the lobby opened behind Jane . Darcy, seated in a chair, turned her head in that direction just as Jane did the same, both witnessing Selvig exit. Jane rushed across the lobby in his direction.

"Erik!"

"Everything's fine. I'm alright."

"I told them you hadn't abducted anyone!"

"Actually...I did."

"What?!"

"It's a long story...I suppose not as long as some of my lectures. They're returning our equipment. I'll tell you everything when we get back."

As Selvig spoke, Loki, Verda, and Coulson entered the lobby through the same door. Jane looked to Loki with an expression of shock.

"Jane Foster, it's good-." Loki said. Upon hearing Jane's name, Verda turned her attention to the woman, taking stock of her.

Before either Selvig or Loki realized what was about to happen, Jane stepped over to Loki, cutting him off as she slapped him hard across the face.

"That's for lying! You are one of them!" Jane exclaimed angrily. Selvig quickly took hold of her arm, moving her back.

"How dare you!" Verda proclaimed indignantly, stepping towards Jane as Loki put an arm out in front of her.

"Girls! Girls!" Selvig exclaimed, attempting to calm Jane and Verda and prevent a brawl from breaking out between the two. Both Verda and Jane looked at Selvig with irritation. "I mean ladies."

"It's not as if you've never done the same." Loki said, looking over to Verda with a grin.

"That was different. You were dying." Verda replied. Loki turned his attention back to Jane.

"He's not one of them." Selvig told Jane.

"They are not culpable for my brother's murder. They're now assisting me in apprehending the guilty party." Loki explained.

"Oh...well...alright then." Jane responded as the exterior door to the lobby opened, an older man, bearded, with gray hair and glasses entered.

"Erik!" Hank Pym called out upon seeing his friend, having expected to find him behind bars, and that would be if he was lucky and Selvig had not vanished off the face of the earth.

"Hank! What are you doing here?" Erik said, stepping away from the group towards Pym the two gripping hands.

"Jane called me, told me that S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken off with you. I got here as soon as I could."

"It's all been sorted out. In a way, it's a good thing you're here. Now I'll only have to explain all of it once. Oh...and Banner's alive. I know where he is."

"We should be going." Coulson said to Loki. Loki and Verda followed Coulson towards the door, Loki stopping as he reached Selvig and Pym.

"Thank you again, Erik Selvig." he said, extending his hand, Selvig taking it.

"If you need me, you know where to find me...if not I'm sure Heimdall can." Selvig replied. Loki and Verda followed Coulson out the door.

"Is that the guy? Lucas?" Pym asked.

"His name's not Lucas. It's Loki." Selvig answered.

"Like the god?"

"Not like...he is." Selvig answered, Pym and Jane both appearing befuddled at Selvig's answer.

****************************

"That was Jane Foster?" Verda asked Loki.

"You know of her?"

"Your brother spoke of her on many occasions....your brother in my time. I don't see what it is he found to be so special about her. She's a mortal like any other." Verda said, Loki picking up on a slight tone of annoyance in her voice. Verda had once again changed into clothing she had borrowed from Sif, a short leather skirt over another pair of leggings and a corseted top. Neither she nor Loki had bothered to cast any illusions over their clothing this time. Loki's eyes played over the curves of Verda's body that Sif's clothing accentuated, Verda noticing Loki's eyes on her as they reached the black car in the parking lot parked along with other identical or nearly identical vehicles. "What?" Verda asked before following Loki's gaze to her clothing. "Oh...I know...you don't like it. I thought it would be more comfortable."

"I could get used to it." Loki said as he opened the back door on the passenger side for Verda, Coulson opening the driver's side door and taking his place in the driver's seat.

All three now seated in the car, Coulson turned the key in the ignition. As the engine started, the stereo came loudly to life as well.

"Stinson must have had this one last." Coulson said, sounding perturbed as he moved to turn off the dark, loud, bass, percussion and synth heavy music that blared from the speakers. "Don't know how many times I've told him-"

"Wait…" Loki said, listening for a few moments. "What is it?"

"I call it noise. Stinson would tell you it's music." Coulson said as Loki listened to the haunting, strange cacophony of sound unlike any of the other music he had previously heard thus far on Midgard, the vocalist singing of losing himself, of trying to save himself but sensing himself slipping away, Loki seeing himself in the lyrics as he thought again of his visions.

"I like it."

****************************

Coulson had humored Loki's obsession with Stinson's music for the next half hour, looking forward to a peaceful, quick, and quiet flight on the waiting Quinjet to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. facility which happened to be in the Mojave desert.

Word had arrived that Randolph's location had been rather swiftly and easily ascertained and confirmed, a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents having been dispatched to collect him though it would be a few hours yet until his arrival even with the far faster mode of transportation S.H.I.E.L.D. had access to.

Coulson led Verda and Loki through the facility, arriving at a large, high ceilinged room. The space appeared empty and at the moment, not in use for any specific purpose. A doorway to a corridor could be seen on the far side, Coulson making his way in that direction.

"I'll show you to the living quarters. There's a common room, television, game room, library, all the comforts of home….well, our home. I'm sure you can find something to keep yourselves occupied. We'll let him cool his heels for awhile once he gets here." Coulson said, not mentioning the fact that he was well aware the same tactic had been used on him after his arrival on Asgard. Loki looked around the large open area, hearing Coulson's voice echoing off the walls.

A now familiar bolt of pain coursed through Loki's brain once again, stopping him in his tracks. Coulson, his back to Loki and Verda as he traversed the room didn't immediately notice as he continued towards the doorway. Verda had come to a halt beside Loki, grasping his arm.

"I am burdened with glorious purpose…" Loki said under his breath, barely audibly, his eyes closed, visions once again assailing him.

"What is it? You've been here before? Not you, I mean-" Verda asked.

"Yes….." Loki said quietly, opening his eyes, all the equipment that had filled the room in his mind's eye not extant in his current reality. "Where are you keeping it? The relic?" Loki called out to Coulson who was now almost to the exit into the corridor, almost half the room length away from Loki and Verda. He stopped, turning towards Loki, appearing not to understand his question.

"Relic?" Coulson questioned, Loki unsure whether his apparent confusion was sincere or feigned.

"It possesses power you cannot hope to control or contain. He will come for it."

"I'm not sure what you're referring to. This part of the facility isn't in use at the moment. It will be soon. We've gotten the green light to begin research and development of clean and sustainable energy."

"Not now." Verda whispered to Loki, reaching down and taking his hand before speaking to Coulson. "Loki shares his mother's ability to see glimpses of possible futures. At times they can come upon him without warning." Verda said "Perhaps he senses some sort of accident that could put your people in peril. You should take heed of the forewarning." Verda told Coulson.

"I'll pass it on to our people." Coulson said, Verda pulling Loki forward to once again follow Coulson towards the exit.

****************************

"Do you think they would just hand it over to you?" Verda asked, seated in an oversized chair as Loki perused the shelf of books before him after Coulson had excused himself, leaving them alone in what looked to be a library or reading room. "Even if you would share your visions with him, he would not be able to convince the others to do so. We know it's here, we can come back for it. If you take it from them, what will you do with it?"

"There are many possibilities. It could be sunk beneath the waves of their oceans or better yet, taken to Nidavellir, jettisoned into the heart of the dying star that powers the forge. Even if it were not destroyed, it could not be obtained." Loki said, pulling a book off the shelf and opening it, scanning the first page.

"One thing at a time. Let's deal with Thor's murderers first. Then you must return to Asgard and speak with your father. If that isn't dealt with, nothing else will matter."

"Of that I'm well aware." Loki said, turning the page of the book.

"Does it not seem strange to you how easily they were able to locate him...Randolph? In my memories of the other me he had hidden himself away. He would not let me-her-leave until he said the time was right. She was to replace me."

"And after that?" Loki asked.

"I don't know...she didn't know. I suppose if she had been successful, what your father might fear, what the people may fear, could have come to pass."

"As much love as I bear you, my mind remains, and will always remain my own. I am not so easily manipulated." Loki said, closing the book and replacing it on the shelf, looking over the other titles.

"Is that so?" Verda replied, her meaning clear from her tone without her needing to say more. Loki stood silent for a moment, a dark expression crossing his features.

"That version of myself had succumbed to madness."

"You don't believe that could happen to this version of you?"

"What the stones revealed to me will allow me to avoid the pitfalls that once led me down that path." Loki answered.

"I only hope you're right," Verda said, "There's something I must tell you. It may put that to the test, but I would rather you hear it from me than Randolph." Loki turned from the bookshelf to face her.

"There's more you haven't told me?" Loki asked, uneasiness overtaking him as he examined her troubled and discomforted demeanor.

"There is a reason that Randolph sought me out over another in New Asgard, why he believed I would know where what he was seeking was hidden. It was more than merely being the first Asgardian he happened upon as I honored you that day. When I realized I had been played for a fool, it was then that I knew…"

"What is it?" Loki said, leaving the bookshelf and approaching Verda, sitting in another large, cushioned chair across from her.

"After you hear what I am to tell you, it is possible I will no longer have to concern myself about becoming Queen." Verda told him.

"There is nothing that would turn me from you." Loki attempted to assure her.

"I would not be so sure about that." Verda responded before looking down at her hands that she had clasped together in her lap. "I told you of how I had visited your brother, your brother of what was my time, to give him a gift, how he had asked me to stay, all that we spoke of...Asgard...you. It was not the last time I would visit him and that we would speak of such things. Before he began to seclude himself, after the first time he had come upon me there, when I went each day to honor you, he would be there, waiting for me. In our shared grief, we grew close...

"I know now we were each looking for another in each other. I should have known it to be doomed from the start. He was not you and I was not Jane who had been rendered dust as had so many others. I thought I could help him. I tried. For a time I thought I was succeeding, but in the end It was not enough. I was not enough. He sought solace in drink and petty amusements...eventually he no longer wished to accompany me to honor you. All he wished to do was wall himself off from all but a few, those who had accompanied you to Asgard from Sakaar. It was as if he did not want to be reminded we existed....other Asgardians. I could no longer watch him destroy himself. I ceased visiting him. He seemed to take no notice nor to care. Though we had never spoken openly to anyone of us, I'm sure others suspected, as frequent as had once been my visits. Randolph must have known. Perhaps he had visited New Asgard in the past as had other mortals, though I did not recall seeing him before that day. Maybe he'd heard talk of us, though by the time he made his offer it had been two years since I had walked away. Still, he must have believed that if anyone were to know where Thor had hidden what it was he was seeking or could find out, it would be me." Verda finished.

"You and my brother..." Loki said in disbelief.

"Yes." Verda replied. Loki rose from the chair and turned away, exiting the room.

****************************

Coulson stood next to Loki and Verda in front of a large window as Elliot Randolph, appearing confused and bewildered, was led in shackles into a room and seated at a table.

"Can he see us?" Verda asked Coulson.

"No."

"That is the man….but something is different." Verda said. She glanced beside her at Loki who continued to stare at Randolph through the window.

"I'll bring you in when I'm ready for you." Coulson said. He hit a button on a panel below the window. "You'll be able to hear everything we say." Coulson moved off towards a door a few feet from the window that led into the room, leaving Loki and Verda alone. Verda glanced over to Loki, at the dark, troubled expression on his face that she knew was not in response to Randolph.

"Maybe I should not have told you. If he were to say anything regarding it, I didn't want you to be caught off guard."

"What else have you been keeping from me?" Loki asked, continuing to stare at Randolph.

"Nothing. I have now shared all with you."

"Did you love him?" Loki asked.

"Of course I did...but it was different. I suppose everyone that one loves throughout their lifetime is different. It wasn't the same as what I feel for you. It was you within him I was hoping to find. I'm sure he knew. I so often asked him to tell me stories of you. It was likely why he began to distance himself. Even though you were dead, though you hadn't even known my name, he knew to whom my heart would always belong. I thought little at the time of speaking of you with him as he often talked of Jane. We were both trapped within the shadow of another."

"If my brother were here now-"

"That is not a question that you should feel the need to ask or have answered. He left us. He gave up the throne to another and went out into the universe. He did not come to see me to say goodbye. It was as if he had forgotten all we had shared, as if he had forgotten I existed. As much as he had been drinking at the time, perhaps he had." Verda was quiet for a moment, contemplating. She glanced away from the window over to Loki who had yet to look in her direction. Reaching both hands to the back of her neck, she unclasped the necklace before reaching down and taking hold of Loki's hand, lifting it and placing the necklace within it.

"You should not spend your days questioning whether your Queen's heart belongs to another." Verda said, bowing her head. Loki gazed down at the pendant of the necklace in his hand, his eyes again drawn to the damage to it.

"The man you knew was not my brother. My brother was not a drunk who would treat with disdain one who cared for him. He died nobly and peacefully in his bed. He never knew you." Loki said, placing the necklace back around Verda's neck before kissing her.

"I'm just a university professor. That's all. I don't know what any of this is about. I haven't killed anyone or had anyone killed. Why would I?" Loki and Verda heard Randolph say from the room on the other side of the window.

"You've been positively ID'd by a witness. She says that you're the man that spoke to her, that you made threats. She's here. She saw you when you were brought in. She said there was no question that you're the same man. How do you explain that?" Coulson grilled Randolph.

"I haven't the faintest idea. I haven't left Spain in almost two years. I don't know how to explain it. They say everyone has a twin." Randolph answered, flustered. At the mention of the word 'twin,' Verda recalled the moment that Coulson had removed the mask from her double.

"I think he does." Verda said, realization dawning on her.