Though one would never expect Asgard's dungeon, or any dungeon for that matter, to be a location that would engender feelings of cheerfulness and gaiety, after his visions Loki was even more discomforted within its confines than he had been previously the few times he'd had reason to enter. The dark patches that had been evident under his eyes the evening before had vanished and he appeared refreshed physically, though mentally he was deeply troubled and conflicted. Verda, who had always had a talent for being keenly in tune with his moods, couldn't help but notice as they made their way down a row of holding cells, most unoccupied.

"Being here must be difficult after your visions. You didn't have to come. Sif could have accompanied me." Verda said.

"As king I had planned to make an inspection to ensure that everything is in order. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone."

"I suppose it also gives us an opportunity to spend a little more time together."

"There is that, though I can think of far more pleasant settings…" Loki stated as he glanced into a cell at its lone occupant.

"What are you to do after we're finished here?" Verda asked, attempting to divert Loki's focus from their surroundings.

"I am to meet with my ministers, after that, the security council and then with Heimdall after which I am to hear various petitions as well as bestow my blessing as king on a newborn child."

"That all sounds incredibly dull...except for the last. Why couldn't that be one of my duties? I would not mind so terribly being queen." Verda remarked as they reached their intended destination within the dungeon, Lorelei's deserted cell.

Verda stood alongside Loki as she peered into the former living space of her sister. Everything was as Lorelei had left it...the stack of books on the round table, the paper on the small desk, the writing utensil with which she had been scribbling when Loki had approached still lying atop the paper where she had placed it when he had made his presence known to her. Verda and Loki warily stepped inside almost as if they were entering a location known to be haunted.

"I can't imagine being locked away for so long. I would go mad. Perhaps her death was a mercy." Verda said quietly, her statement recalling to Loki's mind once again his visions...standing chained before his father, Odin passing judgement upon him, sentencing him, as he had Lorelei centuries before, to spend the remainder of his life in an almost identical cell. "What is it we should be looking for?" Verda asked as she picked up a book from the stack on the small table, thumbing through it before looking over at Loki...as his image faded. Quickly she turned to see the glow of the forcefield as it was activated, Loki standing by the controls, their eyes meeting. "Very funny. I should have known..." Verda began before realizing that Loki's face was devoid of the smirk she knew well that he exhibited each time he was successful at pulling off a prank. "No...Loki..."

"You'll be safe here."

"Please...Loki, you can't...don't do this to me."

"I've commanded the guards to provide you with anything you require. They are to treat you with the respect due you as queen until I return."

"What if you do not return?"

"The throne will be yours. You are far more worthy than myself."

"I don't give a damn about the throne!" Verda exclaimed. "I would hand it over to another as did your brother! All those years I wondered...could I have saved you as you once saved me? From all of it? I would again be tortured for the rest of my days by that same question! We pledged to each other that our living and our dying are in each other's care. Did those words mean nothing to you?"

"They mean everything to me. I won't allow any harm to come to you."

Verda moved to Lorelei's bunk, seating herself on the edge of the far side of it, her back to Loki, her shoulders slumped, her head hanging. "I was once told that there was no one you would not betray. I refused to believe it."

"It is not a betrayal-" Loki began before quickly being cut off by Verda.

"Go...just go...leave me…" Verda said, resigned. Loki moved his head to look to the control panel, before clasping his hands behind his back as he turned and walked away.

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

"Thought I'd find you here." Fury said as he entered the gym, the blond man with the athletic physique sprinting past him as he ran laps around the room, completing each in half the time it would take any other physically fit man.

"It's not like there's many other places to look." Steve Rogers said as he once again passed Fury.

"It took us seventy years to find you the first time."

"Are they here?" Rogers inquired, ending his run and approaching Fury.

"They're on their way. Coulson's spoken to our Asgardian contact and left a message with him, I expect they'll be joining us soon."

"You sure I'm ready for this?" Rogers asked.

"I think the real question is are they ready for you? You're going to need this." Fury said, holding out a black permanent marker.

"Why?" Rogers asked, taking the marker and examining it.

"You'll find out soon enough." said Fury as he took hold of the edge of a manila folder, thick with papers from where he'd had it tucked under his left arm. "I thought you might want to take a look at this before we meet. There's a bio of everyone and what we know about the situation, at least so far."

Rogers opened the folder, looking at the first page.

"Stark?"

"Tony Stark. Howard Stark's son. I wouldn't mention his dad. There's some baggage there. Howard and his wife were killed quite a few years back. Car accident."

"Not a flying car, was it?" Rogers asked, recalling the first time he had laid eyes on Howard Stark demonstrating a hover car prototype.

"I don't think so, at least it wasn't flying at the time."

"Not the way I expected Howard to go out." Rogers said, looking at the second page.

"I doubt he did either."

"Bruce Banner...a scientist?" Rogers continued to thumb through the folder.

"People over the years, including Banner, have tried to replicate the process Erskine used on you. No one's quite nailed it yet." Fury produced a tablet from a large pocket inside his jacket, calling up a video before handing it over to Rogers. Rogers' watched, his expression disturbed as he witnessed the titanic green creature on the screen angrily rampaging.

"Guess it didn't exactly go his way."

"Don't worry. He doesn't look like that all the time. Just don't piss him off."

"I'll do my best." Rogers said warily before handing the tablet back to Fury and returning his attention to the contents of the file, "Barton, Romanoff...so we've got assassins, aliens, a guy in a metal suit, a mad scientist, and a hundred year old man you dug out of the ice."

"So far."

"Not sure if we'll be the '29 Yankees but I guess we'll see what happens. I'm going to go look the rest of this over. When you're ready for me it shouldn't take you seventy years to find me." Rogers said, making his way past Fury towards the gym's exit as he continued to peruse the file. Fury turned to follow him just as his phone rang.

"Fury..." he answered, a grin spreading across his face, "Dr. Selvig…"

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

Loki rose from the throne, stepping down from it as the beaming, flaxen haired woman cradling an infant approached. Her husband, the child's father, his hand resting gently and lovingly on her back led her forward, his face exhibiting a bright smile to match that of his wife.

"My king…" both said, almost in unison, beginning to lower themselves to one knee. Loki held his hand out, gesturing for them to forego the show of deference in light of the baby in the woman's arms, they instead bowing their heads.

"I am Elaina and this is my husband, Olin. We would like to express our sympathy on the passing of your brother." the child's mother said to Loki.

"Thank you. A dark day for all of Asgard." Loki said in acknowledgement. "You've come for my blessing. Is this your first? A son or a daughter?" Loki asked as he could see no clues to discern the gender of the swaddled infant.

"Yes, our first. A daughter. Thora, in honor of your brother, as she was born on that day. I wish it had been any other, however nature has her own way." Elaina informed Loki. He peered down at the infant.

"As my father says, there is light to be found within the darkness. Is she always so content?" Loki asked. He had almost no experience with children and had expected more fussing from a child so young.

"She has a wonderful temperament...until she grows hungry, then she is sure to let everyone know it." Thora's father, Olin, said.

"Then she is aptly named. My brother was much the same way." Loki said with a grin but sadness in his eyes at the reminder of Thor. Loki extended his hand, laying it upon the infant's forehead. "I, Loki, King of Asgard, bless this child, Thora Olinsdottir. May she be as noble and brave as her namesake and may she know happiness all the days of her life."

"Thank you." Elaina said, smiling as she looked down at her daughter.

"We know you must be busy. We will take up no more of your time." Olin said.

"Good luck to you." Loki said to them.

Olin and Elaina turned from Loki, traversing down the wide aisle between the tall columns of the throne room. Loki watched them go, Olin's arm around his wife.

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

Hank Pym stood outside the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, blocking the scorching desert sun from his eyes with his hand as its rays also glared off the sleek black body of the helicopter as it descended from the sky and touched down. After a few moments, Natasha Romanoff, her hair a brilliant hue of red that stood out against the dark background of the helicopter, left its confines followed by the man Pym had come to greet.

As the rotors of the helicopter slowed, the dust from the ground no longer being whipped into a miniature cyclone around it, Pym approached, an ecstatic smile taking over his features.

"Bruce!" Pym called out, approaching Bruce Banner and Romanoff.

"Hank? Hank Pym?" Banner called out in disbelief. He knew well Pym's feelings towards S.H.I.E.L.D., his own having previously come to match them. Both men met, Pym extending his hand, Banner taking it.

"No one knew what happened to you. You went off the radar." Pym said.

"Yeah...sorry about that. I thought it'd be better…"

"How are you doing? I mean in general….and with the...other thing. Fury told me what happened. I'd have thought you'd have known better."

"I wasn't going to ask anyone to do something I wasn't willing to do myself. I'm fine...well, maybe not fine. I've got it under control." Banner explained. "I thought you were keeping your distance from S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I was but something bigger than any beef I have with them has come up. Fury's asked for me to consult on some things related to that. Not doing a whole lot else these days but sitting around listening to my arteries harden. Come on, let's go inside, get out of this heat. You were in India?" Pym asked, attempting to catch up, as he and Banner walked side by side towards the entrance to the facility, Romanoff and the helicopter pilot trailing behind.

"Seemed as good a place as any. They don't have surveillance cameras every two feet. There was an outbreak of Chikungunya Fever while I was there. Thought I'd do what I could to help."

"You didn't bring any of that back here, did ya?" Pym asked.

"No. Nothing to worry about."

"Good. We have enough trouble already." Pym informed him.

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

Loki stood once again in the dungeon, outside what was Lorelei's cell near the control panel for the containment field. Verda lay on the bunk on her side, her back to Loki. She had done some quite extensive "redecorating" since Loki had left her there. It appeared as if a bomb had gone off within the cell. The table now lay across the cell from its original location, the books scattered about the floor along with all the papers from the stack that had once sat upon the desk, the desk itself tipped onto its side. The armchair also lay on the far side of the cell, upside down.

Reaching out, Loki silently disengaged the field, the orange glow dissipated as did the soft, almost imperceptible hum that accompanied it when activated. Verda continued to lay still and silent facing away from him.

"Verda…" Loki said gently. Verda failed to acknowledge him. Loki entered the cell, approaching the bunk. He sat on the edge, putting a hand out and resting it on her shoulder. "Forgive me." Verda continued to lie in the same position, staring at the white wall in silence. "Please, say something…"

"There is nothing to say. May I go now?" Verda asked in a quiet, meek voice.

"Yes...of course." Loki said standing. Verda rose from the bunk and walked around it, past Loki, her countenance one of capitulation. She stepped out of the cell and turned to her left in the direction of the stairs that led to the dungeon's exit.

"I deserve your loathing." Loki said, staring down at his feet, appearing as downcast as a child who had just lost or broken their favorite toy. "Volstagg said you would never forgive me. I should have listened to him." Verda stopped, bowing her head, clasping her hands in front of her, still facing in the direction of the stairway.

"There is nothing to forgive. You are the King of Asgard. We are not equals. I am beneath you. Though your queen, I must obey your command as any other must do. If you do not wish for me to accompany you, I must remain here."

"You are not beneath me." Loki said, stepping out of the cell, standing behind her.

"But I am. The day of Thor's funeral...I could not bring myself to view his body, to attend the funeral. I spent the day in the forest where we had first met. I wished to be alone, not only to mourn him as I felt guilt over his demise, knowing it was likely my coming that brought about his end, but also to mourn that you would now be king, that once you took the throne things could and would never again be as they were, as they would have been."

"When you were dying, I found myself thinking the sort of dark thoughts as I had in my visions. I spoke of leading an army to Midgard." Loki placed his hand on Verda's shoulder, "There is something you should know. I'm not yet for certain if it's true. At the moment it's the only thing that makes sense. It's why I didn't want you to accompany me. I wanted only to protect you...not only your life." Loki turned Verda to face him, looking into her eyes. "The child I told you earlier I was to bless, they arrived before I came here...her parents' happiness, that's what I want for us. Tell me that you don't hate me."

"I could never hate you."

"You didn't know me as I was...as I was to become had everything not changed."

"My King," Heimdall said, Loki looking past Verda at him, Verda looking over her shoulder at Asgard's gatekeeper as they had failed to notice his approach. "Your mortal ally, Coulson, has given me a message for you."

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

In a conference room in the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in the middle of the desert, Loki, Verda, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton along with Hank Pym sat on one side of a long table. Fury stood on the other, Coulson nearby, what appeared to be a briefcase in his hand.

"We'll play the getting to know each other game' later. I've brought you all together because we need your help. I don't mean S.H.I.E.L.D...I mean us, all of us...Earth...Asgard too, the others you've told me about," Fury said, looking to Loki and Verda. "You came here looking for the people that murdered your brother...it's now a whole lot bigger than that." Coulson approached Fury, handing him the case. Fury sat it flat on the table. "Awhile ago, I had an idea...to put together a team of people with extraordinary abilities and talents to protect this planet from extraordinary dangers. For various reasons, that idea was shelved for awhile, but now we're facing exactly that kind of danger.

"During World War II, Hydra got their hands on something, an object of phenomenal and apparently limitless power. Rogers knows what I'm talking about, the rest of you will soon. I won't go into all of the history right now, it's not important. This thing's the real deal...a clean and sustainable limitless source of energy. If we could figure out how to harness it, we could say goodbye to fossil fuels and nuclear power and all the problems that come with them for good. However, there's two sides to the coin. Energy can be used not only to create but also to destroy." Fury said, opening the case and turning it towards them. Within it sat a cube glowing with an ethereal blue light. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Tesseract."

Loki stared at the glowing blue cube, grappling internally with himself to resist taking possession and fleeing with it.

"Or I would have liked to…" Fury removed the Tesseract from the case and turning to face the far side of the room, hurled it against the wall, the cube shattering, the fragments littering the floor. "It seems our new friends somehow absconded with the real Tesseract right under our nose. Your job, Banner's job actually, is to find it. Once we know its location, the rest of you will go in to reclaim it. Any questions?"