"A place for everything and everything in its place. I think they organized it better than we did." Selvig said, Pym standing on one side of him, Jane and Darcy on the other, as they examined a shelving unit of scientific equipment that had been returned on Coulson's orders by S.H.I.E.L.D agents.

"I tell my people if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right." the four heard Nick Fury's voice say from behind them.

"I thought my part in all this was over." Selvig said as the four turned to face Fury.

"It is. It's all water under the bridge." Fury responded.

"So is there something else you need?" Selvig asked, anxious for Fury and the other S.H.I.E.L.D agents to be on their way and for life to return to normal, or as normal as it ever would be now that he had been enlightened about the existence of Asgard and the fact confirmed that they weren't alone in the universe.

"You have quite the resume, Mr. Selvig. I'm impressed. I'm here to make you an offer." Fury explained.

"He's not interested." Pym said, his tone hostile.

"Hank Pym. I've heard a lot about you. I was with S.H.I.E.L.D. during your time with us but of course I was a bit farther down the ranks back then. I never got the chance to meet you. Nick Fury." Fury said, approaching Pym, his hand extended. Pym neglected to take it, giving Fury a death stare. Fury lowered his arm back to his side. "I get it. I'd be pissed too, but a lot's changed since then."

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." Pym responded. Fury turned his attention back to Selvig.

"We're beginning a new project researching a source of clean energy. We're working with people from N.A.S.A. If we're successful we'll be saving the planet and everyone that calls it home. We know we can't go on the way we've been going or sooner or later, likely sooner, we'll go the way of the dinosaurs. I'd love to have you on board. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in…" Fury said, handing Selvig a card.

"I'll think about it." Selvig replied, looking at the card in his hand.

"Just be sure it's you doing the thinking." Fury said, looking at Pym, Pym glowering back in return. "I'll get out of your hair and let you get on with your work." Fury said, turning and walking towards the exit to the service station before turning around again to address Pym. "I heard what you did to Mitchell Carson..can't say I wasn't tempted to do the same myself a few times...more than a few."

"So why didn't you?" Pym asked.

"As the saying goes, I like to keep my friends close and my enemies closer." Fury answered.

"Your enemies might be a lot closer than you think." Pym responded before Fury turned back around and made his exit.

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

Coulson turned his head towards the door to the interrogation room as it unexpectedly opened, Verda stepping through it. Randolph's jaw dropped at the sight of the woman dressed in the attire of a female warrior of Asgard.

"This isn't about any murder. Odin sent you to bring me back. So I guess it's back to breaking rocks. After all this time, never putting a foot wrong… except for that French woman, I can't help it, I'm a sucker for a pretty face….got drunk a few times...haven't done that in awhile. Other than that, I haven't caused any trouble. He's left me alone all these centuries. What changed his mind?" Randolph asked. Coulson appeared confused, looking from Verda to Randolph.

"You're Asgardian?" Verda asked, her voice reflecting her shock. Loki entered the room from behind her, stepping to her side.

"Wait...so you're not here to take me back?" Randolph said, realizing he had needlessly and foolishly due to his quick assumption confessed his secret.

"You're one of them?" Coulson asked, bewildered.

"Maybe you've read about me, though I doubt it...everyone's into the Greeks...the Warrior Who Stayed."

"You say you weren't involved in the murder of Thor?" Verda asked.

"There was a murder? On Asgard? Thor's dead? Of course not...I'm a pacifist. I'd had enough of killing. I never really wanted to fight...before I got tired of fighting, I got tired of breaking rocks. I was a mason. All I really wanted to do was travel. The only murders I've committed have been a few insects...I don't enjoy that, really. I avoid it when I can."

"You're the man she spoke with. She shared her memory of you with me." Loki said.

"He is the man, yet he is not the man, as it was with my double...me but not me." Verda explained.

"You claim to detest violence." Loki stated. It struck Loki as strange, Midgard being known as a violent realm that a man who claimed to be a pacifist would wish to remain instead of returning to Asgard where violence, at least on Asgard itself, was rare.

"Perhaps he is destined to succumb to madness. It's not as if that's never happened before." Verda said, turning her attention from Randolph to look over at Loki.

"Why would I want Thor dead? I don't see how that would benefit me. I couldn't care less about Asgard's affairs. I have no intention of ever returning. I'm happy here. I admit it's a bit lonely at times...dating's a challenge when you know you'll outlive everyone by a couple millenia and you have to change your identity every twenty or so years."

"He was keeping me...another me...hidden somewhere for almost a year. It was like a crypt. He told me he had once hidden something there which had never been found. Would you know of such a place?" Verda asked. Randolph froze, the color appearing to drain from his face, an expression of anxiety coming over him.

"The catacombs under El Divino Nino in Seville. They were built over ancient Roman ruins in the 8th century and then the church later built over them." Randolph answered.

"Could you take us there?" Coulson asked.

"Yes...but if he has what I think he has, you'd better bring an army along with you."

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

Loki and Verda had returned to the library as Coulson made arrangements for them to accompany Randolph back to Spain and to assemble the 'army' Randolph had warned may be necessary.

"I had thought that he was manipulating my sister but he says he was a warrior with no skill in magic. He couldn't have gained access to her in her cell or helped her overcome the collar. Whoever did has to be the one pulling his strings as well. You don't go from being a pacifist to assassinating the next King of Asgard overnight." Verda said as Loki once again perused the bookshelves. He removed a book after reading the title on the spine…'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.' Loki stared down at the book for a moment.

"After Hela arrived on Asgard...what became of those in the dungeon?" Loki asked.

"I'm not sure. I know Heimdall rescued and led all he could to the stronghold. Perhaps he released them."

As if speaking his name was a summons, as it had actually turned out to be for Selvig, the same deep voice and imposing figure that had visited Selvig in the interrogation room now appeared near Loki, though only he was able to see and hear him.

"Loki, my prince...my queen, your mother summons you."

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

Loki and Verda crossed the rainbow bridge in silence after Heimdall had advised Loki of the situation that had prompted Frigga to recall him from his mission on Midgard. To his relief the situation was not quite as dire as he had feared, though he knew the clock was still ticking. He resisted the urge to once again look towards the section of the bridge from which he had plummeted in his visions.

Despite his reassurances to Verda after her confession, a darkness had descended over a part of him, like a specter of Thor's shadow returning. He was aware on an intellectual level that Verda had not wronged him and in fact, it had been something of him she had been searching for in his brother as she had explained, yet what he felt had yet to catch up with what he knew. Had she been with a hundred men before him, it would not have mattered to him if among those hundred had not been his brother.

He had believed he had possessed something that was his and his alone, that he had something that his brother had never had, had won something his brother had not won. It had been a feeling akin to what he would have felt if he had ever for the first time returned from the Kynsblot Eve hunt as the victor and Thor empty handed.

"You should have brought Mjolnir. We could have flown as your brother once did. It would have been less painful. Sif's feet are just a bit smaller than my own." Verda said offhandedly, referring to the pair of Sif's boots that she wore.

"Of course my brother's ways... in all things... were superior." Loki responded.

"That's not true. I never said that." Verda paused for a moment, looking over to Loki, his eyes downcast, "I didn't come here for your brother! I didn't kneel in the mud and the snow those many years for him!" Verda stopped, removing the boots and carried them in one hand as she proceeded, walking swiftly past Loki.

"Verda…" Loki called out, Verda continuing on her way. "Verda...wait...stop…" Verda turned back to face Loki once again as he quickened his pace to catch up to her.

"This is why you went mad! It will happen again unless you accept and value yourself for who you are! You and your brother are...were.. different people and that's ok! The only person you should ever feel it's necessary to be better than is the man you were yesterday! Not your brother, not your father!" Verda said as Loki reached her. "There are many things I learned from my time with your brother. One cannot save someone who doesn't wish to be saved, who is not willing to save themselves. One cannot truly love another unless they first love themselves."

"There are many who would say that is not an area in which I experience great difficulty."

"And they would be wrong. You've tricked and lied to and betrayed yourself far more than you have ever done anyone else."

"Is this what I have to look forward to for millennia ...such insolence and brazen honesty?" Loki asked, appearing and sounding irritated before his tone and expression changed as he grinned. "Good." he said as he took her in his arms, pulling her to him. "I would have it no other way."

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

"Father…" Loki said, approaching Odin who he found sitting upon a stone bench within the palace's lush gardens, staring out over the crystal water of a pool reflecting like a liquid mirror the blue sky above. "Mother said I would find you here."

"My son...join me." Odin said, his voice calm and quiet, unlike what Loki was used to hearing emanate from the usually imposing figure of his adopted father.

"Mother is worried over you."

"My queen has spent far too much of her life worrying over me. When my time comes it will be a relief to me to know that she will no longer have need to do so. And what of you? Does my son worry over me as well?"

"I would not be here otherwise." Loki answered.

"It has been some time since I have come to this place. I have dedicated my life to safeguarding that which I have taken so little time to appreciate. I'm afraid it was the same with you and your brother. I failed you, both of you. I was so concerned with preparing you to be worthy of the throne that I did not appreciate you as my sons. Instead of brothers, I made you into rivals."

"There is rivalry between all siblings to some degree." Loki said, unable to help thinking of Verda and Lorelei who had had no throne for which to compete. He had often in the past wondered if his relationship with Thor would have been different had they been born and raised in a family of no renown. He now had his answer. "It is true that you have not been a perfect father. It is also equally true I have not been a perfect son. I know I have often made things difficult for you. That is why I regret that I must do so now. There's something of great importance we must discuss before you take your rest."

"You have used the stones."

"You know I possess them?" Loki said, surprised but at the same time the revelation not a complete shock.

"I know as well what you also know...that the universe has experienced a great shift, things are not as they were to be."

"Then you know of whom I have come to you to speak."

"Hela, your sister, my firstborn." Odin said, staring out over the water, at the reflection of the clouds above drifting across it.

"If she is released, Asgard, the realms, the universe, all for which you have dedicated your life to protect will fall."

"I had planned to transfer the lock of her prison to Thor after he had taken the throne and I had prepared him. I'm afraid I now lack the strength and the time to prepare you before I take my rest."

"As we have seen, one's life can be fleeting, one's demise unexpected. The continued security of the realms and the universe should not rest on the shoulders of one person. You may draw the strength necessary from mother and I. The stones hold great power, more than enough to keep her imprisoned for eternity."

"As lives can end, so a relic can fall into the wrong hands." Odin stated.

"Not if it can't be reached." Loki replied.

"There is another matter that concerns you...she who you wish to take as your queen."

"That is of far less importance at the moment-" Loki began.

"The contentment of its king is of great importance to Asgard. That is also why it is imperative that a king chooses his queen wisely. A man can possess nothing better than a good wife nor anything worse than a bad one. I have known both and can attest to the truth of that statement. Hela's dark ambitions were only rivaled by those of her mother."

"She is not her sister. She shed no tears at her demise. Now that Lorelei is dead, the people will have nothing to fear. I could extoll her many virtues but it would be simpler to say that would be a great loss to Asgard if it were not to have such a woman as its queen."

"I know well enough that if I were not to grant you my blessing, you would only cleave to her all the more strongly. May she bring you the joy and comfort that your mother has me these many centuries."

"Speaking of mother, she wishes you to join her. I must soon return to Midgard."

"And I must soon take my rest. I can wait no longer. Before I do so and before you depart once again...the formal ceremony can be held after…" Odin said, rising unsteadily, Loki rising and assisting him. "If she is prepared as well…"

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

It was not the grand and glorious coronation that Loki had for centuries envisioned but strangely he found that he didn't care. The people who had come to matter to him most were there...his mother, the expression of anxiety she had displayed upon meeting them as they entered the palace and she had told him of Odin's refusal to be moved from his place in the gardens now replaced with a proud smile as she stood beside the throne, Verda at her side, Sif and the Warriors Three also bearing witness as he kneeled before his father.

"Loki Odinson, my heir...I have defended Asgard and the lives of the innocent across the nine realms in the time of the Great Beginning. The day has come for a new king. Do you swear to guard the nine realms?"

"I swear."

"And do you swear to preserve the peace?"

"I swear."

"Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and to pledge yourself only to the good of the realms?" Odin continued. It was perhaps the most difficult vow for Loki to make. He had for so long he now realized lived his life mired in selfish ambition. Now his only ambition was to return from Midgard with Thor's murderers and to bestow upon Sif the axe with which the justice due them would be meted out.

"I swear."

"Then on this day, I, Odin, Allfather, proclaim you King."

The words echoed in Loki's head. He was king, the burden of the throne now his to shoulder. It was a moment of satisfaction but also one of doubt and fear as he hoped he would be proven equal to the task.

Frigga took Verda's arm, leading her down from their place beside the throne to stand at Loki's side as Loki raised himself to his feet. Odin slowly stood from the throne, weakly making his way down from it to stand before the two.

"Asgard gains not only a new king this day, but a queen as well." Odin announced.

For the second time within minutes, Loki found himself swearing a vow, one of a different sort as he took Verda's hand in his own, slipping the gold band that had been procured for the occasion onto Verda's finger.

"I give you that which is mine to give. I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care. I shall be your shield and shall honor you above all others." As Loki finished, Frigga stepped forward, putting another gold band into Verda's hand, she placing it upon Loki's finger as she repeated the same vows he had just made.

At the completion of their promises to one another, Odin produced a gold cord, wrapping it around their clasped hands from wrist to wrist.

"What I have joined will be joined eternal, heart to heart, hand to hand. You now belong forever to each other."

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

"I wasn't sure when you'd be back. We'll go in first, they'll stand by until we give the word." Coulson said to Loki and Verda as they once again entered the expansive room which Loki had previously recalled from his vision. Loki looked to the men and women dressed identically in military style black jumpsuits that had gathered in the room, arranging and inspecting various pieces of equipment, weapons and other gear.

"So this is my army..." Loki said to Coulson as he continued to watch them prepare.

"Not 'yours' exactly. We're letting you borrow them for awhile."