Chapter Twenty-Three - A Little Too Late

Chapter Twenty-Three

A Little Too Late

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At the sound of that childish, petrified scream, the Avengers all took a step toward the house. Coulson held up a hand. Over his shoulder, he shouted, "Cleo? Everything okay?"

"Yeah," a girl called from inside the house. "Sophie knocked a bowl off the counter and it freaked her out. It's fine."

Coulson sighed. "I'm not even going to ask why she was on the counter in the first place. Well, come on in, everyone. Thea will be down in a minute." As the Avengers shuffled into the house, Coulson's eyes slid over the group. He frowned when Pepper—the last of them—entered the house. "You didn't bring Loki with you."

Thor frowned. "Bring Loki? The last we knew, he was not welcome on Midgard."

"But you guys were coming to talk to Thea. We thought you would've brought him here with you. I mean…we just thought…crap."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "What, we're not cool enough to talk to on our own?"

"It's not that." A woman wearing faded blue jeans at the end of the entry hall offered them a smile. A few streaks of gray threaded through her short, golden hair. Blue eyes shadowed with worry swept across the group before settling on the crown prince of Asgard. She drew closer. "It's only that Thea…Thea's just going to be disappointed, that's all. You must be Thor. My daughter's told me a lot about you. I'm Sophie Valerian, Thea's mother."

The prince took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Lady Sophie. It is good to finally meet you. Forgive us for not bringing my brother. He…is not well enough to travel."

Sophie Valerian nodded, worry wrinkling her brow. "Thea was afraid of that. But your people…the Asgardians…they haven’t hurt Loki, have they? Phil said they wouldn’t, but Thea's been worried. Specifically about your father and a woman named Sif."

Thor's brows shot toward his hairline. "She's concerned about Sif? Sif wouldn't harm Loki. No one in Asgard would harm him, I swear to you. Certainly not my father."

The Midgardian woman made a noncommittal noise and smiled. "Well, Phil will show you to the front room. I'll go get Thea. You gentlemen won't mind waiting until she comes down to see my granddaughter, will you?" It was phrased as a question, but none of the men present would've dared consider it anything other than an order. Thea's mother walked away.

Coulson heaved another sigh. "Okay. Well, you heard the lady. Director Fury's waiting for us in the front room, anyway. Uh, you must be Thor's other brother." Coulson held out his hand to Víðarr, who shook it before everyone made their way into the well-furnished living room. Nick Fury sat in a comfortable burgundy armchair, inspecting a framed photograph perched on a wooden side-table. A stuffed tiger sat propped up in a little chair next to his feet. Several plush toys lay scattered across the antique-gold carpet. One of them looked suspiciously like Anthony Stark's gold and red armor. Next to it lay one that looked like Banner when his inner demon slipped its leash.

Bruce stared at the toys for a moment in stunned silence. Kneeling, he picked up the green one. Looked at the white tag sticking out of its side. "I don't believe it," he muttered. Thor thought he seemed torn between amusement and embarrassment. "This is a McDonalds toy. They have McDonalds Hulk toys. And look, Tony, there's one of you."

"That's kinda cool. And kind of weird. How did I not know about this? Pepper, did you know about this?"

She nodded, smiling a little. "McDonalds pays us royalties for every Iron Man toy sold. See what happens when you give up running your company to someone else?"

"Okay," Steve said, baffled. "Why are there stuffed toys of the Avengers mixed in with Dalmatians and…what are those things?"

"Those are Muppets," Nick said, eyeing a stuffed pig—at least, Thor thought it was a pig—with curly blond hair in a pink dress. "Sophie can be pretty creative when she's playing. So, gentlemen, looks like you found us our hidey-hole…but you didn’t bring Loki. Why is that?"

Tony scowled. "I don't think we're under any kind of obligation to tell you anything, Nick. You know, seeing as how you lied to us for over a year about Coulson being dead. Nice of you to rejoin the Land of the Living, by the way, Phil. So where've you been? Deep undercover in Latveria? Living it up in the Bahamas? Feeling even a shred of remorse about making your friends think you were dead?"

Coulson sighed and leaned back against the living room wall. "I've been spending the last nineteen months looking after my daughter, who's only managed to hold her life together after being held prisoner and tortured for more than a year by the Chitauri thanks to the presence of my granddaughter. And I got married." A lift of his chin indicated a fairly recent wedding picture hung on the wall. "It was a small, very private ceremony. We weren’t going to go through with it after everything that happened, but Thea insisted. Said someone ought to get a happily ever after. But yeah, I've been a little busy trying to take care of my family and trying to convince SHIELD, the US government, and the German government to grant Loki amnesty."

Thor's eyes widened. "Amnesty?"

Nick nodded. "We figured, after everything we've discovered, it was the least we could do. Especially if he agrees to do what Ms. Valerian claims he will—work with the Avengers to find the guy behind the invasion and take him down. Thea claims the Chitauri aren't done with Earth yet. She'd know. And considering what happened last time, we're going to need all the help we can get. Have a seat, gentlemen."

After a few moments where the five men eyed Nick warily, they all sat, except Thor. He walked over to a bookcase along one wall with a few pictures in silver and gold frames resting one shelf. They were of young Sophie—green-eyed, dark-haired, grinning at the camera as she held up a stuffed bear, or watched a hermit crab scuttle back to its sandy hole, or tried to hop like the little frog on the wet sidewalk next to her.

"She's pretty cute, isn't she?" Thor turned to Coulson, who gazed fondly at the pictures. Thor nodded. Coulson added, "She's the only reason Thea didn’t lose her mind when we got back. When she found out you and Loki had already left…it just wrecked her."

"Their separation nearly destroyed my brother, as well," Thor murmured. His fingers drifted along the thin books on the shelf, obviously meant for a small child. Loki Wins the Race. Loki & Thor Retrieve Mjölnir. Loki & Thor Rescue Iðunn of the Golden Apples. Frigga's Magic Spindle. The Magical Rainbow Bridge. Why Loki Became a Seal. Loki and the Mistletoe. There were dozens of books about his brother, about Asgard, about the Æsir. He wondered how accurate they were. Thor added, "He believes Thea is dead."

"What?"

Thor jerked toward the sharp cry and his heart lurched in his chest. He'd never seen this woman's face in any of Loki's drawings, but the moment his eyes fell on her, he knew her. She wore jeans and a green blouse. Her brown hair was tied back in a loose ponytail to keep it out of her pale, freckled face. A thin, midnight-purple scar marred her left cheek. Spiderlike veins of that same sickly, dead-looking violet crept out from the scar. Two old, parallel white scars ran across her throat. Silver-blue eyes fixed on Thor and filled with a mixture of hope, fear, recognition, and pain.

"What did you say?" Althea whispered, taking a step into the living room. "He thinks I'm dead?" She shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. He sent Phil to get me. Why would he think I was dead?" The silver in her eyes hardened to cold steel as she turned to Nick. "What did you say to him, Nick Fury?" She took a step toward him. To Thor's surprise, the SHIELD director tensed. "I warned you not to lie to me," she said softly. Thor recognized the menacing softness as something his foster brother often used. "Have you been talking to Loki without telling me?"

Nick held up his hands. "Ms. Valerian, I promise you, we've had no contact with Asgard since Thor took Loki back there with the tesseract the day you arrived at our headquarters. You need to trust me."

"Trust you?" Thea scoffed. "After the crud you pulled? Not a chance." She pinned Thor with a heartbroken look. "Why does he think I'm dead? Is he all right?" She bit her lip, but added softly, "Why isn't he here?" Beneath the seemingly calm tone, he heard the worry. Of course there was worry. She'd known Loki's mind was fraying when he'd come to Midgard to head the invasion.

Thor stepped away from the bookcase, toward his brother's wife. He'd expected at least a little hostility from her aimed at him, yet she didn’t seem to mind him. In fact, she tensed up more when she focused on the other Avengers or Nick than when she looked at the two Asgardians. Thor cleared his throat.

"Sister," he said softly. Thea's eyes widened, seemed to gleam wetly for a moment, then she nodded and smiled.

"Loki said you'd be like that," she murmured. "I guess you're my brother now. As if I don't have enough of you hellions," she added, her smile turning rueful. Thor smiled back. Thea nodded to Víðarr. "And you? Do you feel the same way, Víðarr?"

Víðarr, startled to be addressed by name, collected himself enough to nod. "Of course, Sister. You are my brother's wife and the mother of my niece. Our family claims you as kin."

Thea nodded in acknowledgement, and some of the tension faded from her body. She turned back to Thor. "Why does he think I'm dead?"

Thor replied, "Loki told me the Chitauri lieutenant, the Other, came to him after we'd captured him for the second time and told him that you were dead. That the poison in your veins had killed you and Sophie. When he asked for proof, they showed him the room you had shared and a great deal of blood on the floor. He used his magic to test it. He claimed he felt your pain, your fear. That you couldn’t have survived that kind of pain."

She frowned. "But…that doesn't make any sense. What…" She glanced at Coulson, who snapped his fingers.

"When you went into labor," Coulson said. Thea raised an eyebrow. "Kiddo, if you'd been anyone else, you would've been screaming up a storm. And you were terrified."

"Have you ever had a baby while trying to escape from toothy, freaky aliens?" Thea asked, smiling a little still. "And while trying to hold still while your dad defuses a stupid inhibitor collar?" She rubbed her throat, as if she could still feel the weight of the collar that had suppressed her powers for more than a year.

"Okay, quick refresher course." Tony held up a hand. "Let's just clarify. You're Thea." Raising her eyebrow higher, she nodded. "Obviously. So where's Sophie?"

"Hiding out with the professor," Thea said flatly. "She's nineteen months old, she's shy. Plus she nearly fell off a chair and broke a dish, scaring the heck out of herself, after just waking up from her nap. She's not up to being stared at by a bunch of strangers right now."

"If you don't trust Nick—good policy, by the way—why is he here?"

Thea sighed. "He's providing my family and me with round-the-clock government protection. Specifically any anti-mutant jerks who think going after one of us is a good idea, or if someone decides they want to kidnap me or my daughter to use as blackmail against my husband. The world's already seen what he's willing to do to protect us. If anyone ever found out that that was why he helped the Chitauri, how safe do you think we'd be? And I don't have to trust Nick to trust SHIELD. My dad works for SHIELD."

Tony waved that aside. "Okay, next question. Did you seriously have a baby while on the run from the Chitauri? How did you guys even escape if you were nine months pregnant? Weren't you, like, a whale?"

A corner of Thea's mouth twitched. "Moby preggers, that's me. I wasn’t nine months pregnant, though. I was seven months pregnant." She glanced at Coulson.

"You might as well tell 'em, Als," he said gently. "They're gonna need the whole story if they're going to believe you, after the Chitauri attack on New York."

She sighed, nodded. "Okay."

She moved to a rocking chair by the window and sank into. Thor noticed it had been carved out of golden wood with intricate runic designs, including the Orobouros, the World Serpent, and an etching that matched the mark on Thor's vambraces—Loki's helmet.

"I was seven months pregnant when the Chitauri forced Loki to lead the invasion. Sophie came two months early. Probably one of the reasons Loki sensed so much fear," she added with a nod to Thor. "I was freaking completely out. I didn't know what was going on, because it wasn’t time yet. Or wasn’t supposed to be. And Loki had left a couple days before, so I was alone, and couldn’t get help, and the poison in my system made everything hurt worse than it should have…"

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Thea gripped the back of the chair as another cramp tightened slowly at the base of her spine. She tried to take a deep breath, but the dull pain radiating through her back and spreading across her stomach had her lungs in a tight grip, too. Gritting her teeth, she rubbed her belly with one hand, her back with the other. From inside, she could feel soft pulses of nervousness. Sophie wriggled, trying to get comfortable, and Thea squeezed her eyes shut as the contraction tightened, tightened…then slowly released her.

Braxton Hicks, she thought as her legs trembled. That's all it is, just Braxton Hicks. It's too early. It's too early, it's just false contractions. I'm okay. We're okay.


But after seventeen minutes had gone by, another contraction slowly spread from her lower back across her abdomen, squeezing gradually but mercilessly. Thea caught her breath. Her legs threatened to buckle. This couldn't happen now, it couldn't happen yet!

The nervousness emanating from within started shifting toward fear. Was Sophie picking up Thea's panic?

It only lasted for maybe thirty seconds, but that didn’t make Thea feel any better. Somehow she made it back to the bed. Rubbed soothing circles over her stomach with both hands. "It's okay," she said, to herself and to her baby. "It's okay. We're okay." Blindly she reached out behind her and grabbed Hobbes, clutching the stuffed tiger against her chest. "We're going to be okay." It took a few moments for her to lie on her side and draw her knees up as tight to her body as she could. It helped ease some of the tightness in her lower back and stomach. Still smothering Hobbes, Thea pressed her face against the synthetic fur. "We're okay. We're okay."

She lost track of how much time had passed, but she managed to keep from panicking by counting the seconds—and thus the minutes—between each contraction. Sixteen minutes…fifteen…fourteen…She wouldn’t panic. She wouldn’t scream. She wouldn’t freak out. Fifteen minutes was okay. Even ten minutes was okay. False contractions could run for a while, as long as they stayed that far apart. Once they got past the ten-minute mark, she'd worry. But that wouldn’t happen. Sophie wasn’t due for another two months. They were okay.

Loki, Thea thought, wishing desperately for him. As far as she knew, he'd never delivered a baby, but just having him there would've helped calm her. At least it would have been another pair of hands. Someone to rub her back as the muscles tightened with another contraction. Someone to help her remember how to breathe properly. Someone to tell her how amazing she was. That's what people did with moms-to-be to help them get through the scariness of labor, right?


But Loki wasn’t there. He'd been sent to Earth by the Chitauri two days ago. Thea had no idea when he'd be back. How long did it take to invade a planet? And would he stick to their plan?

In the two weeks since she and Loki had been told by the Other that they'd poisoned her, she and her husband had tried to find a way to escape without letting their daughter die. Loki had tried finding caches of the poison when he was allowed to leave their room; all his searching had turned up squat. In the end, she'd begged him to try and find a way to make people surrender rather than fight. That way fewer people would die in the invasion. And she'd begged him not to use the staff.

He'd promised to try. That was all she could ask of him. But his mind was so frayed, she didn’t know if he'd be able to do it, or if he'd even remember to try. The Chitauri had shredded his memories so badly, and he'd become so…savage. So hateful. He wasn’t the man she'd fallen in love with, but that man was still under all of the shadows. She could see him in Loki's eyes, pleading with her to bring him back, to draw him out of the dark. And they'd been working on it, working together to push down what the Chitauri were trying to make him believe. When they were together, he was Loki again, but when they were apart…


Loki had come back only the week before, and for the first time in her life she'd been afraid of him. Just for a split-second. Seeing him standing in the doorway, eyes no longer that beautiful green but a cruel, icy blue like the jewel in that stupid Evil Glowy-Stick of Death, her heart had leapt into her mouth. His gaze had landed on her. A smile had curved his mouth…a cruel smile. And he'd come into the room, arrowing straight for where she sat at the synthetic window.

Even as another contraction twisted through her body, making Thea wince, she could still remember his fingers twisting in her hair, his other hand at her throat. There had been anger in his eyes when he'd looked down at her, fury and lust—but no tenderness—when he'd kissed her hard enough she'd tasted blood.


She'd started to cry, yelled, "No!"

The blue in his gaze had shattered like glass. The rage in his eyes had faded, leaving only horror and remorse in its wake. Loki had fallen to his knees. Tears had dripped off the edge of Thea's chin to sprinkle Loki's hands when he'd gently cupped her face, swallowed hard, and bowed his head, choking on a sob.

"I'm sorry," he'd whispered. "Forgive me. Forgive me. I'm sorry, älskling. Surtur's blade…what's happening to me?" And she'd held him, pushed through the shadows and the crud the Chitauri were shoving into his mind, and brought him back to her…for a little while.


Now Thea lay, struggling to get her breath back during a lull in the rising pain, remembering how he'd been so skittish around her after that. So afraid to touch her, be close to her. She couldn’t blame him. She'd examined his mind and memories twice to make sure that whatever had twisted him up was gone for the time being, but neither of them had been able to relax until nearly the next morning.

She would’ve given anything for Loki to be back now. Anything. Even if there was still that shadow in his eyes, still that anger in him. If she needed him, Thea knew Loki would help her, nefarious alien mind-control notwithstanding.

Loki, I'm scared, she thought. I'm so scared. Where are you? I need you. I need you here. Loki, I'm scared.

She'd read a book on pregnancy and childbirth in college. What had it said? The more freaked out a woman was, the more pain she felt? Well, Thea was plenty freaked out already. What if she was just left here to have the baby all on her own? What if something went wrong? What was she supposed to do?


The doors to her room whooshed open. Thea struggled to sit up, heart slamming hard against her ribs. It couldn't be…could it? Could he be back already? Could he have come back in time?

But it wasn’t Loki in the doorway. It was a Chitauri soldier. He stepped toward her. Thea looked wildly around, shoved off the bed. Grabbed one of the dishes on the table and held it up. "Get away from me!" She screamed. "Don't come any closer! Get away!" She was not going to let these monsters take her baby. They couldn’t have her baby.


The Chitauri took another step, and another. Thea threw the plate. It bounced of the alien's head and shattered on the floor. She snatched up a glass. Had to fight not to double over as another cramp, stronger than before, snatched the breath from her lungs.

"I'm warning you! Get away from me—"

There was a soft shp-sound and the Chitauri stiffened before toppling to the floor. Thea stared at the person standing behind where the dead alien had been seconds before. She dropped the glass, which shattered on the floor. One hand came up to cover her trembling mouth.


"Phil?" It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be him. She had to sharply quash the urge to cry, "Daddy!" and run into his arms.

Phil's eyes scanned Thea from head to foot before jumping back to her face. "Als?" She jolted. He was the only person who'd ever called her that. The Chitauri couldn’t have known that, which meant…"Holy…you're pregnant. You…you're pregnant." He stepped over the Chitauri corpse and holstered his gun. He yanked her into his arms. "Als! Me and your mom have been worried sick. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" He brushed the hair out of her face and studied her. "You okay, kiddo?"

She tried to say something, tried to ask him how he'd gotten there, how he'd found her, had he seen Loki, was Loki still alive, anything…but all she could do was burst into tears and bury her face in his shoulder. Phil hugged her tightly.


"Hey, it's okay now, kiddo. I'm here, I found you. We're gonna get out of here, okay? It's okay now." He let her cry for maybe a minute, but that was all they could afford. Pulling back, he wiped her eyes with the cuff of his shirt that didn't have blood on it.
Thea realized the front of his shirt had a big rip in it, and blood had soaked the fabric. Some of the blood had gotten on her dark green dress. "What the heck happened?"


"It's okay, it's…I'm not hurt. Okay, we gotta get out of here. Do you know your way around this place?"

She shook her head. "I've been stuck in here the last six or so months. Before that I was in a cell." She swiped at her eyes, trying to force back tears. "Have you…have you seen Loki?"

The fury that swept across his face almost made her recoil. "Did he do this to you?"


"Do what? Trap me? No! He's been trying to protect me. He…we…it's complicated."

Phil stared at her. "Protect you? Als, what are you talking about? The guy's a grade-A maniac, he stabbed me in the chest with that staff—"


"He's using the staff?" Thea whispered. Cold swept through her. "No. No, he can't…it controls him, it twists up his mind. He can't use it. He stabbed you? But you said you weren’t hurt—"

"The wound healed somehow. I can't explain it. Anyway, what do you know about the staff?" Phil asked. "What is going on?"

Risking a gamble, Thea touched her fingertips to Phil's temples. "Hang on. Lemme try this."

Loki had always maintained that if she used her powers enough, she'd be able to get around the collar. Unfortunately, they'd both realized "enough" would take years of building up her mind. They hadn’t had years. But one thing she was pretty sure she could do now—she could use her gift without Loki's seiðr to boost it, as long as she was touching someone and kept it to something small (like a memory download).


Thea managed to cram the highlights of last year into Phil's mind in approximately thirty seconds, leaving her faintly queasy and no doubt leaving the man who was basically her father with a massive headache. But it made him stop asking questions. Instead, he dragged the Chitauri corpse away from the door so it would close. Reaching into his suit pocket, he pulled out a small tool-kit.

"Why do you have a tool-kit in your suit?" Thea asked as Phil had her sit down. She tensed as a contraction squeezed her body, relaxed as it faded. Twelve minutes apart now. They'd been going on for a few hours at this point. If this was false labor, why hadn’t they stopped? Unless this was it. Unless the baby was coming. No, the baby couldn’t come now. She couldn’t.

My water hasn’t broken yet, she reminded herself. Until that happens, I'm fine. And even then, things won't pick up until…Thea thought of the book she'd read, and all the talks about blood. If things were going according to plan, labor wasn't supposed to actually start before she started bleeding. Until that point, the idea had squicked her out. Now it comforted, because it meant Sophie wasn't coming yet. But still…


"Phil, I think I might be in labor."

He shot her a wide-eyed look. "How far apart are your contractions?"

"Twelve minutes," she whispered. "Phil, it's too early. The baby's not due for two months."

"Okay," he said, gripping her hands. "Okay. It's okay. Twelve minutes? We got time. Right now we gotta get this inhibitor collar off of you."

"How are you gonna do that? Loki couldn’t even do it, and he tried a million times."

"You ever tried to manually override any of Tony Stark's defensive software?" Phil asked. Thea shook her head as he knelt next to her and examined the collar around her neck. "I have. Used to be a Boy Scout, remember? 'Always be prepared.' In this case, be prepared with some Stark Industries tech."

He opened the tool kit and pulled out what looked like a mechanical spider the size of her thumbnail. Laying a hand against her belly as it tightened, Thea bit her lip, while Phil set the thing on the inhibitor collar around her neck. A small shudder of distress emanated on an empathic level from the baby inside her. Thea rubbed her stomach. "It's okay. It's okay."

In her own mind, she cried, I want a hospital! Please, please, don't let there be anything wrong, please. I'm scared. I'm scared. Loki! Loki, I need you. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do!


"Boy or a girl?" Phil asked, snapping her out of her panicked thoughts.

"What?"

"Your baby," he said, gesturing to her stomach. "Boy or girl?"
Thea swallowed hard. "A girl. Sophie." If she'd had the time to fully download every memory of the last year, and he'd had time to peruse those memories at leisure, he'd have known the answer…but neither of them had time. She'd given him the bare bones: she was pregnant, Loki was the father, they'd fallen in love while they'd both been imprisoned in the Chitauri dungeons, she'd been poisoned, and most importantly, Loki was being blackmailed.


Phil nodded. "Beautiful name. Good choice. Okay, hang on…this little bug's almost got that thing off. Then we're getting out of here."

She drew a deep breath. "Is Loki still alive?"

Another nod. "Last I checked. He was about to drop Thor from thirty-thousand feet, last thing I remember."

"That height won't kill an Asgardian," she said, relaxing a little. "Thor's there? Good. He won't let them kill Loki. Thor will protect him."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "You act like you know him."

She nodded. "I do." As well as Loki once had. Suddenly there was a sharp click, a hiss, and the collar slid from around her neck to fall to the floor. The wall of icy cold darkness that had been erected between Thea's mind, her powers, and the rest of the world suddenly shattered, crumbling to dust. She sucked in a breath and let it out as relief flooded her veins. Her mind hummed with power. She blinked stinging eyes.

"Better, kiddo?" Phil asked. Thea nodded, wiping a tear away. He smiled. "Okay. Now that you're back online, we're getting out of here, okay? Let's go. I'll grab Hobbes—"

"I need that bag," Thea interrupted. "That little one right there." She pointed at a small, green bag on the floor next to the bed. Phil grabbed it and looked inside. A black teddy bear with green eyes and a tiger—smaller than Hobbes—had been stuffed inside. "Loki made them," she said softly. "For the baby. I want them. And the antidote is in there, too." If Sophie was on her way, she could take the antidote after her daughter was born. If it wasn’t time yet, and they escaped, maybe Dr. McCoy could synthesize an antidote that wouldn’t kill her baby.


Phil shouldered the bag. "Okay. Let's get out of here…Als? Als, you okay?"

Thea gripped the back of the chair and hunched her shoulders, struggling to breathe as another contraction—sharper and stronger than the others—ripped through her. Something warm and wet slid down her thighs. Phil's eyes widened. The contraction tightened and tightened until Thea had to shove her fist in her mouth to keep from screaming.

When it finally eased back, she staggered. Phil grabbed her. "Whoa. Okay, kiddo. Your water just broke. We've gotta go—now."

"What?" She gasped. "No, it can't…Sophie's not due for two months. My water can't break now. I can't have her now. I'm not ready, I can't." She covered her mouth, trying to stifle a sob. Now wasn’t the time to break down. It wasn't. Inside her, she could feel Sophie panicking. And why not? She'd been buoyed up all this time and now Thea's stupid water had freaking broken at the worst possible freaking time and everything was happening too fast—


A contraction slammed into her like a fist and she sucked in air, bit her lip until she tasted salt and copper. She couldn’t scream. She'd attract the Chitauri and get Phil killed, get herself killed after they took her baby. She couldn’t scream.

"You're bleeding, kiddo," Phil said sharply.

Thea glanced down. Nausea surged up in her stomach at the sight of the blood pooled on the floor, but she shook her head. "No, it's…it's okay," she gasped, though it didn’t feel okay. "That's supposed to happen. I don't know if I can walk, Phil. I don't know…"

"You have to. Once you have the baby, we're screwed. We won't be able to run. You've got to move, Thea. For the baby. We can't have the baby here, okay?"


She nodded. "Okay."

She had no idea how they made it out of the room, through the corridors. Only that Phil drew his gun—complete with silencer, which made her wonder vaguely where he'd gotten that from—and shot any aliens they ran into on the way. One time, in a daze of pain and panic, Thea watched Phil aim at a Chitauri, pull the trigger…and heard the hammer click. Empty. The Chitauri snarled, striding toward them. Thea sagged against the wall, almost numb with fear, as Phil cursed. She watched him try to reload as if in a dream. Then she looked at the Chitauri.


From inside her, Sophie's fear welled up and surged outward like a tidal wave. It jolted through Thea, slicing through the haze of pain. Without a thought, Thea lashed out at the Chitauri, shoving the memory of her pain and her daughter's fear into its mind.

The alien dropped in a twitching, writhing heap. Biting her lip, Thea ripped into the creature's mind, scanning for where she and Phil could go in order to get out of there. When she finally let the alien go, Phil had reloaded his gun. She nodded. He shot the Chitauri in the head.

"Which way?" He asked, knowing exactly what she'd done; it was what he'd taught her to do, after all.

With a shaking hand, Thea pointed. "That…way. Hn!" She hunched and sank to the floor, wrapping her body around the taut mass of her stomach. She could feel Sophie's fear. "It's okay," she gasped. "It's okay, Sophie. Phil…"

"Come on, Als," he said, getting an arm around her and helping her to her feet. "Come on. We can make it. Do it for Sophie, okay? You can do it."

She barely managed to gasp out the directions to where the Chitauri kept their smaller craft. This was what Loki had wanted to do before discovering she'd been poisoned—escape their room and get to the hangar where the Chitauri flyers were kept. Steal one. Get away. He would've been able to figure out how the thing worked, but could Phil?


He set her down against the wall around the corner from the hangar. Checked the load on his gun. She remembered as a little girl, Phil saying he always carried extra clips because his father had been shot after running out of ammunition. Still, he had to be nearly out. Phil pressed his back against the wall, weapon ready, and peered around the corner. In a flash his gun was up. He fired twice. Ducked back behind the protection of the wall-corner as a blast of blue energy shot past him. Thea squeezed her eyes shut as Sophie squirmed in agitation. She heard Phil fire three more times. Then he was grabbing her, hauling her up again.

"Can you fly one of these things?" He asked as they made their way laboriously toward one of the scaly, monstrous flyers. Thea stared at it. It wasn't the hulking behemoths Loki had told her were actually alive, and they weren’t the little flying motorcycles her husband had learned to use. It was an actual ship. Almost like an escape pod. It was exactly the thing she and Loki had planned on stealing.


But she had no idea how it worked. And even if she had, Sophie's current panic-stricken womb antics were making it highly unlikely she could've driven an RC car, much less an alien spaceship. Thea shook her head. Phil looked around.

"Oh, good, that one's not dead yet. Maybe he knows how to fly the thing."

Somehow she managed to concentrate long enough to rip the memories of flight control out of the dying Chitauri's head—with no finesse at all, leaving it convulsing on the floor as thick, black ichor oozed from its mouth and nose, and leaving herself with a migraine on top of everything else—and gently pushed the memories into Phil's head as he dragged open the access door and walked her into the ship.


Two Chitauri snarled as they raised their weapons. Without blinking, Phil shot them both in the head. He set Thea down on the floor.

"I'm gonna get us flying, okay?" He grabbed the corpses and managed to drag them to the access door. He rolled them out into the hangar. Shut the door. Hastening to the control panel, he set to work trying to make the thing fly. Thea leaned her head against the wall and focused on trying to not have her baby on an alien spaceship.


The floor underneath her body began rumbling. A high-pitched whining sound made her teeth throb. She rubbed her belly as Sophie twisted and pain spasmed through her back, tightening through her stomach.

Loki, Thea thought as a contraction had her gritting her teeth. Loki, hang on. We're coming. I'm coming. Just hang on. I'll be with you soon, I promise. Just wait.

.

The world started to drift away as each contraction became her entire world. The thing that really scared her was, she knew it was going to get a lot worse. She could feel that. Sophie wasn't yet in place to actually be born. It would take actual pushing for that, and Thea had done everything in her power to fight the urge to push. She couldn’t have the baby yet. Not yet. Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought desperately with her body.


"Als?" Phil called. Her eyes snapped open to see Phil coming over, kneeling next to her. "How ya doing, kiddo?"

A tear rolled down her cheek as she forced herself to breathe through another contraction. "Phil…Phil, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I don't know if it's safe to do this. Sophie's scared, too. I should be in a hospital, I can't do this here."

"Hey, hey." He put his arms around her, rubbed her shoulder. "You can do this, okay? Whatever happens, I'm right here with you. We'll get through this, all right? It's okay. Here, let's get you settled." He helped her up and walked her to the front of the flyer. She realized there was a padded bench along the wall wide enough to lie down on. Phil shrugged out of his blazer, emptied the pockets, and folded it up to make a pillow. Carefully, Thea settled onto her side. "Shouldn't you be on your back?"

She shook her head. "It hurts when I'm on my back. Are we going home?"

"Yeah. I programmed the thing to take us back to Earth. The coordinates are already in the system," he added sourly, "since they're planning on invading us. Gotta tell you, kiddo, having that alien's memories in my head is pretty strange. Hey." He caught her drifting attention. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Loki," she whispered as another pain ripped through her. "I have to stop him. I have to show him I'm okay. That me and Sophie are okay. Then he'll stop. We have to get to him. I…he's doing this for me. For our baby." Another tear spilled down her cheek. "Phil…Dad…"

He sat on the floor next to her, squeezed her hand. "You know, you've never called me Dad except when you were worried about monsters in your closet." He wiped the tear away. "Everything's going to be okay, Thea."

"I don't know what I'm doing," she whispered. "Have you ever delivered a baby before?"

Phil sighed. "No, can't say that I have. But I know a few things from when my mom had my kid brother. So don't push yet, okay? You can't push until you're fully dilated."

"How are you gonna know when that is?" She demanded, voice cracking.

He looked slightly embarrassed when he replied, "I'll check." Seeing her scandalized look, he added defensively, "Hey, by the time I'm going to need to, you'll be so out of it, it won't even faze you, I promise."

Thea groaned and covered her face with shaking hands. "I want a hospital. I want my mom. I want…" She sniffled, scrubbed at the fresh tears welling in her eyes. "I want Loki. He should be here."


"We'll get to him soon."

Phil stayed with her through most of the journey back to Terran space, only getting up to check the instruments. He let her squeeze his hands whenever a contraction hit, and helped her to time them. Things had progressed fairly slowly once Thea got horizontal; for several hours, the contractions maintained eleven-minute intervals. When they made it to Earth, after expertly maneuvering the ship through cosmic void and planetary atmosphere, Phil tried to get his bearings.

"I think that's Greenland," he said, peering through what was basically the alien windshield. "Which means New York is—"


"Head for Maine," Thea gasped suddenly, shoving upright. He glanced back at her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face flushed, her lips pinched white. "We can't go to New York in this thing. The military will attack us, with the invasion and everything. We have to go to Maine. The professor is there. He's…" She tried to focus on the voice in her head, tried to block out the pain. "He's calling me; I can sense him there. Hang on, I have to focus."

Mutant, she heard softly in her mind. That voice…she knew that voice. The man speaking had been like a father and a brother to her ever since she was five years old. He'd taught her to be proud of her powers, not to be afraid of who she was or what she could do. Mutant, where are you? I can feel you're in pain. Who are you? I'm a friend. Who are you? You're familiar.

Professor! Thea sucked in a breath and tried to make herself heard. She didn’t have any telepathic gifts, so she had to "shout" in order for Professor Xavier to hear her. Professor, it's me! It's Thea! Thea Valerian! Professor!

Thea? She felt his momentary shock, followed swiftly by relief and love. Thea! Are you all right? You're hurt. How badly are you hurt?

I'm not, she replied. I'm in labor. I need help. I'm with Phil, my mom's boyfriend. We're on a Chitauri cruiser. She pulled the image into the forefront of her mind, felt when he noticed it. It's a long story. We can't go to New York, but I need help. You're in Canada, aren't you? Near the border with Maine? That's what I'm getting from you.

Can you make it to where we are? I'm with Ororo, Beast, and Logan. Can you make it, Thea?

I don't know, she thought to him. I'm scared, Professor. I can't have my baby yet. I can't.

What's wrong?

She's early, Thea said, trying not to freak out all over again. It's just me and Phil, and I don't know what to do. I'm freaking out. I don't know if she's okay or not.

We will come to you. You can meet us halfway. Land here. A set of coordinates flitted through her mind. She relayed them to Phil, who nodded and changed course. We will be there in a few hours. Hold on, Thea. We're coming for you.

Hurry. Please.

.

Thea barely managed to bite back a scream as pain dug its claws into her body and tore through her. Her head fell back as the contraction and the pressure on her body eased up and she sagged into Phil and Logan's arms. Gasping for breath, she whispered, "Dad…can I lie down? Please?"

"You're almost done, Als," Phil said, holding her tight, supporting her weight. "Squatting makes it easier. I know it's hard."

She wanted to snarl at him, wanted to demand how he could possibly know, but then the next savage contraction tried to crush her. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. A scream strangled in her throat. Phil was telling her all kinds of nice things about how brave and strong and amazing she was…but she could barely focus on them as another savage contraction tried to crush her.


"You're doing great, Thea," a woman's voice said. Ororo. Ms. Munroe, her former history teacher. Thea blinked and managed to fix her eyes on the chocolate-colored face framed by snow-white hair. "You're almost there."

"Shouldn't we be doing this somewhere else?" She heard someone ask. Phil? Logan? She couldn’t tell.

A soft, cultured voice said, "She can't be moved. We're monitoring the baby's heartbeat, brainwaves, and emotional responses. This is the best we can do under the circumstances."

"Okay, Thea," Ms. Munroe's voice broke through the haze of exhaustion and pain. "It's almost time to push. You can do this. Take a long, deep breath on the next contraction, hold it for a count of ten, and push."

"Dad…" Thea whispered. Phil squeezed her hand. "Dad, I can't…"

Phil snorted. "Bogus. Remember that time I told you that you couldn't eat an entire pizza in one sitting? And you did, didn't you?" Her mouth trembled into a smile. "You can do this, kiddo." She squeezed his hand tight as the next contraction started to build. "Storm, I think we've got the next one."

"Get your breath, Thea. Now hold it, and…push! Come on, push! You can do it! That's a girl! Come on, keep it up, keep it up…good girl. Go ahead and breathe. You're doing great. You're doing wonderful, Thea. Okay, here comes another one. Hold your breath…and…push! Good girl!"

She screamed through her teeth as the world phased out around her, until all she could think about was the breath bursting in her chest, then whooshing out of her lungs, and the vicious pressure bearing down on her. Tears and sweat poured down her face as she tried to picture Loki in her mind, tried to imagine his voice encouraging her like Phil was. That was her focus—Loki's face, the memory of his voice—as each contraction rolled into the next, building and building.

Finally, when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, when she knew she was probably going to keel over and die, Ms. Munroe said, "Okay, one more, Thea! One more. Big push. Big, big push. You can do it. One more push and you've got a baby, okay? Come on, take that breath. And…push! Push, Thea!"


"Come on, Als, you can do it! You're almost to the finish. Come on!"

One minute there was pain and pressure, a haze of nothing but Ms. Munroe's orders and Phil's cheers as a massive weight threatened to pulverize her…then the pressure eased up abruptly, and she heard it. The shrill, startled cry of a newborn baby. Thea gasped and just breathed for a second as Phil and Logan helped her lie back, half-propped up in their arms. Dashing the sweat and tears from her eyes, Thea got her first glimpse of Sophie.

Tiny and wrinkled and red with exertion, Sophie's arms flailed and flopped as Dr. McCoy cleaned her up and wrapped her in an emergency blanket. Thea's arms shook as she accepted her daughter; Phil slid his own arms around her, settling them underneath hers to help hold the baby against Thea's heart. Fresh tears rolled down Thea's cheeks as her daughter squalled.

"Hey, there, Sophie," Thea whispered. Slowly, Sophie's cries began to fade. A tear dripped off Thea's chin and splashed the blanket. Silver-blue eyes darted all over the tiny face, the soft cap of dark hair. Sophie blinked, unscrunching her face enough for Thea to see the vibrant emerald of her unfocused eyes. Thea sensed the baby's fading confusion and distress, felt the upsurge of sleepy contentment and peace as Sophie responded to her mother's closeness and the sound of her voice. "Hey. Remember me? Remember Mama? It's me. It's your mommy. Hi, my beautiful baby. Hello, my sweetheart. My älskling."


Then Thea couldn’t stop the tears any longer. They poured out of her as she held her daughter to her chest, as sobs tore through her body. She was crying because Sophie was hers, and because Sophie was safe. Because Sophie was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her life and probably the most beautiful thing she ever would see.

But she was also crying because Loki wasn’t there to share the moment with her.

.

The jet-ride from the Maine-Canada border to New York took longer than Thea wanted, but it was faster than going by car. Safely secured in the X-Jet, after being looked over by Dr. McCoy—she was so exhausted at that point she didn't care who checked her out or what they did to her, as long as they gave her drugs for the pain and let her hold onto her baby—and changing into clean clothes, she reclined in her seat and stared out the window with Sophie in her arms as they sped through the sky. The sun had risen a few hours ago, while she'd been too focused on being in labor to notice.


The sun. It had been so long since she'd seen the sun. Had Loki been allowed to look at it, see it, savor it? Or had he been forced to hide from the human authorities while he plotted how to invade her planet? Had the Chitauri given him any chance to experience fresh air, warm sunshine? Had he even been able to appreciate it?

He'd been using the staff. Why had he been using the staff? They'd agreed that once he made it out from under the Other's direct supervision he'd stop using the creepy thing.

Thea had tried touching it once. It had sent her mind hurtling through darkness, jagged black claws scraping and rending at her thoughts, lashing her with baseless and terrible fear until she'd dropped the thing, backing away, screaming until she couldn’t breathe. Loki had run to her, held her. Rocked her like a child and stroked her hair while they cuddled on their bed.

She had never touched the staff again.

Her problem, though, wasn’t the staff—not at the moment. Though the staff needed to be retrieved by someone who wouldn’t be affected by it. Only a couple people who qualified came to mind: the professor and someone Phil had worked with during Loki's initial arrival, a man named Stephen Rogers. Captain America. From all Phil had said, he was a big blue Boy Scout. A real Prince Charming. Maybe he could handle the staff without its dark seiðr affecting him. After all, the professor was stuck in a wheelchair. He could only do so much without the help of his X-Men.

No, Thea's problem was convincing Phil—and Phil's superiors, as well as the rest of the world—that Loki had been blackmailed and brainwashed into doing everything he'd done to the Earth. She had to prove it to everyone. Her powers should've made that easy, except that it was documented in the Federal Mutant Registry that she could manipulate other people's memories. They didn’t have to believe her just because she showed them what had happened.

She would need help. The professor had already given her a full mental check-up to make sure her own memories hadn’t been tampered with—impossible, thanks to her gift, but it never hurt to double-check—and to verify the truth of her story. Phil believed her. He and the professor would help. She just didn’t know if that would be enough.


Sophie stirred. Thea blinked sleepily down at her daughter as she scrunched up her face and began fussing. Touching light fingertips to Sophie's temple, Thea plucked the most recent memory from the baby's mind.

"Hungry again, huh?" She touched her baby's nose, wiggling it. Sophie sneezed. "Come on. It's probably lunch time, anyways." It took a concentrated effort to reach for the bag the professor had given her, which sat on the floor by her seat. She was just so tired…but she wasn’t feeding her baby in front of everyone without a blanket thrown over herself. It felt…weird. Like inviting strangers to eavesdrop on a very private, very precious conversation. Snagging the extra blanket from the bag, Thea covered Sophie, leaned back in her reclining seat, and closed her eyes. No way could she get a nap right now, but resting her eyes felt good, too, and Sophie's small, warm weight against her body relaxed her.

A couple hours later, Phil came back to sit next to her. Sophie was asleep again, curled up in her blanket, tiny hands curled into fists. "Hey, can Grandpa hold her?"

"Sure," Thea murmured, handing Sophie over to him. "Phil…why did you and Mom break up?" It had come out during the long, drawn-out conversation on the Chitauri flyer, but she'd been in so much pain, she hadn’t thought to ask him then.

Looking down at the sleeping baby, Phil sighed. "It just…it didn’t feel right, not being able to be with her all the time when she needed me once you went missing. She was a wreck. We didn’t know what had happened, what those things were that took you, and we couldn’t find you. I had all of SHIELD on the lookout. I mean, you're my daughter, Als. I've watched you grow up from the time you were nine years old. I coached your soccer team, drove you on field trips, went to your parent-teacher meetings, took you to concerts. You're my daughter and I couldn’t find you…and I couldn’t be there for your mother like I should've been when she needed me. She deserved someone who could be there for her."

Thea nodded. Yawned. "Okay…so now that I'm back, when are you two getting married?"

"Als, it's not that simple."

"I just gave you two a granddaughter. I can make it that simple. She's gonna have to move out to New York eventually. You know, since I live there. She always said she would, once one of us had kids. Except Joie went and messed that up by moving to Portland." Thea made a wry face, but smiled. "Whatever. Once Mom's in New York, it shouldn’t be that hard."

Phil smiled wanly. "We'll see. So, what's Sophie's full name?"

"Sophie Frigga Valerian-Odinson, daughter of Loki, son of Odin, son of Bor. Loki said when you do formal introductions in Asgard, it's traditional to go back three generations. We were gonna name her Frigga, but then I remembered that Johnny Cash song about a boy named Sue and decided I didn’t want my daughter trying to kill us when she grew up." With a sigh, Thea reclined her seat enough that she could turn on her side. Sitting upright for too long hurt. "She looks like Loki, you know. Except for those little freckles."
He nodded, but he looked troubled. Finally, he said, "Listen, Thea. I want you to know that whatever happens when we reach SHIELD headquarters, I'm behind you, okay? I believe you when you say Loki's being controlled. He could have killed me, but instead he sent me to you—I'm guessing he wanted me to get you out of there. So I believe you."


She didn't cry, but only because she was so tired. She just didn’t have the energy. "Thanks, Dad." She'd found out from the professor that SHIELD had had Loki in custody since yesterday afternoon. What had they done to him in that time? Was he all right? "Can you, uh…can you hold onto Sophie for a little bit? I need some sleep."

"No problem, kiddo. You just take a nap or something."

She dozed for the rest of the plane ride; took care of Sophie while Phil made arrangements for a car; slept while Sophie snoozed in a quickly-bought car-seat as they drove to SHIELD headquarters. The drone of Phil talking on the car-phone helped lull her until his voice suddenly sharpened.

"Boss, tell me you didn't!"

Thea jerked awake abruptly, scrubbing at her face as the car pulled into an underground parking garage. Sophie made a few fussy noises, subsided. Thea glanced at Phil, who'd lost his affable grandfather look and was one-hundred-percent Special-Agent-trying-to-avert-a-SNAFU again. Her stomach suddenly lurched. Something wasn’t right. Something was definitely, definitely not right.

The car pulled into a parking space and Thea quickly got out. Two agents in uniform stood waiting. One of them said, "Ms. Valerian, Agent Coulson, I'm Special Agent Sitwell and this is Special Agent—"


"Where is he?" Phil demanded. He came around to Thea's side of the car while she unbuckled Sophie from the car-seat and pulled her baby into her arms. "Where's Loki?"

The two agents exchanged uncertain glances. Agent Sitwell replied, "Director Fury and Agent Hill are waiting to debrief you. We'll take you to them."

As their little group—Phil, Thea, Sophie, and Ms. Munroe—followed after Sitwell and his partner, Thea kept trying to suppress the spiking fear that something terrible was about to happen. No. Nothing bad was going to happen. She'd escaped from the Chitauri. She was okay. She'd already taken the antidote for the poison and felt better than she had in a while, even though she was still exhausted and sore from the birth. Sophie was healthy. SHIELD hadn’t killed Loki. Soon she would be with him, they'd be together again, and everything would be fine. Everything would be perfect.


But the agents they passed in the halls kept giving her strange looks. Curving herself protectively around her daughter, she focused on Phil beside her and Ms. Munroe on her other side, and kept walking. With the two of them, she'd be fine. They wouldn’t let anything happen to her or Sophie.

Loki, Thea thought as they came to the end of a very long hallway, Loki, are you okay? Just hold on a little bit longer. I'll be there and you'll see I'm okay. I'm okay, Loki. Me and Sophie are both fine.

A guard in a blue uniform opened the door at the end of the hall, which led to a large room with a massive circular table at its center. Seated on the opposite side of the table was a dark-skinned man with a black eye-patch in a black leather coat and a brunette woman in uniform.


"Boss," Phil said the moment he caught sight of the one-eyed man. "Boss, tell me you still have Loki in custody. Tell me you didn’t send him back to Asgard with Thor."

Thea jerked. All the blood drained from her face as her heart knifed sideways in her chest. "What?" She swayed, staggered. Ms. Munroe went to her, took Sophie, while Phil guided her to a chair. She stared at the man she knew to be Nick Fury with horrified, betrayed eyes. "You…what?"

Flabbergasted, Nick Fury said, "We sent Loki back to Asgard with Thor this morning. About four hours ago. Why? And Coulson, how the hell did you manage to survive that stab to the chest? And who is this?"

"This is my daughter, Thea…the one who went missing over a year ago. She's Loki's wife, and the leverage the Chitauri were using to blackmail him into invading Earth. Her, and Loki's daughter." Phil gestured to Sophie fussing in Ms. Munroe's arms. Nick Fury and the female agent just stared at him, stunned. "You sent him back? Crap. Crap!"

"The Bifröst?" Thea managed to croak. The two SHIELD agents focused on her. "Is the Bifröst fixed? Is that how they went back?" If the Rainbow Bridge had been repaired, she could get to Asgard. She just had to call for Heimdall, had to convince him to open the Gate for her. Then she could tell the Asgardians what had happened, both on Midgard and back in Asgard during Thor's exile.

But Nick shook his head. "They used the tesseract."

"Then…" Phil ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Then there's no way to get back in contact with them. No way to bring him back." He looked at Thea. "Als…Als, I'm so sorry, I…"

Thea didn’t hear him. She simply dropped her head onto her folded arms on the table, sick at heart, and cried.