The Tesseract's glow encircled Loki, grabbing at him, preparing to wrench him from the planet he'd hoped to rule and fling him across galaxies toward the one that promised his punishment. He held his eyes open against that blinding light by sheer force of will, determined to hold Taryn's gaze until the last possible instant.

Even so, Loki was so shocked by her sudden lunge for his arm that he almost didn't react quickly enough.

The instant her hand touched him, the Tesseract's magic took hold. Loki snatched for her by reflex alone as the blue light ripped them from the ground. It was too late to push her away–she was within the circle of its power and would be swept from the Earth no matter what.

Whether she landed on Asgard or was lost in the vast Between, however, depended solely on her ability to hold on.

His first desperate grab, hampered by the damned manacles that bound his magic, missed. Her fingers slipped on his sleeve and he cursed beneath the mask as he snatched for her again.

This time, thankfully, he caught a firm hold of her wrist.

Loki dragged her against his body as the three of them were buffeted and tossed about in the vortex. The spell Odin had sent with Thor had clearly been designed to take only two, not three, and Taryn's added weight, while slight, was enough to turn what should've been a smooth ride into bedlam. He couldn't wrap his arm around her, not while bound in the manacles, but Taryn still had her fingers knotted in the fabric of his sleeve and Loki felt Thor grab her as well, getting a firm grip on her upper arm above where Loki held her. Bodies knocking together, wind screaming past, pressure trying to tear all of them apart, Loki locked his fingers around her wrist so hard he knew it had to hurt and didn't dare let up even a little.

If she fell now, she would experience the horror of Loki's lost plummet through chaos for herself.

Just the thought of it sent Loki's gut roiling. He strained to hold her tighter still.

Finally, just when he wasn't sure any of them could take much more, they crashed onto solid ground. Loki landed hard flat on his back, knocking the breath from his body, Taryn smashing into him an instant later. Her head drove painfully into his stomach but he didn't care–his body was softer than the rocks he'd hit. The ground shook as Thor fell beside them, missing both except for one boot catching Loki a glancing blow on his shoulder that he immediately ignored. Forcing his cramped fingers to release the Tesseract, Loki grabbed for her shoulders and pushed her upright, desperate to see if she was all right.

For a moment her red hair covered her face but he impatiently brushed it away to reveal her pale, pale face and wide, staring eyes–eyes that were open and clear.

Loki could've collapsed with relief. In fact, he did collapse as his lungs spasmed with the effort of drawing in breath as his own body abruptly made its complaints known. He fell limp back on the ground, every inch of him aching, fighting for air to replace what Taryn's impact had knocked out of his lungs.

Thor chose that moment to grab him by the jacket and wrench him upright. "What have you done?" he bellowed, shaking Loki and unintentionally unlocking his diaphragm. He sucked in a great breath through his nose, wishing he had the use of his mouth to gasp, too. "Why did you bring her? Have you no idea what could have become of her?"

Loki returned the glare with interest. He had far more idea of that than Thor ever would!

Taryn managed to sit up, cradling the arm the brothers had held against her chest, and Loki winced with shame at having so clearly hurt her. "Loki didn't bring me, Thor," she said, her voice thin as she also wheezed for breath. "This was my idea." She looked around, avoiding Loki's eyes. "Is this Asgard?"

Thor flung Loki back to the stony ground–the breath he'd just managed to regain rushed out in a muffled oof–and scowled at her. "Yes, this–we are–" he began, but his voice trailed away as he finally looked around them. He was silent for an endless moment, turning in a slow circle, taking in everything before finally speaking once more. "We should not be here. The spell should have dropped us upon the Bifrost bridge."

Breath regained for the second time, Loki propped himself up on an elbow, finally looking around for himself. The rocky ground beneath him should've given him a clue before now but he'd been too busy making sure Taryn's weak mortal body hadn't been irreversibly damaged by the violence of their journey to really notice their surroundings. He did so now, gaze sweeping the crater where they'd landed and seeing no golden city beyond it.

They'd returned to Asgard–the sky was right and the trees were a sort that only grew in the Realm Eternal–but they were nowhere near the great city itself.

Thor glared down at Loki again once he'd finished his own survey of their surroundings. "What have you done, Loki?" he growled.

Falling back onto his back, Loki raised his chained hands in a helpless shrug and laughed silently. What had he done? What could he possibly have done with his magic bound and his tongue stilled? Really, how could Thor truly believe any of this was his fault? Apparently Thor understood what he couldn't say because he scowled and looked away again.

Taryn ran a shaking hand over her face, her other wrist–swollen and purpling, Loki saw with a sharper pang of guilt, and quite probably broken–still tucked protectively against her body. "Is this Asgard?" she repeated, alarm in her tone this time.

"It is," Thor replied at last. "But it is not where we were meant to arrive. Why are we here?"

Oh for the love of– Loki rolled his eyes at his not-brother's stupidity. True, Thor was no seiðmaðr, but did he know nothing of magic at all? He found a pebble beneath his fingers and threw it at the container holding the Tesseract.

Thor turned at the little sound of it hitting. Loki raised an eyebrow, inviting him to put it together, but when he just continued to glare, he sighed and forced himself to sit up. He pointed at Thor, himself, and finally Taryn, and held up three fingers. Spell for two, idiot, he wrote in the dirt.

Thor flushed when he read it and kicked the runes away to erase the insult, narrowly missing Loki's fingers. "This ploy to delay your imprisonment will not work, brother," he said through his teeth. "Her presence in Asgard will not be tolerated. You know it as well as I do."

Those words, the truth of them, killed Loki's amusement. That was no empty threat. Odin would not take her uninvited presence kindly at all. Take her back, he scrawled in the dirt, serious now. Before they find her!

Thor lifted the Tesseract's container by one handle. The glowing cube within was dim, quiet. "The cube has not the power now. As I'm certain you well know."

Loki struck his words away impatiently and wrote again. What they do to me, they will do to her! Take her back!

"I cannot," Thor said, and now he was looking at Loki strangely. "Second thoughts, brother?"

I can take her back, Loki wrote, runes messy now with his haste. There were paths between the Realms which he alone could walk. Allow me to–

Thor laughed aloud before he'd even finished writing. "No. I am no fool."

I give my word to return–

"No, Loki," Thor repeated, laughter dying as his face went stern again.

Loki slammed a fist into the dirt and pointed at Taryn, who watched them with a little frown of incomprehension. She does not deserve their judgment!

"You should have thought of that before you brought her here."

"He didn't bring me here," Taryn repeated, finally struggling to her feet. Her sleeve was torn, Loki saw now, and the bruised mark of Thor's large handprint on her upper arm was nearly as purple as Loki's on her wrist. She winced when she moved. "I already told you that."

Thor turned to her, dismissing Loki as he sat fuming at his not-brother's stubbornness. "Loki is a master of manipulation," he said, speaking gently to her. "You would not be the first to be so persuaded to believe your actions were your own and had naught to do with–"

"Thor, I came for the trial. That's all. The trial," Taryn cut across him impatiently. Thor's clear surprise made her scowl. "Why do you think I'm here? To go to prison with him and comfort him there, like a modern Sigyn?" The derisive way she said that cut Loki but neither were looking to see his reaction.

"You would not be the first," Thor repeated, but this time he was clearly puzzled. "You will not be allowed to speak on his behalf, Taryn. You are too clearly compromised."

For a moment she just stared at him, jaw dropped. Then she crossed her arms, wincing again as the movement jogged both injuries, and glared at him. "Are you an idiot?" she demanded, and Loki could almost have laughed again as she repeated the same insult Thor had so recently kicked out of the dirt. "Why the hell would I speak on his behalf? I'm here to represent my planet, Thor!"

Thor blinked at her. Clearly this was something he hadn't remotely considered. "Your planet?"

"Yeah, my planet, that blue and green round thing that he unleashed aliens on. Remember?" Her words dripped sarcasm. When Thor still didn't seem to get it, she blew out a harsh breath. "Look, I know you like the place but you're not of Earth. No one here is. Don't you think someone should represent the injured party at the trial?"

For an instant, Thor turned and met Loki's gaze, and there was something so familiar, so comfortable about that–his brother sharing his surprise at something neither had expected–that it physically hurt Loki deep in his chest. It was something they'd done without thinking for so many centuries. He looked away only an instant before Thor realized the same thing and did so, too.

Taryn finally looked down at Loki where he still sat on the ground. "I'm not here to speak for you," she repeated, her once-warm brown eyes hard.

Loki nodded. Unlike Thor, he had never once thought so.

Thor finally managed to gather his thoughts and stepped to her side. "Your pardon, Taryn. I can tell that you are in pain," he said, his voice much calmer now. "We will have to make our way to the city and it may require a long walk. Where are your injuries?"

She carefully held out her swollen wrist, then nodded toward her upper arm. "You guys have quite a grip, anyone ever tell you that?"

"I am sorry that you were hurt by it," Thor replied. Loki got to his feet at last as Thor reached out and very gently felt her wrist. She hissed in a breath at even the lightest touch and he stopped, for which Loki was grateful. Not that she was hurt, of course, but that Thor stopped touching her.

Despite the fact that he hadn't chosen Taryn when he'd had the chance, Loki hadn't managed to quell the territorial instincts that hated seeing another man's hands on her.

"I am surprised it is not broken, although it is badly sprained," Thor said, moving on to her upper arm where he'd held onto her. Loki, remembering the runes he'd traced on her skin, was less surprised. "I am less sure here, but I think that bruises are the worst of it. I am indeed sorry, Taryn. We had no choice. Had our hold on you slipped, you would have been lost to the terrors of the Between. Believe me when I say you are far better off with broken bones."

She shuddered. "I know," she whispered. "I remember."

Thor shot a thunderous glance at Loki. "He should not have shared such horrors with you."

"Totally agree with you there, buddy," Taryn said dryly. Then, with a visible effort, she straightened her spine. "There are trees over there for sticks and I'm one of you can tear some strips off something to make a splint. At least my legs are fine. I want to get to the city and get this over with as much as you do, so strap me up and let's get going."

Loki held up a hand before Thor could comply, though. Instead of writing in the dirt again, he merely waved his fingers in the direct of her arm before shaking his chains.

Thor received the message easily this time. Loki had healed many such wounds during their centuries of adventuring and could certainly do so again if not for the magic-dampening manacles. Were Thor to allow him to do so now, he could save Taryn a great deal of pain as well as enabling the party to travel faster.

But the blond glared suspiciously and made no move to reach for the manacles. "I do not trust you that far, brother."

Loki shrugged as though it made no difference, or as if he'd actually prefer it to take longer to deliver him to his judgment. Neither was true but Thor certainly wouldn't believe that it hurt Loki to see Taryn standing there in pain. He didn't press, knowing that anything he said or did to push the issue would work against him rather than in his favor.

Finally Thor shook his head. "No. It is too dangerous. I will not release you, Loki, not even to heal her." Loki glared–he couldn't help it. Did Thor truly believe he would use this excuse to make an escape and leave his lady in pain?

–no, not his lady. Not his and never to be his now. That reminder did nothing for Loki's temper.

A few minutes later, Loki saw that simply denying him the ability to heal Taryn was not the half of what Thor was prepared to do in order to keep Loki hostage. Rather than leading them all into the little forest, Thor forced Loki to sit again and then placed Mjolnir upon the chain connecting his hands. Loki seethed inwardly but didn't attempt to free himself when Thor finally walked away to find some suitable sticks with which to splint Taryn's wrist and arm.

Not that it would've done him any good. Thor was the only one who could lift the mighty hammer. Until he returned, Loki was well and truly caught.

Instead, Loki turned to face Taryn, who had taken a seat on a low rock nearby. He wished he could speak to her. If he knew what she planned to say at his trial, he would be far better able to rebut her words.

But more than that, he simply wanted to hear her voice. Her presence here was something he'd never even thought to hope for. In Central Park, he'd stored up that last sight of her with the intent of saving it as his last glimpse of hope and beauty, but she was still here, still with him. Even pale, bruised, dirty and disheveled, he still couldn't tear his eyes from her. Hearing her speak to him would be, as the mortals were wont to say, the icing on the cake.

For a long time she merely sat, holding her injured wrist in her lap and looking after Thor. Finally, however, Taryn turned her gaze down to Loki. He raised an eyebrow and waited to hear whatever she was clearly dying to say.

"You're an asshole," she told him. "A bastard and a cheat and a complete asshole."

Loki laughed silently. Unflattering as her assessment was, at least her spirit seemed unbroken as ever. He inclined his head to her as if she'd complimented him and, turning his wrist with considerable difficulty, managed to scratch two words into the soft earth. You're beautiful.

She snorted. "Don't even go there, mister. I know you too well to fall for more lies."

Despite the muzzle, Loki was smiling. Not lying.

She glanced at the words, then turned away to stare after Thor again. For several minutes, silence reigned. "All those people died," she whispered almost as if to herself. "So much destruction, so much fear… you brought that to my home. You brought it and you're not even sorry, are you?"

He shrugged when she looked back. No choice, he wrote, fingers trembling over the words as he remembered when that hand had been butchered down to nothing but bare bones.

He looked up in time to see her shudder and wondered if she'd remembered the same thing. He frowned a little. Memories? he wrote, giving her a sharp look. The spell he'd created–and she'd modified–to contain them should never have weakened, and much less so quickly.

He didn't think she was going to answer at first. Finally she said, "Some," in a tone that didn't come out as casually as she'd clearly intended. He wanted to ask her questions, to find out what had gone amiss with his spell, but she didn't look at him to see if he wrote or not. A moment later she said, "I have opened the box a few times. I… am beginning to think that wasn't a good idea."

Loki sighed. No, it wasn't. That box could hold for the entirety of her mortal life without failing, but if she had released what was within on her own, there was little he could do to contain it again without his magic. Why? he wrote.

She still didn't look but answered the question as though she'd sensed it. "No one understands you," she whispered, and even breathed so softly, the truth of those words cut deep. "I wanted to correct some of the worst of that." Finally, finally she met his eyes again, and the sorrow in hers was nearly his undoing. "I don't think I succeeded."

Doesn't matter, Loki wrote, but it did matter. It mattered that she'd tried to give him that one thing he had always craved–understanding. It mattered that she'd defended him, tried to make others look at his reasons and not merely judge him on his actions, and Loki hated himself in that moment more viciously than he'd ever hated Thor for not choosing her when he'd had the chance.

Was that chance truly gone, though?

His heart pounded once, hard, at the idea. He looked at Taryn anew, wondering if her reasons for coming to Asgard were truly only the ones she'd told Thor.

Loki abruptly became aware of Thor's heavy footsteps nearing. Taryn jumped a little, gasped and clutched her wrist, and then spoke in a rush as though she'd read his mind again. "I didn't come here to defend you, Loki. Don't think that I did. I didn't come here to be with you, either–that ship has sailed. You're guilty and you deserve your punishment. The only reason I came is to have a say in your sentence." She met his gaze. "Understand that. I'm here to help my planet, not you."

Again Loki inclined his head. Of course that was it–it had been foolish of him to think otherwise even for a moment. In that instant he was glad of the muzzle that covered his face and hid his expression. She'd told him she was no man's second choice and she'd meant it.

There would be no second chance for Loki to find peace with her.

Then again, there never had been second chances for him.