Thaw

Asgard?

ONE WEEK LATER.

I started to slowly leave my room more often and found myself sitting with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner observing while they experimented in the lab. They had 10 floors beneath us all dedicated to science and technology. According to Tony, I wasn't legally allowed to watch in on the work that took place there but he let me sit in the corner if I agreed not to touch anything. I familiarized myself with the top 2 living floors I was staying on and had fun talking to Jarvis. He was an AI designed by Tony to assist with basically everything. It surprisingly could even hold a conversation. I met some of the other 'Avengers', Rhodey, and Clint. Thor ignored me like the plague whenever I saw him which was not often because he lived in Asgard and only came to Earth sometimes. Steve warmed up to me the most and told me stories about the 1920s. Tony and I had developed a very sarcasm, dry humor based relationship and Natasha was badass, I sometimes peaked my head in when she trained in the gym a level up. She had caught me one time and visited me in my room after. She told me she'd convince Tony to let her teach me how to fight. I was still waiting for her reply.

Tony had adopted the guardian role and whenever I wanted to ask something I went to him. He often came to my room and gave me more books he thought I'd like. He even convinced me to use the laptop given to me. He spent a day setting everything up for me and teaching me how to work the technology, including the large flat screen on the wall, which I thought was pretty useless because I wouldn't use the Tv anyways, but he insisted. It was nice. It scared me and I shunned myself for letting myself become open in an environment which could be ripped from me any day. I was waiting for the day that Nick Fury shows up again and drags me back to the hell he took me out of.

I was sitting in the library with a book when Thor entered. I looked up as he crossed over to me and I slowly lowered my book.
"You're from Asgard, aren't you..." he whispered as if someone could hear us. "Whats Asgard?" I asked confused.
Don't play dumb, child, I can sense it."
"I seriously have no idea what you are talking about. Why would you think that." I said standing up and backing away, suddenly feeling very small in comparison to him. He stepped closer,
"Don't lie." he seethed through his teeth clenching his fist. I stepped away and my back hit the bookshelf,
"I'm not lying! I don't even know what Asgard is!" I said, my voice shaking. He stepped closer, reached forward and abruptly grabbed hold of my wrist, before I could fight back a soft golden glow lit up my arm where he touched and instead of the blue of my veins, it looked as if there was pure gold running through instead. He softly let go and stepped back, eyes wide. Just then Tony stepped through the door.
"What's going on here?" he asked, voice raised but he stopped when he saw what was happening. The warm feeling from my wrist was gone as fast as it came. No words came from my mouth as I was left utterly shocked. "What did you do?" he turned to Thor with an unreadable expression.
"I must take her back to Asgard..." he said to no one in particular, he looked as confused as I felt and didn't break the staring contest with me even when I looked away.
"Thor, seriously? What's going on? She's my responsibility, you can't just announce you're taking her to your magical kingdom like that." he said angrily.
"I'm afraid I have no choice, she belongs to Asgard," Thor replied, finally breaking the stare and instead he faced off with Tony in a heated staring contest.
"I'm not an object." I surprised myself by whispering that while quietly looking down at my hands that were previously glowing.
"Just go to your room Astrid, me and Hercules here need to have a little chat." He said, not breaking the staring contest with Thor. I quietly let myself out and put my ear to the door to hear what they were saying, I heard them talking in hushed tones but could not make anything out.

I sighed and headed back to my room. What just happened. Why did Thor think I was from Asgard and more importantly WHY DID MY BODY GLOW. That defies every theory science made about the human body... My thoughts and questions invaded my mind and my feet subconsciously carried me and before I knew it I was at the door of my room. I grabbed the laptop that I had only used once before, I walked onto the terrace, I sat down against the wall and began my search for answers.

There was little information about Asgard and the Norse gods online, everyone believed it to all be a myth before Thor came crashing into Earth, literally. By the time I finished browsing the internet the sun had set and I was sitting in the artificial light emitted from New York City. I walked back into my now dark room and decided to go down for dinner. I started eating with everyone mostly because I enjoyed watching Captain America and Ironman bicker throughout dinner. This time the living and dining room was empty and I looked around searching for anybody simply because I was curious as to where everyone had gone off to.

I gave up and made my way to the large kitchen. I grabbed some cereal and sat on the large island, I noticed the stools were steel and chills ran down my back as memories flashed back from when I would be forced to down food on a similar chair. I pushed the thoughts away and ate quickly. When I had finished I cleaned the dish and head back up to the living room. I decided to wait for Tony or whoever there so I could question them when they came back. I grabbed a book from the bookshelf in the corner of the room and sat back on the sunken sofa.

No matter how hard I focused on the words displayed in front of me, I couldn't think of anything other then what had happened today. Not having answers seemed to eat me inside out,  I would have hopped in the elevator and gone down to the labs to see if that's where they were, but the elevator required an access pass and I knew Tony was smart enough to not leave one lying around for me to find. I had been hanging around the living room for nearly 2 hours now and had busied myself with a puzzle I found. I placed the last puzzle piece to complete the picture of a poppy field in place and stood back admiring my work. I quickly got tired of staring at the picture and flopped back on the couch letting out an animated sigh.