Down below, Loki has come to visit a certain pod, where a certain someone hangs in suspended silence, her skin pale as china, all her lines and colours made soft by the liquid atmosphere. Next to the sight of her, even the god's young face looks rough-hewn. For a time, he stands at a respectful distance, hands behind his back. Only watching. It would be easy to imagine a museum rope strung across the way between them, and easier still to imagine Loki would step right through such a rope, were it really there. The pod's eerie glow glints blue in his cold, bright eyes, lights the curls of his oil-black hair, stresses all the severity of his profile, even as his fingertips meet the glass of the Black Widow's living tomb with a sensitive touch.

"Whosoever fears the point of my spear shall never pass through the fire," he says, just aloud enough to be heard above.

Silence lingers, passes on. His hand slips away.

"I wonder... does she dream?"