It was not a belated recognition of the delicacy he would need in discussing how he had met Thor that Steve spoke with, but with a care and understanding he would not shrug off for the world. What crimes he knew her son guilty of were not ones he felt the least bit comfortable revealing to her, if she did not already know. That alone would have made him choose his words carefully, but added to the remembered moment two years in his past of Thor speaking of his mother's death, he wanted nothing but to keep from offending her.

"An alien army invaded our world," he told her, choosing a tact that would not require him to lie to the woman but still explain something of what had happened to bring a prince of Asgard into a battle on Earth. Even had deceit been anything he had been comfortable with, let alone the least bit skilled in, he would have shied back from lying to the mother of a friend. The woman carried within her a glowing warmth he could not help but react to, memories of his own mother long left unexamined but then riding the surface of his thoughts beside recent memory. "Thor came to retrieve some lost power of Asgard, and helped us fight off the army. Without him we could not have won without losing far more than we already had."

"He is a good man."