That was interesting. Most people he met didn't seem to care about those things; and how many people did he know who cared only for one set of facts, one story, and never anything else? No differing opinions, shared experiences? Too many. "Admirable. In my experience," Loki said, "most people don't seem all that concerned with what happened in the past. They don't even seem to care about what's happening today. It's always tomorrow; an unbroken landscape of what ifs. Strange how so much concentration is put towards the unknown, don't you think, that we miss the truth of what's around us?"

At the admission that the other woman (well, man) had also undergone the very inconvenient switch in genders, Loki laughed. "If we are thinking of the same Natasha, I shan't say a word about it," he said, with a smile that said he may or may not be telling the truth on that matter. "You needn't worry. I only saw it because I looked for it - we're in quite the same boat." He reached over and clasped his own slender, feminine fingers around Steve's. "I am Loki."

He settled back against the bench, and gave a dry grin. "In fact, I had for a moment thought you might be my brother in a woman's body," he said. "But then I saw you were holding a book, and that hypothesis went right out the theoretical window."