"How do you feel now?"
The question came only after Evenson had finished the last of the Asgardian liquor, collapsed across the couch, and spent three solid minutes silently trying to remember how breathing worked.
Sif’s patience had finally run out.
"How do I feel?" Evenson’s eyes struggled to focus on anything in the room. "It feels like... like..."
He frowned with tremendous concentration.
"...Never mind."
"Everything’s spinning. Your balance is gone. Thinking feels like trying to push a wagon through mud."
Sif listed the symptoms with the confidence of someone who had seen countless warriors drink themselves unconscious.
Evenson weakly pointed at her.
"Exactly."
"Perfect."
A smile spread across her face.
Not her usual bright, straightforward grin.
This one looked... dangerous.
"I’ve been meaning to ask you a few questions."
Evenson slowly turned his head away and let out a long, miserable laugh.
The next person who tells me Asgardians are simple, honest people is getting strangled.
Look at her.
She weaponized alcohol.
"So this is Asgardian interrogation?" he muttered. "Get someone drunk until they can’t lie?"
"Interrogation?" Sif scoffed. "Of course not."
She lifted her cup.
"I’m simply taking advantage of the fact that drunken people tell the truth."
"...Fair enough."
Evenson waved a limp hand.
"Ask away."
"I watched many of the... movies... your friends brought me."
Sif searched for the unfamiliar Earth word before continuing.
"The stories were moving. The heroes were so extraordinary that even I found myself admiring them."
She looked directly at him.
"So tell me."
"Are humans really like that?"
Evenson felt another headache coming.
SHIELD really picked the most idealistic movies they could find...
From Sif’s perspective, it must have looked suspicious.
Every protagonist became a legendary hero.
Every story felt worthy of becoming an epic passed down for centuries.
Some of those fictional heroes seemed even more noble than warriors who had spent hundreds of years earning glory across the Nine Realms.
Anyone would wonder if it was too good to be true.
"They’re..." Evenson said slowly.
"...not real."
Sif blinked.
That answer came far too easily.
She had expected excuses.
Deflection.
Maybe even another stubborn denial like the time she’d tried to figure out who had knocked her unconscious.
Instead...
He admitted it immediately.
Maybe getting him drunk really does work.
"Movies are fiction," Evenson explained. "They’re stories humans imagine."
He leaned back, speaking more softly.
"But they’re also something we aspire to."
"People want the world to be like those stories."
"They want justice to win, even after everything goes wrong."
"They want ordinary people to become heroes."
"They want someone brave enough to stand against evil and protect those who can’t protect themselves."
He smiled faintly.
"It’s wish fulfillment."
"No..."
He shook his head.
"It’s hope."
Sif nodded slowly.
That made much more sense.
If those stories were literal history, they would have been difficult to believe.
As dreams?
Dreams were allowed to be ambitious.
"So what are humans actually like?"
Evenson rubbed his aching temple.
"Less inspiring."
He laughed quietly.
"We’re selfish."
"We’re greedy."
"We make terrible decisions."
"People hurt each other."
He didn’t elaborate.
There wasn’t much point trying to summarize thousands of years of human history while drunk.
Instead, he changed direction.
"Human civilization is young."
"Five or six thousand years sounds like a long time to us."
"But after everything that’s been lost through wars, disasters, collapsed kingdoms, and forgotten ages..."
He spread his hands.
"...the continuous history we’ve actually managed to preserve is only around two thousand years."
He smiled bitterly.
"Probably younger than you."
Sif’s face darkened.
"I’m not two thousand years old."
She jabbed a finger at him.
"I’m eternally nine hundred."
"...A young maiden."
Evenson stared.
Only an immortal could say that sentence with complete confidence.
Then again...
Different civilizations.
Different standards.
He shrugged.
"The point is, humanity is still growing."
"A young civilization makes mistakes."
"Sometimes it spends centuries walking in the wrong direction."
"But I believe..."
He looked at the ceiling as though the answer might be written there.
"...eventually we’ll find the right path."
Sif considered his words for a long moment.
"So that’s what those movies were trying to tell me."
"That humanity is flawed..."
"...but still believes it can become something better."
"No."
Evenson answered immediately.
"We showed you movies because you were bored."
He chuckled.
"We just wanted you to see a little of Earth’s culture."
"There wasn’t some grand diplomatic agenda."
"It’s not like you’re an official envoy."
"You’re only staying on Earth because..."
His mouth kept moving.
His brain did not.
Alcohol had finally won.
The instant the unfinished sentence escaped his lips, he realized exactly what he had almost revealed.
Too late.
Sif smiled.
Beautifully.
Dangerously.
"I think," she said, picking up another bottle, "we should have one more drink."
One hand held the cup.
The other grabbed his chin before he could protest.
When it was over...
Evenson had to be carried back to Nick Fury’s office.
"Excellent."
Nick Fury folded his arms.
"I happen to have a few questions myself."
"Huh...?"
Half-conscious on the couch, Evenson heard someone speaking.
He forced one eye open.
Saw Fury standing over him.
And then...
His body made a very decisive statement about how it felt regarding the Director of SHIELD.
Everything he’d consumed came back out in one unstoppable tidal wave.
It was spectacular.
"...Remind me..."
Evenson mumbled after emptying the contents of his stomach onto Fury’s office floor.
"...never..."
"...ever..."
"...drink with Asgardians again..."
The warning finished.
He immediately passed out.
Nick Fury stood frozen.
Silently staring at the steaming disaster coating his office.
The smell slowly filled the room.
A vein twitched across his forehead.
In the entire history of SHIELD...
No one had ever thrown up inside the Director’s office.
Evenson Richter had just secured himself a place in organizational history.
Fury briefly considered whether execution by firearm would be sufficient.
Then he wondered if artillery might be more appropriate.
Perhaps...
Both.
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