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Chapter Text

As Loki opened his eyes in the darkest region of Nilfheim, he promised himself to try everything in his power to make his real death swift and painless. The physical aspect of dying had been excruciating, yet again, as Thanos’ brute strength had snuffed the breath of life from his lungs. Experiencing the separation of his body and soul had also been much too uncomfortable this time around.

That promise would only count if he managed to come back to life. As his soul settled in the realm of the dead, Loki lamented the horrible timing of Thanos’ apparition. Ideally, he would have died on Vanaheim, where someone of his choosing could have watched over his corpse with strict instructions to prepare it for the return of his soul.

But now his body was likely floating in space, exposed to serious damage by radiation and chunks of the destroyed spaceship that had harbored the last Asgardians. At least the Valkyrie had secured a few of what was left of his people.

Well, Thor’s people.

His brother had better have survived the mad Titan, or all of this would have been for naught.

After using his seidr to illusion a corporal form for his soul, Loki looked around him. A thick, grey fog stretched as far as his soul eyes could see, and they were rows upon rows of spectral, human-like shapes that were moving in the same direction, in a delayed synchronicity that reminded him of the patterns of ocean waves. The shapes were definitely moving forward, but that did not help the prince of the now-gone Asgard determine which way was his destination. There were no physical spatial cues anywhere. Everything looked the same.

Loki had known that the path to the throne of Death never looked the same twice, even to the few souls who were lucky or cursed enough to walk it more than once.
Nevertheless, he had several advantages over regular souls: he still had his seidr to protect himself from the pull of the eternal rest, and he knew his way around shortcuts between and within realms. There were nothing physical that could serve as directions, for sure, but as he focused his magical senses, he could feel the elusive flashes of energy emitted by tears within Hel.

The sorcerer had a few ideas as to why these tears existed in a realm supposed to be inescapable, but he did not have the time nor the energy to waste on speculations: focusing his seidr was a challenge despite the precaution he had taken in life.

He had spent months gathering all the resources necessary to bind his magic to his soul more strongly than was possible for his kind – which then had tipped that nosy Heimdall that he was impersonating Odin – but even then he had known that his preparations would not be fail-proof.

Before he slipped through one of the tears, Loki braced himself as much as he could – teleporting put a lot of stress on a physical form, and was even more compromising just too much for a bodiless soul.

True enough, as soon as he passed the threshold of the portal, he felt pressure coming from all sides around him, as if swooped by the current of a strong river.

Gritting teeth he did not truly have, Loki kept alert, throwing his magical senses out to find the right tear to exit through. He sensed a lot more residual energies characteristics of tears, but many of them characterized inter-realm travel rather than intra-realm travel, so he passed them with almost no second thought.

His form almost ripped apart as he pushed against one side of his shield to halt his movement along the current of energy. He had found just the right kind of tear to exit back into Hel, and braced again before stepping through it.

Of course, there was a chance that he would end up even further away from the throne of Death than he had been upon entering Hel. Loki had been very lucky the first time he had died: only a few hours had passed in the real world between his death and his resurrection, while he had expected weeks to go by during his trip in Hel. The short amount of time spent as a free soul had allowed him to conserve enough seidr to heal himself once he returned to the realm of the living.

A heartbeat after slipping through the tear, Loki’s form scattered suddenly, and it took him another beat to see that an obscenely large blade had pierced his fake body, leaving a trail of his seidr in its path.

“You!” he heard before he turned around, creating a new form over his soul – with armor this time, never mind that it would not protect him in any way if his seidr could not shield him.

Hela, looking quite solid and hale for one supposed to have died before he did, was holding twin swords in her outstretched hands, though her torn cape and tattered leather attenuated her menacing stance. She looked quite…charred? Even without his real senses, Loki could smell the burns on her.

Right. Surtur.

“Hello, sister,” Loki said, his voice resonating from the core of his soul rather than his lips, but he moved them all the same.

“Where’s the other one?” she demanded as she looked around, side stepping him as if she expected Thor to strike her from behind.

Loki was surprised to not feel insulted that his evil sister felt more threatened by Thor than him, like everyone always was.

Why, all it took was losing everything he’d ever known, and the centuries-old jealousy he had for his golden brother had faded away, gone in the wind like the ashes of Asgard?

With Odin gone, he supposed there was no one left to care about, no one who mattered left to pressure him to measuring up to his big brother.

“Still alive, naturally,” he replied calmly after dodging another thrown blade. “Our brother has the knack to survive all ordeals. I don’t think he’s ever been anywhere close to dying before, actually.”

That was a lie, but since Hela had not been there to see him dealing his other sibling a fatal blow through the Destroyer, he could get away with it.

“Alive?” the goddess repeated with narrow eyes, looking Loki up and down. “You’re dead?”

“However else could anyone be in this desolate realm if not…” he started to reply before a realization hit him.

Oh. Right.

“I’m the goddess of death, I am immortal!” Hela confirmed his suspicion. “As long as Asgard will be, so will I…”

So, the whole Asgard is not a place spiel from Thor was not all misplaced hope for their people. If Asgardians were what gave their psychopath of a sister her powers, he had his irrefutable proof that Brunnhilde had made it out of Thanos’ attack alive.

“Who did you say birthed you, by the way?” Hela questioned with a wave of a blade. “Thor looks enough like that Vanaheim whore that I didn’t have to ask…”

“Have a care on how you speak of Queen Frigga” Loki hissed his warning, his seidr heating up with anger.

“I am the rightful Queen of Asgard,” Odin’s first-born reminded him, standing taller and lifting her chin. “Frigga poisoned our father’s mind with her talk of peace and benevolence over the Nine Realms. She made him lock me up like a dog! What care did she have for me when she gave my birthright to her spawn?”

For a second Loki had nothing to say back to that. He knew the feeling of betrayal at being relegated to the shadows so that Thor could shine over Asgard, even if his radiance had been all show and no substance for most of their lives.
Over the years, Loki had regretted antagonizing his brother, but he had never regretted postponing the oaf’s coronation. Thor had not been ready to rule back then. How both Odin and Frigga could not see a flaw in their firstborn had been appalling.

Yet, Loki believed that smallfolk and nobles alike would prefer Thor over Hela anytime. To be sure, neither of his siblings had an ounce of the savviness required to rule over their corner of the cosmos, but at least Thor had a good heart. He learned from his mistakes, and his arrogance had mellowed into a healthy measure of confidence in his ability to surmount any obstacle barring him from his goals.

That was enough to lead the brutish Asgardians and possibly Vanaheim and Nidavelir, but nowhere sufficient to hold lordship over Alfheim and Jotunheim, and nowhere close to manage Midgard and its wayward humans.

“You have no one to blame but Odin and yourself,” Loki said sharply. “Believe me, I’ve tried finding other outlets for my anger and sense of inadequacy…”

“I am not inadequate!” the woman denied, her voice bouncing off the fog surrounding them. “I was born to rule the Nine Realms…”

“By killing all the inhabitants who would dare contest your rule, I take it?” Loki mocked her. “That’s not how it’s done. Even Odin knew that. You know that too, deep down.”

For a moment the wannabe queen looked murderous, but then she narrowed her gaze on him, gauging him once again.

“That’s rich, coming from one who wasn’t born to rule,” she remarked with a smirk. “Third in line! You seem much smarter than your elder brother, but I bet Odin never considered you for the throne, did he? Not charismatic enough. You’re one of those who get the job done on the side, while everyone is focused on your better. A servant, rather than a king…”

“I am the rightful heir to the throne of Jotunheim,” Loki roared. “I was born of royal blood, raised a prince above all others across the Nine Realms, and of us three children of Odin, I am the only one who’s sat on Hlidskjalf and held Gungnir for any amount of time that counted!”

He had not meant to burst out so, but regretting his action was too tedious of a task for him to bother. He sighed as he saw his sister’s eyes widen in realization.

“Jotunheim?” She said, slowly raising her right hand, bringing her sword up in a smooth arc. “That explains why I can’t feel your soul energy. You’re telling me that Odin raised the offspring of that monster of Laufey? Adopted it?”

“How must you feel, knowing that the old man preferred the son of his old enemy over his own flesh and blood,” Loki taunted. “Let me guess…Inadequate?”

Hela’s roar pierced through the nothingness of the place as she launched herself at him, both blades brought up over her head to strike him down.

But before Loki could dematerialize and escape her assault, a paralyzing surge of pain took his fake body down, his soul almost vibrating out of his illusion.

On his hands and knees, Loki lifted his head testily to see that Hela was similarly affected, though she was still standing. She had dropped both swords and was holding her middle with both arms, panting loudly.

Suddenly both were teleported to what seemed to be a closed room, though its jet-black ceiling could have been an open sky for all Loki knew.

Now kneeling a few steps away from Death’s throne, the prince of Asgard gathered his wits and stood back up, making sure to bow before speaking.

“As promised, I have returned to discuss the details of…” he started, facing the cloaked figure sitting on a high chair made of bones and rocks.

Silence, the disembodied voice uttered in his mind.

Loki clicked his fake mouth shut, and in his embarrassment glanced at Hela, only to see his adopted sister cowering in the presence of Death. She was barely standing, her knees trembling with fear.

Wasn’t she the goddess of Death? One would think that she would be happy to see the one she represented.

You have failed, Death’s words resonated again, snapping Loki back to attention.

“Pardon me?” he replied, confused. “I assure you, I have brought all you asked for…”

Half of the souls promised to me have been taken away from my grasp, the voice said flatly, though the energy still rattling Loki’s soul conveyed enough of the entity’s anger.

Half of the souls.

Thanos.

Thanos had gathered all the infinity stones, and achieved his goal. Half of the universe was gone.

Thor! The Valkyrie and the other Asgardians!

Sif!

“No…” Loki whispered, gutted by his despair, falling back down on his knees.

Even when he had tried his hardest, he had failed his brother. He had failed the universe, failed to redeem himself from his mistakes.

“With my brother dead, I suppose our deal doesn’t stand anymore,” Loki conceded, head down.

Thor Odinson still breathes, Death said casually.

“Come again?” Loki asked, his head shooting back up.

The paralyzing force holding him dissipated, though his grief kept him down.
But if Thor was still alive, there was no reason to grieve…

Your brother’s soul is still destined for Valhalla, Death informed him, a hint of disdain coloring the energy enveloping the throne.

“Then there’s still a chance to get your souls back,” Loki announced, getting back on his feet.

His plan had not been completely thwarted. All it needed was a little adjustment.

The stones have already been used, Death reminded. It is done.

“Thanos is definitely done using the stones,” Loki agreed. “But I assure you, the stones can be used again.”

He waved his hand to unfold a dimensional pocket and reveal the gauntlet replica he had rescued from the flames of Surtur along with the Tesseract.

“This fake thing? You’re kidding,” Hela finally spoke, amused.

“Oh, right, apologies,” Loki said before enchanting the object, replicating the workings of the original’s magic over the mundane replica right in front to Death and her goddess. The thrill of his reveal kept his adrenaline high enough that the depletion of most of his seidr did not register.

“How…” Hela said, stunned. Death seemed similarly speechless.

“A little trick I learned from the forbidden tomes of magic kept in Odin’s personal library,” the prince flaunted. “The dwarves are equally gifted in spell weaving and forgery. It is extremely rare to excel at both skills, which is why only the best of them could make the gauntlet. Whomever Odin hired to forge this replica was quite the talented blacksmith, but had no magic whatsoever to spell into it. I, on the other hand… All I needed was to get close enough to the real gauntlet to understand the magic embedded in it. Thanos knows nothing of magic of course, so he didn’t even feel me stealing the essence of his precious gauntlet, along with a precious ounce of the essence of the power stone. If he’s truly stolen half of the lives of the whole universe, I can imagine he’s left with a broken gauntlet now.”

The faceless figure of Death stared at him impassively, but Hela seemed interested.

“Thanos,” she said the name clearly unappealing to her tongue as it was to Loki’s. “Isn’t it that thug from Titan who destroys half the populations of planets he wishes to rule over?”

“The very one,” Loki confirmed, intrigued by his sister’s knowledge of the tyran.

“How is it that Father hadn’t taken care of him, after all this time?” Hela questioned, confusion clear on her features.

To be fair, she did look more like Odin than Thor. That did not change the fact that the old man had removed her from the line of succession.

“You know better than anyone that Father preferred ignoring his problems rather than facing them,” the god of Mischief reminded the goddess of Death.

What do you propose? Death in question asked Loki.

“If we can come to an arrangement,” he said with a pointed look at Hela before turning toward the seated silhouette, “then I know a way to reverse Thanos’ deed.”

Chapter Text

As Brunnhilde recognized the design of the newly arrived spaceship, she reflected that she had been sober for too long.

Alcohol would’ve definitely helped after she had witnessed half of the Asgardians in the escape pod turn into ashes.

And as if that tragedy hadn’t been enough on top of the destruction of the Realm Eternal just a few days back and being attacked by Thanos, now the escape pod was being engulfed into the first ship that had passed by.

A Brig of Kree design. They had been picked up by a space prison owned by some blue-skinned megalomaniac. Great.

As the small spaceship awkwardly landed into a vast hangar, Brunnhilde looked at the visuals from the one external camera.

She felt her eyebrows rise to her hairline as she saw the chaos raging around them.

Creatures of different species were running around with makeshift weapons – mostly heavy pipes – and beating Kree guards in groups.

A deafening clank of metal resonated through the escape pod, and the last Valkyrie sighed as she approached the door, waving sharply at the few civilian refugees who made to follow her.

All of the rebels from Saakar, including Korg, had gone into the ventilating system with half of the people Thor had charged Brunnhilde to protect. That left Brunnhilde as the only capable fighter of their group.

The number of people trying to open the latch door seemed to double by the time the Asgardian warrior looked through its small window, appraising what was waiting beyond the many inches of reinforced metal.

Half a dozen humanoids faces snarled at her, the closest one beating the window with its bare clawed hands.

“Something’s happening,” someone said in the back.

The Valkyrie whipped her head around and squinted at the main screen just in time to see prisoners getting catapulted across the hangar by blasts of yellow energy.

She quickly turned back to see some of the ones at the door scrambling away, and took a deep breath before pulling down the lever to unseal the door.

Kicking it open to knock down an orange-skinned prisoner, Brunnhilde unsheathed her sword in a narrow arc to hit its pommel on the scale-covered face of another who was coming up on her right. Three more prisoners were rushing toward her, two in the front and one to the left.

The Valkyrie kicked back the door shut then brought her leg forward to hit one prisoner hard enough in the chest to send him crashing into the one right behind him, and spun sharply to elbow the remaining assailant.

Smiling at her handiwork – none of the prisoners stood back up - Brunnhilde kept her sword ready as she scanned around her.

Space crafts of diverse sizes and makes were parked haphazardly around the hangar, most of them in poor shape. No wonder their escape pod had been targeted so quickly, it was the only one that looked in working order.

The sound of commotion ahead of her caught the Asgardian warrior’s attention, and she stared at the back of a person covered from head to toe in a red, blue and gold uniform, sending waves of energy from her fists. From her body shape, Brunnhilde assumed she was some humanoid female.

Two massive Kree guards ran into an elevated platform of the hangar behind the woman knocking out the prisoners, and as soon as she saw them aim their guns at the one in red the Valkyrie rushed toward them.

“Watch out!” She yelled as she threw her sword upward. It didn’t reach one of the Kree’s neck as she had aimed for.

It ricocheted off his bulk instead, then dropped back down on her level.

Nevertheless, the hit made the guard drop his weapon, and also distracted the other. The one still armed glared at Brunnhilde and started aiming at her.

A red and gold streak flashed through the two guards, sending them falling off the platform. Their impact on the floor didn’t sound fatal, but they were definitely knocked unconscious.

“Thanks,” a woman's voice said as the stranger in the tricolor uniform levitated down to land in front of the Valkyrie, and her helmet disappeared to reveal shoulder-length blonde hair and the pale face of a woman.

She looked Xandarian, but her uniform didn’t look like anything worn by the Nova Corps forces. The energy blasts were definitely not their style, either.

The woman looked around as she approached the Valkyrie, her stance still defensive, but after a moment she nodded and crouched down to pick up the sword.

“Cool blade,” the blonde commented with a smirk as she handed it back to Brunnhilde pommel first.

“Not as cool as what you have there,” the brunette replied, staring at the female’s uncovered fists.

So, the blasts didn’t come from a weapon embedded in her suit, but from her own body. And she could fly too by the looks of it.

Brunnhilde had loved being able to move in the air on her winged horse back when her order still existed. Very few sensations topped the feeling of flying, not even the sweet mind floating brought by inebriety. For a second she envied the stranger.

The shuffling of feet behind the two women made the Valkyrie roll her eyes even before she turned around to glare at a dozen Asgardians, armed with sticks and pipes pilfered from unconscious prisoners.

“Are you…Are you all from Xandar?” the stranger asked, her voice laced with interest.

“No, I thought you were,” Brunnhilde replied with a frown. “Aren’t you?”

“Me? No. It’s complicated, but I’m from Earth.”

The Valkyrie couldn’t help letting her jaw drop. Forgetting the fact that this person was more powerful than she remembered humans to be, what had been the odd of her group of escapees finding just the right person to bring them to where Thor had wanted them to go?

“Midgardians are weak,” an Asgardian said, clearly dubious of the information the stranger had provided.

Brunnhilde actually knew him by name, Elric Mikkelson. The lad was a noble, grandson of Tegra. Tegra Bjarnison had been one of the members of Odin’s Council when Brunnilde had first served the throne of Asgard. She hadn’t cared to ask Elric what had happened to Tegra, since he’d obviously died sometime in the few millennia of her self-exile.

No matter, the family’s sense of honor and pride had successfully been passed down to Elric. He had tried to order Brunnhilde around on account of being higher born. If there was one capable of offending one of their future hosts, it would be him.

“We’re stronger than the rest of the universe think we are,” the human said as she crossed her arms over her chest, “but I’m special. Like I said, it’s complicated. And I’m guessing you aren’t from Earth either,” she added with a raised eyebrow and a mocking lift of her lips.

“We’re from Asgard,” Brunnhilde told her with an apologetic shrug.

She had to tell Thor about teaching his subjects some humility. The Era of Odin was over, and with Asgard itself destroyed no one would fear its people anymore.

“Asgard?” the stranger repeated. “Like in Norse mythology? Where is that?”

Brunnhilde sheathed her sword with enough force to quiet down the outraged gasps behind her.

“It is no more,” she informed the super-powered human. “It was destroyed just a few days ago. It’s a long story. Actually, we were on our way to Midgard – Earth, when we were attacked, then our escape pod got taken in by this brig.”

“That was me,” the blonde said, “I saw your distress signal. You’re actually the second group I rescued today. Didn’t expect the prison break though, my apologies. And while I am going to Earth, I’m afraid I can’t bring you with me.”

“You must,” Elric demanded, “it’s where our king wanted us to go. He’s probably on his way there as we speak.”

“I have it under high authority that Earth is a battleground as we speak,” the Midgardian informed. “Very powerful forces have brought war to my home planet. I am not bringing refugees there. I can tell that you’re the only capable fighter here…”

“Valkyrie,” Brunnhilde offered, not willing to give her name to the stranger. No one alive knew her true name anyway.

“Right,” the woman replied unconvincingly. “Captain Marvel. Listen, if I see your king on Earth, I’ll tell him where I dropped you off. But I’m not taking you there.”

The Valkyrie lifted her arm to stop Elric, who seemed ready to argue again.

In the end, it was for the best that they didn’t reunite with Thor, Loki, and the others yet. If they had not gone to ashes themselves.

Wherever the Odinsons went, trouble followed. It was better for Brunnhilde to get the few remaining Asgardians to a friendly location, where they could rest and properly grieve for their losses. If their hosts were nice enough, maybe she’d find her own way to Midgard and assist Thor.

Plus, she needed a drink before jumping to the next battlefield.

“Alright,” she finally conceded. “If you can, take us to Vanaheim instead.”

“You said that you rescued another group before us,” Brunnhilde recalled as she poured herself a generous glass of whatever liquor those Kree traffickers favored.

After rounding up the prisoners and Kree guards and confining them to locked cells, both women had ushered the refugees to decent living quarters. The Valkyrie had then followed their rescuer to the control room and helped her locate Vanaheim before setting hyperspace travel.

They had a few hours to kill before reaching the right solar system, and both had silently agreed to relax in the commander’s office.

“Only two people actually,” Marvel replied, eyeing the glass of alcohol disapprovingly. “They were unconscious when I found them, extremely dehydrated and hypoxemic. They’re resting in the infirmary on my cruiser. One of them looks human, though I doubt he is, what with the reactor in his chest and the fact that he’s much too far from home. To the best of my knowledge, my kind hasn’t mastered space travel yet.”

“They haven’t according to Thor,” the Valkyrie confirmed. “He’s been protecting your planet from enemies coming from other realms. Why weren’t you there, if you are powerful enough to do it yourself? Asgard was left in the wrong hands because our king was busy gallivanting with his Midgardian friends.”

“I had unfinished business with the people who gave me my powers,” the blonde replied. “Among other things. I’ve been hunting and stopping intergalactic criminals for years. As much as I would like to be home more often, I can’t ignore the greater needs of the universe just to care for Earth, whose greatest enemy is its own inhabitants when it’s all said and done. I’ve been to hundreds of worlds, and it saddens me to say that my people are among the most destructive species that I know, and that’s despite being among the most technologically primitive of all.”

“That’s because you haven’t heard of my people,” Brunnhilde countered before knocking back her drink.

Had she been alone or in a bar, she would’ve unabashedly moaned at the sweet burn running down her throat, but this Captain Marvel seemed to be one of those uptight wannabe heroes.

“And what’s so special about you guys, other than being worshipped by some of my people centuries ago,” Marvel asked flatly.

“Remember how I told you that our planet was destroyed?” the Valkyrie said, and waited for the other woman’s nod to continue “Well, our own king planned its explosion because he didn’t want his sister to rule it. To be fair, she was a bloodthirsty psychopath. More realms would’ve gone to ashes if she had become the new Queen of Asgard.”

An awkward silence settled between the two occupants of the commander’s office, the human female staring at the Asgardian one with comical shock.

“No wonder he fits so well with the people of Earth,” the super-powered woman joked. “I promise to look for him when I get there. I’m sure he’s worried about you, especially if he knows about the wipe out of half the universe, which must have been quite obvious on my planet.”

“I’m surprised you missed it,” Brunnhilde pointed out. “Have people not gone to ashes right in front of you lately?”

“I’ve been tracking this brig on my own for weeks,” Captain Marvel explained. “I received the news about the destruction of Xandar, but the report didn’t mention Thanos. I’ve only heard his name mentioned in relation to Ronan, a Kree who wanted to bring back war between Hala and Xandar.”

“I don’t know much about the Kree,” Brunnhilde said as she poured herself another glass of the delicious spirit, “other than they’re even more arrogant than us and experiment on other species to make them as monstrous as themselves.”

“Well, I’m working on getting rid of these guys,” Marvel said with a wince, “but not all Kree are evil. I’ve worked with many who are similarly trying to right the wrongs committed by just a few.”

“Good luck with that,” the Valkyrie mockingly toasted before downing the alcohol.

“Should you be drinking right now?” Marvel questioned, judgment heightening the pitch of her voice. “You’re the leader of your group, you should remain level-headed until you're all safe”

“Asgardians can hold their liquor, don’t worry, child,” the Valkyrie assured before letting out a loud burp.

“I’m not a child,” the human contested, straightening to her full height and propping her hands on her hips.

If Brunnhilde remembered correctly, Midgardians didn’t live past a century. That meant that their savior was even younger than the youngest member in her group of refugees.

Which was a shame, because this Midgardian looked to have just the stamina the Valkyrie liked in her bed partners. Had that blonde hair been any longer, the human could pass for a Valkyrie herself. After a much needed revision of her wardrobe, of course.

“I’ve been to a few hundred worlds myself,” Brunnhilde informed the powered human, “and Midgardians are by far the shortest-lived creatures I know. You said you were given these powers. Were you also given immortality?”

“Those who gave me my powers claimed that I would live longer,” Marvel replied gravely, looking out the window that gave them a view on the stars they were passing at faster-than-light speed. “I’ve only just reached the age where I can tell that they told me the truth.”

“I’m three thousand years old,” the Valkyrie said, smiling at the shock on the blonde’s face. “I’ve been alive long enough to tell if someone’s naïveté is due to youth, arrogance, or a long time of sheltering from the harshness of reality. You only think you can ‘right the wrongs’ of those who came before you because you’re too young to understand that it’s impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” the Midgardian argued. “I’ve ended wars people who thought themselves my betters didn’t even think I could fight. I’ve saved whole civilizations from destruction. I will save my world from its current enemies, mark my words. And however this Thanos managed to erase half of the universe, I will figure out a way to reverse it. I will do it because…” 

“Let me guess,” Brunnhilde interrupted her, her lips halfway to her third glass of liquor. “Because that’s what heroes do?”

Chapter Text

“Give her the freshest hay you have,” Sif said to the stable hand as she jogged away from her mare.

She had ridden the poor beast hard, but it had paid off. She made the distance between the tavern and the spaceport in half the time it would have taken a lesser rider.

As she stepped onto the bridge, the warrior was joined by a small group of guards who escorted her to the landing dock. The walk across the long metallic path allowed Sif the time to appraise the place.

Having used the Bifrost all her life, Sif rarely put foot in spacesports. This one was not much different from the skiff hangar on Asgard, though it was much larger to accommodate a variety of space crafts.

Sif saw more groups of warriors patrolling, emerging to and fro the heavy metal doors sectioning the spaceport. Many of them looked too young to serve, and the Asgardian noticed the nervous gazes on some of them.

Since Vanaheim had seen half of its people turn to ashes – as did all realms, if rumors were to be believed – it was not surprising to see that inexperienced recruits had been promoted to more crucial duties.

Sif herself had helped law enforcers restore order in the realm during the chaotic days following the tragic and random disappearance of nobles and baseborn alike.

It had been a tedious task, but she had carried it successfully, as she had done so many times before in the name of Odin and Asgard.

This time she had only done it in the name of honor and good will, for both the king and the Realm Eternal were gone.

Blinking away the grief threatening to overwhelm her, Sif briefly grabbed the hilt of the dagger cinched at her belt as she took quiet deep breaths and focused on the sound of the dozens of boots hitting the smooth floor of the bridge.

The Allfather had gifted her the small weapon on the day he had tasked her to escort Lord Alric, a member of Odin’s Council, to Vanaheim. It had been her name day, though Sif herself had forgotten it. Maybe Odin had felt apologetic for sending her away from home on a day she was supposed to celebrate.

Lord Alric had vanished from existence, likely turned to ashes, just a few days ago.

Until a few hours ago, Sif had thought that she was one of the only two Asgardians left in the universe. Had the royal messenger not interrupted her, she would have been drowning her sorrow in the strongest ale they had at her favorite tavern, the one she, Thor and the Warriors Three never missed to go to whenever they visited Vanaheim.

The royal missive informing her that a group of Asgardians who had escaped Ragnarok was arriving on a spaceship had nearly made her cry in joy and relief.

The upper level door to the landing dock opened, and Sif’s heart skipped a beat as she saw queen Freya, framed by a group of elite guards.

The Vanir queen usually reminded Sif of Frigga, which was not surprising as the two women had been cousins.

In her time of grief, however, Freya looked much more like Thor. The crease on her brow mirrored the one Thor had sported at the official announcement of Loki’s death all these years ago.

Sif had heard that the Vanir queen had not eaten anything since the tragic passing of her twin brother, king Frey, who had turned to dust during a public hearing. Quieter rumors claimed that she had not cried at all, and was actually thriving as the sole ruler of the planet.

Yet, just like Thor, the queen still looked regal despite her clear distress, her long blonde hair in sharp contrast to her purple overcoat, her chin held high as she waited for the people she had to host on top of fulfilling duties she was used to sharing with her sibling.

When Sif approached, she saw that the skin below the Vanir queen’s bright blue eyes was sallow, a sign of the poor sleep she was getting in the middle of this crisis.

“Lady Sif,” Freya greeted without taking her eyes off the sky, though the ship was not yet visible. “My heart celebrates with yours at the good news. The ship should enter the atmosphere shortly.”

“Do you know if the Warriors Three are among them?” Sif could not help asking eagerly.

“I only know that there is a Valkyrie among them,” Freya replied with a slow shake of her head, “which is a miracle in itself.”

“The Valkyries all died in a glorious battle millennia ago,” Sif recited reflexively, blinking in disbelief.

Freya did look at her then, a deeper frown splitting her brow. She opened her mouth, but closed it without letting out a word, and then sighed quietly.

“What would be the point of uncovering Odin’s lies now that his legacy has all gone up in flames,” the queen said.

“Thor is still alive!” Sif countered, alarmed by the Vanir’s words. “He left Asgard years ago, he probably does not even know about Ragnarok.”

“According to the prophecy, a child of Odin was the catalyst of Ragnarok,” Freya told her. “Unless Odin lied about Hela all this time, Thor is the only one who could have started the destruction of Asgard, since Loki passed away.”

“Who’s Hela?” Sif asked, but a burst of color in the clear sky commanded everyone’s attention just as the sound of a big falling object reached the Asgardian’s ears.

The warrior noticed right away that the spacecraft was too small to contain more than a few hundred people. It was more an escape pod than a spaceship.

Asgard had counted close to a million people when she had left it almost four years ago.

Despite its alarmingly fast descent, the escape pod landed smoothly, and after a minute of silence, its only door popped open, and people filed out of the contraption.

She had not believed Freya just a few minutes earlier, but the sight of the grey armor, blue cape and dragonfang convinced Sif that the woman leading the small group of civilians was indeed a Valkyrie.

She was shorter than Sif had imagined such a legendary warrior to be, but commanded attention nevertheless as she approached the welcoming group.

“Princess…Queen Freya,” she stumbled a bit, blinking at the crown on the head of the Vanir woman.

“You truly are a Valkyrie of Odin if you remember me as a princess,” Freya replied with an amused smile. “It is a relief to welcome the remaining people of Asgard. We thought everyone gone to ashes.”

“Half of those who escaped Ragnarok did turn to dust,” the Valkyrie informed somberly. “King Thor charged me to protect them all, yet half have perished under my watch.”

“Thor is king?” Sif exclaimed, eyes wide. “When did it happen? Where is he now?”

It was all she could do not to step closer to the older warrior and press her for more answers. Her life-long respect for the elite group of female soldiers reigned in her curiosity.

“You’re Asgardian,” the Valkyrie stated flatly, looking her up and down. “No one told me that Asgard had raised a new order of women soldiers.”

“I am sure that you two will have ample time to make each other’s acquaintance,” Freya announced curtly, her impatience seeping through her mask of gracious host. “How many do I have to make accommodation for? Is the new Allfather among you?”

“If he survived the attack from Thanos - who is likely responsible for the death of half of the universe - Thor is either on his way to or already on Midgard,” the Valkyrie finally replied. “It is my intension to join him there, as he is possibly engaged in a fierce battle against Thanos’ forces. Another Midgardian took us here, and is already on her way there herself. She’s the one who told us of the conflict on Midgard.”

It took several heartbeats for all the information to sink into Sif’s mind, and when it did it took all her discipline not to beg Freya for her fastest cruiser so she could accompany the Valkyrie to Midgard.

“Thanos,” Freya said. “The one from Titan? The rumors were true?”

Sif looked back and forth between the queen and the Valkyrie, who nodded slowly.

“Although King Thor tasked me to protect his people, I ask your permission to depart for Midgard on one of your swiftest spaceships as soon as you can provide us shelfter, your majesty. The fate of the whole universe is at stake.”

“Follow me, then,” Freya said without further ado, and with a wave of her hand she directed a few soldiers to escort the tired-looking Asgardians, while her own royal guards marched with her, Sif and the Valkyrie toward a lower level of the spaceport.

There, a roofless hovering vessel took them through a long tunnel all the way to the vaults under the palace grounds.

“I am Sif,” the younger warrior introduced herself to the Valkyrie, breaking the silence as the group climbed up the stairs to a hidden door that gave access to the waiting hall preceding the throne room. “I have fought countless battles at Thor’s side, and will forever regret not being there at his greatest time of need.”

“It was better for you not to be there, believe me,” the Valkyrie replied. “Hela killed every single soldier on Asgard, you would have been dead had you been there.”

“Hela?” Sif repeated as they all entered the throne room, her voice loud in her surprise. She had heard that name twice now in less than an hour.

“I prefer ‘Your Majesty’ but I won’t hold it against you for not knowing who I am,” an unfamiliar voice said, the sound resonating in the vast room.

Sif looked ahead and gasped as she saw a woman in a skin-tight black and green armor sitting sideways on one of the twin thrones, her legs dangling over an armrest.

As the royal guards assumed a defensive formation in front of Freya, the stranger swung her legs around to sit properly on the royal seat, hands with black-painted nails settling on the armrests one finger at a time.

Sif shuddered as the woman leaned over her perch, her long raven hair spilling over like a curtain to cover half of her face, her visible green eye shining with malice as she smiled at her audience.

“Freya,” she greeted calmly, though her croaky voice was just as unnerving as the gaze that settled on the Vanir queen. “I should have known that Odin would let you take this façade of a throne. I assume the other seat is for Frey. And where is that brother of yours?”

“Seize her!” the leader of the royal guard ordered as he himself surged forward, running toward this Hela with his sword drawn.

“Fuck,” the Valkyrie swore on Sif’s left, unsheathing her dragonfang with one hand just as she grabbed the arm of a guard with another, jerking him back from his forward movement.

“You, take your queen away to somewhere safe,” she ordered as she shoved the guard toward Freya. “Keep her with the Asgardians so I won’t have to worry about them separately.”

“You’re not in command here,” the Vanir queen reprimanded, though she still looked shell-shocked at the sight of the woman in black.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty,” the seasoned warrior said as she rolled her shoulders, “caring for the chain of command is the least of your worries at the moment. I suggest you task your most efficient messengers with preparing your people to evacuate the planet.”

The queen stared in outrage but eventually nodded before gathering the skirts of her dress and following her guard out of the room.

“You said you’ve fought alongside Thor before, so I hope you’ll manage to stay alive,” the Valkyrie told Sif as she warmed her wrist by swinging her blade in loops. “She can materialize blades from anywhere around her in a two dozen pace perimeter.”

“What?” Sif exclaimed just before a gruesome scream resonated through the room.

Sif stared as a huge sword, which seemed to have emerged from the floor, impaled one of guards, whose scream died in a wet gurgle.

“Just so,” the Valkyrie commented with a nod. “Be careful,” she added before launching herself toward Hela.

For a moment, Sif was frozen on the spot.

She had fought many enemies, most of them cruel and ruthless, but none had ever been as quick or lethal as the woman whose black hair had transformed into a black helmet made of spikes bent at angles that made them look like horns.

Another of Freya’s guards was trying to run her through with his spear, but Hela elegantly jumped out of range of his weapon, spinning mid-air before extending her arm as she landed, a normal-sized sword appearing from her fingers and landing with a sickening crunch in the shoulder of the soldier.

Hela pulled her extended arm back toward her chest, and the sword followed her movement, bringing the soldier stumbling toward her.

Sif watched in horror as the woman in black ripped the sword away from the soldier’s body, effectively severing his whole arm. Not even waiting for the fatally wounded soldier to hit the ground, Hela turned away from him and threw the sword at another guard, and the blade went through his helmet and embedded itself in his skull.

“Don’t just stand there!” the Valkyrie yelled at her as she deflected another blade coming out of thin air with her dragonfang.

Sif swallowed heavily, ignoring the trembling of her right arm as she slid her sword off her shield, swung it in a circle and jerked it forward to release the second blade just in time to knock away a blade coming her way.

She started running across the polished marble floor of the throne room to join the Valkyrie against Hela, but had to immediately drop to her knees as the invader threw three blades at her in quick succession.

Sif bent backward to let one blade pass over her head, slid across the floor before throwing herself to her right to avoid the second blade, and slipped her left arm into her shield strap right before rolling back to her feet, swinging it downward across her torso to deflect the third blade.

The Valkyrie evaded many other blades in turn, managing to step closer to Hela until she could shove her dragonfang against Hela’s chest.

But Hela grabbed the turquoise blade with her bare hand and threw it away along with the warrior wielding it.

She brought her arms down, and a sword appeared on each of her hands.

“I did not come here to play,” Hela declared as she walked unhurriedly toward Sif. “You have something that I need, child.”

“I am Lady Sif of Asgard,” the warrior corrected her as she bent her knees and brought her shield arm forward, “and I do not heed the demands of murderers.”

“I know who you are, little soldier,” Hela replied with a shrug before pointing one of her sword at Sif’s belt. “Give me the dagger or I’ll take it from your dead body myself.”

She suddenly took off from the floor, jumping high before landing quietly a few paces away. Just where she had been standing, another Vanir guard and the Valkyrie swung their weapons, their blades slicing through air instead of armor and flesh.

“Over my dead body too,” the Valkyrie said through greeted teeth over her shoulder, before looking at Sif. “Why is this dagger important?”

“I don’t know,” Sif replied sincerely. “Odin gave it to me on my name’s day four years ago…”

“Odin?” the Valkyrie repeated, side-stepping closer to her while still facing Hela. “Unless you are more than Thor’s shield mate, I don’t see why the Allfather himself would gift you anything. Had he done it before?”

“No, never before,” Sif recalled. “I found it odd, but the king had been acting unusually ever since the Allmother’s death, and then Thor’s departure…”

“Funny,” Hela interrupted from a distance, “Loki told me that he’s the one who gave it to you!”

“What?” both Sif and the Valkyrie responded with surprise, and Hela made her swords disappear before bringing her hands to her hips.

“Yes,” she confirmed, “and weren’t you on his side last time?” she asked the Valkyrie with a jerk of her chin. “My little brother is the one who sent me here. How did you think I found you all?”

“I know that Loki is a traitor, but even he wouldn’t send you after King Thor’s people,” the Valkyrie replied.

Sif stared at her, then at Hela.

How could either of these women, whom she had never heard of before, mention Loki not only as if they knew him personally, but as if he was still alive?

Chapter Text

Staring at the ordinary-looking dagger, Hela admitted to herself that she was impressed by Loki’s work: without the knowledge that it truly was Gungnir, she would have never given the tiny weapon a second glance.

The goddess’ little brother had even managed to mask the Odinforce coming from it. Hela could tell that a great power of Asgard was in close proximity, but alone she would not have been able to locate it.

Normally, Hela would have strangled Loki for replacing Gungnir with a mundane facsimile. Back on Asgard she had known that the trick had not been from Thor, who had himself tried to use the fake weapon against her.

Not that using Odin’s weapon could have helped him win the fight. Gungnir’s true powers were only available to those who could manipulate seidr, and Odin’s favorite child was anything but a sorcerer.

“I just wished I had been there to see Thor holding the spear only to realize it was a useless piece of gold,” Loki had told her after Death had dismissed them, looking for an inter-dimensional tear leading back to the world of the living.

With Loki’s precise directions, Hela had left Nilfhein for Alfheim. From the elven realm she had swiftly travelled to Vanaheim by slipping through another interrealm portal.

The trip had been short but boring enough that Hela had gladly taken the Vanir soldiers’ offer to work a little sweat.

Finding the little Lady Sif so soon had been a pleasant surprise. Death had informed them that the girl was still alive, but had not offered to locate her among the Vanir.

What was even more surprising was to see that pesky Valkyrie again. Now that she was not engaged in combat anymore, Hela could feel that more Asgardians were on Vanaheim. Good.

With its people surviving Ragnarok, Asgard could be rebuilt, stronger and more glorious than ever.

“How do you know Loki?” Sif, asked, looking back and forth between her and the Valkyrie.

“I will let my brother explain everything to your slow minds,” Hela promised with a dismissive wave of her hand, “once you give me that dagger and go prepare the fastest cruiser they have here so I can retrieve his body.”

“Brother?” Sif repeated inanely, dropping her defensive stance in her surprise like a child on the first day of combat training.

The Valkyrie dropped her defensive stance more deliberately, a frown indicating that she was working her atrophied thinking muscle.

“You’re not making any sense, old hag,” she eventually declared.

Hela made a very long jagged piece of sharp marble surge up just a few inches away from the insolent former dog of Odin. The Valkyrie paled for a moment, but recovered quickly.

“Your opinion does not matter to me,” the goddess informed her. “What matters to me is that you let me uphold my part of my arrangement with my brother, your prince, this instant.”

Hela turned her gaze to Sif, whom Loki had assured was sharper than she appeared. All she had to do was pass on her brother’s message.

“Lady Sif,” she recited, “I won’t lie by promising to explain everything, but trust that what I’ve done was in the best interest of Asgard, and that Thor himself will thank me for it. As we speak, my brother needs our assistance in defeating the one responsible for the catastrophe that has reached all corners of the universe. That same individual, whose name doesn’t deserve to be mentioned, happens to be responsible for my one true death. You know that I will do everything to take my revenge, even stooping as low as playing the hero with Thor and his Midgardian friends. Give Hela the dagger and I will grant you any wish of yours once this war is over – bare the one wish to win over Thor’s heart, obviously.”

“Message from Loki,” Hela concluded as she extended her hand again, expecting the dagger.

The girl frowned furiously, her mouth opening as if to condemn Loki’s words, but she then calmed down and looked down at the dagger on her belt.

“I should have known,” Sif said as she unstrapped it before looking back at Hela. “There were so many signs…That hideous statue,” the girl added with a shake of her hand and a disapproving frown.

She stepped forward, evading the Valkyrie who tried to block her path, but stopped a few paces away from Hela, dropping the disguised weapon on the floor.

“I demand that you take me with you,” Sif said, “that I may collect my reward from Loki, but also to make sure that you aren’t lying.”

Hela snorted, then took a few steps to pick up the dagger, which transformed back into its true form.

Loki had enchanted it to respond to Odin’s blood, apparently.

“What have you done?” the Valkyrie shouted at Sif, who stood incredulous. “Now she’s even more powerful than ever!”

“I don’t need my father’s spear to whip some loyalty into your fragile bodies,” Hela reminded her. “Now go fetch me a comfortable and fast spaceship or I’ll slaughter every last Vanir on this worthless realm.”

She consolidated her threat by leaning the spear away from her so that its prongs pointed at the only surviving Vanir guard in the room.

The man froze on the spot, too cowardly to even try to evade the threat.

The two Asgardian soldiers exchanged a look, then Sif nodded before running out of the throne room. After narrowing her eyes at Hela, the Valkyrie followed the girl, gesturing at the soldier to come along.

Alone once more, Hela returned to one of the twin thrones – how hypocritical of Odin to let the Vanir siblings rule together, but to have his two sons compete for the one seat of his throne.

The goddess took a few deep breaths, and let the magic of Gungnir envelope her, focusing her mind on the image of her youngest brother.

There was his lifeless body, at the edge of the galaxy Midgard belonged to, as Loki had predicted.

Before she hoped off the chair, Hela spared an all-seeing glance at her more aggravating brother.

The oaf had found himself an eye to replace the one she had taken from him. He was dressed in what the goddess supposed to be Midgardian attire.

Thor radiated misery, surrounded by equally miserable mortals who were arguing over how to find Thanos. There was nothing kingly about Odin’s favorite, neither in his attitude nor in his appearance.

Well, a family reunion was in order.

“Welcome back your highness,” Hela heard the Valkyrie greet a newly resurrected Loki from her pilot seat.

After a whole day of travel, they had retrieved Loki’s body, which had been restored to life after Hela touched a hand to his heart.

It had felt fundamentally wrong for Hela to give life rather than take it, and even more wrong to owe that one time ability to Death herself.

“Why thank you,” the god of mischief replied with a hoarse voice before materializing an apple that could only come from Idunn’s orchard.

Indeed, all signs of his injuries disappeared from by the time Loki was done eating the juicy fruit.

“You stole one of Idunn’s apples!” Sif accused with a frown. “What else did you do, trickster, while you were usurping the throne of Asgard?”

“Did I specify to bring her along? I don’t remember doing so,” Loki asked Hela with his restored voice, ignoring the girl’s question.

“Didn’t you promise to grant her a wish?” the Valkyrie reminded him before setting the coordinates of Midgard in the navigation system.

“Weren’t you in charge of taking care of the people?” Loki countered he improved even more with a sweep of golden seidr.

Hela took a small step to the side to let her brother take a seat next to the Valkyrie. After reviewing the spell Loki had just used, the goddess used Gungnir to improve her own appearance.

She remodeled her armor, embedding it with dozens of spells to grant her more strength. Now her armor was more green than black, and her new cape fell from her new pauldrons. Her new helmet, which she did not need at the moment, would cover her eyes. She had even converted Gungnir into a sword.

Loki seemed uninterested in their father’s weapon. He had glanced at it, but not asked for it. He was smart enough to understand that Hela would wield it better than him.

“We met a Midgardian who refused to take us to Midgard because it is supposedly a battleground,” Odin’s former battle dog commented. “Yet Hela saw that Thor wasn’t engaged in battle before we left Vanaheim. What excuse will we provide when he asks us what we’re doing with Hela, of all people?”

“I’m not here to contest his illegitimacy,” the goddess of death assured the Valkyrie as she made herself comfortable in the commander’s seat. “Tell me of your plan, Loki. How can we defeat Thanos now that he has all the Infinity stones?”

“I need to confirm my theory with someone else before I discuss it with all of you,” the prince admitted without looking back at her.

He was moving one hand around in complex runic formations, wisps of his seidr floating around his fingers. Evidently the other Asgardians could not perceive his use of magic, but with Gungnir Hela could tell that he was working powerful spells.

“How is it that you never used your magic against me?” Hela questioned her brother. “You seem powerful enough to have threatened Father.”

In her peripheral vision, Hela saw the little Lady Sif whip her head around to stare at Loki, who just shrugged.

“I have many reasons and I don’t owe you an explanation for all of them,” her brother replied haughtily as he stopped working on his spells. “But as you can imagine, coming back to life is no small feat, even with the help of Death. I couldn’t waste my seidr for something as trivial as a civil war when I knew I’d need it for something more impactful.”

That was more than enough explanation to Hela. Whatever his other excuses, her brother had the right to keep them to himself.

While at first Hela had been disappointed that neither Thor nor Loki was as powerful as her, she now understood that they were weak by Odin’s design. The old man had done everything to prevent his other spawns from ever growing more powerful than him.

Now that Odin was gone, Hela was not going to let the opportunity to regain power pass her by. She could train her younger brothers and with a little diplomacy, she could persuade them to rebuild the Asgardian Empire bigger and more powerful than Odin ever envisioned.

Fighting them over the throne had been her mistake, she could admit it now.

She knew that what was left of Asgard needed the House of Odin to be united on all fronts in this time of crisis if there was any chance of reviving their culture.

It was embarrassing that Asgard had let a blundering fool such as Thanos become the most powerful being of the universe. Hela hoped that her brothers would understand that it was their father’s mistakes that had led them to this wide-scale catastrophe. Had the universe been under Asgard’s rule as Hela had planned millennia ago, the titan would have never been able to collect and use the infinity gems.

“I need a drink,” the Valkyrie said, bringing Hela out of her reflection.

The soldier left the pilot seat after activating the automatic navigation system.

Loki seemed interested in taking over, but Sif beat him to it.

“There will be an asteroid field blocking the way,” the young warrior informed out as she took command of the navigation. “I’ll make sure we avoid it.”

“You just want to practice your piloting skills,” Loki commented after rolling his eyes. “And how is it that you know so much about this solar system, hmm? Been reading about it to impress Thor with knowledge of his favorite little planet and its surroundings?”

“Shut up, Loki,” Sif replied, and once again Hela was shocked at the casual way the warrior addressed her prince.

Such casualness toward the royal family would not be tolerated on New Asgard, but for now the goddess would keep the peace.

The blush that had taken over the girl’s face when Loki mentioned Thor did make the goddess want to puke.

Sentiment. Her father’s weakness.

The rest of the trip toward Midgard was completed in intermittent silence, the Valkyrie and Loki using a few words to alternatively reminisce time spent on a planet called Saakar and mock Sif’s piloting skills.

Hela was surprised to enjoy the uneventful moment.

“What in Hel?” Sif muttered as Midgard came to view.

Hovering over the blue planet were four other spaceships, all much larger than their cruiser. The debris of a fifth craft were hiding their cruiser from sight.

“Who are they?” Loki asked as he turned toward Hela.

The goddess relayed the question to Gungnir, and saw that Midgard was crawling with different species of soldiers. They had landed on different corners of the planet but seem to be converging toward one territory.

“There are five different armies, though they seem to fight as one,” Hela answered as Gungnir showed her the different factions. “They’re close to taking over the whole planet, but Thor and his companions are holding them off on their turf. One army is Kree, but I don’t recognize the other races.”

“That spaceship is Rajak,” the Valkyrie identified, and just as she pointed at it, the vessel exploded.

Something, or rather someone, flew out of the destroyed spaceship, leaving a yellow trail as it avoided fire beams from two of the remaining space crafts.

“That’s Captain Marvel,” the Valkyrie said again with a smile. “I gathered that she’s used to space combat.”

“Not very helpful since most of their forces have already landed on the planet,” Hela informed as she summoned her helmet.

“Move,” the Valkyrie barked at Sif to reclaim the pilot seat. “They haven’t noticed us yet, let’s go around and land somewhere.”

Almost an hour later, they touched ground in the ruins of a Midgardian city that had already been destroyed by the invaders, though many distressed mortals were still running around.

“We should split,” Loki recommended before they could all get off the cruiser.

“If this is another plan of yours, trickster…” Sif warned as she reached for her sword at her back.

“Let him speak,” the Valkyrie cut off the girl before Hela could do it herself.

“Hela and I will take care of the ones in the periphery,” Loki instructed the elite soldier as if Sif had not said anything. “You and Sif find your way to Thor.”

“Protecting the king is the only order I’d gladly take from you,” the Valkyrie said as she returned to her seat.

Loki smirked, and then disappeared with a flare of golden light.

“This is a bad idea,” Sif said with a frown, but she stayed on the craft as Hela followed her brother outside.

They were welcome by a group of a few hundred soldiers, just the right number for the goddess of death to warm up.

“Let’s show these amateurs how conquest is done,” she told Loki as she fell a dozen with her thrown swords.

“Don’t say those words in front of Thor or his Midgardian pets,” the god of mischief replied as he similarly threw daggers at more of the soldiers. “We’re here to save the Midgardians, if anyone asks.”

Chapter Text

“Tony’s back? How?” Captain Rogers asked as he stared at Lady Pepper, who had just returned from a meeting with the United Nations to coordinate aid from Stark Industries across different regions of Midgard.

“Look,” the gracious lady said, displaying a holographic map from a Stark pad. “That’s the tracking signal of his reactor.”

It showed Midgard, the planet, surrounded by its moon as well as multiple manmade satellites and a few neighboring planets. A pale blue dot was blinking on the screen, moving from the periphery of the image toward Earth. It was encased in a small spacecraft.

“Is Tony still hacking satellites owned by the US government?” Banner asked Colonel Rhodes in a whisper.

“Russian satellites too by the look of it,” Clinton replied loudly with a smirk, pointing at the digital image of one of the satellites.

Banner glanced not-so-discreetly at the lady Widow, who nodded her confirmation without looking back at him.

“He found a way home,” Steve said quietly, tapping at the screen to enlarge the data connected to the blinking dot.

After a few years of visiting Midgard, Thor was still not very familiar with the terminology his friends used to monitor health, but even he could tell that the data displayed about Stark’s physical condition was worrying.

Or maybe the devastating look on Ms. Potts was enough to convey the message.

“All medical personnel are in the field,” Colonel Rhodes commented after silence took over the room.

“Tony has a rehabilitation room,” Lady Pepper informed, “Helen supplied it with the best medical equipment and treatments. We still won’t have anyone to manage it…”

“I can do that,” Banner volunteered.

Thor joined in on the collective sound of relief at the news. He remembered the remarkable Midgardian healer, Dr. Helen Cho. She had unfortunately gone along with half of the universe, but it was reassuring that her skills would still help Stark.

“Wait, what’s that?” Lady Natasha asked as she prodded the hologram.

She zoomed in on the edge of the display, bringing into view planets of the solar system that were further away from Midgard’s sun.

The silhouettes of several large vessels were moving toward Earth, though from a different direction than Tony’s.

“That can’t be good,” Rabbit said, drawing everyone’s attention to his small figure.

Thor’s new friend had been silent in the aftermath of Thanos’ use of the fully equipped gauntlet, quietly mourning the loss of the young Tree.

“Those are space ships, right? Aliens?” another quiet new friend asked.

Steve had introduced him as Scott Lang, the Ant-man – how could a human who associated with an insect be considered a valuable brother in arms, Thor had not bothered asking.

“Not just any space ship,” Rabbit answered as he hopped off his chair and walked closer to the hologram.

“That,” he said as he tapped on one of the spacecrafts, a three-dimensional overview of the vessel appearing along with the data from the satellite that was undecipherable to Thor, “is a Kree warship.”

The furry creature swiped at the display at tapped at the image of another spacecraft, whose energy signature differed from the rest. “And that state of the art war ship is Astran. Most Astrans are pacifists and stay in Astra, but the ones that do travel are a rough crowd. They have nice gear, but even I have never wished to steal…ahem! I mean, I have never wished to sample their artwork because their ability to manipulate metal with their minds gives me the creeps.”

“Kree are a ruthless race of people who have tried to enslave countless lesser civilizations,” Thor remembered hearing from boring council meetings Odin had forced him to attend. “My friends, I am afraid another battle awaits us,” he added just as the captain was standing from his chair.

“How far are they?” Steve asked to no one in particular, and both Rabbit and Colonel Rhodes leaned over the display.

“Two days out,” the man said just as the raccoon said “twelve hours max.”

The good captain frowned at the conflicting information.

“Tony’s landing tonight and the aliens are two days out,” the lady Widow clarified as she tilted her head to read the data on the screen herself.

“I’ll contact Princess Shuri,” Steve announced, “see if she can make contact with Tony before he lands. And if he can get to Wakanda directly, she might be able to heal him even faster than Bruce - no offense…”

“None taken,” Banner replied immediately. “I’ve seen the kid at work, she’s great. But with T’Challa gone, she might be busy taking care of her people.”

“Then you can help Tony in Wakanda,” Steve suggested. “Shuri asked to be kept in the loop about anything concerning Thanos,” Steve pointed out. “Tony was out there, pursuing Thanos’ underlings. He might have crucial intel to share once he’s back on his feet.”

“Ask the princess for some gear while you’re at it,” Lady Natasha suggested as she pointed her chin toward the hologram. “If two out of five of these aliens are used to invading other planets, we might need more vibranium than your new toys.”

“Will do,” Steve agreed, a fleeting spark of amusement brightening his eyes before his face turned serious again.

He looked around the table to make eye contact with every person in the room.

His gaze lingered when his eyes locked with Thor, and the Asgardian understood the silent message his comrade was sending.

It was not their last battle, but they would still give everything they had to defeat this new enemy.

“Avengers, assemble.” Steve called solemnly with a nod, which was returned by all.

As he stepped out of the conference room, Thor heard Lady Pepper talk to Colonel Rhodes, only paying half attention to their words.

“There’s another spaceship there,” the woman informed.

“It’s so small,” the colonel commented. “According to the satellite scans, it doesn’t even have weapons. We’ll share it all with Wakanda, don’t worry. This isn’t the first or even second alien invasion we’re dealing with. We’ll be fine.”

Although the colonel was right, Thor was worried about the upcoming battle. They could not afford any major losses, as all able fighters were needed to defeat Thanos.

He would defend Midgard once again, and if he were the last man standing, he alone would make the mad titan pay for his transgressions.

“Thor, don’t use your lightning on the ones in the orange armor! They absorb the energy,” lady Natasha warned over the earpiece, stopping the god of thunder just as he was about to blast a whole group of the soldiers in question with lightning.

Instead, Thor threw Stormbreaker at them, and for a long-lasting second, one of the soldier in orange seemed able to slow the great weapon, but the axe still had enough momentum to knock him out along with the others.

Ah. So those were the infamous Astrans.

“Conventional metals are a bad idea too,” War Machine shared with a grunt.

Thor called back his weapon, and for the next few minutes disposed of the enemy with his bare hands.

There were so many of them, and though Thor could keep going for days, not all of his friends’ stamina was as long lasting.

“Hawkeye and War Machine, you focus on the Kree,” Captain Rogers commanded between harsh breaths. “And Hawkeye, get me intel on those guys in orange.”

He himself was engaging three Kree soldiers, who despite standing several heads taller did not last more than a few heartbeats against him and his formidable shields.

“Thor, can you single out the ones with the personal force fields?” Steve asked as he looked around, appraising everyone’s position. “The smaller ones in black.”

“Consider it done,” Thor assured as he took to the air.

From the better vantage point, he briefly admired the Ant-Man looking more like a giant than an ant as he wiped down dozens of Rajak soldiers with his enlarged limbs.

The Rajaks were the only race among the enemy that Thor had met in person. They were quite temperamental, but just as frail as Midgardians, which explained their use of defensive technology.

Clinton was dispatching Kree soldiers with his usual accuracy from a hovering craft kindly gifted by Princess Shuri. Fierce Wakandan warriors had joined the Avengers against the invaders, and Thor could see one of their bravest, Lady Okoye, skillfully evading hits from her opponents with a step and returning them with the next.

However, many of the other Wakandans were having troubles with the faction of cowardly Rajak soldiers who hid behind their force fields, allowing the brunt of their army to advance toward Thor’s friends on all sides.

The Asgardian called on the lightning, readily available thanks to the overcast weather, and shocked all the shielded soldiers he could see.

For a few minutes, the soldiers from the other races were more easily defeated, but then the number of Astrans seemed to double.

“Clint, report!” Steve shouted in the collective communication channel.

“The arrows with vibranium heads go through the Astran guys, but only when they don’t see it coming” the Hawkeye responded. “Gotta hit them fast and hard.”

“Do you copy, general?” the captain asked as he jumped in the middle of a group of Astrans to knock them out with his vibranium shields.

Lady Okoye answered Steve with a war cry that was echoed by all the other Wakandas, and Thor could not help but add his voice to the cry.

For quite a while he reveled in the brutality of the battle as he took down hundreds of soldiers with his bare hands, only using his lightning on groups lacking Astran soldiers.

A distressing yelp brought the god out of his berserker state, the sound raising the hair on the back of his neck.

“Bruce!” War Machine called in Thor’s ear, and for a terrible moment the silence on the other end of the communication device made the Asgardian fear for his friend.

Because he could not make the Hulk surface despite the danger all around them, Banner had been using one of Stark’s oversized iron machines.

“I’m fine!” the scientist finally replied over the collective channel, and only then did the god of thunder notice that Bruce had tripped over several bodies, and was simply struggling to get back up.

Sighs of relief in his ear made Thor smile, though Lady Natasha mumbled something that the AllSpeech could not translate.

“Thor, look!” Bruce said in such a cheering tone as he pointed to a far away point that the god of Thunder got distracted, letting an enemy soldier surprise him with a hit in the chest.

Unaffected, Thor absently returned a powerful backhand, sending the soldier flying away. He then turned toward the direction Banner was pointing at with his armored hand.

For a heartbeat, the Asgardian thought he was hallucinating.

But there was no way his imagination could conjure both the Valkyrie and Sif, who were taking down enemy soldiers as if they were straw dummies in an Asgardian training yard.

Thor’s breath hitched as he took in the sight. The Valkyrie’s economical combat style complemented Sif’s bolder one, the way Loki’s had complemented Thor’s.

The two Asgardian warriors were clearly creating a path toward him, leaving fallen soldiers in their path.

With a wide smile, Thor took to the air and threw Stormbreaker to take down the remaining soldiers standing between him and the shield maidens.

The god of thunder landed with a rain of lightning, knocking out soldiers surrounding Banner and Clinton not too far away.

“What was that noise?” the Ant-Man asked over the earpiece.

“The power of the god of thunder, my good man,” Thor answered with a laugh as he threw aside a soldier who had been spared by his elemental powers.

“Fuck,” he heard Steve say, and before he could chastise the captain for the curse, Thor heard an odd sound over his head.

“Are those freaking meteors falling on our heads?” Colonel Rhodes questioned from his higher point of view.

“The space ships,” Thor said just as realization dawned. “Some pieces were pulled into the atmosphere by the planet’s gravitational force.”

“Rocket!” Steve shouted. “What’s going on?”

Rabbit’s answer was momentarily inaudible because of interference, but his voice eventually came through.

“Wasn’t me!” he claimed. “That marvelous Captain of yours blew up the gigantic Kree warship, which means that the battle is won on our end but you have a few chunks of hull coming down your way. Big chunks.”

“On it!” A voice came through the communication, and fiery bursts of light illuminated the gray sky in loud explosions as the accidental meteorites were destroyed.

Captain Marvel was the owner of the vessel that had brought Stark home – along with a blue-skinned half-machine woman whom Rabbit had called Nebula.

(Lady Nebula, despite being Thanos’ adopted daughter and former subordinate, seemed just as eager as the rest of them to eliminate Thanos.)

Captain Marvel was Midgardian by birth but had been gifted incredible powers, which made her a formidable ally.

After making short introductions – Marvel was a codename, and her given name was Carol – the space captain had quickly taken off after landing her cruiser in Wakanda. She had spent a whole day looking for Nick Fury, only finding the device that had sent her a distress signal across galaxies. By the time she had returned to Wakanda, everyone had been getting ready for the invaders.

Since her uniform allowed her to operate outside of Midgard’s atmosphere, Captain Marvel had volunteered to help Rabbit fight the enemy in space.

A few more falling pieces of space ships were destroyed, and Marvel finally landed close to Thor.

A few Astrans soldiers ran toward them both with a war cry, and Thor stopped the woman by grabbing her arm before she could fly to meet them.

“They can manipulate metal,” he warned as she raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

“Got it,” she acknowledge with a grateful smile, then threw her arms forward, sending blasts of energy toward their opponents.

Most of them were sent flying hundreds of paces away, but two evaded the blasts and lunged themselves at them.

The Valkyrie’s dragonfang pierced the chest of the first one, and the body of the soldier jerked backward when the Asgardian soldier retracted her legendary weapon.

“Cool blade indeed,” the Lady Marvel commented as she nodded her thanks at the Valkyrie.

“Is that the only compliment you’ll ever give me?” the Asgardian playfully returned.

Thor absently noted that the two women seemed to know each other as he sized up the last standing Astran soldier, who was running toward him.

The god of thunder had the time to notice that this one’s armor looked different from the rest, and did not even include a helmet.

The soldier looked male, long dark hair in sharp contrast with his green skin and odd pale stitches in the stead of eyebrows. Lady Marvel started at him but the Astran extended his hands forward and the lady captain flew backward, the control of her metal-embedded armor lost.

The Valkyrie was similarly treated, and Thor was about to engage the soldier himself, but he felt a force holding him still.

Stormbreaker. The axe was made of magically charged metal, but metal all the same. This soldier seemed more adept at controlling the great axe than the Astran from earlier. The weapon had grown so heavy at Thor’s back that he could not move.

“You’ll pay for your insolence, human!” the Astran soldier promised as he brought one of his hands down to seize a gun at his belt.

“I’m not human,” Thor informed him as he fought against the metal-controlling force keeping him pinned.

His opponent’s extended arm started shaking, and the confidence the soldier had displayed a few seconds ago disappeared as his green skin turned pale.

“Thor!” Sif shouted as she launched herself at the Astran from behind.

The soldier dropped his gun and swiped his arm in a downward arc, remotely forcing Sif down on the ground, face first.

The action took some of the metal manipulator’s attention away, and Thor was able to move his feet, but he realized with horror that he was too slow to stop the next attack.

“Die, not human,” the Astran snarled as he made Sif’s double sword levitate away from her, then jerked his hand toward Thor to throw one end of the sharp blade at him.

“Thor!” multiple voices screamed in the Asgardian’s ear, startling him so much that his mind was too blank to think of a way to parry the hit.

Time seemed to slow as the god of thunder stared at his enemy, denial turning into anger at his inability to step aside even as he could see the blade coming at his chest.

This could not be how it ended. He was supposed to defeat this nameless enemy as he had done countless time before. This Astran soldier was nowhere as powerful as the previous villains he had taken down.

You had not taken them down alone, Thor thought to himself, realization taking his mind away from the imminent impact of the blade with his body, bringing time to an even stronger halt as flashes of memory rushed at him: scenes of all his victorious battles since Odin had deemed him strong enough to defend the Nine Realms in the name of Asgard.

Aside from the ones on Midgard, all of Thor’s victorious battles had a common denominator.

Loki.

As time was restored to its normal rhythm, Thor heard the sound of flesh and bone being torn apart and a wet gurgle resonating loudly in the quieted battlefield.

The Asgardian blinked in surprise at the absence of pain just as he saw the Astran soldier fall down, a large and disturbingly familiar sword sticking out from his chest.

As for Sif’s sword, it was hovering immobilized inches away from Thor’s chest, surrounded by an even more familiar golden light.

“Indeed you’re not human, you’re a god. So what prevented you from reducing this mortal to ashes with your lightning?” Hela’s voice said on his left, just as he heard Loki’s voice shout on his right “what do you think you were doing, standing there like a blind bilgesnipe?”

Thor swallowed to soothe his suddenly dry throat and remained immobile for a few heartbeats, too scared to turn and see hallucinations accompanying the voices he was hearing.

Loki’s voice he could rationalize, he had just been thinking about his lost brother. But Hela? Why in the Norns’ names would his mind conjure the voice of the sister he had barely known?

“Is that Loki?” another voice said in Thor’s mind.

No, that voice was real. It was the Hawkeye speaking in his earpiece.

“Barton, get him!” Steve ordered.

Those words spurred Thor into action.

“Loki!” Thor shouted before even looking to his right, and his brother knew to sharply lean sideways just in time to evade Clinton’s precisely shot arrow.

Sif’s sword dropped to the ground.

All the Avengers were converging toward Thor, Loki, and indeed it was Hela on his left.

“Told you it was a bad idea to bring me back to Earth,” Thor’s brother said with a roll of his eyes as he straightened back.

“I did not bring you here, you were dead!” the god of thunder reflexively argued, still in shock at the recent turn of events.

“Don’t move Loki!” Captain Rogers shouted. “You’re surrounded!”

Indeed, Steve and Natasha were very close to Thor and his siblings; Clinton was standing further away on the hovering craft, the Ant-Man still giant at his side and War Machine just behind them; Captain Marvel had recovered and was helping the Valkyrie to her feet; behind Thor, Sif was grunting and the sound of metal stretching over leather suggested she was standing back up as well; several Wakandan warriors were watching from further away, all poised for a physical confrontation.

“Did they not see that we helped them?” Hela asked calmly, Thor could not tell to whom.

“What’s happening down there?” Rabbit’s voice said in Thor’s ears.

“Silence!” Thor shouted before ripping off his earpiece. “Enough, all of you!”

The rumble of thunder echoed across the dark clouds, and the worried stares from his Midgardian comrades forced Thor to take a long, deep breath to try to calm down.

But he could not easily calm down, not with Loki impossibly standing right in front of him, looking frustrated and slightly disheveled and alive.

“How,” Thor asked, so quietly that he was not sure his brother heard him.

“Really Thor, do you not have more pressing matters to handle?” the god of mischief replied as he crossed his arms over his chest – he was back in his lightly armored green and gold overcoat, and Thor’s hands itched with the urge to touch him to confirm that he was really there and not some mere illusion.

“I’d say that locking you up is high on the priority list,” Steve said as he stepped forward, “if it's true that you weren't in league with the invading aliens this time.”

“Please,” Loki snorted. “One time was enough. I’d hate to become predictable,” he added with a pointed look at Thor.

“We’re here to save Midgard,” Hela declared with her chin high, and Thor almost chuckled at how dishonest she sounded.

Steve seemed to detect her lie as well, staring between her and Loki with a frown.

“Where are your manners, little brother?” the goddess of death told Thor. “Introduce us to your…friends.”

Thor wanted time to stop so he could ask Loki what he was thinking bringing their murderous sister to Midgard. He also wanted to ask how either of them was still alive.

“This is my sister Hela, goddess of death,” Thor dutifully announced loudly enough for all his friends to hear.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Banner shouted after retracting the head of the iron armor.

“Elder sister,” Hela specified with a petulant sniff, ignoring Bruce's comment.

“Is she adopted too?” Hawkeye asked Thor. “From where I stand it looks like you’re the odd one out…”

“As delightful as it would be to chat,” Loki jumped in, gazing at all who stared at him, “I think we can all agree that our time would be better invested figuring out a way to reverse the effects of the infinity stones.”

“Agreed,” Steve conceded with a solemn nod. “Let’s all regroup in an hour at the Tower, if that works for you Thor,” the captain added with raised eyebrows.

Thor nodded his conscent, grateful that he had not even needed to ask for some time to catch up with his family and friends.

Family and friends. Just a few minutes ago, he had thought he had neither left.

“Let’s go somewhere more…private,” Thor announced as he grabbed Stormbreaker, and before any of the other Asgardians could object, he activated the Bifrost in the great axe.

One heartbeat later, Loki, Hela, Sif and Valkyrie were standing around him on that costal cliff he’d last seen Odin half a year ago.

So much had changed in what was a blink of an eye for him.

Thor braced himself before turning toward Loki, conveying as much determination as he could with his body language.

“You have less than an hour to tell me what you've been up to since the time I saw you die...And to convince me not to kill you myself this time, brother.”

Chapter Text

As he looked at the graying sky out the window of the meeting room, Steve noted that there were only five minutes left before the time agreed for the Asgardians’ return.

The view of the city had improved since their return to the U.S. after Thanos, but even after weeks of restoring a semblance of order and peace to New York, it still looked like a ghost of itself. The damage had been definitely greater than after Loki, all those years ago.

Loki, whose greatest power seemed to be the ability to come back from the dead.

“Steve,” Natasha said softly as she approached him from the conference table.

Anyone else would’ve missed the unspoken question in her mostly even tone.

“Just wondering if it was a good idea to keep Loki out of our sight for a whole hour,” he admitted after a quiet sigh.

“And you thought it was a good idea at the time because…?” the spy asked as she stood between him and the ceiling-high glass, close enough that he could see the tiny lift of her lips.

She was asking out of curiosity, not to criticize his decision.

“If Bucky reappeared out of the blue…” Steve started but couldn’t finish.

The sympathizing gaze Natasha gave him told him that she understood what he meant.

If Bucky reappeared out of the blue, Steve would want, no, would need some time alone with him. Not just to make sure that he was real, but also to offer him whatever comfort he could provide.

But Thor wasn’t him, and he had teleported the other Asgardians with him along Loki. Which made sense now that Steve reflected on it: Thor was king now, and probably needed to discuss important matters on how to care for the few Asgardians who had survived the end of their world.

The sound of people filling into the room brought Steve’s thought to a more pressing concern: Thor was almost late.

Nat noticed him tensing up, gave him an encouraging smile and a tap to his arm before moving away to take a seat.

“Where’s Thor?” Rocket asked, looking around.

The talking racoon had landed quite catastrophically in Wakanda a few minutes after Thor had teleported away with the other Asgardians. Pepper and Rhodey had offered him F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s assistance to repair his space pod, since Tony had still been unconscious at the time. Steve doubted that the alien was done putting his spaceship back in order, but this meeting was more pressing than any transportation problem.

Nebula, the half-android who had arrived with Tony and Captain Danvers, was sitting next to the furry creature. Though the two aliens seemed to be acquaintances, Steve had not seen them talking much since their initial reunion.

In fact, after introducing herself as Thanos’ adoptive daughter and claiming the right to deal him the final blow, Nebula had not talked to anyone at all.

“With Loki,” Clint answered, his even tone belying his disgust.

No one could blame Hawkeye for disliking the Asgardian criminal, after being brainwashed by him via the mind stone.

God, if Steve had known about Thanos from the start, he would’ve never let S.H.I.E.L.D. get their hands on that scepter.

It’s too late for ‘what if’s , Natasha had told him just a few days ago as they returned from another harrowing mission. The team had arrived to a chaotic Singapore mere minutes before an explosion had made a lot of casualties in the port-city, and on the flight back to the Avengers compound Steve had reflected that if they had arrived a few minutes earlier they could have prevented the catastrophe.

Fifty-two lives, gone. And these lives probably couldn’t be brought back after defeating Thanos and reversing the effect of the stones.

If they reversed the effect of the stones. Their plan of tracking Thanos across galaxies could barely be called a plan back then.

This is gonna work, Steve , Nat had insisted.

I know it is, because I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t , he’d replied.

At least now they had greater chances to succeed. Captain Marvel was powerful, and though she had been aloof when she first landed, driven by her intention to find Fury, now she was on the same page with the team. Even if Pepper hadn’t given them her approval to use Tony’s untested spaceship, Danvers’ cruiser would have been enough to start their pursuit of Thanos.

Nebula had intel on locations where Thanos might have retreated to. She also had her own hideouts spread across the universe, so if they ran into trouble on their space journey, they had places to lay low.

Between Captain Marvel, Rocket and Nebula, navigation in space was easily covered.

The question remained: how were they going to reverse what Thanos had done?

“They’re late,” Bruce announced as he looked at a holographic clock he brought up with from the virtual keypad linked to his seat.

Just then a circle of energy emerged out of nowhere with a hissing sound, spiraling wider from the size of a fist to the size of a door in a second.

Through it walked out a stout man of Asian ancestry, looking very much like a monk with his cropped hair and modest tunic and matching pants.

Just as Steve remembered having seen him fighting along Tony on a camera feed of the first assault of Thanos’ generals on Earth, Thor, Loki, Hela and the two other Asgardians followed the stranger out of the circle, which then winked out of existence.

“Stormbreaker is more efficient,” Thor declared with a slight lift of his magical axe.

“At burning the ground it lands us on? Yes it is,” the Asgardian with the blue cape said with a snort.

She did not seem one bit affected by the dozens of eyes fixed on her and her group. In fact, only the monk was looking around the room, probably looking for Tony.

“I am Wong, keeper of Kamar-Taj,” the man told the whole room. “And I must return to my post soon. Where is Stark?”

“On his way,” Rhodey replied before Steve could.

“This one,” Wong said as he pointed at Loki, “has a mean to retrieve the infinity stones from Thanos. I hope that I don’t have to warn you against letting him keep them for himself.”

“Fear not, my friends,” Thor said in his overly cheery voice as he clasped his brother’s shoulder with his free hand. “Loki indeed has an idea on how to undo what Thanos did, but we will need to work together to refine his plan.”

“My plan does not require any refinement,” the ex-villain objected evenly with a shoulder shrug to dislodge Thor’s hand. “But have it your way, your majesty .”

Steve felt his eyebrows raise when the Asgardian smoothly drew out a chair and sat on it.

Banner, who was sitting on his immediate right, only blinked twice before acting like an intergalactic criminal had not just sat right next to him. It was probably a blessing that the Hulk was unwilling to come out.

“Care to share that plan?” Steve asked before the stares on Loki turned into an awkward situation.

Thor nodded at the other Asgardians before sitting on Banner’s other side. The three alien women took the seats on the empty sides of the hexagonal table - and was it not ironic that Loki of all people was the one willing to mingle with short-lived 'Midgardians?'

Thor looked pointedly at Loki, who scowled back at him but waved his hand.

A golden light appeared at the center of the table before a big solid golden object followed.

Minus the empty stone sockets, Steve was confident that the displayed gauntlet was physically identical to Thanos’.

“For whatever reason, Odin had this facsimile of the gauntlet made,” Thor explained as he walked around the table to stand closer to Clint, Natasha and Steve. “Only it was a mundane gauntlet, with no magic embedded in it to efficiently contain the power of the infinity stones. Loki remedied to this flaw recently.”

“How?” Hawkeye questioned, his sharp gaze on Loki.

“Loki’s had time to learn more magic since the last time he was on Midgard... While usurping our father,” the god of thunder actually said in answer to Clint’s question.

Steve gauged Loki’s reaction to his brother’s accusing word, but the other Odinson remained uncharacteristically impassive.

“Loki’s plan is to use this gauntlet to draw out the stones and reverse  Thanos’ curse,” Thor continued with a slight frown.

“Sounds like a good plan,” Steve chanced, “but I can sense a ‘but’ coming. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that this gauntlet isn’t structurally stable,” Wong said from his seat.

Steve made note to ask Natasha after the meeting when the monk had actually sat down.

“Figures,” Clint snorted.

Steve made another note to talk to the archer before they took off. Antagonizing the Asgardian prince was not in the best interest of the team, and could jeopardize the execution of the mission.

“Whether or not it is because Loki’s enchantment was flawed is unclear,” Wong added.

“It isn’t,” Loki and Hela said simultaneously.

“No offense guys, but I’d rather believe our local benevolent sorcerer over you two,” Banner commented.

Thor’s siblings scowled at the scientist in sync as well, and Steve blinked away his amusement at the display.

A beeping sound coming from the speakers interrupted Thor’s attempt to speak again.

“Incoming holo-conference call from Princess Shuri,” F.R.I.D.AY.’s disembodied voice announced.

“Patch her in Friday, thank you,” Steve told her.

A hologram of Shuri standing by a bench in her lab popped up from the main projector at the center of the table, right next to the gauntlet.

“Captain Rogers,” the princess greeted solemnly, before looking around. “and friends,” she added with a tight smile. “Apologies for being la…What’s…?”

“Hello your highness,” Steve greeted back just as the young Wakadan stared in quiet shock at the gauntlet. “This is a replica of the gauntlet Thanos used, and we were discussing whether or not to use it to reverse the effects of the infinity stones.”

“I couldn’t find any actual footage of it,” the engineer said as her holographic image peered at the object. “Would you mind sending me a scan of it?”

“On it,” Bruce volunteered as he swiped his fingers over the tablet he’d been carrying around to track Tony’s vitals.

The pensive hum Shuri let out as she looked at the scan two minutes later made Steve hopeful.

“Its energetic signature suggests a structural flaw,” she said with a deep frown, “but…that’s the point, right? Whatever is enhancing the gold – never seen that isotope before – is also preventing an entropic overload…”

“Thank you,” Loki said sharply, sitting straighter in his seat.

“It’s not that simple,” Wong argued, and briefly nodded at the princess once she took her eyes off the scan to raise her eyebrows at him. “Whatever is enhancing the gold is a complex metaphysical spell, and without seeing the gauntlet Thanos himself used to wield the stones, there’s no way to tell if this gantlet would do the job, and whoever will wear it risks death or worse by agreeing to manipulate such an energetically volatile outlet.”

“Thor survived the radiation of concentrated rays from a neutron star?” Rocket reminded the group.

“He did what?” Loki asked, alarmed.

An uncomfortable silence settled at the table as Loki glared furiously at an unimpressed Thor.

“I had to get the ax,” the older brother stated firmly, staring back at his brother.”

“As if an oversized weapon could stand a chance against someone who could literally bend reality to his will!” Loki countered with an eyeroll.

“Eitri doesn’t forge mere weapons,” the only Asgardian without a cape said – Lady Sif, Steve remembered reading about her from Thor’s original file -“and had you bothered to attend your duties when you usurped Odin, he wouldn’t have made that gauntlet for Thanos in the first place!”

As soon as she said it, the Asgardian warrior suddenly jumped out of her chair, just in time to avoid a metallic spike coming out of the floor.

“What the hell,” Natasha mumbled while Thor and Captain Danvers rushed over to the Asgardian side of the room where Hela and Sif now stood facing each other.

“I will not tolerate a subject disrespecting a prince of Asgard,” Hela said as she materialized a sword out of thin air.

“And I won’t tolerate gratuitous violence,” Marvel countered calmly, her arms extended in warning with her fist glowing brightly.

Where were all of you when we were fighting Thanos? Steve couldn’t help but think with frustration as the tension in the room spiked up.

“Everyone please calm down,” he demanded as diplomatically as he could, standing from his seat but resisting the urge to walk over to the Asgardians. “I don’t need to remind you that we have an important mission to set before…” he tried to finish but Sif cut him off.

“This is none of your concern, Midgardian!” she almost screamed at him, and okay, Steve was intimidated.

“Lady Sif, enough” Thor ordered gently, walking to stand between her and Hela. “And you, don’t make me regret letting you stay with us.”

“Don’t condescend me, little brother,” Hela replied, though she made her sword disappear by closing her fist and turned on her heels to walk out of the room.

Steve sat back down, his enhanced hearing picking up the quiet sighs of relief going around the table as Sif returned to her chair, pulling it away from the spike piercing it and repositioning it slightly to the right to sit back on it.

“Guys?” came Tony’s voice from the door. “Who’s that Slytherin cosplayer…What the hell happened to the floor?”

“Apologies, Anthony,” Thor said sheepishly. “My sister Hela will remove it when she gets back.”

“Sister,” Stark repeated flatly, looking around the room until his gaze landed on Loki. “I will roll with the fact that your dead brother is actually alive and sitting in my tower, but Thor, buddy, are you sure you’re not the adopted one?”

“Good to have you join us Tony,” Steve couldn’t help but say, irritated at the billionaire’s lack of punctuality.

“Don’t try to guilt-trip me like you’ve never met Pepper, spangles,” Stark talked back, “I came as soon as I can. By the way, all who don’t have wishes of world dominion are invited to our wedding.”

“That is great news, my friend!” Thor congratulated, stepping toward Tony to give him a bear hug. “The celebration will be grand, I assume, worthy of Lady Pepper’s infinite patience with you?”

Rhodey and Bruce chuckled at the jibe.

“You said it big guy,” Stark replied good-naturedly. “Speaking of, Bruce, how’s your green alter ego doing?”

“Still not interested in taking over,” Banner replied.

“What do you mean?” the unnamed Asgardian with the blue cape asked.

“He’s, ummm…been hiding since his encounter with Thanos,” Banner informed her. “But maybe you can convince him to join us? Not now, obviously.”

“Are we actually going to leave this planet and track Thanos down or what?” Nebula’s asked harshly, her perpetually scowling face even more intimidating as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Not before we figure out a way to defeat him,” Steve answered, eyeing Princess Shuri.

She was typing furiously on a virtual keyboard, and her 3D scan of Loki’s gauntlet was broken into multiple pieces.

Steve glanced at Loki, who was narrowing his eyes at the hologram, but was still quiet.

“You reinforced the metal yourself?” the princess asked Loki, finally looking up from her virtual computer.

“And what of it?” he answered a bit testily, his chin slightly higher than a second before.

“I know about New York, but…” Shuri started as her bright gaze swept over the room before it went back to Loki. “You’re clearly the most qualified to wear this. If something goes wrong while transferring the stones from Thanos’s gauntlet to this one, you would be able to tell...And maybe compensate for any energetic overload? I’m working on something…”

“Apologies your highness,” Steve interrupted, “but as much as we appreciate his help, Loki will not handle the infinity stones. That is a non-negotiable conditions for his freedom among us.”

“Thank you for not bringing that up when Hela was still here,” Bruce commented.

“Captain,” Thor said, and Steve winced at the hurt in his comrade’s voice.

Come on, Thor couldn’t possibly think that Loki’s criminal record had been wiped clean along with half of the universe?

“Don’t,” Loki told Thor as he stood from his seat, ignoring all eyes on him but Shuri’s. “I couldn’t be able to wear the gauntlet even if I wanted to, for the simple reason that I will need all my strength focused on drawing the stones from Thanos’ gauntlet. Once dislodged, they will directly transfer to this one.”

“Isn’t it a bit too big?” Scott half-whispered, half-asked.

“That’s easily modifiable once I know whose hand to adjust it to,” Tony chimed in, his own 3D representation of the gauntlet up on a screen. “Or hands…?”

“Wrists,” Shuri suggested as she waved her hand around and typed on her keyboard. “Ah, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“I got it,” Stark assured as he extended his arm, using his Stark watch to display Shuri’s scan of the fragmented gauntlet.

The princess’s hologram moved, walking through the table to stand next to Thor and Tony.

“Using that bulky gauntlet isn’t the only way to manipulate the infinity stones,” Stark said as he adjusted the location of the virtual screen, positioning it right next to the physical gauntlet. “Viz was proof of that. All we need to do is to create a conduit for each stone, using individual modulators to keep their massive energy in an infinite entropic loop…”

“…And use a central modulator to synchronize the different energy signatures into one isochronous sequence,” Princess Shuri completed with a nod.

Steve made peace with the fact that he wouldn’t understand much of what would be said in the next few minutes.

Tony flicked his wrist, and some of the pieces of the gauntlet vanished, leaving behind six bracelets with round slots.

“We could use vibranium instead of whatever freaky form of gold this is,” the billionaire said.

“How are we going to create individual conduits small enough to fit on bracelets for such enormous sources of energy?” Bruce asked his fellow scientists. “Vision’s body was much bigger than these bracelets, and not only was he made of vibranium but he was the most sophisticated A.I. on this planet...before F.R.I.D.A.Y., of course.”

"Thank you, Dr. Banner," the disembodied computer voice reacted.

“It would rather benefit you to use a single quantum conduit when handling all six stones at once to reverse Thanos’ wipe out, than to count on individual modulators to relay all energy potentials to a central one,” Loki said as he casually inspected his nails. “But even if you somehow managed to harness the power – not energy, which is infinite as the name suggests – of all six stones, you’d still be unable to bring the whole system to equilibrium because mundane objects cannot compensate for a magical entropic overload of such scale, unlike this gauntlet.”

Steve stared at the Asgardian, just like the rest of the meeting attendants. After a whole minute of silence, Thor’s brother looked up with narrowed eyes.

“What,” he asked flatly.

“You speak modern science,” Stark replied with wide eyes. “I thought you only understood the whole situation in a hocus-pocus type of way.”

“What you call ‘modern’ is actually quite archaic,” Loki claimed. “I have no idea what hocus-pocus refers to.”

“He thinks that the mystic arts are a dramatization of science, as it is often presented so on our planet.” Wong explained. “The mystical arts are in fact one step ahead of science in that they account for the astral dimension.”

“Sorry, the astral what now?” Stark asked, skeptical.

Loki and Wong sighed simultaneously.

“The seventh to tenth dimensions,” Captain Marvel replied unexpectedly, and signs of recognition dawned on Bruce and Tony.

“They do teach it in your school system, then?” Shuri asked Tony with a wide smile.

“Didn’t get the memo that four dimensions were lumped under one name,” Stark pointed out with a raised eyebrow at Carol.

“I didn’t learn that on Earth,” the pilot admitted with a shrug.

“Does that mean that yes we can or no we cannot use multiple devices to handle the stones?” Steve asked.

“It would be unwise to do so,” Wong replied, though Tony and the princess didn’t seem to agree.

“Can we do the reverse then: put all six stones in one semi-organic conduit and use a central modulator to fraction the power into asynchronous potentials?” Captain Danvers offered.

“You’re not listening” Wong said with a shake of his head. “As exceptional as that vibranium metal can be, if it isn’t reinforced by mystical energy, it will not be able to safely contain even one infinity stone, let alone six. The only way to compensate for that would be to have six powerful sorcerers handling them.”

Steve ran a hand into his hair and sighed. The only sorcerer who was known for handling a stone was Dr. Strange, whom Thor had met, but Nebula had informed them that the sorcerer had gone in ashes just like Bucky, Sam, T’Challa and the others.

So, back to square one.

“What was you original plan, Loki?” Steve forced himself to ask, and even Loki himself looked surprised to be consulted.

“Didn’t you just say that he couldn’t touch the stones?” Clint asked quickly.

“And he just said that he had never meant to,” Steve countered, a bit exasperated.

“Well, Reindeers?” Stark asked after Loki remained silently shocked at Steve’s words. “Don’t tell me that you actually didn’t think that far. Was hoping to get back in Thor’s good grace with a half-assed plan?”

“Tony,” Steve warned at the same time as Thor growled “Stark!”

“Listen here, Samson,” Tony told Thor, returning the Asgardian’s glare with a serious stare of his own. “Yeah, we have a bigger fish to fry, but Loki is a bad guy. He’s your brother so I get the part where you give him an infinite number of second chances, but this isn’t just about you. The fate of the damn whole universe is at stake here, so unless I get solid proof that Morgan Le Fey is serious about helping and good enough to actually get the job done, expect me to keep on undermining him.”

An uncomfortable silence took over the room, again, and Steve was about to adjourn the meeting when Loki finally spoke up.

“Thor could wear the gauntlet,” he said. “My enchantment will shield him away from the power of the stones. I could monitor the entropy loop through him…”

“You could?” Thor asked, surprised and possibly unnerved by the idea.

“With Gungnir, yes,” Loki confirmed.

“Gungnir,” Thor repeated quietly, blinking slowly at his brother.

“Right, I forgot, that’s what you get when you rush me,” Loki said as he looked back at the door. “Hela.”

Steve resisted flinching at the thought that the goddess of death had been standing close enough to hear Tony insult Loki. Hopefully she knew better than to try to impale Thor’s friends.

With a poise that was still too dramatic to be qualified as calm, Hela walked back in the room, her sword back in her hand. She twirled it around, and it transformed into a trident. A very shiny, golden trident.

“You gave her Gungnir?” Thor roared at Loki, marching menacingly toward his brother.

Steve heard but didn’t see Hela throwing the weapon at Thor, who must have taken a step back to avoid it because the weapon landed prong first at his feet, the tips sinking into the floor.

“The disrespect for private property runs in the family, I see,” Steve heard Tony mumble.

“Calm down, I only borrowed it,” Hela said, using her newly freed hand to throw her long black hair over her shoulder.

“Keep explaining Loki,” Steve encouraged. “In lay terms, please.”

“I won’t explain how Gungnir works,” Loki said as he tilted his head at Thor, who frowned back. “But again you need not worry about me handling a powerful weapon because I will be too weak after drawing out the stones. If something goes wrong I will have the time to warn Thor…”

“To do what?” Wong interrupted. “He’s not a sorcerer, he won’t be able to handle all the uncontrolled power of the infinity stones.”

“Could you help with that?” Steve asked, making sure to filter out his annoyance at the the monk.

“I cannot leave Kamar-Taj.” Wong insisted. “Once you all leave Earth, there will be very few people left able to protect Earth from powerful enemies. Furthermore, my knowledge of the infinity stones is purely theoretical. Strange was the one who handled the Eye of Agamotto, the time stone.”

“We could help Thor in case things go south,” Rocket suggested. “My friends and I did it when Quill grabbed the power stone - we held hands and used our bodies in a chain to dilute the power of the stone so that Quill wouldn’t explode from it.”

Steve watched Wong’s eyes widen in surprise, then narrow in reflection.

“That could work,” the monk said, pointing at Loki. “You could use our little friend here to increase your chance at drawing the power stone. Its residual mystical force is flowing in his body...Yes, that could work!”

Steve was glad to see him be optimistic for once, and even gladder to see Loki nodding his head in agreement.

“In fact some of you might be able to help Loki draw out the other stones?” Wong suggested hesitatingly as he looked around the room. “If you have been in proximity of a stone while its power was being used, you carry traces of its mystical signature, and that would help in drawing it out from Thanos’ gauntlet.”

“I have been exposed to the Aether” Thor said.

“I was exposed to the explosive waves of an engine powered by the Tesseract,” Captain Danvers informed.

“Even without the gauntlet I could take the space stone from Thanos effortlessly,” Loki assured.

Steve was actually relieved to see the arrogant side of the Asgardian prince. He had been too subdued so far.

“That’s half of the stones,” Wong summed up with a nod as he walked over Loki. “I never touched the Eye of Agamotto myself, but here…”

A book materialized in his hand, and he extended it at the Asgardian. “It should help. That’s four out of six stones.”

“There might be clues about the soul stone on Vormir,” Nebula offered. “If Thanos didn’t destroy the planet after taking it.”

“Let’s keep the tally at four for now,” Steve said.

“Five, actually,” Loki said as he magicked Wong’s book away before turning his head toward Clint, whose eyes widened comically.

“Fuck no,” the spy deadpanned after he recovered from the surprise.

“Clint,” Natasha said before Steve could.

The archer stopped staring at the Asgardian to glance at his long-time friend and former partner. Natasha merely raised an eyebrow in response. A few more seconds passed in silence between the two spies, then Barton sighed.

“Fine,” he conceded, staring back at Loki. “If you touch me for longer than necessary…”

“I resent whatever implication you are making about my sense of decency,” Loki said.

Steve shook his head in disbelief, while Thor and Banner chuckled at Loki’s joke.

“Let’s adjourn the meeting for now,” he announced as he stood up. “We could meet again in eight hours, if it doesn’t inconvenience you, your highness?”

“I’ll be in my lab all night anyway,” the Wakandan scientist assured. “I’m working on improved versions of the weapons you used against the invading aliens. Not my best work.”

“If you’re in charge of the gadgets, I’ll have time to run a few more tests on our spacesuits,” Stark added.

“Until then,” Shuri said with a smile, and nodded her goodbyes before ending the call.

Steve looked at Natasha, who looked up at him from her seat, a small but satisfied smile on her lips reaching up to her eyes.

They had a plan, and it was going to work.

Chapter Text

Hela hated being in space.

For one, she had to cohabit with too many mortals, who showed no fear nor respect for their betters.

Worse, being in space meant that she had nowhere to extract metal to create her weapons. With Thor claiming Gungnir, she had been left without a blade.

She had naively assumed that their pursuit of Thanos would take a couple days at most, but both of the planets that the half-machine freak had directed them to had been reduced to asteroid belts, thus Hela had not put feet on any ground for weeks.

Bored from her idleness, the goddess of death had spent most of the past few days either puzzling at Loki performing spells she did not understand, or observing Thor’s humans spar with each other, all the while feigning indifference.

When the rest of the group had learned about her weakness, Loki had discreetly handed her one of his daggers the day before, at first making her smile gratefully when he said “we don’t want to have Thor’s friends get too comfortable around you,” but then he had smugly informed her that the dagger had been enchanted by Frigga herself.

At least Hela had been able to tap into the seidr embedded into the weapon to turn it into a more suitable size.

Fighting with only one sword, however big it was, still was not the goddess’ preferred style, since it restricted her to choose between inflicting or parrying blows, instead of being able to do both at once.

Momentarily forgetting about her handicap as she was facing Marvel - the Midgardian had approached her with an offer to spar - Hela stupidly threw her free arm forward as one of Marvel’s photon blast was about to hit her.

No metal wall emerged from the floor, and the goddess took the full blunt of the hit.

The impact of the energy beam propulsed her off her feet, and she had to land hard on one knee after a barely controlled flip midair to avoid colliding with the wall behind her.

Hela clumsily threw her only blade at the Midgardian to buy herself a few seconds to get her bearings, and Marvel twisted her whole body to the side to avoid the sword flying at her.

With a raised eyebrow, the powerful mortal twisted back to face her, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Sparring means we’re not trying to kill each other,” the blonde woman commented.

Hela straightened back to her full height and extended her arm to draw the sword back to her hand. Marvel didn’t blink as the blade passed her by again, mere inches from her unguarded body.

“That wouldn’t have hurt much,” the goddess replied with a shrug.

“It actually would have,” Carol Danvers argued with a short laugh. “Even Thor doesn’t make me that nervous with his axe.”

“Thor is weak,” Hela informed her. “Whether it was Odin himself or his mother, someone taught him to restrain his strength. Had he been trained to fight like a proper Asgardian warrior, Thanos would already be dead and this universal catastrophe would’ve been avoided.”

“That’s unlikely,” Marvel countered as she uncrossed her arms and adopted a defensive stance. “With all the infinity stones in his possession, Thanos is the most powerful being in the universe. One person alone couldn’t have defeated him.”

“Thanos’ not a god ,” the goddess reminded the mortal as she launched herself at her.

The Midgardian wasn’t a god either, but she was close to being as resilient as one. Her armor was also quite impressive, only tearing or breaking when Hela put more strength than usual in her blows, but then mending back around the human’s more fragile skin.

When the time came to resume Asgard’s conquest of the universe, Hela had to remember to stay away from Midgard and its surroundings.

“And where were you while your brothers were facing Thanos?” Danvers asked too casually as she flipped backward to avoid being sliced by the blade of Loki’s transformed dagger.

Hela seized the Midgardian midair, grabbing one of her legs and pulling her down hard.

Right before she crashed on the floor, Marvel shot back up - right, the mortal could fly - and swung her free leg at Hela. The goddess let go of the human’s limb and duck to evade the kick, then cartwheeled away from Carol Danvers just as she shoot another photon blast at her.

Marvel was fast, so she extended her arm towards Hela’s new location, and the older warrior had to deflect the next blast with the wide blade of her borrowed sword.

“I was locked away in Hel,” she finally replied when the Midgardian paused, requesting a break with a raised hand, palm up.

“I’m assuming that’s a planet, and not my people’s abstract idea of eternal punishment,” the woman commented.

“Odin created a rift between worlds just for me,” the goddess recounted with bitterness. “However hard I tried, I would get sucked into that region of Nilfheimr. He sent his guard dogs, the Valkyries, to kill me, just because I wouldn’t follow his arbitrary rules…”

“Let me guess,” Danvers interrupted, “those rules were meant to prevent you from killing people you found ‘weak’.”

“The same weak people that Thanos slaughtered anyway,” Hela pointed out. “Had Odin not stopped annexing lesser civilizations to Asgard, the universe would’ve been safe from the mad titan.”

“Sif said that Thanos got his gauntlet from a planet under Asgard’s protection,” Marvel said with narrowed eyes.

“Loki only followed the example of our father,” the goddess replied. “Odin had known about the infinity stones before civilization had touched your planet, but refused to use their powers for the glory of his own empire.”

“A power that devastating shouldn’t be in the hand of anyone,” Carol Danvers asserted with a slight shake of her head. “Once we get the stones back, we will make sure that not two of them resides in the same location. Thanos is only one of many who want to rule over the whole universe.”

The mortal had the gall to look pointedly at Hela when she said those last words.

“I am Hela of Asgard, goddess of death. Ruling over my lesser is my birthright, and executing those who will stand in the way of Asgard’s glory my prerogative.”

“Asgard was destroyed,” Marvel reminded her. “Thor sacrificed his own planet to stop your greed. Don’t you see that the path you’ve taken for so long only leads to destruction?”

Hela frowned, surprised that the Midgardian would dare condescend her so.

“We can rebuild Asgard,” she stubbornly countered. “Bigger and more glorious than my father ever imagined. To do so we must gather the necessary resources: stone, gold, crops...They won’t come out of thin air. Conquest is necessary to build a suitable home for gods like us. You lowly mortals wouldn’t understand. Your life is so short, you content yourself with the little your weak bodies can aquire… “

“I’ve never settled for anything,” the Midgardian said, her voice dropping a few octaves. “Everything I have today, except my powers, I’ve earned. We content ourselves with the little we have? That’s rich from someone who’s following the lead of lowly mortals to defeat Thanos. I was told that Thanos believed that there were too many people exploiting the limited resources of the universe, that’s why he erased half of its population from existence. I suppose the idea came to him after hearing the reasoning of conquerors like you .”

“You dare…” Hela started.

“Are you done?” A voice asked from the entrance of the training room.

Both Hela and Marvel turned, one frowning and the other smiling at Thor, who looked ready for a sparring session himself.

Hela saw that he had come with his mortal band. The one who changed sizes, the woman with the red hair - the only one among them whom Loki seemed to respect, albeit grudgingly - the mellow leader, the archer, and the dark-skinned man whom Hela had wondered about until he’d donned a black and silver armor similar to that of Stark’s red and gold one.

“You’re free to join us,” Carol Danvers said with an inviting tilt of her head, standing tall with fits on her hips.

“Does she know the meaning of the word sparring?” the redhead asked as she walked past Thor into the room, holding her hand against a small command console to make a shelve of puny weapons emerge from one of the walls.

She grabbed batons that flashed blue lights when she twisted their ends.

“ She ’s not staying,” Thor answered gravely, disdain bleeding in his voice as he glared at Hela.

The room became silent for a few beats, and Hela fought the urge to beat some deference into her brat of a brother.

Instead she walked straight at him and his friends, the latter scattering like prey seeing their predator.

“You,” she told Thor as calmly as she could, “come with me.”

She kept walking, refusing to look back to check that her brother was following her to the main bridge of the ship.

“Shouldn’t we actually train with her, since she’s super powerful?” she heard the Ant-man ask his comrades.

“Thor and Captain Marvel are powerful too and they’re unlikely to turn us into raw kebabs,” the archer replied.

From the main bridge, Hela had a clear view of the navigation room, where the blue-skinned half robot abomination was speaking with Stark and the talking racoon.

She was loathe to admit it, but Hela had to consult Thor on the future of Asgard. To the people, he was the new ruler of the Realm Eternal.

While Hela didn’t validate Captain Marvel’s ignorant opinion about conquerors, she knew that Thor thought just like her. Odin’s golden son wouldn’t make the necessary sacrifices to insure the revival of their empire.

How could she convince her stubborn brother to let her and the future generation of Asgardian soldiers go out in the universe and collect the riches required to rebuild Asgard in all her glory?

“Maybe we can come to an arrangement.”

Loki would know how as he seemed to be the most diplomatic member of their family, but the goddess of death was not stupid enough to think that he’d tell her how to go against the wishes of the sibling he’d known his whole life to satisfy those of the sibling he’d known for less than a year.

“In case you didn’t understand, I don’t care what you want,” Thor said as he walked up to Hela, his tone just as cold as before. “Loki only rescued you from Hel so you could help resurrect him…”

“No one rescued me,” Hela corrected him as she pivoted to face the undeserving new king of Asgard.

He was wearing his armor without his cape, Stormbreaker strapped to his back. Even with anger lighting his mismatched eyes, he looked nothing like Odin.

“Our brother and I worked together to insure the safety and prosperity of Asgard.”

“You did not give a bilgesnipe’s shit about Asgard’s safety and prosperity when you crawled out of Hel to terrorize our people,” Thor contested.

“ You ’re the one who burned our home to the ground!” Hela reminded. “All I did was rid the crown of mutinous soldiers, and demand the key of the Bifrost. What message would have I sent to the people if I had left treason go unpunished?”

“That you’re a merciful ruler?” Thor talked back as he threw his hands in the air. “Then maybe people would’ve been willing to kneel to you…”

“They didn’t even know who I was!” Hela pointed out. “They looked at me as if I were some common villain, refusing to bow to me because Odin had lied to them that you were his heir!”

Thor seemed to sober at that, and with horror Hela discerned pity in his gaze.

“Father hid so many things from us all,” the god of thunder admitted. “Yet it does not justify the fact that you mindlessly killed anyone who stood in your way, sister.”

“Are you saying that you’ve never killed more than necessary in battle?” the goddess questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Unless Odin adopted you as well, that’s impossible. Each and every Allfather before us was a berserker. Borr’s blood runs in your veins just as much as it runs in mine. There is no way that you’ve never taken lives that could have been spared.”

The grimace on her brother’s face confirmed what she had thought from the beginning: unlike Loki, Thor was a hypocrite. That he had in common with their father.

“I was foolish once, I confess...” Thor started.

“Please tell me that you’re not encouraging him to express sentiment,” Loki interrupted.

Forcing herself to stay still despite her surprise, Hela turned her head toward her youngest brother. The green eyes of the god of mischief were looking between Hela and Thor, amusement and warriness mingling in them.

“He was admitting to being a fool,” Hela informed him lightly.

“Why, Thor, that is the first step to being cured from foolishness!” Loki joked as he approached Hela.

He was holding a golden circlet engraved with runes, though the seidr it emitted suggested to Hela that it was not its real shape.

“What is that, Loki?” Thor asked. “Don’t give her another weapon!”

“Ah, so you noticed,” the dark-haired Odinson commented as he tossed the band in the air, making it disappear.

Hela blinked but otherwise remained impassive as she felt the object reappear at her back, hooked to a loop of her belt.

“I may not know much about magic, but I would recognize Mother’s seidr anywhere,” the god of thunder asserted. “Hela almost beheaded the Lady Marvel with that dagger! Wait, what are you drinking?”

Hela was wondering the same as she observed her youngest brother down a glowy liquid from a small vial at impressive speed. The glass container vanished before the god of mischief took it away from his lips.

After a few seconds of confusing silence, Loki blinked slowly, then frowned as he looked between Thor and Hela.

“What?” he asked quietly, staring at his lifted hand before bringing it down slowly and shaking his head.

“I said you shouldn’t have given her the dagger Mother gifted you!” Thor reiterated. “Hela almost ran through the Lady Captain’s body with it.”

“Danvers has Kree blood in her veins, she’s not as fragile as the rest of your human friends,” Loki reassured with a shrug. “By the way, I need Gungnir.”

“Why?” Thor asked cautiously.

“I need it to locate Thanos.”

“You can do that?” Thor said, shocked.

Hela was just as surprised, but she didn’t let it show. To the best of her knowledge, Gungnir could only locate Asgardians, or show known corners of the Nine Realms. Odin had been able to amplify the spear’s magic past those restrictions, but he had paid for that power with his eye.

“Now that I know what the energetic signatures of five out of six infinity stones are, I can at least try,” Loki explained.

“Shouldn’t the purple guy be using the stones for you to find them?” Stark’s voice came from the steps connecting the navigation room from the bridge.

He and the blue girl walked toward the three gods, clearly intent on chiming into the conversation Hela had meant to be private .

“Not with the break in the gauntlet,” Loki answered smoothly, unbothered by the interruption. “The magical leak should be minimum, but enough for Gungnir to detect.”

“One day you should allow me to get a closer look at that trident of yours, big guy,” Stark requested from Thor with a smile.

“I’m afraid that the Allfather’s spear is off limit, Anthony,” the god of thunder replied with a sheepish smile.

“Had to ask,” the Midgardian said before returning his attention on Loki. “Okay, so if you find Thanos’ gauntlet…”

“ When I find Thanos’ gauntlet,” the Asgardian prince corrected, “We will need to assemble again, won’t we? Captain Rogers insists that we meet for every single change in ‘the plan.’”

“We will destroy that madman once and for all,” Thor declared solemnly.

“Thanos’ last breath is mine,” the android reminded sharply before walking away.

“Why do I have to be stuck with Grouchy Smurf,” Stark asked flatly as he followed Thanos’ daughter.

“Well?” Loki said with raised eyebrows when the two mortals had gone.

“You’ll use Gungnir in my chambers,” Thor decided before giving a curt nod at Hela and walking away from the bridge. Loki was more courteous and actually half-bowed to Hela before following Thor.

Deciding that she could wait until the defeat of the mad titan to have an important discussion with Loki, the goddess entertained herself watching Marvel overwhelmingly dominate the rest of the Midgardians in a too-long sparring session.

“That’s Zen-Whoberi, my sister’s native planet,” the blue half-robot commented as Loki shared a holographic representation of the planet Gungnir had showed him. “Twenty five years ago, Thanos wiped out half of its inhabitants.”

“The man is consistent, if anything,” Tony Stark said before frowning. “Wait, you and your sister were born on different planets?”

“Adopted sister,” the talking racoon informed him when Nebula remained silent.

“You guys should open a club, seriously,” the man of iron deadpanned while looking at Loki.

“Did you see if Thanos had an army?” the Captain Rogers asked, his gaze also on Hela’s brother.

That such a small battle unit had two captains was ludicrous to Hela.

“All I could see was the gauntlet, I didn’t even see Thanos himself,” Loki reminded. “I just assume that he won’t leave it out of his sight, now that he has all six stones.”

“Well we’re not facing him heads on, for sure,” Rogers pointed out. “The guy can control time, space, and reality…”

“Don’t forget minds,” the archer added without looking away from the arrow head he was inspecting.

“My point is, we stick to the plan,” the male captain insisted. “We land on the planet in stealth mode, Loki gets the stones away from Thanos - reality first, space second, time third, so that he can’t get away or go back in time to avoid us - then we can take him down directly. Not before. Let’s avoid confronting the people of the planet as much as possible, we don’t want to cause any collateral damage.”

With only half of the universe left, Hela supposed that every innocent life was even more precious than usual to those ridiculous heroes.

“T minus thirty!” Captain Marvel announced through the main communication channel from the navigation room.

“Copy that, Captain,” Rogers replied before looking around the room.

“I know that we’re not the most united group,” he said solemnly, glancing at Loki, Nebula, Sif, and Hela. “and that once Thanos is defeated, our individual interests might cease to be mutual. That does not negate the fact that every single one of us has an important role in this mission to bring back half of the universe to life. Half of the universe . So while we are on this mission, it will be crucial to work as a team. Group A?”

“Me, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and Rocket will keep an eye on the locals from the ground and in the air” the Valkyrie took over, “and handle any army Thanos might throw at us. We will draw the battle away from Thor and Loki and won’t move from our position unless the other teams request help.”

“Group B,” Rogers called out.

“Hawkeye, Lady Sif, you and I will protect and support Loki and Thor until Loki manages to draw out the reality, space and time stones,” the Black Widow summarized. “In case Loki’s gauntlet doesn’t work we’ll use Shuri and Tony’s bracelets to store the infinity stones. Once that’s done we will merge with Group C unless Group A needs reinforcement.”

“And best for last, us Group C are in charge of making Thanos and his closest minions bite all the dust that was generated when half of the universe was wiped out,” Stark said before Rogers could call on his group. “Rhodey, Nebula and I will rely on the sensors of our armors rather than our own senses in case Thanos uses the reality stone on us. Hela and the Hulk will probably end up freestyling anyway, but they should help us cut off the purple guy’s left arm if it comes to that.”

“Hulk Smash,” the green giant commented from the door of the meeting room.

Hela snorted. The man of iron was right, she had no intention of following the orders of a mortal, however strong or honorable he was for his kind.

“This is the mission worth dying for,” Rogers said as he stood to his full height and nodded at the rest of the room, “but let’s try our best to survive it. I want us all to go home when it’s all over.”

“Activating stealth mode...now,” Marvel announced from the speakers.

All of them moved to the bridge, where the main screen was projecting images from the outside.

Zen-Whoberi was surrounded by a couple asteroid belts. Its two moons orbiting around the planet were peculiarly close to each other, their orbits seemingly at a convergence point.

“There,” one of Loki’s doubles said as he was guiding Captain Marvel who was flying the spaceship across the burning atmosphere.

It was dusk or dawn when the cruiser landed on a wide patch of grassland, and the two moons were two black half-circles on the way to becoming just one in the fiery sky.

“The stones are there,” Loki pointed at a building towering over the rest of the landscape.

“The lunar temple,” Nebula said as she narrowed her eyes at the sky. “It’s usually deserted with the exception of the priests, but after the triennal lunar eclipse they will start decorating the temple to host the main feast of the harvest festival. People living on the moons have probably already come down to join in the celebration as well.”

Hela blinked at the information. A time constraint would add to the difficulty of an already challenging quest.

Well, well. It would be fun to see the mortals keeping up.

“How long until the eclipse?” Captain Rogers asked to no one in particular.

“At this rate, four hours tops,” Stark replied through his armor.

“Three and a half,” Loki said, his eyes vacant as he gripped Gungnir tightly, then looked at Thor. “Without interference, I could draw the space stone in a few minutes, and it will make drawing the other two even faster. We can’t use the Bifrost, we’ll draw attention to us.”

Hela felt her brother’s seidr ripple around their group, but didn’t say anything. The Valkyrie frowned, and Thor blinked, but Sif and the non-Asgardians didn’t react at all.

“Then we’ll fly there,” Thor proposed as he unstrapped his axe.

“Let’s keep low to the ground to avoid detection,” Rogers instructed.

“No need, I made us all invisible,” Loki informed him before breaking into a run.

After a few powerful leaps, he shimmered in the golden light of his seidr and turned into a great eagle, soaring into the orange sky.

“Neat,” the Valkyrie commented before grasping Thor’s shoulder. “Good luck, your majesty.”

“You as well, my friend,” Hela’s brother replied as he put his free hand on top of the soldier’s. “Lady Sif,” he called as he extended that same arm toward the Asgardian girl.

Hela called on the most abundant metal of the planet to create a narrow gliding track, and started skating across the parted grass before the rest of the group took to the air.

The goddess didn’t mind arriving last, just behind War Machine who had carried Captain Rogers and Nebula. Iron Man, the Hulk and the Black Widow were already walking next to Sif, all three behind Thor and Loki who were leading the way into the temple.

Though imposing in its size, the lunar temple was simple in its architecture. Small dark tiles covered the roof in a fanning layout, burned clay walls were painted in an off-white color, and all the doors were made of sturdy but plain wood.

The building was dark, shadows creeping on the walls and the paved floor as minimal light was provided by fire torches on the sconces.

“The place does need some decoration,” Iron Man commented quietly, quickly hushed by Rogers and Loki.

After winding around several halls that look boringly the same, Hela shivered despite herself as she perceived an immense power emitted from beyond heavy double doors.

“Hulk not scared…” the beast whispered, though his shaky limbs belied his words.

“Who goes there?” A voice shouted from an adjacent hall.

Hela supposed it was one of the few priests tending to the temple.

His skin was as green as the Hulk’s though it appeared golden under the firelight of the torch he was carrying. His eyes were darting left and right, not seeing any of them.

“You cannot stay here, the lunar eclipse will be upon us soon,” he said loudly as he stepped toward the group, the heel of whatever footwear was hidden by his robes clapping against the stone floor. “Come now, you will not be scolded for entering…”

“Get back!” Loki hissed quietly just before the double doors pulled open from the inside, and within a heartbeat Hela was stepping backward to let Thanos pass.

He was almost of a height with the Hulk. If she hadn’t known that it was purple she wouldn’t have been able to tell the color of his skin, especially since the titan was covered in golden armor from head to toe, a helmet protecting his wrinkled skin.

“Who are you? This is sacred ground!” the priest said as he walked faster toward Thanos.

Hela heard a very quiet muffled groan, and leaned beyond the wall of the two intersecting hallways to see Rogers being held by both Iron Man and the Black Widow, the latter holding her gloved hand against the captain’s mouth. Across from them Loki seemed to be pinning an antsy Thor with the sheer power of his gaze.

Ah, the two heroes wanted to save the Kehoberei.

Hela straightened back and turned her head to witness the last moments of the priest, who was already dangling from Thanos’ grip.

“You should be worshipping me instead of worshipping these two insignificant pieces of rock,” the titan said. “I saved you from extinction and gifted you the chance to achieve prosperity.”

“Th-Thanos,” the priest struggled to speak. “You killed my brethrens, slaughtered the high priestess…”

“Then you should thank me for letting you reunite with them,” the conqueror said with such softness than Hela rolled her eyes as the sound of bone fracture resonated in the hallways.

Just as Thanos was about to turn around Hela felt the spell of invisibility lift off, and reflectively erected a wall of stones to momentarily shield them from the titan.

“What in Hel, brother?” she whispered angrily at Loki, but when she stepped closer to him she saw that he could not hear her.

She could barely see him, oddly, then after a moment the goddess realized that he and Thor were still invisible to anyone but their group. Loki had one knee on the floor, using Gungnir to support the rest of his weight. His eyes were closed, his pupils darting around behind his eyelids as he gritted his teeth in intense concentration.

“What’s going on?” a panicked Rogers asked in a low voice, his gaze switching back and forth between Loki and the stone wall.

“He’s started drawing the stones already,” Thor replied just as quietly as he frowned at his gauntlet.

“A warning would’ve been nice,” the Black Widow commented, her voice barely audible. “I didn’t feel it when he cloaked us, but I definitely felt it when we became visible again.”

“It’s probably taking more power than he anticipated,” Iron Man said at a normal volume through the helmet of his machine.

“Stark, you’re alive,” Thanos said.

Hela barely managed not to gape as the titan walked through her wall, which dissipated into bubbles behind him.

“You didn’t kill me, so I’m not sure why you expected anything else,” Iron Man talked back as he extended his arms toward Thanos. “You claimed to know a lot about me, but you missed the memo about my tendency to avenge the victims of wars I fight. Half of the universe, in this case.”

Chapter Text

Thanos’ beady eyes appraised the group, and from tracking his eye movement Hela could tell he only counted eight opponents. Good.

“I commend you for facing me again despite knowing that you hold no chance to even touch me…” Thanos said in such an annoyingly calm voice that Hela flicked her wrist, sending sizeable piece of stone flying across the titan’s head.

It only knocked his helmet askew, but it was satisfying enough.

“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you before,” Thanos said as he carefully removed his headwear. “I am Thanos, savior of the universe.”

“Hela, goddess of death,” she introduced herself as she armed herself with swords, Loki’s dagger returned.

“Goddess of death?” Thanos repeated. “Are you claiming immortality?”

The shards of metal she threw at the titan instead of answering the inane question turned into bubbles - how unimaginative - before they touched him.

“You should congratulate me for sacrificing half of all living creatures for the greater good, goddess of death ,” Thanos said as he flexed his left fist, and Odin’s firstborn only had the time to see the blue stone glow before they were suddenly all outside, in a paved yard on the temple.

Well, not all, as Hela felt with relief that Loki and Thor’s unstable seidr were left behind.

“I have no care for the greater good,” the goddess commented as she made dozens of blades rain on her enemy.

While none of them hit him, multiple energy beams from behind Hela reached their targets, making Thanos slide backward.

“It seems that your first defeat against me was not enough to teach you a lesson about fate,” he said slowly before flexing his left fist again.

Just as the purple stone started glowing, the blue one disappeared from its socket.

Thanos stared down at his gauntlet as missiles from the Iron Man and War Machine ricocheted off the purple barrier around him.

“Impossible,” the titan declared as he looked around him, then made the red stone glow.

Thor and Loki appeared right behind Rogers and the Black widow just as the red stone vanished from Thanos’ gauntlet.

“You!” the conqueror exclaimed, walking menacingly toward Hela’s brothers.

Loki looked unnervingly pale, drops of sweat glistening in the low orange light of the sky. Thor had electricity running along the arm that had the adjusted gauntlet, now holding two of the six stones.

The blades the goddess of death was launching at the enemy just winked out of existence as fast as they appeared, so Hela jumped in front of Thanos.

He deftly avoided her sword and held her immobile with his gaunted hand on her head, and as a yellow light glowed around her Hela realized that this miscreant actually had the power to end her.

A prickly feeling flared in her middle as Thanos looked quizzically at her, blinking slowly before hitting her with more strength than the goddess had ever encountered. She felt her ribs shatter and droplets of blood escape her lips as she brutally landed backward on the rocky ground. She had never experienced such excruciating pain, not even during the war against Jotunheim.

“Group A, we need back up!” Steve Rogers said as he launched himself at Thanos, but the titan flexed his left hand again and with the purple stone knocked out the Midgardian leader.

Recovering from her own crash, Hela coughed as she tried to inhale more air than her mending lungs could yet take, rolling onto her front to get on all fours.

She felt wrong. Normally it didn’t take that long for her to recover from injuries. And why couldn’t she create swords anymore? It was probably Thanos’ doing.

Just as the goddess started worrying about being an easy target, Marvel flew overhead toward the titan, eyes and fists blazing photon energy.

The powerful beams were easily stopped by Thanos’ gauntlet, who used what Hela assumed was the time stone to freeze them midair.

In fact, Marvel herself ended up stuck in an individual time bubble.

“You see, fate itself made it so that I could save it,” the titan said, extending his arm dramatically as he turned around to face Thor and the two mortals in the mechanical armors. Their own powerful hits were uselessly bouncing off the purple shield around Thanos.

“Had these two been among you when my children purged your ship,” the giant said looking straight at Thor, “or on my home planet before I acquired the time stone,” he added after switching his gaze to Stark then finally to Steve Rogers, “or on your home planet when I looked for the mind stone... Maybe then you could have stopped me. But now? Now I’m unstoppable.”

“I’ve...had...enough…” Marvel said, the sound of her voice and the movement of her lips asynchronous.

Her armor flashing a golden light, the lady captain recoiled from the time bubble Thanos had trapped her in before thrusting her arms and neck forward, a concentrated wave of photon energy crashing against the barrier around the titan.

“How do you like my intradimensional phaser, Loki? Told you it would work!” Stark’s voice resonated loud and clear, and Hela turned right in time to see Loki roll his eyes.

“Spoke too fast,” the flying Midgardian commented as she deftly landed on one foot before bringing the other down, staring down at her left arm as the luminous green power of the time stone radiated all over her bracelet for a heartbeat before glowing in an alarmingly blinding light.

Marvel shook her left arm around, the light of her bracelet dulling before the object broke into useless pieces before.

“Never mind then,” Stark said as he looked back at Loki. “We’re counting on you, Merlin!”

“Don’t put too much faith in me, Stark,” Loki said, his calm voice belying his fragile state.

He was on the verge of fainting, Hela could tell. Once again, she was shocked at how much her adopted brother reminded her of their father, who would cling to consciousness before falling quite inelegantly into his sleeps.

“Use the stones,” Loki shouted at Thor as he struggled to stand up, using Gungnir for support.

Hela was quite tempted to take the spear for herself, now that she couldn’t make her own weapons. She had returned Loki’s dagger before they landed on the planet.

“Loki Odinson,” Thanos said, his voice echoing peculiarly, the words slowing down but remaining equally loud repetition after repetition.

Hela realized with apprehension that Thanos had created a cylindrical barrier around himself and Loki, a green fog keeping them apart from everyone else.

“Loki!” Thor screamed, and the blue stone on his gauntlet shone, but none of the dozen locations he teleported to was within the time bubble.

“You promised me your undying loyalty, once,” Thanos said as he slowly advanced toward the Asgardian prince.

“That promise lost its value when you killed me,” Loki pointed out with a smug lift of his lips, lifting his chin and straightening to his full height, his defiance so strong that it seemed to overcome his pain.

“Thanos!!” Thor shouted this time, making the red stone shine but nothing happened.

“I suppose,” the titan said in reply to Loki, completely ignoring Thor. “But you see, I grow tired of being betrayed by those who previously swore to serve me. My daughters strayed from me, my children failed to return to me alive...I guess you will do.”

Ever so slowly, Thanos extended his gaunted hand toward Loki, who tried to use Gungnir to defend himself, but the sudden movement seemed to only weaken him more.

Every other member of the group attempted to break through the time barrier, only to fail. Hela knew better than to waste her energy.

“You’re not even trying!” Thor told Hela when he looked at her idleness. “He saved your life, and you can’t bother to move a finger to save his!”

“I’ll repeat myself only this once: Loki didn’t save me,” Hela talked back. “And what could I possibly do that would work when your efforts with two infinity stones didn’t yield any result?”

“You’re truly the worst,” the god of thunder said as the already dark sky turned almost nightly as clouds gathered, and the most shattering lightning storm fell on their battlefield, the ropes of electricity barely sparing the team members.

“Easy, Zeus!” Iron Man shouted, though his armor seemed unaffected by the lightning even after being hit full force. “Thanks for the juice, regardless.”

“Thor power tickles,” the green giant declared unhelpfully.

“It’s not going through the barrier, Thor, stop!” Captain Rogers said even more loudly from under his shield, lifted over himself and the tiny Black Widow fitting under his other arm.

One blink of Hela’s eyes later, the lightning was gone, and it took less than a minute for the sky to return to normal, though the sky had gone from its deep orange hue to a rosy red.

The goddess of death lifted her head to look at the moons, which were getting too close to merging into a single black circle.

“Hey, guys?” A voice said in Hela’s ear, and she almost turned around before remembering about the earpiece she had accepted from the Midgardians. “What happened to not drawing the natives’ attention ?”

“Shit,” Stark cursed as he gained altitude to survey the area beyond their battlefield. “Shit, again. Don’t you dare comment on that, Cap.”

“Tell me why you’re cursing and I won’t,” Rogers replied.

“Looks like some Zehoberei exodus right there,” the man in the red and gold armor said with a sigh. “We have hundreds to possibly a thousand green people heading our way, team. They’re less than an hour out.”

“Permission to stall them with a little scare, cap?” the Ant-Man’s voice said. “The Valkyrie couldn’t dissuade them to inspect the sacred ground.”

“Granted, Scott, thanks,” Rogers said as he went back to looking worryingly at Loki and Thanos.

“This is your last chance to prove your worth trickster,” the titan declared as he dropped his hand on Loki’s head, “don’t disappoint me.”

As the bright yellow light that hadn’t affected Hela earlier faded from around Loki, so did the time bubble.

Yet, for what felt like an eternity, no one moved.

“I call that tasting your own medicine,” the Hawkeye drawled as he reached back to pick an arrow. “I’ll gladly knock him down to bring him back to his senses.”

“What do you mean?” Sif asked as she looked around the faces of Thor’s mortals. “What stone did Thanos just used on Loki?”

“Someone hasn’t been paying attention for the past three weeks,” the Black Widow mumbled as she charged her wrist weapons.

“At least we know how to deal with Loki,” Steve Rogers said. “Which Thanos knows, so why set him against us?”

The sudden drop in temperature told Hela the answer to the captain’s question.

“No,” Thor said, his breath visible in the air, his eyes going wide. His hold on Stormbreaker went lax.

“Either nights are ridiculously chilly here, or something fishy is happening,” War Machine commented.

“It never gets that cold here,” Nebula said, looking suspiciously at Loki.

Loki, Prince of Asgard, Son of Odin, but spawn of Laufey King, Supreme ruler of Jotunheim, the Cruel Striker.* Blue was spreading on Loki’s skin as the temperature went even lower, enough for ice to form on the short grass blades around them.

“Norns have mercy, he truly is a monster,” Sif said before she split her sword in two.

Loki’s red eyes snapped in her direction, and the little soldier barely avoided the long shards of ice that materialized halfway the distance between her and the prince.

“Woah!” Stark exclaimed loudly, and Hela considered removing her earpiece.

“Loki, brother, stop!” Thor implored, teleporting to stand between the jotun and Sif, his axe lifted defensively.

This time, Loki made ice spears appear in each of his hands and ran towards his brother, his face impassive but his intention clear.

“Captain Marvel, War Machine, and Iron Man, don’t give Thanos an inch, but be careful with that time stone,” Rogers instructed, “the rest of us are on Loki. We just need to knock him unconscious.”

Hela laughed as an icy wind blew across the battleground, whipping all the grounded Midgardians off their feet. the goddess and Sif remained standing. So did Thor, who was doing his best to evade Loki’s hits while trying to talk sense to him.

“If he doesn’t knock us unconscious first,” Nebula commented as she rolled back to her feet. “Why did we not know about these powers?”

“He didn’t even know that he was a frost giant until...” Sif started, but then yelped.

Hela spared her a glance, the corner of her lips lifting when she saw an ice spear lodged into the Asgardian soldier’s left shoulder.

“Lady Sif!” Thor shouted, then teleported away from Loki to reappear next to his friend, who was down on one knee.

“It’s not that deep,” the girl reassured as her king gingerly used his lightning to melt the blade.

“Don’t give him ideas,” the Hawkeye said as he released an arrow which exploded mid-air to deflect the new ice blades coming their way.

Loki emerged from the smoke of the explosion, his arms raised to bring down an impressively long and thick ice spear. Thor teleported himself and Sif while the Midgardians had no choice but to scatter around.

“Alright, little brother, let’s play,” Hela said as she jumped several yards to get Gungnir, rolling across the grass when another gust of freezing wind knocked her down. Just as she was extending her arm to grab the Allfather’s spear, a wall of ice materialized in front of the goddess of death, effectively blocking her way to the weapon.

Laughing some more, Hela cartwheeled backward to avoid Loki’s spear, and crouched down upon landing to withstand the force of Loki’s next hit, which she blocked with her bracers by crossing her wrists.

“You’re almost as fierce as your sire, brother,” she complimented before pushing Loki away with all her might.

The god of mischief - was he still a god if he was jotun? - recovered quickly, spinning on his heels and twirling his spear overhead several times before bringing it down on the ground.

Hela couldn’t track much of Loki’s jotun seidr, but she cautiously jumped away, barely getting out of range of enormous stalagmites.

Two arrows wheezed past Hela and would have reached Loki if he hadn’t used his icy wind again.

A shadow went over the goddess’ head, and she saw the Hulk bring his big fists down as he jumped down on Loki, creating a shallow crater and a dust of powdery ice upon landing.

“And where have you been?” Hawkeye asked the green giant as he jogged closer, the Captain and Black Widow on his heels.

The latter looked Hela up and down, frowning.

“New belt?” the red-haired woman asked.

Confused, Hela looked down and saw that indeed, she had a new belt. It was golden, and its design reminded her eerily of something she had seen before.

Steve Rogers looked at her in turn, then exchanged a glance with the Black Widow.

“Thanos tried to use the mind stone on you earlier,” the captain recalled. “Until then your belt was black…”

Hela immediately tore the belt from her waist, just in time to raise a stone wall to block off another rain of icy blades.

“My friends!” Thor said after appearing back in a blue light. “Let me see you to a safer place, and I alone will deal with my brother.”

“He’s my brother too,” Hela reminded as her wall was gradually being coated by a sheath of ice. “And I have just what we need to stop him.”

“Where did you get that?” Thor questioned as he readied his axe.

The goddess of death used a wide-bladed sword to deflect the piece of frozen stone that blew up, then to parry a blow from Loki’s spear.

“Keep him occupied and you might just find out!” Hela said over her shoulder as she spinned on one leg to kick Loki a bit harder than was necessary.

The small frost giant fell on his back, down for the first time since his skin had turned blue.

Thor was upon him even before he stood back up, and with a flex of his right gaunted hand and a glow of the red stone, the piece of land around Loki turned normal again. What looked like oak tree roots emerged from beneath Loki’s feet, creeping on his legs then his waists and arms, lifting him several feet off the floor as it only left his upper torso and head free.

Hela had to climb the twisted branches to reach her brother, who was frowning and vainly trying to twist free of his trap.

“Great fight, little brother,” the goddess conceded as she closed the magical band around Loki’s neck, and as she anticipated the magical object adjusted its size to fit snugly around the sorcerer’s throat.

Unlike what she anticipated, however, the Asgardian Prince’s skin remained blue, and the rapid blink of his crimson eyes was the only indication to Hela that her brother had recovered all his mental faculties.

“When did I give you that, I don’t quite remember,” the god of mischief asked just as the roots disappeared, and both Asgardians landed gracefully on their feet.

“That potion you drank afterward was to erase that part of your memory I presume,” Hela replied as she looked at her adopted brother more closely.

His heritage lines identified him more as Farbauti’s spawn* than Laufey’s, which explained his predilection for sorcery.

The frost giant queen had been a sorer thorn to Odin’s back than would ever be known. Hela had never asked for confirmation, but was quite certain that Odin had given his eye to get powerful enough to defeat the Ice Sorceress.

“Why aren’t you turning back into your real - I mean, into your Asgardian skin?” Thor asked hesitantly as he stood at arms length from his two siblings.

“Because this would counter the shapeshifting anyway,” Loki admitted as he extended his arms, and from a swirl of pale blue light emerged the Casket of Ancient Winters

Hela had forgotten about that powerful source of magic, the mystical heart of Jotunheim. It was just as ugly as she remembered it, an oddly shaped vessels shining blue from frost giant seidr, framed by simple iron handles.

Loki closed his eyes, and the Casket glowed brightly, then suddenly disappeared.

Loki brought down one arm and kept the other extended, and levitating just above his open palm was the green time stone. The sorcerer waved his hand and the stone placed itself into a third slot of Thor’s gauntlet.

Hela surprised herself by catching her youngest brother when his legs gave away, and belatedly chided herself for touching a frost-giant barehanded but when she looked down at Loki, his skin was back to the pale one she was more familiar with.

“I sorely underestimated the energy required to play around with the greatest sources of power in the universe,” Loki confessed with a scoff. “Wasted quite a lot when fought you all too - which, by the way, was a lot of fun - so I think I’ll let you finish Thanos for me. We have less than an hour left.”

He was looking past Hela’s shoulder, probably addressing Nebula and the Midgardians.

“You’ve done your part, we couldn’t ask for more,” Rogers acknowledged. “Thank you, Loki.”

The wide grin that formed on her brother’s face shocked Hela.

Loki was happy to receive gratitude from these ephemeral creatures?

“The pleasure was mine, Captain,” the god of mischief replied.

The mortals ran toward the fierce battle engaged between Thanos and the rest of teams B and C and Captain Marvel.

“I imagine that Sif is quite beside herself that I managed to best her,” Loki commented with a sigh. “Nothing I can give her will make her forgive me.”

“You were formidable, brother,” Thor said, awe barely concealed by the questioning tone of that statement. “How come you’ve never used your jotun magic before?”

“As you’ve both noticed, my jotun seidr is quite different from my Asgardian one,” Loki said as he stood on his feat. “Before today, I had only ever used it against the frost giants themselves, and our old friend Heimdall. I didn’t feel comfortable using it, which involves me looking...blue.”

“I know I should be the last person to tell you this brother,” Thor said as he stepped closer, “but you shouldn’t be ashamed of your biological heritage. You remain our brother regardless of who gave birth to you.”

“Do you know who your mother was?” Hela asked as she finally let go of her adopted brother, who looked strong enough to stand without external support.

“Farbauti,” Loki replied with a nod. “Mother - I mean Frigga - told me. It’s the true reason why Odin took me from Jotunheim in the first place: he had planned on studying my seidr so he could prevent any other powerful jotun sorcerer from ever challenging him.”

“But he didn’t in the end, because he loved you as his own,” Thor argued.

“Think whatever will help you remember Father fondly, Thor, I care not,” Loki replied. “When I posed as Odin, I was able to find obscure tomes of sorcery, though only a few on jotun magic. That’s why my weapons are so rudimentary. Most of the books were on the infinity stones, and how to seal away or protect oneself from their powers…”

“Which is how you were able to enchant this to block the mind stone’s effect,” Hela guessed as she pointed at Loki’s collar. “I don’t understand why it blocked my powers too.”

“My educated guess is that your power partly consists in forcing the planet to give you its seidr and resources to shape your weapons,” Loki explained. “So in a way you are controlling the will of the planet. Seventh fundamental tenet of seidr studies…”

“Asgard and other planets are entities of their own,” Hela recited. “They are immense sources of seidr, but most of it is dedicated to preserving the ecosystems that populate them. Tapping into that seidr impunely is forbidden.”

The last part of the tenet was exactly the reason why Hela had started creating her own weapons by manipulating seidr from the planets she battled on. She had defied so many rules, most of them imposed by Odin himself, just because she could.

“I use the magic of planets to amplify my own every time I call onto lightning,” Thor reflected out loud.

“You’ve used Mjolnir most of your life to do so,” Loki reminded him. “And now you have Stormbreaker. Uru doesn’t have seidr itself, it’s whatever ancient spells the dwarves weave into it that gives it life. Weapons made from uru and other enchanted metal still qualify as inanimate objects. They can’t break rules, only serve their purposes. That’s why sorcerers use enchanted objects all the time. Otherwise they run out of seidr quickly, just like I did.”

“But, on Asgard before Ragnarok I didn’t use any conduit,” Thor insisted.

“Asgard’s seidr has been manipulated to aid all who have the blood of the Allfather,” Loki said. “That doesn’t apply solely to Hela, though I’m sure Odin wove some additional spells for her. And the tenet forbids to use the power sources of planets impunely . I’m sure every planet you walk on knows that you’re there to protect it.”

An explosion not too far away brought the three children of Odin back to the reality of their current circumstances.

“Please go help our friends kill the mad titan so we can leave this planet before all its inhabitants come looking around,” Loki requested as he made a double of himself. “I’ll watch with this one, and see if I can’t help Team A in person.”

“Thank you for your help, brother,” the god of thunder said as he grabbed the back of Loki’s neck. “I must confess that I didn’t fully trust your plan this whole time, but your efforts were monumental to this great battle.”

“You should never trust me, Thor,” Loki replied with a playful smile. “Only trust that I love you, brother.”

“And I you, more than anything,” came Thor’s maudlin reply.

“Sentiment,” Hela groaned as she walked away from her two siblings.

“I’m growing quite fond of you too sister,” Loki’s double said as he walked besides her.

Thor flew overhead, joining his companions to defeat Thanos.

“If you mean it, then tell me how to convince Thor to rebuild Asgard properly ,” the goddess of death requested. “The Valkyrie said that Thor had planned to seek refuge on Midgard. Has he not lived there himself on multiple occasions? The air is foul there.”

“Agreed,” Loki said. “And although Thor is half-Vanir, I’m not certain that Freyr and Freya would let us settle permanently in Vanaheim.”

“We need a virgin planet, one that we can spell to serve our family,” Hela proposed, but Loki’s double laughed.

“And how are we to shelter, feed, and entertain thousands of Asgardians from scratch?” he asked.

When Hela didn’t reply, the double stopped walking, staring at her.

“Really sister?” the illusion exclaimed.

He pointed at the group of Midgardians, Nebula, Thor, and even Sif who had returned to the battlefield.

“You think this group of heroes , our king included, will let you pillage planets?” the fake Loki asked rhetorically. “Just to restore one civilization with social norms that appear backward to them?”

“I know they won’t,” Hela admitted. “That’s why I’m asking you to figure out a way to get us a suitable home while keeping our brother happy.”

“What would truly make Thor happy would be abdicating and returning to his easy days of traveling across galaxies to knock out villains...Wait.”

Hela raised an eyebrow, watching Loki think fast.

“Skip to the straightforward solution, brother, I have a battle to get to,” Hela demanded.

“We could share the duties of the crown, you, Thor and I,” Loki said.  “The people love Thor, so he'll stay the official king. Asgardians know that I can keep them fed and entertained, and they will eventually appreciate that you can protect them from any threat. We could go around the universe getting rid of villains, Thor won’t mind you killing that kind of people. We could then settle trading agreements with all the places we save, acquire the resources necessary to build an opulent realm...Let me get back to you with a more detailed plan after we bring half of the universe back to life.”

Hela didn’t bother asking him how he planned on doing that. She trusted that he would get it done.

Chapter Text

As soon as Thor landed close to the zone of battle, he knew something was wrong.

Or maybe he knew the following second, after ducking out of the way of Steven’s shield.

"Steve - what in the Norns...What are you doing?” he asked the good captain as he easily evaded the Midgardian’s unexpected kicks and punches.

Spinning around Captain Rogers to avoid a knee to his side - that would have hurt, even for the god of thunder - Thor found himself staring at Sif battling Lady Natasha.

Before he could wonder why his childhood friend had ignored his recommendation to rest from the injury Loki had inflicted her, the king of Asgard pieced out the puzzle of his comrades’ uncharacteristic behaviors.

“Thanos is controlling your mind!” he said out loud as he grabbed Steve Roger’s fist to stop it from coming in contact with his cheekbone.

Thor shoved his friend away and flexed his hand in the gauntlet to teleport a couple thousand paces away, where half a dozen Lokis were helping the Ant-Man and the Valkyrie appease angered Zehoberei people brandishing makeshift weapons and screaming at them to let them pass and protect their sacred ground.

“Loki!” Thor called out as he looked around after making one of his brother’s doubles disappear with a pass of his hand.

“You just made me waste precious energy,” the god of mischief declared as he rematerialized in a blur of golden light. “I’m talking to one of their leaders right now, I cannot come in person. What is it?”

“Thanos used the mind stone on Captain America and the Lady Widow, the god of thunder informed urgently. “I don’t want to hurt them any more than I wanted to hurt you. Do you have any more of these collars?”

Loki’s illusion briefly touched his neck, where the magical collar almost blended with that of his favorite overcoat.

“It’s one of a kind, but don’t worry,” the double replied. “Bring each of them to me separately,” he added as he pointed past the crowd of green-skinned people, where a smaller group was standing away from the commotion.

“Please subdue them before you do so,” Loki instructed, “I won’t be held responsible if they harm someone.”

Thor nodded his understanding before teleporting himself back to where he’d left Steve.

The captain was now pairing up with the lady spy against Lady Sif, Nebula, and a hesitating Iron Man.

“Would you mind lending a hand, huntsman?” Stark told Thor after landing hard from being hit with the shield.

Thor didn’t get the time to reply because the tiny Black Widow was climbing on him, swinging her legs around his upper torso to perch herself on his shoulder.

The zap of her widow bites stung annoyingly, but Thor endured it calmly as he jerked left and right, not just to dislodge Natasha but to also evade Steve’s renewed assault.

The god of thunder idly mused that if the Lady Widow had been as strong as Sif, then the two Midgardian fighters could have taken him down with joined efforts.

Going down on a knee, Thor used the wooden handle of Stormbreaker to unwind one of Natasha’s thigh from his chest. The spy moved to change her grip, so he used her momentum to throw her over his shoulder, aiming her at Steve.

It spoke volumes about their partnership that the captain caught the former S.H.I.E.LD. agent effortlessly by the waist, swiftly lifting her over to his shoulder to allow her to flip past him, kicking an incoming Nebula midair.

“I’ll let you deal with reverse Cold War here,” Tony announced as he took off to return to the side of the Hulk, Captain Marvel, War Machine and Hela.

Thor sighed as he knocked away the shield Steve sent at him again, groaning when he saw Natasha pick it up and throw it anew. Clearly Thanos had meant to mock them all with this use of the mind stone.

“My apologies, my friend,” the god of thunder whispered as he extended his axe at Natasha, a few tendrils of electricity shooting out from the enchanted uru to knock her out.

Before Steve could get to her, Thor grabbed the Lady Widow and teleported to Loki, who didn’t blink at his sudden apparition unlike the tall Zehoberei men who surrounded him and a startled elderly Zehoberei.

“It will take a moment,” Loki assured the elder with an apologetic smile - a fake one, Thor could tell - and snapped a band around the unconscious Natasha in the god of thunder’s arms.

Loki tapped her shoulder gently, a discreet golden spark the only hint to Thor that his brother used magic to wake the spy.

The red-haired lady warrior groaned, her eyes still closed as she pushed her forehead against Thor’s chest before freezing on the spot.

“That was not what I expected,” she said cryptically before deftly hopping out of Thor’s arms.

“From mind control or from Thor’s chest?” Loki asked mockingly. “I never understood maidens’ desire to throw themselves into his armored arms.”

Natasha blinked slowly at Thor’s brother before looking over her shoulder, appraising the crowd of Zehoberei people - and possibly their friends and allies past it.

“Steve,” the spy told the god of thunder.

“Right away, my friend!” Thor gladly promised before teleporting again.

Using the tesseract was much more comfortable than using the Bifrost. There was no feeling of gravity applying to your insides the wrong way, which made Thor feel only half-guilty for teleporting Steve with the headache of a bruising backhand to his temple.

Already caught up on how the magical object worked, Natasha quickly kneeled by them and snapped open the band at her arm to click it shut at Steve’s.

The captain blinked multiple times before staring at Natasha for a few uncomfortable heart beats, his mouth half agape.

“No wonder Clint is still upset about it,” the lady Widow commented with a smirk, tapping Steve’s forearm.

Thor stood as he comrades did, glancing between them in a vain attempt to understand what they meant.

He had no intention of falling prey to the mind stone in turn to understand their experience.

“Let’s end this,” Steve said solemnly as he turned around to frown at the faraway battle ground. “Take us back, Thor?”

“Gladly,” the god of thunder replied as he put his hands on his friends’ shoulders.

Nebula and Sif had joined the rest of the team attacking a now cornered Thanos.

Though the titan looked exhausted - his forearm looked burned and scarred at the juncture of his gauntlet - he still looked too lively in Thor’s opinion.

“You wouldn’t possibly understand the good I have done,” Thanos growled as he swung a purple-glowing fist at the Lady Marvel and War Machine, who simply flew away to evade it.

“Your motivations are purely selfish while mine have the greater good at heart,” the titan rambled. “Do you know the sacrifices I have made to reach my goals? None of you would bear the burdens I have had to carry on my shoulders to insure the integrity of this universe.”

Thor threw Stormbreaker at the tyrant, shrugging off at Iron Man’s ‘really, Thor?’ when Thanos used the power stone to easily deflect it.

“Thor Odinson, king of ashes,” Thanos said with a wide smile as he created another barrier between him and the team using the power stone.

“Your people were among the most wasteful of all,” the titan claimed as he pointed at Loki’s illusion, carelessly watching the battle on top of boulder a few paces away. “Your own brother told me so. I would have burned your kingdom to the ground myself if you hadn’t already done so. Asgardians were a pest to your corner of the universe.”

Thor’s rage, surprisingly, didn’t blind him to the fact that there was truth in the titan’s words. Right behind him was the sister who had helped his father pillage the Nine Realms in the name of Asgard’s glory.

“As the new king of Asgard, it is my duty to right the wrongs done by my predecessors,” the god of thunder declared. “You have no authority to meddle in Asgardian affairs.”

 He teleported past the barrier, standing mere inches away from Thanos. 

The titan stepped back, his eyes wide. He lifted up the arm with the gauntlet but Thor brought down a torrent of lightning on the barrier, and smiled as he felt his shield mates adding their powers to his to bring down the walls behind which Thanos was cowardly hiding. The Hulk simply punched his way through it when it weakened. 

“You are the real pest,” Tony said as he landed just behind Thor.

“Thanos pest!” the Hulk concurred with a grunt.

“If you really cared about resources running out, you could have simply used the mind stone to brainwash planet’s leaders to make the people use the resources more wisely,” Captain Marvel said. “Slaughtering fifty percent of the planet is a uselessly temporary solution. Do you know how fast just planet Earth could double in population?”

“The impact of my work would have a more compelling influence on the survivors,” Thanos said passionately. “They’ll remember the punishment for their past mistakes.”

Thor squeezed the handle of Stormbreaker so hard he could feel the subtle ridges of the wood Tree had benevolently gifted him. 

Tree, who had gone to ashes even though he had been too young to be guilty of wasting any resource.

“They don’t even know why you decimated their numbers!” Lady Sif exclaimed. “The Vanir first thought that Ragnarok had extended to all the Nine Realms. How would a murderer like you even know anything about resource management?”

“Regardless of your intentions, you went about this the wrong way,” Hela said casually. “If you wanted people to fear displeasing you, you should have shown them your face first. Faceless conquerors become notorious legends and quickly fade away from collective memory. Take it from a goddess forsaken by her own people.” 

“You had to make it about you?” Thor said, incredulous.

“Can we get this over with before the eclipse is complete?” Loki’s illusion called out. “The Zehoberei Council demands we leave their sacred ground not a minute afterwards”

Thor spared a squint of his eyes at the sky - the two moons already looked as one - before glaring at Thanos, who weakly lifted the arm wearing the gauntlet - his purple skin was now lined with brown blisters climbing up to his shoulder.

“Aim for the head this time,” Thanos reminded him. 

Even before the last word left his lips, Thor sliced off the titan's damaged forearm at the elbow. The gauntlet and severed limb dropped to the grass in a softened thunk.

“I’ve been killing vermin like you for centuries,” Thor spoke back as Thanos went down to his knees, screaming. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do so.”

The titan panted audibly, pain and rage in his eyes as he glared at Thor.

“Also,” Thor added as he tipped his head to the side, “she wants the honors to end you.” 

As soon as the god of thunder stepped aside, Nebula launched herself at her adoptive father, thrusting a jagged blade into the titan’s thick neck.

“Daughter,” Thanos grunted, his voice wet with the blood most likely flooding his throat.

“That’s for Gamora!” the mechanically enhanced Luphomoid shouted before brutally jerking the knife away, a jet of dark blood splashing the grass, Thanos’ face, and Thor’s boots.

The god of thunder looked at his brother’s double, who was now standing stiffly straight, staring blankly at the quickly dying titan.

The older Odinson wondered how long Loki had waited for Thanos’ demise. Thor had known about the mad titan for mere months, but Loki had clearly met him before he appeared on Midgard with madness in his eyes and threats of retribution and conquest on his lips. 

As if he could perceive Thor’s thoughts, Loki’s illusion locked eyes with him for a few seconds before dissipating into thin air.

“Okay, gross, but I’m not risking my own arms,” Tony said as he picked up Thanos’ severed arm and the three infinity stones remaining on the gauntlet.

“Let’s get out of here,” Steve ordered.

The team actually remained on Zen-Whoberi to attend the first day of the harvest festival, on the cordial invitation of the Zehoberei Council. After a good night of rest on the ship, returning to the temple for a more relaxing purpose made the planet feel like a completely different place.

The feast was nowhere as abundant as those Thor used to attend on Asgard, but what the Zehoberei’s celebration lacked in food - and alcohol, the strongest they had was fermented grape juice, to the Valkyrie’s horror - they made up in entertainment.

The music was heavy in drums, and very up-tempo, but Thor had danced to even more irregular rhythms of Alfheim so he didn’t do as poorly as Steven in following the locals in their athletic choreographies. The good captain had publicly humiliated himself only because Lady Natasha had challenged him to, and he laughed with her and Clinton at his own clumsiness.

Lady Sif and the Valkyrie participated in the first round of the small tourney of the lunar festival, somehow getting allowed to join in the tournament despite not being able to stay for the second round three days later.

As expected, the two Asgardian soldiers crushed their competition, though they clearly held back in order not to physically impair anyone. 

Stark and the Lady Marvel spent a lot of time with the small group of Zehoberei engineers, drawing them schematics for larger but still sustainably designed shuttles to fly the people off and to the moons. As Thanos had claimed, the survivors of the planet had been very frugal with their resources since the genocide of half of their people a quarter century ago.

 It was only once the mild alcohol started affecting Thor’s gait that he realized that his brother had been away from his side the whole time.

The god of thunder found one of the god of mischief’s doubles - his skin and hair looked too perfect - chatting with a Zehoberei elder, his diplomatic charm clear on his features.

 “What are you up to, brother?” Thor mumbled as he looked around for the real body of his brother.

 “Negotiating trade deals,” Clinton’s voice said on his left, startling the king of Asgard.

 “Hawkeye!” he exclaimed dumbly, suppressing his urge to burp. “I appreciate that you’re keeping an eye on my brother, but I assure you that he’s not a threat to anyone here.”

 “I’d say that he’s a threat to you,” the archer replied flatly. “Shouldn’t you or your trade minister be the one opening trade with other planets? Where would those shipments of metal ores even be sent to? Your planet doesn’t exist anymore.”

 Thor felt his eyebrows shoot out to his hairline as he blinked at his fellow Avenger.

 “I’ll let you know when I find out myself,” he finally replied as he walked around Clint, another of Loki’s doubles in his line of sight. “Thank you for letting me know.”

 “For what it’s worth, I think he means well,” the archer said unexpectedly without turning around.

 Thor hoped it was the case. The sight of Loki - or his double, it was harder to tell in the dark lighting - talking quietly with Hela behind the heavy pillars of the temple’s entrance was not inspiring him any trust.

 “What are you two plotting?” He asked more loudly than he had wanted, but still quietly enough that the Zehoberei passing through the doors didn’t spare him a glance.

 “We’re just catching up, as your Midgardians say,” Loki replied as he waved a hand between him and Hela. “She’s five thousands years old, did you know that? She's spent three of those in Hel, evidently.”

 “And she should return there for five more millennia,” Thor said coldly, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against one of the massive pillars. “You’ve slaughtered your own people, Hela. Under normal circumstances, I would condemn you to death. Be grateful that I am a merciful ruler.”

“If you can cast me back to Hel you are obviously free to do so, Allfather, ” Hela said, opening her arms in mock surrender to his punishment. 

Thor glanced at Loki, who openly gazed back at him, a lift of his lips betraying his amusement. 

“You would defend her?” the elder brother asked. “After all she did to us? To our friends and people?”

 “Don’t be so dramatic, Thor,” the younger brother replied. “She didn’t kill anyone who couldn't defend themselves, unlike me. Are you going to lock me in a dungeon once you find us a home then?” 

The god of thunder almost told Loki not to be ridiculous, but he caught himself before uttering a single word.

It was true that both of his siblings were criminals, and he couldn’t justify punishing one and sparing the other, though he was certain that the people of Asgard could easily forgive Loki for anything. They would just as likely riot if Thor told them that he was allowing Hela to live among them. 

“We will discuss it again once we return to Vanaheim,” the king of Asgard decreeted. “I’m sure that Freyr and Freya have dealt with similar cases when they took the throne after the Vanir civil war. They’ll offer me sound counsel.”

Hela’s laugh made Thor want to hit the back of his head against the pillar.  

“Is that what they taught you?” she asked rhetorically, “that the twin heirs of Njord won a civil war? Father was creative, I must admit it.”

“And what are your accounts of what happened shortly before and during Asgard’s involvement with the Vanir civil war?” Loki asked clinically, as if he wasn’t being told that all of the history they had painstakingly learned were mere fiction.

 Thor had sacrificed hours that could’ve been spent improving his combat skills reciting names and dates, for centuries !

“When Asgard invaded Vanaheim, most Vanir clans decided to oppose us,” Hela recalled, her gaze shining with twisted delight. “We got rid of their laughable opposition, evidently, but it was a slow process, as they had war mages among the Vanir soldiers. Regardless, Father and I decimated the brunt of their numbers, and the Vanir clans finally surrendered, offering their most powerful war mages as slaves to the House of Odin so that we would spare their clan leaders. Obviously the war mages hadn’t agreed to those conditions of surrender.” 

Thor felt himself shaking in outrage. 

“Are you saying that Mother…” he started, but couldn’t finish.

 “Mother wasn’t a war sorceress, and she definitely was no slave to Odin,” Loki cut him off, and Hela nodded in confirmation.

“In any case, Njord, the most prominent of all clan leaders, proposed the alternative solution of banning war magic on Vanaheim,” the goddess of death informed. “He had been bringing changes to Vanir society so that his clan could become the royal family. To reward Njord for resolving the matter of future uprising against Asgard in the swiftest manner, Odin promised to give his spawn leadership over the rest of the clans. At the time I thought that Odin was making an empty promise…”

“But when you saw him crowning Njord’s niece queen of Asgard, you understood that the Allfather meant to respect his promise,” Loki completed her sentence.

 “She had charmed him with Vanir witchcraft, I’m sure,” Hela claimed bitterly. “she made him drink all these potions…”

 “They fell in love, it was that boringly simple,” Loki corrected, "and those 'potions' were mundane herbal teas, which simply help improve mood and sleep."

 “She turned my father against me!” the goddess of death hissed as she pushed long hairs away from her face. “Odin had never refused me anything until that Vanir wench came into our home!”

 “How dare you!” Thor said as he straightened away from the pillar, unstrapping his axe to punish the insult to his mother.

 “I remember asking you to speak the name of Frigga with care,” Loki said calmly, still leaning against his pillar. “This will be your last warning.”

 “Are you threatening me, little brother?” Hela asked with a manic smile.

 That woman was deranged, and though Thor had never doubted it now he planned on being more active in getting rid of her. Preferably in a more definitive way than Odin banning her to Hel.

 “You’re the one who said that I was powerful enough to threaten father,” Loki replied with the shrug of a shoulder. “And that I was just as fierce as my sire in my Jotun form. I reckon that it makes me likely to defeat you in a battle to the death, sister.”

 “There is no other way I’d rather go than at the hand of a more powerful warrior,” the goddess of death declared.

 Loki chuckled as he stepped away from the pillar. Thor noticed that he couldn't tell whether Loki had been leaning his weight on it or simply appearing to be physically there. It was really hard to tell with the fading sunlight.

 “I’m not a warrior, Hela,” Loki reminded. “As successfully as Odin managed to turn you into the perfect Asgardian killing machine, he failed at making me enjoy combat. I’d rather see us all, the three of us, find a peaceful way to coexist so that we can lead what remains of our people.”

 “Is establishing trade behind my back a way to peacefully coexist, brother?” Thor asked as he walked into Loki’s personal space, confirming that this Loki was another fake one as it blinked momentarily at the mere touch of Thor’s arm.

 “One of us has to think about ruling,” the god of mischief talked back. “I will not stoop so low as to live on that filthy pet planet of yours, Thor. Freya is being generous now, but she won’t let us occupy her kingdom for long, not with you continuing the legacy of Odin.”

 “I won’t make father’s mistakes!” Thor contested. “And it wasn’t my idea to bring our people to Vanaheim. The Valkyrie had no choice but to leave them there when the Lady Marvel refused to bring them to Earth. I don’t blame the lady captain but…”

 The older Odinson stopped talking when he saw Loki blinking in and out of existence.

 Another double. Thor sighed.

 "Thor,” Loki’s illusion called.

 His voice was off, even for a double.

“What?” 

The double became blurry again, but didn’t answer Thor. 

“What is it, Loki?”

“I’ve been spending hours with Thanos’ gauntlet,” the clone informed him. “On the ship, I used Gungnir and even the Casket…” 

“You did what?!” Thor exclaimed, mildly furious at Loki’s trespass of his chambers, though not surprised.

 “I got the mind and power stones out of their sockets without any difficulty,” Loki explained without acknowledging his burst. “It took less than five minutes, now that that I’m used to the spell.”

“Less than five minutes?” Hela repeated. “You left four hours ago…”

 “How do you know that?” Thor asked his sister as he looked back and forth between his siblings. “Do you tell her everything yet hide everything from me?”

“She can perceive my seidr, I don’t have to tell her anything.” Loki replied.

 “You told me that only witches can track people,” Thor reminded him.

 “I can’t track people,” Hela confirmed with a frown. “I’m not a witch, nor a sorceress. I’m like you, born with Asgard’s seidr flowing in my vein, making me a goddess above our already formidable race of people…”

 “She just happens to be old enough to distinguish Asgardian seidr from other sources of magic,” Loki interrupted. “She wouldn’t be able to tail me if I were in my Jotun form. If you don’t mind, I’ll let Steve Rogers know that he should call for one of his precious meetings.”

 Loki’s clone disappeared just as Hela asked “Did he just call me old ?”

 Unwilling to remain alone with his sister, Thor returned inside the temple, finding another of Loki’s doubles exchanging words with Steve. 

“How can such a dead-looking planet emit that much energy?” Stark said as he scanned a patch of soil with his armor.

“Something unnatural is happening here,” Lady Sif commented.

 “Could have told you that if you’d ask when we reached the planet’s orbit,” Colonel Rhodes countered.

 “What’s with eclipses wherever we go?” Scott Lang asked as he squinted his eyes at the horizon.

 Indeed, a moon or a planet was hiding most of the sun that was providing Vormir with light, which explained the quasi-darkness the planet was bathing in.

 “Was there any particular deserted corner that your sister emphasized when she talked about locating the soul stone?” Steven asked Nebula.

 “Gamora burned the map leading to its hiding place, and said that there was no way that Thanos could get his hands on it,” the Luphomoid answered. “If Thanos hadn’t used me to threaten her…”

 “Don’t feel guilty for having a sick bastard for a father,” the Ant-man interrupted her. “Fathers are meant to protect their daughters, not threaten or harm them in any way.”

Hela snorted, and the Ant-Man looked back at her apologetically. 

“Well, nobody’s perfect,” he added quickly as he gesticulated at Hela.”  My...my friend Hope, she didn’t always have a great relationship with her dad, but you - you know, they worked things out eventually...”

“What’s that?” Hawkeye asked as he drew an arrow on his bow, aiming at large rocks on a steep slope leading to a cliff.

Thor unstrapped Stormbreaker as he saw a cloaked figure floating down toward them like some famed Midgardian ghost.

Luckily, the Hulk had turned back into Bruce, who had decided to remain on the ship with the Valkyrie and Rabbit in case they needed to take off in a hurry. Thor was certain that the Hulk would’ve knocked out - or failed to try knocking it out - the odd stranger before it open its mouth.

“I never thought I’d ever see you again, Steven Grant Rogers,” the disembodied voice said.

 Steve immediately threw his shield at the silhouette, but the vibranium disk passed through it and bounced off a large rock before returning to its owner.

 “Red Skull,” the captain said menacingly.

 “Red Skull as in Johann Schmidt?” Lady Natasha asked, her eyes narrowing at the obscure figure.

The being did wear its name well, Thor thought as he got a glimpse of its face. It had so little skin and flesh on its face that it looked like a proper skull, and its skin was a dark red.

 “You seek to yield the power of the soul stone as Thanos did,” the skull said as it floated backward toward the cliff. “Follow me.”

 “Why would we trust you?” Steve asked.

“Because I cannot lie now that I am but the keeper of the stone,” Red Skull answered as he vanished then rematerialized in a more sinister fashion than Loki’s doubles.

“Only those committed to pay the right price can harness the power of the soul stone,” the once-human said as he resumed his ascension.

The group remained silent for a few tense moments, each looking at his or her neighbor to confirm that they had all heard the same.

 “Isn't this too easy?” War Machine asked, breaking the silence. “How can the most dangerous of all stones have a guide to show anyone who wishes to use it how it works?”

“Still have to find the right planet, Rhodey,” Iron Man said as he started the tedious walk upward.

“And ‘pay the right price’,” Loki added, his frowning face telling Thor that he was already deep in thoughts trying to decipher the cryptic words”.

The cliff was much higher than Thor had estimated it from afar, looking like it could have been the apex of wondrous waterfalls when the planet was still teeming with life.

 “To use the stone one must sacrifice that which they love,” Red Skull told them once they were all carefully looking down the cliff.

“What?” Iron Man said. “That’s vague, but also very easy indeed? I love this armor, but certainly could sacrifice it to bring back half of the universe…”

“A soul for a soul,” the floating spirit added. “That is the price one must pay to wield this infinity stone.”

Thor felt his mind blank as he tried to process the words.

Surely, this Red Skull was not suggesting…

 “Death is a reasonable price for such power,” Hela said behind him, nodding multiple times in approval. “In fact, I am shocked that the other stones merely require the being wielding it to be physically strong enough to withstand their powers.”

Silence reclaimed the group when the goddess of death stopped talking.

Thor glanced around him, at his comrades. He loved many of them as friends, but wouldn’t sacrifice them for anything.

“I’ll go,” Hawkeye volunteered, startling those around him as he stepped closer to the edge of the cliff.”

“If you think that I’m willing to tell Laura that I let you fall to your death, you’ve had another thing coming!” Lady Natasha objected as she grabbed Clinton’s arm, the grip looking tight from where Thor was standing.

The archer stared at his former S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague, then sighed in defeat.

The rest of the group sighed in relief.

 “I’m the one who should go,” Black Widow said, and this time it was Steven’s turn to move, planting himself between Natasha and the cliff’s edge and crossing his arms authoritatively.

“Not on my watch,” the good captain asserted.

“You said that this was, and I quote: the mission worth dying for,” the lady spy recalled. “Let me through, Steve.”

“I also said that I wanted us all to go home!” Steve countered.

“I don’t have a home, Steve, you know that,” the Lady Widow said with a surprisingly gentle voice. “I have safe houses, but not a home.”

“So what? You have us,” Steve insisted as he pointed to the team with his chin. “You’ve said it before, we are your family. We're your home.”

Thor would have sworn that he had never seen either Steve Rogers nor Natasha Romanov looking so vulnerable in public, their emotions plain on their face for anyone to see.

Once again, though for the first time in many years, the god of thunder wondered why the Lady Natasha and Bruce had become lovers at all when it had always been clear to him that she and Steven had the most solid foundation for a life partnership.

“I believe you heroes misheard Red Skull here,” Hela said from the safest distance away from the edge. “Someone has to sacrifice the one they love, not sacrifice themselves for the sake of love or whatever theory you wish to apply here.”

Thor internally cringed at the way his sister was mocking his Midgardian friends’ sense of sacrifice, but he had to agree: their method wouldn’t work, not if the Red Skull's words were to be trusted.

“It’s as Thanos said,” Tony said. “Something about the sacrifices he made that none of us would be willing to make.”

“He killed Gamora to get the stone, not because she hid it from him,” Nebula said in realization, awe and grief mixed in her voice.

Another tense silence fell on the group, as they all realized the real stakes at play.

“You make it sound like Thanos was exceptional,” Loki said flatly on Thor’s left.

“Obviously he was one amongst many willing to kill others to carry out their nefarious plans, just like you,” Lady Sif reacted.

 “Sif,” Thor called out.

He was getting tired of his friend’s disrespect for his brother. How could she still insult him in the presence of Hela, who had proven that she was willing to slaughter her on the spot for saying the wrong word?

“That’s true,” Loki acknowledged to everyone’s surprise.

“I’m starting to like you, Jokey Smurf - wait, you're more like Brainy Smurf,” Stark rambled.

“No need to flatter me, Stark,” Loki assured. “You should rather use all your eloquence to convince my heroic brother to throw me off that cliff.”

 “I do take back the flattery but I'm not doing the convincing,” Tony said as he raised his hands in surrender, glancing nervously at Thor.

Thor focused all his attention on Loki, who was peering at the edge of the cliff as if gauging the distance to the ground.

“You are out of your mind if you think that I’d throw you out there for any reason,” the god of thunder heard himself say as lightning flashed through the dark sky.

 “Maybe you can stab me instead, I don’t fancy falling from such height myself,” Loki replied as he stared at Red Skull. “Is that possible?”

 “The sacrifice requires blood on the surface below,” the ghostly being informed.

“Shut up!” Steve shouted at his former enemy.

 “You’re serious, Loki?” Hela said, and for once the goddess of death looked concerned.

“Unless you’re fond enough of me that you could kill me yourself?” the god of mischief asked with a smile.

“That’s not funny, and no I don't like you enough, especially not now with the madness you’re proposing."

Loki laughed just as clouds started gathering above the cliff.

“Thor,” Steve called as he stepped toward him, sympathy brightening his clear gaze.

The god of thunder didn’t miss the way the captain kept a hand on Natasha’s arm as he tried to...What? Comfort Thor?

“You think Thor is as vile as you, capable of fratricide?” Lady Sif said as she walked toward Loki and and pushed him away from the cliff edge.

 “Lay another hand on your prince, little soldier, I dare you,” Hela threatened as a sword appeared in her hand.

“These Asgardians go from 0 to a 100 in a second,” Tony joked.

“Sif, enough!” Thor ordered his friend. “Loki is still your prince…”

 “He’s a frost giant!” the shield maiden argued. “You can argue that the people of Jotunheim are not born monsters, Thor, but Loki - raised as your brother - tried to kill you when you were at your lowest, vulnerable as any mortal when Odin Allfather banished you on Midgard. There are few acts more monstrous than that!”

“Don’t undermine me Lady Sif,” Loki retorted with a wicked smile on his lips. “I didn’t just try to kill Thor when he was mortal, I succeeded. If you knew all the things I’ve done to survive, you would know that monster is a euphemism when it comes to me.”

Thor was confused and angry at his brother. Why was he provoking Sif? Why was he reminding everyone the crimes he had committed?

Drops of rain started falling as lightning split the dark sky.

“Oh, come on, don’t make those faces,” Loki said with a snort as he scanned his audience. “You all knew who I was when you let me join your merry group to avenge Thanos’ victims. I was one of them after all. I didn’t tolerate your disgusting goodness for weeks just for the sake of saving the universe.”

“Loki,” Steve said in warning.

“Do I have to explain everything?” Loki said as he stared at Thor. “I actually didn’t quite know that you would survive wielding more than one infinity stone, brother, but I was willing to risk your life to have my revenge on Thanos, even if that meant letting the rest of you do the dirty work for me.”

“You’re saying that to anger me,” Thor guessed. “I know all the good you’ve done throughout your life Loki. A few years of mischief don’t erase the benevolence you’ve blessed the universe with before and after your time as a criminal.”

 “Who cares if I’m good or bad, you oaf!” Loki shouted at the top of his lungs, tears dripping down his face before he could hide it behind his hands.

He took a visibly deep breath after a few seconds of silence, and Thor painfully reminded of the two times he had spent endless seconds hoping to see that chest movement while holding the dead, unmoving body of his brother.

“ Half of the universe, Thor,” Loki said more calmly, though his voice was shaky and his cheeks wet from more than the rain. “You are king now, you must make difficult decisions for the greater good. Plus, you’ve already seen me died twice. What’s one more?”

“You’re asking me to kill you myself!” Thor pointed out loudly. “I am king? Yes, I am king, and I won’t have the blood of one more of my people on my hands…”

“I am not Asgardian,” Loki corrected jokingly. “and half of your people are stuck in that stone, Allfather. Four hundred and seventy-three people against one, I reckon the choice is quite obvious.”

Objectively it was, Thor knew that in his head. His heart, his guts, his soul had no care for what his head thought. They all agreed that Loki was worth more than any number of faceless subjects.

“You’re all that I have left,” he argued weakly, hating how small his voice sounded.

“So you say as your sister and your future queen stand behind you, Thor? That’s cold,” Loki joked.

Thor would have barked at Hela for threatening to kill Sif if Thor ever proposed to her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off his brother.

“Moreover, you cannot possibly admit that your resolve is weaker than that of Thanos,” Loki added.

“Don’t!” Thor pleaded, his whole body shaking, the rain turning into a downpour.

 “I will,” the god of mischief said. “I will always do whatever it takes to show the universe what you are capable of, Thor Odinson. It is my destiny to push you to your limits, brother, and then to push those limits higher when you reach them because as a god and a king, you cannot settle for the comfortable standards of lesser beings.”

“Did he just called us lesser beings?” Ant-Man asked quietly.

“Sure did, but in this case I’ll take it,” War-Machine answered in a similar hushed tone.

Thor stared at Loki, who stared back, still smiling.

“Loki, there has to be another way…” Steve started, but Loki raised his hand to interrupt him.

“You said it, Captain, I did my part,” Loki reminded him as he stepped backward toward the edge. “Thor should do his. He's the only one here who can yield all infinity stones safely...”

“You said that you weren’t sure,” Thor objected.

“I lied, you know that, and stop changing subjects!” Loki shouted. “You’re many things but a coward, brother, don’t turn into one now that the universe depends on you to restore half of its life.”

Thor tried to take a deep breath but failed. His throat was too tight, his chest muscles struggling to draw enough air into his lungs.

He looked back at Hela, who had a deep frown splitting her brow, and Sif, who was also in tears, somehow. Neither were trying to argue against Loki. Even Thor's friends, usually generous with sharing their opinions about how to handle Loki, were as quiet as stones.

 “Would you hesitate so if I had offered my life, Thor?” the shield maiden asked, and the new king of Asgard didn’t know what to say.

 “I know you wouldn’t hesitate to throw me off this cliff if it meant bringing back more lives,” the soldier claimed, “even though you love me deeply...Never as a lover, but as a friend. You do, don't you?”

“Of course Sif,” Thor confirmed.

“You would always defend your brother when we were younger,” Sif recalled with teary eyes. “Fandral always complained that you loved him better than us even though we showed you more affection, more support than Loki ever could.”

“Lady Sif,” Thor admonished as he turned completely to face her.

“I thought you outgrew that unconditional love when Loki showed his true colors, betrayed you on the very day of your coronation,” Sif continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “I see now that I was deeply mistaken. After everything he’s done, after knowing that he doesn’t share your blood…”

 “He’s my brother!” Thor shouted with finality.

“Hela was Odin’s daughter, yet he sacrificed her to insure peace and prosperity in the Nine Realms,” Sif talked back, standing tall and lifting her chin in defiance. “ If you won’t take the life of a traitor to the throne to restore the lives of hundreds of your loyal subjects, then you are no king of mine, Thor Odinson.”

Thor gaped at the person he’d known the longest outside of his family. The woman his father had repeatedly and not-so-subtly encouraged him to court, but whom he had sworn to respect as a shield mate until the end of his days. The one he had trusted to watch his back during countless battles.

Sif was by far the most trustworthy person he knew, and the god of thunder was ashamed to know that he had given her reasons to forfeit her trust in him. 

“If you’d allow me a dying wish, it would be to make her your queen, brother,” Loki said as Thor turned back to him. “Not only would that settle my arrangement with her, but I wouldn’t trust anyone else to keep you in check in my absence. She’s also better at numbers than you, which will be useful when you review those trading agreements I made with Zen-Whoberi.”

 “You shouldn’t have started anything if you didn’t have any attention of sticking around!” Thor chided his brother even as he gathered his powers.

“You know that I would’ve grown bored of it eventually,” Loki said as he shrugged. “Usurping Odin was a chore. I wasn’t born to rule. That’s your destiny.”

“Your destiny is to plague my existence with grief,” Thor retorted, forcing a sob down his throat.

 “I’m so good at it,” Loki replied with a sincere yet sad smile.

  Thor forced himself to watch as he unleashed his lightning on the rocky ground under Loki’s feet. It broke down so easily, and Loki fell so fast that by the time Thor rushed to catch his brother in a moment of weakness, it was too late.

Chapter Text

“Shift change,” Rocket announced as he plopped onto the co-pilot seat.

“I’m not tired,” Carol informed, but she switched the commands over to the talking raccoon anyway.

“Neither am I,” Rocket admitted as he took over the controls. “Too jittery about getting my crew back. You?”

“I cannot wait to see my friends again, yes.” Danvers admitted. “I still haven’t wrapped my head around the idea of a universe-wide genocide. Xandar is in ruins...The Nova Corps were destroyed by Thanos himself, so they won’t come back with those Thanos killed through the stones. An entire legacy of intergalactic peace-keeping...Gone.”

“They were a pain in the ass when they wanted to be, and half of them were corrupt, but yeah, the universe will be different without them,” the halfworlder replied. “But hey, at least the universe will have the Guardians of the Galaxy back.”

“Guardians of the Galaxy? Never heard of them.”

“My crew,” the racoon said proudly. “Me, Groot, Mantis, Drax, Quill, and Ga…Shit.”

“Ga-shit?” Carol repeated.

“Gamora, Thanos’ other daughter,” Rocket explained.

“The one he killed to get the soul stone,” Danvers remembered.

Before she could ask the talking racoon what she had been like, a familiar alarm rang on the ship com.

“Guys, we’re ready,” Tony announced. “We’re all in the lab.”

“ All ?” Rocket repeated skeptically as he activated the autopilot.

Indeed, when they entered Stark’s lab, the whole team was there, though only Tony, Thor and Nebula were in the glass containment unit, while the rest were standing around the benches.

Correction: everyone was standing and Hela was sitting on one of the benches.

In the center of the one bench in the containment unit was the third prototype of intradimensional phaser. It looked like a console, much bigger than the prototype Danvers herself had tested in the battle against Thanos, and slightly bulkier than the console Thor had tested just a few days ago.

“Remind us why we need that thing,” Hela demanded as she hopped off her bench. “Thor can wield all six stones alone, so what is this supposed to do?”

“If you attended the meetings you’d already know,” Stark retorted as he pressed a button, the device switching on with a low whir and a bright white light.

“Actually,” Scott Lang said as he hesitantly raised his hand. “I attended the meetings and I still don’t get it.”

“The only feasible way for us to bring back half of the universe is to go back in time and prevent them from leaving in the first place,” Thor stated. “Doing it in the present would be too dangerous, as many of the planets housing those people have been destroyed, are currently uninhabitable, or could not manage their population suddenly doubling.”

“But going back in time means that our current reality would be erased, right?” the Ant-Man asked with a frown. “Or would it be preserved by some quantum paradox…”

“You watch too many movies,” Tony interrupted him. “Although a quantum paradox could theoretically happen if we were using a conventional time-machine, it won’t in our case because we’re using the freaking infinity stones. We won’t erase any reality, we’ll rewrite it.”

“We,” Hela repeated.

“Not you,” Thor said menacingly. “You’ll return to Hel the way you left it.”

Carol felt her eyes widen just as she saw the goddess of death gasp in shock.

“I’m the one who found our little brother’s body, who helped him return from the dead,” she reminded Thor angrily. “Without me you wouldn’t be holding the greatest powers of the universe in your hand!”

“Without you Asgard would still be millions strong,” the god of thunder countered. “We wouldn’t have been attacked by Thanos, and he wouldn’t have obtained the Tesseract.”

“You’ll need me to rebuild Asgard to her former glory and beyond,” Hela claimed as she straightened to her full height and haughtily lifted her chin. “Odin couldn’t have built our home without me.”

“I’m not Father,” Thor told her. “I won’t tolerate the conquest of defenseless worlds to build mine. I won’t tolerate your violence to represent New Asgard.”

Carol was torn between feeling proud that Thor was finally addressing his murderous sister’s criminal intentions and feeling uneasy by how he was threatening to basically kill her if she didn’t walk herself back to her eternal jail.

“Not all worlds are defenseless,” the goddess of death told her brother, her resolve undeterred. “Many are the oppressors, and you won’t have time to rescue them while being the king.”

“What?” Thor said, taken aback.

So was Carol. Was the goddess of death suggesting what she thought she was suggesting?

“I killed virtually all of your soldiers,” Hela reminded Thor unapologetically, though her next words appeared painful to say. “A fair punishment for my...actions would be for me to - to serve in their stead. To protect the new Asgard and the worlds you will wish to extend your protection to. Allfather .”

“A fair punishment would be for me to execute you ,” Thor countered as he extended his hand toward his axe leaning against the only bench in the containment unit.

“Woah! Easy Thor,” Tony said just as Nebula casually stepped out of the glass chamber.

The sharp clink of metal hitting the floor drew everyone’s attention back to Hela, who was now brandishing two enormous swords.

“I thought she couldn’t do that in space?” Lang whispered loudly.

“Unlike you mortals, we gods evolve quickly,” Hela claimed with a smile, and she made everyone wince by scrapping the tile floor with the point of her right sword.

Carol almost rolled her eyes at the reiteration that these aliens were gods. She was certain that Hela had simply made a reserve of swords while they were planet-bound - maybe in Bregar, where they had stopped a week ago to refuel - and stored them away until needed.

Instead of rolling her eyes, Danvers looked around. The laboratory was too small and cluttered for her to fly Hela out of it without breaking equipment. It was too small for any sort of fight in the first place, yet the two royal Asgardians seemed willing to go head to head into the already crowded room.

“You’re going back to a battle you lost the first time around,” Hela told Thor as she lifted her left sword to point its end toward the intradimensional phaser. “Bringing me with you would guarantee your victory this time.”

“With the rest of us back there we’ll manage without you, thank you very much,” Tony said while his armor spread over his body.

Behind Carol, both Sif and the Valkyrie were readying their own sword.

“Seriously?” Romanoff exclaimed. “This is a lab! Go play in the training room.”

Hela sharply spinned on her heels, and Danvers raised her arm on time to blast off the huge blade thrown at Black Widow. It sliced off the next bench over, where Banner was standing one second and the Hulk was finishing to destroy the bench the next.

“Enough!” Thor roared, now holding Stormbreaker.

“Indeed,” Hela talked back more calmly as she faced her brother through the reinforced glass wall, though she looked delighted in the turn of event. “I’ve had enough of this charade. You have the greatest powers of the universe in your hand and you want to go back in time and give them away? Even you cannot be this idiotic.”

“And what is your intelligent idea to rescue the people Thanos erased, sister?” Thor asked as he walked through the glass wall with a flash of blue light. “You never offered any solution to the problem at hand.”

“Bring back those who have a place in this present reality, leave the rest to their fate,” the goddess of death proposed. “War always generates collateral damages, brother, you know that. You were a warrior before any of your hero friends here were even born.”

“I was a warrior then,” Thor conceded, “but at present, I am an Avenger. I will atone for my failure of stopping Thanos to the best of my ability, not go the easy route. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I understand that like Father, your desire to please rather than rule your lesser has turned you into a fool,” the goddess of death said before throwing her unarmed hand in the air.”

Spikes of black metal erupted from the floor all around the lab, one of them nicking the skin of Carol’s forearm even as she lifted off the floor.

Sounds of glass shattering and other surfaces crumbling down covered the yelps and shouts of her teammates as they evaded the serious danger.

“No, she didn’t!” Tony exclaimed as Danvers herself saw the phaser fall off the bench in the containment room, broken before it even hit the floor.

In the middle of all this chaos, Thor was standing tall, unharmed and undisturbed by the state of the lab. His mismatched eyes were fixed on his sister, who was staring right back.

“And you would have had me believe that you could become a protector of the realms,” the king of Asgard commented offhandedly as electricity sparkled along his axe and right arm.

“Thor, you’ll destroy the whole damn ship!” Rocket shouted from underneath the only intact lab bench.

Danvers sighed in relief when the green stone on Thor’s gauntlet started to glow, then the whole room basked into its light before the lab returned to its original state.

Then Thor and Hela disappeared in a flash of blue light.

“Shit,” the Valkyrie cursed before running toward the front door.

Carol landed in front of her, barring the only open exit to the lab. The other door had sealed shut during the destruction, and it hadn’t reset even after Thor restored the lab.

“Out of my way,” the Asgardian soldier told her with urgency, her knuckles pale from gripping her sword tightly.

“I think he can manage on his own with the gauntlet,” Colonel Rhodes commented as he plopped into a stool by the closest bench. “Seriously what is wrong with that woman? My bad, I meant what is wrong with that goddess ? Unbelievable.”

“He might kill her,” Natasha said neutrally, her eyes staring beyond Carol’s shoulder.

“Are we cool with that?” Lang asked, his eyes scanning the room. “I mean, she’s a bad guy but…”

“That’s Thor’s problem,” Steve answered.

His back was turned to her, but even from where she stood Danvers could detect the tension in his shoulders, and she could only imagine how uncomfortable he was about a teammate killing a family member in cold blood.

A soft surge of energy vibrated in the air before Thor reappeared in a flash of the space stone’s blue light.

He walked back into the containment unit by opening the door with the finger pad control.

“Stark?” he called out when the door closed behind him.

“Not that it will change my mind about going back in time, but what did you do with Hela?” Tony asked as his armor receded and he walked toward Thor - the door slid open again with a snap of his fingers.

“Show off,” Nebula grumbled as she stepped into the glass chamber before the door slid close, and bent over the intradimensional phaser to inspect it.

“I sent her back to Helheim,” Thor informed, his gaze traveling from Tony to the rest of the team, his gaze lingering on Steve. “I told her I’ll forgive her for endangering my friends only if she stayed there.”

“She found her way to Vanaheim from Hel once,” Lady Sif reminded him. “What would stop her from doing it again? She could slaughter everyone there in retaliation.”

“She won’t,” Thor declared before turning back to Tony to nod his ascent to start the experiment.

“But…” Sif started.

“You mean ‘yes your Majesty’,” the Valkyrie corrected her sharply, turning away from Carol as she sheathed her sword.

Sif put back her sword as well but didn’t say anything.

“Alright!” Tony exclaimed as he clapped his hands enthusiastically. “We’re about to travel through time and space, people. Look alive. Remember, when we do it for real, we’ll be on our own as soon as we’re back there in. Back then Thanos already had five stones, defeating him still won’t be easy but…”

“I will draw the stones away from Thanos’ gauntlet,” Thor informed.

“Come again?” Tony deadpanned, his eyes widening on the Asgardian king.

“Why did you think I suggested that we go back in time?” the current holder of the infinity stones asked.

“I thought Loki was the only one who could do that when we were fighting Thanos,” Steve jumped in. “On Zen-Whoberi?”

“He was,” Thor confirmed. “But once he mastered the spell he enchanted the gauntlet to do it on my command. Without my consent, but I am glad for it now.”

“Not going to complain for that one,” Tony commented.

“So we’ll keep the memories we’ve made since everyone went to ashes?” Rocket asked.

Carol smiled at the way the halfworlder was stretching on his hind legs to keep his head and shoulders above the bench. He vaguely reminded her of Goose.

“In theory, yes,” Tony answered confidently.

“We’ll remember this reality while the rest of the universe won’t even know about us saving them?” the talking racoon asked again.

“Sometimes anonymity is the burden heroes must shoulder, sweet Rabbit,” Thor replied with a sad smile.

“Can’t we go back even further back?” Carol heard herself ask.

She knew better. Disturbing the space-time continuum was one of the strictly forbidden, if unspoken laws of the universe. But the rules weren’t the same with the stones, and if the massacre of Xandar could be prevented…

“Before Thanos took the soul stone?” Nebula asked in turn, her voice steady but her eyes pleading.

“There would be too many variables,” Tony pointed out. “Remember, we’ll return together on Earth. So you won’t even be at the right place to save your sister,” he told Nebula, “or for Captain Kirk here to save whichever galaxy she was helping at the time. It’s tricky enough that those of us who weren’t on Earth then will just vanish from thin air to the eyes of our friends.”

Danvers blinked at the Star Trek reference, trying hard not to frown in disapproval. Of course, no one in the team knew that she was more of a Star Wars fan, but being nicknamed Captain Kirk annoyed her all the same.

“I was on Earth and it will still be tricky to explain to Laura how or why I’ll vanish from the ranch in the middle of breakfast,” Clint said, smiling sadly at Natasha who grabbed his hand in sympathy. “I’ll call her as soon as I get the time, I guess. She’s used to it.”

“I was alone,” Carol remembered. “I was tracking the Kree brig when I received Fury’s distress signal. Without my fingerprint and eye scans every six hours my cruiser automatically flies to the nearest of the moons I’ve mapped for landing in case of emergency.”

She’d only had to use that safety procedure once, after being attacked by a race whose identity she still didn’t know to this day. She’d had to push her cruiser one way and fly in the opposite direction to have her assailants chase after her. Thankfully she had been able to disable the navigation engines of her pursuer and her cruiser had still been in range of her integrated suit tracker.

“We were on Titan after Thanos left with the time stone,” Nebula recalled while staring at Tony. “We’ll have to go back to get the others.”

“With Stormbreaker it will be easy,” Thor told her with a curt nod before turning to Rocket. “Groot will be left alone on your ship.”

“That’s alright,” the racoon replied. “We were on standby anyway. The navigation system will shut down within minutes. I can send a message to Groot once we get on Earth,” he added as he tapped his belt. “It will take a few hours to transmit to the ship’s computer though. He can make his own oxygen and food as long as he doesn’t break the UV light, and even if he does he can go dormant. That brat will probably just play his stupid games until he hears from me.”

“We were in the middle of nowhere,” the Valkyrie recalled with a deep frown. “We still had enough food and life-support was fully functional on the escape pod, but not hearing back from the king was putting everyone on edge. Korg had managed to bring some calm. I...I hadn’t taken charge yet, Elric Mikkelson had declared himself de facto leader by virtue of his bloodline, and I was keeping to myself. I hope that they won’t panic out when I disappear.”

“I was either on my way or already escorting Lord Alric to an audience with Freyr and Freya,” Sif informed. “We’d just heard news about Ragnarok.”

That made Thor’s gaze go down to the floor before he sighed, then looked at Scott Land.

Everyone’s gaze turned toward the man, who was just nodding at everyone’s account of their location at the time of the battle against Thanos’ underlings in Wakanda.

“What? Oh, me?” he asked the group with a finger pointed to himself when he noticed the eyes on him. “Errr, let’s see...It took, what, two hours for the subatomic console to reboot after I was lost in the quantum realm...Took two hours to set up...When did the battle start, again? In PDT, please.”

“About 0900,” Natasha replied without missing a beat.

“Oh, I was still in the shower, then,” Lang remembered with a snap of his finger. “Aww man, Cassie will freak out and call Hope, and she will freak out and call me on the suit com Hank upgraded, and I’ll have to tell her that I’m fighting with the Avengers on another continent without her. Again. Great.”

“Well, that’s not too bad,” Stark concluded before rubbing his hands  together, his eyes on the intradimensional phaser. “Alright big guy. Whenever you’re ready. Let’s first try by going back... Six hours, and teleport all of us in the training room.”

“Wait,” Steve requested abruptly, and he tried to say something else but remained silent, looking embarrassed.

“What? Why?” Tony asked as he narrowed his eye at Rogers.

The group leader seemed to be struggling to hold his teammate’s gaze. Everyone was mildly confused by the interruption, and Carol sneaked a hand to her mouth and pretended to yawn to hide her smirk.

Six hours ago Danvers had put the navigation on autopilot to go grab her tablet in her cabin, and she’d caught Steve and Nat stumbling into the redhead’s cabin next door, kissing each other. Natasha had seen her, but hadn’t warned Rogers before closing the door behind them.

“We were in the middle of a conversation,” Romanoff lied impeccably. “But we’ll remember it anyway,” she added with a mischievous spark in her eyes as she turned to raise an eyebrow at Steve. He just shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like ‘alright.’

“Hold up,” Stark objected as he waved a finger between the two teammates - the co-leaders of the team on Earth.

“You two have been weird since Zen-Whoberi,” Tony accused. “What were you even talking about without us that could be important enough for you to reconsider a time jump?”

“We were discussing our experience being mind-controlled by Thanos,” Natasha replied as she defiantly crossed her arms over her chest. “Would you like us to have a whole group therapy about it?”

“Huh, nevermind,” Stark refused with a raise of his hands. “I don’t want to be on you two’s bad side ever again. I still have bruises.”

A few people chuckled before everyone focused on the intradimensional phaser as Tony calibrated a few parameters. He then threw a thumbs up at Thor’s nose after a minute.

“Let’s go, Coeur de Lion,” he called.

“I don’t get that reference,” Steve whispered to no one.

“Some British warrior king,” Clint whispered back as Thor flexed his hand, and the blue and green stone started glowing.

The lights of the stones turned blinding, and for a few seconds Carol felt her body panic like the first time she flew out in space, the planet’s gravitational force blinking out of existence as she stared at the infinite expanse of the galaxy.

She banished the memory as she inhaled deeply, and on the exhale found herself staring at the wall shelving the weapons behind a hidden panel of the training room.

“Everyone okay?” Steve asked amidst a chorus of gasps and sighs of relief.

“That was trippy,” Rhodes admitted. “Worked though.”

Indeed, when they checked the navigation systems they were two galaxies back to where they’d been, just past the asteroid belt Carol had flown them across before setting the autopilot.

“That means that I still have my last bottle of Bregar ale!” the Valkyrie exclaimed happily as she hit her right fist into her left open palm.

“Aww shoot,” Stark said as he dropped his head against the auxiliary control panel in the control room.

Carol eyed the screen and was glad to see that Tony had only switched off lights in the hangar.

“What is it Tony?” Steve asked worryingly.

“We weren’t done with the phaser six hours ago,” Nebula replied before groaning in frustration.

“Well at least it will take less time to finish,” Iron Man pointed out with a lift of his shoulders. “I think we might actually be able to start a second one. We can bring it with us and have Shuri finish it in case things go south.”

“They won’t my friend,” Thor assured with a confident shake of his head.

“I’m sure all will be fine, but a backup plan has never hurt anybody,” Stark asserted before extended a hand toward the door out of the control room. “Let’s go, partner.”

Nebula grunted, but walked ahead of the engineer toward the laboratory.

The rest of the group filed out of the room, Rocket signaling Carol that he was piloting the cruiser for the time being.

As she walked toward her cabin, Danvers looked back at the training room, sparing a thought for Hela.

She wondered if Thor had truly just talked things through with his sister, or used the stones to make sure that she couldn’t hurt anyone again.

The battle was short lived.

The team had reappeared in the brunt of the battle, surprising enemy and allies alike.

“What just happened?” a man in a literal catsuit asked, the first one to recover from the shock.

“We’ll explain later your highness,” Steve replied before suggesting a change in troop formation.

Rogers took a moment to give a one-arm hug to a man with a metal arm, who gave him a confused smile when he looked him up and down, probably noticing a surprising change in uniform.

While the rest of team decimated the enemy troops on the ground, Carol had destroyed the spaceships from which the beasts under the Black Order’s command were still pouring out.

Destroying her enemy had never felt so good. She could barely contain her exhilaration at knowing that she was rewriting history by helping save the universe before Thanos could throw it off balance, by showing up to her home planet even before Fury would think of calling her.

A strange but easy to interpret cheer resonated throughout the grassland when there was no more aliens to eliminate, and Danvers knew where to go when she heard thunder boom and lightning strike just at the edge of the jungle a few miles away. She landed there on time to witness Thor’s battle against Thanos.

They were one on one, though for a moment Carol was surprised to see that neither was wearing a gauntlet.

“Looking for those?” Stark told her on her left, he and War Machine holding each of the gauntlets. Thanos’ only had the soul stone still on it, while Thor’s had the time, space, reality and power stones.

“Where’s the mind stone?”

“Here,” someone said behind her.

A red-skinned humanoid whom she guessed was Vision limped toward her, supported by a young woman staring ahead at the fierce battle, who could only be Wanda Maximoff.

Carol was grateful for being able to meet two Avengers who had previously fallen at the hands of Thanos.

“Who are you?” Scarlet Witch asked.

“A friend,” Carol replied with a smile she hope came out convincingly friendly.

The young woman looked at Iron Man.

“Long story, kid, but yes she’s with us,” Stark assured her. “Good to see you two too, by the way.”

Danvers turned her gaze to focus on the clash between the titan and the Asgardian king.

Thanos was parrying hits from Thor’s axe with an a giant double blade of his own. Physically Thanos seemed to have the upper hand, but Thor’s lightning gave him the necessary edge to keep up with him.

“Shouldn’t we help him?” Carol asked the team as she stepped aside to avoid a wayward string of lightning. “This could last forever.”

“Let the guy get his revenge,” Stark replied with a very weird shrug of his armored shoulder.

“It’s not your trees they’re destroying,” king T’Challa commented, appearing out of nowhere.

Or rather, Carol hadn’t heard him approaching.

On cue, an electricity-charged blast cut down many trees around Thor and Thanos, and wiped many of the Avengers off their feet.

“Finish him!” Nebula shouted at Thor from her knees, but it was Thanos who got distracted.

“How did you follow me here so fast?” he asked her, bringing his sword down so hard on Thor that everyone gasped in fear.

Instead of blocking the hit with his axe, Thor jumped out of the way, and only a corner of his cape got sliced off.

“I destroyed your armor,” Thanos recalled as he stared at Tony. “Ran you through with your weapon.”

He roared as Thor reengaged him, blocking Stormbreaker with his double, then suddenly drawing back his arm to destabilize Thor into stumbling forward.

“Thor!” Sif and the Valkyrie exclaimed in unison just as Thanos grabbed their king by his cape and threw him overhead before facing the two Asgardian soldiers.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said while pointing one blade at Brunnhilde before looking around at the rest of the team, his eyes finally resting on Nebula “What have you done?” he asked loudly.

Lightning rained on the area before anyone could reply, most of it focused on Thanos while none hit any of the team members.

The titan raised his sword just in time to meet the brutal hit of Thor’s axe, and screamed in anger when Thor pushed hard enough to disarm him.

“Your brother,” Thanos spat as he dropped to one knee, holding his left forearm with his right hand.

Carol noticed the same burned marks she had seen a few weeks ago on the Thanos of their now erased reality.

“Did he come back to life, after all?” the titan asked with a disturbing laugh. “You couldn’t have made another gauntlet on Nivadellir, I destroyed the forge. Even with a gauntlet, you couldn’t have taken the stones from me on your own.”

“Yes, Loki helped” the Asgardian king admitted, though he didn’t offer any details on his dead brother. “But the reason I’ve defeated you is simply because, as my brother said, you will never be a god.”

His voice was loud and unnatural, his eyes glowing a pale blue from his lightning, which was running all over his body.

“Defeated me?” Thanos repeated, incredulous. “You’ve thrown all your power at me, and I’m still standing. You weren’t even able to get the soul stone.”

Thor froze for a beat, then roared before launching himself at Thanos one more time.

Without his sword, the titan had to grab the handle of Stormbreaker with both hands to avoid getting his skull split by the magical blade.

Thor drew back one of his hands to blast Thanos with a surge of lightning to the chest, and Thanos was thrown off balance, sliding backward across the uneven jungle on one bent knee and a barely stable leg. The titan regained his balance close enough to Nebula that Carol thought Thanos would die the same way as in the other reality.

But before Nebula could get to Thanos, Thor threw his axe at him, the blade of his magical weapon hitting the titan right in the chest.

Walking slowly, Thor approached Thanos, who was holding the axe, probably trying to dislodge it.

“I told you that you’d pay for this,” the Asgardian said before hitting the palm of his hand against the blunt edge of the axe’s blade, ramming the cutting edge further into Thano’s body.

Another surge of lightning fired on both Thanos and Thor, and when the smell of burned skin started permeating the air Carol knew that it was over.

It had been three days since defeating Thanos, and the Avengers had been busy with the aftermath of the battle. After Thor had reunited the Guardians of the Galaxy and had returned the time stone to Doctor Strange - who discreetly talked to Thor before disappearing through a portal - the whole team had celebrated their victory in Wakanda.

Then Thor had teleported Lady Sif and Brunnhilde to Vanaheim and remained there himself for a while to check on his people.

Meanwhile, Steve, Natasha, Wanda, Clint and Scott had been summoned by the U.S. Secretary of State, who unexpectedly thanked them for their efforts in ‘thwarting an alien menace’ and abrogated their criminal status. He’d requested that the human members of the team sign a revised version of the Sokovian Accords. All signed except Steve and Carol. Rogers promised to think about it, and Danvers informed Ross that she was not staying on Earth.

From there the team had gone to the Avengers facility, and Tony and Virginia had thrown a quick party to celebrate the return to peace as well as the tense but sincere reconciliation between Stark and Rogers. To Barton’s relief and joy, Miss Potts had already flown Clint’s family to New York.

Danvers took half a day to look for Maria and Monica. The latter was a full grown woman now, the captain of a cargo ship in New Orleans.

During their short but heartfelt conversation, Carol kept having the sense that something was amiss in Monica’s life. Maria assured her that it was because her goddaughter was a woman in a man’s world.

“Over twenty years later and we still have to fight to be leaders,” the former airwoman commented, grinning widely after Carol pointed out that it was hard to believe that twenty three years had passed considering that Maria looked exactly the same as when they’d last seen each other.

Carol had returned back to the Avengers facility the same day Thor had teleported back on Earth. The Asgardian king had proposed that he and the Guardians of the Galaxy scatter the remaining four infinity stones throughout the universe. Carol volunteered to help them.

As the team stepped out to the Helipad to board Rocket’s small ship, Carol was positively surprised to see Nick Fury standing there. He’d been impossible to find without the pager, and Carol had been disappointed to leave without getting the chance to see him.

Now that he was right in front of her she wondered if she’d actually passed him by without realizing. Unlike Maria, twenty three years showed on his face. It was probably due to the fact that unlike her Maria, Nick had fought threats to their planets all these years.

Although he’d changed a lot, the moment he gave her that smug smile Carol was convinced that she would recognize him in a crowd anytime.

“Were you going to leave without even saying hello?” Nick asked.

“You’re hard to find,” she replied with a laugh before clasping arms with her friend, nodding at the dark-haired lady who smiled at them.

“I can’t stay in one place for long, gotta stay ahead of trouble,” Nick explained before introducing her to his second, Maria Hill.

His look past her shoulder made Carol turned around to stare at the Guardians and Thor. The latter was hugging his fellow Avengers goodbye - quite tightly, if the grunts going around were any indication - with a wide smile.

“It would be nice to have someone reliable enough to fight our intergalactic wars for us,” the former S.H.I.E.L.D. director said not so cryptically.

“You know that I can’t stay,” Danvers reminded him with a tight smile. “But I’ll always come anytime you page me. Do that earlier than later, I tend to get delayed on the way.”

“If you kept the space stone, that wouldn’t be a problem,” Fury suggested with a pointed raise of his eyebrows.

“There are already two infinity stones on Earth,” Thor intervened, nodding politely at Nick and Hill. “Since I’m leaving the one my brother brought here, I’m taking the one that my father lost.”

“And what about your brother?” Nick asked. “I haven’t seen a trace of him, though I’ve heard his name being mentioned as if he’d been alive this whole time.”

Thor’s gaze hardened for a fraction of a second, but he shrugged his shoulder good-naturedly.

“I killed him so we could win the war against Thanos,” he said flatly.

The small chatter among the rest of the team died, and everyone’s eyes fixed on the Asgardian king.

“You killed Loki?” Nick asked skeptically. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“We were there,” Steve confirmed firmly.

“Well then,” Fury said as he extended his hand toward Thor, who clasped it right away. “I suppose this is goodbye. But you’ll return?”

“As soon as the infinity stones are taken care of, and I find a new home for my people,” Thor promised.

“Right, you’re king now,” Nick seemed to remember, but Carol knew that he wouldn’t forget such crucial information.

“I am still an Avenger, Nicholas of the Fury,” the god of thunder reminded with a firm clasp at the forearm. “But indeed, we must depart at once so that I can return to my duties before my people decide that they’d prefer a democracy after all!”

The group laughed at the bad joke, and after another round of farewells, the Guardians, Nebula, Carol and Thor boarded Rocket’s ship.

“Where to?” the talking racoon asked as he readied the vessel for take off.

Peter Quill, who was still fastening his belt, opened his mouth, but Thor beat him to it.

“Vormir.”

Chapter Text

“I thought I was the only one left,” Gamora said as Loki approached her in the golden void of the soul stone.

Even with her back to him, Loki recognized her from a few years ago. While Nebula had volunteered to replace the Other in torturing Loki, the eldest of Thanos’ daughters had pretended to be indifferent to his suffering, even though Loki in his half delirious state could tell that she despised her father’s tactics of intelligence gathering.

“I moved in not long ago,” he admitted, and his voice made her turn around with wide eyes.

“ You ?” she exclaimed. “I’d heard that you betrayed Thanos…”

“He didn’t appreciate me losing the mind and space stones,” Loki confirmed. “He did kill me at some point, but it was my own brother who sent me here.”

Gamora opened her mouth in a silent gap, then frowned at him.

“Your brother killed you to get the soul stone? But Thanos already has it…”

“As you can tell from the departure of everyone else, Thanos has been defeated,” Loki explained. “Your sister struck him the final blow, actually.”

After remaining silent for a minute, the Zehoberei woman laughed hysterically, wiping the tears that fell on her green face.

“This was worth dying for,” she commented wistfully.

“Technically we aren’t dead,” the Asgardian Prince corrected as he looked around them.

When he’d first landed in the soul stone, they had been boundaries everywhere, preventing him from mingling with the souls that Thanos had erased from the universe with the infinity stones.

Now there was only this golden space, as if he and Gamora had been shrunken and were physically stuck in the golden gem.

“How?” the Zehoberei asked with the frown.

“People sacrificed to the soul stone don’t get to die,” Loki explained as he sat cross-legged on what passed for the floor in the emptiness. “They remain trapped in the soul stone, out of reach of true death.”

Death herself had informed him of that fact, that time after Svartalfheim.

“It cannot be worse than seeing people I couldn’t reach,” Thanos’ adopted daughter said as she joined him on the floor.

“Agreed,” Loki conceded.

He’d tried to communicate with the Midgardian sorcerer, the one who had humiliated him in front of Thor when they had been looking for Odin.

Loki had almost given himself away that day, almost forgotten about hiding his new powers from Thor to put the mortal back to his place.

Now Loki regretted not telling Thor everything. From his fall from the Bifrost to his arrival on Midgard, he had endured so much at the hand of Thanos and his underlings that he was surprised not to have turned mad - well, more mad than he already was naturally.

Odin had known about his torture, but had deemed Loki weak and accused him of treason for divulging the location of the Tesseract under torture. Of course, the old king had deftly covered his harsh sentence under the guise of punishing Loki for his many other crimes.

Though Loki felt ridiculous now for trying to distance himself from his brother for the past few years, at the time it had felt right for him to hate Thor. His brother had chosen to remain their father’s obedient little soldier even after knowing what a manipulative, hypocritical tyrant he was.

But where had hatred landed him? In an infinity stone, isolated from everything except the company of the soul of another person who had refused to carry on her adopted father’s legacy.

“You seem to know a lot more about the infinity stones than you did back then,” Gamora pointed out without looking at him.

“I’ve read dozens of my father’s records on them since,” the Asgardian prince told her.

She sighed before bringing her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around them.

“You wouldn’t happen to know a way to get out of here, I suppose?” she asked wistfully.

Loki was about to confirm that he did not when the dull glow of their surrounding suddenly became blinding, and he heard both him and Gamora scream as they lost footing on the false floor.

For what could only be a few seconds but the adopted Asgardian would have sworn were hours upon hours, his body convulsed in excruciating pain before his suffering ebbed into sharp aches all over his body.

“Loki, son of Odin” someone said, a disembodied voice echoing all around him. “Gamora, daughter of Thanos.”

“If you know us this well you’re aware that we’ll make you pay for this,” Loki threatened as he rolled from his back to his front, groaning as he struggled to raise himself on hands and knees.

“I am not responsible for your return,” the voice said again, and just as Loki recognized it, his brain processed the words.

Your return.

“What’s the price to pay for our return to the world of the living?” Loki asked cautiously.

“ You get to help me rule our people without complaining,” Thor’s voice said from afar.

As if his brother’s voice had awakened his other senses, Loki started feeling the ground under him, his vision clearing to show him the rocks digging into his palms and knees.

No mere rocks. Metal ores.

He also felt the immense but untapped energy flowing underneath.

Vormir.

“It worked!” Nebula shouted, and Loki lifted his head in time to see her jump off the cliff where Thor was standing, gazing at Loki in wonder.

The Asgardian prince narrowed his eyes at his brother’s naked left hand.

“Please tell me that you didn’t exchange the greatest powers in the universe just to bring me back to life,” he demanded as neutrally as he could.

Without a word, Thor dropped off his perch, landing with a cloud of dust and rocks.

“I would have done it if I had known how,” his older brother said as he extended his hand down to him.

With a huff, Loki grabbed it and let Thor pull him up. Thor, who was grinning like the idiot he was.

“What did you do then?” the shapeshifted jotun felt obligated to ask, just as the sound of a small engine resonated above them.

Someone in an odd armor used the repulsors in his boots to land with control on the floor.

The stranger’s helmet came off, revealing a Midgardian-looking man, who gazed at Thanos’ daughters with a smile that could only be qualified as soft .

“I simply returned the soul stone,” Thor finally replied as he grasped one of Loki’s shoulder. “After hiding the other ones. The mind and time stone remain on Earth, however.”

“Thor!” Loki heard himself whine in frustration, closing his eyes to also hold back the tears threatening to spill down his face.

After all he’d done, he was getting another chance at life.

“Loki,” his brother simply called back, and the odd ring to his voice made the younger Odinson peer at him.

Thor was staring at him without seeing him, a rare occurrence but Loki still recognized it as his brother’s look when he was recalling a memory.

“I sent Hela away,” Thor informed him with a sigh.

“Define sending away,” the god of mischief requested as he shrugged off his brother’s hand to assess his own appearance.

A few broken bones, his clothes ripped, dust all over his body. Typical.

“I brought her back to Hel and threatened to kill her if she left it again,” his older brother explained.

“Oh, that’s all?” Loki commented as he managed an illusion to make himself look more presentable.

“She almost killed our friends, right on the ship!” Thor told him angrily.

Loki glanced up at the group of people—and tree and racoon—talking animatedly, calling out to those down the cliff to come back up.

“Your friends,” the Asgardian prince corrected his king. “I’ve almost killed your friends too, Thor. Yet here you are, happy to see me back from the dead for a third time.”

“Fourth?” Thor corrected hesitantly. “Wait, no, you didn’t die from your fall.”

Loki raised an eyebrow at his brother’s poor attempt at changing subjects.

“You’re my brother, Loki,” Thor declared with sentiment.

“Adopted, and Hela is your blood. Pardon her, Thor. We couldn’t have defeated Thanos without her help.”

“I can’t forgive her for what she’s done,” the new king of Asgard confessed. “Our people won’t approve of my decision to pardon her. She almost killed them all!”

“You’re the king, brother, your words are law,” Loki reminded his brother. “Odin massacred millions of people in the Nine Realms and was still acclaimed as their protector. People would agree to almost anything for peace.”

The god of mischief wasted energy he couldn’t afford spending by teleporting himself back to the top of the half crumbled cliff.

At least the dramatic move made Thor gasp and run after him.

Loki surveyed the desolate place from the elevated spot. The eclipse was still darkening the sky, but the great power pulsing in the depth of the planet, seemingly trapped, told the sorcerer that it was no natural eclipse.

It was fascinating how spending weeks surrounded by nothing had honed the sorcerer's acuity in detecting seidr. Was that why Hela was so good at it?

Red Skull was silently floating in a dark corner, clearly uninterested in a group of people who showed no interest in sacrificing loved ones for the power of the soul stone.

“How did the soul stone end up here?” the Asgardian prince questioned the intangible being. 

“Who cares, we’re leaving it here,” Thor commented as he landed next to him.

“Not until we get rid of this one,” Gamora interjected angrily. “He’s the one who told Thanos how to get the soul stone.”

“He’s already a ghost,” Rocket pointed out. “Can’t very much kill him, can we?”

“Tell us what happened to this planet and we will free you from your curse,” Loki promised.

He didn’t miss the sharp spark of hope glinting in the formerly human being.

“Loki!” Thor warned.

“You do remember where you hid the power stone, don’t you?” the god of mischief checked.

“I do,” Captain Marvel corrected.

The enhanced Midgardian had been standing quietly on the side, her arms crossed over her chest.

“You said your powers came from an engine powered by the Tesseract,” Loki recalled.

“They did,” Danvers confirmed with a curt nod.

“Then you can destroy the soul stone,” Loki concluded as he turned back to Red Skull. “That would end your curse, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t have anything to guard.”

The ghost remained silent, but the sorcerer knew he had it right.

“What happened to this planet?” he asked again.

“My predecessor used the life energy of the entire solar system to bind the soul stone to it,” Red Skull explained. “The details escape my understanding, and I do not know how I was chosen to replace them, but I know that I’m not the only one who was sent here by an infinity stone. Millions of souls were deemed unworthy to wield these great powers of the universe, and cast out to this cursed planet.”

“Ah, so we’re special, of course,” the Midgardian in Rocket’s group commented with a smirk, his words earning him an eye roll from Gamora and a ‘shut up Quill’ from Rocket.

“Vormir used to be a Kree outpost,” the Zehoberei woman informed. “ I learned about it looking into Ronan’s secret library. Its native inhabitants went extinct centuries ago.”

“That’s a euphemism for 'The Kree massacred them all'?” Captain Marvel asked rhetorically.

“Are you saying that millions of people will be released from the soul stone if we destroy it?” Thor questioned.

“Does he look like he’s alive? Don’t be ridiculous,” Loki replied before looking at Carol Danvers expectantly.

She looked back at him with a suspicious frown.

Right. She was a Midgardian superhero, Stark and the others had probably warned against listening to him. It was almost frustrating how quickly these mortals bonded together, against a common enemy or just to 'hang out'.

“Gamora and I were the only souls left in the soul stone,” Loki told the group.

“It’s true,” the green-skinned warrior confirmed. “I saw you all when you were in it,” she addressed her friends that Loki didn’t know. “I also saw you disappear when Thanos was defeated.”

“You saw us?” Quill said, his jovial expression crumbling. “But I...We didn’t see you there. We couldn’t even talk to each other, but we knew what had happened. You were alone…”

“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Loki requested as he waved a hand at Red Skull.

“What do you mean to accomplish?” Marvel asked.

“Free the solar system from the same curse that’s holding this one here,” the god of mischief replied truthfully.

He didn’t have the energy to manipulate this Midgardian woman into helping him, so he had to appeal to her kind heart.

“Our people are homeless. We destroyed our own planet to save them from sure death,” the Asgardian prince recounted. “You’ve heard the story, I’m sure.”

The human’s quiet huff confirmed his guess.

“If I’m right, destroying the soul stone will return this planet to its former state,” Loki resumed. “It’s inhabitable and full of metal ores, ideal for us to start over without having to beg too much to our allies for help.”

He turned toward Thor, who was looking around the planet, evidently seeing it with new eyes.

“We could rebuild Asgard here,” the younger Odinson declared.

“Good luck digging into this,” Quill said as he kicked the hard soil. “Even for Asgardians that will be tedious.”

“Not for Hela,” Loki heard Thor whisper as he glanced at him knowingly before staring at the dark sky.

The god of mischief had to admit it: Thor had come a long way from being Odin’s golden but clueless son, quick to anger and always ready for a fight.

When he’d let frost giants ruin his brother’s coronation, Loki had not anticipated the twists and turns he and Thor would take to return to each other’s side, completely changed within such a short amount of time.

“What do you say, Allfather?” Loki asked his brother.

Thor scoffed at the title, but he nodded with a small smile, his eyes narrowing on the eclipsed star overhead.

“This better work, brother,” the older Odinson warned, his words softened by his growing smile as he fully turned to Loki. “You did promise that the sun would shine on us again.”

“I did, didn’t I,” the god of mischief replied with a smile of his own.