Chapter Text
LXV
"Okay, this is Darcy, back with another of our regularly scheduled installments of Jane’s Breakfast Reviews!”
[A woman, dark hair in a ponytail, smiles widely. The camera flips view, showing another woman seated at a flimsy plastic table.] “Hey Jane. Just coffee this morning?”
“Yeah.” [Jane mutters the response, chewing on the cap of her pen.]
[The camera switches views again, showing the first woman.] “Look - that sounds normal. But I need y’all to realize that pot is from last night. It’s stone cold. But at least it's in the vicinity of normal human behavior. I'm giving this a solid seven out of ten."
[The camera pans back, shows Jane taking a sip. Darcy makes a quiet gagging sound.]
*
“Is that… a meatball sub?” [The camera zooms in.]
[Jane dives for a napkin.] “Oh, uh, sorry, was this yours?”
“Alright, I’m gonna give this six out of ten. Downgraded for acting like a drunk frat boy, and because those are, in fact, my leftovers. But I upped it a little because it’s a polite Midwestern drunk frat boy.”
*
[The camera pans to Jane, staring at an unopened box of Pop Tarts. Darcy stage whispers to the camera.] “Those are her ex-boyfriend’s.” [She zooms in on Jane’s mouth.] “Missing his gooey inside?”
[The lips form into a visible snarl. Jane screeches.] “DARCY!”
"Nine out of ten! For being sympathetic to the viewers at home!" [She dodges the box flung at her head.]
*
“Is that — " [Darcy’s voice sounds genuinely shaken.] “Are you - dry ramen noodles?”
“What?” [Jane breaks off a chunk of the yellow, crispy block.] “They’re crunchy like chips.”
“Chaotic evil!”
[Darcy hisses, running out of the room, camera shaking.]
LXVI
Thor rests his hammer on top of the weather beaten wood of the outdoor table. He accepts the muffin Darcy hands him. “Dingy, isn’t it?” the girl says. “Apparently, even the Holiday Inn was not in our budget.”
“I’m not leaving my stuff in the S.H.I.E.L.D. dorm,” Jane argues, not for the first time this morning.
“But a Motel 6, really? I'll be shocked if I don't come down with an STD just from touching the pillowcases.”
"You are so dramatic. It isn't a brothel. It's an affordable alternative just outside the city that even provides free Wifi."
"Are they comping your stay or something? Are you a Motel 6 shill now?"
Thor eats his muffin, eyes darting back and forth between them.
Jane sniffs. "If you leave a positive review you get a 20% discount on your next stay."
"You're telling me we're planning on staying here again? Gods help us." Darcy nudges Thor with her elbow. "Hear that? I'm being inclusive. Gods. Plural."
Thor's mouth is full, but he manages an appreciative mumble.
Jane turns to him. "Thor, I just don't understand. These distortions. They don't make any sense. Captain Rogers said they're like portals - but how? It's nothing at all like the Einstein-Rosen bridge." She slurps at her coffee. "God, Darcy, did you put enough sugar in?"
"Oh, puh-lease, like you're one to lecture me. I saw you eat that Pizza Roll off the ground last week!"
"I did not!"
"Truthfully, I do not know much about these distortions," Thor replies. "Only that they seem to be causing destruction wherever they appear."
"I wonder how many have appeared where they can't cause destruction," Jane says, thoroughly distracted from her bickering with Darcy. "Like - up in the atmosphere, or in the bottom of the ocean. Places we wouldn't have noticed. I gotta talk to Bruce Banner."
"If a hole to another dimension formed in the bottom of the ocean, would the water just start draining out?" Darcy wonders. "We could be talking a catastrophic event. I'm thinking we call it The Big Flush." She glances over Jane's shoulder and sees Erik coming back from his vehicle in the parking lot. "Oh, good. He's perfect, all grumpy looking. Thor, you're coming to help, yeah?" He nods. She made him promise.
“Thor…” Jane speaks softly, and only after Darcy and Erik have left. “Are you okay? You haven't said much."
“Quite well,” he replies, remembering to smile.
She purses her lips and glances to the sky. There is a light drizzle falling. But it isn’t him, he hasn’t done anything. Jane has taken him at his word when he told her he was a god of the storm. It does not mean every raindrop is a tear. If the sky were to reflect his mood, like a mirror or a still pond, there would be no clouds. No color. No sun and no rain, nothing, hardly any protection from the vagaries of solar winds. Everything has been scooped out of his chest, washed clean with grief. An empty cup.
“Yes, Jane. I am well.” The words come with ease. He thinks of Loki. How proud he would be. Thor bounds up from the table. “Darcy has insisted I help her with her new vine. I am no gardener, but I have sworn my assistance."
Jane's lips twitch up into something that might generously be termed a smile. If Thor were a more suspicious man, he would have called it a smirk.
There might well be more to Darcy's words than he understands, but it doesn't matter. He will do anything to keep moving. If he is too still, if his thoughts drift too far, he finds himself looking into Loki’s eyes, the last glimpse he had before - no, no, he should not think of it. Not now, when he knows Loki lives. It should not burn him so, the memories.
He claps Erik on the back when he meets them in the center of the weedy field. Darcy positions them carefully. Thor listens to her instructions, uncomprehending. "The vine is a metaphor?"
"Um, sure. Yeah. The video is put up on this thing we call Vine. Now Thor, you stand there. Erik," she directs him with her hands on his shoulders, "you stand there. Perfect."
"Darcy," Selvig complains. "What are you trying to make us do?"
"Thor is gonna make a little raincloud," Darcy explains. "Then I'll zoom out and everyone will see it's hovering over only you. It'll be hilarious. Just like a comic strip, okay, old man?"
"Wait, what?" Erik darts a look at Thor.
By the time Jane joins them, Selvig is drenched and haranguing Darcy. "I thought you meant a little drizzle, not a downpour!"
"Don't look at me! He's the storm god!" She points a finger at Thor's chin. He shrugs at Erik, then summons a gust of wind that he might dry the man off quickly. Darcy bursts out laughing. "Your hair," she crows. It is standing up straight at the roots. Thor grins.
Jane is at Darcy's shoulder. "Sorry to interrupt." She holds her cell phone to one ear. "Thor, Agent Coulson is calling me. Asking for you to come to Stark's tower. Says they need to talk to you. And since you don't have a phone, I guess that makes me your secretary." She is irritated, delivering messages like a servant.
"He should not treat you as a little more than a messenger, Jane, I apologize."
"Oh - no, it's okay. I get it." Her cheeks flush red. "I mean. I don't like it but I understand."
"She's just a grump because the beds at this motel are so lumpy," Darcy moans.
He takes the phone and speaks to Coulson, then hands it back to her. Their fingers brush. Her eyes are bright, almond-shaped. Brow narrowed in something that Thor fears is concern. "You'll be back later, right?" Jane asks him. At least there is one person who would desire his company. To be amid their squabbles and their arguments is an exhausting prospect, where normally Thor might be enthused. Still, he would much rather have the noise than the silence. He nods, finds he cannot summon a smile as easily as he might a gust of wind, then bids them farewell and leaps into the free blue sky.
The flight is short. He punches a hole in a cloud, comes out coated with water vapor, and then he's over New York City. Thor lands on the surface of the tower. Coulson had told him to aim for the sign that bore Stark's name.
The man himself waits at the door. Stark wears dark glasses, which he slides down his nose to look at Thor. “Hey there, big guy. Didn’t know you were flying in, next time I’ll put on the landing lights. C'mon in, everyone’s inside.”
Thor glances around. "What is this place?"
"Oh, it's my workshop."
"Hey dude," the archer says, standing up straight from where he had been slouched against the wall. "What's up?"
"It is a fair morn," Thor replies, half-distracted. Stark follows him as he wanders to the table in the center of the workshop. There is the metal armor, disassembled, tools scattered across every surface.
Stark points. "The elbow circuits keep blowing out on this version. I'm trying to upgrade."
This is unexpected. “You fashioned the armor yourself?” Thor asks. He had assumed there was a smith, or a mage.
“Yeah,” Stark says. His eyes are dark but there is something soft in them when he looks down at the sheen of red and gold metal.
“Don’t wind him up, he’s an egomaniac already,” Barton says.
“But it is only right that he should take pride in such an accomplishment.”
Stark grins at him. “Knew I liked you. C'mon, the whole gang is upstairs in the penthouse." He walks backward a few steps, frowning and tapping his chin with a finger. "The gang. The crew. The clique? The Avengers is so formal. I'm trying some things out. Spitballing here. Anything to add?" Stark hops up the stairs, bouncing as if he has springs embedded in the soles of his shoes.
"Call 'em what they are," Barton says.
Coulson is standing at the top, hands folded in front of him. He cuts Barton off. "I believe Director Fury used the term a herd of cats." Beside him, Natasha Romanoff smirks.
Clint brushes past her with a grunt. "That's rude. I came in on my day off and everything."
"Felines allow themselves to be herded here on Midgard?"
“Ah - sorry, Thor. Human expression.” Coulson extends his hand, and Thor takes it. “Glad you made it." He has often thought of keeping a notebook in which to inscribe these human expressions and make sense of them given further study. But he is beginning to suspect there is no logic to their construction, and that such an undertaking would be futile. Thor is offered a seat upon a leather chair. Barton drops down onto a couch across from him, while Coulson remains standing. He barely waits for Thor to take Mjölnir off his hip and set it on the ground before he barrels forward. "I’ve got to ask - what’s the plan, with Loki?”
“Plan?” He knew they would want to speak of Loki. Thor assumed they had not finished asking their questions. Is he really your brother? Is he a sorcerer? Why is he so angry at you? What did you do to him, Thor?
“Well - yeah," Coulson says. "You wanted to take him back to Asgard with you, and he refused. Are you gonna press the issue? Should we prepare for a force from Asgard that wants to reclaim him? All that stuff with the Destroyer. Is he facing charges back in your kingdom?”
Thor has not considered that. "Father will want to have words with him."
"Okay, but what does that mean? I assume that what he did was a crime, yes?"
"I... he misused the power of the Destroyer," Thor says. "It was only meant to protect the treasures within the royal vault."
"Wasn't he acting with the authority of the king at the time?" Natasha asks. "Weren't you banished? How does that affect the legality of what he did?"
"It was not honorable. To endanger the lives of mortals who could not hope to stand against us." Thor chews on his lip. The woman speaks truly. Loki did hold Gungnir when he commanded the Destroyer. "It was within his rights, though he was but regent while our Father slept," he adds.
"Is there an actual law that covers doing harm to us poor weak mortals?" Clint Barton cuts in.
When Thor went to Jotunheim and spilled blood on its soil, he had broken a thousand year old treaty. There is no such treaty with the mortals. No unity, here, in this fractious realm. Who to make a treaty with? But there is an understanding all the same. No honor in striking one that does not hold a weapon. "Not - specifically," Thor admits. "But he swore a vow to protect the Nine Realms. Midgard has long been our protectorate."
"Yeah, I'm sure we're real grateful." He cannot tell if the archer is sneering. Thor frowns at him.
“If Lukas - Loki,” Coulson corrects, catching sight of the deepening of Thor’s grimace, “denies being an Asgardian citizen and thus subject to your laws, do you have proof of his identity? Birth records? Are citizen papers a thing on Asgard?”
Thor squirms in his seat. “There is a record of his birth in the Royal Annals.” Even though it’s a lie. What if Loki told them that? What if he claimed to be a citizen of Jotunheim? What could Thor say in rebuttal if he declared that their Father had taken him from that land as a babe without notifying any of his birth family? It would be dangerous to press forward, unknowing of Loki’s response.
“I do not think it wise to force his return to Asgard as of yet,” Thor says. “I must speak to my mother and father before it comes to that.”
“And you wouldn’t send an Asgardian contingent to get him without informing us first, yes?”
Thor does not want to speak just yet of the Bifrost's destruction in any detail. To say that he isn't sure that Asgard could send a force anywhere, right now.
“If you’re serious about a formal treaty with the United States, that would be a requirement. Any action taken by the military of Asgard or you in your capacity as a member of the royal family on American soil would have to be pre-approved by the government.”
Thor nods absently, still thinking of Loki and how he might twist and pull at any of Thor’s demands.
His brother does not want to go back to Asgard. Thor cannot understand it. All he can think of is telling his mother that she no longer needs her cloak of sorrow, that she can cast it off, a life of winter turned to summer in an instant with the knowledge that Loki's heart beats in his chest. His father no longer stooped and worn. No more somber hangings in the hall where his brother's colors once flew. To hear Loki's voice echo in the empty caverns of the palace. The honor of being graced with his rare smile, like a flicker of warmth from a candle. He wants to go back to Asgard with Loki and feel once more that he is home.
Did Loki truly not believe he had mourned? If he had known how much Thor suffered, he would not have spit at the idea, would not have thrown a blast of seidr at him on the flying ship.
The image of Loki standing at the brink of the Helicarrier is burned into his mind. Thor had feared another fall. The terror of that moment was more than he had felt in any battle. He would have faced any foe more gladly than a return to that soul-wrenching emptiness of a world without his brother. That Loki thought himself a foe was immaterial.
Stark pipes up, "Is Thor gonna meet the President? Can I come?" There is more, rambling and nonsensical, but Thor does not hear - the words fade into another register beyond his awareness. He made a mistake. He conjured his deepest fear with the thought of Loki standing at the edge, and it rises to meet him.
With a wrench beneath his feet that feels like the activation of the Bifrost - he is back in Asgard, staring at Loki across the dome as his brother went farther than breaking a simple treaty, as he tried to break the realm itself, power streaming around them, Thor's heart lurching into his throat and then breaking a little too.
No, Thor thinks. I am on Midgard now. They both are. Loki is alive. Why does his mind taunt him? Thor must not think of it. He must not.
“Dude… you okay? You got a weird look on your face.” Clint stretches out on the couch that he might come close enough to poke him in the arm. Then he pushes his finger deeper into the muscle, brows raising. "Jesus, you're shredded."
Thor is growing to detest the question. “I am well," he says shortly. It is not as convincing as when he told Jane.
"Are you feeling Thor up?" Natasha Romanoff winks at him when Clint sputters.
"I'm just a man appreciating another man's biceps. Ain't nothin' wrong with that."
That is a compelling enough reason to leave this cushioned sofa. He approaches Steve.
Captain Rogers is at the farthest window, staring out at the squat, grimy towers of New York City. He seems mesmerized by the view. Thor wonders what he would think if he could see Asgard's glittering domes and crystal spires. The tiled archways and stone pillars carved with birds in flight and leaves fat with fruit. Would he even notice the ruined bridge, in the face of all the splendor?
Rogers had said he knew Lukas. Had Loki told him anything? Thor cannot help himself. "Did you ever speak to Loki of Asgard?"
Steve turns, unfolding his arms. He blinks. "Ah, no. Not directly."
Thor swallows. “Did he ever - did he ever speak of me?”
Steve’s mouth tilts to the side. “No, not really.”
He almost wishes Loki had cursed him to his mortal friends. Complained, bemoaned his existence. Anything other than having forgotten Thor. Like Loki had accused Thor of forgetting him. To think Loki could believe that he had not mourned...
That first night - after the shaking, the dry heaves, the unending swells of tears - Thor had paced through the halls. Every clap of his boot upon the tile had sounded like a gong. A death knell. A funeral drum. Too loud, too real. He had not wanted reality. Not when it had only given him a bellyful of pain. Not when he was forced to realign the entire universe to compensate for a new truth. Loki’s absence was a sudden collapse of a familiar star. The mouth of Hel, the planet-eater that the mortals named a black hole. He could barely move his limbs under the pressure of that new horrifying gravity.
The anger had come later. Not at Loki. Not at first.
He had screamed at his father after Jotunheim. At the time, he’d imagined it was the angriest he’d ever felt at Odin.
But it was not the same as the visceral feeling that had gripped his stomach when his mother and father explained, halting, uncertain, just what Loki had discovered while Thor was banished.
"You did not tell him? Why - why did you not tell us?"
"We did as we thought best, Thor. That is all one can ever do, as a parent. One day, you'll understand," was Odin's answer. Anemic, incomplete. Thor had felt that it had no substance. Not an explanation, not an apology. But what had been the point in arguing? If Loki was there, Thor could have fought a battle with his father all night over his lies, but without him, Thor did not have the energy for anything more than silent tears.
Now he wishes he had said more. Demanded more. That he had something he could tell Loki - anything. Father did this to protect you, or perhaps, they were going to tell you someday, they were.
Steve Rogers claps him on the shoulder, his eyebrows inching together as he examines Thor's face. He does not ask after Thor's feelings, and Thor is pathetically grateful for his delicacy.
"Never even mentioned you? Ouch, that's harsh." Stark barges into the conversation with a conspicuous lack of delicacy. Steve is glaring. "But. I mean. You probably just didn't come up in conversation. Don't sweat it, big guy. He'll come around." The lord of the tower nudges him with an elbow, then hisses and clutches at the limb. "Ow. You shocked me and you're not even wearing armor. Or can you control that?" Thor pats him on the shoulder instead of responding.
“I don’t know.” Steve rubs his brow. “When I talked to Loki, he didn’t seem keen on coming back.”
“You spoke with Loki?” The words tumble out in tandem with his thoughts, scarcely a pause between. His fingers must tighten on Stark's shoulder, for the man squirms out from under his grip and rubs at the spot, muttering.
Steve shifts on his feet. “Uh, yeah. It didn’t go too well. Like I said, he refused to help us.”
“But you - spoke to him.” Thor chews on his lower lip and examines the human. He moves without difficulty, no pain shading his expression. There is no weakness, no wound he can observe.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” His voice is wary. Thor jerks and realizes all of them are staring.
“I only - there were no knives?”
“Knives?”
“He did not bleed you?”
Steve tilts his head, like he’s trying to understand. “No…”
“Not even a light mutilation?”
The man appears alarmed. “No!”
Thor is all astonishment. “I did not think my brother liked you so well!”
“Because he didn’t stab him?” Stark snorts while he talks. It is awfully uncouth. Though - the informality practiced by these Midgardians is slightly endearing. He will not admit that to anyone in Asgard.
“Loki has oft resorted to a dagger when he no longer desires to speak to me.”
“That I can believe,” Natasha murmurs.
The mortals are all muttering. He does not pay much attention. They do not know Loki, they are not acquainted with his knives, the ones he wields like extensions of his hand, sharp fingers. They have never seen them flash in the midday sun. Nor heard Loki crow with laughter as the pointed tips found their target. They understand the daggers as weapons, not memories. Thor could kiss every scar those blades have given to him. The Avengers speak among themselves and he doesn't hear anything but Loki, and, and - the soft sound of bells. Thor cocks his head. He glances around and sees nothing that might have cause to make such a sound.
A voice comes from the ceiling. "Mr. Stark, the front desk is calling for you."
There is no person to have spoken so, either. Thor inspects the penthouse with a wary eye. "It's just Jarvis," Stark tells him. "My AI. He's got the run of the place. Tell 'em I'm busy, Jarvis."
"Maybe I should go talk to him again," Steve says. "Loki, I mean."
"Perhaps I might come with you, Steve Rogers." Thor must try again. Loki might not be glad to see him, but they will not be on a flying ship this time. With their feet on the earth, neither of them on an edge, they might come to an accord. If he could only speak to him, make him understand - he has to make Loki understand.
The humans all look at each other. “Maybe,” Stark says. His voice is anything but firm. “But I'm not sure — what is that? Someone’s phone?”
“What?” Steve asks.
Clint pats his sides. “Not me.”
“That sound.” Stark snaps his fingers.
Natasha gets up from her seat. "It sounds like an alarm. Is it the one Lukas gave us?"
“No,” he says slowly. “It’s not the egg pod that Lukas built. Look.” Stark digs through a stack of papers and grabs something, indeed vaguely egg-shaped. Thor cannot help but grind his teeth together, hearing these people say his brother's false name. It is not true, and it is not right. Lukas is someone he does not know. Thor will not admit his existence.
“He did not call it the egg pod,” Natasha says.
“All one word. EggPod. Copyright pending, Stark Industries. Just to fuck with Jobs. But no, it can’t be the pod.” He glances at Thor. “Your brother never bothered to turn it on before he skipped town.”
“What, no power switch?” Clint asks.
Steve snorts. “Doubt it.”
Thor examines the little pod. There is a rune carved through the surface, glimmering in the light, as if beneath the metal skin sits a multifaceted crystal. He hefts it in one palm. “What is it?” The warmth of the pod lingers on his skin. There is seidr in the object, that is certain. “And what purpose does it serve?” He even goes as far as tapping the shell, before it suddenly occurs to him that Loki is the one that has made this. Hurriedly, he sets it down. Best to be nothing but wary with one of Loki’s creations.
"We were kinda hoping you would know what it is. And how to turn it on," Stark says. "Doesn't it look familiar? Some kinda Asgardian thing?"
"No," Thor admits. He has never seen anything like this artifact. But that is of no significance. Loki was never one to be beholden to strictures like convention or efficiency. Aesthetics, perhaps. He simply never felt the need to make an object he had created familiar - he did not care to ease one's doubts about its function.
"Lukas said it was a beacon. He said he set it up to flash a warning if it senses another distortion forming. Canary in the coalmine, ya know.”
Thor does not, but he can guess. “That is useful.”
Tony snorts, mouth quirking to the side as he flings a hand up. “Would be, if he’d managed to activate it before he went and skedaddled. Now it’s just a damned paperweight.” He huffs.
Thor bends down to the level of the table’s surface and eyes the stone. “Awaken,” he demands. “Awaken and enact the working that was your master’s bidding.”
The crystal etching of the rune glows warm yellow. A low hum buzzes in Thor’s ears.
Tony Stark gapes at him. “But - what - I tried voice activation! It didn’t work! Hell, I tried everything from power on to open sesame.”
“Perhaps Loki did not consider that someone without the Allspeak would attempt to activate his working,” Thor suggests.
"Allspeak?" Steve asks.
"It is bestowed upon all who drink from the Well of Mimir in Asgard," Thor explains. "Allowing us to communicate with any conscious being. Loki and I have both partaken."
“I…” Tony looks at him, suddenly thoughtful. “You know what, that’s a totally valid point.”
There is muted surprise in his dark eyes. Thor does not mind being judged of possessing a lesser intellect than Loki. He is used to it. But Stark is like a child with this seidr - he is starting from a blank slate.
"I am compiling data, Mr. Stark," the man in the ceiling says. "Please give me a few moments."
"Sure, sure. I can be patient, yeah." Stark immediately starts tapping his fingers against the table. The woman Natasha Romanoff pulls the archer and Coulson into a whispered conference, and Steve Rogers is reliably drawn to the window again.
There is a pause with only the sound of a drumbeat on empty metal. Tony clears his throat. “Umm…Y’know, whatever internal monologue you were having earlier looked rough. And, uh... God, I know I’m gonna regret asking this, but I figure there's a correlation between you not having an emotional breakdown and me not being fried like an egg, sunny-side up, by lightning, so I'm just gonna go for it and - are you okay?”
Stark is the last to ask, and for whatever reason, this is the question Thor breaks under. Perhaps because this man is not one he’d thought to fear sympathy from.
“Yes, of course,” Thor says, and it does not sound like him, it is a shade speaking with his mouth. “Why wouldn’t I be? I have only just seen the brother I long thought lost, and rather than greet me with an embrace, he destroyed an entire airship just to get away from me.” He smells burnt hair and realizes his fists are clenched, still sparking, and any hair that had been on his knuckles is gone. Thor tries on a smile that immediately drops when he recalls the wide, mad grin Loki had given him on the bridge. He thinks now he might understand. That only a sliver of composure had remained to hold Loki’s solid form together, that the rest of him must have felt like an inferno, a wildfire under his skin, and to smile was the only option that was not sobbing.
It comes back to him, as if the stars spin in reverse, the flow of time now upstream. It has been all he can think about, since he saw Loki. Each moment of that last day revealing itself from his memory. Piece by piece, because to consider the event in its entirety would send a crack across every foundation that he relies upon.
In the spare seconds after Thor’s scream died out, after Loki's name faded, all else was silent. Then he remembers gasping, the muscles of his chest spasming, his ribs contracting, little half-hearted cries, like a wounded animal. Choking on it, on the realization.
His father had to help him stand. Odin’s fingers were trembling. “Your mother,” he had said, voice hoarse. “Thor, I must - I must find your mother.”'
Odin pulled him across the bridge. Away. Away from the edge. Thor could not feel his feet or his legs. Stumbling like a drunkard, into the streets of Asgard. He still couldn’t breathe, that had been what it felt like, as they made their way to the palace. Like he was trapped under the ice of a frozen pond, slamming his fists upon a dark surface, struggling against his own body as it tried to gulp down water.
Somehow, on the way, they had managed to pick up a cadre of guards, who were scurrying after them, back and forth, hissing and whispering. The townsfolk, if there had been any, must have been silent. Or he couldn’t hear them over his own sobbing breaths.
Everything had gone a bit dark, slanted. Far away. The next thing Thor recalled was his mother’s touch upon his cheek. The room was shadowed, dim, not a flame to be seen. He had been sitting in the dark, but it hadn't meant anything. All was dark. When he looked up into her eyes, they were cold and lifeless as a barren plain. She knew.
“Amma,” he begged her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I tried, Amma.”
She had broken, then. Shattered like a pane of glass. Clutching his head to her stomach, bent over, tears coming from what seemed the depths of her soul. Thor had cried with her.
And now, he wonders where exactly Loki was, while they were bleeding out their hearts together in that candle-less stone room. If he had picked up his new name yet. Slipped on that black Midgardian suit.
Thor bites his cheek so hard that flesh rips.
He had not known it was possible to have been relieved of the greatest burden, to feel hope again like the absence of an anvil crushing down on his chest, and to be so full of terrible rage at the very cure.
"Ah." Tony says. "Hmm. That was maybe a stupid question."
The servant construct Jarvis interrupts. "Sir, I have identified the source of the alarm."
"Thank Christ," Tony mutters, picking up a tablet and examining the screen. “Hey guys," he calls out. The others gather round. "Huh. It’s the hospitality system. The environmental sensors in the lobby. Looks like there’s a temperature fluctuation. Big enough to ping us all the way up here.”
"We should go down and check it out," Steve says. "I think it's too much of a stretch to say this is a coincidence. Something's up."
"Yeah, alright. If something has put a crack in my Italian marble I'm gonna be pissed." Stark strides across the room and pushes a button. The wall slides apart, revealing a small metal chamber. Thor follows, as do Romanoff and Barton, as well as the Captain. Coulson remains behind.
"I've gotta call Fury," he tells them. "Let him know we got Lukas's warning pod activated. It's at least some good news."
The metal chamber is too small for Thor's comfort. He thinks that might be Barton poking his tricep again. When they emerge into the entrance hall, the crowd of humans scatters in their wake. At first, Thor thinks they part like wheat under a scythe for him, but no - it is Tony Stark they are staring at, whispering about.
"Over here," Stark says. He points to the left of a large glass counter behind which stand three or four uncommonly striking women with shiny hair.
"Mr. Stark?" One of the women asks. "Can we be of assistance?"
“No, just investigating a potential distortion in the fabric of spacetime," he tells them. "Carry on."
Steve folds his arms over his chest. "What exactly is tripping the alarm?"
"Temperature sensor, like Jarvis said. There's a cold spot. I'm thinking poltergeist. Anyone else?"
"I'm looking at the clock," Natasha says.
They all turn. She points at the wall, where numbers are writ large upon a black screen. Eleven and fifty seven.
"What's wrong with it?" Barton asks.
Natasha tilts her head and checks a watch on her wrist. "It's twelve oh seven."
"The clock is stuck,” Stark says. “How can it be stuck? That doesn’t make sense. It’s digital, not analog.”
The redhaired woman opens her cupped palm and reveals Loki's egg. When it flashes a pale blue, chimes like a warning bell, they all jump.
"Maybe it's trying to tell us it needs a new battery," Clint Barton offers.
"I don't think so," Steve says, and a heartbeat after he speaks there is a tremor in the earth, vibrating up through the soles of Thor's boots. He braces himself against the marble wall, slipping over the smooth surface. And then the wall is gone from beneath his fingers. A shock of cold stings at Thor's skin, and he yanks away his hand. A hole has formed where he touched. It grows wider as Thor watches.
He turns quickly to Stark. "I didn't do that."
Steve appears at his elbow, eyes wide. "It's another of those distortions," he says. "Just like on the Helicarrier. In the basement. On the ship."
"Okay, back up," Stark barks at them. The hole continues to grow, cracking and crumbling. "Jarvis?" Stark calls out. "Execute protocol seventeen. Begin evacuation of the building."
An alarm shrieks, higher than a bird call but just as shrill. The humans clump together into groups and then break apart, hurrying to various exits. Thor cannot look away from the growing, gaping hole. First the size of a horse, then a bilgesnipe, then an entire warship. Stark's entrance hall boasts a high ceiling, but the cavernous black space is reaching its height.
There is form within the blackness, an outline, a with more weight than a shadow. Hulking and almost bulbous. The ground rumbles again and the shadow within the distortion oozes into the entrance hall of Stark's shining tower. A mass of pale white flesh, in the shape of a worm. A gash of a mouth threaded by needle teeth bubbling with yellow saliva. Slime drips from the folds of its wet skin. It is thrice as tall as Volstagg, and five times as wide. Most humans in the vicinity start screaming. Fleeing in earnest.
“Oh, it’s just a babe,” Thor says. A nithoggr of Niflheim. Much smaller than any he's ever seen, and likely unable to breathe fire yet. The worm's head shakes, and the spittle that flies from its mouth smokes when it comes into contact with the floor.
“It’s - what?” Tony demands. He sounds as if he's run a footrace. Gesturing with his wrist, he calls to the ceiling. "Jarvis, I'm gonna need some armor. Pretty damn quick."
One man crosses a patch of slime in his quest to flee only to find his shoes stuck to the ground. He yelps as smoke starts to rise from his feet. "Take them off!" Natasha barks, as he keeps struggling, trying to run. Steven Rogers runs over and lifts him bodily away. The bottom of his shoes remains on the ground, melting into formlessness.
Thor looks at what is left of the man's shoes, then down at his jeans and the T-shirt Darcy gave him this morning. There is a red heart in the center. “I love New York. Huh,” Jane had said when she saw it.
“It was on clearance,” Darcy replied. “Only thing they had in this size. And believe me, I tried to find one smaller.”
It will not do to give battle in such an ensemble. He cannot call his armor here in the building without blowing another hole into Stark’s marble.
“I shall return shortly!” Thor says, running for the giant glass doors through which he can spy the open air.
“Where the hell are you going?” Stark shouts.
Thor gets caught a moment in the puzzling doorway. A series of glass chambers in a circle - he pushes on one and the partition behind him comes and hits him in the spine. He grunts and pushes more softly, and the chambers rotate. As soon as a gap is cleared, he leaps from the contraption and sprints forward, searching for a clear view of the sky.
The sound of many people crowding into a space comes to him dimly, and a man’s voice, booming overhead.
"And to your right, you'll see Stark Tower, the home of famous entrepreneur and billionaire Tony Stark," The voice cuts off, and Thor sees a man stop short in the middle of his gesture, likely at the unexpected sight of Thor bursting from the entrance hall. He is surprised to find himself at the center of a large group of humans staring at him, as if he has wandered onto a stage in the middle of a performance. There is a tall red vehicle with a sign emblazoned on the side - Double Decker Bus Tours. Mortals line the top, peering up at the glass heights of the tower, and down at him on the sidewalk. And then they are staring and pointing, as people begin to flee from the building.
Thor waves. Then raises his hammer, and summons his armor with a blast of power. The humans shriek and cower beneath their arms as thunder rattles the windows surrounding them.
A mortal tries to shove past him from behind and smashes into his back when Thor forgets to move. Before Thor can apologize, the nithoggr roars from inside. It is a low vibration, almost subvocal, and the glass doors he just exited from shake and shiver in their frames. At the second harsh groan, they shatter.
If he had thought the screaming was shrill before, he can attest now that it was but a prelude to this pandemonium. Thor can see the panic race through the crowd as if it is a living being, on wings of smoke. He attempts to reassure them. “Do not fear, Midgardians! I am Thor, of Asgard, and I come to aid you in your troubles.” There is no rousing cheer. In fact, the message is largely ignored. Thor hurries back inside.
Tony Stark is standing in front of a clutch of humans that are crouching behind a glass wall. He spies Thor and halts. “Costume change, huh? Guess that’s my cue too. Ready now, Jarvis?” Stark clicks a metal band around his wrist. The armor Thor had observed in his workshop comes flying from a gap in the ceiling, folding around his body much the same way as Thor's comes when it is called.
"Guys," Steve calls. "I think this thing is getting angry." The worm's tail reduces a pillar to rubble and he turns to look at them, eyes large and blue.
"Captain Rogers," Jarvis calls out. "I took the liberty of having your shield retrieved from the penthouse." There is clear ding and the hidden metal chamber slides open again. A red, white, and blue banded shield lies on the ground within.
The nithoggr is inching forward, out of the gaping hole in the wall. The tiny beady eyes on either side of its head roll wildly. With another bellow from the beast, the glass partition hiding the group of citizens shatters. Thor grips tighter to his hammer. He spares a moment to wonder how a beast from Niflheim could traverse the realms and end up here, on Midgard. They mentioned a distortion, but that hadn't meant anything to Thor. It must be some sort of gate. Like the dark energy that sent him here. He does not claim much knowledge of the paths between worlds.
"What's our play?" Steve demands, jogging over, shield now strapped to his arm.
"Isn't it obvious?" Stark says. "Just think, with a worm this size we could catch the Lochness monster."
"I was looking for suggestions, not a stand up comedy routine."
"I moonlight at the Apollo." Stark turns. "By the way, Thor, you weren't serious when you said this thing was a baby, right?"
There is no need for plays or plans. Thor moves without thinking. There is an enemy to defeat. Finally. Something tangible that he might meet with fury. Relief is a balm to the sore edges of his soul. Thor knows this dance.
He leaps forward, uncaring of Steve and Stark's cries. They scramble to follow him. Mjölnir is in motion, quicker than his own thoughts. The beast's left eye darts toward the flash of silver and widens. A pale rim surrounds the slitted pupil. Is that fear? Thor wonders. It heats his blood. That empty cup within him is now filled, brimming over with fury like poison.
Then - that day, intruding once more, shoving through his mind like a ragged blade through muscle - the last time he raised his hammer with such intent, with great power animating his arm. The painful sound of the Bifrost shattering beneath his strike, the painful, disbelieving sound that Loki had made when he did it. The last time he'd felt such fury, when he'd torn into Jotunheim intent on slaughtering jotunn, on spilling blood that might have been Loki's, had he not come to Asgard.
The beast wails. It is a pitiful sound. Fearful. Full of fear, and why had he thought there was anything satisfying about it? A babe crying. Suddenly sick at heart, Thor abruptly pivots. He cannot bear to be the cause of any more destruction. Hasn't he done enough?
His strike goes wide. Slams into the floor. Thor's fingers tremble around the leather-wrapped handle. The misplaced momentum has him stumbling to his knees. A sudden jerk from the battle he had set into motion, like slamming into a wall of clear ice. It shatters within him, always shattering, everything he tries to hold onto, everything he once had faith in, all sharp points that dig bloody furrows into his skin.
Beast, monster, thing - is this what he called the beings that refused to obey him? Those that did not conform to his standard, to walk on two legs or have warm skin?
The uncertainty hobbles him. A chain keeping his knees pressed into the marble. Unfamiliar. Thor has always been decisive. He had thought it a strength, to take action while others dithered. But he had confused action with destruction. Strength with violence.
"Thor! Thor, you good?" Steve Rogers is shouting after him.
Might those jotunn he killed have been kin to Loki? That pulls him up short. He must tell his brother - he must explain to Loki that he is not the same man that walked so boldly into Jotunheim in pursuit of petty vengeance.
Thor cannot separate himself from that terrible broken day. It plays out before his eyes, double vision, a bridge to nowhere and the ghost of his brother. Loki, spitting venom more painful than anything this nithoggr could conjure, promising to hunt down Jane, threatening to hurt her, shouting out his bile and rage, and all the while tears leaking from his eyes.
He realizes too late that his aborted strike leaves Stark wide open. The nithoggr launches a stream of acid spittle at him. The force sends him sprawling. Thor can see him rising, though, and goes to turn back to the worm. Then Stark yelps.
"I'm smoking! This - what is this stuff?"
“Incoming!" Clint barks out from behind Thor. "Stay alert, something else just came outta that distortion - small, it’s flying - it’s - " Clint’s voice drops off. “It’s a bird?”
"No, it's a plane!" Stark shouts. Thor glances up wildly, but there is nothing there. "No, it's Superman!"
"Shut up, man, I swear, I saw a bird!"
"Birds are a common sight on this planet, Barton. I'm more worried about the alien monster that is currently dripping with some kind of acid - shit, Jesus, no - ack! Gross! Get it off me!" The nithoggr's spit is viscous as well as corrosive. Stark's feet can barely lift from the ground. "Jarvis!" he cries. "Sprinklers!"
Freezing water sprays Thor right down the back of his neck, trickling into his armor. He thanks the Norns for the shock. He'd frozen, numb, kneeling before his hammer and the ashes he'd made of all the things he'd loved.
He drops Mjölnir and leaves it where it lies. He has the strength to lift the hammer, but not the will. What good is his strength? It failed him when most important. It could not carry the weight of his brother. Thor looks at Steve Rogers. He could bear a shield instead. There is a dark wooden table next to a pair of chairs. Thor seizes it and goes to block Stark from another incursion. One of the women from behind the counter is pouring a jug of ice water over the back of the metal suit, while the other tries to wipe off the slime with the sleeve of a jacket. "Diane, over here, you missed a spot," she says.
"Forget it," Starks says. "I'm gonna need to go through a carwash after this." He ushers them back as the worm turns to them again and opens his mouth to roar. The body thrashes, the blunt clubbed end of the worm's tail busting through an interior wall.
Thor raises his makeshift shield. Fetid slime splatters over the wooden surface of the table, and Thor flings it away as it begins to crumble. Not as effective as he'd hoped, then.
“Here!” The knot of people left stranded has moved behind the women's long counter. Natasha is ushering them away one at a time, shuffling from an overturned couch to a destroyed pillar, then on, to a far corridor. An old man pops up from behind the counter and is waving wildly at him. “Here, try this!” Thor approaches slowly, and when he gets close enough, the man reaches over and shoves a pole into Thor's hands.
Thor frowns and looks to the pole, not knowing what to do with it. “I thank you, but...”
“To keep off the slime!” The old man insists, miming with his gnarled hands, as if he is raising something over his head. “Push the button,” he instructs, when Thor still stands there, uncertain. When depressed, the button extends the pole, and a transparent clear barrier is erected in a circle around the end. He nods at the old man, then circles around the remains of his last shield to approach the worm from the side. The eyes are so very small, and he is able to come close before the worm tosses his head and chokes up more yellow bile.
Thor braces himself behind the clear Midgardian shield, flimsy though it is. The nithoggr’s acid spittle crashes into the shield, a putrid wave. But it does not catch fire, as Stark’s metal suit did. He lowers it. The slime drips to the floor, hissing and burning trails through the stone. His armor, too, is smoking, but the clear smooth substance of the shield is unaffected. The old man is a mage, clearly.
"Thor, where the hell did you get an umbrella?" Stark demands.
Steve cuts him off. "Clint and Natasha are helping to evac the civilians. We need to coordinate our attack."
"No kidding. How are we gonna kill this thing?" Stark asks.
"No - you must not kill him!" Thor shouts.
"Why?" Stark staggers to the left, dripping water from every crevice, power growing in the palm of his hand. "It's doing its level best to kill us!"
"He does not know this realm," Thor says. "He is a babe, and he does not know us. He is trying to protect himself. We must send him back where he came from."
"Do you have a forklift handy? Cause I don't know how else we're gonna push it back into that portal, bud."
"How do you know this thing didn't create the portal in the first place?" Steve Rogers stands to his right. His shield is undamaged, as Thor's is. Likely crafted of superior components. Or enchanted. The man is poised for battle, with a frown on his face, but he is listening to Thor.
"He is nithoggr," Thor says, and he cannot keep the puzzlement from his voice, at having to state such an obvious fact.
"Is that supposed to mean something?" Stark snaps. "And hold up, I'm still stuck on the freaking baby thing. What's its mommy look like, Godzilla?"
"They cannot - he does not have the means to create such a gate."
"Okay, that is slightly reassuring. Slightly."
"If I might come close enough to his girth, I could push him back." Thor considers the worm. His head jerks around, eyes still searching. He has not moved far from the portal through which he arrived. With each wail, he sounds more plaintive to Thor's ear. Stark had mentioned a mother. Is the worm searching for his kin, and finding instead warriors bent on his destruction?
“So we're gonna push the thing back into the interdimensional hole it crawled out of?”
Steve wipes at his face. "Stark, go in from the left."
"Why me? This nasty alien vomit is corroding my suit! You go." Tony waves at Steve's shield.
"You're - yeah, okay," Rogers concedes. "I'll go in on its left. Stark, distract it. Get it to look at you. Thor, you come in from the other side." He is already charging forward, bearing the Midgardian’s transparent shield. Stark stays planted dead center in front of the worm, and shoots a blaze of white light from his hand, tagging the nithoggr, who turns his giant head and gives a guttural roar. The eyes might be weak, but it would be hard to miss such a strike.
Thor darts in, near the side of the worm, goes to put his hands upon the milky white skin - and jerks back, the palms of his hands burning. The nithoggr grumbles and Thor retreats. "I cannot touch him."
"Okay, so no touching. Got it." Stark whips around. "Hey, Thor, remember when we first met? When you deflected a charge from my suit with your hammer?”
“I remember the implosion.” Thor looks to Mjölnir, abandoned amid the rubble, and his gut churns. “Won’t it kill the nithoggr?” The thought of picking up his hammer, spilling blood with it... his hand trembles. He might lose his reason to the fire of his fury. What had he thought - like poison, drinking poison.
“No, I don't think it'll kill this thing. It was mostly flash, but it packed a decent punch. We can use the force to propel it back into the hole.”
“Doesn’t look like you’ll be able to hit it straight on," Steve says.
“It’s all angles, Cap. I just gotta position you in the right place with the shield. Then set phasers to stun, aim at Thor, he aims at your pretty red white and blue target, you make sure the reflected beam hits the center of mass. Easy.”
"All I must do is catch your strike and direct it to Steve's shield?" Thor almost finds he needs a human translator to understand Stark.
"Yep. Steve, you see where I'm pointing, between what used to be reception and that overturned chair? You get there, I'll distract it."
"How are you going to - " Steve shakes his head as Stark starts shouting.
"HEY THERE! Little wormy! You wanna go back home? To your - puddle? Shit, I don't know." The nithoggr gives a low cry and turns to the Iron Man, who flails his arms, waving his hands around his head. Steve crouches low and begins to creep in from the left side. The worm's blind spot, Thor realizes.
Stark keeps waving, but his words have dried up. He looks back at Thor. "You sure this thing is a baby? I usually go with trash talk for a distraction, but it feels weird to trash talk a baby."
The nithoggr gurgles, a few drops of saliva starting to fall from the upper teeth, which combust upon meeting the open air and burst into flame. The head begins to swivel. Steve has halted, halfway to the point Stark had chosen. He extends his arms wide, to get Stark's attention, then gestures wildly up at the worm.
"Yeah, yeah! Okay," Stark says. He retracts the plate of metal covering his face. "Hey, little guy! Goo goo ga ga!"
Steve, poised to keep running, pauses and gapes at Stark.
"Whosa cute lil guy, huh?" Stark is almost crooning to the nithoggr. Thor watches, fascinated. "Goo goo, yeah bud! Ga ga, you feel me? You hungry? You wanna binkie?" He glances at Steve. "Get a fucking move on, Cap!" Steve blinks and rushes into position.
Stark continues to speak that secret tongue of Midgardian infants, trying to keep the attention of the worm. "You wanna go night night? Is it nap time for baby?" The worm wails and acid sprays out like a foul rain. "Oh god, he didn't like that."
Steve whistles his readiness and Stark raises his gloves. There is a mechanical whirr, a shiver of power, and he sends two beams of white light straight for Thor. Mjölnir glows a heated blue. Thor guides the hammer and lets his own power amplify the energy, then looses it at Steve, an arrow of charged white lightning.
Steve slides back a few feet at the impact. His hold on the shield is true, and the reflected power hits the worm somewhere low on the stomach. The force acts as a battering ram. The worm is thrown backward, falls through the black mouth of the distortion that is now larger than that of any nithoggr. In another breath he is gone, back to the realm he came from. Stark whoops. "Hell, yeah! Score one for this herd of cats!"
"So what's gonna stop him from crawling right back out?" Steve asks.
Thor and Tony Stark exchange a glance. "Uh," Tony says. "I dunno. Didn't really think that far ahead. Thor, bud, if I pray to you for divine intervention right now - will it work, or do you require some sort of blood sacrifice?"
"I think it will not return," Thor tells them. "He did not want to be here. This is not Niflheim."
"Sure," Steve responds, shaking his head. "Yeah, sure. Not Niflheim. Let's just wait and hope. That works."
Tony glances around the entrance hall. "I think the janitors are gonna go on strike. Jarvis, I guess you can call the all clear."
"Emergency crews are incoming," Jarvis tells them.
There is a sudden influx of people. Steve puts his shield up on his back. There are several men struggling to move a metal beam, which is blocking a path to the exit. Thor picks it up and sets it off to the side. The men stutter out their thanks.
“Thor, c'mere," Tony calls, pulling him by the cape. "Hey, Pep! Hey, hey, Pep! Guess what!” He bounces across the entrance hall to a tall, graceful red-haired woman. “We gave that monster baby a hell of a rattle!"
"I'm sorry - monster baby?" The red-haired woman shakes her head, then eyes him. “This must be Thor. Pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine, my lady.” One of his braids is sizzling, so he flings the last bit of the nithoggr’s acid spittle off the end.
She turns to Tony. “And why is he carrying a plastic umbrella?”
“A most effective shield,” Thor tells her. “I must return it to the mortal mage.”
"Yeah, Pep, I dunno. Guess the alien's acid spit doesn't dissolve synthetic polymers? I should probably look into that. Jarvis?"
"Noted, Sir."
"Thor! Tony! We've got a problem!" Natasha and Clint sprint in their direction.
She has Loki’s rune-etched egg, which has begun to glow again in her palm. Pale, eerie blue. A shrill, high-pitched buzz splits the air. This time, it does not stop.
“Uh-oh,” Tony Stark says. "D'you think that's Mommy?"