Chapter Text
“Well, that took a while.”
Tony spared a glance at Natasha, but she kept her eyes ahead on the crowd of flashing cameras and long microphones at the very end of the hall. There was a tick to her mouth that read displeased, even though the UN hearing had gone perfectly.
“Oh, the speed of bureaucracy is still astounding to you?” Tony said. “They didn’t have a case. Ross was drooling over a chance to put us in our places and he jumped the gun.”
They were close enough to the exit that the roar of the press was audible. Natasha’s hand strayed to her hip, but there was no gun at her side, so she was just groping awkwardly at her waist. Tony raised an eyebrow.
“You’re twitchy,” Tony accused, shamelessly delighted.
“I’m fine, Stark,” Natasha corrected, but there was such an obvious hitch in her voice that Tony lifted his sunglasses to stare at her. She sighed, gave an ironic twist of her lips. “I am who I am. These bureaucrats pushed these Enhanced Accords and slapped us in the face. It doesn't matter that they were struck down, we can’t just—go back to the way things were.”
“Yeah.” Tony sniffed. “I don’t think we will.”
Natasha opened her mouth, but from behind them—“Mr. Stark!”
“Ah, my welcome escape,” Tony said cheerily as he turned around. “If you have a way out of here that doesn’t involve paparazzi asking which Avenger I’m sleeping with, you’ll have my undivided attention, Mister…?”
“T’Challa,” the man before them said graciously, extending a hand. Another man beside him, silver-haired and doing a bad job at looking like he wasn’t Special Forces, clapped Tony’s new best friend on the shoulder and strolled away. T’Challa was wearing a casual Western-style suit; the two women flanking him wore matching stern expressions, long skirts, and impressive head tattoos. “Of Wakanda.”
“Your Highness,” said Natasha. Tony shook his hand when she made no move to do so. “I saw you in the chamber. I was glad to see that you and your father disapproved of the motion.”
T’Challa laughed a little. He had a bright, natural smile, especially for a prince—in fact, of all the hands that Tony had shaken and all the names that he had been told and forgotten, T’Challa seemed to be one of the only people who Tony liked. “Yes. My father and I were surprised at the rash actions of Secretary Ross, especially with such little cause. However, to be transparent with you,” he gestured to his two bodyguards, and one turned to lead them into a side door, while the other covered their rear, “I would like to discuss certain eventualities with your team if more destructive events were to occur that were…less easily explained away.”
Tony’s first impulse was to think, is Wakanda's first priority really making sure that the Avengers don’t destroy another city when they have plenty of their own problems feeding their own people? Still, he could see the casual confidence of T’Challa’s gait, the stalwart gait of his bodyguards, and he could still hear the whispers of there is vibranium in Wakanda.
Natasha, seeming to speak for both of them, said, “That sounds like a great idea, Your Highness.”
The Wakandan bodyguard pushed open one last door and daylight flooded Tony’s eyes. In the empty side street, their driver was already waiting, the motor of the car humming.
“That,” Tony said, pointing, “is very impressive.”
T’Challa laughed again. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. It was lovely to meet you.”
Natasha smiled at him and offered her hand to shake. The prince of Wakanda accepted. “I think I will be seeing you soon,” he said.
“Me, too.”
The following night—well, technically morning, since it was about four AM, but only Steve actually thought that four o’clock was legitimately morning—JARVIS interrupted Tony just as he was attempting to solder a new repulsor together. His hands jerked, which he would blame firmly on JARVIS and not on the sleep deprivation. Sparks burst, blinding him for a moment, and it wasn’t the Iron Man gauntlet anymore, it was a golden glove reaching towards his throat.
Tony scrubbed an arm across his eyes, wiping the soot away. “Je- sus, JARVIS,” he hissed. “Ugh, that’s definitely not gonna fly. Ha.”
“Apologies for interrupting, sir, but I’ve discovered a being that fulfills the criteria that the Mr. Stark from the future provided before he left."
“A what?” Tony shoved himself away from the workbench, letting the shitty wheels on the spinny chair take him where they pleased. Huh. Had he ever tried redesigning a wheeled chair that didn’t have the worst wheels on the planet? Maybe he could shove Clint’s ridiculous gas arrows to the side and try taking apart his stool…
“Sir.”
“What, JARVIS?” Tony squatted and examined the nearest wheel to him with a critical eye.
“I’m afraid I must insist.” DUM-E came out of nowhere and butted the chair away with his head. Tony glared at him.
“I’m taking the blender away from you,” Tony threatened. DUM-E whined a little, but nudged the chair away again.
JARVIS summoned a screen about two inches from Tony’s nose. Tony swatted at it instinctively, and JARVIS only had the decency to move it back until his eyes didn’t cross. He watched as a set of roughly three red pixels jumped down from out of frame, threw itself in front of a careening bus, and stopped it in its tracks.
Well, Tony had always thought JARVIS was a little special.
“The version of Tony Stark from the future gave me a specific set of parameters pertaining to a fifteen-year-old high school student at Midtown High named Peter Parker. Apparently, he was bitten by a radioactive spider approximately three months ago and has since taken up the mantle of “Spider-Man,” a vigilante who swings on artificial spiderwebs and stops crime in Queens in a red costume.”
Tony eyed the video, on loop, of those three red pixels. He spun around once in his chair. “Is this some sort of elaborate joke?”
“It’s no joke, sir. Your future self instructed me to wait three months after he was originally caught on camera, then to alert you to his identity. I trusted his judgment.”
For lack of a worthwhile target to glare at, Tony stared blankly at DUM-E. “You know I don’t like kids. I know I don’t like kids. Why would he want me to meet a little twerp calling himself Spider-Man?”
“Well, sir,” JARVIS said wryly, “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
Tony stood out of his faulty wheelie chair and twisted until back cracked. “Remind me why I gave you a personality again?”
“Oh, sir, I have positively no idea.”
The address JARVIS gave him wasn’t exactly what Tony expected. The apartment building didn’t look like it was imminently going to collapse, but rather like it would take a couple more years to get there. He eyed the stairs dubiously before beginning the grudging trip to the sixth floor.
“This better be worth it, J,” he muttered, mutinous.
JARVIS, the pinnacle of tact, did not deign to answer.
When Tony reached apartment 6B, he took a moment to make his panting less obvious—those stairs were steep and he was running on maybe 20 hours of sleep in the last ten days—then knocked shave and a haircut into the door.
A few moments later, a forty-ish, gorgeous woman with long brown hair opened the door. Tony’s tongue momentarily fell out of his mouth in surprise. Spider-Man had a hot aunt? Jesus. Good thing he preferred blonds. “Hi,” he coughed out, putting on his best blinding smile. “I’m looking for Peter Parker?”
She eyed him pensively. “What about?”
Tony patted himself down for a moment. Very convenient that he had spent zero time coming up with a cover story. The hallway smelled like burnt bananas. “Well, I’m Tony Stark,” he began. Start with the truth then tweak some things, that’s what Natasha always said about lying, right? “Your… son? Your son, he completed an…application for the Stark Internship program and I’m afraid he’s won the lottery! I like to come congratulate the winners in person, I’m sorry for dropping in without notice.”
She studied him for one more moment, then offered a blinding white smile. “I’m May Parker, Peter’s aunt. He’s just in his room; maybe… maybe knock on the door before you go in.” She made a face like, oh, teenagers. Tony resisted the urge to say, “Ugh. Teenagers.”
Instead, he smiled back and said, “of course.”
She pointed him towards the appropriate door. Tony hesitated for a moment outside of it, then shook himself. No way was he psyching himself out to meet a teenager. A fifteen-year-old dweeb who called himself Spider-Man!
Tony knocked three times, sharp. The door opened nigh-immediately, like the kid had been right by his door… expecting him… Ohhh, this was gonna be good.
From the kid’s pale eyes and hard jaw, it was clear that he’d overheard the entire thing and was not pleased about it. It might have been intimidating if little fifteen-year-old Peter didn’t closely resemble a puppy dog and look like he weighed a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet.
“Let’s talk inside,” Tony said. He was gracious like that.
As soon as the door shut, Peter Parker was backing up to the window, looking like he was resisting the urge to press his back against the glass. Quite the escape route the little squirt had planned out.
Tony opened his mouth to speak, but the kid got the first word in. “Look, Mr. Stark, you and I both know that I never applied for any Stark internship, so—”
Tony couldn’t help but grin. He certainly hadn’t lost a single moment to celebrity awe.
“I’ll tell it to you straight, kid,” Tony said, silencing him with a raised hand and an activated screen playing back the video of Spider-Man stopping the moving bus. “If you keep going like this, you’re gonna get yourself killed and leave that poor little aunt of yours all by herself. Now, I’ve got a couple questions for you—”
Even though Peter had seemed fairly accepting of his fate, the open accusation seemed to stop him in his tracks as he stammered, open-mouthed, “Wh—whuh, Mr. Stark, I don’t know who that is or anything, but I swear you don’t—”
Tony put a hand up. “Listen, who’s funding you? Did they experiment on you, hold you against your will?”
Blank stare. Jesus, it was like this kid had an on/off switch. Tony zoomed in on the screen, gesturing to the artificial webbing that Spider-Kid was swinging on. “I’ve never seen a material manufactured with tensile strength like that; where did you get it?”
“I made it,” Peter said blankly, his previous charade forgotten.
“You made it,” Tony repeated dully. He was going to need a fire extinguisher for the kid’s pants at this rate. “Look, bud, you don’t have to protect whoever gave it to you. They clearly haven’t been outfitting you correctly, I mean—” Tony picked up the broom handle in the corner and jabbed at the poorly-replaced ceiling tile, letting the cotton and polyester costume fall from the ceiling. “That won’t keep you safe from a mosquito bite, let alone a knife."
“Hey!” the kid hissed, but instead of risking his window position, he stuck his arm out, making some… gesture… with his hand, and a strand of spider silk shot out of his wrist and snagged the costume. Tony raised his eyebrows.
“Okay, okay,” the kid said, tucking the outfit under his pillow with fluttering, frantic hands. “You got me, okay? I’m… Spider-Man,” he whispered, looking towards his door like Hot Auntie was hovering outside the door. Which was possible, Tony had to admit. “But I swear I’m not, like, working with anyone. I made my web fluid in my desk drawer in Chemistry, and a random spider bit me on a field trip, I dunno why it made me like this!”
Most of that information, though it was vaguely worrying, flowed over Tony’s head like water. He had ears for only one fact: “You made that?” he repeated. “You made that? In your desk drawer?”
Big, alarmed doe eyes met Tony’s own. Inexplicably, Tony’s heart softened.
Shit.
Midgard was colder than Loki remembered.
The chill wasn’t enough to penetrate his Jotun constitution, nor would it be enough to affect Thor—or Odin for that matter—but Loki still balked for a moment at the icy wind that burned at his eyes when the Bifrost disappeared. The grass steamed, the mud bubbling, but Thor ignored it and strode forwards over the crest.
Loki took half a second to brush off the remaining dark matter and lingering annoyance from the new Sorcerer Supreme’s little trick. Loki had to give this Strange credit: he was even more smarmy and arrogant than that decrepit Ancient One, though she hadn’t possessed the gall to wear their guarded Infinity Stone around her neck. He took a second more to watch Thor as he stormed forwards to their father, standing by the cliffside with his hands on his hips. Loki could practically see the writhing seidr in Thor’s core, his lightning sizzling and protecting some golden core.
Thor had been going places in his mind. Loki had watched him go, had stood up from his throne in an attempt to—what? Save him? Kill him? Laugh at him as he fell to his knees? Loki didn’t know, and luckily Thor had woken before Loki had to choose.
Damn him. Loki followed Thor’s path towards their dear father.
“...ook at this place,” Odin was saying to Thor as Loki approached. “It’s beautiful.”
Dear Norns.
“Father,” Thor ground out. To Loki’s satisfaction, he didn’t seem happy to see their beloved father either.
“My sons,” said Odin dreamily. Loki felt his chest grow cool as he checked to see if his memory spell on the Allfather was still active, but the threads that connected them were gone. Perhaps Odin had finally gone truly senile. It was about time. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I know,” Thor said indulgently. “We’ve needed to speak with you, Father.”
Odin hummed rather aimlessly. Loki resisted the urge to curl his lip. “Your mother, she calls me. Do you hear it?”
“I do,” Thor replied truthfully. Loki looked towards Thor. “Father, I’ve been having dreams.”
“I dream of her every night,” Odin agreed. “She comes to me with the moon.”
“No, Father,” Thor disagreed, grasping Odin’s shoulder to turn him towards himself. He shot Loki a meaningful look, but Loki shook his head, shrugging his shoulders in surrender.
“Odin,” Loki said. Odin did not stir. “Father.”
One pale blue eye peered up at him. “Ah, Loki,” his old father said to him. “You’ve grown, my son.”
There was something wrong with him. Loki squinted, looking past this physical plane and into the seidr that linked their Realms together, and jerked his magic back just as quickly. A wave of pure revulsion washed over Loki. “What is that,” he gasped out, feeling his various disguises filter through his skin—Odin then Loki then a palace guard then Thor then Captain America then Loki’s filthy other form then Loki then Odin then Loki—as he finally got his seidr back under control.
Odin and Thor both stared, one affable and one confounded.
“There is a leech,” Loki gritted out, gesturing broadly at Odin’s entire self. “Pulling at your strength, at your mind. What is doing that, Father? What have you done?”
“Who,” Thor corrected, his voice absent of any expression. When Loki turned to look at him, there was a light glowing behind his eyes.
Dear Norns, he'd forgotten how magic-addled Asgardians were.
“Who?” echoed Loki, dubious.
“Hela,” said Thor. Wordless, Loki grasped Odin’s arm and forced him to turn and face Thor.
“Tell me who she is,” said Thor. Light bit at Thor’s fingertips, and, as though bidden, it crawled its way over to Odin’s arm. The shock—whether it was the static or the magic churning in Thor’s veins—seemed to jolt Odin into motion.
“My daughter,” he wheezed, shaking off Thor’s grip and ignoring his attempts to keep him in place. “I failed her. Her thirst is so great, I fear she’ll consume the universe in her pain. I’ve tried,” he dragged in a long, ragged inhale, as though his lungs were hollow and the air did not reach, “oh, I’ve tried to keep her away, but she is so desperately thirsty.”
My daughter.
Loki couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
My daughter.
“Your daughter,” he repeated. “This wretched magic is your daughter’s? Valhalla and Hels, Odin, you certainly love your secrets.”
Loki, in a habit as old as he, waited for Thor’s defensive retort. None came. Thor had sat down on a fallen tree trunk, clutching his hands together, Mjolnir abandoned on the ground. He shook himself after a moment of silence.
“She wielded Mjolnir.” Loki watched as Odin’s eye widened, regarding Thor clearly for the first time since the Bifrost had touched down. “She wore black and green, an antlered helmet. She rode the wolf buried in the catacombs.”
Thor’s voice was dull, like the words were being put onto his tongue and he could do nothing but spit them out. Odin had turned pale as Frigga’s ghost.
“He did say he was having dreams,” chided Loki, although he felt just as thrown as Odin. A thousand years of Thor whacking things with a hammer hadn’t exactly lent Loki the flexibility to easily accommodate Thor’s new talent as a seer.
My daughter.
“I thought your mother’s blood had not filtered through yours,” whispered Odin.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Thor. He nudged Mjolnir absently with his foot. “I have seen her far less than I have seen Thanos.”
“The Worldcleaver?” Odin asked. That was an old name; before Thanos’s identity had been known to the broader universe, Asgardians had begun calling him Worldcleaver, since he cut planets’ populations in two. Loki hadn’t even made the connection until Thanos took him by the head and put—
“He searches out the Stones,” Thor said, interrupting Loki’s inward spiral. “He will soon find them. The might of Asgard must stand against him to protect Space.”
Thor had been right to take this question to Odin. The Allfather was one of the most powerful beings in the known universe. But Odin now would never survive with Hela’s strength pulling at his. Oh, sister, Loki thought absently, you certainly are Odin’s. Always making things difficult.
“Thor,” Loki murmured.
“I do not have long,” Odin said, sparing Loki the pain of it. “Your brother knows it, as do you. I have spent my lifeforce keeping Hela at bay, but spent it is. I have nothing left.”
Thor growled a bit in consternation, tugging at a braided lock of hair. His eyes glowed pure white for a moment, but when the log he was sitting on was half-incinerated by a bolt of pure energy emerging from his left hand, Thor seemed as surprised as Loki.
“Is there no way to bind her prison to my power instead?” he grumbled, brushing the wood chips off his clothes and getting to his feet. “I seem to have no short supply.”
Dread pinched at Loki’s heart. He glanced at Odin and found the Allfather to be looking right back at him. Loki groaned, rolling his eyes to the heavens. “In theory, there is,” Loki said. “In practice, that will both give her an opportunity to claw her way out and a new target to sap power from. Odin has held her for thousands of years, and her strength has grown immense. You wouldn’t be able to hold her for long, Thor.”
“It wouldn’t have to be for long,” replied Thor, steadfast in the same way that he was quiet and still and all the things Loki did not know he could be. “Just until we kill Thanos. Then we can deal with her ourselves.”
They returned to Asgard via the secret paths that Loki loved and that Thor rather detested. They were dark and cold and the magic within them was slimy, clinging to Thor’s skin. It did have many qualities that would appeal to Loki.
He could feel the rot in Odin’s deep well of power now that Loki had pointed it out. He could not quite see it as it seemed Loki could, alarmed as he was, but there was a twist of wrong in Thor’s blood as he stepped close to his father, and it stank of death.
Asgard’s halls were nearly empty. Loki had dismissed the Warriors Three and Sif to patrols around the Nine during his tenure as Allfather, and it seemed that most of the servants and guards neglected the royal wing of the palace now that there were hardly any royals left to mind.
Thor tapped at Mjolnir’s handle. The uru cracked, then shattered in a burst of crackling lightning. The pieces scattered on the floor of the palace, and Thor dropped the handle in surprise.
Mjolnir, whole and unharmed, clanged loudly as it settled on the ground. Loki turned to stare at him. His brother opened his mouth, presumably to make some scathing remark, but something on Thor’s face stopped him. Maybe it was the terror of the futures built behind his eyes, or the wariness that they were real.
Odin had not stopped walking toward the throne room. Thor brushed past Loki to follow, leaving Mjolnir where it lay.
The halls of Asgard were as opulent as ever. A year away had not dulled Thor’s perception of the beauty of the palace, but he determinedly watched the floor in front of him as he walked and did not look as the pillars in front of him cracked and tumbled.
Odin reached the throne room first and practically collapsed onto Hlidskjalf. The mosaic above Thor shattered, reformed, shattered again. Odin was deathly pale. Dying.
“How do we do this, Loki?” Thor ground out.
Loki, looking a bit green, took Thor’s hand to pull him up to Odin, then gingerly touched the Allfather’s wrist. “I’ll have to touch that bond that Odin has created,” he said, reluctance unhidden. “I’ll have to break it for a moment to attach it to you, and we’ll have to fight her off in that moment lest she break free.”
“Sounds lovely,” said Thor. Loki’s hand was like ice. His neck broke again. Bulging, death-swollen eyes regarded Thor before returning to Loki’s regular green. Thor’s stomach turned.
“Maybe for you,” Loki rebutted. “I suppose we should do this before Odin crumbles to dust before our eyes.”
“Quite charitable, Loki,” said Odin. Loki rolled his eyes, but his hands glowed green, and suddenly Thor was elsewhere.
Thor’s first impression of this new place was rust. It was his second one too.
They weren’t on Asgard any longer. The electric fields on this new planet were inverted: entire chunks of the planet were floating above Thor’s head, with giant, star-shaped downed spacecraft dotting the landscape nearby. The absence of life on the surface seemed absolute; without a solid core, this planet was doomed to spin until it collided with a nearby star. Odin and Loki both stood next to him, but Odin flickered from view and disappeared almost immediately.
“Oh,” said Loki, his voice echoing in the silence.
“Well, this is quite a choice,” a new voice drawled from behind them.
Thor swayed as a bout of dizzying nausea swept over him. The moon above their heads shuddered and cracked. Thor’s vision halved: his right eye went dark for a split second before returning. A shrieking whine pierced his ears.
Thor and Loki turned around.
The woman standing before them could only be Hela. She was pale and sickly, her clothes tattered, her hair greasy and unkempt. The hollows under her eyes were cavernous, and her gaze itself was ravenous. She barely looked ten Midgardian years older than Thor.
“Judging by the addled look on your face, you know who I am,” Hela said, beginning to pace a half-circle around them. “You ought to kneel.”
“Hela,” Thor said. Beside him, Loki was conspicuously silent, but Thor could feel Loki’s delicate and icey magic tying knots in Thor’s own. “Sister.”
“Oh, dear,” she remarked, eyeing them both baldly. “Sister? How long has it been?”
“You don’t know?”
Hela threw back her head and laughed. “To go mad is to die,” she said. “I will never do either. Time is a blink and an eternity; I chose for it to be a blink.”
“I wish I could do that,” Thor said to Loki. His neck was broken again. Thor swallowed back bile.
“Ah, Father must have married that Frigga,” Hela said. Thor turned back to look at her at the nonsequitur. Her hair set itself on fire, but Hela reached up and patted it out.
“You have her gift,” said Hela.
Thor stared unabashed. Neither Odin nor Loki had a clue when Thor began to See things, yet Hela had noticed without him even telling her.
“Ah, the death of worlds,” Hela said. She inhaled deeply, turning in a vague circle to take in the planet around them. “It’s curious this is where our lives will intersect, brother. Not on Asgard, not anywhere in the Nine. On some backwater planet that spawned the bane of galaxies.”
“Thanos,” Thor managed, his tongue numb in his mouth. Loki was still unmoving beside him; surely Hela must have noticed by now. There was a subtle rumbling under his feet, as though the planet was rejecting their presence on it. The cratered moon was drawing closer.
“Is that what he’s called?” Hela said. “Hm.”
“How did you know?” Thor asked. About my magic, he wanted to say. About Thanos. About the death of a universe.
“I’m the Goddess of Death,” said Hela. “Your magic is close enough to death that whatever that Jotun is doing won’t hold me long. Just a bit to spare dear old Father,” and she spat Odin’s name like a curse.
The rumbling was growing louder, into a steady roar that forced both Thor and Hela to raise their voices. Thir couldn’t tell if Loki had succeeded or not, but either way, this figment was falling apart.
“Please,” he shouted. “I don’t know what you want. I don’t know why you’re angry. All I know is that Odin lies, but we do not lie! All we want is to save the universe!”
Hela had insisted she had not gone mad, but there was a wild-animal look in her eye, like a scrawny thing that had been cornered in an alley. “I want Asgard to reach its full potential,” she spat. “But mostly I want Odin dead!”
Her helmet crawled out of her shoulders. Half of it cracked off and reformed, though she gave no sign of noticing. In the distance, the ruined buildings began collapsing in on themselves in the earthquake.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, brother,” Hela’s voice whispered in his ear. Something snapped in his magic, a synapse breaking and sparking, and then the rusty planet was no more.
For a moment Thor couldn't see anything at all. He feared for a moment that he had gone blind, then feared for another that his visions had finally trapped him in the ether with no escape.
Just as he started to panic, his vision righted itself, like it was returning from a bad head rush. This vision was not a fragmented future manifesting through his eyes while he was awake, nor was it the same as his full-bodied dreams. Somehow, Thor could feel deep in his bones that this was no mere future. This was happening now.
Thor had only been to the Nova Empire once, so it took him a moment to discern exactly what he was seeing. Thor was floating in the inner atmosphere of Xandar, looking down upon the planet below. There was a golden shield erected around the capital city, formed by a host of Nova Corps fighters. Thor squinted. There was no enemy that he could see, yet Thor could see ships fleeing in the opposite direction toward Knowhere.
Icy cold metal suddenly passed right through him; it didn’t upset his position at all, since Thor was apparently intangible, but he still startled badly enough that he lurched forward, giving into the planet’s gravity for a moment until he was much closer to the surface. But it wasn’t the gravity inversion that made his stomach drop towards Xandar.
Thor had glimpsed the Sanctuary II only once in a fragmented dream, when he watched it lay siege to Earth and atomize most of Asia. It was much more horrifying in person. It dwarfed the Chitauri and Outrider troop carriers that flew beside it—it dwarfed Xandar itself.
“No,” Thor whispered. There was no sound in space. The words went nowhere.
The Stone, Thor thought, tugging desperately at the lightning. The Stone, please, don’t let him take it.
Suddenly gravity was yanking Thor back to the ground, sending him stumbling on an embossed marble floor. The minute sound of his feet against the floor echoed in the massive chamber he found himself standing in. The walls were utterly bare, white and passionless, but Thor could pay them no mind as he stared up at the massive vault door.
Power, a sibilant voice whispered in Thor’s mind. Right at the heart of the galaxy.
“Power,” the same voice said, but this time the words echoed with Thor’s footsteps. Thor swallowed the lump in his throat. Tears stung at his eyes.
“And you would not wield it,” scorned the voice. There was a snap of bone; a body crumpled to the floor. Thor turned.
Thanos stepped carelessly over the body of a white-haired human woman—Nova Prime, he thought—and approached the vault doors. The Titan’s eyes were wide, reverent. He already wore the empty Infinity Gauntlet in preparation for what was to come.
“No,” Thor said. Thanos continued walking, right through Thor. He couldn’t help but follow, practically falling over himself in an attempt to put his own intangible body between the Stone and the Worldcleaver. Thor could hear the space between the Gauntlet and Power narrowing, could hear their excitement. “No, no.”
The entire door tore itself off its hinges. Thor tried desperately to summon the lightning, to call Mjolnir, to do anything but watch. Nothing came.
The vision began to fracture and blacken around the edges, like the Infinity Stone would not let Thor see what it would become. Thanos stuck his hand through a forcefield protecting a textured sphere with ease. He crushed the container like a walnut, and the entire room was bathed in purple light. Thor’s world narrowed, blackness encroaching, to just Thanos and his Gauntlet.
“Power,” said Thanos again. He cradled it in the palm of his hand, reverent, like a parent to a child. Then he lifted it up to the first knuckle of the Gauntlet, like a magnet to metal, and—
a little Zen Whoberi girl her hair is in braids and she fights and dances and starves and loves and flies to Xios and she finds soul she finds Soul but he cannot have it—
the sanctuary the prison the world cleaved Asgard cleaved Terra Midgard Earth cleaved my children you must go my children you must serve my children the Stones—
The bite of the ground against Thor’s kneecaps was real enough, as was the sensation of Loki’s hand on the back of his neck. “Thor,” he was saying, over and over, “Thor, can you hear me?”
Odin was standing tall, regal and becoming, near the throne. Loki was crouched beside him, letting Thor lean into him.
“It’s beginning,” Thor moaned, pressing his forehead against Loki’s shoulder. His head felt like someone had taken an ax and put it between his eyes. “He’s taken Xandar. He has the Power Stone.”
Loki did not say anything. Odin, illuminated by the golden palace of his conquests, flickered for a moment before he was suddenly wearing his golden armor. “We have faced worse,” said Odin. His tone brooked no argument.
Thor shook his head against Loki’s shoulder. “I have not,” he whispered. Loki shuddered.
“Your Highness!”
Thor lifted his head blearily. His eyes were swimming in and out of focus, but the figure running into the throne room was unmistakably Heimdall, regal and proud even without his gold regalia and wielding a steel sword instead of Hofund. In a rare show of disrespect, the guardian did not once acknowledge Odin, instead taking a knee next to Thor and Loki.
“Thor, I have news,” said Heimdall.
“If you mean to talk about Xandar—” Loki began; Heimdall put up a hand to stop him.
“You already know.” Heimdall’s golden eyes bored into Thor’s. “There is something else. A woman. She approaches Asgard’s inner reaches as we speak.”
“Is she an enemy?” Odin asked.
“No,” said Heimdall, glancing once up at the king. “She is a marvel.”
Steve had long grown used to the signs of Tony’s nightmares, but it didn’t make them any easier to stomach.
Tony was always an extraordinarily light sleeper, which was impressive considering he was chronically sleep-deprived. But when he was caught in the throes of a nightmare—a true nightmare, one after which he clammed up and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes all day—it was almost impossible to wake him.
Steve had managed to get Tony into bed by midnight after a late movie night, which Steve had been patting himself on the back about until they both fell asleep. Steve had ended up with half of his body curled over Tony in order to prevent him from crawling out of bed, but now the other man was just subconsciously trying to shove Steve off him.
“Tony,” whispered Steve, brushing a thumb over his furrowed brow. Tony let out an incomprehensible noise, maybe no, maybe please. Steve hissed in a pained breath. “Tony, please, love,” he continued, the words slipping out like water, like honey. “Wake up. Come back to me, c’mon.”
Cautious optimism had been a mindset that Steve had subscribed to for a long time. He’d been hoping to either gently wake Tony or just coax him back to sleep—maybe even accomplish a full eight hours of sleep for both of them. Instead, abruptly, all of the lights in the room flipped on and a ruined camera feed was pulled up onto the TV on the wall.
Tony startled awake, almost flipping Steve off the bed with his flailing. “What the fuck,” Tony blurted, scrubbing at his eyes. Steve just stared back, wide-eyed, his own breaths rabbit-quick. Seeming to rule out Steve as a culprit, Tony looked up at the ceiling. “JARVIS, what the fuck?”
“My apologies, sir,” JARVIS said, and he even sounded a little reticent, which was a step up from most of the apologies that Steve usually got. “There is a disturbance on the roof.”
“So you mean Clint is fucking with his EMP arrows again.”
“No, sir,” JARVIS said. “My readings are consistent with that of an Einstein-Rosen bridge.”
Tony’s brain, remarkably efficient and capable, usually needed at least a couple minutes to get up to full capacity. It took him about ten seconds to put all the pieces together, which was admittedly only slightly slower than Steve. “You mean Thor?” asked Steve.
“Indeed, Captain Rogers. I am unable to see his status at the moment, considering he fried all of my cameras.”
“That fucker,” Tony muttered. He always cursed more when he was exhausted, too. “Okay, gimme a minute.”
Steve’s military training hadn’t faded enough for him to forget how to dress efficiently. White shirt first, tuck into pants, socks, boots. It took Tony an extra minute or two to remember how his pants buttoned. “Did you wake the others, JARVIS?” asked Steve.
“I did not.”
“Why not?”
“Pardon me, Captain Rogers, but if Thor is bringing bad news, I would imagine you would not want the twins to hear it first.”
“Fair point,” Steve admitted. Tony finally wrestled his shirt over his head. “Let’s get this show on the road,” he said. Steve rolled his eyes.
Tony leaned his head against Steve in the elevator ride up. Steve took his hand wordlessly, rolling his knuckles under his thumb.
The roof was a total wreck, which made Tony hiss as soon as the elevator doors opened. Various equipment had blown everywhere, and the ground was smoking in a circular crest that Steve recognized as the Bifrost.
It seemed that Thor had decided to sit on the edge of the roof to wait for them. It also seemed like he had not come alone. For just a moment, Steve regretted not bringing his shield.
“Thor!” Tony called out. “It’s been a while, buddy.”
Thor turned to face them. Steve held in a wince. The alien—while admittedly still very handsome—had certainly looked better. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. His hair, even with half of it tied back, seemed to have lost its luster. He was hunched over himself, pinning a tremoring left hand to his belly.
Captain Rogers, if Thor is bringing bad news…
Thor smiled, and though it looked a bit painful, it was genuine. “Hello, Tony, Steve.”
Steve couldn’t help but smile back. Thor was far and away the nicest alien that Steve had ever met; though he hadn’t met that many, he found it hard to imagine a nicer one. “Hi, Thor.”
Tony shuffled his feet on the ground. He didn’t seem to want to point out the elephant in the room any more than Steve did. “So, uh… how you been?”
Thor cringed. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
Tony sighed. “I gotta pay that AI more,” he whispered to Steve.
“You don’t pay him anything.”
“Pah.”
“It’s Thanos,” the woman sitting next to Thor said. Tony turned white.
Tony, screaming and throwing himself out of bed. Tony, falling out of a portal and not really coming home. Tony, staying up for days building, preparing for—
“I’m so sorry,” said Thor. “But it’s unavoidable now. He just killed six billion people on Xandar and took the Power Stone for himself. He’ll be coming for Earth and for Asgard next.”
“How do you know he will?” Tony said, though it seemed more like the helpless plea of a child, hoping the sun wouldn’t set in the evening.
“I saw it,” said Thor.
“I was there,” the woman said. “But I was too late.”
Steve squinted at her. Light brown hair, a red-and-blue suit, military posture. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
She smiled. “I’m Carol,” she said. “I’m a friend of Fury’s.”
“Fury doesn’t have friends,” said Tony.
She shrugged. “My cat clawed his eye out,” she offered.
Tony looked up at Steve. “I like her,” he said. Steve sighed.
“My father and Loki are rallying our armies in the Nine Realms,” Thor said. “We’ve come to prepare you here on Earth, and to investigate what to do with the Mind Stone.”
Steve nodded, and tucked his sentiment into the box that it stayed in during crisis. “Come on downstairs,” he offered. “We’ve got a few new people for you to meet.”