Chapter 25 — Ever Nearer

"So," Thor was saying as the Valkyrie left the big ship on the bridge and skimmed through the city toward the... was it a castle? "What's Asgard's policy on immigration?"

"Asgard's policy on immigration is 'no,'" said Loki, "But the Sakaarian gladiators aren't 'immigrants.' Per the treaty with Vanaheim, escaped slaves count as refugees and are therefore entitled to seek asylum which can be granted by any ruling lord willing to take them or by the gatekeeper on behalf of the king. Also it doesn't matter what the policy is because you're just going to do whatever you want anyway."

"I just wanted to see if there was precedent," Thor said.

"Do you want to know what Asgard's policy is on high treason?"

"No, I'm just going to do whatever I want anyway."

"What's Asgard's policy on bringing humans to Asgard?" Tony asked.

"I'm just going to do whatever I want anyway," said Thor. He grinned.

Bruce shuffled over toward the cockpit as they talked. He was worried and vaguely annoyed, and with it he could feel the ominous swell of anger like a bubble rising slowly through tar. Loki made him nervous, Thor's recklessness made him nervous. The Valkyrie's presence was strangely calming. He resisted the urge to tell her again that he felt like he knew her.

"All right?" she asked, as she landed the ship in a courtyard.

"Sure," he said.

He waited for her as the others left, as she took her time turning off the ship. She wasn't eager to leave, either. She clapped him on the back as she got out of the pilot's chair and started to follow the others out and he followed after her, hesitating at the sound of a commotion outside.

"He was here," Thor said insistently, "I know he was."

"He was," confirmed a massive red-bearded man. "He showed up a few days after you and Loki left." He glanced unsurely at Loki. "We weren't sure what to do."

"We figured you'd want him back in his place," explained a lean, blond man. "And then there was that whole thing where someone tried to open the Bifrost. After that... well, the next thing we knew, he was gone again, and he'd taken Hofund with him."

"You know Heimdall better than anyone else, save perhaps Sif," said the big guy, "He's your best friend. Now that you're back, surely..." he reached out and patted Thor on the shoulder. "Ah, just making sure."

"Aye, it's me," Thor said. "It's a long story, but we've got bigger problems than..."

He didn't say bigger problems than Loki, but it was clearly what he meant. Loki politely pretended not to notice, but Bruce could tell from the look on his face that he wasn't happy. He stood a little apart from Thor and the group of armed men that had met them out in the courtyard.

But not alone. Tony stood next to him.

Bruce felt strangely out of place.

"C'mon," said the Valkyrie, nudging him. She started out of the courtyard.

They noticed her going. Thor made a noise of objection.

Loki just chuckled. "My place later?" he said to her, flashing her a sharp grin. "I think you can find it."

She snorted. "Yeah, yeah. Drinks on you tonight."

"Naturally."

Bruce looked between her and Tony. Tony looked at him, looked at Loki, looked at Thor. Gave him a look that said, up to you. A look that said he was staying.

"Yeah, I'm just... gonna," Bruce gestured after her and then, with only a little more hesitation, jogged after her. She hadn't stopped to wait for him, but she didn't seem surprised when he caught up.

They took a meandering path around the castle; kind of in circles, but it didn't seem to be because she was lost. She was just looking around.

"Been a while," she said.

Bruce tried to think of an appropriate response. "I've never been here before," he replied.

He didn't object to the walk anyway. There was a lot to look at. Everything in the city was big — the architecture, the statues, even the people were tall. It was kind of the opposite of Sakaar — everything was very clean, almost tranquil. There was greenery everywhere. Gradually Bruce's anxiety subsided.

The Valkyrie seemed to be in a better mood, too. He wondered if she'd needed to unwind as badly as he had.

"It's a beautiful city," he said, trying to make conversation.

"This is just the palace grounds, still," she said. She gave a nod toward a big bridge past another courtyard. "The city proper's out there."

"Yeah?" said Bruce. "Thor was always telling me I should visit. I'm not really... great... around people. Thor was always like, 'You'd love Asgard. It's too bad you can't come see Asgard, you'd fit right in.'"

She looked him up and down. The look on her face told him that whatever Thor had been thinking, she didn't see it.

He cleared his throat. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

She looked thoughtful. "Something familiar," she said, "Training grounds, maybe?"

"Training? Like combat training?" A spark of nervousness leapt through him.

"Yep."

Bruce gulped. "Listen," he said, "I don't... do really well around violence."

"Squeamish?" she asked, amused.

"No, I, uh... I've got kind of a temper."

She laughed.

"Really," he said. "I've... done a lot of things. Broken stuff, hurt people."

The Valkyrie shrugged. "This is Asgard," she said. "What could you possibly hurt?"

They took a turn through part of a building and Bruce thought that the area was looking distinctly more military. There was a noticeable increase in the armored guards they'd been seeing, and many of them were just hanging around, like they were on break. Another doorway and they had reached a catwalk around a couple of big fields where Asgardians were training. Swords flashed in the sunlight as a group went through drills in tandem. An archery instructor walked back and forth behind a group of teenagers, correcting postures and aims. A man bigger than Thor with an axe as tall as the Valkyrie fought a stout woman with a warhammer.

The Valkyrie leaned against the railing to watch absently.

Bruce winced. The guy swung the axe and the woman barely sidestepped being cut in half, seemingly unworried. She swung the hammer in a brutal hit to the side of the guy's head and he staggered and shook himself.

"Jeez," Bruce said. "You're all like that, aren't you? I mean, I figured it was just Thor, but... you're all just..."

"Gods?" the Valkyrie supplied.

The man disarmed the woman and she hopped up to headbutt him in the face, grabbed him by the arm while he was distracted, and spun him into the castle wall behind them with a roar. He smashed through a thick stone pillar and the wall behind it. A moment later he stumbled to his feet, shook himself off, and gave a congratulatory yell. One of the guys nearby picked the broken half of the pillar up and put it back, which didn't look like it did much for the damage. All of them laughed.

This was Asgard. What could he possibly hurt?

It hit Bruce like a freight train.

"You all right?" the Valkyrie asked him.

"Yeah," he said, when he remembered how.

o

"Heimdall," said Thor, "I know you can hear me. We need your help. I'm just going to... trust you to show up, I guess." He sighed.

He'd led them — Tony and Loki and the men he'd introduced to Tony as the Warriors Three — to the throne room. As they walked, he told them a story that Tony couldn't exactly call true, but which he wasn't sure was entirely false either.

Odin was dead, Thor told them. Odin had a daughter — his firstborn, Hela, the Goddess of Death. He had sealed her away long ago, and his life was all that had kept her from escaping. With his strength waning, he had chosen to go into exile. Fearing that there would be chaos in the realms with him gone, said Thor, he had schemed to leave Loki on the throne in disguise.

"Perhaps hoping that he would find redemption in duty to the crown," said Thor. "My mischievous brother, however, was supposed to let me in on this plan, not send me off to Midgard and beyond while he did as he pleased."

He scowled at Loki, appropriately admonishing, and Loki shrugged and spread his hands as if to say: What did you expect?

"Now Hela is on Midgard," Thor said, "Trying to kill us and get back to Asgard so she can regain her full strength and conquer the rest of the universe."

There was a long pause.

"And when all of this is over," said the grim, dark-haired warrior, "Who will sit on the throne of Asgard?" He eyed Loki.

The brothers shared a look.

"Not Hela," said Thor. "Aside from that... we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

"So how do we beat her?" Tony asked.

At the end of the room was an enormous golden chair on a dais a few steps up from the floor. Thor walked to it and Loki pretended not to watch him. He stood there for a moment at the foot of it and there was a moment of silence.

Of course, Tony thought. All their lives, that throne had belonged to their father, and he was gone now. It hit him only then that for Thor it had been barely more than a week. What a mess.

Thor turned and sat down on the steps.

"It would be simple enough to bring the full might of Asgard's army down upon her," he said.

"If we told none of them who she was," Loki said. Thor nodded.

"They'd still follow you," Loki added, "If you asked it of them."

They were all quiet.

"I'm missing something," Tony said.

"In Asgard," said Loki, "There is no greater crime than the slaying of one's kin."

Tony shook his head, "Why do you have to kill her? You can't lock her up?"

"Not here," said Thor. "She draws her power from Asgard. If we bring her here..."

"With power like that," Loki said, sliding over to sit beside Thor, "She could destroy armies, maybe even worlds. I had a glimpse of what she did to the Valkyrie, during a fight once." He rubbed his jaw as if in remembered pain.

They were quiet again. Tony paced around, examining the architecture as if it would give him an answer. His eyes traveled up the columns to a fresco painted on the ceiling.

"So," Loki chirped, an unpleasant smile spreading over his face, "It's a good thing she's Midgard's problem, isn't it?"

"Thanks," Tony said, rolling his eyes and turning back to them. Thor reached back to give him a shove.

"I mean it," Loki said.

"Uh, yeah, I tried that, remember?" Tony said, "It didn't go well."

"Not with that piece of junk," Loki said.

"Hey."

Thor had a look. "You're thinking maybe Hela had some interesting ideas."

"I'm thinking Hela had some very interesting ideas," Loki said, "And I'm also thinking her magic is a thousand years out of date."

"Ooh," Tony said. "I see where you're going with this. Collab?"

Loki grinned.

The Warriors Three understood none of this, but they looked very concerned. Thor pushed himself to his feet.

"All right," he said. "Hogun, Fandral, gather a squadron of the best Einherjar. Hela's not alone, and we're going to need backup. Volstagg, bring Banner and the Valkyrie back here. We leave as soon as Heimdall can send us."

"How do you know he'll come?" Hogun asked.

"He'll come," Thor said.

"Valkyrie?" said Fandral, stroking his little beard. He nodded at Volstagg. "I'll trade you."

"Come on," sighed Hogun, stalking off and pulling Fandral behind him.

Volstagg looked at Thor. "I hope you know what you're doing," he said, before following them out.

Thor heaved a deep breath. "So do I."

o

The palace forges were impressively hot. Tony gawked at the weird mixture of advanced and medieval technology. They laid the suit out on one table and Tony pulled it apart piece by piece and handed the outer plates off to the smiths Thor had gathered. On a second table, beside it, was the wreckage of some kind of massive Asgardian automaton Thor called the Destroyer.

"It's not just a matter of swapping out parts," he said, reconsidering this entire venture for about the third time, "They don't just have to be shaped the same, they have to be the same weight and —"

"They know, Tony. They know," Thor said.

"They don't," Tony said. "They're— look. That guy didn't even weigh that piece he's just ballparking it. That's not—"

"He's been doing this job for thirty-five hundred years, Tony. He'll get it right. Show me the parts you need for repairs."

"I'm so mad," Tony said, as Thor took him around to find the parts he needed. "At home I've been working on this design — it's going to be incredible, there's nanomachines and — anyway, I don't know how much use I'm going to get out of this."

Thor nodded, "That's why we're trying to keep the spells contained. It shouldn't be too hard to swap the gold pieces onto new suits if you ever want to use them again."

Tony lacked the raw strength to forge the Asgardian metal himself, so he held a part against an anvil for Thor to hammer. "Do you know there was a point in my life when I thought you were dumb?"

"I get that a lot."

"Sorry."

Thor just chuckled.

It took a little over an hour for all the pieces to be assembled. Tony laid them out, feeling the balance of each piece. They felt right. If he looked closely, there were all kinds of little tool marks and subtle flourishes — the evidence that the pieces had been made by hand instead of fabricated by a machine. It felt strange.

"It doesn't quite look right, without the red," said Loki. He had a book under one arm. He looked at Thor. "Ready?"

Thor nodded. He pulled the first of the pieces of gold metal that Loki needed to bespell out of the nearby fire with a pair of tongs to set it on one of the big anvils and Loki climbed up beside it. He had a couple of chisels made of the same stoney metal as Mjolnir, etched with runes. He opened the book to the piece of paper tucked into it that he'd made notes on and skimmed it one last time, muttering.

They'd gathered quite an audience, Tony suddenly realized. Not just the smiths, but a number of robed, scholarly-looking women were standing around to watch. Tony pointed them out to Thor.

"Here to see a master work," Thor said.

Loki snorted.

"Among other things," said Thor, stripping off his shirt and hefting one of the big forging hammers.

"That's so unnecessary," Tony said.

"Is it, though?"

Loki shut his book and held it out until someone dutifully came and took it from him. Then he selected the larger of the chisels, said, "Please refrain from smashing me into oblivion," and held everything in place.

Tony didn't know what he expected, but when Thor wound up the hammer and brought it down on the end of the chisel inches from his brother's head with a deafening clang, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Loki adjusted the placement of the chisel and metal in the time it took for Thor to wind up again and then clang! They got into a rhythm, and in between the falls of the hammer Tony could see Loki's fingers moving, winding glimmering green threads of magic into the runes Thor helped him to punch into the metal.

There were five of them in all, and when they were done, Tony welded them carefully into their places on the armor.

"Not bad, for a rush job," he said.

o

The rest of the day came and went. Thor grew more anxious with every hour. When night fell, he wandered off to pace restlessly across the palace walls, watching for any sign of Heimdall. Loki disappeared soon after, leaving Tony, Bruce, and Scrapper 142 in the company of the Warriors Three.

The three men were each, in their own way, starstruck by the Valkyrie. She flung Fandral almost immediately through the doors of the feast hall before stepping over him to sit down at one of the tables.

"Worth it," he said.

Volstagg, meanwhile, began telling a tale of high adventure from his youth, back when he'd been known as "Volstagg the Staggeringly Perfect." He was speaking ostensibly to Tony and Bruce, but he kept sneaking glances at her to see if she looked impressed. She did not.

Hogun just glared at her and asked if she was as strong as she looked, thus beginning the longest arm-wrestling match Tony had ever witnessed.

"Lord Stark," a woman's voice cut through Volstagg's story. One of the palace servants stood at the end of the table. "His highness requests your presence."

Tony giggled. "Lord Stark." To the servant's confusion, he said, "Sorry, yeah, sure — Bruce?"

Bruce started to extract himself from where he was sitting between Volstagg and the Valkyrie and the servant said, "Master Banner needn't interrupt his meal."

She smiled so warmly it was hard to take offense. Bruce said, "Oh, uh, good. I'll just... stay then?" The Valkyrie finally forced Hogun's fist to the table with a thunk as Bruce sat back down.

Something to do with the armor, maybe, Tony thought as they made their way through the palace. After a few hallways he realized he was being led not down toward the forges, but up. The halls became dimmer, warmer. Black-and-gold rugs ornamented with intricate knotwork designs carpeted the stone floors.

She led him through an open doorway into a wide room.

"Lord Stark, your highness," she announced, then bowed and left. It was a strange formality, because Loki wasn't paying attention at all.

The room was lit mostly by a fire that burned in a circular pit set into the middle of it. By the door was a table holding a tray of barely-touched food. One corner of the room had a full-length mirror flanked by wardrobes. Another had bookshelves which held as many trinkets as books — bottles and knives and hunks of crystal and gadgets Tony couldn't begin to guess the purpose of. Books and papers were strewn haphazardly across the nearby desk, as well as on the chair and the surrounding floor. In the far corner, a bed was hidden by a wooden divider with what looked to be an unfinished tapestry thrown over it.

The back of the room was composed entirely of full-length windows and an archway that opened onto a balcony where Loki stood, pacing back and forth.

"Damn," Tony said, pretending not to see how it made Loki jump. "Is this your room?" 'Room' didn't quite cover it. Apartment, maybe. The huge open-plan look of it made Tony think of his place in Malibu (may it rest in peace.) He came out to the balcony and leaned over the railing to look down at the city. He could see the iridescent glow of the Bifrost bridge as it stretched out across the ocean, and the eerie closeness of the stars. "Hell of a view."

Loki nodded. He walked over to stand next to Tony and put his hands on the railing, drummed his fingers, took his hands back and wrung them. Opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again.

Oh god. They'd flirted a couple of times but not like, serious flirting, right? Like joke flirting? That was a thing in Asgard, right? Loki had a girlfriend, right? Loki knew he was engaged, right? Did Asgardians even do monogamy?

Oh god.

"The Vision—" Loki started, and Tony almost blurted out that he was seeing someone before he fully parsed the words. "The Vision told me about... about Ultron?"

"Ugh," said Tony. What did that have to do with anything?

Loki went back to wringing his hands. There was something about his naked nervousness that was very... vulnerable.

Loki trusted him, Tony realized.

"What if I—" Loki said softly, eyes fixed somewhere out on Asgard's horizon, "What if I told you that you were right?"

"Right about what?" Tony asked.

Loki tensed like he was waiting for a blow. "About everything. About what's coming." His eyes went to his hands and made a long journey across the railing of the balcony and up Tony's arms to his face. There was fear in them.

Tony felt his whole body go numb. He felt like the veil that had been thrown over his nightmares was being slowly lifted. Nothing, Tony thought, could be worse than knowing something was out there and not knowing what. Nothing except perhaps everybody around you thinking you were crazy for it.

But he wasn't. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't crazy.

"What's coming?" Tony asked, just as quietly.

This time Loki hesitated for only a moment.

"He is called Thanos."