Seeing Is Believing (Heimdall/Kate)
The world is a riot of rainbow-bright color. Stars and space shoot past them—or they shoot past stars and space, perhaps—before they are deposited on the slippery floor of a gold dome, a massive man in golden armor towering above them.
Kate flashes him a smile before scrambling over to Tommy, who looks faintly green around the gills.
“Head between your knees, Speed, there you go,” she pushes and tugs at him until he’s seated, head down. “Never thought I’d see you get motion sick.”
“That was the worst thing ever,” Tommy moans. “Oh, God, is that what it feels like to be you guys when I run with you? Ugh, holy crap, that’s awful.”
“You’ll be fine, champ,” Kate rubs between his shoulder blades, leaning up to take in their surroundings. Must be Asgard.
“Thanks for the lift,” she tells the man in armor. “Heimdall, I presume?”
“For more than twenty years I have had those words on my body,” Heimdall says to her.
Which. Well. That explains a lot, and is completely 100% less creepy than she ever thought it would be.
“Twenty? Man, for you that’s got to be, like, a blip. Eons and eons and twenty years? Eighty, a hundred? That’s nothing. That’s not even fair.” Kate continues to rub Tommy’s back, and Tommy continues to moan piteously.
“Thank you for coming,” Thor strides into the antechamber—gate room—whatever it’s called. “I know you and Asgard have not always agreed—"
“Doc Foster needs help,” David cuts him off. “That’s enough of a reason.”
“No it’s not,” Tommy moans, mostly to the floor.
“She does seem to engender a certain amount of fondness in others,” a woman says. Sif, maybe?
Tommy looks up for the first time, eyes wide, before ducking his head back down and gulping in air. “I think I’m in love,” he mutters to Kate.
“Keep it together, Thomas,” she responds, slapping him on the back before standing. “So, what’s the plan?”
The plan, apparently, is ‘break Loki out of prison and hope for the best’.
Which, while not the worst plan she’s ever heard, does seem a little along the lines of wishful thinking.
She’s sitting in the gold—round—foyer of Asgard? What the hell is this place called, anyway?
Whatever. She’s staring at stars. And galaxies. Whole worlds at her feet, as far as the eye can see. It’s enough to give her vertigo, enough to make her lose balance, she might just tip forward and fall forever, like Loki did—
Heimdall sits next to her, but says nothing.
“Have you had a soulmate before?” she breaks the silence, then shakes her head. “No, don’t answer that. That’s not my business.”
“I have never had a soulmate.”
They sit in silence. Kate, for once in her life, has nothing to say.
“Would you like to hear the story we tell on Asgard, about soulmates?” Heimdall’s voice rumbles through her. He could tell her the story of the phone book for all she cares, as long as he keeps talking. “We believe that the matter that forms those who are soulmates—their matter was intertwined before the universe was born. My—atoms—have been waiting for yours to form into a sentient being for a very long time. I am,” he hesitates, then, as if searching for the right words. “I am happy for whatever time you might spend with me.”
The last bit does something strange to Kate’s lungs, makes it hard to breathe, like her heart and her lungs are battling over who gets to take up more room.
“Though in Asgard, soulmarks appear when mates touch for the first time.” He stares at his gloved hands, flexing them. “I have words, which is unusual. I wonder if the first time we touch will produce typical Asgardian marks.”
“Well,” Kate strips off her shooting glove and offers her hand to him. “Wanna see?”
Heimdall shakes his head. “We have just met, and skin-to-skin contact seems—too forward, Hawkeye.”
Kate leans back on her hands, taking in the clockwork over her head. “You can call me Kate, you know.”
“Kate,” he says, her name rolling from his lips. “I am Heimdall. Which I believe you knew already.”
She hums in assent, and they simply sit, silent, for a few moments.
“So, you watch everything?” She eventually asks.
“I do.”
“That must get awkward.”
Heimdall looks down at her. Well, he’s side-eyeing her but he’s tall, so.
“I have heard it called many things,” he says. “Awkward is…not one of them.”
“Well, I mean. If you see everything, or can see everything—even accidentally, I bet you see stuff you wish you hadn’t.”
She sees him crack a smile before it’s gone. “Fortunately, there are a great many other things to look at, should I see something I’d rather not.”
“Like what?”
“Newborn pups,” he begins. “Kittens. Young offspring of many animals, in fact. The stars themselves, when taken as a whole. Your Earth has many pleasant natural wonders—"
Kate can’t keep her laughter in anymore.
“What?” Heimdall looks completely perplexed.
“You just—you basically watch puppy videos to feel better when you’ve seen bad stuff. That’s just—that’s so relatable.” Kate pulls out her phone. “Did you see the one of the bear cub rescued from a forest fire?”
Which is how Kate and her soulmate, the Guardian of Asgard, get into a Youtube spiral that lasts over an hour.
And, of course, when her team is having a strategy meeting is when Dark Elves attack Asgard.
“That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kate says, leaning back from the table.
Sif and Thor stare at her, but her team doesn’t even collectively bat and eye.
“Pardon?” Heimdall looks quizzically at her. “Sexy?” His helmet is on the table and without it he looks—less mountainous, but still unnecessarily tall and broad. She thinks she could use him as a shooting perch and not only would he be tall enough, but he probably wouldn’t even notice too much because she’s pretty sure he could bench-press her with his pinky.
“Heimdall,” Kate says. “You sensed an invisible ship that you jumped on while it was invisible. You stabbed it with knives and then you made it blow up. Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“She’s very hard to impress,” Tommy adds. “Take the compliment.”
There is a murmured consensus from her team, which she could have done without, but it does seem to put Heimdall at ease.
And then the plan comes out. They’ve already broken Loki out of Asgard Jail, and Billy is in his place for now, casting an illusion so he looks like Loki, prepared to bust himself out at their signal—so there’s luring Dark Elves, and pulling the Aether from Jane—it seems to like her all right, though, so that seems like a weird step—
And then there’s the part where Heimdall apparently will be committing treason.
Kate isn’t positive what the punishment for that is on Asgard, but she can’t imagine it’s anything pleasant, so she’s not exactly for it. Unless he might be exiled to earth—Midgard? Which would still be awful for him, but less awful than, you know. Death.
Heimdall will cause a distraction, and Kate and Billy(once he's broken out of Loki's cell) will be escorting Loki out to the rendezvous point, while Thor, Loki, and Jane escape, aided by Sif and the Warriors Three. And Tommy. Kate thinks Sif is probably going to deck him, and boy howdy would Kate love to see that go down.
They all have their parts and Kate has the sudden and very unpleasant thought that she might never see her soulmate again, which would suck.
Kate stands on the bench—Heimdall is so stupid tall—braces her hands on the cool gold of his chestplate before planting her lips on his, a warm feeling fizzing across her mouth.
“For luck?” he looks a little dazed when she pulls back, but not in a bad way.
“For morale. We don’t need luck,” she smiles, running her tongue against the pop-rocks feeling still bursting across her lips.
Teddy has his phone out and is probably taking pictures.
“Imagine your OTP,” Loki remarks dryly.
“Smol and tall,” Teddy agrees. “Man, you’re going to have to start wearing lipstick if you want to have a secret identity.”
“What?”
Teddy passes her his phone so she can see the bright gold runes across her lips. Not yellow, either—metallic, shiny, gold.
Heimdall smiles down at her as they part. “I did warn you,” his voice practically rumbles into her, and she doesn’t know if the symbols are the same, but his lips shine gold, too.
“Oh. I was maybe kind of not believing you since I feel like we’ve touched a few times since—"
He holds up a gloved hand. “Skin-to-skin, Hawkeye.”
“Ah. Right.”
Sif clears her throat. “If you’re done kissing my brother?”
“Say what now?” Kate looks from Heimdall to Sif, and back. “I guess the height is genetic?”
Sif swallows a smile.
“You will see me again,” Heimdall presses his forehead to hers. “I promise you that, Hawkeye.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”