Reunions
The Statesman
Sol System Outer Rim
Inbound to Earth
Thor knelt on the cargo deck of The Statesman, the current residence of Asgard, and tried to center himself. He sat on the heels of his boots, arms in front of him, palms outstretched, eyes closed, trying to concentrate. Again, his mind began to wander.
Despite the size of the room he found himself alone; it wasn’t exactly a popular spot since the massive battle with Thanos and his lackeys. Perhaps if he hung some drapes up, he thought to himself, grinning slightly at the joke.
Of course, first he’d have to find some drapes; they weren’t exactly loaded down with the necessities of life, let alone its luxuries. Thor shook his head at himself. That train of thought would only lead him away from his goal, and down the path of self-recrimination. At some point, one had to simply accept what had happened, admit that what’s done was done and focus upon what they could still affect. And the truth was that he’d done all the damage control he could until they reached Earth.
Now was the time for answers. It was probably the last chance he’d have before reaching Earth; he’d never actually realized how much work kinging was. He tried to clear his mind again. He began by reciting a prayer in long, slow, muted tones:
Lo, there do I see my father,
Lo, there do I see my mother,
Lo, there do I see my line stretching back to the beginning,
Lo, there do I see my father,
Odin,
Hail the Allfather
The One Eyed Wanderer,
Come sit at my fire,
Tell me your wisdom stories,
The scenes your missing eye sees
“I wonder,” his father’s voice asked “will it always be this way?”
Thor opened his eyes to see himself in the room he and Loki had been tutored in when they were children. His father stood in front of his usual chair, looking healthier than he’d last seen him. Turning to his left brought into view the desks he and his brother had once used so many centuries before. They were currently filled by the boys they’d been so long ago. Loki was sitting straight, pencil in hand. Thor was doodling an epic battle on his scroll.
“What way is that father?” the older Thor asked, turning back to Odin.
“You,” the old man explained “looking for the answers you’ve already been given.”
“I seem to be in need of many more lately,” Thor replied pointedly.
“True,” Odin agreed with just a touch of shame in his voice. “Perhaps I should have told you about Hela sooner.”
“You could have trusted us with Loki’s true identity as well,” Thor said starting to get angry. “Perhaps all of this could have been avoided.”
“But then how would I get you to call upon me occasionally?” Odin replied with just a touch of humor mingled with the sadness in his eyes. Thor glared at him momentarily before that ever so slight twinkle forced a chuckle from him. An answering (and quite similar) grin spread across Odin’s face for a moment, then he sat down in the chair.
“We do the best we can,” he said seriously. “That’s all any parent can do, the most that any child can ask. No one sees all of the future. Not me. Not your brother. Not the monster that’s taken him.”
“Did he capture Loki?” Thor asked, fearing the answer. Odin nodded sadly. “Well, where is he?” Thor asked.
Odin regarded his son with a mixture of compassion and disdain. “What would you do if I told you?” he asked presently. “Would you attempt to rescue him?”
“Of course,” Thor snapped. “We have to hurry, while there’s something of Loki’s mind left.”
“And give him another to torture?” Odin asked. “I’m sorry my son, but I cannot do that.”
Now it was Thor’s turn to regard his father. “How can you sit there,” he asked in shocked tones “knowing that your son, that your son, is being tortured and twisted into a monster?”
“I may not know the future,” Odin replied calmly “but I know this. No man chooses your brothers mind. No man, not me, nor you, nor that monster. And I also know that you cannot fight him alone.”
“You’ve beaten him,” Thor pointed out.
“Yes,” Odin replied “but always on Asgard, where our power was strongest.”
“Tell me why that’s so important again,” Thor said. “When last we spoke you said Asgard was a people, not a place. Yet, without it I’m . . . weak.”
The old man leaned forward in his chair. “Asgard is a people,” Odin assured him. “It is also a place. Two pieces joined by a key.”
“Two pieces . . .” Thor said as if the meaning of that rather cryptic statement was at the tip of his brain. “I don’t follow.”
Odin leaned back in the chair, a look of disappointment on his face. “So concerned were you with battles and glory,” he said with a glance at the young Thor, who was of course still doodling. “Listen closely, son,” he said leaning forward again. “Some ages ago our family learned that they could tap into the aether.”
“The red Infinity Stone?” Thor interrupted.
Odin sighed. “No,” he said. “That name was given to the red stone because it sometimes simulates what people think the aether is. The aether is an unseen force that exists throughout the galaxy. It-”
“It surrounds us,” Thor cut in “and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”
“That’s right,” Odin said, surprised and pleased. “So, you were listening.”
“Not really,” Thor said with a ghost of a grin. “It’s something I heard on Earth.”
“Earth must have advanced further than I’d realized,” Odin mused.
“Not really,” Thor repeated, not wanting to admit that he’d been quoting Star Wars. “So, the aether is where the energy for my lightning comes from?” Thor asked.
“Mostly,” Odin hedged, causing a reflexive irritated look to pass across his son’s face. “You must understand that the aether has its own spectrum,” he explained. “It has flavors, colors and moods. Each of us tap into only a small fraction of that spectrum. Long ago it was discovered that if a realm was attuned to us then the very act of its inhabitants living out their lives there added to that spectrum. It enriched it and enhanced it.”
“The land and the people,” Thor said, focusing back to the lessons learned millennia ago. “Two pieces connected by a key. But what was the key?” His mind sifted through the keys he knew of, most of which having been lost with Asgard. Odin simply waited, patiently. “A key to the lands,” Thor said thinking it through before his eyes snapped back to his father. “Hofund?” he asked in surprise.
“You didn’t think we made it a key to the bi-frost just for its ambiance, did you?” Odin asked.
“No, you did it for its Feng Shui,” Thor replied ironically.
“Perhaps,” Odin replied with the ghost of a grin. Then the grin faded. “In any case you are half right. Hofund was the key to a much larger mechanism. That mechanism’s true purpose was to act as a convergence point for attuned lands.”
“When I was a much younger man,” he continued tiredly “only a few years older than you in fact, I foresaw a day when our world and Thanos must collide. So, I built paths through the galaxy that could channel the attunement to Asgard. And I,” he said shamefully “I became obsessed with acquiring as much power as I could. I conquered realm after realm in one bloody, endless campaign. I destroyed civilizations and rebuilt them to my specifications. And in the end, I became the very thing I wished to fight.”
“Father I don’t understand,” Thor said. “If all you were after was the attunement of these realms then why did it become necessary to subjugate their populations?”
“We discovered that the attunement would sometimes collapse unless the native populations held our line in their thoughts. Whether they hated us or worshipped us was not relevant; that feeling would reinforce the attunement. And so, I became a monster to some, a savior to others, and a tyrant to all.”
“But if you’d gained the strength you needed then why didn’t you smite Thanos?” Thor asked.
“I’d gained only enough power to eliminate him on one of our worlds. He was quick to discover this and avoided them. He claimed he’d seen a day when my web would be broken, and that he could wait.”
“And now it has,” Thor said, reexamining the past few days.
“Listen son-,” Odin said earnestly before being interrupted.
“My lord,” Heimdall said from directly behind Thor, snapping him out of his meditation, “Forgive me for the interruption but we approach Earth, and have received a communication from an organization named Shield.”
Thor did his best to suppress the irritation at the interruption and stood up. He’d have to finish that conversation at another time. “Did they give you a name?” Thor asked, turning to the henchmen. He couldn’t help but eye the sword he had strapped to his back.
“He said his name is Coulson,” Heimdall replied.
The name earned a startled glance from Thor as he stepped down from the dais. He knew enough about the naming conventions on Earth to know that just because someone’s name was Coulson didn’t mean it was the Coulson he’d known, or that they were even related. But a Coulson from Shield? That seemed to be stretching things. Yet, he’d seen Phil Coulson die at Loki’s hand.
He collected Banner on the way, knowing that Brunnhilde, the Valkyrie warrior they’d enlisted on Sakaar, would already be on the bridge flying the ship. It still surprised him that the somewhat excitable biologist (with 7 P.H.D.’s; it was important for some reason) was alive. When the Hulk had failed to make an appearance, Thor had written them both off.
Thor stopped dead in his tracks as they entered the bridge. Despite his hopes, it still shocked him to find the middle-aged man’s visage on the viewscreen. “Phil!” he called out, “You’re alive.” It probably wasn’t the keenest observation he’d ever made.
Coulson grinned slightly at that. Or perhaps it was a grimace, Thor couldn’t tell. The monstrous Asgardian wasn’t the first (nor the most intelligent) to react in exactly that manner. But all he said was “Hello Thor.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Thor replied “but . . .”
“How?” Coulson finished. It wasn’t a first for that reaction either. “Kree blood,” he replied simply. “I’d rather not discuss it. But while we’re in the area, I don’t suppose you’ve got your brother with you?”
Thor tried to be angry on his brother’s behalf, but found that he couldn’t. This man had apparently suffered greatly due to what was really just an insanely long tantrum thrown by said brother.
“A bag full of cats,” Banner offered softly. Thor grinned at the reference
“Loki . . . he’s changed, Phil,” Thor said.
“Are you certain?” came the immediate response. “He is the God of Lies.”
Which was the same thing Thanos had called Loki. Thor decided to let that go. “Look, I need to speak to The Avengers,” he said, changing the subject.
“That’s . . . not possible,” Coulson replied sheepishly.
“Why not?” Thor asked. “I am an Avenger after all.”
“Well,” Coulson replied as if searching for words “there’s been a . . . a bit of a disagreement in the ranks.”
“Isn’t there always?” Thor asked.
“Not like this. I think I’ll let Mr. Stark fill you in on that,” he added.
“Alright, then can I talk to him?” Thor asked.
“Not at the moment, but if you want to land, I’ll have you picked up.”
“Yeah, about that,” Thor said slowly. “We’ve got refugees with us. Would it be possible to land them in Norway?”
Coulson squinted in momentarily confusion, before a grin of understanding crossed his lips. He began tapping at the keys on his keyboard. “Give me a few minutes,” he told them and disappeared off of the pickup.
“What is special about this Norway?” Heimdall asked.
“It’s as where father died,” Thor said quietly. “I believe he foresaw this. He wanted us to rebuild Asgard there.”
Before the seer could respond Coulson returned in the pickup. “Proceed to these coordinates,” he said, reeling off a latitude and longitude.
“That was fast,” Thor replied.
“What; that?” Coulson replied. “That was easy, once I convinced them I wasn’t drunk.”
“What did you say?” Thor asked.
“I said ‘The Norse Gods would like to live in your country’. I’d hurry if I were you. It’s difficult to land a ship of that size in a parade.”
Thor laughed at that. “Um, one problem,” Thor said. “I’m familiar with latitude and longitude, but this ship isn’t. I’m not even sure where Norway is.”
“Well then, I guess we’ll have to teach it,” Coulson replied evenly. He then superimposed a map of the world on his screen. A light began blinking on the map off the west coast of Africa. “This is Latitude 0, Longitude 0,” Coulson instructed. Now each degree of deviation east and north of that mark is roughly 69 miles.” A grid of lines grew from that point, covering the world.
“How long is a mile?” Heimdall asked without looking up from the console.
“Um . . . five thousand two hundred and eighty feet,” Coulson answered.
“And how long is a foot?” Heimdall asked sounding slightly badgered. No doubt if Coulson had brought inches into the equation the stoic gate keeper would unleash a rather critical observation on the intelligence of humans. In his defense, it had been a bad week.
Fortunately, Coulson merely held up a metal ruler and said “The length of this object is exactly one foot.”
Heimdall squinted at the object, unsure of the scale. He recognized none of the objects in the foreground or background, which made it hard to gain any perspective. If Coulson were a small man (as he seemed to be) then a foot was about twice the width of Heimdall’s hand. If he were larger it would be closer to four times.
“I know this isn’t the most accurate method, but I’m not sure what else to do,” Coulson said as he attempted to reason it out. If we could get a look at the software architecture of your ships, we could probably get you access to our GPS satellites, but that could take weeks.”
“Does this ship have a holographic imager?” Banner asked.
“I think so,” Heimdall said, searching through various screens in the interface. “Ah, yes here it is.” He began entering commands to scan the source of the transmission. Unfortunately, there were about three dozen humans in the building. He targeted one at random and a true to size hologram of rather overweight woman appeared.
“Well that’s not Phil,” Thor offered helpfully.
Heimdall ignored him, instead moving on to the next, and the next and the next, until they found someone resembling a balding middle-aged man holding a ruler. Heimdall then had the computer scan the length of the ruler. “A foot is 1.1325 galactic ryes,” he announced, entering the final bit of data into the computer. It took only a second for it to locate the coordinates.
“On our way,” Brunnhilde said from the pilot’s chair.
“Now,” Thor said turning back to Coulson “where is Stark?”
“I can’t go into that right now,” Coulson said sharply.
“Come on Phil, this is important.”
“He’s on a classified mission,” the agent said.
“I guarantee you mine’s more classified,” Thor replied.
“What’s classified mean?” Brunnhilde stage whispered.
“I don’t know, it means important or something,” Thor replied offhandedly.
“More like secret or confidential,” Coulson replied. “Except secret and confidential are different levels of classification. Then there’s top secret, restricted, compartmentalized-”
“-Alright I get it,” Thor cut in. “My mission may not be more classified but it is more important. I really do need to see the rest of The Avengers.”
“I’m sorry Thor but I can’t help you,” Coulson said. He paused. “I imagine that you’ve got resources of your own to find them,” he added before ending the connection.
“Scan the planet for a man in a metal suit,” Thor ordered.
“This is basically a freighter,” Brunnhilde replied. “Its sensors aren’t sophisticated enough for that kind of scan.”
“Well, what about vibranium?” Banner asked.
“And what, pray tell, is vibranium?” Brunnhilde asked.
“Oh, well that’s just what we call it,” the somewhat mousy biologist answered quickly. “It’s the metal Steve’s shield is made of. It absorbs the kinetic energy of whatever impacts it.”
“I know the material,” Heimdall replied from the console he was standing at. He tapped a few buttons, scrolled through a list, and hit enter. A series of dots began showing up all over the globe. “It appears that they’ve distributed trinket sized chunks of . . . vibranium, fairly liberally all over the world,” he said looking at the map. “Except here,” he said pointing to a massive signature on one of the land masses.
“We’re looking for something the size of a buckler,” Thor told him.
“There’s something like that here,” he said zooming in on one section of a continent.
“No,” Banner replied “That’s Tony’s lab. If he’s on a mission he won’t be there. He never told me he had any vibranium though,” he added thoughtfully. “I wonder why.”
“Alright screw this,” Thor replied. “Banner, do you know where the city of New York is?”
“Sure, it’s in New York” he said eliciting blank stares from those assembled. “Sorry, the city New York is in the State also named New York,” he explained. They continued to stare blankly. “Well, I don’t have the GPS coordinates or anything,” he added defensively.
“Fine, help Heimdall find this New York,” Thor said as he headed for the exit. “Get a map and send me the coordinates.” And with that he was gone.
“Brunnhilde,” Heimdall commanded before following.
“Oh sure,” she yelled just as the ship started encountering the chop of the atmosphere “I’m only a little busy flying the bloody ship!”
“I’ll help,” Banner said moving to her station. She already had the map of the globe up. “That’s New York,” he said pointing to a section of land on the east coast of the USA.
“Where are you going?” Heimdall asked as Thor moved purposefully through the ship.
“Help Brunnhilde land the ship,” Thor told him, not quite ignoring the question. “Then see to some sort of lodgings for our people.”
“I am not an architect,” Heimdall protested.
“And I am not a diplomat,” Thor responded as he weaved through the undamaged areas of the ship. “But whatever is going on with The Avengers has Coulson nervous. I have the sinking feeling we’re both going to end up learning to build bridges.”
“Your people need you here,” Heimdall argued.
“There’s no time Heimdall,” Thor replied, punching the open button on the escape pod. It was one of the few that were still operational. Well, it was supposed to be operational. “I have to get back to Knowhere and retrieve the Ether before Thanos gets it. Assuming he hasn’t already. And for that, I need Tony.”
As if to punctuate his point one of the water lines in the ship ruptured spilling liquid on the deck plating.
“We’ve found the city,” Brunnhilde said over the intercom. “Coordinates are as follows:” she said before reeling of a set of galactic standard coordinates. Thor dutifully punched them in.
“Where are you going?” Heimdall repeated as Thor stepped into the pod.
Thor grinned. “I’m off to see the wizard,” he said just before the doors closed and ejected the pod.