Legendary

In walked three of my favorite people, Bucky, Emma and Steve. There were the usual greeting hugs, then Emma produced a basket of muffins, and I introduced Serena. Tony, drawn as if by magic to the proximity of baked goods, materialized and snagged the first muffin. Not wanting to spat in public, I moved the muffins closer to me and took one myself as Steve and Serena shook hands.

"It's such an honor to meet you," she... gushed? Yep, definitely a gush. I hid my grin behind my muffin. Steve pinked up a bit and Bucky and Emma smiled fondly.

"It's nice to meet you," Steve said. "Alex told me about you. She said you were the first woman on a Delta team?" And they started talking about their military experiences. I borrowed her blade to show Emma how her alloy worked, bending the rapier about forty degrees, letting it go to spring back without distortion.

"Surprisingly whippy for a rapier," I said, "but it suits her style, she fenced in college." Emma nodded and we discussed technicalities for a bit as my uncle and Tony chatted. Tony took another muffin, and with a sigh, I pushed the basket toward my uncle and offered them to Emma as well, although she declined. Bucky grinned at me and took one for himself.

Bruce wandered in with a question for Tony and absently took a muffin from the dwindling supply as he joined Tony and Bucky's conversation. His eyes kept going to Serena, though. Emma and I looked bland aside from a smirk at each other. Serena and Steve were getting along very well; I tuned in to hear them talking about the shield. Emma went over to join that discussion, and, checking the time, I kissed Tony and went to the valkyrie complex to get kitted out for the skirmish that was to begin shortly. Today was a day when Steve planned to use us as an aerial unit, so I had to wear the cape. It was a hot day in Valhalla; the cooling effect of aerial combat would be welcome, but I carried the cape until I had to wear it.

I joined the rest of the valkyrie contingent on the battlefield and listened to Steve's instructions. In his everpresent desire to find out everything about everyone's combat abilities, he was going to have us stay aloft, a high stakes kind of move as there were archers and javelin throwers on both sides. I winced; 'death' wasn't permanent here, but getting wounded still hurt every bit as much as it had in life and I'd been struck by a javelin before. It had hurt almost as much as Frigga's wound had. On the bright side, using a shield was clumsy in the air so I could leave it on the ground and depend on my spear and blades. We had last minute instructions, then I swung the heavy cape over my shoulders and let it form wings. Then the skirmish began, the archers on both sides sending up an initial hail of arrows, and I took to the air right after the arrows fell.

I enjoyed the cooling air currents only absently as the Valhalla side valkyries rose to meet us. It was easier than it should have been to penetrate their defenses, triggering the archers again. A quick dash behind the Valhalla valkyries ensured that it was them instead of me who got pinned by the arrows, and I rolled away, averting my eyes from the valkyries falling from the sky, went behind the Valhalla archers, and started cutting them down. It wasn't fun, just butchery, even if their injuries would be of short duration, but that didn't mean that I wanted to see my sisters 'die.' I took out the archers although it would have been easier just to break their bows; this wasn't a battle for real stakes, only bragging rights and practice, and bows and arrows took time and resources to replace. I was joined by a couple more valkyries from the Folkvangr team and we made short work of the archers and the javelin throwers; I found that hamstringing them was the most effective way of quickly taking them out of combat.

Once our assignment was complete, we returned to the Folkvangr lines, found Steve, and got a new assignment. I accompanied the remaining valkyries, Steve, Bucky, and a handful of Folkvangr's most vicious fighters and we plunged into the Valhalla host. I used my wings to hop in and out of trouble, and there was no one who was a match for my blades. In a shorter span of time than I thought it would have taken, I found the point of my blade at Odin's throat. I smiled cheerfully at him as he swore at us and surrendered.

Odin sulked through the victory dinner and afterward announced that the valkyries would switch sides for the next scrimmage, meaning that he would be in command of my battle wing. Heidi and I rolled our eyes at each other. Odin was a pretty good general, but Steve was more creative and had the studies of centuries of combat across all Earth cultures to draw on, while Odin was more constrained by his traditions. My battle was going to get a lot less interesting.

And so it did. My battle wing bonded tightly and our skill level was higher than the other, but this was offset by Steve being the better general. The sides were more equal but not as fun. I started to get hit more under Odin's command, which didn't incline me toward him any. The valkyries under his command became a sullen bunch, which is when he took to drawing up the battle wings right before the skirmish began. The teams were random, but we had a chance of being assigned to the better general each time, which did help our morale. And finally we began construction of our obstacle course, which could be run individually or as teams. As obstacle course racers, Irene and I were charged with designing the obstacles and we made them as challenging (some said 'hellish', but I think that was an over-exaggeration) as possible and added some alternatives that could be achieved only with the use of wings or you could go around it, so you could run the course with or without wings. I instituted the rule from Spartan where you had to do 30 burpees if you failed an obstacle and quickly became the most disliked valkyrie for a time. Steve tried it but couldn't finish it the first couple times. He was in good company, though, to begin with there were only four of us who managed to complete the course at all, and our times were terrible. It gave everybody something to work on, though, and we had a glorious zipline by a waterfall as the last obstacle, a reward for finishing. We could fly down or use the zipline, and in the heat we took to dropping off the zipline into the water below. Very refreshing. During the winter, we'd have to use wings and glide down ourselves. Although, come to think of it, it might be too dangerous to run in the winter; the ice might make it impossible to get past some of the obstacles.

Meanwhile, I did get the second cotton crop in and intended to devote it entirely to the production of thread that I could use to make flannel. I caused a little riot when I made a dress of the thinner cotton for the summer heat; it had a full, tea-length skirt, a close-fitting bodice, and cap sleeves. Tony promptly adored it and the old fogie warriors clutched their pearls and inhaled so fast that I felt lightheaded from the lack of oxygen in the hall when I wore it to dinner the first time, and they complained about my indecency to Odin. Odin massaged his forehead and called me up to the head table to account for myself. I pointed out that men were going around shirtless in the summer heat and it was inhumane to expect women to be wearing long sleeves. I got on a roll, asking why ankles, arms, and elbows were obscene anyway. None of the men had a good answer beyond sputtering about how that just wasn't done. The battle was over, though, when Frigga felt the fabric and asked how I made it. In exchange for cloth for a dress for her, she promised me lessons with the women who made velvet in Folkvangr. I put her fabric on the fast track, and when Frigga showed up in a dress similar to mine ( with sleeves to the elbow and a ruffle around each sleeve straight out of the 1700's) Odin decided that he was quite taken with the style and all the women got a break from the heat wave. Screw the patriarchy, we just didn't want to boil in our clothes. I had plans to gradually introduce shorts. The linen trousers we wore weren't terrible, but they weren't precisely cool, either. Tony generously offered to have me dispense with clothing when we were in our quarters together, saying it would be shocking but that he could handle it.

The linen started to come in and I was even more grateful for my spinning wheel as it wasn't nearly as easy to spin as wool was. I took my share of the fiber and sat in the cool shade by the workshop; there was a stream that ran behind both my smithy and Tony's workshop that made it pleasant, plus every now and then I went wading. Going to Asgard was difficult, as they were in the dead of winter and the change in temperatures sucked to manage. It was worth it, though, as Magni was turning into an outstanding warrior and was looking forward to being considered old enough and skilled enough to join the royal guard. Meanwhile, Torunn was dismaying her father with her bloodthirstiness, demanding lessons of her own. Unable to resist his daughter, he had pretty wooden swords made for our practice, and when her parents weren't around i added a little fun by teaching her a few stealthy tricks I'd learned from my ninjitsu master.

I wasn't a bit surprised when Serena turned up one morning with a swanfeather cape of her own, and we valkyries had a little party to celebrate our first new member since our labor strike. She moved into the valkyrie complex, which drew me over there more often. It wasn't that I was estranged from the valkyries; we spun and wove together, did the obstacle course, fought in the scrimmages with Folkvangr, retrieved the worthy, but there was a little distance between the valkyries as a whole and me as a result of what had happened during the strike. Serena's change of status helped to bridge the gap. Then we got a few more, but nothing like we needed to make up our numbers. It was going to take a long time to build up our force.

I took a break from catching up on my metalworking when it started to get cooler--more people were interested in obtaining a valkyrie-made blade, it seemed--to learn how to weave velvet. The valkyries who had known how to do this had decided to stay in Helheim and none of the remaining valkyries had the knowledge. It was a devilish process. It required a special loom; two pieces of cloth were woven at the same time by running a weft thread through two sets of warp threads. The most experienced weaver then cut between the two pieces of fabric using a really sharp sword, creating a dense pile on each piece of cloth. It was both dramatic and nervewracking, and they kept me at it until I could produce a credible length of velvet on my own. Then I got to keep all the velvet I'd helped produce; Frigga had noticed that the velvet gown she'd given me had gone missing during the looting of our rooms.Tony urged me to make another dress for special events; Vetrnaetr, which occurred around Halloween, was coming up, and the Yule celebrations. "Take how much you like to hug your uncle when he's wearing that flannel shirt and turn it up to eleven," he said, cuddling me. "I love feeling your curves under silk velvet." So I drafted a pattern to show off my best features.

After that it was a pleasure to go back to quickly weaving my second cotton crop into thick fabric suitable for making flannel. I devoted the whole crop to it and had more than I needed for shirts for Steve and Tony; Emma didn't want one, so I made my uncle a second one and one for me. I improved the napping tool and made the flannel even fluffier. I liked it so much I made a patchwork of the scraps and made myself some loose-fitting drawstring pants for winter. I dyed the shirts after finishing them, a rich crimson for Tony, clear blue for Steve, a chocolate brown for my uncle, and a deep emerald for me. We had a cold snap at Valhalla when I finished, and Tony was glad to have the extra warmth. He looked wonderful in the strong color and he preened as I admired it on him. It was full-on winter in Folkvangr, so Steve and Bucky were really glad to receive their warm shirts, and I did a little quality control by administering a snuggle test.

"Yep, that'll do," I mumbled as I cuddled up to my uncle, who laughed and hugged me back.

"I never really thought of Bucky as such a huggy kind of guy," Steve said, kind of a blank look on his face. I shrugged and reluctantly let go.

"I don't know how he was before I met him, but almost from the start, I've found him fairly cuddly. Of course, I was pretty impressionable when I met him, and once I got past his reputation, which took a couple of days, he's always been so reassuring and soothing. And he was always there for me when I ran into trouble, which increases his snuggle factor."

Steve smiled. "How old were you?"

"Sixteenish," I said, thinking back. "Almost seventeen. And not too assertive, it was really nice to have an uncle to hide behind." Bucky burst out laughing.

"She was a trouble magnet," he said ruefully to his friend. "But she never had trouble standing up to Stark, so don't let her get you thinking she was some kind of shrinking violet." Steve stuffed his hands into his pockets and I wondered whether he'd like a hug too. Well, you can't just ask that question, so I just stepped up and hugged him firmly. He started, then gingerly put his arms around me and patted my back.

"Uncle Bucky talked about you a lot," I told him as I gave him a squeeze and stepped back. "People always said that it was too bad we couldn't have met. He even gave me a sketchbook of figures you'd drawn to use as art in a business that I tried." He got a panicked look on his face and looked at his friend in dismay. I put two and two together and smiled.

"You did nude studies?" I asked brightly. "Well, these weren't them." Steve relaxed and flushed. "I think your sketchbooks ended up in the Avengers museum; last I heard, they had one on display and turned a page every few days." The color drained from his face and I took pity on him. "I shouldn't tease you like that; they use the ones with your costume designs--they still hold up, they're not at all dated--or landscapes, the doodles you did in WWII." Then I winked. "There are others that you have to have a curator's permission to view, and I think I know why." Bucky guffawed and slapped Steve's shoulder. "I have to say that there was serious fighting over the sketchbook that I had, when I was making the codicil to my will that designated possessions to specific people." I shook my head. "It got really heated. Martha and Xander actually started hitting. It was like they were five again."

They'd had a rough patch at that age when they'd decided to settle their arguments physically. It had been hard to get them to try alternative means of conflict resolution, but once we succeeded, that was the only time they'd smacked each other. Brats. "So how did you resolve the issue?" Bucky asked.

"I balanced the sketchbook against the book with the code words that triggered Natasha's memories--she left it to me--and the bow that Clint left me." I snorted. "Not that Xander could draw that bow either, but it was the last one that he used as Hawkeye. They also both wanted that." Suddenly I laughed. "My Avengers stuff were the hot items. The only other thing they quarreled over that was not related to the Avengers was Damian's wedding band and my engagement and wedding rings. Xander got those, only fair since he couldn't wear any of my jewelry--" Bucky laughed "--and that was balanced out with Kate's custom made quiver and my MIT ring." I patted my uncle's hand, metal at the moment. "Because nobody was willing to give an inch on your possessions, I gave up and put them into a family trust with the contents of the Bat cave, actually. Xander was Batman, but the cave belongs to the family. It's not mentioned and won't be made public until Batman doesn't exist anymore, but your things, like the code book used to trigger you, your wedding ring, all that, are on display at the mansion, and researchers can request supervised access." This time it was Bucky who was embarrassed and Steve who grinned. "One of the Hollywood studios wanted to study the collection, they're making some Avengers movies, or at least they were when I died, they were negotiating with the twins. And I loaned MIT your collection of arms for study for a couple of years. That provoked a huge amount of interest, and Emma's work was the subject of several scholarly articles and more in popular scientific magazines."

Steve laughed at his friend, and Bucky punched him. "It sounds so funny, 'his collection of arms,'" he said to me, chortling. I grinned.

"All cybernetic," I assured him, and Bucky rolled his eyes. "The Smithsonian wanted those in the worst way too, they got rather starchy when I refused. They were barely mollified when I offered the bulk of my jewelry collection."

"Damian," my uncle chuckled. "He did love to see you play dress up and be the envy of every woman in the room, and himself be the envy of every man because he was with you."

I rolled my eyes at my uncle. Steve asked, "What made the jewelry collection such a big deal?"

"Damian would get it into his head to go after notable pieces in different styles--Art Nouveau, Art Deco, the best of modern work, or jewelers--Cartier, Lalique, Faberge, Van Cleef and Arpels, Harry Winston, or gemstone types. He went on a real tear with rings that looked like a variety of animals, a few Cartier panthers. He gave me a brooch of a ballerina set with sapphires." I smiled. "Brooches of different flowers. He really pursued carved gemstones for awhile, then it was historical jewels-- diamond earrings that had belonged to the last Romanov dowager empress, a sapphire and diamond collar belonging to Marie Antoinette, emeralds from the Empress Josephine, a pink topaz set from the royal house of Prussia, amethysts and diamonds from Bavaria, aquamarines from Britain. Then pieces from India, the Ottoman empire, nephrite and jadite from China. The Artemis and Apollo diamond earrings. And not just rubies, diamonds, and sapphires, I had a beautiful moonstone necklace, garnets, peridots, topaz, tourmelines, opals, and absolute ton of the most exquisite pearls." I shook my head and laughed. "Damian loved the hunt, finding treasures, and fortunately he had excellent taste. He was like his cats, who liked to bring us toys to show us what good hunters they were." I kept the information that Damian liked to see me wear the gems and nothing else to myself. "The insurance company had a fit every time he updated the inventory; he had to add a permanent, walk-in vault to satisfy them." It had gone in off the surgical suite so that nobody had to go tromping through the bat cave, in a dedicated room where I also kept all the dress up stuff--shoes, bags, wraps, handbags, the evening gowns and cocktail dresses that the designers loaned me. There was a small area for his tuxedos and white tie, shoes and shirts, cuff links and shirt studs, but he never bought much for himself. He'd said he liked being overlooked when we were out. I'd looked to the heavens for support at the notion of being used as a human shield for my husband.

"Wow," Steve said. He looked a little shocked. I nodded.

"It would have been a lot easier with less money," I said. "Some money is nice, but too much is a great responsibility and burden. That's what's nice about here, at least there's no money. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. Damian was a wonderful husband and I never wanted for anything, but it's also true that we didn't have as much time together as I'd have liked due to his side gig as a superhero and his business drive, which also drove our social schedule. But I knew what I was getting into when I married him. I just didn't plan on so much jewelry." Both Steve and Bucky laughed.

"Tony wouldn't have given you jewelry like that," Steve said.

"Things would have had to be very different in life," I said indulgently. "But Tony would have given me a lab. Which he did, come to think of it. It was for different circumstances, though. As my mentor, he pushed me intellectually. I was very grateful that I had the opportunity to achieve something in my own right."

"Stark settled down a lot by the time she finished grad school," Bucky told his friend. "There wasn't anything improper going on, but he owed her from some hijinx when she was in high school, and they did a lot of good working together."

"So your husband was faithful?" Steve asked. "I had it in my mind that men bribed their way out of trouble with jewelry."

"No, Damian was very singleminded. Once he fixed on something, that was it for him. And he fixed on me." I shrugged. "But infidelity was something that would have made me walk, so he addressed it when I made him do the prenup. If I cheated, I would have walked away with the assets I had but nothing more. If he cheated, I would have retained everything plus a payout of a billion dollars. Both those conditions did not include the Wayne family jewelry, which was my contribution to the clauses. He just really liked sparkly things. And he expressed his feelings for me with jewelry. My birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas, Valentine's day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day--that was always a green stone--Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Years. And often when he came home from a business trip." I looked at him. "And you're doing Tony a disservice by assuming that he ran around with his fly open. When he was in a relationship, he was faithful. When he was single, that was another story. But his faults don't include cheating," I said gently. Steve flushed.

"I hate to go, but I've got to go collect some souls," I said, sighing and turning for the cape. "I'll see you both at the next scrimmage. Steve, can't you figure out a way to rig the valkyrie draw? You're a resourceful guy. It's never as much fun on Odin's team." He grinned.

"No cheating," he admonished me.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, but just for that, know that I'm going to be coming for you."

"I'm shaking in my boots," he said, smiling.

"You should be," Bucky and I spoke at the same time and grinned at each other, while Steve looked at us indulgently. I got one more quick flannel-enhanced hug before detouring back to Valhalla for the outfit and horse. Duty called.