Legendary

I sat down at dinner, rubbing my temples and forehead. "Are we still in catch-up mode or are we retrieving more souls?" I asked the other valkyries.

"I thought we were caught up," Dagny said. "We had a little lull awhile back, remember?"

"I thought that the end of the Kree conflicts would mean fewer trips to Earth," Irene said, shaking her head.

"Now that there's not a common enemy, they're back to fighting among themselves," I said, taking a bite of my dinner. Heidi shook her head.

"I just retrieved a bunch of souls from Alfheim and Nioavellir," she said. "It's not just Midgard that's acting up."

"The people seem to be taking their conflicts a lot more seriously," Irene noted. "Several of the ones I've picked up recently have been really pissed at their enemies." I nodded; I'd had one who'd been trying to kick his dead opponent. Usually they were more dazed about their change in state; they'd been fighting because their government or ruler told them too and most didn't take it too personally.

"I've been seeing a lot of looting when I make pickups," Carol said, frowning. We all frowned. Battle was bad enough without people stealing everything that wasn't nailed down.

"I'm glad it's cooling off," I said, yawning. "This summer was so warm."

"I was worried that we were going to lose crops from the heat," Irene said. "But we had good harvests."

"It's been a tumultuous year," Carol said. "I'll be glad when things slow down and we can rest. We've still got weaving to do and souls to collect, but the scrimmages won't be as frequent, we probably won't be able to run the obstacle course, and we have the Yule celebrations to look forward to."

"I like nesting in the winter," Heidi said. "Nice warm fires all the time, being cozy inside while the snow falls. Makes me appreciate my home more when I have to go out in the cold."

"Well, thanks to our new complex, we'll have to venture out less unless we want to," Dagny said. "Maybe we could arrange for some basic foods to be kept in one of the storerooms so we only have to go out once or twice for meals." That piqued everyone's interest and I thought that Tony would be interested too. For that matter, it would be nice to not have to stop when I was in the middle of something at the forge. I resolved to make or trade for some canisters or bins to keep food in. Serena volunteered to check into creating a pantry for the valkyries.

Autumn was my favorite season in Valhalla. The trees turned beautiful colors, the air crisped up after the summer heat, and it reminded me of settling into MIT, which might just be my favorite place in all the worlds. It was a lot nicer to work in the forge and the weaving shed, and there was a nice bite to the night air that made cozying up to Tony very appealing. Steve came over one day and helped Tony chop enough wood for the fireplace in our quarters--probably more than was absolutely necessary, truth be told, but can you really have too much wood cut? I enlisted the help of the valkyries to chop wood for my forge; I used a combination of coal and wood, so while I needed a lot, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And I helped cut wood to supply the valkyrie complex. Tony started designing a lighting system for the valkyrie lighting system, working closely with Bruce who was the valkyrie contact for the project. Unsurprisingly, Serena volunteered to provide any assistance needed from the valkyries.

"So when are you going to sleep with him?" I asked her as we played a viciously competitive game of Gin Rummy one night as Bruce and Tony worked late.

"Dammit!" Serena growled as she lost the game. I grinned in triumph. "He seems kind of reticent. I don't know if he's that interested."

"Serena, Ragnarok could come before Bruce will make a move," I said, shuffling the cards carefully. We didn't have access to the plastic coating of Midgard cards, so damage was a lot more likely with the slips of paper. "Proposition him. Or even better, be direct and kiss him. See where it goes. He's been marked by the duality of his life with the Other Guy and it's his nature to retreat."

She shook her head as I dealt. "I don't want to scare him off. And I like him as a person, so if he turns me down, it'll be awkward. There aren't many places to hide in somewhere as small as Valhalla."

"Is he important enough to risk losing?" I asked, as I frowned at my hand. Crap. "Because you're mooning at each other but nobody's making a move. If you wait too long, you risk some other woman swooping in on him. You can be direct and express your interest in moving things past the friend zone, then see what he says. If he turns you down, you haven't done anything to be embarrassed by, and if he accepts, you can try a date."

She flushed. "Do people even date here?"

"Well, alternatively, you can wait for Thrimilcy, but that is a LONG time to wait. Who cares what other people do? Ask him if he'd like to have an evening picnic. There's a really nice little waterfall that's lovely, especially at night. There's a full moon coming up, and it's not really chilly yet. Romantic, private, but a sedate activity."

"Huh." She studied her hand. "So where's this waterfall?"

Several days passed, and I didn't hear anything. I wanted to ask if she'd asked him out, but felt I'd pried enough. I was passing behind Tony's workshop on my way to the forge from the weaving shed when I heard Bruce mention her name. I froze, making no noise, in order to eavesdrop.

"--Asked me if I'd like to have a picnic, said there was a pretty spot by a waterfall."

"What did you say?" Tony asked, sounding abstracted, but I knew he was paying attention.

"I panicked and turned her down." Bruce sighed.

"Why'd you do something like that?" Tony asked. "It's clear as water that you two are interested in each other."

"I panicked," Bruce repeated. "She's exquisite. She can do a lot better than me. What are we going to talk about? Avenging? That won't last long. Science? She doesn't have the technical background."

"Yeah, well, I thought Alex could do better than me too, but I looked around and frankly, I don't have much competition. She's not going to go for some knuckle-dragger like Eric the Red. And sure, she was all starry-eyed after that first Thrimilcy, but I thought she'd come to her senses. I'm a lot better than I was when she knew me on Earth--" Bruce snorted-- "but I can still be difficult. And although Alex is smart, she's not on my level intellectually, and she knows it. We can talk on a certain level, and that's good enough. Besides, the tech here is at a level that anyone of average intelligence can understand. We're making it work. And who knows how long it'll take Ragnarok to get here? There's still plenty of time for us to break up."

"Her husband sounds like a hard act to follow," Bruce observed. "Adored her, gave her all that jewelry, took her on exciting vacations, trusted her enough to share the whole Batman secret with her, had kids with her."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony snapped.

"Just that Wayne committed to her completely, and that's probably what she's used to, what she thinks she has with you. Sounds to me like she doesn't," Bruce said peaceably enough, but there was a slight cut to the words. "It sounds like she loves you more than you love her and you're expecting things to go bust. And she might not have your IQ, but she's plenty smart, and she has a lot of other excellent qualities."

"How did this get to be about me?" Tony asked sharply. "We were talking about your bone-headed move."

"Ah, now, that's where you're wrong. You compared your relationship with Alex with an attraction between me and Serena, then you insulted both her and you, somehow. Seriously, Tony, you haven't changed as much as you think. Or Alex thinks. She thinks you've matured, but you haven't, really. You're just better at hiding your insecurity." I waited, feeling like vertigo had just given me a big wallop, until the sounds he made leaving the shop faded.

I wanted to sneak on past, pretending like I had never heard any of that, but instead, my footsteps turned to the door of the shop. Tony glared at me when I entered, apparently expecting Bruce again, then came to kiss me. I let him kiss my cheek. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking concerned.

"I was walking along the path behind the workshop," I said. "So I hear you think I'm not terribly smart and that I'm with you due to lack of choices and that there's plenty of time to break up."

"Oh, come on, Alex," he said, running his fingers through his hair. "I said that you weren't as smart as I am, not that you were stupid. And it's true that I don't have a lot of competition here."

Let's just say that the conversation went downhill from there and we had our first big fight. And it was quite a blow out on both sides. I left the shop, grabbed clothes and toiletries from the quarters we shared, and stomped off to my room in the valkyrie complex.

"What's going on, Alex?" Serena said from the door, attracted by the noise. We were the only two with rooms on this floor in this wing. I rubbed my face and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I overheard Bruce and Tony talking. It started out being about why he turned you down--he panicked, you might want to try again--and Tony said some things about me that hurt, so I'm retreating here."

"Oh." She came in and sat on the chair. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not right now, not really," I said. "All of a sudden I'm confronted with what I thought was true--that we had a strong relationship--with what might be true--that it isn't, and I've either been seeing what I wanted to see or that he's pretty good at acting. I don't want to leap to conclusions or do anything too rash. So I'm going to stay here for awhile, let things settle down, do some thinking."

"Well, that's probably for the best," she said, sitting on the bed beside me and putting her arm around me. "Let things cool off. Unless what you both said was unforgivable--" I shook my head "--then just settle down. You know, your marriage to Damian was pretty extraordinary," she said hesitantly. "Nobody is going to be exactly like him or love you exactly the same way. Obviously, I never knew the man, but from what you've said and what I've heard from other people, he was pretty exceptional and you two were a pretty perfect match. And frankly, Tony has a lot of damage, even I can see that, and I haven't known him for very long. So you need to decide whether you're ok with a less than perfect partnership," she advised, kind of brutally.

"Damian and I had our share of fights, but I never once felt that he thought I was less than him," I said, blinking back tears. "Once we grew out of being teenagers, anyway, he had a shitty attitude when we first met. We just had different strengths. But Tony does think that being a genius makes him better than me, and I don't know if I really want to be with somebody who thinks I'm second rate. Damian was a genius too, so it's not like I've never dealt with that before." I looked at the floor pensively. "He didn't say I was stupid, but he did kind of sound like he was talking to the village idiot."

"His mind is pretty much what makes him special, and if he's insecure, the more he's going to make of that attribute," Serena said. "And frankly, until he started working on that lighting system, his brains weren't terribly well-respected or useful here. You've been able to use other interests and abilities to find a niche for yourself that is respected--you're the best fighter among the valkyries who are a pretty elite group to begin with, you're the best chooser of the slain, one of the best spinners and weavers, your blades are good enough that the other blacksmiths have taken notice, you teach the children of the King of Asgard, and you're driving a lot of social change in a pretty closed society. So you're a much bigger deal here than he is, and even if he doesn't recognize it, Tony, who is accustomed to being lionized for his brilliance, is kind of marginalized here. It doesn't excuse him, whatever he said, but you might want to take that into account. I know you pretty well, and you're going to want to be fair and add evidence to both sides of the scale before making your judgment."

"But not tonight," I sighed.

"Not tonight," she agreed. "Look. Let's go, get an early dinner, then you can come back here, maybe take a long bath with a good book. Cathy says we just got some new ones. Lick your wounds a bit. Tomorrow is another day," she coached.

"And what are you going to be doing?" I asked.

"I'm going to see a man about a date." She grinned, and I smiled.

"In that case, let's go get something to eat."

We ate quickly, and we separated at the door. With a wink, she was off to locate Bruce and I plodded back to my room, unwillingly grateful that I'd listened to Tony and claimed a room at the complex. I threw lavender-scented salts into the deep bathtub, and as I was waiting for the water to fill, read the back cover of a new mystery. Nobody knew how we were getting books from the mortal world here, but the best guess seemed to be that books that were destroyed could be brought here, a lot like the souls were when their bodies were shed. I didn't care about the mechanism, I just liked to keep up with publication. After a bit, I tossed the book carefully to the door to avoid getting it wet, and sunk deeper in the water. I needed to make some plans. Plans were comforting, and lists, the offspring of planning, were essential to my process.

First of all, regardless of whether Tony and I resolved our differences, I needed to make my rooms more... me. And it was possible that the resolution of our differences would mean that Tony and I were no longer together. So I needed to make my rooms more comfortable. Winter was coming, so I needed rugs for the floor and warmer bedding. I still had a lot of the midweight cotton cloth from my first crops, so maybe I'd make a quilt. I hadn't since I was a teenager, but it seemed really tempting. I could make a batt from some of the coarser wool that hadn't been spun yet. Too bad I'd used all the flannel for shirts. There were also very vicious, large predators in the woods that also had thick, soft fur. The men who protected our flocks tanned the hides and I'd heard they made beautiful, really warm coverlets. Maybe I could trade a custom blade for one. I remembered that after Damian had died, it had taken time to get accustomed to sleeping alone; for one thing, it was colder without my husband's warmth, and I thought that it might be the same thing in this case. I also had to hunt up the curtains for the four poster bed; the canopy and hangings would keep in warmth during cold nights.

I plotted until the water began to cool, then got out, banked the fire for the night, and made it an early night. The next day I had much to do. At breakfast, I found one of the guys who made the coverlets. He agreed to the trade with such alacrity that I wondered for the first time if Serena was right and people liked my blades. We went to his workspace and he showed me the hides he had; I picked out some copper colored fur and some silvery fur; the coverlet would be constructed with diagonal stripes for interest but not a fussy pattern. The hunter wanted a sword similar to my katana; we decided on the form and length and the wood for the hilt and scabbard. Everything else was left to my discretion. We parted, mutually pleased. From there I went to Asgard to train Magni and some of his friends. I'd agreed to add a few of his closest companions to the lessons so that he could have someone to bout with when I wasn't there. Torunn got some lessons too, then I sat with Sif for a snack and talk. She was pregnant again.

"I hope this is a boy," she said pensively. At my look, she elaborated. "The prophesies all reference the roles of Thor's sons Magni and Modi in Ragnarok. If I don't bear him another son, Thor will look elsewhere."

"It's Thor's sperm that will determine whether you're carrying a son or daughter," I point out. "And why is it so important that he has the two sons?"

"It's fated," she said simply. "Fate is immutable. All we can do is confront it with the absence of fear, and acceptance of our fates."

"What would happen if you just said 'no more kids, Thor, and if you play around, you'll regret it'?" I asked.

She shook her head. "One way or another, Thor will have his two sons." There was an awkward silence, then we started talking about Torunn's progress. Her mother was delighted at how quickly she picked up things, from her academic lessons to her weapons training. "She surprised her father by creeping up on him in a counsel meeting and poking his side with her practice knife," Sif said blandly, and I looked innocent.

"What did Thor do?"

"I believe your saying is 'you could have knocked him over with a feather.'" She smiled. "Then he was pleased with her skill and put her on his knee for the remainder of the meeting. It is amazing how clever she is," she said, baiting me a little.

"She is pretty special," I agreed.

Sif selected another cake. "It is to be hoped by both her parents that her cleverness continues and expands as far as it can." I took this to be a tacit endorsement and started thinking about other skills she could learn. I had a pretty wide repertoire, thanks to Bucky's training program in different disciplines.

After I took my leave, I stopped by Folkvangr to talk to Steve. My armor was pretty much just left on my bed in the complex between bouts, but since I was spending time in my room, I needed a stand for it. Steve listened to what I wanted, then nodded. "That'll be easy enough, Alex. But how come you need one now? You've been a valkyrie for awhile."

I looked away and sighed. "Tony and I had a fight, so I've moved into my quarters in the valkyrie complex to give me some cooling off time. I used to just leave my armor on the bed, but obviously that's not an optimal solution."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asked apprehensively.

"Not really, Uncle Steve," I said, stroking the cherry wood that he'd brought out for me to approve. I didn't miss his look of relief and suppressed a chuckle.

"Alex! This is an unexpected pleasure," Bucky said, coming over with his arms out. I stepped gratefully into his hug.

"I need an armor stand," I explained, slightly muffled by his shirt. "And I wanted the best."

"That's good," he approved. "You shouldn't just dump it. You should take pride in it."

"I don't just dump it," I objected. "I put it on the bed in a specific order. But I need the bed."

"Alex?" Bucky held me a little away so he could look at my face.

"Big fight," I said.

Bucky sighed. "So you're getting some space, cooling off, before looking at the problem," he nodded. "What's Stark doing?" I shrugged. "What else are you doing?"

"My usual," I shrugged again. "I had a lesson with Thor's kids, Sif's expecting again. And I traded a blade for a nice warm fur coverlet for winter. I thought I would also make a quilt and some rugs."

"She won a ribbon at a state fair for a quilt she made for her parents," Bucky bragged to Steve.

"Let us know if you need anything else," Steve urged me, and I nodded. After some chatting about less personal stuff, I got ready to go back to Valhalla. I popped back into the smithy so I could get moving on the blade I'd promised the hunter. I carefully built up the fire so it would be hot enough and selected the stock for the sword--I didn't have enough of Emma's nifty steel alloy so I went with something more traditional but still capable of producing a strong, flexible blade for someone who would need to rely on it. As was usual for my process, I selected the cord and the wood for the hilt and scabbard and put it on a tray with the other items I'd need to complete the project, then turned my attention to the metal. By dinner, I'd made satisfactory process and went to clean up. I was a little late to the meal; I saw Tony sitting with the others at the usual table, so I sat down at a table on the other side of the hall and ate quickly. There were so many people in the hall that I didn't worry about being spotted, then slipped out before the evening entertainment.

The bed hangings I'd found for my bed were natural wool, which was a nice enough ecru, but I didn't care for it that much. After dinner, I took them to the dyeing shed and put them into a tub of a pretty bluish-purple. It would be a nice splash of color against the light stone of the building and would coordinate with the colors I was planning for my rugs and quilt--blues, purples, and touches of greens. I rinsed the excess dye off and hung them to dry, then returned to the complex to measure my bed and decide how much cloth needed to be dyed what colors. I spent the rest of the evening painting designs on some of the yardage with wax; it would keep the natural color of the cotton when the fabric was dyed, then I'd wash the wax out.

It didn't take long to dye the cottons the next morning, and I left them to dry when I moved on to my smithy to pound some steel. Very satisfying way to work out aggression. I was trying to keep a calm face around others, but it didn't mean that the anger and hurt I felt had gone away. I worked on the blade for the rest of the day, and went to dinner. This time I didn't avoid anybody but sat with my friends in our usual place. Tony came in with Bruce and Serena but he sat at a distance from me. Nobody said anything, so word must have spread. After dinner, which wasn't as awful as I'd anticipated, I collected my things at the dying shed and went back to the complex to do some ironing and remove the wax resist from the cotton. On a roll, I contemplated getting started on my quilt, but then remembered that my sewing machine was in Tony's workshop. Grr. As was my spinning wheel.

The next day after breakfast, I went to his shop to retrieve my spinning wheel. It was lighter, so it would be easier to take with me. "Oh, come on," Tony said when I picked it up. "You don't have to do that, Alex."

"I do, though," I said. "Besides, it looks like you could use the room." I jerked my chin at the boxes of parts for the light fixtures, which were taking over all the flat surfaces. "I'll be back later for the sewing machine." I didn't want to go clear back to the complex just then, so I parked the spinning wheel at my smithy. When I went back for lunch, I deposited the wheel in my rooms and picked up the sewing machine. That took two trips, actually, one for the actual machine and one for the treadle table. I'd brought a bag with me so I could take my shears, needles, pins, and thread with me. There was a lot more room in the workshop, which Tony promptly filled with a table.

I worked on the blade for the next few days, finishing it just before the next scrimmage at Valhalla. Emma caught up with me just as I was straightening up. I asked her to look at the blade for defects, which she did and said there wasn't anything serious. People might not die in Valhalla, but I didn't want the hunter to be savaged because a blade I made was defective. It was also the first thing I'd made in trade for a stranger and wanted to protect my name. She had some more steel alloy for me. "Steve and Bucky told me that you and Tony had a fight," she said, then produced some muffins. I nibbled joyfully on one as we walked to the valkyrie complex.

"Yep," I said helpfully.

"And you haven't made up yet?" She looked surprised.

"Nope. We both need to cool down. It was the biggest fight I've ever participated in."

"Still, I'm surprised, is all."

"Tony had some legitimate grievances too," I said, brooding. "The rest was opinion and feelings, and that's harder to deal with."

"Huh. Well, Steve finished your armor stand and he and Bucky are putting it in your room." I perked up and we increased our pace. In my rooms, Bucky was just finishing putting my armor on the stand when we came through the door.

"Wow," I breathed. The polished steel looked lovely against the warm cherry. The parts of the stand had been turned on a lathe. It was unconventional; my helmet sat on top and below that was the breastplate, but there was an arm to the right that had a notch for my spear and a recess in the base to keep it in place and one for my bow. An arm on the opposite side held my cestuses, with a broad tray that also held my shuriken and smaller knives. Below that was a groove for my shield on the base so it could stand unsupported. A rack was attached at the front; my swords were held on gracefully carved arms. First the scabbard with my matched swords, then the katana, the Asgardian broadsword, the shamshir, and the rapier. On a longer tray just above the base were the sais, the katar, my Korean war fans, the kerambit, and a pair of small sickles. A peg on the back of the stand held my quiver of arrows, but my two javelins still leaned in the corner.

"I didn't realize you had quite so much," Steve said, running his hand through his hair. "It's a good thing these rooms are large."

"That's fine," I said. "This is amazing."

"Glad you like it," he said, smiling. The stand was perfectly positioned between the two sets of windows. And by the door was a second stand, but it held just one thing, my swanfeather cape. It would keep the cape safe, out of the way, but right where I could grab it in case of emergency. We'd tried hangers, but the capes were too heavy and snapped them. The stand was reinforced where it wouldn't show with metal supports. I'd been laying it on top of the chest, which was inconvenient.

"Wow," I said again. "I can't thank you enough."

"My pleasure," Steve said, and I gave him a hug and one for Bucky for helping. Emma and I didn't hug, it wasn't our thing, but I thanked her again for the muffins and the steel. Then they had to go prepare for the scrimmage and I had to get ready. I wolfed down another muffin, then changed into the white dress. The stand made getting ready much nicer. I was reminded of my vanity back on Midgard when I was getting ready to go out to a party, putting on makeup and jewelry before putting on the dress and stepping into the shoes. Rituals are rituals, regardless of their purpose. I buckled my swordbelt, grabbed the cestuses and the cloak, and I was off to the battlefield.