Legendary

It was about a week longer until someone showed up at the embassy. Torunn was waiting for me when I came down with the afternoon diplomatic pouch. "You have a visitor," she told me soberly. "Loki put him in his office so that you'd have privacy." I debated whether just to hand off the pouch and go back to the citadel. "You might as well get this over with," she said sympathetically. "You can do it. You're a valkyrie of Asgard and you can do anything, even teaching boneheads like my brothers." I looked at her with a faint smile. "I, of course, was a quick study."

So I gave into the flattery. Also, she was right. I might as well get the meeting over with.

I let myself into the office; Loki rose from his desk, patted my shoulder, reminded me of a meeting that wasn't scheduled, and left. I took his seat behind the desk and leaned back in the warmed chair.

"Thank you for seeing me," Bruce said. I looked at him, my face feeling like a mask. "Thank you for your warning about Xander. He's back home now, and safe." I stayed silent. "How did you get your information?"

"I have my sources too," I said evasively. Silence stretched out.

"I'm sorry that we kept Xander a secret from you," he said finally. "I thought that since it was dangerous, when he got back you'd never have to know. A It wasn't supposed to take so long." I just stared at him. It was a horrible, pitifully inadequate apology, but I could tell it was sincere, that he thought he'd done me some kind of favor. The silence descended again, thick and oppressive. "Do you have anything you'd like to say to me?" he prodded.

"Yeah, lots," I said. "Most of it is four-letter words, though, and very repetitious. Where do you get off thinking that you can make that kind of decision for me? When did you think I got all fragile? I'm tougher than I've ever been, both physically and mentally. There is nothing that I can't handle. Except getting stabbed in the back by people I trusted. You have no idea how much damage you've caused. I thought I raised a decent boy. I thought I married an honorable man, but there's nothing I don't question about it now. What else did Damian keep from me? I had absolute faith in him. I never thought I needed to ask questions." The rage was building fast and it actually hurt to keep it in, but I had to. I could seriously hurt the man across the desk, and I didn't want to have to deal with any fallout from that. "You suck!" I said, venting the anger and hurt and disappointment a little. "YOU ALL SUCK SO GODDAMNED MUCH!" Needing some kind of physical outlet, I pulled the dagger from my boot and slammed it into the desk. It felt good. There was shocked silence. I pushed my wedding ring across the desk. "Take this back to him. I can't wear it anymore." Then the door opened and Loki pounced through, ready to control the situation if need be. His eyes went between Bruce and me, lingering on the dagger embedded in his desk.

"Shit," I sighed. "I'll get your desk fixed, Loki. I'm sorry." It took a lot of careful pulling and some judicious wiggling to get the dagger freed. Fortunately, it had gone into a drawer; without that open space I didn't think I could have gotten it back out.

"Don't come back here," I said to Bruce. "Anything you have to say, say it to my lawyer." Without a word, Loki handed Bruce a card for the embassy lawyer. "I'm done with you." I turned and walked out, Loki standing aside for me. Behind me, I heard Loki courteously telling Bruce he had to leave now.

A few days later, I went to the tower to have Emma treat the feathers in my wings. They looked splendid, nice and new and crisp. "Wow," she said when I extended. "They changed color." They had, going to a dark gray that had iridescence flashes in the light.

"Yeah, it's nifty, isn't it?" I said as she started at the top of the left wing. "A lot of us did. Some of us still have all white feathers, but more of us have shades of gray. There are even a few with black feathers. I like it better. More individual." We chatted as she worked; she'd baked a batch of brownies for me, which I was stealthily consuming. Steve and Bucky might have been reassigned to Asgard, but one or the other came down almost every night, so she saw a lot of them. We talked about Tony and Ann's new venture.

"I'm looking into corrosion-resistant alloys for the ocean machines, but they have to be both resistant to salt water and something that can be used in mass production," she said, and we talked about that difficulty until a gentle cough at the door drew our attention. Emma stood back as I trotted over to Alfred to give him a big hug.

"How've you been?" I mumbled as he hugged me back, carefully avoiding the wings.

"I say, Miss Alex, your new feathers are spectacular," he said admiringly. "The color and shimmer are enchanting."

"They are not unlike pigeon feathers," I said flippantly, and he shook his head.

"Grackle, I should say." He handed me a bag that contained his own homemade metal polish in a hermanetic glass jar and a supply of rags. "Let me know when you run low and I will make more for you," he instructed, and I smiled. We talked awhile longer before he had to get going. "It is wonderful to see you, Miss Alex."

"You too, Alfred. I miss you." He cleared his throat. "Miss Emma, it is a pleasure to see you as well." She smiled.

After he left, Emma resumed painting the feathers. We were silent, but it wasn't awkward. She was almost done when Daniel stopped in. He also complimented the new color and sat down so that Emma could finish, then I had to leave the wings extended so that the coating could cure.

"I offered Selina a job," he mentioned, and I looked at him curiously. "In security, testing our security systems and locks--the ones we produce as well as our in-house security." We smiled at each other. "She'll be traveling a lot, so it's just as well that the position came with a small apartment near Wayne Enterprises." I nodded. He sighed. "Alfred is furious with Bruce, Damian, and Alexander; he calls them "Mister" rather than "Master" now. I never realized what impact a small change like that could have."

"The first time I came out to the mansion was with my friend Aslyn and her boyfriend of the time; it was kind of a screwed up double date, Damian was grounded. Alfred referred to the boy who drove us as "Master," and I'd never thought a respectful form of address could be insulting, but there it was. Alfred has at least a hundred ways of conveying his opinion," I said.

Daniel nodded. "Your parents were going to move out entirely, but I persuaded them to stay in the guesthouse instead. I'm glad, I'm really enjoying to get to know them better."

"They just love you," I said. "And they're glad to have a different kind of work to do, they're finding working in the greenhouse and orchards very satisfying."

"Your dad is talking with Alfred about felling some of the trees on the property. The woods need to be thinned some for health, and it came out that he used to be a woodworker. So they're talking about sending the wood to a sawmill and using it around the estate."

"Dad made really nice furniture," I recalled, smiling. "In the attic, there's still the canopy bed that he made for me as a kid. Martha used it for awhile when she went through a rather prolonged princess phase." Daniel grinned and we chatted about other things. Then Emma gave me the go-ahead and I warmed up my wings, then hopped into the air, testing the effect of the new coating.

"The feathers don't flex quite as much, but it's certainly within an acceptable limit," I reported setting down again, and Emma smiled.

"You bring me the most interesting challenges," she said, putting her things away. Daniel invited us both to lunch, but Emma had a meeting.

We went to a nice restaurant and I asked questions about how he was and what he was doing. We'd talked some on the phone, but it wasn't the same. "I apologize for that," I said, and he shook his head.

"Don't," he said. "I know you're in a lot of chaos right now. I never thought that you were abandoning me. But maybe we could arrange to have more lunches."

"Done," I said promptly, and we agreed to lunch every other week, with the option of more, depending on scheduling.

I'd eaten too many brownies, so I tried to balance out with a very healthy salad. He had barbecued chicken and asked how work was going for me. "Pretty absorbing," I said. "Morning practice most days, then either a rotation training Steve and Bucky's unit or work at the embassy. I think we're finally seeing the crowds start to lighten. Finally. But there's still so many." We talked about that and how his plans to employ returnees to help build the new housing were going. Groundbreaking had started at the first site. Additionally, there were a lot of highly skilled craftsmen available, and he'd had the idea to hire the cream of the crop for a new company that could restore old buildings or do the finish work on new ones. Plaster workers, stone masons, carpenters, ironworkers and the like; he had plans for a new highrise of luxury apartments, hoping that an exclusive address and premium finishes could persuade existing homeowners to buy in and allow existing properties to be redeveloped for more tenants while employing returnees. He'd bought an old mall that had been shuttered, had it rezoned, and this provided workshop space in the big anchor store spaces and the company's offices. Work was being done to retrofit smaller store spaces into apartments for roommates or families, with a few restaurants going in at the old food court site and other amenities developed, like a laundromat and grocery store. The old craftsmen were working with modern ones to understand the building codes--or even what they were--and helping to build their own development. There was a small fleet of company owned vehicles, too--cars right now that could be borrowed like Zipcars, and there would be pickups added to the fleet once they were up and running with jobs. Many were learning to drive and he'd hired what he termed 'cultural counselors' to help ease his workers' transitions into modernity; sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, anthropologists, nutritionists, life skills teachers, financial advisors. Now he was on the lookout for outstanding talent in many fields.

"There's still a lot of people with money of their own, and we've got an unparalleled opportunity to gather some of history's best makers in one city," he said. He had agents scouring returnees in big cities all over the world, offering jobs to the most highly skilled. Where they weren't interested in emigrating to New York, he was establishing other artisan colonies in London, Paris, Cairo, and Beijing. I loved how his mind worked.

"I can't tell you how sick I feel about that whole mess with your son," he said finally, fiddling with his coffee spoon.

"It's not your fault," I assured him.

"It happened under my roof," he said. "I feel responsible." I just shook my head and patted his hand. "I didn't understand their dynamic," he said. "My father and I worked very differently. We always talked a plan through and he sought my input, even when I was too young for it to be much good. Bruce decides what he wants to do and what others' roles will be. And apparently Damian just falls into line."

I sighed. "That was their pattern; Damian would work separately when he wanted to investigate his own ideas."

"Well, I've put a stop to that," Daniel said grimly. I looked at him with interest. "The company, the family trust, the house and all of its contents--including the batcave--are mine. I'm happy to share everything I have with the family, make no mistake about that, but I am in charge. And I have informed all of them that if they want to continue using the batcave, there will be a change in policy. I am to be kept informed of all operations, and I can shut down any investigation I choose to. I'm pretty reasonable, but I won't have a situation like this reoccurring."

"Wow," I said after a moment. "I would have liked to be a fly on the wall there."

Again the grim smile. "I don't appreciate what they did to hurt you. You're the first person to make me feel like I mattered as more than a job and a paycheck for a long time. And I don't mean that to sound pathetic," he said, waving his hand irritably. "It's just that after Dad died, there wasn't any time to cultivate friendships or romances, and even the butler I had before Alfred wasn't at all like Alfred, it was very much just a business relationship, not family. I didn't realize how isolated I'd really become before you turned up. Bruce wasn't and isn't pleased, and I expect that at some point he'll explore his options. He was given the same share from the trust as you and everybody else got, so theoretically he could fund his own operation. If he could find the land. There's nothing big on the market these days. And he wouldn't have access to the bat computer, or the archives, or any other resources, which is a big disadvantage. I retain authority over the computer, and there's a restriction against anybody copying files or other information without my approval. Alfred wouldn't be going with him; he's assured me that I am his employer."

"Double wow," I said.

"My toys, my rules," he said inflexibly. "I can't change what happened, Grandma, but I can make sure nothing like that happens again." He was about to say more, but a call chirped on his communicator. He picked it up, frowning. "Sorry, Grandma," he said, and took the call.

When he ended the call, his eyes were bright. "That was a hospital out in Newark," he said. "They think they've got my dad admitted and they want to know if I can confirm."

"Want some company?" I asked. So I went with him; the man had been brought in after being fished out of the river, a beating victim in a bad way, and DNA taken for comparison to the registry. The hospital was backlogged and it had taken a couple of weeks for everything to be processed. The man had amnesia, couldn't remember anything about his return. While Daniel was being shown into the room, I wandered off and got a list of home service providers, including nurses and physical therapists. I took the information with me.

I found Daniel looking for me; it was his father, and he could remember from before his death, which was good news. They were going to keep him longer; his spine and spinal cord had been damaged in the beating, and they were administering medications to help heal the spinal cord, but the spine needed more time without movement, monitored carefully, before my grandson could be released. I held up a chip with the information on home care that I'd received. "It's a start," I said. "There are probably other sources for help as well."

We went back to the city, our spirits having had a big lift from the news. I was looking forward to meeting Daniel's dad when he was healthier and had a chance to understand what had happened.

The next week, Martha came back for a series of meetings and visited my parents and Damian's grandparents while she was here. She came by the embassy, visited Loki, and went out for the evening with Torunn. The two of us had dinner beforehand, and I was glad to see she was doing so well. She'd accepted that her husband had moved on, mourned the loss of her kids again, and mostly was fine, although she had her moments or pain, anger, hurt, and loss. "But what about you, mom?" she asked.

"Bruce came by the embassy once," I said. "He offered a stupid excuse, and I told him to go away, and that if he had anything more to say, to contact my lawyer. Well, the embassy's lawyer, who is doing my will."

"Are you ok, Mom?" she asked in concern, leaning forward.

"I'm fine, honey, but there's no point in being untidy in business." She grinned. "There is a task I'm leaving to you, though." She looked attentive. "Tony and Ann are going into business together and I agreed to fund them in exchange for a third of the ownership." Martha nodded. "I'm asking Daniel to take care of that because it's straightforward, it just takes time for all the paperwork to be drawn up, as you know, and a signature. The other thing I've pledged support for happened after I talked to Peter. He's ashamed of his daughter, so I wanted to throw him a lifeline. If May straightens up and has a sound idea for a business that isn't entirely selfish, I've pledged to put a small amount of money into it. Nothing grandiose, just a simple business, and I won't commit more than $50 000. It will be handled through Peter so May doesn't know where the money is coming from, that was the primary condition."

Martha leaned back, disgusted. "God, Mom, you getting soft?"

"I'm not doing it for May," I told her. "I'm doing it for another parent. Peter tried to do the right things with May, and it's not his fault she went wild. He has to live with knowing what his daughter did, and it's a heavy burden for an honorable man. You and she have some similarities, you know, you're both pigheaded and willful. If you had made a mistake, I would appreciate somebody giving you a second chance. But it's up to May to change or not." She looked at me with resignation.

"When you put it like that, I guess I'll do it if you can't," she said. "But I don't want to, so you'd better not be going anywhere."

"I'm not planning on anything new, sweetie."

"So what's going on with you and Dad?" she asked.

"I haven't spoken with him," I said quellingly.

"You're not wearing your ring," she noted. I shook my head.

"No, I returned it to him."

"Are you going to get a divorce?"

"I don't know right now. I haven't come to a decision. That incident has caused me to question everything I thought I knew about my marriage. What did I overlook? Did I turn a blind eye where I should have questioned? Trust is a very potent shield, you see. God knows what he might have done and me too dumb to look around. I wonder if I over-idealized our marriage because he was killed at a fairly young age. And I wonder if it was something I did, I haven't been as involved in the vigilante business since my return." I snorted a laugh. "Marry in haste, repent at leisure."

"That's stupid," my daughter objected. "You still patched him up when he got home, which was most of your involvement the first time. If Dad thought that your attention being elsewhere on serious problems entitled him to do that, he's the one with the rocks in his head, not you. It's a lack of respect and trust, even if he didn't think of it like that. If he was just following Grandpa Bruce, then he was uncharacteristically a sheeple. And Alexander is a moron, plain and simple." She brooded. "My personal take is that it was originally designed to be a short fact-finding mission, report some names and numbers and a few locations. But Alexander probably got in good with somebody and the mission was extended. At that point they should have brought us in, at least to the point where they let us know he was alive and well, maybe a brief meeting. Obviously he came to the house." She shook her head in disgust. "I know that in the afterlife I made my own decisions without having to think about anybody's input, but it wasn't that hard to start thinking about the interests of other people when I got back, so I'm not letting anybody off the hook for that."

She stomped off to go out with Torunn after that, and I hoped she'd have some fun. Fun was in short supply, and the night life not as robust as it once was.

We had lunch before she was going back to London, and I was glad to see that she was a little more relaxed and rejuvenated. She looked less stressed and tired, anyway, a little more upbeat. As we talked over soup and salad, a vibration struck that rattled my teeth.

"What is that?" Martha asked, looking around. Then we were hit by a fear so deep I felt it touch my soul. We clung together, shaking, sobbing, and unable to speak. It was as if a huge wave of terror had swallowed us up, slamming us with a palpable, physical force. It receded slowly, reluctantly, and I noticed everyone else in the restaurant had been affected. Looking out the window, I could see people on the street had felt it too; they were curled into fetal positions or seeking futile shelter in the lee of buildings or vehicles.

"I think that was the kickoff for Ragnarok, Martha," I managed to say though my teeth were still chattering. I put my hands on her cheeks and made her look at me. "I have to go now. I love you very much, and if it's at all possible, I'll return after the battle."

Her eyes filled with tears. "Be safe, Mom," she managed to say. "Love you too." I stood after crawling out from under the table--when had that happened?--and staggered for a moment before popping to the embassy. Loki was whiter than I'd ever seen him with the reaction to the fear discharged by Yggdrasil, but he was calm and efficient as he directed the Asgardians out to the courtyard to wait for the Bifrost. The human staff would continue operations as normal, then there were sealed orders if no one returned in three days. All my gear was up on Asgard. I told him and Torunn that I'd see them at Vigrior and took myself to the citadel.