Restorative
Exitar
2018
There are a lot of things Brunnhilde was equipped to deal with, after her time being a Valyrkie and fighting Hela and traveling with two equally irritating brothers. Murder? Check. Drinking? Check. Betrayal? Check. Death? Check. Selling people to a Grandmaster on Sakaar? Check.
Suddenly being responsible for some ragtag team and the only remaining Asgardians in the entire universe after they've lost their homes and their king, their gods for what could very well be the last time? Well. That was something new. She had managed to shove some number of them into a pod and navigate them all to Exitar, but she hadn't really thought beyond that. The space port isn't necessarily dangerous, but with how low their numbers are the setup is not ideal. She tries not to think about how few of them are left, their numbers cut is half after meeting the Mad Titan. Part of her kind of regrets going down this road, instead of staying nice and cushy on Sakaar with an endless pile of free booze and no knowledge of this war.
Now she has to hunker down in the Boot of Jemiah and pay for her alcohol like a real and contributing member of the universe and worry about the last slices of a civilization. The whole adventure has been vastly overrated. She flags down a man walking with a tray of drinks and slides one from him, replacing it with a few of notes before sending him on his way.
She drinks the drink in seconds, and orders another. And another. Then a pitcher of something thick like a paste and a dark green color. It smells fine enough, but it takes her a little longer to down this one. She orders another once that's gone and ditches her glass altogether, raising the pitcher unceremoniously to her lips and drinking it that way. It's more efficient. Once that one is gone as well, she starts eying a wall by the bar with brightly colored bottles and considering her next pick.
"My, my. Mourning your fallen comrades and we aren't even in the ground yet." A sigh. "How sweet, to be missed."
Expecting Korg, or maybe Miek coming to ask her what to do next, Brunnhilde snaps her head to the side. Her words falter when she's greeted by a tall, dark haired, green eyed son of a bitch with a huge mouth. The part that really catches her concern, though, is that he's alone.
"That's not quite the way I expected to be received." Loki admits, sitting across from her with one smooth gesture. "I went to some trouble finding you. I would have at least expected some tears, maybe cheers."
"We expected you to be dead. Or hiding." Brunnhilde sniffs at him, taking another long drink. "I saw who that was - what that was. I've heard of what he brings." Swishing her drink in her glass, the drops her chin onto her fist and watches him. "If we're being honest, I had my money on dead. I'll owe Korg sixty pieces, now. You're putting me in the hole."
Giving her a dry look, the God of Mischief hums. "The first thing a sorcerer of quality learns is to make themselves as difficult to kill as possible. A long life is worth a tight throat." Knowing she won't get the joke, he continues. "You think too little of me."
"We were ambushed." Brunnhilde lifts one brow at him. "Defeat was written into our fates before we had a chance."
"Fate does not rule over gods. Whatever happens we do for and to ourselves."
Brunnhilde watches as Loki turns, catches a stranger by the elbow and gives them a saccharine smile. The yellowed skin and pitch black hair betray him as an Aakon. Making use of the all-tongue he speaks to them, holding their gaze and gesturing toward the bar slowly. The stranger blinks at him and then shrugs, nods, shakes his shoulders as he turns around and heads back toward the bar. He returns moments later with something clear in color that smells faintly like chlorine, leaving it on the table by the other man's elbow.
"When I concealed your presence I hadn't imagined you would pick such a lovely vacation destination." The god sips his drink, looking tired. It's an odd look on him. "I've heard decent things about the... mining operations here."
Scoffing at him, the Valkyrie taps her nails on the tabletop. "Where are the others?"
This is where Loki really hesitates. He looks away from her, to the bar off on the side as he considers and reconsiders his words. He doesn't look upset so much as uncomfortable, unsure. Watching him falter has worry underneath her tongue, sharp like blood. When he doesn't answer fast enough she clears her throat, knocks a knuckle on the table to secure his attention. He shoots her an annoyed look.
"Heimdall has taken his place in the halls of Valhalla, as have the Asgardians who remained on the ship after your leave."
More out of habit than anything, Brunnhilde takes a long drink from her pitcher. "They will be remembered well." The words feel foreign in her mouth now, after so many decades of pretending they weren't hers to say.
"My brother and the Big One are alive." The god pauses, something flashing across his expression too quickly for her to catch. "They should be alive, though I suppose by now they may have gotten into anything."
Brunnhilde starts growing impatient with his slow pace and tone, as if he thinks she's a child who needs help comprehending these things or he just hadn't figured out where he was going. "All these options and you come here."
"That's exactly what I was thinking." The would-be king looks more amused than he has any right to, tapping one ringed finger on his glass thoughtfully. "My options at the time were few. With Asgard and the Bifrost gone, there are few ways to get through the universe quickly and my access to them has been altogether limited, you understand. Even getting here took time."
"A long time." She snipes back, narrowing her eyes. "Thor leaves a mess everywhere he sets foot as far as I've seen, and you couldn't locate him instead?"
Looking nonplussed, Loki shrugs. "And here I thought you'd be enjoying my return."
"You aren't exactly ideal company."
"Am I not?" Loki blinks at her, very mildly, and then she watches a yellow-green light twist around his features until he's much bulkier and his hair is short and blonde and his features match his brother. "I can make arrangements to make this more comfortable for you." He shifts again into someone smaller, less familiar without green skin and a deafening roar. "Is this better?"
The look of disgust she gives him says it all. His form shifts again, back to his usual green eyes and dark hair. "You deserve -"
Her words are cut off abruptly, stuck in her throat as she watches someone over his shoulder fucking disintegrate and, wow, that one is new. It happens again, to the patron right of him. And then the bartender. It moves across the bar like a plague, death suddenly gripping far too many of them and kickstarting chaos. Loki seems to catch on before she does, expression grim as he watches the damage start. He doesn't even look surprised, really, but maybe a little regretful. Horror drops like a weight in the Valkyrie's stomach, pinning her in place with a disgusting sense of fascination as someone screams and she watches ashes - dust? - move in the air around them like it's part of some spell.
When it's over - when she hopes it's over - Loki takes another drink of his drink and waits for her to meet his gaze. "It will be well." He says, and there's something in his smile she really doesn't like. Like he expects to do something about this. "There is work to be done."
*
Hibbing, Arizona
2018
Despite popular complaints from the public, house arrest isn't actually that bad. Clint had even been enjoying house arrest for a while.
It's not that he didn't miss going out, doing things, being someone. It's not that he doesn't miss the Avengers or SHIELD or the extended family that comes with both of them. But getting to relax and retire with a significant payout from SHIELD (probably assisted by Stark Industries, if he had to guess, after SHIELD’s public return under Jeffrey Mace some number of months ago and the more recent appointment of Alphonso Mackenzie as Director) at the ripe old age of 47 has been nice. Seeing his three kids and his wife every day had been nice. Not having to worry about dying during his day job had been really nice. Sure, he had to sort of sign a lot of his life away until further notice so that he wouldn't have to be stuck on the Raft for the rest of his life, but. A break is a break, and Barton was willing to take it.
For a while.
The change came quickly, and without warning. Clint always sort of thought if something big were going to happen they would get some warning. The sky darkening. A phone call from Tony or Happy or Fury or Nat - but no warning signs ever came or showed themselves to him. It just sort of happened. One moment he was there with Laura and Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel, enjoying lunch and teasing their children about school and wondering how he got so lucky. And the next there was nothing but dust in their food and death in the air.
He had screamed, cried, cursed, panicked for hours until he found himself too exhausted to do anything other than gather up the ashes of his family and try to distribute them into little jars to line up on the table, watching them as if it could reverse whatever just happened. Fury's words ring in his ears, reminding him to enjoy the time while you have it and make the most of your retirement like the former director has been mocking him for the past couple years.
It takes a few more hours for him to collect himself enough to check the news, to recognize the size of this catastrophe and consider what it's done to the Earth and just how much it changes everything from here on.
Forcing himself to his feet, the man heads toward the stairs. His first stop is their bedroom - his, now, he notes dully. He goes under the bed, first, pulling out boxes filled with old clothes from his children and toys they were going to pass down to any potential grandchildren. He tears them open, dumping sentimental sections of their lives across the bed and the floor. When he doesn't find what he's looking for he goes for the closet next, pulling down boxes of Laura's that she'll kill him for touching, later. Would have killed me for, he has to remind himself. Wedding photos and mementos from her father and mother peek at him from underneath the cardboard and then all of those bits of her life, the last of her, are scattered across the floor too.
When he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, hair sticking in different directions and chest heaving with how worked up he is, Clint thinks he looks like a mad man. It doesn't deter him from his task in the least. His next destination is the attic, where he throws containers and boxes and ruins the remnants of his life in an effort to find what he wants.
It takes him an hour to uncover the plain cardboard box with 'BIRD BOY' scrawled on the top in red marker. Inside is his bow, a set of arrows distinguishable only by the different colors marking them, and two suits. One he's worn many times and one he never quite got to, a gift from Tony the first time he retired. He can remember when he gave it to him, insisting that if he ever came out of retirement he would need something to spice it up, things are getting stale.
And underneath all of that, a simple grey flip phone with only a few contacts in it and a charger wrapped around it. Plugging it in to the nearest outlet, he scrolls down to the third one and clicks the little green button to dial the number with shaking fingers.
It rings once and Clint takes a long, slow breath. Twice, and he begins to wonder if these phones even work anymore. Thrice, and he thinks maybe she's dead too. A fourth time and he's ready to hang up, try someone different, but then there's a distinct 'click!' and the world seems to halt.
"Barton?" The voice on the other end of the phone is not the one he's expecting, deep and tired and confused.
"Rogers?" His response is automatic, surprised. "Where's -"
"Sleeping." Steve seems to understand his worry without him even having to say anything, response coming out before he can even finish. "Just sleeping. Nat's fine, I just - I saw the name. She wouldn't have wanted to miss the call." The line goes quiet. "Laura...?"
Clint doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to make it real. "Gone. They're all gone."
"I'm sorry, Clint." He sounds like he understands, like he's raw from it. It's a feeling that echoes in his own chest, dark and all consuming.
"Me too, Steve." He doesn't have the heart to ask. He doesn't want to know, right now, who else is gone. What else they've lost and how. He doesn't want to know about Wanda or Vision or Tony or Sam or - anyone, really. He isn't sure he can handle it. "What happened?"
Clint can hear him shifting, lowering his voice. "How does coming out of retirement sound?"
"Terrible." He snorts, reaching down into the box to pull out the newer suit. The gold accents catch the light, practically calling for him to put it on. "I'm not sure how you always manage to do this to me. You're in your nineties, you should be retiring too."
The line erupts in a laugh, something that shouldn't be fitting in the situation but somehow is. It makes everything seem lighter, as if half of the world hasn't just ended. Clint feels a returning laugh bubble in his throat. It overtakes him with a bit of hysteria, leaving him with tears in his eyes and his chest aching while his lungs protest. He can only imagine the blond on the other end in a similar state, leaned back and laughing hard enough that he's likely disrupting the sleep of everyone else in the building.
In the background there's a commotion. Some shuffling around, a few different voices posing questions and some particularly annoyed grumbling. He can still hear Steve, wheezing a little and trying to apologize through his guffawing.
"Sorry, James, I'm sorry." A pause. "Barton. No. I can't imagine that's the case. No. No." He pauses between each sentence, probably answering some line of questioning. "We would have to ask Shuri. It's likely."
"Cap, I hate to interrupt." He settles the black and gold outfit on the floor beside him, digging further into the box to pull out a thick black case. He can hear Laura, telling him you need to be sure that this team is a team. "But I'd like to get real familiar with this situation real soon."
"We're already on it. I guess you better suit up."
*
Outside the Circinus Galaxy
2018
Nebula doesn't care.
She doesn't care about the trillions of people dead - more accurately, gone, because death is much more gruesome than what she witnessed - or the war she missed out on or Gamora's death or the Gaurdians being wiped out in mere moments. She doesn't care about the planets and galaxies they've blown through, or the turmoil they must be experiencing. And she certainly does not care even a little bit about the stupid pathetic little man who has just been sitting and tinkering with the thing on his chest and staring silently ahead since they boarded the ship. What she does care about is not experiencing a fiery and undeserved death because of his tinkering, and the little mechanical noises and bursts of sparks back there are really throwing her off of her game.
"Are you at all capable of stopping just for a mere moment or is it purely within human nature to be annoying?" She shoots a nasty look back at him.
For the first time in - well, he isn't sure how long - Tony looks up at her and blinks slowly. "I'm fixing -"
"Your toy, yes," Nebula rolls her wrist in a vague gesture, jerking her head back toward the navigator. "I understand this and you are wasting time."
"Wasting time." Tony balks, straightening his back and frowning at her. "I'm sorry, did you have any better ideas for how I should spend my time, here? Because if I'm not mistaken we just got our asses handed to us on a silver platter, and if you have any better ideas for what I should be doing I am all ears."
Tony is pretty sure she would be rolling her eyes at him if she could. "You are the one who wanted a plan. You make one." She gestured to the expanse of space ahead of them. "I will get us to your home planet, you will find a new, ugly toy, and we will destroy Thanos and the rest of my siblings as I should have years ago."
"Listen, I get it, you want revenge. But if I have to spend another ten minutes hearing about your raging daddy issues, I'm going to personally throw myself into the vast reaches of space and put myself out of my misery."
"You are lucky your guts were not spilled on Titan earthling." She says the last word as if it is an insult. "Work on your stupid plan, or I will release you into space to be devoured by the old gods themselves."
Tony shuts up. Mostly because he thinks she actually might do just that and he's sure there's a reason he's still alive, so. He's sure Strange wouldn't have given up his own life or the Time Stone for no reason. And, sure, maybe it's a little narcissistic to assume he's that important in the greater run of the universe but it makes sense and he doesn't have much else to go off of.
So he shuts up, and he plans.