It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Even sitting in a house, hidden in the middle of a swamp in a borrowed white dress, Betty Ross, no, Betty Ross-Banner now, still thought it had been a good idea. How could she and Bruce know the timing would turn out so wrong? Had it only been a bit over twelve hours since this entire thing started?
Such a simple plan, Bruce had finally proposed after all of the craziness that had been their lives since the gamma rays, and given the situation with her father, eloping seemed the thing to do. So, when Bruce went to talk to Tony, to let him know what they were planning, and Tony volunteered one of his planes for a quick trip to Vegas, it seemed like the perfect solution. Where Tony went, Pepper went, at least for something like this. And then Tony had somehow got hold of Thor, which was fine, and he had shown up accompanied by Jane Foster, her intern Darcy Lewis, and shockingly, Loki's four children, Jormangundr, Fenrir, Hela and Slepnir, and Hela's handmaid, a girl that looked about twelve or thirteen named Leah. So nine people, a giant snake, a wolf and a horse with eight legs had been packed onto a plane and had made the trek to Las Vegas and the first wedding chapel they could find with an opening.
Somehow they weren't the oddest group to ever show up at the wedding chapel, and the ceremony had gone off without a hitch, but they had no more than shared their first kiss as husband and wife than the world fell apart. Shield had been infiltrated by Hydra, and everything went insane. Instead of sharing what Thor said was a proper wedding feast, that sounded a bit frightening, Tony hustled them back onto the plane, and now here they were at some house hidden in the swamp. Tony was in the basement working with Jarvis and Bruce trying to figure out what happened, and where some of their other friends might be, with Thor probably not offering too much help but trying anyway. And she was upstairs with the other ladies, on what was her wedding night.
"Betty, I'm sorry about this." Pepper said as she glared down the stairs. It wasn't Tony's fault. Something serious was going on, and of course he was trying to fix it, but Betty and Bruce had just gotten married. Surely Tony could handle things with Thor's help for a bit, to give the newlyweds time alone. They had barely been able to share a kiss before things went nuts, after all.
"It's fine. It could have been worse. My father could have found out about it, and showed up. Or Glenn Talbott. Shield being infiltrated by Hydra and Helicarriers of Doom nearly getting launched, that's nothing compared to the scene my father would have caused if he knew I was marrying Bruce. I'm sorry I didn't get to throw the bouquet, though." Betty said as she looked at the flowers resting on the coffee table and then to Pepper and Jane. She still wasn't sure who she would have tried to aim for when the time came to throw.
"We have a saying on Asgard about how excitement on your wedding day promises excitement for your whole marriage." Hela had shed her green outer gown and her underdress of yellow wool, leaving her in her sleeveless white shift. She sat curled on one of the couches with Leah beside her, sorting through the contents of one of the bags she had brought from Asgard, spreading out tiny vials and wrapped packages of various leaves, herbs and healing items on the coffee table next to the flowers. "I'm given to understand from my lady grandmother that a bit of excitement makes the marriage bed highly pleasurable."
"If that's true, you're in for a really, really good time if Stark ever lets your husband go." Darcy said just as a howl filled the air.
"That was Fenrir, wasn't it?" Jane asked Hela. Her boyfriend's nephew was actually a giant wolf. She had been kind of surprised to learn that Norse mythology had got the appearance of Loki's kids pretty much correct, except for Hela, who was a pretty girl with golden blonde hair, not some half-dead creature. But all of them were nice, no matter what they looked like, and she was sure she would eventually learn to understand the boys a bit better.
Hela nodded. Jormangundr had been eager to explore the swamp, and Fenrir had gone with him. "Something about a plane." she said after a moment. "I think a plane just landed. Was Mister Stark expecting anyone else?" She knew he had been trying to reach Agents Barton and Romanoff and Captain Rogers. And she really had to find the time to let everyone know the truth about Agent Coulson.
"I don't think so." Pepper said and moved slowly to the door. She should probably go and get Tony but…. "It might be Happy." No one else knew they were there, so she couldn't imagine who it might be if it wasn't him. And if she alerted Tony, he would freak over what was probably nothing, and they would be hustled off to hide in the middle of the Arctic next. Two Asgardians, a wolf, a snake and a horse, also from Asgard. Surely that would be enough to handle this without dragging the guys into it and getting them drug off to the North Pole.
"Looks like you're getting a little more adventure." Darcy pulled out her taser as the group followed Pepper out the door and down a narrow path in the direction the wolf howls had came from. "I hope that Stark has really strong bed frames. You're probably going to need one if that thing about excitement and the marriage bed is true."
Green slitted eyes poked up, just above the waterline, watching the two men who had excited the plane, and then had gone back and dragging things off, and to the edge of the swamp. The snake raised his head slightly as they tumbled the first thing into the swamp. Bodies. They were dumping bodies. His tongue twitched out and he hissed as a second and a third body were tumbled into the water. Not much blood on the first two but he could practically taste the blood on the last body and something else. He ducked his head back under the water and twitched his tail, swimming closer.
The fetid water hitting her face caused Victoria Hand's eyes to twitch open. She didn't know where she was, but there was water everywhere, and she was floating, face down, and sinking. She struggled, trying to will her arms to move, to get her face above the water, but stabbing pains wracked her chest and stomach, and then she felt the water pouring into her nose, and then her mouth as she started to gasp. And there was something there in the water with her, something big with enormous green slitted eyes…. Big, and she couldn't do anything to fight it as it swam closer, and as more water poured in, her chest burning until she involuntarily let out a scream she knew would fill her lungs with water.
But the scream turned into a weak gasp as she suddenly found herself on the surface once more, on her back, something beneath her shoulders holding her up. And then an enormous head broke the surface. A snake? But did snakes get that big?
It was times like this that Jormangundr wished that he could talk, or that more people could understand snake. He could almost taste the fear and despair radiating off of the woman he had pulled above the surface of the water, but there was nothing he could do, but to try to get her to the shore, and get his sister to help, before the blood from the wounds in her back and stomach attracted some of the swamp's more dangerous predators. Fenir paced along the shoreline, looking for a relatively level and safe place where they could pull the woman to safety, howling again, and hoping Hela would come quickly.