Formerly "Avengers: The Tale of the Huntress", by Wanli8970

So before we begin, I just want to say thank you to Wanli8970 ( u/6596076) for allowing me to adopt this story. I just fell in love with it and wanted to know what happened next! So you know what we do here when we want to know what happened next. We write it. They were super amazing at messaging back and forth with me and giving me their notes for the story. I am honored and privileged.

Of course, then Infinity War and the Endgame came out, and so I had to rework what I had plotted because I saw a chance to change one or two things that just broke my heart. I love the movies to pieces, but my heart was just shattered.

So, without further ado, I give you... The Tale of the Huntress.

"The Tale of the Huntress"

CHAPTER ONE

"Thor, behind you!" Tony's voice sounded across the battlefield a split second after white explosions blasted the wolves off of him.

Thor sat up and sucked in a deep breath. "Thanks!"

Clint spun and zapped another arrow through a wolf's eye. "What are these things?" he shouted.

Thor did not have time to answer, set upon once again by three of the enormous beasts. Stormbreaker sang through the air in a sharp circle, flying round and round him, crushing the skulls of every wolf it hit until he called it back.

He had returned from his travels with the Guardians to visit with his friends and catch up on all that had happened during the year he'd been gone, when a great explosion from somewhere deep in the woods had made Tony's cabin shake, and they had gone to investigate. What they had found was a strange fog, rolling through the trees, freezing and thick. From the fog the wolves had attacked, the mist clinging and seeping from their dark blue fur, their leathery faces cruel and snarling. They were twice the size of any earth wolf, and their claws twice as long and sharp.

Thor knew what they were.

But they were supposed to be extinct.

He'd barely had time to shout a warning before it was a mass of chaos and deafening roars and battling.

Steve was there, to visit his old friends, and he was barely holding his own with Mjolnir. Banner was there in his hulk form, bashing two wolves together till they looked like stuffed animals that had been unstuffed, then he threw them aside and let out a deafening roar and charged into the thick of them, where they were piling up on Thor.

"There's too many of them!" Tony yelled, pulsors shooting at a wolf hanging onto his leg. The metal suit began to crunch under the monstrous teeth.

Thor bellowed, his skin crackling and his eyes turning white. Leaping into the air he called upon the lightning swirling in the clouds above, and sent it down. There was an explosion of light, a dozen howls and screams, and then it was all dark and still. Thor landed and went to his knees, Stormbreaker ready, his eyes scanning the surrounding trees.

There was nothing.

The wolves lay scattered around them, charred and dead. The mist that had continually rolled out of their fur was fading away.

"Okay," Clint said breathlessly, pushing himself up with a groan. "You want to explain what these things are and why they came from the Bifrost? Are they Asgardian?"

Thor shook his head. "I have no idea – they are not of Asgard." He stood and walked over to one of the giant carcasses, and poked at it with his boot. "When I was a child, my father went after them throughout the realms and destroyed them."

"Yeah, well," Tony landed next to them and his helmet deactivated, showing his face. "We've seen how well that's worked out in the past. No offense."

Thor frowned, remembering how often his father had claimed to 'destroy' a race, only for that race to show up again ages later, alive and strong.

Grimacing, Thor pulled the hair-tie from his ruined ponytail, held it in his teeth, and smoothed his hair back and retied it. Then he lifted Stormbreaker again, and crouched, staring at the corpse. After a moment he rose and walked over to the site of the original explosion, the one that had brought them out in the first place. Clambering over fallen logs and roots, moving up the hill, he reached a scorched piece of earth. "Captain!"

The others came over to him and looked down.

The scorches were in a pattern, similar to the one the Bifrost used to make, and yet it was incredibly different.

Hulk tipped his head. "That pattern almost looks like a – bunch of ice crystals."

"What is this, Thor?" Tony asked, his eyes suddenly dark and flat. "What new space problem are we going to have to deal with?"

"I don't know, Stark." Thor swore, lifting and dropping his hands at his sides helplessly.

Steve noticed his expression, and tilted his head, stepping closer. "What is it, Thor?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know…" Thor murmured, his brows pulled and dark. He opened and closed his fingers nervously, and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Steve frowned, suddenly concerned. They had all been through the ringer the last few years, and none of them more than Thor. His friend was looking a little better than he had been a year ago: his beard was trimmed close, his hair was still a bit tangled but at least pulled back, and he'd cut back significantly on his drinking, if his diminished belly was any indication. He looked comfortable in his jeans and t-shirt and hooded, zippered sweatshirt, but he still wasn't the Thor he'd first met all those years ago. Steve very much doubted he'd ever be that Thor again, and that was all right. None of them would ever be who they were before. Not after what they'd been through.

So now he noticed the agitation and moved closer. "Hey," he murmured. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Thor said absently, his brows still dark with thought. "It's just…" he trailed off, staring at the scorched earth. "I feel like I've seen those before. Those markings, exactly. I feel like I should know them… but I can't remember."

"Well," Tony pursed his lips. "You are almost two thousand years old."

"One thousand five hundred and six."

"Really?" Tony blinked. "I'm… shocked that you haven't lost count. Are you sure?"

Steve rolled his eyes.

"My point is, that's a lot of years, and you are allowed to forget a thing or two."

"It's not like that." Thor said, and his dark expression made them pause. "I should know. But it's…" His face twisted, like he was probing a tooth, and then he shook his head. "I can't remember."

The stars and darkness and colors and planets spun around her at such dizzying speed that she could only pray she didn't hit anything. It made her stomach leap into her throat, made her ears plug, made her eyes burn, made her head reel… She closed her eyes and begged for it to end, begged to die, begged to land, begged for it to just stop!

Begged the Allfathers that her little brothers were safe.

That she hadn't gotten them.

Darkness crept in around her vision. Bile rose in her throat. Her heart hammered faster, too fast, and she felt pain and panic…

And then she crashed, bouncing, cratering, dust and rubble scattering around her, peltering her unresponsive form.

And then all was still, except for the distant sound of a siren.