Joe's Note: Here's something that I probably shouldn't have to openly state but I will before someone inevitably comments about it. Yes, the canonical Harry Potter saga ended in 1998 - not counting the epilogue - and Young Avengers debuted not too long after that. Even adding time for Cassie - the youngest canon member of the group - to reach majority would put the story in the middle of last decade. But it's not because… well, I like having smartphones exist. And iPads. Decent digital SLRs. Drones. Et cetera and so forth. So I've slid things forward into the modern day because let's be honest, none of you would really appreciate it as the 'period piece' it would become if I made a point of pegging this to a specific date in the mid to late 2000s, and then did the work to ensure that the characters only make date-accurate pop culture and technology references. Oh, and as implied above… all of the Young Avengers are eighteen or older in this story for moral and legal reasons. Cassie being barely so, as we're about to touch on.
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Howard, Jade, Alexander, Tibor, Alonsis2, Daniel, Clark, Adrien, erlking, ridillin, Haematite, Charles, Jacky, Edward, Andrew, Roofcrawler, Wil, PbookR, Samuel, Mikey, Beverly, Daniel, Charles, Crygon20, Subtle, Christopher, Stephen, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Joseph, Jason, RileyWestfall, bloodylord, Marc, Ziryo, Chris, George, Koby, William, Devin, JJbelle, David, Gavin, TheTenthAncestor, Lookshy, Mauday, John, Roman, Warren, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.
Kate Bishop groaned as she drifted just far enough into wakefulness to be aware of her pounding headache and far too dry mouth. Letting out another groan, she turned her head just enough to bury her face in her pillow, keeping her eyes closed tight. After all, she knew from past experience that the light would only make things worse for her. Hindsight was a bitch, she mused: it was easy to realize that she'd drunk far too much the night before when she were suffering from the killer hangover that resulted. Not that hangovers were anything new to her, but Kate hadn't woken up feeling quite this bad in a long while. Not since she'd gotten into the chocolate rum her father brought home from one of his 'business trips'-slash-cruises to St. Thomas, if she recalled correctly. Although in her own defense, that one totally hadn't been her fault. It should be illegal to make liquor that tasted like hot chocolate and went down just as smoothly, leading her to drink an entire bottle in one sitting. Definitely not her fault, and that was her story and she was sticking to it.
As she looked back at the events that had led to her being in her current situation - or at least those memories made before the giant black spot that was the last few hours of the previous evening - Kate tried to figure out when everything had gone horribly wrong in her life. Things had started simply enough: she'd sat down to plan out a nice long weekend in Las Vegas for the team so that they could get away from the stress of being budding superheroes and relax for a bit. After the whole mess with the Kree and Skrull fighting over Teddy, Tommy managing to blow up most of the United Nations building, and the emergence of a group that seemed to be the Young Masters of Evil to their Young Avengers - and who'd managed to create an unholy amount of chaos despite their almost total lack of brains or brawn - one villain had followed another until it was nearly two years after Iron Lad had assembled his initial group to help him fight his adult self.
Now, between their spandex adventures and their 'real world' responsibilities, most of them were skating perilously close to the point of burnout and so when Cassie's eighteenth birthday had begun creeping closer on the calendar, Kate had jumped on it as the perfect excuse to get out of town and off her feet for a bit. Tommy and Eli had immediately begged off citing a prior commitment; something about tickets to a UFC bout, and since when did those two even tolerate each other outside of team business? Vision had likewise declined the offer, noting that he'd only draw attention to them when they were trying to relax and unwind. The other girls had been enthusiastic, though, and a rather unexpected bit of magic had allowed her to keep Air Billy as her airline of choice even after declaring it to be a 'girls' weekend'. So, meeting early on Sunday morning at the former Bishop Publishing warehouse, the four girls had joined Billy and Teddy in teleporting off to the Entertainment Capital of the World to see what they could see.
The sextet had spent most of Sunday and Monday prowling Las Vegas as a group, the majority of their time wasted wandering around the town sightseeing and doing typically touristy things. Monday had ended with Cassie's eighteenth birthday party, including a cake topped with the prototype for the Stature action figure that would be part of the upcoming series of Young Avengers toys… and boy did it feel nice to finally be getting their due in the merchandising department. As Tuesday dawned, they indulged in a bit more sightseeing as a group before Billy and Teddy had taken off to parts unknown for some 'them time'. Since none of them had been too keen on trying to tag along for that, it had left the four actual girls of the Young Avengers to try and find their own entertainment for the rest of the day.
The 'four girls' bit had been a secondary reason behind Kate's push to get the group away from the Big Apple for the weekend. While originally it'd just been her and Cassie representing the fairer sex on the team, that number had doubled over the past few months. First came Nadia Pym, the long lost daughter of Hank Pym by way of his first wife. The fact that he'd been married before Janet Pym had been news to Kate, much less the fact that he had a kid… but according to Nadia, it had been just as big a surprise to Hank when she showed up. With an intellect that rivaled Vision's despite being a human girl, plenty of tips and tricks that she could share with Cassie about their shared power set, and the backing of two of the founding Avengers? She'd quickly become an indispensable member of the team, both in the field and back at base. On a more personal note, her arrival had heralded the abrupt end of Kate's on-again, off-again friendship with benefits with Cassie, the younger blonde seeming content to allow history to repeat itself between a new generation of ant and wasp… but Kate hadn't exactly been in a position to give Cassie what she wanted, so it was all for the best in the end.
But while Nadia was a welcome addition to their team, their newest member was neither their choice nor anywhere near as valuable. But while the Unstoppable Wasp had been asked to join the team, the Young Avengers had picked up their ninth member when the adult Avengers exercised a clause in the team's operating charter that allowed them to place other up-and-coming superhumans on the team. And so despite the team's objections about not needing another new member while they were still getting used to Nadia, let alone one that didn't even know, Helreginn Lokajardóttir - Hela to them, Reginna during her occasional excursions outside the team's warehouse-slash-base - had entered their lives.
She still wasn't sure what to make of the girl. Girl. Hah. Even if she was currently trapped in a body that looked like it should be going to college with her, Kate was well aware that Helreginn was no mere girl. How could she be, when she still had most of the declarative memory of a woman who had been born back when Ptolemy the Sixth was conquering modern day Syria? Not that her lacking said memories would make her any less terrifying, Kate had quickly recognized, because at the end of the day her new teammate was still a jötunn, with all the benefits that came with that heritage. Oh, and on top of that? Being Loki's daughter had gifted her with phenomenal magical abilities… and if that wasn't enough, she held dominion over life and motherfucking death itself to boot.
How that hadn't instantly qualified Helreginn for membership in the full-blown Avengers, Kate hadn't been able to comprehend until after the first mission following the jötunn's arrival. While she'd been willing to teleport the team both ways and heal their various scrapes and bruises after the battle, during said battle? Absolutely nothing. Helreginn had just stood there, observing and occasionally offering advice. They'd asked her for help. Cajoled. Begged, even, at one point. She'd steadfastly refused. Upon their return to the warehouse, Helreginn had steadfastly weathered Eli's raging about how she'd put them all at risk by being so thoroughly and completely unhelpful… before calmly turning to Cassie and asking if she wanted to watch more Orange is the New Black. No, they didn't have a new teammate. The Avengers were using the team to socialize an emotionally stunted and friendless young woman whose mother wanted her to spend more time among 'her peers'. They were… they were jötunn sitters!
Not that Helreginn's mother was wholly absent from her newfound life on 'Midgard', because that would have been too easy for Kate and the others. Oh no, Loki Laufeyjardóttir - longtime Avengers foe, destroyer of Asgard, and herald of Ragnarök - had decided to pursue a new and different path for her twenty-sixth cycle, and was currently trying to get her picture placed next to the word 'MILF' in the dictionary. Not really, mostly because Vision had ruined Cassie's quip by pointing out that 'MILF' was not in fact listed in any legitimate dictionary currently being published. But the blonde hadn't been entirely inaccurate, either; Loki dropped by the warehouse irregularly but frequently as she made time for her daughter in between wandering the Big Apple, socializing with Janet Pym and her non-adventurer friends, and copious amounts of shopping.
The elder jötunn had even followed them to Vegas, popping up once a day or so to quiz the 'mortals' about one entertainment option or another before disappearing off to parts unknown once more. Strangely enough, she seemed inordinately fond of showgirls and the shark-filled aquarium at Mandalay Bay, but that was perfectly fine with Kate; the prospect of what a trickster goddess could get up to in Sin City if she truly applied herself was frightening. Although Kate could comfort herself with the knowledge that if Loki did get up to no good, it was neither her barrel nor her monkey; even with a goddess of their own on the team, Loki Gone Wild was an Avengers-level problem.
Helreginn, on the other hand, was definitely their problem. Or perhaps it was more appropriate to call her their responsibility; while the jötunn was generally on the reserved side, she was also polite, attentive, cooperative outside of battle, and genuinely curious to experience new things. It just annoyed Kate that the adults hadn't told her what she was really being volunteered for so that she could prepare adequately. She could have written up a syllabus or something; some sort of organized plan for how things would unfold. While she wasn't as anal retentive as Eli when it came to… well, anything in life, really… Kate still preferred to be as prepared for any given situation as she possibly could be. That policy had kept her alive for the last two years as the sole normal member of their team, and so she was going to stand by it until it failed her.
Suddenly, Kate's train of thought was derailed by the realization that she was cold. Very cold. Far, far too cold for someone who was lying under a sheet and comforter on a king-sized bed in a very nice hotel suite with the thermostat set to exactly sixty-nine degrees Fahrenheit because Cassie had been feeling childishly mischievous. Turning her head a bit, she cracked one eye open and then froze in a completely different way. While she couldn't say that she'd spared no expense on their Vegas vacation, Kate had booked the second-largest suite at the Mandarin Oriental along with the adjoining room to add a third bed. Nadia and Cassie had taken the suite's slightly smaller bedroom - politely leaving the bigger room for the girl who was paying for everything - with Billy and Teddy in the adjoining room. And so given that both of them tended to sleep like the dead on opposite sides of the California King bed, there should have been absolutely, positively no reason that she was waking up spooning Helreginn.
…could the sleeping like the dead thing be considered a pun, given Helreginn's usual occupation?
Kate grimaced faintly as she relaxed her grip on Helreginn's breasts, creating the same unpleasant sensation as pulling her hand away from metal on a cold day. Thankfully her unexpected bed companion didn't seem to be a possessive sleeper, mumbling softly in what Kate presumed was Asgardian before rolling onto her stomach. But before she could sit up, she became aware of a hand resting on her hip… when both of Helreginn's were clearly visible. Peering down, she found pale skin with expertly manicured black nails. Nadia? Glancing back over her shoulder confirmed it: she was in close quarters with Helreginn because both Nadia and Cassie were in her bed.
What the fuck had happened the night before?
"Oh good, I'm not the only one awake anymore. I was getting surprisingly bored for someone who has access to not only the Internet and a television, but high quality room service." Kate gave a start at the unexpected voice, craning her neck as her gaze slid down the intertwined bodies of two of her teammates to where an unfamiliar man was sitting in one of the chairs at the foot of the bed, his feet propped up on the end table. As her eyes widened at the sight of him, he offered a cheeky smile and a little wave in response. "Hello. Yes, I'm real. Yes, this is your room. Yes, you invited me back to it. Thank Merlin I managed to find my wand, because you lot somehow managed to make my clothes disappear last night."
Kate's mind abruptly filled with so many pertinent questions that she honestly couldn't decide which to ask first. Who was he? Why was he in their room? Why was he referencing Merlin? Why did he have a wand? Did he have something to do with why they were all in one bed? Then she realized that her body was aching in a decidedly familiar - and pleasant - way, and Kate blushed faintly as she crossed one of the questions off her growing list. Deciding to begin at the beginning, she opted to start with the overall simplest question first. Also, an answer would give her a name to use in questions to follow. "Who are you?"
While evidently too lazy to hop to his feet, the man offered the closest he could to a bow while still sitting down. "Harry Potter. Master of Death, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Liberated, et cetera and so forth. I'm sure you've heard of me through the wizard on your team?"
"The wiz… do you mean Billy? Because he goes by the name Wiccan, but he's not actually magical." Kate slowly sat up in bed, cocking her head to the side as she reconsidered the truthfulness of that statement. "Or rather, I think his mother has started teaching him the basics of sorcery, but that's kinda secondary to the fact that he's a mutant with the power to manipulate reality. In other words… no. I have no idea who you are, Harry Potter, Master of Death, et cetera and so forth."
Harry blinked at her owlishly for a few seconds before bringing his arm up so that his elbow was resting on the arm of the chair, his chin coming to rest in his palm as he stared at her with an almost petulant expression. "But I know all about at least three of you from work. Now everything's going to be weird and awkward, and the questioning will be distinctly one-sided. Bugger."
Watching as Harry levitated a shirt up off the floor before throwing it her way, Kate caught it with a grateful nod and quickly pulled it on. After all, just because he'd seen it all - and evidently gotten quite well acquainted with it - the night before didn't mean she had to keep it all on display. Moving to sit at the end of the bed, she looked from Harry to her companions and back before raising an eyebrow. "Let me guess. You know all about them thanks to… whatever your fancy magical job is… but I'm the odd one out because I'm the token normal girl?"
"Actually, Helreginn is the only one I don't know anything about. Well, the name gives away plenty; somehow I managed to meet and shag the Norse Goddess of Death." Harry offered a crooked smile before lifting his head, freeing up his hand so that he could point a finger at her. "But if you must know, out of all the members of the Young Avengers, you've got the singular most extensive dossier. Possibly because you have an uncanny ability to stumble over the magical parts of Manhattan and have been obliviated no less than sixteen times in the last few years. Which before you get mad about, I had nothing to do with. I work for the British Ministry of Magic outside of a few consulting gigs, not the MACUSA."
Presumably the MACUSA were whoever was responsible for obliviating her. And presumably the word meant what it sounded like, and was their method of erasing memories. Otherwise… well, she'd remember stumbling over magical enclaves in Manhattan. Or sixteen incidents of whatever obliviating was if it wasn't memory removal. "Okay, so then what, you're some sort of… magical government worker? Where do the fancy titles come into things?"
"You really don't have any idea who I am, do you? That's… actually rather refreshing. Although I just realized that I had two versions of this conversation laid out in my head, and neither of them takes that possibility into account. Also, I'm pretty sure that I've violated the Statute of Secrecy with you already." Pausing, Harry cocked his head to the side thoughtfully before wincing. "Technically, I think telling you that there is a Statute of Secrecy that I'm violating is a violation of the Statute of Secrecy. Wait. Ugh, I'm an idiot. Of course the statute wouldn't apply to you or the others, seeing as how you're my…"
Kate raised an eyebrow as Harry trailed off with a second wince, pointedly looking away from her. Rising from the edge of the bed, she made her way over to stand directly in front of Harry before crossing her arms over her chest. "We're your… what?"
Still pointedly refusing to meet her gaze, Harry reached up to scratch the back of his head as he reluctantly answered her. "The muggle family of a witch or wizard are exempted from the Statute of Secrecy for obvious reasons. Parents… siblings… and spouses. Which would cover all four of you girls after last night. Surprise?" Kate's jaw dropped but Harry continued on blithely, gesturing off in the direction of the living room. "I woke up an hour or so ago, grabbed some breakfast, and then hopped on my phone to do a little research. By the way, I owe you a few galleons for breakfast because my partner had all our muggle funds and I didn't think the Mandarin Oriental would take gold coins from the British wizarding world."
So that was why she smelled eggs and sausage. An idle corner of her mind reminded her that it was awfully rude of Harry to have ordered breakfast for himself without taking the rest of them into account, especially given that someone else - namely her - had paid for his meal… but the majority of her managed to remain focused on the matter at hand. Kate furrowed her brow as she realized that there was already a major flaw in Harry's explanation. "That's not even legal."
"That's what I thought! I mean, it is with a few restrictions in the wizarding world, but clearly we're not there. Then I hopped on my phone this morning and did a little digging." Finally meeting her eyes again, Harry unlocked his phone before holding it up for her inspection. Not that she took it; her hangover meant that her multitasking abilities were thoroughly shot at the moment. "I certainly hadn't before today… or technically last night… but I'm going to assume that you've heard of the Universal Church of Truth? They seem to be awfully popular in the muggle world." Kate offered a curt nod in reply; organized religion wasn't really her bag, but who hadn't heard of the increasingly popular extraterrestrial-backed church? "Well it turns out that when they set up shop here on Earth, they somehow negotiated that all marriages that they found fit to bless would be legally binding here too. Which evidently includes polygyny. Considering that my people don't legally recognize divorce? Guess who's now married to her three friends and a perfect stranger until death do us part?"
Without even meaning to, Kate's eyes dropped down to stare at her left hand. And sure enough, there was a ring on her finger. That finger. A very pretty gold ring set with one large diamond flanked by three smaller diamonds set in a triangular pattern around it, and it hadn't been there the last time she'd checked. "Oh, what the f-"