Note: I don't usually do this, but if it's been a while, please consider giving this fic a reread! It's seen some significant revisions as I shuffled things around to find the right pacing for this final chapter! Thank you!
They sat by the fire for just a while longer. Thor pulled the notebook out from where he'd tucked it and went through it slowly, and pulled out the pages where he'd written Loki's last words. One by one, he fed them to the fire, leaving only the names of the dead behind.
It hit Natasha harder than she thought it would, to see those words disappear. In her mind, they had grown to something more than just a final gentle lie to Thor, from his brother. It felt like a promise to all of them, from everyone that they'd lost. A promise that gone didn't mean forever. The sun would shine on them again.
Part of her wanted very badly to ask for one of them, to have something, anything, to keep. But she didn't. She told herself that grief didn't belong to her, and watched them turn to ash, like everything else they'd lost. When it was done, Thor at least seemed to feel better.
As they left, he found one of the old women who seemed to be organizing the little community and gave her the notebook. As he was explaining the circumstances of it, a pair of young women standing in the middle of a small group drew Natasha's attention. They were telling a story — the heroic last stand of an Asgardian they called Skurge the Executioner.
He had wielded a pair of large "Midgardian" guns, they said, and fought back an army of the dead. Natasha was inordinately charmed.
"We fought together on Vanaheim," said Thor.
Natasha blinked up at him in confusion. "Hm?"
"Skurge and I," he clarified.
"Your people really like their stories," she said.
Thor looked thoughtful. "That's what gods are, in the end," he said. "Stories. Something like that — something about words and magic... I never paid it much mind. Loki would have been able to tell you. So long as their names are remembered, the honored dead live on in Valhalla, feasting and making merry until the end of days." He gave her a crooked grin. His eyes were rimmed with red.
"I thought Ragnarok was the end of days?" Natasha asked him.
He really did smile then. "And yet there are days still. And people to live in them, and stories for them to tell."
They went and saw Farbauti one last time. Thor gave her his thanks with all the courtly manner worthy of a prince, and she promised — with a slick grin Natasha wasn't entirely sure she liked — to guard his crown for him.
"One last thing," Thor said, pausing to turn back before he left. "Was it you who threw us from the Bifrost?" he asked. Curious, but not accusatory.
Farbauti grinned again. "I didn't, though I would have, if I'd thought of it. It was the storm — and that was your doing, God of Thunder."
The sky of Jotunheim was clear, and stars gleamed in it like diamonds strewn across black velvet. Even so, Thor wrapped his arm firmly around Natasha before he lifted Stormbreaker to the sky and called the Bifrost to take them home.
o
"Where the hell have you two been?" came Clint's voice, before the light of the Bifrost had even faded. He didn't wait for them to answer, just started walking them back into the palace. "It's all over the news. An hour ago the ISS picked up another object coming toward Earth."
o
They found the Avengers huddled around a little cluster of laptops in the parlor. Bruce sat at the center, working over a bunch of data on the center screen. Another screen off to his right showed Shuri in her lab as they talked. On Bruce's left, a Starkpad propped up on Steve's new shield was flicking through news reports.
"None of them have a visual," Rocket said. He was holding a similar device of clearly offworld make, pawing across alien symbols.
"Fill 'em in, Doc," said Clint as they walked through the door.
"About an hour ago, we started seeing reports of an unidentified object heading toward us following a sudden burst of energy that nobody on Earth could recognize," said Bruce. He gestured to a little chart at the top of the screen, which was completely unreadable to Natasha.
"What now, Armageddon?" she asked wryly. A grin flickered across his face and she felt a smile pull at her cheeks despite the growing knot in her stomach.
Bruce shook his head. "It was on a course to go straight past us but it changed direction just before it passed Mars."
"A ship, then?" Thor asked.
"It looks like it dropped out of a warp point just outside your system," said Rocket.
"It's consistent with the data I got from the Titan's ships," said Shuri. "Whoever they are, they're coming from the same direction."
Rocket made a noncommittal noise. "It's the closest warp point," he said. He shifted anxiously.
Thor shook his head. He gestured to the data from the energy burst and scowled.
"Yeah," said Bruce. "It's the same energy signature as the readings Jane Foster took in New Mexico. Same as the Bifrost."
"It's too small to be one of Thanos's ships," Rocket said.
"So is it an enemy or not?" Rhodey asked, "If we don't figure it out before it gets close enough to target, somebody's going to nuke it."
"You guys still use nukes?" Rocket said, disbelief in his voice.
"Hey, nukes are the most powerful things we have," said Rhodey.
"Nukes are definitely not the most powerful things we have," said Shuri.
"Wakanda doesn't do weapons of mass destruction. What do we have that's more powerful than a nuke?" Rhodey asked.
"Me," said Thor. That was the end of that.
Bruce's fingers flickered across the keyboard. "If I can just get access to these satellites—"
"—we can boost the signal from the hyperspace transmitter I've been developing and try to contact them," Shuri finished.
"And get past whatever they've got that's interfering with our tracking so Thor can blow them out of the sky if they don't answer," said Clint grimly.
On the screen, Shuri finished something and ran out of her lab. She ran into the room a few minutes later, with a laptop under one arm. She shoved everything else on the table over to set it down.
"How long do we have?" Natasha asked.
"Twelve minutes 'til they hit atmo," said Rocket.
Rhodey's phone rang. "Oh god," he said, "Please don't be Ross, I don't have time for—" he stopped, staring at the screen.
"Who is it?" Steve asked.
The phone rang again and Rhodey hit the button to take the call, then the button to put it on speaker. Rhodey took a deep breath.
"Tony?"
Everybody stopped.
"Hey," said a familiar voice, "Did you miss me?" After a few seconds of stunned silence in which they could hear a curt feminine voice talking in the background, "Hello? You going through a tunnel?"
"Tony," Rhodey said again. "You're alive."
"Yeah. Uh, about that. Think you can call Ross or somebody and make sure they don't shoot down my Uber? That would just really be the cherry on top of the shit sundae that is this day." Then, to the person in the background, he said, "Can you— will you stop already? They can't pick up our transmissions. Earth doesn't have space wifi."
"Actually," said Bruce loudly, "I think we do. Shuri?"
"I've got their signal," Shuri said. "I think I can..." She poked at something on her screen, and from the laptop's speakers they heard a voice.
"—repeat: this is the Asgardian scouting vessel Commodore. We're just here to return your Iron Man, we don't want any trouble. I repeat: this is—"
"Valkyrie!" said Bruce.
"It's one-way," Shuri said.
"Bruce says hi," they heard Tony say.
"Holy shit, the little guy made it!" she said. "Finally somebody with a brain. Tell me where to put your boy Stark down. I'd just throw him out the airlock but he's bringin' a friend."
"Bruce, the Valkyrie's threatening to throw me out the airlock," Tony whined.
Natasha couldn't tell whether Bruce was laughing or crying or both.
Rhodey said, "In her defense, she has met you."
"Give us just a sec to figure out the logistics, Tony," said Bruce, "And—"
Thor reached between them to take Rhodey's phone. He hit the button to silence the call.
"And?" said Tony's voice over the speaker.
"I need to ask a favor of you," Thor said. He swallowed. They were quiet, so he continued, "These people — these are my people. I have a responsibility to them, as king—" his eyes, flicking to Shuri, were almost apologetic. "I need for you to not tell them that I'm here."
"Thor—" started Bruce, confused.
"I know I should go," Thor said, quietly, "But you're the only family I have left."
He hesitated only briefly before he handed the phone back to Rhodey.
They returned to handling the logistics of where and how to land, only momentarily grimmer than they had been. A cloud passing over the sun.
o
They could have been brothers, Natasha thought. With their dusty-blond hair and their beards and their broad shoulders. With that look they had in their blue, blue eyes when they thought no one was looking — like they'd finally lost enough to leave them hollowed out.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking out the big window on one side of the parlor that looked out into the city. Already the Avengers were starting to funnel out onto the street, following Shuri and her Dora Milaje to the landing pad they'd cleared for the Commodore's arrival.
The ship itself — a sleek, circular thing, painted in black and red and gold — was just becoming visible between the buildings, descending out of the early-morning fog like a ghost. The Asgardian magic that had kept it hidden bled off it in waves of glimmering green-gold. Thor had to look away from it.
"It's good, though," Steve was saying. "Your people, your warriors — that's everyone that was missing, right?" and then, "...I'm sorry. I—"
"Everyone that was missing," Thor said. His voice was raw. "Everyone that's left."
"I know," Steve said.
Thor nodded. "I know you do."
"It's not the same—"
"No," said Thor. "You lost everything, and I can find no way to be grateful for all that I have left."
Steve sighed. He put his arm around Thor's shoulders and after a moment, Thor returned the gesture.
Natasha gave them a moment. She wished she could give them longer.
"Hey," she said. She looked at Steve, who turned to look back at her. "You coming?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "I was thinking maybe I wouldn't," he said.
A smile flashed across Thor's face. He shook his head. "Go on," he said, clapping Steve on the shoulder, "Go bring your brother home."
He took one last glance at the Commodore, and turned away from the window. When they left, he'd gone to sit at the table. He poured himself a drink and then barely looked at it, like it was just something to do with his hands.
o
The walk to the landing pad had a strange, dreamlike quality. Natasha felt light-headed, like stepping off the Bifrost and into the twilight-land of Alfheim.
The group in front of the ship had parted a little, to give room to Bruce, who was bent double. A laugh cracked through the air like a whip. Natasha had a brief moment to note the little cluster of Asgardians in the doorway — a woman positively gleaming in white armor and a man in black just behind her shoulder, hastily retreating — before the Hulk surged up the gangplank, roaring, "Friend!"
Rhodey was grinning from ear to ear. Beside him, in his battered red armor, Tony Stark shook his head and said, "The hell am I, chopped liver?" He turned in their direction. Saw Steve. Frowned.
Somewhere in the vicinity of Natasha's chest came a feeling like something she'd had too tight a hold on finally cracking.
Her legs moved without thought, walking forward. She didn't stop until she hit him, until her arms were around him and she could feel the soft hum of the arc reactor against her cheek, glowing behind her closed eyes like it was the sun shining on her face.
"Hey," Tony said, soft and uncertain. There was the slightest of awkward pauses before he hugged her, lightly because the Iron Man armor was not built for gentleness. "It's okay," he said, to the top of her head like it was just for her, "It's gonna be okay. We're gonna fix this." He moved to look at someone over her shoulder, and she knew it was Steve.
"We're gonna fix this," Tony said again, louder, decisively. To all of them, now. "If this can be done, it can be undone. We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna fix it. It's not over yet."
And, God, she hadn't realized. She hadn't realized how badly she'd needed to hear that, how she'd been waiting for it. In the end, that was what Tony Stark did. As much as Natasha was always the spy, he was always the mechanic. He fixed things, and without him everything had stayed broken.
"It's good to have you back," Steve said, painfully earnest.
"Yeah, well," said Tony. "Maybe save judgment on that until after you find out who I brought with me."
Standing back, Natasha's eyes drifted after the glance Tony threw over his shoulder. On the Commodore's gangplank, a woman — blue, bald, and at least as much machine as flesh — was talking quietly to Rocket. Natasha couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could read the bad news in the slump of the raccoon's shoulders and the droop of his ears.
"Shit," said Clint. He was looking up into the ship, to where the Hulk was still harassing the Asgardians.
Tony said, dryly, "Yeah."
o
Thor was sitting where they'd left him when they came back to the room.
"Have they gone?" he asked. He didn't look up. The drink in his hands was still untouched.
A beat of silence, and then, "Do you want us to go?"
Thor's breath hitched like someone had put a knife in his ribs. Or like someone had put a thousand there, over as many years, and he was feeling every single one of them at once. It took another thousand years, it seemed, for him to rise from his seat, and only an instant for the glass in his hands to hit the ground like he'd forgotten it existed.
Thor had been right, Natasha thought. She could see it in the way he tried a smile and couldn't manage it. In the way he held himself, like if Thor moved wrong he might flee. In the way he hesitated.
"Brother," Loki said. Uncertain.
Thor raised his arms, as if to reach for him, and that was all it took. Loki hit the thunder god so hard Thor staggered back a step.
"I knew," Loki said, wrapping his arms around Thor's shoulders and squeezing him tightly, "I knew you'd make it. I told them— they said I was mad, but I knew—"
Thor buried his face in Loki's shoulder, his hands gathering fistfuls of his brother's battered cloak. When he finally drew back, it was only so he could look Loki in the face, like he needed confirmation that yes, he was still there. Really there.
Loki's hand found Thor's cheek. "You've got a new eye," he said.
Thor huffed out a little laugh. He leaned in so that his forehead touched his brother's. "And you're right on time," he replied.
They pulled each other close again, and this time they didn't let go for a long, long time.
o
O
o
I know I took my time with this last chapter, but I hope it was worth the wait.
I know this ending will disappoint some people; there were commenters that said they thought it would be more meaningful if Loki stayed dead, and that's a fair point. If you want to pretend that this fic ends right after Steve welcomes Tony home, that's totally reasonable. That's where Natasha's part of this story was leading up to, I think. Getting the whole family back together, being complete again, realizing that they haven't lost everything. That there's still hope.
When I started this fic, I knew I wanted Loki to be alive. I waffled a little! I worried that maybe such an ending wouldn't feel genuine to a story which is, at its heart, about coming to terms with loss. But after all's said and done... that's the ending that I needed, so that's what I wrote.
Thanks for reading!