Chapter 7: I've Heard Better News Than This
"Doctor!" Thor cried jubilantly and he threw his arms open wide to accept the enthusiastic hug he was about to receive from the skinny Time Lord.
The Doctor and the Demi-god embraced, and Coulson could only see the top of the Doctor's ecstatic face crushed into the crook of Thor's neck.
"My God, it's been ages, hasn't it?" the Doctor exclaimed when Thor finally let him have some breathing room. The two of them still had hands firmly grasped onto each other's shoulders however, as they looked each other up and down.
"Indeed it has!" Thor agreed with a smile. "And I see that you have changed your face! Just as you said you would!"
"Oh, yeah," the Doctor said, still grinning as he touched his face briefly before hugging Thor again.
"Come," Thor said, both to the Doctor and to everyone else. "You must tell me what I've missed while I was away."
"I feel like I should be saying the same to you!" the Doctor said in reply. Unfortunately the reunion wouldn't be as joyful as either would have liked.
"Really? Loki did all that?" the Doctor said mournfully as he looked to Thor and then to the rest of the group. Both Natasha and Clint remained silent and their expressions might as well have been chiseled out of stone for all the Doctor could read them while Tony and Coulson simply looked uncomfortable. However, Tony was visibly more unsettled than Coulson despite the Agent's confession that he'd been impaled by the God of Mischief and had only just been released for active duty a few weeks ago.
"Blimey, but he was such a sweet kid," the Doctor reminisced, almost to himself. Thor was, of course, nodding sadly, the only one besides the Doctor who possessed any pleasant memories of his brother. All of the SHIELD employees kept their faces carefully blank and only Tony had an odd pinched look dominating his features.
"I mean, sure, he was prone to mischief, the odd trick or two, but this seems…out of character," the Doctor continued. He'd refrained from looking up the history of his two favorite demi-gods when he'd first met them, not wanting to see if the Earth's gruesome mythology would predict their future's successfully. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, he couldn't help but wonder. Perhaps if he had known he might have been able to prevent all this. Maybe it didn't have to be Loki that engaged the Avengers in the battle of Manhattan. Maybe someone else could have taken his place and follow the path set by the fixed point in time….
The Doctor shook his head a little, looking down at his hands, feeling some of the calluses and burns that had inevitably appeared on his newest body. It would do him no good to think this way. He of all people knew the consequences of meddling with time.
"What was his sentence?" the Doctor asked, knowing that he wouldn't like the answer. He'd never approved of the harsh system of punishment the Asgardian's followed.
"He…" Thor began, but he looked away, as if he couldn't bring himself to even speak of it. The god of thunder cleared his throat before trying again. "For his crimes, he has been placed underground, bound in iron and his mouth sewn shut. The three realms he has offended, Joutenheim, Asgard, and Midgard, have deemed the punishment just."
It was clear from Thor's expression that he did not agree, and the Doctor knew himself well enough that his face probably had a similar expression painted onto his features.
"For how long?" the Doctor asked, his voice feeling rough against his throat, the pitch an octave lower than it was normally.
"…very long," Thor responded, not lifting his head to look the Time Lord in the eye.
The Doctor knew very well that this could mean anything from a few years, a few centuries, or until the destruction of Asgard.
"Right," the Doctor said, clearing his own throat afterward and desperately trying not to think of the bright, clever young man he had said goodbye to all those years ago. It would only make him do something he would regret.
"And what of you, Doctor?" Thor said, obviously trying to steer the conversation somewhere more pleasant. "What news from Gallifrey?"
"Um," the Doctor said, drawing out the 'm' for longer than was necessary. The last time he'd visited in Asgard was when he was in his fourth incarnation. Clearly, the two of them had a lot to catch up on, but he might as well start with the most obvious piece of news.
"About that," the Doctor began, he winced a little as he tried to string his words together in a way that would make some kind of sense. "The last Time War, um, it didn't go…so well."
"Did the Time Lords lose?" Thor asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. Thor knew well that this was highly unlikely since Asgard would have certainly noticed if the rest of the universe was being destroyed by genocidal Daleks.
"Well, yes... and no," the Doctor said, wincing again as he knew he wasn't helping anyone with his undescriptive answers. Even the three SHIELD agents and Stark were exchanging glances amongst themselves, trying to figure out what the Doctor meant.
"I do not understand," Thor told him, tone as blunt as ever and his impossibly bright eyes trying to search for an answer in the Doctor's own.
"Neither Gallifrey nor Skaro survived the final time war," the Doctor told them, trying to stay detached. "The war was time-locked, and both planets are…well, they're gone."
"Gone," Thor repeated looking as if he was having trouble swallowing this new information. "And the rest of the Time Lords? Surely there are others…"
"No," the Doctor said, still trying to stay calm, but he knew that this body was particularly humany-wumany. Everything he was feeling was probably written all over his face. "It's just me. The Last of the Time Lords."
"My friend," Thor said, his voice nearly thrumming with emotion. "You have my greatest sympathies. Truly, the whole of creation should be mourning such a loss."
The Doctor couldn't help but let loose a short, sharp bark of laughter.
"If only you were there at the end, Thor," the Doctor said. "If you'd seen…it wasn't like the other wars. Trust me, no one should mourn the Time Lords. In the end, we'd lost everything that had once made us great. What they'd become was..."
Thor raised a hand, stopping what the Doctor realized would have only become half-coherent ramblings. The Doctor's facial muscles twitched into something that could have resembled a smile, but he quickly ducked his head before he could embarrass himself further.
"So, yeah, I've been alone for a while, still travelling the universe, seeing the sights, helping out when I can…"
"Alone?" Thor asked, concern laced his question.
"Well, not always," the Doctor admitted. "There's always someone willing to travel with me for a bit, but lately I figured it would be better to, y'know, go it… alone."
The Doctor knew that he wasn't convincing anyone when he swallowed before saying the a-word, but hopefully they wouldn't call him on it. He was more than capable of making his own decisions, thank-you-very-much.
"I see," was all that Thor said, but the Doctor was relieved when he made no further comments.
"Well, no use dwelling on all this," the Doctor says with some false cheer. "What are you doing here on Earth?"
Thor indulged him and recounted his tale, beginning with his botched coronation, his foolish visit to Jotunheim, his exile, and the conflict with his brother that had been the beginning of his brother's madness.
"I can't help thinking that if I had known I might have been able to prevent this," Thor confessed, still dwelling on the loss of his brother.
"Ah, well, families are fickle things," the Doctor said. "My relationship with my own brother was never very good, but, well, he wasn't exactly a likeable person. Actually rather dull, to be honest."
Thor just hummed, obviously barely listening to what the Doctor was saying. The Doctor knew that he was only providing background noise to the Asgardian's meloncholy, but he couldn't think of anything else that might help.
"So, what happened between the time of his fall and his appearance on Earth?" the Doctor pushed. "He obviously wasn't alone, and he managed to make some interesting...friends."
"The Chitauri are friends to no one," Thor snorted. "They do what they will. I'm afraid they poisoned his mind while he was still... recovering from the revelations the All-father had imparted upon him before succumbing to the Odin-sleep."
The Doctor wouldn't have been surprised if that was the case. It sounded as if Loki had been a particularly fragile state of mind after his fall from the Bifrost, and he could imagine what meeting a race like the Chitauri would do to him. Not to mention Thanos...
"It seems likely," the Doctor admitted gravely.
"When he first arrived," Clint cut in suddenly, startling both Thor and the Doctor. "He'd been going on about making us free from...uh, freedom. Like he was going to take over for our own good. It all sounded kind of backwards and messed up to me."
"Yeah," the Doctor said. "That's a very Chitauri concept. They aren't very big on free will. Although I'm guessing Asgard didn't really take the possibility of brain-washing into account when he was put to trial."
Thor could only shrug helplessly, and the Doctor knew that Thor wouldn't have been in a position to argue with the All-father and three disgruntled worlds calling for Loki's blood. However, now all the Doctor could think about was whether to warn them about Thanos. He couldn't recall when or if the Titan invaded Earth. It was obviously one of the events in space and time he would really have to brush up on.
The Doctor was just about to mention something about him when Coulson's phone chirped. Suddenly, the Doctor and Thor realized they had all but ignored their companions, and, to the Doctor's embarrassment, that except for Clint's comment a little earlier, they'd had little to no input in the conversation. At least they hadn't been bored by their conversation. Stark in particular looked like the phone call had interrupted him from watching a particularly good television show.
"Coulson," the SHIELD agent said into his phone, and everyone leaned in slightly when the normally unflappable Agent Coulson frowned. "What? Right now? ...Is it under control? ...Alright, I'll let them know."
"What? What is it?" Stark asked impatiently.
"There was a situation in New York at the Oscorp building just last night. SHIELD has been monitoring the situation, but it seems that a genetically altered specialist in cross-species genetics went mad and nearly executed a successful biological attack on New York City."
"...what?" was the general response from everyone sitting at the table. Even Natasha and Clint who were usually used to hearing about crazy stuff like this by now at SHIELD.
"What happened then? Who took him out?" Clint asked, his urgency nearly concealed but not well enough to fool his present company.
"Apparently we've got someone new on the superhero scene," Coulson said, looking amused. "We'd been getting some reports about a new vigilante in New York City, but we were waiting for him to really show his colors. Now he has."
"Wait, is this that guy?" Stark said suddenly. "I've heard about him. He's called something stupid, I think. Arachno-man or whatever?"
"Just Spiderman," Coulson said. "From what we can tell he's the result from another experiment with cross-species genetics. His identity is still secret, but now that all of this is cleared up-"
He gestured at the flabbergasted Doctor and Thor.
"We can focus on this properly. We should have some potentials lined up by the end of the week."
"What? Are we recruiting?" Stark asked, looking both annoyed and excited at the same time.
"Maybe," Coulson admitted.
"Brilliant," the Doctor said suddenly with a bright grin stretched across his features. The rest of the table looked at him oddly, even Thor, at this interruption. "Absolutely brilliant."
Perhaps the Doctor would be sticking around for a little longer. He couldn't help but feel that this was somewhere he needed to be. After all, watching history unfold was one of his favorite ways to pass the time.
Sorry for the wait guys. Unfortunately my body didn't agree that trading my blood for movie tickets was a good idea, and I've been feeling like crap for the past week or so. I'll still be trying to update every monday though, so expect another chapter soon.
Also, surprise TASM crossover! I really couldn't help myself, the movie was just so fantastic. I know it hasn't been getting a lot of slack from critics, but I honestly have nothing scathing to say about the new Spiderman movie. Plus, the entire time I was thinking about crossovers with this story and also the Avengers. I swear I can't enjoy anything anymore, I'm always thinking about plot.
Anyway, remember to comment! Feedback is always fantastic!