"This is not your fault."
Clint huffs in disbelief, raking his fingers through his hair as he's told those very words for a second time. "I shot her," he reminds the god as he sat on the ground beside him. "It was my arrow that killed her, my hands that did the shooting. I'm responsible."
And god, but this whole experience was just a never-ending barrage of mindfucks, because Thor's kid is apparently his lover in the future, and she'd used some sort of magic to make him kill her to save the world.
He could barely swallow back the laugh of hysteria that bubbles up in his throat.
"Do listen, Agent Barton, for I will only say this to you once," Loki speaks up, catching his attention. "Thanos was a cold-hearted warlord who sought to reap this planet of every single life that breathed—every animal, every plant, every man, woman and child. He would've taken no prisoners, no livestock, not a single life would've been spared." The god slowly takes him by the wrists and holds his hands up, as if showing them to Clint. "These hands loosed the arrow that eliminated that possibility. These hands saved lives, saved worlds, and make no mistake," Loki tacks on, "'twas not just your world you saved, but mine and Thor's, as well every future world Thanos would have gone on to destroy."
Well, when he put it like that… "She's still dead," Clint mutters, staring at the spot where Loki had caught her. Where she had died. "Thanos…he said she was my lover."
"I heard," Loki replies quietly. "But know this, Agent Barton," he adds. "Thanos has lied before. What's to say he spoke the truth then?"
The words were almost comforting, if not for one thing. "He made me kiss her," he shares, belatedly remembering that the god had been there when it happened. "She kissed back. And…it felt like she knew me, like she'd kissed me many times before. I felt it then," he whispers, still feeling the ghost sensation of her lips on his, her fingers in his hair, her body pressed up against him. "I could tell she loved me."
I needed one last favor, she'd said before she died. How many times had he helped her before? Would he ever meet her again? When?
"I don't know," Loki says, and Clint realizes he'd been asking the questions out loud. "But—"
"Anna!" They both jerk back when Stark's voice came through not only their comms, but also from down below. That's when Clint notices that Natasha, Captain America and Thor seemed frozen in midair for about two seconds before they continue the jump they'd apparently made over the edge of the roof.
"Thor!" Loki calls out, lunging towards them, and Clint was right behind him, his heart thudding harshly at the sight of Natasha disappearing from his view. The three of them seem to have landed well though, and they looked up at Loki with confusion on their faces.
"What is it, brother?" Thor yells up to them.
"No!" Stark screams, drawing the threesome's attention.
"Tony?" Dr. Banner's form suddenly darts past them. "Tony! What's going on? What happened?" Clint could hear him asking. He suddenly remembers that Banner had been excluded from recent events, having chosen to stay down on the landing pad when everyone else decided to head up.
A hand suddenly grips his shoulder, and Clint feels his entire body squeeze down and stretch out before his view changes from rooftop to indoors.
Whoa, what the hell—?
"By the Allfather," Loki says from beside him, and Clint turns around to see that he was now inside the penthouse.
Holy motherfucking shit, did they just teleport?
…fucking awesome!
The giddiness of his realization goes away at the sight of Stark ripping his couch from the floor and tossing it across the room. The man looks enraged, like a bull in a fight against a matador, only there was no flag waving for him to focus his attention on.
"Tony!" Banner grips his arm, forcing it down with impressive strength that Clint wouldn't have guessed he had in his normal form. "Tony, what happened?"
"She's gone," Stark howls, his body slumping down now that his momentum had been broken. "She took her. She took Anna."
"Who?" Banner asks, looking up automatically at the only woman in the room. Natasha shrugs, looking as lost as all of them.
"Don't know," Stark pants, and…were those tears? Mother of fuck, Tony Stark was crying. "Don't know who she was."
"Okay, okay, what did she look like?" Banner tries instead.
Stark inhales deeply, looking more focused now. "Pale," he rasps. "Pretty. Black hair. Glowing eyes."
"No." Clint turns his head to Thor and Loki, who'd spoken at the same time. They look horrified. "It can't be," Thor adds, shaking his head.
"What?" Stark demands, getting up and looking ready to throttle Thor. "You know her? Who was she?"
"She is the ruler of Niflheim," Loki answers, swallowing heavily.
"Niflheim," Stark repeats. "The place where souls go. Why the fuck did she take Anna's body then?"
"Anna shouldn't be in Niflheim," Thor moans, looking like he wanted to cry too. "She died a warrior's death! She should be in Valhalla!"
"Why the fuck did she take Anna's body?" Stark roars, looking crazed, and only Banner's hold on the billionaire's shoulder kept him from lunging for Thor.
Loki shakes his head. "She is a time-traveler," he says. "She died outside her time. There is no precedence for it. Perhaps—" A deafening whine blasts through the air, cutting Loki off. Everyone turns sharply to the open balcony, where the sound had come from.
"What in the world…?" Captain America mutters, jogging quickly outside and looking up. "Guys," he calls, giving them a quick glance before returning his attention to the sky. "We have a problem."
"Wasn't the Tesseract in Anna's chest?" Romanoff asks as she took several shots at the Chitauri flying past her. "Someone explain to me how this happened!"
"Don't think anyone has a clue, Nat," Barton replies, letting his arrows loose on the enemy. "Maybe that Niflheim chick had something to do with it."
"Stop chitchatting," Stark snaps angrily, firing several blasts at the forces following him around. "Call it, Captain."
"Right. Loki," Rogers says, turning to him. "I need you to work on closing the portal."
"All right," Loki nods, teleporting instantly to the reactor.
"Until that portal's closed, our priority is containment," he hears Rogers say through the communicator as he studies the device the Tesseract was powering. "Barton, I want you on the roof—eyes on everything, call out patterns and strays. Stark, you've got the perimeter. Anything gets more than 3 blocks out, you turn it back, or you turn it to ash."
"Right," Stark replies, blasting up into the sky. The sound covers up the fact that Loki too was blasted across the roof, the Tesseract forming a barrier that reflected the burst of magic he's sent at it.
"Thor," Rogers continues as Loki whips his cloak off his head and pushes up to one knee, glaring at the damned cube, "you gotta try and bottle-neck that portal. Slow 'em down. You've got the lightning—light the bastards up." As he walks back to the mechanical contrivance, Loki glances over at the sound of Mjölnir's whirl and sees Thor as he flew off the balcony without another word. "Doctor Banner," the captain adds, "can you—?"
"We need him, Bruce," Stark's voice suddenly cuts in. "It's gonna get messy—you know that. We need your bigger, meaner self to play."
"No problem," Banner agrees easily. Loki paused in his re-inspection of the device, surprised at the man's willingness to turn into the monster he'd constantly kept contained.
"Are you sure?" Rogers asks.
"Of course he's sure. It's an alien invasion—practically an invitation for him to let loose and party!"
"I don't see how that's a party," Romanoff mutters.
"Agent Romanoff, you and I are heading for the streets—keep the fighting away from civilians," Rogers adds.
Loki is once more distracted when Barton suddenly appears, pulling himself up on the ledge. "How's that going?" the mortal asks, nodding at the device and looking unwinded at the climb.
"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable," he says to the archer. "My magic is useless against it."
A low groan suddenly comes from behind them, and Loki looks back to see the old doctor coming to. He tuts, unable to believe that his brother had left the man there.
Barton was at his side quickly. "Doctor, you all right?" he asks.
Selvig jerks back, but then relaxes when he catches sight of Barton's face. "I'm fine," he says, glancing behind Barton to see him. He froze. "You."
"Relax, doctor," Barton tells him, trying to placate the old man, and Loki turns back to the device that housed the cube, giving them the illusion of privacy as well as to return to his assigned task. He still had to break through the barrier somehow.
Perhaps if he used more power?
"He was one of us," Barton continues as Loki powers up once more. "Loki isn't the bad guy—we…we got him already."
"But—"
Loki doesn't hear whatever the old man had said, too busy being blasted into the air. A small groan escapes him after he lands quite roughly, and when he opens his eyes, the full length of Stark Tower greets his vision.
"I'll give you a nine for the form, but only a six on the landing," Stark speaks up, and the Iron Man armor appears in his line of sight. "You okay down there?"
"I'll live," he wheezes embarrassingly.
"Brother?" Thor pipes up. "Is that you? What has happened?"
"Loki fell off the roof," Barton says. "And he better get his ass up and off the ground. I have a way to close the portal."
"How?" Loki asks, holding his breath as he felt his spine shift, clearly broken. The healing would be slow, as he'd not had a bite of Idunn's golden apples for almost a full four seasons.
"Doctor Selvig put a safe key to cut the power source," Barton says. "But we'll need the scepter."
"It's at the Helicarrier," Romanoff replies. "Coulson and I hid it."
"Well then, somebody'd better go get it," Barton tells her, "'cause it's the only thing that can get past that barrier and remove the cube from the reactor."
"Loki," Stark cuts in, "you can teleport someone with you, right?"
Loki holds back a groan at the thought of moving. "I am currently incapacitated," he hisses.
"What? What happened?" Thor demands, with Rogers echoing his brother's words.
"I was wondering why you weren't getting up," Stark muses. "What's wrong with you? Your ego bruised or something?"
Loki shifts slightly, feeling the broken bones grind together. "Not to belittle the gravity of the situation, but my spine is currently broken."
"Ouch," several voices chorus empathically.
"Okay then. Do you have some sort of teleportation spell that can be used on someone even if you're not with them?" Stark asks after several moments.
"I do, actually," Loki answers after a second's consideration.
"I'm pretty busy right now, Stark," Romanoff speaks up at the same time, grunting slightly.
"Oh not you, Natashalie," Stark says lightly. "Coulson. He's getting the spear as we speak."
Natasha almost growls. "What do you mean Coulson's getting the spear? He's injured! He shouldn't be out of bed, let alone wandering around the Helicarrier!"
"I'm quite capable of taking care of myself, Agent Romanoff," Phil's voice comes on her comm for the first time. "And I'm in a wheelchair, if it makes you feel any better."
It doesn't. "Damn it, Stark," she complains. "He can't come here—it's too dangerous!"
"Too late," Phil says. "I've got the spear, Loki."
"Do hold onto it," Loki tells him. "And this might feel a little odd."
Natasha spends the next five seconds ducking alien blasts and holding her breath.
"Holy crap, that was cool!" Phil suddenly exclaims.
"I know, right?" Clint asks.
Taking that to mean Phil had arrived safely, Natasha vows to give her handler a piece of her mind and moves out of her hiding place, going back to work.
Phil practically collapses in Clint's grip when he arrives, and holy crap, that was cool!
"I know, right?" Clint says, and Phil realizes he's said the words aloud.
Fighting back a blush, Phil hefts the golden stick up to his agent. "Close it," he tells Clint, who takes the spear and sets him down carefully beside a man Phil recognizes as Erik Selvig. "Doctor Selvig," he greets as Clint moves away. "It's good to see you again."
Selvig manages to crack a wry smile. "I'd say the same," he says, "but the world's always ending when we meet."
Phil realizes the man was right and laughs for his sake. "I don't do it intentionally," he replies.
"Doctor!" Clint yells, peering at the reactor. "How do I do this?"
"Excuse me," Selvig says as he gets up. Phil watches the man pull up a knocked-over console and point to a spot on the reactor. "There, at the crown."
Clint obediently starts to push the spear through. "I can close the portal," he calls through the comms. "Guys, do you copy? I can close it. I can shut the portal down."
"Do it!" Captain America replies firmly.
Stark, ever the showboat pony, pipes in. "No, wait!"
"Stark, these things are still coming!" the captain reminds him tersely.
And then the man gives them the bad news. "I got a nuke coming in," he says. "It's gonna blow in less than a minute."
Phil looks to Clint, who shoots him a worried look.
Well, fuck.
"Stark, do you hear me?" Fury's voice comes in, surprising Tony as he spun through the air to avoid seven blasts from seven different sources. "You have a missile headed straight for the city."
The scathing words that had been ready to leap off his tongue dies before they could be heard. "How long?" he asks instead, firing off several repulsor-rounds into two of his attackers.
"Three minutes, max. Payload would wipe out midtown."
Shit, he thinks, just as he realizes that there was a portal that leads to another world opened conveniently right over his tower. "Jarvis, put everything we've got into the thrusters."
"I just did, sir," his thoughtful AI says as they suddenly speed past all the loser aliens trying to keep on his tail. Hah! Suckers.
"I can close the portal," Barton speaks up. "Guys, do you copy? I can close it. I can shut the portal down."
"Do it!" Rogers snaps.
"No, wait!" Tony cries, his thoughts focused on the missile.
"Stark, these things are still coming!" Rogers says tersely.
"I got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute," he replies, obviously stunning them into silence because no one spoke up. Tony ducks under the Brooklyn bridge, then doubles back when he overshot and the nuke speed past him. Damn. "And I know just where to put it," he remembers to say as he catches up to the nuke and grips it carefully.
"Stark," Rogers murmurs, "you know that's a one-way trip."
He knows. He knows, but he doesn't acknowledge it. There was always a reason behind everything he does, even if he doesn't know said reason at the time.
But this time, he knows exactly what his end-goal was.
"Save the rest for the turn, J," he says instead, focusing on the task at hand.
"Sir," Jarvis speaks up, sounding somber. "Shall I try Miss Potts?"
Her picture comes up on the display, and Tony feels a pang reverberate around his arc reactor. "Might as well," he allows, and Jarvis dials her number. The phone rings for several seconds.
Pepper doesn't pick up.
Knowing that Pepper was in DC and away from all this makes it easy for Tony to shift his focus away from her, grit his teeth and set his frustrations on pushing the nuke when it was time to turn upwards. Jarvis doesn't fail him on this—the AI never failed him on anything, really—so Tony is able to direct the nuke to the sky before it could hit Pepper's baby.
Oh god. Pepper's baby. For some reason, he only just realized—no, accepted it as he speeds past the portal.
Anna was their daughter. A little piece of him and a little piece of her.
She has her mother's unbreakable spirit. And her father's impertinence, Thanos had said, and Tony remembers the code she used to hack in and out of SHIELD's servers, remembers asking himself how Jarvis had missed her when she seems to be Tony-Stark-level good, remembers thinking he'd recognized her eyes that first time he saw her… Well, now he knew why they looked so familiar—he saw them in the mirror every day.
Shit. How had he not seen the resemblance before? Anna looks so much like hi—
Tony gasps uselessly as the air filter stops functioning, his oxygen almost instantly cut off once he enters outer space.
"Sir, Miss Prrrrs—" Hopelessness sinks its jaws into him as Jarvis disconnects and Pepper's picture disappears when the display fizzles out, and left only the inky blackness of an offline helmet and the stunning yet horrifying view of an alien mothership, surrounded by the rest of the Chitauri fleet.
He could feel his body seizing up, his gloved hands parting with the nuke as it continues its journey up, past the waiting and now-surprised alien troops. Choking for breath, Tony could only keep his eyes open long enough to see the missile collide with the mothership, the blast exploding marvelously wide, somehow taking out the entire platoon that Tony was passing by as he fell.
And then, as the almost-forgotten sensation of the arc reactor shutting down reverberates from his chest and spread viciously through every nerve ending in his body, Tony closes his eyes, ready to embrace dea—
"Greetings, Lord Stark," a voice says, surprising him.
His body instinctively gasps for air, but while he receives no oxygen, he's still able to reorient himself. "You," he rasps when he sees the black-haired, green-eyed woman several seconds later. "Where is she? Where's Anna!"
The woman raises an eyebrow delicately, and the resemblance to Loki strikes Tony hard. "Now is that any way to treat an ally, Lord Stark?" she asks. "Especially one who seeks to return what has been lost?"
"Lost?" he echoes, feeling a little lost himself. "What—?" His voice fails him when she gestures beside her, where the still form of his little time-traveler floats midair. "Anna," he sighs, relieved to see her whole and unharmed.
Literally. The daughter-stealing bitch had fixed her up, somehow healing the burn on her flesh and mending it to leave her skin flawless. Her clothes, however, stays the same, char and soot still visible around the once-injured area. The Tesseract was, of course, gone from its previous place on her chest.
"Why did you take her?" he demands, moving his gaze back to the bitch kidnapper.
"As I said," she replies. "I seek to return what is lost." And then she waves a cylinder at him, pulling it out of thin air, damn magic. His eyes take in the smoky contents that looks almost like the smoke Thanos had been out of Loki's body. This smoke was black, however.
"What's that?" Tony asks. "And who the hell do you think are you, anyway? What gives you the right to steal my daughter's body?"
She smiles. "I believe you answered your own question," she replies, standing straighter. "I am Queen Hela of Niflheim, Ruler of the Inglorious Dead."
Hearing it from her like that made it sound rather impressive, and at the reminder that she's the goddess of the dead, Tony realizes what the smoke writhing around inside the container could possibly be.
"Is that…is that Anna?" he croaks, suddenly wishing he wasn't in the suit, because it was offline and therefore heavy as fuck, so he couldn't lunge for the damn cylinder while he was in it.
"Indeed," Hela confirms, moving the canister to grip it with both hands. Tony eyes it like a hawk, silently praying that she doesn't drop the damn thing and break it. "The Lady Thorsdóttir and I struck a bargain. I am here to return her soul to her body."
Relief rushes through him. "Really?" he asks weakly. "That would be real awesome of you." Hela looks pleased at that and…was that a blush? Heh, cool. He just made a goddess-queen blush. The bar just went up for all the men in the world.
"Indeed," she repeats. "But I must ask two things of you in return."
"Anything," he doesn't hesitate to say.
"The Tesseract," she says. "You must keep it safe. Hide it away and let no one know where it rests. Especially her," she glances down at Anna.
Tony paused. "I think Thor and Loki are taking it to Asgard."
"No," Hela shakes her head. "With the Tesseract in Thor's hands, he will use it constantly. The energy the cube emits is akin to a beacon, and it will call to the greedy hounds resting beyond the branches of Yggdrasil. Should the Tesseract fall into my uncle's hands, war will come to both our realms, and we may not survive the most brutal of the invaders."
His suspicions that Hela was Loki's kid confirmed, Tony prioritizes the bazillion questions that came to mind and asks, "Okay, fine. Where do I hide it then?"
Hela's gaze moves to his chest, and it takes Tony a few seconds to find the carriage her train of thought was at. "Um, no," he says plainly. "I can't. The cube emits gamma radiation, I'd die if I put that in there, and Pepper would totally kill me if that happened."
"Everything you said is redundant," Hela tells him, and before Tony can be insulted, she adds, "Especially since the same energy powers the device in your chest."
Tony automatically reaches for the arc reactor, but the weight of his suit deters his effort to touch it. "Wha…?" comes out of his mouth eloquently. Because he's pretty sure that his Starkanium-powered arc reactor does not emit gamma radiation one bit.
"And besides," Hela tacks on before he can point out that very detail, "I am a death goddess. Should you die because of the Tesseract's influence, I shall simply heal your body and return you to it."
When his mind finally processes the words, Tony realizes he would find no sweeter deal than that. Anna and an unlimited-time warrant against dying via Tesseract in exchange for hiding the cube from everyone on the planet? Pfft, no sweat.
"Okay," he answers. "I can agree to that. What's your second thing?"
Hela grimaces. "You must sacrifice the knowledge you have of Lady Thorsdóttir's lineage."
Tony's breath hitches in his throat, and his first instinct is to immediately say 'No.' Catching himself, he asks, "Why?" instead, almost failing to get the word out of his mouth.
"'Tis part of the price she bargained," Hela explains. "For her to live, she must do so under the stipulations she and my father's future self had agreed upon."
"That's bullshit!" Tony calls angrily even before she could finish. "I saw the memory—I know what she bargained. Loki said she can't tell anyone or say anything about who she really is and she hasn't—"
"But by seeing that very memory," Hela interrupts, "she has spoken of it, even if the words were not meant for your ears."
Tony seethes. "That's not fair! She already traded her existence away, I can't lose her completely!" He struggles for a strong argument, searching for an indisputable reason—a cause—that could make Hela change her mind. "She… She deserves to live with her family," he pleads, and oh no, Pepper, he thinks, I should've told her.
Hela shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Lord Stark. Truly. But I must ask this of you. You must sacrifice your knowledge of her true lineage. And know," she adds, "that this agreement will stop you from realizing her identity once again."
A pained sound escapes his throat.
It wasn't fair. This whole thing is fucking bullshit.
Frantic, he tries to think of another way. But Hela was a goddess. If she was anything like Thor, then Tony could match her in a fight if he suit weren't fucking frozen in place. That must be why she disabled his movements.
Next plan.
…he had none. Desperation claws at him, enough that he tries to pray. God, if you're real, you'll give me a way out of this, he thinks. She's mine. I don't want to forget that.
"I'm sorry," Hela says, and she looks genuinely unhappy about the situation. "But that is the price for her life."
Tony squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fingers into the padding of his gloves, wishing he could make a fist and dig his nails into his palm because fuck, this had to be a bad dream. It had to be.
How could he do this? How could he let go of her? He'd only just found out…shit, had it just been an hour? Less even? How was this fair? To her? To him? To Pepper?
Oh, Pepper… Why didn't I tell you at once? he asks himself. What do I do, Pep?
Unbidden, the memory surfaces from his mind.
Do you accept the price of the loss your existence in the future to be, which shall be made true the moment you arrive in the past? Loki had asked Anna in the memory he'd seen.
Anna—his too-brave baby girl—had looked pale and horrified when she replied, I accept.
Now he knew how she felt, sacrificing her life in exchange for something so damn precious.
"I accept," he croaks, feeling the tears slip down his cheeks. Anna, I'm so, so sorry…
Hela apparently didn't need anything more than that. She uncaps the cylinder and turns it upside down, and Tony watches through watery eyes as the smoke moves into Anna's suddenly gasping mouth. They're bathed in complete silence for the twenty seconds it takes for the smoke to leave the tube.
And when it's all gone and inside her, Hela moves back and nods to him. "Until we meet again, Lord Stark," she says regally, turning around.
Suddenly, Tony jolts up, his heart racing with the lingering sensation of shock and fear, his lungs screaming as he gasps for breath.
The sky looks clear and bright above him.
A rumbling roar fills the air, and Tony finally blinks and looks around, asking, "What the hell?" as he takes in Natashalie, Steve and Thor's relieved faces. "What just happened?" he asks further, realizing that his faceplate was gone and not at all attached to his helmet anymore. Oh, shit, did someone— "Please tell me nobody kissed me."
Steve slumps down a little, looking up at the sky. "We won." The words sent a thrill through him. Or maybe that was just relief. In any case, Tony relaxes as well, breathing out his relief and savoring the feel of a win.
"Why do you weep, Man of Iron?" Thor asks. That's about the only time he feels the tears trailing down to his ears and the pang of regret lodged in the back of his throat.
Abruptly, he remembers the deal he made with Hela, remembers that he'd figured out that Thor wasn't Anna's real father and traded the secret of her real identity in order to get Anna's soul back into her body, but for the life of him, Tony couldn't remember why he'd done such a thing. He traded knowledge away when knowledge was a precious commodity to him.
Damn, who the hell was Anna that he'd agree to that kind of deal?
"Tony?" Steve cuts into his thinking time. "Are you in pain? Is that why you're crying? Where—?"
"M' not crying," he retorts quickly. "I'm fine. Hey! All right, good job guys!" he not-so-subtly segues as he catches sight of Big Green. "Let's just not come in tomorrow—let's just, ah, take a day."
And wow, was that his stomach? Damn, he was hungry. He looks towards Bruce's ridiculously buff alter ego.
"Have you ever tried shawarma?"