an. Holiday season hasn't killed me yet but I can slowly feel myself starting to burn out. Retail sucks this time of year BUT it's almost over and I'll have the energy to go back into writing this more frequently!

thank you to everyone whose either favorited/followed this story :) its good to know that people are still enjoying it. and thank you to those who took the time to review! I LOVE feedback!

Chapter 21: Your Former Glories and All the Stories

The bag packed by the Badoon, sat at her feet as Dara waited along with Thor for their plan to finally start taking off. The footsteps approaching towards the champion's quarters alerted the two that the plan was finally in motion, the sound of the Grandmasters favorite scrapper taunting the guards posted at the doors confirming it. Dara made eye contact with the dark skinned beauty, only ever seeing her around with the Grandmaster or whenever her and Hulk would train. The two never really hit it off, but the two didn't really have anything against each other either. With a curt nod to each other Valkyrie made her way deeper into the room towards Hulk.

Dara had questioned why they needed her besides the whole removing the collar thing, Thor saying how he wished to bring her along with them. It was until he said that she too was Asgardian and had faced this Hela lady before. You Asgardians are popping out of the wood work lately, Dara had commented after learning this.

"Hey big guy," Valkyrie greeted the green giant.

"Little girl," He greeted back as the pair began to play fight, as they usually did.

Dara rolled her eyes at the pair. Hulk let her knock him down, causing her to clue in that maybe the Hulk called her here for some other reason besides training. With a hint of playfulness at first, her voice trailed off as Thor made his presence known, popping out from behind a shelf, fidgeting with his shirt and hands before settling on keeping them held down in front of him.

"What do you want? What's going on?" She asked looking up to see Thor giving her a light smile, hoping to ease her already pissed off expression but the scrapper was having none of that. With a hard stomp, she walked over the Hulk, glaring at Thor as she made to pass him. Dara stood from her spot, ready to block the doorway. Valkyrie looked her up and down, before hissing at Thor, "Are you so thick headed you can't tell when someone wants to be left alone?"

"We need to talk," Thor said as she walked past him and then shoving her shoulder against Dara's before getting past both of them.

"No you want to talk to me," she rolled her eyes.

"I need her to stay," Thor asked, now looking at Hulk for assistance.

Hulk nodded, pointing at him as if saying he got it. Moving to his bed, he ripped off the headboard, which was just the jaw of some large space creature and flung it towards the doorway, blocking the entrance. The guards had been dismissed the moment Valkyrie had arrived and it was a good thing too or else they would've been smashed against the floor by it.

"Stay!" Hulk shouted, then faltered, giving her a soft smile, "Please."

"Please," Thor repeated, with pleading eyes.

"Come on, do you really have something better to do?" Dara chimed in, giving her a playful smirk.

Valkyrie flared her nostrils, thinking it over for a second. With a curt nod she said, "Alright," before moving towards the large stock of drinks kept in the room. She glanced through the selections until she found something that looked good for her. "But here's the deal, I'll listen to you 'til this is empty,"

Dara laughed at the oversized bottle and watched as Thor eagerly began to explain himself to her. As he barely got to start, Valkyrie lifted the bottle up to her lips. In a matter of seconds the bottle had been emptied. Dara blinked, her eye nearly bugged out of her skull as both her and Thor were awestruck by the woman's drinking skills. Dara looked her up and down as Thor was speechless.

"And as if you weren't already attractive before, wow," Dara laughed out, "That was the hottest thing I've seen in years,"

"Thanks," The Asgardian smirked, with a roll of her eyes, "Now bye," Valkyrie winked at the Badoon before letting the bottle slip to the ground and shatter. She tried marching out of the room but Thor moved as quickly as she had just drank.

Side stepping in front of her, he spoke, "Odin is dead. Hela the goddess of death has taken over Asgard,"

"If Hela's back then Asgard is already lost," Valkyrie paused in her step, looking up to him with big serious eyes, her cocky attitude now gone with the mention of the goddess of death.

"I'm going to stop her," Thor retorted.

"Alone?" she laughed, giving him a bewildered look. "Good luck with that, you won't stand a chance."

"I will because I'm not going alone. I'm putting together a team; it's me, her, you and the big guy," Thor explained pointing to each person in the room as he mentioned them.

Hulk who had been playing catch with himself off in the background, perked up as he was mentioned, shouting at Thor before throwing the ball against the wall again, "No team, only Hulk!"

"Fine," Thor rolled his eyes but still tried to keep his charm up, "It's me, her and yo-,"

"I think it's only you two idiots," Valkyrie scrunched her face up in amusement.

"Look," Dara stepped in, moving in between the two, impatiently. "I'm not into the whole rushing into other people's wars; I've been there done that and that's how I ended up stuck here. But, you can't tell me you actually like it here? This is my ticket off this damned place and it could be yours too."

Valkyrie looked at her calmer than she had been Thor. As Dara did to her, Valkyrie looked her up and down as well before biting her lip. She shook her head, shaking off what Dara had said, "Look," pointing a finger straight at the Badoon, Valkyrie spoke already pleadingly, "I'm not getting mixed up in another one of Odin's family's squabbles, you shouldn't involve yourself either, you seem somewhat decent and no one deserves to be put straight into their family drama."

She saw Thor's questioning look as she finished talking to the Badoon and continued, "Your sister, her power comes from Asgard same as you and when she grew beyond Odin's control she massacred everyone in the palace and tried to seize the throne. Odin banished her, but when she tried to escape her banishment Odin sent the Valkyrie after her, I only survived because-," she froze, her eyes zoning off to nowhere as they looked watery.

Shaking her again and more firmly she looked back up at Thor, "I already faced her once and I can't do that again."

Thor reached down to grab her, Dara watching from behind carefully. Valkyrie felt Thor's hand brush against her hip and sharply reacted, pulling out a dagger and getting it close to his throat. Thor looked down at it cautiously, but retracted his hand, getting what he wanted.

"Easy, look, I understand, but this is about people and they're dying." Thor said, allowing her to push him away from her.

"Just forget them, I have," she shrugged, pushing herself away as well.

"Okay,"

"Okay?" she now questioned, unsettled by his sudden readiness to back off.

"Yeah okay," Thor shrugged like she had, almost tauntingly. Valkyrie looked between him and Dara knowing that they were up to something now. Her suspicions were confirmed when he perked up again, "Thank you,"

"Huh? For what?" She narrowed her eyes,

"For this," he smirked, raising his hand up and showing the controller for their shock discs. He had nicked it off her quietly while she had been too distracted by telling him off. His smile grew wider as he clicked the button she had used to shock him upon his first arrival. With a slight buzz, the disk glowed blue before unstitching itself from him. He tossed the device to Dara so she too would be able to free herself from her own. "You didn't see that coming now did you?"

As he saw Dara was now free and now able to use her powers as the same as he, he continued his taunting, enjoying the shit-eating grin Valkyrie's death glare gave him. "You can stay here, enslave people for that madman, keep drinking, keep hiding, but me," he continued, turning to face the Hulk, itching to get out of this room. He motioned for Hulk to toss him the heavy ball he had been playing with.

"I chose to run towards my problems, and not away from them," He caught it, the weight not being too heavy for him, but still heavier for any regular mortal. "Cause that's what hero's-,"

Dara's eyes bulged out of her skull as Thor threw the ball against the window, intending to break it she assumed, but he failed; the ball simply bounced right back, smacking him against the side of his face and forcing him to the ground. She watched, now skeptically of how much she should put her faith in him to help get her off this planet. As quickly as he was knocked down, he was standing back up, pulling his armored shirt down and back in place. He pointed a shaky finger at Valkyrie, now finishing his statement, "Because that's what hero's do."

"You sure you wanna go with this guy?" Valkyrie simply rolled her eyes, landing them on Dara.

"Seriously starting to question it," Dara replied, monotone.

Thor looked between them, trying to hide him being flustered. He grabbed Dara by the shoulders, taking her away from Valkyrie before he loosed another person on his team. He noted that the ball did leave a small crack in the widow and figured that that would be enough to let him crash through it. Throwing himself out first, back facing the outside world, he held onto Dara as he smashed himself and her against the window, shattering it.

Dara let out a cry, being moved so fast and being unable to protest. He cursed at him as he held onto her as they slid down the side of the building, hurtling to the streets below. Thor pushed them off the Grandmasters building and across onto a blue building next to it. He made sure to keep his grip on her tight, as he noticed she was doing the same to him. Dara wouldn't admit out loud that her breath had been taken away from her, but it indeed had been. She wasn't a big fan of heights but would deal with them if she had a moment to prepare herself, unlike how Thor had her now free falling hundreds of feet down from one of the tallest buildings on the planet.

She hadn't even realized her mouth was left hung open, as her eyes stared down wide as can be. It was only when her feet finally reached the ground did she put her guard up again, rubbing her palms on her thighs as if to push away the nerves and adrenalines she now came to terms with. Her heart finally stopped feeling like it was thrown up into her throat and now pumped rapidly in her chest, as she took deep breaths to calm herself. Thor still had an arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist,

"You okay?" He asked, noting her frazzled state.

"You, th-i-think that next time you cou-ould warn a gi-irl before throwing her out a goddamned win-do-dow," she said catching her breath. She pushed the lord of thunder away from her, feeling stupid for being so undone. She wondered if this is how Skadi felt whenever she had one of her panic attacks. Rubbing her chin with her arm, she huffed, pushing her weakness down in her gut. "Now where?"

"The Quinjet, Hulk pointed it out to me in the Grandmasters junkyard, it belongs to my team on earth." Thor informed, moving to start walking away to avoid detection.

Once again, he grabbed her arm moving her quickly through the alley way they landed in until they reached said junkyard. They ran through the pathways of junk, ignoring the workers as they ignored them, Dara following Thor as she hadn't known what the ship they were looking for looked like yet. Eventually, Dara assumed they had found it, as Thor muttered a yes, before taking off to some scrapheap of a ship that made the Milano look like a million units.

"This is your ship?" She questioned as they quickly boarded it.

"Technically it's Stark's ship, but yes," Thor answered, racing further into it to get to the controls.

Dara scrunched her nose up as she looked around the inner workings off the ship while Thor fiddled with the dashboard up front. They'd be lucky if this thing flew in the sky let alone in space. Dara half wished Rocket was here just so she had someone to laugh about this ship with. She wondered how this even got the Hulk to where he was now. Turning her attention to Thor, who was now angrily arguing with the ships AI, as it wouldn't grant him access, she was going to comment on how they should just go find another ship to sell but stopped when she felt a large thumping coming from outside.

Both looked up at the other, wondering if they were caught but jumped up when the back of the ship was suddenly torn off; they'd defiantly have to steal another ship now. Dara groaned when she saw it was Hulk, who was now shouting at them and begging for his friends to stay. Dara reached out, intending to use her powers to halt him as he angrily made his way further into the ship, nearly bring the ceiling down with him. As she pushed her hands Hulk was ready for her, knowing what that meant from their times in the fighting pits. He swatted her gently away and off to the side, not hard enough to hurt her but enough to make the wind be knocked out from her again.

Thor pleaded with Hulk, as he hurriedly tried pushing buttons to get the ship moving at least. Hulk let out a wail, silencing as Thor hit a button that made a video screen pop up with a woman with short red hair on it. Dara finally stood, watching as the woman spoke to Hulk, something about turning the ship's tracker on. Dara didn't pay her no mind, instead watching as Hulk became to cry out again, punching himself in the face and flinging himself from wall to wall. Dara tried reaching out to him, seeing that he appeared to be in immense pain for whatever reason but Thor reached her before she could, holding her back with a shake of his head.

Dara watched as he shouted out, "No Banner!" before collapsing to the ground, his body heaving as it seemed to sink and change in color. With each deep breath his body changed more and more until Dara was now staring at a naked man with dark curly hair, instead of the Hulk. Utterly confused at what just happened, she turned to Thor for answers. He didn't give her any though as he quickly rushed to the jittery man's side,

"The sun's going down, the sun's going down," Thor repeated, petting the man's shoulder, causing him to stare bug eyed at Thor. The man's breathing began to settle, as his now began to look around the room "That's it breath, breath,"

"Thor?" The man questioned, now holding his head with his hand and closing his eyes, "What happened? What happened to your hair?" He now reached out to his old friend.

"Eh, some creepy old man cut it off," Thor nodded, happy to see his old friend.

"It looks good," he nodded, beginning to sit up. "Where are we? How's Nat? And Sokovia? Did we win?" he paused, noting Thor's confused face. Getting frustrated and wanting answers he repeated himself but more forcefully, "The city?! Sokovia, Ultron- did we save it?"

"Banner, listen," Thor shook his head now realizing that Bruce had no memory of the last few years. "Sokovia, and Ultron- that was two years ago,"

"Hold on, wait," Bruce now stood up, pulling the now large blanket like Hulk pants up with him to cover himself. "Are you telling me I've been Hulk for two years?"

He now noted Dara's presence, jumping up and pulling the blanket around himself tighter. He stared at her up and down, never quit seeing someone look the way she looked. He wasn't judging, having being the Hulk, but just didn't expect someone else to be on the jet with him and Thor, let alone someone with- erm, fury green arms and tough looking almost reptilian like skin.

"Who are you?" He questioned, pointing at her, his eyes then dashing to Thor, "Who is she?"

"I am thoroughly confused," She answered, crossing her arms against her chest and glaring at the back of Thor's head. "Who the hell is this? What happened to Hulk?"

"Ha, well you see-," Thor started but stopped as he saw Bruce stand and now walk through the jet, hearing the life of the city going on outside. "Bruce-,"

"Thor, where are we?" Bruce turned to the window, seeing the flying cars and colorful buildings outside. He looked down, seeing the control panel and placed his hand on the keypad, accessing the system.

Before he could start looking through the ship's log, a loud alarm blared through the city, before the Grandmaster's voice could be heard, informing his citizens of the Hulk being missing, and Thor and Dara being the culprits. Dara sneered, now on edge as the two men now discussed who the Grandmaster was, Bruce having no clue and Thor having to fill him in on him.

"Yeah you lived in his house, we had a fights, I won though," Thor said briefly, shrugging to himself like it was no big deal.

"You won? That doesn't sound right-,"

"Enough!" Dara shouted, earning the two of theirs attention. Thor rolled his eyes, at her while Bruce was still shocked to see her. Placing a hand on her hip, she used the other to motion outside, "We've been caught and now we need to move. He'll send guards here first, especially if the scraper rats us out. So, whoever you are, Hulk or not Hulk, I don't care, but if we're still gonna have any chance of getting off this planet we need to move, and we need to move now."

"Who is she?" Bruce questioned again, turning back and up to face Thor. Thor rolled his eyes at his friend, agreeing with Dara, before moving into action. Dara was right, they were low on time and now their chances were slim; they had to get back to Asgard and they had to get there now.