Chapter 11: Maui Talks

It was certain that they were all in agreement. This temporary 'alliance' was going to be unbearable.

The immortals didn't bother catching a ride on the quinjet. By the time the Avengers had gotten there, the immortals were already waiting for them on the balcony. Anubis, being the paranoid he was, had refused to let the unconscious Kory be carried on the Avengers' 'play plane' since Loki would be in it, so Maui was carrying the injured, probably comatose Norwegian.

"How the heck did you guys change so fast?" Stark commented when he noticed that they changed appearances. Anubis had switched his historical regalia for a simple army green long-sleeved shirt, black khaki with silver jackal patterns on the ends, black shoes, and he had kept that massive necklace of his. Maui had gone for an entire All Blacks tracksuit. Bacchus wore baggy black trousers and the same shoes as before, but he had now gone for a plaid shirt with nearly every single wine color known to man. Aaricia looked like a chaotic model: a Union Jack blazer over a white turtleneck, tight black pants, and checkered sneakers that revealed her magenta, yellow, and cyan socks. She even dyed the ends of her hair, making her French braid look like her socks. Only Kory was still wearing her previous get-up, though the previous rips she had looked like they had been properly sewn.

"How is she doing?" Steve walked up to Maui. Compared to Steve, who had held on to Kory in his usual gallant way, Maui was holding Kory the way a nurse held a newborn infant with the utmost delicacy. Somehow, her fur coat had reappeared and been used to bundle her.

"Well her bruises and cuts were easily fixed, but we haven't checked how she's doing mentally," Maui said.

"Cap's floor is two floors underneath. Capsicle, why don't you show the big guy with the little patient around?" Tony suggested. Steve merely nodded and lead Maui indoors. "As for you, Miss Ziggy Stardust, you…" The billionaire got interrupted when the teenager slammed an envelope full of checks at him. Puzzled, he looked at the checks and flipped. "You sold all my stuff you stole AND you made three times more than it's worth? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?"

"Easy. I steal, I sell it to rich immortals, I make them beg, there's haggling, and I keep rising the prices until they finally crack," Aaricia shrugged. "And maybe a little flirting here and there." While Bacchus slapped his forehead in frustration, Anubis merely chuckled. "Yeah, I had many American Frost Giants nybergynnere customers."

"Goodness, I wonder what they were going to use all that fancy stuff for…" Anubis chuckled.

"Actually, they're using it for more Hulk-Smashing-Loki memorabilia."

"Oh, not again!" Banner groaned in frustration. "Even in America, the Frost Giants sell merchandise?"

"Wait until you see the anime the Rikubetsu clan came up with!" Anubis chuckled while they all went inside the main floor, still covered by some scaffolding and second-hand scraps (aka rich replacements) thanks to Aaricia's mess. "What did the Americans want to come up with? I'm gonna need to expand my Christmas shopping list to spoil my kids."

"Oh, it's hilarious!" Aaricia jumped on the nearest leather stool. "Fancy lights show and ice sculptures in Alaska, a ski resort in the Rockies…"

"Wait. How would it work?" Banner was shocked by the idea. "An entire ski resort? Themed after Loki getting smashed by the… other guy?"

"Oh yeah! And don't get me started with their plans for the honeymoon suite! Let me think, what else? Oh yeah, a lighthouse lobster dinner in Maine, a lightshow on Mount Rushmore, a bread and butter shop in Minnesota, and oh, this one is epic! Rave fest, complete with the Hulk My World album!"

"Hulk My World?" This actually made Tony laugh as he counted his checks. "What, like an entire album dedicated to Hulk smashing Loki around?"

"It's just a compilation of mortal songs crushed and replaced by lyrics about the ogre smashing the horny one," Bacchus rolled his eyes.

"Hey, the stuff is fun!" Aaricia protested. "You Smash Me Round, Come and Get your Hulk, Smashing on the Telephone, Bad Hulk-mance… And don't get me started with the music videos!"

"Big whoop. I've seen dumber parodies when they keep changing fairy tales, from the gruesome to Disney." Bacchus scoffed when he strolled around the bar Tony had set up in the main floor. "Cheap booze."

"Most of that stuff is expensive," Tony remarked.

"Most of the time, I don't care," the immortal demigod retorted, causing many to sour their moods. If Anubis had the toned-down levels of psychopathy that Loki had, Bacchus made it evident that he was nastier at undermining mortals. To further prove out, he made a crystal wine bottle appear out of nowhere and drank the multicolored beverage in front of them.

"I dare imagine how Steve's doing with the other guy," Clint whispered to Natasha.

Meanwhile, on Steve's floor

If anything, the Polynesian demigod was the outright contrast of the Greco-Roman jerk.

Steve didn't know how to feel as he led the rugby lover on the elevator while the latter carried their unconscious friend. Maui had been politely quiet, even when they stepped inside Steve's floor, which had been entirely designed to resemble a mixture of 1940s interior design and Stark's tastes in aesthetics, which also included the glass walls exposing Manhattan. Two guest rooms, along with Steve's own bedroom, were included in the package, and the one closest to the window happened to be the only guest room with access to a glass.

"Will this do?" Steve asked when he opened the door.

"Should be." Maui gently placed Kory on top of the king-sized bed's blue plaid bedsheets. She didn't even shift, groan, or breathe. For a moment, Steve was frightened about the idea that she died.

"She'll be fine," Maui said.

"Excuse me?" Steve looked confused.

"You're not the first one who's wondered why Kory sleeps like Snow White." Maui shrugs. "It's a half-Jotun, half-human thing. When they sleep in the cold season or after surviving some life-challenging moment, they use the same energy sustaining techniques as hibernating animals. I managed to fix her coat's liquid nitrogen system, so hopefully she won't get cold before she finally wakes up."

"I'm not sure I follow…"

"I overheard Kory explaining to you that her type of mixed heritage can only endure 20 degrees more than the typical Jotun. Her human half makes her survive a few sweats while her Jotun half spares from the common degrees that give mortals hypothermia," Maui explained patiently. "Unfortunately, surviving 20 degrees more than a Frost Giant in warm temperatures means that she survives 20 degrees less than a Frost Giant in cold temperatures. And Frost Giants can survive temperatures as insane as the Ice Age."

Steve had a hard time processing the words. "That doesn't make sense. How can Kory be both vulnerable to both extreme heat and cold?"

"Well, think of it like you." Maui circulated his finger at Steven. "Crashing into the Arctic would kill a regular mortal, but you survived at the price of being frozen… No wait, that's a bad comparison. Well, snakes… Bad example…" Maui groaned in frustration. "OK, this might be better. Humans can't handle extreme temperature levels, right?"

"Most of them, yes."

"Think of it this way. In common circumstances, most humans can't survive extreme cold or hot temperatures, the same way that nobody lives in Antarctica or the Sahara Desert. Frost Giants live on Jotunheim; they love the cold, the Asgardians can survive it, but even the smallest Jotunheim snowflake could shatter a mortal human. Now, imagine that you mix Jotun and human blood. The genetics mix, each side giving the other a benefit but giving itself a disadvantage, all to balance out the DNA." Maui held out his hands to further emphasize his points. "The Jotun half gives the mortal human half the capacity to survive more cold degrees than the average handling and the mortal human half gives the Jotun half some bearable degrees of heat. But because of the given benefits, there are the disadvantages: by giving the cold degrees to the human genes, the Jotun half loses parts of what it could handle…"

"So, Kory can stand colder temperatures than most of us humans but not the permafrost that Frost Giants can handle… because of the gene balance." Steve looked back at the sleeping demigoddess. "But… if she can't handle the extreme cold, won't she die in Jotunheim?"

"Obviously. It's one of her four reasons for never seeking the fake glories of royalty. Number 3, actually."

"Is it safe for me to guess that Number One is that if she were to be queen, everyone would think she was no better than Loki?"

"Completely." Maui nodded. "Number 2 might surprise you, but besides Loki being crazy, Odin a jerk, and Thor an outdated barbarian on the Asgardian side, Kory doesn't really like how… negatively self-portrayed her biological family is. Laufey was already known for being a genocidal maniac, his royal predecessors were no better, and Anubis is quite convinced that patricide runs in the family. Kory's worried that she'll turn out like them, which is why she's lucky that Laufey died never knowing she existed… And, well… Let's just say that during this whole ordeal… I think you see the picture."

"Unfortunately, I can." Steve sighed. He could imagine that if Kory were to meet Loki face-to-face, the Norwegian dame wouldn't resist the urge to murder her paternal as payment for nearly a century of suffering while he was out of the picture. Steve did recall looking up stories from the old Testament after he got virtually acquainted with Kory and knowing that she wasn't fully orthodox, it wouldn't surprise him if the 5th and 6th commandments were the only ones that Kory had no problem ignoring. Usually, he would have encouraged someone to give their estranged father a chance since he grew up never knowing his, but he knew that his idea didn't mix with Kory's. He shook his head and changed the subject. "What's reason Number 4?"

"Taxes."

Steve turned to look at Maui in confusion. "Taxes?"

"Yeah, taxes. You know, the kind they put at the end of your grocery receipts, the one they take out of your monthly salaries to reimburse damages, the government, and insurances. Taxes that worsen every year and make you broke. And the 20th century was shit in changing currencies, so you can imagine that Kory got frustrated as she had to pay different taxes on a yearly basis. She's never been on debt and always pays her dues, but for her own household, it's insane enough. When Bacchus teased her about the idea that being the Jotun Queen would mean being in charge of the tax rates of nearly a thousand Frost Giants… he spent a whole month in a sauna because she almost permafrosted his ass." Maui shook his head and nudged Steve to the door. "We should give her space."

"You're probably right." Steve looked hesitant at the idea of leaving Kory alone, especially knowing that two alien groups out there were after her hide. Then again, he didn't want to underestimate the idea that she might destroy everything if she woke up angry. He followed Maui out of the guest room and gently closed the door behind him.

"She'll be fine." Maui pulled out a small drinking bottle of clear water. "Got some glasses? Spring water from Waikato is rather soothing for the soul. And before you ask, it's plain old water from a spring. Nothing alcoholic or poisonous."

"Why would it be poisonous?" Honestly, Steve should have asked why Maui would even bother offering him a poisonous drink, but the last thing he needed was for Maui to get angry and see his floor flood the way Bacchus and Maui argued, nearly destroying Chinatown. Steve led Maui to his kitchen, obviously fashioned to resemble a white and baby blue 1940s kitchen from the cabinets full of antique dishes to the island counter decorated with a small radio. Maui fondly patted the counter's surface before sitting on one of the blue stools that came with it.

"Wow. Stark really nailed it at making things homy for you," he said.

"Took me a while to convince him to not put a bar." Steve pulled out two small glasses from a cabinet and put them on the counter, giving Maui the nudge to fill them with spring water. "Besides the serum immunizing me from intoxication, I was a kid during the Prohibition Years."

"Damn, prohibition… Bacchus hates that. Tip of advice, Steve, talking about prohibition pisses the wine demigod more than not getting drunk. He refused to put his foot in the US during the 1920s, hates Nordic alcoholic monopolies, and don't get me started with prohibition and reform movements in New Zealand! I mean, he invented the whole wine and alcohol trends when he was mortal and turned it into an eternal mad worship when he became a divine demigod! He used to walk around with crazy followers, throw the best parties, and arouse worshippers! Now? With the hatred against immortals causing him to hide, he became the drunk white guy nobody likes and who had to watch his inventions either get commercialized by greedy humans or rejected by self-entitled humans with fake illusions of purity."

"How do you feel about it?" Steve took a sip of the spring water. He didn't know what to think of the flavor. One second, it was saltier than the one time his mother screwed up a beef stew, and sweeter on the next second. Not sweet like sugar but more like the sweetness he'd been feeling around Kory.

"About Bacchus being an asshole?"

"No… I mean, what's your perspective on immortals being persecuted by humans?"

"Not much. I just think it's a common human characteristic." Maui stopped mid-sip when he noticed Steve scowling. "What?"

"Not all humans are like that," Steve quietly said.

"And you're not wrong, Steve. Not all humans are like that but most of them are. You fought in World War II, Steve. You probably know better than any of your friends upstairs that it was a time period where the worst in humans were exposed. For a demigod like me, that's only one in a thousand different time periods when humanity was at its worst. Take into account that I'm a demigod of Polynesian and Hawaiian mythology. I've witnessed centuries of different Oceanian islands being occupied by European forces. I also had to witness the Polynesian islands being divided during the war."

"I'm going to guess that you heard of December 1941…" Steve said quietly.

"I was there." Maui stared at his glass. "The Polynesian islands were split between the two sides of the war. My hands were full of handling the sea creatures and immortals who ran away from the mess. It didn't help that certain armies had officials who actually hunted them."

"HYDRA?" Steve remembered the old talk he had with Dr. Erskine before he had gotten the serum. The talk in the barracks about the enemies' interests in the occult, primarily to create pep rallies. Except for the Red Skull and what happened with the Tesseract.

"There were others. But yeah, mostly them…" Maui quickly checked the kitchen's doorway, as if to make sure that nobody would walk in and startle them. He took a deep breath and went flatly to the point. "The Tesseract was in Tønsberg. Kory's hometown."

Steve almost choked on the spring water. "HYDRA… bombed Tønsberg… The same day she lost her mother?"

"Kory will freeze my ass for telling you this, but with the situation we're all stuck in, she's bound to shut herself and snap at everyone for pushing her buttons. You've seen how she is when people bring up sensitive topics that anger her while she's already angry, so it's better that you know now than never." Maui refilled his cup with more spring water and offered some to Steve, who politely declined. "I don't know how cautious she was with details, but Kory's first job in the 1930s was being the apprentice of an apothecary; she has a real knack for horticulture and plants. Her work helped her mother pay the bills a bit more during the economic crisis and it already wasn't easy. Norway already had its… difficulties and issues against Jewish people way before the Germans came in and invaded in 1940.

"Obviously, one of their many restrictions was sacking the Jewish who worked in the medical industry, so Kory and her employer were booted out. He didn't want to lose the money and Kory's skills had brought in many reliable customers who would gladly pay the doubled-price for her work than going across the country to get much more expensive medicine. Kory's employer created a system of communication with himself and his clients. She told me they'd come up with made-up poetry that the mailman would deliver to the clients. If someone intercepted it, they'd see some Norwegian poetry about the Princess of Mischief bringing flowers and a magician blessing a crowd at a festival. The clients managed to translate the poems as 'Kory prepared your medicine. I'll deliver it to you at this location.'"

"Very much like how I heard they coded in the French Resistance," Steve nodded.

"It worked for a year. And Kory didn't know it, but Anubis and Frigga favoring her had caused a force field around her childhood house. Nobody was sure why, even the Big Guy wouldn't explain it…" Maui pointed up at the ceiling. "The Ikolson mother and daughter struggled but were alive. Then, in January 1942, a German caught two clients sneaking to meet Kory's employer in the dark of the night. Kory overheard that her employer had been arrested when she was out shopping for groceries for her mother. Mrs. Ikolson begged her to not continue the business, but Kory refused. She insisted that they needed the money. To play more cautious, she took some gigs as a maid, an 'excuse of going to her clients' houses and leaving the products in their rooms'. It also helped to play it safe due to the curfews they put on Jewish folks.
"Then there was that fateful night of March 1942. The night you brought up. A client had run to Kory's house to beg her to come treat her son's illness. Obviously, Kory refused. The lady had barged in an hour before the curfew was to be put into action and Kory had made it clear she was an apothecary, not a doctor."

"What caused Kory to agree?" Steve asked.

"Well, a couple of days before that night, Mrs. Ikolson had accidentally twisted her ankle and had gotten a fever. And gaining money was a whole lot harder. So, when the client offered her triple of the current price and brought up that her cousin visiting from Oslo was a doctor…" Maui shook his head. "Mrs. Ikolson begged Kory not to go, but Kory was desperate to get what her mother needed. The client even offered to let Kory stay at her house for the night if she helped her son. Obviously, Mrs. Ikolson didn't want to lose her daughter… The woman went with Kory and the client to the latter's house, at the heart of Tønsberg.

"Kory gave the kid what he needed. The client kept her promise, paid Kory and gave the Ikolson women the guest room. Then came the gunshots and danger. A neighbor came through the streets screaming that some Germans were attacking a local church. The client tried to keep them in, but Mrs. Ikolson finally managed to get Kory to take them back home.

"Kory keeps saying how her mother was rather intuitive. The war and persecutions obviously made her worried more about Kory's safety than her own life. Mrs. Ikolson was still limping and Kory had to help her move in the dark as fast as possible. You must understand how dangerous that was, Steve. Two Jewish women, a mother and daughter, one sick and the other doing business in the black market, sneaking past curfews while rogue Germans were attacking a church and threatening to shoot random people with a tank.

"They had to hide in an alley. Kory said she hoped she and her mother could stay quiet behind the trash bins. Maybe the Germans would go their merry way once they were done. She said she saw a strange blue light flickering from the church for a few seconds before disappearing, followed by a gunshot, and the next thing she knew, the tank fired at the whole town. With people screaming and running everywhere, regardless of what they were wearing, Kory thought she and her mother could escape with the crowd. 'With people running out of their houses screaming, who would notice two stars in this dark chaos?' That's how Kory phrased it.

"Kory had street-smarts from her underground work, but it didn't help her in the end. She didn't notice the wall of a three-stories-tall building falling at her direction." Maui lowered his head solemnly. "Mrs. Ikolson, unfortunately, noticed it enough to push her daughter out of the way."

Steve could only imagine the horror. He'd seen first-hand what HYDRA was capable of. He'd seen the labs, the prisoners, the destroyed towns, and he still had nasty nightmares of the aircraft carrying the bombs that could have destroyed cities if he hadn't crashed into the ice. But this? It had to be the horror that started a chain of horrors. What were the chances that when the Red Skull attacked a small town in Norway just to get the Tesseract, he'd have unintentionally caused a demigoddess to awaken?

"I won't lie, I have known Kory for nearly 7 decades. A horrible liar and Anubis even had me look at her memories when I tried hydro-therapy to calm her down, but in her origins, her mother's death makes the least sense to me," Maui admitted.

"Why? Her mother sacrificed herself to save Kory."

"No, that makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is the wall. When I observed her memory, as foggy as it was, I very clearly noticed that the building was never caught in the firing and it just happened to explode and fall towards their direction. I wondered if it had been staged. Shouldn't have said that; it caused the Big Guy to be highly protective of Kory."

Out of nowhere, the sounds of a door breaking and screams following afterwards echoed against the walls. "What was that?" Steve got up on his feet.

"It appears that people are screaming from getting sudden hot and cold water temperatures, sir," JARVIS randomly spoke up. "Mr. Stark was surprised to wash his hands with icy water."

"Boiling and icy water all over the building. Looks like Kory woke up and hit the showers."

Meanwhile

Things were just getting creepy for Kory.

For one thing, she woke up in a strange bed. Out of instinct, she should have run to save her hide but for some reason, her Frost Giantess nostrils picked up two familiar scents in the room's atmosphere. Scents of two men who had just left. Maui and Steve.

Why Kory managed to pick up Steve's scent both confused and creeped her out. Why she was here, she didn't know. When she looked out the room's window, she almost wanted to throw up when the New York City landscape and Steve's scent added up to her being in the Avengers' Tower.

Great. Stuck in the Avengers Tower. With the Avengers and my associates. Things had to be that bad. Her gut clenched at the idea that if she was in the same building as the Avengers, that could only mean that Thor and Loki were somewhere around as well. No way in the balls of Jotunheim would she stay in the same building as them! She and Aaricia would leave ASAP.

The moment she got out of bed, however, she nearly tripped. Her head ached horribly. She clasped onto the handle of a nearby door to lean on, accidentally destroying it and crashing into the small blue-and-white bathroom almost fashioned like the one she had before she lost her mother in the 1940s.

He's seriously from the 40s. Kory rubbed her aching head and spotted the bathtub. Kory didn't know how long she was out, but knowing her associates, they probably fixed her injuries while she was unconscious. Her odor, however, left to be desired. Taking off her coat and cautiously hanging it over the sink, she noted that her liquid nitrogen system had been fixed. Kory easily manipulated the handles to get medium-warm water. She never understood why, but for some reason, doing so on her part caused the plumbing to send boiling or icy water to other people. Thus why she heard the screams echoing all over the Avengers Tower.

Stripping herself bare, her foot dipping in the full tub caused her skin to turn blue, cooling the water by a couple degrees. The half-Frost Giantess grumbled to herself as she let herself sink in the flat surface. Kory snapped her fingers, causing the soap to disintegrate and fall in a small shower of glitter into the water. Yellow bubbles with a sweet vanilla fragrance caused the water to stir. Far more soothing as she rubbed herself, trying her best to ignore the stitched cuts and bruises she had. They were practically invisible over her blue skin but it was bound to be a nasty sight in her pale tone. A long-sleeved top would be necessary.

Stepping out of the scowled, she frowned. What had happened? The alien, the Other… he knew exactly what would throw her off. If anything, her temper was far more delicate than the Hulk's fury; she almost destroyed Chinatown if it weren't for Aaricia. And out of nowhere, he had attacked her when she was worn out. The mental pain she had endured had been three times worse than the usual, as if somebody else's pain was added to her own. Kory had always made it clear she wanted nothing to do and never involved herself in the affairs who Loki. She never acknowledged him. She had nothing to do with his mess with the Chitauri. She had nothing to do with the Frost Giants of Jotunheim. And now she was in a crossfire were both parties either wanted to crown her or kill her. Just for being Loki's offspring.

Tears dripped out of her eyes as she dried herself, forming ice droplets that fell and broke upon hitting the ground. Using her enchanted wolf pendant, she managed to summon her luggage to find clothes to change. Five minutes later, she stepped out of the bathroom, her fur-coat covering her latest attire: white dress shirt, knee-length black skirt with a very subtle Sámi pattern, hosiery, and black heels. Despite her hair being pulled into a tight braid, she let the magenta streak loose.

Thinking it would be better to just get out and risk her hide, Kory went for the guest room door and opened it. Probably too fast, considering how the moment she opened it, she collided with Steve Rogers.