Disclaimer: I don't own the MCU nor Marvel at large
A/N: Happy AAPI month everyone! I hope you're all staying safe and getting vaccinated. I'm sorry that this isn't Sympathy chapter ten – quarantine has been a capital-T Time for me, and I've been less productive than I'd like to be. Worry not, however, because none of my works are abandoned. I'm just slow.
Now, a few notes about this fic going in. This is intended to be canon to Sympathy for Monsters, but is set further in the timeline of the story than the main fic currently reaches. Not only may this need a little tweaking in the future to truly be "canon compliant" with the rest of the verse, but this is also me letting you know to turn back now if you don't want spoilers.
For anyone here who is unfamiliar with Sympathy for Monsters but wishes to read anyways, Sympathy is a canon-divergent AU where, among other things, Pietro Maximoff lives and Hela is Loki's daughter as she is in the myths, not Odin's.
As a content warning, this fic also deals with the discussion of racism, specifically against Asian people. There is also a related fantasy racism aspect discussed.
If neither of these things don't bother you, however, then on with the fic!
When Hela Lokidottir, literal Queen of the Dead, had asked Peter how humans his age passed their time, his knee jerk reaction had been to invite her to join him and his friends for lunch sometime. He wasn't sure why, exactly, he had done so - he and Hela had spoken a total of maybe three times, mostly about Avenger business - but Aunt May and Uncle Ben had raised him to have manners, and apparently he also had literally no impulse control, and so it had happened.
He was half-way through typing a panicked explanation of the situation and oh shit what do I do text to the group chat when he realized that that MJ would figure out that he was Spider-man in two seconds flat if he mentioned personally knowing a Norse god. That was definitely not something a normal Stark Industries intern would do. It was a shame, really, considering that MJ was the coolest and definitely would want to meet a death goddess with a punk aesthetic, but with great power came great responsibility and also secret identities, and so Peter quickly copied what he had written, deleted it before he could accidentally send it, and sent it to just Ned instead - only to realize that, in his panic, he'd forgotten to actually write out the second half of the message.
To his credit, Ned didn't seem to notice that the final product spanned two texts with the first breaking off mid-sentence, and instead only replied:
Guy in the Chair: !
Guy in the Chair: I GET TO MEET THOR'S NIECE?
Guy in the Chair: This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me!
So now he and Ned were taking the literal Queen of Helheim to Flushing for dim sum. Because that was his life now.
Peter really hoped this wouldn't end with an inter-realmar incident. He and Ned were barely good at talking to normal people their own age, not to mention space royalty.
Fortunately, Hela didn't seem to mind - or maybe was just as socially awkward as they were - and ordering went off without a hitch. Yeah, there had been some stilted conversation and absolutely painful small talk between the ordering and their drinks arriving, but considering no political disasters had occurred yet, Peter considered the day a success.
Thankfully, their drinks did, in fact, arrive - saving the three of them from more so-how's-the-weather and other equally awkward topics. Instead, Peter could occupy himself with strawberry popping bubbles, which were infinitely superior to any kind of conversation that felt like the social equivalent of tripping down the stairs. Ned seemed to agree with this sentiment and immediately took a large gulp of lemonade.
Hela, for her part, blinked owlishly before following their lead and picking up her watermelon smoothie. Upon tasting the drink, her eyes lit up.
"This drink, it's delightful!" she smiled brightly before knocking back the rest of the smoothie at a frankly alarming rate - and Peter had thought he could eat a lot, with all his spidey stuff; Asgardians were wild. Lowering her glass, Hela smiled again. "I think I should like ano—"
"Wait! Don't smash it!" Peter lunged across the table to grab the glass, only for Hela to draw just out of his reach and stare at him with blatant confusion, her glass still firmly in her hand.
They blinked at each other for a moment, and then understanding dawned on the Goddess of Death's face.
"Ah, something Uncle did?" she asked, and Peter gave a small nod. Hela grinned, setting the glass down to snicker quietly. "My thanks, Peter, but you need not worry. Uncle and I were raised in very different environments - which, in this case, includes different table etiquettes! Still, I appreciate your concern."
"Sorry," Peter winced, "I didn't know you weren't from Asgard." He paused, furrowing his brows for a moment. "Wait, that is what you mean, right? Or am I just making more wild assumptions? Because honestly that's the last thing I want to do—"
Hela waved him off casually.
"Apology accepted - and no, you are not making more assumptions. Indeed, I was not raised on Asgard, but on Jotunheim's forest moon - the Ironwood - in the house of my mother." Hela was smiling brightly again, her words picking up speed with her enthusiasm. "More importantly, however, given the circumstances, while most drinking vessels on Asgard are made of metal or wood - which accommodate the custom of slamming them down when finished - most of ours are made of ceramic or ice."
"You had ice glasses growing up?" Ned interjected, eyes wide. "That's so cool."
"Literally!" Peter added, grinning to himself at the pun.
"Ha, yeah! You're right!" Ned and Peter paused to make finger guns at each other, giving a drawn out eeeey as they did so. "How'd they not melt, though?"
Hela leaned in conspiratorially, gesturing for the boys to follow suit.
"Well, I am a Frost Giant on my mother's side, and ice generally isn't inclined to melt in our hands. Not to mention it keeps your drinks wonderfully cool. Here—" she gestured to Ned's glass of lemonade, which had already begun to warm in the midday sun. "May I?"
"Oh! Uh, sure!"
Ned nodded, passing his lemonade over to her. Upon taking it, Hela winked, and frost bloomed out from where she was touching the glass, the tips of her fingers turning blue as it grew. The blue faded, but the frost did not, and she passed the glass back to Ned.
"Should be perfectly refreshing now, I think."
"Yooo," Ned took a drink. "This is awesome - magically cooled lemonade! Here Peter, try it!"
Unfazed by his friend shoving a drink in his face, Peter took a sip too.
"Okay, now that is perfectly refreshing." Peter passed the glass back to Ned. "God, I wish I could do that to my drinks during summer patrol."
"It's a neat trick." Hela gave a little shrug, embarrassed but clearly pleased at the praise. The earlier tension had melted away, and while the sense of stiltedness hadn't entirely faded, conversation was in full swing by the time their food arrived.
Peter and Ned made immediately for the soup dumplings.
"I've missed food like this," Hela sighed happily, plucking bok choy for her plate before reaching for a turnip cake. "Skurge and Isobel are wonderful, and I would never say a word against them, but their culinary tastes tend far towards the Asgardian. This though…" she gestured with her chopsticks at their assembled dishes, "...this is a lot more like home."
"Wait, so the Ironwood is like...Space China?" Ned asked.
"I suppose?" Hela shrugged. "I'm afraid my knowledge of Midgard's - pardon me, Earth's - geopolitical landscape is rather lacking. However, food there does share its similarities with what we're eating now, so I shall take your word for it.
"I can't believe you're from Space East Asia…" Ned trailed off, nodding to himself with a grin. "That's so cool. I'm Asian too - but like, Southeast Earth Asian. My family's from the Philippines."
Hela froze, something between a sheepish grin and a wince on her face. "I am terribly sorry, but I still do not know where that is."
"Eh, don't worry about it," Ned shrugged. "Most people here don't either. And you like, actually have a legitimate reason not to."
"Yeah, you're literally from another planet," Peter chimed in. "Most people here don't know because racism."
"Yup."
"I see!" Hela nodded solemnly, but her face relaxed into a small but genuine smile. "I am glad not to have made you suffer an offence, Ned Leeds."
"Nah, you're good."
They smiled at each other - though Ned's smile was more of a beam - and Peter took the opportunity to grab himself a chasiu bun. God was he glad that he and Ned had decided on dim sum for this - you really couldn't go wrong with it, and it was always delicious.
"Well, given my ignorance, would you like to tell me about the Philippines? Or if that is too broad a topic perhaps just the food, given the circumstances."
"Oh! Sure! Uh, well, the Philippines is a bunch of islands with a bunch of different cultures that all got smushed together into one country by colonialism, so like...I don't think I could tell you everything about the Philippines, or even Filipino food."
Hela nodded.
"Entirely understandable. I have no desire to pressure you, Ned, only to express that if you would like to share anything of your culture as I have of mine, I am happy to listen."
"Oh, phew, good," Ned sighed with relief. "I was not prepared to give an 'Intro to the Philippines' diplomatic presentation."
Peter bit back a chuckle. Hela softened a grin.
"Again, entirely understandable. After all, this is a social visit, is it not?"
"She's got you there, Ned," Peter added, grinning widely and staunchly ignoring the fact that he himself had been worried about causing a diplomatic incident at the start of all this.
"Yeah, guess you're right!" Ned laughed. "If you wanna know about food though, it's kinda different from what we're eating now. I mean, it's not completely different, we've got overlap because of trade and all that - soy sauce is definitely a shared thing - but like…. I don't really know how to explain it without, like, having food here to compare. Ooh, Peter, maybe we should have a food night! We haven't done that in ages!"
"A food night?" Hela asked.
"Ned and I've known each other for ages, and at some point, we started doing these cultural exchange food nights? I'd go over to Ned's house and bring an Italian or Jewish dish and Ned's moms would make something Filipino and we'd all share."
"And once we got old enough to use a stove, we started doing the cooking ourselves!" Ned added. "It's really fun - you could join us sometime if you'd like; make something from the Ironwood."
Hela stared. And great, Peter's fears about an inter-realmar incident were back.
"...You would really invite me to join you?"
Oh.
That was kind of sad, actually. Did Hela have any friends?
Peter and Ned swapped confirmatory glances before nodding vigorously. A small smile broke its way onto Hela's face.
"Well...I haven't made baozi since I was a child…" Hela's tone was nervous but belied by her smile widening into a grin. "However, I would love to try my hand again, if you both would have me."
Well, that settled it. Peter grinned back; beside him, Ned let out a small whoop.
"Trust me, we'd love to."
A/N: Hey there my dear readers, I hope you enjoyed the first part of this fic! This was originally going to be a oneshot, but I ultimately, I've decided to split it in half and make it a twoshot. This was done mostly because I am well aware that I'm a slow writer and I wanted this fic to at least be posted in AAPI month even if I couldn't finish it in time.
I mean, I hope I can finish it in time, but that's beside the point. Plus, I'm hoping having the first half out will motivate me.
Not much to say about this chapter, but ultimately this is a story about what it's like to be an Asian person in diaspora, as well as what it's like to be of two cultures and never feel like you truly fit in either. This chapter wasn't that heavy on it, but it will feature more explicitly in the next. I understand that this can be a heavy subject, and you are under no obligation to read, but if this is something that resonates with you or a subject you feel needs to be addressed, I hope this is a cathartic read for you. This probably doesn't mean much coming from some rando on the internet, but I see you, and you are not alone.
See you next time!
Crossposted to Ao3